The Irish Reformation. rest of their brethren receive in their augmented influence the benefit of the general persua sion. This persuasion, however, and the superstitions which it supported, are represented as rapidly yielding to the efforts of the societies, that have placed the almost unknown volume of the Scriptures in the hands of the schoolchildren, and thereby have brought it within the knowledge of their parents. In the parish of Killenummery the parents are found to be so anxious to obtain for their children the advantages of education, that, regardless of the imprecations of their clergy, they, in many instances, continue to send them to the schools of Protestants; sometimes, as we have remarked respecting other places, privately soliciting that their cattle may be distrained for rent, to give them the appearance of acting under the coercion of their landlords. The discussions also, occasioned by the opposition of the priests, have excited in the minds of the parents a strong desire of becoming acquainted with a book which was the subject of so much contention. This has been evinced by an increased demand for the Sacred Scriptures, and even that demand is an inadequate criterion of the awakened curiosity of the people concerning scriptural truth, for the same principle has also drawn forth those Bibles which had lain neglected in the hands of Protestants. In the parish of Killenummery the Roman Catholic peasants now, we are informed, claim universally the right of reading the Scriptures, and in speaking of controverted doctrines they appeal to them alone, as the only authority for their faith. They accordingly do not now defend the common superstitions of the Irish peasantry, nor even contend for the peculiar doctrines of the Church of Rome. Why then, it will be asked, do they not at once conform to the Protestant Church? Because they have still among them a persuasion that they can serve God acceptably in the Church in which they have been reared, and have not yet attained a sufficient strength of religious principle to take the decisive step, which would perhaps separate them from their relatives and friends, and subject them to some persecution. Not a Sunday, however, except one, has passed during the last three months, without bringing forward one or more instances of conversion. It has been reported by the readers employed by a society in Sligo, that the practice of reading the Scriptures has extended beyond all expectation in this and the neighbouring parishes. A difficulty, indeed, presents itself in the way of the reformation of the religion of these people, which may excite solemn reflections in the minds of Protestants. They are too much disposed to think that Protestants have really no religion. Here is the grand difficulty. Let Protestants show themselves zealous in the observance of their religion, and there will be no want of converts. This difficulty, however, is every day diminished, for Protestants of every class are every day more and more serious and earnest in their religious duties. Among the particulars which have been communicated to us in regard to this interesting district, it may be useful to mention, that not only have all the proselytes, without a sin- The reality and importance of the impression In proceeding westward from this interest ing vicinage, through the northern part of the county of Roscommon, we have received information of a difficulty opposing the reformation, which merits the most serious consideration. There, we have been told, the gentry fear to oppose the priests through an apprehension of losing the support of the forty-shilling freeholders. This is a novel and interesting view of the mischievous influence derived from the present state of the election laws of Ireland. It is known to have been ruinous to the properties of the gentry, by loading them with a supernumerary population. It now appears to interfere with the exertions which, as landlords and Protestants, they are bound to make for the religious improvement of their tenants. However desirous each of them may be of spreading among his tenantry a knowledge of genuine religion, he fears to do any thing which might be unsatisfactory to the Roman Catholic clergy, who are interested in retaining the people in ignorance. Protection accordingly is not there afforded to those persons who wish to abandon popery, and they are left to struggle unassisted through all the difficulties and vexations attending such a change. Still there are some few conversions, both public and private. But the most encouraging circumstance is, that, notwithstanding the opposition of the Roman Catholic clergy, Protestant schools are prosperous. The Roman Catholic clergy have established schools in opposition to them, but without success, the Protestant schools being well attended, except on about two occasions in each year, when every Roman Catholic finds it necessary to yield to the menace of his priest. Hundreds of scholars, mostly adults, were collected within a few weeks to learn their native language, and no doubt is entertained but that their numbers will be doubled in the winter quarter. While these circumstances strongly indicate an approaching reformation of the Church of Rome in this part of Ireland, another, and to us more interesting, reformation has already been begun among the Protestants of the district; for the churches, which had been very thinly attended, begin to be crowded. Popery had there nearly swallowed up every remnant of a Protestant church, but lapsed Protestants are now returning to their former faith. The whole country, indeed, is in a state of religious excitement. "In season and out of