so hard to unravel consisted in this; that those without trusted in their own prowess, calculated on the extent of their force, and the range of their artillery, and while girding on their armour boasted as those who put it off; while those within cried unto the Lord for help, and troubled not themselves with the theory of probabilities, seeing, and knowing, and heartily believing too, that there is no restraint with the LORD, to save by many or by few. There were not wanting among them those who derided their hope, and strove by every means to shake their trust in God, by pointing out the fearful range of the besieging camp, hemming it in on every side, sweeping in all but a circle from the western to the eastern bank of the narrow Foyle, and filling up that only vacant space where succour might approach, by the formidable boom: the defenders saw these things, and pressed into their church, and sent up their united supplications to Him who is mighty to save. Their duty was plain : it was to hold fast that they had, because in its preservation was involved the continuance of Protestant privileges to them and their children -an unfettered, unmutilated Bible; the freedom of scriptural worship, and an undiluted protest against all the errors and abominations of Rome. This duty they fulfilled, regardless of human prognostications, of defeat to themselves, and ruin to the cause in defence of which they were banded. They were not the only Protestant garrison in Ireland, in those days; Enniskillen proved equally true; but the brunt of the battle was borne by Derry; in her despised but impregnable fortress raged famine, pestilence, and slaughter; while men of cruelty and crime pressed hard around, eagerly calculating how soon the prey should, perforce, fall between their teeth. Derry had the importance attached to it of becoming

if captured, as available to the enemies as it had always hitherto been to the friends of Protestantism; and it was habitually looked to by the latter as a stronghold, the loss of which must spread general consternation, and greatly weaken the hands of the faithful party.

The Established Church of Ireland is the Derry of our days; and it is no disparagement to the good men and true of other denominations, equally belonging to the Church of Christ-those whom we may call the spiritual Enniskilleners of the war-to say that she is the most important point to be defended. More than one fierce, though thinly-masked attack has been made upon her outworks, and with a measure of success sufficient to intimidate all who are not, by the grace of God, wrought up to the stiff and desperate determination of No surrender.' She has her mitred Lundies, and a few inferior traitors, we admit; but the garrison in general is sound, firm, and resolute, looking not to what Sir Robert Peel may say, or what Lord John Russell may do, but to the command of the Lord Jesus Christ to take heed to themselves and to the flock; and to the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, when the wolf came, fled not, nor forsook his fold, but gave his life for the sheep. We pity the man who thinks it his duty to denounce and discourage this trebly-hallowed principle of 'No surrender.' We pity the man who can endeavour to calculate such a garrison into the abandonment of their post, and the consequent betrayal of stores, arms, and ammunition into the enemy's hands but we have no apprehensions as to the result. The Church of Ireland understands too well its position to be so misled. It may answer very well to dash into ecclesiastical history in the reign of William III., and so to prove how Protestantism obtained and established

an ascendancy; but suppose we went somewhat further back, say, the commencement of the reign of Henry II. and showed the Church of Ireland scriptural, as it had been from the beginning, refusing any homage, any concession to the Bishop of Rome; and for its firm resistance of his claims given over, by that daring usurper of God's prerogatives, to the sanguinary conquest of a foreign prince, the condition of whose bargain was, that he should force Protestant Ireland to become Popish ? Mr. Noel is eloquent on the wrongs of Ireland, but he passes over some five centuries of the blackest wrong inflicted on her.

Or, suppose we added little more than a hundred years to the range of history taken in this pamphlet, and exhibited the whole country, clergy and laity, in a state of peaceful and willing conformity to the Protestant ritual, established by Elizabeth? We could show that the relapse into Popery of so large a proportion of the people was the fruit of Rome's craftiness, in taking speedy advantage of a fatal, a cruel oversight on England's part. Here, the Services and the Scriptures were at once transferred from obsolete Latin to the vernacular tongue; and Englishmen being thus enlightened, continued to walk in the light. There also, English was substituted for Latin, being to the native Irish as much an unknown tongue as the other; and of this Rome did not fail to take instant advantage, by conveying deadly error in the language of the people, while truth, effectually shrouded in what was to them a barbarous tongue, did not enlighten them at all-no marvel that their blind guides led them on securely in thick darkness!

These facts are of weighty importance, utterly overlooked as they seem to have been by our reverend bro

ther. They show the prior and unalienated right of the Protestant Church in Ireland, and turn the tables upon the main point of his argument. But it is not as a question of vested rights that the faithful pastors of the Irish Church will view, or act upon, this matter. They have a sacred trust confided to them, and they will not abandon it. Woe to the state that shall ever DARE to cast off the Church! and woe to the Church, as a body, that shall needlessly separate from that connexion in which God has placed it with the state, unless the latter require any concessions inconsistent with the supreme allegiance due to the Lord Jesus Christ, which the English Government has not yet done, far as it has gone in daring impiety, and farther as it is evidently disposed to go, in defiance of the warnings that God vouchsafes to send.

When John, king of England, in the depth of his abject pusillanimity prostrated himself before Rome's legate, placing the national crown at his feet, the arrogant priest kicked it, as well he might, and it rolled in the dust of the floor. When, in the presence of, and in an address to, Victoria, Queen of England, the legislators of the land vaunted of their evil deed, in having actually set apart a large sum of public money for an increased supply of Romish priests in Ireland, that deed being fully understood as an initiatory step to the future establishment of Popery in the land; and when they had been duly thanked for their zealous care; and when the blessing of God had been formally besought on a system of policy utterly subversive of his truth, what followed ?—Why then, and there, in the fullest circle of the pride and power of the land, struck by an invisible hand, down fell the royal crown of England, before the face of

England's Queen, and not only did it roll in the dust, but it was battered, and bruised, and disfigured, and had its fairest jewels violently struck out.

Dear brethren of the persecuted Church of Ireland, there is not one among you, rightly deserving to be so addressed, who does not lift up his heart to God in prayer that the terrible omen may be averted, and that they who in seeking your debasement for the better exaltation of God's foe, may be convinced of their error, and pardoned, and brought to a better mind. Yet you must not overlook such signs: they are sent alike for warning to some and encouragement to others, and though the former will too probably scoff at the message, not believing it addressed to them, the latter will thankfully accept it. The LORD is on your side: fear not, therefore, what man can do to harm you. The LORD is on your side: heed not, therefore, what man may say to dishearten you. Very recently you were in the furnace; did not the LORD sit by it, as a refiner, and bring you out without damage, doubly taught to confide in Him? The assault was then made most openly, to compel you to disestablish and to expatriate yourselves too: you did neither; and if you fled not when the lion roared in your path, will you flee now, when as yet none pursueth, and only a few affectionate, but mistaken friends, sit down to calculate the probabilities of your being ultimately compelled to yield? No, our good brother has kindly reiterated a watchword too familiar to your ears, too dear to your memories, too sacred in your estimation to be lightly abandoned. Remember Derry, and stand unflichingly to your posts. Already there is alarm, there is hesitation in the enemy's camp: and by the enemy I do not mean our poor Romanist brethren, but those falsely-called Protestants,