This laudable association is one of the objects in which we wish to interest you by the present letter. It has already received considerable support in Ireland, and the bishops of this province have come to the unanimous resolution of strenuously recommending its object to the clergy and faithful of their respective diocesses. It is in conformity with those resolutions that we now address you, exhorting you to contribute your mite according to your means, to the glorious work of rescuing thousands of your fellow-creatures from the darkness of idolatry, and bringing them to the light of the Catholic religion !!!"

In the face of an act of parliament, this vulgar aspiring man signs, "John, archbishop of Tuam," and dates his epistle on the anniversary of some of his popish saints, whom they idolatrously worship. These are signs of the times which ought to arouse us to a more zealous activity to counteract the effects of these silent emissaries of Rome. Farmers and manufacturers should refuse to employ the popish pioneers who are forced over here to create a popish population in the heart of protestant England. And this is the man, too, who bleats so loudly against the Achill mission for carrying the light of the Gospel into that priest-ridden island. M'Hale is a good sample of the so called liberal school, which demands every thing but yields nothing; which send their silent emissaries here in thousands annually to impoverish and vitiate our poor labourers, and yet stimulates his own ferocious followers to maltreat and murder protestant missionaries, who attempt to redeem Ireland from the curse of popery.

VOL. II.

THE POOR CHILD OF ERIN.

How sweetly smiles yon infant of the great,
Tended by servants as a King in state.
Its rosy lip, its soft angelic eye,

Attracts the stranger as he passes by,

Who, tho' by nature formed with scowling face,
Imbibes, unconscious, from its infant

grace,

And then returns a smile-a tribute given
To happiness, so pure a type of heaven.
Are all thus happy? is poor Erin's child
Taught by a mother's voice as sweet, as mild?
Has it the principle of truth impressed

While young upon its pure and yielding breast?
Or, with the titled child, is honour sown

Where nature p'rhaps would raise to vice a throne?
Alas, the infant of her poor is found

Nursed up in mis'ry on the cold damp ground:
Its food is thin; its clothing torn, and spare;
Its looks, as if it breathed a noxious air.
Most infants play their part, and take away
The cares we bring from many a toilsome day;

E

Or, oft to sunshine change a cloudy hour,
And, for the thorn of poverty-a flower.
But the poor child whose hapless fate I wail,
Ne'er gives its parent joy; its smiles all fail.
Its childishness, where is it? It is lost,
Or else 'tis nipped by poverty's keen frost.
Dragg'd up by a pauper's hand to know,
Ere it had sinned, its future lot is woe.
I'll pass at once from infancy to age,
And e're we lose the child, we find the sage.
The sage in what? not philosophic lore,
But in the vices of life's boisterous shore.
No infant carol charms its tuneful ear:
No wondrous tale e'er dries the falling tear;
But on t'will roll unheeded from its eye,
Unpitied in its childhood's misery.

Yet, more-its winning smiles of infant mirth,
Are never seen by those who gave it birth:
It never brings before a father's sight,
The visioned scenes of youth, a morning light;
For he when young was too a poor man's child,
And, like his infant, trod a savage wild.
It never plays upon its father's knee
As boys are wont, the village hawthorn tree;
But sits the rival of his daily toil,

'Till it can tend him to the furrowed soil.
Far different from the child whose lips were fed
With syrup from the rose of blushing red,
Whose younger days flowed as the limpid stream,
Or walked with fairies in a golden dream,
The infant of the poor is dragged along,
To live, or die, amid the hardened throng;
No fairy dream e'er steals upon its sleep;
Disturbed by broils, 'twill lay awake and weep;
Then call mama, but call on her in vain;
She heeds it not in pleasure or in pain.
Hard is thy fate who, born on British land,

Where Heavenly Goodness showers with bounteous hand
The choicest gifts a nation can possess,

Of knowledge, virtue, wealth, and godliness,
Must, at the mercy of life's boisterous wave,
Ride as the helpless outcast, negro slave,
Without a chart to guide thee to the port,
Thy Saviour with his life, his death, has bought;
Without a parent's care to lead your youth
Into the road of honour, and of truth.

