voice, 'Oh, wisha, Aumin Father Jack, agus ma volochth sa loe (and my curse along with them). A solemn pause ensued, and the priest resumed―

666 "Now is the time for the thief to come forward and confess, for that curse of Paddy's will fall, for it came from the heart, whatever mine may do!'

"This case, if it indicates a sadly-perverted morality, in sanctioning personal spite against a fellow-creature, at the same time frees the priest from any feeling of the kind in uttering these fearful curses. It shows that the Roman Catholic priesthood are merely the official engines of the cruel and oppressive tyranny of their system.

"The following fact tends to establish the truth of this remark :

:

"At a contested election for one of the southern counties of Ireland, a farmer came to the same priest, and said,- Father Jack, I'm very much troubled in my mind about my vote, you know your reverence cautioned us all not to vote for Mr.

now, he's my landlord; and he's not only very kind to me entirely, but he has me entirely in his power, for I haven't paid any rent these three years back, barrin a trifle.'

"Oh! I understand you, Paddy,' said the priest; 'well, whatever you do, don't set your friend against you.'

666

'Oh, thank your reverence,' said Paddy; for accustomed, like the poor Irish Roman Catholics in general, to regard his own priest as the embodiment of both Church and Deity, he was quite satisfied he had the full sanction of heaven and the Church for voting for the Conservative candidate. But what was his dismay when, on the Sunday after the election, Father Jack, from the altar, delivered, with pcculiar emphasis, and more than even his usual volubility, a thundering and tremendous volley of curses on the heads of all who had 'voted against God and their religion,' by supporting the Conservative candidate.

"Poor Paddy was horror-stricken; and, watching till the congregation were dispersed, he came trembling like an aspen leaf to the priest, saying,—

"Oh, then, Father Jack, I thought you'd be the last man to thrate poor ould Paddy, that always respected your reverence, and paid up my dues honestly, in the way you did.'

"What ails you, Paddy?' said the priest, really pitying him for his deep and serious distress of countenance and manner.

"What ails me, your reverence? Why, then, sure I'll never have luck nor grace after all them curses you gave this day from God's altar, and I, after gettin, as I thought, your reverence's lave not to set my friend agen me in the vote.'

“Oh! Paddy, you take the thing too much to heart,' said the priest, really wishing to soothe the poor man in his heart-broken condition; and adding, in a subdued, kind voice, 'Say no more about it, Paddy, my poor fellow,—you know I must do my duty, when I'm bid; them curses won't hurt you Paddy; they all go with the wind-they all go with the wind!'"

"Poor Paddy's Cabin" deserves to be very extensively read, and no doubt it is so, for it has already reached a third edition. It is written in a Christian spirit and is free from personal rancour. Paddy however looks rather too much to this life for the recompence of his piety.

In a literary point of view we should have had a higher opinion of the author if he had exhibited a little less vanity. He takes care to inform us that "the metrical mottoes at the heads of the chapters, as well as the

GG

lines of poetry, both in English and Irish, introduced throughout the work, are all original." This is no recommendation of them to us! we should have given the author credit for better taste and more extensive reading had he selected his mottoes, appropriately, from the works of others. Scott certainly was guilty of a similar piece of coxcombry; but then, in the exuberance of his great talents, he delighted to puzzle the learned, and it was only when hard pressed for his authority that he admitted the pretended extracts from the "OLD PLAY" to have been all composed by himself.

We are told that the Irish in this work is written phonetically-not as it is spelt, but as it is pronounced. In trying to utter such words as sprgga, thn, brugh, &c., one might nevertheless make a blunder. We find some little difficulty ourselves in pronouncing a mouthful of consonants at

once.

