1C.
Having enjoyed peculiar opportunities of observing the commencement and progress of the Reformation begun at Cavan, and now extending to every part of Ireland, it was my intention to have published a brief outline of the principal circumstances of this great moral revolution; of the causes which gave it birth, and the means employed in its advancement. For this purpose, I had collected, by personal observation, and from the reports of ear and eye witnesses, the most authentic information. The speeches, however, delivered at the meeting held in Cavan to promote the progress of the Reformation - and particularly the very able and luminous detail of Lord Farnham, have so completely anticipated the information I had procured, and in a form at once so much more popular and authentic, that I have thought it better to abandon my original design, and content myself with giving to the public the only full and corrected report of the very important proceedings of that day that has issued from the press. The speeches have all been revised with great care. Much, that, from the limits of a newspaper report, was originally ommitted, is here restored. A detail of several most interesting circumstances, which the lateness of the hour to which the meeting was protracted, prevented the seconder of one of the resolutions from delivering in the form of a speech, will be found in a letter addressed to the noble chairman, by his Lordship's domestic chaplain; and I have added an Appendix, containing many valuable documents, which I thought necessary, either to explain some allusions in the speeches, or to rebut some calumnious accusations with which the enemies of this good cause have not failed to manifest its importance, and their uneasy forebodings of the certainty of its final triumph.
To the information contained in the speeches, I have added, in the form of notes, some interesting facts, which tend to show the prevalent feelings of a large body of our Roman Catholic countrymen. They are eager for information - they thirst after scriptural knowledge - and whenever they do attain it, almost invariably perceive the errors of the church; and secretly condemn, though they may not yet have the courage to renounce the fopperies and superstitions into which they were born, and to which they have remained attached, from no conviction of their truth, but through ignorance of a better and surer way of salvation.
In opening the way for the moral regeneration of Ireland, Cavan has taken a distinguished lead. Here first the Reformation dawned in Ireland. Here the Apostolic Bedel laboured to diffuse the knowledge of God's word; and having translated the Gospel into the vernacular language of the country, strewed the seed, which, though tardy in its growth, promises, in the present generation, an abundant harvest. But the spirit of reformation is not confined to Cavan. The list of conversions in various parts of the country (which will be found in the following pages) shows that a similar tendency very generally prevails, and that every county in Ireland has already furnished its first fruits, nearly in proportion as its circumstances were favourable or adverse to the development of religious principles. There were many circumstances, however, in the situation of Cavan, and the relative position of its Protestant and Roman Catholic population, which naturally gave it the advantage at the outset of the work. The numerical preponderance of Romanists does not exceed two and a half to one Protestant; whilst in every other respect - in intelligence, information, wealth and rank, the Protestants enjoy such a superiority as more than counterbalances the defect of numbers. Roman Catholics, therefore, who felt convinced of the errors of their profession, were enabled boldly to profess the truth, because they were certain of protection in life and property; and it is a consideration of no small weight with the convert, as yet librating between the pangs of an awakened conscience, and the dread of persecution, to know that, in the free exercise of his Christian liberty, he will be countenanced by an intelligent and loyal yeomanry, encouraged by the gentry of his neighbourhood; and protected from the rage and violence of the communion he has abandoned, by the power and influence of a nobleman of Lord Farnham's rank and consideration. Circumstances such as these have cheered and comforted the fearful, and determined many a wavering mind; and the security thus afforded has considerably tended to augment the numbers who, at the doubtful twilight of this glorious day, have conformed in Cavan Church. Were circumstances equally favourable elsewhere, there can scarcely be a doubt of results equally important. That Lord Farnham and the members of his family have, in this manner, contributed to the rapid development of the Reformation, wherever their influence extended, is a fact as notorious as the Reformation itself. But to say that they or others have held forth worldly inducements, or
