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DISCOURSE VII.

THE CAUSE AND THE REMEDY OF IRELAND'S EVIL CONDITION.

(PREACHED BEFORE THE HIBERNIAN SOCIETY, MAY 1825.)

REV. ix. 20, 21.

And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues, yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.

THE present condition of Ireland in every respect, physical, moral, and religious, is so appalling to every enlightened mind, and so grievous to every charitable heart, and withal so full of alarm to the well-being of the whole civil estate of the empire, as to make it every man's imperative duty, according to his gift, to bring counsel and help to those who are honestly engaged in the work of ministering to her relief, and finding out remedies for her diseases. To which office being now called by the desire of the Hibernian Society,

who have long and zealously laboured in her behalf, and with all my heart consenting, I pray the Lord in his great goodness to endow me with understanding of his Divine providence, and wisdom from above, rightly to apprehend and truly to express the mind of his Spirit concerning this matter, which lieth so near to every humane and to every Christian heart.

I will not occupy the time, which is precious, in the description of that troubled and disordered condition, which it requireth twenty thousand armed men to repress; nor recount those excesses and enormities of every kind with which the public papers for many years have been filled; nor narrate what with my own eyes I have seen, and with my own ears heard, of their ignorance and superstition, while I pursued my tract of observation from hamlet to hamlet, and from cabin to cabin, through the northern and eastern provinces of Ireland, partaking the hearty and liberal welcome of her people, whereof the remembrance doth now fill my soul with resolution to say and do this day for their sake whatever the Lord may enable me. For it is well known by all who have any knowledge of the condition of this poor and wretched people, how they are living, the greater part of them upon the very edge of want, necessity barely at the staff's end, famine at the door, epidemic disease ever watching and ready to spread its wings abroad and devour much people; their irascible passions in a continual ferment, and bringing forth crimes hitherto unheard of; conflagrations of whole families; murders, not by solitary assassins, but by armed troops; fratricides and patricides; abductions of women for

matrimony, after the manner of New-Holland savages rather than civilized and religious men; their superstitions by the margin of holy wells, by consecrated lakes, in solitary dells, and rocky mountains; their exorcisms of evil spirits, and easy faith in the miraculous priests, more kindred to the superstition of the South-African nations than of other Catholic lands;-these things being but too well known, and on every hand acknowledged, and, I may say, of all lamented, I conceive it were but a loss of time to dilate upon, and shall therefore address myself rather to consider the sources of the evil and the method of its cure.

It is the usual way with men, for a great evil to look for a conspicuous cause; and as nothing standeth out so prominently as the administrators of government, they have generally a large share of the blame laid upon their shoulders. But if any one would consider for a moment how little the doings or misdoings of government have affected the character of his own mind, or changed the events of his life; and how little they are able, if they chose, to make an ignorant man wise, or a vicious man virtuous; and when they do usurp this office, as in China and other patriarchal governments, what helpless children they make of men, he would soon discover that it rests with causes far more near at hand, and constant in their operation, to undermine the stable and good condition, or to restore the ruined and evil condition, of a people. Governments, then, only begin to be felt with fatal consequence, when they undertake more than belongs to them, and, from preserving peace and levying lawful tribute, would meddle with the private intercouse of man with

man, the duties of man to himself, and the duties of man to his Maker; of which personal, social, and religious conditions, the wholesome or unwholesome state is that which doth determine the character of a people, yea, and the character of their government also: wherefore the Lord hath not left these in the hands of governors, but reserved them unto himself; and though he hath been at great pains to establish the foundations of society upon the basis of obedience to the magistrate, in that which belongeth to the magistrate's office, he hath been at still greater pains to teach us that over the conscience he alone hath the authority: which inward man of the heart to enlighten, and guide, and overrule, he hath given us the Law and the Gospel; the latter to fit and enable us for the keeping of the former. Wherefore it is not to be doubted, that when diseases of various kinds shew themselves in the personal, social, and religious character of a people, so that from being industrious they are idle; from peaceable, turbulent ; when from merciful and kind, they are full of revenge; from enlightened, they are ignorant; and from wise, foolish; when from religious they are fanatical; and from being worshipful of his invisible power and Godhead, they are worshippers of things seen and temporal; these diseases are brought about by some disordered state of the inward organs of spiritual life, and the continual administration of unwholesome food to the soul's necessities, rather than by the operation of any outward cause, however great it may seem or may really be.

But if any one, from scanty meditation upon, and little acquaintance with, the secret springs of

the well-being of men and states, still denieth the cause of this evil, and expecteth its cure from the administration of government, I pray him to look at the condition of the English Dissenters during the two centuries of their existence, who have been liable to the same political disabilities, tried with the same jealousy, as the Roman Catholics of Ireland, and are now held under the same restraints; yet so far from exhibiting any of the same evil conditions of a disorganized people, have been, on the other hand, the most orderly, virtuous, and enlightened part of the common people of England, and are so unto this day. But if any one would object to this-which I consider as decisive proof that the evil lies deeper than political disabilities-that the residence of the higher classes, and the presence of a middle class, prevents the evil effects of political distinction from being revealed in England; then I have to shew the example of Scotland for the whole century before the last, oppressed far beyond any oppression which Ireland ever endured, and during the last century twice the theatre of civil wars, and now more partially governed (if I must speak of these things), more close and narrow in her political system; as corrupt, yea, and more so, in as far as political influence can go; her nobility in a great manner non-resident; her middle class formed, as every middle class must be, by the industry, skill, and good conduct of the poor; her soil more scanty, her climate more rude: and yet none of those demoralized conditions have been revealed in her, and she hath overcome those partial evils by that steady course of improvement which a people well instructed, when left to them