The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-03-10 00:00:00

THE IRISH CHURCH Now AND FORTY YEARS AGO.
—Looking back to the period when I was raised to the
episcopal office, forty years ago, and comparing the in-
ternal condition of the Church now with what it was then,
the improvement is most marked and gratifying. The
growth in zeal, in diligence, in devotedness to their sacred
employment, in earnest and laborious exertion on the part
of the clergy, call for devout gratitude to Him from whom
the ability comes, which has enabled them thus to will
and to do of His good pleasure. Their increased attain-
ments in professional learning has been equally observ-
able, and .is to be traced to the efficiency of the divinity
school in our university, and the care and labour there
bestowed on the candidates for the ministry by the res-
pective lecturers, and especially by the learned and excel-
lent Regius Professor, who has so long presided over that
school. The generally large and regular attendance of the
people at our churches—the numbers habitually and de-
voutly approaching the Lord's table—the attention on the
part of the parents in sending their children to be cate-
chised, and of the clergy in catechising, and in superin-
tending the instruction given in schools—all evince an
awakened anxiety for religious improvement—all tend to
assure us that we are not forsaken of God, but, we may
humbly hope, are partaking of his favour and protection.
* * At my advanced time of life, it may not be given
me to see the day when the perils that surround the Irish
church shall have disappeared, and the beams of temporal
prosperity shine once more upon it. The clouds that now
overhang and darken its worldly prospects may not be
dispersed before my eyes are closed in death ; but if it
should be so, I shall, nevertheless, bless God that the
church which I leave in earthly troubles and adversity, is
in a state of spiritual health, and life, and order, and de-
votedness, such as, I believe, never adorned it in any for-
mer period of its history. These are favours bestowed onus
by God's mercy and goodness. These arsblessings which
are not in the power of states to give or to take away.
They are of higher value and nobler worth than any
worldly prosperity.— The Primate's Charge at the Annual
Visitation.

kERSONAL APPEARANCE OF RONGE.—I was seated
very nearly opposite M. Rong6, and had, consequently, a
fair opportunity of making my observations upon his out-
ward man. In person he is about the middle stature,
with handsome countenance, dark piercing eyes, and a
fine head of long black hair ; but I searched his face in
vain for any of those lines of thought produced by severe
study and reflection. The expression was intelligent, but
certainly not characterised by that earnest seriousness
which might have been expected. The chair nan, rising,
proposed to the company the health of their guest, and
at the conclusion of his speech, placed upon his head a
garland of flowers. _ Ronge then replied. He returned
thanks for the enthusiastic reception he had met with,
gave a detailed account of his progress through the vari-
ous towns he had recently visited, complimented- the
company assembled upon its respectability and num-
bers, and said a good deal, the purport of which I
could not at the moment catch, as he spoke with great
rapidity and considerable gesticulation. When he bad
concluded, dinner was served up, of which he seemed to
partake with great avidity, the crown of flowers remain-
ing all the time upon his head. When the soup had been
served, and the banquet was approaching its middle stage,
I saw his next neighbour directing ttie attention of M.
Rona to me, and 1 heard him whisper the name of my
country. could instantly observe a sharp, quick glance
of the eye directed towards me; but no further observa-
tion was made until towards the conclusion of the repast,
when, after the greater portion of the assembly had dis-
persed, M. Ronge directed his conversation to me, and
made many inquiries as to the exact condition of the Ca-
tholics in this country, which I an swered according to the
best of my information. He carried on the conversation
exclusively in French, which he spoke with the same fa-
cility as German ; and before we parted he presented me
with a small volume of songs, composed by himself.—
Dublin Untvereity Magazine.
THE KETREAt THROUGH THE KOORD CABUL PASS.
—A long tourney, indeed, and the real horrors of the
Koord Cabul Pass, it yawned in terrific arandeur to re-
ceive them. On either side tremendous cliffs, huge masses
of beetling rock overhanging the deep ravine, cast a sha-
dow over the road, " rough and narrow," which wound
between them. .

" --- At noontide there
'Twas twilight, and at sunset blackest night."

And beneath, a fuaming torrent, unbound by the mighty
frost, leapt wildly along, through channels of frozen snow.
And above, around, on every side, the Affghan marksmen,
perched aloft, with their unerring jezails, or lying in wait,
on lower ridges, with their long sharp knives, looked
wistfully down upon the doomed army, as slowly, confu-
sedly—a dense, undistinguishable mass of living matter—
it streamed into the jaws of that mighty defile. *
And on went the British army—an army no more—shut
in between the impending walls of that grim, infernal pas-
sage ; now plunging through the impetuous mountain
stream, now huddling on confusedly through the narrow
defiles ; whilst thick and fast fell the deadly showers from
the jezails of the Ghilzye marksmen. And there, through
that dreadful pass, rode delicate English ladies, with ten-
der infants in their arms—rode through the thick fire of
the enemy, on wretched ponies, or on jolting camels, or
falling, with the beasts that bore them, shot down by the
Affghan jezailchees, struggled on with rent and frozen
garments, along the slippery snow, jostled and unregarded
by the teeming multitude—stumbling over the stark
bodies of the dying and the dead. There wretched Hin-
dostanee sepoys, soldiers no longer, threw away their
arms and fled—seizing whatever cattle came in their way,
casting away the baggage, ransacking it in search of food
or clothing, riding on through the mass of camp-followers,
and treading down all who came in their way. There
wretched native women threw away their children to per-
ish in the snow, and hurried on, scared and panic-struck,
till their limbs refused to bear them further, and they fell
exhausted, agonised, to die the dreadful death of slow
congelation. There naked Hindostanee camp-followers
sunk down, maimed, crippled by the cruel frost, racked
by the pains of hell—tbe devouring cold eating into their
flesh, and turning it to rottenness before its time. And
there, one on another, fast and thick, fell the bodies of
men—soldiers and camp-followers, European and natives
—beneath the murderous fire of the Gbilzyes, who lined
that dreadful pass.—Long Engagements.—Chapman and
Monthly Series. _ . . .

