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CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

we came to discuss the grounds of his dissent. Had I not already brought my prayer-book to the test, in the way related, before any bias could disturb my mind, I really think I should have been overcome in an argument where the odds were so strong against me; but thus prepared I could repel all charges on fundamental points; and in matters indifferent, I refused to recognise a sufficient excuse for separating from what in its constitution was decidedly scriptural and good. My church was taxed with being essentially popish, and in rebutting this I became better acquainted with her essential Protestantism. She was denounced as a worldly, secular system, opposed to the declaration of our Lord that his kingdom is not of this world; but I had sense enough to see, and to point out the total irrelevancy of that hackneyed quotation to the subject of ecclesiastical establishments. The unholy lives of too many of her clergy, with their shameful neglect of the souls committed to them, I could not deny; but already a great revival had taken place among the Irish parochial clergy; it was proceeding rapidly; and while this evidenced that God was still with her, I could also point to the ordination vows, and show that it was to the wickedness of individuals in breaking the most solemn engagements, not to any defect in the system, or any lack of strong injunctions to zeal, diligence, and devotion, we must attribute the acknowledged evils existing among others. My friend, too, always mild, kind, and charitable on other subjects, generally laid aside these characteristics when on this, and assailed the established church with weapons of ridicule, sarcasm, scorn, and bitterness, which certainly produced on me the contrary effect to what was intended. He seemed to me to pay little attention to the spiritual wants of the poor deluded Romanists, rather seeking to convert Episcopalians into Dissenters, than Papists into Christians. Measuring all things by the standard of the written word, I became more fully convinced, the

built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles; and even under the disadvantages of such a location as I have described, I continued firm in my attachment to her. Some people told me I ought to take higher ground in upholding the episcopal establishment of this country. If they will point out to me any ground higher than the top of the rock whereon I believe her to stand, that rock being Christ, I will take it; but none, none so high, none so sure can be found. Apostolical succession in office is a good thing when the succession in doctrine is equally clear; otherwise they who now officiate in the mosque of Omar, standing on the site of the temple in Jerusalem, and he who sits supreme in the see of Rome, the man of sin, and son of perdition, may respectively claim succession to the Aaronic priesthood and the apostolic ministry. I do not deny that a regular succession exists in the British churches, derived from an apostolic mission, long before Augustine or any other Romish emissary set foot on our soil to pollute the stream; but I should never for a moment dream of adducing that as an argument against one who calls in question the scripturality of our church, since in so doing I might admit the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth to a participation in the privileges which none but the lamb's pure wife has any claim to. For my own part, I had never heard of such a thing, when God enabled me to stand firm as a member of this maligned church of England; and it is one of the many cases in which I had nothing to unlearn, just because man had taught me nothing, but all I knew was drawn from the clear fountain of eternal truth, opened in the pages of that precious volume, for the gift of which all praise and glory be to God, through Christ Jesus, now and forever!

LETTER VII.

KILKENNY.

I AM now to bring you into the stirring scenes of that time and place where the rebellious spirit of Popish agitation had just broken out afresh in Ireland. An invitation to pass some weeks in the county of Kilkenny led us to it as guests and inducements that it was not easy to resist fixed us there as residents for three years. In this part of my narrative no disguise is needful; the facts are before the world, and the estimable man who was made the first victim of this atrocious conspiracy is gone to his rest, after patiently enduring years of persecution, of exile, and of bodily and mental suffering induced by the scenes he was compelled to pass through.

Vicarsfield, the beautiful parsonage of Dr. Hamilton, is in the county, ten Irish miles from the town of Kilkenny. Knoctopher is the parish; and at that time the old church was standing, about half a mile from the vicarage, which stood secluded, withdrawn from the public road, nestled in the rich foliage of many fine trees, and adorned with lovely pleasure-grounds. It was the happy privilege of that truly pious minister to originate the clerical meetings which were so eminently, so extensively blessed to the clergy of that diocese, over which his father had presided as bishop. For

a man of fine mind, deep erudition, unbounded benevolence, and Christian sweetness that endeared him to every one. His income was considerable; and while exercising the rites of a truly Irish hospitality on a noble scale, he expended a large proportion of that income in works of charity equally judicious, liberal, and impartial. He had under his roof thirteen poor girls, who were educated, maintained, taught, in all the requisites of good household servants, and finally placed out in the families of his friends. Mrs. Hamilton seemed to have her heart in this school, over which a very competent mistress presided, and a more beautifully ordered little nursery of valuable domestics I never saw. Besides

this, large benefactions were distributed, in clothing, fuel, and other necessaries, among the poor of the parish, without any regard to religious distinction; and as the Romanists amounted to above twelve hundred, while the Protestants could not muster one, and the former were infinitely more necessitous than the latter, of course nearly all went to them. I dwell upon these things and upon the exceeding kind-heartedness of the good clergyman and his affectionate partner towards their poor neighbours, because it throws additional light on the real origin of those acts which the English people were made to believe resulted from oppression on the part of the Protestant clergy.

When first I went to Knocktopher in the summer of 1821, no open act of violence had been committed, or publicly threatened, in its immediate vicinity; but already the name of Captain Rock was becoming formidable. The place borders on Tipperary, from whence came nocturnal parties, scouring the country and alarming the inhabitants on a small scale, while the prelude to much darker scenes was to be traced in the wide circulation of what were called the prophecies of Pastorini. A Dr. Walmsley, a poposh priest,

had written a commentary on the book of Revelation, under that name, wherein he explained the assent of the locusts out of the bottomless pit to prefigure the rise of Protestantism with Luther at it shead; calculating the date of their continuance from 1525, and fixing its termination in 1825. Extracts from this impudently mischievous work were disseminated in every possible form among the Romanists; they were translated into Irish, sent in large numbers to every district to be circulated by careful agents: published in handbills, exhibited in placards, and sung in doggrel rhyme through the streets. There was no article of their faith more devoulty believed by the besotted people than that in 1825 the Protestants of Ireland and of every other country were, by divine appointment to be put to death, except such as should recant; and while the lower orders prepared with terrible alacrityto execute the will of God by a general massacre of their unoffending neighbours, those of higher rank and gentler spirits applied themselves to the work of converting their Protestant friends.

Tokens of the rising storm were visible to those who watched for them; the peasantry began to exchange their courteous, respectful demeanour towards the Protestant gentry for a bearing that bespoke either defiance or lurking malignity. Threatening notices poured in upon the landlords. who presumed to dispose of their property as they chose, and upon the clergy who, in default of payment were obliged to serve processes for the tithe. Proctors were waylaid, process servers cruelly murdered: and the organization of hostile bodies became daily more apparent. As yet, however, we dwelt in comparative security; Dr. Hamilton often rode out with me to the very verge of the dreadful Tipperary ; and his lady drove my mother in her little phaeton to the boundaries of Waterford. No unusual precautions were taken in the way of bolts and bars; and when the good Doctor calmly put into his pocket some of the many letters delivered at the breakfast table, after a slight glance at their