of voice, under perfect command, he must have taken the very highest stand as an orator in any walk of public life. As a preacher, combining the unrivalled excellences of subject, mind, and manner, I should not hesitate to say, this is the very highest standard of preaching among men."

On this subject Mr Francis, who, in spite of any mistakes he may have fallen into as to the facts of Dr M'Neile's early life, must be considered no mean authority, remarks:-" Mr M'Neile's eloquence is more distinguished for its power, energy, and declamatory vehemence than for the more refined and graceful, though not perhaps the higher qualities of oratory. His natural advantages have influenced his style. His commanding, even majestic presence, and even magnificently sonorous voice, pointed out to him his true sphere of excellence. But it must not be understood that Mr M'Neile would therefore have been disqualified to shine in a different sphere. Had he schooled his mind and trained his faculties for more deliberate and artificial display, he possesses that natural ability and superiority which would have enabled him to achieve a success as powerful as any he has yet attained, either in the pulpit or on the platform. But as it is, his language is more forcible than choice; his imagination is too prone to that luxuriance which is the common fault of his countrymen; and that torrent-like enthusiasm, which unfortunately is too often allied to political passions and sectarian hatred, carries him on, as if by an overpowering impulse, in a heat of declamatory vehemence, till he forgets to observe those nicer graces of style and language which form one chief charm in the masterpieces of more cool, collected, and selfrestrained orators. But on the other hand, it is this abandonment of the mental powers to his absorbing ideas—this ready yielding to ungovernable impulses of deep feeling-that gives to the eloquence of M'Neile its originality, its grandeur, and its irresistible power."

In another passage the same writer describes the effect of his political enthusiasm :-" His strong political feelings and his intense hatred as an Orangeman of the Roman Catholics, made him an eager and vehement speaker at the Rotunda meetings in Dublin; and it can easily be conceived how his spirit-stirring tones would stimulate those excitable audiences when he spoke on a theme in which his passions were so propitiously sanctioned by his religious principles. The influence of the archbishop was of course very serviceable to him in this career, his exalted position in the Church lending a sanction to even the most violent diatribes against Popery."*

His chief publications are:- "An Ordination Sermon," published by the request of the Bishop of Chester in 1825. Seventeen Sermons, 1825-3d edit., 1838. Three Sermons, 1827. "England's Protest is England's Shield," 1829. "Miracles and Spiritual Gifts," 1832. "Lectures on the Sympathies, &c., of our Saviour." "Letters to a Friend (the late Spencer Percival, Esq.), on Seceding from the Church." "Lectures on Church Establishments." "Sermons on the Second Advent," 1835-5th edit., 1842. "Lectures on the Prophecies respecting the Jews," 4th edit., 1842. "Lectures on the Church of England," 1840-8th edit., 1842. "Lectures on Passion * See the Dublin University Magazine, ut supra.

Week," 1843-3d edit., 1845. "The Church and the Churches; or, The Church of God in Christ, and the Church Militant here on Earth," 1846. "The Adoption and other Sermons preached in Chester Cathedral in 1846;" and "Fidelity and Unity," a Letter to Dr Pusey on his Eirenicon in 1866. Dr M'Neile has also published various other discourses and controversial tracts against Romanism. He is also one of the authors of " Unitarianism Confuted," a series of lectures in 1839.

THE REV. THOMAS DREW, D.D.

BORN A.D. 1800-DIED A.D. 1870.

DR THOMAS DREW, who deserves a place in our biographies for his eloquence, his work, and his influence in the north of Ireland, was born in Limerick, October 26, 1800. He passed a distinguished course in Trinity College, Dublin, and was ordained in 1827 for the curacy of Broughshane in the diocese of Connor. In 1829 he married Isabella, daughter of John Dalton, Esq. of Dublin. Forty years ago almost all the life and energy, the vigour and manliness of the Church in Ireland was displayed by the representatives of the evangelical school, of which Mr Drew soon became a conspicuous light. He was a man, if we may be allowed the use of a strong expression, of volcanic energy, both in speech and in business. In the crusade against deadness and formality he was one of the foremost in days when penny papers were unknown and provincial "dailies" undreamt of, and the clergyman was supposed to be the great authority on all subjects, political and literary, as well as religious. In later years his mind turned more to Church principles; but in the prime of his ministerial life, he was remarkable as an organising worker. While curate of Broughshane, he already distinguished himself by building three schools, founded on the principle of scriptural education, of which, to the end of his life, even when the fashion of opinion entirely changed, he was still a consistent supporter. He also founded parochial institutions, then unknown in Ireland, such as a dispensary, clothing club, &c. His influence with children was already displayed by raising the Sunday school attendance from 300 to 1200. It was while at Broughshane that he formed a friendship and alliance of work and opinion with the great and liberal Presbyterian divine, Dr Cooke, which lasted through life, and was honourable to both. In 1832 Mr Drew was transferred to the incumbency of Christ Church, Belfast-a church which had just been built by the exertions of the venerable Bishop Mant, for a dense and increasing population of Protestants in a low part of the great northern town. Here Mr Drew worked like a giant, not merely as an organiser and a preacher, to the latter of which functions the majority of his school have in latter days dwindled their ministerial work; but he visited like a true pastor from cottage to cottage, by his genial manner and sympathising enthusiasm, winning a wonderful way amongst the operatives. It would be difficult to believe that any parish priest ever did more in his own person of this noble work, which is the most unam

