be depended upon. It has, however, happened. Among the actual subscribers to this society, there is more than one who was himself a poor child in the schools of this society; who received instruction in them, and who, making a proper use of that instruction, has elevated himself to comfort and respectability, and is now a benefactor to those schools in which I have already said, he himself was once a poor boy. May this often and often happen. I shall say a little more-my poor clients stand before you. You see all their silent unpretending looks. They leave to the ministers of God to discourse on the obligation of charity; on the rewards of the charitable; on the vials of wrath which are prepared for the uncharitable. Such solemn words as these never pass their lips; all they say is, we are poor, very poor. This is not our fault. It was the will of God that we should be born of poor parents. It was his will to put into your hands the means of relieving us. It is-it is his will that you should relieve us. Do then obey his will!do relieve us. He will ever be with you for your good. The collection, with incidental contributions, amounted to £708. And the vocal and instrumental at. tractions of the evening, amused the company until a late hour. ON Trinity Sunday, the venerable Bishop of the Midland District, Dr. Walsh, gave confirmation at Derby. His Lordship addressed those who presented themselves on that solemn and interesting occasion, with his usual mild, and persuasive eloquence; that eloquence that always affects the minds of his hearers, because it is the effect of many years retirement, and has been acquired in the best of schools, the foot of the cross. One hundred and seven received the sacrament of confirmation; and from the ages of those persons, it is fair to presume, that by far the greater part were converts to the Catholic faith. This circumstance reflects the highest credit upon the laborious and unassuming pastor of that congregation. The chapel was crowded, both in the morning and afternoon; and all persons, both Catholics and Protestants, seemed highly pleased with the beautiful discourses they heard from the venerable Bishop. BRISTOL BIBLE MEETING. ON Tuesday, the 29th of May last, a public meeting was held in the Great Room, Princes Street, pursuant to advertisement, to form a Society to be called "The Bristol and Clifton Association, for promoting the moral and religious improvement of Ireland"-the Earl of Roden was in the chair. The subject naturally excited great attention, and the room was crowded at an early hour, principally by ladies. Several clergymen, some of them from Ireland, addressed the meeting at considerable length: and if, on this occasion, there was less of bitterness than usually characterises such discussions, there was not less of canting declamation, and saintly calumny, which too often are allowed to usurp the place of fair argument and christian charity. The gentlemen were replied to, by the Rev. Mr. Williams of Chepstow, and the Rev. Mr. Edgeworth of Bristol, Catholic clergymen of high respectablity and splendid talent. Such efforts deserve to be recorded; and we very much regret, that the great length of the British Catholic Association proceedings, precludes us from inserting, in the present number, the speeches of those gentlemen as they were delivered. As, however, their interest will always be new, we shall endeavour to do so in a future number. And here we shall, perhaps, be pardoned, if we venture to express a hope that the examples of these gentlemen will be followed by their Rev. Brethren throughout the kingdom, conscious as they are, that the pure. principles of our holy religion require only to be better known; that interested bigotry has remained too long in sole possession of the field; and that "they who are called of God," use other arms than calumny and abuse for the advancement of the Redeemer's kingdom. The Rev. Mr. Daly, of Powerscourt, a bible crusader of some celebrity, and who prefers an itinerant mode of life, to the quiet, unostentatious discharge of his pastoral duties at home, reminded his hearers of an old saying, that "live fish swim against the stream, while dead ones float with it." The adage was not inapplicable. The tide of temptation may carry along with it some of the dead members of the Catholic Church, but the live ones will swim against the stream, in spite of the host of bibles, brogues, and blankets, that swell the tide against them. WEDNESDAY, the 20th of June, was the anniversary of what is termed the Grand Exhibition at St. Edmund's College, Old Hall Green. A becoming respect and love for Alma