complete windfall blown into their way by some
unexpected piece of good fortune. Five guineas a head! And all for only
going to church, and gaining for ever more the heart and affections of
the good and kind Lord ------. There was also another class, the simple
and honest poor, who had no other way of avoiding all the rigors and
privations of that terrible season, than a painful compliance with the
only principle which could rescue themselves and their children, from a
state of things worse than death itself--and which might probably have
terminated in death--we mean the principle of the new Reformation. There
was, still, a third class--which consisted of a set of thorough Irish
wags, who looked upon the whole thing as an excellent joke--and who,
while they had not a rag to their backs, nor a morsel for their mouths,
enjoyed the whole ceremony of reading their recantation, renouncing
Popery, and all that, as a capital spree while it lasted, and a thing
that ought by all means to be encouraged, until better times came.

In vain, therefore, did Father M'Cabe denounce and prophesy--in vain did
he launch all the dogmas of the church--in vain did he warn, lecture,
and threaten--Darby's private hint had gone abroad precisely a day
or two before their encounter, and the consequence was what might be
expected. Darby, in fact, overreached him, a circumstance of which, at
the period of their meeting, he was ignorant; but he had just learned
how "the word," as it was called, had spread, in so extraordinary a
manner, maugre all his opposition a short time before they met; and our
readers need not feel surprised at the tone and temper with which, after
having heard such intelligence, he addressed Darby, nor at the treatment
which that worthy personage received at his hands. Had he known that it
was Darby's "word" which in point of fact had occasioned "the spread"
we speak of, he would have made that worthy missionary exhibit a much
greater degree of alacrity than he did.

Before Darby arrives at Mr. Lucre's, however, we must take the liberty
of anticipating him a little, in order to be present at a conversation
which occurred on this very subject between the worthy Rector and the
Rev. Mr. Clement, his curate. Mr. Clement, like the pious and excellent
Father Roche, was one of those clergymen who feel that these unbecoming
and useless exhibitions, called religious discussions, instead of
promoting a liberal or enlarged view of religio