There was, still, a third class--which consisted of a set of thorough Irish wags, who looked upon the whole thing as an excellent joke--and who, while they had not a rag to their backs, nor a morsel for their mouths, enjoyed the whole ceremony of reading their recantation, renouncing Popery, and all that, as a capital spree while it lasted, and a thing that ought by all means to be encouraged, until better times came.
In vain, therefore, did Father M'Cabe denounce and prophesy--in vain did he launch all the dogmas of the church--in vain did he warn, lecture, and threaten--Darby's private hint had gone abroad precisely a day or two before their encounter, and the consequence was what might be expected.

Darby, in fact, overreached him, a circumstance of which, at the period of their meeting, he was ignorant; but he had just learned how "the word," as it was called, had spread, in so extraordinary a manner, maugre all his opposition a short time before they met; and our readers need not feel surprised at the tone and temper with which, after having heard such intelligence, he addressed Darby, nor at the treatment which that worthy personage received at his hands.

Had he known that it was Darby's "word" which in point of fact had occasioned "the spread" we speak of, he would have made that worthy missionary exhibit a much greater degree of alacrity than he did.
Before Darby arrives at Mr.Lucre's, however, we must take the liberty of anticipating him a little, in order to be present at a conversation which occurred on this very subject between the worthy Rector and the Rev.Mr.Clement, his curate.

Mr.Clement, like the pious and excellent Father Roche, was one of those clergymen who feel that these unbecoming and useless exhibitions, called religious discussions, instead of promoting a liberal or enlarged view of religion, are only calculated to envenom the feelings, to extinguish charity, and to contract the heart.

Nay, more, there never was a discussion, they said--and we join them--since the days of Ussher and the Jesuit, that did not terminate in a tumult of angry and unchristian recrimination, in which all the common courtesies of life, not to mention the professed duties of Christian men, were trampled on, and violated without scruple.