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any thing like a particular recognition on his part of the principle, that the laity should be educated, he entreated gently permission to take wine with Lady Mary, and Lady Harlowe, and Miss Carothers, and Mr. Egerton, and with any and every body who sat at table. But, when he was gone, nothing had fallen from him like an acknowledgment that there ought to be a school, and that a religious education should be given to the young ones around about. Yet, when he departed for the night, he contrived to leave a favourable impression behind him. He had told many droll stories he had even made some points connected with the more gross and superstitious part of his religion, subjects of laughter he had used the phraseology of a liberalist of the first water—and, without ever committing for an instant the claim of his Church to be the sole arbiter of men's faith, and the directress of their souls and bodies, he had so dexterously managed matters, that when Mr. Egerton and Lady Mary, conversing together ere they retired to bed, compared notes, the expression on both their parts was that of unfeigned lamentation, that poor Mr. Mortimer would not see with their eyes, and believe, and be persuaded that Popery was not the religion of exclusion or of bigotry, and that if Protestants would but be content to give up a little, they would find their Roman Catholic neighbours content and willing to give up as much, if not more.

While the cause of liberality was thus flourishing at Woodley, our friend Mortimer seated in his little back-parlour at Moneyrogue, was concocting a tremendous tirade against the Romish Church, filled with rancour and bigotry, tending to set man against man, and to break up and destroy all that harmony of intercourse which alone could render life tolerable. So, at least, pronounced Dr. Chapman, the dispensary physician, a talented and goodnatured man, but far better acquainted with the theology of the philosopher of Ferney, than with that of the Apostles. So also declared Mr. Grains, the brewer, who supplied all the Roman Catholic publicans in the neighbourhood with bad beer and worse ale; so, also, lamented, not inaudibly, in the churchyard, while Mr. M. was passing, Mr. Stillworm, the gauger; Mr. Grubb, the chandler; Mrs. Green, the post-mistress, Mrs. Figgs, the grocer, and several others, in conclave assembled, of those dii minorum gentium, who, in country churches, attain not to the having pews in the gallery. With the gallery hearers, we regret to say, the discourse found little more of favour, especially in the Egerton seat. Was there really any thing very illiberal in the discourse, does the reader ask? Nothing whatever. It certainly distinctly pointed out the grievous errors of the Romish Church, contrasted them forcibly with the truths which Scripture sets before mankind, as available to salvation, and urged all who loved the Gospel to abstain from every proceeding which would tend to the maintenance of religious error. It affectionately pressed the necessity of exhibiting in heart and life the beauties of a new birth unto righteous

ness, and called on the hearers to lend themselves actively to the cause of God, in the pulling down of the strong holds of sin whereever found, whether within or without them. It did not allow that all religions were alike, or that, in point of fact, no religion was really requisite. So it was pronounced illiberal. It was shutting the doors of heaven in men's faces'-it was rank fanaticism. (To be continued.)

A DAY AT THE seven CHURCHES AT GLENDALOUGH,

WITH AN IMAGINARY PREFATORY DIALOGUE.

EDITOR'S OFFICE, 9, UPPER SACKVILLE-STREET.

C. O.-"Good morrow, Mr. Editor-I hope I don't intrude— Observe you are very much engaged-arranging for next month ;glad to see such bundles of articles before you.-Permit me to take a chair, and recover my breath;-your stairs wondrous steep.The access to this your Nidus reminds me of my ascent of Mangerton, or of Hungry Hill, near Bantry.- -You remember my tour from Cape Clear to Killarney; don't you?"

EDITOR" Glad to see you, C. O.-Not now often favoured with your company, or literary contributions. Sorry to observe you looking rather delicate-bilious, I presume. How's your liver? ought to take care of yourself; sorry would I be to lose you. Excuse me, when I say our Magazine could better spare a better man."

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C. O.-"Ah, my too flattering friend, I suspect my trifles served you but little at any time. At best, I was only tolerable in your young and struggling days, to supply filling-stuff for your monthly package. But now, as I observe your table loaded, and your pigeon-holes full-as I see you are stored with plenty, and to spare, of more valuable and serious matter, I may retire, and give place to my betters."