bitious and the most real. It is almost needless to say that Mr Drew was a fiery Orangeman, and it was his boast that he did not allow a single Protestant male parishioner to remain unconnected with that body. We cannot be suspected of any sympathy with Orangeism, but we can see in it as much to admire as to differ from; and Mr Drew was the best specimen of an Orangeman, for, with whatever may be the good qualities of the body, he was free from the hatred and bitterness which disfigure too many of the rank and file. Although such a man lived a life of perpetual antagonism, he was free from a single personal enemy. The population in which he was the first labourer was sorely in need of reformation. Their religion was nominally Protestant, but like those against whom the Psalmist prayed, their precious balms broke the heads of their opponents. Education was at the lowest ebb, public worship was never attended, the Bible which they extolled was as unread among them as it is supposed to have been before Luther made his famous discovery, or Josiah's workmen stumbled upon a copy of the law in the temple. The wine of the country, which is the strongest whisky, had established a most potent influence over the working men; and the manufactures, which long had their seat in the centre of the Irish linen trade, had done the work of degradation which is now so commonly apparent in great manufacturing towns. Soon Mr Drew's ministrations began to tell. "Foolish and sinful practices were abandoned; order and decorum marked the Sabbath (Sunday); family worship prevailed generally in the families; the Sabbath-day was honoured, and Christ Church district soon became remarkable for quietness and godliness. How patiently and perseveringly he laboured here; how in school, in pulpit, by school-house and cottage lectures, he sowed with no niggard hand the good seed of the gospel; how many thousand souls received from his ministration an inclination to heavenly things; how many young people were turned from the paths of the destroyer; how many deathbeds were cheered by the knowledge of Him who is the resurrection and the life, eternity alone can tell." He also made an effort for the fallen women of Belfast, which resulted in the building of the Magdalene Asylum Church. Looking back himself upon his past life, he felt most pleasure in remembering his successful efforts in church extension. It was by his exertions that twenty churches were built in different parts of the diocese, in districts where they were most wanted to meet the increase of the population. He was the originator of the Church Accommodation Society, by which this work is still, we believe, promoted. It is an appropriate monument to such a man that a church has been built and endowed in Belfast to his memory, and there is no reason why the ancient saints should have a monopoly of such dedications, sub Deo. Although Dr Drew had a population of 30,000 under his pastoral charge, and there were few houses in this immense parish into which he had not planted a root, he had superfluous energies to turn to the public affairs of the Church. He laid a plan before the bishop for the establishment of a clergy-aid society-another name, in fact, for a home mission in which those clergy who had less onerous duties assisted those who had more than they could undertake. Forty mission stations were established in the united dioceses of Down, Connor, and Dromore,

which contain, with no extra proportion of clergy, one-third of the entire Protestant population of Ireland. To these stations the clergy who undertook the duty repaired to preach, conduct public worship, and administer the sacrament. Out of the great wants revealed by this effort, the necessity of building churches became apparent. Dr Drew placed privately before merchants and gentry the need which existed, and obtained many promises of help. At length, when matters were ripe, a meeting was held in Christ Church, which accommodated 1700 people, and on this occasion was filled, as it was wont to be by the operatives of Belfast and their families, by the gentry and mercantile men of Antrim and Down, and more than £50,000 was subscribed to meet the spiritual destitution which Dr Drew, under God, was the means both of revealing and of meeting. If we see in Ulster, under conditions very similar to those which exist in England, that the population has not burst the bonds and become utterly infidel or heathen, there is no one to whom the honour of retaining the people in the Church is more justly due than to the subject of this memoir.

