many waters, and as the voice of many thunderings,” (Rev. xix. 6.) will be no contemptuous or vindictive jubilee over the hapless followers of the woman sitting on the beast: not one of those myriads of millions who shall then utter that exulting song in eternity, but would have willingly saved them all, during time, had it been thus ordained in the unsearchable counsels of heaven.

Let us ever remember this, and strive, in much love, to be the means, if it be possible, of saving some out of the toils of popery's strong and far-extended net; and while her priests, like the hypocrites of old,

compass sea and land to make one proselyte," (Matt. xxiii. 15,) whom they make “tenfold more the child of hell than" themselves, let Protestants redouble their efforts to win over popish souls from idolatry to the Saviour, and to make them excel others in meetness for heaven.

X. Q.

REMINISCENCES OF AN IRISH

CLERGYMAN.

No. IV.

MISS MILLAR.

IT has often been remarked, that in Ireland there is no middle class. It is true, commoners of moderate fortune frequently speak of themselves as such, but this is a misnomer. If society be divided into three classes, as the term 'middle class' implies, one extreme is filled by those who earn their bread solely by manual labour, the other by the possessors of independent property, and those who earn their bread by intellectual exertion, while the middle class is filled by those who, as shopkeepers and wealthy farmers, bring a small portion of capital, or as teachers, &c. bring a small portion of intellectual attainment, to aid the labour of their hands. Of these there are but few in Ireland, (and hence, as has been most justly observed, the link between the higher and lower orders is broken, and the numberless evils that spring from this source is obvious,) it is not however strictly true that such a class does not exist here as in other free countries; but the fact is, they do not choose to acknowledge their existence. Every man who can ride in boots and spurs is a gentleman; and every woman who can go to church or chapel on her own

jaunting car, is a lady: or even when these prerequisites cannot be commanded, if a connection can be traced, or a past acquaintance found with any one of undoubted gentility, the claims are still held, though perhaps not universally acknowledged; and 'families will go on from generation to generation suffering all the pangs-the real as well as fancied miseries, which are of necessity endured by a tenderly reared individual cast into another lot.

If, however, the evil were confined to themselves, it would be a comparatively small matter; but it is not. Instead of presenting to those below them the encouraging and attractive spectacle of an industrious, thriving, contented middle class, partaking of the industry of the lower, with the education and comforts of the higher orders, and shewing what, not by unsuspected events, by chances or revolutions, but by sobriety and industry the honest may without any violent transition become,-they generally exhibit all the faults and vices of the aristocracy, without the circumstances which shade, the graces which adorn, or the virtues which exalt them. To rescue this order from their present condition should be, and indeed is, one of the first objects with the lovers of Ireland; but if we desire to benefit them we must not shock their prejudices or wound their feelings. I have heard it said by pious ladies, that it is necessary to teach these persons their places, and this is most true-but how? What makes them forget their place? Pride; and we shall not teach them the sin and folly of this pride by what they deem an exhibition of our own. I have often heard well grounded complaints of the overbearing manners of the half-gentry, which make it impossible to as

sociate with them. But why is this? Because the manners of the superior make them feel themselves called on to assert the place to which they think they are entitled: an act, which requires the utmost breeding to accomplish with grace or dignity, and in which they invariably fail. But lay aside your own pride, and the spiritual pride which would teach you to trample on all earthly distinctionsmeet them as equals, but with a little more observance than those who are really so, and they feel themselves called on to shew their gentility, not by rudeness, but by courtesy. The Irish are a courteous, and, (except in mirth or anger, down almost to the lowest,) a polished people; you will find your intercourse easy and even pleasant, and your message will be listened to, if not for its own sake, for yours.

It was to this class Miss Millar belonged. Her father was a respectable farmer, in comfortable circumstances: he held his own plough, stacked and thatched his own corn, while his wife and daughter attended to all household concerns, made the butter, fed the poultry, and did all which could not be properly entrusted to a bare-legged girl, ignorant of every art save that of waiting on the potatoe from the day the seed is cut, until the day when it makes its final appearance on the table of its lord-milking cows and managing flax: and, as she was often in the fields engaged in the above-mentioned employments, her mistress enjoyed no sinecure. The English reader may ask, perhaps, what pretensions a young person reared in these circumstances had to call herself a lady? I know not whether they will be satisfied, but every Irish reader will, when I

reply-There was a parlour in which there was not a bed, and in which the family always sat when not called away by business, and in which they took their meals apart from the servant; the parents, brother and sister, each had a separate sleeping apartment, and they had sufficient means to procure comfortable food and comfortable clothing; but above all (and this would have sufficed in the absence of every decency) they were of good family: Mr. Millar's family I do not know, but Mrs. Millar's brother was a justice of the peace; a circumstance sufficient, in the eyes of too many of my countrymen, to have justified drunkenness in the men, idleness in the ladies, and the endless multiplication of dirt and debt; tawdry finery on great occasions, and raggedness and disorder in ordinary.

It is not easy for those who live in another social and moral atmosphere to estimate the temptations to which a vain and uneducated girl is exposed, where industry is regarded as disgraceful, while untidiness and extravagance are not: and I have, therefore, entered thus fully on this state of society, because it is necessary, in some degree, to exhibit it, before the character which grace formed in the subject of this memorial, can stand out in full relief.

I knew her for four years: during that time I never saw her house in disorder, or her dress untidy or in the smallest degree approaching to fine. This is more than I can say for any other woman in her rank of life I ever met; and she held her slippery situation with an ease, I had almost said a grace, that made me never recollect she had a place to hold ; till now that writing on the subject I am reminded that there must have been something within, that made her