obtained from the voice of your country." I ask you, do you think, as honest men, anxious for the public tranquillity, conscious that there are wounds not yet completely cicatrized, that you ought to speak this language at this time, to men who are too much disposed to think that in this very emancipation they have been saved from their own parliament by the humanity of their sovereign? Or do you wish to prepare them for the revocation of these improvident concessions? Do you think it wise or humane at this moment to insult them, by sticking up in a pillory the man who dared to stand forth as their advocate? I put it to your oaths; do you think that a blessing of that kind, that a victory obtained by justice over bigotry and oppression, should have a stigma cast upon it by an ignominious sentence upon men bold and honest enough to propose that measure? to propose the redeeming of religion from the abuses of the church, the reclaiming of three millions of men from bondage, and giving liberty to all who had a right to demand it-giving, I say, in the so much censured words of this paper, giving "universal emancipation!" I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate with and inseparable from British soil; which proclaims even to the stranger and the sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy, and consecrated by the genius of universal emancipation. No matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced;—no matter what complexion incompatible with freedom an Indian or an African sun may have burnt upon him; —no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down; no matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery; the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty; his body swells beyond the measure of his chains, that burst from around him, and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible genius of UNIVERSA EMANCIPATION. ON THE UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. THE theology of the question is not for me to argue, it cannot be in better hands than in those of your bishops; and I can have no doubt that when they bring their rank, their learning, their talents, their piety, and their patriotism to this sublime leliberation, they will consult the dignity of that venerable fabric which has stood for ages, splendid and immutable: which time could not crumble, nor persecutions shake, nor revolutions change; which has stood amongst us, like some stupendous and majestic Apennine, the earth rocking at its feet, and the heavens roaring round its head, firmly balanced on the base of its eternity; the relic of what was; the solemn and sublime memento of what must be! Is this my opinion as a professed member of the church of England? Undoubtedly it is. As an Irishman, I feel my lib erties interwoven, and the best affections of my heart as it were enfibered with those of my Catholic countrymen; and as a Protestant, convinced of the purity of my own faith, would I not debase it by postponing the powers of reason to the suspicious instrumentality of this world's conversion? No; surrendering as I do, with a proud contempt, all the degrading advantages with which an ecclesiastical usurpation would invest me; so I will not interfere with a blasphemous intrusion between any man and his Maker. I hold it a criminal and accursed sacrilege, to rob even a beggar of a single motive for his devotion: and I hold it an equal insult to my own faith, to offer me any boon for its profession. This pretended emancipation bill passing into a law, would, in my mind, strike not a blow at this sect or that sect, but at the very vitality of Christianity itself. I am thoroughly convinced that the antichristian connection between church and state, which it was suited to increase, has done more mischief to the gospel interest, than all the ravings of infidelity since the crucifixion. The sublime Creator of our blessed creed never meant it to be the channel of a courtly influence, or the source of a corrupt ascendancy. He sent it amongst us to heal, not to irritate; to associate, not to seclude; to collect together, like the baptismal dove, every creed and clime and color in the universe, beneath the spotless wing of its protection. The union of church and state only converts good Christians into bad statesmen, and political knaves into pretended Christians. It is at best but a foul and adulterous connection, polluting the purity of heaven with the abomination of earth, and hanging the tatters of a political piety upon the cross of an insulted Saviour. PHILLIPS IF SPEECH TO MR. FINLAY Ir any circumstance could add to the pleasure of this day, it is that which I feel in introducing to the friends of my youth, the friend of my adoption; though perhaps I am committing A one of our imputed blunders, when I speak of introducing one "For thee, fair Freedom, welcome all the past — I am not ashamed to confess to you, that there was a day when PHILLIPS. CURRAN AGAINST O'BRIEN. MR. O'BRIEN, thus persecuted, abused, and terrified, would have gone and lodged his sorrows in the sympathetic bosom of the major; but