“Why, Betsey Darcy, that jined our kirk at the late revivals, told us, public, in the meeting house, that the priests in Ireland would not allow any Catholic to read the Bible; and she said that was the first one she ever saw which I handed to her,” said the pious elder.

“Don’t you believe her, elder,” said Murty, “for I saw that same girl handle a true Protestant Bible in Ireland, when she attempted to father her illegitimate child on an honest man, but when she was, instead, convicted of perjury the most gross.  She has had two other fatherless children since she came to ‘free America;’ and now, after having been rejected from the humblest society of Catholics on account of her immoralities, she, of course, takes refuge among the impeccable saints of Presbyterianism, where she ranks high in the scale of sanctity.”

“Sartin,” said the sheriff; “she is a hard one, I do believe.  I saw her drunk at the donation visit of dominie Grinoble, last winter.”

“Yes,” said Murty, “when you get such a convert as this unfortunate reprobate, you boast and write tracts to herald the conquest; but such conversions as those of Spencer, Brownson, Wilberforce, Newman, Lords Camden, or Freeling, are as nothing in your eyes.  You stuff your ears when you hear of them, cautiously keep them out of hearing of your sons and daughters, and these glorious conversions never appear in your shabby, lying newspapers.  I do really pity the blindness of Protestants,” said he, rising and walking out of doors.

Next day after these events, the funeral of uncle Jacob took place, and these ministers, whom, while he lived, he could not endure, and who heartily hated him, came, when he was dead, to offer their services over his remains.  If any thing was required to show the meanness and inconsistency of Protestantism and its teachers in this country, it is the readiness with which they will officiate over the body of a man dead, over whose soul, while living, they could exert not the smallest influence.  We have known several instances where Methodist and Presbyterian hirelings, in consideration of the fee of three or five dollars paid them, preached long sermons, and opened the gates of their Elysium to the souls of men who became converted from the sects to which these hireling parsons belonged.  Nay, in cases where the deceased committed suicide by hanging or poisoning, we heard parsons officiate, and promise the friends, for certain, that the soul of the suicide was in glory, because sometime ago he happened to get religion, or join the Sons of Temperance, or conform to some other requirement of fanaticism.  Thus, in the present case of uncle Jacob, Mr. Barker, the Methodist, and Parson Grinoble, the Presbyterian, and Mr. Gulmore, another style of Presbyterianism, all three vied to see who would be hired to do the last service to him whom, while alive, they all despised.  Mr. Gulmore, however, had the best luck, and accordingly mounted the pulpit to pass sentence