234 THE GARDEXf. 



those light and airy, chambers, I had, many a 

 night, sunk into pleasant repose ; awakened by the 

 morning beam, to rove through a wilderness of the 

 choicest sweets, and then to kneel amid the house- 

 hold band, uniting my devotions at that family altar. 

 There was no fiction in it : nothing for imagination 

 to fill up; all was reality, deep-felt, agonizing- 

 truth : and though, I bless my God, I do love 

 Ireland, and mourn for her, and have tried to serve 

 her, even from that very time, yet I never so loved r 

 I never so grieved, I never so burned to spend and 

 be spent for her, as when that appalling description 

 was given r of scenes where my bosom's warmest 

 affections had been drawn out, and where the vic- 

 tims of popish persecution were my friends, my 

 endeared, my hospitable Christian friends ; and 

 the wretched instruments of destruction were the 

 smiling peasants, whose cabins I had visited, 

 whose children I had fondled, and from whose 

 scanty meal of potatoes I had often accepted the 

 choicest morsel, rather than hurt their generous- 

 feelings, by declining that which they could ill af- 

 ford to give. My poor, warm-hearted, impetuous, 

 deluded Irish ! What can I do for them 7 What r 

 but pray and plead for their immortal souls, drag- 

 ged into perdition by means of chains, that you ? 

 reader, might well assist to break. 



The dear young pastor who related this touch- 

 ing story, gave a singular instance of the efficacy 



