make us wise unto Popery, through faith which is in the priest; the one would furnish the man of God to all good works, but the other is fearful, lest the man of Rome be furnished with what will destroy the power of Antichrist. How can these two be reconciled? The members of the Board may meet together at the pleasure of Government, but their deliberations, like the legs of the lame, will be unequal. I know too well the Romish members, and I think too well of the Protestant, to fancy for one instant that they will continue in harmony. Dr. Whately and Dr. Sadlier-two clever book-wrights, but withal inexperienced opinionative men for college tutors are ever great OPINIATORS-they, together with Mr. Carlisle, who is also an OPINIATOR, and has got some crotchet in his head about education, which he expects to evolve; they may be all very honest, very well intentioned, and most truly anxious to serve Ireland; and Dr. Whately out of gratitude, Dr. Sadlier out of facility of disposition, and Mr. Carlisle out of liberality, may, with simple sincerity of purpose, and perhaps singleness of aim, have lent themselves to the behests of Government, and with untired energy, and at the same time honesty, may buckle to the task: but by and bye, when they, having to do with the spirits of Machiavel and Loyola, find their integrity overmatched by policy-then will the star called Wormwood fall into their waters of debate, and make them bitter, and our syncretic and conciliating doctors must withdraw from a coalition, which Popish priests will not patronise one hour longer than while carrying into ope ration their determination to educate the youth of Ireland in rank and rigid Popery.

Doctors Whately, Sadlier, and Mr., Carlisle, must al ready perceive that it is intended to make use of them but to render palatable to the Protestants of the empire a great concession to Popery. They surely are too sensible not to see, that the hierarchy of Rome will only take advantage of them and their Board, as far as they chime in with their views and principles. Dr. Doyle in his Circular, bearing date the 26th of December last, declares this, when he says, "Should bad men succeed the present Commissioners, and attempt to corrupt our youth, we are not dumb dogs, who know not how to bark. We can guard our flocks, and do so easily, by excluding the Commissioners, and their books and agents, from our schools."

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Will then our Protestant Commissioners continue to give their countenance to this Bible mutilating scheme? Will they be like the false mother, whom the wise man detected, when she said, "let the child be neither mine or thine, but divide it." No; sure I am, they will not consent to the cutting asunder the living word, but, like the true parent, and with no small portion of her feeling, say unto the king, "Oh, my Lord, give them the living word, and in no wise, slay it." I repeat it then, and I stake the experience that grey hairs are witness to, that the Archbishop of Dublin, together with Dr. Sadlier, and Mr. Carlisle, are almost heartily sorry for having to do with this Government job, of shaking into mixture oil and vinegar, and will soon withdraw from the conclave, and leave the Board to expire under the contempt with which Protestant opinion will smother it. I cannot consider this new plan of education in any other light than as an underhand method of consigning the people of Ireland to Popery; and that-as far as weak men can designwithout redemption.

What then are Protestants and Christian patriots to do in the present crisis. Why, from all parts of the island pour in petitions, praying that the present Board of Education may be abolished, and all-yes, ALL and every grant for national or local instruction, withheld. Is not the system of bounties for the encouragement of any thing, now held to be contrary to all sound positions in political economy? The Protestant institutions are all disfavoured-not a penny more are they to get. So be it; we will not complain, so you do not lavish bounties--do not enact a tariff in favour of Popery. I confess, that as far as my information, and as far as my experience goes, I never saw Parliamentary aid extended to any educational insti tution, that it did not injure its proper and substantive virtue of working. It injured the Charter-schools, and paralyzed their usefulness: sure I am it did not serve the Kildare-Place Society; which, cramped and muffled as it was, with all its funds, did not so much Christian good in the land, as its unassisted and poorer, but uncompromising fellow-workers, the Hibernian School Society. Let then, the priests and laity of the Romish communion and they are well able to afford it-let them put their hands in their own pockets, and let Protestant Societies, and the Protestant clergymen and laymen take

equal ground, and let all. respecting the existing laws, have fair play. I repeat it then, that the Sunday, the Kildare-Place, the Hibernian, the Baptist, the Association schools, have occupied, and will, under God, continue to occupy, an extensive field of usefulness; and if the Protestants of the empire would, by voluntary subscriptions, convey into the hands of these Societies, what Government would raise from them in taxes for their present Popish purpose, I am sure, in spite of priests, Scriptural educa tion would prevail, and God's blessed and unmutilated word would have free course, and be magnified through the land. The great desideratum of Ireland is a good system of school instruction; pious, and, at the same time, intelligent, well-instructed men are greatly wanting, capa. ble of explaining and impressing the constraining doctrines, and high moral sanctions of the word of God, and who, in their lives and conversations, are sufficient to ex emplify the great truths they would inculcate, but als having considerable attainments in those branches o' knowledge and science, which can be brought to bea upon the arts and uses of common life. If masters could be found, who would really, and not nominally, teach practical geometry, in all its branches, of navigation, mensuration, guaging, surveying, and engineering, &c.—if in this way a field was opened for Irishmen, in those industrious walks of life in which they are now so lamentably deficient if hereby a facility was afforded of bringing in. to market, handicraft and not merely brute labourers: then, indeed, in spite of the priests, would the Roman Catholic youth of Ireland flock to Scriptural schools, where such good mental food was provided, and thereby the instruction which makes wise unto salvation could be at the same time imparted, and Scriptural Christianity would yet work a great work in Ireland.*

0.

