only seriously began at last to organize and associate for that purpose. They would thus turn the immense forces of their nation, now scattered over the world, to the real advantage of their birthplace. In union is strength; but union can only be promoted by association, particularly when the elements to be united are so far apart.

For such an object do we believe that God gave man in these late days the destroyers of space-the steam-engine and the electric telegraph. Those powerful agents of unification were unknown to mankind until God decreed that his children dispersed through the earth should be more compactly united. To the Catholic they were given, in the first place, to serve God's first purpose by making the Church firmer in her unity and more effective in the propagation of truth; but, after all, the mission of the Irish to-day is only a branch of the mission of the Church, and, if only on that account, are the missionaries deserving of all honor and respect.

If in the designs of Providence the time has at last arrived for the dwelling of the children of Japhet in the tents of Sem, and for putting an end to the terrible evils dating from the dispersion at Babel and the confusion of tongues, the object of these great scientific discoveries is still more apparent. At all events, organization and association are clearly needed for the resurrection of Ireland, and the sooner a step is taken in that direction the better.

But, what association would we propose? What should be its immediate and most practicable objects? These questions we do not feel competent to answer. Let Irishmen be once convinced that organization is the great lever to work for the raising up of their down-trodden nation, and they will know best how to use this powerful instrument. The leaders of the nation in that holy enterprise should, in our own opinion, be its spiritual leaders. They know their country, and they love it; they undoubtedly possess the confidence of their countrymen: they, then, should be the natural originators of those great schemes. And what other leaders does Ireland possess, what body like them, acceptable to the nation, and neither to be bought by money nor office?

This first remark naturally presupposes another: that the object of those associations, being approved of by the religious guides of the people, cannot be other than holy, and consequently require no secrecy of any kind. They must be patent to the world, as not being antagonistic to any established law or authority. Every man desirous of becoming a member of the association should know beforehand what is proposed to be done, and how far his consent is to be given.

One other important point strikes us : the centre of organiza

tion should be in Ireland. Ireland is to be benefited by it, and there the effort should naturally begin, where its results will fall. As for the particular direction which those efforts should take, the detail of the whole enterprise, the plan of the campaign-all this lies beyond us, and a sketch of it would most probably be a mere chimera.

One concluding word may be said, however, on a subject which has often been present to the writer's mind: The fearful oppression of the nation began by robbing the people of their lands and making them paupers: one of the first aims of association, then, should evidently be the raising of the people up by the restoration, in great part at least, of the soil to the native

race..

It is not our purpose to propose a new confiscation now, by way of remedying the old ones; but England has allowed them to buy back the land of their fathers in the "Encumbered Estates Courts," and by the law recently passed which disestablished the Irish Protestant Church? Is there no room for a plan whereby Irishmen, who have grown rich in foreign countries, may become purchasers of the land thus offered for sale? And, in reply to the natural and powerful objection to such a plan on the score of distance from their native land, and the natural repugnance to return and live there, and break up new ties, which are now old, and have made them what they are, could not the fathers spare one son at least, whom they might devote to the noble purpose of becoming Irish again, and settling on an Irish estate, and marrying there? This would seem an easy and simple manner of recreating a Catholic gentry in the island.

This is merely a hint thrown out to exemplify what we mean by associations for the purpose of raising Ireland up again; the many possible objects of national organization will occur to any mind giving a moment's reflection to it. This subject will occupy our attention at greater length in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XVI.

MORAL FORCE ALL-SUFFICIENT FOR THE RESURRECTION OF IRELAND.

THIS chapter will be devoted to the island itself. For many centuries it was happy in its seclusion and separation from the rest of Europe: in these days it necessarily forms a part of the whole mass of Japhetic races; its isolation is no longer possible; and, in the opinion of many, it is destined once again to become a spot illustrious and happy. The consideration of how that lustre and happiness are to come upon it is the only task still left us.

Whoever takes into consideration the advantages it already enjoys, and compares its present situation with that of a hundred years back, cannot fail to be struck with the remarkable change for the better which has taken place between the two periods. Ireland still suffers, and suffers sorely, and the world still speaks with justice of her wrongs; but, in whatever light they may appear to those who love their country, no one can pretend that it still groans under the weight of tyranny which has formed the burden of her history. And, while acknowledging this beneficial change in her condition, they must wonder at the same time how small was the share which the natives themselves had in bringing it about, although their activity never relaxed, and they had great and good men working for their cause. What, in truth, did it?

The first point which claims our attention is how effectually the moral force of what is called liberal thought dealt a deathblow to the penal laws half a century before any of them were erased from the statute book.