"Notes at Paris."-These are evidently from the pen of a scholar and a gentleman, apparently a clergyman of the English Church, who visited Paris last year in search of the recently discovered "Philosophumena," or M.S. Treatise on Heresy, brought from Mount Athos, about ten years ago, and which is supposed to have been written by Origen, but has also been ascribed to Tertullian, S. Hippolytus, and others. Although he treats the Roman-Catholic Church very tenderly, he evidently has a great detestation of it in his heart, not unaccompanied with fear; and he sees no safety for the cause of Christianity in England, but in sound learning, enlarging the number of bishops, and promoting the study of churchhistory-the common error of theological teachers, who think popery is to be combated by arguments gathered from the early "Fathers," from which, in our opinion, no more good will result than from endeavouring to bring the wife of your bosom to reason by referring her to the example of your amiable grandmother, when she has a much more respected grandmother of her own to apply to, whose teaching she pretends always to follow.

We have more faith in the establishment of free institutions and the national jealousy of ecclesiastical encroachment, as a palladium of safety, than in any teaching whatever, except that of the Bible itself. We agree with this writer, however, that it is important that all Christians should be united in some common bond. In a certain sense we are so, but not cordially and manifestly as we ought to be. To us it appears that a Church of England is yet wanting; and however little there may be to object to in the thirty-nine articles and the creed of St. Athanasius, their verbal acceptation ought not to be enforced. We want a Church of a larger heart and a more comprehensive theology; and the Reform of the

Universities may, eventually, lead to such a happy result. A Church in the sense of Chllingworth, which would receive us all into her kindly bosom, so that we should feel ashamed not to belong to her; and then such a word as dissent would, for Christians, become obsolete.

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By the religion of Protestants," says the conscientious writer and divine to whom we have just alluded, who had been himself, as it is generally known, a Roman Catholic, "I do not understand the doctrine of Luther, or Calvin, or Melancthon, nor the Confession of Augsburgh,' or Geneva,' nor the Catechism of Heidelberg,' nor the Articles of the Church of England,' no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions:' but that wherein they all agree, and which they all subscribe with a greater harmony, as a perfect rule of faith and action, that is THE BIBLE! The Bible, I say, the Bible only is the religion of Protestants.I, for my part," he presently adds, "after a long (and as I verily believe. and hope) impartial search of the true way to eternal happiness, do profess plainly, that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot but upon this rock only. I see plainly and with my own eyes, that there are Popes against Popes, and Councils against Councils; some Fathers against other Fathers; the same Fathers against themselves; a consent of Fathers of one age against a consent of Fathers of another age; in a word, there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only, for any considering man to build upon. This, therefore, and this only, I have reason to believe."

The houses of prayer or churches should, under the system we could wish to see established, be never shut up! Sanctuaries of refuge would we have them for the repentant, the afflicted, the pious, and the friendless, at all hours of the day and night. How can that be called the House of God from which we are excluded six days out of the seven, and which we only enter at certain fixed periods, to repeat certain forms of prayer with the priest in a very formal manner, and which we must quit, in order that it may be shut up, as soon as his office is concluded?

If you go to Westminster Abbey, for instance, on a Sunday, and linger a few minutes after the service is over to contemplate the monuments and prolong the solemn feelings which, in spite of the artificial nature of the performance you have witnessed, the consciousness of the honoured remains around you has engendered within your bosom, you will be more fortunate than we were if you are not ordered off with very unnecessary insolence by the verger in attendance, ere half the congregation has quitted the edifice. No stretch of the imagination could enable us to believe any longer that we were in the House of God, when we were so unceremoniously made to understand that we were in the house of the "Dean and Chapter" of Westminster!

The book under notice has a paragraph on opening churches :

"It must be a great blessing to the people to find the churches always open, especially in this great restless city (Paris): the influence of the quiet of the church on their minds when harrassed and distracted by cares and business, and even on their bodies, when exhausted by fatigue, must be salutary, soothing, and refreshing. The churches in such a case are like spiritual ports and havens stretching out their arms to rescue them from the storm; or like wells of water in a wilderness. [And he significantly adds] Could we not imitate them in this?"

