tained throne, to a more magnificent and splendid one in the Chapel of Tralee. However, if we recur to a letter of Doctor Evans, Roman Catholic Bishop of Kerry, addressed to a leading member of the Catholic Association some time ago, we may be able to infer from that what the motives were. We are told by the Doctor, that the Priests are endeavouring to dissuade the people from frequenting the place!! "Endeavouring to dissuade !"-the expression is to me quite unintelligible. Have the Roman Catholic Priests and Bishops been deprived of the power of dissuading? The men who command the people to commit to the flames the sacred word of God, after they have been fully convinced that in it they find food for the soul. The men who by the terrors of their excommunications can cut off the objects of their wrath from all intercourse with their fellow men; who, by their threatening to withhold at the hour of death, those rights which are considered as a passport to heaven, from those who dare refuse complying with their tyranical mandates, as obtaining for themselves a blind and passive obedience. Have they lost the art of "dissuading?" Would to God they had! Then the Bible would find a quiet and peaceful abode, both in the splendid mansions of the rich, and the humble cottages of the poor-would point out to them the profaneness of indulging in the grossest idolatry and superstition, and convince them of the necessity of seeking for a refuge from the punishment of sin in the bleeding wounds of Jesus. He tells us "that the Priests are endeavouring to dissuade the people from frequenting that place, "not because they think it idolatrous to kiss the rude engravings in the rocks," as he calls them, "but because they convert it into a scene of vice and immorality," by the mention of which I would not wound the modesty of your readers. We have it from the letter of a Roman Catholic Bishop, that they do not consider it idolatrous to bow down and kiss, with reverential awe, "a graven image!" No wonder that they should deem it expedient to keep the old woman at the well, and others, in ignorance of the second commandment.. "Not because they consider it idolatrous!" The words themselves are so plain and positive as not to require any comment to show that idolatry is sanctioned by the Church of Rome, under a qualified, and more refined appellation "relative worship." (see notes in Rhemish Testament, on Hebrews xi. 21.-Matthew ii. 2.) But, Sir, before I conclude, it may not be uninteresting to your readers to get a derivation of the word Tubbernamul, and some information respecting the occurrence from which it first derived its miraculous power. It appears from an old tradition, that at a time when poor Catholics were persecuted by Protestant heretics, three blessed Priests were closely pursued, no doubt to suffer the penalty of death if they could be overtaken by the heretics: their pursuers every moment gaining ground, and the Priests becoming so fatigued as to feel it impossible to hold out any longer, thought it now necessary to call down the assistance of angels, three of whom having given the priests the power of becoming invisible, assumed themselves the

appearance of sheep or weathers, drew off the attention of the pursuers, and after a chase of considerable distance, suddenly darted into the well, thereby imparting to it an efficacy to be blessed to the healing of millions, and a name never to be forgotten by posterity," Tubber-namul," which signifies the "weather's well," in English. There are a few variations in the tradition, as some assert that the priests having been compelled to seek for refuge in the well, were afterwards seen in the appearance of blessed weathers; -others, something else.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

SIR,-In your Number for August, I observe a Paper entitled "Hints for improving the state of the Established Church in Ireland;" the insertion of which leads me to hope that you will give publicity to the plan, which I would now suggest, for the attainment of this desirable end; in stating which I would beg to say, that I do not mean to offer the slighest opinion as to the merits or practibility of the system recommended in the "Hints." Should that system be even carried into effect, my plan would be found subsidiary to it, if the contrary, mine is capable of standing by itself.

It depends on the three following propositions:-1st. The present Collegiate preparation for the sacred office is insufficient:2dly. A course of study, equally laborious and equally compulsory with that required from Medical students, is necessary;and 3dly. The carrying such a course into effect is practicable.

I. The present Collegiate preparation for the sacred office is insufficient:-To prove this I have only to refer to your own language, in your Number for August 1827, p. 87, the words of which I transcribe, because they express more briefly and more distinctly than mine could do, the evil of which I complain. "The other two professions," you say, "are carried on in conjunction with the Academic course, and the lectures of one, and the dinners and terms of the other, do not seem to impede materially the mere University business; the elements of both professions are technical and practical, and cannot interfere with intellectual exercises; but the Church in this respect stands alone. Whatever preparation is made during the Under-graduate course, does not exclusively belong to its duties; all the students are obliged to manifest in the Scriptural examination, a competent knowledge of the law of God;--all are furnished with the refutation of the Deist and the defence of Revelation, from the pages of Butler and Porteus;-all are initiated into the principles of natural law and religion, under the guidance of Tully and Burlemaqui. The professional business of

the Church begins when the student has answered for his degree, and under the present system it terminates at the close of the sucseeding Trinity Term. During this period the student attends about thirty lectures, manages with difficulty to get over about three-fourths of Burnett's Thirty-nine Articles, attends, at least once, the sacrament in the College Chapel, and then receives, so far as College can give it, the sanction of the University to his immediate ordination!".... "Excellent and useful as the divinity examinations certainly are, they are, we conceive, very far from being so efficient as to supersede an alteration of the system." The venerable professor's lectures are attended, but as attendance is not enforced, it may be interrupted and imperfect; and the lectures delivered by Archbishop King's lecturer, are limited to one class, and that a small one."...." We will now leave the theme, repeating our conviction, that while four years are given, and well given, to a preparatory course, nine months of partial and interrupted study are a very inconsiderable portion of time indeed to bestow on the most important part of preparation, for the most important of professions."

