these unhallowed societies, but the very substance and essence of the faith.

The mystery of the Trinity and the divinity of our Lord, which, as Tertullian says, are the cardo fidei, the very hinges of religion, these are sought to be upturned by some of these men. They endeavour to introduce into a country which has never generated a heresy, that most destructive of all heresies or as it is called by the Church of England in her last synod, that wicked and damnable heresy-that frightful Socinianism, which rising from the ashes of Calvin and Beza, has already infected the greater part of their followers even in this empire, and seeks now, like the serpent, to emit its poison against the Church of God.

There has been sent to a Catholic prelate, who is generally confounded with your correspondent, and by the agent of an English nobleman, a book compiled for the use of schools, breathing this hefrom beginning to end, and calculated to instil it secretly into the unsuspecting mind.

resy

This book did not come alone: as is usual, it was accompanied with an offer on the part of this most respected, but deceived nobleman, or his agent, to build or to assist in establishing schools on his extensive estates in this country, if the book thus sent were permitted to be used by the children. Behold, Sir, the conditions implied or expressed on which alone these societies and their dupes or abettors will educate the poor of Ireland. Behold also, and at the same time, the force with which these societies press on an impoverished and broken-hearted people. Funds to the amount of, or exceeding £200,000 a year are at their disposal; the influence of the landlord-an influence paramount to every other; the zeal of the inspector; the power of the press and of the tongue-calumnies incessantly repeated; the hallowed name of the Word of God; the thirst of the people for education; their excessive poverty; all these form a moral phalanx more formidable than that of Macedon, and if God and the unbroken spirit of the people did not assist us, we could not resist it. We have borne many things, but we have never

borne a persecution more bitter than what now assails us. As the persecution of the Church by Julian in the time of peace was more afflicting than that of Nero or Domitian, so what we suffer from these societies, and the power and prejudice they have embodied against us, is more tormenting than what we endured under Anne or the second George.

The tendency of all these societies is one and the same-the subversion, by indirect means, of the ancient faith, and the establishment on its ruin of a wild and ungovernable fanaticism. They have, under the specious pretences of diffusing the Word of God and educating the poor, obtained the money, and the patronage, and the and the support, of some of the most exalted and liberal characters in both countries. The bigots in Ireland are all with them, actuated chiefly by the deadly hatred they bear to our religion. The Established Church lends them its aid, as it would ally itself with the priests of Baal against those whom it has supplanted; and also because it cannot oppose itself

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to sectaries without being taunted with its abandonment of the right of private judgment.

These societies have lately thrown off the mask, which had been too much worn to conceal them ; they have openly avowed their hostility to our faith. They have questioned the authority of those whom God appointed to rule his Church; they have scoffed at the idea of tradition, and loudly professed the competency of all to read the Word of God without guide or instructor, and become wise by it alone to salvation.

These are the principles of all the societies, without a single exception-the very cardinal points in their system. I shall offer you a few observations on them in another letter, and have the honour to be, &c.

J. K. L.

LETTER VII.

ON EDUCATION IN IRELAND; AND ON BIBLE SOCIETIES.

MY DEAR SIR,

ST. AUGUSTINE (Tract. 18. in Joh. cap. 5,) has very justly observed, that "heresies have sprung up; and certain perverse opinions, ensnaring souls, and precipitating them into the abyss, have been broached, only when the good Scriptures were badly understood; and when that which was badly understood was rashly and boldly asserted."

We may lament the existence of these opinions; but St. Paul tells us that "heresies must be;" and if they must, we should only make the best use in