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.

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 landlords 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 hun

mi

Hundreds of scholars, mostly ad lected within a few weeks to lea language, and no doubt is entert their numbers will be doubled quarter.

While these circumstances str an approaching reformation of Rome in this part of Ireland, a us more interesting, reformatio been begun among the Protesta trict; for the churches, which thinly attended, begin to be cro had there nearly swallowed up of a Protestant church, but laps are now returning to their form whole country, indeed, is in a st excitement.

"In season and out of season formant, "religion occupies the is the constant subject of conv classes and ages. Hundreds a adds, " are fully convinced that neous; and many hundreds are in that faith. It has now but o people, and that is fear. Many tend Protestant worship near twelve miles to listen to the gla Gospel, where they expect not The priests at the same time their flocks to throw boiling wat ture-readers when they come in to kill them with hatchets, or knives. I have known," says son, "a priest go to the house was about to leave the Church swear that he would bring a and blow his brains out, if he and another reproached the ready enough to fight with or not ready to stone those who tures from house to house."

The admirable discretion of tholic bishop of Ardagh is not to ordinary men.

We cannot refrain from inse interesting passages from the cation.

"The conversions that have but, as it were, the first shaki a few of the ripest have been s recantations have had the mo sults. One immediate effect t firming all Protestants in the tantism, which was a point of m in this part of the kingdom,better religion was a subject minds of most ignorant Protest Reformed Religion is comple having Reason and Scripture "Never," the writer urges in "was there a time when Engli necessary than now, because th power possessed for so many o priests, is all brought to bear against the infant Reformat must be fought inch by inch. that fled into the Wilderness of it, and the monster stands w devour her, if he can, before strength from on High. Sc

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 " 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.

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 educa tion 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

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.

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

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

cularly into this matter, and ha factorily assured, that in no or these conversions has such a r red. The Protestant settlemen ready mentioned, had the adva established at a seaport, where attain to independence, and th of independence invited a co sion of new settlers, to fill the who had yielded to the influenc connexions. The Palatines of less favourably situated. Disco the landlords, because, holding tion the decent accommodation would not offer the extravagan the mere Irish peasant in i wretchedness would undertake ened on the other hand by e not strengthened by new acc countrymen, whom no inducem to imitate their example in re land; they appear to have con tual sullenness of character, them, more than others, from ences latterly employed in the the people.

The history of the conversi resting parish is indeed at d comment on the Commission quiry, and a compendium of tory of the Irish Reformation. of the minister, who had been from the northern province, w troduce education among a ne norant population. With this was established in the parish testant master, with the aid Place Society, and it was pr assistance of the same society others under the care of R The first-mentioned school in the most encouraging c hundred scholars attended, an the children were delighted wi ment. After a few weeks the priest began his opposition, same time to be very favour not connected with script The Roman Catholic childre three, were, after a hard stru of the parents, withdrawn ; Catholic masters, to whom had been offered, were positi accept the charge. During male school was opened, in read a portion of the Scrip every day. To this school the priest also objected, and, th might not be debarred from a improvement, the practice Scriptures was discontinue Catholic priest for a time w this important concession, an tinued to prosper; he then jections, and continued to wife of the minister, who sup male school, continued to con length demanded that the sch be dismissed, and a Roman pointed in her place by the