Mater induces many of the clergy and laity to resort to her on this occasion, if their avocations permit it. The attendance this year was not so numerous as usual; the cause of which must be attributed to the circumstance of a great public charity dinner (St. Patrick's), being held on the same day. Though shorn of that imposing splendour, which in former days was displayed on such occasions, when music, dancing, prologue, epilogue,&c. were among the attractions of the scene; when the noonday sun too, was excluded and forced to shine unseen, though not unfelt; and the spacious room brilliantly illumined by wax lights, and the beautifully and fancifully chalked floor, and walls decorated with odoriferous flowers and garlands, all combined to produce feelings in the beholder, which, for the first half-hour at least, could be no other than those of admiration and delight. Though nothing of this was to be seen, yet must it be allowed, that the exhibition of this year was, as a display of intellectual talent and oratorical powers on the part of the students, seldom, if ever surpassed. The medal for public speaking was well contested. Messrs. Bennett, Bugden, and Jarrett, in particular, discovered very high talents for elocution. On a scrutiny of the votes, the numbers were found to have adjudged to Mr. Bennett the first prize, with the medal; to Messrs. Bugden, Jarrett, and Kyan the second, third, and fourth prizes; to Mr. T. Rhing, was presented the medal for rhetoric; and to Mr. C. M'Carthy, the medal for poetry. These two young gentlemen, favoured the company by reading some of their Latin and English compositions, both in poetry and prose. Then followed the distribution of prizes; after which, the exhibition broke up, and the company proceeded to the great refectory, to partake of a dinner, which the known hospitality of Old Hall Green makes it quite unnecessary to declare, was excellent. THE newly-erected Catholic Cha pel dedicated to St. Cuthbert, in the city of Durham, was consecrated with great solemnity on Thursday, May 31st, 1827. The pontifical high mass was celebrated by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Smith, bishop of Bolina, and V. A. for the northern district; the Rev. Thomas Youens, vice-president of Ushaw College, officiated as deacon; and the Rev. Thos. Fisher, as subdeacon. About twenty-six of the clergymen of the counties of Durham and Northumberland also assisted, habited in surplices and stoles, amongst whom were the Rev. Dr. Gillow, president of Ushaw College, the Rev. J. Worswick, of Newcastleupon-Tyne, the Rev. Thos. Gillow, of North Shields, &c. &c. &c. The vocal parts of the service were well performed by the choir of Ushaw College, assisted by a numerous band of instrumental performers. An appropriate and eloquent discourse was delivered by the Rev. James Wheeler, of Clintz Hall, near Richmond, in Yorkshire, in the course of which he took occasion to pay a deserved compliment to the Rev. Wm. Croskell, the present incumbent, by whose exertions, in a great measure, this beautiful chapel and clergyman's house adjoining have been erected. After the sermon a collection was made towards the expense of the building, amounting to £49., which was afterwards increased, by private contributions, to upwards of £90. THE large and commodious Chapel at Darlington, in the county of Durham, of which there was inserted in the Catholic Miscellany for March, 1827, a wood-engraving, though not completely finished, was also opened on Tuesday, the 29th May, 1827. On the occasion high mass was solemnly celebrated by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Smith, and an eloquent sermon preached by the Rev. Richard Gillow, professor of Rhetoric in Ushaw College. After the service a collection, amounting to upwards of £30., towards the expense of the building, was made. WE are informed that Professor Huddlestone, of St. Mary's College, Oscott, has been appointed to the mission about to be established at Cambridge. St. Peter's Place, Birmingham, May 4th, 1827.