May I

a Papal Nuncio was admitted to the Court of England, &c. then request of your Lordship information on the following points? I. Whether Sir Henry Bulwer has been accredited as ambassador or minister to the Court of Rome, or to act there in any diplomatic relation on behalf of the British Government.

II. If any communication, official or otherwise, has been made by him or others to Her Majesty's Government of any such interview as is above referred to.

Your Lordship's exalted position may place you above noticing mere ordinary rumours, but I trust that in a question of so much importance, and in which many feel so strongly, and one thus specially brought under your notice, a speedy and satisfactory reply will be afforded.

I have the honour to remain, my Lord,

Your Lordship's obedient servant,

JAMES LORD, Chairman.

(Copy.)

Downing-street, Oct. 20, 1852.

SIR, I am directed by Lord Derby to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 18th inst., in which you request to be informed whether Sir Henry Bulwer has been accredited as ambassador or minister to the Court of Rome, or to act there in any diplomatic relation on behalf of the British Government, and also whether any communication, official or otherwise, has been made by him or others to Her Majesty's Government, of any interview with Cardinal Antonelli, and I have, in reply to your first question, to acquaint you that Sir Henry Bulwer has not been in any way accredited to the Court of Rome; and with respect to your second question, that it does not consist with Lord Derby's duty to answer any inquiries as to private and unofficial communications which may have passed in conversation between Sir Henry and Cardinal Antonelli, or any other person at Rome.

James Lord, Esq.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

W. P. TALBOT.

DR. M'HALE'S LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. We are happy to see that the Rev. C. H. Seymour has addressed a letter to the Earl of Derby, dated "Vicarage, Tuam, Sept. 27, 1852," which we trust has had the desired effect of disabusing his "Lordship's mind and the mind of the public" of any erroneous impressions which the boldness of Dr. M'Hale's assertions may have produced. As we gave some extracts from the Doctor's epistle in our last number, we now subjoin several striking passages from Mr. Seymour's letter.

Our readers will recollect Dr. M'Hale's assertion, "that the fate of the Protestant establishment is sealed," and his advice

to the premier, "to dream no longer of upholding it in Ireland." Mr. Seymour, on the other hand, states that the adherents of the Established Church in Ireland never felt more at ease with respect to the innate strength and permanency of our Church.

"It is true," he adds, "that the Irish branch of the Established Church has been to a great extent spoiled of her temporal wealth, and has with sorrow seen the number of her bishops reduced, that she has passed, of late years, through a fiery ordeal; but with truth as her girdle, and Jesus as her Lord, she has come out like gold tried by the fire, and has been purged from the dross of apathy and carnal security. Her ministers have been awakened to a high sense of their holy functions. They are, through the length and breadth of the land, going forth as missionaries, not only taking heed to those who recognise them as their pastors, but searching after the strayed sheep of their Master's flock who still wander in the wilderness of Popish error and superstition, and are gathering them into the fold of our Scriptural Church. The Establishment in Ireland," continues Mr. Seymour, "was never more strong in the affections, the zeal, and the number of her children. ... Under all her trials she is lengthening her cords and strengthening her stakes."

Dr. M'Hale tells Lord Derby of the "deep-rooted reverence of the Roman Catholic people of Ireland for their religion, and their unconquerable resolve to maintain it." In disproof of this statement Mr. Seymour refers particularly to the result of the Bishop of Tuam's late confirmation tour, as published, with dates, places, and numbers, and also to a well-known statement made by the Rev. Mr. Mullen, a Roman Catholic priest, to the effect that nearly two millions of her Irish children have been lost to the Roman Catholic Church by their emigrating to America.

Dr. M'Hale boasts to Lord Derby, as a proof of the people's attachment to his faith, that Connaught has returned, out of thirteen representatives, eleven Roman Catholics.

