Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that as we have been made anew by the remedies of this our passover, and have put off the likeness of our earthly parent, we may be changed into the image of our heavenly Maker, who liveth and reigneth ever.

O God, who hast suffered on the cross for us, and bought us at a great price, pour into our hearts the power of thy assistance, that our life may ever glorify thee, who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

Ŏ God, who through the mystery of the passover hast instructed us to relinquish the old man, and to walk in newness of spirit, grant that, renewed by thy sacraments, we may preserve the gifts of thy grace.

Shed abundantly, O Lord, thy grace on us thy servants; and grant that, as by divine baptism we have been born again into the image of thy Son, we may never be plucked away from the power of thy kingdom.

O God, who hast given unto us to celebrate this paschal sacrament in the spirit of freedom, teach us to hate those things at which thou art angry, and to love that which thou dost command.

O God, who at the fountain of baptism hast renewed those who believe in thee, keep in thine own custody those who are born again in Christ, that by no incursions of error they may lose the grace of regeneration.

O God, who by the resurrection of Christ dost repair us unto everlasting life, lift up our hearts unto the Author of our salvation, where he now sitteth at thy right hand, that He who for our sakes came to be judged, may also in our behalf come as Judge, the same Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth in unity with thee.

(The terminations of these Collects, which are here mostly omitted, are similar to our own, but varying according to an express rule.)

SACRED POETRY.

DEATH.

THE grave, the grave! Why shrinks our frame

Appalled and startled at that name?

Untrodden path to good or ill,

Death, why shouldst thou my bosom chill?

Since, one day, linked in close embrace,

We must encounter, face to face.

Come, let me view thee, as thou art,

Ere raised thine arm, ere poised thy dart;

Before my limbs beneath thee bow,
Come, let me commune with thee now;
Survey thee ere thou claim'st command,
And clutch thee with a living hand.

But not as thou assail'st the bad,
With vengeance armed, with terrors clad;
Conscience in front, and in thy train
Fiends sterner than disease or pain;
Remorse, upon the closing eye
To picture forms of guilt gone by;
Anguish, to summon from within
Fierce gusts of unrepented sin;

Despair, with phrenzied accents crying,
"Death opes the gate of never dying!"
Come not with these. They mingled not
With Adam's curse, our general lot;
Another tyrant's pomp they swell,
Not ministers of death, but hell.

I do not bid thee leave behind
One evil common to my kind:
Come, with that haggard-visaged band
Which by the sick man's pallet stand.
The sinking pulse, the failing sense,
Slow pangs or hastier violence,

The feverish couch, by suffering strewed,
The sleepless pillow, tear bedewed,
The dizzy brain, whose wanderings seem
Of worlds beyond our sight to dream,
As if in eagerness to run

To our new being, ere begun ;
Each fiery proof of sharp assay
Which wrings the spirit from its clay,
All griefs to which our flesh is heir
May wait on thee, yet peace be there.

Peace, hand in hand with thee, hath stood By burning pyre, or field of blood : Slackened the fury of the flame

Which racked th' unyielding martyr's frame; Or with the hero's latest sigh

Mixed echoing shouts of victory;

Th' unjust award, the dungeon's gloom,
The grim parade of public doom,
The lifted axe, the gazing throng,

And, keener far, their country's wrong,
Fall powerless on the good and brave,
Terrors, not triumphs, of the grave!

Nerved by fair hope of honour's meed,
The martyr, hero, patriot, bleed;
With beacon light above their urns
Renown's unchanging loadstar burns;
Fame o'er their busts her pennon waves,
And Glory sentinels their graves.
But for th' obscure-the many-those
Who sink in unobserved repose,

(Not more observed the prince than hind
By the supreme, eternal mind;

In the tomb's equalizing cell

Alike the named and nameless dwell ;)
What aids us in the spirit's strife
On the last edge of doubtful life?
Disarms the foe when most he rages,
Palsies his might, his stroke assuages?
Swallows the grave in victory?
And shews how great our gain to die?

Is it some lesson taught by sense?
The sophist's test, experience?
Or Reason, who of each thing well,
But her own subtle self, can tell?
Scant is the balm such stores supply
To soothe our mortal agony ;
Weak the foundations these can lay
To bear us when the world gives way.

The truths they blazon, all we know
Proclaims the tomb one blank of woe.
We know its tenants cease to share
Light, motion, warmth, yon sun, this air;
Severed from man, unseen, unseeing,
Disjoined from every tie of being;
Silent and still, dark, cold, alone,

The worm their mate, their couch the stone;
All that was flesh, by slow decay,
Mouldering to nothingness away.

So frowns the mighty victor's brow!
Death, thus I commune with thee now!

Substance of hope! at that dread hour*
When death asserts his fullest power;
When the brief joys which earth has lent
Pass from us like a shepherd's tent;†
On thee our care-worn spirits lean,
Bright evidence of things unseen!
No torch we seek, we need no sun,‡
God hath his reign of light begun;

FAITH points the way to promised lands,
Dwellings more sure than made with hands;
Abiding cities, like a bride

Adorned to grace her husband's side ;||

Rivers, whose founts can never dry;

Life, in which death alone shall die!

CORRESPONDENCE.

The Editor begs to remind his readers that he is not responsible for the opinions
of his Correspondents.

PINAMONTI.-CONVERSION OF ROMAN CATHOLICS.

DEAR SIR,-On reading your editorial note (p. 116 of the Number for December,) on the observation which your correspondent " A. I." has made upon a sentence in the article on "Pinamonti," in that number, I felt at first as much regret as you have expressed that circumstances prevented you from modifying it before it was sent to press. On second thoughts, however, I confess I am sincerely glad that you were prevented, as this circumstance has given me an opportunity of expressing my meaning with somewhat more of detail than would have been justifiable in a paper already sufficiently long.

