in answer to our inquiries, they said they were going to salt it down, and eat it.

Tuesday, Feb. 24th.-Found much disease and fever in P— Lane to-day. In one cabin all had been sent to the hospital, except the mother and two children. Met with an interesting case in an old woman,* who lies sick on the ground upon her bed of straw. A thrill of horror ran through my whole frame as, in answer to my inquiry of a sick man in another cabin, as to who he thought could prepare him for that great change which he had expressed himself so willing to encounter, he said, "Why you." If anything is caculated to make one aim a deadly blow against these blasphemous notions these soul-destructive delusions of Poperysurely such a remark as this from the lips of a dying man, is.

Friday, 27th.-Found the poor woman who had taken to her bed on Tuesday, dead to-day. This was a most distressing spectacle. The daughter was sick with fever on one bed, whilst the body of the mother, without a vestige of clothing, lay on the other, and a poor boy crouched on a stool weeping bitterly. This cabin was two doors from poor Jack Moriarty's-a dark, desolate place. This was standing between the living and the dead indeed. Solemn were the moments spent in that cabin. God grant that the remarks such a painfully-afflictive scene suggested may not be finally lost. How utterly unable is one to conceive of these scenes without actually beholding them.

Sunday, Feb. 28th.—It was dusk to-night on going to church; but in the church-yard at that late hour sat a poor young mother, waiting for some one to come and put her only babe under ground. It died for want of nourishment the day before; and there she sat in pensive solitude beside the coffin, waiting some kindly hand to take it from her, and do the last sad office. No intimation had been previously given, but the service was immediately read, and the poor woman was sent home with a grateful heart for some temporary relief which was now afforded her. The lateness of the hour, the spread of disease and death, together with the gloomy prospect before us, made that scene and that service doubly impressive.

Monday, March 1st.-Two bales of clothing reached me from England on Saturday; though it was quite evening when they arrived, yet such is the scrutiny which the Romanists have upon one's every movement, that it was quickly made known to the priest; and, as I am informed, his auditory were cautioned from the altar yesterday not to take them. Poor man! with all his vociferations, he seems utterly to fall short of keeping a hungry, half-naked mob from constantly, day and night, surrounding one's door, or tramping at one's heels whenever

* Since dead.

one ventures out, beseeching for food-entreating for clothes where. with to cover their poor, all-but-naked children.

[Perhaps it may be well for me here to inform my readers, that the priest and others of the more influential part of his congregation, are not a little annoyed at the funds with which I have been supplied. At a committee meeting, held here a few weeks since, it was suggested by a Roman Catholic gentleman present, that the money ought to be thrown into the general fund for general distribution. (Forsooth! even in the absence of the weighty responsibility entailed by the terms on which those funds are supplied, does the said gentleman-does Priest think me so half-and-half a Protestant, and so unsuspecting of Popery, as to throw those funds into the hands, or place them in any way under the control, of Romanists? Nay.) Finding that this proposition was of no avail at the meeting in question, the priest then opened fire upon Mr. S., first bringing charges against him altogether unconnected with the present distressful scenes. Mr. S., while freely admitting that the committee room was not the suitable place for such discussion, claimed permission to reply to the charges made against him; at the same time stating he would much prefer the priest to name time and place, when he (Mr. S.) would not shrink from the fullest investigation, while he would openly avow the course he had been pursuing, and which be was prepared to defend. This challenge being declined in silence by the priest, the several charges were calmly, deliberately, and, by the acknowledgment of even his own party, effectually repulsed. He now poured upon Mr. S. a torrent of abuse with respect to our present course of action. We were charged with tampering with his flock-with attempting to make proselytes-and with taking to ourselves the credit of the conversion of poor Jack Moriarty. Repulsed again upon each of these points, by a straight for ward statement that the more immediate object in view was the temporal wants of the people, at the same time a simple acknowledgment of the fact, that whilst no credit was taken to himself for any good that had been, or might be, effected, no man, nor any system, should prevent his holding up the Saviour to the dying gaze of poor lost sinners. Mr. S. was now charged with "blackening the Roman Catholic faith in his church-yard addresses," as well as with going and tampering with a sick man after he (the priest) had prepared him for eternity.* To this (as I am informed by one who was an eye-witness of the scene) he had his answer, full, free, and to the point.

Popery! seeing, as I do every day its accursed wiles-its deadly hold of poor deluded souls-the cunning and the craft to which multitudes of its votaries will resort, I abominate it as I abominate its author, nor would I trust the one any more than I would trust the

* What a preparation! Popish anointing.

other. Treachery, fraud, violence, characterize Popery; and never will Ireland know what freedom is, until the accursed priest-ridden shackles by which she is bound, are shaken off. But I blush for that mere nominal Protestantism; I call them not brethren who shelter themselves under its name, for I am ashamed of them as such, that could take a borrowed Number of this self-same GOSPEL MAGAZINE, and, for the sake of curry-favour, go and hand it to the priest! This proves the truth of my long pre-conceived opinion-an opinion more than once expressed within these pages, that should a struggle come between Protestantism and Popery (and that that struggle will come, I believe there is not the slightest reason to doubt) a vast multitude of the socalled Protestants will immediately throw themselves into the lap of the Papal Church.

Sunday, March 7th.-Four Roman Catholics at my lecture to-day and about a dozen outside the cabin. This is the fourth or fifth attendance of one or two of them. We had six-and-thirty altogether. Subject, Gen. xxvii. 38. On coming out was met by the poor boy referred to February 22, who was then lying sick on his bed with his mother. He was now returning from her burial. Poor boy! hapless family! seven orphans, and on that wild mountain! Oh, my readers! oh, my soul! why art thou, and thine, thus mercifully dealt with? Grace free grace! blood, precious blood! mercy, unmerited mercy! I should like to die with grace, and blood, and mercy, on my lips!

