3d. Our people are not generally great readers of the trashy newspapers of the day; and in this respect they show their good sense, or at least have happened on good luck: it is therefore our duty to supply them with cheap and amusing literature, to entertain them during the few hours they are disengaged from work. And what reading can afford the Irish Catholic greater pleasure than any work, however imperfect, having for its end the exaltation and defence of his glorious old faith, and the vindication of his native land--his beloved "Erin-go-bragh"? Impress on his susceptible mind the honor and advantage of defence and fidelity to the CROSS and the SHAMROCK, and you give him two ideas that will come to his aid in most of his actions through life. We are ashamed here of the cross of Christ, when we see it continually dishonored and trampled on by heretics and modern pagans, in their scramble for money and pleasures. On the other hand, the poverty, humiliation, and rags of old Erin, of the kings, saints, and martyrs, scandalize us; and from these two false notions the degradation and apostasy of many Irishmen commence. Hence they no sooner land on the shores of America than they endeavor to clip the musical and rich brogue of fatherland, to make room for the bastard barbarisms and vulgar slang of Yankeedom. The remainder of the course of the apostate is easily traced, till, ashamed of creed and country, he ends by being ashamed of his Creator and Redeemer, and barters the inheritance of heaven for the miserable and short enjoyments of this earth. A _fourth_, and a leading motive in the publication of this work, is to record the manly defences which the people among whom the author lives have made of the creed of their fathers, and to enable them to refute, in a simple, practical manner, for the edification of their opponents, the many objections proposed to them about the faith. By placing a copy of this work in the hands of every head of a family in the congregation in which he presides, the author thinks he will have done something towards the salvation of that parent and his house, by showing him how he may educate his children, and save them from those subtle snares laid to rob them and him of happiness here and hereafter; for, without true religion and virtue, there is neither enjoyment nor happiness even in this world. But are the principles sound, and the estimate he has formed of American character and the conduct and motives of the sectarian parsons correct? There may be, and undoubtedly there is, great variety in American character; and, so far, what may be true of the people of one state or county, may not at all be applicable to those of the rest; but as far as regards sectarianism and its slanders of the church, and the low character, intellectually and morally, of the parsons, ministers, dominies, and preachers, with few honorable exceptions, it may be said, in the words of the poet,-- "Ex uno disce omnes."