They know that policy to be one of absolute and uncompromising
insistence on the exacting of everything which she regards as her right
as soon as she possesses the power. They know that, for her, toleration
is only a temporary expedient. They know that professions and promises
made by individual Roman Catholics and by political leaders, statements
which to English ears seem a happy augury of a good time coming, are of
no value whatever. They do not deny that such promises and guarantees
express a great deal of good intention, but they know that above the
individual, whether he be layman or ecclesiastic, there is a system
which moves on, as soon as such movement becomes possible, in utter
disregard of his statements. At the time when Catholic emancipation was
in view, high Roman authorities gave the most emphatic guarantees that
the position of the then Established Church in Ireland would never be
endangered, so far as their Church and people were concerned. But when
the time came, such promises proved absolutely worthless. Whether the
disestablishment of the Irish Church was a good thing or not, is not the
question here.
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