ADDRESS TO THE CITIZENS OF BELFAST. WHEN I first determined to collect those political pro ductions, by whose spirit and eloquence Belfast has been so peculiarly distinguished for the last forty years, I did imagine that it would have been sufficient to give to my readers a faithful and well arranged compilation, without any observation, or any reflexion, on the practice or the principles of those who have endeavoured to make the past labors of the most enlightened and valued of our countrymen tributary to their favorite object of raising the monopoly of a few, on the ruins and the degradation of the many. It is with great pain, indeed, I have witnessed the laborious struggle that has been lately made to perpetuate those jealou→ sies, religious and political, that have already succeeded in extinguishing the name and honor of our country. It is with sorrow I peruse the overlaid pages of those authors, who think no toil too great, no industry too excessive, if they shall be B able to save from the corruption of the grave those melancholy memorials of antient bigotry and antient misfortune-notes piled on notes, drawn from the cobweb lumber of polemical controversy, or extracts from authors, who were paid to defame and calumniate the religion of a people, whom they afterwards plundered and oppressed. From Geraldus Cambrensis to Sir Richard Musgrave, every historian who has been most distinguished by his hostility to the peace and harmony of Irishmén, has been industriously consulted, and those opinions selected, that are best calculated to keep alive the devastating fire, which has almost burned up whatever remains of humanity in the Irish bosom-the sacred spirit of TOLERATION every where scoffed at and trampled upon-the priest, of every sect of Christianity, Protestant, Presbyterian and Catholic, represented as contending for their respective supremacy, with the dagger in one hand and the Bible in the other--preaching peace with the sword of the conqueror, or propagating the Gospel of Christ with the fire of intolerance. Such is the picture, carefully and anxiously preserved by men whose talents and understanding should have disdained so unworthy an office; whose common sense, at least, should have told them, that the public mind of the present day, turns aside with loathing and disgust from such wretched recitals, and that it closes the volume that would revive the animosities of antient days with indignation against those who would thus speculate on its credulity. It must be matter of surprize and regret to every good and benevolent mind, to see men of talents and acquirements sitting down, in the solitude of their study, to the work of giving perpetuity to the bigot and the usurper, surrounded perhaps as that study is by a crowd of evidence which could bear testimony to the follies and the crimes of civil and religious intolerance. It must be matter of surprize, that men of talents and information should be found, who will gravely insist upon the danger of givmg freedom to the human mind, at the moment they are describing the horrors of the. Inquisition, the despotism of Popes and the bigotry of Catholics; thus practising the illibe rality they condemn, and refusing to their neighbour the indulgence they clamorously claim for themselves. Closing the volume of history, they affect to forget, that all denominations of Christians, whenever established by temporal authorily, acted the tyrants in turn, tyrants over the mind as well as the body;-that all denominations of religions had their Popes, and that the great discovery of modern times, the application of the omnipotent principle of universal toleration to all sects, is the efficient and certain antidote to the corrupt and destructive passions of the bigot and the fanatic. To those who consult the history of mankind, it will appear, that no form of religion prevented the assertion of human rightsthe Catholic in Hungary, and the Catholic in Ireland, are equally zealous in the cause of political freedom, as the Protestant of Prussia, or the Protestant of England. Both are equally jealous of their rights as men, and equally anxious to circumscribe the limits of temporal authority, whenever the opportunity arises; but it is also true, that the religion of the Catholic and the religion of the Protestant, whenever either is made an instrument of state, can be converted into a sharp and devastating sword against the liberties and the rights of human nature. The Popes of Rome abused their power, and trampled on the rights of humanity; the Kings of England abused their power, and, aided by the Episcopal Bench, practised the bigotry and intolerance they deprecated. Europe has been the victim of both religions, wherever they were identified with the pow ers that governed. The Christianity of both was forgotten; the forms of religion were practised, the better to conceal the evasion of her doctrines; the name of Christ was in the mouths of all his followers, at the moment they were refusing that mercy which their master had commanded. Persecution went on |