peace, on Clanriçarde's engagement for additional concessions concerning the repeal of the penal laws, and the possession of churches by the Romanists; and Preston undertook to be henceforth entirely obedient to the King's authority, and to join with Ormonde against all the King's enemies, and such as would not submit to the peace. On this occasion lord Digby thus wrote to the Lord Lieutenant, "You may depend on this engagement of Preston and his army, since it cannot be violated without such a perfidy, as certainly the profession of soldiers and gentlemen hath never been guilty of."

It was no doubt resting on the strength of this agreement with Preston and his army, that Ormonde refused to admit into Dublin the Parliament's forces that were encamped at Ringsend, and who, in consequence of this refusal, re-embarked and set sail for Ulster ; and as in all likelihood it was the presence of this force that induced Preston to come into terms, so when he found that they were departed, he contemplated a change of measures. But for the present all was apparently cordial. He consented to receive lord Clanricarde as his commanding officer, and to act as major-general under him; and he wrote the most pressing letters to the Lord Lieutenant, calling on him to set out from Dublin and put himself at the head of his forces, and proceed, to bring Kilkenny, Waterford, and all other places devoted to the clergy, into conformity with the peace that was now to be restored. It would appear that when Ormonde cast behind him the succour of the English, to throw himself again on the Irish, he did it with many misgivings, and accordingly he replies as follows to a letter of lord Digby's importuning him to the measure, "It is a hard task; I have to break with the Parliament commissioners, and keep my reputation with my own party, to whom these commissioners offered security in their fortunes, supplies in their wants, and assistance against the Irish who had destroyed them."

Even after Ormonde had set out from Dublin to meet Preston, while on the road he could not refrain himself from expressing his fears, for he writes from Lucan to sir John Hamilton, "I have undertaken a journey whereunto I was invited by a considerable body of the Irish, but I confess, I go rather to leave them for ever inexcusable, if they should fail me, than that I have any assured confidence of performance, such are the impressions their former failure has made on me.'

Ormonde with his small escort, proceeded to the place of rendezvous, and to use the words of Cox, "no doubt the reader is in full expectation to find that Preston was there also, but no such thing," for the council and congregation at Kilkenny had declared against the reconciliation, and the Nuncio having assured Preston that his engagement with Ormonde was not binding, he was prevailed on, under pain of Church censure, to apostatize from his solemn engagement, and he excused himself in a letter to Clanricarde, in these memorable words, "MY OFFICERS WERE NOT EXCOMMUNICATION PROOF." Here we see a gentleman and ge

neral officer violating the word of a soldier, in order to submit to a synodical decree. I cannot better describe the results of this breach of faith on the part of the Irish army of the pale, causing as they did the resignation of Ormonde's vice-royalty into the hands of the Parliamentary Commissioners, than in the eloquent and indignant words of O'Connor.

"As soon as the intelligence of Preston's agreement had reached Kilkenny, the bishops ordered him, December 5th, under the pain of excommunication, to disband his army. Alarmed by this formidable menace, he submitted on the 10th and wrote to Clanricarde, who was then on his route to join him, that he must violate the word of a soldier, and submit to the synodical decree! In the first transports of rage Clanricarde called him a traitor; the Catholic lords Westmeath, Taaffe, and Castlehaven, who had joined him, covered their faces with their hands-the descendant of Baldwin blushed for his country*- the Catholic religion wrapt herself up in a veil of deep mourning-and to this day Ireland shrinks with horror from the remembrance of her own history.

"Ormonde was now reduced to the utmost extremity; and yet ere he would surrender to the Parliament, he sent Dan O'Nial to Clonmel, where the bishops were assembled, with a proposal for a cessation for two months, to be continued for twelve, if they would engage to use sincere endeavours for the renewal of the peace, on the best additional terms that could possibly be obtained.

"He employed D. O'Nial, being the nephew of their favourite general, and a man of very engaging manners and insinuating address; the proposal came recommended by letters from Owen Roe himself; Daniel was of all their countrymen, the most likely to please them; he was one of the most popular men, one of the most judicious, and one of the best officers of his age.

"And yet, how was this proposal received? There are crimes which can be punished only in another world, Daniel's Irish heart beat high with the proud hope that he should be instrumental to the prosperity of his country; but he had hardly explained the object of his mission on his arrival at Clonmel, when, contrary to the faith of nations, he was arrested, imprisoned, and confined during the fourteen days which Ormonde had allowed the bishops for deliberation, nor was he enlarged but on condition that he should not return to his quarters again. I wish with all my heart, that the historian could consign to oblivion, the follies and the crimes of his countrymen, and that his duty only obliged him to record their virtues, but the truth must be told, and it is proper and necessary that it should be told by ourselves.

