LOUGH DERG. 215 



could not send people with one grain of 

 sense, intellect, or education, to such places 

 as this." 



" No, but I would do precisely what these 

 clever priests do : I would give people some- 

 thing to employ their minds with, under a 

 sense of religious discipline ; it should be 

 something useful, if I could find it for them, 

 — schools, missions, tending the sick, evan- 

 gelising some of our heathenish towns in 

 England : but, useful or not, it should be 

 religious employment. But, in the mean 

 time, I will tell you what I would do, and 

 that instantly. Our people rant with one 

 set of Dissenters one week, with another the 

 next, and then are permitted to come back 

 to the Church just as if nothing had hap- 

 pened : thus it is that they lose all idea that 

 they have been committing a sin. If any of 

 these fellows were to indulge in such vaga- 

 ries, they might be forgiven, certainly, and 

 received again ; but it would first be im- 

 pressed upon their minds that they had not 

 been doing the most praiseworthy thing in 

 the world, by a short voluntary seclusion 

 here on bread and water 'being made the 

 condition of their pardon." 