Have Albion's sons no sympathy for those

Who still on her with all their wants repose

Will they for ages yet refuse to hear

?

Those who by blood, by kindred, should be dear?
Or, let them slave as brutes upon the soil,
While others share the first-fruits of their toil ?

Ah, no! a better fate I think is nigh,

To lead thro' life to immortality

Those suffering poor, whom ignorance enslaves,
And moulds to various forms, as brutes, or knaves;
A happier fate may yet be theirs-to know
Release from ignorance, their greatest woe.
Some Heaven-born Howard may arise,
Intent on good, not on an earthly prize,
To tread once more the houses of the poor,
And sap the vices, born within their door;
Then, to improve them, all those arts employ,
Which other realms, less great than ours, enjoy.
Then, should the guardians of a country's weal
List, as a father to a child's appeal,

And, gathering under their most powerful arm,
Protect those hearts where virtue still lies warm;
And school their minds as best becomes their state,
That they may meet contentment with their fate.
The infant poor would then be taught to bless
The heart that sought, and hand that gave success.

1.

EXEQUY ON A BELOVED WIFE,

BY THE MOST REVEREND ARCHBISHOP KING.

SLEEP on, my love, in thy cold bed,
Never to be disquieted;

My last "good night!" thou will not wake
Till I thy fate shall overtake;

Till age, or grief, or sickness, must
Marry my body to that dust

It so much loves; and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.

Stay for me there; I will not fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale:
And think not much of my delay,
I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the speed
Desire can make or sorrows breed.

Each minute is a short degree,
And every hour a step towards thee;
At night when I betake to rest,
Next morn I rise nearer my west
Of life, almost by eight hours sail,
Than when sleep breath'd his drowsy gale.

CURRENT SENSE OF THE CHURCH.

FRIENDLY AND SEASONABLE ADVICE TO THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF

ENGLAND.

By the Very Reverend THOMAS COMBER, D.D., Prebendary of York,
and Dean of Durham.

SECTION V.

Whether the Roman Bishop have sufficient authority to impose the said opinions upon all Christian Churches.

THE last, and almost the only shelter that your doctors fly to at this day for the defence of your principles is, that "the Bishop of Rome is the sole Vicar of Christ, the Infallible and only Judge of Controversies, and the Supreme Head of the Universal Church;" and hereby their adherents are awed into the retaining all his decrees of what nature soever they be. But let me beg leave to advise you not to lay so much stress upon these titles and authority, till you have seriously examined by what right the Pope lays claim to them; for his power had need be very great, and his proofs very good, upon the credit whereof you receive so many new and suspicious articles of religion, some of which we ought not to receive, though preached by an angel: Gal. i. 8, 9.

And, first, though we stand not much upon titles, you may note that the name of Vicar of Christ is never given to the Pope in the first ages, and when this title came into use, it was not appropriated to the Bishop of Rome, but other bishops and priests are styled vicars of Christ also, even by a Pope of Rome; as also by an undoubted friend of the Roman Church, and by our own Saxon Law: So that there is no reason for the Roman Bishop to challenge any propriety in this title, or any special privilege by virtue thereof.

Secondly, as to his being an Infallible Judge and the Supreme Head of the Catholic Church throughout the world, you may remember we have proved there are more Christians in the world who deny this supremacy of Rome, than there are who do acknowledge it: and if the belief of this Infallible Headship be the reason why you receive other articles of faith, then this is the most fundamental article of all others, and ought to be the best attested and if our Lord Jesus had designed to make St. Peter and his successors at Rome (not at Antioch) such Supreme Infallible Judges, we may expect he would have set down this article plainly in Holy Scripture, and not have left his sole visible vice-gerent to the suspicion of bearing witness to himself. As for that place, Matt. xvi., "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church;" it is, indeed, by the Popes, in their forged decretals, expounded as a confirmation of their pretences to supremacy, but the fathers take this rock, not for St. Peter's person, but for his faith which he confessed, and for Christ himself, the object thereof so St. Augustine, Nazianzen,5 St. Cyril, St. Chrysostom," St. Ambrose, and Hilary, expound the place: and, if so, this belongs

