The Banner of the Truth in Ireland.

OCTOBER 1, 1872.

IRISH CHURCH MISSIONS.

BY MISS E. J. WHATELY.

AVING been removed by the providence of God from the sphere of work in Ireland, in which I had, for some years, the privilege of being permitted to take a part, I have felt anxious to help with my pen where I could not do so on the spot; and if a few words of mine could contribute in any way to remove misapprehensions on the part of English friends, with respect to Mission work in Ireland, or to stir up some who are not fully alive to its importance and extent, I should indeed esteem it a cause for thankful rejoicing.

I believe very few, even among the true and earnest friends of evangelical missions in England, are at all aware of the remarkable character of the movement among the Roman Catholics of Ireland, which commenced at the time when, twenty-three years ago, the results of the Irish famine first opened the way to more direct effort, and which is continuing steadily to progress at this moment.

There is a prevalent disposition in England to look disparagingly on efforts made for the sister country, and the mental eye turns from scenes associated with hopeless misery and reckless struggles, to fields of work elsewhere apparently more promising.

Apparently-not really! There is hope and promise in the work in many lands at this day, but to those who long to see fruit in missionary labours, who would fain join the reaper as well as the sower-I speak as an eyewitness, when I say that not even in the recently opened fields in Italy and Spain, is there such encouragement to be found as in Ireland. In no part of the great mission field over

the world can the labourer rejoice more with "the joy of the harvest," as well as with the hopes of him who has gone forth to sow. "But is all this work needful?" an objector asks. "Why unsettle the minds of the people and turn them from the teachers who are doubtless suited to their capacities, and may give them some amount of truth, even though mixed with error? Why lead them from these, with the risk of their being altogether alienated from religious influences?"

Those who ask these questions know nothing of real Romanism. They judge it, perhaps, from some few rare cases of enlightenment, or from those who have unconsciously been influenced, directly or indirectly, by Protestant teaching. Such instances can never prepare us to meet Romanism in its citadel, as it is in Ireland.

The Irish peasant is brought up to look on his priest as having the keys of heaven and hell. With his blessing he would shrink from no desperate act. His curse is the most terrible of evils. Christ is to him either the helpless babe on its mother's knee, or the stern judge before whom he quails. The beloved name which has calmed so many a mourner, and been uttered with joy by so many dying lips, is to him a name of fear. Mary, and not Jesus, is the object of his love, trust, and worship. His code of morality is distorted by the same false teaching-a lie is a venial sin, and atrocious crime at the priest's command, is allowable and even laudable. And if not wholly corrupted by this perverted system, it is because a naturally generous and affectionate disposition will often neutralize, to some extent, a hurtful system of morals.

But another objector will rejoin, "Granted, the Irish should be evangelized. But why have recourse to controversy? Why not take the simple gospel, and trust to its power to make its way to the heart?

That is precisely what the Irish Church Mission workers seek to do. Their main object is to set the blessed truths of full salvation through the merits and death of Christ, of free pardon and acceptance in Him, and access through Him to the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit, before all. But the Gospel preached in English would fail to awaken a Hindoo or Chinese. To reach his heart it must be translated into his language.

This then is the work of the Irish Church Mission-to translate the Gospel into the vernacular language of the Romanist.

This is all that is meant by " controversy," in the sense in which they use it. The word is, perhaps, an undesirable one, because liable to be mistaken, and we only use it for want of a better. Controversy

is generally understood as either a learned and abstruse discussion, or an acrimonious dispute, and in neither sense would it be admitted into the Irish Church Mission work.

The "controversy" as there carried on, is simply the setting forth of the differences between the teaching of Scripture, as any plain reader would understand its words, and that of the Romish church, in a plain, open, and affectionate manner: its object being to make the truths of the Gospel intelligible to those who have been taught deliberately to use Scripture terms in a different sense from that in which the apostles and evangelists employed them.

The words "faith," "repentance," "prayer," etc., have, in the mind of a thorough-going Romanist, a sense of their own. His mind, like a habitation choked and blocked up with the rubbish of centuries of neglect, needs to have the growth of ages of superstition removed, to let in the light of day.

We do not, of course, affirm that no instance can be found, in Irish Mission work, of this being done roughly or injudiciously, in any individual case. That would be to claim for it superhuman perfection. But we do affirm such a danger is carefully guarded against, and that a Scripture-reader has, before now, lost his place, only because he could not keep his temper under severe provocation.

But has not the Gospel message, unexplained, and uncontrasted, in words, with Romish teaching, been blessed to countless multitudes of Romanists in all parts of the world?

