corn, which was carried by water to Leith, and now of late for two years, is so sterile of corn as they are constrained to forsake it. Some say that, these hard years, the servants were not able to live and subsist under their masters, and therefore, generally leaving them, the masters being not accustomed, nor knowing how to farme, to till, and order their land, the ground hath been untilled; so as that of the Prophet David is made good in this their punishment : a fruitful land makes He barren, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein;" for it is observed of these, that they were a most unthankful people: one of them I met withal and discoursed with at large, who could give] no good reason, but pretended the landlords increasing their rents but their swarming in Ireland is so much taken notice of and disliked, as that the Deputy hath sent out a warrant to stay the landing of any of these Scotch that came without a certificate. Three score of them were numbered returning towards the place whence they came, as they passed this town. Some of them complain of hard years (the better to colour and justify this their departure) but do withal acknowledge that corn is as cheap with them as in this town; but in the distraction and different relation of themselves, there may be observed much matter of admiration; and, doubtless, digitus Dei is to be discerned in it.

Hence we came to Aire, which is eight miles upon the sea coast, a most dainty pleasant way as I have ridden, wherein you leave the sea on your right hand. Coming late to Aire, we lodged in one Patrick Mackellen's house, where is a cleanly neat hostess, victuals handsomely cooked, and good lodging, eight ordinary, good entertainment. No stable lodging to this inn; we were constrained to seek for a stable in the town, where we paid 8d. a night for hay and grass for an horse, and is. a peck for base oats. This also is a dainty, pleasant-seated town; much plain river corn land about it; and better haven, there being a river, whereon it is placed, which flows much higher than the bridge, which is a great and fair neat bridge, yet nevertheless it is but a bare naked haven, no pier, no defense against the storms and weather. Better store of shipping than at Erwin. Most inhabiting in the town are merchants trading unto and bred in France. [Flemings.]

Enquiring of my hostess touching the minister of the town, she complained much against him, because he doth so violently press the ceremonies, especially she instanced in kneeling at the communion; whereupon, upon Easter day last, so soon as he went to the communion-table, the people all left the church and departed, and not one of them stayed, only the pastor alone.

July 6.-At Belfast my Lord Chichester hath another dainty stately house (which is indeed the glory and beauty of that town also), where he is most resident, and is now building an outer brick wall before his gates. This not so large and vast as the other, but more convenient and commodious, the very end of the Loch toucheth upon his garden and backside; here also are dainty orchards, gardens, and walks planted. Near hereunto, Mr. Arthur Hill (son and heir to Sir Moyses Hill) hath a brave plantation, which he holds by lease, which still is for thirty years to come; the land is my Lord Chichester's, and the lease was made for sixty years to Sir Moyses Hill by the old Lord Chichester. This plantation is said doth yield him a £1000 per annum. Many Lankashire and Cheshire men are here planted; with some of them I conversed. They sit upon a rack rent, and pay 5s. or 6s. an acre for good ploughing land, which now is clothed with excellent good corn. From Bellfast to Linsley Garven is about seven mile, and is a paradise in comparison of any part of Scotland. Linsley Garven is well

seated, but neither the town nor country thereabouts well planted, being almost all woods, and moorish until you come to Drom-moare. This town belongs to my Lord Conoway, who hath there a good, handsome house, but far short of both my Lord Chichester's houses, hereabouts; my Lord Conoway is now endeavouring a plantation, though the lands hereabouts be the poorest and barrenest I have yet seen, yet may it be made good land with labour and charge.

From Linsley Garven to Drom-more is about seven mile. Herein we lodged at Mr. Haven's house, which is directly opposite to the Bishop of Drom-more his house, which is a little timber house of no great state nor receipt.

In this diocese, as Mr. Leigh, his chaplain reported, this is the worst part of the kingdom, and the poorest land and ground, yet the best church livings, because there are no impropriations.

