or was the Book of Common Prayer published in the Irish language until the year 1608. The period of time preceding this latter year, may be considered as having only announced the intention of extending the reformation of religion throughout Ireland.

James, though he did not refrain from endeavouring to spread the reformation in Ireland by acts of authority, did, however, also adopt the more reasonable and effectual method of causing the Service of the Church to be performed in the Irish language, and the New Testament, as translated into that language, to be read to the people. This truly Christian mode of propagating just notions of religion, was earnestly adopted by the celebrated Bishop Bedell, who was advanced to the see of Kilmore in the year 1629. That pious and zealous prelate had, however, fallen on evil days, for twelve years after his advancement broke out the bloody rebellion of the seventeenth century, which had been preceded, by much political agitation. The voice of the preacher was accordingly raised amidst the tumult and the irritation of an excited people, and the effect which that voice produced was speedily swept away in the flood of violence, which overwhelmed the land. But even in this dark and dismal period of the history of our Church, the inquirer may discover one gleam of brightness, to cheer him in the hope of at length overcoming the resistance of bigotry. The - prelate, whom the Romanists had imprisoned when living, because he would not abandon those who had fled to him for protection, they remembered with reverence when dead. They solemnized his funeral with the ill-assorted honours of a volley of musketry, wishing that " he might rest in peace the last of the English," and from the lips of a Roman Catholic Priest, issued the half-converted prayer, that his soul might be with Bedell. When amidst the infuriate massacres of a sanguinary rebellion, even so much impresion could be made, why should we despair of the influence of truth in a season, not merely of tranquillity, but even of kind and amicable intercourse?

In the interval of thirty-three years, which was interposed between the year 1608 and the commencement of the great rebellion, the legitimate method of propagating the reformation by making known to the people the sacred Scriptures and the Liturgy, was in some degree put in practice, but

many causes co-operated to defeat its success. The long series of troubles which disturbed the government of Elizabeth, having been terminated but just before her death, the university which she had founded in Dublin for the purpose was not yet prepared to furnish to the Protestant Church a sufficient supply of educated ministers; James, though willing to communicate a knowledge of genuine religion to the Irish, was yet more solicitous to form a Protestant interest, by the introduction of English and Scotish settlers, to the exclusion of the ancient possessors of the lands, who must necessarily have been irritated and alienated; and, above all, the influence of the Roman Catholic clergy, greatly augmented by the success of James, in dissolving the connection of the Irish clans, and thus detaching the vassals from the authority of their lords, was during all this time actively employed in preparing the people for the great rebellion, which after two postponements, broke out in the year 1641. If therefore, all efforts for spreading the reformation among the general population of Ireland, were, up to this date, ineffectual, the cause is to be found in the treason of the Roman Catholic clergy, who had placed their church in hostility to the state, and consequently had imposed upon the state the necessity of reducing them to a condition in which they should be no longer formidable.

From the commencement of the rebellion to the Restoration, Ireland was a scene of public commotion, in which the voice of genuine religion could gain no audience, though its language was perpetually assumed to stimulate the evil pasgions of the time. The bigotry of the Roman Catholics was then punished by the Act of Settlement, which confiscated so large a portion of the lands of the Irish, that their possessions were reduced to less than a third part of the island, though before the war they had been estimated as double of those of the English. A change of property so enormous must have caused irritation, sufficient to present insuperable difficulty to all efforts of religious conversion; nor can we suppose that this difficulty was in any degree diminished, until the struggle of parties had been decided by the War of the Revolution, and further resistance rendered hopeless to all, except the clergy, who, as we now know, were creatures of the Pretender, as long as a Popish claimant of the crown existed. Neither, indeed, are we aware, that any effort was

in this interval exerted for the purpose of conversion, excepting by the truly Christian philosopher, Mr. Boyle, who caused the Catechism of the Established Church to be printed in the Irish language in the year 1680, a new edition of the Irish New Testament to be published in the following year, and in the year 1685, an Irish Translation of the Old Testament.

