»l5?i»:« rf" LIBRARY UM^/SaSlTY OF ©8CIIFCRNIA "O-' J^ -z^-t^ LECTURES AND SERMONS BY THB Very Rev. THOMAS N. BURKE, O. P. •..*>-*,^^ P. M HAVERTY, NEW YORK. P. J. KENEDY, EXCELSIOR CATHOLIC PUBLISHING HOUSE, 6 Barclay Street, N. Y. 5p5'?'?S9S •LOAN STACK 67 ^ MM PREFACE. [On account of the non-receipt of Father Burke's preface to this volume, and not wishing to delay any longer the publica- tion of the book, the publisher considers that no better substi- tute can be offered as an introduction to this edition than the words of greeting addressed by the great " Archbishop of the West " to Father Burke on his return to Ireland from his mis- sion to America.] Speech of Most Rev. John MacHale, Archbishop of Tuam, at a dinner given to Very Rev. T. N. Burke, O. P., in St. Jarlath's College, Tuam, on St. Patrick's Day, 1873. * * * We would be unworthy of the high compliment paid us if we did not appreciate the prompt kindness with which Father Burke responded to our invitation when he had just landed on our shores from the great republic of America. Among the wonderful feats he has achieved — and they are many — he has refuted the old proverb, that no man is a prophet in his own country ; but, whether it is in or out of his own country, he is one of the most extraordinary men of this our nineteenth cen- tury. No doubt he was so before his mission to America ; but there was not at home sufficient room for the display of his magnificence. We were all too near him to gauge his true pro- portions, as it is only by seeing a mountain at a proper distance you can have a good idea of its elevation. But whether near or far away, Father Tom has always a smack of the genuine spirit, and it is no wonder that on his landing, after the long voyage of the Atlantic, he should exhibit all the rich and mellow flavor acquired by excellent wine which has gone through the improving process of exportation. Yet no image or illustration from natural history, or the varied profusion of its wealth, will 784 4 Preface. sufficiently account for the transcendent excellence ol our guest. I am not afraid to speak the truth, even in his own presence. Nor is there any danger, in praising him while yet living, to expose either the giver or the recipient of the tribute to the reproach of vanity or adulation. He certainly is formed of rougher mould than to be lightly shaken by the deceitful breath of flattery that is particularly pleasing to those who dwell in the palaces of kings. And, as for me, it is now too late to learn the art for which I never yet sought or received credit, of speaking pleasing things in behalf of any save those who were entitled to praise for their services to religion and our people. I will not then adjourn the eulogy due to our guest to any posthumous panegyrists, but follow the advice of the wise man in praising men of renown, who wrought great glory in their generation. And is he not one of those men of great power alluded to by the inspired writer, " ruling over the pres- ent people, and by the strength of wisdom instructing them in most holy words ? " What was the object of his mission to America — or rather, as motives are not always so patent, let me ask, What were its fruits? Were they like those that marked the career of Give and Hastings, and other congenial Saxons in India, making a wilderness of those vast regions, ex- cept when the solitude was broken by the shrieks of the widows and the orphans v/ho were multiplied to administer to the cupidity of such tyrants of the human race ? Were such the fruits and the monuments of Father Thomas Burke's career in the opposite hemisphere? He, too, made in a short time real conquests. It might be said of him as of Caesar, veni, vidi, vici ; but how dissimilar were these conquests ! The extraordi- nary gifts of his intellect and eloquence were rewarded, I am credibly informed, by no less a sum of money than a hundred thousand pounds. How was it expended ? Not in bribing the patronage of some wealthy supporters to gain a title, or avert the public vengeance, in reward or in punishment of the mis- deeds by which he had amassed those enormous sums of money. No ; his heart was in another place, and there he deposited the rich treasures of his piety and eloquence. The benevolent in- stitutions of America in every charitable variety, from the dec- oration of their temples to the erection of their schools, in which the children are tended under the protecting wings of Preface, 5 the Catholic Church, can tell and will bear witness to distant times of the munificent contributions of the great Dominican preacher to the noble people of America. Yes, they, the preacher and the flock, were worthy of each other. God raises up in His own time the fit instruments which peculiar circum- stances require. Not only has the spirit of error shifted its ancient forms, but all the followers of those diverse forms are leagued together in the most anomalous confederation. To conquer such an unprecedented alliance, the most extraordinary powers are required, undiminished by one particle of force in a neutral position, much less in an opposite and contrary direc- tion. A body impelled by another will move under its entire direction. If acted on by two not in a straight line, but ob- liquely, it will share in the influence of each and move in a diagonal direction. And thus it is with men of talents, if those talents are not entirely under one single impulse. Even phi- losophy will teach you the superiority of the true believer, the spiritual man, like St. Dominic or St. Francis, or their true fol- lowers, over men of the world, however talented. The talents of men in the world are weakened, and often neutralized, by inclinations not always in harmony with each other. To what, then, do we owe the mighty influence of the Dominicans, for example, or the Franciscans, or the Jesuits? To the training that tramples on every feeling and every animal influence op- posed to the spiritual reign of our Redeemer. Man, thus dis- incumbered of the inert impediments of mortality, becomes as spiritualized as is compatible with mortal life, and capable of achievements which mere worldlings cannot understand. This was the secret of the successes of St. Francis; this the solution of the mighty conquests of St. Xavier; and this, too, explains the prodigious results of Father Burke's magnificent mission in America. CONTENTS. FASB Catholic' iy as Revealed in the Character of the Irish People, • * 9 The Catholic Church and the Three Great Evils of Society, ... 40 Temperance, --.-.-.--.. .65 St. Columbkille, 8l Civil and Religious Liberty, --.------- loo Our Catholic Young Men, as Children of the Church and Citizens of the Re- public, --.---..--.. 113 Pontificate of Pius IX., ... 133 The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy, .-....- 160 Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age, .--.-- . 184 The Liberator, ---.----.--- 201 The Volunteers of '82, --..---..-. 222 Roderick O'Connor, the Last Monarch of Ireland, . . . • . 243 Catholicity not the Danger, but the Safety of the Great American Republic, - 257 The Catholic Church in America, _.-...-- 276 Mary, the Morning Star, .......... 287 The Future of the Irish Race at Home and Abroad, .... 304 What the Popes did for Rome, - - - - - - • • -321 The Catholic Church the Image of God, -..--.- 347 The Harmony of the Worship of the Catholic Church, ----- 366 The Position and Privileges of the Pope, --..... 392 St. Laurence O'Toole, the Last Canonized Saint of Ireland, - - - - 415 The Importance of Prayer, -.-....... 438 No Salvation outside the Catholic Church, .■-.-•- 446 The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church, -..--- 466 The Catholic View of Education, ......... 488 8 Contents, PASB Drunkenness the worst Degradation — Temperance the greatest Blessing of Man, 506 The Genius and Character of the Irish People, --.--. 525 Divine Faith the Principle of Christian Life, ...... 543 The Catholic Church and the Atonement, .--... 557 The Promises of Christ Fulfilled only in the Catholic Church, ... 566 The Hidden Saints of Ireland, --.--..-. 587 On the Consecration of a Bishop, ■•....... 606 im4 Lectures and Sermons OF THE VERY REV. THOMAS N. BURKE, O.P. CATHOLICITY AS REVEALED IN THE CHARACTER OF THE IRISH PEOPLE. [Delivered in St. Gabriel's Church, New York, on June 4th, 1872.] Y FRIENDS : Every nation and every race on the face of the earth has its own peculiar characteristics, its sym- pathies and antipathies, its notions of things, its Hne of y conduct, and so on ; and all these go to make up w^hat is called the national character of a people. They bear the im- press of the race. We may find amongst a people a great many individual exceptions to the national character. A peo- ple, as a race, may be brave, and yet we may find a coward amongst them ; a people, as a race, may be noted for their chastity, and yet we may find an impure man amongst them ; a people, on the whole, as a race or as a nation, may be remark- able for their honesty, and yet we may find a thief or a dis- honest man amongst them ; they may be remarkable for their fidelity, yet we may find a faithless man amongst them ; but in this, as in everything else, the exception only strengthens the rule, and the man who is unlike his race stands out in such relief amongst them, and makes himself so remarkable by being so unlike his fellow-countrymen, that, actually, his deficiency only brings out the virtues or the peculiarities of the race to which he belongs more strongly. Now, amongst the subjects I o Catholicity as Revealed in the that may command the interest of the thinking man or the philosopher, there is not one more interesting than the study of national character. How marked the character of a people ; how clearly defined the national phenomena, the idiosyncrasies of a race or a nation are ! How different do we find one people from another ! For instance, take an average Frenchman and an average German. They are as unlike each other as if they were not of the same human species. The Frenchman is quick, impulsive, chivalrous ; ready to stand up and fight for an idea ; lofty in his notions of things ; more or less theoretical ; easily roused to anger, and as easily appeased by a word of kindness. The German, on the other hand, is cool, calm, deliberative ; not easily roused to anger, but, if roused, not easily appeased ; not at all taking up ideas, but looking for realities ; not at all ready to risk any important thing— not even a dollar of his means, much less his blood — for some great idea that fills the mind and drives a hundred thousand Frenchmen out into the field. Take, again, an Englishman and an Irishman. How different they are. The Irishman is open-mouthed, open-minded, fully speaking out ivhatever he has in him. If he has any vice in him, out it comes on the surface. If he feels angry, he cannot hold his tongue, but out comes the expression of anger. If you offend the Eng- lishman, on the other hand, or insult him, he will, perhaps, pass it over for the time, but he will remember it. He is reticent in the expression of his feelings, undemonstrative of his affections. If ,he is disappointed, he knows how to keep it to himself I say this not as if I thought ill of this character or that. There is a great deal that is noble, manly, and magnificent in the English character. It is the fashion amongst Irishmen to talk as though there is nothing good in the English. It would be bad policy for us to believe it ; for if there were nothing good, or brave, or strong in them, why in the world did we let them overcome us? It is a bad thing for a man to say that his enemy is a coward, because he is making light of himself. It is an easy thing to conquer a coward. No, there is much that is brave, strong, and magnificent in the English character ; but still it is thoroughly distinct from that of the sister island which is only sixty miles xway (I wish to God it were sixty thou- sand). Now, my friends, a thinking man, who looks a little below Character of the Irish People. II the surface of things, and who tries to find an explanation of a people's character, must admit that amongst the causes that form that character, the very first is the religion of the people. There is no influence that is set at work to mould or form a nation's character so strong as a nation's religion, and the proof of this is manifest from simple observation. What is a nation, a people, or a race ? It is nothing more than an assemblage of all the individual men and women of that race. Whatever the individual man is, the same, as a rule, will his nation be, because the nation is made up of individuals. Now, as there is no more strong or powerful influence at work to form an individ- ual's character than religion, so it follows that there is nothing that impresses itself more forcibly on a nation, as a people, than their religion. I need not tell you that there is nothing that forms a man's character more than his religion. That explains everything. A man's religion is everything to him. If he be a religious man, conscientious and honest because of his religion, and if he be a pure man, faithful and chaste, how different he is from the man who has no religion. Is it not a man's religious belief — the religious principles in which he was brought up — that have come down to him in his blood — that have been put into him by nature and then by grace — that make up all the difference in the world between the man who has and the man who has not them. A man who is without religion has no principle to hold on by. He consults only his own advantage in not being a rogue, for he has nothing to restrain him from being, one. A man without religion quarrels with his wife. He leaves her, goes off to some other place, and marries another woman. He only seeks his pleasure, and he has nothing to re- strain him from following that pleasure. In a word, when you come to analyze a man's individual character, you find that it is altogether formed and founded upon his religion ; and so it is with a nation. If you take ten millions of men of one race and of one blood, who have always kept the same religion, held to the same principles, stood by the same devotion and belief, and fought for the same truths, then you will have a race, every in- dividual of which opens himself to the influences of the national religion ; as that which makes the man makes the nation. I say all this, because it is necessary as a preface to what I am about to say to you. 12 Catholicity as Revealed in the The theme on which I am come here to address you to-night is : The National Character of the Irish Race as a Reflection of the Catholic Religion. And now I need hardly tell you that I am not going to speak of irreligious Irishmen, of Irishmen who give up their faith and their religion ; because, my friends, as far as the reflection of the Irish character is concerned, they are not Irishmen at all. Give me the Irishman that does not believe in God, and does not believe in the national religion, the Catho- licity of Ireland ; give me the Irishman that has no principle of Catholicity in him, and I will say that, as far as the history of our race and nation is concerned, he is not an Irishman at all. As far as regards the reflection of all that, we know that he is not a fair specimen at all of the national character and peculiar- ities of the Irishman. Take an Irishman without religion, and he will be as big a rogue as any man on the face of the earth. Take an Irishman without religion, he having practically denied his creed and his God (for he may not have denied it in words), and let him go out amongst a strange people, and he will gather up all their vices unto himself; he will make himself the very •worst amongst them, because he is generally a shrewd, quick- witted, keen, and sharp fellow, who. has more talent than the people among whom he lives, and the consequence is that he turns all his talent and shrewdness in the way of wickedness. The cleverer a scoundrel is, the greater scoundrel he is. Give me, therefore, an Irishman without religion, and if he goes into a wild country, where he finds it the fashion to run away from his wife, he will run away from his, and will marry seven other wives where another man would but marry one. Give me an Irishman without religion, and if he goes in to make money, he will be more close-fisted than a Yankee-Jew peddler. He would not give a cent to king or country. But it is not of such Irishmen that I speak. I come here to-night to speak of the national character of our own race. Now, what does this race mean ? It means a people that for fifteen hundred years have been Catholics to the heart's core. It means a people who have never renounced nor changed their pure faith that they received from the lips and from the hands of their great Apostle, St. Patrick. It means a people that have never consented to see their religion outraged nor their priesthood and worship violated, without rising up and striking a quick blow in defense of their God and Character of the Irish People. 13 their altars. It means, too, a people who have their faults. Do not imagine, for an instant, that I am one of those men who believe that every Irishman is perfection, or that the Irish peo- ple are perfection, and that I do not see their faults. I see them well, and I know them well. It would be a strange thing if, after twenty years of priesthood among my people, I did not know them. It would be a strange thing if I did not know their faults. For the last twenty years they have been telling me their faults. People do not go to the confessional to tell their virtues, but to relate their miseries, their woes, their faults, and short-comings. It would be a strange thing if I did not know their faults — I, in whose veins runs nothing but pure Irish blood, and am Irish in my body, my soul, my mind, and my heart. After my love for my God and His Church, comes my love for my country and my people. I tell you we have our faults, and are not without them. But I will assert this : that the very faults of the Irish character have been touched and ennobled by our Catholic religion. Now, I ask you to consider that Catholic religion as reflected in the history of our Irish race in times past, and in our Irish people of to-day — a people that are so despised and calumniated, that if a man gets drunk, or does any brutal act, the very first cry is : " Oh, he is an Irishman ! " but when you come to see the Irishman, you will find frequently that nobody knows where he comes from. This Irish race has been so calumniated that the English Times newspaper could not get a better name for us than "bog-trotters." And why? Because they, the villains, took the good land, kept it for themselves, and left only the bogs for the Irishman. Put a gentleman out of his house, take his good clothes off his back, and put beggar's clothes upon him, throw him out into the street and take possession of his house, and you are the robber for doing all this. Then you can turn round and say, " Ah, you dirty beggar ! " The Tijnes newspaper called us " bog- trotters ; '' but the Times newspaper and the writers thereof may yet live to see the day when the " bog-trotters " may have something better than the bogs — when what their fathers possessed may become the inheritance of their descendants. Now, my friends, I mean to take up only a few leading points of the Catholic religion, and to show you how it has moulded and formed the Irish character. First of all, then, the Catholic 14 Catholicity as Revealed in the religion preaches mysteries, and speaks of things that no human eye has ever seen. The CathoHc religion speaks of these things as realities. The Catholic religion leads a man to believe in things that he has never seen, and to believe in those things more promptly than even the things that his eyes behold or his hands lay hold on. For instance, who has ever seen Christ in the Blessed Eucharist? No man has ever beheld Him, save now and then, as we read in the history of the Church, when He manifested Himself miraculously to some saint or other, whilst he was saying mass ; but, as a rule, and a fitting one, no eye has seen Him. Yet every Catholic child is taught from the first day that reason beams upon him, that his God, his Lord, his Creator, his Redeemer, his Judge is present, waiting in the Blessed Sacrament, until that child is old enough to come to his first communion, and receive Him. What eye has ever seen the holy Spirit of God — the Holy Ghost — the Third Person of the Holy Trinity? But every Catholic knows and believes that that holy Spirit of God is in his Church, that He lives with the Church, that He keeps that Church from ever telling a lie to the people, that He keeps that Church in all holiness as well as in all truth, and that when the bishop's hands are im- posed upon the head of the young child in confirmation, that child receives the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost : wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and the fear of the Lord. Thus it is that not merely in the higher truths, in the awful truths regarding the eternal unity and Trinity of God, but even in those practical truths that come home to us and that bring the Lord our God to our very doors, the Cath- olic Church teaches the unseen, and creates in man the faculty of realizing that which eye has never beheld. I must dwell upon this a little. There are two classes of men in this world. There are those that refuse to believe anything unless they see it, or unless it be brought home to them by proof or conviction of sense, or of intelligence, to their intellect. There are those who will not admit anything upon the authority of the Church, nor even of God himself They say, " I never saw it, and I won't believe it." They are materialists. They are gross in their conceptions. They are materialistic in their ideas. Such an one was the French infidel who said to the priest, " Father, I never saw God, and I will not believe in him until I see him." Character of the Irish People. 1 5 The priest tamed around and said, " Pray, tell me, do you believe you have a heart ? " " Oh yes, I do." " Did you ever see it ? Do you believe you had a great-grandmother? " " Cer- tainly." " Did you see her? " There is another class, and they are Christians, who know and believe that the things that are not seen are, actually, more real and more substantial than the things that we see. When we say the Nicene Creed at Mass we say, " I believe in God the Father Almighty, the Creator of all things visible and invisible," the Creator of the invisible as well as of the visible world. For there are two worlds, my friends. There is the world that we see around us, and the world that we do not see ; and of these two the invisible world is far more real than the visible. The visible world perishes, and all things here pass away like a shadow. The invisible world, that eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, contains God, all the angels of God, all the saints of God, and all the future hopes of every man amongst you. Therefore, in its substance, in its eternity, it is far more real than the visible. Now, the Catholic Church, because it deals with mystery, because it comes with the voice of authority from God, because it speaks with the very commission of God upon its lips, alone can ask a man to believe what he has never seen. And in asking him to do this, the Cath- olic Church alone creates in the mind of man, and, consequently, in the mind of the nation, the faculty of realizing the unseen. Behold this, in our Irish race, in its religion. For eight hundred years that Irish race has been fighting. I might say they had been fighting for eleven hundred years, but for the last three hundred years of that struggle, the Irish race have been fighting for a thing that they never saw. They stood for three hundred years in the trenches. They filled those trenches with their blood, for a thing that they never saw. Three hundred years ago the English people were called upon by their king to give up their Catholic religion, and somehow or other, by some strange misfortune, that Catholic religion had so little formed the national character of the Saxon race that the moment they were called upon to give it up or to sacrifice their bread and cheese for the things they never saw, they gave up the invisible and took the things that they could handle and touch. They took the Protestant religion from their adulterous and tyrannical 1 6 Catholicity as Revealed in the king. They took the thing that fortune gave them in this world. They were told they would have to give up property and means and fortune, and, perhaps, life itself, if they did not embrace the Protestant religion, which religion tells them that they need not believe anything that they cannot see ; for it comes to this really, that Protestantism, by rejecting the au- thority and the voice of God in the Catholic Church, by reject- ing the mysteries of religion, embraces the idea and the prin- ciple that a man need not believe what he does not see. The proof of this lies in the fact that a Protestant bishop of London, Bishop Pointer, when writing a book against the Blessed Eucharist, stated his principal argument against the presence of Christ in the Eucharist to be that nobody ever saw him. The English people gave up their mysteries and religion, and clutched the material blessings of this world, wealth, land, prop- erty, riches. The Irish people were called upon by the same king to renounce their Catholic religion, to give up their faith in the unseen. They were told Christ could not be present in the Blessed Eucharist, because nobody ever saw him. I take this sacrament as the very touch-stone of our Catholicity. They were asked, of course, to give up other sacraments ; they were asked to deny the real presence ; and the whole nation, like one man, the whole Irish race rose up and said : " We will give up property, we will let you rob us, we will let you confiscate all we have in this world, we will let you deprive us of liber:y and of education, we will go out and die, but we will never renounce our faith in Jesus Christ in the Blessed Eucharist." Now, this is the very quintessence of Catholicity, to be able to realize the unseen, to be able to let it into your life, to be able to make it the substance of your life. I ask you, if I were not a priest could I not go out and become a lawyer and make a fortune ? Could I not go out and marry a wife, and have a grand house and a carriage ? Why not ? I am as well able to do it as many who have done it. Could I not go out and make a big fortune and a name for myself, and surround myself with all the comforts and pleasures of life? In the winter season I could have a great house, with carpets, and fires, and everything around me grand. In the summer season I could go off and amuse my- :>elf somewhere. Why do I not do it ? Why am I tiring myself day after day, and night after night, for the last twenty years ? Character of the Irish People. ij Why do I sit in the confessional day after day (and in speak- ing of myself I speak for all priests) ? Have we ever seen what we are working for ? Never. The quintessence of the Catholic religion is to let the invisible so enter into a man's life that he makes that the substance of his life, for which he sacrifices all present pleasures. It annihilates his passions, curbs every desire of his nature, tramples upon himself, and makes him a victim and a slave for the sake of something that he has never seen in his life. Understand this. It is very necessary to know that this is the very first and grand- est feature of the Catholic religion. See how it is illustrated in the Irish people. Now, I say, that side by side with the essential Catholicity of a race, there comes on the one side t^ie excess, which is vicious, and on the other side there comes, the concomitant natural virtues that spring from a peo- ple's religion. Out of this form of character, moulded by the Catholic Church, proceeds, first, the excess, which is bad. For instance, people whose religion enables them to realize the un- seen may run into superstition. We find in Ireland traditions, of ghosts, and fairies, and things that do not exist at all. This, is owing to the peculiarity of the Irish people, which, through their religion, enables them to realize the things they never saw. You can frighten a little child in Ireland by telling him a story about a fairy. Take a young man or woman, or a grown one for that, and tell them there is a banshee in that lane, and you could not get them to go down there after night- fall. I remember when I was a boy I had to pass under a cer- tain archway in Galway, an old town full of old houses and nooks and corners. One of the streets passed under these old houses, which formed an archway. There was a tradition among the little boys that an old Protestant man had killed himself very many years before, and that he was going about the place. Well, that one legend was the very torment of my young days, for, as it happened, in going to and from school, running errands for my mother, and one thing and another, I had to go under that old blind archway very often. I always came up to it crying out, " Hail Mary," and calling upon all the saints to stand by me ; but with all my faith in the Blessed Virgin and the saints, as soon as I came to the old archway I had to run for bare life. But I am willing to admit, and da i8 Catholicity as Revealed in the admit, that that very superstition that exists in the Irish char- acter grows out of the national mind that is formed by our Catholicity, enabling us to realize the unseen. But oh 1 my friends, how beautiful are the forms which even this excess of credibility gives. Can anything be imagined more beautiful than some of the forms of what is called Irish superstition — as, for instance, where the mother is rocking her little child in the cradle, and where the little one, as infants often do, smiles in its sleep. There is a mysterious ray of gladness and sunshine that it never remembers — that we never remember — but it passes over the innocent young soul, and the infant smiles in its sleep. Now, the Irish mother, rocking her child, as soon as she sees the smile on the little face, bends down, kisses the child, and says that it is an angel that has come to whisper to her infant. How beautiful the idea is — how delicate is the thought .and the sentiment — how motherly is the act, and how grand the faith which that act proves. We believe, as Catholics, that the .child baptized becomes as an angel of God ; that no sin nor ap- proach of sin is there ; that until that child comes to years of reason, and consequently is capable of committing a personal sin, it is, in the eye of God, even as one of His angels. This, we Catholics believe, because we believe in the efficacy of bap- tismal regeneration. There is no fear among Catholics of priests ever neglecting baptism, as there is among Protestants. There is no fear of a Catholic priest, as I have known Protestant min- isters do, to take no less than ten or twelve children in a dis- trict, and baptize them altogether by dipping his finger into the water and giving them a sprinkle. There is no fear of a Catholic priest denying baptismal regeneration, and then fight- ing his bishop on it, holding it as the truth. A few years ago, the Queen of England stood in the midst of her council, who were debating the question whether baptism was really a sac- rament or not, and they decided it was not. They acted up to the best of their light. You could scarcely expect anything ■else from them. But we Catholics, who know that the child baptized is incorporated and engrafted upon Jesus Christ, also know that that child is as pure as an angel, until the first mis- fortune of personal sin comes to stain the soul. What, then, can be more beautiful than the idea that God sends his angel from heaven to visit his little angel upon earth, and that he Character of the Irish People. 1 9 whispers in the young ear something of the joy that he feels himself before God ? This is the thought that passes over the Irish mother's mind when she stoops and takes her infant up, kisses and blesses it, as one given her by Almighty God, pure and holy. You may call it superstition, but how beautiful the superstition is ! But, again, out of this faculty of realizing the unseen, comes another Irish virtue, so imprinted and impressed upon our national character and upon the history of our people, which is, that no distance that an ordinary Irishman puts between him- self and his parents or his friends, makes him ever forget them. They are as present to his mind, though there may be thou- sands of miles of ocean between them, as if he were on the floor with them, as we say in Ireland. The aged father and mother whom he leaves behind when he emigrates to a distant land, though growing old and feeble, are as present to his mind as if he had never left them, but was in the habit of coming home every evening to the old cabin, to give them his earnings. His Catholicity has taught him to love them and to honor them. His religion has taught him that as long as they live they have a claim upon him, and that whilst he has a dollar, they have a right to fifty cents of it. And so he goes away to a distant land, taking with him his Catholic religion, his glorious faith — that faith which enables him to realize his God upon the altar — that faith which enables him to realize his God in Heaven — that faith which also enables him to keep green in his memory the recollection of those he has left behind. And does not this truth come forth, in the emigrant of to-day ? Where is the race on the face of the earth, that are so loving and kind, and so mindful of the friends they have left behind ? Where is the man, in this day of ours, who, fighting the battle of life, and having, perhaps, a hard tussle to make his daily bread, who remembers his parents at home, and who never sits down to eat bread until he has sent them a portion of it ? The Irishman goes forth from his native land to a distant country, where he marries, and assumes the care and responsibility of a family. Not the love that he has for the wife of his bosom, not the necessity created in the father's mind, by the little children that are born to him, not all the vicissitudes and circumstances of his new life — none of these, even for an instant, make him for- 20 Catholicity as Revealed iti the get the old couple at home, but every year, or perhaps every month, his letter goes with his contribution to them. He is far away, but he honors the father and the mother that he has left upon the green sod. Oh ! how often have I spoken in Ire- land with the father and the mother left there in their old age, when the two or three strong, stalwart sons went away from them to America or elsewhere. Oh ! how often have I seen the eye brighten up with pleasure, when they have told me that on such a day a letter would come that would bring them a little money and a little relief. They knew that the letter would come, and they counted upon it with certainty. They were enabled to lean with perfect confidence upon the heart of him that was far away, because that heart was the glorious, generous, manly heart of a Catholic Irishman. The second great feature of our Catholicity that has en- grafted itself upon our national character, is this. And, first, let me say that there may be here to-night some friends of ours who are not Catholics. There may be some here to-night who are American-born citizens. I need not tell you of these things, brothers of my blood and race, but for them it is necessary that I should speak. Our Catholic religion, my friends, puts forth prominently in her belief the magnificent figure of the Blessed Virgin, the mother of Jesus Christ. Our Catholic religion teaches us that, in the day when Adam fell, every child of Adam fell into the cesspool of sin with him, save and except one, and that was the Blessed Virgin, mother of God. She was kept pure that she might be worthy to approach, and to give td the Eternal God His sacred humanity. She was kept pure, because it was written in the prophecies, " Nothing defiled can ever approach God." She was kept pure, because she was to give to the Eternal God, in the day of His incarnation, that blood which He shed upon Calvary, and by which He redeemed the world. That blood should be all pure, which was worthy to flow in the veins of Jesus Christ. Therefore the woman who bore Him was con- ceived without sin. The Catholic Church, moreover, holds up this woman as the very type of Christian womanhood. All that is fair and beautiful in woman may be gathered up into these two features ; namely, the perfect purity of the Virgin, and the tender and loving heart of the mother. There is nothing grander than virginity, and next to virginity comes Character of the Irish People. 21 the beauty of the maternity of the Christian mother ; the mother with her child in her arms — next to the Virgin, con- secrated to God and kneeUng before Jesus Christ — is the most beautiful thing in creation. Our race depends upon her. Upon her purity and upon her sanctity the whole future of the world is built up. The English Protestant poet, Words- worth, says there is more poetry, to say nothing of the truth, in the one idea of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as the Catholic Church preaches her — namely, the woman who com- bines the infinite purity of the virgin with the love of the mother — than ever was written by the pen of man. The Cath- olic Church teaches that the Virgin of Virgins is the type of all Christian maidenhood in her purity, and of all Christian mother- hood in her maternity. She alone brought forth the greatest man, the man Jesus Christ. She alone brought forth the only one who was necessary to the world, without whom there was no salvation, and no Heaven for man. She alone brought forth the Son of God. For the human and the divine nature joined in Him were so joined that He assumed the human nature into a divine person, and the child that was born of Mary was God. St. Patrick came to Ireland fifteen hundred years ago. He came with the adorable Eucharist in one hand, holding it up for the people's adoration, as their God. He came with the image of Mary in the other hand, holding it up to the people's veneration, as their mother. He told the Irish heart and the Irish mind the beautiful story of Mary's relations to God. He told the Irish maiden the tale of her purity. He told the Irish mother the tale of her maternity. And the womanhood of Ireland so learned the lesson from St. Patrick, receiving the blessing that came from his lips with the name of Mary, and have so continued to send that blessing and lesson down to their daughters, that the Irish maiden has been the type of purity for fifteen hundred years, and the Irish mother the type of tenderness and of highest love. The Irish mother is the queen of her husband's heart — the woman that knows, come weal, come woe, that she can never be removed from her secure posi- tion of wife and mother — the woman who knows, that in joy or in sorrow, that man's heart is hers — the woman that knows that her love for that man is consecrated by the sacramental seal of the Catholic Church — this woman, alone, I must say, in 22 Catholicity as Revealed in the all that I ever met. displays, by some supernatural gr^e, the virginal expression of a maiden's innocence, blended with the beautiful expression of a mother's love. For this womanhood, taking for its type the blessed Virgin Mary, the Irish Catholic man has been taught, from his earliest infancy, to have the deepest veneration, respect, and homage. Going back into history, he finds that Ireland's ancient glory was virgin saints ; that Ireland, for centuries, was peopled with mon- asteries and convents of holy nuns ; that the traditions of sanctity inaugurated in St. Bridget of Kildare passed to her 'laughters, and to this day it seems to be an instinct with the maidenhood of Ireland to seek the sanctuary and the ser- vice of Jesus Christ in every land. The traditions of our race tell us of the bravery of our women, and they mention the name of but one woman, in the long roll of noble Irish women, who brought a blush to the nation's face. Our history tells us that the purity, the sanctity, the virtue, of Irish women were the pride and the glory of Ireland during the days of her grandeur, the consolation and sustaining power of our people in the day of their oppression and their misery ; and, therefore, the very Catholic religion that made the woman of Ireland what she is, has made the men of Ireland to be the most rever- ential, the most respectful, and the most faithful of men to their womanhood. Look at the history of the Irish race in times gone by. Look at it to-day. What crime, oh, my fellow-coun- trymen ! equals the crime of the faithless husband, who aban dons the girl of his early love ? What crime is equal to that, which (thank God) is utterly unknown in Ireland, or at least to every Irishman that deserves the name, by which a husband is enabled to cast forth and to desert the wife of his bosom. Ac- cording to English law in Ireland, any man can divorce his wife if he only trump up an accusation against her and support it by false witnesses. I was in Ireland some years ago when that law was passed. I knew well that the Irish people would never accept, never obey nor act upon any such infamous and anti-Christian law; that no Irishman would ever ac- knowledge a law that tells him he can put away the wife of his bosom. This veneration for their womanhood is pro- verbial amongst the Irish race and the Irish people. Never, or scarcely ever, do we find a record of an instance of its Character of the Irish People. 23 violation ; and of all the crimes that can be laid to the charge of an unfortunate sinner there is not one for which the whole nation veils its face for shame and for true heart-break and desolation as when this unfortunate crime of impurity and of infidelity is brought home to the Irish woman or the Irish husband. Do we not know what class of woman was the mother that reared us at her knee ? Oh ! are we not familiar with that beautiful image that rises before us of the woman with the silver hair and the sweet voice, the woman with the old Spanish beads in her hand, the woman that taught us, when we were yet unable to appreciate it, the sweet tale of the love of Jesus Christ for Mary His mother, and the love of Mary for her Child ? Do we not all know the devotion of our woman- hood and of our manhood to that type of all purity and of all tenderness, the mother of God. It has impressed itself upon our race. And Henry VIII., when he came and called upon Ireland to separate from the See of Rome, from the Rock of Ages, from the Chair of Peter, from the successor of the Apostles, and through Peter, of Christ himself, came as a man whom no Irishman would listen to. He came to Ireland as a faithless husband, as the murderer of his wife. He came to ask the Irish people to turn away the image of Mary. " No," they answered him, in the voice of the nation as of one man, " we would rather die — yea, ten thousand times rather die, than give up the mother that brought forth the Son of God." For Mary and for Mary's cause Ireland drew the sword, and never was a more chivalrous sword drawn from its scabbard than the sword which Ireland drew in defense of the religion that con- secrated the mother of God. The third great feature of our national character, my friends, is the feature of national courage. And I hold that that national courage is derived from, and has been strengthened by the relig- ion of Ireland. No man will deny to an Irishman, no matter what else he denies to him, the attribute of courage. He may be a drunkard, he may be a very bad man, indeed ; he may, perhaps, have won the young heart of that young woman only to break it ; he may be false to a great many obligations ; but put him on the battle-field with a loaded musket in his hand, put him in the thick of the fight with a fixed bayonet, and my faith upon it, whatever else may be wanting, he will do his 24 Catholicity as Revealed in the duty there. Never, in the long and disastrous history of our race, did the sun set upon the day that beheld an Irish army in the field dishonored. All Europe is covered with battle- fields that record the glory of our race and its courage. All Europe, in every tongue, repeats the continued story of Irish prowess. France, Spain, Austria, and Italy tell the tale on their battle-fields, but never have they been able t-o say that an Irishman was found dishonored upon the field of military glory. At home it has been alleged they were bad soldiers. At home it has been alleged that the Irish never knew how to fight. Well, it is the assertion of a man who denied God — the Frenchman, Voltaire. Is it not strange that a people who are able to sweep victorious over every battle- field abroad, should never be able to fight at home ? He lied. Who fought the Dane for three hundred years ? Who met him in every glade, in every glen, and in every valley in the land ? Who shook him off upon the plains of Clontarf into the sea, as a man would shake a snake off his hand ? It was the Irishman at home. Who was it that defended the banks of the Boyne's ill-fated river, until King James of England was obliged to cry out : " Oh, spare my English subjects ! " Who was it that defended the bridge of Athlone and stemmed the whole tide of the English army? It was the Irishman at home. Who stood three times in the breaches of Limerick and met the full brunt of the English army — the best soldiers in the world — re- pulsing them in the midst of death and glory and victory? It was the Irish at home. And it was the Irish women — the women of Limerick— -who stood shoulder to shoulder with the men on the ramparts, and drove back the Saxon at the third and last assault upon its walls. The English held a council of war, and the generals made up their minds that it would be impossible to take Limerick, because the women alone were able to fight them and beat them back. And so they gave up the siege. This is all history. I am not drawing on my imagi- nation. They afterward made the treaty of Limerick, and signed it upon the treaty-stone, because they were afraid not only of Sarsfield and his men, but they were afraid of the strong, modest, pure-minded women of Limerick, prepared to fight again in defense of their God and their country. Now, you will ask me, What has courage to do with a C liar act er of the Irish PeopU. 25 nation's religion? Ah, my friends, a man's religion has more to do with his pluck and courage than people imagine. Thanks be to God, we can now look back calmly and quietly upon the battle-fields of America. We can now read the record that used to thrill us, frighten us, and make the blood run cold in our veins when we read of the charges at Fredericksburg, when the Irish were mowed down in columns. We can look back coolly on those battle-fields of the South. And I ask you : Will not the future history of America say that the Irishman who fought so bravely, whether in the cause of the North or South, was worthy of the history of his race and the antecedents of his people ? Where is the Irishman of whom we read, that dis- graced his flag or country? There is none. Well might old George II. writhe in his arm-chair and begin to cry when he heard of the issue of the battle of Fontenoy ; how his dear son, the Duke of Cumberland, was within an inch of routing the French army, when the Irish Brigade was let loose on him, like lions jumping on their prey, and swept him from the field. Well might he cry: "Oh, my God! what a terrible thing it is that I have such accursed laws that deprive me of such sub- jects as these!" There were fifty thousand such subjects on the field at Waterloo, and we know what they did. Fools they were to be fighting England's battles. But you ask me, What has a man's religion to do with all this ? I say that the Catholic religion creates courage and bravery. The Cath- olic religion teaches a man that wherever there is a good cause it is worth a drop of blood. It teaches a man that hu- man life — most precious, most magnificent, to be preserved and sanctified — is to be sacrificed on the altar of religion and of country when either is assailed. The Catholic religion teaches a man the value of human life. It teaches him to consecrate that life to God. It teaches him to keep that life pure for God ; but it also teaches him, in its history and the history of its martyrs and missionaries, that wherever there is a just and noble cause, where God or country demands it, a man must make his life cheap, and fling it out upon the battle- field in order to make his body, as it were, a rampart for his in- vaded country, or a foundation-stone upon which to build up the noble edifice of that country's liberty. This is Catho- licity. For three hundred years the Church of God sent forth 26 Catholicity as Revealed in the her martyrs to fight in every arena, to submit to every torture, to shed their blood in every country, in order to attest their faith in Jesus Christ, their God. For two thousand years the CathoHc reHgion has taken her noblest and best children, those most highly educated, those most gifted, and has flung them upon every foreign shore, as a man would scatter seed upon a ploughed field. She has scattered them to preach the gospel, and in that preaching to suffer martyrdom and death for their God and for the cause of their religion. It is the same to-day. At this very hour our missionaries are languishing in the prisons and dungeons of China and Japan, waiting for the blessed morning when they shall be dragged forth from those noisome dungeons to be put to death for their God and religion. And so the Catholic Church teaches a man that when his country, that has the next claim to his God and his religion upon him, calls upon him to expose his life in striking a blow for her sacred liberties and preserving her from invasion, from degrada- tion, and slavery, that he gives his life in a holy and just cause, and that next to the man who dies for his God and for his re- ligion in wearing the martyr's crown, is the noble soul that dies for its country. My friends, what does all .this mean ? It means simply this, that the Catholic Church and the Catholic religion creates the natural virtue of courage; that where that religion makes its impression upon a race that is naturally fearless and courage- ous, it brings that courage to the highest point and makes heroes of every man of that race. St. Patrick preached the gospel of Christ to a people who were naturally brave. They were Celts. They had Celtic blood in their veins — quick, pure, red blood running rapidly through their veins. They had a quick, nervous temperament, likely to resent an injury promptly and fiercely, easily roused and as easily appeased. It was to such a people that he preached the Gospel. And when, in ad- dition to their natural bravery, he held out this glorious doc- trine : that there are times when the Almighty God, in defense of His religion, of His altar, and of His faith, may demand the blood, not only of a man, but of a whole people, and that it is that people's duty to die for Him, he stirred up the natural ardor and bravery of the Irish character, and brought it to the high- est perfection of heroism. Do we not see this in the history Character of the Irish People. 2J of our Irish race ? For six hundred sad years have we been fighting. Three hundred years did we fight the Danes in defense of our religion, and conquered. For the next four hundred years we have been fighting for our country, and have been beaten. Then came again the religious element, and Eng- land demanded not only that Ireland should be enslaved and lose her nationality but that she should also give up her religion. Quick from the scabbard flew the time-honored sword, and the Irish, as fierce, as brave, and as ungoverned as ever, crossed swords with their tyrants and invaders in defense of country and of altar, and for three hundred years they have fought, and they have gained at least the religious side of the question, for it was only a few days ago that England gave up the fight, sheathed the sword, and declared that she gave up the task of Protestantizing Ireland. My friends, remember that when the right wing of an army is beaten and put to flight the left wing follows very soon. There were two wings to the English army in Ireland for the last three hundred years. The right wing as- sailed her religion ; the left wing assailed her liberty. The right wing has been beaten and has confessed itself defeated. Ireland has gained the religious triumph of her faith in the destruction or disestablishment of the Protestant church ; and you and I may live to see the day when England's left wing will be put to flight, and Ireland will regain her liberty. The people that can fight until they are victorious in the cause of religion and of God, will not be always beaten and trampled upon when they fight for their national liberty, for the right to make their own laws and govern themselves. Now, this courage comes to us from our religion. What was it that animated Irishmen during the three hundred years of Danish invasion ? It was the strength of their faith. Every man believed that in battling against the Danes he was espous- ing himself to the best cause, and if he died he would have some claim to a martyr's crown. What thousands of Irish martyrs and missionaries there were who strewed every battle- field in Ireland during those three hundred years ? The Dane came to make war upon Christ and upon religion. Ireland de- fended that religion. The Dane conquered in England, in Scot- land, in the north of France, and in every country in which he ever put his foot. In Ireland alone, when he assailed the Catholic 28 Catholicity as Revealed in the faith or the Christian altar, he met an army of heroes, because they were a nation of martyrs, and he was actually routed, though it took three hundred years to do it. What was it that kept up the spirit, strengthened the drooping arm, and animated the drooping courage of our down-trodden and persecuted fore- fathers for the last three hundred years, when to be a Catholic meant disgrace and exile, when to be a Catholic priest meant death, when for a Catholic to send his own son to school meant exile and confiscation. What was it that made us so strong and courageous that, in spite of England, we were Catholics, we were priests, and we sent our children to school? It was our glorious faith. It was our religion, the divine principle of supreme life, that was in us ; and therefore I lay claim to this as the great secret of that courage which has never yet failed in the hour of danger, which has never been found wanting, but true as steel whenever the enemy had to be met and wherever blood had to be shed in a just and noble cause. Here, again, I grant you that out of this very courage of our race there spring certain defects, just as we see that fairies, ghosts, and supersti- tions of that kind may even spring out of our exaggerated faith. I grant you that an Irishman is a little too pugnacious. I my- self have seen a fellow in Ireland trailing his coat after him through the streets of Galway, flourishing his stick, and asking everybody that passed, as a special favor, if he would not be kind enough to stand on the tail of it. But, after all, just as we see that there are some beautiful features attaching to their super- stition, so there are beautiful features attaching to their cour- age, which often leads them to make a fight for the sake of the fight. For instance, nothing is more common in Ireland, when a row is going on at a fair, when sticks are seen in the air and men are tumbling about on every side, than for a quiet, peace- able farmer coming along, to take off his coat, roll it up and throw it on the roadside, then taking his stick, and, after look- ing on for a moment to see which side was losing, which was the weaker side, rush into the thick of the fight and smash the first head that came to him. At any rate it is a comfort to think that he hadn't the instinct to take the side which was winning. That is not an Irishman's way. When a side is win- ning there is generally little fighting shown, as the other side want to run, but the men I describe go in for fighting and not running. Character of the Irish People. 29 There is another beautiful feature in the Irish character. We must approach it reverently, my friends, for it is a most beauti- ful feature, and it is the offspring of our religion. It is the tender character of the love and respect that every true Irish- man has, all the world over, for his dead. The Catholic religion teaches that the dead are not to be forgotten, that the prayers of the living can follow them beyond the grave, and through the tomb into the land of the invisible, there to relieve them in the days of their purgation. The Catholic Church employs herself, all the year round, in solemn offices and sacrifices for the dead. Their names are held in veneration. If they were distinguished for heroic sanctity they receive the passport to the only true immortality, in being recorded amongst the saints. There they live unforgotten, even when king and emperor, hero and philosopher have passed into oblivion. The only race of men that are never forgotten are the Catholic dead, who die in the odor of sanctity, for Jesus Christ. And so the same Church teaches us that we must not be unmindful of our dead, like those who have no hope, but that we must follow them with our love, we must enshrine them in our memories, we must bring them before our minds in prayer, and we must make our dead come forth by virtue of our religion from the very tomb in which they lie, until we lay them at the foot of the altar, where God crowns them with everlasting rest and peace. This is the Catholic religion. Every other religion outside the Catholic Church buries a man in his grave and then leaves him as if they had buried an animal. The only thing they desire to do is to forget the dead as soon as they can, be he a father, brother, son, or husband. Well, the recollection of him only mars their present joy. It only comes to create sorrow. They can do nothing for him. But, let me say, there are many tender hearts outside the Catholic Church, who consecrate the last resting-places of their beloved dead, but it is only in the Church, amongst Catholics, that that consecrated image is enshrined in prayer. There, all the emotions of the heart come forth ; there, every feeling of the tenderest love is poured forth in prayer, and the name of the loved one is sent up towards Heaven, or laid upon the altar with sacrifice before God. St. Patrick preached this to the Irish people. He found a people that were not quick to forget their dead. He found a 30 Catholicity as Revealed in the people naturally passionate, who, even when they were pagan, loved to treasure the memories of those who were gone before. But, when he taught them that they might follow their loved ones beyond the grave, and that they might lift them out of the ex- piatory flames, where souls are saved yet so as by fire, and where they must remain until they have paid the last farthing, and when he taught them the consoling doctrine of sacrifice for their dead, then did the Irish heart respond to him; the Irish heart expanded before him, and all the Irish love, generosity, and keen perception that springs from this was all centred upon their dead. Thus, from the earliest dawn of our religious his- tory do we find that the dead were enshrined in consecrated ground, that their places of repose were most carefully guarded, and that they were surrounded by all a people's care and a people's love, and to this day the spot of earth most hallowed, most revered, and most loved by the Irishman is the place where his aged father and mother and others of his loved ones lie. Nothing is more beautiful than this trait of the Irish character. Why, I remember, when I was a boy, my mother taking me to the graves where her father and mother and those who went be- fore her were buried ; and also bringing me to the grave where my father's people were buried, and there, kneeling down, pour- ing forth her soul in prayer. She would make pilgrimages to these sacred places, and shed tears for those who had died twen- ty and thirty years before, as though they were lying recently dead before her, so fresh and green were they in her Irish memory. And so it is with our people. They love their dead. The very dead in the Irish grave in the green soil over the ocean are the strongest bond that binds you and me to the land of our birth this night. I remember meeting an Irish emi- \ grant, who had come to America, had made a name and a for- tune for himself, and had returned to visit the land of his birth. I met him shortly after he landed in Cork, and I saw him in such a hurry, so anxious to get away, that I asked him what in the world was the matter, and why he could not stay a day or two in Cork to see the beauties of the city. " Oh no," he said, " I must first go to see my father and mother's grave." He hur- ried away into Connaught, until he came to a little sea-beaten grave-yard, where the waves of the mighty Atlantic rolled in upon the Irish strand, and there he knelt down and broke his Character of the Irish People. 31 heart again over those graves, just as if the old people were dead but yesterday. This is the Irish character, my friends. It is created by their religion, as you see. I grant you that this may sometimes run to excess. No matter how poor an Irish- man may be, or his friends, there is one thing they will always strain everything to do, and that is to give him a splendid funeral. Why? Because the instinct of their race is to honor their dead. Now, I ask you, is not this a beautiful trait in the character of a man ? Is there anything more ennobling or more consoling to us living, than to know that when we are dead and gone we shall not be forgotten ? Oh ! what a consol- ing thought to the aged father or mother, bowed down with years and infirmities, as they are lying upon their dying bed, to think that when they are dead and gone for years and years, their names will still be upon the lips of those they leave be- hind them ; that their memories will still be treasured in the hearts of their children and grandchildren, and that their prayers will go forth in living recollection of them. We read of an aged man that was dying, whose last prayer to God was, " Lord, keep my memory green." If that man had been a Catholic he need not have made that prayer. Well would he have known that for many and many a year his memory would be green in the recollection of those whom he left behind him. Well would he know that his name would be the theme of their conversa- tion, that at the sound of his name, years after he had passed away, the Irish tear would spring to the Irish eye, and Irish prayers 'would ascend to God for him, and for his everlasting peace and happiness. One trait more of the Irish character, and I have done. The average Irishman, wherever he is, has a great many faults, like other men, but if you look upon them with an unprejudiced eye you will agree with me that they are faults of a peculiar nature, and they are all on the surface. They are faults of a peculiar nature. There are two classes of crimes that a man may com- mit. There are crimes that are characterized by meanness, by grasping avarice, filthy lust, and defiling impurity. There are crimes that are committed in secret, and the man, all the time, wears a smiling face and a fair exterior. There are crimes over which the cloak of hypocrisy is thrown, and they are concealed from public knowledge. Then there are crimes of another 32 Catholicity as Revealed in the character, committed from impulse, on the spur of the moment, not involving a deep dishonor, although, perhaps, involving great disgrace, but which the unfortunate culprits did not know how to conceal, nor how to throw the mantle of hypocrisy around them, to hide them from the eye of the world. Now, of tnese two classes of crime the Irishman goes in for the second, the open thing, the thing that everybody sees and knows. If he gets drunk he does not lock himself up in his room in order to take a quiet bout of two or three days, ending in delirium tremens. No, he goes out to the public house, in- vites a few friends around him, and gets in company. If he has a grudge against a man he will not dog his steps in the dark with knife or pistol, but will go and smash that man's head in open day, and on the street, in fair fight. My friends, there are some classes of crimes utterly unknown in Ireland. Ireland produces no female criminals of any kind. That is a strong as- sertion. Irish women at home, in the old country, never com- mit crime of any kind. You may tell me I am saying too much for them, but I am saying what I know to be true. Look at our criminal annals. Look at the records of crime in Ire- land, and where do you find a female criminal ? Where do you ever see a female in the criminal dock, under sentence of death, or a woman in Ireland accused of some dreadful, hidden sin, or of murder? Never. There is no such thing known. Nobody ever dreamed of such a thing. Again, there is another class of crimes that are not found in Ireland at all. There is a crime which is very popular in England, and it is called garroting. Let me explain it. Two or three fellows stand at a dark corner of a street, which a decent man has to pass. Presently, they hear him coming. They walk up softly behind him and one puts his arm around his neck and half chokes him to death, while the others, after he is insensible, take the money out of his pockets, and leave him more dead than alive. This is called garroting. Don't you perceive the meanness of it ? They half strangle a man in order to get the few pennies he may have in his pockets, or his watch. The meanness of it is that they attack him from behind. For the last ten or twelve years this crime has been very popular in the English cities. It was never heard of in Ireland until we were told by the last week's Irish papers, a short time since, two respectable gentlemen were Character of the Irish People. 