The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-09-25 00:00:00

HAGAR.

She fled, with one reproachful look
On him who bade her go,
And scarcely could the l'a!Sarch brook
That glance of voiceless woe ;
In vain her quivering lips essay'd
His mercy to implore,
Silent the mandate she obey'd,
And there was seen no more.

The burning waste and lonely wild
Received her as she went ;
Hopeless, she clasp'd her tainting child,
With thirst and sorrow spent.
And in the wilderness so these,
She raised her voice on high,
And sent forth that heart-stricken prayer—
" Let me not see him die !"

Her beautiful, her only boy,
Her all of hope below !
So long his father's pride and joy,
And yet from him the blow !
Alone she must his head sustain,
And watch bis sinking breath,
And on his bright brow mark the stain
Of the destroyer, Death !

" Let me not see him die," and lo
The messenger of peace ;
Once more her tears forgot to flow,
Once more her sorrows cease.
Life, strength, and freedom now are given
With mighty power to one
Who from his father's roof was driven,
And he—the outcast's son.

How often we, like Hagar, mourn,
When some untook'd for blight
Drives us away, no more to turn
To joys we fancied bright.
Forced from our idols to retreat,
And seek the Almighty's care,
Perchance we are sent forth to meet
A desert angel there !

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

THE PRECURSOR AGITATION.
(From the Morning Herald.)
Mr. O'Connell has entered upon his customary au-
tumnal course of letter-writing "to the people of [re-
land." The third of his lucubrations, since the pro-
rogation of parliament, is now before the public.
These annual epistles—although their objects, the
establishment, viz., of Popish ascendancy in Ireland,
and the augmentation of the RENT, are the same as
ever—begin to exhibit a remarkable change in style
and tone. Their air and spirit are, now-a-days, apo-
logetic. Mr. O'Connell appears to feel that he is uni-
versally suspected of dishonesty, and his whole care,
accordingly, is directed to the fabrication of excuses
for the violation of his solemn pledges " to the peo-
ple of Ireland."
The impostor is; indeed, rapidly descending to his
proper level. But three short years ago, he stood the
representative of the Romish priesthood of Ireland,
and the favoured leader of the democracy, both in Ire-
land and in England. He had, just then, succeeded
in forcing his whig creatures, as ministers, upon Wil-
liam IV.; and, in the exuberance of his insolence, he
loudly threatened the hereditary peerage of England
with extinction. /Vow, Mr. O'Connell'is afraid to at-
tend a public meeting of English operatives. The
artisans of Dublin hold him in abhorrence. A portion
of the priesthood has denounced him, in consequence
of his base trickery in regard to the Irish poor law;
whilst that portion which still supports him begins to
find thht his market value, as a tool for the furtherance
of their treasonable designs against the integrity of
the united kingdom, declines every day. When
O'Connell shall have sunk too low to be any further
useful, the whole body of the Romish priests will cast
him off, and seek another instrument.
But although O'Connell is rapidly losing that influ-
ence, with which extrinsic influences have clothed him,
still, the power which has hitherto supported him, be-
comes more formidable day by day. On this point
Professor Butt made the following just observations at
a meeting of the Dublin Conservative Society held a
few days ago :
" What was the evidence that Mr.- O'Connell's influence
was declining? Letters like those of Priest Daveren. If
his influence was declining it was only because his prudence
induced him to cloak, although he did not mitigate, his hosti-
lity to protestantism. When would conservatives cease to
speak of an individual, and neglect the influences which
alone gave him his power? Ile (Mr. Butt) repeated, Mr.
O'Connell WAS but the impersonation of a power which ex-
isted independent of him, and would survive him. He bad
said it before, and he would say it again, were Mr. O'Connell
in his grave to-morrow, while the elements of popish bigotry
remained the same, their owu cowardice and their own indo-
lence would raise up another O'Connell in his stead."
Professor Butt has, undoubtedly, touched upon the
causes of that success, which has followed all the
movements of late years of O'Connell and the Romisli
priesthood. Let the leaderi of the Protestant party
only shake off " their owl cowardice, and their own
indolence," and the Romish priesthood of Ireland and
its tools will afterwards possess little power to disturb
our institutions in church and state !
In his third letter, Mr. O'Connell re-states the
grievances under which he declares Ireland still to la-
bour. If, in truth, Ireland were cursed with no other
grievances than those enumerated by the agitator, Ire-
land might be fairly deemed one of the most fortunate
countries in the world. Here is the catalogue
"The points to which our demand for legislative relief
should, for the present, be confined, are these—
"First—An equal reform of our municipal corporations
with that existing in England.
"Second—An equal extension of the parliamentary fran-
chise with that existence in England.
"Third—An equal degree of religious liberty with that
existing in England—so that the Irish nation at large shall
no longer be compelled, or called upon, to support the church
of a small minority of the Irish people.
"Fourth—A due and adequate proportion for Ireland of
the representation in the united parliament."
Not one word does Mr. O'Connell utter about any
of the calamities which do, in truth, afflict Ireland!
Not one word is bestowed on the miseries of the pea-
santry ;—not.one word on the causes which have given
importance, nay, ascendancy to impostors like him-
self!

