years were thereupon added to the life of Rabbi Benjamin the righteous.

From what has been said we are able to form an idea, if only an imperfect one, of the preaching which took place in the Holy Land two thousand years ago. The scenes we have endeavoured to describe were witnessed by our Lord Himself; His eyes and ears, and those of the Apostles, were well used to the things we have mentioned, and to many others, connected with this subject, we have left unsaid. Often, doubtless, they had asked questions after the discourse, as the enquiring among the hearers frequently did and, indeed, were expected to do, did they feel so disposed. Often, too, they must have wondered at the strange sight, and the still stranger words, of the Rabbins disputing, or rather wrangling, with one another in the Beth Midrash. There a new feature was frequently introduced in the shape of heated dialectics between two persons of rival schools of Rabbinic thought. These would thresh out their views by arguments, so far as they were capable of arguments; by miracles, some of which are gravely described; and by appealing even to heaven. The voice of God-the Bath Qol as it was called-would, so it is asserted, sometimes answer in favour of the view held by the contending speaker ; but no sooner had the Bath Qol deigned to reply than the triumphant Rabbi would find his defeat the more signal and marked. He would be ridiculed by his opponent. The voice of God, he would be told, was no proof. Truth is not to be sought from heaven, for Jehovah had left the possession of it on earth in the hands ot the Rabbins! At this, we are told, God only smiles, and says: 'I am conquered by My own children '—meaning that, by their refusal to take the evidence of the Bath Qol as an argument, they were simply reminding him of the w rds written in the Scripture These things are not in eaven,' for in that passage He was supposed to have intended the conclusion to be drawn that the decision of all doubts and difficulties had been resigned by Him into the hands of the Rabbins.

But all this was, as it were, on its deathbed. A greater than Moses was at that very time walking the earth. On

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that occasion when, as we are told in the New Testament, the supposed carpenter's son arose in the synagogue to address the people, another kind of preaching was inaugurated which was eventually to empty the synagogues themselves, and to shake the very foundations of the Jewish religion. On that day when, at the beckon of the Chazan, He advanced and read that passage from Isaias, and commenced to explain it by the memorable words, this day is this word fulfilled in your ears,' the death knell of the old Rabbinic sermon was tolled. It was, as it were, the rift in the lute. Wider and wider became the influence of that Divine Preacher, the introducer of a higher method. The fame of Him spread abroad into all that country; and for three years He held the people spell-bound by His words, entranced by His ideas. From that time, whether in the Jewish community or out of it, began, at least, the end to subtle distinctions and to smart applications of Holy Writ. The story, too, as the very essence of a sermon had had its day. God and His care over us; the soul and its needs; the consolations in religion for the ills of this life; the hope of heaven and of everlasting peace and joy-these were subjects henceforth first to engage the preacher's thoughts and words, after which they were to be eagerly hailed by a devout and a delighted audience.

JOHN FREELAND.

NOTE-The references in this paper would be so many that I think it less wearisome both to the reader and myself merely to say that my information is gathered from Jewish Liturgical Prayerbooks, Babylonian Talmud, Rabbinical Commentaries on Genesis, The Targums, Buxdorf, Lightfoot, Edersheim, etc.

SOME ENTRIES RELATING TO THE IRISH CHURCH

AS CALENDARED IN THE STUART PAPERS, 1700-1715

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HE subject of domestic nomination by the exiled Stuarts has never been adequately treated, and therefore the entries relating to Ireland, as calendared in the Stuart Papers (belonging to his Majesty King Edward VII.), cannot fail to be of service to some future Irish ecclesiastical historian. In addition, there are many other entries, not to be found elsewhere, of deep interest to students of our history in the early eighteenth century, to which much obscurity previously attached. With the entries from 1700 to 1715 I shall deal in the present paper.

King James II. died on September 16th, 1701, and immediately his son was proclaimed as James III., de jure King of Great Britain and Ireland. On September 22nd, the young king, the old Pretender,' wrote to Pope Clement XI., announcing the death of his father, adding :-' His last charges to us on his death-bed will, we hope, never be forgotten by us, namely, that we should always prefer the eternal salvation of our soul and the profession of the Roman Catholic faith to all transitory things and to all temporal advantages whatsoever.'

