and must be the occasion of great remorse to every delicate conscience.
The Lord Lieutenant, on arriving in Ireland, is obliged to perform
the disagreeable task of insulting those whom he is come to govern,
by swearing what he cannot know--that some Catholic doctrines are
idolatrous and superstitious, and, moreover, swearing what everybody
knows to be false--that the Pope has not any authority in Ireland,
where every day he exercises a most extensive spiritual jurisdiction.
Other officials of the state and of the establishment take similar
oaths, insulting to the Catholics of the whole world, and certainly
hurtful to the consciences of those who take them. Every Protestant,
when swearing that the Pope has no power in Ireland, must feel that
he swears to what is in opposition to the known truth. It is time that
such a system of perjury should be done away with. Sir J. Gray deserves
well of the country for having placed this question in its true light.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES.
[Footnote 1: See _Record_, vol. i. part i. p. 194.]