moderately sensible men could have hoped would do its work? Was it even such as men who really wished and desired to have all Ireland Protestant should have sanctioned? We have the testimony of such men as Edmund Spenser and Lord Bacon that it was not, and that from the very first there was a fatal mistake in the method of procedure which stamped the movement with failure, and opened the door to abuses which were of themselves enough to over-weight any system however excellent in itself. That there were difficulties many and great in the way of the English Government in Ireland at the time of the Reformation must readily be allowed. Amongst the most serious of those difficulties was the fact that the great majority of the people were directly hostile to English rule, and were, in fact, another people from the English settlers, because they spoke another language. There were two courses open to the ruling powers in dealing with this complication. One was, to subdue the rebellious,-to proscribe their customs, habits, and language, and then to force the Reformation upon them at the point of the sword; and this, having regard to the numbers of those concerned and the fact that many of the Irish chieftains and lords were descendants of the old English barons, was by no means an easy task. The other course was, to try the effect of moral and spiritual forces on the half barbarous people who swarmed up to the walls of the great towns and all around the Pale, to send them the Gospel in their own tongue, and to carry out in their behalf the principle of the Reformers that all forms and service should be in "a language understanded of the people." Unhappily, however, this latter course was much in advance of the temper, or policy, or intelligence of the times. Such men as Spenser or Bacon might see their way, but not so those who carried on the government. It was decided that Ireland was to be governed by the sword, and it is "ill preaching amongst swords." And so, although Archbishop Browne and Bishop Bale might minister to the English in Dublin or the garrison at Kilkenny, for the great mass of the people their words were as the idle wind which they regarded not. It might undoubtedly have been a good thing if the Government had been able to have done away with the Irish language, and made the English tongue the only one spoken throughout the length and breadth of the land; but it would have been better if the Government had taken thought as to the feasibility of such a proceeding before they tried the experiment; more especially when the experiment was tried in the first instance on the Church which they professed they wished to reform. If they did wish this, they might have asked, are we likely to recommend the reformed faith to our wild Irish so-called subjects when we forbid them to worship in their own tongue, and actually tell them that if they do not use the language of those whom they regard as their oppressors, and which they do not understand, they must fall back upon the Latin tongue, linked with the associations of the unreformed faith? Could any course of policy have been so likely to have driven the Irish-speaking people into the arms of the Jesuits? And yet this fatal course was taken by the English in Ireland at the time of the Reformation and for many long years after. What wonder that the bishops and clergy of the Irish Church should have failed in their impossible task? What wonder that the very nature of the task they had to perform should, in many instances, have lowered their tone and deteriorated their character? "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or the tree corrupt and its fruit corrupt." Preaching fared but ill when the churches were in ruins and the people sullenly apathetic or fiercely hostile. And, as the example of plunder is especially contagious, it is hardly to be wondered at that when bishops and clergy had no scope for the exercise of their office, they should have enriched themselves and their families at the expense of their sees,-as did Bishop Thonory, of Ossory; Bishop Craike, of Kildare; Bishop Lynch, of Elphin; and Archbishop Magrath, of Cashel; insomuch that a century later Bishop Bramhall found some of the sees reduced to forty shillings and some to five marks per annum. That an opportunity was lost at this time is painfully evident from the fact that in the early days of Queen Elizabeth many of the Romish population did so far conform as to come to church. But even had there been no pressure from without, it is hardly likely they would have continued to attend a service which gave them no instruction and reminded them of their conquered state. It is true there are some gleams of light on this dark page of Irish Church history: and we do feel constrained to say that the Church of Ireland owes a debt of gratitude to England because she gave us William Bedell. We only wish she had given us more like him. If we had had a succession of Bedells from the Reformation onward, the problem would have solved itself, and the truth would have had free course and been glorified. Unhappily, before Bedell came the mischief was done, and smouldering discontent only waited its opportunity to break out in fierce and widespread conflagration. 