a more attractive theme, the Defence of Scriptural Education and the Kildare-street Society, by Mr. Gordon.

In speaking of this Society, Mr. Stanley, the mouth - piece of Government, says, "While they (the present Government) do full justice to the liberal views with which that society was originally instituted, they cannot but be sensible that one of its leading principles was calculated to defeat its avowed objects, as experience has subsequently proved it." And, again, "Shortly after its institution, although the Society had extended its operation under the fostering care of the legislature, this vital defect (the use of the Scriptures, without note or comment) began to be noticed; and the Roman Catholic Clergy began to exert themselves with energy and success against a system to which they were on principle opposed, and which they feared might lead in its results to proselytism, even though no such object were contemplated by the promoters."

Such is the language of the Protestant minister of a Protestant. community. The use of the Scriptures, without note or comment, is a vital defect and why? because the Papists are fully sensible that all their sophistries could not abide the touchstone of truth; they saw clearly that the general circulation of the Bible would quickly dissipate the mists of error by which the ignorant peasantry of Ireland are enthralled, and, according to Mr. Stanley, exerted themselves with

"energy and success against the system. What that system was,

will be best understood by submitting to our readers the three fundamental principles by which the Society was regulated :

1. "That the appointment of governors and teachers, as well as the admission of scholars, in all schools to be assisted by its funds, shall be uninfluenced by religious distinctions."

2. "That all catechisms and books of religious controversy shall be excluded therefrom."

3. "That the sacred Scriptures, without note or comment, shall be read therein by all the scholars who have attained a suitable proficiency in reading."

To these principles the Society rigorously adhered amidst all the obloquy of infuriated Papists, and with unparalleled success, (despite the contrary assertions of the enemies of the Established Church,) if we take into consideration the country wherein the seed of the Gospel was to be sown, and the subtle watchfulness of the enemy, who beheld the walls of their Babylon crumbling to the dust at the approach of the Word of Life.

Of the accuracy of this statement, Mr. Gordon, whose zeal in the good cause is above praise, has fortunately furnished us with most valuable and intelligible data. "There were in connexion with the Society,

"It is no slight gratification to the mind to be thus relieved by a simple exhibition of numbers from dealing with assertions, which could not be otherwise met without some degree of offence in the form of contradiction. I shall now leave it for the public to decide whether, upon the shewing of experience,' the Society has, or has not, failed in its' avowed objects,' and whether the exertions of the Roman Catholic Clergy, in this warfare, have been attended with success.'"--P. 59.

'

Surely, every individual who calmly contemplates the progress made in the establishment of Protestant schools in the face of a hostile priesthood, must be satisfied that no want of zeal or earnestness has been betrayed by the Kildare-street Society. The only thing, indeed, which appears to have circumscribed their sphere of operation, was a want of adequate funds, and not the boasted' energy and success' of papistical opposition. Let the Society speak for itself:"Your Committee had presented to Parliament a petition and estimate founded on the previous extended scale of operations of the Society, and had therefore prayed for 30,000l. for the service of the year 1826. But Parliament having been pleased to limit their grant to 25,000l., with a view merely that the Society should uphold what they had established, it became incumbent upon your Committee to restrict your expenditure. . . . The check thus necessarily given to the progress of well-ordered education throughout the country was severely felt; and numerous applications of a very urgent and meritorious description daily pressed upon your Committee from all parts of the country, with which they were wholly unable to comply."

That this was no exaggerated statement of the urgency of their case, is irrefragably proved by the petition for the additional 5,000l. being subsequently granted by Government, though but for the current year. And yet, forsooth, the name and sanction of a minister

has been by some means obtained to statements, which every one at all acquainted with the actual condition of Ireland can positively contradict. By what insidious arts this has been accomplished, it is unnecessary to inquire; it is undoubtedly attributable to the combined exertions of agitators and jesuits. The rapid progress of religious education alarmed those, whose only hold on the obedience of the people was their deplorable ignorance :-they clearly foresaw the no very distant triumph of Scriptural Christianity over superstition and idolatry of the Bible over the Mass-book, the Breviary, and the Creed of Pius IV.-and they procured the authority of the Irish Secretary, to give a stamp to their allegations, and to destroy the foundations of true religion laid by the friends of the Reformed Church.

The unnatural coalition formed by the Liberals and Papists against the circulation of the Gospel, and the doctrines of the Church of England, loudly calls upon all sincere Christians to combine their exertions to avert the threatened calamity, and disabuse the public mind respecting the actual tenets of the Papists in this our day - and to shew how utterly impossible it is for them to live in Christian charity with any individual out of the pale of their own Church. And here we are again obliged to Mr. Gordon, who has drawn his information from the Catechisms of Bishops Butler and Reilly, the most popular works of an elementary nature amongst the Papists, and which form the basis of juvenile instruction.

Under the head of "The True Church and Exclusive Salvation," we are taught as follows:

"How do you call the true Church ?"- "The Holy Catholic Church. "Is there any other Church besides the Holy Catholic Church?"— "No."

"Are all obliged to be of the true Church?"—" Yes; no one can be saved out of it."

"Who is the visible head of the Church?"-" The Pope, who is Christ's vicar on earth." BISHOP BUTLER.

"What is the Church ?"-" It is the congregation of the faithful that profess the true faith, and are obedient to the Pope."

"Which is the true Church?"—"The Holy Roman Catholic Church." "What are the spiritual blessings and advantages whereof the members of the Church are partakers."-"The sacraments, the holy'sacrifice of the mass, the prayers of the Church, and the good works of the just." "Who are deprived of those spiritual benefits ?"—" Infidels, heretics and excommunicated persons." PRIMATE REILLY.

