Prot. I adduce it chiefly to illustrate (believing as I do the authenticity of the narrative) the readiness with which the mind of the ignorant worshipper seizes hold of the object presented to it by your church, and thus avoids the necessity which the Bible lays upon him, of seeking God, who is a Spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth, through the alone mediation and intercession of Christ. You may define what you call latria and what you call dulia; but the poor mechanic, or the simple child knows only one thing, which is worship. This worship he pays to a piece of wafer, when uplifted by the priest at what you call the altar.' He pays it again before the image of the Virgin, so soon as the mass' is over. He then returns home, and before he sleeps, he says his rosary, which includes a vain and senseless repetition of the Lord's Prayer ten times; but a still more senseless address to the Virgin of fifty prayers. All that is really accomplished by this idle ceremony, is the offering an insult to God, by elevating Mary to greater honour than her Creator and Redeemer ! But ask this poor deluded votary touching the difference between his prayers to God and to the Virgin. What can he tell you, beyond the verbal distinction, that one latria and the other dulia? Practically, however, there is no real difference; or if there be any, it consists in a greater degree of faith and hope, exercised with respect to his addresses to Mary, than with reference to those to God or to Christ. He believes, he is taught to believe, that Mary's ears are more open to his cry, that her heart more readily sympathizes with his wants and his sorrows, than does the heart of his Saviour. And therefore it is that this idolworship is so universally a favour

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ite among your people. rosary,' says Mr. O'Croly, which should be called their devotion to the Virgin, forms the sum total of their religious worship.' worship.' And, placed in this elevated rank, as hiding the Saviour almost wholly from the sinner's view, it could not be otherwise than dreadfully offensive to God, even were it less sinful and unscriptural in itself. But when we remember that this worship, which, it is thus admitted, absorbs and swallows up the whole soul of devotion among your people, is in itself altogether opposed to the word of God, to reason, and to common sense, and can rank no higher, with any rightly judging man, than the worship of Juno or of Minerva among the ancient heathen, how frightful does the view become ! The whole church, falsely called "Catholic," bowing down with one consent before the effigy of a poor human creature! Men and women called Christians, addressing, from the four quarters of the globe, prayers to one who cannot hear them! And as the result of the whole, that result which is Satan's grand aim, the Saviour disregarded; scarcely ever addressed in prayer, or when so addressed, insulted with the petition, that he will do so and so, in respect to the merits of Saint Clementina, or St. Carlino, or some other poor creature, whose salvation, if achieved at all, was solely his own work, and the reward of his own sufferings! No! it is imporsible for any calm and unbiassed mind, to contemplate seriously the habitual worship of your people, without being convinced, that the worship of God has been superseded and pushed aside among them; and that it is replaced by another worship, the worship of dead men and women, which is neither more or less than IDOLATRY.

IRELAND is favoured with few warmer and more industrious friends than CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH. Her pen is incessantly employed, and her numerous tracts and essays appear to have been eminently useful. We took up therefore the present volume with pleasing anticipations, and those anticipations have been realized. These Letters contain much that is instructive and interesting, and they justly deserve an extensive circulation.

Our Author landed at Waterford in June 1837. From that city she proceeded to New Ross, Wexford, Enniscorthy, Vinegar Hill, Dublin, Mullingar, Trim, Drogheda, Newry, Tollymore Park, Tandragee Castle, Belfast, Coleraine, and Londonderry, from which city she returned by steamer to Liverpool in August, having spent eight weeks in Ireland. Her route lay through many of the most interesting spots in a moral point of view in Ireland; and she explored with unwearied activity the natural beauties with which the country abounds. Her work abounds with lively narrative, and description; but our notice of it must be chiefly confined to those parts especially relating to the moral and religious state of Ireland.

One of the first and most important inquiries with respect to Ireland is, To what is its destitute and degraded state especially owing?