33 garroted in the streets of Dublin, at which the people were much frightened. But what does it turn out to be ? A lot of Englishmen came over from London to try their hands there, and were captured at their vile work. Look at the records of the criminal court in Ireland. I have been examining them at the various assizes. You scarcely ever find a man placed in the dock to be tried for robbery, for mere plundering, for stealing, or for attacking a man and taking his money. So sure as a man is tried for attacking a man in Ireland, you will find that it was for some grudge he had against him, and that he went out to fight him. You will find it was some injury he received, and he want- ed to avenge it promptly and quickly ; you will find it was some faction fight or other, in which there was pluck, not like the dirty,, sneaking robber that would knock a man down in order to take his money. But these are crimes. They are murders, and they are to be deplored. We preach to our people, and ask them for God's love not to do it. A landlord is sometimes shot down. I remem- ber detailing a case of an Irish tenant and how he was treated. to an English gentleman whom I met in a railroad carriage. He said to me. "You are a priest?" "Yes, sir," said I, "I am." " You are an Irish priest?" " Most certainly." " Well,, now, with all the influence that the priests have in Ireland, oh, why do you not try to keep your people from murdering each other in that dreadful way ? Just fancy, you know, murdering a land- lord because he is a landlord ! " And he went on in that strain, for some time. I says, " Look here, sir; here is a case that I met with last Aveek, and I will give it to you just as it happened, and will vouch for its truth." I told him of a man who did not owe a penny of his rent, who had drained a piece of bog which he held at thirty shillings an acre. He had cultivated it at con- siderable labor and expense. The landlord came and told him he must give it up. He asked where he was to put his wife and children. He told him he didn't care — that he must leave the house and give it up. The tenant replied : " You know I have made this place worth a good deal. I have put my labor and capital into it. I hold it under thirty shillings, but I am willing to give you anything that any other man will give you." " No," says the landlord ; " whoever gets it, you won't have it." To my surprise, this gentleman said : "And didn't your friend' shoot the landlord ? " I said, "No, sir, he didn't ; he took his 3 34 Catholicity as Revealed in the wife and children to the next town, and is living there in poverty." Said the gentleman : " It was a very strange thing he didn't shoot the landlord, for by this and by that I'd have shot him ! " There was the quiet, gentlemanly Englishman. Now, God forbid that I should justify these offenses. No ; the very men who do these things do not justify them, or themselves either. They are heart-broken afterwards when they see the evils they have done. On the spur of the moment, when they see their most sacred rights trampled upon, and they are not allowed to live on the land they have tilled, these crimes are committed. But, my friends, the Irishman's crimes are on the surface. One thing is certain, that if there is anything bad in the man, out it comes. You need not be a bit afraid that he will go behind the door to do it. He will out and say any- thing that he has to say. It is a bad thing, of course, to com- mit a sin at any time ; but I must say, if we are to have sins, give me the sins above-board, not the sneaking sins of the gar- roter, not the sin of the man who locks himself up to drink, not the vile sins of the men who are leading impure lives, en- deavoring all the time to make things as nice and fair to the public as possible. Now, that very faculty and propensity of our national charac- ter to be above-board and to say right out whatever is to be said, comes from the Catholic religion. The doctrine of the confessional teaches a man that he is responsible to God, and that, compared with that responsibility, the responsibility to his fellow-men is nothing. The Catholic religion teaches a man that if he commits a sin, no matter how hidden it is, it must come out in confession ; he must bring it to the surface, and lay it down there with shame and sorrow at the foot of the cross. The Catholic religion teaches a man that there is a far higher standard and a more dreadful judgment than that of society — that God sees him even in the darkness of night, that God watches him closely everywhere, and that it is a very little matter to a man what his associates may think of him if God has reason to think highly of him. Therefore it is that this very doctrine engenders a certain kind of contempt for the world's opinion. The Protestant man has no other judge than society. He is afraid of his life as to what his fellow-men think of him, and of the judgment they will pass upon him. He is Character of the Irish People. 35 never taught by his reh'gion to bring himself and his sins before the higher tribunal. He has never been taught to speak these sins out. He has never been taught to give the evil that is in him shape and form in the words of his confession. The most he has been taught is to go now and then to the Lord and say, " O Lord, I am a sinner ! We are all sinners ! " That is very easily said. But a Catholic is obliged to come and say: "On such and such a day I stole ten dollars from a man ; that very evening I used some of that ten dollars, and committed dread- ful sins — such and such things. Also, that on such and such a morning I went out without saying my prayers or bending my knee to God. The very first man that I met I told him a lie about a fellow-laborer. I told him a mean, dirty lie." Now, you see it is quite a different thing w^hen you have to shape and form each individual sin, to look it in the face, say you are ashamed of it, and then lay it down at the feet of our Lord, breathing it into the ear of your fellow-man, from that sort of Protestant confession which says, " O Lord, we are all sinners !" The Catholic Church enforces this doctrine of confession, mak- ing a man of sin look into himself, bring himself out, and lay himself down in all his ulcerous sores and spiritual deformity and filth at the feet of Jesus Christ. It teaches a man that the opinion of the world is not to be valued, that he need not care what men think of him if he knows that he is right before God. What profit would it be to me if you thought something I had done was blameless and praiseworthy, if I knew in my heart that it was sinful or wrong ? what consolation would it be to me? I declare to you, as an Irishman and as a Catholic, that if I had any such thing in my heart now, it would be a positive relief to throw it out before you all. And now, my friends, such is the Irish character — and I think in these salient traits I have not exaggerated it. I did not come here to flatter, nor did I come here to exaggerate the virtues of Irishmen, but I think you will all recognize that there is a real- ity in these traits that I have put before you. You see them in the men we meet every day. This is the kind of man we have to deal with, whenever we meet a thorough Irishman. Now, is there not something grand and noble in all this? Is there not something magnificent in the power of mind that is able so to realize the unseen things of God ? I know nothing 36 Catholicity as Revealed in the more magnificent than the Catholic man bowing down before the Blessed Eucharist. I admire that man's power of mind. I say to myself, What a magnificent intelligence is there, that is able so easily to rise above the mere evidence of the senses, and to realize the hidden God on the altar. I admire the magnifi- cent religion of that man, guided by faith, that is enabled to thrill him with fear and love. I ask you if the blessed sacra- ment were there on the altar this evening, do you imagine that I could speak to you as I have done ? Why ! I would be afraid of my life to make my jokes and make you laugh. If the blessed sacrament were exposed there, is there one among you who would not have a feeling of reverence that you have not now, as if you saw the Lord Jesus Christ with His hand up- lifted before you. Is not this grand ? Is it not a noble trait of mind — this Irish faculty, this Catholic faculty, if you will, of realizing things we never saw? Again, is it not grand to have that veneration, that respect, and that homage for that holy purity, as reflected particularly in the chaste Irish Catholic woman and mother, wherever she is. Do not imagine that I mean for an instant to say that these virtues do not exist out- side the Church, and especially, this virtue of purity, I honor every pure-minded woman everywhere, for I am willing to be- lieve that in all beams the purity of the Virgin and mother. But, this I do say, I am sure of it in my Irish countrywomen. Is it not grand to see the homage that our race has paid for fifteen hundred years to the Catholic expression of purity in maid and in mother. Is not this national courage of Ireland grand and magnificent, a courage that is invincible, that has never been crushed ? This courage has kept alive the race for eight hun- dred years so that we are a nation, and that we shall be a nation unto the end of time. I can imagine Ireland crushed to the dust. I can imagine this nation speaking to England, saying, "■ I will be a province or anything you like ; only give me leave to live, and take off this horrible persecution from me. Give me an acre of land and I will be called anything you like — West Britain, or some such name. We will be like the Scotch " (who once had such a glorious nationality, and have none now). Crush and trample on Ireland as you will, to the last day of the world's history Ireland shall be a nation in spite of you. Is not this grand ? And I say that the soul of Ireland's nation- Character of the Irish People. 37 ality is Ireland's religion. I say that every Irishman that does not love his nationality is not worthy of his religion. And in proportion as he loves his religion with all his heart and soul, in the same proportion will he feel every strong Irish trait of his race, and of his nation. Is not also this feeling of reverence for the dead a beautiful trait ? There is nothing more distaste- ful than to see one from whom those around him receive the blessings of education, the means of support, and perhaps a handsome fortune, buried and forgotten. How grand is the memory that nourishes the dead, that makes them present in their absence, that follows them upon the wing of prayer into the tomb and beyond it, and lives as much for them after their death as before. Finally, is it not a grand thing in our national character that whatever vices we have — and the Lord knows we have a great many — they are all on the surface? There is no hypocrisy about it. If an Irishman is a little the worse for liquor, every- body knows it, and in England they take advantage of this openness of character. Everybody who has had a little some- thing to drink is pointed out with : " There is one of them again ; look at him ! " And this is, perhaps, said by a fellow that locks himself up in his house, gets drunk for a week, and nobody is the wiser for it. He would drink the poor Irishman blind. Since I have been in New York I have got anonymous letters from people, giving extracts from newspapers, detailing a row in a saloon, where an Irishman broke another one's head, and I was asked if these were the people I was glorifying, and whether they were the countrymen I was so proud of. I am free to say I am proud of them, but not in their drunkenness and sin. God forbid. But I say that their drunkenness and sin are all on the surface, which every man can see for himself. It is all before God and man. At least, I am proud of them in this : that they do not care to hide their short-comings and put on a smiling face, like a fine-looking pear with a rotten core, that has been lying in the sun under the tree all the time. And now, my friends, I think I have said enough to warrant me in congratulating you and myself upon our religion — that we are Catholics. We come from a race of Catholic martyrs ; we are descendants of Catholic heroes ; we are the descendants of men who fought and who knew how to fight for their coun- 38 Catholicity as Revealed in the try and for their religion ; and although we have cast our lot in a far-distant land, we are still Irishmen. And when you and your descendants have been in America five hundred years, in Australia, or any other country, even to the end of time, the best drop of blood in your veins will be the drop of your Irish blood. The best, purest, grandest, and highest sentiment that will ever throb in your hearts will be your love for the Catholic religion, and for the great Catholic country from which you have come. Therefore, I ask you to remember that both that religion and that country have their eyes upon you. The Catholic Church asks you to be her missionaries in this great new country. The Catholic Church asks the rising generation of Irishmen not to forget the sanctity of their religion, but to protect it and to live up to it, in order to be all that I have described as the leading features of our race. The Catholic Church, your mother, appeals to you to educate yourselves and your children, so as to make them come up to the level of any in the land. You must use the brains that God Almighty has given to us all, Irishmen, for whatever else He deprived us of He gave us plenty of brains. Give fair play to these brains by education. Above all, abstain from the abominable sin of drunkenness. The Catholic Church asks you to help her by helping yourselves. The citizens of America are looking about for a religion, and in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, if we Catholics are only what we ought to be (and in that name I ask you to be what we ought to be), the example of your religion in each and every one of you, will bring hundreds into the Catholic Church. It is in vain for me or the like of me to be preaching and minis- tering if you do not rise to the grandeur of your national character, by the exercise and practice of your holy religion, by confession and communion, by loving obedience to your God, by your sobriety, your peaceableness, and your obedience to law. The Gospel will be preached in vain, for every word that the priest utters will be contradicted in your lives. The Church speaks, that you may listen to and apply her doctrine in your daily lives. Ireland looks to you. We are few now at home. I remember when we were nearly nine millions. I remember see- ing two hundred and fifty thousand around Daniel O'Connell. You could scarcely assemble that number now in a whole prov- ince in Ireland. They have decimated the land. The bone Character of the Irish People. 39 and sinew of Ireland is in America ; therefore, the hope and the heart of Ireland is with you here. These hopes are built upon your virtues, upon your sobriety, your temperance, and your self-respect. Ireland hopes that her children will become a power in this land ; and if Irishmen in this land are only faith- ful to all that God gave them in their religion, and to all that he gave them by nature, the Irish-American will always take part in the political action of America ; and, as long as the polit- ical action of America says to England : " Let Ireland alone ; oppress no longer that land," so long will the poor old mother be protected by her strong sons ; for if America should raise her little finger England would stop the work of oppres- sion, and she would think twice before she provoked the mighty right arm of the young Republic to dash her to the ground. And in fulfilling the hopes of your holy Church and of your mother-land, there is another reward that will be before you, which you can clutch — and I hold it ought to be the ambition of every Irishman in America to seize that reward — namely, that you will have the esteem, the respect, and the good-will of the native-born citizens of America. I know that the American citizen of to-day, like all other men, has his faults ; but I have been in the country for some months, looking at things with an unprejudiced eye, although I landed full of preju- dice and suspicion, and I hold at this moment, as an Irish- man and a priest, that if there is a man on the face of the earth whose good-will and esteem I would value and try to have, it would be the good-will and esteem of the ordinary American citizen. And thus, enjoying the same liberty as the citizens of your adopted country, you will have full play to de- velop yourselves ; and all that Catholicity made you in Ireland will it make you, and more, in this fair, beautiful, and free land of America, and you will be able to vindicate your religion, your nationality and your country, and build up the hopes that God and man have in you, as sons of Irish martyrs and Irish heroes. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE THREE GREAT EVILS OF SO- CIETY. [A lecture nearly identical with this appeared in the first volume, but as it has been in great part re-written, it is inserted here.] ?^ADIES AND Gentlemen: The subject on which I propose to address you this evening is the most im- portant that could occupy your mind or mine, viz. : " What are the great wants of society in our age, and how are we to meet them ? " The first great question that comes before every age and every class of society is : How are we to meet the most press- ing wants of our people ? Now, what are the wants of society in this, our day, and how are we to meet them ? That is the great question that I am come to answer to you this evening. What are the wants of society in this, our present day ? I ask the philosopher ; I ask the statesman ; I ask the political econ- omist ; I ask the observer of men ; I ask the director of morals ; I ask the man who exults over the success, and pines and groans over the sorrows, of society. What are the wants of our day, and how are we to meet them? I hold — and, I think, you will agree with me — that it is not this little, miserable thing, or that, that ought to occupy our attention when we ask ourselves the mighty question : " What are the wants of our age ? " To be sure, if you ask an individual man what are the wants of his age, he will narrow them by the compass of his own understanding, and of his own circle. I remember once asking a shoemaker in Ireland what he considered the wants of the age ; and he scratched the back of his head, and said : " I think the great want of our age is to remove the tax on leather." Now, it is not in this spirit that we come together this evening. I know that I have the honor to address, not only my fellow-Catholics — (and many amongst them are my fellow-countrymen) — but that I The Catholic Churchy etc. 41 have also the honor, this evening, to address a great many Protestant gentlemen and ladies. And, therefore, before such a distinguished assembly, I must rise to the dignity of the occa- sion, and I must endeavor to meet their views, as well as to ex- press my own, in answering the question : " What are the wants of our age? " Well, my friends, in order to answer that question properly, I must ask you to remember that we all have three great rela- tions. The first of these is our relation to God ; the second is our relation to our family and ourselves — to the little world that surrounds us ; and the third is our relation to the great world around us, that constitutes the state and the society in which we live. These are the three great relations of every age, and constitute its principal duties. Every age and every condition of the society of man demands, first of all, the tribute to God that belongs to God. Next to God in sacredness, in necessity, in claim upon us, comes our family and domestic cir- cle. Thirdly, comes the claim that the society in which we live makes upon us ; and any man that acquits himself properly of all duty that he owes to God above him, to his family around him, and to the state and society in which he lives, that man may be said, truly and emphatically, to come up to all the wants of the age, and all the demands that God and man make upon him. If, therefore, you would know, my friends, what are the wants of our age, I ask you to reflect what is the first demand of God? What is the first demand of the family ? What is the first demand of society ? You will find that the very first thing the Almighty God asks of us is Faith : the tribute of our intelligence. The very first thing that the family — the wife and the children — ask of every man, is purity and fidelity ; and the great demand that society makes upon every man is the demand for honesty, honor, firmness of purpose ; honesty in his dealings with his fellow-man ; in all commercial relations with society ; in all his administra- tive capacity. Behold, now, these three great wants of our age. That is to say, our age is wanting in these three ; they do not exist ; there is not supply sufficient to meet the de- mand. You know that the markets are always thrown out of gear, and there is confusion in the commercial world, whenever demand and supply don't meet each other. For instance : If there is an extraordinary demand for meat, and the butchers are 42 The Catholic Church and the not able to meet it, why, all the people are thrown into con- fusion. Prices are raised ; there is a rush upon the market. If, again, there is a great demand for gold, such that the banks are not able to meet it, then there is a rush of people on the banks, and you find them smothering each other in their maddened endeavors to get their orders paid, and their notes cashed. At length there comes a crash. The bank is unable to meet the un- usual demands, people are aroused, and they are told there is no more money ! And so with supply and demand in everything. Wherever there is not a supply there is confusion. So it is with this world of ours. The world demands three articles : Faith, Purity, and Honesty. You will pardon me if I say to you, as an observer of my fellow-men, we do not meet the demand ; we have not sufficient supply. We have not sufficient supply of faith. What does faith mean ? It means two things, my friends. Every man who wishes to analyze what faith means, will find that it means two things, viz., first, certain knowledge — absolute certainty of knowledge ; secondly, the practical knowledge that influences the lives of men. There are two kinds of knowledge. There is a knowledge that does not contribute anything to the sum of a man's actions. For instance, if I solve a problem in mathematics — in geometry, say — and I come to a fair conclusion, and prove my proposition, what then ? Why, I have gained a point in knowledge. But that does not influence my actions. It does not make me eat my breakfast with any more appetite. It does not induce me to abstain from this thing, or that thing, or anything. It does not make me meet my friend with more good-will. It does not enable me to pardon an outrage. It does not enable me or induce me to abstain from a single sin. It is mere intellectual knowledge. But there is another kind of knowledge which comes with the power of a precept ; which tells me, such and such is the case ; such and such is the fact, and you are called upon to act up to it. Such, for instance, is the knowledge that I have that I must forgive the man that injures me. I go out in the street with that knowledge, and a man insults me, and instead of striking that man, or resenting the insult, I quietly bear it, and pass on. The knowledge that tells me that I must love my neighbor as myself, and that I must not injure him in person or in property — that knowledge is in my mind, and I go out amongst my friends. I have an op- Three Great Evils of Society. 43 portunity of gaining something by injuring my fellow-man. I find that I can step into his place, that I can get his situation if I only say, " He is a bad man ; I know he is a bad man ;" if I only say that, his employer will dismiss him and employ me. But I remember the principle of divine knowledge that is in my mind : " Don't say a word about that man ; don't do anything to him, or say anything of him, that you would not have said or done to yourself." And so, I refrain. That is practical knowl- edge. Now, my friends, faith means knowledge, and practical knowledge ; and this is precisely what our age is deficient in. Our age is deficient, first of all, in knowledge. Take away the Catholics that live in every land — take us away — leave the rest of mankind ; leave them under their various denominations, Protestant, and Methodist, and Baptist, and Anabaptist, and Quaker, and so on — and what knowledge have they? What knowledge have they that rises to the grandeur and the dignity of faith? God forbid that I should conceive an insulting thought, or say an insulting word of, or to, my fellow-man. But I ask you to reflect, what knowledge have they ? They are broken up into a hundred congregations and a hundred sects. One says one thing ; another says another. Take the Monday edition of a New York paper, and cast your eye over the reports of the various sermons of the preceding day. You will find one religious teacher questioning the immortality of the soul ; an- other denying the inspiration of the holy Scriptures , another refusing to accept the truth of the divinity of our Lord ; an- other reviling baptismal regeneration ; another assailing the Most Holy Trinity; and an evening lecture or two, probably by ladies, advocating and preaching impurity and licentious- ness under the name of free love. Each one contradicting the other, and all alike appealing to the Scriptures to prove and sustain their respective errors. And why? Because the Scrip- tures, though they are the inspired word of God, do not tell one thing to all men. They tell you what you like to get from them ; they tell you what your opinion is, and what you would like it to be, and they tell me mine. So that there are, practically, many Scriptures instead of one — yours, and yours, and yours. And then, if you say to any one of these men, "Are you perfectly sure that you are right?" "Oh, yes!" " Are you sure, now, so that you are beyond all possibility 44 The Catholic Church and the of making a mistake ? " " Certainly ; perfectly sure." " Then you are infallible ! Why, then, you are a pope ! What right have you to complain of the Catholics when they say the Pope is infallible? Can you be mistaken, or can you not?" If they say they can, then I turn away at once, and say, " My friend, I have nothing to say to you. If you can be mistaken on this question of religion I want to have not another word to say to you ; because, if you are mistaken, you might lead me into a mistake too ; but if you are not mistaken, and if you cannot be mistaken, then you are an infallible man." Now, show me the promise that made you infallible ! If you practically claim for yourself this privilege, why, in the name of heaven, say that we, Catholics, are idolaters, because we say that the Head of the Church, the man who succeeded St. Peter, the man to whom, through St. Peter, Christ our Lord said, " Confirm thy brethren " — because we say that man is infallible, because he guides and informs the Church ? You say he is not ; you say the Church is not infallible — but you are ! Now, my friend, I don't believe you ! It would be something like the fool we read of ! There was a fool in the county of Galway in '98 — the " year of the troubles," and General Merrick went down to Galway and commanded the troops. They were hanging the people then. The fool saw the general ride up with his cocked hat, and the white feather in it, at the head of his troops. The fool made a cocked hat for himself, and put a white feather in it. Then he walked round the town and said he was General Merrick. So it is with every man of these. He says the Pope has no right to be infallible. The Catholic Church has no right to be infallible. Then he puts on his cocked hat, and says : But / am infallible ! If you believe the Pope you are a fool ! If you believe the Catholic Church you are a fool ! But if you don't believe me you will be damned ! Now, it comes to this, or it comes to nothing at all. In the matter of faith, " without which it is impossible to please God," I cannot accept the word of any teacher who may by possibility lead me into error, because that which is false cannot be the subject matter of faith. " Faith," says the apostle, "comes by hearing." The voice that comes to my hearing, to command and create faith in me, must be the voice of an infallible authority. The word of God alone can create faith, and if that word can by any pos- Three Great Evils of Society. 45 sibility be mixed up with error, which is the word of the devil, the father of Hes, then there is an end of faith. Well now, my friend, recollect for a moment. Not one voice outside the Catholic Church pretends to lay claim to infallible knowledge, but only to opinion. Each one says: "Well, that is my opin- ion." But I answer: "Opinion is not faith. Faith is know- ledge ; Faith is certain knowledge. Faith means not only strength of opinion and power of conviction, but Faith means to know — to know the thing as clearly and as plainly as we know our own existence. That is faith, and that alone. For our Lord did not say ; I will send you inquiring about the truth ; I will send you to form your opinions about what is the truth ; I will send you to argue out convictions about the truth ; but I am come to give you the truth. I am the truth ; you shall know the truth ; and the truth shall make you free." You shall know the truth ! You shall have a knowledge of it as cer- tain, and more certain and strong than of your own existence. More than this : Faith is a knowledge of a practical kind. It tells us not only what we are to believe, but it tells us, also, what we are to do. It is all very well for a man to believe this, that, and the other point of Scripture. As for instance : all men believe in the existence of God. All men believe in the divinity of our divine Lord, — with a few exceptions. All men, with the same few exceptions, believe that He, coming down from heaven, came down to redeem and save us. But in those sermons that you read, delivered outside the Catholic Church, you will always find that they are beating about some point of speculative doctrine about the divinity of our Lord ; the atone- ment of the Son of God ; the wonderful condescension of God becoming man. But how rarely do they speak about the specific duties of man ? How rarely do they tell their people " You must do this, or you must avoid that." The moment you enter the Catholic Church, that moment do you find yourself face to face with a long list of duties that belong to you personally. The Catholic Church lays hold of you and says : " See here, my friend ; you must go to confession ; you must purify your con- science ; you must pray, morning and evening; you must go to Mass ; you must frequent the sacraments ; you must receive Holy Communion, and receive it worthily ; you must fast on such and such days ; you must make restitution if you have 46 The Catholic Church and the wronged any one," and so on. There is a whole list of practical duties, which is the very first thing that we meet when we come into the Catholic Church. The reason of this is, that in the Catho- lic Church faith ceases to be a sentiment, or a mere act of devo- tion — a mere uplifting of the mind to God. It is this, all this, and more. It brings with it an immense list of personal duties, necessary for the sanctifying of every man. Now, I ask you, is not this faith, certain in its knowledge, and operative or practical in its results — is it not the great want of our age? What is the cry that we hear, nowadays, outside the Catholic Church? The cry is : " Oh, the number of men that are infidels ! The number of men that never go to church at all ! The number of men that scarcely believe anything ! " We find so many of them saying: " Oh, I don't care for going to church, because I don't like the preacher ! I don't care about the sermons ! I don't go to church, because there's no excitement." Another will say : " I don't go to church because it is the pleasantest hour of the Sunday, and I like to take a walk in the fresh air." Another one will say : " Well, I have my own notions ; I have read for my- self, and I think I know more than these men who preach ; and I don't go to church because I think I know more than they! " The Protestant faith so stands, practically, at this hour, that there is very little faith to be found amongst the cultivated in- tellect that belongs to it. Very little faith ! The very founda- tions of Protestant faith are being, to-day, uprooted by the hands of Protestant clergymen. I would not say this if I did not know it. You have, at this day, among the very finest writers in Europe, some Protestant clergymen, who are sus- pected of infidelity, from their writings. One of them will begin an essay by saying it is a very doubtful thing whether the Scrip- tures are the inspired Word of God, at all. Another will begin an essay by saying: We admit the antiquity and authority of the Scriptures ; but it only teaches a certain moral law. There is noth- ing supernatural in it — nothing about Almighty God or about his revelation to be based on it. Another will throw a doubt on the divinity of Jesus Christ. All these things have been mooted. All these things have been said. My Catholic friends, you don't know what the Protestant world is. You don't know what a state of confusion there is there — there, where the Angli- can bishops in England have cited Protestant clergymen for infi- Three Great Evils of Society. 47 delity ; have proved the infidelity ; and where the queen, by a statute, told them they were free to exercise their functions, and they were free to teach the people. One of the very first dignitaries of the Church in England to-day — the dean of one of the very first cathedrals — is a man more than suspected of an utter want of belief in the revealed Word of God. And yet he is an Anglican clergyman, high in position, grand in his position, grand in his dignity, and gets up in his pulpit every Sunday to teach the people the Gospel — God bless the mark ! What follows from this want of faith ? Oh, my dear brethren and friends, wherever the mind of man is not thoroughly con- vinced — wherever man has not the certainty of knowledge— wherever the whole intellect is not filled with light, there, most assuredly, in that man's conduct and in that man's life, you will find the works of darkness, and the taint of infi- delity and impurity. The man who, intellectually, from want of faith, is an infidel to his God — that man, certainly, will not be faithful to that being that, next to God, has the deepest, and the most solemn, and the most sacred claim upon him — namely, the wife of his bosom. From that want of faith, from that want of the certain conviction of all that faith teaches us, grows the awful impurity of this age of ours. My friends, I must call it " awful impurity." I read in the history of the world of great sins in past times. I read of kings rising up, and, in the foul desires of their lustful hearts, violating every law. But I read in those times of the strong voice of the Pope of Rome, and the strong arm from the Vatican put out to threaten and to coerce them, if not into the pathways of purity, at least into those of public decency and morality. I read, in the past, of great sins and great sinners ; but I read also that they excited the indignation of society ; and that the greatest sinner of them all never attempted to justify his sin, or to legalize it, or to ob- tain for it the approbation of his fellow-man, or of the laws of his country. But we come to this nineteenth century, and what do we find ? We find the inconstancy and the infidelity of man legalized, acknowledged by the State, in that most in- famous, most unchristian, most unholy law by which a man is permitted, by the laws of the land, to break the bond that he contracted in marriage before the altar of God, and to divorce the pure, and holy, and high-minded wife, who was the first mis- 48 The Catholic Church and the tress of his earliest love. I find in this one act — the act of di- vorce, the legislation severing the bond that God has made — the legislation that tells the woman, no matter how pure she be, no matter how holy she be, that she is never secure in her position, that she is never safe from some base conspiracy, orig- inating in the depravity of her husband, anxious to be rid of her, anxious to shake off the incumbrance of her purity and her vir- tue, and trumping up an accusation against her — that she is never secure from the insidious designs and diabolical conspir- acy of that man ; that she may not be driven forth from his house, covered with ruin, her name dishonored, her position lost, and not knowing where to turn in her mid-career of life or in her old age — the abandoned, the injured, the down-trodden woman — because the State and the laws have given that man power to do it. I find, moreover, this demon of impurity not only destroying the mother's hold upon her children, not only taking from the wife's brows that crown which God set there, who said to her in matrimony, " Thou shalt be this man's queen ; thou shalt be his partner ; 'thou shalt be his equal ; and no hand shall sunder you two until the angel of death comes to lay one of you in the tomb ; " I find, I say, beside this iniquitous law of divorce, that this awful sin of impurity, this sense of a want of all responsibility before God, this feeling of perfect license, has affected the young, has grown up with their age, has entered into their blood, has made the young boy, growing into manhood, think that everything was lawful for him, until it has become the social pest and the social evil of our days. I need not tell you, nor lead you into details about that with which, unfortu- nately, the press of this country has made us all too familiar. The dreadful sins that now and then turn up, creep out to ter- rify us, to make every modest woman in the land veil her face for shame, and every modest man feel the blood rushing to his brows, in shame and indignation; the murders that are com- mitted ; the foul, nameless crimes that are accumulated ; the awful infidelities that disgrace the world in our day ; the dread- ful crimes that, from day to day, are registered before our eyes, until it has come to this that no man or woman valuing his or her soul, can, with safety, take up a daily journal ; for it may contain we know not what abomination ; nor do we know what abominable crime is to be put straight before our eyes ! Whence Three Great Evils of Society. 49 comes all this ? Was there ever an age — and I don't believe there ever was — since Christ died for man, in which this dread- ful sin has so propagated itself as in this, our day; this dread- ful sin, this sin that three times called down the avenging hand of God upon man, and always with a sweeping ruin that de- stroyed a whole world, or a whole nation. It was the sin of defilement, or of impurity, that made Almighty God, in the first Flood, draw back the bolts of heaven, and rain down on man- kind that deluge of water that washed away the whole human race, and destroyed it. It was the self-same sin, repeated again, that made the same Almighty arm once more withdraw the bolts of heaven and rain down upon Pentapolis, and upon the valleys by the Dead Sea, a deluge, no longer of water, but of fire. Living fire came forth, enkindled by the indignation of ai God of purity, sweeping away great cities and a whole nation. It was that very same sin, repeated again, that made the Almighty God send forth that terrible chastisement upon the- whole nation of Benjamin, when all Israel was gathered together and by God'^ command went forth and fought His battle, " and all the cities and villages of Benjamin were consumed with de- vouring flames." So that a whole tribe and a whole nation was wiped out of the Israelites, because of that detestable, that fearful sin, of which St. Paul speaks when he says : " Brethren, let it not be so much as named among you ! " Well, this is the sin which to-day has assumed such proportions that it has act- ually lost its shame. I say it has lost its shame ! I say it in the face of a community which has been insulted, as New York was insulted on last Good Friday evening, whilst we Catholics were weeping at the foot of the Cross; whilst we Catholics, knelt there with Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the Virgin Mother, and the glorious friend, St. John ; whilst we Catholics were weeping over the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ, dead upon the Cross, on last Good Friday evening, a woman — a woman, calling herself a modest woman — had a congregation, an audi- ence, to hear her whilst she blasphemed against purity, and ad- vocated the detestable principles of free and indiscriminate love ! My friends, do not imagine, when I speak thus, that I mean the slightest reflection upon American society, or upon American Protestantism. Well do I know that whatever is. 4 50 The Catholic Church and the vile, whatever is wicked, whatever is unwomanly, unmaidenly, or impure, is as foreign to American society as to any in this world. Well do I know, that nowhere upon this earth is there an intelligence, a mind, a heart, that rises against all this with more bitter indignation than the intelligence, and the mind, and the heart of Protestant America. These things, and such as these, are a libel, not upon us Catholics, but equally on our respected, high-minded, pure-minded Protestant fellow-men and fellow-women in the land. And I beg of you, therefore, to un- derstand distinctly, that when I speak in denunciation of these things, I denounce them, and I denounce the badness of our age, not only to you Catholics, but to my American Protestant fellow-citizens. And well do I know that whatever is bad or vile that I here denounce as a priest, in that denunciation I •shall meet the sympathy of them, the American Protestants, jaist as lively, just as pure-minded, just as strong in their indig- iiiation as your sympathy, my Catholic fellow-citizens. The third great want of our age — (I am ashamed to say it) — is, as it seems to me to be, common honesty. We may con- sider this under the head of commercial honesty, political hon- esty, and international honesty. Is the commercial world in this our day, honest ? The voice of the world in the nineteenth century may be said to be the press, and that voice answers loudly that there is little or no honesty in the commercial world. The columns of the daily press teem with accounts of fraudu- lent bankrupts, defalcating clerks, adulterated food, pernicious medicines, manufactured wines, poisonous liquors, till we grow to wonder that a prudent man should invest his money in any enterprise, or an analytical chemist venture to taste food. We have been obliged to invent a dictionary of dishonesty. The .adjective " bogus," the substantive " shoddy," the strange com- pound advertised as "genuine milk," the "confidence man," -the " roper ; " these are words of which our fathers knew not the sound, and they designate the creations of the commer- •cial nineteenth century. We pass to consider what is called political honesty, and what is the record of our public men ? The press again teems every day with the foulest accusations of peculation and politi- cal corruption. If half what we hear and read be true, then a political position in America means nothing more or less than a Three Great Evils of Society. 51 place into which some arrant knave has worked himself by the basest means for the basest purposes. Time was when the high places of the land were reserved for genius adorned by disinter- estedness, integrity, truth, and every manly virtue. Time was when the very ambition to fill these places was supposed to be, if an infirmity, still the " infirmity of noble minds," and was supposed, like "the maiden passion for a maid," " Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thoughts and amiable words, And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes a man." Are these the qualifications required to-day? If so, whence come the daily accusations of public men, the deposition of judges, the committees of investigation, the corrupt political rings, the wholesale swindlings of cities and States, the custom- house frauds, the lobbyings, the carpet-baggers, the Credit Mo- biliers, the colossal robberies, the secret influences, the personi- fication of voters, the extravagant contracts and land conces- sions, and many other such things that seem to form the pith and substance of political life and action in this country. If what the newspapers tell us be true, then we must conclude that whatever conscience may exist between man and man in private and commercial relations, there exists no conscience whatever between the politician and the public which commits its interests into his hands. A republic, beyond any other form of government, cannot exist without public virtue, and certainly a stranger in the midst of you, who reads the daily papers, is forced to the conclusion that public virtue is but an aroma of the past, whose fragrance no longer hangs round the halls of your legislatures. Finally, we have international honesty and honor. The debt which nation owes to nation irrespective of force or power. The honesty which makes them respect each other's rights, observe treaties, maintain justice, and uphold the law. The honor which shields and protects the weak from lawless violence and aggression. Does this international honesty or public national conscience exist to-day? I answer emphatically, no ! It has perished ; it is amongst the lost memories and traditions of a by-gone time. Every nation to-day holds its own by the strong arm of brute force, and uses its strength to despoil its neighbor. 52 The Catholic Church and the What right has England to India ? Only the right which Clive's bayonets gave her. What right has Russia to Circassia? Only the right of the sword. What right has Prussia to Schles- wig Holstein ? Only the right of the cannon. What right has Victor Emanuel to Rome ? Only the right of the strong robber to his booty. These conquests are applauded by an admiring world because the very idea of international honesty has per- ished. Is Victor Emanuel considered any the worse because he robbed his neighboring sovereign ? On the contrary, he is looked upon as a great man because he succeeded. As a foot- pad or highwayman, with a score of cut-throats at his back, he would be accounted worthy of the gallows. But because the robbery was international, because the robber happened to have a crown on his head, and numbered his banditti, not by tens, but by tens of thousands, he is accounted an honorable man, worthy to be visited, saluted, shaken by the royal hand, which is stained with the blood of the faithful and the brave. Did Bismarck or Napoleon lose caste when it was discovered that they were plotting the partition of Belgium, like a couple of sneak thieves on a large scale? Far from it. If these rogues had not fallen out, Europe to-day would be admiring and congrat- ulating them on their cleverness and success, whilst the Belgians might weep on unpitied over their liberties lost and country dismembered and destroyed. If justice, and right, and international honesty still exist, whence comes it to pass that Europe is turned into one vast camp, where six millions of men are kept under arms, and where the entire manhood of each nation is trained to the deadly work of war. It was objected to Edmund Burke as a statesman that he was " too fond of the right to pursue the expedient." The statesmen and rulers of our day are fettered by no such predi- lection. The word right is no longer found in their vocabulary, the idea of right has perished out of their minds and policy. To-day that word is spelt with an M. Oh, my friends, would it not be very pleasant if the servants who live in the house with us were more honest ? If we, our- selves, were more honest in our dealings with our fellow-men, commercially ? If the nations were more honest, and had a little more respect for each other's rights? If politicians were a little more honest, banks more secure and reliable, justice Three Great Evils of Society. 53 more swift in overtaking the criminal, more evenhanded in administering the hiw ; life and property more secure; our butcher, our baker, our clothier, our druggist more trustworthy? Would not all this be very pleasant ? From all this we may gather that the three great wants of our age are — faith in our relations to God, purity and fidelity in our relations to the family, and honesty in our relations to our fellow-men and to society. I say, the wants of our age, because not only we cannot get on without them, but, unfortunately, they are sadly wanting and deficient in this boasted yet miser- able century of ours. Now, the second part of my business this evening, here, is to show you that there is only one power upon this earth that is able to meet these three wants, and supply them ; that there is only one power on this earth that is able to remedy the three great evils of infidelity, impurity, and dishonesty ; and she is able to do it only because she comes from God — and that power is the Holy Roman Catholic Church. She alone can create faith ; and she alone can create purity. She alone can guaran- tee honesty. And, there, she alone can meet the three great wants of this age of ours. She alone can create faith. She comes to us in this nineteenth century and says : " Hear my voice and believe me ! " If we ask her, " What right have you to say this to us?" she answers : " I am the Church of Jesus Christ ; no other Church lays claims to these my attributes, except myself." I ask you to believe Him who said : " He that will not hear the Church, let him be as a heathen, or an infi- del." I ask you to believe Him who said: "You may rely upon the Church, for I have built My Church upon a rock, and the gates of hell shall never prevail against it." I ask you to believe my word, upon the word of Him who said : " You may rely upon the Church that she can never teach you a lie. For I will send my Spirit of Truth upon her to guide her into all truth, and to be with her until the end of time ; and lo ! I, my- self," said He, "am with her all days, until the consummation of the world." Any man who believes this — who believes that these are the words of the God of Truth — that man is bound, as a reasonable individual, to bow down before the Church and say : " Speak ! speak to me, O messenger of God ! You have proved by your diploma that you have come to me from God ! 54 The Catholic Church and the No other religion even puts in a claim to this but you. Speak, therefore, you, and I will hear your voice as the voice of God ! " What other religion claims it, I ask you? Does the Protestant religion claim this authority, and say : " Hear me, for I come from God?" No ; the boast of Protestantism is that it has re- moved that slavery of the human intellect which bound man to hear the voice of the Church as the voice of God. In other words, Protestantism rests upon the principle that says to every man : " You are the best judge yourself. Go : look in the Book. Put your own interpretation on it : your private judgment is the principle of faith." Theirs is no voice that can say: " Hear me, for I come from God ! " But if these words of Scripture be true, then, my friends, nothing remains for us but to take the Word as it came from the lips of the Church of God ; and that Word is our faith. The Protestant will say: " Don't speak so, O friar ! Don't speak so, thou old bigot of the thirteenth century ! We have long forgotten you, and your white and black habit ! Go back to your cloister! Go back to grovel and be contemned in your monastic idleness, and in your monastic garb of poverty ! We have outgrown you — we of the nineteenth century. We get our faith from the Bible — the written Word of God ! " But I ask you, before you accept that as the founda- tion of your faith, does not that very Bible tell you that faith comes, not by reading, but by hearing ; and that hearing comes by the Word of God, spoken ; and that the man who speaks that Word must be sent by Almighty God? " Faith comes by hearing," says St. Paul, " and hearing by the Word of God. How shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall any man preach unless he be sent?" Therefore, the man that comes to propagate faith, must come with a living voice ; that voice must be the voice of authority ; and whilst he speaks to his fel- low-man, he must be able, with his right hand, to point to a commission received from God. Where is that commission to be found, save and except in the Catholic Church, that goes up, step by step, and year by year, until she says : " I am here, speaking to you to-night by the voice of the least and most un- worthy of my commissioned and sent children ; but I was pres- ent, on Easter morning, with Peter and St. John, when we en- tered an empty grave, and we heard from angels the words: ' Why seek you the living with the dead ? He is risen. He Three Great Evils of Society. 55 is no longer here ! ' " This is the Catholic Church. She alone can propagate faith. She alone can give knowledge. The na- tions are groping about like children, with a film over their eyes. They are seeking what they are to believe : " I believe this ; you believe that ; you are wrong, and I am right." " No ; but I am right, and you are wrong ! " And in the midst of all this, stands the living voice ; the voice that resounded when He struck the key-note — and that was on the day when He said : " Go and preach to all the nations ; teach them, with loving care, all that I have spoken to you. And I am with you all days, even until the consummation of the world ! " Does the Catholic Church create purity? Well, my friends, this is a subject on which it is difficult to speak to a mixed audience, such as I have here this evening. And yet, I feel bound to speak plainly and clearly to you. The Catholic Church creates purity. In what does purity consist ? My friends, there are two natures in man. There is the nature of the body — gross, material, corrupt — of the slime of the earth. And there is the nature of the soul — spiritual, God-like, heavenly — for it comes from heaven — from the lips of God. These two natures meet in man, not as friends, but as enemies. They do not join hands and say, " Let us work together for the eternal pur- poses of Him who created us." But the spirit says to the flesh, " I must subdue you ! " And the flesh says to the spirit, " No ; but I will drag you down with me into hell ! " Thus it is that the two natures, the spiritual and the corporal, meet in man. The soul, in this contest with the body, has divine faith — light, example, and grace. The body has its passions, its inclinations, its base desires. It has what are called, nowadays, in the blasphemous jargon of the nineteenth centur>-, " the necessities of its nature ! " The virtue of purity is that form of divine grace by which the soul, the spiritual nature, the angelic element in man, is able to assert itself, to rise into all the glory of its im- perial power, and to say to that body, base and vile and earthly as it is, "No, you must not govern me! You must not enslave me ! You must not have a single desire, nor gratify a single wish, except what I consent to ! " And this is purity ; the power of the soul over the body, the power of the intelligence and of the will over the depraved passions of that low, debased, and fallen nature which is in this flesh of 56 The Catholic Church and the ours. The more perfect that purity rises into the complete empire of soul over body, the more like does that virtue make a man unto Jesus Christ, the God of infinite purity. The more perfectly the body is subdued, the more perfectly all its passions are annihilated, the more easily and imperiously all temptations are swept out of the way, so that the soul may go on in its course to God, the more perfect is the purity of that man. And that highest form of purity is called " virginal purity." Now, my friends, in the designs of God, in creation, every- thing takes its type from something above itself. Everything looks to the most perfect of its species. The Catholic Church creates purity amongst the people because she creates a perfect type of purity in her priesthood and in her sanctuary. The Catholic Church says to the people, " Oh, you men — oh, you husbands — be faithful, be pure, be self-restrained men ! Look at your fellow-men in the sanctuary ! Look at the men who minister unto me at my altars! Behold, I have taken them in the bloom of their youth, in the strength of their manhood ; and I have enabled them so to annihilate their passions and their bodies, that no thought, or shadow of a thought to sin allied, is ever allowed to linger in its passage across their imagination ; that no act unworthy of an angel of God is ever committed by them ; that they are in the flesh, indeed, but exalting the spirit over that flesh ; and therefore it is that I admit them to my most holy altar, because they are complete victors, and the embodiments of victory, over their passions. Therefore," says the Church, " therefore, O sons of man, you cannot be pure in yourselves, seeing that they are pure only in the most perfect God." In the purity of her priesthood, in the virginal purity of her priest, and monk, and nun, the Church of God proves to the world that this high virtue is possible ; that it is easy and feasible to man ; and that all that any man has to do is to look up to Jesus Christ in prayer, and in sacrifice, and in humility, in order to obtain that gift of innocence and purity which is the adornment of the Christian soul. Still more, the Church of God, the Catholic Church, in her system of education ensures the virtue of purity in the young. She takes the little boy or the little girl, with the dews of their baptismal innocence upon them, before their minds are open to the comprehension, or their passions excited to the enjoyment Three Great Evils of Society. 57 of anything evil. She places them under the care of her pre- ceptors — her Christian brothers, her monks, her nuns ; she sur- rounds them with every influence that breathes only of God, and of the Virgin, and of the Virgin's Son, and of the highest form of purity. She teaches them, from their earliest infancy, to look to our Divine Lord, and to His Virgin Mother, and to behold in both of them, shining forth, the gift of the infinite purity of God ; and she teaches them that this is the highest form of virtue. She infuses through the young soul the sacramental graces. She brings the child face to face with the Lord God in the Holy Communion ; and upon those innocent lips, that never murmured a word of evil, and into that innocent heart, that has never thought a thought unholy, does she place her Divine Lord in all the strength, in all the majesty of His holiness, to communicate Himself to the little one, to make that little one even as He was in the happy days when, in Nazareth, He grew up under Mary's hands. More, she ensures domestic holiness, upon the foundation of domestic purity. She tells the husband and the wife that they are bound together by a bond upon which the Church of God has set her sacramental seal, and that no authority on earth, no power on earth, no circumstance that may arise, can ever destroy that bond, or separate that husband from the wife. She tells that man, that, no matter what trust he may break, no matter what obligation he may be unfaithful to, there is one to which he must remain faithful to the last hour of his life ; and that is the obligation of pure love and of undivided homage to the wife of his bosom ; no matter what circumstances may come ; no matter how fortune may smile or frown ; " for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness or in health, till death do them part ;" and whoever comes in, no matter what he says, no matter what he is, no matter how powerful a king, no matter how great he may appear, the Church of God says : " Destroy me if you can, shed my blood if you will, but I stand between you and that woman ; with all the power of God, with a bless- ing and with a curse, I stand between you and that woman ; and I tell you your word is null and void ; she shall never be parted from her husband ; she shall never lose his love, nor his devotion, nor his homage, till death comes to part them." Thus the woman is secured in her position. My friends, don't JS The Catholic Church and the be angry with me if I say it ; consider if it be true ; if it be not true, take it as if it were not said ; but, if it be true, consider it well. Consider it well, oh, you ladies who are present, who may not be Catholics — the only lady, the only wife, that is per- fectly secure, that can rest quietly without a thought or a fear, or an anticipation of ever being disturbed from her sacred posi- tion of wife and of mother, is the woman over whose marriage the Catholic Church has set her sacramental hand and seal. She is the only queen that can never be dethroned ; the only em- press from whose brow no hand can pluck the honorable and magnificent crown of the pure Christian wife and Christian mother. And, therefore, I hold that the Catholic Church, in her system of education ; in the example of her priesthood and her consecrated ones ; in her teaching ; in her securing the mat- rimonial bond as the hand of God binding two ; that in all this she has secured unto the world, in addition to the gift of faith, the peerless gift of chastity. But what about the public and private honesty? What is she able to do here ? you will ask. Well, my friends, there are two ways of dealing with a man in this respect. The first is, to try and save a man from being a thief if you can ; and if you don't succeed in making him honest get hold of him as soon as you can afterwards and take from him whatever he has unjustly ac- quired. If you can save him from being a thief, so much the better. But the next best thing is to catch the thief and open his pockets, take out of them whatever was stolen, and give it back to the man to whom it belongs. " Here, sir, this is yours. There it is. This property is yours. It was taken out of your house yesterday. I have the thief! " Now, there is no power that can do this except the Catholic Church. First of all, there is no power that can save a man from committing a theft, except the power that masters his conscience, that lays hold of his conscience. That reaches him. Now, mark! You may sin against God. You may do a great many bad things. If you are penitent and sorry, you get absolution. There is an end of it. God Almighty forgives you freely whatever you do against Him. But, remember, if your sin be against your neigh- bor; if you be guilty of the slightest act of thievery or injustice against your neighbor, Almighty God will not forgive you until you have given back what you have stolen. Almighty God will Three Great Evils of Society. 59 not forgive you unless you make restitution. If I, for instance, offend God, and, in the silence of my chamber, I beseech God to pardon me, and I am afterwards sorry, and kneel down at my confessor's knee, make a confession, tell my sin, express my sorrow, make my resolution that, with God's help, I will never do the like again, the priest will say, " You have committed a terrible sin ; you have blasphemed God in your anger ; you have blasphemed the attributes of God ; you have invoked the devil to help you in your anger or despair ; but you are sorry. Now, with three words," he says, " I absolve thee in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." It was a sin only against God, of which you were guilty. God forgives us freely, whenever we are truly sorry. But whenever an offense against God in- volves also an offense against our neighbor, it becomes quite a different thing, my friends. If, in the same manner, I go to con- fession, and say to the priest: " Father, I was very angry with a man, and I wanted to have revenge on him ; and I went to his employers and told them the man was a dishonest man, and they discharged him, and he has been out of work now for three weeks." The confessor will say: "Was it true or false what you told them?" " Father, it was a lie! " " And he is three weeks out of work now?" "Yes." " How much was he earn- ing a week?" " Ten dollars a week." " My man," the confes- sor will say, " you will have to give that man thirty dollars, and you will have to go to his employers and tell them that you are a liar ; that you have slandered that man unjustly." The man will say, perhaps: "I cannot very well do it ; I have only twenty dollars altogether." The priest will say : " You must do it, my son ; if you do not, I cannot give you absolution," " But, Father, you cannot ask me to go and make a liar of my- self? " " 'Tis no use, my son," the priest will answer; " for, as you told a lie on the man before, you must go and tell the truth now. It is not now you will make yourself a liar when you go to have him reinstated. You made yourself a liar when you got the man turned out ; but until you get that man rein- stated — until you get him back in his place — until you restore his character — until you make up his loss, you cannot go to your Easter duty; I cannot let you!" If, now, in addition to this, this man says that, after getting his neighbor out of employment, by saying he was a thief, he met three or four 6o The Catholic Church and the others, and told it to them, and they spread the story about the neighborhood; then the priest will say: "Well, my son, when you have paid the thirty dollars, and got the man back into his situation, there is yet another thing you must do. You must go about again among the neighbors, and tell them that what you said was all a lie!" "Why?" "Because you have robbed that man of his reputation." This is Catholic duty, as enforced in the confessional ! What is there more likely to keep a man honest than the per- fect knowledge that he cannot be a thief? If a man could say, " I will rob my employer of a thousand dollars, taking twenty at a time, and he will not miss it ; afterwards I will lead a good life ; I will do penance before God ; I will become an elder in the church, and I, myself, will sometimes preach on Sundays. Besides, nobody will miss it, and nobody will be the worse for it;" if a man could say that, what a strong temptation would it not be to take it? But the Catholic cannot do it. I remember, since I came to America, hearing of a man who came to a Cath- olic, somewhere down South, and made this proposal : " You will vote for me, you know ; and I will vote for you, you know ; and we will take that twelve hundred and divide it between us." "Well," said the other, " I cannot do that; but I'll tell you what I will do. If you give me the thousand, I will let you have the two hundred. For I can tell you," said he, " that sooner or later I must make restitution, because I am a Catho- lic ; but you will have the two hundred scot-free. You have no restitution to make ! " Who is it that catches the thief? Why, for one thief the State lays hold of, a thousand thieves escape. For every one man the State lays hold of, and brings to trial for robbery, or corruption, how many are never detected, or, if detected, elude justice? The money is all gone, and all the courts can do is to send the offender to the penitentiary. But that will not get back one penny of the money. The Cath- olic Church alone lays hold of the thief; she catches him in the confessional. "How much did you take?" "Twenty thou- sand." " Then you have to give back every penny of it." The Catholic Church alone so lays hold of the thief that it enables those who were plundered to get their own again. Perhaps you say this is never done ! I deny it. I say it is, within my own knowledge. I can say this, and I have got permission to Three Great Evils of Society, 6l say it ; it is within my own knowledge, and was under my own agency. Within twelve months since I left Ireland, I paid twenty thousand pounds sterling — one hundred thousand dol- lars — in restitution. Who catches the thief? Why, this is well-known in England, and, I believe, in this country. A great many Protestant families have Catholic servants, because they know they cannot steal from them. When I was living in Gloucestershire, on the mission, there was a Protestant clergy- man came to me, and he said : " I want you to come to my house" — (he was an Englishman) — " I want you to come to my house. My man-servant has been two months away from con- fession, and I am very uneasy about it." I said to him, " Why, bless my soul ! you are a Protestant minister, and you repudi- ate the doctrine of the confessional. Do you really make your servants go to confession ? " " Of course I do," he said ; " and of course you know — ahem — if I did not make him go to con- fession, how do I know but he might be stealing, you know ? " This is the Catholic Church, the reality of religion. I cannot help feeling indignant whenever I see an unreal thing, a sham, held up and called by the name of " religion." Why, religion, wherever it is, if it be true, must get into a man's soul, must make him a pure man, must make him an honest man. It must make him an humble man, believing in God with all his heart and soul, leaning upon Christ, his Saviour, with all his heart and soul — not clinging to any other name, or any other power, save that of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, his Saviour. But, in clinging to Him by faith, he must also approach Him with pure hands. With pure hands ! Oh, God! Oh, God! to hear them speak ! speaking of " hanging on to the Lord ; " of " grasping the Lord ; " of " laying hold of the Saviour," and their hands not pure ! Would the Virgin's Son allow the im- pure man to approach Him? No ; that man is the worst blas- phemer who would speak of Christ with impure lips, or speak of touching Him unless his hands are pure. Religion, wherever it is, must enter into man's life in his relations with his fellow- man ; must create in him a sense, a constant abiding sense, of his responsibility to God and to his fellow-man. Consequently, it must make him " as honest as the sun," as we say in Ireland ; and if it do not do this, it is no religion. Now, my Catholic friends, one word and I have done, for I 62 The Catholic Church and the greatly fear I have trespassed on your patience. The citizens of America may well say to me, and to the like of me, " This is all very beautiful in theory, but is it so in practice, amongst your people ? Are your people, are you — that are always boasting about being an Irishman, throwing up your hands about Ire- land, talking about Irish glory, and all that — are your fellow- countrj'men in this country the pure, honest men that you speak of? I answer, if they are true Catholics, they are all that I describe them to be. I am not describing bad Catholics. But I say to every man that speaks to me, either as an Irishman, or as a priest; I say, if, as Irishmen, they are true to their country's traditions, they are all that I describe them to be. And, as a Catholic priest, I say, if they are true to their religion, they are all, my friends, that I describe them to be. What remains ? What remains, men of Ireland — men of the Catholic Church? What re- mains, but for you and me to be what we ought to be ? For you and me to be what our forefathers before us were, the cream of the earth ! The light of the world was ancient Ireland! The joy of Christendom was ancient Ireland! The glory of the Catholic Church was ancient Ireland ! What remains but for us to be what our fathers before us were so faithfully, in the days of joy or of sorrow? What remains for me to be, but all that the Catholic Church tells me I ought to be, and all that Ireland's history tells me the monks and priests of Ireland's history were? What remains for me but, as a Catholic, the laws of my Church, and, as an Irishman, the grand example of St. Colum- banus, St. Patrick, and St. Kevin ! And if you, and I, and all the Irish Catholics in this land are only what our religion com- mands us to be, or supposes us to be, and, I will add — and this is the great point — enables us to be, if we only accept her ministration and her sacraments — if we are only that, then shall we be worthy of the esteem and love of our American fellow- citizens. Why do I speak of them? Because, Irishmen and Catholics, whom I am addressing, let me tell you that I have lived in many lands, and I have known many people, and I am not accustomed — (thanks be to God, and I hope I never will be) — to speak words of flattery or idle speech to any people. I speak the truth as I feel it. I speak it as it fits in my mind be- fore the world. I say to them, as I am upon this topic, as far as my experience leads me, if there be a man upon this earth Three Great Evils of Society. 