"I also remember," says the same correspondent," the extraordinary attachment which the natives bore to their apparently desolate island; so much so, that when crimes were perpetrated amongst them, (and they were very rare,) the only mode devised for repressing them was, that a tribunal authorised by the priest and the proprietor, sentenced the delinquent to banishment to the mainland for a longer or shorter period, commensurate to the offence; and this punishment proved so effectual, that it was rarely found that a person so punished ever attempted to commit a crime again; and no jail prisoner ever returned to the bosom of his family, after long and loathsome confinement, with more delight, than the poor Caper whose time of banishment had expired, came back to his beloved island.

SKETCHES

IN THE SOUTH OF IRELAND.

LETTER II.

TO THE REV. THOMAS P. ME.

DEAR SIR,

HAVING abundant business to call me away from the village of Skull, before I took my leave of my valued friend and his hospitable attentions, he asked me would I go and see his humble little church-a plain building, said he, and fitted for perhaps as plain, and yet as ample a congregation as any in Ireland; few parishes even in Protestant Ulster, can boast of a better filled house of worship. We walked, therefore, some hundred yards to this unadorned but neat building, which stands on a high elevation over

S

the sea and when its modest little belfry and whitewashed walls send their bright shadows over the water on a calm and sunny Sabbath day, when all is still, when even the sea-birds are silent on the rocks, and the toll of the church-going bell circulates solemnly over the bay, the sacred sounds reverberating from cliff, and castle, and cave, it must be a tranquil and blessed scene, as sun, earth and ocean harmonize with that peace which religious worship communicates, and which worldliness with all its pretences and promises, cannot give and cannot take away.

--

I observed in the grave-yard, that Protestants and Romanists were buried in distinct allotments. It was unseemly thus to carry division even into the grave; to see mortals lie separate in their common clay, and divided even in their dust, though believing in one common God, and seeking to enter a common heaven by the only merits of one atoning Saviour.

Here I was shown the grave of a holy priest; I had seen one before at Kinsale,

but now I had more leisure to examine and enquire concerning this object of a most degrading, disgusting, and barbarous superstition. Unlike every other grave in this large cemetry, no head-stone was elevated, no grave-stone covered the sacred dust, not even a sod ‘heaved its mouldering heap;' but the grave looked like a shallow pit, the bottom of which was covered with small stones and rags, scraps of cloth, cotton, and linen. On enquiring why this grave had such a peculiar aspect? I was informed that the clay was all carried away, in order to be infused in water, and drank by Catholics and their cattle, as a cure for disease in the one, and a remedy against sin in the other; and that it was deemed proper in every case when a devotee carried the holy clay away, to bring back the rag in which it was conveyed, and deposit it on the grave. "And pray," said I,

66

was

this Priest remarkable for his extreme sanctity? Did the 'Divinity stir within him ?’— did he walk as if God was with him ?-was he a powerful preacher, able and successful in

dividing the word of life, in speaking peace to the wounded conscience, through the blood of the all-atoning Jesus? Had his ministry been blessed in the moral culture of his people—and was he a constraining instrument of Divine grace in turning men from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God?'" "Why no," says my informant, "I have not heard that there were such seals to his sanctity as these; but it is firmly believed he worked miracles. He was proficient at curing the ague, rheumatism, sore eyes, falling-sickness."-" Well, but was he a man of austere life? did he deny himself daily, and carry his cross? Questionless, he was an ascetic and mortified man, another St. Jerome, or St. Anthony ?" "Why, no, not that either; for, if I am rightly informed, he could eat until he was full, and drink until his head was light, as well as any other Father at a station; and it has been said, that coming home at night from these reverend festivities, it was generally found necessary for two of the neigh