danger and difficulty for the gratification of his desires. Dr. Smiles gives a bookful of examples of persons who proved their character in the persistency with which they surmounted difficulties in the pursuit of success in life. Nano Nagle and Catherine Macauley showed themselves women of character in establishing and spreading the communities they founded, in spite of the opposition of persons and other difficulties of the times. Sister Bernard has proved herself to be a woman of character in thinking out and executing her plans for the great industrial work she has done at Foxford.

The purpose towards which one directs his activity, or the principle for the sake of which one suffers, colours the nature of the character that is formed or revealed, although the character itself is proved by the persistency with which one pursues a purpose or suffers for a cause. Hence a man of character is one whose individuality comes out, shows, and asserts itself in doing difficult deeds or in bearing great trials.

And even when we say that a person is " a character" who has little will of his own and is easily moved by others, we place his individuality in relief inasmuch as we suggest that he is a person of peculiarities. There is, therefore, a good and a bad character, just as there is a merit for good and a merit for evil. The martyrs showed their character in seeking heaven, the miser shows his character in keeping money, the man of industry shows his character in making it. Again, of those who show character in pursuing purposes which are good in themselves and in their sphere, the Saints and Martyrs showed character in striving through difficulties and in facing death for a reward in the life to come. The immediate object of the industrial spirit is a reward in this life. It is the distinction which St. Paul drew between the corruptible and the incorruptible crown. Amongst the strongest characters of any age have been

those whom the Catholic Church calls Saints; such as St. Paul, St. Agnes, St. Gregory VII., St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa. St. Francis de Sales was a man of uncompromising character in spite of his singular meekness, or rather because of it. In other walks of life, Columbus, Fernando Cortez, Napoleon, Clive, were variously men of character; and so on to Barney Barnato or Whitaker Wright.

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Sir Horace Plunkett links character with the industrial spirit, but in that he is plainly wrong. identify with one thing a quality which many things have in common is a pitfall into which hobby-jockies invariably and unthinkingly tumble. Sir Horace is possessed of the industrial spirit, and he easily takes for granted that there is no such thing as character unless that which spends itself in industry. On the other hand, a Quietist who seeks rest for his soul, a Mahatma awaiting the Nirvana, the modern Christian scientist, or others cast in a like mould would call themselves men of character. But a philosopher would open his eyes and look without prejudice before and around him over the whole field of human activity where every human energy is exercised and every human activity is pursued. As a Catholic I must look at life in that way, and if I narrow my reason exclusively within a spiritual sphere, in so far do I turn off at a tangent from the Catholic ideal. The spirit of Catholicism is opposed both to the spirit of industrialism and to the spirit of esoteric Buddhism. Industrialism and experimentalism are like a magpie's nest; everything on which their votaries can lay their minds or hands goes into it. Those who are led on by that spirit want to gather into their own narrow corner of interest every human activity, as if men were made to live either in a laboratory or in a factory, or at least should have their highest interest there. Those who are possessed by the industrial spirit, and those who call themselves "men

of science are ever boasting of their breadth of view, whilst they are amongst the most narrow-minded of mankind. The consumptive talks of health, because he has it not, and the men of fallen fortune talk of wealth, for they feel the need of make-believe. So with many who affect enlightenment beyond their kind. They are the magpies and the bullies of the day; but a bully is soon beaten, and his rule is never long; and once he is beaten he soon shows himself for what he is. The naturalistic economist or the man of science" is satisfied to think of men as only evolved animals-will quickly concede everyone to be an ass except himself-provided he reigns as silver-king, or as philosopher among the apes.

Character shows itself in every phase of human activity, exerting its divergent energies in every direction, heavenly or earthly, good or evil. According to Catholic philosophy man has his supernatural and his natural purpose in life; each must be kept in view; and each human activity, spiritual, moral, and material, must have its proper place, working into one another in the machinery of human life.

But, let us examine the relation of Irish Catholics to character in the sense in which Sir Horace uses it.

The first condition that is necessary for the exertion of human activity is liberty. I refer to character as it manifests itself in activity, and which is impossible without liberty; but I do not forget that the strongest character might be proved in the sacrifice of liberty for principle, and in such case slavery would be the result and the proof of character. I have already recalled the sacrifices made by our forefathers under the Penal Laws in proof of their character; because only a strong character could suffer so much for a principle. Many of the Young Irelanders and Fenians were men of strong character. Had they turned the ability and constancy which they showed in furthering those move

ments towards making their way in the world some of them would unquestionably have achieved remarkable success; and they proved themselves men of strong character as much, and even more, in prison than when they were free and were forming plans for the realization of their hopes. Many of them, after they were set at liberty, became men of distinction in civil and commercial life. It will be said that it is a pity they had not always used their ability and constancy for some more useful purpose. That is not the question. I prescind altogether from the merits of their cause or the wisdom of their conduct. I want to show that they were men of character. If anyone should think that their objects were evil, or useless, or foolish, let him not conclude that therefore they were not men of character, but that their character exerted itself in evil, useless, or foolish ways. That would be the only consequence; for character is specified by the purpose which it pursues or by the principle which it tries to maintain. Hence a character might be good or bad, profitable or useless; but it is character all the same. I have insisted on this so much, because economists seem to think that character should necessarily turn to industrial pursuits, that it exclusively or chiefly belongs to economic life, that it is essentially meant to act rather than to suffer.

I find another instance of the strength of character of Irish Catholics in the action of the 40s. freeholders who voted against the Beresfords in Waterford in 1825, and against the dominant class in Clare in 1828. It was a great sacrifice made for a great principle at a great crisis. It meant eviction and loss of suffrage for them, but they had counted the cost. It will be said that they were not free to vote otherwise than they did at those elections. But, I ask, how so? Because, it will be said, they were forced by O'Connell and by the priests to do as they did. Very well,

then.

It used not to be so. Their votes used to be determined by those who had got the franchise for them, not to make them freemen, but to make them more useful slaves. The franchise was extended to the 40s. freeholders with the Relief Bill of 1793, not for the sake of those freeholders themselves or the Catholics in general, but in order to strengthen the voting power of the other side, since it was taken as a matter of course that their votes as well as their lands

were the property of the landlords. They used to be driven to the polling places at election times, and kept together, as cattle are kept in pens beside a goods-train at the railway station of a market town. They used to be driven by the landlords. When they voted on the popular side it was said by those whom they had dared to defy that they were driven by O'Connell and the priests. Now, supposing this to be true, the question remains, what is that determining power which made them change their driver? Plainly it was principle, the instinct of civil right, which had been dragged along by the despotism of those who had it in chains, but which at a crisis rose up in the might of desperation, and, casting away its shackles, beat the Beresfords in Waterford and irreparably smashed the power of oppression in Clare. They suffered sorely for their courage; but they have the honour of having been the first to lay the axe to the root of the upas-tree, and of giving the Catholics of Ireland a foretaste of the potential energy that lay reserved in the will of a people. The lesson was not lost on them. And, if the 40s. freeholders were deprived of their right of suffrage when Catholic Emancipation came, sacrifice added as much honour to them as it brought dishonour to those who But was it not unwise

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had them disfranchised. for those Catholics to forfeit their franchise, and to suffer eviction, or to bear increased and impossible