real reformation in progress among the peasantry of Connaught, quite unprecedented, and less likely to have occurred in that quarter than anywhere else in Ireland. We visited Connemara and some of the islands on the western coast of Ireland in 1844, and found the people in a state of abject slavery to the priests, of which the inhabitants of the other provinces had no conception. The pecuniary exactions of the Church in Dr. M'Hale's diocese were exorbitant, and were extorted by curses and denunciations fiercely uttered from the altar where the Lamb of God was believed to be present. The horsewhip was frequently applied to the backs of the wretched people with brutal violence by their spiritual guides. Naturally kind and hospitable, these poor victims of superstition and despotism were inspired with the utmost abhorrence of any of their number who became Protestants. We have known cases where, in obedience to priestly interdicts, they refused to sell to such the common necessaries of life—where the sick were left to die from want of nourishment, and their corpses were followed with yells and execrations to the grave, simply because they had left the Church of Rome! Yet this horrid fanaticism was relieved by gleams of genuine humanity.

The native ingenuity of the people sometimes contrived means of evading the spirit of the priestly prohibitions, while complying with their letter. They were forbidden to speak to the 'soupers' or 'jumpers' (names given to the few Protestant converts), or to sell them anything for food, or to have any communication with them whatever; but prompted by the instincts of humanity, they went in the night and placed provisions under the doors of the excommunicated. The condition of a few Protestants under such a reign of terror, in a populous island many miles from the main land, when the state of the weather, especially in winter, might render the arrival of succour impossible for weeks, may easily be conceived. The horror which the peasantry were taught to feel against Protestant missionaries be inferred from two or three facts with which we became acquainted on the spot.

may

The first Protestant missionary who landed on the great island of Arran, in the Bay of Galway, would have been starved to death, but that he was supplied with necessaries by the kindness of the only magistrate there, a Roman Catholic gentleman named O'Flaherty; and when the fishermen found what sort of a character they had unwittingly imported, they got their boat 'blessed' by the priest, and re-sanctified with holy water, in order to remove the heretical defilement. A clergyman in Roundstone, Connemara, assured us that he was going, with some other ministers of the Established Church, to visit the

Protestant colony in the island of Achill, when they saw at a cross-road some females, whose cabin they approached in order to inquire the way. Recognising the character of the travellers, and dreading the curse that would follow any communication with these messengers of Satan, as they were believed to be, the women instantly fled into the house, whither they were followed by the ministers. There was no person visible-all was silent. On further examination, they found the horror-stricken victims of superstition all prostrate under the bed, with their eyes covered, lest by any chance they should look upon the infernal visitants! Again, when the Rev. W. Crotty, the converted priest, went first to Roundstone as a Presbyterian missionary, the people blessed themselves' when they met him: they ascribed the absence of fish from their bay to his having crossed it in a boat; and when his wife was in her confinement, the only doctor within many miles, a Roman Catholic, refused to attend her, lest he should lose all his practice. It is true that time has gradually softened such feelings of abhorrence, but these antecedents should be remembered, in order fully to appreciate the social as well as religious revolution which is now in progress beyond the Shannon.

The account of this movement which will, perhaps, be viewed with most credit by our readers, is that given in a letter to the 'Times,' dated Clifden, Connemara, September 23rd, 1851.' The writer is described by that journal as a gentleman of strict impartiality, wholly unconnected with either or any of the parties into which Irish society is divided, and whose information may be implicitly relied upon for strict accuracy and thorough impartiality. Hearing that Dr. Plunket, Bishop of Tuam (son of the great orator, who was compelled by the Whigs some years ago to retire from the Irish chancellorship in order to make way for Lord Campbell), was about to visit and hold confirmations at the missionary stations in Connemara, he resolved to accompany his lordship, and judge for himself of the truth of the reports in circulation. He has given the following statement to the 'Times' as the result of his observations, confirmed from various quarters, that the priests' voice in Connaught has lost its power

that the fanatical hatred of converts has disappeared, and that they are now regarded by even steadfast Romanists with feelings of toleration that would do honour to the most enlightened community. Everywhere in Connaught this change is perceptible: missionaries of all denominations are received with respect, and the word of God is heard with deep attention. The Connaught mission' of the Irish Presbyterian Church is also very prosperous, and its industrial schools' are crowded with Roman Catholics.

The progress of Protestantism in this district has excited considerable attention, and I therefore resolved to examine the truth of the statements that had been made respecting the movement. The Bishop of Tuam proceeded to a place called Salruck, in the midst of the most beautiful scenery, on Thursday, to hold a confirmation. A Protestant chapel and school have been built here by General Thompson, the proprietor of the property; thirty persons were confirmed by the bishop, two only of whom were Protestants, and about the one-half of whom were adults. There is a congregation here of about 160 persons, and upwards of seventy children attend the school, and nearly the entire of all are converts from Romanism. I attended a confirmation, on Friday, at Ballyconree, a place about six miles distant from Clifden to the north.

At Ballyconree 115 persons were confirmed, forty of whom were adults, and all of them converts from the Church of Rome. A converted Roman Catholic priest is the minister of this station, and he has an attendance at Divine service of nearly 300 persons, almost every one of whom are converts from Romanism. There are three schools in connexion with the station-one on the adjoining island of Tarbertwhich are numerously attended. I examined some of the children, and conversed with the adults, and they all could advance many arguments from Scripture, which they quoted fluently, for having left the Church of Rome. They sang some Irish hymns with great sweetness and feeling.