"If," (writes Mr. Seymour, and the words are well worthy our serious attention,) "his conscience were not seared with a hot iron, one of the Scriptural marks of the apostasy to which he belongs, he would have blushed to have penned such a boast. He cannot have forgotten the means used by him and his accomplices to have those eleven returned. I might give extracts from Dr. M'Hale's speeches at the hustings of Galway and Castlebar, which can scarcely be paralleled for mischief and blasphemy. By both these instruments he has achieved a victory; but, alas! a victory over liberty and independence. When Dr. M'Hale threatens us with the extinction of our Church by the votes of his nominees, let him remember that when he makes them vote for such an object, he is a suborner of the most appalling perjury. To support my assertion, I quote the words of the oath taken by every Roman Catholic M.P., on taking his seat :—

I do swear that I will defend, to the utmost of my power, the settlement of property within this realm, as established by the laws: And I do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present Church Establishment as settled by law within this realm. And I do solemnly swear, that I never will exercise any privilege, to which I am or may become entitled, to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion, or Protestant Government, in the United Kingdom; And I do solemnly in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare, that I do make this declaration and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the words of this oath, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever. So help me, God.'"

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE VERY REV. RICHARD MURRAY, D.D., DEAN AND VICAR-GENERAL OF ARDAGH. BY THE REV. J. M.

NONE who have the feelings of philanthropists, not to say Christians, can fail to rejoice in the work of Reformation which is now in progress throughout Ireland, or to honour the men who seem specially to have been raised up and fitted by God for carrying it on. Most successful of all the instrumentalities in present operation, is that Society of which the Rev. A. R. Dallas is the primum mobile, and whose brief history, for it is yet in its infancy, is so markedly providential. But still while we desire to acknowledge the hand of God, wherever it is so displayed, and accord due praise under his grace to the new and ardent labourers in the Gospel harvest, the old and long-tried servants of God, who have led the way in this work, must not be forgotten. Foremost among those is that venerable servant of God, the Dean of Ardagh, of whose life we give a brief and hasty sketch.

Dean Murray is in his seventy-third year, and was born on a day afterwards celebrated, the 18th of June. Being the nephew of the amiable, learned, and justly respected Richard Murray, formerly Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, in whose house, during his collegiate life, the subject of our biographical sketch resided, he might naturally, from the associations and connexions to which such an atmosphere introduced him, have looked forward to patronage and rapid promotion in the Irish Church. Such, however, was not the case; and if the nephew of the Provost of Trinity, and the young friend of nearly all the bench of their Irish bishops ever indulged in such a dream, the death of his uncle soon dissipated it. The Dean was a young collegian in the eventful year of 1798, and as a member of the Loyal College Corps of Yeomanry, bore arms in the cause of his country. For twenty years we find him a hard-working curate, literally "bearing the burden and heat of the day," and enduring the full share of odium allotted to those who will be faithful to Christ. Evangelical religion was not in those days fashionable, and Richard Murray, who essayed to preach and live the Gospel in season and out of season, learned by that somewhat

long experience, the lot of those who through grace are followers of him who was "6 despised and rejected of men." Did space permit we could narrate more than a solitary fact in evidence of this.

After this probationary period in remote curacies he was appointed assistant-chaplain to the Rev. B. W. Mathias, in the Bethesda chapel, Dublin, by the late venerable Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Magee. Such of our readers as are at all acquainted with the religious history of Ireland, during the last half-century, are well aware that Mr. Mathias was a standard-bearer in the cause of the Gospel, and for some years the solitary testifier in the Irish metropolis "to the truth as it is in Jesus." In his new curate he had an able ally.