I have looked around me with an earnest desire to obtain clear views on that stiffly-contested point, the origin of Irish evils. Their existence is not disputed, neither can any person actually on the spot, who has had previous opportunities of investigation, deny that they have alarmingly increased. I have no hesitation in declaring that, trunk and branch, they spring

and thrive from one plain root, culpable neglect of the poor; and that one remedy alone can reach the seat of disease, a competent provision for that neglected class. You will not suppose that in these words I include only bodily relief: I do indeed believe, and am perfectly certain, that without a permanent, legalized, sufficient provision, on the plan of a poor-law enactment, nothing whatever will be done to improve the state of Ireland; but I am equally sure that the most ample supply of all their temporal need will be alike inefficacious, while their minds remain under the baneful influence of popery. It is idle to argue the contrary, from the fact of some continental nations presenting a picture of tranquil industry and comparative prosperity, while still in bondage to the See of Rome: they are not subjects of an essentially Protestant state nor is it the interest of their priests to encourage disaffection to their respective governments. If it were so, the history of the world, from the first rise of the Papal kingdom to this time, furnishes proof that they would speedily find a pretext for exciting the people. The cruel, shameful neglect, that allows the Irish peasant to perish in utter destitution, is indeed a powerful weapon in the hands of his misleaders: but, were that removed, so long as the high places in the state, the revenues of the church, the magisterial and military power, are not lodged exclusively with themselves, so long will those whose influence governs the popular mass, both of mind and matter, in this country, be movers of sedi tion. Trust me, while Mordecai sits in the gate, his ancient enemy, Haman, who abhors his race, will disregard with sullen unthankfulness all the favours, all the privileges that can be heaped upon him, and go to his house heavy and displeased.

How far the recent enactments of our legislature are calculated to meet the exigency of the case may admit of considerable doubt. The opposition of O'Connell is indeed a strong presumption in favour of any measure; for as his wealth is intimately connected with the miseries of Ireland, whatever is really beneficial to his country, interferes with his own narrow and selfish

views, and therefore provokes his indignation. There are however practical difficulties in the way of the Poor Law Commissioners which can only be surmounted by great acuteness and dexterity. The extent of Irish pauperism is beyond all calculation, and the scarcity of intelligent and trustworthy agents to supply the place of guardians, overseers, relieving officers, &c. may well excite apprehensions as to the final result, especially as the introduction of English agents would doubtless excite considerable hostility and opposition.

The state of the English and Irish peasantry is strikingly contrasted by our author.

The English labourer, she ob

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Has his tenement at a fair valuation : so long as his rent is forthcoming he may safely calculate on the continuance of these comforts; and when all fails, a resource is left, and he is under no apprehension of perishing by the road side.

But the poor Irish cottier, or labourer, knows nothing of this independence. You must imagine, first, a state of society where the individual past work has no public asylum, no gratuitous provision of any sort whatever in store: the only prospect is that of having children grown up, who, through the powerful influence of natural feelings, cherished as most sacred among these people, will be constrained to shelter and sustain an infirm parent. Go where you will among the Irish poor, you may hear this motive expressly assigned for the very early marriages that they contract. If they deferred the engagement until they might have realized some little matter to begin the world with, their children would not be sufficiently grown to take charge of them, on the approach of the premature old age induced by their severe privations and over-work. Accordingly, they hasten to form an alliance. The mere boy, anticipating the period when he shall no longer be able to labour for himself, determines to provide betimes against the evil day, and looks about for a girl to suit him, when, in all probability, the connexions of both parties can scarcely muster among them the means for paying the exorbitant marriage fee which the priest never omits to demand. They must have a habitation, and the youthful settler is not long in finding a cabin with its single apartment, mud walls, ceiling of thatch,

and floor of earth. Chimney it has probably none, the window is merely an aperture in the side; the door a few broken boards patched together, and the fire-place a stone laid on the bare ground. For furniture, there is a straw palliasse, or very likely only a litter of straw shaken down in one corner, to form the bed, and perhaps a blanket or so. A thick block, hewed from a tree, serves as the table; the householder, if ingenious, may have fashioned out a couple of stools; or some wealthy friend may present him with a wooden chair. An iron pot to boil potatoes, and a mug of any material, complete the necessary furniture of this abode. Plates, knives, and such appendages, are unthought of. Whatever surplus may remain after satisfying the priest, must go towards treating the friends of the family.