July 7. We left Drome-more and went to the Newrie, which is sixteen miles. This is a most difficult way for a stranger to find out. Herein we wandered, and being lost, fell amongst the Irish towns. The Irish houses are the poorest cabins I have seen, erected in the middle of the fields and grounds, which they farm and rent. This is a wild country, not inhabited, planted, nor enclosed, yet it would be good corn if it were husbanded.

NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXVI

'This account is also confirmed by Blair, who says: Although amongst those whom Divine Providence did send to Ireland, there were several persons eminent for birth, education and parts; yet the most part were such as either poverty, scandalous lives, or, at the best, adventurous seeking of better accommodation had forced thither, so that the security and thriving of religion was little seen to by those adventurers, and the preachers were generally of the same complexion with the people."

THE

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHURCH RULE IN IRELAND AND ITS RESULTS

HE founders of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland were ministers who had taken refuge in Ulster, driven from Scotland and England by King James's persecutions of the Presbyterians and Puritans. The southwest of Scotland, from which the Ulster settlers largely came, was during this whole period intensely Presbyterian. It was the district from which came a large part of the army and leaders who first confronted the tyrannical Charles. In the succeeding generation, it furnished the "Westlan Whigs," who fought at Bothwell Bridge; and it also produced the martyrs whose graves are still visited at Wigtown, and in the quiet upland kirkyards of ✔ Galloway and the "clachan" of Dalry.

Although more than three-fourths of the seventeenth-century settlers in Ulster were Presbyterians, an effort was soon made to include them in the Episcopal Establishment. In the early part of his reign, the "British Solomon" had expressed a great love for the Church in which he had been educated. How James belied these youthful protestations has already been told in the account of his treatment of the Scottish Church. After he had succeeded Elizabeth, in 1603, as ruler of England, he became as much a persecutor of the Puritans in the South as he had been of the Presbyterians in the North. Those who suffered from these oppressions, both pastors and people, accordingly began to look elsewhere for a place of refuge. The Presbyterians of the South emigrated in large numbers to Holland and to America. Those of the North went principally to Ireland, although the laws there against nonconformity were annoying, and the local authorities in some places inclined to press them. The Corporation of Belfast had arranged a scale of fines for parties above the age of thirteen who might absent themselves from public worship, as by law established, on Sundays or on holy days. The amount for a householder was five shillings; for a married woman, two and sixpence; for a servant, one shilling, and for a child, tenpence. In these penalties, however, the Irish Episcopal Church was more moderate than the Puritans of Massachusetts. Indeed, the Irish Church in many of its principles was so similar to that of Scotland, that many Scottish Presbyterians who left their country rather than submit to Episcopacy, did not hesitate to unite themselves with the more evangelical Episcopal Church in Ireland.'

Of the Presbyterian ministers in the Irish Established Church, the most celebrated was Robert Blair, "a man of majestic appearance, deep piety, great learning, and persuasive eloquence." He resigned his position as professor in Glasgow University rather than submit to the prelatic form of

despotism which James was forcing on the Scottish Church. Invited by Sir James Hamilton, lately created Lord Claneboy, Blair proceeded to Bangor in 1623, and was ordained one of his Lordship's vicars.

At that time, many of the rectors in the Episcopal Church were laymen. One of these was Lord Claneboy, who was rector of a number of parishes. Being a Presbyterian himself, he made Presbyterians his vicars. To them he gave one-third of the Church revenues of the parishes in which they officiated. This secured to each of them about twenty pounds per annum, which, it is probable, was supplemented by a few pounds yearly from the people. Blair was ordained in the Presbyterian form, Bishop Echlin consenting to officiate as a presbyter. In 1626 Josias Welsh, son of John Welsh, of Ayr, and grandson of John Knox, likewise resigned his professorship at Glasgow, and settled at Templepatrick in Antrim, being ordained by his kinsman Knox, who had succeeded Montgomery as bishop of Raphoe. In 1630 he was followed by John Livingston, minister at Torpichen, who had been "silenced" in 1627 by Archbishop Spottiswoode. Like Blair, he was ordained by a bishop (Knox) who became a "presbyter" for the time being.