66 And yet it was wonderful how much this one man effected by steady perseverance in the right course. When, about the year 1630, he was appointed Bishop of Kilmore, he found one of his cathedrals ruined to the ground, and the other without font or chalice, bell or steeple; " the people, saving a few British colonists here and there, all Papists; a numerous popish clergy with full ecclesiastical organization, and only seven or eight ministers of his own clergy of any sufficiency, and these without the tongue of the people. In this state of things, at the age of sixty-five, William Bedell set himself to learn the Irish language: and to such proficiency did he attain that he composed the first grammar on record in the Irish language, and conducted service and preached in his Cathedral every Sunday in that tongue. It is worthy of note that Bedell used the Liturgy and New Testament which had been translated into the Irish language some years before by Nicholas Walsh and John Kearny, Chancellor and Treasurer of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin: and that he himself laboured at a translation of the Old Testament, which was nearly ready for publication when the dreadful rebellion of 1641 threw everything into confusion. But what we have to say is, that Bedell had his reward, and that the measure of success which at tended his efforts shows what might have been done at an earlier period and on a larger scale. His church was filled with a numerous congregation largely composed of popish recusants: and when the waves of rebellion and murder rushed madly over the country, they were stayed for a while by the humble walls of his little cathedral. Even when he was a prisoner he received consideration and indulgence at the hands of his enemies which no other "heretic " received; and the respect paid to his memory is not only evident from the volley which the rebel soldiers fired over his grave, but more remarkable from the prayer of the Romish monk, "O sit anima mea cum Bedello"! Alas that there were none to take up the work so hopefully commenced by Bedell! For years after, the old story of wars and massacres, and plundered and ruined churches, and alienated revenues, is repeated; and not until the Revolution of 1688 was over do we find anything of a sustained or hopeful effort to give the Irish-speaking people the Gospel in their own tongue. This effort, in its result most suggestive, was made by William King, archbishop of Dublin, and it was urged by him on the Irish Convocation as the only likely means for the conversion of the Romish population. Convocation ordered that the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Catechism should be printed in the Irish language; the clergy were to make a yearly return of the number of popish recusants in their parishes: and the Provost of Trinity College, stimulated by the course of events, turned his attention to the cultivation of the Irish language, insomuch that in the year 1715 there were forty-five students of that language in the University of Dublin. This was what Convocation did: but when it was further prayed that Government should give its sanction to what was done, and provide the funds for carrying out these projects, the memorial was sent back to the Bishops from the Lord Lieutenant, then referred to Queen Anne, then sent back to the Lord Lieutenant, then referred to the Bishops once more, and so bandied about that at last the transparent circumlocution extorted from Archbishop King the sad but true remark: "It is plain to me, from the method taken by civil and ecclesiastical powers, that there never was any design that all should be Protestants." I might have referred to many other circumstances connected with the history of the Irish Church since the Reformation, to set forth the nature of her obligations to Eng. land. I have, however, confined myself to one fatal mistake, which is, as Lord Bacon would say, "an error in the first digestion." If Ireland is now a difficulty to England, if her people are disaffected, if out of a population of five millions and a quarter, four millions are bigoted Romanists, humanly speaking the cause of such a state of things is this, that English policy thought good to attempt the impossible feat of crushing out a language by an Act of Parliament. When we remember that the Church of Ireland was identified with this blunder of statemanship, and so made hateful to a large portion of the Irish people, we may to a certain extent estimate what she owes to England in the period subsequent to the Reformation. THE SUNDAY BIBLE HOUR. The Old Testament in the Light of the New: BY THE REV. W. AUBREY CUTTING, M.A., VICAR OF GAYTON, NORFfolk. THE two Testaments, the Old and the New, with an interval of four hundred years between them, by the prophecies of the New going before in the Old, and by the references to the Old abounding in the New, are riveted together into one Scripture; and each in substance is so contained in the other, that if either could by any possibility be lost, it might be recovered from the one remaining to us. "Correct passages from the Old Testament with evangelical light from the New."H. V. Elliott. "If the sense of the Old Testament is patent in the New, it is because the New is latent in the Old."-Liddon. QUESTIONS. I. Deut. iv. 13; v. 22. Show that in the New Testament the Decalogue is treated as quite apart from the rest of the Mosaic law, of permanent obligation, and not included in Acts xv. 10. II. What further circumstance about the giving of the Law, not recorded here or in Exodus, but not without Old Testament authority, is three times expressly stated in the New? III. Ch. vi. to viii. To this portion of the book (the part to be learnt by heart by every young Jew) what three references by our Lord at a critical time? And what the inference from His recurring at once to these particular chapters? IV. Ch. xiii. What makes this of all chapters one of the most memorable? * V. Ch. xviii. 