season," says our informant, "religion occupies the attention, and is the constant subject of conversation, in all classes and ages. Hundreds around us," he adds, " are fully convinced that popery is erroneous; and many hundreds are greatly shaken in that faith. It has now but one hold on the people, and that is fear. Many who fear to attend Protestant worship near home, go ten or twelve miles to listen to the glad tidings of the Gospel, where they expect not to be known. The priests at the same time publicly exhort their flocks to throw boiling water on the Scripture-readers when they come into their houses; to kill them with hatchets, or stab them with knives. I have known," says the same person, "a priest go to the house of a man who was about to leave the Church of Rome, and swear that he would bring a brace of pistols and blow his brains out, if he should persist; and another reproached the people for being ready enough to fight with one another, but not ready to stone those who read the Scriptures from house to house." The admirable discretion of the Roman Catholic bishop of Ardagh is not to be expected in ordinary men. We cannot refrain from inserting two other interesting passages from the same communication. When we compare the state of this district with that which was last under our consideration, how infatuated appears the conduct of those politicians who withhold their protection from converts, lest they should forfeit the attachment and support of a body of men, with whom it appears to be a principal object that the tenantry should as much as possible be separated from their Protestant landlords! This is to trust "in the staff of the broken reed, whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it." It is to depend on the influence of men who, to their utmost power, exert themselves in separating the tenantry from the landlords, and will assuredly sacrifice those land-sults. One immediate effect they had, of conlords to the first demagogue who is willing to be the slave of their ambition, and able to do them more effectual service. The prospect brightens as we advance in the same county into the primary See of the Archbishop of Tuam. We find there education making an astonishing progress, and the gentry as heartily engaged in the good cause. Scriptural education in particular is rapidly extended, though the Roman Catholic priests publicly curse all, both individually and collectively, who send their children to those schools in which it is afforded, and command them rather to hang or drown their children, than send them to such seminaries. In four schools of the London Hibernian Society, near the little village of Castlerea, there has been within the last four months an increase of nearly a hundred children. The Irish Society also is remarkably effective in this neighbourhood. "The conversions that have taken place are but, as it were, the first shaking of the tree; a few of the ripest have been severed. These recantations have had the most beneficial re firming all Protestants in the truth of Protestantism, which was a point of much importance in this part of the kingdom,-which was the better religion was a subject of doubt in the minds of most ignorant Protestants. Now the Reformed Religion is completely victorious, having Reason and Scripture on its side." "Never," the writer urges in his conclusion, 66 was there a time when English aid was more necessary than now, because the overwhelming power possessed for so many centuries by the priests, is all brought to bear in every parish against the infant Reformation. Its battle must be fought inch by inch. The Woman that fled into the Wilderness is returning out of it, and the monster stands with open jaws to devour her, if he can, before she has attained strength from on High. Scripture-readers, and schools, ought to be supported and extended. They come in immediate contact with the darkness and superstition of the land, and are powerful auxiliaries to the minister preaching the Gospel of the Son of God." Well may our correspondent say that they come in contact with the darkness of the land, for, like the darkness which afflicted Egypt, it is 46 a darkness which may be felt." From different parts of the county of Galway, from Ahascragh, Ballinasloe, and Loughrea, we have been favoured with much valuable information. Here we are in the very heart of the western province,-the very head-quarters of Irish Popery. In such a field it is most satisfactory to find that an impression has been made upon our adversaries; that the nature of their opposition has been made manifest; and that the means by which it may be finally overcome have been ascertained. These things appear to have been effected; and it may fairly be concluded that nothing except the supine and most culpable indifference of Protestants can arrest the progress of the great change which has thus been begun. tention, has been made at this place. In proportion, it is observed, as Protestantism begins to make progress, Popery assumes a more hostile attitude. Even this, however, works for good: Popish authority is found to stretch itself, until at last it must break; while Protestant conciliation will no longer squander itself away at the expense of consistency. That Popish authority, so strained, must break, our correspondent confirms by the fact, that the refusal of the rites of the Roman Catholic Church to persons sending their children to Scripture schools, has led many to rebel for the first time against the priest. In these instances a desire of education, and even of a Scriptural education, has triumphed over an opposition hitherto deemed insuperable. It may be useful to