spicuous, and the manner in which your Lordship, in the letter with which I was honoured yesterday, has expressed your regret, that any part of your former letter should have given me pain, compels me again to trouble your Lordship with a few words. The pain I felt arose from an apprehension, that I could not hope for such a change. in the sentiments of those of the people of Ireland, who adhere to the See of Rome, towards those who refuse obedience to it, as might lead to their living together in peace. In some parts of Europe, misfortune appears to have produced so much of humility, that the persons who have occupied the choice of that See, have been inclined to bend towards countries, in which some of its most important pretensions have been rejected; and in this state of humiliation, it might have been hoped that a sense of the weakness and imperfections of man might have been so far felt as to lead the adherents to that See, in Ireland, no longer to teach their followers a doctrine so repugnant (as it appears to me) to the repose of mankind, as that to which I had alluded in my letter. I conclude, from your Lordship's letter to me, that there is no person amongst the adherents of the See of Rome, in Ireland, whose mind, however cultivated, however liberal in other respects, can be thought to consider any persons as Christians, who refuse obedience to that See. I conclude also, that the priests of that persuasion still teach their flocks, that all who refuse obedience are guilty of a wicked rebellion against divine authority, which must produce their eternal damnation in the next world, and render them objects of horror and dislike in this. As long as this doctrine (which, with all humility I say it, appears to me to be repugnant to every idea of Christian charity, taught by the Scriptures) shall be preached to their congregations; and until those congregations shall be taught that Protestants of every description, although in their opinion in error on certain points, are to be considered as members of the Church of Christ, and their brethren in the faith of Christ; it seems to me, that there can be no hope that exhortations to loyalty and obedience to a Protestant Government will have any effect. Men of education and property may feel loyalty and obedience to such a Government to be proper, or, at least, expedient; but preaching to men of the lower orders, and especially to those without property, loyalty, and obedience, under such circumstances, cannot cannot be sincere, without supposing their minds susceptible of a refinement of which they are utterly incapable; and seems therefore to me to be either mockery or folly. Perhaps I am too presumptuous in forming this opinion; but it seems to me confirmed by recent events; and I cannot otherwise account for the fact so generally asserted by the Priests of the Romish persua sion, that, during the late rebellion, their exhortations to loyalty and obedience had no effect. I find it also confirmed by the circumstances, that those Priests were, I presume, utterly ignorant that those under their instructions had ever conceived in their minds the horrid purposes which they manifested on the 22d of July, and which persons came from all parts of Ireland with design to effect. "I have the nonour to be, with much respect, My Lord, your Lordship's obedient humble servant, The Earl of Fingall, &c. &c. "REDESDALE," LETTER VI. ANSWER BY THE EARL OF FINGALL. 66 MY LORD, Great Denmark-street, Sept. 4, 1803. "I must beg your Lordship will be kind enough to excuse my not having sooner acknowledged the receipt of the last letter you did me the honour to address me, which has been occasioned by my absence from town for some days past. Honoured as I must feel by your Lordship's correspondence, and the expressions of personal regard towards me contained in your letters, I am the more anxious to impress your Lordship with that favourable opinion of the persons of this country who profess the same religious faith I do myself, which it has been my endeavour to prove to your Lordship they are deserving of.. Nothing but my wish to procure for them an object so desirable, and my high respect for your Lordship, would have induced me to touch at all on a discussion of religious subjects and not having been, I fear, fortunate enough yet to satisfy your Lordship's mind, as to the objections you make to our religion, I should be glad, with your Lordship's permission, to state them to some of our superior Clergy, who would, I am pretty certain, enable me to convince your Lordship, that our religious doctrine preaches charity and brotherly love to all mankind, without distinction of religion; true and sincere al legiance legiance to our good King; inviolable attachment to the Constitution and our Country; from an honest and conscientious conviction that such is the duty of a good subject and of a good Catholic, be the religion of the Monarch what it may. For my own part, my Lord, I cannot attribute the unfortunate situation of this country to any thing connected with matters of Religious Faith; Jacobinism and French principles and politics, the want of morality, and the depraved state of the human mind, are, I conceive, the sources of our misfortunes; Religion may have been made a tool by wicked and designing people this has often happened in every country, and is easily effected when religious differences exist. The distracted and melancholy state we are in, every body must lament; how is it to be mended is a matter for the Statesman and surely it would be difficult to find an object more worthy of