HISTORY OF A LAY BROTHER.

"Ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves."-Matthew xxiii., 15.

In our last number* we promised to give some account of a LAY BROTHER, who assumed a female dress, and of his awful disclosures. We hasten to redeem our pledge. For obvious reasons we have suppressed the real names of the parties concerned, but the facts may be relied upon. The subject of this memoir was born at Chepstow. His grandfather was descended from an ancient family in Ireland, and was a major in the army, and most celebrated for his prowess, resolution, and courage; and what may be deemed extraordinary in a soldier, was no less considerable for his parts and learning. This gentleman coming into England, was a short time afterwards married to a merchant's widow, of considerable fortune, in London, by whom he had only one son and two daughters. The daughters married during their father's lifetime, to rich tradesmen of the city, whose posterity still continue there in good credit and reputation. On the death of the Major, and his wife, which happened in the same year, his estate devolved to his only son, who is spoken of as a person of incomparable natural parts. He entered the army, as his father had done, and behaved himself most gallantly through a tedious and dangerous warfare, in which he received no less than nine different wounds, the effects of which remained to the day of his death. During his residence at Chepstow, he was attacked by a fever, which greatly reduced him, and almost caused his death. Being mercifully recovered from his dangerous illness, after some little time he married a young lady of the same town. A short time after his marriage, he was desirous of removing to London, where he had a house of his own, and a considerable sum of money, which, for security, he had buried in his cellar; but his lady not liking to leave the place of her birth, and residence of her friends, he furnished a house and grounds at Chepstow, where he resided for seven years and a half. He had three sons and two daughters, and departing this life, left his whole estate at the disposal of his wife. The names of his children were William, Charles, James, Alice, and Mary. The second son perished at sea. Alice married the eldest son of a

* Page 22.

nobleman. What became of the others, except so much as relates to William, we have not been able to ascertain.

Their mother continued a widow for twelve years, giving her children the best education that either the country or Bristol could afford. She afterwards married a person of no great fortune, but one who is celebrated for his incomparable ingenuity. He is said to be the first who contrived a smoke-jack for turning a spit, and that made a clock which went with air, and another with water. He also constructed a very small watch, the greater part of it being only of wood.

Once he

On one

WILLIAM was born on the 20th of May. It is said that at three years of age he could read the hardest chapter in the Bible. His childhood was remarkable for some wonderful escapes from death. was in danger of being blown up by the ball of a cannon. occasion he followed his father to the Church at Chepstow, who, with other of the parishioners, went to inspect the battlements in order to some repairs. They had hardly left the churchyard before several pieces fell from the tower. Some of his escapes were so extraordinary, that if they were related the reader might fancy it was a romance, not a history, which was before him. At twelve years of age he had made considerable progress in the classics, many crabbed pieces of which, both in Latin and Greek, he was able to construe. Being well supplied with books, he greatly improved himself in several kinds of learning. He was well read in history, both sacred and profane, in natural philosophy, anatomy, and several branches of mathematics. His knowledge of heraldry was such, that he was able to give an account of the coat of arms of any family of note in England. In music and drawing he was also a proficient. Hence his society was much coveted by the gentry thereabouts, especially by the more ingenious and sober portion of them. His moral conduct was unimpeached, and his religion was that of a true ancient Protestant.

Being observed now by all to be a most ingenious person, and capable of undertaking any great achievement, the JESUITS (who then made it their endeavours to trepan such into their councils) used every effort to undermine his faith, and seduce him to their church.

(To be continued.)

THE

BRISTOL PROTESTANT.

HISTORY OF THE LAY BROTHER.

(Continued from page 48.)

They, in the first instance, employed a nobleman of the Roman Catholic persuasion to obtain permission from his mother to allow him to accompany him in his travels on the Continent. This person was very importunate with his mother, and made her several most advantageous offers for the advancement of her son. He even promised to send him to College, and settle and maintain him there; but she, suspecting his design, refused to give her consent.

