CHAPTER XI.

Ar the beginning of the foregoing chapter it was stated that two circumstances were of essential importance to the progress of the work, and that they might properly be related at the point of the story at which we have arrived. The opening of the experimental Mission in the West was one of these, and has been laid before the reader in that chapter. The other was the culminating point of all the preparatory efforts in the West, in engaging the interest and influence of the Bishop of Tuam in the work. It would be impossible to convey a correct idea of the working of Providence in bringing about this important event, without going back to a much earlier period, the story of which may be said to develop more strikingly the designs and minute operations of Providence, than any other portion of the history.

I have shown in the beginning, how God began afar off, in the year 1840, an early preparation for carrying out his purposes, by moving the most unlikely instrument that men could have chosen for work among the Irish. For a long time I thought that this was the first of the hairs that was numbered for such a use, but I afterwards found that it was but part of the divine plan which He had begun to set in motion years before. He opened the spring of a rivulet of prayer in the same mountains which He designed for the first fields of the work, and it flowed on and on until its effect was to be found in calling forth the unsuitable instrumentality five hundred miles off.

There is a neat little town in Connemara called Clifden. It was built early in the present century by John D'Arcy, Esq., the representative of an ancient and honourable family, and the possessor of large tracts of land in those lovely mountains. For the pleasure and benefit of the sea, he was accustomed to leave his house at the eastern part of the county; and at last he built a large house which he called Clifden Castle, and then the town, to which he invited tradespeople and artisans. In the course of twenty years, a

population of 1200 inhabited this settlement, which thus centralized the scattered population of nearly 50,000 souls spread over the district from the Killeries on the North to the Bay of Galway on the South.

Mr. D'Arcy had a large family. His eldest son Hyacinth received his early education at the excellent institution of Vanheigel, in Dublin; thence he went to Trinity College. After two years at college, the affliction of a painful disease of the knee-joint made his removal necessary. After trials of various places and remedies, Mr. H. D'Arcy suffered so much from almost every motion on land, that he lived mainly on a little yacht, with which he delighted to thread the mazes of the many inlets of the sea which indent that coast, and gave it the name of Connemara, or the Bays of the Sea.

It was in the relief from pain, and enjoyment of the sea, which thus filled up his time, that light began dimly to dawn on his mind. It was a long dawning before the Sun of righteousness broke through the early clouds and shone in brightness on his soul. Gradually the truth grew upon him; but in the year 1827 he was so far advanced in Christian decision that he then made an entry in his

diary that he devoted himself unreservedly to God. By a happy coincidence his second brother James, and a sister, were led very much in the same way to the same point. The rector of the parish was the Rev. A. Thomas, the same person who, in so persevering a manner, induced me to go to Ireland, as described in the second chapter. He was a sincere Christian, and what he preached was the truth of the gospel, so that amongst the small congregation of Protestants in Clifden the D'Arcys were nourished with the bread of life.

Archbishop Trench (the last Protestant Archbishop of Tuam) had given permission to Mr. Thomas to undertake the management of the Irish branch of the Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, and a very respectable man, the Rev. Mark Antony Foster, who knew the truth, took his place as his curate for the service of the Protestants of Clifden, with whom matters went on very quietly, except that Mr. D'Arcy was not a little disturbed at the growing religious tendencies of his sons. The Archbishop, considering the immense extent of the great union of Ballinakill, associated another curate with Mr. Foster in this great charge, and generously paid himself the

stipends of both. The Rev. Brabazon Ellis, this co-curate, lived principally at Roundstone. He was a man of a lively and earnest spirit, who could not rest satisfied in the darkness around him, and began to make an aggressive movement upon Romanism. Hyacinth and James D'Arcy heartily joined in the movement; Mr. Foster quietly consented; and Colonel Thompson, who was the possessor of an estate at Salruck, some eighteen miles beyond Clifden, added his name, and these formed a Committee for the purpose of gathering the means for establishing a settlement at Salruck, with the direct object of the conversion of the Romanists.

The first step taken by this Committee was to issue an appeal for funds in the form of a placard. The nature of this appeal will be sufficiently gathered from the striking words with which it was headed:-"Forty thousand souls lying in darkness and the shadow of death!" The effect produced by the circulation of this paper will be readily conceived. It manifested an abundance of zeal, which, however, needed the painful training of experience. While the excitement was great it was accompanied by the concurrence of some friends who were able to give assistance.