Some Good may result from Evil. 129 reflect its blessings on those who are not of our communion. It would elevate our class, edify the Church, receive the approval of the Most High, and attract the attention of the civilised and uncivilised inhabitants of Great Britain, of Europe, and of the World. "Your very humble servant in Christ Jesus, "July, 1863." This address was intended for private circulation; but a copy of it accidentally reached the hands of Mr. A. M. Sullivan, the able and patriotic editor of the Nation, in which journal that gentleman published it on the 15th of August, 1863. One mode of keeping up the sectarian excitement was by displaying anti-Catholic placards in the streets. This was for a long period constantly and offensively done. An English gentleman, one of the most illustrious of the Oxford converts, wrote to me from Dublin that if the Catholics were to retaliate with anti-Protestant placards, a state of things would be produced which would probably compel the Government to put a stop to that species of warfare. There were controversial handbills profusely scattered over the country-thrown upon the highways, flung into the fields, and pasted upon walls. The piers of my entrancegate were thus decorated. Whether any of the handbills displayed talent, I am unable to say. The attempts at argument in those which I saw were the veriest sweepings of controversial rubbish. But they attacked "Popery," helped to exasperate Catholics, and gave an appearance of activity in return for the large sums of money with which the managers of the affair, were subsidised by credulous English fanatics. Let me here observe, that, great as has been the evil resulting from religious bigotry, yet the presence of two rival. creeds within the land has not been totally without its good. I have heretofore spoken of the Protestant Church with reference exclusively to its temporal Establishment. I now speak of it as a religious system, and, as such, it has derived some moral advantage from the presence of antagonist Catholicity. The advantage has been mutual. Two rival Churches will watch and purify each other. Not that this is any justification of religious differences; not that K The work of pious slander is incessant. In July, 1863, a circular address was issued from "The Metropolitan House, Bachelor's Walk, Dublin," to the Protestant employers of Ireland. It is headed with the words, "Assassination-SelfPreservation," and seems to have been chiefly meant to work upon the nervous fears of ladies, inasmuch as it commences, "Dear Madam." I copy the first and last paragraphs of this most characteristic document: "The assassinations that are taking, and have taken place, almost daily, in our unhappy, but alas! too notorious country, prove beyond a shadow of doubt that it is neither safe nor prudent for landlords to employ Roman Catholics as domestic or farm-servants, or to locate them on their lands as small farmers or stewards. To illustrate this statement by numerous examples would be to waste your time, and trifle with the most serious evil of the age in which we live." The address goes on to urge, as the best means of preservation from Popish assassins, the employment of "Protestants only who are in favour of British connexion." Roman Catholics, indeed, may be employed; but only "in stations unaccompanied by risk and personal danger." They are to be shown a holy and edifying example, and to be taught to live "in the constant practice of godliness, industry, and every Christian virtue." Having thus exhorted the Protestant employers to keep their dangerous neighbours at a prudent distance, the address concludes as follows: "This method of self-preservation would, we are convinced, be found a golden rule-a royal road to domestic safety, security, and protection, for Protestants individually and collectively. It would check the assassination and decimation of our gentry; and it would butions of money, may be learned from the following passage of his "Tour through Ireland," p. 400. "It was impossible," says Mr. Hall, "not to appreciate the magnanimity of the poor, miserable, utterly destitute, and absolutely starving inhabitants of Achill, who were at the time of our visit enduring privations at which humanity shudders-and to know that by walking a couple of miles and professing to change their religion they would be instantly supplied with food, clothes, and lodging. Yet these hungry thousands-for it would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that nine-tenths of the population of the island were, in the month of July last, entirely without food-preferred patiently to endure their sufferings rather than submit to what they considered a degradation. Such fortitude we do believe to be without parallel in the history of any 'ignorant and unenlightened' people since the creation of the world." Some Good may result from Evil. 129 reflect its blessings on those who are not of our communion. It would elevate our class, edify the Church, receive the approval of the Most High, and attract the attention of the civilised and uncivilised inhabitants of Great Britain, of Europe, and of the World. "Your very humble servant in Christ Jesus, "July, 1863." This address was intended for private circulation; but a copy of it accidentally reached the hands of Mr. A. M. Sullivan, the able and patriotic editor of the Nation, in which journal that gentleman published it on the 15th of August, 1863. An One mode of keeping up the sectarian excitement was by displaying anti-Catholic placards in the streets. This was for a long period constantly and offensively done. English gentleman, one of the most illustrious of the Oxford converts, wrote to me from Dublin that if the Catholics were to retaliate with