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The

course to the church. When I came to the gate I stopped, looked about fearfully on every side, lest some acquaintance would observe me. 2 I had entered this church-yard once before, when I was a boy, attracted by the white surplice of the minister, who was engaged reading the burial service. I was not then aware of the criminality of this, as I did not enter the church. Having learned, however, that the thing was forbidden, I mentioned it in confession. Priest looked surprised and angry; and having expressed his indignation at the liberty I had taken, commanded me to rise, and go to the Bishop for absolution of this crime, without which he refused to hear me any more. therefore obliged to travel to Dr. I acknowledged my fault in most humble terms. After looking very serious, and warning me against a repetition of such conduct, he merely wrote his name on a small slip of paper; and having presented it to the Priest, he heard my confession, imposing, however, penance far more severe than I should have borne for a dozen violations of the commands of God.

I was

to whom

The slip of paper reminds me of the practice of a Parish Priest whom you know. All the parishioners are compelled to go to himself with their dues at Christmas and Easter; and when

each has paid his account, he receives a ticket of admission to one of the Curates, with the word "accedat"* and the Parish Priest's initials appended. This plan secures punctuality in the payment of the dues, and takes away from the Curate a temptation to which his cupidity might sometimes compel him to yield. But this is a digression.

I entered the church. The congregation was large and respectable; and the services were conducted not in the irreverent manner in which your clergy too frequently hurry through the mass, but with much gravity and solemnity. For a few minutes I felt very uncomfortable in my seat. I thought all eyes were fixed on me. I doubt not that my awkward manner proved that I was no Church of England man; for when a Prayer-book was handed to me I did not know what to do with it, and could no more follow the minister, as he jumped from one part of it to the other, than I could determine the course of Halley's Comet.

I was much pleased with the forms of worship. I felt like one that had just come forth from the "long-drawn aisles" of some Gothic cathedral, where the small, painted windows, casting "a dim religious light" on the scene, rendered the *He may approach.

reigning gloom more solemn. I was conscious of moving in an atmosphere of light and liberty. What a contrast to the mass-where the glimmering candle-light at noon-day, the mimic tabernacle, and all the paraphernalia of the altar

the robing, the bowing, the muttering, the

I

turning, and kissing, and ringing-appear nothing better than "dumb show"-a pantomime, which neither instructs the mind nor moves the heart! What man has been the wiser for all the masses he ever heard? Where are the consciences that have been awakened and purified by attendance on this pretended sacrifice? never could hear of any. The Priest speaks in an unknown tongue-he communicates no ideas, because the terms he employs are unintelligible to his hearers. The same unmeaning cuckoo note is repeated perpetually, and the same scenic representation takes place, in every particular unvaried, which he has beheld perhaps a thousand times. And though this sameness obtains also in the Protestant liturgy, yet every thing is intelligible. You understand what is said and done; and the services are, with some exceptions, arranged with a view to produce moral impression.

It was so in the Roman Church in ancient times. The Latin language was for many ages

the vulgar tongue the vernacular speech of the people. When it became a dead language, the public services of religion should have been transferred to the new dialects. But this did not suit the purposes of an ambitious clergy. The dark age of ignorance and mystery had set in, and it promoted the designs of a lordly hierarchy to wrap up the form of godliness (the power had vanished) like an embalmed corpse, in the multiplied folds of a pompous ceremonial; and, in the room of the potent, renovating moral influence of the Gospel, to substitute the imaginary physical energy of the clerical opus operatum. The people were no longer treated as rational creatures. The only sentiment which their teachers, or rather their leaders, were anxious to cultivate, was profound awe of the sacerdotal order. Thus the religion of JESUS, so spiritual and heavenly in its nature, was buried under a heap of ritual rubbish. Instead of the true worship of the Father, there was a round of mechanical duties an endless routine of "bodily exercises."

The Curate that I had seen pass was the preacher. He delivered what appeared to me an eloquent and impressive discourse on these words: "And they marvelled, and took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus."

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It was the first sermon I had ever heard from the lips of a Protestant minister. I was delighted; I understood what was said, and I felt in some degree its power.

I was now completely emancipated. The last link of my fetter was struck off. Having visited a clergyman who had long been my friend, the son of a man who stands foremost in the rank of Irish authors, and possessing talents worthy of such a father, and a heart fraught with benevolence, and animated with a noble generosity, I laid before him the state of my mind, which gave him very great pleasure. He congratulated me on the escape I had made from a system of strong delusion. "But," said he, "if you take my advice, you will not publish your poem. It will greatly irritate the Roman Catholics, and can do little or no good to the cause in which you are now embarked. I will tell you how you may employ your pen to better advantage. Write a pamphlet setting forth the reasons which induced you to change your principles, and it will I hope do good."

I took his advice, which also met the approval of the Vicar of B- and wrote a number of letters to my friend, the Schoolmaster.

The

gentleman at whose request the work was undertaken read the MS., and passed on it a eulogium