15-19. In the 3rd chapters of two Epistles it is pointed out that Christ was like Moses which be they? VI. To this passage what two direct references in the Acts ? What turn does each give to it? VII. What two "curses' found in Deuteronomy are cited by St. Paul, the one cancelling the other? VIII. When the disciples plucked the ears of corn as they passed, why did the Jews not accuse them of stealing rather than, or as well as, of sabbath-breaking? IX. Ch. xxx. 12-14. What accommodation of this passage is made for us Christians? X. Ch. xxxi. 6. To what saints is this assurance given in the Old Testament, and what application is made of it in the New ? There are no conditions, in giving answers to the Bible Questions, as to age, aids, etc., except those specified in the January and February Numbers. But it is desirable that all our young friends should give their ages, as some have done. Answers also must be punctual to the date fixed. Correspondents are requested to write " Answers "outside the envelope at the upper left-hand corner. XI. Ch. xxxii. To this song what appeals in Romans and Hebrews? To those made to vv. 35 and 36 what turn is given in the Hebrews? What is v. 43 cited to prove? What twofold practical application is made of part of v. 35? What Pauline application is there of v. 17? XII. Was Moses ever within the bounds of the Promised Land? XIII. Ch. xxxiv. 6 compared with Jude 9 suggests what omission in the former similar to that noticed in our second question? Note. If any correspondents have had their communications to Mr. C. not answered, he begs they will accept his apologies. But with the "Answers" coming in at the rate of nearly 300 sets a month, it is plainly impossible for any one situated as he is to write separately to inquirers besides reading all the replies to the questions. ANSWERS (See Page 166.) I. Heb. xii. 18. "The mount (Sinai) might be touched" literally, as the Mount Zion, heavenly and spiritual, cannot be. Again: Sinai might not be touched on pain of death. II. Matt. xix. 18, 19; Rom. xiii. 9; 1 Tim. i. 9, 10. III. Matt. xxii. 37-39. IV. The First Table in Matt. xix. 16-22; the Second in Luke x. 25-37. V. God's Name taken in vain (1) by hypocrisy, Matt. xxvi. 48, compare xv. 8; (2) by profanity, v. 74; (3) not taken in vain by the being put on oath by a judge, v. 63, 64. VI. Matt. xii. 1-8, works of necessity; 10-13, works of mercy-these do not break the Rest Day. VII. Matt. xv. 3-6; Eph. vi. 1-3. VIII. Luke ii. 51, i.e., to His mother and fosterfather; 1 Tim. vi. 4; also the context in verses 1-3. IX. Matt. v. 21-26; 1 John iii. 15. X. The Seventh in Matt. v. 27-32; the Third in v. 33-37; the Ninth in Ephes. iv. 25; Sixth in v. 26, 27; Eighth in v. 28. XI. By the Tenth, Rom. vii. 7. XII. 2 Cor. iii. 3, 7, 8; Heb. viii. 9, 10. II. Notes Critical and Expository. XX. INDECISION. "How long halt ye between two opinions?"1 Kings xviii. 21. ITERALLY the words may be translated, "How long leap ye upon two branches?"a most beautiful poetical allusion to the restlessness of a bird, which remains not long in one posture, but is continually hopping from branch to branch.-Kitto. XXI. TIBERIAS. "At the sea of Tiberias."-St. John xxi. 1. OHN is the only evangelist who mentions Tiberias; but he not only speaks of the city, but calls the lake by this name more than once (John vi. 1-23). May we not find in this an incidental corroboration of the opinion that his Gospel was written last of all, and toward the close of the first century, for those who by that time had come to know the lake most familiarly by the name of Tiberias?-Thomson. XXII. "HE WITH THE TWELFTH.” "Ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen."-1 Kings xix. 19. E are not to suppose that he had a team of twelve yoke of oxen before him. If you count these at work here, you will find seven separate ploughs following one after another as closely as possible; and I have seen nore than a dozen of them thus at work. To understand the reason of this, several things must be taken into account: first, that the arable lands of nearly all villages are cultivated in common; then, that Arab farmers delight to work together in companies, partly for mutual protection, and in part from their love of gossip; and as they sow no more ground than they can plough during the day, one sower will answer for the entire company. -"Land and Book," 144. XXIII. SALUTATIONS. "Salute no man by the way."-St. Luke x. 4. O doubt the customary salutations were formal and tedious, as they are now, particu larly among the Druses and other nonChristian sects, and consumed much valuable time. There is also such an amount of insincerity, flattery, and falsehood in the terms of salutation prescribed by etiquette, that our Lord, who is truth itself, desired His representatives to dispense with them as far as possible,-perhaps tacitly to rebuke them. These "instructions" were also intended to reprove another propensity which an Oriental can scarcely resist, no matter how urgent his business. If he meets an acquaintance, he must stop and make an endless number of inquiries, and answer as many. If they come upon men making a bargain, or discussing any other matter, they must pause and intrude their own ideas, and enter keenly into |