A MAYNOOTH PRIEST. —A LIFERAL RECTOR.

LETTER VI

My dear Friend,-In the arrangements between Mr. Fand myself, relative to the publication of a poem on the priesthood, which we had jointly composed, it devolved on me to call on some neighbouring gentlemen for their names as subscribers. Among these were several clergymen of the Established Church. The first was curate of the parish, who, without at all entering on the question of religion, warmly encouraged the publication of the satire. The rector was a man of a different stamp-learned, cautious. judicious, and in polities a Whig. He was a most benevolent individual, and greatly beloved by his parishioners of both denominations. He carefully avoided any allusion to the difference between the two Churches, and did all he could to conciliate the priests. But one of them was a feeble old man, who went very little about, and the other was a flaming bigot whom no Kindness could tame. The good rector complained to me that his friendly offices were not reciprocated, and that the young priest seemed to regard his advances with jealousy. The truth is, that, in addition to the prejudices imbibed in the cradle, and strengthened in the college, the younger part of the priesthood are greatly influenced by anxiety about their reputation. They are looking forward to parishes, and they are afraid that any appearances of liberality which they might exhibit would be represented to the Bishop as treachery to the cause. There is an esprit du corps sustained in full operation by the conferences, which effectually counteracts every tendency to irregularity, and keeps every man pressed into his proper groove in the system. The older priests, however, may take liberties, and sometimes do. I knew one of them to dine frequently, even on Sabbath, with a neighbouring rector; but religious conversation was totally excluded from the social circle. Is it not an unhappy circumstance that the Roman clergy seldom or never come into friendly contact with really pious Protestants ?

The rector of ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ desired to read my MS. When I called again he looked grave. "It was a very severe satire against the Catholic clergy; and, besides, it was in some cases unjust. For instance," said he, "it is made a ground of accusation against them that they lay by fortunes for their nieces. I think that is quite right; for St. Paul says, if a man does not provide for those of his own household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel."

I do not exactly remember what was my reply. I dare say I remarked, that providing food and raiment for a family was a very different thing from laying up a large fortune for some favourite member of it; that, at all events, it could not be right to oppress the poor in order to enrich our own relations, and raise them above their proper standing in society; that, strictly speaking, a priest had no family-had none to take care of but “number

one;" and, therefore, that his love of money could be regarded as nothing better than avarice.

"But how is it," he inquired, "that you, a professed Roman Catholic, can think of publishing such an attack on your own clergy?"

This was an unpleasant question. I blushed and hesitated; and, after a pause, replied that, as an enemy to all priestcraft and oppression, I felt it my duty to expose their conduct whenever it was reprehensible; and that an attack on religion, and one on its unworthy ministers, were things totally distinct.

"Young man," said he, regarding me with an expression of benevolent anxiety, "I fear, like too many in your Church, you have imbibed infidel sentiments. I hope, however, you have not gone beyond the reach of reason and truth. I cannot subscribe for this poem, because I do not approve of the spirit in which it is written—a spirit of scepticism and bitterness, which is, in a reflecting mind, almost the natural result of the system in which you have been educated. Take,” he continued, “as an illustration of that system, the shocking occurrence which has recently disgraced our country. A priest enters the house of one of his parishioners, and is requested to sit down in a room where there is a bed, on which a child about two years old is sleeping. He demands a drink, and while the mother is absent procuring it, the infant stirs, whereupon the priest starts up, and declares that it is possessed by the devil, and must be exorcised. The mother believes the statement, and shudders with horror. The neighbourhood is alarmed-crowds of people collect round the house to witness the miracle. A large tub of water is procured, into which the priest pours a bowl of salt which he has blessed. The helpless babe is then raised from its sleep, and stretched upon the floor. The infatuated exorcist turns over the tub of water on the body of the child, and then jumping on the upturned bottom, tramples it with all the fury of the wildest fanaticism, until the hapless infant is strangled by the edge of the vessel pressing on its neck! The father and mother beheld all this without daring to interfere. The cries of the innocent victim did not touch their hearts, and its little hands were stretched out towards them for help in vain.

