priests and priests alone, are their instructors? We may rely upon it
that intellectual freedom is the natural and necessary precursor of
political freedom. _Education_, said Lord Brougham, _makes men easy to
lead but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave_.
The Irish peasantry clamoured for 'Repeal,' never considering that did
they get it, no essential change would be made in their social, moral,
or, to say all in one word, _political_ condition. They would still be
the tool of unprincipled political mountebanks--themselves the tool of
priests.

Great was the outcry raised against the 'godless colleges' that Sir
Robert Peel had the courageous good sense to _inflict_ on Ireland.
Protestant, as well as Romanist priests, were terribly alarmed lest
these colleges should spoil the craft by which they live. Sagacious
enough to perceive that whatever influence they possess must vanish with
the ignorance on which it rests, they moved heaven and earth to disgust
the Irish people with an educational measure of which superstition
formed no part. Their fury, like 'empty space,' is boundless. They
cannot endure the thought that our minister should so far play the game
of 'infidelity' as to take from them the delightful task of teaching
Ireland's young idea 'how to shoot.' Sir Robert Inglis _christened_ this
odious measure, a 'gigantic scheme of godless education,' and a large
majority of Irish Roman Catholic Prelates have solemnly pronounced it
'dangerous to faith and morals.' Neither ministerial allurements, nor
ministerial threats can subdue the cantankerous spirit of these bigots.
They are all but frantic and certainly not without reason, for the Irish
Colleges' Bill is the fine point of that wedge which, driven home, will
shiver to pieces their 'wicked political system.' Whatever improves
Irish intellect will play the mischief with its 'faith,' though not at
all likely to deteriorate its 'morals.' Let the people of Ireland be