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IRISH CHRONICLE.

DONATION OF AN IRISH

EMIGRANT.

We have received a draft for One Hundred Pounds from an Irish Emigrant who prohibits the publication of his letter. If we were permitted to give it, we doubt not that it would greatly encourage our readers, as he speaks of himself as well acquainted with the operations of the Society, though excited at the present moment by the perusal of the Secretary's letters from Ireland in the autumn of last year. He wishes the donation to be appropriated to the liquidation of the debt, or if it be not needed for that, to the mission of an efficient agent to Thurles "where Satan's seat is," in which case it would be followed by contributions for his support. It must depend upon other friends to determine to which of the two purposes it shall be applied, as a debt of considerable amount still remains.

IRELAND'S MISSION FIELD.

At the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance recently held in Dublin, an able paper, drawn up by Dr. Edgar, Professor of Divinity, and Honorary Secretary of Missions for the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, was read, which is published in Evangelical Christendom, and deserves general attention. The following paragraphs we extract as adapted to sustain that hope respecting Ireland which we are persuaded it is the part of Christian wisdom to cherish. "Ireland is a field of intense interest now, on account of the wonderful preparation for missionary work lately made in it by the mysterious providence of God. In 1841, there was in Ireland a population of 8,175,124, and, according to the usual rate of increase, it should have been, in 1851, about 9,000,000; perhaps it had reached this in 1846. But the late census makes the population 6,515,794. Ireland has likely lost

2,000,000 of her population; and about 270,000 of the houses of her poor have

been swept away. Three years since I saw the black ruins of very many; grass and weeds grow now where once they

were.

"According to the Report of the Commissioners of Public Instruction, in 1834, Ireland contained 1,517,228 Protestants, and 6,427,712 Roman Catholics. Here were fearful odds against Protestantism; here a fearful host at the nod of Rome; here a region of darkness and despotism fearfully large. But famine, emigration, and other causes, have effected an incalculable change. As to numbers, the vast proportion of 2,000,000, dead or gone, were Romanists; and hence the proportion of Protestants and Romanists in Ireland has so thoroughly changed, that some authorities state, that Romanists do not exceed Protestants by more than 500,000, while by others the statement made is this:-Such is the decrease of Romanists by disease, emigration, and conversions, that, laying out of account 500,000 shut up in workhouses, the Roman Catholic and Protestant population of Ireland are nearly equal.

"However inaccurate both these statements may be, and whatever be the exact relation of numbers, one thing is certain, that Romish Ireland has become a much more manageable field than formerly; and the means and agencies in the hands of Protestants are, with the Divine blessing, quite adequate to her regeneration. Other considerations, also, show that the Spirit of the Lord is lifting up a standard against her great enemy. Political agitation, monster meetings, exciting speeches, roused the Romish mind, and taught it to think; temperance gave it sober leisure; hope deferred on Repeal made it sick; and when the sweeping famine came, many causes combined to shake it from the foundation of its ancient trust. The priest, in his usual pretensions to miraculous power, sprinkled holy water on the potato stalks, yet

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there settled down upon them, in thicker gloom, the blackness of death. Government gave £10,000,000 to feed the dying; but, whenever the priest aided in its distribution, he showed injustice and cruelty. Hundreds of thousands, in charity, were sent from all parts, and all denominations, and committed to the charge of Quakers, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, but scarcely anything to the Romish priest; and what little he did receive he too often gave to those who could repay him in fees, or made it subservient to his own selfish ends. In the meantime, death was doing a wholesale work; multitudes were gone to their long home, and no priest had been near their bed. Here was a corpse on the roadside; another there thrust into the bog; and, near at hand, a whole family, dead in their hut, over whom "the hunger had crept with a cold and deadly torpor; but all of them had gone unanointed, unshrived; the wife was too weak to rise from the side of her dying husband to go for the priest; or, when the little child did totter forth to bring him to the home of the dying, he confessed that there was no money to pay for last rites, and he was driven, with curses, away. Thousands were dead, and no holy clay had been put on their coffins; thousands were dead, and no ceremonies, deemed essential to salvation, had been performed over their cold remains; but their widows and orphans lived, and they could not believe that their husbands and fathers must, for the covetousness of selfish priests, be eternally lost. No, no; natural affection rose high over all the teachings of priestcraft; and those who had tried the man of the whip and altar's curse, and found him, in the hour of trial, heartless and harsh; and who, in the hour of sickness and sorrow, were visited, and fed, and comforted, by those whom he called agents of hell, could not but see and feel the contrast; could not but feel, in their inmost hearts, that Protestantism cannot be bad when its fruits are so generous and good."

It may assist our friends to form an idea of the patience and perseverance required of those who would evangelize

Ireland if we quote the following passage from the same discourse.

"An official document, addressed to a late Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and afterwards published, states truly, that the whole of this dreadful and disgraceful state of things is attributable to the priests of the Roman Catholic church, from their altars. These priests glory in it, instead of denying it. The same number of a Ballina newspaper contains an account of the trial of the priest of Ballycastle, county Mayo, for cruelly beating a boy on his way to a scriptural school, and a letter from the priest of Ballina, defending his own conduct in having savagely beaten with a whip an aged female, for permitting her children to attend a scriptural school; and not only extolling the whip as an effectual means of keeping the peace, but quoting in its support the example of our Lord, in driving the buyers and sellers out of the temple with a whip of small cords.

"A friend of mine appealed to a Romish prelate on account of a priest having broken into her demesne, and beaten the children of her school. The bishop's reply was this: As these children, for clothes and stirabout, are betraying the religion of their fathers, it is the duty of the priest to punish their parents in every legal way.' Here, then, is the boundary which the Romish priest professes to set to his violence- Every legal way;'-but is it a legal way to curse the inquiring layman by bell, book, and candlelight? A county Antrim jury said, "No!' when they returned a verdict of £70 damages against Priest Walsh, of the Glens, for cursing M'Glaughlin. Was it in a legal way that a Romish priest at Mayo, with a Romish mob at his back, rode down a Protestant missionary, though a Romish jury, in defiance of evidence and the charge of a Roman Catholic barrister, found him 'Not guilty? Is it lawful, either by the law of man or of God, for the Romish priest to excite his blinded people to deeds of deadliest violence against those whose only crime is activity for their good; and, according to the doctrines which popery teaches, and the powers which its priests assume, to do the priests' deadliest and worst to shut up in hell for ever those who would give their children opportunity for learning the sanctifying truth of God?”.

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Contributions to the Baptist Irish Society which have been received on or before the 20th of the month, are acknowledged in the ensuing Chronicle. If, at any time, a donor finds that a sum which he forwarded early enough to be mentioned is not specified, or is not inserted correctly, the Secretary will be particularly obliged by a note to that effect, as this, if sent immediately, may rectify errors and prevent losses which would be otherwise irreme. diable.

The Secretary is always glad to receive for distribution in Ireland articles of apparel either for male or female use. He wishes also for books suitable to assist in the formation of con. gregational libraries.

Subscriptions and Donations are thankfully received by the Treasurer, JOSEPH TRITTON, Esq. 54, Lombard Street, London; by the Secretary, the Rev. WILLIAM GROSER, at the Mission House, 33, Moorgate Street; and by the Pastors of baptist churches throughout the Kingdom.

COLLECTOR FOR LONDON, REV. C. WOOLLACOTT,

4, Compton Street East, Brunswick Square.

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