against restored Israel. They quarrel with Rome, after which she sinks into the lake of fire.

4. The nations, including probably those who had hated her, lament over Rome, and then the confederacy who had assembled at Armageddon proceed to besiege and sack Jerusalem.

5. The Lord appears.

6. The dead in Christ are raised, living believers changed, and all together are caught up to meet their Lord in the air.

7. The Lord attended by his risen and glorified saints descends on the Mount of Olives, and goes forth to tread down his enemies.

8. Satan is bound, the thrones are set and occupied by the glorified saints.

9. Israel is fully restored, converted, and made first of the nations, and the Gentiles are brought in to God, so that righteousness covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.

10. Satan is loosed, the 1000 years being ended.

11. He goes forth to deceive the nations, succeeds, and induces them to surround the camp of the saints, on which fire descends from heaven and consumes them, and he is cast for ever into the lake of fire.

12. The throne is set-all the dead raised, and, with, we conclude, the living, summoned to the general judgment to receive their final award.

13. A new heaven and a new earth.

H. B. M.

LETTERS TO A FRIEND.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

XII.

FROM henceforward I hope that my gleanings from Irish history may be more interesting and instructive to your young people than those which have preceded them; for now we are entering upon a new era of light when Christianity dispersed the thick darkness of heathenism. The first missionary of the Gospel to Ireland is not known. Many affirm that it was St. Patrick, but he himself speaks of remote districts which he visited, where no Christian missionary had preceded him. In his statement of his successes in Connaught, he observes, 'I went every where to promote your cause, even to remote districts, where no one had ever arrived who could baptize, or ordain clergy, or complete the people.'

A poem is supposed to have been written in 220, by Olioll Olum, king of Munster, which demonstrates the author's acquaintance with, at least, the existence of the Christian religion, for which reason, Mr. O'Reily, the Secretary of the Iberno-Celtic Society, concludes, but somewhat too hastily, in a note to the transactions of that body, that the poem must be of later date.*

By some writers it is alleged that about the year of

* See 'Primitive Christianity,' by Henry J. Monck Mason, LL.D.

our Lord 254, Cormac, King of Ireland, was converted to Christianity several years before his death, being, it is added, 'the third person in Ireland who professed that faith before the coming of St. Patrick.' It has been the opinion of many that the Irish church received monastic rules, and Christianity itself from missionaries taught by St. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, who was himself the pupil of Polycarp of Smyrna, who received them from St. Ignatius, the immediate disciple of St. John.

In the second century, St. Irenæus complains, 'that the Schismatics at Rome had corrupted the sincere law of the church, which led to the greatest impieties. These opinions the Presbyters, who lived before our times, who were also disciples of the apostles, did in nowise deliver. I, who saw and heard the blessed Polycarp, am able to protest, in the presence of God, that if that apostolic Presbyter had heard of these things, he would have stopped his ears, and cried out, according to his custom, "Good God, for what times hast thou reserved me, that I should have suffered such things!"' Euseb. lib. v. c. 20.

That the early Church of Ireland was independent of the See of Rome is founded on those traces of connection, through Greek and Asiatic missionaries, with the East, which, there is no doubt, are to be found in the records and transactions of that period.' The words of Gennadius are as follow:-' Placuit nempe altissimo, ut S. Athanasius, ex Egypto pulsus ab Arianis, vitam monasticam, usque ad id tempus in occidente ignominiosam; Scotis, Attacottis, aliisque barbaris Romanum imperium vastantibus; S. S. Ambrosio et Martino opem ferentibus; propalaret, ann.

circ. 336.' 'Let this passage be translated in what manner it may, it affords us an authority for connecting the Scots or Irish with Christianity, in the year 336.'

The writings of Tertullian prove the introduction of Christianity into Ireland previously to the year 200. In those early times the purest doctrine was inculcated.

‘Gaius or Caius, who died A.D. 296, says, that the righteousness of the saints avails nothing to our pardon or justification.'

Celestius, While yet a youth, before he had adopted the Pelagian doctrines, in the year 369, addressed three letters to his parents in Ireland, in the form of little books, full of such piety as to make them necessary to all who love God,' as said Gennadius.

This took place sixty-two years before the arrival of St. Patrick; which fact proves the art of writing to have been known to the Irish in those early days.

There is a mystery in regard to the death of Cormac. It is said that he was strangled, and buried near the river Boyne, at Ros-na-riogh.

315. Colla-nais reigned king of Ireland, from whom descended the princely family of the Mac-Donaill, Earl of Antrim, who, generation after generation, derive their lineal descent from Heremon, the son of Milesius; not from Breogan, the son of Ith, as has been said.

377. Niall began to reign. He was surnamed ' Of the Nine Hostages,' from his receiving five hostages from the five provinces of Ireland, and four from Scotland and the Isles of Britain. He entered Albain with a strong army, and from thence to Britain,

which he rendered tributary. With a reinforcement of Irish, Picts, and Britains, he crossed the sea to France, and landed in a part of the country then called Armorica. He conquered all before him to the Loire, where, being encamped, he was slain. His army returned with great booty, and brought home his body, which was interred at Connaught.

In his time, Albain was first called Scotia. Buchanan, quoting Orosius, says, 'The inhabitants of Ireland are called Scots from the beginning, as our own annals relate.'

Capgravius, in his history of Columcille, or Columba, says, Ireland was formerly called Scotia, from whence came the generation of the Scots now inhabiting Albain, next to Britain, and this Albain is now called Scotia or Scotland accidentally from Ireland, from whence they are descended.'

'The great O'Niell of the Nine Hostages' left eight sons, to whom he bequeathed, and to their descendants, all his hereditary possessions, which were perpetuated to them. With but one exception, for more than 500 years, the monarchs of Ireland were chosen from the Hy-Niall race. Different territories were assigned respectively to the eight sons-four in Meath and four in Ulster, which in succeeding times formed into great clans, and was the cause of much dissension. They are denominated the North Hy-Niells,

and the South Hy-Niells.

It is said that the army of Niell brought with them out of France 200 prisoners, among whom was St. Patrick, of whose parents we have no certain knowledge. His birth-place, it is believed, was Scotland. Ware and Usher fix the time in the year 373, and the spot, Usher says, was Kil-Patrick, which took its