63 whose love and whose good-will I have the ambition to possess, he is an American citizen. If you and I are what our religion and what our history tells us we ought to be, America will have no loss, but a great gain in us. America, the grand and glorious young country that has never yet violated the tra- ditions of her own freedom ; that has never yet denied to the poor emigrant, and to the stranger, and to the hunted head, the liberty and the share in that liberty which she herself enjoyed ! To be a citizen of America ; to be destined, either in yourselves or in your children after you, to guide her councils, and enter into the halls of her glorious legislature ; to be citizens of America — that is to say, in a few years to shape the destinies of the world, and give laws to all the nations — laws founded on justice, on religion, and on God — this I hold is the highest am- bition that can enter into the mind of man in this nineteenth century. The country that has given you a home will give you power and intelligence. The nation that has opened her arms to receive you will lift you up in those strong arms to the full height and the highest place ; for no mean, mis- erable, petty bigotry, no tyrannical restriction of race or religion fetters the mind of the free man here. This, and all this, will glorious America do for us, if we. Catholics and Irishmen, and the sons of Irishmen, are all that Catholicity teaches us to be, and all that our history points out to us in the traditions of our glorious past. Great will be America's ga»ri in the day when the Irish element in America, taking shape and form, brings to bear upon her councils the magnificent intellect of Ireland ; bringing into her battle-fields the strong, brave, and stalwart arms that were never yet idle when a blow was to be struck for freedom. Great will be America's gain, all this secured to her by Irish fidelity and Irish love for the land of their adoption. Great will be America's gain when her sanctu- aries and shrines continue to be adorned — as they are adorned to-day — by that Irish priesthood that has come to this land with the traditions of fifteen hundred years of martyrdom and of sanctity about it. Great, indeed, will be this nation's future history. I see her as she rises before me, magnificent in every proportion of intellectual and material strength ; I see her com- bining the best resources of every land and of every country. In her right arm, outstretched in the moment of her highest 64 The Catholic Church, etc. power and vigor, I see the energy, the might, the patriotism, and the fideHty of Ireland. You remain, but I will leave you ; and, if God gives me life, I will yet, perhaps, with tears of joy in my eyes, see the green hills of Innisfail rise before me. Oh, my friends, let me bring home with me the message to the sons of Ireland, of the Clan-na-Gael — from those who love the old land to those who love you there, — let me bring home the con- soling message to them, that Ireland in America is worthy of its new land ; that Ireland in America has not forgotten the old land ; that the heart of Ireland beats throbbing in all the en- ergy of youth for the glorious future that is before it in America ; and still looks back and beholds in the light of memory, across the waves, the ever-loved and ever-dear green land, of the saints and of our sires. Then, my friends, the ancient land my home, will look with hopeful eyes across the wild Atlantic to the great continent that is here ; and whenever an enemy assails her, whenever an old tyrant comes to hang an old chain upon her, Ireland will rise up indignant in her strength, and say : " Oh tyrant ! Oh oppressor ! remember I have strong sons over the ocean who will strike a blow for me ! I am not abandoned, I am not all-forsaken, though in my old age ! I am the mother of the strong race, the intellectual race, the powerful race, which, some day or other, will bring the mighty energies of the ' Great Country ' to bear upon, to crush — aye, and to trample into the dust the foul hand that was ever raised to strike dear old Ire- land ! '• TEMPERANCE. [Lecture delivered at the Rink, Newark, N, J., on October 23d, 1872.] Y FRIENDS : There is a gentleman amongst us who has come all the way from England to tell the Amer- ican people " What he knows about Ireland," and about her people and their history. One thing I can tell the American people, that, in tracing that history, even with all the prejudices of his race and of his Protestant religion, he may be able to bring home to Ireland many an impulsive, ill-considered, foolish act ; he may, perhaps, prove us guilty, from time to time, of want of head ; but I defy him, or any other man that speaks of Ireland's race or Ireland's people, to prove against them a want of heart. Your reception this even- ing of an Irish Catholic priest, whose only recommendation to you, whose only passport to-night amongst you, is that he is a Catholic priest and an Irishman ; the cheer that you gave me would be answer to any charge made by him or any other man, if he attempted to fix upon the Irish people the stain that comes from want of heart. Now, the question which we have come together to consider this evening, is the great question of " Temperance." The priest, beyond all other men, is supposed always to have in his. hands and upon his lips the weightiest arguments that can be brought to bear upon what is, after all, the most important question. The politician may come before you, to speak to you of the interest of the passing hour. The lecturer on science may come to reveal to you the motions of the stars, or the secrets of nature ; these, also, are things of the hour. The his- torian may come before you to put the panorama of the past, in all its glowing colors, before your eyes ; the past is gone ; nothing remains of it but its traditions and its memories. But the priest, when he rises to speak, has, for his argument and for his subject, the things of eternity — the immortal interests of the 5 66 Temperance. soul of man, which shall never pass away, so as to be either a remembrance in the past, or a mere transitory thing in the present ; and on this great subject, all-important because of its eternal interest, the priest preaches with arguments taken from the highest authority — from the very mind, and heart, and mouth of God — drawn from the fountain of eternal truth, or else drawn from the history of mankind, from their experience in the present, or from the hopes, bright or dark, that they may have of the future. Now, amongst the subjects, all-important as they are, which form the burden of my message to the people of God — as a messenger of God, commissioned to speak to them of things ap- pertaining to eternity — there is not one more important, or in its nature more pregnant with interest, in its bearing upon so- ciety and upon the soul of man, than the great virtue of which I am come here this evening to speak — the virtue of temperance. And why? Because, my dear friends, in whatever light we look upon man — whether we look upon him as a citizen of the State, whether we look upon him as the father of a family, whether we look upon him as a Christian professing to believe in God, to fear Him, and to hope in Him — the greatest curse that can fall upon man is the curse of intemperance. It is the greatest curse, if we consider man in his position as a citizen of the State ; and, consequently, it is pre-eminently the social evil. It is the greatest curse, if we look upon him in his family relations ; consequently, it is the domestic evil. It is the great- est curse, if we look upon him as one who professes any fixed religion ; consequently, it is the religious evil. Behold the bur- den of my argument ; behold the three points upon which I will put this subject before you. First of all, what are the obligations of a man as a citizen of the State, and as a member of society governed by laws ? His first obligation is to obey the laws ; to yield to them an intel- lectual, manly obedience. To assert the dominion and omni- potence of the law is the very quintessence of freedom ; to up- hold his rights as a citizen, and to maintain them within all lawful and reasonable limits ; to help to preserve the State that protects him in life and in property ; and to edify his fellow-cit- izens by the example of a manly, intellectual life, in obedience to the law. Now, my friends, these are the ruling, the primary Temperance. 6y obligations that the State puts upon us. And, remark, that next to the religion that sets a man right with his God, and keeps him right with God, the highest blessing that God can give to him, is to place him under a free, liberal, considerate government or order of State policy — to place him in a State where the governing powers will pay so high a tribute to the intellect of every citizen as to consult him, individually, before they lay upon him the obligation of law. There have been gov- ernments where the law by which the people were governed was the mere expression of a despot's or a tyrant's will. There have been governments where the law by which citizens were bound, under penalty, was not the reflex of high reason, ani- mated and guided by benevolence, but was rather the expres- sion of caprice, or the eccentricity of, perhaps, the vilest mon- ster and worst man in the country. Such was the government and such was the law that told the Catholic parents of Ireland that it was no longer lawful for them to educate their children. Such was the government and such was the' law that told the Catholic priesthood of Ireland that it was no longer lawful for them to go to the holy altar and celebrate Mass. The law was not the reflex of religion, nor of reason, nor of justice, nor of mercy ; it was the accursed caprice of one of the vilest monsters that ever appeared upon this earth, and her name was Queen Elizabeth. But, my friends, I come home practically, at once, to this subject of the State. Many of you who are here listen- ing to me are Americans, citizens by birth and by blood ; but, surely, there are also men listening to me who, like myself, are men of Celtic blood and of Irish birth; not English, but Irish; not Norman, but Celtic. My name of Burke, it is true, is a Norman name ; but it is a name that has come down to me through seven hundred years, from sires and grandsires that knew how to bleed and to die for Ireland. Thanks be to God, a man gets more of his nature, of his heart; and of his blood, from his mother than he does from his father, and my mother was a McDonough, from Connemara — a stock that is as purely Irish as ever was that of Hugh O'Neill, or Red Hugh O'Don- nell ; as fiery in temper as ever St. Columbkille was, and he was a true Irishman ; as poor as England could make them (and, God knows, that was poor enough) ; as proud as Lucifer ; and as Catholic as St. Peter. 68 Temperance. Well, my friends, to you, especially — to you who have been brought up in the traditions of persecution, and I might almost say, of slavery — to you who, in this land, breathe and inhale the glorious air of free America ; to you who know the springing step of freemen, that you were never able to lay upon the sham- rock sod at home ; to you, I say, that have already realized the magnificent truth of my assertions — this glorious land of Amer- ica — Oh ! may every blessing in the gift of Heaven come down upon her imperial, and more than imperial, head and heart ! — this great land, this noble constitution of freedom, will not impose a law upon the least of you, her citizens, until she first asks that man, by a vote or not, whether that law is to be made. She will not as much as nominate a civil magistrate to rule you, until she first asks your opinion. It is for you to decide who shall be governor. She takes into her grand republican coun- cils every citizen in the land ; she educates him to the highest principle of obedience to the law, by transforming every citizen into a law-maker. Is it not so? Was there ever, since the world was created, a more magnificent sight than to see so many millions of freemen living in harmony and in peace together, and no man abusing the freedom that this glorious country gives him. I said no man abusing his freedom ; I must withdraw that expression. There is one man who abuses that freedom — one man who is a living reproach to the very liberty that he possesses, and to the State that owns him ; and that one man is the drunkard, that I came here to fight to-night. He, alone, above all other men, insults the genius of liberty and of law. He insults the genius of liberty by his own act, in freely and willfully resigning himself to become the slave of the vilest and most tyrannical passion that ever asserted itself in the blood or in the body of man. There is no man who is so thoroughly enslaved as the unfortunate drunkard. There is no man who cannot resist his passions some time or other, but the drunkard. Why? Because there is no form of sin that excludes the counseling voice of reason — there is no form of sin that excludes the whispers of conscience, except that one sin which destroys reason, and paralyzes the conscience, and takes away the soul, and leaves only the brutal body, with its base desires, behind. Again, my friends, the drunkard not only abuses the liberty Temperance. 69 that he enjoys, but he makes himself, by his accursed drunken- ness, incapable of obeying or appreciating, or even of making the law. The word law — that is to say, the rule that is to govern a whole community — means the expression of judgment and reason, meditated profoundly, and scientifically, and practically, for the public good. It is, therefore, an intellectual fact, the existence of law. Why is it that there is no law amongst the inferior animals ? Because there is no intellect amongst them. Why is it that in them a necessaiy instinct takes the place of in- telligent reasoning? Because they have no intelligence, and, therefore, no appreciation of freedom. Therefore, that vice, above all others, is the enemy of God and of law which destroys reason in man ; which annihilates his judgment, and leaves him incapable of thinking, incapable of knowing what law is, for he is incapable of obeying that law. Above all, and beyond all things, he is incapable of defending it, wheneveV that law, which is the palladium of liberty, is attacked. What is the conse- quence? You might as well endeavor to set up a Republic, or a Free State, amongst the hogs in Ohio or Indiana, out West ; you might as well get these hogs together into one of the prairies, and say to them : " Now, hogs, elect a president for yourselves ; elect mayors, elect congressmen, elect senators ; make your own laws ; it will be hog law, but it will be good enough for you. We leave you perfectly free. We have been in the habit of taking you to Cincinnati, and such places, and killing you in the fall season, or the winter season ; but there is an end to that. No man, for the future, must touch even a pig's tail. There is to be no longer ham, nor bacon, nor any of these things, for the hog is a most respectable animal ; he must have his own liberty, and his own empire." You might just as well say that, and expect the hogs and cattle to compre- hend you, as to collect together a nation of drunkards, and say to them : " We give you your liberty; make your own laws," They would be as incapable of it as the brute beast, that has neither intellect, nor will, nor freedom. And thus, out of its very nature, the sin of drunkenness is that by which hell, and the powers of hell, lay siege not only to the soul of man, en- shrined within him for heaven, but even to the very human body, that God gives for the purposes of society upon earth, as well as for the higher purposes of heaven. 7© ( Temperance. And have we not melancholy instances of this? What has destroyed nations ? Drunkenness. Who are the enemies of the State, wherever they exist ? Drunkards. Who have sap- ped the foundations of freedom, and made it degenerate into tyranny ? Drunkards. When Rome was in the very climax of republican strength and power ; when the last great contest approached, and the question was to be decided whether the Roman people were to retain their precious republican liberty, won for them by the arm of a Brutus, by the valor of a Scipio, by the virtue of a Cato, by the integrity of a Fabricius, and by the genius and wisdom of a Cincinnatus ; when it was the ques- tion whether they should retain their liberty or lose it, and bow down their republican necks under a yoke the most galling — that of the Csesarism or the Imperialism of ancient Rome — what lost the cause? The Roman people looked to one great hero as their champion ; the man who, as a general — the man who, as a statesman, stood pre-eminent ; the only man who could lift his intellectual brow and his mighty arm against the schemes of Augustus Caesar; that man was Marcus Antonius. He went with his army into Egypt ; he gave himself up to drunkenness, and the debauchery that always follows it. There, in Grand Cairo, and in Alexandria, whilst he was drinking his wine, night and day — steeping his soul in the lees of wine, until it lost all sense of its natural bravery and love for republican freedom — Augustus advanced upon him ; and, at the battle of Actium, it only required one sweep of Caesar's sword to drive the poor, be- sotted, degraded, and unmanly Roman soldier from before him as a coward ! What was the beginning of the ruin of that other republic, so celebrated in story — the rival of Rome — imperial Carthage ? As long as her people were sober, as long as her armies were sober, so long the Roman soldiers — those invincible legions, that had conquered the rest of the world — were unable to stand before the terrible arms of Hannibal and of his army. He marched down through Italy ; he crossed the Alps ; he con- quered nature herself; he stormed the country ; and by nothing but the greatness of his own genius, and by the bravery of his men. No power could resist them. Every city fell before them ; until at length these grand and terrible republican soldiers went into winter quarters in a city in the south of Italy, called Capua. There they remained, during the months of winter, drinking the Temperance. 71 rich wines that grew upon the plains of Naples, by the sea-shore, and around the base of Mount Vesuvius. There they remained, these men of iron ; and no sooner did they begin to drink than their muscles and nerves began to relax ; their whole corporal frame, their minds and bodies, were so shattered, that when they came out to fight the Roman again, the very first Roman army that met them swept them from the field as the whirlwind sweeps the chaff from the threshing-floor ; for what was easier for the Roman legions than to crush and destroy an army of reeling, besotted, unmanly drunkards? Go back farther into history ; read the history of all the great nations that ever flourished, and you will find the same story, over and over again. With the Medes, the Persians, the Scythi- ans, the Assyrians, and the Armenians, always the same story. States fell ; society was ruined whilst Baltassar was sitting with his wine before him ; while the proud Sardanapalus was locked up in his palace, drowning his senses in debauchery. In a word, drink has been the curse and ruin of whole nations, as his- tory asserts ; ruin was invariably brought down upon them by this sin, the most detestable of all, the sin of drunkenness. How is it in this land, and how shall it be ? Before America lies a future the most glorious that God ever gave a people on this earth. This mighty continent, terrible in its dimensions, a world in itself; a country teeming with every form of riches; a soil the most fertile ; minerals the most rare and precious, yet abundant ; fruits and flowers of every form of beauty and sweet- ness ; nothing, nothing can hinder America from becoming a nation so great that her mere shadow will cast the rest of the world into the shade ; nothing, except that sin, if America have the misfortune to become a slave to it ; the sin that will rob her statesmen of their brains and of their intellect ; the sin that will rob her senators of their virtue, and of their manly, honest in- dependence : the sin that will rob her people of their industrious habits; the sin that will rob her army of its bravery; the sin, in a word, that will bring down, if America indulge in it (which God forbid she should!) — the sin that will bring down the curse of division, the curse of rival factions — that shall crush her to the earth ; when this magnificent country, broken up into twenty or thirty small States, weakens itself and breaks up into many sovereignties, that must of necessity come when 72 Temperance. the councils are divided and weakened by the sin of drunken- ness. I believe that, if the guardian angel of America could make his voice heard over the mighty land entrusted to him, he would cry out, in a tone of voice at which the dead would rise: "People of America, be temperate, and God will do the rest for you." I don't mean to say that faith is not necessary, for it is. Catholicity is necessary to make America arrive at the fullness of her strength and power. Why ? Because relig- ious union is the concentration of all union ; the highest in- tellectual union, and the secret of that mighty strength which must be hers, which must be exercised in this land. And that religious union will only come upon this land in the day when America is Catholic — as Catholic as Ireland is to-day. But I do hold and believe — I speak now from the experience which I had not before — my experience of the American people, the highest, and proudest, and happiest experience of my life — I speak from experience when I say, that if the shrewd intellect of America — the keen, lofty, penetrative, intuitive intelligence of America — be not spoiled, and blunted, and destroyed by drunk- enness, I anticipate that that intelligence will soon learn to ap- preciate, and to love, and to embrace the glorious religion of the Holy Catholic Church. In the past there have been bright stars, my friends, in the firmament of America ; bright, magnificent stars ; men who, in the very infancy of these States, stood forth and wrote their names, in characters that shall never perish, upon the annals of the world's history, as statesmen, as soldiers, as sailors, as philosophers, and as poets. But, oh ! is it not a sad truth, that some of the brightest stars of intellect — men of magnificent minds and heroic will — that some of the very brightest of them were obscured, until their light became almost darkness ? Why ? By what sin ? Was it by any meanness of spirit? Was it by any un-American fault or sin of lying, or of cowardice? No ! But it was by the sin of drunkenness. Some of the brightest names, that surely were intended by Almighty God to be the lights of American history, were obscured by this, and lost to their country — lost for the vast national purposes which they might have served. Now, my friends, our dear old mother-land was also — and is — a nation, out of whose mind two ideas have never perished, and never will : namely, that she has a right to her freedom as Temperance. 73 a nation ; and that she will be, unto the day of judgment, a Catholic nation. Our history proves that never did Ireland, even in her darkest hour, pull down the " Green Flag," or give it up and say: " I am no longer a nation." Our history proves that not all the powers of earth, aided by all the devils in hell, could tear Ireland's Catholicity from the heart of the people. Irishmen, hear me now, and hear one who need not tell you that he loves you. The master-passion of my heart — after the love that I have for. God and for my religion — is my love for Ireland. There is no brother's love to divide it, or to interfere with it ; there is no woman's love to come in and share it. No! My native land, as she was in all the vicissitudes of her history — my native land, as she is to-day, in all her misery — my native land, as she shall be one day, when the world shall proclaim her "a nation once again," — that is the object of my love. There- fore, I speak as a friend, as a lover, and as an Irishman, to my fellow-man. This learned and no doubt honorable English gen- tleman that has come over, has come to preach this gospel : " The Irish have been badly treated ; and they got what they deserved. They did not know how to govern themselves, and it was a mercy that somebody took them in hand." The Herald news- paper made one remark that struck me as forcible ; it was : " Does Mr. Froude intend that the citizens of America should go back through those dreary, musty dissertations upon past history? Does he intend that we should go on, turning over old books with him ? No ! America has too much to do." Then it went on to say : " It is not so much a question of the past, Mr. Froude, as a question of to-day." I now tell you that, no matter what argument this man may use, the strongest argument that he could bring forward on the ques- tion of the hour, whilst he is drawing the eyes and attention of all America to us Irish, — the strongest argument that he could bring against us would be to point to the drunkards and say : " There they are ! there are the men that are always prating about their grievances. It is true, we handled them without gloves, the dirty, debauched, impoverished, filthy drunk- ards ; were they ever deserving of anything better ? " Oh ! if he is able to say this, we will have to hang down our heads, in shame, in this land, at this sad spectacle. But, as long as he tells about the divisions between Neil Garv O'Nial and Red 74 Temperance. Hugh, — when Neil Garv betrayed him for money ; as long as he tells us about the division between McCarthy Mor in the south, and O'Donnell in the north ; as long as he rakes up old English lies, and holds them up, and says : Here is what I read in an old book written by Gerald Barry, the Welshman, that came to Ireland in the reign of King John, and who was like the Scotch- man, of whom the Irishman said, he never opened his mouth but he put his foot in it. This Gerald Barry scarcely ever opened his mouth from the day he began to speak until his last moment, that he didn't tell a lie. The only time that ever he told the truth was when he said the Confiteor, and had come to that part where he said : " I have sinned exceedingly, in thought, word, and deed, through my fault ; " so long as this gentleman brings arguments from such a customer as Gerald Barrj'', and the like of him, he might as well be " whistling jigs to a mile- stone," as trying to prejudice the great mind of America against her Irish citizens, if the American people see in us a sober, manly, temperate, religious, industrious, honest, and, I will not say a brave race, because the Irishman, drunk or sober, is brave. Aye ! he may take up the dirt and fling it thick and heavy. The more he attempts to lay on, the more will America, great and good as she is, and unprejudiced, the more will she become exasperated, and say: How dare you say such things of a people who are the very toilers, the bone and sinew of this land ; no less industrious, no less interested than any others in its industry and in its commerce ! If I were in Mr. Froude's place, I will tell you what I would do. The very evening that I came out to lecture and assail the Irish, I would try to get an Irishman drunk, and bring him on the stage ; and then, instead of talking and telling lies about the Irish hundreds of years ago, all in the world I would do would be to put this fel- low on a chair and tell the people to look at him. Whenever I see a drunken Irishman reeling about in the street, as a priest, I regret and weep for his sin ; but, as an Irishman, I could almost take him in my hands and strangle him for disgracing so grand a people, so honorable a race, so pure, heroic, and magnificent a history as ours. And now, my friends, it is not only the evil of the State that I talk of, but it is the second, the domestic evil. The highest honor that God gives to man, perhaps, after all, is the honor of Temperance. 75 making him the father of a family. He is, under God, the creator of that family that grows up around him. He is the representative of the Supreme Ruler of all things, in the gov- ernment entrusted to him in his domestic circle. God Himself recognizes the dignity of his position when He says, in the Fourth Commandment, to the child : " Honor this man, rev- erence him ; worship him with your love and your veneration. So will you honor him, in order that your days may be pro- longed in the land you live in." Nothing is more terrific in its responsibility, nothing more noble in its nature, nothing more God-like in the dimensions of its power and honor, than the dignity of a father of a family. He has brought these children into the world ; and God has conferred upon him the honor, and, at the same time, the responsibility and obligation to be the father of those children's souls as well as of their bodies. The little child that leans upon his mother's bosom, is the father of the man that is to be in twenty years* time. But the soul, I may say, can scarcely be said to be born into the better life ; the soul must not only be born, it must be brought up and reared in that infant child, by education. The father's example must go before that child, even as the angel of God went before the children of Israel in the form of a pillar of fire, a burning and a shining light of virtue. Oh ! my friends, what a blessing it is for the grown man in after life, to be able to look back to the days of his early boyhood, and say of the old man that is in his grave : " I never heard a bad word from him. I never saw him in a position unworthy of a man. I never heard from his lips, nor saw in his life, anything that could teach me sin or vice. His example, by which my character was formed, was as that of a saint of God — a perfect Christian." This is the highest blessing, perhaps, God can give to man ; and this is the precious blessing that the drunkard denies to the children that God gave him in this world. How do tJiey grow up ? They see their mother pining away " in unwomanly rags; " they see her lack- lustre eye ; they see the evidence of gloomy despair upon her wan, emaciated face. They, perhaps, see, with fear and terror in their young hearts, the day when she, in her despair, also takes to drink, and becomes that most hideous thing on earth — perhaps the most hideous thing in hell — a drunken woman ! Meantime, the father, losing his employment, losing the confi- 76 Temperance, dence of those who are around him, becomes a besotted drunk- ard, and falls, step by step, from one abyss of poverty to another. The young children are soon taught to know this world, perhaps in crime and in sin ; and the message on which they are perpetually running is to the gin-shop or saloon. Their only idea is to grow up to the enjoyment of that which they see their parents enjoying. I have known, myself, a little boy, before he was fourteen years of age, to become a confirmed, ir- reclaimable drunkard, because every time that his father sent him to the public-house for whiskey or gin, the little lad took his share of it before he brought it home ! What remains of the joys that ought to surround that family at their domestic hearth ? Not a vestige of tenderness remains ; not a vestige even of comfort remains. Demoralization is there ; poverty comes in at last in its most hideous form ; and in its train it brings all the vices, all the crimes, and all the bestiality which are forced upon those who have the misfortune to be in that last and most degraded form of poverty. But far more terrible still is this vice, when we find it in man in his third relation — to his God. I need not dwell at any great length upon this, my friends. And why ? Because, at other times, when I have spoken to you upon this subject, I made this the principal feature of my lecture. I have told you, and proved to you, the outrage that the sin of drunkenness puts upon Almighty God, spoiling and destroying not only the supernatural grace, but the very natural image of humanity or human nature in man ; that it wounds God by tying His hands, and obliging Him, by force, to deny His mercy to the drunkard. But there is one feature of that curse, one phase of drunk- enness that I wish to put before you ; it is the drunkard's death. We Catholics are taught to regard a sudden and un- provided death as the greatest of all curses ; and whilst living we are taught to say that most fervent of prayers : " Oh ! Almighty God, grant us a holy death and a happy resurrec- tion." Our prayer to the Virgin Mother is, " Pray for us, now, and at the hour of our death, oh, Mary! " Nothing is more terrible according to the words of Scripture than the death of the sinner — '■'■Mors peccatorum pessima'' — the death of the sinner is the worst thing of all ; of all, it is the most terrible. Now, as a priest, I have been attending death-beds Temperance. yj for the last twenty years. I have seen death approach in his majesty, in every form that he could assume. I have seen him as he came to lay his icy hand upon the heart of the young man, and still it into the calmness of death. I have seen him approach like a gentle woman whose coming was expected, whose face was wreathed in smiles, who came only to take the soul, and, by an easy transition, bring it into the presence of Jesus Christ and leave it there. Such a death have I seen over and over again ; when the young nun was dying in the first bloom and fervor of her religious life ; and when the young heart was breaking with the pain and agony, death came as sooth- ingly, and as sweetly, and as welcomed as the friend who was expected ; and she smiled in the face of the " grim conqueror," while she surrendered her soul to him, who, after all, was but an angel of God, I have seen the Great King making his sor- rowful advance to the bedside of the dying man, when, oh ! his approach was the signal of despair ; when the father of a family, reconciled to God, had made his peace with all men, fortified with a substantial hope for a bright future in glory ; yet saw around him his wife, whose only support he was, and his chil- dren, who now will cry in vain for bread, when he that broke it for them is gone into his grave forever ; and he, their father, seeing poverty and distress the only heritage that he was leav- ing to those he loved ! Oh ! how terrible were these scenes ! I have seen death approach, like a thief in the night, and steal behind the strong man, and simply lay his icy hand upon him, and bear him away without another thought. But never, never have I seen the terrible, grim conqueror assume all the horrors of hell, and bring with him in his train, before the very eyes of the sinner whose sands of life were passing away, all the terrors of that hell that awaited him — never have I seen him approach surrounded by devils, except when he came to the bedside of the drunkard, dying in his sin ! Oh ! if the greatest drunkard, the greatest of all slaves to this vice that ever lived upon this earth, were only to hear what I have heard, and see what I have seen, that man would never taste the accursed drink again, even if it was to save his life for a thousand years. I remember being called in to the bedside of a man who was dying from ex- cess of drinking. I went into the room, indeed, not without fear. Four men were holding him down in the bed. It seemed 78 Temperance. to him, in his delirious mind, that in holding him down in the bed, they were sinkinj him, inch by inch, into hell ! He looked around him with his awful, terror-stricken eyes. He cried : " I am on a bed of fire ! Oh, God ! I burn ! I burn ! the blood is boiling in my veins ' Devils ! will you not let me rise from this bed of torment and of flames ! Will nobody help me ! " He went on, while his great chest was heaving, as he writhed like one possessed by a thousand devils, to get away from their grasp. He saw devils around him. Sinking on the pillow where he was lying, and endeavoring to shake them off, he said : " Save me ! save me ! — there — there are seventy-seven devils ! Oh ! where shall I fly from this hell around me ! " Thus was he when I entered the room. His shrieks were terrific to hear. Truly the tone of the despair of hell was in his voice. I came over and laid my hand upon his fevered head. Keeping per- fectly calm, I tried, if there were any mesmeric influence in me, to give peace to him. For a moment he grew calm ; he knew me. " Ah ! Father Tom, is it you ? " " Yes ; I am here." " Tell me," he said, " tell me, have you the Blessed Sac- rament ? " ''Yes," I said, "I have the Blessed Sacrament." "Oh! begone," he cried, "you and your God! Begone! He is not my God ! I will not have Him, or belong to Him. There are those around me who will take me away forever! Begone ! " With these words he heaved one mighty sigh — his heart broke with the excess of his terrible delirium — and he fell out of the hands of those who held him, a corpse — his last breath a blasphemy. Many a time and oft — for I knew him well and intimately — many a time and oft I had said to him : " My friend, you are every day preparing for the curse that will come upon you with your last hour, upon your death-bed. You are preparing, by a drunkard's life, to meet a drunkard's death." He did not listen to me. That drunkard's death he died ; and I greatly fear that an eternity of sorrow will not be enough to repair the loss of his immortal soul. Are there any amongst my hearers to-night preparing for a drunkard's death ? On my very knees before that man, I ask him — As you love all that is dear to you in this world ; as you love all that your heart ever leaned* towards ; as you love your faith, your religion, your God ; as you love your country ; as you love the glorious country that you are in ; for all these, Temperance. 79 and by reason of all these, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, take the pledge and give up the drink. If you do not, the word is written against you in the Book of God, namely: " Whatever a man sows, the same shall he reap." Life is the time of sowing ; life is the spring- time of that which will be harvested in eternity. What you are sowing to-day you will reap forever, either in Heaven or in hell. Oh! let it be in Heaven, my friends. It is a friend that speaks, with no interest save in your temporal welfare, and in the sal- vation of your souls — your welfare and happiness for time and eternity; and, as much of your country's hopes are bound up in your actions and in your conduct in this land, I, therefore, ask you, in the name of God — such of you as may require it, such of you as may feel that you ought to do it — this very night, from this platform, to join your voices with mine whilst you take the pledge as I will give it. I ask you before you do this, to remember that this pledge you will not be able to keep, as a rule, unless you go to your duties as Catholics — to Con- fession and Communion — to get from God, who alone can give it, the same grace that enables such as I am, priests, to keep ourselves from sin, from scandal, and the wicked vices of this world. It is all in vain to think, as many think, that when a man makes a resolution he will keep it. No ! God must keep it for him. To keep a good resolution is a work of divine grace. God has provided the means for you — the graces that will enable you to keep this resolution. Therefore, before I speak one word of this pledge to you, I tell you it is a resolution, not a vow. But the virtue of a firm resolution is based upon the hope that we have in God, that He will enable us to keep it; it is based upon the use of the sacraments and the practice of our religion, in order that we may make sure of the grace that will enable us to keep that pledge. And if, after taking it, any man amongst you will keep it ; if any man who has hitherto been led astray by too much jollity or good humor, or any one of the thousand causes that influence the soft and ♦•he simple heart of the Irishman — for in that heart there isn't much that is bad, though there may be a great deal that is foolish — I say now to you that if any man amongst you will take this pledge from me, three angels will descend into that man's house to-night — the angel of the Church of God, to thank him, 8o Temperance. to abide with him, that he may be an honor to his religion ; the angel of American liberty, to abide with him, and make him to be ever worthy of that highest honor and highest character on earth, that of an American citizen ; and the angel of old, green Ireland, who will swoop with the rapidity of angelic motion, rapid as thought, over the Atlantic wave, even into that Irish- man's humble house, and will say to him : " I come with a message from the land of saints and martyrs ; their blood has not been shed in vain ; their prayers have not been poured forth in vain; their sufferings have not been incurred in vain. If you be a sober man and keep this pledge, Ireland will revive in you and in your children in renewed prosperity and hope ; glorious, powerful, crowned with every crown of highest bless- ings, with the still higher crown of that faith, hope, and love, which have been the lustre on Ireland's brow in all the sorrows of the past." Now, if any man here to-night, wishes to take the pledge from me, let him hold up his hand. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. I ask you to repeat these words with me : " I promise, with the divine assistance, to abstain henceforth from all intoxica- ting drinks. And may the Almighty God, through the inter- cession of the Blessed Virgin, and all the angels and saints, give me grace and strength to keep this pledge." A wise reso- lution. If you keep it, and if you take the proper means to insure your keeping it, I promise you, as far as I can promise, as a minister of God, that the blessing of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost will be upon you in your path in life, that the prayers of the Mother of God will be with you at the hour of your death, and that your souls will pass into a happy eternity, to enjoy the vision of Jesus Christ in His glory forever. Amen. ST. COLUMBKILLE. [Lecture delivered in St. Columba's Church, New York City.] Y FRIENDS : There are two things necessary in order to make a saint : nature and grace must both work out the character of the man. Those whom the Al- mighty God destines for the high sanctity which the Catholic Church recognizes by canonization, either receive from God in the beginning a calm, sweet, gentle nature, or else, if they receive from God a hard, rigorous, obstinate nature, they receive on the other hand copious divine graces, whereby they overcome this nature thoroughly, and make themselves after God's own nature. But whatever man's natural disposition be, whether it be the amiable, sweet, gentle disposition, easily, unselfishly yielding to others, or whether full of character, full of self-assertion, full of rigor, full of obstinacy ; whatever it be, if that man is destined to be a holy man, a man after God's own heart and nature, there is another thing that must come to him from Heaven, to aid the natural disposition which he has received, and that is the mighty copious graces bestowed by the Almighty God on the saints of the Catholic Church. The saints, of whom we read, were men like ourselves. In reading their lives nothing is more interesting than to trace the man, side by side with the saint. They had the same passions ; the same difficulties to overcome ; the same ene- mies ; the world lay around them, the devil was beneath them, and the flesh was their very selves. But, arming for this con- test, whereby they were to triumph, not only over the world around them, and over the powers of hell beneath them, but over their own selves, they received from God the highest, the no- blest, and the most powerful graces, and by corresponding with those graces, they elaborated and brought forth their own sanc- tity. Now, what follows from all this ? My dear friends, it 6 82 St. Columbkille. follows that there is a natural and a supernatural side, even in the lives of the saints ; it follows that we find the man overcom- ing himself, sometimes yielding so far as to bring out his natu- ral character, but in the end overcoming himself by divine grace ; it follows that the lives of the saints are not only most instructive to us as Catholics, but that they are also most in- structive to the historian, or to the antiquarian, as subjects of national character. Now, my friends, the world is divided into various nations and races of people ; and all these various races differ from one another in the most extraordinary manner. All that you have to do is to travel to see this. I have traveled a great deal — all over the continent of Europe I may say, with the exception of Russia and Turkey, and nothing in all these countries struck me more than the difference of the various races. For instance, I traveled in France, and there I found a lively, impulsive, generous, and passionate people ; most polite, most willing to go out of their road to serve you in any manner. Entering into a stage-coach, or railway-car, coming in hat in hand, with a " May I be permitted to speak to you, sir? " style, making themselves agreeable to you at all times. Passing through France into Germany, there I found a people silent and reserved, with perhaps more of the grandeur of manliness than in France, but no approach to anything like conversation, no apparent external politeness, though a great deal, no doubt, of true politeness. In a word, as different from the neighboring country as night from day. So, in like manner, go to Ireland and travel through it. Let a man who is not an Irishman go there, and he finds a quick, bright, intelligent, generous, and impulsive people. If he makes a joke, no sooner is it out of his lips than the Irishman laughs, and with his ready laugh shows that he appreciates the joke ; if he does not make a joke, the simplest Irish peasant he meets on the road will make one for him. If he wants a drink of water, and asks for it, the probability is, that the farmer's wife will say to him, " Don't be taking water ; it is bad for you. Take a drink of milk." Impulsive ; speaking without thinking ; saying the word first, and afterwards think- ing whether it was right or wrong to say it ; perhaps giving you a blow in the face, and afterwards thinking perhaps you did not deserve it. More or less slip-shod and imprudent, allow- ing things to take their course. Pass over to England, and Sf. Coliimbkille. 83 you find a country as different as if you passed from this world into another sphere. Everything kept in its own place ; you may pass through the land and there is neither welcome nor in- sult for you. If you ask for a drink of water, there is very little fear that you will be offered a drink of buttermilk. So, throughout all the world and the nations of the earth, each one has its own character. Don't imagine that I am abus- ing the Englishman by contrasting him unfavorably with the Irishman. My friends, I am one of your race ; but I tell you that the Englishman has qualities that are admirable. As a rule, he is a brave man, a self-reliant man, a truthful man ; his word is his bond. Argue with him on any point — only leaving Ireland and the Catholic religion out of the question — and you will find him a fair man ; but the moment you talk to him about Catholicity, or upon Ireland, he becomes irrational and un- just. Now, why am I making these remarks ? For this pur- pose. The saints of the various nations partake of the national character. They are, perhaps, the very best specimens of the national character of each nation of people. Whatever the nation is, that you are sure to find in the natural side of the saint's character with this difference: there you find the grace of the Almighty God in its highest, noblest, and strongest form, act- ing upon the natural character of the man, or, if you will, upon the national character of the people, as embodied in that man. I am come here this evening to speak to you of one of the greatest saints in the Catholic Church ! A man whose name is recorded in the annals of the Church amongst her brightest and most glorious saints ! A man whose name is known throughout the whole world wherever a Catholic priest says his office, and wherever a Catholic people hear the voice of their pastor. There are many saints in the Catholic Church of whom we hear but little. Many saints, heroic Christian men, exalted in their sanctity. Yet how much do you know about them ? You are Catholics, and you have scarcely ever heard the name of some of the great and illustrious saints : of St. Louis Bertrand, a Domin- ican saint of my order, one of the greatest evangelists God ever sent forth ; of St. Hyacinthe. But there are names of saints who were so great that the whole world is familiar with them. St. Augustine — we have all heard of him ; St. Patrick — who has the most ardent devotion of the Irish race. His name is 84 St. Columbkille. known to the whole world, and will be known to the end of time. Amongst these mighty saints ; amongst the saints who have written their names upon the history of the world ; amongst those saints adopted by nations as their patrons, whose names are familiar to every hearth in the land where civ- ilization and religion have extended themselves, is the name of the Irish saint, COLUMBKILLE, known outside of Ireland by the name Columba, but known amongst his own people as " Columb- kille." It is of him I have come to speak. Therefore, I speak of the national character, and the natural side of the saint, as embodied in him. You all know, my dear friends, that it is now fifteen hundred years since St. Patrick preached in Ireland. At that time the religion of Jesus Christ was only known in Italy, in Spain, in portions of France, and throughout the East in the primeval nations. The rest of Europe was in darkness. As yet the voice of the apostolic preacher had not been heard. The forests of Germany still witnessed the rites and ceremonies of the ancient paganism in that great land. The northern portions of Europe, Sweden, Norway, and Russia, amid their snows, still heard the voice of the ancient Scalds, celebrating in their sagas pagan divinities of the olden time. England was in the deepest dark- ness of her Saxon idolatry. A few of the ancient Britons, in the mountains of Wales, had received the Catholic faith, and their bishops and priests were ungenerous enough, and weak enough, to refuse to preach the Gospel to the Saxons, because they had invaded their land. It was in this almost universal mist and darkness that, in the year 442, a man landed on the shores of Ireland, and lifted up his voice and proclaimed the name of Jesus Christ, and His Virgin Mother; and the Irish race to-day professes the same Catholic faith in all the clearness, in all the exact definiteness of its knowledge ; and professes it still more in the sanctity of the national priesthood, and the system of mo- nasticism as it was given to them from the lips of St. Patrick. My dear friends, no matter what men may say, I am here as a Catholic, as an Irish priest, and I defy any man in the world to produce such a miraculous example of conversion, and of instant maturity into fullness of love and holiness of life as that of the Irish race. Now, St. Patrick had passed to his grave. More than half a St. Columhkille . 85 century had passed by, when, in the year 521, one of the princes of Ulster had a son born to him. He was of the Royal House of O'Neill and O'Donnell, and descended from " King Nial of the Nine Hostages," the man who is supposed to have brought St. Patrick as a captive into Ireland for the first time. This house of O'Donnell and O'Neill is so ancient that its origin is lost in the mists of fable, in the pre-historic time that goes before any written record except the Holy Scriptures. They were kings in the northern parts of Ireland from the sixth century down- ward. St. Patrick landed in Ireland and found O'Donnell and O'Neill on the throne of Ireland. In the reign of Queen Eliza- beth, only three hundred years ago, there lived an Irish prince by the name of O'Neill, and when Elizabeth wanted to make him an English Earl, he answered her : " Earl me no Earls ; my foot is on my native heath, and my name The O'Neill ; " and scornfully flung back her coronets and dignities. No king in Eu- rope had so grand, so royal a title as that crown of the O'Neills of Ulster. From these came St. Columbkille. The name he received was not in baptism, but at his conversion. The word '■^Cohimba " is the Latin word for Dove. So gentle, so tender was he, so patient, that they called him the " gentle dove " in the Irish language. They went further, and because he was a monk, who loved to read in his cell, who loved to live among his brothers in their cells, they called him Columbkille, which means the dove in the church or cell. Tradition and history tell us that no sooner was the child born, than his prince father called in the priest to baptize him. No delay, not even for an hour. As soon as the infant opened his eyes and saw the light of heaven, the divine adop- tion and the light of supernatural faith was let in upon his soul, by the holy waters of baptism. No sooner was the child taken from his mother's breast, than he was handed over to the care of the priest who baptized him, his father and mother saying to him : " We begot this child as a child of nature, a child of Adam ; as far as he is ours he came into this world with the curse of God upon him; but, thou, O priest of God, thou dost lift off that curse and dissipate it by baptism. He is more your child than ours ; take him and rear him up for that God, whose blessing, whose adoption thou hast brought down upon him in baptism." So he remained with the priest that baptized him. As the child grew, two things grew side by side, one with the B6 St. Coluntbkille. other. The first one belonged to the Irish character, and is as Irish as it could be. The second, the divine grace of God, the most wonderful. We can scarcely reconcile the two, as we look upon that beautiful young figure that rises up before us on the pages of history, as we contemplate his life. He grew from a child to a boy, from a boy to a young man. He was the most beau- tiful youth in all Ireland. Tall above all other men ; perfectly formed, with the lofty forehead of the king's son ; the light-blue eye, full of genius, but full of temper; the strong, athletic form, delighting in coursing in the fields in the manly exercises of the strong young man ; a beautiful temperament, full of imagina- tion ; he was a lover of poetry and of music ; and his young hands loved to tune the chords of the ancient Irish harp, and then to draw from them with thrilling grasp the very spirit and soul of Celtic music. Full of talent and intellect, with Irish brains in his head, there was no branch of knowledge or of sci- ence that was unknown to him ; with him, to look at a thing was to know it ; he did not require to study it. But he was also full of pride, full of passion. No man dared to contradict him ; his temper was roused in a moment, and when that tem- per was roused, the young Irishman did not stop to think of what he said, or what he did. With the word came the blow, and then the apology, when it was too late. The very soul of the saint, when he looked at anything, decided whether it was right or wrong. Full of Celtic obstinacy ; full of pride, side by side with a heart as soft and tender as that of a young woman. If he saw a poor man, or cripple, on the way-side, in feverish misery, his heart seemed to break in pity, and if no one was near to help, he would take them up on his shoulders and carry them to his house, and there feed and clothe them. And if, when carrying the poor man, or beggar, any one on the way passed by, and, when called upon to help him, refused, the temper came up at once. There was the full Celtic blood. Noble, gentle, quick, irascible, full of character and determi- nation, even to obstinacy. This was the natural character, yet, strange to say, side by side with this, and whilst thus hindered with a thousand imperfections, there was the most wonderful supernatural reign of divine graces. A thorough Celt, a thorough Irishman, his angel guardian appeared to him when he was be- St. Cohinihkille. 87 tween twelve and fourteen years of age, and said to him : " Columba, I come from heaven ! " The moment Columba saw him, in the form of a radiant youth, he said at once : " Are all the angels in heaven as fair as you ? " The angel answered ; " They are all as fair, and many more fair. I come charged by the Christ, whom you love so dearly, to ask you what gifts you desire from God." Instantly the Irish youth, the young Irish boy, said : " I ask from God CHASTITY and WISDOM." The moment he said the word, three angels, in the form of three beautiful maidens, appeared before him. One, the fairest of all, then threw her arms around his neck. The Irish boy drew back afraid : "Thou has refused my embrace, Columba ; thou knowest not me ; I am the Angel of Divine Virtue, I come with my sisters to remain with you forever." These were the three sisters, Divine Virtue, Divine Wisdom, and Di- vine Spirit of Prophecy, who came to the child as a boy ; a boy, full of faults, full of the imperfections of the Celtic character ; the same imperfections that you and I have ; not sitting down and being prudent and quiet, but always loving a contest ; always lov- ing to do a generous thing, and to do it on the spur of the mo- ment ; always ready to turn around to take up a slight or an insult before it is offered. Yet, side by side, we have the evidence in the life of the saint of the other portion of the Celtic char- acter. The other great virtue, which with all its faults, the Irish character invites, is the Virtue of PURITY. Thus it was most natural that Columba became a monk, and was an obedient priest. He gave his light forever to that grand Irish monasticism, which was the flower and bloom of the glory of Ireland, in that wonderful sixth century. The Irish monks at that time were the most learned, as well as the most holy men in the Catholic Church. Everywhere their vir- tue was known ; in every nation professing the Catholic faith. Students came in profusion to Ireland, yea! even the very pagan nations sent their children to Ireland, to the grand uni- versity of the world, there to learn every highest science and art, and, above all, the art and glorious science of loving Jesus Christ and His Church. They came, they entered the mighty schools of Armagh, of the Island of Arran, on the western coast, and of Lismore, on the banks of the Blackwater. In a word, they came and entered the mighty schools that covered 88 St. Columbkille. the whole face of Ireland, and the old historians tell us that it was considered rather a poor effort at a school where there were not at least three thousand students. The old Irish saints and monks, in their history, tell us of them, that they cultivated every highest art, and, above all, the art of music. In the an- cient Life of St. Bridget, we read that on one occasion she went into the king's palace, perhaps at Tara, and there she saw a harp hanging up on the wall. Turning to the white-haired and gray-bearded minstrel she said to him, " Harp me a song on thy harp," and the old man took down his harp lovingly, and seating himself, while the young Christian virgin sat before him, in melody he poured forth the glories of God and the glories of Ireland. So, when Columba entered the monastery, he found there every highest art and science cultivated ; but he found there two great passions that were always burning in the heart of the ancient Irish monk, and these were an overpow- ering love for Ireland, and a love for Ireland's poetry and music. The young prince, ardent, full of courage ; who seemed to be marked out far more for a soldier, a sailor, or a captain of armies than for a monk, no sooner puts on the monastic cowl, than he devotes his soul to three things, viz. : the love of God's divine religion, the love of Ireland, and the cultiva- tion of music and poetry. No hand was more skillful to sweep the chords of the lyre, and the old chronicles tell us that when those ancient monks assembled, they loved to play their harps ; even when they came to the church to sing the divine songs, the Psalms of David, in the office they recited every day. And so, from their hands went forth the accompanying thrill of Erin's music, while with s'veetest voices they melodiously sang the praises of Almighty Gcd ; and so rich and grand was the voice of the young nov- ice, that we read, when he was an old man, over sixty years of ago, while preaching the gospel to the Picts and Scots, he stopped and began to sing the praises of God, to the sound of his Irish harp. The pagan priests, who were around — who did not wish to let him preach — who, above all things, did not want him to sing, because his voice had a kind of supernatural power, that drew the hearts of the pagan people to God — raised their voices and shouted in order to drown the voice of St. Columba. The Irish saint looked around upon them, St. Columbkille. 89 with the old Celtic fire of youth in his aged eyes ; he pitched the highest note, and brought out from his harp the stronger chords, chanting out the Psalms of David, and the praises of God ; so that, although the priests roared and bawled until they were hoarse, the voice of the saint sounded above them all. He went over all this country, and into the houses of the people, singing the glory of the highest heaven. Everything went calmly and quietly with Columba until, when he was forty years of age, an incident happened that gave tone to his whole life, although it broke his heart. When the saint was forty years of age, he heard that St. Finnian possessed a valuable copy of a part of the Scriptures — the Book of Psalms. St. Columba wanted a copy of this book for himself; and went to St. Finnian and begged the privilege of the book to take a copy of it. He was refused ; the book was too precious to be trusted to him. Then he asked at least to be allowed to go into the church where the book was deposited ; and there he spent night after night, privately writing out a clean copy of it. By the time St. Columba had finished his copy, somebody who had watched him at the work, went and told St. Finnian that the young man had made a copy of his Psalter. The moment St. Finnian heard of it he laid claim to this copy as belonging to him. St. Columba refused to give it up, and ap- pealed to King Dermott, the Ard-righ at Tara. The king called his counsellors together ; they considered the matter, and passed a decree that St. Columba should give up the copy, because, as the original belonged to St. Finnian, the copy was only borrowed from it ; and the Irish decree began with the words : " To every cow her calf; to every book its copy." Now mark the action of Columba — a saint, a man devoted to prayer and fasting all the days of his life ; a man gifted with miraculous powers ; and yet, under all that, as thoroughbred an Irishman as ever lived. The moment he heard that the king had resolved on giving back the precious book, he reproached him, saying; " I am a cousin of yours, and there you went against me ! " He put the clanship — the ^^ Sheanachus" — upon him. The king said he could not help it. What did St. Columba do ? He took his book under his arm, and went away to Ulster, to raise the clans of O'Neill and Tyrconnell of Tyrone. 