in his zeal for proselytism, attributed by his lordship to Dr. O’Clery’s zeal and learning.  For, whenever or wherever he went among the peasantry to preach to them in their own sweet and loved dialect, the “jumpers, the new lights, and the soupers” disappeared like the locusts from Egypt when exorcised by the magic rod of Moses.  Hence the hatred with which the O’Clerys were persecuted.  Hence, also, the oath of Lord Mandemon, that he would never return to his home in England till every Papist on his estates was rooted out.  This oath was kept by his lordship, probably the only true one he ever swore; for in less than a fortnight he fell a victim to the cholera, and expired on board the Princess Royal steamboat on her return to Liverpool.

Arthur O’Clery, father to the subject of our tale, sold out a second farm he held near Limerick, turned all his effects into money, bade adieu to his beloved brother, Dr. O’Clery, who was averse to his emigration, and, in the autumn, set sail from Liverpool for New York, in the ship Hottinguer.  He had all his family with him:  they were comfortably provided with all necessaries, and, besides, had one thousand pounds, in hard cash, to start with in the new world.  They were not long out at sea, when, owing to the crowd on board, the lack of proper arrangements, and room, or ventillation, as well as on account of the cruelly of the inhuman captain, ship fever and cholera broke out on board.

The number of bodies consigned to the ocean from that unlucky vessel was from five to ten daily, and among the victims of the plague was Arthur O’Clery.  He was the only one of the cabin passengers who was attacked by the epidemic, which, in the ardor of his charity, he contracted while attending on, and ministering to, the wants of the poor steerage passengers.

Sad and impressive was the scene when the Rev. H. O’Q——­, a young Irish priest on board, in the middle hold of the ship, where O’Clery had been removed by order of the captain, called on the six hundred surviving passengers to kneel while he was administering the rites of the church to the benefactor of them all.  Never was a call on the piety and faith of any number of men more cheerfully obeyed.  Instantaneously that mixed, nondescript crowd—­Irish, English, Scotch, Welsh, Dutch—­Catholic, Protestant, infidel—­fell on their knees, and, if they did not pray, they paid that outward homage to Religion which sometimes the most indifferent and irreligious cannot resist paying her.  Infidelity is a great coward, as well as a false guide.  In her hour of ease and satiety, she pretends to scorn the threats and judgments of the Most High, and, like Satan in his pandemonium, to make war on Heaven; but no sooner does the roaring of the thunderbolt shake the earth, or the vast abyss open its devouring throat to swallow her unhappy victims, than she hides her head in the caves of the earth, or, flying to some secure place, abandons her votaries to the forlorn