a Church a blessing to a people. Extensive charities-unwearied efforts for education-the general erection of churches, schoolhouses, and hospitals-an extraordinary diffusion of religious and moral influence throughout the whole portion of the country where the Protestant clergy are not yet put out of the protection of the law.

even to read. The schoolmasters were peasants, wandering from village to village, keeping school in the first barn they came to; and, in general, doing much more evil than good by their itinerancy. They were the chief disseminators of rebellion among the people, the scribblers of threatening letters and seditious songs, and, in many instances, the secretaries and emissaries of associations of direct treason. The Scriptures were almost totally unknown, even when they were not suppressed by that fatal religious mandate, which has for ages exercised so unrelaxing a tyranny over the mind of the lower Irish population. A few years before this period, a Protestant society, entitled " The Association for discountenancing Vice, and promoting Religion and Virtue," had commenced its labours. Its first resolution was, "To make effectual provision that no cabin, or house in the whole kingdom in which there is a single person who can read, shall live destitute of the Holy Scriptures." In the spirit of this wise, philanthropic, and hallowed determination, the members immediately commenced their plan. Their objects were declared to be, 1. The distribution of the Scriptures at reduced prices. 2. The establishment of schools in the more uninstructed districts. 3. The donation of premiums for good conduct and activity to the country schoolmasters. 4. The establishment of a seminary for schoolmasters and parish clerks. 5. The enforcing the stricter observance of the Lord's day. 6. The translation of the Scriptures into the Irish language. 7. A house of reform for the criminal poor. 8. The institution of Sunday schools. 9. The distribution of tracts having no controversial tendency. 10. The establishment of spinning schools. 11. Catachetical examinations of the children throughout Ireland in the Scriptures.

The state of the Irish Church forms one of the most curious fragments of ecclesiastical history in later times. During the whole of the last century it laboured under the double burden of extreme poverty and English politics. The benefices, poor as they were, almost totally passed into the possession of individuals whose chief merits were their connexions. Parliament and the country were governed by patronage; the inevitable consequence of a separate legislature, incapable of being controlled, but willing to be corrupted. Thus the Church, first beggared, was next disgraced. The churchman, first the creature of patronage, was next consigned to poverty, and coming without the zeal which alone could have rendered even opulence effective, was fixed in a penury which must have reduced all zeal to empty wishes. The union of the Legislatures in the year 1800 produced a sudden and surprising change. The burden of Parliamentary patronage was taken off the Church, and it rapidly acquired the port and vigour of its original freedom. Character took the place of connexion, and a race of active, intelligent, and Scriptural labourers in their sacred function superseded the ancient encumbrances of the Establishment. That those men had ever hung heavy upon the character of the Church was the fault, not of the Establishment, but of the Parliament which demanded the patronage, and of the Cabinet which stooped to the purchase. Its poverty continued, or was but slightly and partially diminished. But from what that Church has done under all its narrowness of income, we may estimate what would have been the extent of its services with means adequate to its zeal. By authentic reports, furnished in the years 1800 and 1803, it was proved, that of the whole population of Ireland, not one-third had hitherto been taught

This noble design was carried into rapid and vigorous execution. It comprehended the whole remedial extent of Christian charity. It was the first great invasion of the realm of barbarism, superstition, and ignorance in Ireland; and the banners that it planted within the empire of darkness have never retrograded. This Association numbered among

its most zealous members, and most active agents, the body of the Irish clergy. Before thirty years had passed, it had in its superintendence and connexion schools containing upwards of thirty thousand children! But this was not all. The Sunday schools had been formed by the Protestant clergy. Four years ago, the number of children attending them was nearly two hundred thousand! The numbers in the schools connected with the Kildare Place Society were upwards of one hundred thousand! In those great works of national renovation many pious laymen took a strong interest; but the chief guidance, the sustaining spirit, and the general origin, was with the clergy of the feeble and impoverish ed Church of Ireland.

The labours of the clergy in the general supply of the means of public worship, and of religious teaching, were on a scale which deserves the admiration of all who knew the difficulties under which these effects were accomplished. One direct result of the early poverty of the Irish Establishment was the paucity of the clergy. In the reign of George the First, the average number of beneficed clergy in each diocese was but twenty-four.* In 1726, there were but one hundred and forty-one glebe-houses. In 1800, there were but 295, after nearly a century, with a resident Parliament, and a considerable increase in the trade and general wealth of the country.

