A CHARGE 19) DELIVERED TO THE CLERGY OF THE UNITED DIOCESES OF OSSORY, FERNS, AND LEIGHLIN, AT HIS PRIMARY VISITATION, IN SEPTEMBER 1842. BY JAMES THOMAS O'BRIEN, D.D. BISHOP OF OSSORY, FERNS, & LEIGHLIN. SECOND EDITION. SEELEY, BURNSIDE, AND SEELEY, FLEET STREET, LONDON ; W. CURRY AND CO., AND GRANT AND BOLTON, DUBLIN. TO THE CLERGY OF THE UNITED DIOCESES OF OSSORY, FERNS, AND LEIGHLIN, THIS CHARGE, PRINTED AT THEIR REQUEST, IS INSCRIBED WITH VERY SINCERE RESPECT AND REGARD, BY THEIR FAITHFUL FRIEND AND BROTHER, J. T. OSSORY, FERNS, AND LEIGHLIN. THE following Charge was written entirely for the Clergy to whom it was addressed. And in preparing it for their information, and guidance, and warning in these perilous times, I had no thought of taking any step to make it serve the same office for others. But when they, in each of the dioceses in which it was delivered, united in an earnest request that it should be published, I did not feel that I was at liberty to withhold my consent. I should probably never have made the engagement, if I could have anticipated that I should have been so long in fulfilling it. I can only say now, in excuse for the great and unlooked-for delay which has occurred in the publication, that it has arisen altogether from the pressure of duties, which, whether more important or not, I could not but feel to be very much more urgent. And it is fortunate that those to whom chiefly I have to |