here, not for the purpose of making a school-boy's attempt at declamatory eloquence, not to exaggerate the historical importance of the spot on which we now stand; but this it is impossible to conceal or deny, that Tara is surrounded by historical reminiscences which give it an importance worthy of being considered by everyone who approaches it for political purposes, and an elevation in the public minds which no other part of Ireland possesses. We are standing upon Tara of the Kings; the spot where the monarchs of Ireland were elected, and where the chieftains of Ireland bound themselves, by the most solemn pledges of honor, to protect their native land against the Dane and every stranger.

On this spot I have a most important duty to perform. I here protest, in the name of my country and in the name of my God, against the unfounded and unjust Union. My proposition to Ireland is that the Union is not binding on her people. It is void in conscience and in principle, and as a matter of constitutional law I attest these facts. Yes, I attest, by everything that is sacred, the truth of my assertions. There is no real Union between the two countries, and my proposition is that there was no authority given to anyone to pass the Act of Union. Neither the English nor the Irish Legislature was competent to pass that Act, and I arraign it on these grounds. One authority alone could make that Act binding, and that was the voice of the people of Ireland.

My next impeachment of the Union is its destructive and deleterious effect upon the industry and pros

r

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WHAT IS A MINORITY?

JOHN B. GOUGH

In answer to the taunt that the temperance agitators were in a minority.

What is a minority? The chosen heroes of this earth have been in a minority. There is not a social, political, or religious privilege that you enjoy to-day that was not bought for you by the blood and tears and patient sufferings of the minority. It is the minority that have vindicated humanity in every struggle. It is a minority that have stood in the van of every moral conflict, and achieved all that is noble in the history of the world.

You will find that each generation has always been busy in gathering up the scattered ashes of the martyred heroes of the past, to deposit them in the golden urn of a nation's history. Look at Scotland, where they are erecting monuments-to whom? To the Covenanters. Ah, they were in a minority! Read their history, if you can, without the blood tingling to the tips of your fingers. These were the minority that, through blood and tears and bootings and scourgings, dyeing the waters with their blood and staining the heather with their gore, fought the glorious battle of religious freedom.

If a man stand up for the right, though he eat, with the right and the truth, a wretched crust; if he walk with obloquy and scorn in the by-lanes and streets, while falsehood and wrong ruffle it in silken attire, let him remember that wherever the right and the truth

are, there are always "troops of beautiful, tall angels gathered round him; and God himself stands within the dim future and keeps watch over his own. If a man stands for the right and the truth, though every man's finger be pointed at him, though every woman's lip be curled at him in scorn, he stands in a majority; for God and good angels are with him; and greater are they that are for him than all they that be against him.

A REPUBLIC OR A MONARCHY?

VICTOR HUGO

After the Revolution of 1848 Victor Hugo was elected to represent the city of Paris both in the constituent and in the legislative assembly. He advocated extreme democratic principles. The speech from which the following extract is taken was delivered from the "great Tribune" in the House of Deputies in 1851, and formed part of the debate on the question of revising the French Constitution.

Gentlemen, let us come to the pith of this debate. It is not our side of the House, but you, the Monarchists, who have provoked it. The question, a Republic or a Monarchy, is before us. No one has any longer

the power or the right to elude it. For more than two years this question, secretly and audaciously agitated, has harassed the country. It weighs upon the Present. It clouds the Future. deliverance from it.

The moment has come for our Yes, the moment has come for us to regard it face to face-to see what it is made of. Now, then, let us show our cards! No more conceal

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ment! I affirm then, in the name of the eternal laws of human morality, that Monarchy is an historical fact, and nothing more. Now, when the fact is extinct, nothing survives, and all is told. It is otherwise with right. Right, even when it no longer has fact to sustain it, even when it no longer exerts a material authority, preserves still its moral authority, and is always right. Hence it is that, in an overthrown Republic, there remains a right, while in a fallen Monarchy there remains only a ruin. Cease, then, ye Legitimists, to appeal to us from the position of right. Before the right of a People, which is sovereignty, there is no other right but the right of the individual, which is liberty. Beyond that, all is a chimera. To talk of the kingly right in this great age of ours, and at this great Tribune, is to pronounce a word void of meaning.

But, if you cannot speak in the name of right, will you speak in the name of fact? Will you say that political stability is the offspring of hereditary royalty, and that Royalty is better than Democracy for a state? What! You would have those scenes renewed, those experiences recommenced, which overwhelmed kings and princes: the feeble, like Louis the Sixteenth; the able and strong, like Louis Philippe ; whole families of royal lineage, high-born women, saintly widows, innocent children. And of those lamentable experiences you have not had enough? You would have yet more? But you are without pity, Royalists, or without memory. We ask your mercy on these unfortunate royal families. Good Heavens!

This place, which you traverse daily, on your way to this House, does it, then, teach you nothing? when, if you but stamped on the pavement, two paces from those deadly Tuileries, which you covet still,-but stamped on that fatal pavement, you could conjure up, at will, the scaffold from which the old Monarchy was plunged into the tomb, or the cab in which the new royalty escaped into exile.

Ah, men of ancient parties! you will learn, ere long, that at this present time, in this nineteenth century, after the scaffold of Louis the Sixteenth, after the downfall of Napoleon, after the exile of Charles the Tenth, after the flight of Louis Philippe, in a word, after the French Revolution, that is to say, after this renewal, complete, absolute, prodigious, of principles, convictions, opinions, situations, influences, and facts, it is the Republic which is solid ground, and the Monarchy which is the perilous venture.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

SYDNEY SMITH

From a speech on "Catholic Claims," delivered at a meeting of the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of the East Riding of Yorkshire, held at Beverley, England, April 11, 1825.

We preach to

known by its fruits. judge your system.

our congregations that a tree is By the fruits it produces I will What has it done for Ireland?

New Zealand is emerging-Otaheite is emerging— Ireland is not emerging-she is still veiled in darkness;