8

1 Euseb. Pap. Decret. Ep. 3.

2 Epist. Wil. Senon. ap. Hoveden. An. 1171. 3 Legibus Hydens. ap. Spelm, Tom. i. pag. 440.

4 Aug. de Verb. Dom. ser. 13.
Cyril. de Trin. lib. 4.
Ambros. com. in Ephes. 2.

5 Nazianz. Test. de Vet. Testam.
7 Chrysost. hom. 55, in Matt.
9 Hilar. de Trin. lib. 2, cap. 6.

no more to St. Peter than to the rest of the apostles, who confessed the same faith, and belongs no otherwise to the Pope than as he varies not from St. Peter's faith; and so far it belongs to all orthodox bishops with respect to their several churches: and, for the keys of the kingdom of heaven, ver. 19, they were given as much to the other apostles as to St. Peter, Matt. xviii. 18, (as also the aforesaid fathers do observe) being all equally sharers in the power of the keys, and all foundations, as well as St. Peter, so that St. Cyprian plainly tells us, "the rest of the apostles were as great as St. Peter, endowed with an equal share of honour and power; nor do we find that ever St. Peter pretended to any power over the other apostles. "Peter, James, and John, though preferred by Christ (saith Eusebius) before the rest, challenged not to themselves the glory of primacy, but chose James the Just, bishop of the apostles:" and, if any were greatest, it was St. James, who was president in that first council at Jerusalem, and did determine the question there, though St. Peter1 was present. Yea, Clemens, Bishop of Rome, in the first decretal epistle (a good evidence against the inventors thereof) styles this very St. James "bishop of bishops, governing the holy church of the Hebrews at Jerusalem, and also all the churches, which were everywhere founded by the providence of God."5 And an ancient council calls "Jerusalem the mother of all churches; 6" but, as for the primacy of Rome, there is no genuine author for the first three centuries takes any notice of it, and Eneas Sylvius' afterwards Pope, confesseth, "there was little respect paid to Rome before the Nicene council." If Polycrates and the Asian bishops had known of this infallibility and supremacy, they would not have opposed Pope Victor's opinion, nor despised his excommunication so boldly as they did; neither would Irenæus (who calls the Bishops of Rome no more but presbyters) have presumed to reprove the same Victor for his arrogance and indiscretion, as we find he did.R St. Cyprian surely never heard of this power of the Roman bishop, who calls Cornelius, bishop of that see, no more but brother and colleague, and gives to Pope Stephen, his successor at Rome, the titles of "false apostle, schismatic, friend to heretics, and enemy to Christians;" utterly despising his judgment, and not regarding his determinations. Besides, if this supremacy had been believed in the first ages of the church, the Roman bishops' sense would have been inquired of concerning all controverted places of Scripture, his decrees cited to silence heretics, and all appeals must have been made finally to him: he also should have called and presided in all eminent councils, whereas Cardinal Cusanus affirms that "the emperors or their deputies were presidents in eight general councils."10 Nor did the fourth general council at Chalcedon suppose that the Roman Bishop had any supremacy given him from Christ, when that council saith, "Rome hath justly had the privileges given unto it by the fathers, because it was the seat of the empire ;" and for the same reason they "grant equal privileges to the Bishop of Constantinople." Yea, St. Gregory, Bishop of

1 Aug. in Johan. Tract. 118. — Ambros. in Psal. 38. — Origen. in Matt. Tract. 1. Hilarius de Trinit. 1. 6.- Hieron. in Jovin. lib. 1. 2 Cypr. de Unit. Eccles. 3 Euseb. Eccles. Hist. 1. 2, c. 1. 4 Acts, xv. 13.

5 Decret. Epist. Clement. I. in Titul. Epist.

7 Ene. Sylv. Ep. 288.

9 Cyprian, ad Pompei. Ep. 74.

11 Concil. Chal. Can. 28. An. 451.

• Concil. Constant. I. Ep. ad Dam. Euseb. Eccles. Hist. 1. 5, c. 24. 10 Cusan. de Concor. Cath. 1. 3. c. 6.