"Let no man fear truth ;- God will avail himself of her manifestation, to correct and to chasten those whom he loves. I can never read the conclusion of the Second Book of Maccabees, without thinking of Ireland.

"Ormonde had now no resource but to capitulate; and he had hardly quitted the kingdom, when the arbitrary proceedings of the Clerico-political faction, caused the utmost consternation. Three Dominican friars, Hacket, Roche, and O'Dwyer, preached in the Catholic camp against lord Muskerry, Dr. Fennel, and the favourers of the peace with Ormonde, as favourers of heresy; almost all the the nobility of Ireland were involved in the imputation; divisions increased every

• The De Burg family claim descent from Baldwin, one of the Latin Emperors of Constantinople.

day; Preston was defeated by Jones in Leinster; Taaffe by Inchiquin in Munster; and yet the foreign influenced faction demanded, not only that all the churches and church lands, and spiritual revenues should be restored to them, and that there should be no Lord Lieutenant but a Catholic approved by the Pope, but also that the ancient statutes of Provisors and Premunire, which were enacted against Papal Bulls in Catholic times, should be repealed.

"For the purpose of securing a majority in the new-modelled clerico-political supreme council at Kilkenny, the Nuncio introduced eleven bishops elect, who in defiance of all decency, and of some timid and desponding opposition, be peremptorily ordered to take their seats, though he acknowledged that not one of them was consecrated, and that their Bulls were not yet expedited from Rome! He then pressed the assembly to elect the Pope for their sovereign, with the title of 'Lord Protector; and after some opposition on the part of the nobility, he succeeded so far, that French, bishop of Ferns, and sir N. Plunket, were by a majority of voices, appointed as agents to Rome, with instructions, which are now before me in MS. in the first volume of the earl of Essex's MSS. at Stowe; they are dated Kilkenny, January 18, 1847, and the 9th is,- To make application to his Holiness for his being Protector of this kingdom.'

"In addition to these public instructions there were others private, one of which was to desire, on the part of the Catholics of Ireland, that the Nuncio should be created Cardinal.

Now this was not the act of the Catholics of Ireland, but a private and smuggled resolution of the bishops, similar to that which was sent to the Castle in 1799, for the Catholics of Ireland soon after contradicted it, in a solemn protest against the Nuncio! It was therefore a deliberate falsehood! but yet that falsehood was consecrated by the signatures of eight consecrated bishops, whose names are annexed in the Stowe MS. Yes! they claimed an exclusive right to decide on all matters touching the Irish church, and so they do to this day."

Reader, again I desire you to bear in mind, that Dr. Charles O'Connor was a Roman Catholic. C. O.

(To be continued.)

REVIEW.

Present state of Christianity, and of the Missionary Establishments for its propagation in all parts of the World. Edited by Frederick Shoberl. LondonHurst, Chauce, and Co. 1828. pp. xiv. 440.

(Continued from page 136.)

The history of Christianity in Asia, resembles in some respects, that of the political revolutions which have marked that portion of the globe. The victory of the cross was almost immediate: the, votaries of idolatry were converted or confounded, and by the end of the fifth century, Christianity had made its way into almost every portion of the Continent. By that time* India had heard

*Pantænus is said to have communicated to the inhabitants of India, the knowledge of the gospel in the second century; but Mosheim thinks these

heard the gospel even to the extreme of the Peninsula; the truth had penetrated beyond the wall of China, and the spirit of persecution and proselytism had instigated the followers of Nestorius to carry their prescribed dogmas to the highlands of Tartary and Thibet. It is a remarkable circumstance, that the gospel had been perhaps more widely eirculated in Asia, by those stigmatized heretics, than by the orthodox church-that they had converted many of the wandering tribes among the Tartars- had established their religion in that country in which the far-famed Prestor John resided, and it is even suggested had either established or modified the Lamaism of Thibet to that singular, and not very creditable likeness which it now bears to the superstitions of the Church of Rome. Another work besides proselytism has been ascribed to the same sect, though we think unjustly; and although the rapid success of the Saracens, with their false prophet, may seem to render probable some co-operation from the persecuted and indignant followers of Nestorius, it is much more easy to trace these successes to the imbecility and discord of the Emperor of Constantinople, and the nominal Christians who, as at present in the same countries, forgot the spirit of the gospel in zeal for human rites, or still more for some human adulteration.

