without the soul, well knowing that it must then be rapidly approaching the loathsome corruption of the grave; but while I behold it living and thriving, I know that the soul is there, and the union complete. That soul will outlive the body, as spiritual religion will outlive the body politic: but as well might your mortal frame perform the functions of an animated and intelligent being, while your soul was carried away into Abraham's bosom, as the governing organs of a people on whom the light of revelation has shone, can act and prosper in the absence of that great mainspring of vitality-Christian principle.

And the Lord, in pity to the blindness and unbelief of our hearts, has vouchsafed a perpetual witness to the truth of his word. My purpose, therefore, is not in the course of this tour to declaim upon causes, but to trace effects. The inference will make itself understood. I put spiritual things first, because revelation and reason alike give the pre-eminence to that which is enduring: but faith is of all things the most practical : and if there be a statute book that even to the minutest particular takes thought for the temporal interests and personal comfort of the poor of the land, that book is the Bible. Political economists enter upon a mazy track, dark, full of obstacles, indented with pits, overgrown with entanglements:

and then, having carefully extinguished or buried their torches, they blunder on, now lodging their feet in a quagmire, now fracturing their skulls against a branch, now finishing a breathless and exulting course at the precise point whence they started. Each cries out to his neighbour, Your road is impassable;' each in turn makes the same discovery respecting his own; yet sure I am, that if they had light unto their feet they would find a safe and pleasant path, prepared by him who is not the author of confusion, but of peace.

I have looked around me with an earnest desire to obtain clear views on that stiffly-contested point, the origin of Irish evils. Their existence is not disputed, neither can any person actually on the spot, who has had previous opportunities of investigation, deny that they have alarmingly increased. I have no hesitation in declaring that, trunk and branch, they spring and thrive from one plain root, culpable neglect of the poor; and that one remedy alone can reach the seat of disease, a competent provision for that neglected class. You will not suppose that in these words I include only bodily relief: I do indeed believe, and am perfectly certain, that without a permanent, legalized, sufficient provision, on the plan of a poorlaw enactment, nothing whatever will be done to improve the state of Ireland; but I am equally

sure that the most ample supply of all their temporal need will be alike inefficacious, while their minds remain under the baneful influence of Popery. It is idle to argue the contrary, from the fact of some continental nations presenting a picture of tranquil industry and comparative prosperity, while still in bondage to the See of Rome : they are not subjects of an essentially Protestant state: nor is it the interest of their priests to encourage disaffection to their respective governments. If it were so, the history of the world, from the first rise of the Papal kingdom to this time, furnishes proof that they would speedily find a pretext for exciting the people. The cruel, shameful neglect, that allows the Irish peasant to perish in utter destitution, is indeed a powerful weapon in the hands of his misleaders; but, were that removed, so long as the high places in the state, the revenues of the church, the magisterial and military power, are not lodged exclusively with themselves, so long will those whose influence governs the popular mass, both of mind and matter, in this country, be movers of sedition. Trust me, while Mordecai sits in the gate, his ancient enemy, Haman, who abhors his race, will disregard with sullen unthankfulness all the favours, all the privileges that can be heaped upon him, and go to his house heavy and displeased.

I am in Wexford: in a place where blood cries from the ground with a mighty and terrible voice. If I never proceed further on my journey, the spots that within a day's excursion I have looked on would furnish proof sufficient for my purpose. Travellers seem, by general consent, to pass by the appalling recollections inseparable from these places; considering it a breach of charity openly to revive them. But charity calls for a different line of conduct where the past affords an important lesson for present use, and offers a safeguard against the future recurrence of those terrible incidents.

The question forcing itself upon the mind is this: do the same elements now exist in an equally formidable state, and with the same combining and directing power at hand to wield them, as when, in ninety-eight, the beautiful landscape that lies before me in soft, unbroken repose, was transformed into a wild battle-field, reddened with blood and flame. I am forced to reply, they do: they exist in the consciousness of union and strength, with an object more defined, in a position incalculably more advantageous: gained, at least in their opinion, through intimidation, at once improve their ground, and inspire them with confidence. The authority to which they implicitly bow has been recognized, hon

successes

oured, advanced, by the legislature; its demands as yet meet no repulse; therefore the act that would in a moment once more array the mass of the population against the government, is suspended. But how may the palpable danger be averted? That is a query the importance of which you may partially feel, at the safe distance of your quiet home: to comprehend its thrilling interest aright, you must be domesticated awhile under a Protestant roof, in the south or west of Ireland. The only alternative is to be sought either in the forcible suppression of an insurrectionary tendency, by holding the sword suspended over a whole people, or in the dissolution of a confederacy that gives life and motion to the hostile body. So long as the Romish hierarchy and priesthood retain the essential character of their class, they will stand prepared to wield the whole moral and physical force of their boasted millions against us: so long as the Irish peasant continues to suffer under the grinding oppression, to endure the helpless, hopeless wretchedness of his unspeakably destitute state, he will be a weapon ready whetted for the work of destruction. The miseries that he endures, and which he knows must thicken upon him as his years increase, render him at once desperate as to his present conduct and fate, and doubly solicitous to insure a