153 The Miseries of Ireland, and their Remedies. 154 starving man, in Ireland, at the end of their | sence is not necessitated by attendance in lease."* parliament. But in addition to these measures, we conceive the introduction of manufactures is essentially necessary for the future and permanent prosperity of the sister island. No country can now arrive at any considerable degree of wealth and civilization without them, as we may be convinced by a glance at those states whose population are nearly altogether employed in the cultivation of the soil. They are altogether indispensable to the formation of that middle class of society, the want of which is the very bane of Ireland, and which is, in every community where it obtains, the natural bond of union between the rich and poor, and the chief bulwark and depository of virtue, liberty, and public happiness. On the subject of manufactures, there neither can nor ought to prevail the slightest feeling of jealousy between the two countries, since the interests of both are inseparable, and whatever elevates or depresses the condition of Ireland, must equally tend to accelerate or retard the improvement of Great Britain at large. 2ndly. Absenteeism, another fertile source of the calamities of Ireland, it is calculated, "drains from the country a capital of four millions; and if this, which is now spent abroad, were poured back upon the nation, what an incalculable advantage it would be to a people, whose greatest evil is poverty and want of employment," And we conceive that while "the union," so called, has contributed nothing to alleviate the moral or political ills of Ireland,--by transferring her senators to this country, it has fearfully augmented the evils of non-residence. That it would be expedient to repeal the act of union, we do not affirm; but we think it undeniable, that it ought to be followed up by every measure that is calculated to realize the views of its projector, and to make it an union of the feelings and interests, as well as of the legislatures, of the two countries. In particular, we think clerical residence might and ought to be enforced universally, and without exception, throughout Ireland,-that no such wound might be inflicted on religion, and the community, as they received from the conduct of the late lord Bristol, bishop of Derry, who, deriving an income of fifteen thousand pounds a year from his benefices, spent it in rambling over Italy, and was reported not to have entered his diocese for twenty-four years!-while a tax should be laid upon every lay proprietor whose ab Eclectic Review, Jan. 1828. Ibid. 3dly. A very principal cause of the degradation of Ireland is, the want of any community of feeling or interest between the higher and lower classes, and the inequality of civil rights. The former is the result of the latter, as well as of that system of misrule under which Ireland has groaned for seven hundred years. The landlord severely exacts a rack-rent from the labourer of the soil, while the health and comfort of the latter are generally far more neglected than are those of the slave in the West Indies. "Let any one attend a public meeting in London or Dublin for the spiritual improvement of the Irish peasantry, and he will hear my lord A-, or the hon. Mr. B-, or the rev. Mr. C-, harangue, with melancholy gratification, on the mental darkness and moral depravity of these people, and make a merit of declaring they have come from home to announce to the world the vice and wickedness of their own tenantry, from whose hard labour they extract their support, and who naturally look up to them for countenance in return."* If the Irish clergy and proprietors are really concerned for the spiritual improvement of the people; if they would convert their dependents from Popery to Protestantism, they must evince a paternal solicitude for their physical and temporal happiness, and for their elevation to the same rank on the scale of civil society as the other classes of the empire. It has been well observed, that superstition is the natural ally and refuge of misery and wretchedness, and that the surest method of conversion would be to alleviate the sufferings, and augment the personal and social comforts, of the population. And although Catholic emancipation would not of itself be a panacea for the miseries of Ireland, it would be a powerful means of removing "the assumption of superiority on the part of the few over the many; break down the wall of separation between the two classes; raise a proscribed and despised people to that consideration which they ought to hold in their native land; and give to the Catholic tenant that respect in the eye of his landlord, which his mere industry and activity cannot give him : for the tenant, notwithstanding he possesses the elective franchise, has been supposed to hold it only in trust for his Protestant landlord. So long as any civil disabilities remain, the Catholic will still be viewed and treated as a helot, his feelings Eclectic Review, Jan. 