after fifty years of prophesying in sackcloth has very recently responded to the call, "Come up hither," and is now engaged in singing in heaven the praises of the master whom on earth he served with a zeal, a diligence, a boldness, a perseverance scarcely to be paralleled in these latter ages. Gideon Ouseley belonged to the Wesleyan methodist connexion; and his allotted station in Ireland bringing him into full view of the abominations that are done through the sorceries of the great harlot bewitching that unhappy people, he forthwith devoted himself to a work so desperate, that nothing could have sustained him in it save the principle so beautifully expressed in the lines,

"Victorious faith the promise sees,

And looks to God alone;

Laughs at impossibilities,

And says, It shall be done."

Upheld by this resolve, Gideon Ouseley became in the fullest sense of the word a protestant missionary, and they alone who have actually dwelt in Ireland and studied its people in their wildest mood can appreciate his work. He would ascertain when they were about to hold a cattle market or a fair, and thither he repaired, mounted on an old nag, as way-worn, as war-broken, and withal as inflexibly patient as his master. Taking up a position in the midst of the throng, he would commence an address the object of which was not merely to exalt Christ, but to pull down antichrist. He placed the pure worship of God in juxtaposition with their idolatries-the Bible in deep contrast with their mass-book. Assailed on all sides by missiles of every description, covered with filth, bruised, cut and bleeding, this undaunted protester maintained his place, until he had fully delivered his message: and how he escaped their hands is known only to Him who sent him. On one occasion he lost an eye; and his whole visage was marked by scars.

He once came to a famous strong-hold of protestantism in the north of Ireland, where a district is contiguous peopled by the most infuriated class of Romanists. Here Gideon Ouseley announced his determination to preach, and was, of course, maltreated. He, however, persevered, and they menaced his life. The butchers, to a man, were bigotted Romanists, and forming a very dangerous body, with their knives, they swore he should not be allowed to address them. Gideon was resolute; and his boldness roused the dormant fire of the Protestant population, whose fathers had long before immortalized themselves and their city by their unflinching resistance of the ancient foe. They hit on an excellent device for subduing the refractory butchers, by pledging themselves to eat no meat. Fish was abundant; and Gideon Ouseley's allies most devoutly observed black lent for a considerable period, during which he was frequently placed by

them on a temporary rostrum, and guarded while addressing to his angry auditors the wholesome but unwelcome truths of his mission. It was winter, and the enemy, to leave no means untried, formed a colossal figure of snow, the face of which they accurately marked with scars corresponding to those on Ouseley's visage, and placed in its hand an imitation book. The stratagems of assault and defence were practised with almost equal tact with respect to the type and its antitype; but let matters go as they might, Gideon Ouseley came there to preach against popery, and preach he did, and left his testimony before God and man.

In 1821, I was told how long he had been persevering in this arduous course; and on the occasion of his narrowly escaping with life after addressing a tumultuous crowd in Kilkenny, it was predicted he would die a violent death before many months should have passed over. Yet in 1839 the old man has peacefully yielded his soul into the hands of his Redeemer, and his poor relics moulder in the soil so often crimsoned with his blood.

There are those among us who would unchristianize the Wesleyan methodists, because we differ on some doctrinal points: let such look to themselves that they be found equally faithful and zealous in coming to the help of the Lord against the mighty. God send us more of Gideon Ouseley's stamp, be they of what denomination they may: and grace and peace be with all them who loving the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, hate popery, even as He hates it, and will freely peril their lives to proclaim in the ears of their deluded fellow-sinners, " Come out of her!"

A ROMISH GEM OF THEOLOGY AND HISTORY.

COMMUNICATED BY THE AUTHOR OF A SKETCH OF POPERY."

(Continued from page 89.)

DR. ARDENT is now in a little difficulty; it is a delicate matter to be umpire between a popish saint and an archangel, and our doctor does not seem very well qualified for the task. St. Aubert must not be blamed, come what will, so he is a "wise " man, to defer the matter; yet St. Michael does not think so, for he repeats his orders, in token of impatience at the bishop's "wise " delay. But what follows is worse still. "This veritable and dis"creet pastor, wishing to prove if this vision and revelation was "of God or not, deferred again even to the third apparition, in "which the angel reproved him for slowness to believe and obey."

"

"Veritable and discreet," says Dr. Ardent.

"Slow and unbelieving," quoth St. Michael, and he not only scolded the

"veritable and discreet pastor," but punished him too; it was "a word and a blow" with this active apparition, for the history proceeds," he touched his head as with a finger, and made a "hole in the scull of it which appears yet now-a-days, in perpe"tual and assured testimony of truth."

Now, if Dr. Ardent had been consistent in his defence of St. Aubert from the impatient accusations of the angel, would he not have shewn his horror at this cruel conduct of "the said angel?" One would naturally think so, and expect him to add, at least, that St. Michael was a very brutal kind of saint thus to behave to "the scull of the" head of a fellow-saint, (query, what other sculls had he?) and one who was so "wise," "veritable and discreet." Perhaps the historian is as discreet as his subject was; and fears to speak out on the matter, lest any celestial visitant should, "as with a finger," make "a hole in the scull of" his own head, if he upbraided the archangel for this striking want of humanity to St. Aubert. Be this as it may, it seems that the scull, with the hole in it, is preserved to this day; and I am only sorry that I was not happy enough to see it.

