progress" which reach us from Ireland, without the apprehension that the poor people of that country, who flock in thousands to the Rev. Father Mathew, the "Apostle of Temperance," as he is somewhat irreverently called, are merely the victims of a new superstition, whereof they had but too much before. Except from America, where they have no religious system, guarded and enforced by regulated authority, and from Hindostan, where awful and appalling rites of blind superstition are still observed, we have not heard in modern times of any such multitudinous extravagance as has been lately witnessed in the Irish cities of Limerick and Waterford.* Many thousands assembled in these cities, who, having prepared themselves, by getting shockingly drunk, set off to the Rev. Father to take the temperance vow, and receive the Priest's benediction, and some sort of medal or token, which each abstinence devotee is supplied with, and doubtless looks upon as a kind of charm, according to the common delusion of that sensitive and superstitious race, the Irish Romanist peasantry. Who can suppose that anything like rational temperance has taken root in the hearts and minds of these poor benighted creatures? No one. They have rushed upon the "temperance pledge," temperance pledge," as upon their little pilgrimages, and processions round "holy

*Written in January 1840.

wells," and penances of various kinds, from walking with peas in their shoes, to hair shirts, and self-inflicted flagellation. But as all these penitential exercises but give them courage to commence a new set of sins, to be similarly expiated in due time, so will the "abstinence" be probably succeeded (for the most part) by a yet greater desperation of drinking than they have yet ventured upon. Very soon there may expected to be two sets in operation, one drinking deep to make amends to their appetites for the late abstinence, and the other vowing and refraining in order to make amends to their souls for past and future sins of intoxication. Alas! in all this there is no sound root of virtue.

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There are not a few who look upon these abstinence associations as a capital device, an excellent trick for bringing in the people to good habits of sobriety. Surely this is somewhat odious as well as unwise. Why is it that they who pretend to religion, and sense, and honour, will yet condescend to crooked paths, and stratagems, and cunning ways of doing that which it is meet to do openly and without disguise. Many things there are very good if obtained in the right way, but which are tainted by an ill mode of obtainment. Why are people to be tricked into that which they ought to do out of a serious sense of duty, and which is chiefly valuable because it is an exercise of duty founded upon rational and durable principles.

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It seems to be lamentably forgotten in these days that there are two kinds of wisdom, both of which seem intellectual and fit for human purposes, but of which there is but one that does not immediately corrupt and turn to evil. Mere cunning and dexterous delusion, may produce a seemingly good change, but it is no more than appearance. It has not in it the wholesome life which keeps away corruption. "Who," says St. James, is a wise man, and endued with knowledge among you, let him show out of a good conversation his words with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For, where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable; gentle and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy."

The earthly and sensual wisdom (for wisdom or ability it is admitted to be) may be considered as represented in the ordinary affairs of life by cunning and trick, by management and tours d'addresse, while the nobler wisdom which begins in purity, and is full of good fruits, is that which addresses itself to the best faculties of mankind, which appeals to men as beings. conscious of what is religious and what is rea

sonable, having a sense of duty and a sense of honour, and capable of being persuaded towards what is good by an appeal to the first principles of good, which few are so depraved as not inwardly to respect, however they may pretend otherwise. O that men would treat their fellow creatures as men, capable of good and worthy of being respected for such capacity, instead of using them as tools, and imposing upon their folly, or taking advantage of their vices, for the accomplishment of selfish purposes. Man is a strangely-mingled web of good and evil, but the habit of those whose wisdom is "earthly" is to give exercise to the worser part, by constantly operating upon it, for the effecting of their own ends, until at last the nobleness of men's nature is lost through desuetude.

THE VULGAR.

Nor often will there be met with a livelier description of the vulgar, than that given by a French tourist, who has lately published his observations. The unhappy traveller finds himself in a diligence in Brittany, and proceeds to that never-no, never-was he in such vile company. "These people talked continually of themselves, and what belonged to themselves -their wives-their children-their pocket

say

handkerchiefs, in the buying of which they had cheated the mercer by a franc in the dozen. The sign characteristic of a man of this class is, that whatever has the honour to belong to him must needs be super-excellent. His wife is worth all the other wives in the world-his dozen of handkerchiefs is the first dozen in existence. Never had I seen the human species in a baser light: these people rejoiced in their own vileness as a pig does in his mire. In order to be a deputy one must pay his court to fellows like these. Are these the Kings of America ?"

And this is the feeling of people of genteel taste in France, where, with double our British population, they have about one eighth part of the number of electors! What a nice affair it must be to ask to be made a Member of Parliament in Finsbury or in Glasgow? Some civet, good apothecary! Nevertheless let no man be deterred from doing what is honest, and likely to be useful, through the impulse of mere disgust. Perhaps these people may be taught better, even by that process of solicitation which alone a real gentleman will adopt. But to return to our Frenchman, and his companions in the public carriage.

In the hope, he says, "of extracting some facts from them, and thus diminishing my disgust, I touched on politics: they all began in praise of liberty, and this in a style sufficient to sicken one with the name, making it to consist