To the same effect are the catechetical instructions of Bishops Tuhoy, and Doyle-and the latter, in order to leave no doubt upon the mind of the public with respect to the persons actually alluded to as deprived

of spiritual benefits, declares them to be "all such as are not in the unity of the Church by a most firm belief in her doctrines, and due obedience to her pastors;"-to whom both Bishops Butler and Reilly expressly assert "Christ left the power of forgiving sins."

The same learned Divines proceed to teach that "good actions both. deserve to be rewarded by God, and are capable of atoning for the punishment due to sin."

Is there any thing in these catechisms to shew the least sign of alteration in the doctrine and discipline of Popery? Not a shadow! To us their profession of faith is rank heresy-to us their catechetical instruction is downright blasphemy-and the Protestant who shall lend his assistance to promote them, is an apostate from his profession before men, and chargeable in the sight of God with doing evil that good may come.

We have now, it may be hoped, said enough to rouse the dormant energies of the watchmen of our Church. We have exposed the insidious working of the jesuitical system, by which it is proposed to educate the rising generations of Ireland; and in so doing, we trust we have made use of no expression not warranted by the extremity of the danger. This is no time to remain silent and unconcerned spectators of the intrigues and wiles of the enemies, not of the Established Church of England alone, but of every system of religion. The impugners of the doctrines of the Gospel are abroad in every quarter -infidels and enthusiasts-seers of visions, and dreamers of dreams -Unitarians and Papists-Canters, Ranters, Moaners, and GroanersSouthcotonians and Jumpers :—in a word, the whole thousand and one sects into which the community is divided, are banded together against our established religion. We must therefore be "wise as serpents"— not suffer " our eyes to sleep, nor our eyelids to slumber," till the ark of our covenant is placed in safety.

To alleviate in some degree the gloom likely to be superinduced by the picture we have been compelled to draw, we in conclusion submit a document, which cannot fail to gratify the Christian public-the protest of the Primate and sixteen of the most distinguished Prelates of the Church of Ireland!!-a protest at once forcible and appropriate, and which fully bears out every argument we have adduced upon the subject:

The undersigned Archbishops and Bishops of the United Church of England and Ireland, having taken into their consideration, with a solicitude due to the importance of the subject, the system of national education recently p oposed by his Majesty's Government for adoption in Ireland, submit to the Clergy of their respective dioceses the following observations with regard to it :

They trust, that in withholding their concurrence from this system, they will not be suspected of perverse opposition to the Government in its endeavours to promote general instruction, and to heal the wounds occasioned by party and religious distinctions.

They are deeply sensible that the present demoralized state of a great portion

of the Irish poor, and the disorders and outrages consequent upon it, are to be mainly attributed to the want of a suitable training of youth, and to ignorance of the pure principles of God's Holy Word, which prescribes the only just rule of duty towards God and towards man, and imposes the only effectual restraint upon those wild passions which lead to the violation of it. They are, moreover, fully aware of the advantages attendant upon the instruction of children of different religious persuasions in one common school; since it may be expected that the kindly feelings generated by means of such an association in childhood and youth will spread their influence over the subsequent periods of human life.

It is therefore with unfeigned regret that they are constrained to express their deliberate and conscientious persuasion, that the proposed plan of national education, instead of producing these salutary and much-to-be-desired effects, would tend rather to embitter existing animosities, by marking more distinctly the difference of creed in the public school, and by pointedly excluding, as a common source of instruction, that volume which authoritatively inculcates, under the most awful sanctions, universal charity, mutual forbearance, and the cultivation of order and peace.

They do not deny that selections from the Scriptures-not to the exclusion, but by way of facilitating the knowledge of the Bible itself-may be usefully employed in the instruction of youth; such selections have been constantly made use of in the schools under their superintendence. But, dispassionately viewing the wide and essential difference between the United Church and that of Rome, and bearing in mind the pretensions to exclusive sovereignty put forth by the latter,-taught, moreover, by the failure of a former attempt at instruction in common, in which concession on the part of the United Church proceeded to the very verge of what was allowable, and, as some thought, even beyond what prudence suggested, where, at any rate, the concessions made could be justified only by the ardent desire of concord,-and when, instead of promoting this end, they served but to encourage increasing demands, and to call forth unreasonable objections,-when, instead of scriptural selections professing to form part of the Word of God, a treatise was put forth which might have been used by the scholars without any knowledge of the existence of such a book as the Bible, or without the suspicion that revealed truth was to be derived through any other channel than that of the Roman Catholic priesthood;-these things considered, the undersigned Prelates cannot too strongly express their conviction that no selection of Scripture will be agreed to by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, which will exhibit to the youthful mind a correct standard of faith and practice, and set forth the right of every man to possess and inculcate-the duty of every man devoutly to read and examine the Scriptures-not indeed to the superseding of pastoral instruction, but in spite of the usurped authority of ecclesiastical rulers.

They further state, that they do not affect to conceal their grief at beholding the Clergy of the Established Church deprived of the trust, committed to their hands by the Legislature, of superintending national education-a trust which they have not failed to execute with fidelity and zeal, pronounced to be most exemplary in every inquiry made into the discharge of their duty, and at the same time, with a prudence and moderation most particularly required in the divided state of religious opinion in Ireland. Nor are they at all consoled at seeing this superintendence in matters of national education taken from themselves, for the purpose of being vested in a Board composed of persons of such conflicting religious opinions, that it is impossible to conceive an unity of operation without some surrender or suppression of important points of revealed truth. They by no means undervalue the patronage and aid of Government in carrying on the work of public instruction; but they are content to forego the advantage rather than to give their sanction to a system which, in rigidly excluding the Scriptures from the common schools, would introduce in their place books of religious and literary instruction, in the choice of which they are permitted to exercise neither judgment nor control. They cannot conceal from themselves that such a measure, in the same proportion that it tends to remove the Clergy