On October 3rd, 1701, Queen Mary writes to the Bishop of Ypres recommending to his care Father O'Donnell who had just been appointed confessor to the Irish Benedictine Nuns at Ypres a foundation dating from the year 1612. This Father O'Donnell converted to the faith Miss Mary Louisa Maclean (daughter of Sir Alexander Maclean), whose sister Letitia joined the community of Ypres in 1705 and died there in 1754. Let me add that from 1701 to 1840 a long line of Irish abbesses ruled the Benedictine convent of Ypres, a convent alluded to in Davis's song, 'The Flower of Finae.'

On November 4th, James III. issued an order that the

full court ceremonial of the English court should be observed at St. Germain's; and, accordingly, state officers, and officers of the household, etc., were appointed, with James Porter as vice-chamberlain to the king, and John Stafford in a similar capacity to the queen mother.

A French document, dated November 12th, is a recommendation from James III. to the General of the Capuchins, in favour of Father Robert Tyrrell, 'Warden of the Irish province of Capuchins,' who was journeying to Rome on business of his Order. Previously, the Irish Capuchins had convents at Charleville and Sedan, but since 1696 they had centred their community at Bar-sur-Aube, of which Father Nugent was Guardian in that year. This Father Richard Nugent was fourth Earl of Westmeath, who resigned his patrimony to his brother, and became a Capuchin. As is well known, the Irish College at Lille was governed by a Rector nominated by the Irish Capuchins of Bar-surAube.

In 1697, Father Francis Bermingham, Provincial of the Augustinian Friars of Ireland, as also Father Bernard O'Kennedy, Guardian of Dublin, and Father O'Carroll, Guardian of Callan, Co. Kilkenny, had fled to France owing to the severity of the Penal Laws. From the Stuart Papers we learn that Father Bermingham went to Rome in the autumn of 1698 to represent to the Pope 'the excessive persecution which had arisen against the Catholics of the kingdom of Ireland.' His successor, Father Bernard O'Kennedy, undertook a journey to Spain to collect funds, and was favourably recommended to Cardinal Portocarrero by the queen mother, on December 3rd, 1701. This good Irish friar made his will at Madrid, on February 29th, 1704, and died shortly afterwards. His 'testament' is most interesting, and he twice alludes to the King and Queen of England,' who had befriended him in 1700-of course ignoring King William.

From a letter, dated January 16th, 1702, it appears that Father O'Sullivan was President of the Irish College at Louvain. The queen recommended a certain William Hurley, the son of a gentleman who has served with

much zeal in the Irish regiment,' for a place in the college.
We get a glimpse of another forgotten Irish College, on
February 27th, 1702, when, in a letter to the Bishop of
Amiens, the queen praises 'Ever Magennis, a priest,
Superior of the Community of Irish of the College of Grassin.'

In March, 1702, certificates were issued testifying to the gentle birth of Daniel O'Riordan, Theobald Roche, and Oliver Bermingham. Similar certificates were issued in April, in favour of George Morrogh, Daniel O'Dunne, and Thomas Grace.

Fidelity to the Stuarts by Protestant dignitaries is shown in the case of Denis Granville, D.D., Dean of Durham, Chaplain in ordinary to the last two Kings,' who, on April 29th, 1702, was received as a member of the royal household at St. Germain's, at a salary, and a promise to be mindful of his services and sufferings on our happy and wished-for restoration.'

In the autumn of the year 1702, declarations of noblesse were issued in favour of Nicholas Luker, Daniel O'Brien, John Kelly, Miss Mary Fleming, and Miss Mary Gernon.

On February 8th, 1703, Queen Mary granted power of attorney to Henry Conquest to receive the pension granted by his Most Christian Majesty to the young Earl of Lucan.' This was James, son of the gallant Patrick Sarsfield, and the step-son of the Marshal Duke of Berwick, as Sarsfield's widow married the Duke in 1695. The pension was 3,000 livres a year, which continued to be paid until 1712.

Queen Mary, writing to the Archbishop of Tuam, on March 6th, 1704, enquires of the names and qualifications of the three dignitaries fittest to fill the vacant see of Elphin. The then Archbishop of Tuam was the exiled Dr. James Lynch, who died at Paris, on October 31st, 1713.

Under date of August 25th, 1704, there is a letter from Queen Mary to Père La Chaise, from which we learn that Dominic Maguire, O.P., the exiled Primate of Armagh, had been given a pension by King James III. Archbishop Maguire died at Paris, on September 21st, 1707, and was buried in the church of the Irish College.

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