IRELAND.

(From the Dublin Evening Packet.) The following letter has been addressed by the Lord Bishop of Down and Connor to his flock, and has been inserted by his Lordship's request in the Belfast Chronicle:

"To the Members of the United Church of England and Ireland, in the Diocese of Down and

Connor.

"Beloved Brethren,-In the Belfast Commercial Chronicle and the Ulster Times of February 1st, there is announced, in very conspicuous characters, a Grand Oratorio and opening of the new organ in St. Patrick's Chapel, Donegal-street, Belfast, on Friday, the 7th of February, 1840.' In this announcement I perceive a temptation to you, in common with the public at large, to contribute your countenance and pecuniary aid to a sect of Christians who are in doctrine Dissenters, and in worship separatists from the Church of which you profess yourselves to be members. Allow me, then, as your spiritual overseer, to remind you, that, in the judgment of that Church, as well as of the Legislature of the kingdom, the peculiar articles of the belief and practice of the sect in question, and especially the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary,' which is to be a part of the promised exhibition, are superstitious and idolatrous :' and, accordingly, allow me to put you thus on your guard against a temptation, into which you might otherwise be led through inadvertence, and to admonish you to touch not the unclean thing, lest you be partakers of other men's sins.'

"Your affectionate Bishop and servant for Jesus' sake, "RICHARD DOWN AND CONNOR." We have not for many years known any document to issue from the Episcopal bench with which we have been more entirely pleased than with this admirable letter. Bishop Mant has spoken the truth nobly and fearlessly. He teaches his people to consider the Roman Catholic Church in this

This

country as a sect and a separation; and, at the same time, he points out to them the pernicious idolatry and superstitions by which they are tempted to defile their souls. is putting the question in its true light. We are bound to say, that this short, calm, and forcible address, coming from so learned and exemplary a prelate in the natural and legitimate discharge of his sacred office, has done deeper and more permanent injury to Popery than all the violent and abusive declamation of the last

thirty years. Let our prelates, as they are bound by the solemn vows of their ordination, exert themselves to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's word; let them but call things by their true names, and put forward the genuine principles of the Church, and the Reformation will soon make its way among our benighted fellow-countrymen.

THE NEW VICAR OF ROCHDALE.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has been assailed and maligned for having presented Dr. Molesworth, of Canterbury, to the rectory of Rochdale. The ground upon which this attack is made on the Rev. prelate is that Dr. Molesworth having been present at the dinner at which Mr. Bradshaw made his memorable speech, he was unworthy of the reverend prelate's patronage, and ought rather to have met with his grace's heaviest displeasure.

Dr. Molesworth has published an able defence of his own conduct, declaring that at the dinner in question he did not hear a single sentence of a disloyal tendency, and he shows that it is for his services in the Church that he met with the kind notice of the Archbishop. For sixteen years he was a curate in a small parish, existing on £60 a year, and during that time he published a number of theological works, which led to his introduction to the Archbishop, whose only object in promoting Dr. Molesworth to the rectory of Rochdale,

was to reward a zealous minister of Christ.

Upon the duties and right of Protestant ministers as compared with the doings of the Irish Roman Catholic Priests, Dr. Molesworth makes the following very pertinent remarks:

"Beneath the cassock of a Protestant minister beats the heart of a loyal citizen. He is under no forced vow of celibacy, which cuts him off from a future interest in the constitution, or withholds from society his pledges of fidelity to its interests and liberties. I know that, in ordinary circumstances, he is not called upon to exercise his civic duties and privileges, and none, with greater joy than myself, would avail themselves of this exemption to escape the disgusting strife of politics. But still I acknowledge the duty, and, at my peril, I judge of the emergencies when my country has a right to call for its discharge. The present is, in my judgment, such an emergency. The clergy have not descended into the arena of politics, but politics have invaded the sanctuary. Under these circumstances the clergy are compelled to mix in politics upon the same principle as they might bear arms if an invader should pollute their country. The clergy have used, Sir, no other arms than those of reason and persuasion. They have acted in their civic, not their ministerial, capacity. It is not they who brawl out political scurrility from the pulpit; it is not they who proclaim in the chapel the candidate for whom their flocks are to vote on pain of damnation; it is not they who denounce from the altar, and point out to vengeance, the voter who may dare to exercise his franchise contrary to their mandate. No, those who do these things never excite that tenderness for the sanctity of the ministerial character which has so convulsively exhibited itself in its care of the archbishop and myself. Had I been one of these, or had I attended a meeting where my brethren of the clergy were reviled and sneered at-where the Church was spoken of with coarse ribaldry, where levellers, infidels,

papists, chuckled over the hostility raised against her; had I joined in this traitor yell against the Church, which by every tie of honour, honesty, and duty, I am bound to defend, then, Sir, you would not have heard one censure from these tender friends of the Church against my meddling with politics. I should have been their here. My course has been different. I have felt that great danger threatened not only the Established Church and the Protestant constitution, but the religious truth of the nation. I have, therefore, faithfully, by all lawful and proper means in my power, defended them, and, from the bitter cry of their enemies, I trust, I have effectually defended them. My arms have been reason, consistency, fearless exposure of wolves in sheep's clothing; and it is because the people on every side are becoming sick of the agitation, political exclusion, prostitution, and jobbing, introduced upon the pretence of reform, that the wrath of a desperate faction is poured out upon me. My watchword is 'Truth' may it prevail."

There are persons who affect to doubt the indications of a strong desire on the part of the Government to promote the march of Popery, by sending out Popish bishops and friars richly endowed (in spite of Mr. O'Connell's hypocritical advocacy of the Voluntary system) to our colonies of Newfoundland, Canada, South Australia, and Van Diemen's Land.

These, and many other heavy blows and discouragements aimed at Protestantism from Downing Street (or rather, as the "Herald" sagaciously remarks, from Windsor Castle, for Ministers are seldom to be found at Downing Street) are treated by this placid, imperturbable, amiable class of persons

as the idle wind;" they see one thing after another carried down the stream, and yet they affect not to know which way it flows; it is only a stream at present, it is not yet a torrent bursting in upon and destroying their own happy fire-sides, and so they see no cause for uneasiness. If this meet the eye of any such per