to prevent even this little solace they made him drunk. The next evening they used him in the like barbarous manner, so that he was not only sworn against his will, but, poor man, he was made drunk against his inclination. Thus was he besieged with united beef-steaks and whiskey, and against such potent assailants not even Mr. O'Brien could prevail. Whether all this whiskey that he has been forced to drink has produced the effect or not, Mr. O'Brien's loyalty is better than his memory. In the spirit of loyalty he became prophetic, and told to Lord Portarlington the circumstances relative to the intended attack on the ordnance stores, full three weeks before he had obtained the information through mortal agency. O! honest James O'Brien ! - honest James O'Brien! Let others vainly argue on logical truth and ethical falsehood, but if I can once fasten him to the ring of perjury, I will bait him at it until his testimony shall fail of producing a verdict, although human na ture were as vile and monstrous in you, as she is in him! He has made a mistake! - but surely no man's life is safe if such evidence were admissible. What argument can be founded on his testimony, when he swears that he has perjured himself, and that anything he says must be false; I must not believe him at all, and by a paradoxical conclusion, suppose against "the damna tion" of his own testimony, that he is an honest man! * * The present cause takes in the entire character of your country, which may suffer in the eyes of all Europe by your verdict. This is the first prosecution of the kind brought forward to view. It is the great experiment of the informers of Ireland, to ascertain how far they can carry on a traffic in human blood! This cannibal informer, this demon O'Brien, greedy after human gore, has fifteen other victims in reserve, if, from your verdict, he receives the unhappy man at the bar! Fifteen more of your fellow-citizens are to be tried on his evidence! Be you then their saviors; let your verdict snatch them from his ravening maw, and interpose between yourselves and endless remorse! I know, gentlemen, I would but insult you, if I were to apolo gize for detaining you thus long; if I have apology to make to any person, it is to my client, for thus delaying his acquittal Sweet is the recollection of having done justice, in that hour when the hand of death presses on the human heart! Sweet is the hope which it gives birth to! From you I demand that justice for my client, your innocent and unfortunate fellow-subject at the bar; and may you have for it a more lasting reward than the perishable crown we read of, which the ancients placed on the brow of him who saved in battle the life of a fellow-citizen If you should ever be assailed by the hand of the informer, may you find an all-powerful refuge in the example which you shall set this day. Earnestly do I pray that you may never experience what it is to count the tedious hours in captivity, pining in the damps and gloom of the dungeon, while the wicked one is going about at large seeking whom he may devour. There is another than a human tribunal, where the best of us will have occasion to look back on the little good we have done. In that awful trial, oh! may your verdict this day assure your hopes, and give you strength and consolation in the presence of an ADJUDGING GOD. CURRAN IN DEFENSE OF ORR. ALAS! nor wife, nor children more shall he behold, nor friends, nor sacred home!" No seraph mercy unbars his dungeon and leads him forth to light and life; but the minister of death hurries him to the scene of suffering and of shame; wl ere, unmoved by the hostile array of artillery and armed men collected together, to secure, or to insult, or to disturb him, he dies with a solemn declaration of his innocence, and utters his last breath in a prayer for the liberty of his country. Let me now ask you, if any of you had addressed the public ear upon so foul and monstrous a subject, in what language would you have conveyed the feelings of horror and indignation? Would you have stooped to the meanness of qualified complaint? Would you have been mean enough – But I entreat your forgiveness, I do not think meanly of you; had I thought so meanly of you, I could not suffer my mind to commune with you as it has done. Had I thought you that base and vile instrument, attuned by hope and by fear into discord and falsehood, from whose vulgar string no groan of suffering could vibrate, no voice of integrity or honor could speak, let me honestly tell you, I should have scorned to string my hand across it; I should have left it to a fitter minstrel. If I do not, therefore, grossly err in my opinion of you, I could use no language upon such a subject as this, that must not lag behind the rapidity of your feelings, and that would not disgrace those feelings if it attempted to describe them. Upright and honest jurors, find a civil and obliging verdict. against the printer! And when you have done so, march through the ranks of your fellow-citizens to your own homes, and bear their looks as you pass along; retire to the bosom of your |