But the rent-such a cabin is rated as high as the Englishman's cottage. I do not remember to have known less than thirty shillings charged on any one in a long street of these dwellings, where I was intimately conversant with all the details. How is the young tenant to pay this rent, entering on the holding as he does, pennyless, and with the hopeful prospect of a growing family to enliven it? As the English cottager does. No-there is no parallel here. The Irish cottier, or labourer, knows nothing of bread as an article of food; his scanty wages would not purchase enough of it to satisfy the cravings of his own hunger, much less would they extend to the wants of his family, and the payment of his rent. The potatoe is his only dependence, and the first necessary of life is to procure a plot of ground for the cultivation of the root. Two alternatives alone appear; either he must agree with his landlord to work out in day-labour the amount of his holding, or else he must make the ground attached to it yield a sufficiency for all demands. The latter he can rarely, if ever do: for ground to be at all productive demands frequent dressing; and this again requires an outlay of money, and money he has none. If he reserves to himself so much of the produce as will feed his household, the remainder will never for any time suffice to cover the landlord's claim. On the other hand, if he undertakes to work out the value of his possession, a rate of wages is invariably fixed that leaves him far behind hand; and the arrear accumulating as he goes on, increases his difficulties, depresses his mind, and paralyses the main-spring of industry-honest independence. Children are born, unavoidable expences are incurred, and for the supply of all these pressing wants he has the little potatoe plot, which, in a bad season, will not furnish his own family with a daily meal throughout the year.

Some of them must beg; it is a sore trial to his feelings, but how can he help it? The utmost that he earns will barely satisfy the landlord, and avert an ejectment, and those whom he cannot feed must cater for themselves, by appealing to casual charity.

To remedy these evils requires not only the adoption of a system of poor laws, but also the introduction of scriptural education; and the destruction of the existing system of Romish tyranny and oppression. But our conduct towards Ireland has been marked by a melancholy disregard of the lessons of experience. The rebellion of 1798 was for the most part a religious conflict; the Romish priests were the ring leaders, in many cases the actual commanders, and excited and urged on their wretched slaves to the murderous conflict. Yet to this day no measures have been adopted to check and restrain the tremendous power of the Romish priesthood, which has on the contrary been exceedingly increased by the establishment of Maynooth College, by the concessions of 1829; and the infatuated policy of the existing administration.

With reference to the Irish rebellion of 1798, our author ob

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A lesson of wisdom was derivable from the event, which has been read backwards and transformed into a lesson of fatuity. The vital principle of that rebellion has been nourished, and fostered, and nursed into more portentous growth and energy; the means of our former deliverance have been rejected, broken, scattered to the winds. At best, the hope was faint and the probabilities of success doubtful and contracted, as regarded the infusion of a better spirit into the adult race of Irish Romanists, but a noble field lay before us in the rising generation; while the anxiety of the poor parents to see their chil. dren taught, opened a vista of brightness and beauty, to fill the Christian heart with joy. We approached them with the boon, of all gifts most prized by them-a fair system of education, combining useful knowledge in the affairs of this life with the far more precious instruction that maketh wise unto salvation. The priesthood of Rome would necessarily array themselves in opposition to the latter; because it was letting in light where their

interests made the prevalence of utter darkness indispensable; but experience had shewn that in the breast of an Irish peasant one feeling could prevail over the otherwise insurmountable habit of subjection to the priest. Despite of all that the latter could do, wherever a scriptural school was opened, thither the children flocked; and if by the force of intimidation, or, as it often happened, by the vigorous application of a stout horsewhip, the little ones were for a time arrested in their path, an instance was never known where they did not soon contrive to surmount the barrier, and to return-flying like doves to their windows. By this means, a tie the most endearing was gradually forming between the poor Romanist population and their Protestant landlords and neighbours. That precious book, the message of which is, Glory to God in the highest; on earth peace, good-will towards men,' was prevailing where nothing else could prevail, to remove the mists of prejudice, and to cement a band, indissoluble by all the craft and subtlety of the devil or man. The Irish are a most affectionate people; win their hearts, and they are wholly yours. What sight so calculated to awaken the strongest emotions of grateful attachment as that of their children carefully tended and taught under the direction of their more affluent neighbours, receiving at their hands the reward of diligence and obedience, while the fruits of those habits, and of the higher principle instilled through God's holy word, shed a light and a comfort at home to which the miserable cabin had before been a stranger.

Neither was this a mere theory; the experiment had been a trial for some years, and the effects were beginning to manifest themselves in a way calculated to make the kingdom of darkness tremble for the foundations of its throne. Dear friend, my heart sickens over the sad reverse presented to my view. Many a delightful hour have I passed in schools conducted under the different plans that, however varying in detail, all met in one common centre-and that centre the Holy Bible. Now, if I see a Romish chapel, I look in its immediate vicinitywithin the very precincts of its boundary -for some new, spruce building, bearing the inscription National School ;' and what is the system of instruction adopted there? The Bible is excluded; a mutilated extract, unfaithful even in its mutilations, is substituted nominally; but even that is scarcely ever used; while all the debasing fables of monkish superstition, all the contaminating licentiousness of the lowest class of immoral and indecent publications, are placed in the hands of the poor children; and in a multitude of in.

stances the person appointed to the office of master, is a furious zealot in popery and sedition. These, you will say, are strong statements: challenge me to the proof; and proofs you shall have, too conclusive as to the fact.

