The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-10-14 00:00:00

VINDICATION OF THE IRISH CLERGY

On Thursday last, the Lord Primate of Ireland held a
visitation of his diocese in the Cathedral of Armagh.
His Grace delivered a long and deeply interesting charge
on the occasion, in which he boldly vindicated the Irish
church from the attacks of her manifold opponents. We
extract the following just tribute to the zeal and devoted-
ness of the Protestant clergy of the sister country.
. , . ..

" Looking back (says his to the period when I
was raised to the episcopal office, forty years ago, and
comparing the internal condition of the church now with
what it was then, the improvement in every respect is
most marked and gratifying. The growth in zeal, in dili-
gence, in devotedness to their sacred employment, in
earnestness and laborious exertions 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 attainments in
professional learning has been equally observable, and is
to be traced to the efficiency of the divinity school of our
University, and the care and labour there bestowed on
the candidates for the ministry by the respective lecturers,
and especially by the learned and exc, llent Regius Pro-
fessor, who has so long presided over that school.
" The generally large and regular attendance of the
people at our churches—the number habitually and de-
voutedly approaching the Lord's table—the attention on
the part of 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.
In this diocese, which is in so great a degree a rural one,
it is satisfactory to me to see that most of our country
churches have evening as well as morning service per-
formed in them every Sunday, during the summer months
at least; and in a large proportion of them throughout
the whole year. In the great majority of them, also,
the holy communion is celebrated, not merely on the
great festivals, but every month ; and, on an average,
one-fifth of the congregation habitually partake of it. It
affords me peculiar pleasure, likewise, to perceive the at-
tention which is given to the religious instruction of the
children on the Lord's day ; and that, in this diocese,
consisting, as it does of but 104 benefices, there are in the
Sunday schools under the superintendence of the clergy
more than 12,000 children, and 940 gratuitous teachers.
It is also cheering to me to find that our daily schools are
in a most encouraging and hopeful state—full of promise
as to the fruit they will bear in future years. It is chiefly
by your exertions, my reverend brethren, that 279 schools
have been established in your parishes, most of them sup-
ported by private bounty, and affording Christian educa-
tion to upwards of 22,000 children-10,000 of whom are
members of our church, 5,000 are Protestant Dissenters,
and 7,000 are Roman Catholics : so successful have your
efforts been irfeffecting their united education. Almost
all of these schools are in connexion with the Church
Education Society, in behalf of which I applied to the
government, as you are aware, for aid, but applied in vain.
I deeply lament that the assistance of the state has not
been vouchsafed. The refusal however, of pecuniary
support from the government does not abate the value of
our schools, nor diminish the importance of maintaining
them to the utmost of our power.

" We did not establish them in factious opposition to
those of government; they are the old schools of the
country, established because we felt that without such in-
stitutions for the young, under our own superintendence,
and conducted on principles of which we approve, we
should be without one of the most important and
effectual means of doing good to those clmmitted to our
care. Your constant and anxious superintendence of
them, my reverend brethren, has been most praiseworthy.
Relax not your efforts to render them more and more
efficient in every respect ; and may the Divine blessing
rest on all the abundant labours in which you are engaged,
for the edification of the people, both young and old;
and may that blessing likewise descend on the bishops
and clergy of every diocese in Ireland.

W. tttraturr.

POE

TRY.

THE TRANCE SLEEPER.
(From Tait's Edinburgh Magazine.)
What bast thou, sleeper, seen I" And then I stood beside

Whilst lying there
Even as marble pale,
And still, and fair ?
Six times o'er hill and vale
The sun bath set,
Since last thy wakeful smile
In joy we met.

The faithful few—
Methought to breathe no more
The sad adieu—
Not one deceiving word,
Or broken vow
To dull the smile of joy
On each fair brow.

" Oh I tones of earth, again
Ye call my beart
From the bright scenes in which
It late had part;
Oh friends I may not tell,
Nor could ye deem
Of the rich sweetness link'd
With my long dream.

" But heart to heart there brought
Its wealth of love,
And peace within the soul
The sweet links wove.
How strangely different from
Affection here,
Whose deepest trust is now
In pain and fear.

" I have been far away,
Away from all
That hold's on fading shores
The mind in thrall—
Each heavy chain unclasp'd—
Each fetter broken—
Soft words of music heard,—
By angels spoken.

" The dead ! the dead ! once more
Became to me
All that gives hope and life,
Reality !
Bitter and sad will noa
The contrast seem
Between my waking hours
And that bright dream.

" Sunlight that never set,
Hung softly o'er
Landscapes of hill and vale
Ne'er seen before:
Cool crystal waters laving
Bright banks of flowers,
Lovely as those we deem
Deck'd Eden's bowers.

" Yet shall its memory
A cheering light
Whereby the mind may seek
To guide its flight
To the sweet home beyond
This fading shore,
Where we shall wake and find
Sorrow no more."
Emsu B-

EUTHANASIA.
BY DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE,
Author of " Titian."

Hast thou not seen, in Summer's gentle prime,
Tha radiaucy of daylight fade away;
Its golden sunshine purpling to a glow
More beauteous than it bore in Noon's full flush,
Bathing the glorious cloud-isles of the sky
In most surpassing hues of loveliness?
Then, as the Day's decline stole slowly on,
Retreating softly into soberer tints,
And blending gently with the twilight clear,
Hast thou not thought that thus the human day—
Man's little day of Life- cloth shine and fade,
Yet leaving still the sure and happy hope
Of a most bright to-morrow ?

But a pang,
Bitter and awe-inspiring, would be thine
If, gazing 011 the sunlight in high heaven,
Before the matin hours had roll'd away,
Darkness—a sudden darkness—bad come down;
Total eclipse, before that light had run
Its wonted course of splendour! Gentle friend,
There are, amid the common-place of life,
Some mysteries which no human skill can solve—
Sorrows which wring the life from out the heart,
And Cares which, pressing heavy on the mind,
Work all unseen, and wither where they work.
- - -

Each heart hath its own trial. Now it comes
With loss of Fortune's goods,—then in the wreck
Of what Ambition quested,—in the death
Of Love, which made a Paradise where Hope
Might raise her fairy fabric, which, when raised,
A single touch can shatter,—in the pain
Which humbleness of Worth receives from Pride,
Yet with the consciousness of high desert,—
Or in the sudden wrench which strikes away
The balance of the well-adjusted mind,
When, sudden as a lightning.stroke from Heaven,
Whate'er we love the fondest, prize the most,
Cherish with passionate and anxious trust,
Sinks to the grave before its course be run,
Leaving behind a sweet, sad memory,—
Like the soft echo of some low-voiced song
Which at all times, all places, still doth give
Its lingering, haunting music to the ear.
New London Magazine.