rinthians i. and ii., 1 Thessalonians iii, and iv., a part of the Hebrews, from chap. ix. of which, he overturns the doctrine of transubstantiation; the whole of the three epistles of John and that of Jude. His thirst for spiritual knowledge continues insatiable, and his application is only limited by the opportunity of getting others to read to him. His abhorrence of error is in proportion to his love of the truth, which indeed is great."

Who but must deplore what follows, under Appendix, No. 8, (p. 33.) For obvious reasons, too shocking to mention, only initials are used; speaking of the district of K. it is stated that"in this neighbourhood reside the friends and family of the schoolmaster H—. As may be expected, they are the objects of much persecution on his account, as well as for the influence which his instructions have had upon some of them. In fact C, who went to see them, represents them to be under fears, if not of assassination, of expulsion from that part of the country. Of the justice of this apprehension you will have some idea, when informed that H, at the time he resided with his family there, having disposed of no small part of his goods to people of some property in the neighbourhood, the priest, when apprized of it, authoritatively proclaimed, "that no one indebted to H- should pay him a sixpence, and that if he presumed to call for payment, he would send him to one who would pay him in the manner he deserved."-Have our young travellers passed through Ireland with their eyes shut and their ears closed?

Again (p. 37);-" Since I wrote you last, two very large school-rooms have been fitted up, and a committee-room, with all necessary conveniences, at an expence of about £40. The very first week we had 60 children, and soon had above 100. The fourth Sunday after it was opened, one of the Popish priests gave notice in his chapel, that " no Catholic parents were to allow their children to go to our school, upon the highest penalties the church could inflict." In consequence we lost at least one-half of our scholars. The committee, on the Monday following, appointed another gentleman and myself to write to the priest. We drew up a letter, and sent it him accordingly. The purport of it was to enquire whether the report was true; and if so, whether it did not arise from some mistake or misapprehension of our design. He returned us for answer, that he acted under the authority of his bishop, who had determined not to allow any of his flock to attend the schools where any but Catholic books were used, or where the teachers were Pro

testants.

"We have now about 112 scholars. Notwithstanding the authority of the mother church, we have still 19 or 20 Catholic children.”

The following is part of a letter from a military officer, dated Sept. 28, 1812 (see p. 39).—" The inhabitants of this country are very poor, and, in general, very ignorant and superstitious; and nothing but the mighty power of God can be expected to work a radical change. They believe, implicitly, in what their priests tell them, and every one who asserts any thing to the contrary is esteemed their enemy. Any thing that bears the resemblance of English they are taught to abhor. I have known the priest even refuse baptism to the children of Catholic women who had married Protestant soldiers, -because, to use his own words, the father was a heretic, and the woman had sold herself to the devil. detestation kept up by the priests, in the minds of the lower order, against Protestants; and while the horrid system of confession continues, it will be so. When the Lord graciously opens the minds of any to receive the truth, all around is immediately a scene of persecution: they are publicly cursed by the priest, from the altar, before the whole congregation; and very often they are obliged to leave that part of the country, where they have resided, to escape the fury of these sons of the church."

Such is the

Our readers by this time will have formed a pretty accurate idea of the state of religious knowledge in Ireland, the pains taken to suppress it, the wretched bigotry which prevails in that country, and the dark ignorance which overspreads it. It is not that land of liberality which some suppose, and others chuse to represent it.

Before we conclude, we beg to say that the Hibernian Society seeks to attain its object "by means of schools, in all of which the Holy Scriptures are daily taught, and into which no sectarian book is admitted; by the dispersion of Bibles and Testaments, and plain religious tracts; and by the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ." It appears, from a note subjoined to the Report, that persons who choose to confine their donations to any one of these modes of accomplishing the views of the Society, may rely upon their being strictly appropriated to the purpose that may be specified. We think it but proper to add that we personally know the worthy treasurer, who is a magistrate for the county of Middlesex, and that the Society owes him a balance of more than £700. The report is printed by T. Rutt of Shacklewell, but no name of any bookseller appears.

.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS IN FAVOUR OF THE REFORMED RELIGION, RECOMMENDED BY THE EDITOR OF THE PROTESTANT ADVOCATE.

(Continued from page 25.)

25. Tracts on the Roman Catholic Question ; viz. 1, Serious Examination of the Roman Catholic Claims; 2, Sequel to the Serious Examination ; 3, Reply to Dr. Milner's Observations on the Sequel; 4, Supplement to the Reply, being an Answer to the Vindicator of the Remarks on the Bishop of Durham's Charge. By the Rev. Thomas Le Mesurier, Rector of Newnton Longville, in the County of Bucks; and late Fellow of New College, Oxford.

