cary, bearing the Popish phrase, 'Pray for the soul of Denis Sweeny,' stood most provokingly close to the pathway leading to the church-door; so that every Sunday, when his son the attorney was going to attend divine service as by law established, his Church-of-Englandism was much scandalised by having this damning (and damnable) proof of his apostasy staring him in the face. Not that he cared for it himself: he was one of those callous-hearted people who could 'have botanised on his mother's grave,' therefore this proof of his former creed on the grave of his father could have given him no trouble; but he did not like the evidence to remain there in the sight of other people, and he had asked Rory O'More how the nuisance could be abated.

Our hero was indignant with the petty-minded pettifogger, and wished to retaliate upon him for the renunciation of his old creed; for the Roman Catholics have the same bitter feeling against the man who secedes from their profession of faith, as those of the Church of England entertain against the dissenters from them. And why not? If the Church of England is right in condemning step number two, the Church of Rome has rather better cause to object to step number one; for 'c'est le premier pas qui coûte.'

So Rory, after hearing the attorney's complaint, said he thought he could rectify the objectionable passage on the tomb-stone. How he accomplished this will be seen.

After breakfast he asked De Lacy, would he go over to see 'the churches,' as the old burial-place in the neighbourhood was called, where the ruins of some monastic buildings stood, one of which had been repaired and roofed in for the parish church. De Lacy assented to the proposal, and Rory suggested that they should endeavour to get Phelim O'Flanagan to accompany them.

'His school lies in our way,' said Rory, and we may as well ax him to come; for there is a power of owld anshint tombstones in it, in owld Irish, and he can explain them to you, sir.'

True it was, that here many an ancient grave-stone stood, mingled with those of later days, the former bearing the old Irish

showing, that though conquest had driven the aboriginal Irish

from the spot, the religion, though not the language of the people, had survived their downfall.

And here what a striking evidence is given of the inutility of penal laws !-nay, worse than inutility; for prohibition seems to act on human nature rather as a productive than a preventive cause of the thing forbidden, and the religion of the Irish, like their native shamrock, by being trampled on, becomes prolific.

Their language is passing away, though it was not penal to speak it; but their religion has lasted because penalty attended its profession, and the faith of a persecuted people is still recorded in the language of the oppressor.

Thanks to God! the days of persecution are past; and fair fame to England in cancelling from her statutes the unjust and unholy penalties that man, in his bigoted profanity, had dared to interpose between the worship of the creature to the Creator!

And Fortune never dispensed a brighter honour on her favourite, than in shedding over the name of Wellington the glory of being the agent of this blessing to his native land. This mingling of the olive with his laurels increases their brightness, as it will their endurance: for when many a victory he has won shall cease to be remembered, the emancipation of his country from the bondage of bigotry will never be forgotten; and soothing be the thought in the hero's last hour, that though many of his achievements have evoked the curses of a foreign land, this greatest triumph of his life will be remembered with blessings by his countrymen !

When Phelim was asked to bear De Lacy and our hero company, he was immersed in the mysteries of his school, and could not immediately accompany them; but he promised to follow soon, and for that purpose gave his scholars half a holiday, for which beneficence on his part they threw up their hats,—that is, such of them as had any; while those of them who had not, made up the deficiency by extra shouting; and. Phelim, his school being dismissed, followed De Lacy and Rory to 'the churches.'

This burial-ground was not more than a quarter of a mile from the village; yet, though in the neighbourhood of man's habitation, it was particularly lonely; for, except on Sunday, when the small Protestant congregation went to divine service, or that the

occasion of a funeral called the peasantry to the spot, it was little frequented.

Indeed, a churchyard is generally avoided; nor can it be wondered at that the resting-place of the dead should have an appalling influence on the ignorant and superstitious, when even to the most enlightened there is a chastened and solemn tone of feeling produced on entering a place of sepulture.

Much of this feeling is lessened, or at least the indulgence of it is in a more elevated tone, when we walk through the range of magnificent monuments lining the vaulted aisle of some noble abbey. Here the vanity of our nature is indirectly flattered by witnessing the tribute that posterity pays to greatness, and Glory more than half divides the tri mph with Death. But in the lonely country churchyard, where some plain head-stone or nameless mound of earth is all that is left to tell that there rests, a being once instinct with life as ou selves, and where, instead of vaulted roof and clustered columns, thus of some lowly chapel stand, they, like all around, telling of dec y,-there it is that the contemplation of mortality exercises its most depressing influence, and the thought of death strikes coìdly on the heart.'

