ritories, are, I repeat, so infested with banditti, that you must have a strong escort. Last week three persons were completely stripped in the high road, and left to find their way as they could, happy to have escaped assassination."

We expect intelligence from Rome of an interesting kind. If Murat has no intention of occupying the territories of the church, Austria seems to regard the Pope with no friendly eye. At the very time that the Pa pists are harrassing the legislature of this country for an impartition of power, his holiness takes indignantly the erection of a Lutheran chapel at Vienna, and Austria guards its frontiers and shuts the barriers of its towns against the Jesuits. Cardinal Gonsalvi, the Pope's minister at Vienna, opposed the abolition of the slave-trade.

DUEL OF O'CONNELL AND D'ESTERRE.

(Extract of a Letter from Dublin to the Editor.)

SIR,-Poor D'Esterre was a man of great valour and fine feelings. He was a lieutenant of marines when the mutiny at the Nore took place, and the mutineers were so enraged at his spirited conduct against them, that they seized him and were on the point of hanging him, which they would have accomplished, had he not been rescued by a party of his own corps. His dispute with O'Connell did not arise in the smallest degree from religious antipathy, for in the Common Council D'Esterre had voted for Catholic emancipation. He was incensed at O'Connell's gross abuse of the corporation, and he became their voluntary champion. O'Connell had been long degraded in the public opinion as wanting a manly heart, and he shewed such shyness in the early part of his correspondence with D'Esterre, that had the latter stopped short, he would have fixed this imputation on him much stronger than before. But by goading him to fight, he lost his own life and redeemed O'Connell's character. The magistrates are very justly reprehensible for not having bound them over to keep the peace. They fought some miles from Dublin, to avoid the fury of a Popish mob; and yet they were surrounded by an infuriate rabble, who would have torn D'Esterre to pieces had he but wounded O'Connel!. To prevent the retreat of the former, had that taken place, the road was blockaded with a number of carts. The Popish mob, assembled where they fought, huzzaed and shewed many indications of savage joy on D'Esterre's falling. The Dublin mob did the same. Be not surprized at This a natural consequence of the lessons which the Popish multitude

receive from their priests in the confession-box. In short, were the gar rison now in Dublin to be withdrawn, there would be an insurrection and a massacre of Protestants in a few days. From the horribly perturbed state of the country, the most intelligent persons are of opinion that we are on the eve of a dreadful convulsion; and yet government are withdrawing a great portion of the military from this country.-You can have no idea of the various ways in which the exultation of the Papists appeared here on the fall of D'Esterre. The day after O'Connell received a letter from Sir Edward Stanley, stating that he might proceed in his professional business, he entered the Court of King's Bench, and spoke for some time and with vehemence in the following cause. A gentleman of the county of Kerry, of which O'Connell is a native, proceeded by information against another for having sent him a challenge. Of this the defendant having been convicted, he had a motion made, grounded on a strong affidavit, in mitigation of punishment: O'Connell, on behalf of the crown, opposed it, and made a furious speech in order to aggravate the heinousness of the crime, notwithstanding the peculiarity of his situation. For this he has been universally censured.

Feb. 14, 1815.

I am, Sir, &c.

A PROTESTANT.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TO CORRESPONDENTS, &c.

The additions to Inspector's Letter, &c. in our next; also the letter from Portsmouth, and Papers relating to the regulation of Roman Catholics in the East Indies.

ERRATA.

P. 223, eight lines from the bottom, for how read here.

P. 239, line 17,-for "whether this was meant as a rebuke I know not," read "whether this was meant as a threat or a rebuke I know not."

THE

IRISH MISSIONARY MAGAZINE,

AND

PROTESTANT ADVOCATE.

SEPTEMBER, 1844.

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

ON THE

Spiritual State and Claims of Ereland.

IRELAND is an Island about three hundred miles in length, and two hundred in breadth; united in its government to Great Britain, and lying within less than twenty-four hours' voyage, by steam, from Bristol, twelve from Liverpool, and six from Holyhead.

It seems necessary to recall these well-known facts; for, judging from circumstances, we might sometimes suppose that the wide Atlantic rolled between her and England: or that she was some contemptible speck of territory, unworthy of being conquered for Christ! Yet, by her political agitations, and the frequent discussions they occasion in the Imperial Parliament, she is constantly reminding Great Britain of her troublesome proximity! Few parts of the extended British empire have caused British statesmen more perplexity. Questions connected with her government, however, we leave to those who are better able to solve them than we pretend to be, and are more deeply interested in their solution. Our concern is about still weightier matters connected with her welfare-the spiritual condition of her inhabitants, and their eternal salvation! In reference to these we have often feared, perhaps unjustly, that she has been sadly neglected by her English neighbours; and that "the religious necessities of the most distant colonies, and of the remotest regions of the globe, have been more powerfully felt, and more promptly responded to than the claims of near and needy Ireland!"

To awaken increased attention to these claims is the simple object of the "IRISH MISSIONARY MAGAZINE." Its Conductors propose to accomplish this object by occupying its pages with details of Missionary efforts carried forward in that land; and statements illustrative of the spiritual necessities and superstitious rites that still exist there, and demand the most zealous and unabating application of that remedy which the more general diffusion of the Gospel among the numerous population of Ireland alone can supply.