II. A course of study, equally laborious and equally compulsory with that required from Medical students, is necessary. The professional education of a clergyman is a matter which exceeds in importance that of a physician, exactly as much as the welfare of the immortal soul, transcends in its value the health of the necessarily perishing body. If then it be true, that years of attendance in the hospital, lecture-room, and the anatomy-house, be indispensably required, before the University can grant a degree to the medical student, shall that same University continue to authorize class after class of young men to present themselves for ordination? Shall she tacitly profess to believe them qualified to preach "the unsearchable riches of CHRIST," merely because they have once gone through Burnett's Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles? A further preparation is indispensably necessary; it must be laborious, for there is much to learn; and it must be compulsory, for you have yourself proved, that where attendance is optional, it is not always given.-Nor can this argument be avoided by the assertion, that the Archdeacon's examination previous to ordination, will prevent the ignorant pastor from being set over the flock of CHRIST. GOD will not hold us guiltless if we neglect positive duty, in the hope that some one else will do that which we should have ourselves performed. And, I would ask, do all Archdeacons deeply and diligently examine? Or, supposing that they do, (which I deny, both from personal experience and the testimony of others whom I can credit,) will an examination of three days, or perhaps but three hours, perhaps scarcely so many minutes, ascertain that the individual, presenting himself as candidate for an office in which his knowledge or his ignorance may be the means of the salvation or the damnation of thousands of those for whom the GREAT JEHOVAH was manifest in the flesh, is one whose "lips will keep knowledge;" or who, as a "scribe instructed unto

the kingdom of heaven," will be able to "bring forth out of his treasure, things new and old?" It is a manifest absurdity, as injudicious as it is awful; and if ever an alteration were necessary, it is at the present time, when it may so truly be said that a great door and effectual is opened unto us, and there are many advisers."

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III. My third proposition-That the carrying such a course into effect is practicable;-is designed, by its developement, to meet this exigency; and the plan which I would humbly suggest for that end, is, that no Divinity Testimonium shall from henceforward be granted to any individual, unless he have previously attended a Theological course for three years; each year to consist of four terms, and four quarterly examinations, similar to those now held exclusively in Classics and Science. Let those who value the interests of true religion, seek to provide the funds for the foundation of an additional college in the University of Dublin, or for the endowment of a number of Theological Fellowships and Scholarships in Trinity College; and I doubt not that the same public liberality which has endowed two Colleges in London, and one in the north of England, within the last few months, will be extended in Ireland also. The plan would be impracticable, if its execution must necessarily be entrusted to the Fellows of Trinity College, because they could not give up more time than they do at present to Theology; but if a new body of teachers be provided, it will easily be accomplished.

Here I must meet two objections:-The first is, that I would prolong aud render more expensive, the education of candidates for the ministry. Not necessarily. I would remunerate the new

fellows or professors by liberal salaries, and free their pupils from the obligation to pay them any fees whatever; and I would permit the student, at his own option, to commence his Divinity course at, or any time after, the beginning of his junior sophistic year, so that his third year as a Divinity student, would terminate exactly three months later than would, according to the present system, his course of Burnet on the Thirty-nine Articles; so that if he were so young that he would, as matters are now managed, leave College three or four years before he had obtained the legal age for deacon's orders, he might commence his Theological studies even after he had graduated; and thus he would be profitably employed during a truly dangerous period of his life, which is now often spent in improper pursuits, or, at best, in complete idleness. And even though this arrangement should occasionally produce inconvenience to individuals, this is not to be considered in comparison with the interests of the Church of CHRIST, "which he has purchased with His own blood."

The second objection which might be urged to my proposal, is, that if the attention of the students were divided between Theology and the regular pursuits of literature, they would be prevented from making any great progress in either. To this I can only reply, that when I was a student myself, I did not observe that

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Medical students were prevented from distinguishing themselves, by their attention to their professional studies; and this is further proved by the fact, that in that class, the classical gold medal was obtained by one who is now a fellow of the College of Physicians, although he was opposed by one who is now a clergyman of the Established Church, and who therefore had no professional studies to distract his attention. Whatever can be accomplished by a Medical, is surely practicable to a Theological student; unless we choose to admit the scoffing assertion, that men usually put into the Church those sons who are too dull for any thing else.

This letter has already extended so far beyond the limits which I had originally prescribed to myself, that I shall not attempt to state my plan now in detail. Enough has been said to excite the attention of those who are far more capable than I am, of judging how far it should be adopted :-If you will honor it with insertion in your pages, and with giving to the public your own sentiments as to its possibillity, or its rationality, you will greatly oblige, Most sincerely yours,

C. A.

ON CLASSICAL COMPOSITION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

SIR,-As classical education is confessedly of much importance, and composition in Greek and Latin is usually reckoned an essential part of it, I think a few remarks on the real value of that study, may not be altogether useless. A pretty long experience in such matters, gives me some confidence that my opinions are not wholly unfounded; and I have some hopes, that by being mentioned to you, they may get to the ear of some one, who may convey them to some other, and so (like the political suggestions of "P, P. Clerk of this Parish,") they may at last reach the notice of the great authorities, who can found practical improvements on speculative hints.

I have now lying before me, a folio volume of poems in English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, printed at the Cambridge University Press, 1748, on occasion of the Peace then concluded. It contains, besides numbers of poems from Students and Graduates, productions from the grave pens of the ViceChancellor, the Provost of King's College, the Master of C. C. College, the Professors of Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek, the Senior Proctor (Bentley), the Junior Proctor, the Taxator(?), and Thirteen Fellows, among whom I find Hurd. Now from such a learned array, one might expect great things. Of the English verses scarcely one poem is above mediocrity, several scarcely up to that sublime standard. For the Hebrew and Arabic, I confess I can say nothing of their merits; they may be equal to the Psalms or the Koran for all I shall read of them. But my business is with the Greek and Latin. Of these the chief part are