remark, from the same source, that in almost all the Roman Catholic chapels in Connaught, the Irish language is employed in preaching to the people; and even in Ballinasloe it is used on such occasions alternately with the English. From Loughrea we have received information similar to that which encourages us to hope for a speedy Reformation in other places. We perceive, on the one part, the determined opposition given by the Roman Catholic priests to education; and, on the other, the minds of the peasantry awakened, and desirous of becoming acquainted with the truth. The Roman Catholic priests, says our correspondent, oppose Scriptural education publicly and privately, with kindness and with persecution. Education generally they oppose also, even the arts of mere reading and writing,-but only by neglect and discouragement. For political purposes they can exert themselves to procure money, even from those who call themselves Protestants; but they plead the poverty of the peasants as a reason for using no effort to favour the education which these very peasants are desirous of obtaining for their children. Religion is, on the other hand, the constant topic of the people as they walk by the way, or in their families after mass. They are represented as doubting the truth of what their priests say, and the soundness of their own religion; sick to the soul of Popery, and in very many cases anxious to rid themselves of it; eager to hear and read the Scriptures; ready to receive and argue with those who are appointed to read to them. What then, it will be asked, checks the Reformation among them? The question may be answered briefly: Fear,arising from a want of protection and of numbers. This obstacle, however, must give way as the people become more generally influenced by the truth. From Ahascragh we hear that the extreme ignorance of the people is represented as the great obstacle to a speedy extension of the Reformation; and gross must that ignorance be, when a friar in the neighbourhood could venture to denominate the Bible "the key to perdition," and one of the people to name it "the book of the Devil." The people, indeed, are ignorant even of the tenets of their own Church; and few of them hold the doctrine of Transubstantiation, but say that they take the wafer in remembrance of Christ. Of the better informed, many would have renounced the Church of Rome if they were not deterred by a fear of persecution, not from the priest, but from their neighbours. To the direct power of the priest they have become indifferent; and when he threatened to send to Lough Derg those who had attended a funeral at which the Protestant minister preached, they answered, that he might direct them to go, but they would not obey. In the diffusion of religious information, which we have been assured is rapidly spreading among them, they will soon discover that nothing is to be apprehended from the bigotry of their neighbours. The Scriptures, even here, are read in many places; the Roman Catholics enter freely into conversation with Protestants on religious subjects, and receive their visits with respect. To encourage in the adults this favourable disposition, it is most desirable that Scripture-readers should be sent among them. For the education of their children, even for a Scriptural education, they are so solicitous, that, though the priests tell them that in the Protestant schools nothing is taught except Protestant doctrines, the single school, in which the Scriptures are read, is crowded; and they have expressed an anxiety that another, which had been closed, should be again opened, and their chil-establish a school within the parish; the recdren be there also instructed in the Scriptures. In advancing to Ballinasloe, the prospect of a Reformation becomes rather more encouraging, the number of those who have renounced the errors of Popery, in and about that town, being stated to be a hundred and forty-four, not seventy-nine, as reported in the last printed table of conversions. A remark, deserving atRel. Mag.-No. 5. Such a representation respecting these poor people requires to be supported by some proof, and with this we have been furnished. A Roman Catholic and his wife made application to the Protestant minister for encouragement to tor accordingly gave a stipend of £6; the allowance of the London Hibernian Society was secured; ground was obtained for building a school-house, a hired house being found to be too small for the number of the children; the parents offered to build a sufficient house gratuitously,the expense of the carpenter's work being defrayed through the liberality of the Kildare-Place 3 G Society; the priest then interfered, and, after many struggles succeeded in suppressing the school, and extinguished all hope of education for the children of these poor mountaineers. Scriptural education, it should be remarked, was almost all which this school afforded, for the master and mistress were little qualified to to teach writing and arithmetic; this, however, these poor people would gladly have obtained for their children, and, if a word of protection had been uttered, they would, to obtain it, have disregarded the opposition of their priest. Of the five counties comprehended within the province of Connaught, each has contributed some portion to the total number of converts. Of the six included in Munster, two, namely, Kerry and Waterford,-have been hitherto, so far as we know, wholly inactive in this great work; and Clare appears to have produced but a single instance of conversion. The remaining three,-large and populous and wealthy as they are,-appear to have effected just the half of that which has been done