Will persons familiar with Ireland, and unbiassed by party, question the accuracy of this statement?

Upon the same principle, the influence exerted by the priest is not, as M. de Beaumont has so strangely found persons to assure him, and has so infelicitously published, the influence of charity. That it was so in the last century is highly probable; but if one fact is more notorious than another in Ireland, it is that the present race of priests take everything they can, and give nothing.

Will Parliament inquire whether any change has taken place in the priest's dues since the tithes were taken off the occupier? Does the priest in many parts now exact two flukes, or twenty sheaves, from each head of a family, instead of ten? Have active agents of noblemen been compelled to resist this, and at the risk of their lives? What is the price at which extreme unction and other rites of the Church are now sold? Is it customary to administer them without their being sold? Are the Irish peasants afraid to improve their external condition from fear of additional extortions? What are stations, and why has Dr. Ryan, the Romish bishop in Limerick, just now prohibited the feastings which took place in them? What are now the fees for marriages? Is such a fact as this common, that a priest will separate a married couple on the plea of one of the parties being either a Protestant, or having been seduced, or being too nearly related according to the Romish canons, and will then engage to remarry them on the payment of a heavy fine-eight guineas, for instance? Will they ask, if it is not a proverb in Ireland that there is no luck in a priest's money?' and whether a dress like a priest's be not the best of all preservatives against the importunity of beggars? And then it should also be asked what is the conduct of the landlords and the clergy, whose doors, M. de Beaumont asserts, can never be approached by the poor, while travellers who are staying within those doors will scarcely be able to come out without meeting some miserable object waiting to be relieved?

But, we are told, this influence of the priest is the result of social and religious communication !-Undoubtedly, as the social point, the priest has access to the cabins of the peasants at all hours. Undoubtedly he does mix with them upon terms of more intimacy than the clergy of the Church. He is one of themselves: sprung from them, bred up in the same habits-very often (O, when will the Irish Church and the English government understand the value of this!) speaking the Irish language!-and the first to undertake their cause, and identify himself with their views, whenever a landlord is to be thwarted-or a magistrate bearded on the bench-or a criminal to be extricated from the law-or a tenant to be kept in possession of his land-or a clergyman to be resisted-or any

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other work to be done in which the spiritual power can safely be brought to bear against the Sassenach or the Church. So also -for facts must be stated plainly, however certain to be regarded as caricatures and exaggerations-if by religious communication is meant the performance by them at stated times of the rites of their Church in an unknown tongue-the delivery of a short address (called a sermon), enforcing the payment of dues, or denouncing individuals-the celebration of mass-the confession-extreme unction-the blessing the holy clay to be put into the coffins of the dead, that their souls may not be risked by their bodies lying in ground polluted with the corpses of Protestants ;-if it means the saying masses not only for the dead, but in boats when first launched, for a good take of herrings-for sick cows and horses and pigs!-to prevent the fish from forsaking a bay over which a Protestant corpse had been carried;-if it means blessing a house to drive away fairies and goblins-writing orations or verses from St. John's Gospel to hang round the neck of children, as a charm— drawing up amulets as protections for cattle-hearing confessions, and pronouncing absolution at the rate of ten minutes for each case (Mr. Mathison gives this calculation from their own statements)-then indeed, we freely confess, that religious communication has very much to do with the influence of the priests. But by religious communication, we mean the watchful, anxious solicitude of a clergyman for the real spiritual interest of souls committed to his care-the fatherly correction, the gradual development of principles and feelings, the consolation, encouragement, enlightenment of the conscience, the reading by sick beds, the prayers in the hour of death, the seizure of every occasion to put the truth of God into men's minds, and the love of God into their hearts. And once again, we intreat the English public-on whom, humanly speaking, the question now rests, whether the unhappy peasantry of Ireland shall be rescued to the Church or be abandoned to Popery-to inquire how much of this is to be found in the ministrations of the Romish priests, as they at present exist? We do not say there are not many, very many exceptions; God forbid that any body of men should so utterly have fallen!—but we speak of them generally. And when such a suggestion is met by the pathetic and imposing descriptions of the nightly journey of priests in cold and darkness, at all seasons, and on every call, to administer the consolations of religion to the sick and the dying-let it be understood that this consolation is simply the rite of extreme unction, which is never performed till hope has vanished-that it is rarely performed, even in the poorest case, without either money in hand or a pledge of payment-(2s., 6s., 10s., 15s., 20s., 30s., occur in