His most indefatigable tempter was the famous JESUIT, Father L., who was afterwards executed at Monmouth for treason. He used often to come to Chepstow, and brought other JESUITS along with him, endeavouring to pervert him. They introduced him into the families of all the Papists of note at that time resident in those parts. By those persons he was courted after an extraordinary manner. They strove to tempt him with fair promises of preferment, and such other allurements as are wont to succeed with the gay and inexperienced. But, notwithstanding all their devices and machinations, he was so far from imbibing any of their evil principles, that he became so much the more valiant in defence of the Church of England, of which he was at that period a consistent member, and, for a season, in a kind of despair, they discontinued their attempts.

When little more than twenty years of age, an unhappy difference arose between him and his father-in-law, which led to his leaving home and going to London. His mother having furnished him with a considerable sum of money, he took lodgings in the Strand, where two JESUITS, Father H. and Father J., had likewise apartments.

E

On the Sunday after his entering upon his lodgings, the landlord invited him to dinner, at which the aforesaid JESUITS and other lodgers were present. After the cloth was drawn, the conversation turned on religion. The discourse was managed with great subtlety and cunning by the JESUITS, who, though they levelled their whole attack against the Church of England, at the same time insinuated that they were Protestants, and pretended greatly to lament its degenerating condition. Their sallies against the clergy were most severe, nor were their remarks confined to persons of inferior note, Barlow, Stillingfleet, Lloyd, and Tillotson, those famous champions of our religion, did not escape their lash. The subject of this memoir, however, easily perceived their sophistry, took up the defence, and with such strong reasoning vindicated the Protestant religion in general, and the clergy of the Church of England in particular, that the JESUITS, notwithstanding their learning, were compelled to yield him the victory. Being now more intimately acquainted with his parts and courage, they plied him with other arguments: but finding him this way impregnable, and too strongly armed against all their artillery, they at last resolved on another method.

They well knew the frailty of human nature, and how easily the strongest reasons and best founded principles are brought into subjection by the passions; they determined to introduce him into the various scenes of gaiety and dissipation, well knowing that if they could only bring him to be of no religion, they would be in a fair progress to make him a PAPIST. (To be continued.)

THE POPISH CONFESSIONAL.

The following extract, from Mr. Nolan's third pamphlet, gives a fearful picture of the iniquity and crime promoted by the Confessional in Ireland :

"During the last three years I discharged the duty of a Romish Clergyman, my heart often shuddered at the idea of entering the Confessional. The thoughts of the many crimes I had to hear the growing doubt upon my mind that confession was an erroneous doctrine-that it tended more

to harden than to reclaim the heart, and that through it I should be rendered instrumental in ministering destruction to your souls, were awful considerations to me in the hours of my reflection. The recitals of the murderous acts I had often heard through this iniquitous tribunal, had cost me many a restless night, and are still fixed with horror upon my memory. But, my friends, the most awful of all considerations is thisthat through the Confessional I had been frequently apprised of intended assassinations and most diabolical conspiracies; and still, from the ungodly injunctions of secrecy in the Romish Creed, lest, as Peter Dens says, the Confessional should become odious, I dared not give the slightest information to the marked-out victims of the slaughter. But though my heart now trembles at my recollection of the murderous acts, still duty obliges me to proceed, and enumerate one or two instances of the cases alluded to.

"The first is the case of a person who was barbarously murdered, and with whose intended assassination I became acquainted at confession. One of the five conspirators (all of whom were sworn to commit the horrid deed) broached to me the bloody conspiracy in the Confessional. I implored him to desist from his intention, and of becoming an accomplice to so diabolical a design. But, alas, all advice was uselessno persuasion could prevail, his determination was so fixed; and his only reason for having disclosed the awful machination to his confessor, seemed to have arisen from a hope that this wicked design would be hallowed by his previous acknowledgment of it to his priest. Finding all my remonstrances unavailing, I then recurred to stratagem. I earnestly besought of him to mention the circumstances to me out of the Confessional, in order that I might apprise the intended victim of his danger, or caution the conspirators against the committal of so inhuman a deed. But here ingenuity itself failed in arresting the career of his satanic obstinacy. The conspirator's illegal oath, and his apprehension of himself becoming the victim of brutal assassination, should he be known as the revealer of the conspiracy, rendered him inflexible to my entreaties; and awful to relate-yes, awful-and the hand that now pens it shudders at the record it makes-a poor inoffensive man, the victim of slaughter,