in Connaught; and the half of that half has been the work of a single minister in the single parish of Askeaton, in the county of Limerick. This judgment we form, indeed, from a published report of the number of conversions in the several counties, which is confessedly inadequate to the truth; but it may be sufficient for collecting a comparative conclusion. The clergy of this great province appear thus to have acted but too generally in the spirit of the exhortation which they received not long ago from their metropolitan, while the gentry, we must suppose, were blinded even to their own true and permanent interests by the glare of a false and temporary policy. It is, however, consolatory to reflect, that even at Fethard, but a few miles from the residence of the metropolitan, twenty-two proselytes from the church of Rome have borne their solemn testimony to the vital importance of the distinction existing between the two churches, and to the practicability of persuading men to abandon a profession which sets up a vain tradition against the authentic Scripture, the dominion of a priesthood against the freedom of the understanding, and the inventions of superstition against the all-sufficient atonement of the Saviour of the world. Fortunately the leaders of that corrupted Church have expressed their derision of the unworthy compromise so strongly recommended by Archbishop Laurence, and yet more fortunately some ministers have been found, who have discharged their duty under his high discouragement. Of a hundred and seventy-four public conversions recorded for the province of Munster, a hundred and thirty belong to the single diocese of Limerick, and eighty-five of these to the one parish of Askeaton. In this parish, however, we are informed, that the number reckoned to the present time has exceeded a hundred and fifty. In this county there have been three settlements of German Protestants, distinguished by the name of Palatines; and it has been thought, naturally enough, that the lapsed members of these Protestant societies have furnished, or at least swelled, this number of conversions. We have inquired parti | cularly into this matter, and have been satisfactorily assured, that in no one instance of these conversions has such a recovery occurred. The Protestant settlement of Sligo, already mentioned, had the advantage of being established at a seaport, where industry could attain to independence, and the opportunity of independence invited a continued accession of new settlers, to fill the place of those who had yielded to the influence of their local connexions. The Palatines of Limerick were less favourably situated. Discountenanced by the landlords, because, holding in some estimation the decent accommodations of life, they would not offer the extravagant rents, which the mere Irish peasant in his accustomed wretchedness would undertake to pay; weakened on the other hand by emigrations, and not strengthened by new accessions of their countrymen, whom no inducement encouraged to imitate their example in removing to Ireland; they appear to have contracted an habitual sullenness of character, which separated them, more than others, from the moral influences latterly employed in the improvement of the people. The history of the conversions of this interesting parish is indeed at once a practical comment on the Commission of Education-Inquiry, and a compendium of the general history of the Irish Reformation. The intention of the minister, who had been brought thither from the northern province, was simply to introduce education among a neglected and ig norant population. With this design a school was established in the parish, under a Protestant master, with the aid of the KildarePlace Society, and it was proposed, with the assistance of the same society, to establish two others under the care of Roman Catholics. The first-mentioned school was commenced in the most encouraging circumstances; a hundred scholars attended, and the parents of the children were delighted with their improvement. After a few weeks the Roman Catholic priest began his opposition, professing at the same time to be very favourable to education not connected with scriptural instruction. The Roman Catholic children, except two or three, were, after a hard struggle on the part of the parents, withdrawn; and the Roman Catholic masters, to whom the other schools had been offered, were positively forbidden to accept the charge. During the struggle a female school was opened, in which the girls read a portion of the Scriptures aloud once every day. To this school the Roman Catholic priest also objected, and, that the poor girls might not be debarred from all opportunity of improvement, the practice of reading the Scriptures was discontinued. The Roman Catholic priest for a time was satisfied with this important concession, and the school continued to prosper; he then renewed his objections, and continued to object, while the wife of the minister, who superintended the female school, continued to comply; until he at length demanded that the schoolmistress should be dismissed, and a Roman Catholic be appointed in her place by the Roman Catholic bishop, to be removed at his pleasure. In reply to this demand, a proposal was made of The Irish Reformation. ported from his own experience, that the peo- Two observations have been added, which supporting a Roman Catholic assistant, subject to the approval of the Roman Catholic bishop. Even this offer was rejected. A violent contention ensued between the priest and the parents, and at length two individuals, heads of families, declared that they would attach themselves to that church which would