which showed that conscience had long been overborne and reduced to silence. He was

greatly strengthened in his sceptical habits by a gentleman from Trinity College, who had been in the neighbourhood as a tutor; a man of commanding talents, but one of the most cold-hearted and calculating profligates that ever insinuated poison into the unsuspecting ear of youth.

I was glad to meet one with whom I could speak my mind freely, and the feeling was fully reciprocated by my new friend. We amused ourselves much in secret with the follies that passed under the name of religion, and felt compassion for the multitudes whom superstition had enslaved. He was intimately and extensively acquainted with the clergy. He knew the abilities, the foibles and faults of each, and he spoke of one and all with supreme contempt. He had an inexhaustible fund of anecdote about their pride, arrogance, selfishness, and avarice— their flattery of the rich and contempt of the poor their extortion and their prodigality. These he illustrated by facts, with some of which I was well acquainted myself. For instance, is the Priest called on in the night to visit a person dying? If the party be rich, he starts up at midnight, mounts the horse that has been brought for him, and dashes off in the midst of rain or

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snow, bidding defiance to the tempest. But if the patient be poor, he draws the bed clothes closer round him, and tells the messenger that he may expect him in the morning.

I was once conversing with a very respectable Parish Priest, and as we walked up and down near his house, a poor woman came up and humbly addressed him in the following words:

"May it plase your Reverence, it's now three o'clock, and I'm waitin' here since nine this mornin,' hopin' your Reverence would hear my confession; and I lives four miles away, and I came out without my breakfast; and besides there's no one mindin' the childher; and I'm afeard a villian of a sow I have will break in and ate the little one. May be, then, your Reverence would hear me now, and I'll be for ever obliged to you?"

"Begone, woman!" replied the Priest, in a voice of thunder, "Don't you see I am engaged at present?" The poor creature was petrified. She shrunk away with a sigh and a look of resignation that powerfully touched my heart; and must, indeed, have touched any heart not steeled with ecclesiastical pride. My indignation was mingled with contempt, when he instantly resumed the conversation in a tone as mild, and with a smile as bland, as if nothing had happened!

But wherefore dwell on the faults of the Irish Priests? Many of these arise out of the circumstances in which they are placed, and have naturally resulted from the treatment they have received. And, upon the whole, I dare say they are better than their system. My object, my dear friend, is not to arraign the moral character of your clergy, but to canvass principles. If these are proved to be unsound, the conduct which flows from them cannot be good. We cannot gather figs from thistles, nor draw sweet water from a bitter fountain.

Mr. F. had about forty pupils, nearly all studying Latin and Greek, with a view to ordination. Never was there a more unmanageable school. They were all pets, spoiled by the fond indulgence of their parents and friends. Sometimes when their conduct became outrageous, the master would wax wrathful, and rebuke sharply the ring-leader of the disturbance. This was frequently a young man, whose brother was a Franciscan Friar, and who was one of the most reckless beings that could possibly be selected for the clerical office. He was an incorrigible idler, and so exceedingly comical, that the most serious found it difficult to avoid laughing at him. When the master scolded and threatened, he would listen with a look of deep contrition, and then

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with an air of affected gravity, irresistably droll, he would hand him his snuff-box, at the same time casting a leering glance at the students. The result was a general burst of laughter, in which the master heartly joined.

These young men were very ignorant. They knew scarcely a syllable in English Grammar, Geography or History, and scarcely a question in Arithmetic, when they were sent to this school of the prophets. And here the heathen classics consumed the whole of their time for four or five years. Nearly all were passionately addicted to card playing, and several were too fond of ardent spirits. I need not speak of other evils, to which their circumstances rendered them so peculiarly obnoxious. This is a tolerably fair specimen of the preparatory schools of the priesthood throughout Ireland; and I am sure you will agree with me, that a worse system of moral training could hardly be devised. I regret to say, that the superstructure which is afterwards raised at Maynooth, is quite in keeping with this foundation.

I have frequently heard Protestants ask, “Do the Priests really believe the doctrines they teach? How is it possible for men of education to maintain such absurdities?" I am of opinion that the majority of the Priests do honestly acquiesce in the

truth of their religion, and are persuaded of the efficacy of their sacraments and other rites. I think the influence of an education whose tendency is to foster the roots of depravity, and to weaken or pervert the rational principle, has not been sufficiently adverted to. It should be borne in mind, that the whole course of instruction is opposed to any healthful exercise of the powers of the understanding, or the feelings of the heart. From childhood, the consecrated boy is isolated from the common herd around him. Most of his enjoyments are like "stolen waters," sweet to the taste, but bitter in their results. His pleasures are enjoyed in spite of the remonstrances of conscience. But conscience repeatedly violated, loses its sensibility, and finally relinquishes the ineffectual strife maintained against the increasing power and turbulence of passion. Heathen classics, uncounteracted by Christian instruction, imbue the mind with Pagan vices, especially with the spirit of pride and self-dependence. "The Lives of the Saints" is an appropriate sequel to the ancient Mythology, appealing to the same dispositions of our fallen nature, and inculcating the same principles of virtue. Alban Butler, the Plutarch of Popery, engrafts the religion of Papal on the virtue of Pagan Rome; and it must be confessed, that the scion and the