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Now, granting that this man was mad, which we must charitably believe, what can we think of the people-of the parents-that could passively behold a deed so horrifying? Indeed, so blinded were they by their notions of sacerdotal power, that they believed the deluded creature when he promised that he would return and bring the child to life again !* Must not such pretensions to miracles-succeeding through well-sustained fraud, or failing through clumsy mismanagement-have the effect of disgusting the

*The facts of this heart-rending case were all established by the evidence on the trial of the priest, at which the writer was present. He was acquitted on the plea of insanity. His name was Carrol, and the occurrence took place in a district which has produced manifold more priests than any other of the same extent in Ireland.

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UNCONVERTED MINISTERS.-ZEALOUS CLERGYMAN.

rational and educated portion of the community, and leading them to look with suspicion on all religion? Thus genuine piety is smothered by the weeds of superstition, which flourish so rankly on every side, and spread abroad so widely their baneful influence; or it is blighted by the more subtle and secret influence of an infidelity which penetrates to the very root, leaving little that is really good to cheer the philanthropist or the patriot. That which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten.""

I confessed that the pretensions and practices to which he alluded were calculated to have the effect attributed to them, and that they did exert it to a considerable extent on my own mind. He then put a book into my hand, stating that he hoped I would study it, and that he would be glad to hear from me again.

I found that the book was Dr. Beattie's "Evidences." I read it, but not with much profit, although it brought to my mind some new and important views of the Gospel, nor much interest, except what was awakened by the beauty of the style.

I called on two other ministers, to both of whom I had been previously known, and who had shown me great kindness. They were men of talent— the one being imaginative in the cast of his mind, and the other scientific ; but, unhappily, neither of them was pious. I do not mean to say that they were immoral; on the contrary, more amiable, kind-hearted and honourable men do not exist; but they did not rightly understand the Gospel, nor feel it to be the power of God to their own salvation. They preached not from an anxiety to win souls to Christ, but because the "duty" must be done. Their sermons, as pieces of composition, were beautiful; but, as expositions of Christian doctrine and experience, meagre and worthless. No conscience was alarmed-no sinner aroused from the sleep of death. If they reached the conscience at all, it was with the touch of a feather, and not with the piercing energy of the sword of the Spirit. It is not, my dear friend, from such preachers as those that you can learn what Protestant doctrines are, and the effects which they produce.

These gentlemen promised to take several copies each, but refused to give their names, as they lived on good terms with the priests, and were unwilling to give them offence. The next clergyman I visited was manifestly a different character from any of the others. He was clever, intelligent, fluent, exceedingly active, and entirely devoted to the interests of the Church.

He hastily glanced over my manuscript, and perceived that the mind of the writer, not being enslaved to human authority, nor bewildered with superstition, was in a proper state to canvass freely and independently the doctrines of religion. He entered at once into the discussion of the questions at issue between the Church of Rome and England. From this course of proceeding, many Protestants are restrained by a delicacy of feeling-very amiable, indeed, but very injurious to the cause of truth.

FALSE DELICACY.-THE PILGRIM.

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"You are studying, Sir," said a missionary to me once, as I sauntered along the road to school, conning a lesson in my French grammar.

It is the

"Right, my young friend, nothing like acquiring knowledge. food of the mind, which must be nourished as well as the body." After a few remarks to this effect, he shook hands with me and rode on. Now, he should not have stopped there. He should have told me of the spiritual wants of the soul-of the bread of heaven that came down for the life of the world, and of kindred subjects. In four cases out of five, I think the judicious introduction of religious topics would be well received by Roman Catholics, and a single conversation of this description might ultimately issue in the conversion of an immortal soul. Indeed, I have heard you complain yourself, that the preacher who comes to

shuns, rather

than seeks, your conversation. Now, this must arise not from an unwillingness to meet your argmuents, but from ignorance of the real state of your

mind.