90 Si. Columbkille. He was himself the son of their king; they were powerful clans in the country, and the moment they heard their kinsman's voice, they rose as one man ; who ever yet asked a lot of Irish- men to get up a row and was disappointed ? They arose ; they followed their glorious, heroic monk down into Westmeath. There they met the king and his army, and, I regret to say, a battle was the consequence, in which hundreds of men were slain, and the fair plains of the country were flooded with blood. It was only then that St. Columba perceived the ter- rible mistake he had made. Like an Irishman, he first had the fight out, and then he began to reflect on it afterwards. Now, at this time, St. Columba's name was known all over Ireland, for the wonderful spirit of prophecy that was upon him. He was known all over Ireland as a very angel of God for his purity. He was already the founder of several famous monastic institutions. In Ireland there were twelve large mon- asteries counting their monks by hundreds and thousands, who looked up to Columba as their chief. His prophecies were wonderfully fulfilled, almost as soon as uttered. His sanctity was an acknowledged fact ; and yet, in the face of all this, the natural Celtic character, the rash, quick temper of the proud Irishman broke out in him so far that he caused the death of hun- dreds of his countrymen. And the next day after the battle he was on his knees by the side of his priest, acknowledging his culpability. The bishops assembled, took thought over the matter, and the issue of it was, that poor, dear St. Columba, with all his sanctity, was excommunicated. As for the book there was no question ; he never got it back. Strange to say, my friends, that very book, written by St. Columba's own hand, remains and is shown to this day in Ireland. He went to con- fess, with great sorrow, to an aged monk named Molaise. The saint was broken-hearted for what he had done ; for the blood that had been shed ; and, if you will, for the scandal of his bad temper. So he had to endure and to accept any penance that would be put upon him. The confessor asked him this ques- tion : " What is the strongest love you have in your heart ? " And the poor penitent answered : " The love that I have for Ireland; that is the strongest affection in my heart." Then the most cruel penance was put upon him — that he was to depart from Ireland, never to see her, or to put his foot upon St. Colunibkille. 9I her soil again. Sentence passed, the man fell to the earth as if the hand of God had smitten him — as the Lord Jesus Christ fell under his cross, which was more than he could bear. Rising up with despairing eyes, he looked in the face of the terrible confessor to whom he had confessed his sins ; then making one effort, he accepted the great sacrifice, and said : " Father, what you have said shall be fulfilled." Then he wrote a letter to his friend, Tyrconnell, in Ulster; he said: "My fate is sealed. My doom is sealed. A man tells me that I must exile myself from Ireland ; and that man I recognize as an angel of God, and I must go." With breaking heart and weeping eyes, he bade a last farewell to the green " Island of Saints," and went to an island among the Hebrides, on the northern coast of Scotland. There, in the mist and storms of that inhospitable region ; there, upon a bare rock out from the main-land, he built a monastery ; and there did he found the far-famed school of lona. Then began the second grand portion of the life of this man whom God had determined and predestined to make so great a saint. He came to lona a man, a prince, a Saint of Ireland, full of passion, full of the nationality of his race, full of the love of God, unstained, unsullied in his virgin mind and soul as an angel before the throne of God. And there he was destined to remain for thirty-six long years, in constant fasting, in unceas- ing prayer, until the divine grace, descending upon him, made a perfect saint of him who was before so noble a specimen of the Celtic race. Now, do you know how hard it is for one in exile? Here is an account given by one of the greatest writers of modern times. He tells us of his love that he retained for Ireland, the affectionate tenderness of the exile ; a love which displayed itself in the songs which have been preserved to us. It is beautiful. He goes on to say, that amongst other things, St. Columbkille left behind him such words as these : " Death in faultless Ireland, is better than life without end in Albyn. " What joy to fly upon the white-crested sea, and to watch the waves break upon the Irish shore ! " What joy to row the little bark and land among the whiten- ing foam upon the Irish shore! " Ah ! how my boat would fly if its prow were turned to my Irish oak-grove ! g2 St. Columbkille. " But the noble sea now carries me only to Albyn, the land of ravens. " My foot is in my little boat, but my sad heart ever bleeds. " There is a gray eye which ever turns to Erin ; but never in this sad life shall it see Erin, nor her sons, nor her daughters. " From the high prow I look over the sea ; great tears are in my gray eyes when I turn to Erin — to Erin, where the song of the birds is so sweet ; where the clerks sing like the birds ; where the young are so gentle, and the old so wise ; where the great men are so noble to look at, and the women so fair," In another place he says to one who was returning from his Scottish island to Ireland : " Young traveller, carry my sorrows with thee ; carry them to Comghall of eternal life. " Noble youth, take my prayer with thee, and my blessing; one part for Ireland — seven times may she be blessed ! — and the other for Albyn. " Carry my blessing across the sea ; carry it to the west. My heart is broken in my bosom. " If death comes to me suddenly, it will be because of the great love I bear to the Gael." What can be more tender than the message that he gives to one of his monks. One morning he called from his little cell in lona to one of his Irish monks there in exile. He said to him, " Brother, go out and stand upon the hill near the east shore ; after you are there awhile a bird will come and fall at your feet with her broken wing. Take up that bird, dear brother," he said, " and feed and care for her gently, restore her to strength again, for that bird will fly over to Ireland. Ah ! my broken heart, that bird will fly back to Ireland again, but I can never go back." This was the heart of the man, the grand passion of his life, which became the source of his martyrdom. Exile from Erin was to him the bitter penance that the priest of God put upon him after the great indiscretion and sin of his life. Yet it was an Irish sin. He did not want to glory in anything wrong; and this I do say, if it was a great Irish sin, there was nothing mean, nothing nasty in that sin ; it was the sin of a brave, passionate man. He felt he was injured, and he called upon his people, and blood- shed followed upon it. It was the act of an impulsive man ; SL Columhkille. 93 nothing vile to be ashamed of; nothing of which the recollection could bring anything but a manly sorrow to his heart. It was the Irish sin. Now began a great period of his life. He was forty-two years of age when he left Ireland, and landed on the little island off the western coast of Scotland. Here his Irish monks built a wooden church, and here that man lived in one of the humblest forms of cells. St. Columba for forty years slept upon the bare ground an hour or two out of the twenty-four. Thus he lay, with a hard rock whereon to lay his head. This island on which the Irish monks landed was destined to be the most holy, the most glo- riously historic spot in Western Europe. He brought monks from Ireland with him, and there, upon the distant shores of Scotland, did he find a people divided into two great nations, viz.: the Irish who had emigrated hundreds of years before, in the very time of St. Patrick, who were Christians, having brought their Catholic religion with them, and who possessed the southern and western portions of Scotland. But the north- ern and eastern portions of the land were in the hands of an- other nation, the most terrible, the most brave, and, with all, the most savage that ever the Roman legions encountered. They were called the ancient Picts. So brave were they, that when Julius Caesar had conquered the whole of England, he never was able to conquer the Picts and warlike savages that inhabited Scotland. As they were brave to resist invasion, so were they also brave with an infernal bravery in resisting the Gospel. Holy saints came to them only to be torn to pieces and slaughtered. The hour of their redemption came from the hour when St. Columbkille landed on the island of lona. He brought a large colony of Irish monks, and his first mission was to his own Irish people settled in Scotland. They were gov- erned by a ruler subject to the King of Ireland. Columbkille went in amongst them, not to preach the Gospel, for that they had already received, but to preach that which in the heart and on the lips of the Irish priest is next to the Gospel. He went in amongst his exiled Irish brethren to preach the Gospel of Irish nationality, and of love for their native land. He spoke to them in the language of the bard and of the poet, of the ancient glories of Ireland. He told them that although they were established in a foreign land, their best and holiest 94 ^f- Columbkille. remembrance, their grandest and noblest influence, was the recollection of the land from which they and their fathers came. He chose one of their princes to be king. He banded them to- gether into a kingdom, and he crowned that Irish prince the first King of Scotland. And that Irish colony of Caledo- nian Scots, as they were called, were destined to conquer the terrible savage Picts, and the first man that reigned was the holy Irish Prince Aiden. Well, my friends, it is most interesting to us to find that the very day that St. Columba crowned the Scotch king, he made this speech to him: " Mark my words," he said, " O King, the day may come when you and your children after you, may be tempted by the devil to make v.-ar upon Ireland. Upon Ire- land," he said, " the land of my love, the land of my race, and of my blood." And here are the words that he put upon that king; in the midst of the ceremony of the coronation he said to the king whom he crowned : " Charge your sons, and let them charge their grandchildren that they attempt no enter- prise against my countrymen and my kindred in Ireland, the land of God ; or the hand of God will weigh heavily upon them, the hand of men will be raised against them, and the victory of their enemies will be sure in the day they have the misfor- tune and the curse of turning against Ireland." There was the glorious law of the Irish priesthood, and of Irish history ; there was the true father of the heroic St. Laurence O'Toole, that stood in the gap on that terrible day, when no man in Ireland seemed to have heart or courage enough to strike a blow in the invading enemy's face. Aiden was king. He was not long crowned, when the Sax- ons, who invaded England, that is to say, the country that was south of the Grampian Hills, invaded Scotland also. The king had to go forth to do battle against them ; and here again we find our ancient Irish saint coming out. " Faithful love for his race and country, which had moved him with compassion for the young Irish kingdom, did not permit him to remain indif- ferent to the wars and revolutions which at that time disturbed the Irish Scots. There was no more marked feature in his character, than his constant, his compassionate sympathy, as well after as before his removal to lona, in all the struggles in which his companions and relatives in Ireland were so often en- Sf. Columbkille. 95 gaged. Nothing was nearer to his heart than the claim of kin- dred. For that reason alone he occupied himself without ceas- ing in the affairs of individual relatives." " This man," he would say, " is of my race. I must help him. It is my duty to work for him, because he is of the same stock as myself." " This other man is a relative of my mother's." Then he would add, speaking to his Scottish monks : " My friends, they are my kindred, descended from the O'Neills." " See them fighting," he would exclaim when hearing of a victory. Perhaps, he said it in Heaven before the Throne of God in the day when Red Hugh O'Neill destroyed the English army at the Yellow Ford. He was praying one day with his favored companion monk, named Dermot, and whilst they were together, the saint said : " Rise, O, Dermot ! ring the bell and call the monks to pray." The monk rang the bell, and all the other monks of the mon- astery came around the father. Here are his words : " Now, let us pray with intelligence and fervor for our people and for King Aiden, who, at this very moment is be- ginning his battle with the barbarians." They prayed, and after a time Columba said : " I behold the barbarians fly. Aiden is victorious." Who were the barbarians? The Saxons of Eng- land, the pagan Saxons, the haters of religion and his Irish peo- ple, the haters of Aiden, the Irish king, and his religion. Another nation lay before him, and the heart of the saint was touched for them. You have seen what he did for his own countrymen in Scotland. He saw in the northern fastnesses of the land those uncivilized, savage, pagan Picts. The men to whom no missionary was ever able to preach ; the men whom no preacher dared to address. And here again see how the char- acter of the saint came out. He arose and took with him a few of his Irish monks, and they travelled into the very heart of their country. He went in order to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Picts. Their king had established himself in a mighty fortress, his pagan priests with him. They were noticed, and when from the towers they saw the brave missionary, the magnificent form of the Irishman, coming, the king admired his manliness and his prince- ly and undaunted courage. He saw the light of the sun beaming upon the grand face of the saint, and he loved him, but he gave orders that the gates of the fortress should not be opened. *' Tell 96 St. Columhkille. him, no man shall enter here as a guest who is not welcome, and that if he attempts to preach he shall die." The message was given, but Columba, without hesitation, without stopping to take counsel, without one moment's prudence, the instant he heard that the king had said he should not come, his Irish blood was up, and it seemed to him there was no reason why he should not go in. He went straight to the very door of the castle and dealt it a mighty blow with his staff. " Open," he said, " in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Again he struck it, and the mighty gates fell open, and St. Columhkille of lona walked in like a conqueror. There was the king on his throne, angry, thirsting for his blood ; finding the pagan priests around him claiming that he had violated their laws and that he should be put to death, he lifted up that ter- rible voice of his, in the Irish language, which was easily under- stood, with a slight interpretation, by the Gaels or the Picts. He said : " I would here speak to-day. I tell the king to his face, and the chieftains, I am Columba of lona, and would make them take the Gospel, if I had to drive it down their throats." Years of sorrow, years of repentance, years of prayer and of fasting had passed over his head, and he was now an eld- erly man, beyond the prime of life, but the moment opposition is shown to a righteous cause, that moment the old Irish blood of his youth, and all the terrible ardor of his Celtic nature is raised within him. My friends, he converted the Pictish nation nearly as perfectly as Patrick converted the Irish. He left his character upon them, so that they became a staunch, a loyal, and true Catholic race in the Highlands of Scotland, and they con- tinued so to be, almost to the present hour. Highlanders of Scotland. Yes ! there are villages in the Highlands of Scotland which have suffered for defense of their faith, like Ireland ; suffered by bad landlords; the same scourge came upon them of English Protestantism and bad laws ; but the traditions of Ireland's Columba was with them, and his words remained with them like a blessing, and there are villages in Scotland that never yet lost their Catholic faith, through weal or through woe. Now another nation lay before him. Great was the heart of the man and true. He saw the pagan Saxons of England in their hundreds and thousands. What did they worship ? They worshipped the meanest and lowest forms of idolatry, they had St. Columbkille. 97 not the grace to worship the Sun, like the Irish. They worshiped Thor, the god of the Scandinavians, a huge fellow with goggle eyes, no feet, and a big club in his hands. They were Saxons ! St. Columba neither loved nor liked them. They were Saxons ! Perhaps he, being a prophet, foresaw that they would be the " Scourge of God " to the land of his love. They were Saxons ! They had assaulted and invaded the land of his own people in Scotland, and the king whom he had crowned. But they were men, and they had souls. And he loved them in the mighty love that burned in his heart for the Lord and Saviour who died for him. So, accordingly, we find that after his conversion of the Picts, the mighty preacher went south, and with the aid of his monastic brethren, the Irish St. Columbkille converted all the Saxons of Northumbria and the middle por- tions of England. Badly have they repaid us, for we gave them faith, and they endeavored to rob us of our faith. We gave them through our great St. Columbkille the liberty of the angels of God, and they have endeavored to deprive us of that liberty which is the inheritance and birthright of the children of men. We gave them light, and they have endeavored to repay us witb darkness. To the Irish saint and his brethren chiefly belongs the honor of converting the Saxons to Christianity. For though St. Augustine came to England to preach the gospel, his labors were only in the south. St. Columbkille and his children had already converted the Saxons of the north. They were the true apostles of England. And now old age was upon him. He was approaching his seventy-sixth year, and we read two things of him, namely — that to the last day of his life he never mitigated or changed his austerities. The old man of seventy-six still lay upon the damp earth, with a rock for his pillow. The old man of seven- ty-six still fasted every day of his life. The old man of seven- ty-six seemed to have a heart as young, as compassionate, as tender, as if he was a boy of fourteen. And one little incident shows us how much the Irish fire was tamed down in him by the sanctity of the saint. When he was an old man, the great feature of his character was, that he still continued the holy work as diligently as when he was young — writing a copy of the sacred Scriptures. The great passion of his life was writing books — there was no printing in those days — writing books, even 7 98 St. Columhkille. when he was bent to the earth with old age and austerities. Yet he fired up into the ardor of the young harpist as he took the Irish harp, and with his aged fingers swept the chords, his voice pouring forth the praises of Ireland and of his God. We read that when he was an old man, strangers frequently came to him for his blessing ; and one day a man came into the little room where St. Columba was writing, and in his eagerness to get the saint's blessing, rushed forward with such vehemence that he overturned the ink-bottle and destroyed the whole manuscript. Oh ! if he had done that thirty or forty years before. But all the old saint did now, was to put his arms about him, embrace him, and say: " Have patience, my son ; be gentle ; don't be in such a hurry." He was seventy-six years of age, and he prayed that he might die at Easter. God sent an angel to tell him that his prayer was granted. Now, mark the Irish heart again. The moment that he heard his prayer was granted, he prayed to God to let him live another month ; for he said to the monks : " My chil- dren, I prayed that I might die and pass my Easter Sunday in heaven. God said He would grant my prayer; but then I re- membered that you have just fasted a long Lent, upon bread and water, and that you are all looking forward to Easter Sun- day as a day of joy ; and if I died on that day, it would be a sad and sorrowful day ; so I asked my God to put it off a month longer.'^ The month passed. It was Saturday night, and Co- lumba, in the morning, told his children, the monks: "This night I will die and take my rest." The monks were accus- tomed to go into the church precisely at twelve o'clock. The bells rang, and Columba was always in the church to prayer when he was not studying ; he went before the others into the dark church — there were no lights — and knelt at the foot of the altar. Dermott, his faithful attendant, followed the old man, and, groping about in the church for him, at first not being able to see him, exclaimed : " Father ! dear father ! where art thou ? " A feeble raoan soon was heard, and guided to where he lay. The other monks came in bringing torches in their hands, an-d found Columba stretched out — dying ! grasping the foot of the altar — dying ! under the very eyes of that Lord and God whom he loved so well — dying ! with a heart long since broken with love for that Lord Jesus, and for St. Colunibkille. 99 the dear land that he had left behind him. They raised him up, and with his dying lips he said : " Come around me that I may give you my last blessing." He lifted his aged hand, and before the sign of the Cross was made, the hand fell by his side ; the light of human love departed from his eye ; and one of the most glorious souls of apostles and martyrs that ever passed into Thy kingdom, O Lord ! beheld Thee in Thy joy ! This was our old saint. How grand, how great is his national character ! How great the character of the saint in his cell ! Above all, how interesting to study the depths of that soul, and the changes which had taken place in it since his youth. At the beginning of his life, he was vindictive, passionate, bold, a man of strife, born a soldier rather than a monk. Often in his life- time, he was involved in fighting ; and when the Irish were fighting their battles they would cry out, " Columba, pray for us." And his soul went out from his cell into the thick of the fight with them. He was, at the same time, full of contradic- tions and contrasts. He was tender and irritable, rude and courageous, ironical and compassionate, caressing, imperious, grateful, revengeful, led by pity as well as by wrong, ever moved by generous passions ; and among all passions, fired to the last by the love of poetry and the love of Ireland ; little in- clined to melancholy when he had once surmounted the great sorrow of his life, which was his exile. Thus, full of contradic- tions, yet harmonized by divine grace, he lived and died a saint who is the glory of the Church of God. And who, I hope, and trust, and believe, will, by his prayer, yet obtain for hi.s native country of Ireland all which she legitimately desires of happiness, of freedom, and of joy. CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. [Lecture delivered in Hartford, Conn., May 7th, 1872.] Y FRIENDS: It is my privilege this evening to ad- dress an audience not only of Catholics, and those of my own loved race, but it is my privilege to address Protestants and Americans upon the most glorious subject that can occupy the mind of any man, especially that of a Catholic priest, viz. : the subject of " Civil and Religious Freedom." Almighty God has bestowed many gifts upon man ; and amongst the first of these divine endowments is the gift of freedom. He created man not only with a powerful in- tellect whereby to understand — with affections whereby to love ; but He crowned all other gifts with the glorious inherit- ance of freedom. And in this do we see the magnificent im- age of God reflected in His creatures. He stamped His resem- blance upon man in the power of intelligence, and in the power of love. When He made man in His own image, He made him free ; and the man who deprives another of that sacred freedom, sins against God. And that nation commits a terrible sin against Almighty God, as well as society, which deprives a people of this sacred right. It is of this glorious boon — this magnificent gift of freedom — I am going to speak. And let me first tell you that you who are assembled here within these sacred walls are citizens of the freest country on the face of the earth. Many of you, as well as I, know well what the feeling is to speak with bated breath, and to watch our words. Many of you, as w^ell as myself, are familiar with the traditions of intellectual and religious slavery. We have heard them from our fathers' lips ; and we recollect the bitter days when education and religious freedom were un- known in the glorious and venerable land from which so many Civil and Religious Liberty. loi of us have sprung. But now, standing upon the freedom- crowned shores of mighty Columbia, we enjoy the gift ; we come into the inheritance denied us so long; and I, in this proscribed habit, can speak as a freeman, and you can hear from my lips the glorious words of freedom, for I have a right to speak to you on that theme. Coming before you in this robe, which represents seven hundred years of existence in the Church of God, I have the right to speak to you of freedom. I say that no one has a better right than I, a Catholic priest, and a Dominican friar. And I have a right, as an Irishman talking to Irishmen ; because no race under Heaven has ever wor- shiped at the sacred shrine of freedom as I and my fathers have ; because no race upon which the sun shines has ever bat- tled with more valiant hands than mine has. And I have the right to speak to those among you who are not Irishmen, be- cause no man is so worthy to hear the sacred praises of liberty as the American, whose very name and nationality are the glorious embodiment and incarnation of civil and religious liberty. Some of you may perhaps say : " All this is very well, but what about the Catholic Church — what does she say ? Does she fetter the hand and bind the lips upon this sacred theme?" I say, no! I look upon my native land, and see in Ireland the martyr among nations for the sacred cause of freedom. I turn to my own Church — to the glorious Church of Christ, the Holy Catholic Church, whose children we are ; and when I look upon her royal face, upon which Christ Himself has set His crown, I see no wrinkle of slavery, but I see the very mother of civil and religious liberty. And, my friends, before we go further, it will be well for us to consider what civil and religious liberty means. A man may talk of freedom and liberty, but not know what it means. For more than three hundred years England has boasted that she, among the nations, is the apostle of constitutional, political, social, civil, and religious liberty. She has boasted of it for cen- turies. But who is there that reads her history and contem- plates her action towards unhappy Ireland, that cannot see that she has been the greatest oppressor of liberty, not allowing the Irish people to worship at their own altars, and even forbidding them to educate their children ; telling the Irishman he must 102 Civil and Religious Liberty. stand aside because he is a Catholic; forbidding him to plead at the bar, and not allowing him security to his property, per- son, or life? Let us examine this question, and see first what religious liberty is. We shall find, when we examine histori- cally, that the Catholic Church, so far from being the enemy of civil and religious liberty, is the mother of both. What is relig- ious liberty? Men, nowadays, think that every man is perfectly free to believe anything he likes, or nothing at all ; that, no mat- ter how strange or eccentric his opinions may be, he has the right to preach, make converts, and build up churches here, there, and everywhere, and persuade all he can to his own par- ticular views, no matter how erroneous they may be. Religious liberty, in this day of ours, involves not only the absence of persecution, but absolute encouragement to every man to dis- card the religious idea altogether, and take up atheism if he pleases. That is the idea of the day. But, strange to say, side by side with this liberty, comes the idea that as soon as a man enters this or that sect, he feels in duty bound to hate every man who disagrees with him, and to persecute him. Is not this true ? Does not history tell us this to-day? In England and Ireland, not content with holding their own opinions, our good Protestant and other brethren go among Catholics and insult them, and speak words of irony against the Blessed Virgin ; they caricature the Catholic worship ; and then, among themselves, damn one another. They believe their own faith the right one, and that the believers in all others are lost eter- nally. A popular writer says : " I have an uncle who is a pious Methodist preacher, and when he found I was associating with a Catholic, he went to my father and mother, and told them I was destined for eternal damnation ! " And does not history tell us the same in this country, free as it is, and glorious as it is in its freedom ? Have we never heard of Catholic churches and convents being set on fire here, and of Catholic priests being insulted and outraged in the most terrible manner? Most as- suredly we have. Therefore, the theory of universal toleration does not tally at all with the practices of the various professors of religion found here and in every other land. Such being the case, let us see what the real meaning of re- ligious liberty is. Where shall we find its definition ? Of whom shall we inquire ? Let us go to God. I will not give what this Civil and Religious Liberty. 1 03 man or that — this statesman or that philosopher — has written upon the subject ; but I will go at once to the fountain-head of all knowledge, of all wisdom and truth. I will ask the Lord Jesus Christ, the Master, to tell us what religious liberty is ; for He knows best He answers in the very words of the Gospel : Religious liberty consists in the knowledge of the truth as it is in the mind of God ; in the knowledge of the Saviour. "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." You shall know the truth, and there shall be no doubt, no hesitation about it. You shall know it just as you know that two and two make four. No one can argue you out of the knowledge of that fact. If any one tries to convince you of its opposite, he might as well save himself the trouble. The man is free because he knows the conclusion. The Saviour said : " You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Now, what comes of this ? Every one of common sense must know that two great conclusions follow. The first is, that the multiplicity of religious opinions varying with one another — the multiplicity of religious sects existing in the land — is no proof of the relig- ious liberty of which Christ told us. Out of forty or fifty sects, all holding different doctrines, only one can be true. Truth is but one, and cannot be multiplied ; thirty-nine out of forty must be false. If Christ said that freedom consists in the knowledge of the truth, it follows that thirty-nine are false. They are not under persecution — not under the lash of religious contest — do not suffer for what they believe. They are toler- ated, and even encouraged; nevertheless, they are false. It is the slavery of man's intellect ; because liberty, in man's mind, consists in knowing the truth and refusing the lie. It is quite evident, therefore, that if the truth be one, and only one, and if knowledge of that truth be religious freedom, the moment people unite to preach that truth, this unity gives us religious freedom. I insist upon it, that in the Catholic Church there is perfect religious freedom. To give an example. Suppose I were to come here in the capacity of a free Meth- odist preacher, and that you were Protestants. I can say what I like. There is no one to tell me that I am preaching heresy. There are men in this country who preach contradictory doc- trines day after day — one thing one Sunday, and the opposite the next. If I came to you as a Protestant, and tried to per- 104 Civil and Religious Liberty. suade you that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God after all, I might send half of you home doubting, and consequently not Christians at all. But coming here as a Catholic priest, if I were to say the least thing against the Catholic Church — to breathe the slightest doubt as to the sacraments, the Blessed Virgin, or any point of Catholic doctrine, is there a child among you who could be deceived ? You would rise up and cry anath- ema upon me, though I were the greatest man that ever lived. Don't you see, therefore, that you are free — that I cannot say a word against the Catholic Church ? The Church saves you from any religious error. A man may be free to urge you to error; but you see how this unity of belief — this having one truth, and knowing that it comes from God — saves men from the highest danger. This is the meaning of the words of Jesus Christ : " You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Now, I ask, where, among the many teachers that rise up to proclaim religion to the people, is there one voice outside of the Catholic Church that says : " This is the truth — I believe it? " There is not one. Argue with Evangelical clergymen, with Episcopal, Methodist, or any other denomination, and they will say over and over again, " My friends, are you quite sure that what you say is truth ? Are you not trying to deceive me ? " The Catholic priest says, " I am sure. My teaching comes from the lips of Jesus Christ and from the Church — that Church of which God said : * She is founded upon a rock, and the gates of hell shall never prevail against her.' " No lie shall ever be found upon her lips. She is a light set upon a candlestick. The Church of God is to be the light of the world, and all men are to see it and not doubt. And now, with this divine charge, and with the glorious com- mission to teach, the Church of God went into the world, and from the lips of the apostles and from the priesthood, her voice has never been silent for eighteen hundred years. You may ask, " Did she not also go with the sword of persecution to strike down those who disagreed with her ? " I deny it. I deny it as a popular fallacy. I deny it as an interested and false statement. If you wish to know what the Catholic Church is, you must not study her in this or that government. You will find in every case that the act of persecution was the act of Civil and Religious Liberty. 105 the government and not of the Church. I assert that history proves that when the Spanish government, under the name of the Spanish Inquisition, was putting the people to death, the Pope of Rome pleaded to save those men. Turn to Rome. There, if you find persecution, I will admit that the Catholic Church is a persecuting Church. But with all pride, I say it as a Catholic priest, that Rome, whenever she had the power, has never been known to put a man to death for his religion. But let us turn to the nation and the race among all the races on earth which, for fourteen hundred years, has been the most Catholic — the nation whose character and genius are the offspring of the Catholic religion — I mean the glorious Irish nation. Then, surely, if the spirit of persecution be in the Catholic Church, we shall find some trait of it in this race. But no. In the most glorious history ever written of any people, the most magnificent annals ever inscribed to perpetuate the glory of any race — the annals of Ireland — I read that her blood was shed for two hundred years in defense of the Cath- olic religion, but try in vain to discover that Ireland ever yet lifted a persecuting hand to strike a man because of his religion. Let us take some of the leading points to prove it. Persecu- tion began in Ireland in the sixteenth century. For one hundred and fifty years it continued. The Catholics were robbed of all they had in this world. Under the successive persecutions of Elizabeth, of Charles the First, and under the terrible Cromwell, the Catholics were robbed of everything. They were not al- lowed to possess an acre of land, nor to educate their children. The best of them were slain. Their priests were hunted like wolves, sold in thousands like slaves, and sent to Jamaica to die. In 1685 the Catholics gave a king to England — the Duke of York, James the Second. The moment he ascended the throne of England, he declared the Catholic religion was to be the religion of his people. He saw in Ireland a whole country of Catholics, but all places of preferment, all high positions, in the hands of Protestants. Among the first things this English Catholic did, was to remove the Protestants and put in Cath- olics. He removed several judges. This was called persecution. Now, what does history tell us ? As soon as the news reached Rome and the Pope, that the new Catholic king was perse- cuting his Protestant subjects — taking them out of their places lo6 Civil and Religious Liberty. and putting Catholics in — the Pope wrote a letter to King James, warning him that he had no right to persecute. At the same time a Catholic parliament was assembled in Dub- lin. They were in power for the first time in one hundred and fifty years. The tables were turned, and the Protestants in Ireland were down now. Remember that these Protestants had for one hundred and fifty years been shedding our blood, and never spared us. They had crushed us with an iron heel. You might imagine that now, when this Catholic parliament as- sembled, they would retaliate. But mark this. The first law of that parliament was, that every man in Ireland was free to profess his religion openly, and no man was ever again to be persecuted for conscience' sake. In a short time James lost his throne, and a Protestant king usurped it. No sooner was that Protestant king in power than the whole of Ireland was flooded again with Catholic blood, shed in the persecutions of the Catholics. This is history, and no man can deny it. I point to these facts to vindicate the genius of Catholics from the reproach of religious persecution ; for if there is a race that repre- sents Catholicity, it is the glorious Irish race, to which it is my pride to belong. Take again, my dear friends, the action of Ireland but six years ago. The hand of God had swept over us, and we bowed before it. The hand of God was suc- ceeded by the hand of man — the exterminating hand of the landlord. We found ourselves reduced to five millions of men at the time the Protestant church was disestablished in Ireland. The Catholics were to the Protestants as seven to one. During all the time that agitation was going on, did it strike you that the newspapers brought no word of a single Protestant being insulted by a Catholic — not a word of insult. Not a word from five million of Catholics that might hurt the feelings of a Prot- estant or make him blush or hang his head for shame. They merely said to the Protestants : " You have ceased to be our masters, and we have ceased to be your slaves. Now, we meet on the same broad platform of religious liberty. Now we are prepared to forget the three hundred years of persecution and bloodshed. Put your hands in ours. Henceforth religious dis- cord is swept away. Hereafter let us fight for our honor to- gether." Civil and Religious Liberty. 107 Ah ! contrast it. I have often been obliged to contrast it. I have lived as a priest in England, afraid to go outside my own door for fear of insult and outrage. In passing along the streets, in a town where the population was nearly all Protestant, I have been personally assailed by the school children with stones, be- cause I was a Catholic ; and the teachers did not reprimand them. I have come back to my native county in Ireland, where there are twenty thousand Protestants, some of them ministers, and they vilify us day after day, calling us lying priests and hyp- ocrites. Yet they are able to walk the streets without receiv- ing insult. Now, in the face of all this, and of ten thousand like instances, is it not enough to make a man's blood boil to hear these men say: "You Catholics are always persecuting. If you only had the power you would tear us to pieces." Well, we have had the power in grand old Ireland, and no man was torn to pieces nor insulted, even though standing alone. Next to religious liberty and unity — which is the essence of liberty — next to this in grandeur and magnificence, is civil and political liberty. And now, as we have seen in what religious liberty consists, it is good to see in what civil liberty consists. What is the essence of that freedom we all prize ? One says it is in being allowed to do just what you like. No ! God forbid. That is a liberty that would allow the highwayman to put a pistol to your head, and say : " Your money or your life ! This is a free country, where we can all do as we like, and this is what I like to do." Some thirty years ago, when I was a young boy, there was a beggar in the west of Ireland, who was in the habit of threatening people in this way. He would meet a man or a woman, in a lonely place, and would walk up and say, " Give me something, or else " (drawing off in a threaten- ing attitude). One day a man as big as he was met him. The beggar drew up as usual, and said, " Give me something, or else " "Or else what?" thundered the other. " Or else I shall have to go without it," said the beggar, viewing the broad shoulders before him. In those days beggars were the only free men in the land. One of them went into a farmer's house, and sat down to the table and helped himself, without saying so much as " by your leave." He staid several days, till finally the farmer said to him one day, " As you have taken lo8 Civil and Religious Liberty. so much liberty, I will take the liberty to kick you out ; " and he did so accordingly. Liberty does not consist in every man doing what he likes. It consists in every man — no matter who he is, high or low — having his own rights, knowing them, and being protected in the exercise of them. Let every man know that the law gives certain rights to do certain things freely. Let every one under- stand thoroughly what these rights are, and that the law will protect him in them, and allow no one to violate them. The moment the law defines a free man's rights — secures them, and proclaims that no one shall interfere with them, let that law be set on high. Let every man — ^judge, lawyer, merchant, work- ingman — bow down and acknowledge the omnipotence of that law. Where any man can do as he likes, and violate the law with impunity, there is no liberty. For instance, there was none in England when the king had two wives at the same time. Wherever a king can violate the law with impunity, there is no liberty. Liberty consists in the consecration of every man's rights. Suppose every man in this country were free to do just what he liked, you would be afraid to go out of the house with- out a revolver. I would rather live in Russia, where one is allowed to say or hear Mass every morning, and to go a certain distance and no farther, and to vote once a year for mayor, and nothing else ; I would rather live there with only three rights, than in a country where everybody could do as he pleased. Civil liberty consists in ensuring every man's rights by the pro- tection of law. I ask you to go back with me in history, till we see how far the Catholic Church has operated upon the world in creating liberty and protecting it. I assert upon the authority of Protestant as well as Catholic historians that civil liberty was the very creation of Catholics. It is not easy for us to re- alize what the Church has done for the world. The world to- day has in a great measure shaken off the Church. Fourteen hundred years ago the whole civilized world was overrun by the barbaric nations of the north of Europe — the Goths, Visi- goths, Huns, and Vandals. They came from the deserts of the North in countless thousands. They came armed, and •without a vestige of religion, or education, or civilization upon them ; they swept down like an avalanche upon the Roman Civil and Religious Liberty. 109 empire. They burned cities, shattered museums and works of art, till not a vestige of ancient civilization, government, and law, was left the whole world. A man living fourteen hundred years ago in Rome, or in any part of Italy — in Spain, France, Germany, or England — did not know where to go for protection for his own life, or that of his family. All was destruction. The Pope of Rome advanced to meet the barbarous hordes, whose hands were dripping with the blood of the nations. By his preaching he converted many of them to Christianity. On this rude material the Pope and the Church, for hundreds of years, had to labor before they could bring into these men's minds ideas of law, right, justice, mutual respect, and charity. During these years that the Church was thus laboring, the nations began to form under their hands. But the kings were rude and warlike, with powerful passions, and with the idea that they were supreme. They built their feudal castles, the ruins of which still remain. Within these castles they gathered soldiers ; and from time to time they swept forth over the whole country with fire and sword, burning peasants' cabins, violating women, and carrying the peas- ants into slavery. There was no security, except what the Pope of Rome afforded by his mighty agency, the Church. Then we find the Pope gathering together the people in little towns, and forming associations among them of various trades, and trying to build up communities, and making laws excom- municating any man who should dare enslave any of these free men. Then it was that from Rome came the idea that every man must submit to Rome. Then it Vas that kings and knights, as well as people, began to be impressed with the idea that right and justice did not lie alone in the strong arm. Then those glorious republics of northern and central Italy were formed, and that glorious Spanish freedom that produced such men as the discoverers of the New World. Then it was that every one wishing to save himself from fire and sword, and from the baron emerging from his stronghold, had to appeal to Rome for protec- tion. The Pope and the Church evoked order out of chaos by the powerful arm of the law. Whoever violated that law, the Pope in- stantly condemned. The Pope taught the people law and justice, and that it was their duty to obey that law. But if, on the other hand, the most powerful king upon earth oppressed his people, 1 10 Civil and Religious Liberty. we have the Pope excommunicating that king for his oppression. When Philip Augustus of France wished to put away his pure- minded wife and take some other woman, the Pope of Rome interfered and said : " If you do this — if you violate the law — if you do what you would not allow any other person to do — I am above you, and I will cut you off from the Church." Thus it was that the sanctity of the marriage relation was made secure. Thus it was that woman, not able herself to fight, and trusting her life to the fickle, treacherous heart of man, was protected and secured by the Church. The Church told man that whatever other law he violated, he must remain faithful to the woman he es- poused. Her position did not depend upon the charms of this year or the next — upon the varying of the treacherous sympa- thies of her husband. She knew that the Church had set its seal upon the marriage vows, and that she was secure. At a time when more than one-half the world enslaved the other half, the slave was without sympathy, and looked to one man alone who could emancipate him. That one man was the representative of Christ — the Pope of Rome — the visible Head of the Church. So, year after year, new laws came out from Rome — laws made by the various councils ; mitigating greatly the severity of slav- ery, emancipating here and there — now one family and now another ; and yet not hurting the great interests of society. What is the spirit of Catholicity in regard to civil liberty ? I do not speak with regard to America. She is the home of the oppressed and the refuge of the downtrodden. She was born into that liberty for which other nations have had to toil for ages. But among the nations born in slavery, men have to seek it in the battle-field. Look at Germany, the other day dripping with the blood of generous France, and carving out a new frontier for France. Not one of these old nations enjoys constitutional liber- ty. It is not to be found in them. It lay in the action and genius of the Catholic Church. England boasts of her constitution, and tells the world that there is no people upon the face of the earth with so many rights ; and there is a great deal of truth in her boast. If the liberties of Englishmen and their constitutional rights were only applied to Ireland — if the rights there were as well defined, Ireland would not be where she is to-day. But when we go back eight hundred years, we find not one vestige of the liberties and constitutional privileges which England now enjoys. Civil and Religious Liberty. in The first concession and charter of rights was forced from the hands of an unwilling king by his subjects — and among them were the Catholic archbishops and bishops of the land. When the prosperous city and state of Florence enjoyed large liberties, there arose a man, ambitious and powerful, who de- stroyed the republic — made himself the duke, and curtailed the liberties of the people. When that man lay dying he sent for a Dominican friar, who wore a habit like that which I have on to-night. He went to the side of Cosmo de Medici. Said the dying man, " What am I to do to gain admission to heav- en ? " The mighty Savonarola replied : " You must restore all the lands you took unjustly ; you must make compensation to all the widows and orphans made so by your unjust laws." "Is that enough?" asked the duke. "No," said the friar, "it is not enough. You must give back to Florence the liberties of which you have robbed her." The Catholic Church does not make exceptions to monarchs or empires. She is able to live under a despotism ; but under the most grinding despotism she is able to vindicate the people and the freedom of intellect. The Catholic Church does not object to any form of government ; but this I say, that the freer the people, the more liberty that they have, the more does she flour- ish. Look at her to-day as she is in Germany — so persecuted that if a priest is to preach a sermon he must tell the government beforehand just what he is going to say. Look at her in Russia — persecuted so that a bishop cannot ordain a priest without leave. Look at her in England, where only to-day the chains are falling from her hands. Look at her in America — this mag- nificent, this godly Catholic Church, which alone comes looming up before us in all the grandeur and awfulness of her majesty, and puts forth the Gospel of Truth unchanged and unchanging ; whose sacramental grace, pure and purifying, points in unity to Christ, as if this great Church were but one man. Compare her with the multitude of sects in the land. Shall we not con- clude that America can only be Catholic ; because there is no other religion equivalent to her greatness ; and that in a few years it will shape the world and shape the destinies of all ! America is but a child ; fair-crowned with civil and religious liberty, she is growing day by day, and in half a century will overshadow this western world. And, 112 Civil and Religious Liberty. thanks to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, she is growing in Catholicity. Irish hearts are captivated with her freedom ; and wherever Ireland goes it is her destiny and glory that the Catholic Church must grow. Therefore it is that, looking into the mighty future, I see before me, among the nations, one, the greatest and mightiest of all — great in her material strength — great in the unfolding power of her riches — great in the energy of her youth — great in the magnificent boon of liberty. I see many crowns upon thy brow, Columbia, but among them all, and outshining all, I see upon thy brow the crown of Catholicity ; and, bending down, I say from out my Irish heart and soul — All hail ! OUR CATHOLIC YOUNG MEN, AS CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH AND CITIZENS OF THE REPUBLIC. [Delivered in the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, under the auspices of the Young Men's Catholic Association attached to St. James's Cathedral, Sunday, Dec. 15th, 1872.] ADIES AND Gentlemen: I have had the honor, on other occasions, to stand here, and to address you. I have had the honor of addressing audiences in various iil parts of this mighty country. But, I confess to you that, not since I arrived in America, have I had a subject so important, so interesting, or so pleasing to myself, as that which I propose for your consideration this evening. And it is, " The Catholic Young Man, considered as a Child of the Church and a Citizen of the State." First of all, my dear friends, any man who reflects upon the position of the world, and the state of society to-day, must immediately see that all the evils that afflict us — all the misery that torments our lives, all the confu- sion and disruption that surround us, all the world over, comes from some imperfect organization, or from some evil that oper- ates on our youth. The ancient pagan philosopher said that, although age was honorable, youth was still more honorable. ^'■Maxima debitur puero reverential' was the word of the ancient sage — The greatest honor, the greatest reverence is due to the young man. And why? Because, as it is in nature, so it is in the life of man. There are certain seasons that mark the life of every man. The most important season in the year is the Spring, when the ground is opened up, ploughed, harrowed, and cleaned. Then, the farmer takes his seed and throws it into the bountiful earth, and closes the earth upon it, and waits in quiet the nursing of the Summer, and the maturity of the 8 1 14 Our Catholic Young Men. Autumn. But, well the agriculturist knows that, although he looks forward, full of hope, the fulfillment of his hopes depends upon his own work in the Spring season. Well he knows that, if he expects a full field, it is because he has scattered the seed with no sparing or miserly hand. Well he knows that, if he expects a harvest of generous, pure, and fruitful issue, it all de- pends upon the nature of the seed which he cast into the bosom of the earth in the early Spring of the year. If he took bad seed, if he took indifferent seed, he cannot expect a ripe abun- dance, or rich or precious harvest. If he has not prepared his ground properly — if he has neglected the work of the Spring, the reaction comes upon him months after he had labored in- differently, and consequently in vain, when he beholds the weeds springing up, choking his corn, until he sees the scanty harvest, scarcely worth the labor of the sickle. He has only to recall the past, with shame and sorrow, and to say : " When I planted, when I ploughed, when I did the Spring work, I neg- lected my duty ; and now I behold the result." As it is with nature, so it is with men. Youth is the Spring- itime of life ; it is the time of sowing ; it is the time of plough- ing; it is the time for preparing the soil ; and it is the time when cultivation determines what the Summer of man's man- :hood shall be ; and, above all, what he shall garner in the Au- tumn of his life, when he is bending down to the Winter of extreme old age, when every fruit of his early habits of life be- igins to ripen ; when the problem of his life is solved ; — for the old man tells us what manner of man the youth has been. It ■is for us the most precious and important time of man's life ; and it is also the time when the enemy of our humanity, the enemy of our nature, as well as of our supernatural gift of grace, lies in wait to poison the fountain-head of life, to poison the spring, to send forth from a polluted, degraded, and defiled youth those streams of impurity and of error and of perversity that spoil all the purposes of man's life, and that bring down his gray hairs, in old age, in sin as well as in sorrow, to a dis- honored grave. Hence it is that we behold and note, by our own sad expe- rience, that not only are the passions strongest in youth, but also, in youth, every snare that hell can invent is laid before the young man, to poison his mind by error^ and to pollute and Our Catholic Young Men. 115 destroy his heart by sin. And yet, upon that young man de- pend all the hopes of the Church of God, and all the hopes and prospects of human society, or for the State, in this world. Every man born into this world, my friends, comes into it as a creature of God, and also as a member of society. Almighty God makes his first claim upon the youth through the Church. Society demands of him his duties as a man. Therefore, we can consider, and we must consider, the young man as a child of the Church, and a citizen of the State. One relation is scarcely inferior to the other. So much do man's duties, as a citizen of the State, enter into his duties as a child of God, that he cannot fulfill the one without accomplishing the other. No man can be a good citizen of the State unless he be a true child of God, and a true son of the Church of God. No man, on the other hand, can be a true son of the Church — consequently a child of God — without being a magnificent citizen of the State which has the honor and glory to possess him. What does the Church demand ? What does the State demand of every man amongst us? My friends, I take it for granted that I am speak- ing to Catholics. And I also know that I have the honor to address American citizens. On other occasions, and on other topics, I have loved — as I would love to-night, if it were within the range of the subject before me — to address you, and to re- mind you of the land of your fathers. I know, by your re- sponse, that I would go nearer to your hearts by speaking to you of the venerable green old island from which the most of us have sprung. But you must remember that, in this land, you have entered into the grand position of American citizens ; that this land is yours ; that America, in her generosity, and in the grandeur of her heart, opens herself up to every exile and stricken man that lands upon her soil, and says : " Whatever you were at home, whatever you were in the traditions of your people's history — the moment you land upon Columbia's soil, you are a freeman, destined for freedom ; and, if you have only intelligence and virtue, destined to possess wealth, influence, power, and glory, in this magnificent land to which you have come." I ask you, therefore, to permit me to address you en- tirely as American citizens, premising, for your consolation, and certainly for mine, that it is as American citizens that the mother-land of Ireland regards you. It is as American citizens ii6 Our Catholic Young Men. that she looks to you, one day, to lift her drooping head, and to place upon that head its ancient crown of national glory. You have then, my friends, to remember that, as children of the Church, your relations have not changed from what your fathers were before you, in the ancient land of Ireland. The Catholic is the same all the world over ; no matter what sun shines on him ; no matter what trees wave over his head ; no matter what climate of snow or sunshine may be his portion, the Catholic man is the same, all the world over. And not only this, but the Catholic man is the same in all ages, and in all things. Every man amongst us, who has the honor and privi- lege, and the grace of being a son of the Church, shares in the Catholicity, as to space, and as to time, and as to sanctity, af his great mother. And, therefore, our duties in America, as Catholics, and sons of the Church, are precisely the same as what they were in Ireland in the olden time ; — as what they shall be in a thousand years to come, if, indeed, this world of ours shall live so long. But, whilst your duties — the duties of American youth, as sons of the Church — remain the same, your duties have changed somewhat as American citizens. There- fore, I ask you to consider, first, what it is that the Church de- mands of her youth, and what it is that this mighty State de- mands of her citizens. The Church demands of her youth, as of her manhood and aged, first of all, the virtue of divine faith — believing in God, not in a vain, doubting, erratic form of mind, but believing in Almighty God, and in all that He has revealed through the mouth and in the authority of the Holy Church which He has established, which He founded upon earth, and of which He declared — " the gates of hell shall never prevail against her; " but which He has erected in majes- ty, and in the beauty of holiness, as His own spouse and bride forever; the faith, profound and solid as the rock on which Jesus Christ built His Church ; the faith, enlightened, intellec- tual, and powerful in the strength of its intelligence, as the mind with which God endowed His Church ; the faith, tender, sympathetic ; siding through weal and through woe, with a strong, yet tender, sympathy, with every interest that touches the Church of God, and making the interest of His holy religion the weightiest interest of his heart. This is the first duty that God demands of our youth. Our Catholic Young Men. 1 1 7 The second duty that the Church demands of her children — or rather that God demands of His sons — is purity of life — the preservation of that integrity of manhood, which, untainted in its source, unpolluted in the fountain-head, the spring of life, flows strongly and steadily, in the full tide of a manhood that has never known the touch of that defiling evil which is the great curse of the world in this our day. Oh ! my friends, if ever there was a time demanding purity of life, and, at the same time, cursed with the terrible curse of impurity, that time is the glorious, and yet most unhappy, nineteenth century, in which we live. It is all very well for us, in this our age, to speak of our material advancement and progress. We are proud of our railways, annihilating space on land ; of our telegraphic wires, bending the lightning of heaven and making it subserve the purposes of man ; of our ocean steamers, crossing the mighty ocean with perfect security. It is all very well for us to glance on this and say, Never was there a time since the world was created, when the energies and intellectuality of man so asserted themselves over the material creation, as in this our day. I acknowledge it. I envy not the nineteenth century. I am a child of my age, and I glory in the triumphs of my age. But, side by side with all that material progress, with all that ad- vancement of civilization, crime comes to light of which our fathers, in their simplicity, knew nothing — a corrupting, devour- ing, devastating impurity has seized upon the manhood of this nineteenth century, and threatens the nations with destruction from themselves, even if that destruction does not come from God, as it came upon the nations of the olden time. The " social evil," as it is called — laxity of life, extravagance in all expenses — the awful, hideous crimes that are revealed in our courts of justice from time to time ; the decimation of the na- tions, and the decrease of population ; the delicacy of constitu- tion, the shortness of life, the disinvigorating of our manhood, all these things, oh ! my friends, tell us that, if we live in an intellectual age, if we live in a grand age, we have also the mis- fortune to live in an age when the very atmosphere is impreg- nated with the basest and most destructive of sins. Now, the Church of God demands of her children purity of life — purity of youth, and integrity of manhood. And, here, the world of to-day fails to meet the Church, to supply and comply with her ii8 Our Catholic Young Men. demands. In the olden times, we read that the aged man, with sixty or seventy years upon his head, was still able to grasp his spear, to go out and do battle for a noble cause, and to strike a buffet that bore with it all the manly power and strength of youth in his aged arm. To-day there is no such thing. In the olden time men brought down with them unim- paired, even to the very verge of the grave, all their intellectual faculties, ripened and matured into the wisdom of experience, yet retaining all the freshness and imaginativeness of youth. To-day, in this our day, the poet sings — the poet, not yet forty years of age when death removed him, quite a young man — one of the leading geniuses of our age, a man blessed by Almighty God with every gift of fortune, and every endowment of highest intelligence — he writes, before he dies, these terrible lines : " My life is in the yellow leaf; The fruit, the flower of love are gone ; The worm, the canker and the grief Are mine alone ! " Oh God! what language for a young man — his manhood ex- hausted, his vital energies departed — premature old age coming upon him, not from the God of nature, but from hell ; and he writes these lines ! Another poet of our age — our own poet — looks back in the spirit of the age in which he lives — looks back upon the golden days of youth, when the ship of his life set forth upon the jour- ney of years, not upon the sea of purity, or self-restraint, or manliness, which would have borne him along without shipwreck until he entered the golden gates of the desired haven. No, but he looks back upon the ship of life stranded and wrecked : " I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining, A barque o'er the waters move gloriously on, I came when the sun o'er that beach was declining ; The barque was still there, but the waters were gone. And such is the fate of our life's early promise. So passing the Spring-tide of joy we have known ; Each wave that we danced on at morning, ebbs from us ; And leaves us at eve, on the bleak shore alone ! " Why should those waves ebb from him? Why should the barque be there and the waters be gone? Why should every purpose of that glorious sailing forth from the portals of youth Our Catholic Young Men. 119 be destroyed and wrecked ? Oh ! why, but that he mistook the ocean upon which he set sail ; and, instead of spreading his sails upon the waters of purity, of integrity, and of manhood, and bending his prow heavenward through every path of human honor, usefulness, and glory, he preferred to move and sail upon the shifting waters of sin, of pleasure, and of pollution, which receded from him and left him shipwrecked in the mid-day of his life. These are the two great demands of the Church — faith and purity. Remember, my friends, I am not speaking to you of a faith that contents itself merely with saying, " I am a Catholic ; I go to Mass on Sunday, and I never deny the faith ; and there is an end of it." This is not the