I am assured that you are prepared entirely to agree with me in the abhorrence I feel of that spirit of proselytism which seems to consider it of very little importance what a man becomes, provided he forsakes the communion of the church of Rome. I know more of

Hebrews, xi. l.
Revelations, xxii. 5.

+ Isaiah, xxxviii. 12.
Revelations, xxi. 2.

public feeling in Ireland than in England, and I hope this will be borne in mind by my readers. But from what I do know, I can have no hesitation in saying, that a vast proportion of the religious community would consider it a point of very minor importance that a convert from popery had joined a sect of dissenters, however absurd or fanatical their tenets might be. He has left Rome-whither he is gone is scarcely worth inquiring. There are multitudes of pious persons who believe even Socinianism to be a safer religion than popery. It is not many months since one of the most eminent and influential clergymen in what is called the religious world, entered into a grave and lengthened argument to prove to me, that if the Roman-catholic priesthood and laity were to sink into infidelity, and even avowed atheism, it would be an event anything but to be lamented, and that a rejection of all revealed religion would be their best preparation for the reception of the gospel-meaning thereby, the popular theology of the present day. He actually adduced France in confirmation of his theory. All this would not be worth mentioning, were it not that the clergyman to whom I allude may be considered a very fair specimen of the religious world, few of their leaders possessing one half of his talents, information, or popularity. But, I confess, as far as my small judgment or experience can guide me, it appears to me of the last importance that the Romanist should feel, and that beyond a reasonable doubt, that our object is not to make a proselyte, but to make him a sounder and a better Christian; and that, in a word, we do not think popery the very worst possible form of religion, and that, sooner than he should join a more unscriptural community, we greatly prefer his remaining where he is. In any intercourse I have yet had with Roman catholics, I have uniformly found them more disposed to listen, and to consider what I had to say, when I had plainly and honestly avowed to them that I acknowledged their communion to be a branch of the catholic church, though involved in serious, and dangerous, and novel errors; and that, were I reduced to the alternative, which, by God's goodness, I am not, I should esteem it safer to be united with them than with those monstrous and unscriptural sects which have altogether separated from the unity of the catholic church. Having premised this much, I have no hesitation in saying, that the church of Rome in these countries is a schism, in the strictest and largest sense of the term. It appears to me, however, that the guilt of their schism is by no means equal in England and in Ireland. regard to the English Roman catholics, there are some of them, as I am informed, whose ancestors have transmitted to them their religious tenets since the time of their first separation from the church in the reign of Elizabeth. Such persons are, therefore, to be regarded as guilty of persevering in one of the most unnatural, unjustifiable, and criminal schisms which has ever distracted the church of Christ. There are others who are new converts, and who have been seduced by the crafty impostures of artful men. With regard to their priesthood, they are missionaries of Rome, and are evidently a part of a settled contrivance and machinery, whose object is to subject the English church to the unjust and wicked tyranny of the papal court. Their whole

With

procedure is of such a character, (I speak not of those who are fanatics and enthusiasts, and a Roman-catholic missionary in England must be very ignorant if he be either one or other,) that it is impossible to justify or palliate it; and those who have undertaken such a mission are utterly unworthy of Christian communion. But allow me to observe, that the Roman catholics of England are such a fraction, compared with the millions of Roman catholics in Ireland, that I cannot say that they were at all in my view when I wrote the sentence which your correspondent has noticed. Had I not been absorbed in the mournful contemplation of the mass of ignorance and iniquity of which the Roman-catholic church in Ireland is composed, I should have expressed myself in a more guarded manner.

There are, I fear, but few who have such acquaintance with the history of the church of Ireland as can enable them fully to understand the position of the Roman catholics in that country. The general notion is, that in the sixteenth century the churches of both countries were reformed. It might be more truly said, that the church of Ireland was reformed, and the church of England reformed itself. The persecutions in the reign of Queen Mary proved that it was the great body of the English nation who had thrown off the yoke of a foreign usurpation, and returned to the faith of their forefathers. The fires of Smithfield demonstrated that truth had taken root in the hearts and affections of a thinking people, too deep for acts of parliament to plant or eradicate. Besides this, the reformation of the English church was carried on, at every step of its progress, by the clergy, by the most learned and pious of the bishops, by national synods and convocations. It was, indeed, the final act of that long and almost uninterrupted struggle with which the English nation, clergy and laity, had resisted the domination of Rome, from the days of Augustine and Gregory. In Ireland, everything was the reverse. The Irish bishops who sold their country to Henry the Second were obliged to submit to the court of Rome, as part of the terms of their contract. Popery was introduced into Ireland by the English, and maintained and enriched by the conquerors. Yet still, even to the time of the Reformation, the Romish clergy were never able wholly to enforce their observances, or to root out the attachment that the nation retained to their ancient religion, which was, in fact, the religion of the ancient British church. It was not until the mistaken policy of James the First threw the native Irish into the hands of their priests, and dissevered them from their natural friends and guardians, that the mass of the population became thoroughly slaves of popery, and slaves of popery they have ever since remained, at the mercy of evil and selfish men. The Reformation in Ireland was the stroke of a pen. The natives knew very little about it, and cared less the local government did as they were desired. I have often thought that we have reason to be thankful that Henry, or Edward, or Elizabeth, did

:

For most of these statements I have only time to give a general reference to Mr. Phelan's "History of the Policy of the Church of Rome in Ireland,” published in the second volume of his Remains.

VOL. XI.-April, 1837.

3 F