my progress, the venerable ecclesiastic called my parents aside, and addressed them as follows.

'Your son, it were unjust to him and to you to delay the confession, is now fully competent to commence the more arduous studies of his devout calling. You have already signified your preference for the college of Salamanca on the score of his brother's residence in Spain. It is well. To that illustrious seminary let him at once repair. Thoroughly imbued with sacred lore, and well prepared for his holy office, he will there I doubt not, be duly provided and cared for.'

"Here the good priest was visibly affected. He was averse to part with so promising a pupil; but God's will, he said, should be done. He lies buried in the chancel of a ruined abbey: I have since visited the spot. The base of the tottering wall is washed by the ever-surging sea; and the sighing winds which he loved so well

to hear, sing fitting requiem round his

grave.

"Bitter were the tears which my parents shed ere my departure. The day before, my father led me to the summit of a riven tower that surmounted our time-worn residence.

'Son,' he exclaimed, 'far as the eye can reach, the land on every side, once belonged to the sept O'Power. Now,' said he, while his once sonorous voice sunk into the feeble wail of helpless age, hardly enough remains, for our meagre sustenance. Son, if it be in thee, retrieve the broken fortunes of our line. This was the charge to all my children as they severally departed, never to return; and now I pass it to thee, my youngest and my last.'

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Having thus said, he handed me a small bag of gold sufficient to defray my expenses, scantily gleaned by curtailing our humble outlay. Father Constantine furnished me with letters to the heads of colleges and others, in the Spanish

town to which I was about to proceed; and moreover a declaration of my lineage, acquirements, and destination. Loaded with the blessings of all, I took shipping in a small sailing vessel that left a neighbouring town, for Cadiz. The lamentations of my sorrowing relatives still smite my heart. Their long-cherished visions were never realized; but they are gone to a land where the heads of their stricken race have met them on the strand, and where faithful kerns perchance, renew their fealty once more!

"After a due interval, I reached my destination, and lost no time in leaving the vessel and setting out on my journey. It was however, necessary to ascertain my brother's actual address, a matter of no great difficulty, since Don José Power as he was termed, enjoyed a situation of trust in the Spanish service. I proceeded therefore, through Seville, Cordova, and Toledo to Madrid, where I found him residing in a spacious suite of apartments in the principal street of the city.

He was surprised to see me, but embraced me with great cordiality inquiring into my views and intentions in coming to Spain. Occasionally, we received intelligence as to his whereabouts, but he had heard very infrequently from home, and was almost in the dark as regarded our precise position and prospects. Nothing therefore, could surpass his astonishment when he understood that it was my intention to enter the church.

'The church,' he responded-are there not enough in the church already? Monks, friars, priests of every order and denomination, swarm throughout this country, and in fact, constitute a large proportion of the inhabitants. They have nothing to do, and they do nothing, except chaunt the endlessly-recurring formularies of their lazy ritual, or perhaps beg. In our native land, our clergy are few and oppressed, they are however virtuous and laborious; here on the contrary, every tenth man is a priest or fills

some ecclesiastical office. No, the plagues of Pharaoh were a trifle compared with the sacerdotal swarms that haunt the Spanish provinces ; and who, while they neither follow nor are fitted for any productive pursuit, prove an incredible tax on the labour of others.'

"I was mortified-I was shocked. I had heard the most flourishing accounts of the prosperity of the Catholic church in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and elsewhere, but was utterly unaware of the abuses which had crept into it. I was indeed, astounded at the multitudes of bareheaded, shaven monks who abounded in every thoroughfare, and who continually importuned for alms. I had not been led to expect this at home, any more than the profanation of bones and other remains of the dead, endowed with reputed miraculous efficacy, and hung up in every church. I was amazed at the strict observance of outward religious rites, and the habitual violation of almost every real religious