Monday, March 8th.-This day twelvemonth, I was speaking to a little company of attentive peasantry at Crawley, in Sussex, from 2 Kings iv. 26, the passage the Lord so timely gave me that day six years, when a dear child lay dead. Adored be his name! He supported me then-has comforted me since-and now, spending this day on the mountain-wilds of Tipperary, when Ireland is invaded by famine, disease, and death, I have the same sweet mercy to sing about. Went to-day to the cabin over the mountains; found the poor orphan children crowded round the fire. The boy came to the door of the cabin, and, in answer to my questions, said that, from fear of the fever, no one would venture into the cabin. The mother had been speechless for many hours; they sat up with her all night; no friendly hand came to their aid in that dark, dreary spot; in the morning she died. Still no one would venture in; and at night the boy, with a sister younger than himself, placed the body of their poor mother in the coffin, and on Sunday (as before mentioned) took it to the grave Poor boy he wept as he told his pitiful tale, and I could scarcely forbear to weep too, as I looked round upon that wild waste, and thought of-yea, gazed upon-seven fatherless, motherless children, the eldest fourteen or fifteen, the youngest in a cradle! Poor boy! What could I say what could I better say, than that I once (when yet not much older than he) lost a father, and a mother too; and as I stood weeping at the grave of one, thinking my every friend was gone,

!

a better Father, even One in heaven, whispered, "Look to me.' I listened-looked-and from that moment forward found in Him a Father and a Friend! Poor boy! He wiped away the tear, as he replied, "My father died, and that day fortnight my mother too; but God never since has let us want a meal." There was a something in the language and manner of the poor lad's reply that touched me to the heart. But so early had he been trained to Popery, that, when I spoke of his poor parents, and the solemnity of death, he said, "Yes, my sister and I, on coming from my mother's burial last night, said an Ave Maria and two Paternosters for their souls!" Oh, the value of early and really-spiritual instruction in the simple truths of our most glorious gospel!

EXTRACT FROM A PRIVATE LETTER.

Dated T, Ireland, March 16, 1847. "My dear husband wrote to you yesterday, and told you, no doubt, how he was getting on in this desolate, starving country. He is often, very often, overwhelmed by the distress of the people; they are very clamorous, and very often unreasonable, and ready to take advantage; then if he speaks sharply to them-which he is often compelled to dohe reproaches himself directly, and undergoes much mental suffering on account of it. I assure you, dear madam, his post is exceedingly difficult and trying. The Lord alone can sustain him. Imagine yourself seldom -or, I may say, never-moving without a train of the most abject, wretched, ragged people after you; seldom less in number than ten, and often thirty, forty, or fifty, making the most piteous complaintsuttering the most earnest entreaties.

"If he were to relieve generally in the street, he would be liable to so much imposition; special or well-known cases he sometimes attends to, but not very often; still the crowd will follow, and remain about the door, to our very great annoyance. Some of their countenances are deadly pale, and the children look ghastly, yet there are comparatively few deaths here, but much sickness, arising from improper food, and so little even of that: this Indian meal, on which they subsist, though in some respects wholesome, is productive of dysentry and dropsy; then, too, they are so exposed to the cold, having pawned bedding clothes, and all they possess. The most abject beggar in England cannot compare with the wretched appearance of nearly the whole of

the population.

"I think I told you of our districts in my last. This morning (Tuesday) the meeting is held at the Glebe; my husband is there, but the weather has prevented my going. We have had so much wind the last three days, and to-day it is wet.

The visitors receive every week

f

about £15 amongst them, for distribution in the town: then the rector takes one part of the country; the curate and my husband visit, from cabin to cabin, a lane, the worst locality, it is said, in all Tipperary, and the latter then takes the mountains, I have about forty families to attend to. Now £15 will not half supply the town; so the moneys received from you and other dear friends help to make up the deficiency, and keep the people alive, otherwise they must die.

They appear now to have a great feeling of respect for the Protestants, and say, it is more than they can expect. Their reverence for their priest is much shaken. What will be the result? Who can tell? They are continually offering to become Protestants, but this is not encouraged. They are welcome to come and hear the word of God. A few of them do this, sometimes by stealth. Who can tell what the Lord will do?

"The temporal prospects of this country are indeed most melancholy; looking at it in a natural way, there seems not the shadow of a hope for rich or poor. England cannot do much more. God alone can help. He can make a way where there seems no way. This is our only Refuge. There is a settled gloom on the hearts of all. Every one's spirit is sorely tried. "Their hearts fail them through fear," but we believe we shall yet praise Him, for He is our refuge and strength.

DEAR FRIEND,

Feeling still great interest for the poor starving Irish, and knowing how devotedly you are engaged in relieving their wants, both spiritually and temporally, it affords me much pleasure to enclose another little sum for your own disposal among them, trusting the Lord may be with you, and bless it to the benefit of their precious souls. A niece of mine, Miss Cruttenden, of Roberts Bridge, has collected £9 10s. 8d. The list of her subscribers I enclose you; as also one collected by another niece, Miss Russell, of Wilmington House Academy, amounting to £1 13s. 6d. The remaining sum I received of a few friends around me, whose names I send. I enclose a Post Office order for the whole amount, £15 3s. 6d.

I am, yours in Christian ties, Springfield Lodge, March 11, 1847.

MY DEAR SIR AND BROTHER,

C. SMITH.

I enclose you a draft for £15. I have no time to add more than my prayer that the Lord will abundantly bless your labours, and open to you a wide door of utterance for the promulgation of the soul-saving truths of the ever blessed gospel.

Ever yours, faithfully, Confratery, Leicester, Feb. 18, 1847.

JEMSON DAVIES.