faith the Church de- mands in this our own age. We live in an age of religious in- difference. We live in an age when any religious spirit that exists outside the Church manifests itself only in opposition to the Church. We live in an age that tries to prove that the Catholic Church means the poisoning of the moral and the in- tellectual man. Do you know what the description of the Catholic religion is, as given by this Mr. Froude, that was lec- turing here the other night ? " The Catholic Church and the Catholic religion," says this man, " is the destruction of all moral consciousness in man. It is a kind of compact that men make with the priest to enjoy their pleasures and commit sin, and go to him from time to time, to make a private arrange- ment to settle the whole business." It is, to use his own words, a kind of "hocus pocus," supposed to be invented by Almighty God in order to cheat the devil — to let men live for their pleasures, for their impurities, for their abominations, and for their sin, and yet to escape the claws of the devil in the end. Such is Mr. Froude's idea of the Catholic Church. Remember, my friends, that if Mr. Froude stood alone and cried out this with stentorian voice, I would not mind him ; but Mr. Froude represents, in this respect, the intelligence and the intellect of our day which is outside of the Catholic Church. Consequently, if ever there was a time when the Church of God demands the earnest faith of her children it is in this our day, in order that every Catholic man in the world, may, by his life, by his ear- nestness, by his religiousness, and by his faith in all its strength and purity, give the lie to Mr. Froude and to such as he. It is 120 Our Catholic Young Men. not the man, therefore, who contents himself with a mere pro- fession of the Catholic religion, who allows his neighbor to say of him with truth : " That man says he is a Catholic, but look at him ; he drinks — he is a drunken fellow, a bad father, a bad husband ; he is never seen going to the priest of his own re- ligion that he seems so proud of; we never see him at con- fession or communion ; if there is any question brought up in which the interests of the Catholic Church are concerned, he is quite indifferent to either side, and just as ready to take the Protestant side as the Catholic. If the Pope or the Church is in trouble he does not concern himself. He cares more about a little, petty squabble about the election of a beadle or an Alderman than the interests of the Church he calls his mother." Oh ! it is not such Catholics we want to-day, my dear friends ; it is Catholics that are earnest in their faith, earnest in their principles, earnest in their religion, and, I will add, it is Cath- olics that are ready, if ever God should please to call upon them, to go out and strike a blow, like men, for the Church, their mother, and for the Pope, who is the Head of that Church. The Church of God demands men of earnest faith, men of pure and practical lives. Now, what does the State demand? Well, my friends, I confess to you that since I came to this land of America, the idea that has been most constantly before my mind was the study of American society to-day, of the future that is before this mighty land, and of how we Catholics, most of us of Irish blood and Irish descent, are to rise to the demands of the land that has fathered us, and to meet that glorious future that is before the citizens of America. Here you have a country surpassing not only any other continent, but surpass- ing all the rest of the world in its material resources. There is more gold and silver in America than there is in all the rest of the world that God made. There is more available arable land in America ready for the hand of the laborer, than there is in all Europe and Asia. There is more wealth in America — untold wealth that will yet be developed — than there is in all the rest of the world. There is more energy and determination in America, that will work that wealth out and develop it, than there has been in all the rest of the world from the beginning of its history to the present time. But there is another thing in America far more glorious than all these. There is, presiding over the councils of this mighty Our Catholic Young Men. I2I nation, governing its action in its public policy towards its own citizens and towards foreign States, that which has never been allowed to sit at the council-board of the old countries, namely, the genius and the angel of civil and religious liberty. In this land there is no class aristocracy. The accident of birth, in the ancient countries, determines a man's position in society. It may be that the Almighty God never intended him to have that posi- tion in society. For instance, two children are born on the same day, of two mothers. One is born in a cabin in Ireland — the child of a holy and a virtuous mother — and God has given to that child all the elements of greatness for this world and for the next. He has given to that infant a gift of genius reserved for him amongst all the children of men. Such a child was John Philpot Curran. That child grows ; he receives education ; his intellect develops ; the nations are astonished ; the world is electrified by the powers and gifts that God gave to that hum- ble child. The child climbs the social ladder, to a certain point, and at that certain point an angel, certainly not of heaven, meets him and says, " Stop ! Another step would bring you into a privileged class, which, with all your genius and all your power, you must never attempt to enter." On the same day another child is born, with a narrow head, a low, retreating forehead ; the child, perhaps, of vicious parents — he comes into this world a born booby ; but his father happens to be a lord and his mother a lady. All the honors, all the influence, all the government and the power of the state are the in- heritance of that booby child, because he happened to be born in a certain circle ; and though he brings neither virtue, intelligence, nor any gift of God or man, he is still, by the adventitious circumstance of his birth, placed so high, that his very foot is higher than the head of the child of grace, of genius, and of promise. Now, there is no such thing as this in America. Every man in America is born equal. I am not speaking from the pulpit here to-night. I am speaking from the platform, and not so much as a priest as ^ man addressing the intellects of his fellow-men. I proclaim here, as far as I am concerned, individ- ually, I admire that equality, and I am a republican in every drop of blood that is in my veins. America, therefore, not per- mitting the genius, and the power, and the virtue of the hum- blest of her citizens to be hampered, or fettered, or repressed 122 Our Catholic Young Men. by any of these class distinctions — every man in the land being born equal — the great question now comes, What is the first thing America demands of her sons ? I answer, the very first thing America demands of her citizens is genius, intelligence, and intellect. Whatever chance the booby has in any other land, he has not a chance in America. Did any of you ever hear of " Lord Dundreary ? " — a born booby, a born fool. All in the world he knows how to do is to curl his hair, and to pull out his whiskers. And yet, my friends, he gets on remarkably well for a fool, because he happens to be a lord. Now, in America, Lord Dundreary would go to the wall and starve, and some hard- headed, keen, intelligent Irish boy would come to the front, and Lord Dundreary would be nowhere in the race. The first demand, therefore, America makes on her citizens, is intel- lect. Bring to whatever state of life — whatever occupation you have chosen for yourselves — ripeness of intellect, keenness of apprehension, sharpness, combined with the strictest honesty, and you have the main elements of success in this mighty nation that recognizes only the aristocracy of genius and of virtue. The next thing that America demands of her citizens is energy — strength of manhood. She imposes, more than any other country in the world, heavy duties upon her citizens. I have been in many lands, my dear friends, and I speak from experi- ence. I have seen men in Italy, in the south of France, and elsewhere, work for an hour or so in the day, and then go to the coffee rooms, and spend the rest of the day with cigars and cof- fee and playing billiards. Now, tell me, if a man in New York should attend to business in this way — I should like to know where he would be at the end of the year. America says : " If you want a reward from me and a place of prominence in my citizenship, you must be a working man, and, consequently, you must bring to whatever state of life you are called, or whatever profession you are engaged in, not only a bright, well- informed intelligence, but must also bring a keen, energetic, determined will and a strong arm to your work." And it is a comfort, my friends, to work in such a land as this, for it is not like the old countries. I remember once, at a review of the French troops, seeing a poor little drummer boy running up and down all day, beating his drum wherever he was sent to, in order to call the troops together ; and when be came in ex- Our Catholic Young Men. 123 hausted in the evening, I said to him, " Well, have you enjoyed yourself to-day ? " " Eh ! ma foi ! " answered he, " it was a hard day for two sous " — two cents ! After he had paid for his cloth- ing and victuals, he had just two cents coming to him. In the olden time in Ireland — times that I remember — a strong man worked all day — say, cutting turf — up to his knees in water, working hard — bent down — or, if you will, reaping corn, and bent to the sickle all day, and in the evening he got the mag- nificent remuneration of from sixpence to eightpence. There was nothing to work for — there was nothing worth a man's head, or hand, or heart, in such a miserable pittance as this. Not so America. She says to her citizens: " I pay generously, I remunerate copiously and in proportion to the amount of in- tellect, strength, knowledge, and manhood you bring to me." Now, my dear friends, we come to the question on which I have come here to address you this evening. If the youth of a man be the spring-time of his life ; if in youth the question must be determined and the problem solved whether that man is to be what the Church of God demands of a son, and what Amer- ica demands of a citizen : the very first thing that is necessary is to take thought, and careful thought, to provide for that man's youth, that he may be enabled to comply with every demand of the Church of God, on the one hand, and of the glorious country, on the other. It is necessary, therefore, to bring him under the influence of the Church, and under the influence of the requirements of the State. Neglect that youth, send him out in his twelfth or fourteenth year to some business, imper- fect, uninstructed, having only the rudiments of knowledge, and having only the knowledge of his catechism, or the elements of Christian duties, and what is the consequence? The business hours are over at four, five, six, or seven o'clock in the evening. A young man cannot live without recreation. God has so formed him that he cannot live without recreation ; it is as ne- cessary for the young man to seek and to find relaxation as it is for the thirsty or the hungry man to look for food or for drink, wherewith to refresh himself. That relaxation or amusement is provided by the devil, and it is provided by Almighty God, by His Church ; the devil provides for the young man a relaxation of pleasures and evil associations, and if he only turns to them, the springs of his life are poisoned ; the spring-time of his life 124 Our Catholic Young Men. is destroyed ; no bloom of summer shall ever come upon the purity and strength of his manhood ; no blessing shall ever hal- low his aged head as he bends towards the grave. How is this that the devil has such power ? He has this power, first of all, through evil associations ; secondly, he has the power through the unruly passions in the bosom and the blocd of every man. Through association of evil minds he has the power. Thus the young man may fall into bad company. He may associate with those who speak to him words he hears for the first time with astonishment ; who may seek to teach him ac- tions that, at first, he recoils from with the instinctive purity and strength of a spirit yet unstained and untainted by sin. If he has nowhere to fly from these evil associations, the very neces- sity will oblige him to plunge into them and lose his soul, and the hope and promise of his life ; the passions of his youth developing before his reason had obtained the mastery ; while, as yet, he knows not the nature, and, certainly, not the conse- quences of crime; but its taste is sweet to his young lips, and he turns, ravening, thirsting, to drink of the polluted stream that flows before him, and, in the drinking, to poison his soul and destroy himself. Oh ! how many there are who have al- ready been ruined because they have not been let alone ; be- cause evil associations have surrounded them. It is a bad thing for man to be alone ; for if he falls he finds no one to raise him up ; but if a man is not let alone, and those who ap- proach him are evil, they taint and corrupt him by evil com- pany, evil association, with a tradition of sin that is handed down from generation to generation in this world of ours. Ask your own experience, my dear friends. I ask you, when you go back, and travel back through the halls of your mem- ory, and contemplate the first grievous sin of your lives, the first thing that makes you ashamed and sorrowful that you have done it. Was it not at the dictation of some evil companion? Was it not introduced to you by evil associations ? Was it not the association of young men, of wicked men, that first fanned the fire that, slumbering in your breast, had never yet broken out in the devouring element of sin in your soul ; that sin which makes us turn back, and lay maledictions on the follies of our past lives. Save the youth if you can, my dear friends ; stand like an angel between him, upon whose soul the beauty of pu- Our Catholic Young Men. 125 rity is yet shining, and the enemies whose approach will be his ruin. This young man, yet limpid and pure in heart, who still bears the impression of the Divine Image of the Son of God ; stand between him and his friend who approaches him in the guise of friendship, whose breath is sin, whose voice will taint the purity of his soul, break the Divine Image, corrupt and debauch that man forever, and sow the seedling of hell in that pure young mind. On the other hand, if you leave this youth alone, he has within him the elements of corruption. Even though nothing evil approaches him, the whispers of hell will resound in his pas- sionate young heart, and bring with them the suggestions of evil. The first thing that is necessary for that young man, in order to make him a son of the Church, and to meet her re- quirements, is to surround him with good associations, with good companions, and to feed his young mind with the proper food of high, intellectual, yet holy and Catholic instruction. The next thing that is necessar}'-, is to surround him with com- panions whose example may be as a light to his path ; whose words may be an encouragement to him in virtue ; whose very association may be an influence preserving the purity that is there, and fortifying it, by inspiring, by their words and their bright lives, a horror, loathing, and detestation of sin. It is for such an organization as this that I am come here this evening to speak. I think I have suggested to you enough as to its importance and necessity. A few years ago, here in Brooklyn, if a Catholic young man was in any business, as soon as the store or the office was closed, where was he to turn — after his day's work, where was he to turn for amusement? Where was he to turn for relaxation for his mind, if he had no Catholic friends? True, he had the theatre open to him, displaying, under the most insidious and fascinating forms, the lurking de- mons of vice and impurity. He had Protestant associations around ; but, if he joined one of these, the moment he entered the club-room, or other place, the first thing he heard was a word of insult against his religion, and, in the weakness of his young nature, perhaps he is tempted to blush for bearing the name of Catholic, and, in a moment of deplorable weakness, passes himself off as one of themselves. The books that are put into his hands are all philosophical assaults upon his 126 Our Catholic Youns: Men. '<:> religion ; — books written by gentlemen like Mr. Froude ; books that made him — uneducated and untrained as he was — books that actually made the young man's intellect ashamed of pro- fessing such a tissue of absurdities as these books represent the high religion of the Catholic Church to be. I confess that, if I had not knowledge enough to know that they are lying — if I could let into my mind that the Catholic Church is what these men describe it to be, I would renounce the Catholic religion to-night before to-morrow. But it is precisely because I know they are lying ; it is precisely because I can lay my hands upon the lie, and the source of the lie, that I am strengthened in reading these books. But put before you the case of a young man, a partly uneducated man, merely receiving the elements of education and training, and then sent out to the business of life, and flung upon the mercy of those intellectual tyrants, who would force the lie into his mind, and into his intelligence, by putting before him the vilest caricatures of the religion of his fathers ; — what follows ? He gets ashamed of that religion which he is not learned enough to defend ; he becomes ashamed of the name of Catholic ; and God only knows how many of our youth in America have fallen away from their faith because of the in- tellectual trials which Protestant association has brought with it. On the other hand, are his morals secure? He has no place to go to except some place of Protestant association. Well, my friends, I do not want to say a word against the morality of our Protestant fellow-citizens ; but this I do say, that if I had a brother, a nephew, or friend, I would much rather see him associate with a lot of Catholic young men, who were obliged by their rules to go to confession and commimion twice a year, than to see him associate with a lot of Protestant youths, who had no restraint whatever upon their consciences, no restraint of confession, no obligation to look into them- selves, no philosophical teaching as to the rules of Christian morality, but are simply told, in a general way, " to be good and lean upon the Lord." In this our age everything goes by association and organiza- tion. Every trade has its associations. Every commercial circle resolves itself into a " ring." If you wish to build a rail- road, you must first make up a "ring" to control it. If you wish to forward an election, you must do it through a " ring," Our Catholic Young Men. 12/ or an association. If you wish to preserve your interests, in entering upon any trade, you must, in the saying of the hour, " form a connection," which means you must " get into the ring." If they vote you out, your trade is gone ; all prospect of prosperity is taken from you. This is the spirit of our age and century ; it is essentially the spirit of association. The devil understands every age better than anybody else, after the Al- mighty God ; and the moment he sees what the spirit of any age is he enters in at once and tries to make the most of it for his own infernal purposes. The consequence is, the devil works to-day by association. He tries to entrap the young into secret so- cieties, to make them swear away their manhood and liberty by secret oaths, and makes them pledge themselves — puts an obli- gation on them — the fulfillment of which might involve crime or immorality, perhaps even bloodshed and murder. Thus it is that, in the European nations, the associations of to-day, the secret societies of to-day, have completely honey-combed the whole face of society. They have undermined almost the foun- dations of the world ; and men scarcely know the moment when some violent disruption may destroy everything, and re- duce society to its primary elements. The devil must be met upon his own ground ; and, as he works by associations, so the Church must work by associations. Hence it is, to-day, that we have Temperance Societies, St. Vincent de Paul Societies, the Confraternities of the Scapular, of the Rosary, and of the Sacred Heart, Young Men's Societies, Young Men's Associa- tions — the Church trying to bring her children together to save their faith, to save their manhood and their purity, by keeping them out of the infernal associations and dangers that surround them. This is the purpose of the association for which I speak. And, my friends, in thus forwarding the ends and purposes of God, the Catholic Church promotes the highest interests of the State. Remember, it is the custom nowadays, to look upon the Catholic Church as the enemy of the State. Victor Emmanuel, in Italy, says : " Oh ! the Church is the enemy of the State ; and, therefore, we must take all her means away — her churches, convents — melt down the chalices and all the sacred vessels, and turn them into money ; and then we will keep the money, and the priests may go and starve." In France, they say : " The Church is the enemy of the State ; and, therefore, 128 Our Catholic Young Men. we must take away from her all power over the schools and ed- ucation, and leave the priests nothing." In Germany, Bismarck says : " Oh ! the Church is the enemy of the State ; conse- quently we must turn the Jesuits out, rob them of their prop- erty, take even their books, and let them go be hanged." The other day, in the Prussian province of Posen, the pious Cath- olics of the place came together with their priests and bishops, and made up their minds to put themselves under the protec- tion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. Now, would you be- lieve it — Bismarck, as soon as he heard of this, sent his soldiers to close all the churches, so that not one Catholic of that Prus- sian province could as much as hear Mass on Sunday. Here, in America, also, the Protestant papers — the Methodist papers and others — are constantly coming out, saying : " Beware of the Roman Catholics ; they are growing in the country. These Irish are an aggressive, noisy lot, and won't be contented until they get the upper hand ; and when they get the upper hand, God help us ! We must keep the Catholic Church out of the schools ; we must keep the Catholic Church from acquiring property ; we must not allow the State to give even one cent of the public money for the education of Catholic children in Catholic schools. See all the land they are buying ; see all the churches they are building ! Oh ! what is to become of America if this terrible Catholic Church gets any footing at all in this land ; for she is an enemy of the State ! " Thus they speak. Now, my friends, if America cannot get on without intelligence and manhood and energy, I ask you, is it not the interest of America to see who it is that can supply her most intelligence and most energy — who it is that can supply the national market with the very articles that it requires ? Will it do for America to have her young men infidels, laughing and scoffing at all religion, laughing and scoffing at the idea of the immortality of the soul of man, of eternal reward in heaven, or eternal punish- ment in hell? Will this do for America? If the merchants and the statesmen, the governors and the magistrates, and the working men of this land are to become infidels, if they are to lose all faith by reading bad, infidel books, if they are to laugh at the idea of a future state of punishment or reward, are they likely to be honester men for this ? Is the national property safer in their hands ? Are they likely to be better merchants, Our Catholic Young Men. 1 29 more reliable, more trustworthy ? Tell me — suppose you have to deal with two men, and you want to intrust your money to one of them ; and one told you there was no devil, no hell, no heaven, and that he very much questioned if there was a God, for he had been reading in his youth bad books, which com- pletely upset his faith ; and the other told you that he believed in God, and heaven, and hell, and said : " I believe, myself, that I shall be in heaven or hell through all eternity — I believe I shall be in one place or the other, according to the way I behave myself in this world;" to which of these two men would you intrust your money? Would you give your money to the fellow that told you : " I don't believe in anything ; if I choose to rob you, there is no hell to punish me ; " or to the man who said : " I believe in God, and that, if I rob you of your money, I shall go to hell for it?" If America wants in- telligence of an honest kind — and remember that intelligence without honesty is worse than no intelligence at all ; I wouldi rather, any day, have to deal with a fool, than with a sharp man, without any conscience — if America wants honest intelligence,. I tell the citizens of America, that the best friend that America has to lean upon is the Catholic Church, which, by creating faith, creates a conscience in the heart of man. Does America want strong hands, strong, energetic manhood, the pure integ- rity of an unstained youth, husbanding all its resources, not scattering them all in that course of early dissolution — does she want the man of thirty or forty, vigorous, strong in mind and body, noble in purpose, straightforward in all his dealings,, and bringing with him into the sacred relations of the father of a family that purity which will insure a strong and healthy generation from him — who is the best friend, of America, if not the only Church that not only teaches men to be pure, but obliges them, through the confessional, to be pure, and conse- quently to respect their blood and their manhood ; and thus brings them through a robust and vigorous middle age, until the head of the old man, bending towards the grave, is crowned with the honor and the glory of an unstained, immaculate purity of life. The want of an association that would provide for all this, was felt in Brooklyn — felt by your zealous priests — and I con- gratulate you, citizens of Brooklyn, upon your priesthood — 9 130 Our Catholic You?ig Mett. felt by your holy, energetic bishop ; by the man who has cov- ered your city and his diocese with glorious and beautiful churches, with splendid hospitals and schools, and all the in- stitutions that are necessary for your spiritual welfare and that of your children after you. It was felt by that man who quietly, unostentatiously, but with a power sent to him from God, has been enabled to do all this, and to claim the glory that, having done it all, he is a poor man, as he ought to be. This want was felt by the Catholic youth of Brooklyn themselves ; and from their feeling it so keenly, they come forward to found this association in order to meet it. 1 honor them, I give them glory, and I promise them the future that the Church of God and the glorious land of Amer- ica hold in their hands for them. And so they have banded themselves together to provide a Catholic hall, where the young man, after his hours of business, may find every attraction to draw him away from evil companions ; to draw him away from the darkened streets, the by-paths of the devil ; to pro- vide every reasonable amusement there, to make the evening pass lightly and pleasantly over his head ; to provide for him a library, where in his hours of rest, after the day's business, he may acquire that knowledge and information which at some fu- ture day will bring him forward as a prominent man, and as a worthy descendant of the Clays, the Websters, the Sewards, and the Greeleys of this glorious country. But, before he enters into this association, he is asked to express his willingness to conform with one essential rule : and that is to go to his sacra- mental duties of confession and communion at least twice a year ; while he is recommended to go four times in the year. The consequence is, that all this land demands of him of intelli- gence is provided for here ; all that this land demands of him of energy is provided for here ; and all the Church of God expects from him as her son, she has reason to hope for ; be- cause the man will be preserved, by his associations and by his reading, in the strength of his Catholic faith, and in the energy and power of his Catholic purity. And this is all the more necessary, inasmuch as this country is rising every day, not only in national power, but also in intellectual power. It is a keen race, not only of the man of business with his fellow-merchant, but it is a keen race of mind with mind, in America. Never, in Our Catholic Young Men. 131 the history of any people, since the world was created, has there been such wonderful, such high, magnificent intellectual devel- opment as has taken place in America within the last few years. She has produced her statesmen, rivaling and surpassing those who pretended to have the accumulated wisdom of hundreds and hundreds of years in Europe. She has produced poets as lofty in their inspiration, as grand and mellifluous in their ex- pression, as tender in their sympathy with everything that is high and beautiful in nature, as any poet of the old lands. She has produced orators whose names will go down into history upon the golden flow of their splendid eloquence. She has pro- duced soldiers capable of doing, in the late wars of America, what no soldier of France, I regret to say, was found capable of doing during the late war with Prussia — capable of manoeu- vring two hundred thousand men upon the field. She has produced, in every walk of science and of art, men whose names are written not only upon the annals of their own age and land, but whose names are engraved upon the annals of other lands, as very giants of intelligence, as miracles of ingenuity, of science, and of art. Young citizens of America, if you wish to keep pace, you must feed your intelligence with every kind of knowledge. If you wish to keep up in this gigantic race of intellect in Amer- ica, you must become clever, learned men, as far as your means will permit; and you must drink, as deeply as you can, at the unpolluted fountains of science and knowledge. If you do this, I promise you that the historian of the immediate future will write down the names of Catholic youth — names, perhaps, sav- oring of the old green land of Ireland — side by side with the names that are foremost to-day among the statesmen, warriors, historians, poets, and journalists of America. And this is cer- tainly the issue to which we are growing ; and I am proud to see it. I am proud to see that amongst the intellec- tual efforts of America, Catholics are not behind ; that we have our monthlies, our weekly papers, equal to any that the land produces for purity of style, for energy in working up their materials, and for high tone and purpose. If I wanted to instance this, I have only to point to that Catholic paper which has so lately begun amongst you, and which cer- tainly has been to me a source of admiration and joy since its 132 Our Catholic Young Men. first number appeared. I allude to the Catholic Review of Brooklyn. It is the work of a young Catholic gentleman ; and it is an illustration of all that I am saying of the necessity of keeping pace with our age in this great intellectual race which is going on. And I am, also, proud to say that the young and talented editor of this admirable Catholic paper reflects honor and credit on Ireland's great ecclesiastical centre of learn- ing, the College of Maynooth, and on the schools connected with our Irish Catholic University, which thus sends forth one of her first sons to take a prominent part in the great intel- lectual contest of truth against falsehood, and of Catholic intel- ligence and morality against the errors and sinful spirit of our age. PONTIFICATE OF PIUS IX. [Delivered in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Yonkers, N. Y., on Monday evening, December i6th, 1872.] Y FRIENDS: The subject of our evening lecture is the grandest that could occupy the mind or employ the tongue of man in this sad, mean age of ours ; it is the Pontificate of Pius IX. This nineteenth century, of which we boast so much, is an age of great material progress, an age of railways, of electric tele- graphs, of ocean steamers, and of discoveries of every kind. But, side by side with all these material improvements, this age of ours, considered morally, intellectually, and spiritually, falls short of many of the centuries that went before. In former ages, although material civilization was less, still there was great im- provement, from time to time, amongst the people in some great, noble cause — as, for instance, when Catholic and Christian Eu- rope sent forth its chivalry, and men exposed their lives, and shed their blood — for what ? To vindicate the sanctity of the Lord's sepulchre, and to keep floating over the tomb of Jesus Christ the standard of the Cross. In subsequent ages, we see how kings went forth from their thrones, from their palaces, and from all the luxuries that surrounded them, and exposed them- selves to a thousand dangers, in some high, noble, and chival- rous cause ; as when a prince of the house of Austria led all the intelligence, the energy, and the bravery of Christian Europe into tjattle with the Turks on the waters of Lepanto Bay. But in truth, if we examine public events in this nineteenth century of ours, we find nothing great, nothing noble, no magnificent idea animating the nations. The freedom of America was ac- complished before the eighteenth century closed. The great events in your war go along with the glories of the century that went before our own, and, with the exception of Catholic eman- 134 Pontificate of Pius IX. cipation, there has been no great and noble act of any nation in this nineteenth century. Catholic emancipation is not the glory and not the volition of the government from whom it was forced, but of the Irish people, who, by their constancy, and their relig- ious fidelity, triumphed over their old enemy. This century of ours was ushered in by the terrible French Revolution, which flooded the noble land of France with the blood of its best and most loving sons. This nineteenth cen- tury of ours has witnessed the coalition of all the States of Eu- rope, all banding themselves together to break down by brute force the greatest military genius of this or any other age — Na- poleon. This nineteenth century of ours has witnessed the up- rising of a people in senseless, brainless rebellion, and it has witnessed the terrible retort of kingly brute force, and the extin- guishment of the principles of a nation. This nineteenth cen- tury of ours has witnessed nations invading others, their neigh- bors, without any pretense or cause of justice whatever. There have been wars in this century of ours, my friends ; but from the first day of the nineteenth century down to this, I will venture to assert, that not a single religious war has been waged, not a single war has been carried on that has not been founded in in- justice ; not even the Crimean, in which France and England united to crush the power of Russia. There did we see the eldest son of the Church allied with a Protestant and a most in- fidel power, to wage war on the side of Mahomet against Christ. This nineteenth century has witnessed what Europe never saw before — robbers crowned with kingly crowns, and seated on royal thrones. Such a robber was the late ruler of France. What right had he to invade the dominions of Austria? What right had he to claim the title to the northern portion of Italy — the ancient house of Savoy? What right had William of Prus- sia and Napoleon of France to wage a war, during the progress of which — though it cost oceans of blood — it came out that the motive was one of mere policy? Also the robbery came out when these two thieves — I can call them nothing else — were plotting, through their ministers, to divide Belgium, an inde- pendent State, between them. Bismarck was the thief who first proposed the robbery to Napoleon, and seized on part of the principal on account. Good God I has it come to this, that the rulers of Europe, the kings and emperors of the nations and Pontificate of Pius IX. 135 peoples, have their blades ready in their hands to shed blood, because one outwitted the other in robbery. This came out plain and square in the mutual accusations of the prime minis- ters of France and Prussia. The nineteenth century is coming to a close, and a fitting close of this age of ours is an act of high- way robbery by a king, invading the dominions of a poor, weak, unarmed old man, taking Rome and the Papal Dominions from the Pope. They have no title under heaven ; they have not the plea of justice, or even exigency; they do it simply because they are able. Just as a house-breaker or a burglar might go into your house or mine, to-night or to-morrow, and rob us of all that we had in the world, and if we asked him, " Do you know what you are doing? Do you know that you are a scoundrel and a robber?" and he should say, " No, I am able to do it ; I am a stronger man than you. I am only doing what Victor Emmanuel did to the Pope." But, amidst all the meanness and all the commonplaces of this age of ours, there is one magnificent spectacle, one thing that marks this nineteenth century with the greatest glory, one peculiarly its own, and that is, the Pontificate of Pius IX. What- ever else this nineteenth century, our age, has failed to produce, it has produced the noblest Pope and the grandest man that ever sat upon the chair of Peter in Rome. Whatever else may be written on the face of the history of the nineteenth century, in letters of blood, or in letters of black, there is one thing that must be written in letters of burnished gold, and that is the Pon- tificate, glorious and magnificent, of this saintly old man, who sits in Rome, still crowned, amidst all his afflictions, with the honor and the glory of which no man can deprive him, Pius IX., Head of the Catholic Church. But, my friends, assertion is not proof, and the man who makes an assertion so bold as mine must be prepared to prove what he says, or else it would be far better for him to hold his tongue and not speak at all. The grandest thing in the world, save the conception of the sacred humanity of the Son of God incarnate ; the grandest thing that the world has ever seen, is the Catholic Church, founded by our Divine Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, representing upon this earth the Unity, the Sanctity, and the Eternity of the Almighty God, who made it a Unity all the more wonderful in a world so divided as ours ; a Sanctity all the more wonderful in a 136 Pontificate of Pius IX. world so unholy and defiled as ours; an Eternity all the more wonderful in a world so evanescent, so changeable, so transitory as ours. And this is the meaning of the word of Scripture when the Psalmist says, " God is wonderful in all His works." Every work of God is wonderful, because everything that exists par- ticipates in some form or other in the attributes of God. And the more largely anything participates in the divine attributes, the more wonderful that thing becomes, because the more like to God. Now, among all the things of the earth, there is nothing that shows so highly and so emphatically the attributes of God as His holy Catholic Church, for she represents the unity of God in the unity of our doctrine of unquestioning obedience. We have unity of doctrine. We are two hundred millions, my friends, scattered all the world over. We find ourselves in communities, as, for instance, in the great cities of New York and Brooklyn, where Catholics are numbered by hundreds of thousands. Sometimes we find ourselves in communities of nations, as in the green old mother land that bore me, where that whole nation — blessed be God !— is Catholic. Sometimes again we find ourselves broken up into small communities in the midst of our Protestant brethren and fellow-citizens, the Catholics only representing a unit in the community. You sometimes find a Catholic family out in the far West, out on the bosom of the vast prairies, settled down in a little shanty on the banks of a little western river; but wherever you find them, whether in nations, in cities, in small communities, or individuals, if you find one Catholic, you find, personified in him, the certain faith of two hundred millions of men. Question one of them, and if he knows his catechism, you have the response of all. Ask him, and he will tell you what the two hundred millions will tell you if you have only time and patience to go through and ask every man among them, and you will find no difference of opinion or belief in their doctrines. God, in His true Church, has welded together two hundred millions of intelligences, varying and dissenting on every other point. He has made them united in faith, as He Himself has said, "As one." In their obedience, in like man- ner, Catholics are one. Ask any Catholic in the world, and you have asked them all, who is the Head of the Church, and the answer will be, "The Pope of Rome." Do you acknowledge Pontificate of Pius IX. 137 him as the head of the bishops and people ? Yes, in every sin- gle point, highest of all unto us. Even as the proud Egyptian pyramid, taking hold of the earth, covering acres of soil, sweeping aside and resisting the power and might of successive ages, yet still, tapering up to the summit, ends in one single block of stone pointing to heaven ; so the Catholic Church, spreading herself out, and covering the whole world, in such strength that neither time, nor the world, nor hell can destroy her, yet reaches up towards God through the succession of the clergy ; the clergy, bearing their episcopacy, and the whole hierarchy of the Church terminating in one man, who is the head of all ; the com- mander whose voice all obey, because that man represents Peter, and Peter represents Jesus Christ, the head of the Catholic Church. The Church represents the Sanctity of God. For two thou- sand years she has stood before the world, and every philosopher, every learned man, has looked upon her with a keen, searching, often a hostile eye. Every fault has been attributed to her, every sharp, cunning, conceivable insult has been flung at her. Yet she stands before them all with this simple word upon her h*ps: "Tell me, oh, ye learned men, ye philosophers, at what time, in what day, in what hour, at what moment of my exist- ence of two thousand years, can you prove that I have sanc- tioned, encouraged, or even tolerated the slightest sin ? Where is the child of mine that will be able to rise up in the valley of Jehoshaphat and say, ' O mother ! I believed in you, and you told me I might tell a lie.' " " I never said it," the Church answers. " O mother ! I believed in you, and you told me I might nourish a passing thought of sin." The Church comes forth and says, " In the name of God, thou liest. Thy perdition is on thine own head." Not the slightest sin or approach to sin is tolerated in the intelligent and magnificent morality of the Catholic Church. She reflects the sanctity of God in the prayer that never dies from her lips, for the outpouring of those graces in the sacra- ments, that, when partaken of, make holy, even as the angels of God, the greatest sinner on earth. If they submit to the Church's influences, she, like God, is not only holy in herself, but she is able to make holy. She represents the Eternity of God, for Christ our Lord found- ed her upon a rock. But is that rock Peter? Says the apostle, 138 Pontificate of Pius IX. " The rock was Christ." And the rock was Christ, the broad, eternal Godlike Foundation of the Catholic Church, and upon His divine bosom He planted the visible rock, who was Peter, saying, " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church." Peter was the rock set upon Christ ; for, says St. Paul, " The Church is founded on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, the great corner-stone Himself being Christ Jesus our Lord." The Church cannot fail until Peter fails — until Peter fails in his successor; Peter cannot fail until Christ fails ; Christ is God and cannot fail. Therefore, the Church of God shall live forever, and the gates of hell and our enemies shall never prevail against her. Kingdoms and empires may pass away, human greatness is but the dream of him who dreameth until morning. Men may come, and men may go, but the Church stands forever. Human weakness may reveal itself, as it does every day, in the old forms of detestable sin and crime. Society may groan under its own miseries, its murders, its impurities, its abor- tions, its dishonesties, and men may cry out in their despair, as they cry in the daily press, " When shall this end ? When shall we have justice, purity, and honesty ? " The blind fools don't recognize the fact, that no crime, no impurity, no dishonesty, no sin can ever be tolerated by the Church of God, or approach the Catholic Church. And she alone is the saviour of society, be- cause she alone in her dogmas can declare what the world is crj'ing out for in this our day. The world may divide itself, as it does, into a thousand schools of philosophy, a thousand schemes and systems of va- rying opinions on religion. That is what is called in this our day, " religion." Every religious teacher may come out with his own scheme, as you will find by reading the New York Her- ald. You will read there such a mumble-jumble of doctrines ; that such a man teaches one thing, and another man teaches the very opposite, and that Mr. So-and-so is considered a very pious sort of man, for he condescends to acknowledge the existence of God and the divinity of Jesus Christ. There is no unity in that world, and yet men are blind enough, will- fully blind enough, not to perceive the magnificent unity, sec- ond only to the essential unity of God, which guides the coun- cils, animates the words, and personifies the obedience of the Catholic Church. Pontificate of Pius IX. 139 Well, my friends, if you consider these things, you will be obliged to conclude, even if you are not Catholics — I don't know whether there are any here to-night who are not Catho- lics — you will be obliged to conclude that there must be some- thing divine in the religion which captivates the intelligence of two hundred millions of men, and which makes that intelligence as of one mind, and as one man in its expression of religious belief. It touches with a sanctifying hand every form of sin ; and by destroying sin, changes the sinner into the child of God. Beginning with the sacrament of baptism, it goes on to the sacrament of penance, and from that to the holy communion, until it finally wipes away the very latest miseries and fears, which will attach themselves to the simplest and holiest, by the consoling and sanctifying sacrament of extreme unction. There must be something divine in a Church that has been able to stand for two thousand years, that has never allowed any polit- ical or philosophical question to go without examining it and judging of it ; that has never feared to take up any inquiry of science ; ready to meet every inquirer, give him his answer, and prove it to him. This Catholic Church never dies ; never knows how to die ; never grows old ; never knows the day of dissolu- tion. And the Church alone, like unfallen man, will pass from its militant state to the triumphant, and will reign as the Church of God forever and forever in heaven. If such be the conditions and attributes of the Catholic Church, if history proves that these are her attributes, it is natural, my friends, to expect something great, something far more than ordi- nary, something grand and heroic, in the man whom Almighty God selects to make the head of that Church. Consider for a moment the two official attributes of this man, then we shall gather what we may expect from him as his personal attributes. Officially, the attributes of the Pope are, first of all, infallibility, as the head of the Catholic Church. The Pope may tell a thousand lies, but there is one thing he cannot do : he cannot tolerate a lie, or command the Catholic Church to believe a lie. Understand me well. This is a question not understood in our day. Some — especially Protestants — imagine that when we talk of Papal In- fallibility, we mean that the Pope can do no wrong. The Pope can do as much wrong as you or I. The Pope goes to confes- sion every week like every other priest. If he does not go 140 Pontificate of Pius IX. there sorry for his sins, and making up his mind to renounce them, and does not perform his penance, he may be lost like any other man. But, remember, we are not talking of him now as an individual, as a person, a mere man, but as the Head of the Catholic Church. As the supreme pastor, the supreme ruler of the Church, the first attribute that belongs to him is that he cannot command the Catholic Church to believe a lie ; therefore he cannot tell a lie to the Church in his capacity — speaking ex Cathedra — that is, from the throne of Peter as the Head of the Church. And this stands to reason, my friends, for the Catholic Church is bound to accept the Pope's words when he speaks as Head of the Church ; she is bound to bear allegiance to him, and to take the law from his lips. There is no appeal from him, when the Pope speaks and says that is the doctrine of the Catholic Church on such and such a point. The Scripture speaks of that Church : " Wisdom, divine wis- dom, hath built unto herself a house, and she carved out seven pillars of stone." What are these seven pillars? " That of old, a temple of divine wisdom," says St. Bernard. " They are the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, theologically, and the virtues of temperance, prudence, justice, and fortitude, morally. Upon these seven pillars the Church of God rests ; the Church was founded in faith ; the Church lives in hope, and has divine grace and charity. The Church has prudence beyond the most pru- dent of men ; justice that has never compromised herself by the slightest concession ; fortitude that has been able to fill the world with her martyrs, and a temperance that reveals itself in the highest form of holy asceticism in those who are conse- crated to her Master in her cloisters. And as it is in the Church of God, so is it with the interior character of the glorious man who stands at the helm and guides the ship of the Church." Pius is a man of faith. He has been ruined by showing his faith in his own people ; in the faith of the heart of Italy ; in the faith and integrity of the Italian people — that was human faith, and it was destroyed and crumbled away before him by the ingratitude of his own Roman people ; but he had a higher faith in God ; he leaned upon God with the most implicit faith. From the day of his coronation to this hour he has* lived in faith ; the Church has always rested on faith. I have seen him in the most of his difficulties ; I have seen him when Rome was Pontificate of Pius IX. \\\ threatened ; when the bishops, prelates, and cardinals came to him, saying, with pallid lips: " Holy Father, you must fly, your life is in danger." And I have heard the grand old Pontiff say with a smile of supreme confidence on his face : " Where is your faith ; remember the words of Christ : ' Have faith in God, and if you have that you can say, move this mountain, and it will be moved.' " Never for a moment did his divine faith falter. Firm as a rock, immovable as the rock upon which the Church of God is founded. The most learned men in Europe rose up and departed from him and from the Church, and he, like the divine, unerring Master, said : " Will you also leave me ? If the whole world leave me, my faith shall never move." Firm as a rock when England and her clergy ap- proached him in a spirit of compromise and only asked certain conditions, when they would yield and return to the communion of the Catholic Church. The answer of the Pontiff was : " No conditions, no compact can I make that would compro- mise the deposit of the Catholic faith ; if you do not believe, I can never receive you into her bosom." A man of hope. Oh ! my friends, how magnificently strong is the hope that has sustained the old man unto the extreme old age that now crowns his poor venerable head. In the midst of the afflictions that would have broken a stronger heart, when the temporal crown fell from his brow, and the hand of Catholic men placed upon it a crown of thorns, he is still sustained with a mighty hope within him. Well may he say with the apostle : " We are saved by hope." Still he remained at his post, cheering the disconsolate, animating the faltering, sending out his word from year to year to the earth, proclaim- ing, " I am here a prisoner amongst my people ; but I know what I hope for, and the victory and the triumph shall be mine at last." A man of love — where was there ever a man with charity such as his ? Oh ! my friends, if you had only beheld him as I have often seen him, descending from his carriage in some by-way of Rome, going in there amongst the poor people ; the women coming out from their houses, bringing their children to him to receive his blessing ; distributing his liberal alms himself to the poor, their gratitude finding vent in streaming tears as they bowed to receive his benediction. He passed amongst them as 142 Pontificate of Phis TX. the very personification of Him who walked amidst the path- ways of the poor in the fields of Judea and Galilee — a man of love. As well have I often watched him in some quiet nook of the church, surrounded by nobles and by the brilliant digni- taries of the Church, himself the idol of the Romans ; the moment he came before the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, amidst the smoke of incense and the ascending mass of cloud, the old man prostrated himself, and there you almost saw with the eyes of the body the heart of that old man going out from him upon the wings of love and enter the tabernacle, and hold communion — the communion of charity — with Jesus Christ. The tears after a time were wont to stream from his eyes ; the aged head bowed down, scarcely able to conceal from the vulgar gaze the enraptured expression of love that overspread his countenance. This is the man which the Church of God, in the midst of her afflictions and joys, upholds and obeys in this our day. If ever there was an exhibition of prudence in man, it was in the last action of Pius IX. before he was dethroned. Prudence means a virtue, my friends, that is capable of foreseeing what is to come. Prudentia is the Latin word for it. It means pre- vision for what is to come. We say that is prudence when a man makes a good investment in land. He buys a landed estate that is out of the way, because he foresees that in a few years it may be of immense value ; it becomes built upon and streets opened to it, then people say: "What a prudent man he was ; " and men say more than this : " What a foreseeing man he was." Prudence means foresight. Very few men have this virtue in its highest degree. There is a prudence that keeps a man from the ordinary little battling worries of life ; but the pru- dence that is the highest of all, that rises up on the wings of intelligence, soaring like the eagle, beyond and over the ordi- nary interests of mankind, is able to take an eagle glance of the things going on and prepare for them — this magnificent pru- dence is the inheritance of the Popes of Rome. The learned Dr. Newman, perhaps the most learned man on the earth, speaking of the Popes and their action on society, says; " Their leading virtue was prudence." It was their prevision that met and disarmed the mighty barbaric hordes that broke Pontificate of Pius IX, 143 up the Roman Empire. It was their prevision that enabled the State to defend itself against the Turks, and save Christen- dom from the degrading yoke of the Mohammedan religion. It was by their prudence that they were enabled to save the rock of Catholicity from out the confusion of the French Revolution ; but never, in the history of the Church of God, is there an act of such supreme prevision as the act of the last Council of Rome, when the whole Church of God assembled, and, repre- sented by its eight hundred bishops, declared, as a dogma of the Catholic faith, that the Pope possessed personal infallibility as the head of the Church. Let me prove this. When that definition was pronounced, and after the old, original, acknowledged faith of the Catholics was put in the form of a dogma — an article of faith — how few thought of what has come to pass since the day when that dogma was defined — when your bishops, and all the bishops of the world were assembled. I was in Rome at the time. I witnessed everything. I never thought that the Pope was so near the loss of his tem- poral dominions. No bishop or cardinal thought it. We could not understand the whole thing; we could not understand why that council was called, and pressed on so by the Pope himself. We did not foresee that a Bismarck would arise, like another Antichrist, to persecute the Church of God ; we did not foresee the downfall of France, and the triumphant revolution of Italy, with the deprivation of the temporal power to the Pope, and the possible expulsion of the person of his successor from Rome. These things no man foresaw, except one ; no man saw what was coming ; but a prudence more than human pre- pared the Church for the emergency. For nearly two thousand years the Pope has been in Rome. Surrounded by the prestige of his temporal power, he represent- ed, as Pontiff of Rome, palpably and visibly, the Church of God. He was recognized by the whole Church. It was easy to know him, easy to find him ; he was like a light burning in a candle- stick, lighting up everything. The kings of Europe recognized him. But take him out of Rome, send him an exile amongst men, send him a stricken wanderer on the earth, without the prestige of his temporal power — perhaps limited by those dia- bolical persecutors, those crowned tyrants, those kings, prime ministers, warring against the Church — then would come ruin 144 Pontificate of Pius IX. and confusion in his Church. The bishops might be tempted to rebel. The Church is full of examples of bishops who have from time to time rebelled against the Pope. Now, when the storm was coming, the spiritual authority of the Pope was put in form and recognized directly as from God. His infallible authority from God is required to be the very central bond of the Church in the days of her weakness that has come upon her. Almighty God inspired this man with the thought that the moment had come for the Church to commit herself, to set that sign upon her Pontiff which, wherever he is, in exile or in misery, no other man can tear away — the sign of this personal infallibility, dogmatically recognized, in the head of the Catholic Church. He now can enforce his decrees — they are the Curia Romafia. He cannot now, as in the Middle Ages, call a secular army to enforce his decrees. He cannot now lean on the loyalty of king or kaiser — they have all turned against him ; all are his enemies. Yet the moment when every human aid, when every human faculty, every human prestige was withdrawn from him, the heavens were opened, and the dogma of infallibility was let down upon his head from the bosom of Jesus Christ, the God of truth ; accepted by the Church, acclaimed by the Church, it shines out upon the uncrowned head of the Church's mon- arch, Pius IX., as the grandest Pope that ever lived, and re- ceived the dogmatic recognition of the Holy Church of God of his infallibility as her head. Now, he may go from Rome to-morrow, and hide himself in any corner of the earth — he may go, pursued by the blood- hounds of tyranny and revolution — but now, at least, we know that when he speaks to the Church, no prince, no nation, no bishop can for an instant cavil at his decision without inherit- ing the wrath of God and the curse of heresy and separation from the Catholic Church. His justice ! One of the greatest charges that history makes against some of the popes of the Middle Ages is, that they had great power and great wealth, and were fond of their rela- tives, as every man is — they allowed the ties of nature to be- come so strong that they enriched some of their relatives. It was called nepotism. Injustice is charged, and the Church is looked down upon, and some people imagine that the Pope is Pontificate of Pius IX. 145 impeccable — the Pope cannot make a mistake. Pius IX. may take some man and make a bishop of him, who is, perhaps, un- worthy ; the Church would not approve of it. Nor is he infal- lible in his actions ; but only when he teaches the Church the word of God, to accept universally that teaching from its Head, then and only then. Mark the grand character, the rigid, exact justice of this aged man, which I will describe to you. He was made Pope six- and twenty years ago. He had several brothers with large fam- ilies, and their friends came to them felicitating and congratu- lating with them, and said to them : " Now that your uncle is made Pope, of course you will get an estate, or something or another." You know this business of nepotism came up again amongst them. Well, the nephews and cousins thought they had nothing to do but to go to Rome and see if the uncle would do anything for them. The very first thing that Pius IX. did, as soon as he was made Pope, was to make a law that no relatives of his were to enter the gates of Rome. He stands before his enemies to-day, and not one of them has accused Pius IX. of nepotism or injustice. His temperance ! He don't know the meaning of what you call the temperance that keeps you from getting drunk- Pius IX. is six-and-twenty years Pope. During these six-and- twenty years, he has eaten and drunk so moderately that his personal expenses for eating, drinking, and clothing costs but one hundred and twenty pounds a year — that is, six hundred dollars a year to keep him in food, drink, clothing, and personal expenses. The Queen of England has one thousand pounds a year for every pound Pius IX. had when ruler of Rome ; and whether she spends it or not, she takes it all. His fortitude ! We have already seen by the '* non possiimus** that he is one of the strongest, bravest, most heroic men that ever sat peaceably upon the throne of Peter, in that part, be- yond all others, which successive Popes have been obliged to accept — the part of a fortitude which no power of earth nor hell could overcome. He is dear to the Catholic world, to the Irish world. To the Catholic world he is especially dear, inasmuch as a grace was given to him that was preserved for him for nearly two thousand years, the grace that was never vouchsafed to any other Pope ; 10 146 Pontificate of Pius IX. the grace which, Hke every grace that is divine, makes him sin- gular among all the other Pontiffs ; a grace that was preserved for him in the mind and councils of God from all eternity, namely, that the woman whom the evangelist saw crowned in heaven with a crown of twelve stars — the woman whom Al- mighty God spoke of as the crowned woman who was to crush the serpent's head — the woman who was crowned with the blood of her Divine Son, that fell upon her head from the bleeding hands which were stretched out over her on Calvary — should re- ceive from the hands of Pius IX., in his dogmatic definition, the last crown that the Church of God could put upon her head, in the proclamation of The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. Twelve hundred years ago, a heretic denied that Mary was the Mother of God. The moment that these words passed the lips of Nestorius the whole Catholic world was moved as one. Every man and every woman felt it as a personal insult. They called for a council, and a council was held in the city of Ephe- sus. The bishops came from all parts of the world ; the people came from all the nations, and the great city was filled with an excited, alarmed, and indignant throng, waiting in their thousands outside the council chamber. At the moment that they declared by a dogmatic decree that the Virgin Mary was the Mother of God, such was the impatience of the people that a bishop came out and told them, " It is decreed, and it is Catholic faith, that the Virgin Mary is the Mother of God." And the people received it with a shout and clamor ; the Catholic heart expanded ; like an electric flash it M^ent from land to land, and the churches proclaimed Mary's divine ma- ternity, and the whole Catholic Church was filled with joy. Why } Because one of the wants of the Catholic Church is love and veneration, quick, ardent, personal love for the Blessed Virgin Mary. Most singular it is ! The Gospel says, inspired by God : the Evangelist tells us that Mary, inspired by God, said : " Henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." Re- member, that is in the Gospel that all believe. Every Christian that reads the Gospel believes that all generations should call Mary blessed. Yet, strange to say, outside the Catholic Church she has not received any title. She is called the Virgin — any name you like. And sometimes we are called blasphe- Pontificate of Pius IX. 147 mous — I will not say by foolish men or by irreverent men, yet the drift of the Gospel shows that the Catholic Church must be the Church of the Gospel, for the Catholic Church alone calls Mary "Blessed." My friends, the spirit that was awakened by Nestorius twelve hundred years ago broke out again in this nineteenth century, and the whole Catholic world, with one voice, cried out in ac- clamation with the word of Pius IX., that Mary had never sinned. By divine preventing grace and the anticipated application of the merits and the blood of her Divine Son, she was preserved from sin, and even Adam himself did not sin in Mary, You will ask me, Why was this defined .'' Ah ! behold the prudence and the wisdom of the Pontiff! In this age of ours there is a spirit of insubordination to authority, to prevent which and connect the whole came this dogma of infallibility. Outside of us — the Catholic Church — the world is drifting very rapidly to the denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Protestantism to-day in every land is assuming the form which is called " Unitarian ; " and it is the boast of the Unitarians that they are disturbing the views of all that is intellectual and all that is spiritual in Protes- tantism. Every Protestant writer nowadays is speculating about the divinity of Christ ; every great preacher — read their lectures and sermons in the New York papers, and you will see discussed the divinity of Jesus Christ. It is an open question, and some believe that time will destroy the belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ — the very corner-stone on which the Christian re- ligion is founded. I may call myself a Christian ; so may the Sultan of Turkey ; so may the Emperor of China call himself a Christian — as good and just as much of a Christian as any other. The Protestant who denies the divinity of Jesus Christ is no more entitled to call himself a Christian than the Emperor of China, who is a Pagan. The Emperor of China has just as good a right to