It is wholly unnecessary for any non-Catholic to enter into the arena, and take up a lance against the Roman Catholic Church, when such terse and vivid writers as Michael J. F. McCarthy, B. A., T. C. D., Barrister-at-Law, Dublin, are found in the bosom of the church itself, to lay bare its defects. In a recently published book, entitled “Priests and People in Ireland,” he sums up the case against the church in its relation to the Irish people, under four heads, saying that its aims are,— “1. Its own aggrandizement as a league, apart from the body politic in which it flourishes, but in alliance with an alien organization whose interests are not the interests of us, the Roman Catholic laity of Ireland. “2. Molding the ductile minds of our youth, so that their thoughts in manhood may run not in the direction of enlightenment and self-improvement, but in obedient channels converging to swell the tide of the priests’ prosperity. “3. Perplexing and interfering with our adult population in every sphere of secular affairs, estranging them from, and embittering them against, the majority of their fellow citizens in the United Kingdom, imbuing them with disloyalty to the commonwealth of which they are members, the result being that our people are the least prosperous—indeed, the only unprosperous—community in the British Isles. “4. Terrifying the enfeebled minds of the credulous, the invalid, and the aged, with the result that the savings of penurious thrift, the inheritance of parental industry, the competence of respectability, are all alike captured in their turn from expectant next-of-kin, and garnered into the sacerdotal treasury.” He shows that the effective Roman Catholic organization in Ireland outnumbers the services of the imperial and local governments combined, and that this organization is spreading, although the people are growing poorer, and the population diminishing. Others can see that this is the cause of the poverty. The question, “Who are the Irish priests?” he answers thus:— “I know several ecclesiastical students, in the diocese of Dublin, who are being ‘educated’ free for the home mission, both at Clonliffe Diocesan College and at Maynooth. The sons of professional men hardly ever become priests; the sons of the gentry never; even the sons of well-to-do shopkeepers and farmers will not become priests, unless they are enticed into an irretrievable step when very young. But the sons of licensed publicans frequently become priests,—perhaps as an act of reparation,—the connection between the priests and the publicans being very intimate. The sons of policemen, national teachers, local government officials, and others who owe their positions to sacerdotal patronage, and even laboring men’s sons, now supply the bulk of the Irish priests. All these people are respectable, and their children equally so; but they are nevertheless the class of priests’ Irishmen, who are out of touch with European civilization, and belong mainly to the submerged seven-tenths of our fellow religionists.” These are strong, and undoubtedly true, statements; yet however necessary it may be to make them, it must be remembered that they only lay bare the ulcer, but do not give the remedy. That cannot be expected; for reformation must come from without, from those who are armed with “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Moreover, no hope need be entertained of reforming the church; the most that can be done is to save individuals out of it; and when some of them clearly see its condition, as does Mr. McCarthy, there is hope that they may listen to the call, “Come out of her.”—Present Truth.