Subscriptions and Donations in aid of the Baptist Missionary Society will be thankfully received by Sir Samuel Morton Peto, Bart., M.P., Treasurer; by the Rev. Frederick Trestrail, and Edward Bean Underhill, LL.D, Secretaries, at the Mission House, 33, Moorgate Street, LONDON; in EDINBURGH, by the Rev. Jonathan Watson, and John MacAndrew, Esq.; in GLASGOW, by John Jackson, Esq.; in CALCUTTA, by the Rev. C. B. Lewis, Baptist Mission Press. Contributions can also be paid in at Messrs. Barclay, Bevan, Tritton, and Co.'s, White Hart Court, Lombard Street, to the account of the Treasurer.

IRISH CHRONICLE.

DEAR BROTHER,

JULY, 1864.

A TALE OF IRISH LIFE.

THIRD PART.

IN my last I furnished you with many names of persons converted by your Mission in my districts. Not having kept a written memoranda, I find I have not fully retained in my mind all the incidents that would bring into stronger light the Jubilee year of your Mission; for example, since my last I have recollected as many as twenty converts, which I had forgotten in my last.

Great Changes.

If no error had emanated from Rome; if all Priests had given the free use of their Chapels for our schools, and circulated the Scriptures among their people; still, when your Mission was first established in Ireland, it was much needed, as it regarded the Protestant population. The clergymen now of the Episcopal Church are generally devoted, pious, hard-working Evangelical men; but fifty years ago such was not the case. So far as I knew them in my early days, they were careless, indifferent, and some of them immoral. Alas, I had myself a most heartrending example:-When my dear father was being buried, the clergyman who was to have officiated came at the hour appointed for the funeral puffing, and panting, and sweating with his pack of hounds through our fields, and begged the funeral might be detained; this, of course, I refused; he met us, however, at the grave, read or muttered the service-indecently hurried-with surplice over his hunting-dress, &c., &c.; and this is not a solitary case. Indeed, with the exception of very few, the Protestant population were without example and instruction. Our Mission, however, with other voluntary efforts, told on this class of my countrymen. Our Ministers of course preached without a written sermon, and prayed with the sick, the afflicted, and tempted, without a Prayer-book; the people perceived the difference, and by degrees a new class of clergymen arose equal to the most ardent voluntaries. This class is continually increasing, and if the Independent, the Wesleyan, and the Baptist Ministers will stand still, or cease to wrestle in prayer, or for a moment neglect the prayerful perusal of the Word, or disregard the advantages of study, this class of clergymen will lead the van in Ireland's conflict. The change in other respects is indeed great; I knew a pious young member thirty-five years ago who supported herself by taking in work from ladies, but as soon as she became a Baptist the work was taken from her. Now, in some places, a Nonconformist is not met by even indirect persecution, but every favour is conferred, and every kindness heaped upon them. Then, ourselves and sermons were denounced; now, we are welcomed and treated with kindness. I remember once a clergyman declaiming against me, and declaring I should not dare enter his parish. I had no desire to do so, for I had more houses open than I could occupy; but the opposition excited the curiosity at first of one of the parishioners. I was invited to preach there. I could not refuse, and the result was that I baptized the two churchwardens of the parish.

Instances of Gratitude.

I acquired much of my knowledge of Scripture at the night-schools. This

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was partly from choice, and partly from necessity. One hard frosty night, about twelve o'clock, as I was returning through a large lonely field, and of course in those days haunted, just as I was stepping across the stream where the ghost was believed generally to linger, I saw a man stretched on his back in the stream, with the ice forming on his face. At first I was weak enough and terrified enough to think it was the ghost, and even now I can bear testimony that Virgil did not say too much when he described a man in terror, as having "his hair standing on end, and his voice sticking to his jaws." This was only for a moment. I found the village blacksmith, the father of five children, stiff, and apparently dead. I got him on my back, carried him a mile to the doctor's house, and soon I had the joy of seeing him revive. His leg was broken; he had fainted, and the intensity of the cold left him as dead. Eighteen years after, at a baptizing, in rather a deep river, hundreds being present, this man was standing on the bridge, and when he thought I was in danger from the depth of the river, he rushed down, with a long pole in his hand, breasted the stream, and that multitude of Roman Catholics seeing this practical development of his gratitude, gave one long hurra, one universal shout "Well done! Owen Mullarory."

On one dark night in December I was returning home, after a journey of some sixty or eighty miles, paying the schoolmasters and readers their salaries, having preached every night during the fortnight's tour, I intended to sleep at Foxford, about ten miles from my home. There was a faction fight in the town on that night; that is, two parties, that is all relatives to the 20th degree-rallied around either of the combatants, and with either good blackthorn, or hazel shillalahs, or sound two-year-old sloes, joined in the fray. I found Foxford too hot for the night, so I took a tight hold of my good stick, and, in the name of God, started on my ten mile walk, at ten o'clock of a dark night, knowing well that with the exception of one lonely miserable cabin, I should not see a house for miles. Just as I came to that cabin I heard voices in Irish, not encouraging to a lonely traveller. But God gave me courage, I at once walked in, and surely there were four stalwart sons of "the first gem of the ocean," as fierce-looking fellows as I have ever seen. I told at once my name; asked one or two of them to come with me to the next village; there was a sneer, a scowl apparent a bundle of straw in the corner began to move, an old woman made herself visible through the thick smoke" little boys," said she, to the young "giants," go on your "knees, and bless God and this man who saved your lives last summer." The previous summer, through the bounty of English friends, I was able to give some meal to this woman. I did not know it then, but I soon found out that these were four highway robbers of the worst description, and yet still two of these men accompanied me, not to the next village only, but to my own door. I saw them afterwards pass through the town handcuffed in the custody of the police. God had, indeed, been gracious to me.

Scene at a Baptizing in Ireland.

I was one night preaching in a farm house in the mountains of Sligo, a Roman Catholic carpenter, a leader of a daring reckless band, stood outside in the yard just to hear what it was the Dipper could have to say. The word reached his heart. That night fortnight he came into the room, and after some months the Church decided that he should, upon his repeated applications, be admitted to membership. As the day appointed for his baptism approached anonymous letters flowed in, threatening death to the convert and myself, should I dare to baptize him. These letters had such an effect upon our Deacon that he refused to accompany us to the river. In the name of the Lord we went to the appointed place, the former companions of the convert, with their blackthorns, were there. I looked at them; told them I had got their letters; asked them to hear what I had to say; preached Christ, His boundless love, His excruciating agony, His resurrection glory; that multitude heaved the sigh, shed the tear. I took the