* Mr. Molloy, whose work on Popular Discontent I have already referred to, though a Roman Catholic, has the following beautiful and just remarks on Scriptural Education. It seems that a man can be a consistent Romanist, and contradict Mr. Stanley's statement, that it is contrary to the principles of the Roman Catholic faith, to commit the reading of the Bible to the youth of Ireland.

"Of all the instruments of education, the most canvassed has been the use of the Bible in schools; and looking at the Bible apart from its sacred character, in its objects upon social man, it seems that the use of the Bible generally in a community, confers advantages in sobriety of mind, severity

158

THE SON'S RETURN.

TRAVELLING Some time ago, by one of our public conveyánces, I was thrown into brief juxtaposition with a fellowpassenger, in whom I was led to feel a deeper interest than is usual on such occasions. He was of that humble class of our countrymen, who earn their bread by the labour of the field; but he had a cast of superior intelligence and civility about him. He was evidently in a state of bad health. Consumption was at work in his constitution; and in face and frame, its ravages were distinctly visible. It was not difficult to lead him to disclose the particulars of his story. His father was the occupant of a little farm. The lease had fallen; the landlord was oppressive: times were hard, and the rent was exorbitant. The consequence was, that the savings of former industry were entirely absorbed. There were other sons too; and this young man, with little more than what would defray the expenses of his passage, bade adieu to a land that he could no longer look on, but as the miserable birth-place of beggary and bondage; and was one of several thousands who last year sought a home and freedom beyond the Atlantic flood. His history is soon told. Working at a laborious employment, health failed him. As the only hope of recovery, he was obliged to return to his native air. His

of morals, and caution of action. Abstracted from the sublime truths which it teaches, its difficulties, its obscurity, its variety and extent, discipline the understanding, exercise the judgment and fortify the will. It is, therefore, conducive to the forming of minds capable of taking a just estimate even of political measures-of seeing through, and rejecting, fantastical or ill adapted projects of detecting the fallacy of declamatory ar guments, and anticipating the consequences of ill-considered enterprise ; and when the learner shall be placed, as he must be placed when he reasons wisely and justly, in circumstances calculated for a much greater development of his powers, the same habits of thinking will highly contribute to his success-to the control of appetite, and the endurance of voluntary privation. In its varied and voluminous pages, he finds lessons either in express or suggestive for every situation. The use of it by the school-boy, has no real tendency to beget irreverent familiarity. Its sublimity and indistinctness are as inconsistent with that feeling, as is the immensity of ocean, or the splendour of the firmament: and as these, although they are seen from childhood, are ever awfu!; so will not any degree of early acquaintance with the contents of the sacred volume, diminish its impressiveness, nor prevent its passages as they meet the eye, or rise to the memory with happy applicability, from striking with reverential emotion on the heart."

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money was exhausted, and he was obliged to cast himself' on his family, whose resources were scarcely adequate to their own comfortable subsistence. He was a man of strong feelings, and perceiving the sympathy with which I regarded him, he expressed himself with freedom. "I return," said he, with deep emotion, and his eyes filled as he spoke, "I return with broken health and broken fortune, and I know not what reception I may meet." "Your father is still living," I observed. "Yes," replied he, "my father is still living." Then," said I, "you may be sure you have a father's house to go to; and while your father lives, you will never be without a home." I had no sooner given utterance to these words, than I felt my mind picturing to itself the old man coming forth to meet his son, falling on his neck like Jacob on the neck of Joseph, and weeping. The return of the penitent prodigal was also forcibly suggested to my thoughts; and under the warmth of the impression, I immediately seized the opportunity, of calling the attention of my fellow-traveller to the evangelical lesson, with which I felt my mind impressed by the circumstances of his affecting case. "Our souls," I observed, "are broken in health and in fortune, It does not appear, indeed, that you have trespassed, like the prodigal, against your earthly father; but we have all sinned against our Father in heaven; yet, on returning and casting ourselves on his mercy, he will graciously receive and welcome us." "You have every reason,' I added, "to calculate on the warmest welcome from your father and from your mother. A father's heart is tender: a mother's love is strong. With how much more assu rance may we calculate on the kindness and grace of our heavenly Father. Father and mother may forsake and turn against us; but, whosoever cometh unto him, shall in no wise be cast out. He will never leave nor forsake any that put their trust in him."

I was rejoiced to hear iny fellow-traveller express himself, in reply to these observations, in a manner becoming his situation. His mind seemed conversant with the hopes and exercises of religion. At the next stage, we parted. Since that time, I have heard no tidings of him, whether he still lives, or whether the grave has closed upon his sorrows.

This simple and affecting incident has frequently recurred to my thoughts, and has given rise to a variety of