give education to their children and liberty of conscience to themselves. Thus in the struggle about education the spirit of religious free-informant, "the Roman Catholics have had too dom was first elicited among the adult popu- much reason for an opinion which is very comlation of the parish, and it received the proper monly entertained among them, namely, that to be a Protestant and to have no religion are direction from Scripture-readers, whose services were then procured. The Protestant synonymous expressions." The evil is indeed clergyman at the same time began to deliver rapidly disappearing, and Roman Catholics are now forced to make a distinction between lectures in his own house, and elsewhere; Bible-societies were formed in this and the neigh- nominal and real Protestants. The other obbouring districts to facilitate the distribution of servation is, "that nothing seems so fitted to the Scriptures; and a distribution of more than produce extensive good in Ireland as the infifteen hundred copies of the Bible or New fluence of the landed proprietor, who should prove to his tenantry that he values them at Testament attested the magnitude of the religious excitement which had been thus pro- something more than the revenue which they produce to him. The influence of such a man, duced. who would feel and act as a servant largely entrusted by God, would," it is said, "be incalculably great." The power of this influence has, however, been little tried in Kerry. Though Kerry has produced no public instance of conversion, our attention has been directed to it, partly because it is a very interesting county, and partly because a considerable portion of it, which was actually the price of arranging the Protestant settlement and ascendency in Ireland, has been transmitted to a nobleman now occupying a high station in his Majesty's councils. The people of this county are animated by a spirit of peculiar independence, the lowest peasant affecting to consider it as a distinct principality, and even as a separate kingdom. It is well known also in the University of Dublin, that the literary attainments of a very humble class of its population furnish candidates in a large proportion, for the very moderate provision there afforded to humble, yet aspiring, scholarship. The remarks which we have to offer concerning a county thus interesting, we wish to submit particularly to the consideration of the Marquess of Lansdowne. Before we quit the southern province, we must notice what has been done in Bandon and its neighbourhood, our attention having been attracted to that town as a little settlement of Protestants. Its Protestant character, indeed, has not favoured the conversion of Roman Catholics, for the spirit of political party alienated the Protestants from the converts, and on one or two occasions, even prompted some of the former to address insulting language to the latter. The reformation has, however, made some progress here, notwithstanding this discouragement. Besides four conversions publicly announced for this parish, twelve persons have privately conformed: at Kinsale there have been fifteen conversions, and a few more in other places. These conversions, indeed, are important only as a beginning of the change, which education must perfect. In respect to education, we observe the same struggle as in other places. We find the people solicitous to obtain education for their children; the Roman Catholic clergy vehemently and incessantly opposing education, even in one case, in which the New Testament had been relinquished; the anxiety of the parents partially overcoming that opposition, the denunciations of the priests being in some places wholly disregarded, and the children in others being still sent to the schools, though in diminished numbers. We are also assured, that within the last three years, nearly 5000 persons within the county of Cork have learned to read the Scriptures in the Irish language. The information which we have obtained from the parish of Tralee, may in some degree furnish materials for forming a judgment concerning the religious state of the county of which Tralee is the capital. In this district the people are so favourable to education, that no Roman Catholic priest can here, as in some other parts of the southern province, oppose a well-regulated Protestant school, without establishing another; and, under these circumstances, from a school established by the Roman Catholic vicar general of the diocese, at considerable expense, the children are daily coming to that of the Protestant minister. In general it is observed of the Protestant schools, that the Roman Catholic children are periodiIn Leinster, the province of the metropolis, cally withdrawn, when their priest is about to hold one of those stations at which confessions the Reformation has been opposed to peculiar are heard, so that the parents are enabled to difficulties, as it had there to encounter all the influence of the three great establishments of say that their children do not attend them, and Irish Popery, Maynooth, Carlow and Clonto return such children to the school when the season of confession has passed by. To a scrip- gowes, and, in addition to all these, was resisttural education of their children the Romaned by the spirit of political party, excited by the demagogues of the Association. These reCatholics of Kerry have shown no disinclinasistances have indeed been in some degree tion, but their own disposition to a serious concounteracted by an antagonist force in the su sideration of religious truth has never been fairly tried. Our informant, however, has re-perior intelligence to be found among persons |