call himself a Christian as any man who doubts or de- nies the divinity of Jesus Christ. Now, the Church surrounded that mystery of the Incarna- tion with every form of dogmatic defense that could be de- vised, and threw a rampart of eternal truth about Him who is the divine author of all truth. One thing alone remained, one of the arguments used to deny the divinity, and shake the faith of those who believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. It was 148 Pontificate of Pius IX. that He was the son of Mary. Men said, " How can you say He is God ? He is the son of Mary. Mary was the daughter of Adam. Adam was a sinner. Consequently, how could God be born of a sinner ? " There was the argument. How was the Church of God to meet it? She had to assert dogmatically that Mary was the Mother of God, and that Mary was immacu- late in her conception. Pius came forth at the head of the Episcopacy and proclaimed to the world : " Let no man say that Jesus Christ is not God, because Mary was His mother. I declare, in the name of God and of our Church, that that woman, though a child of earth, had never sinned. Even in her conception she was freed from pollution, in order to be the Mother of God." And thus did the Church place the last crowning stone of that edifice of defense of the divinity of our Lord, by proclaiming the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Catholics are assured that there is no one higher than the Pope except God. God governs the Church through the Pope ; therefore, there is no appeal from the Church, and it has been the recognized doctrine of the Catholic Church from the day she was founded to this hour, that there is no appeal from the Pope; therefore, he is the ultimate tribunal of the body that is passing sentence by the Almighty God, to all men, of all the truth forever. Mark this, the Catholic Church has always taught, of necessity, that she cannot teach a lie ; the Catholic Church has always taught she is bound to obey the word of her head, her Pontiff; therefore, the Pontiff, when he is teaching that Church, cannot tell her a lie ; for if he did, the Catholic Church would be bound to accept the lie, and bound to obey. She cannot accept a lie, for Christ, her Lord, has said: " I am God, and the gates of hell shall never prevail against her." Therefore, though a traitor be the head of the Church, he cannot teach the Church of God or command her to believe a lie. Every State, my friends, every nation, has its ultimate tribunal from which there is no appeal. For instance, if you go to law with a man in England or in Ireland, if the judges decide against you, you can appeal to a higher court, and if a higher court give it against you, you can appeal to the House of Lords, but if the House of Lords be against you, you are bound to submit ; there is no other appeal. But if the Almighty God establishes upon Pontificate of Pius IX. 149 earth an arbiter that never could act unjustly, then you would be obliged to say the decision must be just. I have no appeal from it. Now, God says that the Catholic Church can never believe a lie or teach a lie, and the Catholic Church is bound by the decision of the Pope, and there is no appeal from it ; and, therefore, she believes she cannot tell a lie. This is the first attribute of the Pope, Now, consider this, my friends. Infalli- bility ; impossibility of teaching a lie ; impossibility of making a mistake in the matter of doctrines in the Universal Church. Why, it happens that this brings him so near to the Almighty God, that, before Him, as he stands there as the Head of the Church, all the rest of mankind dwindles into nothing. He stands there and he speaks ; he says to the Church : " Hear me, O Church of Jesus Christ ! Hear me ! " And the whole of the Church says, " I will hear what my ruler speaks to me." Infallible Church bows down before him and says, " Speak thou for the Church. Thy servant hears." He speaks, and the moment he opens his lips with dogmatic utterance — I no longer see in him a man — I only hear the voice of a man ; but I see reflected the infallible light of God, and hear the word of Jesus Christ through his lips. In the word of which, it is written : " Heaven and earth shall pass away." It is simply awful to consider a man invested with so much of the attributes of God. The second great official attribute of the Pope is supreme au- thority over cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, laymen, and every other man that professes the Catholic doctrines. The Pope exercises unlimited authority in religious matters — re- member, I say in religious matters — in spiritual matters we are all bound to obey him, the highest dignitary of the Church. The moment a man contradicts a word of the Pope, or rebels against it, be he bishop or priest, not, of course, in the essence of his ordination, but in the legitimacy of its exercise, he is an absolute heretic, and goes out from the Church. He may be the most learned man in the world, the greatest philosopher, a man of the greatest popularity, wielding a whole people and shaping their destinies ; at that moment there is an end to him. Not a man amongst us, not the humblest Catholic in the world, will touch him or have any more to say to him. Now, in order to have these official attributes, you can easily ISO Pontificate of Pius IX. imagine that the Almighty God, who guides that election of the h ad of the Church, will select a great man, a man whose sanctity of life, whose purity of heart, whose devotion to the altar and the Church, will, in some degree, fit him for that mag- nificent dignity. And, in truth, the proof of this lies in the fact, that although we have had a succession of hundreds of Popes, going through the ages of history, side by side with their contemporaries, though many of them had their faults, and though many of them committed sins, yet, taken in the whole, they are as far beyond the kings and emperors with whom they lived, in sanctity and purity of life, in education and grandeur of character, as they were beyond other men in their imperial power. In that long roll I claim that up to this sad century of ours, since the day Peter received the keys from Christ, that never have those keys been held by a nobler character, by a grander man than the aged Pius IX. who governs us to-day. For the proof of this only look over the pontificate with me in some of the salient points. You know, my friends, that it is now six-and-twenty years since Pius IX. was elected to be the Pope and Head of the Catholic Church. He is the only man of all those that succeeded St. Peter who has outlived the years of Peter upon the pontifical throne of Rome. It was considered a kind of proverb in the Church that no Pope should live as many years in his papacy as St. Peter, who lived twenty-five years. Pius IX. was the first Pope who has outlived the years of Peter. I was in Rome as a youth in the first year of the pontificate of this man. I am speaking to you this evening not of things that I have read in books, or that I have heard from other men. I am speaking of a country in which I have lived the best years of my life — of Italy and the city of Rome. I am speaking of the things tha/: I have seen and judged of with my own mind. I saw, in 1847 i^" Rome, a fair young man — his hair was black as the raven's wing; his eye was bright with the commingled beauty of the pure soul that shone through it ; and the manly vigor of his form — for this man was educated in his youth for a soldier — stately, kingly, more than kingly even in his physical appearance ; he seemed a man every inch fit to be a ruler of his fellow-men ; with a conformation and a form, indeed, where the very God had seemed to set the seal and give Pontificate of Pius IX. i $ i the world assurance of a man. I saw him on that day, when my young eyes, fresh from the green isle of Erin, full of Irish faith, of love, as I looked with a timid glance on the Vicar of Christ — on that day when he was surrounded by the plaudits of the Roman and Italian people. The whole world echoed the praises of Pius IX. The King of Italy, the archdukes of Italy, the kings of the various na- tions of Europe, were loud in their praises of the new Pope. Even here in America the echoes of his praise were caught up, and by the most eloquent tongue proclaimed — the tongue of America's last, though not least, of her statesmen or philoso- phers, over whose grave the nation is weeping to-day. Why did they praise him ? Ah, my friends, they praised him for the act by which he began his pontificate, in which he showed the genius and the character of this noble-minded man when he came to the throne. There had been trouble for years before in Italy, and he found many of the Italian people, his own sub- jects, languishing in prison for their rebellion, or attempt at revolution, and for their unquiet dispositions. He found that many of them were in exile, some living in Paris, some in Lon- don, and some here in America. What was the first act of the new Pontiff? The moment the tiara was on his head, and the sceptre of his apostolic reign in his hand, the first sentence he uttered as a monarch, was : " Open that gate and let them out ; come back, you exiles in every foreign land ; come back to your own blue sky and sunny soil ; come back to the bosom of Italy. I am not so much your king as your father, and I will trust my self to the love, to the deep gratitude, and to the affection of that people." This act I witnessed. I saw the exiles return and bathe the hand of their liberator with grateful tears. I saw the eyes of the little children whose fathers came back to them from out the dungeons and the prisons rejoicing under the smile of the man whose hand had unbarred those prison gates. The whole world rejoiced, but Pius IX. was destined to know the vanity and the folly of human popularity. Oh, thrice fool- ish is the man who would build a house, or his life, or his soul on such frail, sandy foundations as the applause and plaudits of men. Thrice befooled is the man that grasps for such glory, for God will permit him, even in this world, to outlive the 152 Pontificate of Pius IX. breath of his passing fame. And unless he has built his hope, his reputation, his character, his soul, on some more solid, un- shaken foundation, then all will crumble to ruin, and the aged man will live to weep over the words of praise that had resound- ed in his ear in thunder-tones from the plaudits of men. That word is like the morning summer wind that moves the foliage of the acacia-tree, then passes away to salute some other hill- side, and refresh some other field. Pius IX. knew it. I saw him silent and unmoved. He saw and recognized it, even as my young eye did the grandeur of that character, because of the depth of his humility, for men were disposed to raise him higher and higher in popular estimation, and called out that he was the saviour of men, and that there never was such a Pontiff on that throne. I saw, as the shouts of their ap- plause grew louder and filled in a wider circle of the ambient air, that the object of that applause went down deeper, visibly deeper, in the depths of his own personal nothingness and hu- mility, humbling himself before God. Then was I reminded, looking upon him, of the words of the royal prophet of Israel, " I swear," he said, " that the more the Lord my God shall lift me up, the more will I humble myself, and will cast myself down before Him." That humility came in order to preserve him ; for if the man had built on the foundation of his splendid character, and the passing praise of the hour, he would have crumbled to ruin, and his heart would have broken under the reverses that God sent him. In a few years the same people that cried his name with acclamation on that occasion, turned against him, and demanded entrance, with their cannons, at his palace gate ; that he should meet a revolutionary principle, incon- sistent with his position, and inconsistent with their own salva- tion and happiness ; and the ungrateful children whom the Holy Father had brought forth from their prison-houses, whom he called from the land of their exile, made use of the liberty he gave them, and drove him into exile. Then came the second great trial in this man's life. A few years ago a Catholic servant-girl in a Jewish family, in Bologna, took a little child newly born and baptized him, secretly, with- out telling the parents. Now, my friends, you must know that the Catholic Church does not allow this. The Catholic Church teaches two things. First of all, it teaches as to divine faith, Pontificate of Pius IX. 153 that by baptism the child thus baptized becomes the brother or sister of Jesus Christ, incorporated in him by divine grace, appropriated to God as a child of God. That little child that was born was the child of Adam, the child of sin. "We are all born children of wrath," says St, Paul. It is an article of Cath- olic faith, that when the water of baptism touches the child's head, that little child becomes a child of God. The Catholic Church teaches us that the moment that child is baptized it becomes a member of the Church of God. Consequently, He grasps that little one and asserts His claim upon it. The Cath- olic Church teaches, on the other hand, that the parents have a right over the child, and if the parents are infidels or Jews, and if they refuse to have their child baptized, the Church does not coerce. The Church respects the parents' right, and says, " Although I come into this world to spread the kingdom of God, still, if the father and mother refuse it for their child, I must respect their rights." That is the Catholic doctrine. Therefore the Church says, " If any one baptizes the child of a Jew, or an infidel, without the parents' consent, that person is guilty of a grievous sin ; nay, more, the Church threatens with her censure of excommunication such a person. The servant- girl in question committed a grievous sin, and fell under the censure of the Catholic Church ; but the Catholic Church had to acknowledge the fact that the child was baptized. What followed fromi this? It followed that the Catholic Church was obliged to ask the parents of the child to bring it up a Chris- tian, because he was baptized a Christian. The parents refused. Pius IX. was the temporal sovereign, and these Jews were his subjects ; and also, as the head of the Church, Pius IX. was obliged, by the doctrines of the Catholic Church, and by her discipline, to secure to that child a Christian education until he was seven years old, and could decide for himself whether he would continue to be a Christian, or go back to the religion of his parents. The parents refused, and Pius IX. was obliged of necessity to put the child under the care of a Christian teacher, until the hour arrived to tell him, " You were baptized a Chris- tian secretly, and we were very sorry for it. The person who did it interfered with your parents' right for a time, but does not interfere with their rights for the time to come. Will you be a Christian?" The child said: "I wish to be a Christian, 154 Pontificate of Pius IX. and a priest " — and a priest he is to-day. I knew him in Rome. The Jewish father and mother appealed to the different nations in Europe, and England among them sent word to Pius IX. that that child should be brought up a Jew. He said: " I can- not bring up the child a Jew; the child is a Christian. How can a Christian become a Jew? " " Then give back the child," they said, "to his parents." "I cannot do it," he answered; " they will bring him up a Jew. But when that child comes to the hour of reason, he may go back to them if he likes. They may see him, and love him, and nourish him. I will leave him with them, provided they give him his choice, and let him be a Christian, if the grace of baptism educate him in that direc- tion." They would not do it. They said : " We want to make him a Jew " — a personal enemy of God, in whom he was bap- tized. France and England threatened to send their fleets to bombard the Pope's cities. '' We will drive you out of Rome ! " The old Father says : " You may do it. I cannot help that. You may do more than that — you may pluck this heart out of my body, cut off this head of mine, shed every drop of blood in my veins ; but there is one thing you cannot do, and I cannot do, and that is, betray Jesus Christ by giving up that child. Nan posswnus ! " he answered — I cannot do it. He did not say: " I do not wish to do it — I must not do it." He says : " I can- not do it ! " I assert that the Non possiimiis of Pius IX. are the grandest words that ever came from the lips of man, because those who were not Catholics did not understand it. Those who were not Catholics did not understand the nature of baptism. By bap- tism we become one with Christ ; by baptism we become mem- bers of the Church of Christ. All those who were not Catholics did not understand it. He said to them : " You may make the case your own," and if there are any here who are not Catholics, let them just realize the doctrine of baptism, and you will see at once that the Pope could not do anything else, and that Non possiiimis, resounding from out the lips of Pius IX., are the grand- est words that can be engraved on his tomb : " Here lies a man whom the world has endeavored to coerce into sacrificing the interest of Jesus Christ and His Church ; and here lies a man who answered : * Non possumus ! ' " — I cannot do it. I believe, myself, being a witness of these facts — analyzing Pontijicate of Pius IX. 155 them — I believe, my friends, that case of that child was the be- ginning of the troubles that have issued to-day in the loss of the temporal dominions of the Pope and in the bloody revolution. There is a society in Europe which has permeated through all ranks in all the nations, and has found its way into every grade of society — in fact, has honeycombed and burrowed completely the very foundation of society everywhere, except in glorious Catholic Ireland — and that society is called the Society of Free- masons. A great many worthy men are entrapped into that society, because they do not know its real meaning. But one of the fundamental principles of European Masonry is war against the throne and war against the altar of God. Against the throne that war was waged in the many revolutions that have marked the latter end of the last century and the middle of this century. The war against the altar has been going on in every nation of Europe — furious, persistent, terrible, and un- compromising war — since the days that Voltaire wrote "that the last of the kings should be strangled with the last of the priests." Pius IX. represented the throne as temporal ruler of Rome, and represented the altar as head of the Catholic Church, and the consequence is, that in the last three-and-twenty years the com- bined, united efforts of Masonry have all been concentrated on the one power of Pius IX., the representative of Jesus Christ — against him. Even the Scribe and the Pharisee forgot their hatred and their differences, that they might combine against Him — against Him, even as Pilate and Herod made up their private little differences and became friends in order that they might combine against Him — ^just as against the Lord Jesus Christ every discordant element in Jerusalem combined to put Him to death. So every other interest of Masonry was consid- ered secondary, and the power of every element of this wide- spread society was all concentrated in destroying the power and, if possible, in shedding the blood of the Sovereign Pontiff. For twenty-three years he has stood serenely before them ; for twenty- three years he has met all their scoffing against him. They suc- ceeded in getting up an unjust war against him ; they succeeded in shedding the blood of the gallant, true-hearted and the brave men that, shoulder to shoulder, stood around the old man's throne, though they were but one to a thousand — yet still they fought like men, and — blessed be God ! — Ireland's arm 156 Pontificate of Pius IX. and the most faithful of her sons were around him. Against him, they succeeded in the robbery and in plundering the de- fenseless man of the last square rood of his inheritance, and, if possible, to bring down his white hairs in sorrow, anguish, and despair to the grave. Worst of all, against him to-day — a sad prisoner in the aban- doned halls of the Vatican — they are making malicious charges. Aye ! false as hell — they have, within the last two months, pub- lished in Italy and reproduced in other lands their books and other pamphlets — against what, do you think? against the moral character of Pius IX. A man whose reputation is as stainless as the untrodden snow. A man whose life has been before the world, from his earliest youth to his extreme old age. The man who has lived out in the face of the whole world — the man against whom his bitterest enemy cannot breathe one word of slander — this is the man whose character they are trying to de- stroy after they have destroyed his temporal power ; but what wonder ? When the Son of God was nailed to the cross, was He not there expressly charged as being a seducer of the peo- ple and a malefactor and blasphemer against God? Surely the servant cannot expect better treatment than his Master. And yet, my friends, if we go a little deeper, passing from these ex- ternal agencies that act upon him, passing from his external character as the head of the Church, what a magnificent man he is. As I once heard an old woman in Ireland say, and she ex- pressed the very mind of the Church, " Father dear, I always believed in the Pope, but I never loved him so dearly as I do now, because he has declared that the Mother of God was con- ceived without sin." There is the mind of the Church; the great heart of the spouse of Jesus Christ enlarges itself in love towards him to whom God gave the grace and the fair privilege of declaring Mary's Immaculate Conception. Upon that love — almost miraculously singular, Pius IX. has sustained himself up to this day, and will sustain himself until that heart has passed from us to an honored sepulchre. From Ireland, my native land, the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX., deserves more than from any other land. I love him, not only as a Catholic, because he has proclaimed the Immaculate Concep- tion of Mary, my Mother ; I love him, not only as a priest, be- cause, by his latest defense of the dogmatic decision of the Pontificate of Pius IX. 157 Church of God he has secured to me, and such as me, forever and forever, the hghts that never can pale. He has given us a guiding voice that no man can contradict, for the security and certainty of our faith ; but I love him, as an Irishman, because, in the midst of his sorrows and his troubles, he had time to think of the fidelity and the love of the Irish people for their holy relig- ion, and he was the first Pontiff that ever rewarded an Irishman in a grand and royal manner. Other Popes have been accused of caring little about Ireland. One of them has been accused of caring so little about Ireland as to throw it into the hands of Henry II. of England, saying to him : " Take it if you like it." But, thanks be to God, I have lived to see that proved to be a lie. Mr. Froude, whatever he takes home from America, will take home one thing with him, and that is a document from an Irish bishop — the Bishop of Os^ sory — that I think he will not be able to get over. And that document proves to demonstration that no Pope of Rome ever gave Ireland to England. What the domination was that has been carried out, through blood and injustice, and was begun in perjury and lying, has now become a matter of history. And I thank God for it, because it has wiped out of the mind of many an Irishman the uncomfortable feeling that a Pope thought so little of our native land ; thanks be to God, that day has never dawned, and never will ! Pius IX. gave to the Irish Church her first Cardinal, that is to say, he gave to the Irish Church a voice in all earthly councils, the councils that assemble to ask him the question Samuel asked when David was brought before him, " Is this the anointed here before the Lord?" When the question comes to selecting a Pope as the Head of the Catholic Church, when the question comes of bringing out three or four men without any prior selec- tion, asking the Holy Spirit of God — " Is this the anointed that is before Thee, O Spirit of Truth?" — that is the highest council that can be upon the earth, and for fifteen hundred years every nation has been asked to join in that important question. Yet Ireland — faithful, suffering — never had been summoned until Pius IX. said to an Irishman: "Take thy place, O child of a martyr race, among the princes of the Church of God, and thou shalt be among those that shall ask the question of the Holy Spirit — who shall guide this Church? And if the answer come, 158 Pontificate of Pius IX. the son of Erin ! then the son of Erin has the right to bear the Roman Tiara." And, in making his selection, he pitched upon a man whom I have the honor and privilege of knowing intimately and well : have lived in his jurisdiction for many a year. I have studied his spirit, and I will say this — I say it from the conviction of my heart — that in raising Paul Cullen, the Archbishop, to the dig- nity and the grandeur of a Cardinalship, Pius IX. laid his hand upon the head of as true and as loving a son of Ireland as ever lived. Some among us deny this — a privilege that we claim to ourselves ; but I do say this again — that if love for his native land ever burned pure and bright in the heart of man, it burns in thy heart. Cardinal Cullen, this night. He selected a man who he knew would do honor to the land of his birth, and would fitly represent, amongst the Cardinals of Rome and the representative princes of the Church, the land which once bore the title of the " Island of Scholars, as well as of Saints." I have studied the character of the eminent personage of whom I speak, and I have failed to decide, in my own mind, from a mi- nute, familiar examination of him — I have never been able to decide which was the greater — the vastness of his ecclesiasti- cal knowledge or the humility of his pure heart and spirit. Honors have been worthily showered upon him ; he has borne them with a humility corresponding with the greatness to which God has lifted him up. In the last Council of Rome it was the honor and glory of Ireland, that our Cardinal stood forth ac- knowledged one of the greatest theologians ; one of the first and wisest men ; one of the deepest thinkers ; one of the coolest and best heads in the eight hundred of the cream of the Church's intellect and heart, that were called and gathered there in the universal episcopacy. For all this I thank him, I honor the aged man who so worthily fills the highest throne of earth ; I honor him more than if I saw him crowned with the thrice resplendent tiara of hu- manity — praise, human glory, and human power. Oh ! I honor him in his old age. For, even as Peter was imprisoned in Rome, so Pius IX. is imprisoned to-day in Rome, and the crown of empire has fallen from his head ; but the crown of thorns is sur- mounted by the higher crown of spiritual dominion which God put upon the head of Peter, and which no man can ever pluck Pontificate of Pius IX. 159 from the brows of Peter's successors. I follow him. I go back with joy to the past, when the occasion was given to me of be- holding him and receiving his benediction — when his fatherly- smile was bestowed on the Irish friar — I follow him in the halls of my memory of the past, I have seen him in glory ; I have seen him in sorrow ; but I hallow him with a louder voice as I behold him, in the light of that future which my faith reveals to me, coming forth from out his prison-house to ascend his throne once more, crowned with the honor and glory of which the world cannot longer deprive him ; coming forth, the representa- tive of eternal power as well as of eternal justice, to wield again in undisputed sway the peaceful sceptre of God's designs in the nations, and with an acknowledged royal hand to point out to all the people of a united world the path to freedom here and glory in the world to come. THE EVILS OF IRELAND AND THEIR REMEDY. [Lecture delivered in the Music Hall, Harlem, in aid of St. Jerome's Church, N. Y., on October 14th, 1872. In consequence of an unavoidable postponement, the lecture was not a success numerically.] ADIES AND Gentlemen : I understand that a gentle- man was to have introduced me this evening. He has not arrived; but I beheve, at this time of day, I scarcely require an introduction to my kind friends in New York. Indeed, introducing me to you now, reminds me of a little scene which occurred in my native town of Galway. There was a young lady there — only forty-five years of age. She was to be introduced to a gentleman ; and, when she was brought over to him, the man of the house said : " Sir, will you allow me to introduce Miss So-and-so." " How do you, mad- am," said the gentleman; "but, indeed, I was introduced to you five-and twenty years ago." Now, my friends, the audience this evening is a little slim. Accustomed as I am, since I came to America, to see great halls thronged — and accustomed as I may be to crowded audi- ences, perhaps you may think I was a little discouraged at find- ing so few of my friends here. You will be surprised to know that I was not. I will tell you why. The lecture this evening is on "The Evils of Ireland." No doubt, so long as I was lec- turing on the glories of Ireland — on the grandeur and happi- ness of Ireland — I had crowded audiences ; but when I turned around, shifted my sails, and announced that I was to lecture upon the drawbacks — upon the evils of Ireland, I am not sur- prised if I find so few Irishmen willing to hear me. Indeed, I am as unwilling to approach the subject as you are to listen to The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. i6i me ; for it is not in my nature, as an Irishman, and as a Catho- lic priest, to be eloquent on the evils of Ireland. That theme is too sad — too full of bitter tears — for any eloquent remarks. And the man who loves Ireland and the Irish people, as I do, cannot enter heartily upon such a theme as this ; for the subject itself is distasteful. Yet, I would not be a true Irishman, nor a true lover of my people, if I were always to speak words of pane- gyric — always to be praising, always crying up to the skies the ancient glory and magnificent traditions of my race, and of my people — and to shut my eyes completely to the faults and evils of the Irish and Ireland. If you have a friend who only sees your virtues, and refuses to look at your defects, you will con- sider him of little or no account. The best friend that a man has, is the man who will not be so blinded by his love as not to perceive the defects in his character, and who will not be so struck dumb by his affections, as to be afraid or ashamed to tell him of these defects. It is not all sunshine in our Irish character. There has been, alas ! little sunshine in our history — far more of shadow than of light. And when we come to analyze the history of our race,, and to account for the evils that have fallen upon Irelandj we are obliged to acknowledge that many of them — and some of the greatest — have come to us through our own faults. There is no better study for the Irishman of to-day, than to look back upon the history of his nation in the past ; to try and trace the misfortunes of Ireland to their true cause, in order that he may, by removing these causes, brighten his own pathway of life, and the pathway of his people in the future. Now, there are three evils which have followed the path of the Irish race in times past, and unfortunately cling to us to-day; and of the three of which I proposed to myself to speak, I will only speak of two. I will tell you why. A certain painter was once painting a magnificent picture ; and, although he had been all his life mixing colors, he had a special abomination for one color among all others — that of blue ; consequently it came to pass that his pictures were deficient in blue. He suffered so much in using that color that he shrank from it, and put no blue in his pictures. When I came to consider this lecture this evening, which I was about to give you, I shrank away from the evils of my country, just as the painter shrank away from II 1 62 The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. his color. I could not speak to you as I had a right to speak to you of these three evils; I only selected two. In mercy to myself, I put away the other ; and the two great evils of Ire- land in the past, and the evils of her people in the present day, I hold to be, first, the evil of disunion, and secondly, that of intemperance. There is amongst us, at this moment, in New York, a most learned and most distinguished English historian. He came over to this land a few days ago. He has come to lecture, amongst other subjects, upon Ireland and her people. He is an Englishman, who has lived for some years in Ireland ; and I believe that, like every Englishman whom I've met, who lived in Ireland, he has learned to love the land, and to love our people. For I never yet heard of, nor knew, an English- man that came to Ireland, and lived among her people, who did not learn to love them, and to love the land. So it has passed into a proverb that these English were " more Irish than the Irish themselves." My friends, this is easily accounted for. Our Ireland — our native land — is by no means the wealthiest of the world's nations, nor the most powerful. Nay, more ; there are other nations that far surpass Ireland in the magnifi- cence of their scenery. There are other nations that far sur- pass Ireland in pastoral beauty. Any man leaving Ireland and traveling through England, must see that, from the care and ♦cultivation of centuries, England has become like a well-tilled and well-kept garden, compared with poor, unhappy Ireland. Sut, in that ancient Island of Saints, there is a certain sweet- ;ness in the air, there is a certain modesty and purity among the -people ; there is an expansion of the heart, a wholesomeness, and innocent good-nature ; there is a brightness of intellect, and sweetness of expression, that charms the foreigner who comes among us; until, at length, he loves to live in that land, though far more cultivated, perhaps, is the land that owned him. Hence it is, that strangers coming into Ireland are captivated by the land and by the people, until they become "more Irish than the Irish themselves." Have you ever breathed the pure, genial air of Ireland, the very breath of which kills every poison- .ous and venomous thing? Other nations may be grander, other nations may be more magnificent, more beautiful in their •ecenery ; but, in no country on the face of the earth, is the air The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy, 163 so pure, or the grass so sweet, that no poisonous thing can breathe that air, or eat that grass without perishing. And this English historian, coming amongst us to lecture on Ireland — if we are to believe the newspapers of Saturday last — made, among others, one most solemn declaration. " I have," said he, " lived in Ireland. With an observing eye I have watched her people. I have studied the history of that land, and of that people ; and I solemnly declare that whatever evils have come upon Ireland, have come to her through the disunion of her people. If the Irish people were united in times past, they might have preserved the treasure of their national freedom and existence ; and if they were united to-day, they might lay down the law for the nation that oppresses them." Out of the mouth of the stranger I take the Irish gospel of independence that I preach here to-night. Out of the mouth of one who ought to be the traditional enemy of Ireland, I take the words proclaiming — as an Irishman and as a priest, speaking to my fellow-Irishmen — that disunion has been, in times past, as it is to-day, the first curse of Ireland — the first great evil of our race and of our people. Reflect, my friends : " Union," says the proverb, " is strength." Unity is strength. There is far more in that word than people imagine. We repeat the proverb, but we do not reflect on its deep, hidden meaning. God — the Eternal Creator of heaven and earth, the Supreme and Infinite Being — is Omnipotence itself, because He is essential unity. Why is God omnipotent ? Because, being one, essentially one, in the unity of His divine nature, in the unity of every attribute that goes to make that nature, if you will — humanly speaking — He admits no equal. No power can contradict Him ; no voice can be raised against His ; no hand can be uplifted against His ; He reigns supreme, omnipotent, because He is one. Picture to yourselves, my friends, the ancient mythology of the Greeks and Romans. They were idolaters, and admitted a multiplicity of gods — one contradicting the other. The attribute of omnipotence was the attribute of none. The ancient pagans did not conceive, they had no idea of, a God, an Omnipotent Being. Take the noblest pagan writer of antiquity, and of ancient mythology — the poet Homer ; what does this great Greek poet tell us of the result of siege and war ? He tell us how all the gods were 164 The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. engaged in the great controversies of all nations ; some were on one side, some on the other. He tells of Mars, the god of war, entering on the plains of battle ; how Venus, the goddess of love, descended at the commencement of the battle, and a Greek hero wounded her, and she fled, shrieking, from the field. The idea of supremacy, of omnipotence, and power — which God alone possesses — never entered into the Greek or Roman mind. They knew nothing of this attribute of the di- vinity. And why ? Because they admitted a multiplicity of gods and of goddesses, instead of the unity of God. Now, next to God, the very highest example of unity is the Catholic Church. The Son of God came down from heaven. He became man. He founded a Church upon this earth. He declared that Church was never to err in doctrine — never to teach or utter a lie ; that she was never to be separated into various sects. His last words upon this earth were a prayer for His Church before He suffered and died. " Father in heaven, to Thee I pray, that those whom Thou gavest Me may be one, even as Thou and I are one." Unity of the Church was the first idea in the mind of Christ, who founded it. He was God; and unity for His Church was the last prayer that was put up from the lips of Him who was to die on the following day. Accordingly, because He founded that Church, she is one ; be- cause He remained with that Church, she is one. She has been one for eighteen hundred years ; she is one to-day ; and she shall be until the end of time the very representative of the unity of God. What follows from this wonderful unity of the Catholic Church — this perfect union ? There are over two hundred millions of Catholics ; men of various nationalities ; men of all ages ; men most learned ; men most ignorant ; gentle and simple, young and old, the priest and the layman. But, although there are over two hundred millions — every one having his own distinct character, and his own individuality — yet, when it is a question of Catholic faith, these two hundred millions have only one mind concerning the one thought, and with one tongue making one sublime act of divine faith. For the pre- servation of that unity, the Catholic Church has been obliged to cut off branch after branch. Any man that ever yet declared that he had doubts of it was cut off and excommunicated. He may be the greatest bishop; she cuts him off like a simple 1 The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. 165 layman — like a Frenchman, the other day, one of the greatest preachers, and one of the most learned men — he raised his voice in denial of the Church's doctrine, and the Church declared him anathema; cut him off and cast him out into the outer world, there to wither until he is dry enough to feed the flames of hell ! It may be a powerful king, like Henry VIII. of England, infringing upon the unity of the Catholic Church, carrying a strong nation at his back. But, king or nation, it is all alike ; the Church must cut them off; for everything must be sacrificed to prove the unity of the Church and the Church's government. What follows from this ? The strength is in her. No power on earth or in hell has been able to break her unity or her strength. She has her laity, taught by the clergy ; she has her priests, subject to her bishops ; she has her bishops, subject to her archbishops, who are subject to the head, the Pope ; and the Pope subject to Christ ; so that all things in the Catholic Church go up to one ineffable unity, and that one is the one who sits upon the Father's right hand in heaven — the Man-God, Christ Jesus. For eighteen hundred and seventy years the world has made war upon that Church — upon that Church which has never yet been able to strike one efficient blow, with the arm of the flesh, in her own defense : upon that Church that stands alone before them, unarmed, in the presence of the most powerful princes, unable to resist. Upon that Church alone, the blows of a wicked world have rained, like a hail- storm, for eighteen hundred years and more. Which of the combatants has ever come forth the victor ? Who has ever been able, in the long run, to put her foot on the neck of her enemy, but the Catholic Church ? The Roman Empire, at a time when it governed the whole world, gathered up all its power, and concentrated all its energy to destroy the Cath- olic Church. For three hundred years, the blood of her children flowed like water. And yet, at the end of three hundred years, the Roman Empire was broken down, and the Church of God was triumphant. Three hundred years ago, England, Germany, and a great part of France, Sweden, Norway, and Russia, — in short, the greater part of Europe, — separating from the Church, turned upon lier with brutal violence. A fierce issue stood before them for three hundred years ; and, at the end of that time, Catholici- 1 66 The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. tyhad triumphed over Protestantism. For three hundred years, a nation the most powerful on the face of the earth — England — had concentrated all her rage, all her stubborn, dogged, Saxon determination, all the power and weight of her arm, to deprive Ireland of her Catholicity ; and, in our own day, at the end of three hundred years. Catholic Ireland has triumphed ; the Queen of England was obliged to sign an Act of the British Parliament that declared that the Protestant Church was not, nor never could be, the Church of the Irish people. Whence comes this strength that no power can destroy ? It comes from the power of Him who prayed that His Church might be one, to represent the unity of nature which bound Him to His Father unto the end of time. I could multiply instances, my friends, to show you that unity is the source and secret of strength. But it is quite sufficient to show this great truth as instanced by the omnipotence of one God, and by the ever-recurring triumphs of the one religion, which the Son of God founded. Let us apply this to Ireland. Looking back upon the history of our race, we find it is a strange history, made up of triumphs and defeats, of joy and of sorrow, of sunshine and of shadow. But I invariably find, that wherevet the Irish people, in their past history, triumphed, that triumph came out of their union; and, when they were defeated, it was from no defect of bravery or of valor, or of the justice of their cause, or lack of determination ; but it was the result of that first curse of division. I find that, wherever the sun shone upon Ireland, it shone upon a united people ; and when the hour of shadow came, and when the cloud threw a saddening gloom over them — that shadow came and that cloud arose from out the disunion of my nation. Look at the history of Ireland, for the past ten centuries, and what do we find. It is marked by three epochs, divided into three great periods. Two of these were periods of triumph, and one a period of national defeat and humiliation. The first great period is that of the Danish invasion. The Danes came to Ireland in the eighth century, and remained there until the close of the eleventh — that is to say, three hundred years. The next period was the four hun- dred years that followed the Anglo-Norman invasion. The next great period was the three hundred years that followed the so- called Reformation. In all these, our nation and our race were The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. 167 called upon to defend or to give up, to fight or die for, great principles. I say this — and I say it in the face of every man that ever yet read or wrote a page of history — there never was a great question and a great principle, or a just cause, put be- fore the Irish race, which that people were not prepared to do battle for, and, in its defense, to suffer and to die. We may read of other peoples abandoning their standard — leaving it on the blood-stained battlefield ; but the Irish never did so. We may read of other peoples turning their backs, discouraged, on the evening of defeat ; but the Irish never did so. We may read of other nations and peoples going to war and invading their neighbors' rights and liberties, and robbing them of their' sacred heritage of freedom ; but the Irish never did so. We may read of other peoples despairing upon the evening of a lost battle ; but the Irish race have never known how to despair, so long as the cause was just, so long as they could believe they were up- held by the high God in Heaven. The first great epoch in our national history was the invasion of the Danes. They came and swept the North Sea in their long war-galleys ; and they landed upon our shores, to the sound of their " sagas " — the historic songs of that ancient and historic race of Scandinavia, the oldest and most powerful people then known on the face of the earth. Clad in armor, of gigantic stature, these blue-eyed, fair-haired, lion-hearted, fearless war- riors of the North invaded England, Norway, France, and Ireland at nearly the self-same time. They swept along the north coast of France. In the prows of their ancient galleys sat their scalds ; and they swept down upon the northern coast of England and around that island of the Saxons ; and wher- ever they passed, the bravest who measured swords with them sheathed their weapons and became their tributaries and serfs. They landed in Ireland ; and, for the three hundred years that elapsed from the day the first Dane set his foot upon Irish soil, until the last Dane was driven into the sea, they never were allowed to take permanent footing in Ireland, or proclaim their supremacy over her ancient Celtic race. No ; the Celts met them ; and, inch by inch, and foot by foot, they disputed every inch of Irish soil with them. There is no hill- side in Ireland whose soil has not been moistened with Danish blood. They found a nation united, in a great measure; for ib8 The Evils of Ireland and their Kennedy. the Irish kings and chieftains (sons of the Gaul and of the Celt) were proud of all that they owned, and proud of the gallant people around them — proud of the priesthood of Ireland, for whom they stood in defense ; and of their people, and of Ire- land as a nation. How they fought we know well. The fight continued for three hundred years ; until, at length, upon the morning of Clontarf, an Irish king rode along the ranks of his Irish army, holding, in his venerable warrior hands, not the drawn sword, but the image of Jesus Christ crucified. He harangued his Irish troops. He told them the cause for which they were to fight was the cause of the God who redeemed them. He spoke of their sanctified altars. He lifted every Irish heart, and strengthened every Irish arm. So throbbed their hearts at the harangue of that Irish King, that, before the even- ing sun had set, they had swept the Danes into the sea. The Irish rallied, and, like the apostle shaking the serpent from him, Ireland shook the invader from her bosom, and freed herself from the contamination of his presence. But, you will ask me, why did the contest last so long? Why was the glorious day of Clontarf postponed for three hundred years ? Why — if this people were united — why did they not move to victory, with the sword, on the first day, and not on the last? I answer, it was because the evil of disunion, even at that early date, was upon them. We have the sad facts of his- tory to tell us that, wherever the Danes fought, in the glens and on the hills of our land, side by side with the Dane was the ren- egade Irishman, fighting against his own people, shedding the blood of his own race. Even on the morning of Clontarf— even when the heroic King Brian rode out, after reviewing his own army, passing like a fearless, lion-hearted warrior right into the midst of the enemy to reconnoitre them, what a sight met his eyes ! There, amid the serried ranks of the Danes ; there, amid the warriors of the northern pagans, he found the children of his own people : McMurrogh of Wicklow, the thrice accursed race — accursed of God, accursed of the Church, and accursed of the genius of Irish history — McMurrogh of Wicklow, who brought down their Irish adherents and soldiers to fight side by side with the Dane upon that day of Clontarf. The curse of disunion was upon us; but the demon of disunion had not yet eaten into the heart of Ireland. The hell-born demon, that would The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. 169 ruin and break the idea of unity in heaven and on earth, had not yet paralyzed the arm of Ireland. She was a nation, and in a great measure was united, and more united then than in any other period of the history of the Irish race. Sixty years after the last Dane had been driven from Ireland — when Ireland achieved a victory greater than ever could be achieved in later years — sixty years later, the English and Saxon invader came upon our soil. The English landed in Ireland more than seven hundred years ago. They brought with them ruin and distraction to the green isle, and declared war against that which, next to his faith and his God, should be the dearest inheritance of every honest man — they declared war against the nationality and freedom of Ireland. They lifted up the standard of invasion ; and the red flag of England floated over the green hills. They declared that the Irish Oriflame was no longer to wave over the hills and vales of the land ; and that Ireland was destined to be an enslaved province instead of an independent nation. This, beyond all cavil and all doubt, was the precise condition of England's invading Ire- land. Here I say, next to his religion, a man should love his nationality ; next to our God, we should love the country of our sires. There is nothing more noble, no thought more sub- lime, that can enter the mind of man, or into his heart — after the love of the God who made him, and of the faith which that God has revealed to him — there is nothing more noble than the true and self-sacrificing love that a man should have for his country. Her love should be ever before him ; and the love of her people should be the rule of his public, and, as far as may be, of his private life. Her history — to the true lover of his native land — is the record of his own blood ; and, if there be anything noble in him, anything manly in him, or anything worth living for in this world to him, it is the record or the history of the race from which he came. The man who, from selfish motives, or mere egotism — mere self-love — renounces that history, turns his back upon his people, and tries to forget the people that went before him, is a traitor to his native country; and, in all probability, he will be found to be a traitor to his God. If you meet him, avoid him ; trust him not. The man who forgets or betrays his country to-day, will forget and betray his God and his faith to-morrow. Trust him not. If 170 The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. you trust him upon his word, you are trusting in the word of a perjurer and a liar before high heaven. Give him not your friendship, for he will betray it. No ; nothing can be more base than the man who denies his God ; and next to him is the man who denies and forgets his country. Well, my friends, the Norman and Saxon came. And now the appeal was made to Ireland to unite on the question of her nationality. The appeal was made by a saint — the last canon- ized saint of Ireland — the great and glorious St. Laurence O'Toole, who was then the Archbishop of Dublin. He stood before the chieftains and kings of Ireland, and said : " If you value your land — your mother-land — if you value your freedom, if you value your laws, if you value the traditions of your race, if you value a foot of the land that you are to leave behind you to your children, arise ! Arm ! The invader is upon your soil. Arise, and, like one man, strike a blow for Ireland ! " Did the nation respond to him ? Ah ! my friends, if I were a mere fulsome flatterer of the Irish people, I might say it did. If I were not an Irishman whose love for his native land is as hot as the blood that seethes in his veins, I might say the nation did. But, because I am an Irishman, because I love that land more than I love all the rest of the world put together, because I would rather have a grave in Irish soil than a king's throne upon a foreign shore, I am bound, in the truth of history, to say that the Irish people did not unite, did not listen to the appeal that came to them from the great prince-archbishop of Dublin ; and that, on the question of nationality alone, from that day to this, during the seven hundred years that have passed away, the Irish people never united. Never ! Read over carefully, page after page, the history of those seven hun- dred years of sorrow ; and I defy you to point out a single passage or incident in the history of Ireland in which the nation was united on a national question. We read, to be sure, of a time when the Prince of Ulster arose. But, when Ulster arose, Munster was opposed to her. It was never otherwise. It is, indeed, true, that when Macarthy Mor and the Munster chiefs arose, there was no enthusiasm in Connaught ; and, again, when Roderick O'Connor and the western Irish princes arose, their action was checked by the action of the prince of Leinster. The English invader knew well the precept given to a tyrant in The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. 171 ages gone by: If you wish to govern a people, and crush them, divide them, and keep them divided. He no sooner succeeded in striking a blow at the welfare of our race, than he found the Irish flocking to his aid. It was with Irish swords he stormed the heroic old town of Wexford. No sooner did Henry arrive in Ireland — and the Irish chieftains attempted to make one great stand — than he saw other Irish soldiers flocking to his standard. Dublin and Waterford fell, not before the lances of the Norman knights — although their lances, in that day, were invincible — but before the swords of their own countrymen. Their country's best blood was shed by Irish hands. Oh ! sad, sad and sorrowful is that history ! It makes the heart of the Irish historian, and the lover of his land, break, to contemplate it. For four hundred years, what is the history of Ireland? The merest account of the petty intrigues of these Irish chief- tains — one time against each other; another time quarreling with their own soldiers ; another time making an isolated, weak attack upon the common foe, whilst their brother chieftains were attacking themselves in the rear ; in fact, there can scarcely be anything more melancholy or harrowing than the history of Ireland, from the day of the first landing of the English and Saxons, until the day when, fortunately for Ireland, the pious and chaste Harry the Eighth called upon us to renounce our religion. It is the turning-point for Ireland. Ireland's history would be most contemptible if the great issue of religion had not been opened before the Irish people. For the Irish people, from the day the English invaders landed in Ireland until these same English attacked the religion of Ireland, were the most disunited, and, consequently, the weakest of all nations upon the earth. How strange ! that these men that loved Ireland, and lived and died for her — whose descendants, to this day, even in foreign lands, though thousands of miles of ocean may roll between them and that land of their sires, cherish the most passionate love for Ireland, as you do — yet at home they never yet united as one man in defense of that time-honored, green old standard of Ireland. But three hundred years passed away ; and fortunately for us, and for the glory and dignity of Irish history, another issue was put before the people ; and that people — so disunited — were called upon to renounce their religion. Perhaps Harry the 172 The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. Eighth, in that day, said to himself, " The Irish will at once become Protestants. They never united in defense of nation- ality; and they will certainly not unite in defense of religion." He might have said to himself: " /did not love my religion — my English people did not love it, and they gave it up. Surely the people that never were united in defense of nationality — a people that never were united on the national idea — would easily give up the question of religion." Ah ! he was deeply mistaken. For there, in the core of the heart of the nation — throbbing in the bosom of every Irishman — was the pure Irish blood, every drop of which is Catholic. Henry attacked the Catholic Church, the Church of God; and that moment Ireland and the Irish peo- ple united and stood together in grand and glorious union, as if they were but one man. I admire and love my Protestant fellow-countrymen. There is not a man in this world less big- oted than I am. I admire every man of Irish blood and of Irish birth, that loves his native land, be he Protestant or Catholic. It was the Protestants who led the glorious movement of '82. But still I say, as a nation, the national heart, the national action, and the national sentiment of Ireland, for fifteen hundred years, have been Catholic to the heart's core and nothing else. Henry accordingly called upon a divided nation to give up that relig- ion — to renounce the Mother of God, that name so dear to every Irish heart — to renounce their priesthood, who were not saints, but the grandest men that ever flourished in the Church of God ; to renounce the faith that gave Ireland a claim to the great title she had received of " mother of saints and of scholars ; " to renounce their God in their hearts, to renounce their altars, to renounce every vestige of their Catholic re- ligion. He called upon a divided nation to do this. Even as the voice of God in heaven called upon His angels to do battle in His name, and rallied them around His standard, until the blaspheming rebel angels were driven into the nether hell — so the voice of the English king, calling upon the divided Irish people to renounce their faith, rallied them and united them as one man. Ireland drew the sword — no longer with a divided heart ; no longer with a wavering purpose. Her children stood side by side with the determination of children of God. Ire- land drew the sword, stood between the English tyrant and her ancient altar, and said : " For this altar — for this religion we The Evils of Ireland and their Rctnedy. 1 73 are prepared to fight as one man — to die ; but that altar must be preserved in the land." The English monarch found himself, in one moment, confronted by a united people. No such thing was known in Ireland since the day that Brian Boru had cast the Danes into the sea. A united Ireland ! Oh ! fair and beau- tiful vision ! The Catholic faith of the land became synony- mous among the Irish with nationality. The Irish had at length found the " Philosopher's stone ; " they had at length found the secret of their strength. Their strength was in union ; their union was effected by the faith that was in the nation ; faith had united her as one man. She arose in arms ; she stood for three hundred years ; the storm of night had passed over her in clouds of persecution. Its mists had broken into a rain of blood, and burst upon her; her people had suffered so that her name had gone out amongst the nations as the martyred people of the earth ; her people had stood confiscation, persecution, exile, robbery, and death, until these agencies had reduced to the con- dition of paupers, in their own land, the children of the Princes of the Irish soil. The Irish Catholics were robbed, by James I., of the fair prov- ince of Ulster ; and the English and Scotch swarmed on the Irish soil north of the Boyne. Under the wretched Cromwell, they were driven from their fertile valleys on the banks of the Shannon ; and hundreds and thousands were driven far off towards the western ocean, there to famish and to die on the inhospitable hills of Connaught. The Irish people were robbed by William of Orange ; and a law was passed driving their priests into exile ; and if a man harbored a priest he was pun- ished by imprisonment or a fine. A Catholic man could not send his child to a Catholic school ; and if a Catholic child became a Protestant, he disinherited his own father, and robbed him of all his property. Every ingenious device that persecution could suggest was put in practice against our people, and we bore it all ; we suffered it all ; and we fought and died for our faith ; for we were united ; and we proved to the world that the people of Ireland were invincible in that union, by the magnificent victories which we have achieved over all the power of England, which failed to make us Protestant. My friends, is not this the truth of history ? What do I de- duce from this ? I draw this conclusion : That the religion — 174 The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. the Catholic rehgion — of the Irish people is the one uniting ele- ment in that history; the one glorious secret is in that union ; for there is not a people on the face of the earth so disunited on every other question as we are. Look at us at home. Yo\i find the country split up into factions at the present time — nationalists and partisans of England. You find amongst the Irish Catholics many lovers of liberty, who are ready to die for Ireland ; and, as a contrast to these, you will find men who think the greatest curse of Ireland would be the curse of inde- pendence. But the moment you touch the question of re- ligion, that moment, no matter what the Irishman is, priest or friar, Democrat or Radical, he takes his stand at once, and says : " No matter what my politics are ; no matter to you about my sobriety or drunkenness ; no matter to you about my riches or poverty ; no matter what my past record is, here I am a son of Ireland." If the devil came to me to-night, and said — " Father Tom, I am the devil, and I want to go amongst your countrymen in America ; and I will quarrel with the politics of every man that I meet. If I meet a Democrat, I'll be a Radical ; if I meet a Radical, I'll be a Democrat ; and I will disagree with every Irishman that I meet, and say: ' Up with England and down with Ireland ' " — I would say, " Go on ; you are safe." " I will disagree with them ; I will abuse them." " Well," I would say, " you will not have one word said to you ; you are still safe. But the moment you cry ' Down with the Catholic faith,' and blaspheme the Mother ot God, the first Irishman that you met, if your eyes weren't black enough for you, he'd blacken them." Now, my friends, if you will ask me what do I think of this race — its future at home and abroad ? I think well of it. I don't care what views any historian, or any lecturer, or any other man takes ; I think well of myself as one of that race. It is a bad thing for a man or a people to think too little of themselves. Humility is a beautiful virtue ; but it has its limits. It is law- ful for a man to think well of himself and of his people. I am not skilled in phrenology — I don't know where the bump of self- esteem is ; but I know that a hatter, when he makes a hat for an Irishman, must always make room for that bump. I think well of you — I think hopefully of the future of the people that are one on that magnificent, that extraordinary point — one in the The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. 