If our readers will be pleased to turn to the 333d page of the first volume, they will see that we mentioned the first of these Tracts, at the time when we took the liberty of recommending, for general perusal, the author's excellent pamphlet entituled "A Plain Statement of the Roman Catholic Question." In the edition of 1809, (the "Serious Examination" was first published in 1805,) the Tract is accompanied by the others that followed in the course of the controversy; and we feel convinced that we shall do great service to the Protestant cause by calling the public attention afresh to the whole suite of tracts. Mr. Le Mesurier's reading is very extensive, and his mode of conducting an argument is admirable. The acumen of intellect which he possesses, fits him in an eminent degree for contending with Dr. Milner and the other Popish advocates. He exposes their sophistry, and frees historical, legal, and theological truth. from all the entanglements with which those artful apologists for error delight to fetter it, and tears off the imposing vizor which they are pleased to bind upon its face. This volume takes up the Roman Catholic Question from the year 1805, when (in the month of March) the petition of the Irish Roman Catholics was presented to the two Houses of Parliament. A copy of the petition itself is given in the Appendix to the Sequel. All the late debates arise out of the terms of the petition, and therefore, by reading it, set out at length, and attending to Mr. Le Me surier's Examination of the assertions made in it, and the claims which it urges, the defence made, by Dr. Milner and his associates, and the refutation of their reasoning by Mr. Le Mesurier, -any attentive reader may obtain a well-grounded and connected idea of the principal points in dispute. It were very easy for us to detail the whole of the matter contained in this valuable book. It were only requisite to copy into our pages the very copious tables of contents prefixed to the whole collection

But we shall pursue the same mode in this instance which we adopted in others; viz. we shall extract a good many passages from the work, which may at once serve as specimens of Mr. Le Mesurier's manner of conducting the controversy, and furnish the readers of the PROTESTANT ADVOCATE with many interesting facts, and many useful arguments concerning the question.

We ought to state, by way of giving a notion of the size of the volume, that the Preface extends to xvi pages; the Serious Examination is comprised in 81 pages; the Sequel to the Examination in 84; the Appendix to the Sequel, consisting of 14 articles, numbers lxvii pages; the Reply, with its additional notes A and B, reaches 247; and the Supplement to the Reply 42 pages; making 537 in all.

Our first extract shall be taken from page 4 of the leading Tract. "Under an arbitrary government, such as are that of Russia and some others, the Roman Catholics may perhaps be left without any restriction, because in the appointment or removal of his ministers or servants, froitt the highest to the lowest, the sovereign is under no sort of controul: not only he may remove from office, but he may imprison or banish, or even put to death, an individual who shall disturb his government, without any of those forms, without any of that public and direct proof, which in this kingdom are required to be adduced and observed, before a man put under restraint, or even stopped in his machinations against the state. In this country it is wise, nay, it is necessary, to prevent by restrictions and disabilities imposed by law, a danger which cannot thus be summarily obviated or effectually kept under.

can be

"Such at least was the reasoning of our ancestors when they enacted the laws from the operation of which the petitioners require, pay, claim as their right, to be relieved. And it must not be forgotten by those who seek to be informed on the subject, that it is the institutions of our ancestors, at the very period when our liberties were most clearly defined and established, which are now brought into question, and that if indeed the members of the Romish Church have been made subject to " ↑ Humiliation and ignominy," this was so settled by those very statesmen whom we have been used to venerate as models of political wisdom, and as being equally enlightened and liberal.

* This is evidently spoken of the general course of justice: and must be taken to be true, notwithstanding the statutes which occasionally pass for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, the Proclamation of Martial Law, &c. These are exceptions which only prove the rule. The relief sought for by the Petitioners is against the general law of the kingdom.

Petition, p. 12.

"They thought it, I repeat, not safe, and not even compatible with the existence of a Protestant Church in this country, that members of the Romish persuasion should be allowed to have any share either directly or indirectly in the administration, of even the lowest departments in the state. They did it, as I think it will be found, upon good grounds; they did it after abundant experience of the mischief which was produced in their time, by the existence within the realm of a body of men, who were avowedly hostile to one part of its constitution, and whose consciences, were by the very nature of their religion subjected to the will and controul of a foreign potentate, most directly interested in subverting the government as it was and is established.

By the laws of this realm, as it has existed ever since the reformation, the King is declared to be the head of the church as well as of the state. There is no Roman Catholic that does not consider this as a direct usurpation upon the lawful power of the Pope: it is a fundamental doctrine of his church: and, whenever an opportunity has been given, there is not an individual of that communion who has not shewn that he viewed it in that light.

"This of itself must awaken suspicion : but that suspicion assumes a very serious character when we consider that the foreign power which has thus, in the opinion of the members of the Romish Church been dispossessed of its right, is one that in all ages has been remarkably tenacious of its claims, however founded, or under what circumstances soever set up; that it has scrupled no means by which it could procure them to be established; and in the present instance has certainly exerted itself to keep that part of the nation which owned its sway, distinct and separate, and even at enmity with the other.

"It was not till after the clearest proof of the existence of this dangerous spirit in its full force, not till after conspiracies against the state of the most atrocious sort had been discovered, that the first penal or restrictive laws were made against the Roman Catholics; and more especially in Ireland, which is the country of the petitioners: the late system was not established until the experience of many years, and I believe near two centuries had shewn, the necessity that existed for guarding against the consequences of the Papal supremacy as it operated upon the minds of every member of that commission:"

The Papists are very fond of calling the attention of their Protestant fellow-subjects to the ostensible regard for an oath, because they scruple to take an oath of a certain kind. Mr. Le Mesurier shews the weakness, or rather the audacity of this sort of appeal in the following words, (page 16.) "The first ground upon which they rest, is, that they have taken