I assure

ED." No, no, C. O.; you are morbidly modest. you, your tours gave general satisfaction. 'Tis true, some said they were unsuitable to a periodical professing to be religious; but this was not the general opinion-and, as you yourself said, something was called for, to amuse the young people of the Parsonage."

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C. O." Indeed, my dear Examiner, I never can get over the chill which came over me, in consequence of the observation of a common friend of ours, who, with that cold marble cast of countenance for which he is remarkable, observed, 'My good Sir, the best that can be said of these tours which have found a place, I know not why, in the CHRISTIAN Examiner, is, that if they do no good, it is to be hoped they will do no harm.'

ED."I differ from our cold acquaintance altogether in this

respect. And, as you just now compared the neat, compact, spiral ascent, by which we screw ourselves up into this sanctum, to your climbing of Hungry Hill, the mention of this mountain brings, à propos, to my memory a circumstance I but lately heard from a Cork correspondent, which will satisfy you-yes, and even might convince our cool friend, that your tours and sketches were good for something. You remember that 'Dumb Church,' which you saw under Hungry-mountain-Ossian himself was scarcely more mournfully graphic in his picture of the fox looking out from the wasted casement of the desolate Balclutha, than you were in describing the grave goat, as ruminating, and waving his hoary beard to the breeze, in the window of this dismantled edifice. Well, now, C. O. I have the pleasure to inform you, that this same church is no longer dumb-silence no longer broods over its desk and pulpit. You expressed a hope that it would be restored to its pristine repair-you breathed a prayer, that the Gospel would yet be announced to sinners from that pulpit; and now your hope accomplished-may I not say, your prayer is heard ?--for service is now on every Sabbath performed there, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them, and the sound of the church-going bell' is heard among the hills and along the shore, calling and collecting a very respectable congregation. All this, under God, I have reason to suppose, arose from the publication of your tour in the ExAMINER. For I would have you to know, my son C. O., that my journal is received and read by very influential people in our Church; and although here I sit, to all appearance a very insignificant thing, in this my den, like a solitary spider spinning in his cobweb; I am working, Sir, at a moral lever, which may move what was heretofore inert, and perhaps regulate and direct towards usefulness what was tending to mischief, because uncorrected and unreproved."

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C. O.-" Dear Examiner, do you tell me in all seriousness, that I have been in any degree instrumental in restoring that wasted place of God's worship? Then a fig for what the cool man said. If I had an opportunity, I say, I would not fear to publish another tour."

ED." The very thing I want you to do, dear C. O. My pages are always open for you.- -You have, indeed, no small reason to be elated: To re-edify a church is no little matter. Were you a Romanist, it would be of great comfort to your conscience; and you might rest satisfied that your sojourn in Purgatory would be reduced to a very short space. So do, my C. O. go on; perge 'mi puer.' Send in a tour, and I'll make room for it in the next Number."

C. O." Send in a tour! Why, man, do you suppose I can manufacture a tour, as the Englishman did his travels through Ireland, without going farther than Ringsend? Can I write a tour before I take one? You know I cannot now run up and down Ireland, and skip from the Causeway to Cape Clear. No, no:

now in populous city pent,' unless I take a tour from Sandymount to the Black Rock, or give you 'A Day at Baldoyle,' further I may not range; and so I must sit and be silent;-take, therefore, the will for the deed. Dire necessity-res duræ,' have citizenized me; and, while longing to range free and unquestioned along the wild isles and shores of Cunnemara, or climb the beetling cliffs of Clare or Kerry, I find myself limed and caged here-and still the burden of my notes must be, 'I can't get out-I can't get out, said the starling.'

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ED. 66 O, come now, my fanciful friend, things are not so bad as your busy brain would imagine them to be; there are still many places you might visit and describe, in the vicinity of Dublin ;though, to be sure, not very likely to meet with dumb churches. The environs of no metropolis in Europe afford such variety of scenery as those of Dublin do :-the shores of its magnificent bay -the wood-crowned banks and silvery streams of the Anna Liffey —the wild mountain district, that spreads in sublime loneliness for forty miles south of our city, presenting, perhaps, the most perfectly uninhabited range of hills in the British isles-the delightful glens and waterfalls of Wicklow-the rich plains and pasture-lands of Meath and Kildare.-Come, my son C. O., here I enlist you for a tour along the banks of the Boyne; tell us, against the 1st of July, of

Old Bridge-town,

Where was a glorious battle,

When many a man lay on the ground
By cannons that did rattle."