Liberal thought may be said to have originated in England, whence it passed over to France, to be disseminated and take root throughout Europe by means of the mighty influence then exercised by the great nation. The chief object which animated the minds of those who first labored for its admission into modern European principles is not for us to consider here. There is no doubt that this chief object was of a loosening and deleterious nature: namely, to ruin Christian faith, to change all the

old social and political axioms held by Christendom, and to create a new society imbued with what now goes by the name of modern ideas. It is not necessary to point out the frightful imprudence as well as criminality of many of those who were the pioneers of the movement. We must only take the new principles as a great fact, destined yet to effect a radical change in the ideas of men of all races, a change already begun in Europe.

Liberal thought, we say, originated in England; and it would be easy to show that there it was the result partly of Protestantism, partly of indifferentism, the ultimate consequence of the great principle of private judgment.

This became manifest in Great Britain, from the beginning of the eighteenth century, and, as was previously shown, what is called the British Constitution was the result and outgrowth of deep political thought matured in minds indifferent to religion, of men who were as little Protestants as any thing else. But they were deeply possessed by a sense of conservatism and moderation in the application of the most radical principles, which later on the fiery Gallic mind carried to their final and most dis astrous consequences.

But, in whatever garb it may have appeared, liberalism was clearly the essence of the British Constitution, as established after all the civil and dynastic wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The leaders of the English nation happened at the time to be fully wedded to aristocratic ideas, and accordingly they refused to recognize all the consequences of their principles, and to see them carried out to the full.

It was admitted that the king reigned, but did not govern; that the nation governed by its representatives; that those representatives were created by election; that a nation could not be taxed without its free consent; that thought, religious thought chiefly, was free; that toleration, therefore, could admit of no exception in point of religious doctrine; and all the other modern principles which have at length been admitted, though not always observed, as governmental axioms by all European nations.

As long as those axioms were in the close keeping of English patricians, some of their consequences were far from being fully evolved; but certain Frenchmen, Voltaire among others, happening to cross the Straits of Dover, returned with them, and, the wretched government of Louis XV. being not only too weak to withstand, but even conniving at, the boldness of the new phi losophers, the French language, which was then spoken all over Europe, carried with it from mouth to mouth the new and fascinating doctrine of the emancipation of thought.

None of those writers, indeed, undertook to plead the cause of unfortunate Ireland. Voltaire threw the whole of France into

agitation, nay, all Europe, to the wilds of Russia, by taking up the case of the Protestant Calas, who was condemned to death and executed unjustly, as it seems, for the supposed murder of a son who was inclined to embrace Catholicity; but never a word did he speak of the suffering which at that time had settled down over the whole Irish nation solely for the crime of its religious convictions.

Nevertheless, toleration became the catch-word with all. It rang out loudly from a thousand French pamphlets and ponderous tomes; it was caught up and echoed back from England; it penetrated the unkindly atmosphere of Russia even, and was silently pondered over under the rule of an unbelieving despot.

It was impossible for Ireland not to derive some benefit from all this. It took a long time, indeed, for emancipation of thought to cross that narrow channel which divided the "sister" islands; for, at the precise period when the doctrine was loudest in France, the most atrocious penal laws were being executed in Ireland, and there seemed no hope for the suffering nation.

But, toward the end of that eventful eighteenth century, the breath of that magic word, toleration, at last was felt on the shores of Erin. When it was in the mouths of all Europe, when English clergymen had thoroughly imbibed the new doctrine, when even Scotch ministers began to thaw under its genial influence, and become "liberal theologians," how could an Irish magistrate think of hanging a friar, or transporting a priest, or imposing a heavy fine on a Catholic who committed the heinous offence of hearing mass, or absenting himself from the services of the Established Church? At last, the "Mass-rock" was no longer the only spot whereon the divine victim of expiation could be offered up; and it soon came to be known that, to bylanes and obscure houses in the cities numbers of persons flocked on Sundays, presided over by their own Sogarth Aroon. On one occasion, already noticed, the floor of a rickety house, where they were worshipping, gave way, to the killing and maiming of many; thenceforth, Catholics were allowed to assemble in public to the knowledge of all, and, though "discoverers" were still legally entitled to denounce and prosecute them, there was small chance of a verdict against them.

Thus was it owing to a great moral force-whether good or bad is not the question now-that the penal laws first became obsolete; and Irishmen had absolutely nothing whatever to do in the matter. Not a single pamphlet, demanding toleration, and proclaiming the rights of religious freedom, ever, to our knowledge, issued from the Irish press at the time. No book, written by an Irish author, advocating the same, was ever print ed clandestinely, as were so many French books, at first appear ing in Holland, or covertly in France, with a false title-page.