by men who traded upon their ignorance, and the result was that every effort which was made for their improvement was baffled and thwarted, until it seemed almost hopeless to expect any beneficial change.

The Church of Rome can brook no rival. She is determined to reign supreme over the conscience of man wherever she can possibly do so. Claiming to be of Divine origin and infallible, she will allow no one to dispute her authority. She rarely, if ever, condescends to argue with an opponent. The weapon with which she enforces obedience is the sword of the civil magistrate when that is available. When it is not, then persecution, violence, and defamatory language are resorted to. It was thus that she endeavoured to crush the Reformation in Achill.

But in Achill, as elsewhere, the Church of Rome has been beaten on her own ground. The good sense of the age and the prevalence of Scriptural principles have compelled her to moderate her language and to abate somewhat of her pretensions. Nevertheless, she still raises her head aloft, and tries by every art to crush those whom she even suspects to be unwilling to allow her claim to rule. "It is an old complaint," says good Bishop Jewell, "handed down to us from the very times of the patriarchs and prophets, and confirmed by the evidence of all histories and the testimonies of all ages, that Truth is a stranger upon earth, and doth too easily find enemies and defamers, because she is not known;

and although this may seem, perhaps, incredible to those who have not attentively reflected on it, because mankind, by the instinct of nature, without any teacher doth spontaneously breathe after truth, and Christ Himself our Saviour, whilst He conversed with men, chose to be called THE TRUTH, as if that name did aptly express all the power and force of His Divine Nature; yet we who are acquainted with the Holy Scriptures, and have read and considered what hath happened to pious men in almost all ages, what befell the prophets, the apostles, the holy martyrs, and Christ Himself; with what slanders, curses, and injuries they were vexed, whilst they lived only for the sake of truth; we see, I say, by this that it is no new thing, but usual, and the custom of all ages."

It will be seen as we proceed with our narrative how much Mr. Nangle had to endure in the discharge of his duty at Achill. But he never swerved for one moment from the straight path in which he was walking; he never failed to see all through his career the guiding hand of God; and he never entered upon any undertaking otherwise than in the spirit of prayer. And as might have been expected, his personal experience was rich in illustrations of the truth of the Psalmist's declaration: "In the day when I cried Thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul."

E

CHAPTER IV.

THE MISSIONARY SETTLEMENT.

"Parent of Hope, immortal Truth! make known
Thy deathless wreaths, and triumphs all thine own:
The silent progress of thy power is such,

Thy means so feeble, and despised so much,

That few believe the wonders Thou hast wrought,

And none can teach them but whom THOU hast taught."

ΟΝ

COWPER.

N the 23d December 1834 a school was opened in the village of Slievemore, and on the very first day forty-three children were in attendance. On the next day ten more children put in an appearance. Mr. Nangle states this fact in his journal, and adds that some of the parents of the children declared that "if the priests were to shake the bell after them until they wore it to the handle, they would not withdraw them." I may here mention, although I deviate for a moment from the regular course of my narrative, that in his examination before a Committee of the House of Lords which sat three years later, Mr. Nangle proved that in the spring of 1835 he had established schools in the villages of Dugort, Slievemore, Cashel, and Keel, which were attended by 420 children.

Michael M'Greal, the teacher of the school at Slievemore, was a man of very remarkable character. He was a native of the County Mayo. He was brought up in the neighbourhood of Westport as a strict Roman Catholic. The reading of the Bible led him to abandon the Church of Rome, but as his intellect was influenced without any corresponding influence being exercised on his heart and his affections, he continued after he became a Protestant to indulge in the vice of intemperance, to which he had long been addicted. He was one night with some of his jovial companions in a public house in Westport. Over the bench on which he sat was a shelf, and on the shelf were several books. M'Greal took down one of these books, and on opening it discovered to his great astonishment that it was a New Testament. Here was a splendid opportunity for controversy. He turned over the leaves in the hope that he might discover some passage which would enable him to hit hard at the errors of the Church of Rome, and thus display his learning; but his eye, instead of alighting on any text which would answer this purpose, suddenly fell upon the words which declare that drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven. So instantaneous and so powerful was the impression made upon his mind by the fearful announcement that he rose from his seat, left the house without consuming the remainder of his intoxicating drink, and from that hour to the day of his death Michael was never known to have in

one single instance violated the strictest rules of temperance. Michael M'Greal was an enthusiastic lover of his native tongue, and gifted with a taste for poetry. It was quite a treat to him to recite Ossian, which he could do by the hour. His eyes rolled "in a fine frenzy," while he walked about and tossed his arms on high, pausing at intervals to open up to his astonished listeners the depth and beauty of the passage which he was quoting. He was not content, however, with repeating the poetry of others. He aspired to poetic honours himself, and actually wrote a book of hymns in Irish. Some of these hymns are now sung by the peasantry of Achill and Connemara, both in their native mountains and in the forests of the New World to which many of them have emigrated.

No sooner had the school at Slievemore been started than the priests began to think it necessary to encounter Mr. Nangle with his own weapons; and so they started a rival school. In this effort to promote education among the people they found a ready auxiliary in the National Board. I shall not here attempt to give anything like a detailed account of the history of the National Board of Education in Ireland. To do so would carry me quite away from the subject on which I am writing. A few words, however, about a system which has engendered a long-continued and bitter controversy in Ireland may not here be altogether out of place.

The "National Board," the great State-school