your Lordship's high talents and abilities. "I have the honour to be, with the greatest respect, To the Rt. Hon. Lord Redesdale, &c. &c. LETTER VII. "FINGALL.” FROM THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD CHANCELLOR TO THE EARL OF FINGALL. MY LORD, Ely-place, Sept. 6, 1803. "I find myself as little qualified as your Lordship represents yourself to be, to discuss with the persons to whom you refer me the points you mention. I can only say, that the impression inade on the minds of those of the lower orders, certainly does not correspond with the doctrines which your Lordship represents to be the doctrines of the religion you profess. I have no doubt that your Lordship heartily and conscientiously embraces and acts upon those doctrines-the whole tenour of your life shews that you have done so; but the whole tenour of the conduct of the lower orders of the people of the Romish persuasion shews, that such doctrines are not effectually taught to them and if I am to judge from the writings, as well as the conduct, of some of the higher orders of the laity as well as of the Clergy, I cannot believe that they are thoroughly impressed with the feelings which appear to guide your Lordship's liberal and bene ficient ficent mind. On the contrary, in many instances it appears to me, that the conduct of some high among the priesthood, is calculated to excite in the minds of those under their care, hatred to their Protestant fellow-subjects, and disloyalty to their Government. I am assured, from very high and very respectable authority, that (at least in one district) the Priests who were instrumental in saving the lives of the loyalists in the late rebellion, are universally discountenanced by their Superior; and that a Priest proved to have been guilty of sanctioning the murders in 1798, transported to Botany Bay, and since pardoned by the mercy of Government, has been brought back in triumph by the same Superior, to what, in defiance of the law he calls His Parish, and there placed as a martyr, in a manner the most insulting to the feelings of Protestants, to the justice of the country, and to that government, to whose lenity he owes his redemption from the punishment due to his crimes. い "It is strongly reported, that the successor to Dr. Hussey, (whose disaffection was so manifest, that perhaps Government consulted its disposition to lenity much more than its duty, when it permitted him to return to Ireland) is to be a man also notoriously disaffected. If the appointment is to be made in the usual manner, as the recommendation of the higher order of your Clergy, I cannot think that much of loyalty is to be expected from those who recommended such a man. If the authority of the See of Rome supersedes the ordinary recommendation, it must be recollected that that authority is now in the hands of France; indeed it cannot be forgotten, that your whole Priesthood acknowledge obedience to one who is the vassal of France, whọ exists as a temporal Prince at least only by the permission of France, the avowed enemy of the Government under which we live. Under such circumstances it cannot be believed, that any honest and conscientious means nave been or will be taken by the Priests of suasion to make the lower orders of t sing their congregations, loyal subjec Government of this country. Romish per opie, compohe Protestant "I have the honour to be, with the sincerest respect and esteem, 66 My Lord, your Lord's most obedient, "And humble servant, "REDESDALE.” REVIEW. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. LETTERS OF CONSOLATION AND ADVICE FROM A FATHER TO HIS DAUGHTER ON THE DEATH OF FEW HER SISTER. 12mo. pp. 184. EW publications of this kind have given us so much pleasure as the present. A father deprived of a dutiful and affectionate daughter, cut off in the bloom of youth and beauty, is here presented to our view, struggling with Christian fortitude against the troubles and afflictions of life: by the assistance and comfort afforded him by the Christian religion, he rises superior to them; and though most deeply afflicted with the severe loss he has sustained, he, by this most powerful and only efficacious support, so completely subdues all the unruly passions of his soul, so represses that impatience under affliction, so natural to the mind of man, that in no one instance does he suffer an expression to escape him unworthy of his character as a Christian. Female hearts are, we believe, in general, most suseeptible of the keen sensations of grief; and the author of these Letters has had that still more arduous task to perform, of soothing the afflicted minds, and calming the dejected spirits, of a wife and daughter; of directing their grief into its proper channel, and enabling them to say with him in their distress, like the pious sufferer of old-" blessed be the name of the Lord!"What satisfaction those persons find who seek to drown all care in riot and dissipation, who fly to the scenes of wanton gaiety, of jollity and mirth, to drown their sorrow and disperse their grief, we know not;-but, to those who are inclined to pursue this course, we recommend the perusal of these letters with the care and attention they deserve. The grief of a father is surely too sacred even to become a subject of ridicule to the thoughtless, or mockery to the prophane: the pious grief of the suffering parent is here conspicuous in every page; and did it in reality contain no other recommendation, the circumstance that they are Letters of Consolation and Advice to a surviving daughter, and published at the particular request |