De Lacy accompanied Rory to the burial-place, which stood on a small mound, the grave-stones rising in bare relief against the sky, which here and there peeped through the shattered mullions of some window in the ruined wall of one of the little churches, giving an air of peculiar desolation to the place, which was increased, perhaps, by the slated roof on one of them, which was repaired, and employed as the Protestant parish church. A pathway led to this building, and Rory came to a stand where, on one side of the path, stood a rather conspicuous tombstone with this inscription:

Pray for the soul of

DENIS SWEENY, who departed, etc.

'Do you see that?' said Rory to De Lacy.

'Yes.'

"Well, that's what brings me here to-day.'

'How?' said De Lacy.

"Why, that's owld Denny Sweeny's tombstone; and you see the poor owld fellow axes every one to pray for his sow—and

why not?—and indeed I hope he's in glory. Well, you see y that he was a good Catholic, and a dacent man he was; and when he died, he ordhered the same tombstone to be put over him, and paid my own father for cuttin' the same.'

'Is it after he died?' said De Lacy.

'Oh, no—you know what I mane ; but sure a slip o' the tongue doesn't matther. Well, as I was sayin', my father cut the same tombstone-and a nate bit o' work it is; see the iligant crass an it, and cut so deep that the divil wouldn't get it out of it,-God forgi' me for sayin' divil to the crass!'

'It's deep enough, indeed,' said De Lacy.

'Ay, and so I towld that dirty brat, Sweeny-the 'turney, I mane-when he axed me about it. What do you think he wants me to do?' said Rory.

'To take it back for half-price, perhaps,' said De Lacy.

"Faith he hasn't that much fun in him to think of sitch a thing.'

'What was it, then?'

'Why, he wants me to alther it,' said Rory.

'For himself, I hope?' said De Lacy.

'No,' said Rory; ' though in throth I'd do that with pleasure, for he'd be no loss to king or counthry. But, as I was tellin' you, he comes to me the other day, and towld me it was disgraceful to see sitch a thing as "pray for the sowl" on his father's tombstone in sitch enlightened times as these, when people knew betther than to pray for people's sowls.

"They might do worse," says I.

""It might do for the dark ages," says he, "but it won't do now;" laying it all on the dark ages, by the way, jist as if people didn't know that it was bekaze when he goes to church every Sunday his poor honest father's tombstone stares him in the face, the same as if the voice out of the grave called to him and said, “Oh, thin, Dinny, my boy, is it goin' to church you are?" Not that he'd mind that, for the cowld-hearted thief hasn't the feelin' to think of it; but it's the dirty pride of the little animal ;-he doesn't like the rale Prodestants to see the thing stan'in' in evidence agin him. So I thought I'd divart myself a bit with him, and says I, "Sure the tombstone doesn't do you nor anybody else any harm."-"Yes, it does," says he; "it stands in evidence agin my father's common sinse, and I'm ashamed of it."

'Oh !' said Rory feelingly, 'what luck can the man have that says he's ashamed of his father's grave!'

The feeling and touching appeal reached Do Lacy's heart.

Rory continued-' Ashamed, indeed !-Throth, an' well he may say he's ashamed !-not for his father, though-no-but well may he be ashamed to change his creed !'

'You shouldn't blame any man for his religious belief, Rory,' said De Lacy.

'No more I would, sir, if it was his belief that he was reared in; but

'Oh!' said De Lacy, interrupting him, 'if a man feels that he has been instructed in a belief which his conscience will not permit him to follow

'Sure, sir,' said Rory, interrupting in his turn, ' I wouldn't blame him for that neither: but is it Sweeny you think does it for that not he, in throth,-it's jist for the lucre, and nothin' else. And sure if he had the feeling in him to love his father, sure it's not altherin' his tombstone he'd be, that was made by his father's own directions; and suppose he thinks that he ought to be a Prodestant over so much, sure isn't it bad of him to intherfare with his poor father's dyin' request that they would pray for his sowl!'

"That I grant you,' said De Lacy.

I.

'And so he comes to me to ask me to alther it. "For what!" says I. "Bekaze I'm ashamed of it," says he. "Why?" says "Pokaze it's only Popery," says he. Well," says I, “if it's Popery ever so much, sure it's your · father's doin',—and any shame there is in it, it is to him, and not to you, and so you needn't care about it; and if your father did wish people to pray for his sowl, I think it very bad o' you to wish to prevent it."—" It can do him no good," says he. "It can do him no harm, anyhow," says I. So he couldn't get over that very well, and made no answer about the good or the harm of it, and said he didn't want to argue the point with me, but that he wanted it althered, and as my father done the job, he thought I was the person to alther it. "And how do you want it changed?" says I. "Take out 'Pray for the sowl: says he, "that's nothing but Popery." "My father always cut the sowl very deep," says I, “and to take it out is impossible; but if it's only the Popery you object to, I can alther it if you like, so that you can have nothing to say agin