175 sacred unity that binds them together like one man ; for, of all the questions upon which a people can unite, the most power- ful, and at the same time the most glorious, is the magnificent question of their faith and of their religion. Here no political question can come in to divide them ; they have no worldly mo- tive to support one man more than another. The point of union is not on earth ; it is in heaven. The glorious link that binds us, as a people and as a nation, is in the hands of God, upon His throne of glory. God, the founder of the Catholic Church ; God, the author of our faith; God, dwelling in His Church; God is the grand point of union upon which Irishman meets Irishman ; and God Himself unites each to each as if he were his brother. To be sure, I have heard of the dreams of some pure lovers of Ireland. I don't question that love ; but what I say is that there is nothing in the history of our race to prove that patriotism is the secret of union. When we were fighting the Danes, it was not because the Danes invaded our nationality ; but because they invaded our altars and our sanctuaries. Not, perhaps, reflecting on the secret of the victory we won over the Danes, religion was the only question upon which England was able to unite us, and, consequently, laid herself open to get that famous thrashing that we gave her on the religious question. Forgetting all this — not remembering this — there are men, in this day, in Ireland, who have proved their love for Ireland ; and I respect and honor them for it. But they ask, why is it that the Catholic priests and the Catholic religion are antagonistic to the liberty and union of Ireland ? I deny it ; I deny it from out my soul ; I deny it in the name of the men who, for seven hundred years, have been the foremost, and bravest, and most disinterested of Ireland's lovers and patriots — her priesthood. I deny it in the name of Laurence O'Toole, who went down into his grave with a heart broken with love for Ireland. I deny it in the name of Turlough O'Brien, who was slaughtered in Limerick, because he stood by his people to drive back their country's invaders. I deny it in the name of the hoary-headed patriot — the lion, as he is called — the great Archbishop of the West, the immortal and imperishable John McHale, of Tuam. I deny it, in a word, in the name of the men who remained in Ireland, and stood by Ireland's people when it was death to be found in the land of their birth — the men who sacrificed every- I "J^ The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. thing for Ireland. I deny it in the name of nine hundred and ninety-six Dominican priests of Irish blood, whom Queen Eliz- abeth slaughtered, because they would not give up their people. The " Virgin Queen," as she is called — God help us ! if our ideas of virginity, or of purity, or of any other virtue, were to be tried by the standard of Queen Elizabeth ! She was a man ; she wasn't a woman at all. She had all the virtues of a man — none of the virtues of a woman. She had the heart of a lion. She would have been magnificent upon the battle-field. She had the mind of a great man, and his soul. She was one of the greatest sovereigns that ever yet sat upon a throne ; but she hadn't one particle of modesty or purity. When she came to the throne there were in green Ireland a thousand Domin- ican monks — all Irishmen, and of the best blood in Ireland. When she died, out of the thousand, she left only four behind. Nine hundred and ninety-six were slaughtered ! Where is the man that raises his voice to the effect that the worst enemy of Ireland is the priest — that the priesthood in Ireland do not love their country? If the graves of Ireland could speak ; — if the graves of the dead that are lying under the shamrocks that are growing over them, could speak ; — if the martyr-priests of Ireland could send forth that voice of truth to rebuke the ignorant ; from end to end of Ireland, from every inch of Ireland's consecrated soil, would be heard a voice ; and that voice would cry out, " Oh, if ever men loved their country, the priesthood of Ire- land loved their ancient native land." My friends, believe me, that one secret of our union is the union of our faith; the one secret of union is that, to-day, the Catholics of Connaught, of Leinster, of Munster, and of Ulster, are all really Catholics and brothers in the land. The Orangeman has no real sympa- thy with his Catholic fellow-countrymen ; they are separate and distinct. The Orangeman cries out: " Here's to King William, and his glorious, pious, and immortal memory ; " the Catholic apostrophizes him in a very different manner. There was a fellow down in the County Galway, a poor creature, who went into a public house where there was an Orange Lodge. When one of the Orangemen saw him coming towards them, he stood up and proposed " The glorious memory of Lord Castlereagh." Lord Castlereagh was the man that sold Ireland at the time of the " Union ; " he was (though an Irishman, and a very tal- The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. \ yy ented man) the accursed instrument that England made use of to destroy his country and rob the people. After- wards he cut his throat. Well, this poor fellow listened ; and when the Orangeman proposed the toast, and they all stood up and drank the memory of Castlereagh — " Nov/, stop so," said he. "Will you allow me to propose my toast? Here it is: * Here's to the strop that put a keen edge on the razor that cut Castlereagh's throat ! ' " Now, you have the whole history of Ireland in that little fact ; the whole history of our race is there. The one secret of union is one common faith and one common religion. The one word that warms the heart of the most negligent Catholic — be he an Irishman or an American — is the word Catholic. If he meets a Catholic, his heart warms to meet him. If there be a row, and he sees a Catholic attacked, he goes over and takes a little corner of the row to himself to defend the Catholic. I met a man once — -a poor, unfortunate fellow — all covered with sticking-plaster about his head. " What happened to you ? " said I. " Well," said he, " Father Tom, there were some fellows I met over there, and one of them said something about the Blessed Virgin, and I knocked him down." " Why didn't you let him go, and say some kind of a prayer for him ? " " Well, your reverence," said he, "I never heard anybody say a word against her without knocking him down. I couldn't help it — I couldn't even if there was five or six of them." And so they had, beaten him into a jelly. Take away that one principle of union ; let any man preach to you that " in order to be good. Irishmen you must cease to be Catholics." If you listen to him, that moment — that moment he has succeeded in destroying the last hope — the last possibility of ever uniting Irishmen upon any one question. As a lover of Ireland — if I wasn't a priest at all — if I was a Protestant minister (Lord between us and; harm !) instead of being what I am, I would tell you something. I would say to you : " I am not a Catholic ; I am not even an Irishman ; but I have read your history, and the history of your race ; and I tell you, in the day you lose faith in the Catholic Church — in that day all hope of ever uniting you upon any other question is at an end." But will that hope ever be real- ized ? Oh ! most certainly. I believe as certain as that the glorious union of all Irishmen is the greatest and strongest 12 178 The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. union ; I have faith in my God ; and I am no dreamer nor the- orizer ; and when I have said that I have made my act of faith. I beHeve that out of the persecutions that are coming upon the CathoHc Church, in these days, will rise the magnificent Irish union of to-day, which will defend and protect the Catholic Church, which is attacked by the most powerful man on the face of the earth, who has declared himself her chief enemy. Now, Bismarck has declared against the Jesuits and Christian Broth- ers, especially the Jesuits. He has bent a powerful nation ; he has crushed old historic, heroic France, a nation that had once the upper hand of him. William of Prussia has, at his right hand, the greatest enemy of the Church, which is Russia ; and on his left he has the second greatest enemy of the Church, who would be the greatest enemy if she only had the power — and that is England. The other day some of the members of Parliament and some of the Protestant bishops sent a deputa- tion to Bismarck to tell him how proud they were of him ; what a good man he was ; how spirited he was — because he de- clared war against the Catholic Church. Now, my friends, our German Catholic friends are our brethren ; all men are our brethren, to be sure ; and it is accordingly true that you must love all men and hate no man. But, our German Catholic brethren are oppressed by this persecution of Catholics ; and God has given to the Irish the singularity to be the first Catholic people on the face of God's earth at this very hour. If ever there was a time when this mighty and sanctified race — great in its faith at home ; great in its numbers, in its power, and in its generosity in America ; — if ever there was a time when this great and sanctified race would find it necessary to unite on one great central point of union, that time is approaching in the sad persecution that is coming upon the Catholic Church. God, who orders all things — 'God alone knows how much of glory, how much of independence, how much of power and of free- dom may yet accrue to old Ireland, out of the battle which her children have always fought, and will fight for their faith unto the end of time. God only knows ; it may be the beginning of the end. Nations that oppressed the Church always go down, and have gone down, for ages ; and. in a few years, every man that is against her will have gone to his death. Why ? Because, amongst the promises which God has made to The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. 1 79 His Church, He said she must triumph until the end; and, when the Church triumphs, her friends will triumph : and when- ever the Church f^ains in glory and in power, in that day He will give glory and power to this old and sanctified race, that has never known how to deny Him, or to change its faith from His Church. Now, the second great evil of our race is the evil of intem- perance. I do not mean to say that we Irish are a peculiarly drunken people. No ! there are far greater drunkards than we are, my friends. A Scotchman, they say, will drink a quart of whisky when an Irishman will be able only to drink a " naggin." It is not the question as to whether we are the greatest drunk- ards on the face of the earth ; for wherever the vice of intem- perance is found amongst our people, there it is ruining the hopes of Ireland. In the past we know its history. We know the old story that we all heard when we were young, about the " rising " in Ireland — the spasmodic effort of the poor, down- trodden race to vindicate themselves, and strike a blow for the land that bore them. But the curse of drink was upon them. I remember, when I was a boy, hearing, at my own home, the whole story from an old grandfather, who was himself a strong man in " Ninety-eight," and saw the whole thing pass before his eyes ; and he said that the united effort would have been successful, but "the boys" got drunk; it was the drink that filled the river Slaney with Irish dead bodies, on the day when they made their last stand on Vinegar Hill. It was not the soldiers of England that conquered those giant sons of Wicklow and Wexford ; those noble and heroic men would not have so easily yielded that time, had it not been that the curse of drink was upon them. What do we find in all this ? Time will not permit me to speak at length on this subject ; nor am I willing to do so ; but so important a theme is it that I intend to give more than one express lecture on it. But what do we find ? Our Irish people have come to America, and have got the start of other nations. We were mustering in thousands and in hundreds of thousands, when other great nations — great in this land to-day — were only sending out their pioneers. Our nation and our Irish race came to this land in millions, and brought with them their Irish vir- tues and the intellect that Almighty God gave them. The bulk i8o 77^1? Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. of our people brought with them their Irish energy, brought with them their industry, brought with them their Irish hon- esty and faith. But the unfortunate vice of intemperance came and spoiled all. I needn't tell you — our very enemies acknowledge it — that there is no people so bright as the Irish ; even the English themselves acknowledge it. An English traveler says, the moment you meet a native you see in his face the brightness and intelligence of the people ; and it is apparent even in the little child that you meet on the roadside. God has given to the Irish people the gift of intelligence ; and their flash of humor, their keen, witty response, and ready comprehension of the most recondite jokes are everywhere re- marked. It comes natural to an Irishman. In an encounter of wit he is able to turn a corner on you ; and of every joke you make he sees and meets the point. Irish intellect and talent ! Why, the brightest names, the very brightest and highest names on the roll of English philosophy and science and art are the names of Irishmen. Some two or three, of course, we don't claim. We are proud of Edmund Burke, the great statesman, and such Irishmen as O'Brien, Sheridan, and O'Connell ; we are proud of Daniel Maclise, the greatest painter of his age. But we don't lay much claim on the Duke of Wellington, as great a man as he was — the only man that ever was able to match Na- poleon — for when he was in Ireland he was ashamed to be con- sidered an Irishman ; and we can find better men in our ranks any day in the year, Irish energy ! Look at the cities of America — look at Chicago, which I saw last week rising like a phoenix from, her ashes — nearly altogether the work of Irish- men. Look at the great railways of America, spanning the mighty continent, that are the production of the muscle, of the strong arm, and of the energy and industry of the Irish- man. We brought with us to this land the ineffable blessinp; of Catholic faith, which, if we only give it fair play, must make us all honest men ; for I would not give a dime for all the other virtues without that strict honesty which lies in the sacraments of the Catholic Church. How is it, then, with so much talent, so much intellect, so much energy, and with the grand faith that we brought with us from the old land to the land of the stranger, how is it that others come in afterwards, and take possession of the soil, whilst we have remained to be " hewers of The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. i8i wood and drawers of water?" Is the curse of poverty always to rest upon the Irishman ? No ! God never intended it ; nature never intended it ; society never intended it ; and glorious America never intended it. If the Irishman is temperate, the way to success is open to him. You land upon the shores of this great and magnificent country, more than imperial in her power, more than imperial in her deliverance from the tyrant, more than imperial in the power of God's creation and in her vast resources. America opens her great bosom to you. Amer- ica, with more than imperial hand, welcomes you from far off lands. America sends greeting over the wide ocean, and says : "All that I demand is intellect, energy, honesty, and industry; and, one and all, honor, glory, and power are open to you." In other lands a man may be born to a title, or wealth, or position, yet he may be a " booby." I have seen English lords and Eng- lish squires, "boobies," "well-born," as they call it, in their na- tive land. I have seen an Irish beggarman asking alms of them ; and I would rather, a thousand times rather, be that beggar, with the clear Irish eye in his head, and his keen Irish intellect, than be a " booby " lord or " booby " squire. Yes, my friends, a lord may be born to a position of wealth and of title and yet be born an ape. But, in America, in this grand country, there is no aristocracy, there is no nobility, save the nobility and aristocracy of intellect and energy and honor ; and where that broad way to power, to influence, and to glory is open — where the only conditions demanded are intellect, energy, in- dustry, and honor — I will put my Irish race in the ring, and if you will only consent to be temperate, and to be true Catholics, I will stake my existence upon you that you will distance every other people in that contest. Therefore, I look upon this as the second great blot and great evil of my land and of my people. Oh, my friends, think of it ; there are eight millions of Irishmen in America now — perhaps the number is not far from ten millions. There are four millions of Irish in Ireland ; and at their rate they will soon be up to the original number again. There are certain crimes, and sins, and excesses of which the worst Irishman on the face of the earth knows nothing, I thank my God ; and, so long as we preserve our Catholic purity, so long 1 82 The Evils of Ireland atid their Retnedy. will the energies of our race remain in us. Perhaps, to-day, if the men of the Irish race and the Irish blood in America were counted up faithfully, we would find something between eight- een and twenty millions. Now, if they were sober, temperate men, if they only gave fair play to the brains that the Almighty gave them, and fair play to the energies that Almighty God gave to the Irish heart and the Irish arm, there is no second question about it, they would sweep the whole country. But there is this : the Irish- man who drinks is poor, and contented to be poor; degraded, and loving his degradation ; for on God's earth there is no human being so degraded as the poor, unfortunate drunkard. I don't say the Irishman alone, for it drags down every other man as^ well ; but, somehow, there is no race that seems to sink so low under the curse of drink. The Englishman takes to drink, and cuts his throat — it sets him mad. Instead of doing that (which God forbid !) the Irish are not given to that sort of thing ; as one of them said, " I would rather commit suicide on anybody else than on myself" The Irishman, because, after all, he has faith, does not do that ; but he drags out a miser- able existence in degraded and wretched poverty ; the heart breaks within him ; for it is easier to discourage an Irish- man than any other, through drunkenness. If these eighteen or twenty millions were sober men, I say all the influence and all the power of America would be so swayed and directed by the action of her citizens of Irish birth, that the greatest and most powerful nation on the face of the earth would be afraid . to lay a finger on old Ireland. For, in twenty years' time, these United States of America will have grown into such gigantic proportions that every other nation will be dwarfed in compari- son. In that day, if the Irish in America are true to the Cath- olic faith ; if they are united in the golden bond of that faith, and in the practice of that faith ; and if they are sober and temperate men, in twenty years' time this race of the Irish will be equal in glory and sanctity to the stock from which it has been transplanted ; just as the seedling in the heart of the rose is borne upon the breeze ; and, while the original remains, from the new seed will come forth another rose, as fair again. So I The Evils of Ireland and their Remedy. 183 this Celtic race, transported by the storm of persecution from the " Green Island," like the acorn springing up again into the vigorous oak upon the American soil, will be the most powerful race on the face of God's earth. The blessings of earth will be upon it, and the blessing of that God whose faith it has ever cherished, will come down upon it from heaven. IRELAND'S FAITH, THE TRIUMPH OF THE AGE. [Lecture delivered in the Academy of Music, New York, in aid of the Institute of Mercy, Houston street, on the evening of October 15th, 1872. RELAND'S Faith, the Triumph of the Age." This proposition means two things : First, that Ireland's faith Jias triumphed : and, second, that there is no vic- tory which this age of ours celebrates that can be com- pared to the victory and triumph of Ireland's Catholic faith. And now, I am reminded at the very outset, that, four years ago, I met a poor fellow in the county of Galway ; he was going along the road. He had his pipe in his mouth, and, when he came up and saw the priest, he took the pipe out of his mouth, and with a guilty expression of countenance he put it behind his back. " What is the best news, your reverence ? " he said. " Well," said I, " the only news that I have to give you, is that they are making an Act of Parliament in England, declaring that the Protestant Church has come to an end in this country, and it is no longer to be the established religion in Ireland." " Do you mean to tell me," said he, " that the English Parliament made that law ? " "Yes, there is no doubt of it," said I. " Well," said he, "by the piper that played before Moses, I never heard of them making any law for the Catholics of Ireland before, except coer- cion bills, pains and penalty bills, fines upon this, and taxation upon that, and transportation for the other thing ; and I don't know," said he, " whether it was God or the devil that taught them now how to change." And then the poor, illiterate man made use of a remark that suggested to me the subject of this eve- ning's lecture : — " Well, sir," said he, " it is a strange thing that they should have disestablished the Protestant Church. We are not making any row about it ; O'Connell is dead and in his Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age. 185 grave ; there is no arming now going on ; no fighting in the country, and the boys all so quiet. Isn't it a strange thing, sir," said he, " that they should have made such a law?" He just touched the very soul and centre of the magnificence of this triumph when he spoke of the triumph of a peaceful people over the most powerful enemies that ever rose up against any na- tion on the face of the earth. That Ireland's faith has triumphed we behold in that singular act of legislation which, after three hundred years of penal law and persecution, has solemnly declared, countersigned by En- gland's Minister and England's Queen, that they have tried in vain to rob Ireland of her Catholic faith by every means of bloodshed, persecution, and confiscation ; that they acknowl- edge themselves beaten, and have been obliged to lift up, over the green hills of Ireland, the sacred standard of religious lib- erty. That this victory is unequaled by any of the triumphs of our age we shall see, if we only contemplate the things that pass around us. We live, my dear friends, in this nineteenth cen- tury, in an age of great victories and great defeats. Within the last few years the world has stood aghast and astounded at the clash of arms, and the magnitude of the forces that were hurled against one another on so many ensanguined battle-fields. The roar of artillery, like the thunder of heaven, such as was never heard upon this earth before, has resounded amidst the hills and valleys of nearly every nation in Europe, and in your own great country of America. Great issues have come before the nations ; great principles have been defended and attacked ; great defeats have been recorded ; and great was the exultation of those who conquered, in the moment of their victory. But, I ask you, are not all these vulgar and commonplace triumphs? To-day, Bismarck, Prime Minister of Germany, waves his victo- rious sword over the prostrate form of the great and generous nation which he has succeeded in conquering. But, if he shouts out, "Victory! Fatherland forever! Victory!" he must re- member that he had to purchase that victory from old France at the cost of the best blood that flowed in the German veins. He must remember that, before he was able to cry out " Victo- ry! " he was obliged to have twelve hundred thousand men at his back. It is easy to proclaim triumph with such a force ; but the victory is commonplace and vulgar ; it is a triumph of brute, l8t) Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age. material force, such as the worid has often witnessed, since the day that Cain shed his brother's blood, down to this hour. France, in her turn, has had her glorious moments, when, flushed with victory, she unfurled her tricolor standard over the fields of Lombardy and of Italy ; but around her, in that mo- ment of her triumph, lay the best and bravest of her sons in death. Here, in your own land, blood has been shed. A great question had to be decided, and could not be decided without the arbitrament of the sword. But, where was the man in America, in the hour of your victory — where was the man, even whilst he was crying out the victory of the land, that was not generous enough to shed a tear over the brave and magnificent army which you had conquered. In a word, the triumph of force over force is a commonplace thing that takes place every day. But it is only once in a generation — only once in an age, perhaps not even once — that we find a triumph of great principles — a triumph of a high, noble idea, clasped to the mind and to the heart of a people; defended through centuries of sorrow and of bloodshed ; and, at length, crowned in that faithful people with the crown of an unblemished and unstained victory. No blood- shed in the moment of their triumph ; no saddening recollections thronging around it ; nothing but an assertion of the power of God, and the hand of God making itself visible in the councils even of the nation that resisted Him for three hundred years. Now, my friends, such were the conditions of Ireland's vic- tory ; and such was the promise that God made. Among the titles of God — which He takes to Himself — there is that of King of kings, and Conqueror of kings; but He also calls Him- self the King of peace — Rex pacts ; a King who will assert His sovereignty, but not with the sword ; a King who will proclaim His triumph in His own time, and whom nothing can resist. When the triumph comes, the brows of the victor are crowned with the crown of peace. Such is the description given of the victories of God. My friends, what is the element which God Himself has declared shall be and must be, unto the end of time, the secret of a nation's, as well as a man's, triumph? It is divine faith. " This," says St. John, " this is the victory which overcometh the world — our faith." What does faith mean } Faith is the virtue by which the intellect of man apprehends God, and beholds Him with the eye of the mind, not with the Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age. 187 eye of the body. Faith is the divine virtue by which the minds of men, or of nations, are put in relation, direct and immediate, with the eternal truth of God. The highest grace that God gives to any man, or to any people, is the faculty of rightly comprehending Him by true faith ; out of which grows the passion of love, which puts that faith and that God above all things. It is not every man, nor is it every nation, that receives this high grace. It is offered to all, but it is not accepted by all. Nothing is more common than for men and nations to set up some distorted view of their own, and say : " Lo ! this is the voice of God ; " and to their own opinion they pin their faith. Nothing is more common than for men and nations, in hours of trial and difficulty, to change their faith — to deny to-day that which they believed yesterday ; to give up their faith ; to say: " We cannot cling to that form of divine knowledge that even God has given us ; we cannot cling to it — it is at too dear a cost. We cannot afford to give up property, liberty, and life — everything in this world — rather than lose that faith." No ; they give it up, renounce it ; and the world has seen, over and over again, the terrible spectacle of nations changing their faith, and shaking off their God. But there is one race amongst the races, one nation amongst the nations, that received, fifteen hundred years ago, this divine and high grace from God, and the mind of that people keenly, clearly, and almost instinctively grasped the divine truth of God ; and the heart of that nation was so warmed into life by that faith, that the people, like one man, were prepared to suffer and to die, rather than to ever give it up, or change it from what they had received. I say one race amongst the races, one nation amongst the nations ; for I find that the Eastern nations, who received that divine faith from the apostles, forgot it — changed it — under the perse- cutions of the schismatic Greek emperors, or under the terrible hand of Mohammed. I find that the civilized nations of Eu- rope have, from time to time, thought very little, indeed, of changing that faith. Where, to-day, is the Catholic faith that was once the crown of England? Where, to-day, is the glorious faith that once reigned supreme in Prussia and Northern Ger- many? Where, to-day, is the Catholic faith that was once so dearly loved and so excellently practised in Scandinavia, in Sweden, and in Norway ? Where is it ? It is amongst the 1 88 Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age. traditions of the past. Its record tells of the perversion of the peoples. But where, to-day, is the faith that, fifteen hundred years ago, Patrick preached in Ireland ? It is in the mind and in the heart of the Irish race wherever they are, all over the world. It is there, as pure as it was when the message came from the lips of Ireland's Apostle ; it is as pure now, in the Irish mind and heart, and as dear to the nation, as on the day when it was the crown of Ireland's glory — as dear to the nation as it was on the day when it was the blood-stained treasure that she held with her agonizing and dying hands ! Is not this a great grace? To apprehend so instinctively and keenly, to accept so joyfully and willingly, to hold so firmly and deter- minedly, that knowledge of God which comes, not by the evi- dence of the senses, though it comes by hearing — that faith which is defined by St. Paul to be the argument of things that do not appear, and the substance of things that are not beheld. Ireland received that faith more than a thousand years before Columbus landed upon the shores of America. Ireland held that faith with the divine power of grace, and with the instinct of fidelity unexampled amongst nations. Ireland, more than any other country, has been put to the test of suffering, in order that she might be able not only to assert, but to prove to the world, to the end of time, that God never had a more faithful people than the Irish race. To save their people, the nations of the East lost their ancient, Apostolic, Catholic faith, under the persecutions of Arianism and the schismatic Greek emper- ors, or under the heavy hand of Mohammed and his followers. But tell me — What was Henry the Eighth, of England, with regard to Ireland ? What was his daughter Elizabeth? What was James the First? What were the Charleses, First and Second ? What was William, Prince of Orange, or the house of Hanover, but what the Arian schismatics and Greek emperors were over the East ? What was Oliver Cromwell ? He was to Ireland what Mohammed was to Arabia. Terrible even as was the sword of the false prophet, it never was steeped like that of the villainous and canting hypocrite who wet and stained his sword in the best blood of Ireland. But God has said that wherever faith is, that faith must triumph. All we have to do is to look at it for a moment, and behold the necessity of God's justice being vindicated in His Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age. 189 word. To attempt to force a man's belief, to attempt to impose belief on him at the point of the sword, to attempt to drive dogmas of faith down his throat by the force of the bayonet's point, this is the most extraordinary delusion that ever entered into the minds of men or of nations. There is only one sword that can reach the soul of man ; and that is the sword of the Spirit, which is the divine Word of God. There is only one power that can induce a man to bend his mind unto moral be- lief in Christ, his Saviour ; and that one power is the power of divine grace, coming down from heaven, flowing forth from the lips of some apostolic preacher, falling upon the ear of the listener, and penetrating into his heart, moulding his spirit through that agency of faith, and not through the power that appeals to the arm of flesh. With coercion bills, penal laws, or any other agency, to bind or to force the faith of a peo- ple is simply " a mockery, a delusion, and a snare." There is as much difference, therefore, between that which is attacked, namely, faith, and the weapons by which it is attacked, namely, the weapons of persecution, as there is between spirit and mat- ter, as there is between eternity and time, as there is between heaven and earth, as there is between God and the devil. And yet, strange to say, for three hundred years, the wisdom of England — that wise, highly-educated nation — labored to effect this diabolical miracle ! The power of England was concen- trated upon this one object. Three hundred years ago, the con- test that had been waged for four hundred years before, on the question of Ireland's nationality, was renewed upon a different battle-field. For four hundred years our fathers had stood and fought for Ireland's freedom and for Ireland's native rights. They fought with divided hearts, and with divided councils. With a weak and faltering arm did they deal the national blow. Heroes fell ; and the nation wept over her lost children the bit- ter tears of disappointment and regret. Never, during these four hundred years, was Ireland united. It is a sad and humiliating fact, but I am obliged to confess it. Only that I love my country so dearly ; only that I am so proud of my na- tion and of my blood ; only that I know well that these are your feelings also, I would not say that word. Next to God every man must love his native land. Next to the blow which he is prepared to deal in defense of his sacred altar ; next in 190 Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age. energy, rtext in force and determination, should be the blow he deals in defense of the sacred liberties of his country. God teaches us, by a natural instinct, to love the land that bore us ; and religion hallows the virtue of patriotism ; for the latest of Ireland's canonized saints was the only man whose clarion voice was heard from end to end of Old Ireland, crying : " Arm ! arm ! ye men of Erin ! Come with me, and let us drive the invader from our soil." When he failed, his Irish heart broke within him, to see that the cause was lost. And the Catholic Church canon- ized him for his virtues, amongst which was his glorious patriot- ism. Yet I blush to say, dear as the cause was, important as the cause was, it was never able, during the first four hundred years of the English invasion, to rally and unite the hearts and hands of all Irishmen. But, after four hundred years of unavailing contest, when the nation seemed to be heart-broken, when the national arm seemed to be paralyzed by stroke after stroke of disaster, when Ireland seemed to have lost, or began to lose, even her faith in her nationality — the English king, fortunately for us, fortunately for our history, fortunately for the dignity of our national cause — the King of England called upon Ireland to give up her Catholic faith. He called upon a nation that he had almost conquered. He called upon a nation that he had already seen divided. He called upon a people that seemed to be incapable of rallying even in defense of their liberties. He said to them : "You must re- nounce your Catholic religion. You must forget Patrick's gos- pel, and Patrick's name. You must abjure and blaspheme the Mother of Jesus Christ ! You must turn your backs upon the graves of your dead — forget them, nor hallow their resting- places with sacrifice or prayer any more. You must take the crucifix from off the altar and trample it under foot." This was the message that the saintly d^nd pious Henry the Eighth sent to Ireland. But, lo ! in one instant, in the twinkling of an eye, he was astounded to see that Ireland was united as one man against him. He recoiled. He recoiled at the sight. It struck terror into his heart. He had succeeded in uniting Ireland upon the glorious issue of Ireland's faith ; and wherever Henry the Eighth's soul is to-night, as an Irishman and as a Catholic priest, I thank him for the message which he sent to Ireland. Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age. 191 At once the Irish people assumed the majesty and dignity of a great nation. The sword that was about to be sheathed was grasped again in the nation's hands. Hero after hero stood at the front on many a battle-field. Amidst the bloodshed and cries of victory, Ireland has proclaimed, for these three hun- dred years, that, as sure as there was a God in heaven, so sure would Ireland's altar stand, and her Catholic faith remain with her until the end of time. My friends, it is really worthy of our attention as Irishmen, and as sons of Irishmen. During the first four hundred years that the English were in Ireland, the country was divided — every little chieftain fighting with his fellow-chieftain, trying to patch up a peace, or trying to curry favor with the English ; aye, and playing into the hands of their strong and merciless invaders. There is positively no man that loves Ireland can read the history of the first four hundred years of the English and Saxon invasion, without being ashamed and grieved for his country. But the moment he comes to the question of Ireland's religion being attacked — and it is the record of three hundred years — that moment I rise and lay my hand proudly on the an- nals of my country. Show me the history of the nation — show me the pages that record as much bravery, as much determina- tion, and such a magnificent spirit of fidelity, as the history of the religious contest for the last three centuries in Ireland. Ah ! Henry found, indeed, that he had touched the rallying centre of Irish Union in their religion, the moment he laid his finger on that religion. He had no longer to put down some little petty prince in Connaught, or some king in Ulster. He had no longer to deal with some sept in the mountains of Wick- low. He had no longer to pit McCarthy Mor, standing alone, against the King of Munster; he was no longer able to put up one Irish chieftain against another ; he was no longer able to foment treason or treachery amongst them. No ! Like one man the voice of Ireland came forth from out the mouth, and from out the Catholic heart, and Catholic brain : " Never, never, English King ; even though you call to your aid all the powers of earth, and all the devils in hell ; never shall you succeed in wresting from Ireland her sacred Catholic faith." Now, my friends, the contest raged with uncertain results. Generally speaking, we were victorious ; sometimes we were defeated. I 192 Ireland's Faith^ the Triumph of the Age. can call to your recollection the glorious name of Hugh O'Neill, when he stood at the Yellow Ford, and didn't let one English soldier escape from under his hand. I can recall, with joy and with pride, the day when Owen Roe O'Neill marched with his gallant Irish army to Benburb, and shattered to pieces the flow- er of English chivalry. But if there was an Englishman here he would be able to remind me of the day when we were broken on the banks of the " Boyne's ill-fated river." He would remind me of the day when the bravest of Ireland's soldiers were hurled from the bridge of Athlone into the Shan- non, swollen with the winter's rain, and bearing upon its lovely bosom, out into the Western Ocean, the corpses of the best and bravest men of Ireland. He might remind me of the day when Patrick Sarsfield went forth, a sad and heart-broken man, from the heroic walls of brave and immortal Limerick. There- fore, the history of this great contest has been one of alternate victory and defeat; of alternate joy and sorrow. But, one thing is certain : there was no doubt that no defeat that we suffered ever yet extinguished Ireland's love for her faith, Ire- land's love for her nationality, and for her freedom. The tyrant who called upon Ireland to become Protestant, also called upon Ireland to bow down as a mere province of the British Empire; and Ireland said: "No; I will be a Catholic nation ; and I will be a nation unto the end of time." But, when the victory came, it was still, after so many battles, a peaceful one. God had ordained it, and pre-ordained it, in His own way. In the beginning of this century, which is now drawing to a close, Ireland lay prostrate, after the unsuccessful rebellion of 1798. I have often heard it remarked that the men of Wicklow and the men of Wexford are considered the finest specimens of the Irish peasantry. Go through the villages, pass along the highways, pass down near the eastern shores of Ire- land, and every man that you meet is as straight as a lance ; broad-shouldered, with heads erect, and a fearless light in their dark-blue or hazel eyes, looking at you with the glance of a mountain eagle. You might well be afraid of a contest with them upon the field of battle. . Well, in the year 1799, the last year of the century, these men of Wexford and Wicklow were Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age. 193 hunted through Ireland like wild foxes or wolves. A price was set on their heads. Thirty-six thousand English soldiers were in pursuit of these brave and heroic, though misguided men. Their blood was shed not only in the fair fight of battle ; their blood was shed in treachery, as when ninety of them were slaughtered upon the Hill of Tara, after they had given up their arms. Ireland beheld her two famous counties, Wexford and Wicklow, a desert, filled with English troops, and English yeomanry ; and nowhere were the people able to lift their heads ; bowed down, oppressed, and stricken. England took advantage of that hour, and she bribed an Irishman to sell his country. She took from us the last vestige of our legislative assembly, the power of making our own laws. She took the Parliament from College Green, in Dublin, and she set up, pub- licly, the principle that Englishmen had a right to make laws for Irishmen. She was able to do it; and, in the year 1800, she had stamped out the rebellion in the blood of the people,, which flowed on the virgin plains of Ireland. The heart of the- nation seemed to be broken. Castlereagh was an Irishman. Castlereagh sold his country ; and he cut his own throat from, ear to ear ; he sawed away with the razor as if he would cut his head off; and they found upon his dead face a grin of despair, with a certain expression, as if he -died defying and blaspheming the God that made him. Well, my friends, the century opened thus. Ireland's Par- liament was gone ; Ireland's heart was broken. Nothing re- mained to Ireland but her people and her faith. Her people were still at home ; her faith was still in their minds and in their hearts ; and, starved, heart-broken as she was, she still had the two highest gifts that God can give a nation — divine faith, and a plentiful, strong, and loving people. The people remained; and, in the year 1828, there were eight millions of them in Ireland. God gave them another great and high gift ; He gave them an Irish leader — a giant in bodily frame ; a giant in the proportions of his mighty intellect ; a giant in his energj% and the power with which he was to shake the English Legis- lature with the loud cry of Justice to Ireland. A giant in his lion heart, that never knew fear — he stood before the nation as a representative Irishman — the glory and pride of Ireland, and the terror of her enemies — Daniel O'Connell, the Kerryman ! 13 194 Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age. He came, when he had eight millions at his back, and he stood before the doors of the House of Commons that were closed against him. With the voice of eight millions thundering upon his lips, he smote those doors, and said : " Open to me, oh ! ye doors ! closed by the demon of iniquity and of bigotry ! Open to me and to my people ; I demand it in the name of the God of religious liberty, and in the name of the God of justice ! " His voice was as the voice of a saint storming the gates of heaven with the united power of his prayers. His voice fell upon the lintels of those doors as the blast of Joshua's trumpet fell upon the walls of Jericho ; and, as the strong walls of the city crumbled and fell down before the voice of Israel's trumpet, so, at the sound of the voice of Ireland's Tribune, the doors that had been closed against us for three hundred years — the doors that had been sealed with Irish blood, in the determination that they should never open to an Irish Catholic — rolled asunder ; and into the midst of the terrified bigots and lords of England, stalked the mighty and terrible Irishman, Daniel O'Connell. Ah ! my friends, it was like letting a bull into a china shop. He played the ''Old Harry" with some of them. He alarmed the country in every direction. The first English statesmen were obliged to listen to him ; and the greatest bulhes that ever met him got afraid of their lives of that eye that could look so terrible upon an adversary — that eye that threw so keen and quick a glance over the leveled pistol, when he pointed at the heart of D'Esterre. The victory was gained for Catholic Emancipation. But still there remained the old, time-worn, detested citadel of "the Protestant Church of Ireland." Now, mark. When the apostle is discoursing upon the Catholic Church, he says ; " She is built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles, the great cor- ner-stone being Jesus Christ, our Lord." Was the Protestant Church in Ireland built upon a foundation of prophets and apos- tles? Well, my friends, if Henry VIII. was a prophet or an apostle, I give the thing up. If Queen Elizabeth was either prophet or apostle, she was one of the founders of that church, and they are welcome to her. So, also, are they welcome to their other apostle — Loftus, Queen Elizabeth's Protestant Archbishop of Dublin — who wrote such a nice letter about how he was putting the Irish to death, and how they writhed in Ireland' s Faith, the Triumph of the Age. 195 the torture. He asked permission of the Council in London to put to death the hoary Catholic bishop who was once the guest of this queenly ghoul, their mistress. Do you know how it was done? It was in Dublin ; and there the old Archbishop of Ar- magh was brought out, in St. Stephen's Green. They tied the old man to a stake ; they put tin boots upon him filled with rosin and pitch ; and with a slow fire around his feet, they roasted him to death slowly. These were the traditions on which the Protestant Church was founded in Ireland. God for- bid that I should entertain or preach animosity between any Catholic and any Protestant. I am not alluding to Protestants at all ; I am talking of their old " Mumbo Jumbo " of a Church. But, even though O'Connell sat down in Parliament, there was a cry of pain from the Catholics of Ireland. Even though many of the penal laws were wiped out of the blood-stained statute- book by that powerful hand, there still remained this old Prot- estant Church, and the Protestant bishops going to London to make laws (God bless the mark !) for you and me. These were 7iice laws ! If a landlord in any part of Ireland swore that somebody had fired a shot at him from behind a hedge, he wasn't asked to produce the pistol nor the man that fired the shot, nor to show where the ball made a hole in his hat. He wasn't asked for any proof, if he said, " 'Pon his honor he was fired at — a desperate thing!" — the whole side of a country would be " proclaimed ; " no man could go about his proper business after certain hours ; and the people of a whole district would be im- prisoned. You have all heard of a judge who sat upon the bench. He was a joker of jokes; and very good jokes he some- times made — capital jokes. He was particularly fond of a morning's good work and good jokes, when he had some poor fellows before him whom he was about to sentence to death. On one occasion, there were five or six poor Irishmen brought up ; and Lord Norbury — this pleasant judge — sentenced them all to death ; but he forgot the name of one of them : and when they were going out in the hangman's company, the sheriff said, *' My lord, you have forgotten to sentence Darby Sullivan." " Oh! dear me," said his lordship ; " Darby, come here ; I have a word to say to you, Darby, I beg your pardon. I had forgot- ten your name when I was passing sentence ; but it is better late than never. So you will, of course, be taken out to-mor- 196 Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age. row morning, and be hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!" "Spare the prayer," said the poor man who was going to his death. " Spare the prayer. Don't pray for me. I never knew anybody to prosper after your prayers." There remained that Protestant Church, full of money, and usurping the ancient titles of the true Church of God, the old Church of St. Patrick, in Ireland ; upholding itself on the power and the wealth of England ; absorbing every vital resource of the country. If anybody asked : '* To what Church does the Irish nation belong? " " Oh ! the Protestant Church is the Church of Ireland!" was the reply. The Protestant Church the Church of Ireland! Why, there was a parish priest down in the County Cork ; and he was called in to the assizes to give evidence on some question or other. The Protestant Lord Chief Justice was a little bigoted ; so he said to the priest: '' My good sir, will you be kind enough to tell me how many Protestants there are in your parish ? " '^Not one, glory be to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," said the priest. When Dean Swift went once to preach a sermon, his congregation consisted of Roger, the clerk ; and so he began : " Dearly beloved Roger." And they tell us a story even of a Protestant minister coming to the parish priest, and saying to him : " Our bishop is coming down to look at the parish ; and he'll see so few Protestants, that I want you to lend me a congregation." According to the story (which, of course, is only a story), the Catholic priest did lend him a few of his congregation ; and when the Protestant bishop came and saw the decent people so quiet, none of them opening their mouths, according to the old chroniclers, he said : " By this blessed book, that is the decentest congregation that ever I saw." There, however, that Church remained, staring us in the face, insulting the mighty Catholic nation, the great Catholic race ; insulting them, both at home and abroad, by calling itself " the Church of Ireland ! " Well, now comes the wonderful part of the business. O'Connell was in his grave ; the Irish people were peaceable ; there was no agitation ; we were not holding any public meetings to discountenance and denounce the Protestant Church. We did not send any petitions to Par- liament to solicit the abolition of the Protestant Church. There was nothing at all going on in the country. There was just a Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age. igj little whiff from America, just as if a man took a cigar out of his mouth, and let out a little smoke, as much as to say, "There may be fire where there is smoke." But Ireland was not only peaceable, she was almost indifferent. The hour of God came. God had been looking at this nation, robbed, and plundered, stricken ; aye, and put to death. For three hundred years, the voice of the saints, the martyred saints of Ireland, had demand- ed justice. The voice of the martyrs, from their graves in Ireland, clamored for God's hour to come, God's hour came ; and a voice, apparently from heaven, whispered in the ear of the English Premier — " Put an end to the Protestant Church in Ireland. Its hour has come ; it has been tried and failed ; it has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. There is blood upon its hands ; there is blood upon its face. Let it de- part. Let it go, with all the other falsehoods, with all the other hypocrisies that have faded out of the world." And, to our astonishment, Wm. Ewart Gladstone, the Prime Minister of Eng- land, called upon the English Parliament to make a law that the Protestant Church was to cease to exist as the Church of Ireland. The law was passed ; and the Queen — the head of the Church, mind you — was obliged to sign the bill with her own hand. Fancy the Pope signing an act declaring that the Catholic Church wasn't to exist any more in America. And thus the Queen of England, the head of the Protestant Church, signed the law that declared the Protestant Church no longer was to be ac- knowledged as the established Church in Ireland. Now, my friends, I ask you to consider with me one or two serious thoughts, with which I shall conclude. What is taught us by all this? First of all, I ask you to reflect upon the singu- lar historical fact that the victory of Ireland — this great victory — was not the triumph of the sword. Ireland did not strike a- blow to demolish the Protestant Church in Ireland. She held her hands in peace, and the people maintained a quiet, modest, dignified silence. But, under that silence there was a determi- nation to wipe away that old and blood-stained grievance ; even though they were to work for a thousand years, it had to be done. The determination of principle was there. That principle was a divine one — the principle of Catholic faith-^- coming from heaven, not from the earth. God has said in heaven : " The victory that conquers the world, and shall al- 198 Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age. ways conquer it, is faith." How dear, then, to us should be the preservation of that principle ! What strength it is to every man to have some high and glorious principle by which to reg- ulate his social life, his civil life, and his political life ! What more glorious record can be put upon any man's tomb than that, when it is with truth said : " Here lies one that never de- nied or played false to his principles." Secondly, my friends, reflect upon the significant fact of which this history of Ireland tells you and me, namely, that, in order to succeed in any enter- prise, national or otherwise, the people must be united. " Union is strength." Where union is, there is the element of success ; because there is the presence of might and strength. God is omnipotent — God is essentially One ; therefore He is omnipo- tent. The Catholic Church has fought the world for nearly two thousand years, and she has always come out victorious ; and why? Because the Catholic Church is one — one in faith, one in obedience, one in jurisdiction, and one in devotion to God. One, because He who created her prayed to the Father, and said : " Oh, Father, let them be one, even as Thou and I are One." To preserve that unity, the Catholic Church has been obliged to cut off individuals and nations. One day a power- erful king contradicts her teaching; she excommunicates him and tells him to go his way — to find his own way to heaven if he can. Another day it is a whole nation, as in the case of England, that says: "We will depart and leave you ; we don't believe this that you call your doctrine." She says : " You are excommunicated. Go out from me. You have no communion with me. Go and find your own way to your doom." To-day it is Bismarck telling a bishop that he must not excommunicate a priest for this or that heresy. A priest in Germany denies the Catholic faith in a public church ; and a bishop excommu- nicates him — tells him to go about his business. He says : " I will not lay a wet finger upon you ; but you must go. I won't keep you." Tell me, my friends, if I, here to-night (God be- tween us and harm !) — if I denied any one of the Catholic truths ; if I denied the Divinity, or the Real Presence of Christ ; if I denied that the Blessed Virgin Mary was the Mother of God ; if I denied that the Church of God, or the Head of the Church, was infallible ; — wouldn't you be very greatly surprised to see me upon the altar next Sunday, or in the pulpit preach- Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age. 199 ing? The first thing you would say would be : " Oh, the poor Archbishop ! he must have lost his head ; for here is that fellow — that heretic, here again ! What is the matter ? " Of course, if I were to speak thus here now — I would not be two hours in my convent to-night until I would get a letter from the Archbishop of New York, saying to me : " My friend, you are no longer a Catholic, nor a teacher of Catholic doctrine. I suspend you. Go your way, my man." This is precisely what the Ger- man bishop did. What did Bismarck do ? He said : " My Lord Bishop, you have no business to suspend or excommuni- cate a priest without my leave ! " Bismarck is certainly not a Catholic ; nobody knows of what religion the fellow is. Now, imagine for a moment to yourself Governor Hoffman or Pres- ident Grant writing to the Archbishop of New York, and say- ing to him : " My Lord Bishop, I will put you in jail for sus- pending or excommunicating Father Tom Burke, because he denies the infallibility of the Pope." That is the state of affairs now in Germany. That is the sensible issue to which this great statesman brings things. This has been going on for two years. And the Catholic Church just cuts them off — the same as Horace Greeley would lop off a rotten branch at Chappaqua. Right and left, off they go. And why? Because all things must be sacrificed in order that the great Church of the Living God may preserve the unity of her faith, and the unity of her doctrine, and her strength. She is one, therefore she is strong. We are two hundred millions of Catholics all the world over. Whenever a question of faith arises touching the Catholic doc- trine of the Church — that moment the minds of all the two hun- dred millions, that feel, see, and think after their own fashion upon every other subject — upon that there is but one thought — and that one thought the faith of the Church. That is the secret of her strength and unity. So it is with nations. Ire- land was divided on the great question — on the great test of her nationality. Ireland failed. Ireland united on the glorious question of her religious freedom ; and Ireland triumphed with the magnificent triumph which is the wonder of our age. What was the secret that united her ? It was her Catholic faith — the Catholic faith that told her that Faith is the sub- stance of things to be hoped for. Why did the nation — in the deepest midnight hour of sorrow and persecution — why did she 200 Ireland's Faith, the Triumph of the Age. never despair? Why does she not despair to-day? Because she has the faith that is the substance of things to be hoped for. Because, where the true faith is — where the CathoHc faith binds the people together — there is the breath, the living breath of the undying God. And until God abandons those who are faithful to Him — which He will never do — that nation may go on through centuries of suffering and sorrow, but, eventually, the sun of divine favor will burst upon her gloriously — coming from God, resting upon her faithful brows — and will surround her with its light ; for God, who is never outdone by His crea- tures in generosity, will remember her, will crown her with all honor and glory, and will set yet upon the brows of this native land — this motherland of mine — the crown of religious and civil freedom, of honor and glory, which will be, in the time to come, what the diadem of ancient Ireland was in ages past — the wonder of the world, and the glory of mankind. THE LIBERATOR. [Lecture delivered at the Academy of Music, New York, May 13, 1872.] ADIES AND Gentlemen: The history of this age of ours tells us of many men who have used their energies and their powers for purposes of enslaving their fellow-men — for purposes of injustice and perse- cution. This age of ours, however, has had the grace to pro- duce one man who received from a gratified nation the proudest title that ever adorned a man. He was called the Liberator of his country. I need not mention his name. His name is writ- ten upon the history of the world, under this grand title of Lib- erator. His name is enshrined in every Irish heart, and in the memory of every Irishman, under the glorious title of Libera- tor. When we hear that word, those amongst us who are ad- vancing into the vale of years remember, as he seems to rise before them at the sound of the name of Liberator, the colossal, gigantic figure, the brows overladen with mighty thought, the Irish eyes beaming with intelligence and with humor, the up- lifted arm emphasizing every glorious maxim of religion and of freedom, and at the sound of the word Liberator we behold, lising out of his grave and standing before us, as he once stood on the old soil and swayed the millions of Irishmen, the glori- ous figure of Daniel O'Connell. There is nothing, my friends, that ought to be more grateful or more instructive to every high-minded man than to recall the deeds by which a man gains a world-deserved glory. For such a man not only binds to his own brows the crown of immortal fame, but he also leaves, for the consideration of those who come after him, the glorious example of manliness, of integrity, and of virtue. These should be the study of every man amongst us, and never can we study them more favorably than when they are em- 202 The Liberator. bodied in the life and in the actions of one who dazzled the world by the glory of his genius, and who left behind him in the hearts of his fellow-men traditions of might, admiration, and of tenderest love. Who, therefore, was this man ? For whom did he contend ? By whom was he crowned with this glorious title of the Liberator of his country ? Oh, my friends, before we enter upon his career, or sketch his life, it is well for us to cast our thoughts back some eighty years, and consider what Ireland was at the close of the last, or the eighteenth cen- tury. It seemed, indeed, as if the closing of that century should have been bright and peaceful and happy. It seemed as if the sun of Ireland had arisen at last, and that the eighteenth cen- tury would have passed into the roll of ages under the full blaze of the noon-tide prosperity and happiness of Ireland. In 1782, eighteen years before the final close of the century, there was in Ireland a reunion of the grandest intellects and the brightest names that perhaps ever adorned the pages of our national history. The walls of the Parliament House in College Green resounded to the glorious periods of Grattan and of Flood, whilst the state- ly and dignified Charlemont upheld the nation's honor in the Irish House of Lords. They demanded of England a full rec- ognition of Ireland's rights and of Ireland's independence as a nation. Their voice was heard but unheeded until, in a happy moment, the vicissitudes of the times obliged England to permit an organization of armed Irishmen called " The Volunteers of '82." The men of Ireland took arms into their hands, and it is well that. Catholics as we are, we should not forget that that glorious movement originated amongst our Protestant brethren of the North of Ireland. The men of Ireland took arms into their hands, and when Grattan spoke again he spoke with a hundred thousand armed and drilled Irishmen at his back, and England was obliged to listen and to pay the greatest attention to his words. He demanded the charter of Ireland's independ- ence and he obtained it, because he spoke in the name of an organized and an armed nation. He rose in the House of Com- mons and he pronounced these words, " I found my country in the dust. I raised her up, she stands to-day in her queenly inde- pendence, and nothing remains for me to do but to bow before The Liberator. 203 that majestic image and to say, * Esto Perpetua — * Be thou per- petuated in thy freedom, O Ireland ! ' " Fair, indeed, and bright was the mission : industry developed, trade encouraged, magnificent buildings, such as the Four Courts and the Custom-House of Dublin, erected ; a people speaking with a nation's voice. Fair and bright was the prospect, only it was too bright to last. The Irish Parliament at length consent- ed to take some steps for the emancipation of their Catholic fellow-countrymen, that all the nation might enter into the halls of the Legislature, and that laws might be made, not for a class, nor for a caste, but for all men who had the name and the privi- leges of Irishmen. This was too bright to last. The English Government took thought. The following year saw a strange Viceroy sent over. The following year the insidious Army Act was introduced. The pressure and apprehension of war was taken off England, and the moment her hands were free she turned around to rivet the chains once more upon Ireland's free- dom. The Army Act was passed, and the Irish Parliament had the folly, despite the warning even of Grattan and of every patriotic man, to let it pass; and by that act it was declared illegal for Irishmen to carry arms, and the Volunteers were dis- armed. No sooner were the arms, the guns, the artillery taken from them ; no sooner were these strong men deprived of these arms, than England at once began a systematic persecution of the Irish people, with the expressed intention to goad them into rebellion, and, thereby, to fasten the chains still more securely upon them. One wrong followed another. In 1794, Earl Fitzwil- liam was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and he arrived in the country in January. He was the friend of Ireland and of Ireland's greatest son, the immortal Grattan. As soon as ever the English Government discovered that this man intended to rule Ireland justly he was instantly recalled ; and the people who greeted him with shouts of joy in January, accompanied him with tearful eyes, as he took his departure from them on the 25th of March of the same year. Then followed act after act of tyranny and oppression. In vain did Grattan, Curran, the immortal Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who was then in the Irish Parliament, protest against these cruel acts, until, at length, finding that the Government was determined to destroy the people, if possible, in the year 1779 Grattan rose in the Irish 204 The Liberator. Parliament and said, " I have offered you measures for the hap- piness of Ireland, and you have refused them. You propose measures for the misery of Ireland, and you will carry them. I have no more use nor business," he said, "to remain in this House ; " and the aged patriot departed from the Irish House of Commons, followed by Curran, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and others, who left with despair in their minds and with break- ing hearts. Then came the dawn of '98. Kildare and some of the mid- land counties made a miserable and unsuccessful attempt at revolution. Heroic Wexford arose. The stalwart men of the hillsides of Wexford arose ; unarmed as they were, or armed only with the armor of their own infinite bravery, they stood out for dreary months against the united power of England, until, at length, the rebellion, as it is called, was suppressed in the slaughter and in the blood of the people. The ferocious foreign soldiery and yeomanry were let loose throughout the land. Tortures were inflicted upon the innocent and unoffend- ing, worse than any that ever Cromwell devised in his worst days for the people of Ireland ; and '98 closed upon a nation trodden into the blood-stained dust, and with minds and hearts utterly prostrate and broken under the iron heel of the oppressor. All this O'Connell saw, and during that year of '98 and '99, he listened, day after day, and month after month, as John Philpott Curran stood, alone in the land, between the ferocious, the blood-stained Norbury on the bench, and the poor prisoner, so often innocent, in the dock ; alone, with loud and heroic, though fruitless voice, vindicating the principles of eternal justice and the purity of the law. The heart of the nation was broken in '98, and nothing remained but for an infamous English minister to work his will upon the people of Ireland. That man was called Lord Castlereagh — who cut his throat. It used to be a standing toast in the West of Ireland, even within my own recollection — if two or three friends met, they felt in duty bound to fill their glasses and propose : " Here's to the strap that put a keen edge to the razor that cut Castlereagh's throat." He bribed the Irish members of Parliament with money. He bribed them with titles. He practised the vilest arts of cor- ruption that could be suggested by his own wicked mind and corrupted heart, and he carried, just at the beginning of this The Liberator. 