Undoubtedly it has. The noble labour of earlier societies in Ireland, and especially of the old Irish Society, laid a foundation for subsequent work which must never be forgotten. And in many parts of the continent, non-controversial Scripture teaching has been carried on with manifest blessing and success. But it must be remembered, that first, Romanism on the continent is, in many cases, only a thin cloak for either virtual unbelief, or utter blank ignorance; and in such cases all that is required, is to rouse the mind from the sleep of utter indifference. Again, what we call, "controversial teaching," is often used by evangelistic teachers without their admitting, or being aware of it. And thirdly, there must always be a blessing on the faithful teaching or circulation of any portion even of that revealed Word, which is "alive (quick) and sharper than any two-edged sword."

But, allowing fully for all this, there can be no doubt that there are cases, even where Romanism has worked negatively rather than positively, where the want of some such explanation has damaged the work of missionary teachers more than they were themselves fully

aware. An instance of this occurs to me at this moment. A French Protestant lady of eminent piety and devotedness, had been visiting, for some time, a sick Romanist woman on her death-bed, to whom she had been reading the Scriptures, and before whom she had endeavoured simply to lay the Gospel message. Her hearer appeared genuinely impressed and convinced. After a short absence, she revisited the dying woman, and was assured by her that she was quite happy, and at peace in her soul-she had seen the priest, received from him the rites of the Church, and now she was sure all was safe.

But if such a case could occur in France, much more would it be likely to do so in Ireland. The Romanism of the Irish is, for the most part, an earnest, hearty belief in all the grossest superstitions of their Church—all that educated men of her communion would be apt to ignore, or slur over, especially in speaking to Protestants. The Irish Romanist meets you on the threshold with "the controversy," and if you desire to escape it he will not let you. You enter a hospital, and try to cheer a sufferer by speaking of the love of Jesus, he answers at once with "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are my trust."

An earnest Revival preacher, inclined to distrust the "controversial teaching," declared he had gathered numbers of Romanists to meetings, where they had accepted Gospel truth without any special preparation. One of the principal Irish Church Mission workers then in Dublin came to one of these meetings, and found that every one of the Romanists present greeted him as an old acquaintance. The way had been cleared, in the Mission House, for the very teacher who thought its influence of no practical use.

The agency by which this important object is carried out is mainly the employment of carefully-trained Scripture-readers, working under the superintendence of Missionary Clergymen. The means used are placards and handbills with striking and simple questions and texts of Scripture, advertisements in the papers of the same character, Mission services on Sundays and week-days, meetings or classes for inquiry and friendly discussion on the leading doctrines of Romanism, day and Sunday schools, and domiciliary visits.

The system of text-teaching is the principal one carried out in the Sunday and day-schools, with a view to grounding the pupils in the leading Gospel doctrines; a single verse of the Bible is committed to memory, generally from oral teaching, and made the subject of the lesson, and the theme for simple and pointed explanations, care being taken to study the context, and compare it with other parts of Scripture.

An hundred carefully-selected texts are learned in all the schools,

chapter and verse being always accurately given, and parallel and contrasted passages brought forward. The Old and New Testaments are also read consecutively, and a child long under Mission teaching will give the substance of chapter after chapter in the Gospels and Acts, or in the Books of Kings and Chronicles.

But the work does not stop here. Out of the primary agency fresh efforts have sprung year by year. From the parent stem has sprung many offshoots, and the main stream has, in its turn, been enriched by . many tributaries. Among the works springing from this Mission, or nearly connected with it, are orphanages, homes for the young and destitute, sewing classes, etc. In Dublin and Kingstown alone there are three flourishing institutions for homeless and destitute children— the Luke Street" Girls' Home," the " Ragged Boys' Home" in Grand Canal Street, and the "Birds' Nest" at Kingstown, for Little Ones. In the west we have similar institutions at Spiddal, Ballyconree, and Clifden.

The teachers for boys and girls, as well as the Scripture-readers, are all trained in the two Normal Schools of the Mission-the one for young men in Townsend Street, and the other for young women in Luke Street. Thus there is a constant supply of agents all under the same influences and careful training, and this produces a unity and harmony in the whole working of the Mission, and a hearty spirit of mutual regard and united interest in, and zeal for the work, which all who have visited it in its various departments will agree is rarely to be found equalled elsewhere.

The majority of the children who pass through the schools leave them not only intelligent and well-taught Protestants, but earnest and active Missionary helpers in their respective spheres of life. Their general education-mental, moral, and practical-is carefully attended to; and of the many hundreds who have passed through the various houses and dormitories, the greater number are doing well in various situations, some of them places of trust and responsibility.

The visits made by the Agents (about 9000 in the year) are not only instrumental in bringing Scripture truth before multitudes of Romanists, but in teaching many isolated Protestants, whose situation would have otherwise entirely shut them out from the ministrations of all of their own religion. For example, some years ago, the rector of a Dublin parish and his curate had each been repeatedly denied access to a house where they had called, and they had been assured that no Protestants were there. A little afterwards the Readers obtained an entrance, and found a sick and dying Protestant girl, thankful to be

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