cases now before us)-that the priest dare not withhold it, because the people, believing that salvation depends* on it, will not tolerate a denial, and Dr. Dens himself allows it to them ‘as a right. These things are hard to speak of-they are very painful to hear, painful to believe. But again and again it must be repeated, that, unless the eyes of the English public are opened to the truth, the Church of Ireland, and Ireland itself, and with Ireland the English empire, and with the English empire all the great interests of mankind, spiritual as well as political, which are dependent on it, will be sacrificed to that abused delicacy with which Popery is now treated and described.

Where then, if neither in the intellect nor the heart, does the influence of the priest rule?

First of all, in that deep, secret, mysterious dread of supernatural agency which penetrates the Irish character. In Englandcivilised, reformed, enlightened England-from which railways, and newspapers, and spinning-jennies have banished ghosts, goblins, fairies, and the belief of everything unseen by sense-we cannot comprehend the hold which superstition (we call it superstition, not as if its root did not lie deep in truth and good affection) possesses over the Irish peasant. A curse with him is now, and has been from the very beginning, the most powerful of charms. Tara 1100 years ago was rendered the waste it now is by a priest's curse, and every page of their history is full of similar facts. It has a living power with the Irishman, and a blessing even from the beggar is worth the risk of starvation.‡

He

*What did you believe in' (said a friend to an intelligent young convert), before you were converted to the Church? I believed in my priest.'- What did you believe he could do?" 'Save me.'-'How?' By anointing me.' A better summary of the state of Popery in Ireland could scarcely be given. The necessity of extreme unction is so keenly felt, that in islands where ordinarily the priest never comes but twice a year to receive his dues, when, in consequence of the surf, he cannot land to administer the rite, they put the dying man into a boat, and carry him ten miles to the main land. The operation is called preparing them for death. An omission of it even from accident plunges the surviving family in the deepest affliction. Its performance quiets the conscience of the most guilty criminal. Lie still, or how can I save you?' was the angry expression of a priest to a poor dying man, whose convulsive movement interrupted the operation. And the threat of withholding the rite and permitting them to 'die like dogs' is one of the most ordinary influences exercised over the unhappy peasant.

We cannot speak of the Irish peasant without alluding to the many lighter works of literature which have recently portrayed his character. But we hope to return to this more agreeable part of the subject, and devote some space to it. Two of the most pleasing are entitled 'Rambles in the South of Ireland by Lady Chatterton' (2 vols. 1839); and 'Home Shetches,' &c., by the same Lady, (3 vols. 1841); and it is no little satisfaction that volumes marked at once by so much talent and refinement, and by so much kind and affectionate interest for Ireland, should have been written by, we believe, an Englishwoman. But Lady Chatterton must not hope to escape from us in a note.

This popular feeling will in fact completely neutralise the action of the poor-laws,

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He bows down willingly to man as the minister of God. sees a supernatural agency and a sacramental meaning in every thing. He has never yet been raised to know and exercise an independent strength either of intellect or of arm, and he throws himself willingly and gladly, and with all the warmth and confidence, and cowardice, and thoughtlessness of a child, under any one who professes to be his master. Would our readers believe that, among the great mass of the Irish peasantry, they would find such a creed as this:-that the priest, when IN HIS VESTMENTS AT THE ALTAR—(this must be remembered)—can bless and curse as God; that he can work miracles, and does work miracles, as in healing the sick-(hundreds of such cases are circulated through the country, and believed, though the parties healed do not appear) ;that he can turn men into animals, birds, asses, and serpents-can fix them to the spot ;- can make horns grow out of their heads;'that Father Mathew also works miracles-that his medal is a remedy against sickness; that it drives away ill-luck; that it rescues persons even from the doors of hell :'-that their bishops individually, in the words of their catechisms, are not only what bishops are, ambassadors of God, but personate God himself on earth, and are worthily called not only angels, but gods also ;'*— and that, when the priest is in the confessional, he is, as it were, God; what he hears, he hears not as man but God and therefore he knows it only as God,' and may swear, without perjury, 'I know nothing,' because the word 1,' as Dr. Dens explains it, (vol. vi. p. 219) restricts to knowledge acquired by him as man' !!!