The character of the National Education system in Ireland, is strikingly pourtrayed in a subsequent page.

But, alas! the bright picture of Christian zeal and diligence in Newry is deeply shadowed with that ominous, unwelcome appendage, the new National Education system. I have not, as yet, fallen in with a single individual of either sex, from Waterford to Newry, who does not denounce it as a curse to the land. In Dublin I saw the immense building, or rather palace, that they are preparing for the Central Board; but I had neither leisure nor inclination to turn my attention from better things to that mischievous institution. In Newry the plan is vigorously pursued, under the special patronage of priests and nuns and a few plain facts in reference to this place may give you an idea of the reasonableness of the hope indulged by some, that Popery will be undermined by such a system. You know the ostensible purpose of these schools is to provide a strictly neutral ground, on which the children of both parties can meet, without any danger of either being influenced in a way contrary to the wishes of their parents. The necessity for such a plan is stated to have arisen from the objections raised by the poor people against having their little ones taught to read the word of God; and. the notable device agreed upon was, that religious instruction of all descriptions should be excluded from the schools, except at particular hours, on a stated day in the week, when a separation was to be carefully made, the children of the Romanists to be taught according to the doctrines of Popery by their peculiar guides, and those of Protestants allowed to receive scriptural instruction from any clergyman who might choose to give it. Well, this looked plausible in the eyes of that class called liberal, and even deceived some really good people. How do you suppose it is carried into effect here? The National School for girls adjoins the convent,-the usual entrance being through that building, with another door on a line with the nunnery hall-door, and within its precincts. The teachers are all nuns, habited in the most remarkable and extreme dress of a monastic order, robes, rosaries, and all the awful paraphernalia of the black sisters. No Protestant visitor can enter this 'public' school, without being previously examined, and kept waiting suf

ficiently long to put aside objectionable books; but in spite of every precaution it has been ascertained, and proved too upon oath, that at all hours bigoted catechisms of the Romish church are in use, being regularly taught by the nuns; and books of the most pernicious tendency have been found in the hands of the children. Attempts are continually made to induce the Protestant pupils to join in these exercises; by introducing them during the period avowedly set apart for secular study; and the consequence is that all their parents who do not value a little paltry and most miserably inferior education for their children before the salvation of their souls, are obliged to withdraw them. Consequently the national grant, with all the vast and costly machinery of this deceitful system are employed in rivetting the fetters of spiritual bondage on these poor little creatures by the hands of male and female ecclesiastics of the Romish creed. What renders the whole thing most inexcusable is, that by a rule of the board, the regular daily teachers must belong to the laity, while here, as in Galway, and innumerable other places, professed nuns are the sole and exclusive conductors of the whole business of the girl's school; as monks, regularly habited, and belonging to the various orders, Dominican, Franciscan, Carmelite, black, grey, and so forth, are of the boys. It is common to have a small sliding pannel in the doors, which are kept locked: when a visitor knocks, the master partially withdraws the slide, takes a survey, asks questions, then re-fastens his pannel, and puts away whatever books he does not wish to expose to the prying gaze of a heretic, before the door is opened. I will give you an extract from a book studied by the children in the nun's National School here in Newry, that you may duly appreciate the 'useful knowledge' instilled into the minds of the pupils, and admire the strict adberence of the Board to its first great principles of total abstinence from all that can offend the consciences of any class. Here it is the work is entitled 'Indulgences granted by the sovereign Pontiffs to the faithful who perform the devotions and pious works prescribed.' Printed by and for the Catholic Book Society;' and it was found among the books for united instruction-that is, for instruction totally unconnected with any thing religious, during the hours when, on the faith of this exclusion of all that could bias the minds of the children either way, all are mingled together. As a specimen of the valuable information contained in the volume, and its freedom from all obnoxious subjects, take the following: 'By a plenary indulgence we gain the remission of all the punishment which remains due to sins forgiven, provided we have the proper