ingly opposed to the quiet and sacred cal!- [ year, the life of Mr. England was providening of the minister of God—but which, not-tially preserved under the following circumwithstanding, it is at times a peremptory duty with him to assume-the political champion-the unflinching advocate of the rights and liberties of his feilow-men. At the period of which we write-a far different one, thank Heaven, from that in which we live the Irish priesthood had been traitors to their religion, had they been faithless to their country. The party dominant in the land proclaimed "war to the knife" against Catholicism, and political disabilities were but another name for religious oppression. Such was then no time for a man of Mr. England's stamp to be inactive. His ardent and philanthropic temperament, required not that his faith should be involved in the struggle to make him a participator in it. His exertions never were wanting, when the object was the happiness of his fellow-man, be his sect or party what it might: and we may judge that, when the two great impulses of religion and patriotism combined to urge him, he joined heart and soul in the contest. After the contested election for Cork, in which Sir N. Colthurst, Colonel Longfield, and Mr. Hutchinson were candidates, he strenuously exerted himself to procure the registry of the liberal voters, and by his admonitions against bribery, laid the foundation of the independence and public virtue of the constituency, and particularly the forty shilling freeholders, which so often since have caused the principles of freedom to triumph on the hustings of his native country.

In this year, Mr. England was appointed President of the Diocesan College of St. Mary, opened by Dr. Moylan for the education of candidates for holy orders, and taught in it the theological course.

In 1813, he performed a principal part in the ministerial functions attendant on the Jubilee granted by the Pope to the Catholics of Cork, on the completion of their new Cathedral. Dean M'Carthy having, on the death of Dr. Walsh in this year, been appointed Parish Priest of St. Finbar's, and having accepted the office, requested the Bishop to allow him the assistance of Mr. England in the parish. To this, however, the Bishop would not consent; declaring that, whilst he lived, he would retain him near himself; and Dr. M'Carthy, finding his resolution on the subject inflexible, resigned the parish. To the remonstrances of Mr. England on subsequent occasions, who desired to be removed to some post more suited to the activity of his character, Dr. Moylan's invanable reply was, that he never would consent to part with him.

In the commencement of the following

stances. Having left Cork for Dublin, on business of a spiritual nature, a heavy fall of snow came on during the night, which prevented the mail in which he travelled from proceeding beyond Carlow. Mr. England's business was urgent; and, having no better mode of proceeding, he resolved, with some others, to walk the remaining part of the journey. The snow had fallen to such a depth as to cover altogether the huts by the road-side, and he at one time narrowly escaped fracturing his leg, by thrusting it through the chimney of a cottage. After advancing some distance, and feeling fatigued, he drank of the snow-water to refresh himself. This produced sickness and languor; and, unable to keep pace with his fellowtravellers, he sank exhausted on the snow. He reached, with some effort, a little elevation, as he thought, to expire, and had scarcely attained it when he fell into a swoon. In this state, he was fortunately discovered by a countryman, who, with some difficulty, recovered him so far that he was just able to articulate "I am a priest," and to make a faint attempt to exhibit a stole which he had. The man assured him, that at any risk he would not abandon him, and with the assistance of some others, who shortly after happened to reach the spot, conveyed him to the nearest house. Here, having taken some repose and refreshment, he quickly recovered his strength, and pursued the rest of his journey in safety.

On his return to Cork, he found, to his great affliction, that his pious and enlight ened friend, Dean M'Carthy, was no more; and not long after, he sustained a fresh and more painful deprivation in the death of his beloved Bishop, Dr. Moylan, which took place on the 10th of February, 1815-a man whose many virtues and unpretending excellence, shed a mild and tranquil lustre over the station which he occupied, and the religion which he adorned. Amongst the flock of which he was pastor, the grief for his loss was universal: but to him who from his first entrance on the mission, had been his chosen friend, and whose own heart rendered him in every way capable of appreciating his kindred virtues, few events could have brought such deep and heartfelt sorrow. Even at this distance of time, we would consider it a wrong to the memory of one so good, to mention his name without a passing tribute to his worth and virtue. May he rest in peace!

