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CONTENT.

THE following verses are taken from the "Shepherd's Garland;" they were copied out and sent to us by R. W. W. As they were written more than two hundred years ago, we have found it necessary to bring the spelling a little more within the present fashion.

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To say that there is no such thing as contentment is a doctrine different from what we have ge

Caution to Children.

231

nerally endeavoured to teach our readers. There is however much of ancient beauty in the above lines, and it is true that those who expect to find content in such things as this old poet has brought forward will be disappointed. Those who are thus in search of happiness seem to think that it dwells in every situation but their own.-We like better the doctrine of a more modern poet who says of happiness,

""Tis no where to be found and every where.”

If we seek it in change of place we shall find it no where; if we seek it in a right state of mind we shall find it every where.

If happiness have not her seat

And centre in the breast,

We may be great, and rich, and wise,

But never can be blest t.

V.

CAUTION TO CHILDREN.

YESTERDAY morning as I was sitting in a room looking towards the street I heard a terrible screaming as of some one in great distress; there was, at the same time, the noise of a carriage passing by; and several passengers on the road were calling upon the coachman to stop. I ran to the window to see the cause of this agitation, and I found that a boy had jumped up behind the carriage to get a ride. His legs had got entangled with the spokes of the wheels. He seemed on the very point of having both his legs broken. The carriage however was not going very fast, and the coachman heard the shrieks of the child, and the calls of the passengers, and he stopped. When the boy was taken from the wheel it was discovered that no bone + Burns.

* Pope.

t

was broken the coachman had stopped at the very right moment. Another turn of the wheel might have torn the child to pieces. Children are very

apt to get up behind carriages, not because they want to be carried to any place, but out of mere idle wantonness. If this account should serve to shew any idle boy the danger he is running by doing so, it may be the means of saving his life. It is not. likely that a child, once in a thousand times, would have so narrow an escape as the one which I witnessed.

V.

REFORMATION IN IRELAND.

Ir is well known that a spirit of religious enquiry has for some time been going on in Ireland among the Roman Catholics, and that a great number of them have lately conformed to the Protestant faith. The principal cause of this change is said to be the reading of the Bible; the people having, through the exertions of Protestants, the Bible in their own hands, discover that those doctrines in which the Roman Catolics differ from us are not contained in the Scripture. Other causes have probably contributed to this spirit of conformity to our Protestant Church. It is not our present object to discuss this point. There is, however, one assertion which has been made by the Irish Roman Catholics, which, if true, would greatly diminish the value we attach to these conversions. They have accused those who have left them, of being swayed entirely by interested motives, declaring that they were dependants on Protestant landlords, and that either their fears or their worldly interest had led them to conform to the established Church. This is

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particularly applied to those of the county of Cavan, who were said to have been tempted, or terrified, or bribed by the Protestant Lord Farnham. If this were so, their pretended union with our Church would be of little value, and we should have little reason to rejoice in the accession of such converts. It is therefore highly satisfactory to be enabled to give an answer to that accusation from the words of Lord Farnham himself, contained in a speech delivered by his Lordship at a public meeting.

"You have some acquaintance with me, and I pledge to you my veracity, that no temporal or pecuniary advantages have, in any instance, been offered, to induce conformity. . . . . As I find it has been pretty generally assumed that this great work has been chiefly effected by the influence of Landlords, it may not be amiss to state, that of the four hundred and fifty persons who have conformed in this county, not one fourth live on my estate, and not one tenth are my immediate tenants, and that, out of upwards of one hundred and forty labourers and artificers, who depend on me for their daily support, not more than five have left the Roman Catholic Church."

It is a sufficient proof of no improper influence having been exerted, that by far the greater number of the conformists are not Lord Farnham's tenants; and that of his own labourers very few have come over.

The beginning seems to have been, that three schoolmasters of the Roman Catholic persuasion, who had read and taught the Bible, came to Lord Farnham's chaplain, and told him, that, in consequence of having read the Scriptures, they were convinced of the errors of their creed, and were desirous of conforming to the established Church.Instead of their offer being hastily seized upon, they were told to consider well what they were about to do, and that they were not to expect the least worldly advantage from changing their religion.

They had a Bible, a Prayer Book, and a few tracts given them. In about three weeks they came again, and they, with fourteen other persons, publicly gave up the Roman Catholic religion on the 8th of October in the Church at Cavan.

This excited a great sensation, and was much talked of. On the next Sunday no persons came for the purpose of conforming; but, on the following Sunday, twenty more appeared, and read their recantation. Since that time about an average of thirty every Sunday have joined the Protestant Church. The number of these in the county of Cavan alone is now said to be more than six hundred.

As our little work does not pretend to meddle with politics, we say nothing of the efforts which are making to remove from the Roman Catholics those restraints which in former days were found necessary to prevent their being dangerous to the Protestant Church and to the State. We shall be content to leave these things to those who are better able to judge of them than we Cottagers can be supposed to be. There are different opinions on this subject even among good Protestants. Still we cannot help rejoicing when we see that calm reflection and the study of the word of truth shew to those who have been brought up under a different creed, the excellence of the Protestant faith.

V.

HABITS OF INDUSTRY.

To the Editor of the Cottager's Monthly Visitor.

SIR,

IN calculating the profits of the poor in baking and brewing at home, or keeping a cow, &c. I do not think it is sufficiently considered how much the children of those poor people gain by learning" to be

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