We so beg, thinking that God's anger is hot also against us.

But, lo! the famine passes by, and a land that had been brought to the dust by man's folly is once more prosperous and happy.
If this was ever so in the world's history, it was so in Ireland at the time of which I am speaking.

The country, especially in the south and west, had been brought to a terrible pass;--not as so many said and do say, by the idolatry of popery, or by the sedition of demagogues, or even mainly by the idleness of the people.

The idolatry of popery, to my way of thinking, is bad; though not so bad in Ireland as in most other Papist countries that I have visited.
Sedition also is bad; but in Ireland, in late years, it has not been deep-seated--as may have been noted at Ballingarry and other places, where endeavour was made to bring sedition to its proof.

And as for the idleness of Ireland's people, I am inclined to think they will work under the same compulsion and same persuasion which produce work in other countries.
The fault had been the lowness of education and consequent want of principle among the middle classes; and this fault had been found as strongly marked among the Protestants as it had been among the Roman Catholics.