During the year 1814, Mr. England powerfully exerted himself in opposition to the Veto, which then formed the topic of univer

sal discussion amongst the Catholic body, both in this country and in England. He looked upon it as an insidious attempt to undermine and sap the foundation of the Irish Church, which had been found impregnable to the open and violent assaults of three successive centuries, and assailed it incessantly with his voice and pen. In the pages of the periodical already referred to, "The Repertory," he warmly espoused the cause of the anti-vetoists, and held up to deserved contempt those, and there were high and influential names amongst them, who with the power of constitutionally gaining their rights, would, with fawning servility, accept them as a ministerial boon, and give in exchange the freedom of that religion which their ancestors had preserved with their fortunes and their blood. Happily the boon was rejected, and the rights have been

obtained.

On the death of Dr. Moylan, the Right Rev. Dr. Murphy, the present Bishop, succeeded him in the Diocess of Cork, and in the year 1817, appointed Mr. England to the parish of Bandon, on the death of the former Parish Priest, the Rev. James Mahony. This town was at that time the stronghold of bigotry and intolerance, but the high characier of Mr. England, during his residence there, conciliated men of all shades of opi; nion, and won for him the respect and esteem of persons of every sect and party He continued in the parish until his appointment to the See of Charleston, in the year 1820, the bulls of which were expedited from Rome, on the second of June in that year.

Milford Haven, having narrowly escaped shipwreck, where, having remained ten days to repair the damages sustained by the ship, they again set sail: and after a severe and boisterous passage, reached Charleston, on the 30th of December.

MEMOIR OF BISHOP ENGLAND.

BY WM. GEORGE READ.

BISHOP ENGLAND was a man of transcen

dent and various ability. Had his genius been directed exclusively to arms, or to politics, or to letters, he might have twined the shamrock with the laurel or the bay, as triumphantly as a Wellington, a Grattan, or a Burke. In a different age of the Church he would have been classed with her Gregories and Alcuins.

dence appointed him to duties requiring the The mysterious dispensations of Provialternate exertion of all his diverse gifts; though in circumstances unfavorable to their perfect development before the world; yet, doubtless, with as much substantial benefit to others, and less danger to himself, than if his career had been one of unchecked success. tember, A. D. 1786. His parents were of He was born at Cork on the 23d of Septhat class of society designated, in common sion of a competency of worldly wealth; parlance, "respectable," from their possesbut ennobled, in heavenly heraldry, by their unflinching participation in those sufferings for Christ which have peopled Ireland, for ages, with the "friends of God." I cannot record his genealogy in language equal to

his own:*

"More than forty-five years have passed away since a man, then about sixty years of age, led me into a prison, and showed me the room in which he had been confined, during upwards of four years, in consequence of the injustice to which the Cathoof persecution. On the day that he was lics of Ireland were subjected in those days immured, his wife was seized upon by fever, the result of terror. While she lay on her bed of sickness, she and her family were dispossessed of the last remnant of their land and furniture; she was removed to the house of a neighbor, to breathe her last under a stranger's roof. Her eldest child had completed his 17th year, a few days before he and two younger sisters, looked to him as closed her grave. Two younger brothers, their only support. He endeavored to turn his education to account. It was discovered

On the arrival of the bulls, Mr. England withheld the knowledge of them from his family for some time, not wishing to afflict them, and particularly his mother, (his only surviving parent, his father having died in 1812.) He was consecrated on the 21st of September, 1820, by the Right Rev. Dr. Murphy, assisted by Dr. Marum, Bishop of Ossory, and Dr. Kelly, Bishop of Richmond, several other prelates being present at the ceremony. Previously to his departure from Cork, he was entertained at a public dinner, which was attended by the most respectable inhabitants, Protestant as well as Catholic, of the city, who joined in paying a tribute to his worth. He left for Belfast on the 10th of October, accompanied by his youngest sister, who had resolved to be the partner of his privations and perils; and after a stay of a fortnight there, till the vessel in which he was to proceed was ready to sail, embarked for the United States. Shortly after putting to sea, the weather became wild and tempestuous, and they were driven into ted October 10th, 1839.)