In the beginning of the year 1823, Mr. Murray was appointed to the living of Askeaton, in the diocese of Limerick. This portion of Ireland, as most of our readers may know, is now almost wholly given over to Popery, and in 1823 it was even more so. But the newly appointed minister of this Popish district entered upon his duties there impressed not alone with a due sense of the value of souls, but thoroughly imbued with the feeling, now, thank God, more generally prevailing among ministers of the established religion in Ireland, that the souls of Romanist parishioners were equally the charge of the pastor as those of professing Protestants. This feeling led Mr. Murray at once to set on foot a system of aggression against the Church of Rome, intruded upon his flock, and the result was that in 1824, what may be truly called the first fruits of the new reformation in Ireland were gathered in his parish. Numbers of Romanists conformed to the Protestant religion under his faithful and affectionate exposure of the errors of their false Church. This was the first coming out from Popery, in any extensive or open manner, for about 200 years in Ireland, and was due, under the Spirit's blessing, to the fact of a direct aggression being (as we have stated) made, with the weapons of Divine truth, on its stronghold in Askeaton. To this should be added that the utmost tenderness and gentleness towards the victims of Popish error, personally, accompanied his faithful denunciation of Popery itself; and as a consequence, even those of the Romanists of Askeaton who retained their prejudices and adhered to their false Church were constrained, under the influence of the love of his temper and address, to bestow on him a very large share of their kindness and regard.

Did the limits of our sketch admit of it, we could deduce many facts of interest and importance from this first controversial experiment in Ireland, as it may justly be called. It is noticed and commented on in the Life of the late Bishop Jebb, published by one of his Lordship's chaplains, to which we must refer our readers. Neither controversial nor evangelical preaching found much favour, at that period, with those in authority in the National Church; and although Mr. Murray was at first misunderstood by his diocesan, the biography referred to contains plain enough intimations that Bishop Jebb afterwards learned enough of his plan of action and of Popery itself considerably to modify his views respecting it.

The reformation in Askeaton continued with unabated success, and extended into several adjoining and even remote districts, until

the year 1829. That period was signalized by two events, now too plainly shown to be connected, the one was the passing of the Emancipation Bill, and the other the consequent stop put to reformation work in Ireland. In a very able article which has recently appeared in the Quarterly Review," a sufficiently trustworthy authority on this head, while honourable mention is made of the early labours of the Venerable Dean of Ardagh, this fact is noticed and accounted for.

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One of the first acts of the Duke of Wellington, then in office, was to promote Mr. Murray to the deanery which he still holds. This was at the time, and since believed to have been meant as a due tribute to his faithfulness and the success of his labours among the Irish Romanist population; and his own University (Trinity College, Dublin) marked its approval of his promotion by conferring upon him the honorary degree of D.D.

Here ends the list of honours bestowed upon this really great and good man. We might indeed add to them the mention of the fact that Dr. Murray received the honorary appointment of chaplain to every succeeding Conservative Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, except the present Lord Eglington. From the list of the present vice-regal chaplains we miss not alone the name of Dean Murray, but those of others, as Dr. O'Sullivan, which all loyal and suffering Protestants would have been glad to see there. Why, his Excellency, and his advisers, best know, while the suppressed displeasure and heartfelt disappointment of very many Irish Protestants strongly testify their sense of the omission.

We have little more of incident to adduce in this brief reference to the life of Dr. Murray. His contemporaries and ours are well acquainted with him in his public capacity, as an unflinching advocate of Protestant truth. Amidst all the clippings and changings of doctrine and opinion, even in his own Church, he has ever maintained, in the pulpit and on the platform, the pure doctrines of the Protestant Reformed and united Church of England and Ireland. This in itself concerning one who has attained the age of threescore-and-ten, in these dangerous days," is commendation of no feeble sort. Although no mitre has fallen on his head, now white with the hoar of age, his declining path is one of veneration, regard, and honour, heartily accorded by all who love the principles of the Gospel and the Reformation.

Dean Murray is well known, both in Great Britain as also in Ireland, as an accomplished and earnest preacher of the Gospel. He has also contributed to the press, both in the periodical literature of the day, and in the shape of more permanent composition. His principal works are, according to Dr. Cotton's "Fasti Ecclesiæ Hibernica," "Introduction to the Study of the Apocalypse; "Lectures on the Church Catechism; ""Outlines of the History of the Catholic Church in Ireland," London, 1840; "Ireland and her Church," 8vo., 1845, the latter of which we heartily commend to the attention of our readers.