A word spoken in season, how good it is! How mighty may be the influence of one precious truth on the mind, even where it seemed to fall to the ground! A pilgrim once entered our house after nightfall, and took his seat by the fire. He seemed to have been a man of finished education, judging from his accent and pronunciation. But he had been

"Crazed with care and crossed with hopeless love."

During the evening he repeatedly uttered with great solemnity the following sentence:" Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish"-Luke xiii. 3.

The oracular words sank deep in my mind; and to the force of that one statement, authenticated by the chapter and verse, I attribute much of those troubles of conscience which haunted me so long, and issued at length in my conversion. Various are the means by which the truth may find its way to the heart. To the inattentive or the forgetful, those glimmerings of light that sometimes arise in the mind where religious instruction had not been enjoyed may seem to spring from the collision of the natural powers of the soul, but they are in reality sparks of revealed truth that had remained lodged unobserved in the understanding-like the seeds of the forest tree, borne by migratory birds to a distant land, where the plants which they produce may be regarded as the spontaneous production of the soil.

This gentleman urged principally the absurdity of praying to saints, which, as a nominal member of the Church of Rome, I thought it my duty to defend as well as I could. I was struck with the view in which he exhibited the question, and the consequences which he deduced logically from the Roman doctrine. He said it led directly to Polytheism, and his conclusion I felt it impossible to set aside. But I shall have a more favourable opportunity of referring to that hereafter. I shall now go on with my narrative.

Mr. N. proposed, at parting, that I should call again in a few days, and requested that I would take the loan of a Bible, that I might, in the

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A DANGEROUS COMPANION. THE BIBLE INTRuded.

meantime, consult the passages he had brought forward in the course of the argument. He was so kind, and seemed to feel so warm an interest in my case, that I could not well refuse; but I took the book with very great reluctance. I became so uneasy, as I passed along the road, that I was tempted to return and give it back to the owner. But this would have been Were the book my own

a proof of weakness, such as I did not like to avow. property, I would certainly have thrown it over the hedge, and thus got rid of the disagreeable burthen. But I had only received the loan of it, and I was bound in honour to return it safe, and I was also expected to give my opinion of some of its contents. Never did I feel so perplexed. It was a thick volume, and made so great a bulk in my pocket as almost necessarily to attract observation. And were a Protestant Bible discovered in my possession, I knew it would bring a stain on my character that would be indelible. However, I resolved to conceal my dangerous companion as carefully as possible.

I succeeded for a day. I was sitting with my friend the schoolmaster, in the summer house, to which we were accustomed in fine weather to retire, to pursue our own studies after school hours, as I had engaged to teach him French in exchange for his Latin. The declining sun darted down his golden beams through the openings of the green canopy above us, and illuminated the gilt edges of the Bible, a corner of which was conspicuous in my pocket. We were at that moment warmly disputing about the grammatical construction of a particular passage, when his eye was suddenly arrested by the corner of the Bible! He was silent, blushed, looked at my face, then at the Bible, and then at my face again.

"What is that in your pocket ?" he inquired, with a look that spoke surprise and anger.

"The questión," I replied, "is one that I might be excused from answering; but I have no hesitation in avowing that it is a Bible,” and, so saying, I handed it to him.

"Where did you get this?" said he, glancing at the title page.

6 Mr. N- — persuaded me to take it. I was very unwilling to do so, but as he promised to take so many copies of the poem, I thought it hard to refuse, and so brought it with me merely to please him. But were it otherwise," said I, "may I ask, why I am not at liberty to read what book I please?"

"Oh, of course," said he, drily; "but in taking that book, from such a man, you countenance the calumny that Catholics have no Bibles themselves." “That is a fact, and not a calumny, so far as we and our neighbours are concerned; for I do not know a single person that has one, with the exception of Mr. P- who seems to keep his two folio volumes, with their notes

and comments, more for ornament than use." "Use!" said he, with a sneer, "I hope you

are not among the number of

those who deem the Bible a useful book. I hope there are few in the