Dr Drew's reputation as an eloquent speaker travelled over many parts of Ireland. At the April meetings held in the Rotunda of Dublin, he was one of the principal and most welcome platform orators. He also made yearly visits to England, and was the means of procuring much material help for the societies which he advocated. In these visits he became acquainted with the existence of a different kind of revival from his own that promoted in the Church of England by the Tractarians; he could certainly have discovered no traces of this movement in his native country, and therefore we infer that he must have learned of its existence in some of his English rambles; but he brought back a violent spirit of opposition to the innovations which were then making way so rapidly in the sister country. A society of "Archæologists having been started in the united diocese, which was supposed to be germane to the terrible movement of the Tractarians of Oxford, was attacked with very earnest energy by Dr Drew, who denounced its objects and pursuits as a covert advance of the enemy. Whether this was so or not, there is no doubt that the Archeologists, if not the Tractarians, were completely scotched for the time being.

In 1841 the Board of Trinity College presented Mr Drew with the degree of LL.B., and in the following year he obtained from the same source the degree of D.D. In 1844 he was admitted, ad eundem, to the same degree at Cambridge. In 1841 and 1844 he served as chaplain to the lords-lieutenant Earl de Grey and Lord Heytesbury.

In politics Dr Drew was a staunch Conservative, and although Belfast was Radical before the Reform Bill of 1832, he succeeded in the election that followed in eccentric conjunction with the Presbyterian Dr Cooke, in conquering the representation from the party which had held it so long; and it was mainly through the immense influence of the alliance of these two men that Ulster was so entirely won to Conservatism. In 1847-8 Dr Drew's exertions, as joint-secretary to the Relief Committee, with Mr M'Clure, the late Liberal member for Belfast, were such as might be expected from a man of such enormous enthusiasm and energy; and his powers of working in that great cause in perfect harmony with the Roman Catholic Bishop and other political

and religious antagonists, was a distinguishing feature of the manliness and chivalry of his nature, which bore no enmity, shook hands and fought, and fought and forgave.

We have said that Dr Drew was a staunch Orangeman; he was chaplain to the Grand Lodge of Ireland and to the imperial grand master the Earl of Enniskillen. This connection, which he refused to resign, debarred him from that promotion which could otherwise scarcely have been denied him, and even obliged him to resign the chaplaincy to the lord-lieutenant. It was impracticable for either party, Conservative or Liberal, to countenance the Orange Society, as doing so would involve a plain departure from the neutrality which must be characteristic of all government. Dr Drew's energy, like that of Father Mathew, would have done a great work if he had been placed in the position of a bishop; but his promotion to the Episcopal bench was at all times impossible.

It was creditable to the Bishop of Down, that, although differing from Dr Drew in politics, he promoted him in 1859, after twenty-six years of arduous labour in Belfast, and when his energies were failing, to the rectory of Loughinisland and the precentorship of Down Cathedral. The remainder of his life was free from incident; his great exertions had worn him out; there were the quiet and repose of autumn, not without repinings, we have heard him say, for the immense labours and interests left behind; but at last came "rest in the Lord." He died on the 26th of October 1870.

CARDINAL WISEMAN.

BORN A.D. 1802-DIED A.D. 1865.

NICHOLAS PATRICK STEPHEN WISEMAN was the son of the late James Wiseman of Waterford. The Irish family of Wiseman traditionally claimed descent from a younger branch of an Essex family of considerable antiquity. The Cardinal's mother, Frances Xaviera, was daughter of the late Peter Strange, whose family is still settled at Aylwardtown Castle, in the county Kilkenny. Mr James Wiseman was a member of the firm of "Wiseman Brothers," which carried on an extensive trade between Waterford and Seville; and in the latter city he was residing at the time of the Cardinal's birth, which took place on the 2nd of August 1802, and to this accident the historic capital of Andalusia owed the honour of being the birthplace of this distinguished prelate the seventh English Cardinal since the Reformation, "who, by his learning, piety, executive ability, and tact, wielded an influence in favour of the English branch of his Church, which neither priest nor laic since the days of Pole and More has even approached." At the early age of five years young Wiseman was placed at a boarding-school in Waterford, where he remained until he was sufficiently advanced to enter St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw. His mother settled at Durham to be near him; and to her tender care and solicitude he seems to have been largely indebted, for he wrote of her as "one to whom I owe all good in life." In early childhood he had lost his father, but his mother