"But, however formidable at first sight the admissions, which I have no
desire to narrow or to qualify, may appear, they in no way shake the
foregoing arguments. They do not change the nature of truth and her
capability and destiny to benefit mankind. They do not relieve
Government of its responsibility, if they show that that responsibility
was once unfelt and unsatisfied. They place the legislature of the
country in the condition, as it were, of one called to do penance for
past offences; but duty remains unaltered and imperative, and abates
nothing of her demand on our services. It is undoubtedly competent, in a
constitutional view, to the Government of this country to continue the
present disposition of Church property in Ireland. It appears not too
much to assume that our imperial legislature has been qualified to take,
and has taken in point of fact, a sounder view of religious truth than
the majority of the people of Ireland in their destitute and
uninstructed state. We believe, accordingly, that that which we place
before them is, whether they know it or not, calculated to be beneficial
to them; and that if they know it not now, they will know it when it is
presented to them fairly.
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