months old, they were seized with convulsions and died off ;-this, you may suppose, was a grievous thing to Mary and me, and in our affliction the neighbours all said that it was our own fault, because we did not go to Father Martin O'Cahan the priest, who never failed to cure the falling sickness and convulsions. So the time came round for Bessy to be born-for wife, please your Reverence, in these matters was as sure as a sun-dial; and Bessy was a sweet child, and it went to our hearts that she should go away from us like the rest so one morning after much ado with my conscience, I told Mary to go off to the priest. Now Father Martin, to say the least of him, was indeed a pains-taking and a knowledgeable man; and though I never did sit under his knee, yet to give him his due, I ever will think that neither parson nor Presbyterian minister could come up to him in riding about making the people good; and he had as soft a tongue and as you ever saw, always ready

as smart a whip as you ever saw,

to persuade his flock to do their duty. So off

Mary went, and Father Martin received her very tenderly; but with all that he pronounced it impossible that he could ever save the child, unless a solemn vow was made on the holy Bible, that if he cured the child it should be reared a Catholic-for ever after sent to mass and never on any account read a Protestant book. While the priest was thus speaking, poor little Bessy looked up in her mother's face, and it smiled so sweetly that she could not resist making the vow; which she and I have for ever since honestly and fairly kept; and there she is before my face, the first of her name that ever went to mass. Then Sir, when the following year came round, and Tommy there was born; and it went to my heart all out, to let him die, or what I thought was almost as bad, to bring him to the priest: so just as I was in this quandary, a dealer in rabbit-skins one day stopped to get his ass shod in my forge; and he told me there was a place down far amongst the mountains, beyond the Rosses, where there was a wise woman who could

stop -convulsive fits.-So away I travelled to this woman, and I gave her a golden guinea to tell me what would save Tommy so she gave me a black cock that never crowed, and she desired me to take and bury that cock alive along with a lock of the child's hair and the parings of his nails, in the grave, where, if the child had died, he should have buried him. Accordingly I came home and did as this fairy woman directed : and there is Tommy, God bless him, alive to this very day-going to your Reverence's school, and saying his catechism like a proper Protestant: indeed it would have broken my heart to send one who bore my own name and my grandfather's to the priest; for Sir, I am proud to say that my grandfather was one of the prentice boys who shut the gates of Derry, and defended that good town for King William and the Protestant cause."

This instance of superstitious weakness, I am well assured, could not occur at present; for the Protestant clergy are now much more

active-more efficient-more under the sanctions of Gospel truth than they were some years ago; and wherefore is this?-because the Episcopacy of this district of Ireland has been for some years, well and faithfully served. The bounteous, princely munificence of one prelate—his cool steady circumspect character-succeeded as he was by a man of commanding talent, and indefatigable exertion-overseeing every thing— overlooking nothing -fearless in investigation, faithful in duty, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord -this man seemed to be set in his high and arduous station for the rise of the Church of Ireland to its due eminence; and under God, he appears destined to revive the spirit of the Reformation in Ireland. Young men under his auspices, started forth to fill the ministrations of this diocese-to preach truth, and practise piety,-an excitement in this way was caused, and Gospel seed was sown, which under Providence must produce fruit an hundred fold; and in more than one instance such a sensation was excited by the

preaching of a highly gifted young man, that the roads on the sabbath day leading to the church, when he preached, were crowded with all classes of Protestants flocking to hear-like men hastening to some great fair, or market, or race-course,-hither the Dissenters flocked, and here their old prejudices against the service-book thawed away, while with open hearts they received the message of peace and pardon proclaimed to poor sinners through the blood of Jesus; even scoffers went to hear him and they never sneered more; even Deists and Socinians bowed and yielded up their scepticism before the ascendancy of his preaching. I did not on this occasion hear this young man; he had left this district, being called to another sphere of action, but in departing he threw his mantle over the shoulders of his equal in the knowledge of divine truth,-his superior perhaps in the power of enforcing it. On my return from the highlands of Donegal, I staid for some days at the comfortable and hospitable residence of an old and excellent friend, who