But in 1820 the number of glebehouses were increased by 473! making, in the whole, 768. In the ten years to 1829, 250 glebe-houses in addition had been built. In the same period 200 churches had been built. The number of resident beneficed clergy in 1806, were 693, with 560 curates. In 1830, the number of residents was nearly doubled, it amounting to upwards of 1200, with about 750 curates, making, in the whole, nearly 2000 clergy of the Established Church. And this is the Church, thus labouring to spread good through its country, and actually laying on it every hour the foundations of English connexion and loyalty, at the same time with

religious knowledge, that it is proposed to meet with a tax of L.70,000 a-year, on an income (at the very largest estimate) of L.300,000; an impost of upwards of a sixth of the gross income of the clergy, supposing that income to be paid regularly and in full. It is even declared, that this tax, with the rates previously laid on, would amount to forty-two per cent. In addition to this injury, the bishop's lands are to be totally alienated from all the uses of religion, charity, manly literature, fitting hospitality, and the general adornment, protection, and popular acceptance of the Church. Again, we demand, what state necessity exists for this spoliation? Is the nation invaded? is the nation bankrupt? has the Legislature any stronger ground for this monstrous act, than the ground of the National Convention of France, that the plunder is convenient, and that the convenience justifies the seizure ?

But the orators tell us of "bloated bishops" and luxurious clergymen. If men, unsuited to their functions, are suffered to possess the high stations of the Church, the patronage of the bishops is in the hands of the Crown; let the next choice be more carefully. looked to; let men of virtue and learning be appointed, and the evil is at an end. But are we to be told that Protestantism ought to be reduced in Ireland, on account of the Popish majority. This is the great argument for cashiering the Irish clergy! This, which should be the great argument for increasing their numbers, for increasing their means, for protecting their efforts to spread the Gospel! The country is overrun with superstition, therefore extinguish knowledge;—it is weighed down with barbarian prejudices against the government, constitution, and religion of England, therefore cease from all attempts to lighten the yoke. The land is dark, therefore extinguish the light in your hand. Or, are we to be told, that the religion of the majority should be submitted to, whatever it may be? Then let us pronounce that all attempts to convert the heathen are criminal,- that we should not de

sire to plant Christianity in Hindostan, while we are outnumbered by the millions of Mussulmans and idolaters, that we should not send the Bible to the African or the South Sea islander. On this principle, Europe should have been left to this hour worshipping Thor and Woden. On this absurd and criminal principle, Christianity should never have stepped beyond the boundaries of Palestine.

our protest, and take our share of the crime. On this reasoning, all the manliness of resisting oppression is at an end. It may be virtue to resist it when it is weak, but it is virtue no more when it is strong. In this view fear is wisdom, and fortitude folly. The ways of fraud, subtlety, and tergiversation, are the ways in which nations ought to tread, the ways of principle, turning neither to the right nor the left, bright as the light, and open as the Heaven, are to be shunned as the paths of enthusiasm. We are to do evil that good may come; to gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles; to despoil a church to please a faction, and stoop a throne to the dust in order to conciliate a grim and furious spirit of hate, that would rejoice to see, and yet hopes to see, that throne scattered to the winds in ashes and flame. If the Irish Church be now flung under the feet of the combined atheist and idolater, the jacobin and the rebel, it will not be the last victim. The chariot-wheel, dipt in the blood of parricide, will not be checked by this crime. It will be urged on only with more furious velocity, until revenge has no more to trample, cupidity to wish for, or usurpation to enjoy, degrade, and ruin.

There is one argument more-the argument, not of logic, but of intimidation, indolence, and folly. The measure will be carried whether we like it or not, therefore let us yield. The tide is pronounced to be irresistible, then let us give up oar and rudder, and go with the stream. What is this but the argument in a circle? They first take the irresistibility for granted, and then ground their result upon it, as if it were solid as a rock. They fabricate their own premises, and then counsel us to abide by their conclusion. Yet what is this but an appeal to the baser portion of our nature, not to our understanding, but to our fears. On such a principle, what limit could be set to the justification of guilt? The robbery will be done, whether we join in it or not, therefore let us be accomplices. The knife will be plunged in the heart, let us protest as we may, therefore let us abandon

SHORTLY after we made the land about Nassau, the breeze died away, and it fell nearly calm.

"I say, Thomas," quoth Aaron, "for this night at least we must still be your guests, and lumber you on board of your seventy-four. No chance, so far as I see, of getting into port to-night; at least if we do, it will be too late to go on shore."

He said truly, and we therefore made up our minds to sit down once more to our rough and round dinner, in the small, hot, choky cabin of the Wave. As it happened, we were all in high glee. I flattered myself that my conduct in the late affair would hoist me up a step or two on the roaster for promotion, and my excellent friends were delighted at the idea of getting on shore.

6

After the cloth had been drawn, Mr Bang opened his fire. "Tom, my boy, I respect your service, but I have no great ambition to belong to it. I am sure no bribe that I am aware of could ever tempt me to make my home upon the deep,'and I really am not sure that it is a very gentlemanly calling after all. Nay, don't look glum;-what I meant was, the egregious weariness of spirit you must all undergo from consorting with the same men day after day, hearing the same jokes repeated for the hundredth time, and, whichever way you turn, seeing the same faces morning, noon, and night, and listening to the same voices. Oh! I should die in a year's time were I to become a sailor."

"But," rejoined I," you have your land bores, in the same way that we have our sea bores; and we have this advantage over you, that if the devil should stand at the door, we can always escape from them sooner or later, and can buoy up our souls with the certainty that we can so escape from them at the end of

VOL. XXXIII. NO. CCVIII.

the cruise at the farthest; whereas if you happen to have taken root amidst a colony of bores on shore, why you never can escape, unless you sacrifice all your temporalities for that purpose; ergo, my dear sir, our life has its advantages, and yours has its disadvantages.'