-The heavy debt attached to the Chapel of St. Peter's Place, which, about nine months ago, amounted to £1829., is now reduced to £1699. The gradual reduction is contemplated by a weekly subscription, already commenced, of 1d., and not exceeding 6d. (any sum beyond 6d. to be considered, and thankfully received, as a donation). Those who wish to contribute to a work by which the interests of religion will be materially advanced, are respectfully requested to signify the same to Mr. T. Chopping, to the beadle, or to the pastor of St. Peter's Chapel, T. M. M'Donnell. The debt is reduced May 14th, to BIRTHS. On the 30th May, in Hunter Street, the Lady of Wm. Witham, Esq., of a daughter. On the 6th ult., at Beaufort Castle, near Inverness, the Hon. Mrs. Fraser, of Lovat, eldest daughter of the Rt. Hon. Lord Stafford, of a daughter. £ 1689 £1589 On the 25th ult., at Gifford's Hall, Suffolk, the Lady of Patrick Power, Esq. of a daughter. Lately, at Talacre, Flintshire, the Lady of Sir Edward Mostyn, Bart. of a son. JARROW, a small village on the south side of the river Tyne, two miles from the town of South Shields, in the county of Durham, and eight from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was once a place of great consequence, and of distant antiquity. Little more now remains of this once famous town than a few cottages, the distracted ruins of the old monastery, the church, a venerable pile, but so patched up and altered as to retain few traces of its original figure, and the capacious haven or estuary now called the Slake, washed full of sand, and left dry by the river Tyne at the ebbing of the tide. The monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow were the most ancient of any within the limits of this county. St. Bennet Biscop founded the abbey of St. Peter's at Wearmouth, near the mouth of the river Wear, in 674, being in the reign of king Egfrid, and that of St. Paul's at Girvum, now Jarrow, in 680. Such an harmony subsisted between the two houses, that they were often governed by the same abbot, and called the monastery of Saints Peter and Paul. Retirement and seclusion must not have been consulted in the choice of this situation; for if the original monastery was placed where the present ruins are, the ground is elevated, and forms a curvature towards the Slake, which ancient authors tell us was the haven of Egfrid, where, consistent with the burden of the vessels used in that age, a thousand sail might be moored in the greatest security. The descriptions given by ancient writers of religious edifices nearly of the date of this monastery, lead us not to expect any remaining traces of the original structure, unless we discover them in the In repositories of the dead; for as such fabrics chiefly consisted of timber and reeds, the sacrilege committed by barbarians in repeated invasions would most probably sweep away every part of them. the fifth year of Ethelred's reign after his restoration, and during the episcopacy of Bishop Higbald, the Danes entered the river Tyne, and laid this monastery in ashes. It is probable the monks would return to their ruined seat after the retreat of the invaders, and restore their habitation and church; but their peace was not of long continuance; for in the seventh year of Osbert's reign, the Danes again entered the Tyne, practising their accustomed rapine and devastation, and laying waste all the religious houses. In the interval, while the See or Episcopal Seat was fixed at Chester-leStreet, it may reasonably be presumed the monastery at Jarrow was again restored; and from the style and order of the architecture of that period, we are led to conjecture that part of the structures now standing were of that age. St. Bennet Biscop was a man of extraordinary learning and piety, and enriched the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow with a large and curious library, which he had collected at Rome and other foreign countries. To his care, at Wearmouth, Venerable Bede was committed at the age of seven years, but was afterwards removed to Jarrow, where he prosecuted his studies under the direction of the Abbot Coelfrid, who had been St. Bennet's fellow-traveller. Venerable Bede was born about the year 673, as Mabillon demonstrates from his own writings, in a village between the months of the Wear and the Tyne, which soon after his birth became part of the possessions of the monastery of Jarrow.* His great piety and endowments supplying the defect of age, he was by the order of his abbot, Ceolfrid, ordained deacon in 691, when only nineteen years of age, by St. John of Beverley, who was at that time bishop of Hexham, in which diocese Jarrow was situated, there being then no episcopal see at Durham. From this time he continued his studies till 702, when he was ordained priest by the same prelate, who became bishop of * "Monkton, about a mile distant from Jarrow, an ancient possession of the monastery of Jarrow. The name carries its own obvious derivation. Tradition assigns this as the birth-place of the Venerable Bede.-Bede's well still retains the name, and was till very lately in repute as a bath for the recovery of infirm or diseased children."-Surtees' History of Durham. vol. ii. page 80. |