1828. will be disregarded, and his comforts overlooked. The hog and the dog will be well fed and lodged, and the hovel of the starving tenant will still stand beside the gate of the demesne. And so far as the agitation of this question generates a considerable alarm in the country, and gives an impression of insecurity, it is one cause of the evil of absentees, and the removal of it would be a remedy. It surely is most desirable to take from the opulent any excuse for abandoning their country, and to induce them, by every means, to live at home, and so become the benefit, instead of the bane, of those who support them." 156 with whom we have nothing to do, not The settlement of the Catholic question would also have a most powerfully healing influence on the minds of the people, by allaying that irritation and prejudice which are most inimical to the spread of the reformed faith in Ireland. "We fear," continues the able writer just cited, "that the obstacles to its success lie deep in the present state of Ireland. The sacred cause of the Reformation ought not to rely on civil disabilities for its auxiliaries; and the word of God is both degraded and enfeebled, when we call in the aid of pains and penalties to support it. The Protestant faith has hitherto been rejected in Ireland, because it has been enforced by, penal statutes; and it will be rejected as long as a penal statute remains. To argue the point fairly with its opponents, it should be done on equal terms. So long as admission to office is held out as a bribe to POETRY. (For the Imperial Magazine.) 66 ADDRESSED TO DR. ADAM CLARKE, to On finishing his Notes on the Bible. detained thee? no twas the AUTHOR whose grace has sus tained thee, That held thee so long, while entranced with The Author, who gives to proud genius its birth; was Thou hast done with thy work;-and sweet the reflection! the rich, or food and raiment to the naked That doctrines erroneous flowed not from For awful, when heresy meets with protection, Where learning is seated-from talented men : As the American Indians refused to embrace the religion of their conquerors, lest they should go to heaven, and be tormented by the wretches who had despoiled them of their lives and property; so the Irish Catholics will reject Protestantism till it is presented to them in the endearing characters of humanity and justice. To adopt the language of a clergyman in reference to colonial slaves, but which, with a very slight variation, may be applied to the sister island; "We have five millions, not of a remote nation, not of individuals Belectic Review, Jan. 1828. Or torrents descending from mountains on high, The loftier their source, the more dreadful the woe, Thou hast done with thy work ;-and on it-while gazing May'st smile on the baby-bred triflers around, Whose volumes, like gardens, which mock them while raising, Will class with the children's, which spangle nearest, The grave, in their toil, hath imparted repose; Speech of the Rev. J. W. Cunningham, at the anniversary meeting of the Antislavery Society. Though numerous the authors from whom thou hast cited, No thought thou hast taken, but soon hast thou shown, With others, more bright, thou could'st pay,-and delighted In princely profusion, to give of thine own: And so, with the ocean, which drinks up the floods, But pays them in showers to the meads and the woods, Nor less to the torrents, more bounteous and clear, Which swell as they roll, and roll on with the year. Exuberant in thought, and as ceaselessly teeming, With compass, minuteness, and energy joined, And clear as the day, when the sun is aye beaming, The freshness and balm of the morning com- Thy mind, in its fulness, like soil in its strength, HADDON HALL A FRAGMENT. 158 Untenanted, deserted, thon art left Oft hast thou borne the tempest's utmost rage, Nor Storm, nor thunder shook thee, thou remaind'st So stood a Hampden, when the darkening flag To kiss the rod which scourged them, crouching low, Beneath th' inglorious sceptre of a weak Let not the thoughtless foot of giddy mirth Reflection saddens as I slowly cross The foot-worn entrance, and the spacious court, On their bared foreheads, deep imprest the stamp, Nor yet would I forget the ancient dame, S. C. Z. 159 Poetry. 160 THE PARTING LESSON. (Addressed to Fidele.) COME hither once again-one more farewell! When leaves look brightest-when the trees put on, To hail the spring, their gayest livery, In gladness that the wintry hours are gone; Mark them!