INDICATIONS OF CHARACTER.—Becearia wrote against
capital punishments. His servant read his book and
stole his watch. How did the advocate for abolition il-
lustrate his argument ? He exerted himself in every way
to hang the thief. At that moment he was correcting a
second edition. Thus by an incident in his own life we,
refute his book. Again, we are accustomed to think and
read of Prince Eugene as a warrior and man of renown.
He appears with Marlborough in the historical picture.
What, then, is our astonishment to find him debating
with Bolingbroke (who was anxious to conduct him im-
mediately to the queen) whether be could with propriety
appear in a short periwig, his luggage not being arrived,
and his efforts to borrow that equipment having proved
ineffectual ! Or look at Pepys. We all know him to
have been a frivolous gossiper about the court, a thinner
kind of Horace and Walpole ; but the following circum-
stance reduces him to smaller dimensions than any criti-
cal compression could accomplish. A subject, that
weighed heavily upon his thoughts during the great
plague, was the probable fashion of periwigs after it should
have abated, seeing that no one would dare to buy any
hair, from the apprehension that it had been " cut off the
heads of people dead of the pestilence." If we think very
humbly of Pepys from this feature, we confess that Garth,
the good-natured Garth of Bolingbroke and Pope, has
sunk very low in our estimation since we read Gay's ac-
count of setting him down at the opera, and of his show-
ing his gratitude by a squeeze of the fore finger.—Fraser's
Magazine.
OUR OBSCURE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SPANISH PAIN.'
TERS.—Seville was the great school of Spanish art, and
this leads us to a subject of high interest—the pictures and
collections of Spain. So little are they known beyond the
Pyrenees, that Wilkie called the country " an unexplored
territory, the very Timbuctoo of art ;" and evincing his
estimate of its importance in this respect, adds, that " he
reckoned the seven months and ten days he passed ifi Spain
as the best employed time of his professional life." Mu-
rillo is known by some few of his paintings in England;
Velasquez, by name only ; of dark Rib?rs—powerful, but
severe —" who painted," (says Allan Cunningham,)
" Ixion on the wheel with such distressing force, as mis-
formed an unborn babe," not much is known beyond the
name he goes by. " Spagnoletto," often appended to bad
copies of him in catalogues ; nothing is ever heard of lii-
balta, the Domenichino of that country, or of Bicerra,
who, as we learn from the last cited writer, wrought such
a virgin, from a vision that came to him by night, as en-
raptured Queen. Isabella ; nothing of Morales, called,
from his sweetness, the divine ; also of Alonzo Cano, the
Michael Angelo of Spain; or of its Raphael, Juan Battista ;
or of Roelas, the painter of the Jesuits ; or of Francesco
Zurbaran, rated by Wilkie as next to Murillo, and often
his equal; nothing of Gallegos, of ClauJio Cuello, or,
among others, of Pedro de Campana, whose manner a
good deal resembled that of Correggio. There is a picture
by this master—the taking down from the cross—now in
the cathedral of Seviile, beneath which Murillo was, at
his own desire, buried. Such was his admiration of the
work, that he had cften stood before it for hours, " wait-•
ing," as he said, " until those men actually descended
with the hod; of our Lord."—Dublin University.

THE PROJECTED JEWISH COLONY IN THE HOLY
LAND.-The Jews are willing to endure privations and
hardships in order to secure their long-lost privileges—to
be any thing or nothing, provided they can but tread on
that consecrated ground, there to live and die. The
hardships and severities which they have been of late
years enduring in Russia, and which they still continue to,
suffer in many parts of the continent, as well as in Asia
and throughout the work!, and too well known to need
any illustration. And were it only to be esteemed as :a
work of philanthropy, restricted to them, it would be well
deserving our consideration and countenance; for we can
do nothing else-Effectually—nothing so surely calculated
to better, and permanently raise the physical, intellectual,
social, and moral condition of that people, as to gather
them to a common centre. And where shall that rallying
point be? Not in our own country. It cannot be any
where but in their own chosen land, for which alone they
have a settled and general desire, or will make any perse-
vering effort to congregate. It has been supposed by
some that the poor Jews now resident in the Holy Land
are averse to labour and industry, and will not till the
soil, being mendicants alone by choice. The very reverse
of this is the fact. It is their desire, if they cannot be-
come possessed of land, to earn their livelihood as their
recompense for its cultivation. Though many of them
are entirely devoted to religion, yet even those would re-
joice to be able to engage in agricultural employment.
But they are too poor, and, deprecating their condition,
can only pray for assistance. The first operations of the
society might be directed to their establishment on the
land, the expense of transit being thus saved. Besides,
there are in the Turkish empire two hundred thousand,
and in the neighbouring countries a greater number. who,
with little expense might at once emigrate, according as
tt.ey may be able and willing to do so, to their own ad-
vantage and that of the colony.—Extract from Report.

-THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.