anti-Protestant placards, a state of things would be produced which would probably compel the Government to put a stop to that species of warfare. There were controversial handbills profusely scattered over the country-thrown upon the highways, flung into the fields, and pasted upon walls. The piers of my entrancegate were thus decorated. Whether any of the handbills displayed talent, I am unable to say. The attempts at argument in those which I saw were the veriest sweepings of controversial rubbish. But they attacked "Popery," helped to exasperate Catholics, and gave an appearance of activity in return for the large sums of money with which the managers of the affair were subsidised by credulous English fanatics. Let me here observe, that, great as has been the evil resulting from religious bigotry, yet the presence of two rival creeds within the land has not been totally without its good. I have heretofore spoken of the Protestant Church with reference exclusively to its temporal Establishment. I now speak of it as a religious system, and, as such, it has derived some moral advantage from the presence of antagonist Catholicity. The advantage has been mutual. Two rival Churches will watch and purify each other. Not that this is any justification of religious differences; not that K such differences are necessary to preserve religion pure; but simply that where they happen to exist, God can educe good from the evil of disunion. Contrast the morals of the Protestants of the present day with those of their fathers in the heyday of the penal laws, when Catholics were too insignificant to be their rivalswhen Protestantism had everything its own way. Then were the golden days of duelling, of drunkenness, of profligate clubs in the metropolis-the Cherokee, the Hellfire, the Pinkers and Sweaters, whose orgies are still preserved in the local traditions of Dublin. Then were the days of gallant, jovial, hard-drinking parsons-men who were paid by the State for talking every Sunday about religion, and who, accordingly, pronounced some cold and formal sentences to small congregations, who, on their part, conceived that they performed a meritorious duty in listening with grave faces to the solemn homilies. Catholicity, however, uprose in renovated strength, shook off its penal bandages, and assumed the attitude of spiritual rivalry. The State Church was alarmed. If the Protestant clergy and their flocks became more bigoted, they certainly became more virtuous. The majority of the parsons of our day are moral and pious. Apart from the drawbacks of anti-Irish prejudice and antiCatholic slander (in which latter not one-twentieth part of them actively participate) they are in general personally virtuous and exemplary. Would to God that Irishmen of all creeds could recognise and rejoice in each other's good qualities; that they could turn the rivalship of antagonist creeds to its legitimate account the promotion of religion and morality; discard all unchristian acerbity, and unite with cordial, mutual trustfulness in the national cause! CHAPTER XIII. THE REPEAL CAMPAIGN OF 1832. 'Tis only to gather Our strength and be ready, The son with the father, The wild with the steady. To tramp all together; In hall or in heather. J. DE JEAN. THE continued existence of the Union for thirty years had a powerful effect in benumbing nationality among those whose religious teachers had inspired them with a suspicion of their countrymen. They had become accustomed to be legislated for by England, and use had rendered them insensible to the degradation which had aroused in 1800 the Irish spirit of the very Orangemen. The Union had debased and degraded many of the generation who had grown up since its enactment. They sneered at the Repealers as visionaries, and—prejudging the whole matter in dispute― they flippantly asserted that there was nothing Ireland could gain from native legislation that she could not also obtain from the Imperial Parliament. The Reform agitation of 1831 necessarily excited the English mind to a pitch of intensity. The Irish were busy with their own agitation; and when Reform had been carried, and some enlargement of the constituencies temporarily effected, the Repealers mustered their strength to send members to St. Stephen's who should represent their principles. Many Irish agitators, with the prospect of Parliamentary distinction, were speedily in the field. Ere the senatorial vision had crossed their aspiring thoughts, some three or four had acquired more than ordinary notoriety by their agitation. Of these, one of the most conspicuous was Feargus O'Connor. Feargus was fourth son of Roger O'Connor, who, in 1798, resided at Connorville, near Dunmanway, in the County of Cork. Roger O'Connor was involved in the rebellion of which his brother Arthur was one of the principal leaders. Arthur wished, at the later period of his agitation, to make Ireland a republic on the French model of 1792. He was a thoroughly honest politician. Of his disinterestedness there is conclusive proof in the fact that he deliberately forfeited the splendid inheritance of his maternal uncle, Lord Longueville, who was childless, and who would have made him his heir on condition of his adopting his lordship's politics. Roger's views were monarchical; I believe he intended to exercise the sovereign authority himself. Roger employed his military skill in fortifying Connorville to sustain an attack from the King's troops. He planned a trap for them also, of which I had a detailed description from a gentleman who was personally cognisant of the device. There were two fronts to Connorville House. From the front that faced the public road the hall-door steps were removed, and the windows of the basement storey on that K 2 |