of God-that a spiritual should follow her temporal extinction-that a fanatical torch should light the pile to consume our country. No, never, this we shall never, never, endure.

The penal statutes against Irish Catholics, having failed in realizing the designs of their enactment, and the Charter schools, Freeschools, Hospitals and Seminaries, being found inadequate to convert into good Protestant stuff, the Papistical growth of this fertile country; the great body of her people tenaciously clinging to the ancient faith in defiance of all the temptations to which their poverty and depression daily exposed them; it was thought time to adopt another expedient, and change altogether the plan of operations. The proselyting system was therefore, ostensively renounced, the work of perversion in appearance abandoned: the ulterior design was concealed under the garb of education without religious distinction-the large sums annually granted for this benevolent purpose, were thrown into the lap of a Biblical Junta! None but the deceivers were deceived-the mask of liberality was soon removed, and exposed to view the "beautiful hypocrites."*

A Minister of State, now no more, is said to have been

The proselyting machine is now working with powerful action. Flying parties composed of all gradations, from the scullion to the general-admiral and loblolly boy-maymaids, own maids, miss in her teens, demure grave matrons, with my lady manoress are scouring the country, and beating up for recruits to the Biblical army. The Egyptian hail did not fall more thickly than the showers of Biblical proclamations which are pelting the ears of the affrighted Irish. I have lying before me one of their manifestoes in the shape of a religious tract, purporting to be the history of the life, death, and wonderful adventures, real or imaginary, of one James Byrne, a Bible weaver at Athy, which contains more precious slang, and smooth blasphemy, than I ever yet was able to purchase for a penny. This rich penny-worth, manufactured God knows where, and typographied

among the most ardent promoters of the Biblical System, and to have calculated so confidently on the success of this mode of assailing the religion of Ireland, as to declare in the fullness of his heart, that, if the plan was acted on steadily, a Catholic peasant would not be found in the land, within the period of half a century. I should be sorry to make an observation that might seem to bear heavily on the memory of the unfortunate Statesinan. The plan was well and deeply laid, but the God of St. Patrick macked the stratagem of

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by one Benjamin Bensley of London, was distributed through the sick wards of one of our public hospitals, by an officer wearing his Majesty's uniform! Perhaps this circumstance may help to explain certain extraordinary and singular movements; perhaps this dazzling amalgamation of Biblical zeal and military array may account for the enthusiasm displayed by the evangelizing ranks of our fair country-women. It is said, indeed, I know not how truly, that the scarlet hue has peculiar attractions for the retiring sex, and that an undefinable sympathy exists in the female breast for the nodding plume of the crested hero. The feeling of course is perfectly reciprocal, and we may piously hope that a new Era in battling tactics is about to commence, that the rough, bold soldier, softened into humanity by the sweet inspirations of his delicate monitress, will throw down the sword, and make war with the Bible.

The spirit of " proselyte-errantry," has latterly appeared among us under a form so benignant, so tempting, and so persuasive, that it requires no ordinary exemption from paternal frailty to resist its attraction. Clad in the graces of youth and innocence, the dew drops of mercy distilling from her eyes,

fair as a houri from the groves of Olympus, and exhaling from her robes a celestial fragrance, I have with mortal eyes beheld one of those angelic forms who have at length come down to this nether world to dispense the grace of evangelical benediction, and prepare the way for the approaching millenium. The bland and soothing address of this supernal creature, the soft breath of ther pity still moans on my ear, the voice of her sympathy vibrates after all, I am not more fanciful, or more enthusiastic than the rest of my species there is a something so sonorous in the silvery accents of a feminine tongue, something so bewitching in love, and bliss, and paradise, and pleasure falling from lips on which roses are playing something so irresistibly attractive in the manner and forin, he must be, more or less, than man to reject the proferred fruit from the milk-white hand of the fair evangelizer. No wonder that the Biblemen should invoke the feminine muse, that they should summon to their aid in the work of grace, the powerful auxiliary of female oratory. The wonder is, that they did not catch an earlier ray from the warming sun of their great progenitors.

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The page of history bears ample and honourable testimony to the active, splendid, and successful exertions of female missionaries, Saint Jerome himself, admits their prowess, and frankly acknowledges the superior efficacy of their persuasive powers, and con, verting properties. He has recorded a declaration, which should satisfy, methinks, their warmest advocates; he goes farther even than some of them could wish, for he roundly asserts, "that all heresies owe their rise and their propagation to women."Simon, the magician, seems to have held the opinion long before St. Jerome, for he made use of one Helen, a prostitute, to sow his blasphemies. By the way, this same Helen was a most wonderful creature, the mother and mistress of all Bible-going ladies, a bright and beautiful star by which to shape the course of their high ministration, the very spirit of inspiration itself-pouring into the breast of the exhausted juggler, the copious and exhilarating draught from a vessel of grace, fair and palpable. Nicholas of Antioch the next in order, drank still more deeply from the renovating source, excelled in the art of obscene gratifications, and was attended by a troop of female practitioners.