THE SHAMROCK. 53 



from which human nature shrinks with dismay. At 

 the same time, it furnished me with a support under 

 the trial, not to be recalled without admiring grati 

 tude to Him who wrought thus wondrously. 



And oh that we were all such Protestants as Jack 

 was ! Popery he regarded as the destroyer of his 

 beloved country : its priestly domination, its me 

 chanical devotions, were, in his mind, inseparably 

 linked with the moral evils of which he had been, 

 from infancy, a grieved and wondrous spectator — 

 drunkenness and discord, especially. After he 

 was spiritually enlightened, his view of the i mys 

 tery of iniquity,' as opposed to Christ and his 

 gospel, became most overpowering ! it was ever 

 present to him ; and when actually dying, he gathered 

 up all his failing energies into an awfully vehement 

 protest against it : sternly frowning, while he de- 

 nounced it as ' a lie r This was followed by an 

 act of beautiful surrender of himself into the ' bleed- 

 ing hand' of his ' One Jesus Christ,' as he loved 

 to call him in contradistinction to the many saviours 

 of unhappy Rome — and a pathetic entreaty to 

 me, to pray, and to work for ' Jack's Poor Ireland.' 



I will do so, God helping me ; and happy shall I 

 be, if some among my readers, when the little trefoil 

 spreads its green mantle in their path, will remember 

 the dumb boy, and fulfil his dying wish, by seeking 

 occasion to promote the cause of Jesus Christ among 

 the darkened population of ' Jack's poor Ireland.' 



5* 