There was a confirmation in the parish church of Clifden, on Saturday, when about 200 persons from the town and surrounding country were confirmed. Of these only twelve were originally Protestants; all the rest were converts from Romanism, and of the entire number sixty were adults.

6

The same day a confirmation was held at a place called Derrygimla, in Errismore, where 119 persons were confirmed, of whom two only had been Protestants, the rest being converts from Romanism. There were about thirty-five adults confirmed here, and the attendance at the service was very large. There is a congregation here on Sundays of from 200 to 300 persons, of whom four-fifths were Romanists, and the minister preaches at other stations, where there is also a good attendThere are about 600 children attending the schools in this district, nearly all of whom are those of Roman Catholic parents.

ance.

The bishop admitted three gentlemen to priests' orders in the church of Clifden on Sunday, two of whom had been Roman Catholics. There were about three hundred persons present in the church at Divine service, and nearly all of them, I was informed, were converts from Romanism. I went into a Sunday-school where about two hundred children were assembled, and it was stated to me that almost the entire number were either the children of converts from Romanism, or those whose parents, though still nominally Roman Catholics, allowed them to attend.

'There was a confirmation in Sellema, in the district of Omey, on Monday. I visited a school at a place called Barrabrough, where 155 children were present; all of these had been Romanists, and they

answered very accurately several questions proposed to them from the Scriptures, and quoted most fluently texts to disprove the doctrines of the Church of Rome.

'At Sellema there was a good congregation. There were eighty-four persons confirmed, of whom two were originally Protestants, and twenty of the number were adults. There are upwards of 200 persons, nearly all of whom had been Romanists, attending the services of the Church on Sunday at this place, and about 700 altogether at the various stations in the district.

There appears to be a favourable impression towards the Protestants at the present time in all the places I visited. There was no disturbance or annoyance given by the people. The power of the priests is, from some cause or other, on the wane. In what I have written I have merely stated facts. I do not express any opinion as to the movement; I have merely reported what I have seen and heard. It is reported by credible witnesses that, in the district through which I have travelled for the past week, nearly 5,000 persons have left the Church of Rome. There were, certainly, large numbers of Romanists, or persons who had left that Church, at all the stations I have visited; and with many of these I conversed, who appeared to be sincere and intelligent, and who were quite able to assign reasons for the step they had taken. As I am proceeding through the north of Galway this day to Mayo, I shall be able in my next to give further details of the state of the country and the feelings of the people.'

The causes of this wonderful change are well worthy of investigation, and furnish a curious and interesting subject of inquiry. The chief of these is, undoubtedly, the famine. That revealed the true character of the clerical power, and proved it to be a selfish tyranny. In the hour of utter destitution, when his flock was perishing around him, the Roman Catholic pastor lacked humanity. Nearly all the supplies which preserved the lives of the people came from Protestants, and it was in the hands of Protestants only that there was anything like a just and considerate administration of the relief funds. Many parish priests had saved money, and were esteemed rich; these were pre-eminent for their hard-heartedness, for shutting up their bowels of compassion when what the people called, with fearful emphasis, the hunger,' made havoc among the flock.

This conduct furnished evidence against Romanism intelligible to everyone, and its force was irresistible. The Church was known by her fruits, under circumstances which left no room for sophistry, and the instincts of humanity aided the conscience in revolting against her authority. Besides, it was too sorely felt that the vaunted blessings' of Dr. M'Hale and his clergy could not save the potato, or avert the pestilence. They claimed the gift of miracles, and professed, by their holy rites, to bring fish to the coasts, and to give fertility to the fields; but in both cases

the power of Father Mathew himself had utterly failed after several ostentatious experiments. Credulity, thus stretched to the highest pitch, at length gave way, and the priest found, to his mortification, that there was no longer any terror in his eye or in his whip.

Another cause of the change is the breaking up of clans, with their local ties and combinations. The Repeal agitation and its organizations died with O'Connell; the clubs of the Young Irelanders were dispersed in 1848; the conviction and banishment of Smith O'Brien, Mitchell, and their companions, proved to the people that God had forsaken them in their struggle for national independence, and they resigned themselves to their fate, because, to adopt their own expression, 'it was the will of God.'

The Encumbered Estates Court deprived many of the landlords of a position in which they were powerful only for evil; while those who remained made themselves hateful by their cruel evictions. Many of the principal laymen, heads of clans, leaders of the people, village politicians, &c., who aided the priests in intimidating the masses, were removed by emigration, or driven by hunger to the workhouse; so that all the old associations and local forces that had kept the people in bondage, were swept away as with a deluge, leaving the remnant of the population free to act according to their own inclinations, the dictates of their consciences, or the exigencies of their position. Such were the changes going forward in Connaught, while Dr. M'Hale was inditing bombastic epistles to Ministers of State. He was denouncing the cruelty of the Saxon, and the heresy of the Protestant, when, but for the benevolence of the former and the faith of the latter, thousands more of his own people would have died of starvation. In the meantime, the established clergy in Connaught had the advantage of being the almoners of British charity, and by the kindness they were thus enabled to show the hearts of the people were won.

But another cause of success has not been adverted to in any of the numerous notices of the new reformation in Connaught, which have appeared in the journals. It is not as the Established clergy, that the episcopal ministers labouring in Connaught have succeeded with the native population. No social change would ever enable them to make the least impression on the old Irish. A few years since, a beneficed clergyman in that country published a pamphlet, called 'Three Hundred Years' Experiment,' in which he proved from Bishop Mant's History of the Irish Church,' that the Establishment had been an utter failure; and the author drew the rational conclusion, that as a State Church it could never succeed. He also inferred from the success of