The nature of the substitutes for repeal, which Mr.
O'Connell has the modesty to propose, may serve to
excite a smile. He demands, simply, to have the
whole corporate power of Ireland put into his hands—
to have the number of parliamentary votes at his dis-
posal, doubled—and, finally, he demands that the es-
tablished church shall be uprooted, and the revenues
of that church hanged over to the Romish priesthood.
These are, we repeat, the substitutes for repeal, of
which Mr. -O'Connell will condescend to accept ! What,
let us ask, could repeal give him more? And if larger
objects could be secured by repeal, would not repeal it-
self he, as a matter of course, within the grasp of the
party to which such concessions should be made ?
These claims are, in fact, put forward by Mr.
O'Connell, simply with the view of keeping in good
humour the mass of his supporters. Mr. O'Connell
entertains no desire for repeal, so long as he can ob-
tain, through the agency of a government of traitors,
like the present, all the advantages which repeal could,
by possibility, secure to himself and the priesthood,
whose servant he is. The patronage of Ireland is now
in his hands, whilst the church to which he belongs is
quietly rising to the level of ascendancy. These great
objects have been attained, without a struggle of the
kind, which Mr. O'Connell dreads; but if repeal were
carried, such a struggle—whatever might be its issue—
would be inevitable. The continuance of the whims
in office is, therefore, of as much importance bilge
agitator as the most successful rebellion cbuld be.
Mr. O'Connell is, however, as we have seen, under
the necessity of devising some plausible excuse for
postponing the question of repeal. He has found him-
self, also, under the necessity of alleging some cause
why he declines to co-operate with the English radi-
cals. We could easily assign one—the fact, viz., that
the English radicals hate and de4pise him. Mr.
O'Connell, however, finds more difficulty in the mat-
ter, if 'we may judge from the number of words which
he devotes to the subject. Here are his " reasons" in
an abridged form :
‘e In the first place, the Irish are not as yet on a level in
point of political rights with the English. Our first business
is to obtain a perfect equality with England. For my part,
I do hot think we either want a: would be benefitted by the
political patronage of the English radicals.
"In the second place, the English radicals are neither
combined nor concentrated. They have no fixed plan of
action. If we were to enter into any alliance with them we
should not know occasionally where to find our allies.
" In the third place, they have no skilful or well-trained
leaders. ent the speechmakers have it all during
their f)—}rdipt disparage speechmaking—but where it
.11 n.-4 is worse than useless.
71 ty0:011, the leaders who appear amongst
in Irish could not place any confi-
, r 193,y, who very good-pateredly calls
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