King James had died in 1625, and was succeeded by his son Charles, a monarch as faithless, tyrannical, and selfish as his father, but one of a less cowardly spirit. It has been said that while the arrogant assumptions of James excited the rage of his subjects, his cowardice caused their contempt. Conditions in Great Britain at the end of James's reign were in a state where it was necessary that they should become worse before they could become better. Charles lost no time in making them worse. James's doctrine of the divine right of kings to do wrong was carried by Charles to its logical conclusion. In the Established Church of England he found a willing supporter of his pretensions, and used it to carry out his designs.

In 1633 William Laud was made archbishop of Canterbury, and persecution was carried on with renewed vigor. Under his leadership, a new party rapidly acquired power in the Church of England. Like the English Ritualists of the present day, they imagined a nation might as well be without a church as a church without Apostolic orders, and that Roman Catholics who preserved these orders were nearer the truth than Presbyterians who rejected them. In religion, they fought the doctrines of Calvinism, regarding the Presbyterian as a stubborn schismatic, whose theology was dangerous to the Church, and whose politics were dangerous to the state. Their enmity towards the Puritans within their own Church was greater than their enmity to the Roman Catholics without it. In politics, they firmly believed in the divine right of the king to do as he pleased.

The rulers of the Irish Church now adopted the policy of their brethren in England. Echlin, bishop of Down, was the first who exhibited a disposition to compel his clergy to conform to the ceremonies as well as to subscribe to the Articles of the Episcopal Church. Moved by the prevailing

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party in Ireland, he suspended from the ministry, in September, 1631, Messrs. Blair, Welsh, Dunbar, and Livingston. Archbishop Usher, on being informed of the matter by Blair, wrote Echlin to relax his erroneous censure. This order was obeyed, and the ministers returned to their work. But Echlin's agent hurried to London and, through Laud, persuaded the king to order the Lords Justices to direct Echlin to have these Presbyterian ministers tried as fanatical disturbers of the peace. After another effort on the part of the bishop who tried to induce the ministers to conform, Messrs. Blair, Welsh, Dunbar, and Livingston were, in May, 1632, again suspended. Usher expressed his sorrow at being unable to interfere, as the order for trial had come from the king. Blair appealed to the king, who referred him to Thomas Wentworth, then lord deputy of Ireland. Blair proceeded to Dublin and presented the king's letter; but Wentworth, refusing to remove the sentence, began to upbraid the petitioner, and to revile the Church of Scotland.

At this period, high rents in Scotland were driving the people to Ulster at the rate of four thousand a year, just as the same cause, a century later, drove them from Ulster to America. The wave of colonization moved westwards from Antrim and Down, and southwards from Derry. Had this movement continued, the loyal population would soon have been so numerous as to fear no rebellion of the natives. But Presbyterians, being then firmly attached to their faith, were not inclined to settle in a country where they would be deprived of Gospel ordinances. The persecution in Ireland soon checked immigration from Scotland, and prevented the growth of that part of the Irish population which was joined to Britain by the ties of race and religion.

The lord deputy, Wentworth, had become very unpopular with the Ulster landlords, on account of looking sharply into the way in which they had fulfilled the contracts of plantation, by which they held their estates. He now thought it better to allay their fears for a time until he should obtain from Parliament some necessary supplies. This opportunity was turned to the best account in favor of the suspended ministers by Lord CastleStewart, who was himself a Presbyterian. He represented to the lord deputy that it would be expedient to restore the deposed ministers, in order to soothe the feelings of the Northern Scots. Wentworth fell in with the suggestion, and, by his orders, Echlin, in May, 1634, withdrew for six months his sentence of suspension on the four clergymen.

So soon as the six months were expired, Wentworth, at the request of Bishop Bramhall, caused Echlin to renew his suspension of Blair and Dunbar. When the bishop was about to pronounce sentence, Blair summoned him to appear before the tribunal of Christ to answer for his evil deeds. This is said to have produced such an effect on the prelate that he died in great distress of mind soon after.

Wentworth now effected such changes in the constitution of Trinity