POPERY. THE Reverend Mr. Dowling was curate of Cahirsiveen, O'Connell's own town, as he calls it, in Iveragh, county Kerry; he had a growing family and small income, so he strove to increase it for their benefit when he should be no more. At one time by keeping a school, and afterwards by renting tithes from absentee rectorsvery common practice then in Kerry. Anti-titheism came on-the people would give him none he was pressed by the rector-he could not pay-he was insolvent, and pressed till his heart broke, and he died. Then his family became broken up and exposed to all the miserable accompaniments of orphanage. He had a brother in Dublin, a painter, who had amassed a considerable property, a bachelor, but he was a Papist! still more, "nature better than Popery,” as Moriarty lately said, had caused him to go security for his brother on becoming a tithe farmer. But so much the worse now for the orphans, as, being answerable, he was compelled to pay his brother's tithe debts. Yet he offered to take all the children, and make them his own, and his heirs, provided they would become Papists! The succeeding curate to Dowling did all in his power to prevent this, and for a time succeeded in keeping them near himself, and watching over their Scripture training. They were four in number, one boy and three girls. The boy was eventually sent to his uncle, in Dublin. The mother's friends (Protestants) maintained the girls, and the curate gave his mite. But those friends being of slender means, and £15,000 being tempting, the sum awaiting them from their uncle, those friends took an opportunity of the curate's absence in, I believe, Madeira, where he went for health sake, to send the girls also to their uncle. Two years or so passed by, and the curate heard nothing further about his former orphan charge. But about the end of that period he received a letter from Rathfarnham, signed by a Miss Dowling, entreating him to come to the convent there to see her, as she had most important matters to speak of to him. He intended, but did not go— another trip to Madeira interfered. Another year rolled by, and it was not until the April Clerical Meetings brought him up here, and that he went to see his friend, Reverend George Browne, to White Church, that, in passing by the nunnery on the car, he thought of answering Miss Dowling's request. He called at the nunnery-was admitted-asked for Miss Dowling-was shewn into the reception room, and, after some delay, Miss Dowling came in, accompanied by a superior. After the first salutations were over, And are you happy here?" said he. "Oh yes, very happy, quite happy," she replied. "No, you are not," said he, "your looks deny your words." After some conversation, in which he introduced Cahirsiveen-the Bible doctrines, in which she was brought up her Christian vows, &c., “Oh," said she, bursting out into tears, “Oh, oh! I am not happy here, and I never was happy since the day they forced my Bible from me." "Forced your Bible from you," exclaimed the superior; "never," she protested. But Miss D. now threw off all restraint, and spoke out freely, openly, boldly, and fully. She told him, that her uncle sent her, with her sisters, to this convent to school-that he died-that the priests about her said that he had left £5,000 to her brother, who became a Papist, and £5,000 each to her and her sisters, (£20,000 in all,) provided they would become nuns, otherwise they should get nothing, but the moment they left the convent they should be destitute of all means of subsistence. Having already gotten a taste of poverty and privation, and having no earthly friends, they were constrained to continue there. She resisted taking the veil up to that hour, but could not do so more than for another year. Her next sister, not being so matured in Christian doctrine as she was, was more easily imbued with Popery, and had already taken the white veil, and her youngest sister, being a mere child, only five years old when she came to the nunnery, was an easy tender prey, and was in training for the veil. The two younger ones were then shewn in, the one in the habiliments of a white nun. The curate having some doubts of the priest's veracity as to the uncle's will, went to the Rolls' Court, and there read the will, and found that the uncle's words were, "That provided his three nieces married with the consent of their guardians, or did not marry against their consent, they were to have each £5,000." Not a word of Nunnism in the entire will. O Protestants are such things done in our land? FROM A CLERGYMAN. I WAS sent for some months since, to visit a sick woman at the commencement of a long and tedious illness. She was exceedingly ignorant, and I determined to adopt the plan of teaching the mother through the medium of her daughter, who was one of the children of my Sunday-school. The mother was not a member of my congregation, but I was requested to visit her by her little daughter, and I could not refuse. After asking the mother a number of questions to no purpose, I proposed the same questions to the little girl, who soon answered them all, and in catechising the child, I was deeply interested in perceiving how the attention of the mother was arrested, as she saw how readily her little daughter was able to answer on so many subjects of which she was ignorant. I adopted my usual plan of making the child the unconscious teacher of the parent. She read to her delighted mother several portions of Scripture which I pointed out, and "faith came by hearing." It was only the day before yesterday I received an account of her death, and I have never heard of a more satisfactory instance of "departure in the Lord," than the death of this woman to whom I now allude: giving us another touching instance of the importance and value of our system; for it was entirely through the medium of the Sunday-school that that poor creature received a blessing. She might have died uncared for and unvisited, but for the anxiety of her Sunday-school daughter, to bring a minister to her to speak on "the things belonging to her everlasting peace." ABOUT JESUS. A DIALOGUE FOR INFANT-SCHOOL CHILDREN. THE children to be divided into two sections; those in one class to ask the questions, and those in the other to repeat the answers. QUESTION.. Who came from heaven to bleed and die? Q....... A... Q.. A... Q.. A... Q... A.. Q... A... Q... A.... Q... A... Q.. A... But why did Jesus suffer thus ? THE UNSUCCESSFUL TEACHER. "TWAS Sabbath morn, the sun had risen long, But where was I, a Teacher of the young?' With lessons ill-prepar'd, to school I went, I long'd for school to close, 'twas quite a task, I left the school, having done little good, Thus Sabbath after Sabbath passed away, EASTER THOUGHTS. How dark, and how narrow, how thronged is the home, The tears of the elders were bitterly shed When they opened that door to the pale-shrouded dead. Of all the bright sunbeams their summers had known, There came a fair morning, (long ages are past,) Like reeds by a river the mourners were bow'd, But light in the darkness, and joy in the grave, Have been known since He entered, the Mighty, to save. The night has departed, the morning is now, And there hovers a glory half-seen on the brow That bears in its last pallid slumber, the cross, And hath borne it through sorrow, through shame, and through loss. O bright Easter morning, that tarries awhile, And yet surely on earth and her kingdoms shall smile,— When life from the fount to our lips shall be given, And the blessed shall shine as the stars in the heaven. This hope is your glory, true servants of God, Oh, rise ye up early at dawn of the day, THE AUTHOR OF "THE CHILD'S BOOK OF HOMILIES." |