For our own part, we are sorry to admit, we usually feel more devout in a continental Roman-Catholic cathedral, or even in an Irish chapel when the priests are not officiating, than in any English place of worship. The quietude that prevails scarcely disturbed by the muffled steps of the entering or departing devotees; the absence of all formality, and the perfect order nevertheless which is observed as they kneel, singly or in groups, at the various shrines in attitudes of deep devotion-each apparently rapt in prayer - and abstracted from all else around them! Insensibly we become impressed with the spirituality of the scene, and at such a time and place it would not surprise us to see the poor publican enter, as described in the beautiful language of scripture, and "standing afar off," not daring "so much as to lift up his eyes unto Heaven," smite upon his breast and utter his emphatic and thrilling appeal-"God be merciful unto me a sinner!"

But where in Christian England is the temple into which we can at all times "go up to pray?"

We may here be referred to the example of Daniel, who went into his house and prayed and gave thanks in his chamber "three times a day."

But if Daniel had had a small house and a large family, or a public house, or no house at all, and no chamber even?"

“Doubtless he would have prayed in the streets or the fields," and so can anybody; and if we be referred to that privilege, we, like Daniel, can dispense with bishops and deacons, and prebends and canons, et hoc genus omne. The question is of a Christian Church, and what it might accomplish in the name of God for the temporal and spiritual welfare of the human family, or such part of it as would accept its teaching; and such a Church, we cannot but believe, might be established in this country, in conformity with the Bible, which would find worthy employment for all at present holding religious offices, and which would grow daily in the love and reverence not only of our own people, but of all other civilised nations.

The Church of England, as at present constituted, is too spiritually proud and too exclusive, to our minds, to win the affections of the

people. We continue a member of it, certainly; but why? Not that we think it an admirable religious establishment, but because we can find nothing better in the sense in which we wish to see it reformed. Moreover, we cannot secede from it, without appearing to be adverse to it; while we are only opposed to its exclusive system, not to its teaching. Besides, it was the bulwark of Protestantism in the days of its inauguration; nor should we forget that it overturned in this country the Popish scaffolds, and put out its Smithfield fires: but, we repeat, the Christian garrison has outgrown its citadel, and must go beyond its boundaries or starve, unless those boundaries be widely enlarged.

The heads of the Church have opposed the opening of the Crystal Palace on Sundays; but as it is a question of Sunday recreation and proper places of resort for the people, suppose they were to set the example, and begin spiritedly by opening the cathedrals and all consecrated places to the public on Sundays! Who knows what kindly influence might not diffuse itself through the community from such a novelty as everybody being able to go into a house of prayer at any time of the day, without asking permission of the astonished clergyman, and going to the indignant sexton for the keys!

So little reverence, we fear, exists for "The Church," that it is not impossible but that some awkwardness, amounting almost to ridicule, might attach at first to the exercise of this privilege; but we are much mistaken, if, under proper management, it would not soon come to be graciously accepted, and when made universal and for every day in the week, to be highly appreciated and dearly cherished-winning back to its altars thousands of the Church's wandering and discontented sons.

And this step, we conceive, might be taken without offensively disturbing the existing order of things. From the officiating clergymen we would require no increase of duty. At the usual hours let the usual services be performed; but from day-light to bed-time, at least, the church should be open, as a house of prayer and devout meditation, where beautiful music might sometimes be heard. Where all Christians should be invited to enter "to commune with their own hearts and be still,” under a system of simple and kindly regulations, which they would soon learn to respect: not regulations accompanied with those repulsive threats of fine and imprisonment with which it is usual in this country to insult, by public notice, all to whom any privilege is offered-nor left to be enforced at the discretion of vulgar and officious beadles-but under the unostentatious superintendence of Elders, chosen from the parishioners, relieving each other at regular periods, and not distinguishable from the other persons assembled, unless when it became necessary for them officially to come forward.