Or, if it likes you better, take a day at the Seven Churches. You may start on a fine June morning for Glendalough, and, even before the setting sun, return rich and loaded, like the honied bee, with sweet things for the Examiner."

C. O." What business have I at the Boyne, or the Seven Churches?-The ground, Sir, is already occupied. Is there not 'Wright's Louthiana' to be got, ornamented with cuts; and don't you see, proudly perked on our publisher's table, 'A Guide to the County Wicklow,' and 'Tour to the Seven Churches, by G. N. Wright, A. M. Esq. and Professor of Antiquities to the Royal Hibernian Academy'? Now, this worthy being a professed tourwright having duly served time to his craft and mystery, as would a wheel-wright or plough-wright-and, therefore, being fully qualified and entitled to be a right guide, and a guide-writer-why, dear Examiner, if I ventured, in these dangerous days to trespass on his province of tour-making by the rule of thumb, I might be caught as a colt, and treated accordingly. Indeed, Mr. Examiner, it won't do."

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ED." I have caught you in the fact of committing a vile play upon words, in harping on the name of that worthy wight, Professor Wright. Therefore, I, in sovereign authority, as a penance,

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impose on you the task of repairing, on the day of June instant, by the military road, to the Seven Churches of Glendalough, there to look about you-and thence return by Roundwood, Newtown Mount-Kennedy, and the Glen of the Downs; and forthwith send in, to this my editorial office, a faithful report of all you shall have seen and heard, on said of June, from morn till noon, from noon till sunny eve."

C. O." Autocrat of the Examiner, I go to execute your commands, which to me are not grievous. The slave of the lamp or the ring not more servile or more instant."- Exit C. O.

of the month of June,

It was on a bright morning on the 182-, that my old mare, drawing my old gig, the faithful partaker of all my tours and toils over and around green Erin, stood at the door of my domicile, about four o'clock. The sun, an earlier riser than myself, was looking down the empty streets of the sleeping city, when, rejoicing in the auspicious weather and hour, and relying on the sure sufficiency of my four-footed friend, I started joyfully, and soon left the town far behind me. The dew of the still night had so sufficiently damped the road, as to keep down the dust; and never was there a finer opportunity for observing the rich and beautiful grounds and fields that lie between the city and the mountains, rising as it were imperceptibly-the rich slopes and terraces of Mount Anville, Dundrum, and Rathfarnham lay before me, backed by the mountains, over whose rocky sides cultivation had gained, and was still gaining, her difficult conquests. These hills now rose before me in all the distinctness of their forms, laughing in the lights and shadows caused by the rising sun.I believe, after all, in order to receive full and unmixed delight from natural objects-in order to fall deeply in love with the country-you must be for some considerable time cooped up in a city, and then come forth on such a morning as this, and you will feel exquisitely the exhilaration caused by rural objects. Chemists say, that they can make a gas which, if inhaled by the lungs, forces you involuntarily to laugh, jump, and exhibit all the joy of inebriation, without feeling any of its bad effects. I might almost think the air was formed, on this blessed morn, of this gas. I felt my chest, as it were, expanding, a superficial weight thrown off from about me, and was in full mood to admire and be happy-the verdure of the fresh foliage the fragrance of the dew-moistened flowers-the rich and lovely contrasts of the laburnum, the lilack, and the white-thorn in full blossom. The trolling modulation of the black-bird's pipethe exquisite variations of the thrush's whistle-the querulous complaint of the woodquest from the grove, the wild call of the cuckoo from the sycamore, the rail in the meadow, the quail in the cornall these, and every one of these, combined and separate, calling your attention, reviving all your early associations, bringing you back to the pursuits, the sports, the companionships, of years long gone by. Oh, pen a man up in a city for many months, and then

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