Your kind, earnest, unabated and effectual patronage of the widow and children of the Dean, from the moment of his death, would give you an original title to have these Sermons dedicated to you.

To you, therefore, with love, reverence, and gratitude, these Sermons are dedicated, by,

Madam,

Your affectionate,

Obedient and faithful Friend,

WILHELMINA KIRWAN.

MOUNT-PLEASANT,

Jan, 1813...

A SKETCH

OF THE

LIFE AND CHARACTER

OF

THE REV. DEAN KIRWAN.

THIS celebrated preacher was descended from an ancient and respectable Roman Catholic family, and born in Galway about the year 1754.

He was sent in early youth to the college of English Jesuits at St. Omers, in whose classic shades, as he often declared, he imbibed the noble ambition of benefiting mankind.

At the age of seventeen he embarked for the Danish island of St. Croix, in the West Indies, under the protection of his father's cousin-german, who had large possessions there; but after enduring for six years a climate pernicious to his delicate constitution, and spectacles of oppression and cruelty shocking to his feelings, he returned to Europe in disgust.

By the advice of his maternal uncle, then titular primate of Ireland, he repaired to the University of Louvain, where he received priest's orders, and was soon after honoured with the chair of natural and moral philosophy: but in 1778 he was called from the sequestered pursuits of science to the cure of souls, as chaplain to the Neapolitan ambassador at the British court.

Before a small but respectable congregation he soon attained celebrity; and some of the discourses which he pronounced in His Excellency's chapel were printed, and should have formed part of this collection, if any copies of them could have been recovered. But he was then only qualifying himself for greater exertions, and with that view assiduously attended those splendid exhibitions of public speaking which were at that time displayed in the senate and at the bar, where the conspicuous merit of his countrymen could not fail to inflame his ardent temper with enthusiastic emulation.

Amidst this meridian blaze of eloquence, the church alone continued cold, and, (however enlightened by an improved philosophy) had seldom been warmed but by the fiery breath of polemical divinity.

To rouse devotion from this profound lethargy, was a daring novelty which demanded the powers of a Kirwan. Fortunately for the interests of humanity, he felt his force, and seized the glorious opportunity. After two years retirement in the bosom of his family,

probably absorbed in the consideration of this important step, he at length, in the year 1787, resolved to conform to the established religion; a determination which was greatly promoted by the conviction (as he himself declared,) that he should thus obtain more extensive opportunities of doing good. He was, in consequence, introduced by the Rev. Dr. Hastings, Archdeacon of Dublin, to his first Protestant congregation in St. Peter's church, where he preached on the 24th of June in that year.

The first sermon of so distinguished a convert naturally attracted an overflowing congregation, who expected, that, according to immemorial usage, he would reprobate the doctrine and practices of the church from which he had withdrawn; but, instead of "pulling down the altar at which he had sacrificed," he exhibited an example of Christian meek. ness, liberality, and conciliation, in the choice of a subject utterly unconnected with controversy. Nor did he, upon any subsequent occasion, profane the pulpit by religious or political intolerance, or even, in his most confidential communications, breathe a syllable of contempt, or reproach against any religious persuasion whatever.

They, who are conscious of interested infirmity, naturally suspect the motives of a line of conduct apparently calculated to invite promotion: but his unblemished and amiable life, fervently devoted to the public good, may vindicate his preference of a sphere in which he could pursue that great object

with the best effect: and if he sometimes adverted to political events, it was not surprising that a zealous divine should be shocked at the sudden crush of all religious establishments in France, of which (during the captivity of the ill-fated Louis) he was partly an eye-witness. As the habitual advocate of humanity, he felt peculiar horror at the atrocities of an ungovernable multitude; but they who were most gratified by his vehement invectives against such outrages, were often no less surprised and humiliated by the manly boldness with which he intermingled severe, though general, reprehension of their own vices.

For some time after his conformity, he preached every Sunday in St. Peter's church, and the collections for the poor, on every occasion, rose four or five-fold above their usual amount. Before the ex-. piration of his first year, he was wholly reserved for the distinguished and difficult task of preaching charity sermons; and on the 5th of November. 1788, the governors of the general daily schools of several parishes entered into a resolution," That from the "effects which the discourses of the Rev. Walter "Blake Kirwan, from the pulpit, have had, his "officiating in the metropolis was considered a "peculiar national advantage, and that vestries "should be called to consider the most effectual "method to secure to the city an instrument, under "Providence, of so much public benefit."