Dr. Ardent, however, feels his story to be rather a singular one, in spite of the asseverations of Bede, Sigisbert, and the rest; and, therefore, lest his readers should be sceptical as to this odd affair between Saints Michael and Aubert, he adds-" which is "not less easy to be believed than to believe that angels chased "Adam and Eve from the terrestrial paradise, that the wise Hagar delivered Isaac from the sword of his father!!!" Did

my readers ever before know that "Hagar the Egyptian" was an angel?—or that she had anything to do with Isaac ?-or especially that she went to Mount Moriah, and rescued him from the sacrificial weapon of Abraham?

But this is not all; the list proceeds-" that God by them "delivered Lot AND SODOM, by blinding the infidels." Oh! who would not be a "doctor of holy theology," to enlighten mankind with the news that Sodom was saved by angels, instead of being burnt up by fire from heaven, as every one else has always imagined? He goes on-"that he drew Daniel and his companions from the flames and from the lions: that he assisted "Moses menaced by Pharaoh to cut in pieces all the children of "Israel; " (what angel was that? we do not read of any angelic interference in Egypt;) "that he preserved Jerusalem from the

"

plague," (we read that the angel inflicted a pestilence on Judea, in xxiv 2 Samuel, and that he was only prevented from utterly destroying Jerusalem by the express command of Jehovah; which is not very like his preserving it,) "and that he delivered St. Peter "and St. John from the Judean prisons," (this we find in xii Acts, to have been the case of Peter only, John was not then with him,) "and that finally others have done an infinity of other miracles

66

"to the glory of God, and in favour of his servants,"―all of which we will charitably hope to be better authenticated than these garbled blunders of miracles which Dr. Ardent has above specified. We are now led back to our "veritable and discreet pastor," who now becomes also believing and active. "This holy bishop revealing his visions and angelic commandments, and "shewing the sign of his head" (i. e. the hole in the scull of it,) "to his canons and other venerable church people, went with "them and many of the people, and a multitude of workmen to see "the place, to cut the mountain, and to prepare a place on the "summit of it to build a church which had been commanded him, "the archangel by many revelations instructing him to all his "devout enterprises, and shewing him by signs in what place, "size, and manner he ought to build it. The top of this mount "was intersected by two great rocks, one of which particularly "could neither be moved nor levelled by any human force: St. "Michael commanded the bishop to send to seek a little child yet "in the cradle," (the son of one named Bain, living near there,) "and to place the foot of the said child against the rock; which "being done, the print of the foot of the child, in first impressing "the rock, where it is yet marked, made it tumble from top to "bottom." Here is a miracle indeed; even more miraculous than the hole in the worthy bishop's scull; many natural causes might have produced that effect, but this is verily a wondrous matter, and it is thus backed up by Dr. Ardent :- "Has not the "Son of God promised that those who shall believe in him shall "do such miracles as he did, aye even much greater, and that if they say to a mountain, remove thyself and jump into the sea, "it shall do it; has not that been shewn by St. Gregory of Neo"cesarea?" (That is Gregory Thaumaturgus.) A pretty literal way of appropriating to one's self and friends the sublime promises made to the apostles of Christ! I will leave my readers to make their own reflections on this marvellous story, and its justification by our learned and theologic doctor.

LETTER

FROM BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR TO A LADY SEDUCED TO THE CHURCH OF

ROME.

"You are now gone to a Church that protects itself by arts of subtilty and arms, by violence and persecuting all that are not of their minds, to a Church in which you are to be a subject of the King so long as it pleases the Pope: In which you may be absolved from your vows made to God, your Oaths to the King, your promises to Men, your duty to your Parents in some cases:

A Church in which Men pray to God, and to Saints in the same form of words in which they pray to God, as you may see in the offices of Saints, and particularly of our Lady: A church in which Men are taught by most of the principal Leaders to worship Images with the same worship with which they worship God and Christ, or him or her whose Image it is, and in which they usually picture God the Father, and the Holy Trinity, to the great dishonour of that sacred mystery, against the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church, against the express doctrine of scripture, against the honour of a Divine Attribute; I mean, the immensity and spirituality of the Divine Nature. You are gone to a Church that pretends to be infallible, and yet is infinitely deceived in many particulars, and yet endures no contradiction, and is impatient her children should enquire into any thing her priests obtrude. You are gone from receiving the whole sacrament, to receive it but half; from Christ's Institution to a human invention, from Scripture to uncertain traditions, and from ancient traditions to new pretences, from prayers which you understood, to prayers which you understood not, from confidence to God to rely upon creatures, from intire dependence upon inward acts to a dangerous temptation of resting too much in outward ministries, in the external work of Sacraments and of Sacramentals: You are gone from a Church whose worshipping is simple, Christian and Apostolical, to a Church where men's consciences are loaden with a burden of ceremonies greater than that in the days of the Jewish religion, (for the Ceremonial of the Church of Rome is a great Book in folio), greater I say than all the ceremonies of the Jews contained in Leviticus, &c. You are gone from a Church where you were exhorted to read the word of God, the holy Scriptures from whence you found instruction, institution, comfort, reproof, a treasure of all excellencies, to a Church that seals up that fountain from you, and gives you drink by drops out of such Cisterns as they first make, and then stain, and then reach out: and if it be told you that some men abuse scripture it is true, for if your priests had not abused scripture, they could not thus have abused you, but there is no necessity they should, and you need not, unless you list; any more than you need to abuse the Sacraments or decrees of the Church, or the messages of your friend, or the Letters you receive, or the laws of the Land, all which are liable to be abused by evil persons, but not by good people and modest understandings. It is now become a part of your Religion to be ignorant, to walk in blindness, to believe the Man that hears your confessions, to hear none but him, not to hear God speaking but by him, and so you are liable to be abused by him, as he pleases without remedy."