The state of Christianity in the Asiatic dominions, really or nominally subject to the Porte, is very degraded. Relics of all sects that agitated and disgraced the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, are to be found there: and while the opinions of Nestorius and James Baradous have their respective followers; and the Monothelite and Eutychian heresies are perhaps feebly represented by the Maronite and Armenian churches, they agree with their ancient progenitors in their unholy animosities and dissentions that

Indians were only Jews residing in Arabia Felix, who had been previously converted by Bartholemew the Apostle; as according to Jerome the gospel of Matthew, received from him, was found among them. In the fourth century, the Armenian church was formed by Gregory, surnamed the Enlightener; and the same century is noted for the conversion of the Georgians under female influence, and the bitter persecution of Christianity in Persia, by Sapor, which last circumstance proves the extent to which it had spread in that country. The seventh century is supposed to have seen the first preacher of the gospel in China, under the Nestorians, though many hold that this sect had previously introduced it into the northern parts of that Empire; but their followers were confounded, in the Chinese annals, with the worshippers of Fo, an Indian idol whose rites had been some time before introduced into China. The same indefatigable sectarians carried in the 8th century, the lamp of Christianity into Tartary from the regions of Chaldea, and many of the wandering tribes of Cathay, Tangut, &c. were converted. And in the twelfth century, it is supposed by Mosheim, that the dominion of the celebrated pastor or priest John was founded by a Nestorian Monk, whose brother David was, however, defeated by the more celebrated Jenghis-khan. Even these victories did not destroy Nestorianism in upper Asia; the Tartars had inbibed it too deeply, and one of the grandsons of Jenghis is even said to have become a Christian. It was reserved for the Turks in the west, and the Moguls under Tamerlane, in the East, to beat down this singular influence. Islamism triumphed over each; Christianity in every shape was rooted out of Upper and central Asia, and reduced to its present low and degraded state.

cause.

disgrace the Christian name, and pour contempt on all Christian professions. The accounts given by most travellers, of the different classes of nominal Christians in the wild and unsettled countries, extending from the shores of the Levant, to the borders of Persia agree in representing them as ignorant, immoral, superstitious, and bitterly opposed to one another: among them, Popery of course seeks to extend her power; ignorance and superstition, form the soil most favourable for the growth of her peculiarities, and a corruption of morals, more or less, is of small consequence where subjection and implicit obedience constitute the essence of religion. The Catholics (as they call themselves) of Europe, and Asiatic Turkey, are under the ecclesiastical superintendance of two Archbishops, and ten Bishops; they regard the Maronites as brethren, because they acknowledge the Pope as their head; and some of the Nestorian Churches are received into communion for the same The Maronites extending from Syria beyond Aleppo and and Damascus, inhabit about 200 parishes: those of the mountains are tributary to the Druses. Giarve the Maronite, Archbishop of Jerusalem, excited considerable sympathy in Europe in the year 1818, but we find Mr. Wolfe speaking of him in his last letters in very unmeasured terms of censure. The patriarch of the Nestorians resides in Kurdistan; of the Syrian Jacobites, near Mardin; and of the Armenians, at Erivan; the head of the Armenian Catholics resides at Constantinople; of the Syrian or Nestorian Catholics, on Mount Lebanon; and of the Chaldean, or Jacobite Catholics, at Dearbekir. The patriarch of the Greek Church is stationed at Constantinople; it is a dignity purchased regularly of the Sultan for the sum of 100,000 piastres, and confers the rank of a pacha of two tails: such is the state of Christianity in these countries, in which there are almost 2,000,000 of professors, to which we must add a few Protestant congregations. We regret to say, that on this mass of error and ignorance, there are but few moral instruments at work, and that what might have been made effectual, has been checked and impeded by the present sanguinary contest, which has stopped the operations of the schools, prevented thè access of the Missionaries, and for the time hindered the circulation of the Scriptures. The institution of Callenborg at Halle, has done little more than circulate some copies of the new Testament in Asia Minor, and to this the Church Missionary Establishment at Malta, adds tracts, and portions of the Scriptures in the languages spoken in the Levant; and a monthly publication, called the Friend of Man, commenced in 1826, is circulated in Smyrna, Greece, Constantinople, and the Islands. The danger attending any interference with the professors of the Koran, is a great obstacle to conversion, as death both to the converter and the proselyte is sure to follow discovery: the very state of Christianity in those regions presents another obstacle; as,

If any exception is to be made, it is perhaps in favour of the Armenians, of whom our countryman, Dr. Walsh, has given a most interesting account, written for the Amulet, that would deserve a separate publication,