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    BETTER OF MR- EVANSON ' s TO LORD REDESDALS , ON THE CATHOLIC QUESTION . ( Concluded from p . 365 . J After all , your Lordship ' s arguments deduced from the doctrines of the Church of Rome are entirely founded in error , in the erroneous supposition that the moral and civil conduct of people in general ^ is directed by the apparent tendency of the principles of that religious faith in which they have been educated ; a supposition which is contradicted by universal daily experience . Were it otherwise , my Lord , such is the obvious tendency of the

    Teligious principles of every church in Europe , when carried to their full extent , that the passions of men would have been long ago set nearly free from restraint , and moral virtue almost extirpated from Christendom . Thank God , however , so agreeable is a life of virtuous morality , to those superior principles of reason and conscience , with which our Creator has endowed us ,

    that in proportion to the increase of knowledge and mental in * formation , in spite of the tendency of any erroneous theological doctrines , the caxise of virtue and general philanthropic benevolence gains ground amongst mankind ; and that mutual hostile antipathy ex ited by the interested conflicts of the several

    religious sects in the ages more immediately succeeding the reformation is now so greatly diminished that even under Protestant governments the Papists evince as much loyalty and fidelity to the state , and conduct themselves as peaceably as any of the subjects of their own religion * Of this your Lordship must be convinced , if from Ireland you turn your attention to the

    behaviour of the Roman Catholics in Great Britain , and in every protestant state upon the continent ; to the faithful adherence of the Roman Catholic cantons , to the original confederacy of Switz * ertand , and particularly to the internal tranquillity of the cantons of the mixed religioms , and lastly , to what more nearly concerns our own government , the firm loyalty of the Roman Catholics

    ra Canada , which remained so conspicuously unshaken through the whole of the unfortunate American war . From hence , my Lord , yon must see that it cannot be owing to any religious doc . tria ^ s alone , that the Irish Papists have at all times been dis > - satisfied with the Protestant government of England ; and of late under different denominations , have been more or less in a state

    of insurrection for full forty years . A notorious fact , than which I cannot conceive a greater opprobrium to any civil government . For as the major part of a whole people can never he discontented wilh their rulers without some just and adequate caus

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    C 423 )

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• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1807, page 423, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2383/page/27/