When it is considered that the number of her inhabitants is supposed to exceed eight millions; that out of this number it is often vauntingly asserted

that there can be scarcely reckoned one million even of nominal Protestants; that unquestionably the large majority are Roman Catholics, most of them devoted to the see of Rome, and many sunk in the grossest superstition, and ignorant of the Word of Life-and that this has been the state of Ireland for centuries, notwithstanding the existence there, during those centuries, of a well-endowed and fully-equipped Protestant Establishment, along with powerful and numerous bodies of Presbyterians and Wesleyan Methodists, and sections of other Protestant Dissenting communities-and notwithstanding the proximity of this still Popish Ireland to Protestant England-it must be admitted that her present condition is strange, unaccountable, and distressing, and that it requires every exertion which can be made to arouse, on her behalf, the sympathies and exertions of the Christian public of Great Britain.

The case of Ireland must appear more strikingly anomalous when it is recollected how it seems to be admitted on all hands that there never were greater openings, or better opportunities for propagating the Gospel in that Island than the present. The minds of the Irish population, ever susceptible of impression, and endowed with peculiar and even extraordinary capabilities, are now, through various movements connected with politics, temperance, and EDUCATION, more alive than hitherto to the appeals of argument and sound reasoning; and more prepared to listen to the messengers of religious truth! Surely all these considerations seem to combine in demanding a closer attention to the religious circumstances of our "Sister" country; and, as a natural result of this attention on the part of reflecting Christians, more prompt and energetic measures for her spiritual advantage. Calm and dispassionate inquiries into the position of different religious communities in Ireland-an impartial and friendly estimate of the disadvantages under which they have laboured, and a fair and candid exhibition of the efforts they have made for the salvation of the country, may tend to cherish kindlier feelings among and towards them: may lead to more unity of aim and concord in exertion; and may evoke a spirit of greater devotedness to the important object which all profess to have in view.

Not only does an important crisis appear now to have arrived in the history of Ireland; but her claims and character have been always so complicated and peculiar as to demand full and distinct consideration in order to do them justice. A page or a corner in a Magazine, filled in other parts with interesting and absorbing topics calculated to draw away the mind from the circumstances of Ireland, will bear no proportion to what her interests require. They must be brought more distinctly and prominently before the public eye. If a London City Mission Magazine," a "Home Missionary Magazine," a "Friend of India," and many such publications have been found necessary among the multiplied periodicals of the day, and have been useful auxiliaries. to the benevolent exertions recorded and advocated in their pages, why should not so important and integral a part of the British Empire as Ireland, have a periodical devoted to its religious interests, the advocate of its claims,

the depository of statements illustrative of its wretched condition and spiritual wants, and the record of those Missionary efforts that are being made for the supply of its need and the removal of its wretchedness?

This Journal is commenced exclusively for the spiritual benefit of Ireland. Every thing that tends to promote this object will find an appropriate place in its pages; and should the efforts of its Conductors be so far successful that any of the sons or daughters of Erin be converted either from Popery or nominal Protestantism to the faith and hope of the Gospel; or should British Christians be more awakened to the spiritual claims of our neighbour-island through the information or appeals which the Conductors of this journal may be enabled to circulate, they will consider themselves amply rewarded for any labour or expense their undertaking may involve.

Interesting articles of intelligence from Ireland are scattered through the pages of our different religious magazines, and other periodicals; but it has been thought that could these be concentrated into one focus, they might be brought to bear with a more powerful influence upon the public mind. Hence the thought of a periodical, to be devoted almost exclusively to the interests of "Irish Missions;" in which, so far as the exertions of its Conductors, or the communications of their correspondents, can secure such a result, all who feel anxious for Ireland's spiritual welfare, may find brought into constant review before them the melancholy proofs of her destitution, and the various exertions that are being made for her relief. The undertaking is hereby commended to the blessing of God, and to the cordial support of those who wish to see our Sister Island given to the Redeemer as a part of his promised kingdom.

The attainment of such a result is not problematical. It is foretold in the sure word of prophecy," that "they shall fear the name of the Lord from THE WEST," and that "the islands shall wait for his law." Nor is there any clause by which Ireland is excepted from this general "act of grace." The hope of her conversion may be long delayed, but cannot be finally disappointed. In cherishing that hope we are cherishing no vain chimera, no idle phantasy of a disordered imagination! God hath said, and he will do it. His word, whether as to the predictions of his prophets, or the preaching of his ministers, shall not return unto him void. It shall accomplish his pleasure, and prosper in reference to his glorious designs as well in Ireland as in every other part of the globe. In helping its progress onward to its destined and ultimate triumph, there will be the satisfaction of labouring in a good cause; a reward which will be enjoyed by all who are engaged in it, even though they may not be spared to realize or witness its final success.

May the dove-like Spirit, by his gracious blessing, render our little shamrock, humble as it is among the more splendid flowers of periodical literature, an olive-branch of peace to Ireland; and may that Spirit, moving over her deep and agitated waters, soon change her chaos into a paradise of light and love, of happiness and joy.