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I was now to bid adieu to my pleasant haunts, chief among which was the lordly castle of Kilkenny, where I had passed so very many delightful hours. Its noble owners were abroad, but by their favour I had a key to the private door beside the river, and full access to every part of the castle and its beautiful grounds. It was there I used to muse on days of Ireland's bygone greatness, though not then well-read in her peculiar history, and gradually I had become as Irish as any of her own children. How could it be otherwise? I was not naturally cold-hearted, though circumstances had indeed greatly frozen the current of my warm affections, and I had learned to look with comparative indifference on whatever crossed my changeful path; but no one with a latent spark of kindly feeling can long repress it among the Irish. There is an ardour of character, an earnestness in their good-will, a habit of assimilating themselves to the tastes and habits of those whom they desire to please—and that desire is very general-that wins on the affections of those who possess any, a grateful regard, and leaving on the scenes that have witnessed such intercourse a sunshine peculiar to themselves. Reserve of manner cannot long exist in Irish society I have met with some among the people of the land, who were cold and forbidding, insensible and unkind, but these were exceptions, establishing the rule by the very disagreeable contrast in which they stood out from all around them: and I never found these persons in the humbler classes, where the unmixed Irish prevails. Hospitality is indeed the pole-star of Ire

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land; go where you will it is always visible; but it shines the brightest in the poor man's cabin, because the potato that he so frankly, so heartily, so gracefully presses upon your acceptance is selected from a scanty heap, barely sufficient to allay the cravings of hunger in himself and his half-clad little ones. In this as in all other particulars a change for the worse has come over the people of late; priestly authority has interposed to check the outgoings of kindness, from a warm-hearted people to those who are indeed their friends, and a painful, reluctant restraint is laid upon them; but the evil had not become evident at the time of my sojourn there, and I can only speak of them as the most respectful, most courteous and hospitable peasantry in the world. At the same time they were in many respects the most degraded. Nothing could equal the depth of their abasement before an insolent priesthood, except the unblushing effrontery with which the latter lorded it over them. For any infraction of their arbitrary rules the most cruel and humiliating penances were imposed. I knew an instance of a young woman, a Romanist, who engaged in the service of a Protestant family, and went out with them to America. While there, she was led to join in family worship, but without any intention of forsaking her own creed; neither had they attempted to draw her out of the net. On her return to Kilkenny she went to confession, and among other things divulged the fact of having heard the Bible read, and prayed in company with heretics. This was an enormity too great for the priest to deal

with alone; so he ordered the girl off, fasting, to her original confessor, who then officiated in a chapel seven good Irish miles distant. On hearing the case, he ordered her to go thrice round the chapel on her bare knees, and then to set off, still fasting, and walk back to Kilkenny, there to undergo such additional penance as his reverend brother should see good to impose. The poor creature scarcely reached the town alive, through fatigue, exhaustion and terror; she was ill for some time, and on her recovery subjected to farther discipline. These particulars I had from one of her own friends and a bigotted papist to boot, who told it in order to convince me that the girl had committed a very great sin. I once asked a young man how he got on at confession-whether he told all his sins. He replied, 'Sometimes I disremember a few, and if the priest suspects it, he pulls my hair, and boxes my ears, to help my memory.' 'And how do you feel when you have got absolution?' 'I feel myself all right; and I go out and begin again.' And how do you know that God has really pardoned you?' 'He doesn't pardon me directly; only the priest does. He (the priest) confesses my sins to the bishop, and the bishop confesses them to the pope, and the pope sees the Virgin Mary every Saturday night, and tells her to speak to God about it.' And you really believe this monstrous story?' Why shouldn't I? But it is no affair of

mine, for, once I have confessed, all my sins are laid on the priest, and he must do the best he can to get rid of them. I am safe.' Of such materials is the net com

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posed that holds these people in bondage; and who can marvel that such prostration of mind before a fellow mortal should lead to an abject slavery of the whole man, body, conscience, and understanding? We see the effects, and abhor them; but we do not go to the root of the matter. The priest himself is equally enslaved his oath binds him to an implicit blind reception of tenets which he is not permitted to investigate, and which make him the pliant tool of a higher department of this detestable machinery. He receives his cue from the bishops, and they are wholly governed by the Propaganda at Rome, whither each of them is bound periodically to appear, for personal examination and fresh instructions. The Propaganda is, of course, the primum mobile of the system, set a-going by Satan himself. Hence the mischief that is perpetrated by the unhappy beings who form the operative section of this cunning concern; the handicraft men of blood. It is an awful spectacle, and one that we cannot long avert our eyes from contemplating with the deep interest that personal peril excites. All is preparing for a burst of persecution against the people of the Lord, and happy is he who shall be found armed and watching!

WE started for Dublin with sorrowing hearts, for it was likely to be a long if not a last farewell to friends who were endeared as well by a participation in danger as in feeling. Those who have daily been expecting to die together in a holy cause cannot lightly part. One of the last things that I learned before leaving the place was communicated to me by an intimate friend and near neighbour, a very sweet Christian character. She had lived on terms of intimacy with a Romish family in the town, and a few days previous to my departure the mother of this family called on Miss with tears

entreating her to embrace Popery; for that the next year would witness the utter extermination of Protestants, and it would be out of her power, or that of any other person, to save any life, however dear to them. She urged it with most affectionate importunity, and evidently much distressed at her failure. Whether the better informed class of the Romanists believed in Pas