[*See Bishop England's Letter to Rev. R. Fuller, da

tions at the sacred Tribunal of Penance, however reluctantly approached. Bishop England illustrated, in after years, the truth of the inspired maxim—“it is good for a man when he hath borne the yoke from his youth.” When he inclined to some indulgence of doubtful morality, his father would bid him "hear the Church," and send him to his confessor.

that he was a Papist, as the law contume- which was not to be postponed or dispensed liously designated a Roman Catholic, and with; in this exhibiting a salutary precedent that he was guilty of teaching some propo- to Christian parents, who too often rely on sitions of the sixth book of Euclid to a few persuasion, or the spontaneous movements scholars, that he might be able to aid his of the youthful conscience, which, in its father and to support his family. Informa-guileless simplicity, dreams not of reservations were lodged against him for this violation of the law, which rendered him liable to transportation. Compassion was taken upon his youth and his misfortunes, and, instead of proceeding immediately to the prosecution, an opportunity was given him of swearing before the Protestant Bishop, that he did not believe in the doctrines of Transubstantiation, of Penance, and of the Invocation of Saints, and the certificate of the prelate would raise a bar to his prosecution. This youth knew no principle of his Church which could excuse his perjury. He escaped, and fled into the mountains; where he remained during more than a year, subsisting upon the charity of those to whose children he still communicated the rudiments of learning, but in the most painful anxiety as to the state of his father, brother and sisters. The declaration of American Independence, and the successful resistance of the colonies, produced some mitigation of the persecutions which the Irish Catholic endured: this fugitive returned by stealth to the city, and was enabled to undertake the duties of a land surveyor, to have his parent liberated, his family settled, and he became prosperous."

Bishop England was the eldest son of this
martyr of Catholic truth and sincerity.
Well has an English poet attested,
Adversity,

"When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, bis darling child, designed,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,

And bade to form her infant mind."

The trials of the England family nurtured them to high vocations. Two priests and a nun were devoted to the service of God in the present generation. When I once asked the Bishop how a temperament so ardent, and talents so eminently adapted to civic or military pursuits, could have found their way to the sanctuary, he answered that, "though she never told him of it till after his ordination, his mother took him to the temple, in his infancy, and offered him to God"-we may add-as Anna did Samuel. "She lent him to the Lord all the days of his life," and he accepted and sanctified the loan.

His father seconded her pious care, and, by precept and example, directed the future priest in the path of holiness. He was accustomed to send him, at regular periods, to his confession, as to a duty of course, and

But his discipline was not limited to the watchful solicitude of a mother's love, or the anxious providence of paternal care. The champion of the cross was to be exercised, while yet a child, in the hard doctrine of the eighth beatitude-"Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, for my sake." In the cruel circumstances of his afflicted country, it was necessary, at one period of his boyhood, to elect between want of education, and his subjection to a teacher in whose school he was the only Catholic, and who was accustomed to wreak his malice on "the little Papist:" by which reproachful epithet he delighted to expose his victim to the contempt and odium of his youthful associates; and so deep was the impression of his cruelty and injustice on the heart of the pupil, that when, many years afterwards, they accidentally met at the door of a church, as the latter was entering it to celebrate Mass, he found himself compelled to pause, for a considerable space, in an agony of prayer, before he could sufficiently subdue the emotions of horror and resentment excited by the sudden apparition of the tyrant of his childhood, to venture to approach the tremendous Mysteries.

"In early life he placed himself with an eminent barrister, under whom he studied for about two years." No preparation could have been better for his subsequent career; and to this elementary training he was doubtless indebted for that practical intuition, with which, in after years, he discovered the legal difficulties which often surrounded his position, and apprehended, or himself suggested, the appropriate remedy. The comprehensive wisdom, too, of legal principles, and the precise and subtle logic that regulates their application to human affairs, could not but have exerted a most beneficial influence on the conduct of his understanding, and the formation of those overwhelming argumental powers that rendered him so eminent as a controversial writer and speaker. But he was created to a higher and holier

vocation than that which ministers at the altars of earthly justice. The voice which broke the slumbers of the youthful succes sor of Heli, spoke to the heart of the great apostle of this western world. He turned from the pursuits of temporal ambition, and consecrated his virgin prime to the service of the sanctuary.

