and was, to say the least, abreast of the time in its conception of the working of economic causes. But from the time when the Reformation, by its demand for what we Protestants conceive to be a simpler Christianity, drove Roman Catholicism back, if I may use the expres sion, on its first line of defence, and constrained it to look to its distinctively spiritual heritage, down to the present day, it has seemed to stand strangely aloof from any contact with industrial and economic issues.''* "What I have just been saying with regard to Roman Catholicism generally, in relation to economic doctrines and industrial progress, applies, of course, with a hundred-fold pertinence to the case of Ireland. Between the enactment of the Penal Lawe and the date of Roman Catholic Emancipation, Irish Roman Catholics were, to put it mildly, afforded scant opportunity, in their own country, of developing economic virtues or achieving industrial success. Ruthlessly deprived of Education, are they to be blamed if they did not use the newly acquired facilities to the best advantage? With their religion looked on as the badge of legal and social inferiority, was it any wonder that priests and people alike, whilst clinging with unexampled fidelity to their creed, remained altogether cut off from the current of material prosperity? Excluded, as they were, not merely from social and political privileges, but from the most ordinary civil rights, denied altogether the right of ownership of real property, and restricted in the possession of personality, is it any wonder that they are not to-day in the van of industrial and commercial progress? Nay, more, was it to have been expected that the character of a people so persecuted and ostracised should have come out of the ordeal of centuries with its adaptability and elasticity unimpaired? That would have been impossible. Those who are intimate with the Roman Catholic people of Ireland, and at the

• Pages 102 and 108.

same time familiar with their history, will recognise in their character and mental outlook many an instance of that epoch of serfdom. I speak, of course, of the mass, for I am not unmindful of many exceptions to this generalisation "*

What I may call the secular shortcomings of the Roman Catholics in Ireland cannot be fairly judged except as the results of a series of enactments by which they were successively denied almost all means of succeeding as citizens of this world. From such study as I have been able to give to the history of their Church, I have come to the conclusion that the immense power of the Roman Catholic clergy has been singularly little abused. I think it must be admitted that they have not exhibited in any marked degree bigotry towards Protestants. They have not put obstacles in the way of the Roman Catholic majority choosing Protestants for political leaders, and it is significant that refugees, such as the Palatines, from Catholic persecutions in Europe, found at different times a home amongst the Roman Catholic people of Ireland. My own experience, too, if I may again refer to that, die tinctly proves that it is no disadvantage to a man to be a Protestant in Irish political life, and that where opposition is shown to him by Roman Catholics, it is almost invariably on political, social, or agrarian, but not on religious grounds."+

"The evil, commonly described as 'The Priest in Politics' is, in my opinion, greatly misrepresented. The cases of priests who take an improper part im politics are cited without reference to the vastly greater number who take no part at all, except when genuinely assured that a definite moral issue is at stake, I also have in my mind the question of how we should have fared if the control of the different Irish agitations had been confined to laymen, and if the clergy had not ↑ Page 106.

* Pages 104 and 105.

consistently condemned secret associations. But, whatever may be said in defence of the priest in politics in the past, there are the strongest grounds for deprecating a continuance of their political activity in the future. As I gauge the several forces now operating in Ireland, I am convinced that, if an anti-clerical movement similar to that which other Roman Catholic countries have witnessed, were to succeed in discrediting the priesthood and lowering them in public estimation, it would be followed by a moral, social, and political degradation, which would blight, or at least postpone, our hopes of a national regeneration. From this point of view I hold that those clergymen who are predominantly politicians endanger the moral influence which it is their solemn duty to uphold. I believe, however, that the overactive part hitherto taken in politics by the priests is largely the outcome of the way in which Roman Catholics were treated in the past, and that this undesirable feature in Irish life will yield, and is already yielding to the removal of the evils to which it owed its origin, and in some measure its justification.

"One has only to turn to the spirit and temper of ruch representative Roman Catholics as Archbishop Healy and Dr. Kelly, Bishop of Ross-to their words and to their deeds in order to catch the inspiration of a new movement amongst our Roman Catholic fellowcountrymen, at once religious and patriotic. And if my optimism ever wavers, I have but to think of the noble work that many priests are to my own knowledge doing, often in remote and obscure parishes, in the teeth of innumerable obstacles." "I may mention

that of the co-operative societies organised by the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society there are no fewer than 331 societies of which the local priests are the chairmen, while, to my own knowledge, during the summer and autumn of 1902, as many as 50,000 persons

from all parts of Ireland were personally conducted over the exhibit of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction at the Cork Exhibition by their local clergy. The educational purpose of those visits is explained in Chap. X. Again, in a great number of cases, the village libraries which have been recently started in Ireland with the assistance of the Department (the books consisting largely of industrial, economic, and technical works on agriculture) have been organised and assisted by the Roman Catholic clergy."*

I shall consider other passages in the book in the light of those I have quoted.

* Pages 117-118-119.

CHAPTER II.

CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND.

I.

SIR HORACE PLUNKETT says*:-"A charge of another kind has of late been brought against the Roman Catholic Clergy, which has a direct bearing upon the economic aspect of this question. Although, as I have read Irish history, the Roman Catholic priesthood here, in the main, used their authority with personal disinterestedness, if not always with prudence and discretion, their undoubted zeal for religion has, on occasion, assumed forms which enlightened Roman Catholics, including high dignitaries of that Church, think unjustifiable on economic grounds, and discourage, even from a religious standpoint. Excessive and extravagant churchbuilding in the heart and at the expense of poor communities is a recent and notorious example of this mis directed zeal. It has, I believe, been too often forgotten that the best monument of any clergyman's influence and earnestness must always be found in the moral character and the spiritual fibre of his flock, and not in the marbles and mosaics of a gaudy edifice. And without doubt a good many motives, which have but a remote connection with religion, are, unfortunately, at work in the church-building movement. It may, however, be regarded to some extent as an extreme reaction from the penal times, when the hunted Soggarth had to celebrate the Mass in cabins and caves in the mountain side.. This expenditure, however, has been incurred, and no one, I take it, would advocate the

* At pages 106, 107 and 108.