priests, as they have the flesh and blood of other men and other priests. Thus, I learnt in one country parish that the priest, a good man in other respects, had a sad propensity to spend more money than he had to spend, and so got constantly into debt, to the great scandal of his parish. It is fair, however, to state that his embarrassments were said to originate not in personal extravagance, but in his desire to administer to the wants of his relations, who were at once numerous, poor, and exigent. I heard of another who was supposed to make his after-dinner brewage a little too strong. But who has not heard of similar and worse imputations cast on some ministers of the decentest Church in the world? Miss Martineau, in her letters from Ireland, makes a much graver charge of the last-mentioned kind, against the ministers of the Established Church in Ireland: but, judging from all I have heard, I should say that anything like a general charge of this kind against either class of clergy, is most unjust.

I am strongly borne out in what I have stated respecting the Roman Catholic Clergy, by the testimony of a Protestant friend, who has lived in Ireland the greater part of his life, and who, from having filled official situations in various parts of the country, has had the very best opportunities for judging in this matter. He says, in a letter written to me since my return from Ireland,"Compared with the clergy of the Established Church, I should say that the priests are, generally

speaking, equally conscientious good men, and equally anxious for the welfare of their flocks. I do not think they are unnecessarily rigid in exacting their fees. I certainly have heard of their refusing to administer some of the Church services without receiving the proper fee, but this is a very rare occurrence. In fact, there is no occasion to resort to such extremes, for they have all good believing Catholics at their command, ready to pay what they choose to demand or the parishioners can afford. I have been told by priests themselves that they were sometimes obliged, on being called to administer the usual services in a well-to-do family, to make some member of it pay, or promise to pay, the Church arrears before they performed the required office."

The discipline of the priests in their own parishes is much more rigid, and their sovereignty much more acknowledged, than can well be imagined by the inhabitants of a Protestant country. And yet it is but justice to them to say that their interference seems to keep generally within the limits of what they regard as their pastoral province. They consider themselves as having a paramount authority in all matters of morality as well as religion, and they demean themselves accordingly. When all the lesser powers fail to reclaim, they do not hesitate to proceed to the extreme measure of excommunication, a result dreadful and most dreaded.

I am unable, from my own knowledge, to give any opinion as to the conduct of the priests in

influencing the opinions and actions of their parishioners in political matters. It seems certain that many have so interfered, and with much vehemence, of late years; but, from all I heard in Ireland, I am disposed to believe that the proportion of priests so interfering is vastly exaggerated in England. People seem to forget how very small a number of active persons, who frequent and speak at public meetings, may strongly arrest public attention at a distance, in these newspaper days. I should not be surprised if the Catholics of Ireland should sometimes set down the rampant denouncements of some half-dozen of our own fiery ecclesiastical speakers, on certain public occasions, as representing the calm and deliberate opinions of the English clergy. This I know, that, as a general rule, the great body of the Catholic clergy in Ireland, like the great body of our English clergy, believe and feel and act under a profound conviction of the sacredness of their great calling, and of the paramount nature of its claims on all their powers of thought and action. At the same time I readily admit, that if anything could excuse the clergy of any Church in appearing personally in political contests, the priests of Ireland must be allowed to have that excuse. The degraded and

anomalous position in which they are placed, in relation to their brethren of the Established Church, is sufficient to rouse whatever remains of mere human feelings in their breasts, and such feelings,

as I ventured to say on a former occasion, can only then be expected to be subdued into peaceful inaction, when one of two alternatives has taken place in Ireland, the abolition of the monstrous anomaly now presented by the two Churches, or the practical realisation of that perfect and unrepining endurance of wrong on the part of the sufferers, which, however deducible from the fountains of Christianity, has never yet been manifested by any great body of Christians, whether lay or clerical.

The grand and characteristic power with which the priests of the Roman Catholic Church are armed, and that which gives them their chief authority over the minds of their flocks, is the possession of the privilege, peculiar to their form of Christianity, of enforcing the practice of Confession.

Whether the exercise of such a power is consistent with personal freedom of action and the dignity of human reason, may be a proper subject of inquiry with the moral philosopher: whether it constitutes any impediment to the complete development of constitutional liberty in a state, is a question which may fairly be regarded as coming within the consideration of a constitutional and paternal government; but with neither branch of the inquiry is it now my province to deal. I have only to regard the subject in an historical, or rather in a naturalhistorical point of view, as it exists, and as it influences the ordinary conduct, and what may be

termed the private social condition of the people. Much less, I am sure, will it be expected from me

to give any opinion of it of the Christian Church.

as a religious doctrine Right or wrong, true

or false, I have only to deal with it as other matters of fact which press upon the traveller's attention.

Confession is universally regarded both by the priests and people of Ireland as one of the first, if not the first, of religious duties. It cannot be long foregone by any resident in a parish, without the loss of character and status by the foregoer. Very pious persons, and those whose time is at their own disposal, confess frequently-weekly or monthly; the labouring poor (whom I chiefly consider in these remarks) twice or thrice a year; women more frequently than men, as they are naturally more pious, and their time less valuable, and they are more at home.

It is considered so terrible a sin to have any reserve in confession, that it is commonly believed that everything regarded as wrong by the confessing party, is surely confided to the priest in the confessional. My own inquiries lead me to assent to the accuracy of this belief.

Absolution does not follow confession as a necessary result; more time is often required, in order to give stronger evidence of repentance by an amended life; and certain penances are enjoined, which must be performed: when the priest is satisfied that the repentance is sincere, then absolution is given.