LETTER VI. FROM MISS BIDDY FUDGE, TO MRS. ELIZABETH How I grieve you 're not with us!-pray, come, if you can, Ere we 're robb'd of this dear, oratorical man, Of Orangeman, Saint, quondam Papist and Tory ;(Choice mixture! like that from which, duly confounded, The best sort of brass was, in old times, compounded)— Poor dear Irish Church! -he to-day sketch'd a view Of her hist❜ry and prospects, to me at least new, no use, People still will their facts and dry figures produce, And, granting such accident, think, what a shame, If they did n't find Rector and Clerk when they came! It is clear that, without such a staff on full pay, These little Church embryos must go astray; Б And, while fools are computing what Parsons would cost, Precious souls are meanwhile to th' Establishment lost!" In vain do we put the case sensibly thus ;— fuss, And ask "if, while all, choosing each his own road, Journey on, as we can, tow'rds the Heav'nly Abode, pay For one eighth that goes quite a different way ?”— And so lib'ral her very best Saints, in this sense, That they ev'n go to heav'n at the Cath'lic's expense. But, though clear to our minds all these arguments be, People cannot or will not their cogency see; And, I grieve to confess, did the poor Irish Church Stand on reasoning alone, she'd be left in the lurch. It was therefore, dear Lizzy, with joy most sincere, That I heard this nice Rev'rend O' something we've here, Produce, from the depths of his knowledge and read ing, A view of that marvellous Church, far exceeding, In novelty, force and profoundness of thought, Looking through the whole history, present and past, Of the Irish Law Church, from the first to the last; Considering how strange its criginal birth, Such a thing having never before been on earth,— How oppos'd to the instinct, the law and the force Of nature and reason has been its whole course; Through centuries encount'ring repugnance, resist ance, Scorn, hate, execration,-yet still in existence ! Is, that Nature exempts this one Church from her laws, That Reason, dumb-founder'd, gives up the dispute, And before the portentous anom'ly stands mute;That, in short, 'tis a Miracle !-and, once begun, And transmitted through ages, from father to son, For the honour of miracles, ought to go on. Never yet was conclusion so cogent and sound, case, And the more all good Christians must deem it pro fane To disturb such a prodigy's marvellous reign. |