Soon after the Revolution, some exertions were made for the conversion of the Irish, and with a good prospect of success. Two individuals, in distant parts of Ireland, the Reverend Nicholas Brown, in the diocese of Clogher, in the year 1702; and not long afterwards, the Reverend Walter Atkins, in the diocese of Cloyne, applied themselves to this important work, by addressing the people in the language which they understood. Of the former of these zealous clergymen, it has been recorded, that he took care to attend a congregation of his Roman Catholic parishoners just when their service was concluded, and then to read to them, in their own language, the Prayers of the Established Church. On one of these occasions, the Roman Catholic clergyman, to draw away his congregation from their new devotions, for they joined earnestly in our service, cried aloud that those prayers had been stolen from the Church of Rome. "If it was so," said a grave old native, "they have stolen the best as thieves generally do." Of the other, we are informed, that the native Irish were so much gratified with the offices of religion, which he performed for them in the Irish language, that they sent for him from all parts of his very extensive parish; that one of them was heard to say, at a funeral at which he thus officiated, that if they could have that service always, they would go no more to mass; and that he was requested to forbear celebrating so many marriages of Roman Catholics, lest he should leave their clergymen destitute of sufficient means of subsistence.

In the beginning of the year 1710, when most of the Roman Catholic clergy, by declining to swear the oath of abjuration, had rendered themselves liable to great penalties, if they should exercise their function, some clergymen of the Established Church, deeming it lamentable that the Irish should be left without religion, resolved to imitate these two persons, and their efforts were rewarded with the pleased attention of the Irish Roman Catholics. Delighted with

hearing our prayers in their own language, they openly declared that our service was very good, and that they disapproved of praying in any unknown tongue; some of them also were observed to be much affected, when they listened to the Scriptures thus, probably for the first time, brought within their knowledge.

Here was a fair opening for prosecuting a reformation of religion in Ireland. The country was not then, as in the time of Bedell, agitated by treasonable intrigue or by open rebellion, for the strife of parties had been decided by the success and ascendancy of the Protestants. The Roman Catholics also, as far as they were tried, appear to have received with gratitude and interest the exertions of pious Protestants, to give them more just conceptions of religion. Why then was the salutary work interrupted? Did the Protestants become indifferent to the propagation of a purer faith, or were they obstructed by new difficulties, which they were unable to surmount? The answer to that interesting inquiry has been furnished by the Reverend John Richardson, who, in the year 1712, gave to the public the narrative from which these particulars have been collected. This pious clergyman has intimated, that the principal reason why the Reformed Religion had not made a greater progress in Ireland, was, that dependence had been placed on political, rather than on evangelical means, for it propagation; and his own narrative shows, that these very men, pious and zealous as they undoubtedly were, fell into this grievous error, and so were led away from the right path, by which they might have extensively communicated the knowledge of the Gospel. The very success, indeed, of their efforts, was the occasion of their ultimate failure. It was deemed expedient to interest the government of the country in the prosecution of the work which had been so happily undertaken. The government expressed a disposition most favourable to the wishes of the friends of the measure; but the convocation and the parliament were also to be consulted, and the latter of these assemblies, though they too approved the principle of addressing the Irish Roman Catholics in their own language, judged it necessary, to the maintenance of the connection with Great Britain, to enforce the acquisition of the English tongue. When it is also considered, that the parliament had two years before

this time, completed the penal code, it will be easily understood, that the principle, which all had joined in commending, was speedily forgotten, and that the entire dependence of the Protestants was placed on the efficacy of force.

As in the time of Bedell the progress of religious reformation was prevented by the agitations of the people, so in this later period was it interrupted by the compulsory measures of the government, which the circumstances of the country had placed in hostility to the religion of Roman Catholics. Against this conduct of the government it is easy to declaim; but it should be recollected, that we have now unquestionable testimony, informing us that the Roman Catholic bishops of Ireland were at this time nominated by the Pretender, and we may therefore consider the whole hierarchy of the Romish church of that country as in secret arrayed against the security of the existing government. Whatever reasons, however, may have existed for framing a code of so great severity, and whether the government did, or did not, go beyond the necessities of the public safety, it is evidently seen that such a position was decidedly unfavourable to every hope of proselyting the Roman Catholics. The government indeed, and the Protestant part of the people seem to have suddenly forgotten the pious intention of converting them by addressing them in their own language, and to have trusted wholly to a proscription of their religion, so rigorous that it should leave them with scarcely any other option than that of adopting the religion of the state. This system of proscription had very little efficacy in conversion: neither indeed did it deserve to have any, for the proselytes which it could procure, would have little pretention to the character of sincere Protestants. In the growing liberality of the age it was at length abandoned, and a contrary system was substituted in its place. It was then, and by many politicians it is still maintained, that the true method of converting Roman Catholics is to abolish, as much as possible, all political distinctions existing between them and Protestants; and it has been again and again insisted that, when political jealousy and irritation shall have been removed, the former cannot fail to become sensible of the superiority of the religious tenets of the latter, and must rapidly renounce every peculiarity which might continue to separate them from their fellow-subjects either in religion or in policy.