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has a fine property, and a beautiful and highly dressed demense at Convoy, which is within a short drive of the town of Stranorlar, and on the next Sabbath day I was induced to join the family in a drive to church to hear the Rev. Mr. P-e. But too often a church in the country parts of Ireland is a very vacant thing, but indeed it was here far otherwise; a large church was filled almost to inconvenience. Nothing could be better conducted the Liturgy, that master-piece of uninspired man, admirably and feelingly read; the psalmody bursting forth into one accordant peal of praise from one end of the church to the other; not a pew that did not contribute its share to the harmony,-then the sermon.-

Reader did you ever hear Mr. P—? if you have, why I need not describe his matchless powers; you have heard him, and the impression must be indelible; -if you have not, why attempt to pourtray what I cannot do justice to?-At the time I mention, this young man was unknown beyond the circle of a few miles in Donegal. Now every man in the

empire has at least read of him, and I must certainly do myself the justice to say, that on the day I heard him preach at Stranorlar, I marked him down as a man gifted and graced for his Divine Master's use with figure, tone, feeling, energy, talent, truth and piety, so that it could not be but that he should rise to be the first preacher in Ireland. The sermon ceased, and when it ended you might hear a feather fall in the great assembly, so solemn, so awestruck were the poor sinners on hearing God's message from one of the sons of the prophets. At length the people rose, they made haste to proceed home, I trust with the fear of God on many a conscience, but it could not be a thunder storm was abroad, and the rain was teeming down like water from a shower bath My friends (said the anxious minister still untired by his labours,) you had better return to your pews, sit down, and let us read the word of God. We all took his advice, he ascended his pulpit again, and he read and expounded most admirably that most interesting portion of Scripture, the 12th of 2d Corinthians.

"That was a fine shower," said a farmerlike man, as we departed from church after the shower and lecture were over. -"Yes, my man," I rejoined, "I trust it will prove profitable to us all may the word it has caused us to hear, enable us to grow in grace."

C. O.

Though no mineralogist, I would observe, that as a field of research to the miner and geologist, Donegal is well worthy of examination-perhaps more so than any other district of Ireland. I believe every one who knows Ireland must acknowledge that it is not as rich in mineral treasure as Great Britain; and indeed you may travel many miles in our country without meeting any thing worth notice in a mineralogical point of view. But Donegal is certainly an exception; and I understand a Genevan mineralogist, a Monsieur Berger, some years ago traversed the country, and was highly impressed with its mineralogical riches. And I have reason to believe that it is a favourite field of excursion and research to the present professor of mineralogy to the Dublin Society. Here I observed immense tracts of red granite, porphyry, serpentine and primitive limestone, adapted to the uses, as marble, of the statuary and the manufacturer-white, flesh-coloured, dove, and blue. Near Convoy I observed a kind of magnesian stone or steatite, that might be applied to many uses in architecture and the arts; it is as easily cut and carved as a piece of wood: it bears the fire so well that it would answer for crucibles. The country people use it as bowls for tobacco pipes, and it stands the effects of air and moisture. I should imagine it would be of infinite use in ornamental architecture, as a material for those delicate

carvings and tracery, mullions and fretworks of the Gothic style of building. It seemed to stand the weather much better than the soft sandstone of which these ornaments are usually formed in Cathedrals, and which has proved so perishable. On the contrary, I observed this material in walls and other exposed places, and there was no sign of decomposition or exfoliation from the weather. It appears that in the ancient Ecclesiastical architecture of Ireland, they made use of this steatite, for I observed it employed in abundance in the old Abbey of Kilmacrenan, said to be built by Columkill—at all events this Abbey is evidently one of the oldest buildings in Ireland, and here it was used to form a beautiful east window, which is now thrown down and destroyed, but still a great deal of its carved interlacings and fretted work cut out of this cam stone (as it is here called,) lie scattered about the church-yard as head-stones to graves; and the angles are just as sharp and the carvings as accurate as the day they were chiseled: a friend of mine cut off a bas relief, representing a tiger passant, from a solid block of this stone, with a common hand saw, and he said it was easier to him than if he wrought on so much wood of the same diameter. This bas relief must have been chiseled at least 700 years ago.There are many valuable lead and copper mines also in this country; also in some of its larger rivers, pearls of a considerable size and fine colour are found.

SKETCHES IN DONEGAL.

LETTER IV.

TO THE REV. SIR F. L. B- -SSE.

BEFORE I left Donegal, I was determined to make a pilgrimage to Purgatory in the far-famed Island in Lough Derg.-So leaving my hospitable friend's house at Convoy, and proceeding through Stranorlar and Ballybofey; I ascended into a wild moorland, dreary and desolate in the extreme, and approached the gap of Bearnosmore, one of the most magnificent defiles any where to be seen; a chain of lofty mountains extends nearly at right angles from the great ranges that defend the north western coast from the Atlantic,

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