text:  Had the priests devoted that time which they spent in exciting the passions and misleading the judgment of their flocks in the inculcation of the divine precept of brotherly love--had they exercised that influence which they undoubtedly possess in calming the passions and enlightening the minds of their people--the condition of their country would now be widely different from what it is; and surely their bishops might have been better employed in remedying the neglect of their subordinates than in attending political meetings and delivering postprandial orations savouring more of the braggart boastings of a drunken drumboy than of the deliberate opinions of a dignified ecclesiastic