-and know that thy return will be To me, as spring to a deserted isle, And welcom'd with affection's warmest smile. AMERICAN POETRY. "THIS WORLD IS ALL A FLEETING SHOW." THERE is an hour of peaceful rest, To mourning wanderers given; There is a tear for souls distrest; A balm for every wounded breast"Tis found above-in heaven! There is a soft, a downy bed, 'Tis fair as breath of even; There is a home for weeping souls, By sin and sorrow driven; When lost on life's tempestuous shoals, Where storms arise, and ocean rolls, And all is drear-but heaven! There faith lifts up the tearful eye; The heart with anguish riven; And views the tempest passing by, The evening shadows quickly fly, And all serene-in heaven. There fragrant flowers immortal bloom, ture, And of ancient date, to ascertain thy fundamental law, For shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it. Here will I hold. And if the powers above us O'er-rule the will with absolute control, (And that they do, Phrenologists assert in all their works,) Let fools delight in virtue : For how can such attachments make us happy? Or how, or where this system finds support, I'm weary of conjectures, who can end them? 1 What plans have ye arranged, what schemes devised! Since those dark days when Esculapius lived, Grove Lane, Ipswich, Dec. 19, 1828. W. S. TO THE NIGHTINGALE. Ah! thou lov'st to sing alone, Then, oh! then how sweet the tone, I. S. H. 161 Review.-Acaster's Expository Letter on Philippians. on the REVIEW. Expository Letters WE cordially agree with the vicar of St. 162 under great obligations to the author, for his attempt to revive a mode of instruction which has been so useful in the church of formist minister expounded in his meetingChrist. And though the son of a non-conhouse, it would be a most unreasonable prejudice to debar it from the Establishment on that account: "Fas est ab hoste doceri." The Lectures contained in this volumė are twenty-six in number. Chrysostom divides the same epistle into fifteen portions, and on each he has an homily. Calvin makes nineteen sections of it. The author having in view utility, not praise; simplicity, and not elegance; the influencing of the heart, and not the gratifying of a restless curiosity; we must treat the work accordingly. The observation of Pliny,"De pictore, sculptore, fictore nisi artifer judicare non potest," is as applicable to works of this description, as to those of In the first Lecture we have a very probable account of the origin of episcopacy. "The churches being few, and chiefly confined to cities and towns, bishops and presbyters were the same with deacons under them. But when these were multiplied, the senior, or more eminent presbyter, was invested with episcopal dignity; and his authority extended not only over the church and ministers where he resided, but over all the churches and pastors within the limits of a certain district, converted to the christian faith by missionaries from the mother church." Expounding the sacred volume in pub-elegance and art. lic, is of ancient date. Ezra, the priest, expounded it in public to the Jews, after their return from Babylon; and the apostles, in their public discourses, frequently gave a running comment upon parallel passages of the Old Testament. The ancient fathers imitated the apostles, in giving the general analogy of scripture; though Mr. Robinson, in one of his notes on Claude's Essay, has asserted, without proof, that Erzra, our Lord, the apostles, and all the primitive fathers, preached from single texts. This assertion, like other dogmata of Robinson, is gratuitous. Preaching from single texts, in a systematic manner, is of recent custom. The texts used by divines in the times of Elizabeth, as well as those in France, till the reign of Lewis XIV. were merè mottoes. Their sermons have been formed after the model of the Roman orators. The technicalities of the school of Geneva were successfully superseded by the labours of Wilkins and Claude. But the modern simplicity of the British pulpit was first exemplified in the sermons of Tillotson, and afterwards taught in the rhetoric of Blair. The expository mode used by the author is not new, though it may appear novel to some. Chrysostom, one of the most celebrated of the Greek fathers, expounded all the epistles of St. Paul in the same manner, and appended to each an Oukov, or application. And it is recorded of Henry, that he preached the whole of his voluminous Exposition to his congregation before it was sent to the press, as Mr. Acaster has done the present. The Church of England is, therefore, 125.-VOL. XI. Mosheim's account is much the same; except that the office of president among the presbyters was previous to that of bishop, and that the chorepiscopi who presided over country congregations, were an intermediate_class between bishops and presbyters. Eccles. Hist. cen. i. p. 2. chap. ii. sec. 2. In the same Lecture, the author ought to have excepted the epistle to Philemon, as not having been written because the apostle could not revisit the church of which he was a member, but merely as a recommendatory letter on the behalf of Onesimus. In the next Lecture, we think there must be some lapsus in the wording of the third reason on which the apostle founded his confidence of the perseverance of the Philippians, viz. "his uncommon affection and high regard for them." This is certainly a proof that he wished their perseverance, but not a reason why they would persevere. Should a second edition of the Lectures be called for, this might be tified.. M |