At his own request, and with the approbation of his Bishop, he was placed by his friends at the Theological College of Carlow, where his piety, virtues and abilities, soon commended him to the confidence, love and admiration of his superiors and fellow-students: and, as every reminiscence of such a man is precious, it may not be amiss to state the grateful recollection he retained to the last, of what he esteemed the judicious method of his spiritual guardians there; whose aim he represented to have been, to form their pupils to habits of independent devotion, so that, when they should emerge from the security of the cloister to the exposure of the world, their piety might not fail, for want of those accustomed helps of religious sodalities, which, however useful where they are maintained, are unhappily not often found in these ages of infidelity, beyond the precinets of the Seminary.

Even at this early stage of his usefulness, he seems to have evinced that practical turn for which he was subsequently so distinguished; and to have left "at Carlow and its vicinity," enduring monuments of his untiring zeal and active benevolence, in "an asylum for unprotected females, and schools for the free and correct education of poor boys."

fected himself in that magnificent pulpit oratory, for which, beyond the sphere of his immediate and personal official relations, (though among the least of his many and splendid endowments,) he was principally admired: in the latter, he became intimately versed in the political misery of his countrymen, and the diabolical machinations by which their tyrants tortured, degraded, plundered and enslaved them!

A circumstance related by himself sheds baleful light on that system under which Ireland so long has groaned. During one of his visits to the jail, a turnkey told him there was a prisoner recently committed, who was abandoned to the most frantic despair. Mr. England sought his cell immediately, but, for some time, found him inaccessible. With frightful imprecations, now against himself, now against the treachery of the government, the wretched man seemed on the verge of the wildest insanity. At length, the soothing voice of pity, and the tranquil admonitions of sober reason, recalled him to something like composure; and he told his sad tale. He had been an emissary of government, and his business was, to foment discontents among his countrymen, stimulate the daring to outrage, and then betray them to the bloodhounds of the law. He had, at length, become possessed of too many secrets, and it was expedient to get rid of him. He had accordingly been entrapped into some accustomed felony, for the usual purpose of turning approver, and arrested, under circumstances that left no hope of his escape from conviction; and he was now writhing under the certainty of his destruction, and the horrid consciousness that it was justly incurred. Mr. England was a man whom no circumstances could take by surprise. He applied his searching intellect. at once, to the examination of the prisoner's statements; assured him that, if they were true, he should be defended, with strong hopes of success; and, at the same time, held out to him the consolations that religion offers to the repentant But the venerable diocesan of Cork would sinner. He left him, to return on the morrow no longer spare him from the labors of his with witnesses and counsel-but, on that own immediate portion of the vineyard. Be- morrow, the prisoner was gone, nor could fore he had invested him with the priestly the most diligent inquiries elicit a trace of character, by imposition of sacred hands, he his fate. Many years afterwards, when the appointed the youthful theologian President occurrence had faded from his memory, a of the Diocesan Theological Seminary at person called on him in Charleston, and inCork. He soon manifested his confidence in quired if he were related to Mr. England, the him still further, by dispensing, in his regard, former chaplain of the prison at Cork? On with the canonical prohibition of ordination, being informed that himself was the identical before the age of twenty-five years; and person, the stranger asked, if he remembered established him in the honorable and respon- the incident I have just related. The Bishop, sible appointments of lecturer at the North with some difficulty, recollected the affair, Chapel in Cork, and chaplain of the prisons. when his visiter informed him that he had In the former station, Mr. England per-known that prisoner in India, where he had

The high estimation in which he was held by his ecclesiastical superiors, appears from the fact that, even before he was formally admitted to the degree of a licentiate in theology, the Bishop of the diocess in which Carlow is situated, "called into action his great instructive powers," in delivering moral lectures at his Cathedral, during the season of Lent.