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Is in fact Popery in Ireland the adoration of a priest? And is this the answer frequently given by the unhappy people when asked whom they worship, My priest is my God?"

Now let such notions as these be supported by the principle of 'implicit faith;' by the fundamental doctrine of transubstantiation, which attributes to the priest a complete miraculous power, subversive of all the evidence of the senses; by the mystery of the confessional generally, which places any man, but especially an Irishman, completely at the mercy of his priest.† Let such notions,

so little do our present legislators understand the materials with which they propose to deal. Without vagrancy-laws work houses are useless. But vagrancy-laws cannot be enforced when the people will not refuse to give-and the Irish will not refuse their potato so long as the beggar has a blessing to give in return, or a curse to denounce on the refusal.

We are quoting from the Catechism set forth by the Council of Trent, and acknowledged by the Romish bishops to be a decisive authority, without appeal.

It is a remarkable peculiarity in their character that they become perfect slaves o a person who is acquainted with their guilt.' We have heard a clergyman of our own Church assert that an Irishman, who had once in confidence confessed a crime to him, never came into his presence afterwards without trembling from head to foot.

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in place of being discouraged and combated, be studiously encouraged by the priest, and pushed to the utmost extravagance. Let the poor peasantry hear every Sunday of the power of the priest's curse! Let a mark be set upon the man who offends a priest-so that he becomes an outcast from society; that the most tremendous civil consequences of spiritual excommunication are brought down upon him for the most trivial act-precisely such as are enforced upon heretics by the authorised formularies of popery; * that his neighbours refuse to speak to him; that his property is left exposed to all kinds of injury, because there is no wrong in wronging a man who is a rebel against the Pope; that even just debts are refused to be paid on the same ground;-that wives will be brought to curse their husbands, on their bare knees, as devils, and worse than devils; that parents will, at the command of the priest, turn their children out of doors to starve; husbands separate from their wives-brothers hire ruffians to assault their brothers; buying and selling be interdicted, and the victim be abandoned to starvation. Let the injunction of the Achill priest-whom Dr. Mac Hale, with thirteen other priests, came over to the island to support-be recommended, and the Irish peasants be ordered, if such condemned persons come to them in the field, whatever they would have in their hand, if it was a spade, to strike them with it,' and if it was a pitchfork, to stick them.'† Let there be a body of ruffians, such as Dr. Doyle describes them to be in his Pastoral Letters to them, capable of any crime, secretly moving about the country in all places of public resort, ready to fall on any one thus pointed out for punishment. Let there be few gradations of the poorer orders to check such persecution by a moral influence. Let the victim be completely dependent on his little holding of land, and no refuge be opened to him elsewhere. Let the landlord, if a Romanist, be under the influence of the priest; and if a Protestant, be indifferent to the persecution of a Protestant. Let the magistrate have no access to the chapel where these interdicts are fulminated; or be remiss in taking proceedings against the priests who provide the members who form the majority which supports the government; or else let him be utterly baffled in his inquiries by the impossibility of obtaining information under this reign of terror, by the notorious perjury which such cases generate, by the violence of the priests, and by the combination of the priest-ruled peasantry. Let these facts be realised in the mind, as they may be substantiated by proof

* If any one wishes to see these he may find them, under the hand of a Roman Catholic priest, who had ascertained them at Rome, in 1821, in Mr. Morrissy's Development, p. 9, &c.

Extracts from Evidence before the Lords on the Achill Mission, p. 101.

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