hands and attend to the mechanical arts required in civil society. Those duties were reserved for the Irish poor. It was hoped that, deprived of their nobility and clergy, they might be turned to any account by their new masters, and either become good Protestants or perish as slaves. Herein mentita est iniquitas sibi.

The heart-rending details of this outrage on humanity may be seen in Mr. Prendergast's "Cromwellian Settlement." There all who read may form some idea of the extent of Ireland's misfortunes.

It is a wonder which cannot fail to strike the reader, how, after so many precautions had been taken, not only against the further increase of the race, but for its speedy demolition, how, reduced to a bare half million, penned off on a barren tract of land, left utterly at the mercy of its persecutors, without priests, without organization of any kind, it not only failed to perish, but, from that time, has gone on, steadily increasing, until to-day it spreads out wide and far, not only on the island of its birth, but on the broad face of two vast continents.

In the space at our disposal, it is impossible to satisfy the curiosity of the reader on this very curious and interesting topic. A few remarks, however, may serve to broadly indicate the chief causes of this astonishing fact, taken apart from the miraculous intervention of God in their favor.

First, then, Connaught became more Irish than ever, and a powerful instrument, later on, to assist in the resurrection of the nation. In fact, as will soon be seen, it preserved life to it. Again, the outcasts, who were allowed to remain in the other three provinces as servants, or slaves, rather, were not found manageable on the score of religion; and, although new acts of Parliament forbade any bishop or priest to remain in the island, many did remain, some of them coming back from the Continent, whither they had been exported, to aid their unfortunate countrymen in this their direst calamity.

As Matthew O'Connor rightly says: "The ardent zeal, the fortitude and calm resignation of the Catholic clergy during this direful persecution, might stand a comparison with the constancy of Christians during the first ages of the Church. In the season of prosperity they may have pushed their pretensions too far "-this is M. O'Connor's private opinion of the Confederation of Kilkenny-" but, in the hour of trial, they rose superior to human infirmities. . . Sooner than abandon their flocks altogether, they fled from the communion of men, concealed themselves in woods and caverns, from whence they issued, whenever the pursuit of their enemies abated, to preach to the people, to comfort them in their afflictions, to encourage them in their trials; their haunts were objects of indefatigable search; bloodhounds,

the last device of human cruelty, were employed for the purpose, and the same price was set on the head of a priest as on that of a wolf."-(Irish Catholics.)

But, the expectation that the Irish of the lower classes, bereft of their pastors as well as of the guidance of their chieftains, would fall a prey to proselytizing ministers, and lose at once their nationality and their religion, was doomed to meet with disappointment.

Perhaps the cause more effective than all others in preserving the Irish nation from disappearing totally, came from a quarter least expected, or rather the most improbable and wonderful.

No device seemed better calculated to succeed in Protestantizing Ireland than the decree of Parliament which set forth that not only the officers, but even the common soldiers of the parliamentary army should be paid for their services, not in money, but in land; and that the estates of the old owners should be parcelled out and distributed among them in payment, as well as among those who, in England, had furnished funds for the prosecution of the war. Although many soldiers objected to this mode of compensation, some selling for a trifle the land allotted to them and returning to their own country, the great majority was compelled to rest satisfied with the government offer, and so resolved to settle down in Ireland and turn farmers. But a serious difficulty met them: women could not be induced to abandon their own country and go to dwell in the sister isle, while the Irish girls, being all Catholics, a decree of Parliament forbade the soldiers to marry them, unless they first succeeded in converting them to Protestantism. After many vain attempts, doubtless, the Cromwellian soldiers soon found the impossibility of bringing the "refractory" daughters of Erin to their way of thinking, and could find only one mode of bridging over the difficulty to marry them first, without requiring them to apostatize, and secure their prize after by swearing that their wives were the most excellent of Protestants. Thus while perjury became an every-day occurrence, the victorious army began to be itself vanquished by a powerful enemy which it had scarcely calculated upon, and was utterly unprepared to meet, and finally resting from its labors, enjoyed the sweets of peace and the fat of the land.

But woman, once she feels her power, is exacting, and in course of time the Cromwellian soldiers found that further sacrifices still were required of them, which they had never counted upon. Their wives could, by no persuasion, be induced to speak English, so that, however it might go against the grain, the husbands were compelled to learn Irish and speak it habitually as best they might. Their difficulties began to multiply

with their children, when they found them learning Irish in the cradle, irresistible in their Irish wit and humor, and lisping the prayers and reverencing the faith they had learned at their mothers' knees. So that, from that time to this, the posterity of Cromwell's "Ironsides," of such of them at least as remained in Ireland, have been devoted Catholics and ardent Irishmen.

The case was otherwise with the chief officers of the parliamentary army, who had received large estates and could easily obtain wives from England. They remained stanch Protestants, and their children have continued in the religion received with the estates which came to them from this wholesale confiscation. But the bulk of the army, instead of helping to form a Protestant middle class and a Protestant yeomanry, has really helped to perpetuate the sway of the Catholic religion in Ireland, and the feeling of nationality so marked to-day. This very remarkable fact has been well established and very plainly set forth, a few years ago, by eminent English reviewers.

Meanwhile, Ireland was a prey to all the evils which can afflict a nation. Pestilence was added to the ravages of war and the woes of transplantation, and it raged alike among the conquerors and the conquered. Friar Morrisson's "Threnodia reads to-day like an exaggerated lament, the burden of which was drawn from a vivid imagination. Yet can there be little doubt that it scarcely presented the whole truth; an exact reproduction of all the heart-rending scenes then daily enacted in the unfortunate island would prove a tale as moving as ever harrowed the pitying heart of a reader.

And all this suffering was the direct consequence of two things the attachment of the Irish to the Catholic religion, and their devotion to the Stuart dynasty. Modern historians, in considering all the circumstances, express themselves unable to understand the constancy of this people's affection for a line of kings from whom they had invariably experienced, not only neglect, but positive opposition, if not treachery. In their opinion, only the strangest obliquity of judgment can explain such infatuation. Some call it stupidity; but the Irish people have never been taxed with that. Even in the humblest ranks of life among them, there exists, not only humor, but a keenness of perception, and at times an extraordinary good sense, which is quick to detect motives, and find out what is uppermost in the minds of others.

There is but one reading of the riddle, consistent with the whole character of the people: they clung to the Stuarts because they were obedient to the precepts and duties of religion, and labored under the belief, however mistaken, that from the Stuarts alone could they hope for any thing like freedom. Their spiritual rulers had insisted on the duty of sustaining at al.