Priestly Intolerance.

and the ancient Thistle are henceforward to be considered as little better than vile and heretical . We would commend the noble lords and gallant gentlemen concerned to look to their jewels and ermine iu time , and hasten to make their dutiful submission without delay ; lest peradventure this terrible Father Conolly should rise up iu his wrath and even denounce them by name—the consequences of which

proceeding who shall tell ? To speak seriously- —what end do these sacerdotal firebrands expect to gain by publishing such declarations as those to which we have drawn the attention of our readers . Do they expect to make converts to their church , or to prevent the lapse of their flocks into vice or heresy by such exhibitions of uncharitableness , and total disregard of

truth 1 Are they so blinded by prejudice and narrow minded bigotry as not to perceive that even amongst their own followers there must be many who will dare to think for themselves , and who will look in vain for anything in the public acts or private lives of the members of the Masonic body which would justify these senseless ancl futile attacks ? Can they even pretend to ignore the good works which are daily and

hourly begun and carried through by our noble brotherhood , forgetting the instruction of the sacred volume " By their fruits ye shall know them ; " and do they think that the advantages of belonging to an association so grand and so philanthropic , will be outweighed in the opinion of candid and rational men by these pitiful exhibitions of opposition on their part ? By heaping up unmerited slander ancl ridiculousl

y false accusations against the Masonic body , these injudicious advocates of an unsound cause only succeed in preparing a dose too gross in its consistence to be swallowed by any but the most feeble intellect .

The practical bearing of all this must undoubtedly be , unless the Roman Catholic portion of our fellow-subjects are far behind the rest of the nation in intelligence and education ( which we do not in the least believe ) to generate a feeling of disrespect , if not of contempt , towards those spiritual instructors who neglect their proper sphere of religious duty to indulge in the expression of a bigoted prejudice fortified by manifestly untrue statements . For our own part

AVO must candidly confess that we doubt the genuineness of the very dramatic incident quoted above , of the conversion of the horrorstruck heretic betweenmatins and vespers . If such a submission to the powerful arguments of Fathers Conolly and Bamber did really take place , the individual in question was either a hypocritical rascal who was desirous of making hay in the sun of priestly patronage ; or he must have been

a greater fool than we should have thought it possible to find at the present day , to have been terrified by these clerical bullies into renouncing what he had previously acknowledged , by his adhesion and practice that he considered , right and honourable . Fathers Bamber and Conolly may rest well assured that whatever " secret society" that man belonged to he was no Mason , nor did any " principal" or inferior

person connected with that mighty Order ever yet succumb to tho