"Too true-too true," rejoined Mr Bang. "In fact, judging from my own small experience, Borism is fast attaining a head it never reached before. Speechifying is the crying and prominent vice of the age. Why will the ganders not recollect that eloquence is the gift of heaven, Thomas? A man may improve it unquestionably, but the Promethean fire, the electrical spark, must be from on high. No mental perseverance or education could ever have made a Demosthenes, or a Cicero, in the ages long past; nor an Edmund Burke"

"Nor an Aaron Bang in times present," said I.

"Hide my roseate blushes, Thomas," quoth Aaron, as he continued— "Would that men would speak according to their gifts, study Shakspeare and Don Quixote, and learn of me; and that the real blockhead would content himself with speaking when he is spoken to, drinking when he is drucken to, and ganging to the kirk when the bell rings. You never can go into a party nowadays, that you don't meet with some shallow, prosing, pestilent ass of a fellow, who thinks that empty sound is conversation; and not unfrequently there is a spice of malignity in the blockhead's composition; but a creature of this calibre you can wither, for it is not worth crushing, by withholding the sunshine of your countenance from it, or by leaving it to drivel on, until the utter contempt of the whole company claps-to change the figure3 B

a wet night-cap as an extinguisher on it, and its small stinking flame flickers and goes out of itself. Then there is your sentimental water-fly, who blaws in the lugs of the women, and clips the King's English, and your high-flying dominie body, who whumles them outright. I speak figuratively. But all these are as dust in the balance to the wearisome man of ponderous acquirements, the solemn blockhead who usurps the pas, and if he happens to be rich, fancies himself entitled to prose and palaver away, as if he were Sir Oracle, or as if the pence in his purse could ever fructify the cauld parritch in his pate into pregnant brain.-There is a plateful of P's for you at any rate, Tom. Beautiful exemplification of the art alliterative -an't it?

'Oh that Heaven the gift would gie us, To see ourselves as others see us!'

ley again upon you, like a heavysterned Dutch dogger, right before the wind- As I was saying-this unexpected and most unlooked for honour'-and there you are pinned to the stake, and compelled to stand the fire of all his blunt bird-bolts for half an hour on end. At length his mud has all dribbled from him, and you hug yourself- Ah,-come, here is a talking man opening his fire, so we shall have some conversation at last.' But alas and alack a day! Prosey the second chimes in, and works away, and hems and haws, and hawks up some old scraps of schoolboy Latin and Greek, which are all Hebrew to you, honest man, until at length he finishes off by some solemn twaddle about fossil turnips and vitrified brickbats; and thus concludes Fozy No. 2. Oh, shade of Edie Ochiltree! that we should stand in the taunt of such unmerciful spendthrifts of our time on earth! Besides, the devil of it is, that whatever may be said of the flippant palaverers, the heavy bores are generally most excellent and amiable men, so that one can't abuse the sumphs with any thing like a quiet conscience."

C

My dear boy, speechifying has extinguished conversation. Public meetings, God knows, are rife enough, and why will the numskulls not confine their infernal dulness to them? why not be satisfied with splitting the ears of the groundlings there? why will they not consider that convivial conversation should be lively as the sparkle of musketry, brilliant, sharp, and sprightly, and not like the thundering of heavy cannon, or heavier bombs. But no-you shall ask one of the Drawley's across the table to take wine. Ah,' says he-and how he makes out the concatenation, God only knows-' this puts me in mind, Mr Thingumbob, of what happened when I was chairman of the county club, on such a day. Alarming times these were, and deucedly nervous I was when I got up to return thanks. My friends, said I, this unexpected and most unlooked for honour-this'- Here blowing all your breeding to the winds, you fire a question across his bows into the fat pleasant fellow, who speaks for society beyond him, and expect to find that the dull sailer has hauled his wind, or dropped astern-(do you twig how nautical I have become in my lingo under Tailtackle's tuition, Tom?)-but, alas! no sooner has the sparkle of our fat friend's wit lit up the whole worshipful society, than down comes Draw

<<

"Come," said I, my dear sir, you are growing satirical."

"Quarter less three," sung out the leadsman in the chains.

We were now running in past the end of Hog Island to the port of Nassau, where the lights were sparkling brightly. We anchored, but it was too late to go on shore that evening, so after a parting glass of swizzle, we all turned in for the night.

To be near the wharf, for the convenience of refitting, I had run the schooner close in, being aware of the complete security of the harbour, so that in the night I could feel the little vessel gently take the ground. This awoke me and several of the crew, for accustomed as sailors are to the smooth bounding motion of a buoyant vessel, rising and falling on the heaving bosom of the ocean, the least touch on the solid ground, or against any hard floating substance, thrills to their hearts with electrical quickness. Through the thin bulkhead I could hear the officers speaking to each other."We are touching the ground," said