205 present nineteenth century, a measure which proved the ruin of Ireland — viz. : the aboHtion of the Parliament, and the Union of the two countries under one Legislature. It was in vain that Grattan thundered against this iniquity with his heroic voice ; it was in vain that Fitzgerald, and Kendal Bushe, and all the other great Irishmen of the day spoke in language which is immortal for its eloquence and justice, in the cause of their country and of their country's national existence. Everything was borne down by the flood of English corruption and bribery, and this act was passed, by which Ireland was deprived of the power of making her own laws, by which a nation hostile to her and determined upon her commercial and national ruin, was commissioned to make laws for Ireland. An act was passed which has been the father and the apology of every cruelty and every injustice that we have suffered from that day to this — the accursed act of Union, by which Ireland lost her Parliament. Among the bribes that were held out to the Irish people to get this act passed, one was a promise that the Catholics should be emancipated. No sooner was the Union passed than William Pitt, the Prime Minister of England, be- trayed his faith and broke his word with Ireland, and when he had received the gift of her existence into his hands, he laughed at us in the face, and mocked us as fools for trusting him. And fools we were to trust him, and a fool is every Irishman on the face of the earth that trusts England or England's Parliament, or that imagines, for a single moment, that the English Government or the Eng- lish Parliament will ever give justice or equal laws to Ireland, unless they are obliged or coerced by the fear of the people. If the Volunteers of '82 had kept their guns, Pitt would have kept his word. And now, my friends, this was the position of Ireland when O'Connell first appears in the history of our country. Born in 1775, he was called to the bar of Dublin in 1798, and it was only five years before, that is to say, in 1793, that the penal law was relaxed, and that a highly educated Catholic gentleman was allowed the privilege of earning his bread as a lawyer. We first find him whilst the question of the Union was being agitated. He attended a meeting in the Corn Exchange in 2o6 The Liberator. Dublin ; it was composed exclusively of Catholics, and mostly all professional men. They came to discuss the question of Ireland's existence, and to protest against the Union ; and it will give you some idea of how things were carried on in those days when I tell you, that no sooner was the meeting assembled in the Corn Exchange, than the tramp of soldiers was heard outside the door, and in swaggered Major Sirr, the town major of Dublin, at the head of his troops, and marched them around the hall, so that they surrounded the meeting, and he then commanded them to ground arms. Down went the heavy guns of the Hanoverian and English soldiers. " Now, gentlemen," he said, '' you may begin your discussion ; it is all right — go on ; " but every man knew that his very life was at the mercy of that blood-stained and unmerciful, hard-hearted man ; there was no liberty of thought, much less of speech. A man could not call his soul his own in these sad days, and it was under these circumstances, with the presence of the town-major and his soldiers, that O'Connell, for the first time in his life, spoke a word for Ireland. He tells us himself, that what between the intimidation of the troops, what between the fact that that was his first effort at speaking, and being a young man, he felt as if his heart would break with anxiety and fear whilst he was speaking. Now, the Union was passed, Ireland was annihilated, and the only hope for Ireland, as it was her only hope for three hundred long years before, was the strength and the power of Ireland's faith and Ireland's Catholicity, which was still in her. There it was still, unconquered and unconquerable, the only element of life, the only element of courage, the only seedling of national regeneration which was left to us — her holy faith, which she clung to in spite of persecution and blood for three hundred years. But this powerful element lay dormant in Ireland. A Catholic Board, as it was called, was formed in Dublin. A number of Irishmen came together to try and agitate for Catholic Emancipation. In the British House of Commons in London, as in the Irish House at home, during its existence, they had a glorious advocate in the great Henry Grattan. Year after year he brought his motion, praying the Legislature to strike off the chains of the Irish Catholics, and year after year he was met with overwhelming majorities against The Liberator. 207 him, and his bill and his cause were laughed to scorn in the British Parliament. In vain did Plunket take up the glorious theme. In vain did Edmund Burke — the immortal Edmund Burke — England's greatest philosopher and statesman, and Ireland's greatest son, whose name shall live forever in the annals of the world's his- tory for every highest gift of genius and of virtue — in vain did Edmund Burke, and Fox, and all the great English statesmen of the time, advocate the claims of Irish Catholics. They got no hearing. There was justice for every man, there was con- sideration for every man, there was respect for every man, until it was discovered that he was an Irishman and a Catholic, and then there was not for him even the courtesy of a hearing, but the loud laughter of scorn. They had conquered us, and they thought they could despise us. They had conquered us, and they imagined that because we were conquered we were de- graded. The Catholic Board, in Dublin, was afraid to raise its voice. Of those who patronized it, some were liberal Protes- tants, and many glorious lovers of liberty were there amongst them (and God forbid that I should malign them). The great mass of the Irish people, then amounting to nearly eight mil- lions of men, were crushed into the earth, and were afraid to speak, under the tyranny of a hostile government, and under the tyranny of their cruel and unjust landlords. The Cath- olic Board was afraid to speak. Grattan's voice was un- heard. He was refused a hearing in the House. And now the Almighty God, in His mercy to Ireland, lifted up a man, gigantic in form, gigantic in intellect, heroic in courage, strong in faith, tender in heart, who was destined to shake the Irish race into self-assertion and energy, who was destined to rally this people, to lift them over the ground, to put a voice upon their lips, to make their hearts throb again with glorious ex- citement, with high hope. O'Connell rose, and rose alone, to head the Irish people — -with the grasp of an athlete, to stran- gle every man that rose up against his people. Alone, he rose to lead a prostrate nation high up the rugged road of liberty, until he led them to kneel before a free altar, and burst the bonds that bound them. Alone had he to do it. In 181 3 he took charge of the leading place in the Cath- olic Association. At that time, mark the difficulties that he 2o8 ' The Liberator. had to contend with. He had a people afraid to speak ; he had an aristocracy opposed to him to a man ; he had the great land- ed interest of England and the English people opposed to him to a man ; he had the English Catholics opposed to him ; he had the Irish titled Catholics opposed to him ; he had a gov- ernment that was watching him, crossing him day after day with prosecutions, arresting him now on this pretext and now on that, accusing him now of having said this and of having said that : he had men watching for his life ; and he had to conquer a false friend, an open enemy, to defy the Government, and to defy the bench and the bar ; he had to take the pistol in his hand, and, though bitterly his Catholic heart regretted it, he had actually to commit a tremendous crime in the cause of Ireland. He was prosecuted for some saying of his, together with Richard Lalor Shiel. The grand jury threw out the bills — there was no case against him. Finding that they could not entrap him into the meshes of the law, which, with a supreme genius and prudence, he was able to evade, they sent a mur- derer upon his track, thinking that — even as of old, when they were unable to conquer O'Neill by the sword, they put poison in his drink — they could conquer O'Connell by setting a murderer upon his track ; and the whip of D'Esterre was lifted to strike the magnificent form of Ireland's best son. What could he do ? Insulted over and over again, that life that was so precious to Ire- land he freely risked for Ireland. I do not justify him. No, nor does he ask me, from his place in heaven, to justify him. Even as St. Peter, for his one denial of his Master, wept every day of his life, so O'Connell, for his one moment of forgetfulness of his Catholic duty, wept every day of his life. Yet, what could he do ? Young, brave as a lion, confident in his strength and dexterity, he accepted the challenge, and, on a fine morning, Mr. D'Esterre, who threatened to flog O'Connell, and who wanted to fight him, took a cab, and drove out to Lord Cloncurry's place, about ten miles outside of Dublin, and there he met O'Connell. Now, apparently, D'Esterre was sure to win. First of all, he was a small, slim, miserable little man, like an atten- uated herring that is out of season. It would require a man to be able to shoot a rat at the distance of half a mile to be able to shoot him ; whilst O'Connell was a finely-formed and well- developed mountain of a man. Firing at O'Connell was some- The Liberator. 209 thing like firing at a haystack; you could scarcely miss him. Then, again, D'Esterre was a dead shot, and O'Connell was con- sidered to be a far more formidable man with the pen than with the pistol. I have my account of all this from old men who were on the ground. They said that there was deliberate mur- der in D'Esterre's eye as he took his aim. O'Connell simply stood there for Ireland. He could not keep his hold on the people, considering the feelings of his time, unless he met that man and fought him. He lifted his pistol with apparent care- lessness, but he threw the quick gray eye after it. Two reports were heard. The whistle of a ball passed before O'Connell's eyes, and D'Esterre is on the ground, and he never got up again. Major Macnamara was on the ground — he was a Protestant gentleman who had fought a great many duels in his time. He came up to O'Connell with tears in his eyes, and de- clared : " Dan, it is the neatest shot that was ever made. If ever I am to meet my man, I hope, if he strikes me at all, he will do it as neatly ; it is almost an honor to be hit so neatly." The Catholic Association, founded under O'Connell, grew under his genius. The Catholic aristocracy of Ireland — the Bellews and the Fingals, — when they heard this man speak, were shocked and frightened. They were afraid to speak to the Eng- lish people at all. They were afraid to petition Parliament. Even John Keogh and the democratic portion of the Catholics of Ireland were for maintaining what they called a dignified silence, which means a silence proceeding from fear. Out came O'Connell as brave as a lion ; he knew no fear. He attacked ; he didn't petition. He attacked the men at the head of the State. He called them every vile name that he could think of. One man was called " a pig," another man was called " a big liar," another was told to " get out of that." Another man was called the " bloated buffoon," and so on. And these great Eng- lish statesmen, who thought they could walk or ride rough-shod over all Ireland, found to their amazement that there was an Irishman who not only was not afraid of them, but who gave them nicknames that stuck to them for the rest of their lives. When the people — the Catholic people of Ireland — found that somehow or other a lion had got in amongst them — a lion ram- pant and roaring for his prey — when they found that there was 14 210 The Liberator. one Catholic man in the land, speaking their own language, glorying in identity of race with them, it made every man, even to the Prince of Wales, who was afterwards George IV., afraid of him. They plucked up courage, they raised their heads, and they asked themselves " Is the world coming to an end? What is going to be done with this man? " But when they found that this man had a genius and an eloquence that nothing could withstand, when they found that the cause of jus- tice and of truth on this man's lips meant the tremendous cause that would shake the world ; when they found the Catholic nations, France, and Spain, and Austria, and Italy sympathizing with this man, admiring his genius, translating his speeches into their languages, and proclaiming him one of the greatest men of the age, Ireland began to feel confidence and pride in O'Con- nell. Now, I say that Ireland's confidence and pride in O'Connell, from the year 1810 to the year 1829, that that pride and confi- dence which our people had in O'Connell was the salvation of Ireland. He roused the clergy. The priests were almost afraid to speak as well as the people. There was not a clerical voice to be heard in the land. The bishops were afraid of their lives. If they spoke at all it was with bated breath, as men who are only permitted to live, who are winked at in order that they might be tolerated in the land. He roused the clergy, he sent them amongst their people ; he commanded them to preach a gospel second only in its sacredness to the Gospel of our holy religion, and that is the gospel of Ireland's glorious nation- ality. And it came to pass, that in the year 1813, George Canning, a great English statesman, was glad to propose a measure for the emancipation of the Catholics of Ireland. And now comes O'Connell again, in all his glory, before us. Hav- ing prepared his bill, the Catholics of Ireland were to be eman- cipated ; they were to be allowed to enter all the professions ; they were to be allowed to enter Parliament ; they were to be allowed to mount the judicial bench as judges of the land ; they were to be allowed to legislate for themselves and for their peo- ple — all, all, upon one condition, and that was that they were to allow the English Government what was called the power of the Veto, which I will explain to you. Whenever a Catholic priest was to be made a bishop, his name was to be sent to The Liberator. 2il Rome, and if the Pope approved of him, then, instead of mak- ing him a bishop out of hand, he was to send back his name, with his nomination; and the moment the man got his nomina- tion, instead of going to the archbishop, and getting him to consecrate him, he was to send the nomination to the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of State was to submit it to the council of English lords and the Lord Chancellor of England, or of Irish lords and the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. They were to examine this man, to see whether he was worthy to be a bishop — they were such good judges — they knew all about it. In all probability, if the bill had passed. Lord Norbury — of whom you have heard — Lord Norbury would have been one of these lords examining a priest in his theology. And if they disapproved of the man — in other words, if they found an hon- est man, if they found him a true Irishman, if they found that he had one spark of love for his country in him, they were to put their veto upon him, and the Pope was to have no power to make him a bishop. You understand what it meant. They wanted to exclude from the episcopacy of Ireland such men as the immortal Doyle, or the great John MacHale. They wanted to make bishops of men who would lie down at their feet to be trampled upon, and who would tell the people that there was no such word as freedom in the Gospel. Now, such was the state of affairs at the time, that when Canning's bill was proposed, with this veto attached to it, all the English Catholics said: "Oh, yes, it will do very well," and all the Irish respectable Catholics, the few Irish Catholic lords, and the few Irish Catholic knights, were all in favor of the veto. " And why not ? You will be glad to be emancipated on any condition." Some of the Irish Catholic bishops admitted it, and, worst of all, the Pope, who was then a prisoner in France, admitted it. Napoleon took him a prisoner, and affairs in Rome were managed by a high functionary, whose name was Quarantotti ; and this high prelate, when he got the draft of Canning's bill, and read it, he, the Pope's representative, wrote to Dr. Poynter, the Catholic Bishop of London, and wrote to the Irish bishops, telling them to accept the veto and their emancipation with it. O'Connell wavered for a moment, but, his powerful intellect quickly grasping the insidious danger, he who had arisen against the Orangeism of Ireland, the bigo- 212 The Liberator. try of England, the persecuting power of the Tory government, arose like an angry giant, and told the Irish bishops and the Irish people, — aye, and told Rome — that that veto never should be admitted into Ireland. He came exulting like a giant in his strength. He came and thundered at the doors of the English Parliament and said : " Emancipation and freedom without any condition — 'We are no longer slaves ! " He said : " We are no longer beggars. We come demanding and insisting upon emancipation, without any condition whatsoever to bind it." Now, my friends, what gave O'Connell this power? I answer, that by this time O'Connell had organized the Irish people in their parishes ; he had made them join the Associa- tion ; he had fixed a tax of a penny a month upon every Catholic man in Ireland, it was not the penny he was look- ing for, but the man's name; he got them all enrolled in the Association ; he got the priests to know all the men who were associated ; he got the people to know one another ; he pub- lished their numbers to them, and told them the secret of their strength ; he had the priests of Ireland, the parish priests, the curates and the friars, — he had them with him to a man. No veto for them. And why ? For many reasons. I am not speak- ing now of the effect of that legislation, if it had passed, upon the Church. I am not speaking of its effect on their liberties. But what was more natural than that every honest priest in Ireland should oppose the veto, because he must have said to himself, "What chance have I of ever being a bishop?" Can- ning, though a friend to Ireland, was told to keep his Emanci- pation Act. Thus the great movement went on, the Irish people every day increasing in their numbers affiliated to the Catholic Asso- ciation, every day feeling their way and feeling their strength. The thundering voice of the mighty O'Connell went through the land. He went here and there through the country, he sac- rificed his profession and all its vast gains, and he devoted him- self to marshaling the people, until at length things were brought to such a pass, that when Lord Wellington, the con- queror of Waterloo, and the bitterest Tory enemy that Ireland ever had — when Wellington came into power he swore never to do anything for the Irish Catholics, if he could help it Having a king the basest, the vilest, the most polluted of men, The Liberator. 213 Ihe infamous George IV. — having that king at his back, he swore that he never would grant anything to the Irish Cath- olics. O'Connell had so marshaled the Irish people that the man who had conquered Napoleon at Waterloo was obliged to acknowledge that O'Connell had beaten him, and he went to the king and said : " If you don't emancipate the Catholics with- out any condition — give them freedom — you will have a revolu- tion." It was not for love, it was not for justice, that this act was granted. Never, never since the day that Richard of Pem- broke set foot with his Normans upon the soil of Ireland, never from that hour to this has England granted us one iota of jus- tice except under the influence of a craven fear. The year '28 came. Wellington came into power, and the Catholic Association, like men who had now learned to speak, passed a decree that no man that accepted office under Lord Wellington should be returned to Parliament for any borough or county in Ireland. There was a member elected for the County of Clare, a very good man, a very estimable, agreeable man, and his father was really a great man and a true patriot. This man's name was Vesey Fitzgerald, and he accepted office under the Duke of Wellington's government. This obliged him to go back to Clare and to ask the people to re-elect him. Now, at that time the people were altogether in the landlords' hands. When the day of election came they were called together. They were not even offered a breakfast in the morning before they left, but the bailiff and the land-steward and the landlord drove them in as you would drive a flock of sheep to give their votes ; so that one landlord could say to another, " I have so many votes, how many have you ? " The people had no voice at all except to register their votes as they were told. Vesey Fitzgerald was a popular man, and he came back to Clare for his election, when, like a thunder-clap, came the announcement from O'Connell, " I am going to stand for Clare." The British Gov- ernment were silent with amazement and astonishment at the audacity of the man. The whole world stood confused at the greatness of his courage. He went down to Clare, the priests came around him, he raised the standard " Freedom from land- lord intimidation. Every man has his own conscience and his own rights," and by a sweeping majority of the honest and the manly Irishmen of the County of Clare O'Connell was 214 The Liberator. returned to Parliament. Whilst the Parliament were discuss- ing the terms of emancipation, whilst they were asking each other, Could they allow the Catholics the privilege of returning members to Parliament of their own religion ? whilst they were trying to devise how they would neutralize it, how they could keep them out in spite of the law, this big, huge man walked in, returned by the County of Clare, and advanced to the table to take the oath of allegiance. The clerk of the House of Commons rose up and put the book in his hands to swear him. "What am I to swear to ? " " To swear this," he says : " The sacrifice of the Mass, the veneration of the blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints is damnable idolatry." " In the name of two hundred millions, in the name of eight millions of the Irish race, in the name of antiquity, in the name of history', in the name of the high God of heaven, the God of truth, I reject the oath, and say that it is a damnable oath." He found a veto with a vengeance lying before him. And as he would not have the Act of Emancipation, with the veto tacked on to it, so he would not sit down in the House of Parliament with an infernal lie on his lips. Three times was the act of Catholic Emancipation put before the English House of Commons, and sorely against their will — because the Prime Minister and his associates in the Govern- ment told them, with trembling lips: "You must do it. The Irish are prepared for revolution ; you must do it. They will sever their connection altogether ; they will break up the em- pire ! " — they passed it. For three days they held out against it, vomiting out their bigotry: "No, no! rather die than do it!" "Ah! but you must do it!" was the answer. "The Irish people have found a leader who has united them as one • man, and now O'Connell represents Ireland, and O'Connell stands at the door and tells you you must do it! " The bill passed the Lords and Commons, and Wellington took it, and, on bended knee, he offered it to George IV. The King refused to read it. " You must read it ! " He reads it ; he utterly refuses to sign it. " You must do it; it can't be helped." He took the pen in his hand, and he burst into tears. He did not weep when he declared his wife an adulteress and broke her heart. He did not weep at the wreck and ruin of every form of innocence that ever came before him, and that was The Liberator. 215 polluted and destroyed and blighted by his unholy touch. He did not weep when he left Richard Sheridan, his own friend, to die of starvation in a garret in London. He had no heart to weep; he had no heart to feel, the bloated voluptuary! He was never known to weep in his life, only when he was signing the Catholic Emancipation, and then he wept in devilish spite. The act was passed and declared a law on the 13th of April, 1829 ; and, to use the eloquent words of my brother in religion, Lacordaire, " Eight millions of Irishmen sat down in the British House of Commons in the person of O'Connell." Yet mark the spite, the diabolical spite, of the Government. After the Act of Emancipation was passed, they would not let him take his seat until he had to go back again to Clare to be re-elected. After the Act of Emancipation was passed they made a number of Catholic barristers ; the king's counsel gave them certain privileges of the bar ; and while young men and mere boys re- ceived this privilege, the head of the bar, the head of the Cath- olics, the head of intellectual Europe, O'Connell, was denied it. They thought they would vent their spleen upon him and keep him in the background, as if he could be left in the background whom Almighty God had brought to the front. And now, my friends, the great crowning act of his life being thus acccomplished, he did not rest one moment, but he turned his thoughts to the second great object for which he lived, and, indeed, it was scarcely the second, but the first — namely, the repeal of the accursed Union. Some people in Ireland, and elsewhere, think that the repeal of the Union was an after- thought of O'Connell ; that he did not intend it in the begin- ning; that he never thought of it until he had emancipated the Catholics. It is not so. Twenty years before Catholic emanci- pation was passed, O'Connell declared that he would labor to the last hour of his life for the one purpose of repealing that accursed Union. Even in Grattan's time — and Grattan lived till 1820 — even in Grattan's time the Catholics of Ireland did petition for the repeal of the Union, and Grattan told them, " If ever you Catholics of Ireland rise up in your united strength, you will get the repeal of the Union, or anything else that England has it in her power to bestow upon you." From 1829 until 1839, for a period of ten years, O'Connell stood in the British Parliament, exposed to all the ribaldry of the oppo- 2i6 The Liberator, sition, all the contempt that the bigotry of English Protestant- ism could bring to bear upon him. Every man in that House hated him as the devil is said to hate holy water. But he stuck to his old courage, and to his old trick of giving names. Stan- ley, the old Earl of Derby, stood up and opposed him, and he turned on him, and he said : " Sit down, Scorpion Stanley ! " and until Derby went to his grave, he was known by the name of " Scorpion Stanley." Disraeli attacked him, and O'Connell turned round upon him, and said: " Behold the lineal descend- ant of the impenitent thief." Sugden, the Chancellor of Ireland, deprived him of the magistracy, and attacked him, and O'Con- nell called him the man with the ugly name ; and whenever he spoke of Sugden aftewards, in all his speeches, he always said : " And as the man with the ugly name observed on such and such an occasion " — and so, by undaunted courage, by the maj- esty of his towering intellect, by his tremendous argumenta- tive power, and by the sweeping of his eloquence, he crushed the opposition of the English House of Commons, and, as he opened the doors by the force of his genius, he held his ground there by the same means, until in a few years the fate of the great parties of England was in the hands of O'Connell. O'Connell and his tail, as it was called. O'Connell command- ed such influence that on any great occasion affecting the ex- istence of the Government, the Premier of England, almost on his knees, came to beg O'Connell to have pity on the govern- ment, and not to turn them out of office. And now began to take form and consistency the Repeal agitation. He who had united Ireland as one man in the sacred cause of religion, united them again in the sacred cause of nationality. From end to end of the land he traveled, and wherever he appeared the enthusiastic heart and the manhood of Ireland gathered around him. Oh, how grandly does he rise before my imagi- nation now ! Oh, how magnificent is the figure that now looms up in the halls of my memory as I look back to that glo- rious year of 1843 — the repeal year of Ireland ! He stands within the honored walls of Dundalk, and three hundred thousand Irishmen are around him. Not a sound of dis- cord, not a word of quarreling, not a single jarring voice, not a drunken man nor a disorderly one, among the three hundred thousand of Ireland's stalwart citizens. He stands upon the The Liberator. 217 Hill of Tara. He stands by the Croppy's grave, and he has around him upon the slopes of that hill two hundred and fifty thousand men — a quarter of a million of Irishmen. Oh ! who was able thus to unite Irishmen? Oh! who was able thus to inspire them with one thought, with one high and lofty and burning aspiration ? Oh ! who was able to lift up a people whom he had found so fallen, though not degraded, that they could scarcely speak the words of freedom, or realize its thought in their minds ? It was the mighty genius — the grand and magnificent mind of Ireland's greatest son, Daniel O'Connell. The government became afraid, and well they might be. Oh ! for the shining arms of the Volunteers. Oh ! if on that day of Tara ; if on that day when the soldiers filled the road to Clon- tarf; if on that day Ireland was armed, where, on the face of the earth, would the army of oppressors have been ? This army of freemen would have swept them from their path in their might and in their glory. O Ireland ! thou indeed wast un- armed, and the brave and heroic man, who said with so much truth, that his highest glory would be to draw the sword for his native isle, was obliged to preach to the people conciliation and peace and submission. The meeting at Clontarf was dispersed, and I may say, with truth, that the dream of the Repeal of the Union, for a time, was dissolved. A few days after found O'Connell in prison, where, for months, he languished, his health and his heart broken for Ireland, until, at length, the iniquitous decree, the blasphemous judgment, was reversed, even by the English House of Lords, and O'Connell, in September, 1844, came forth from a prison a free man, but he never recovered that blow — never. It was fol- lowed by dissension in the councils: brave and generous hearts to be sure they were, yet young and warm-blooded ; they were for drawing the sword, whilst they had no sword to draw. Ireland unarmed to rise in rebellion ! Why, on that day of Clontarf there were twenty-eight thousand soldiers in and around Dublin ready to pour their murderous fire upon the people. There was division in the councils, and the glorious dream of the emancipated nation floated away for a time. Then came the hand of God upon the people. Oh ! when I remember the fearful scenes that the aged father of his country saw before he died, I am at a loss to describe them. There 2i8 The Liberator. came a day when the news spread from lip to lip : ''' There is famine in the land, and we must all die." Eight millions of people in that terrible year of 1846, in that awful autumn that came upon us, when the people cried for bread, and there was none to break it to them. The strong man lay down and died. The tender maiden and the poor and aged matron of Ireland lay down and died ; they were found by the roadside ; they were found unburied ; they were found in their shallow graves, scarcely buried ; they were found crawling to the chapel door that they might breathe out their souls in one act of faith and love to Jesus Christ. And thus did the angel of death spread his wings over the land, and the Liberator, the Emancipator, the father of Ireland was doomed to see his people perish, and he had not the means to save them. O'Connell's heart broke in his bosom. A broken-hearted man, in January, 1847, arose from his bed ; he crawled to London ; with tottering steps, the aged man, the wreck of all that was once glorious, appeared before the aston- ished eyes of Parliament. The voice that used to fill the land with the thunder of his eloquence, was lowered to the merest whisper— the language of a broken heart. He arose and pic- tured before these men the agony of Ireland, and, with stream- ing eyes, he implored the mercy of England upon a dying people, and a subsidy from the Parliament to save the people. That subsidy was denied him, and Ireland was told that she might die ! That subsidy was denied him. England closed her hand, and she told the heart-broken father of his country that he might go and seek some genial clime, and there die ; but that there was no mercy for his countrymen. O'Connell set out for Rome. The Irish people started for America. O'Connell is in heaven to-night, I believe in my heart and soul, and I be- lieve, also, in my heart and soul, that if anything on earth could brighten the joys of heaven, his joy would be brightened to see the glory, and the increasing strength, and the manhood of Ireland as it exists to-day in America. With the instinct of Catholicity he turned to Rome, journeyed by slow stages, and on the 15th of May, 1847, he breathed his soul to God, having received all the Sacraments of the Church, and with the names of Jesus Christ and Mary upon his lips, he died in Genoa, in the north of Italy. His last words were : " When I am dead, The Liberator. 219 take out my heart and send it to Rome ; let my body be brought back to mingle with the dust of Ireland." The doctors who attended him could not make out what disease was upon him. The first men in England, Ireland, France, and Italy, came and studied his case. They could not make out what sickness or what infirmity was his. They were never called before to attend a man who was dying of a broken heart. O'Connell's heart was broken — the heart that was sent to Rome, the heart that is enshrined in the church of St. Agnes in Rome to-day, was broken for love of Ireland ! Now, what was the genius and character of this man ? What was the secret of his strength ? I answer the question by say- ing, that O'Connell was all that history tells us to-day, and all that history shall tell the nations in a thousand years ; O'Con- nell was all that, because of the faith and Catholicity that was in him. He was Catholic of the Catholics ; he was Irish of the Irish ; and, consequently, the instincts of Ireland and the heart of Catholic Ireland sprang to him, so that he made Catholic Ireland as if it had but one heart, and one thought, and one mind. Over all his human efforts, over all his tre- mendous exertions in the cause of liberty, there was ever shin- ing the light of divine faith, and he knew that in doing battle for Ireland, he was battling for God and for God's Church. What made him refuse the veto ? It would never affect him ; it would only have affected the Church ; it would only have affected the priesthood and episcopacy of Ireland. What made him refuse that bill of Canning? It was because his Catholic instincts, his Catholic mind and heart, told him that the State has no business under heaven to interfere in the regulation or in the government of the Church. He gave to the Irish people not only the voice that pleaded for their freedom, the magnifi- cent life that was devoted to their service, but he gave them something far higher and far greater than this. He gave them the bright example of a pious and sincere Catholic man. He showed Ireland, and he showed the world, that the highest genius can be exalted still more when it is consecrated to the sacred cause of the Church and of holy religion. He taught the youth of Ireland the lesson that they have learned so well from him and from their fathers, that the secret of Ireland's strength, and of Ireland's ultimate glory, and freedom, and na- 220 The Liberator. tionality, lies in Ireland's adherence to her glorious old faith. He taught the youth of Ireland that that man alone is sure to conquer every enemy in this world, who has learned to conquer his own passions and himself. He contributed largely, among other things, to make a priest of me ; for amongst the tenderest recollections of my youth, and among the things that made the deepest impression upon me as a boy, was to stand in the chapel in Galway, and to see the great Catholic, the man that shook the world, the man that every man who crossed his path was afraid of — to see that great man come to the eight o'clock mass in the morning and kneel there amongst us, receiving the Holy Communion — to watch him absorbed in prayer before his God — to read, almost, the grand thoughts that were, passing through that powerful mind — and to see him renewing, again and again, before Jesus Christ, the vows that bound him to his religion and to his country. This, then, was the great principle of his life. This was the secret of his genius. This was the inspiration that produced his success, and well did the Irish people correspond with him. Whatever he told them to avoid, they avoided ; whatever he told them to do, they did ; and if God had only left him — if God had only left a united council after him — if God, in His in- finite wisdom, had only averted the terrible stroke that pros- trated Ireland and broke O'Connell's heart — the glory that we still look forward to might be ours to-day. And, although he is dead and gone, his genius, his soul, his heart, his hope, still lives in the breast of every true son of Ireland. You and I look forward, as to our brightest human hope, as to our highest hope after the hope of heaven, to behold Ireland, as we so often pray and wish that she might be, great, glorious, and free. Great, her history tells us, in the past she has been. Glorious, O'Con- nell made her in his glorious victory of Emancipation. And free — ah ! there is a God of Justice in heaven. There is a God that treasures up the fidelity and the sufferings of a nation. There is a God that accepts a people's sacrifice, and sooner or later crowns it ; and unto that God do I look, with the same confidence that I look for my own salvation — to Thee, O God ! this night — to send down the crown and the reward of freedom to my glorious country. And when that freedom comes we will know how to use it ; we will respect our neighbors' rights, The Liberator. 221 not trample upon them ; we will respect our neighbors' prop- erty, and not plunder them ; we will never raise our hands in an effort to deprive any people on the earth of the sacred boon which we have sought for so long in vain — the sacred boon of national freedom ; we will know how to use it because we are Catholics, and the Catholic Church alone teaches a man how to preserve, how to defend, and how to use his freedom. THE VOLUNTEERS OF '82. fLecture delivered in the Academy of Music, New York, on Thursday evening, October 17th, 1872, in aid of the Catholic Protectory — the girls' portion of vi^hich had been burned down a short time previously.] ADIES AND Gentlemen: Before I proceed to the subject of my lecture, which is one of the most glori- ous in the history of Ireland — namely, the " Volunteer Movement of 1782 " — circumstances oblige me to make a few preliminary remarks. I have known in Ireland and out of Ireland, many Englishmen ; I have esteemed them ; and I have never known yet an Englishman who lived for any length of time in Ireland without becoming a lover of the country and of its people. Their proverbial love for Ireland was cast in their faces, in olden time, as a reproach. It was said of the English settlers that they were " more Irish than the Irish them- selves." Now, an English gentleman has come amongst us, great in name, great in learning, and also professing a love of our Irish nation and our Irish people. But there is an old prov- erb that says : " No man can tell where the shoe pinches so well as the man that wears it." I would not mind or pay much attention to an old bachelor's description of the joys of matri- mony, nor would I pay much heed to the description of the sor- rows of a man who had lost his wife, as described to me by a man who never had a wife. And so, in like manner, when an Englishman comes to describe the sorrows and miseries of Ire- land, or when he comes to impute them to their causes, the least that can be said is, that he must look upon this question from the outside ; whilst a man of Irish blood, of Irish name, and of Irish birth, such as I am, looks upon them, and is able to say : " My fathers before me were the sufferers, and I myself have beheld the remnants of their sorrow." With the best inten- The Volunteers of '82. 223 tions possible, a public lecturer may sometimes be a little mis- taken, or he may be reported badly, or his words may convey a meaning which, perhaps, they were not intended to convey. I read, for instance, this morning, that this learned and, no doubt, honorable man, speaking of the " Golden Age " of Ireland, said that we Irish were accustomed to look upon the time that went before the English invasion as the " Golden Age " of Ireland ; and then he is reported to have gone on to say : " And yet, for the two centuries that preceded the English invasion, all was con- fusion, all was bloodshed in Ireland." It is perfectly true ; but the " Golden Age " of Ireland is not precisely the two centuries that went before the English invasion. Irish history is divided into three great periods, from the days that our fathers embraced Christianity, when St. Patrick preached to them the Catholic faith, early in the fifth century, and Ireland embraced it. For three hundred years after Patrick's preaching, Ireland enjoyed a reign of peace and of sanctity which made her the envy and the admiration of the world ; and she was called by the surrounding nations," The Island home of Saints and of Scholars." Peace was upon her hills and in her valleys. Wise Brehon laws governed her. Saints peopled her monasteries and convents ; and stu- dents, in thousands, from every clime, came to Ireland to light at her pure blaze of knowledge the lamp of every art and of every highest science. This is the evidence of history ; and no man can contradict it. But, at the close of the eighth century, the Danes invaded Ireland. They swept around her coasts, and poured army after army of invasion in upon her. For three hun- dred long years, Ireland had to sustain that terrific Danish war, in defense of her religion and of her freedom. She fought ; she conquered ; but the hydra of invasion arose again and again, in the deadly struggle ; and, for the nation, it seemed to be an un- ending, unceasing task. An army was destroyed to-day, only to yield place to another army of invasion to-morrow. What was the consequence ? The peace of Ireland was lost ; the mo- rality of the people was shattered and disturbed by these three hundred years of incessant war. Convents and monasteries were destroyed, churches were pillaged and burned ; for the men who invaded Ireland were pagans, who came to lay the religion of their pagan gods upon the souls of the Irish people. What wonder if, when Ireland came forth from that Danish war, after 224 ^/i!^ Volunteers of '82. driving her invaders from her soil — what wonder if the laws were disregarded, if society was shaken to its base, if the religion of the people was greatly injured and their morality greatly influ- enced for the worse by so many centuries of incessant war? When, therefore, the historian or lecturer speaks of the time preceding the English invasion as the " Golden Age " of Ireland, let him go back to the days before the Danes invaded us. No Irishman pretends to look upon the three hundred years of Danish warfare as the " Golden Age ; " for truly, it was an age of blood. The confusion that arose in Ireland was terrible. When the Danish invaders were, at length, overthrown by the gallant king who was slain upon the field of Clontarf, the coun- try was divided, confusion reigned in every direction ; and her people scarcely yet breathed after the terrific struggle of three hundred years. Yet, in the brief period of sixty years that elapsed from the expulsion of the Danes, before the landing of the Anglo-Normans, we find the Irish bishops assembled, restor- ing essential and salutary laws to the Church. We find St. Malachi, one of the greatest men of his day. Primate of the See of Armagh. On the Archiepiscopal throne of Dublin, the English invading tyrant found an Irish prince, heart and hand with his people, who was ready to shed his blood for his native land ; and that man was the great St. Laurence O'Toole. It has been asserted also, that the Danes remained in Ireland. It is true that they founded the cities of Waterford, Wexford, and Dublin. The Danes remained there ; but, how did they re- main there? They conformed to the manners and customs of the Irish people ; they submitted to the Irish laws ; they adopted the Catholic religion, and became good and fervent Christians. On these conditions they were permitted to remain in Ireland. It is all nonsense to say that they remained by force. What was easier for the victor of Clontarf — when he had driven their pagan fellow-warriors into the sea — what was easier than for him to turn the force of the Irish arms against them, and drive them also into the sea that lay before him ? No ; the Danes re- mained in Ireland because they became Irish ; aye, " more Irish than the Irish themselves." What were the men whose brave hearts so loved Ireland that in her cause they forgot all pru- dence and all care for their lives ? Who were the men of '98 ? They were the fighting men of Wexford and of Wicklow; they The Volunteers of '82. 225 were the men of Danish blood and name, the Roches and the Furlongs ; but they loved Ireland as well, if not more, than our fathers did. It has been asserted, also, that — such was the confusion, and such the disruption of society — " there was one man above all others necessary ; and he was the policeman." Well, now, the policeman is a very ornamental, and, sometimes, though perhaps rarely, a very useful member of society. And, according to the statement as reported, the Pope selected a policeman, and sent him to Ireland ; and Henry II. of England was the Pope's policeman. Well, my friends, let us first see what sort of a policeman he was, or was likely to make. Henry came of a family so wicked, that it was the current belief in Eu- rope that they were derived from the devil. St. Bernard does not hesitate to say of the house of Plantagenet, to which Henry II. belonged — " They came from the devil, and they will go to. the devil." This man, who is put forth as "the Pope's police- man," was just after slaughtering St. Thomas d. Becket, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, at the steps of the altar. Thomas of Canterbury stood up, bravely and manfully, with English pluck and English determination, for the liberty of the Church, and for the liberty of the people. And the tyrant king, this Pope's, policeman, said, stamping his feet and tearing his hair, " Will no man amongst you," (and, mind you, his knights were stand- ing around him,) "will no man have the courage to rid me of that priest ! " Three knights came straight from the king, and at his command slaughtered this English saint — this true Eng- lishman — for Thomas i. Becket was not only a saint, but he was a true Englishman, as Laurence O'Toole was a saint, and the heart's blood of an Irishman. At the altar they found the saint ; and, at the foot of the altar, with their swords, they hacked his head and spattered his blood upon the very altar. That blood was red upon the hands of the English tyrant. And is that the man, I ask you, that the Pope, of all others, had chosen to send to Ireland to restore order? Oh! but men will say, " The Pope did it ; there is the document to prove it; the Bull of Adrian IV." Well, now, my friends, listen to me for a moment. If a sheriffs officer came into your house to turn you out on the street, would not the first question you would put to him be, " Sir, show me your warrant." And» 15 226 The Volunteers of '82. if he said, " I have no warrant," the next thing you would do would be to kick him out. Henry II. came to Ireland — men say to-day that he came upon the Pope's authority — with the Pope's Bull in his pocket. If he did why did he not show it when he came to Ireland ? If he had that document, he kept it a profound secret. If he had it in his pocket, he kept it in his pocket ; and no man ever saw it or heard of it. There was only one man in Ireland, on that day when the English invaded us — there was only one man in Ireland that had a mind and heart equal to the occasion ; and that man was the sainted Archbishop of Dublin, Laurence O'Toole. He was the only man in Ireland that was able to rally the nation. He succeeded in bringing sixty thousand Irish soldiers before the walls of Dublin. Henry II. was afraid of him ; and so well he might be. He was so much afraid of him, that he left a special order that, when St. Laurence should come to England, he was not to be let go back to Ireland any more. Now, if Henry had the Pope's brief or rescript, why, in all the world, did he not take it to the Archbishop of Dublin, and say to him : " There is the Pope's handwriting ; there is his seal ; there is his signature." If he had done this at that moment there would not be another word said ; he would have run no risk ; the saint would have never moved against the Pope ; and Henry would have para- lyzed his greatest and most terrible enemy. But no ; he never said a word at all about it ; he never showed it to a human be- ing. St. Laurence died without ever knowing of the existence of such a document. Henry came to Ireland, but he had no warrant ; and the very man, who, if Irishmen had been united, would have succeeded in kicking him out, did not see it. When did Henry produce this famous document or Bull, which he said he got from the Pope ? He waited till Pope Adrian was in his grave; the only man that could contradict him. There was no record, no copy of it at Rome. He produced it, then ; but it was easy for him to do so. How easily they could manufacture a document and sign a man's name to it. He waited till Adrian was years in his grave before he produced it. And I say — with- out venturing absolutely to deny the existence of such a docu- ment — I say, as an Irishman and as a priest ; as one who has studied a little history — I don't believe one word of it ; but I do believe it was a thumping English lie, from beginning to end. The Volunteers of '82. 22/ It has also been asserted that our people lived in great misery ; that they burrowed in the earth like rabbits. That is true. Remember, three hundred years of war passed over the land. Remember, that it was a war of devastation ; that all the great buildings in the land were nearly utterly destroyed by the Danes. Convents and monasteries that were the homes of hundreds and thousands of monks, were leveled to the ground. It is true that the Irish were in misery. It has been asserted that there is no evidence of their ancient grandeur or civiliza- tion, " except a few Cyclopean churches, and a few Round Towers." I would only ask for one ; if there was only one ruin in Ireland, of church or Round Tower, I could trace that ruin back to the first day of Ireland's Christianity; and I lay my hand upon that one evidence, and say : " Wherever this was raised, there was a civilized people that knew the high art of architecture." What nonsense to say, " there were only a few Round Towers." Surely, they could not have built even one if they didn't know how. If they were ignorant savages they would not have been able to build anything of the kind. But, if they were " burrowing in the earth," how were their English neighbors off? We have ancient evidence, going back nearly to Patrick's time, that the Hill of Tara was covered with fair and magnificent, though, perhaps, rude buildings. On the southern slopes of the hill, catching the meridian glory of the sun, you had the Queen's Palace. Crowning the summit, you had the great Hall of Banqueting ; within the enclosure was the palace of King Cormac. Four magnificent roads led down the hillside to the four provinces of Ireland, because Tara was the centre and the seat of dominion. About two or three hundred years later, when St. Augustine came to preach the gospel to the barbarous, pagan Saxons in England, how did he find them? We have one little record of history that tells us. We are told that the king — one of the kings of the Saxon Heptarchy — was sitting in his dining-hall ; and one of the lords, or attendants, or priests, said to him : " Your Majesty, life is short. Man's life in this world is like the bird that comes in at one end of this hall and goes out at the other." Why, were there no walls ? Apparently there were not. Surely it was a strange habitation or house if it had no walls ; for, even if it was a frame house, a bird could not come in at one end of the 228 The Volunteers of '82. dining-room and go out at the other. All these things sound beautifully until we come to put on our spectacles and look at them. It is true that the Irish, after their three hundred years of war, were disorganized and disheartened, and that they burrowed in the earth like rabbits. Ah ! to the eternal disgrace of England, where has the Irishman, in his native land to-day, a better house than he had then ? What kind of houses did they leave our people ? Little mud cabins, so low that you could reach the roof with your hand, scarce fit to '* burrow a rabbit." For century after century, the people that owned the land — the people that were the aboriginal lords of the land and soil — were robbed, persecuted, and confiscated in property and in money ; hunted like wolves in their own land ; until, to this day, the Irish peasant has scarcely a much better house. I have seen, in my own day, the cabin of which the English his- torian tells us. And whose fault is it that our people are in that position ? We are told, moreover — at least, it is reported in the papers — that, " for nearly five hundred years, England had not more than about fifteen hundred men in Ireland," and that they were able to keep down the "wild Irish" with fifteen hundred men. There are some things that sound so comical that all you have to do is to hear them. When Hugh O'Neill was at the Yellow Ford, and the English Field-Marshal was advancing against him, was it fifteen hundred men he had ? And if it was fifteen hundred, how comes it that the Yellow Ford, on that day, was choked and filled up with the bodies of Saxon soldiers. Our history tells us that Queen Elizabeth had twenty thousand men in Ireland, and that she had work enough for them all. Ah ! she had, this sweet English queen ! She found work for them all ; there was Catholic blood enough in the land to em- ploy twenty thousand butchers to shed it. Moreover, we are told that the Catholics of Ireland, at the time of America's glorious revolution, were all opposed to America's effort to achieve her independence ; and that the Protestants of Ireland were all helping America. Well, listen to this one fact. The King of England demanded four thousand men — Irishmen — to go out and fight against America. The Irish Parliament gave him the four thousand men ; and there was not a single Cath- olic in that Parliament. No ; they were all Protestants. When The Volunteers of '82. 229 these men returned, covered with wounds, and began to tell in Ireland what kind of treatment they got from Washington and his people, they were hailed by the Catholic people of Ireland as the very apostles of liberty. Amongst them there were men that went out in that four thousand ; but don't imagine that they went out to enforce the slavery of Ireland upon the Amer- ican people. Lord Edward Fitzgerald was one of the four thousand. Was he ever an enemy of the people ? No ! he died for Ireland and for her cause. When these four thousand men were called for by England, we may readily believe that the majority of them were Protestants, because the English were not fools enough to be putting arms in Catholic hands, as we shall see in the course of our lecture. When they came to this country, who gave them the warmest reception? It was the Catholics of North Carolina. It was Catholic America that met them foot to foot and drove them back, until Burgoyne, the famous English general, had to go down on his knees and give up his sword to General Gates, the Lieutenant of the im- mortal and imperishable George Washington. Out of that very American war — the uprising of a people in a cause the most sacred, after that of religion — the cause of their outraged rights, their trampled liberties — out of that American war arose the most magnificent incident in the re- markable history of Ireland. It is the subject of this evening's lecture. My friends, one word, indeed, is reported in this morning's papers, which tells a sad and bitter truth. It is that " the real source of England's power in Ireland has always been the divis- ion and disunion of the Irish people." There is no doubt about it — it is as true as Gospel. Never, during these centu- ries, never did the Irish people unite : I don't know why. The poet, himself, is at a loss to assign a reason. " 'Twas fate, they'll say, a wayward fate, Your web of discord wove ; And while your tyrants joined in hate, You never joined in love." No ; the Irish people were not even allowed to gain the secret of union. From the day the Saxon set his foot upon Irish soil, his first idea, his first study, was to keep the Irish people always disunited. The consequence was, they began by 230 The Volunteers of '82. getting some of the Irish chieftains, and giving them English titles ; giving them English patents of nobility ; — confirming them in certain English rights. On the other hand, all the powerful nobles who went down among the Irish people, who assumed all their forms, gained the secret, and became, as I have said, " more Irish than the Irish themselves." We find that, as early as 1494 — about the time America was discovered — England was making laws declaring no Englishman coming to Ireland was to take an Irish name, or learn the language, or intermarry with an Irishwoman. They could not live in a place where the Irish lived, but drew a pale around their pos- sessions, intrenching themselves in certain counties, and in cer- tain cities in Ireland. We find a law made, as early as the pe- riod in question, commanding the English to build a double ditch, six feet high, between them and the Irish portion of the country, and, at the peril of their lives, not to go outside that ditch. To keep the natives divided seemed to be the policy of England, from the first day up to this hour. It must have been a very difficult policy, because, from the evidence of his- tory, it seemed that they were ever anxious to join hands. The Irish had appeared very often, in many periods of their history, to say to the English: "Although you have come as enemies, since you are here, now stay, in the name of God, as friends : the country is large enough for us all." But no ; the English laws didn't permit it at all. The English Lord Deputy (as the Lord Lieutenant was called in those days) was con- stantly striving to keep his people from the Irish ; teaching them to hate the Irish ; teaching them in all things to abomi- nate and detest the original people of the country. And yet, whenever an Englishman escaped from the Pale, and got in amongst the Irish, in a few years he became the greatest rebel in the country. Then, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, among the many other salutary laws that that good lady made for Ireland, she made a law that no cattle or produce were to be exported from the land. Ireland, at that time, was prosperous; moreover, was able to export a large quantity of cereals and of cattle. It was a source of comfort to the people, and a source of revenue. But the "good Queen Bess " couldn't bear to see that ; so she made and passed this law, that there was to be no more ex- The Volmiteers of '82. 231 portation from Ireland ; and she condenr.ned the people at once to a life of inactiviiy and of misery, before she let loose her terrible army upon them for their extermination. The Irish, thus turned aside from agricultural pursuits, be- cause they had no vent for their agricultural productions, gave their attention, with their genius and their nimble fingers, to man- ufactures — to the manufacture, especially, of woolens ; and soon Irish poplins, Irish laces, Irish woolen cloth, were well known in all the markets of Europe, and commanded large prices. Yet, we read that, after the treaty of Limerick, William of Or- ange, breaking every compact that he made with the Irish peo- ple, actually laid such a tax upon the Irish woolen trade, that he completely destroyed it, and reduced all the manufacturers and all the tradesmen of Ireland to beggary and ruin. But the question does not deal so much with individual acts of any tyrannical prince as with the great parliamentary ques- tion. We read that, from the first days of the English settle- ment in Ireland, they were accustomed, from time to time, to call what was called the " Council of the Nation ; " that is to say, the great English Lords, who came over and settled within the Pale, on their large possessions, were called into council, to make laws and devise certain regulations for the people. Thus, in the reign of King John, these councils were held ; in the reign of the Edwards these councils were held ; and so on, until the first great Parliament of the whole Irish nation was called, in the year 16 12. But you must know that, before a Parliament of the whole nation was called, there was a " Parlia- ment of the Pale." Now, in the time of Henry VII., the Eng- lish possessed in Ireland only four counties ; — the counties of Dublin, Louth, Kildare, and Meath. These held their own Parliaments. What kind of Parliaments were they? Year after year they came together only to pass laws against their Irish fellow-citizens ; only to execute every wicked and brutal mandate that they received from England ; only to perpetuate divisions and divide the heart of Ireland more and more. They were not only tyrannical at home, these Parliaments, but they were also rebellious against the English monarch and Parlia- ment. My friends, we might as well tell the truth ; loyalty does not seem to be a very prominent virtue among them. For in- stance, when Henry VII. was declared king in England, two 232 The Volunteers of '82. impostors arose to dispute his crown — Simnel and Warbeck. The Anglo-Irish Parliament took up both of them. Simnel was crowned king in Ireland, in Christ Church, in Dublin. Then they sent him to England, and some soldiers with him ; and, after fighting a battle, he was taken prisoner ; and do you know what the king did with him? He made him a scullion in his kitchen. Scarcely was the pretender Simnel promoted to the kitchen, when another pretender arose, who said he was the youngest son of Edward IV., who was supposed to have been slain in the Tower. His name was Perkin Warbeck. The Irish Parliament — that is to say, the Parliament of the En- glish people in Ireland — took him up ; and they avowed their allegiance to him. King Henry VII. got angry ; and he sent over to Ireland a gentleman, Sir Edward Poyning. This man came to discover what was the cause of the agitation in the English portion of Ireland. It is all very well to talk about the savagery of the Irish ; it is all very well to say that, amongst them, there was nothing but violence going on. Now, here is what the English Commissioner and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland says : when he came, he says that he found the whole land was full of murders, robberies, rapes, and other manifold extortions and oppressions. By whom were they committed? By the barons, the English barons, and settlers in the Pale. Therefore, he came to put an end to that state of things. Secondly, he tells them that they should build a double ditch, six feet high, between themselves and the Irish. Considering the state of affairs within the Pale, I think that the Irishmen that were outside were likely to gain a great deal more in morality, in virtue, and in religion by the building of the ditch than the English did. The building of that great dyke, that passed from the Anna Liffey on to the base of the mountains of Kildare, on the one side ; and, on the other side, passed up near the town of Trim in east Meath — embracing the two counties of Meath and Kildare — the building of that dyke to keep out the Irish, reminds me of a story told of a poor man down in my own province, who was building a wall around a field, about an acre or an acre and a half of noth- ing but limestone, where there wasn't a single blade of grass. A gentleman who was passing said to him : " What on earth are you doing that for ? — is it to keep the cattle in?" "No, The Volunteers of '82. 233 your honor," replied the man, " but to keep the crathers out, for fear they may have the misfortune to get in." The third law that Poyning made was the most important of all. It was to this effect : that no Parliament in Ireland was to have any right to make laws, unless they first submitted these laws to England. They had no right to assemble in Parliament without the Lord Lieutenant's permission. If any man had a measure to propose in Parliament, it had to be sent over to England to get the permission of the English king, before it could be laid before the Parliament. This law completely sub- jugated Ireland to England. The Parliament, of course, passed whatever laws they were commanded to pass. And so it went on — one law worse than another ; the very vilest ordinances of Queen Elizabeth were recognized in the form of law by the Irish Parliament. When Charles I. encroached upon the liber- ty of the people, his best man, Wentworth, found his help in the Irish Parliament ; and England, in the days of Charles II., took the money of Ireland — the money that was to pay the in- terest of the national debt — and put it into the pocket of the profligate king ; and the Irish Parliament had not a word to say. And why? Because they didn't represent the Irish people at all. In the year 1753 — the year that George II. died — Ireland was practically governed by a vagabond, the Protestant Bishop of Armagh — his name was Hugh Bolter. He was Bishop of Bris- tol, in England, and had been promoted to be Primate in Ire- land. Do you know what that ruffian did ? He brought a law before the Irish Parliament disfranchising every Catholic in Ire- land, and passed the law without the slightest murmur. There was not a man in that House that spoke or offered an argument for the Catholic Irish, who were thus deprived of all voice in their national affairs. At length the divided nation united upon a most strange question. They ran short of copper money in Ireland. There were no pence, or halfpence, or farthings ; and the people be- gan to complain ; they had not the currency wherewith to buy and sell. So the King of England, George II., under his own hand, gave command to an Englishman, a coiner, named Wood, to coin one hundred and eighty thousand pounds in copper coin After the Englishman had taken the contract, mark how he ful 234 The Volunteers of '82. filled it. He bought six thousand pounds worth of old brass, and he coined one hundred and eighty thousand pounds worth of money for Ireland out of the six thousand pounds worth of old brass. There is an old name for a bad penny or a bad half- penny in Ireland : they call it a " tinker." Well, the " tinkers " arrived in Ireland — the English " tinkers " — Wood's " tinkers ; " and when the Irish people looked at them — tossed them up and caught them again — they got mad ; and every man in Ire- land, gentle and simple, united, for the first time in our history, in resisting a few bad half-pence. It is a simple, and, indeed, a droll fact. The people that never united on the question of their national independence, were united, like one man, in resist- ing a few bad half-pence that were sent over from England, This was the. first stroke at England. It was nearly two hundred years ago, in the days of Dean Swift — and the dean hated bad money. The moment that the Irish were united, and said to Eng- land, " Take back that money ; we won't have it ; " that moment the English king was obliged to take back his own commission ; and Mr. Wood got back his bad money. It was a small thing, but it taught the Irish people a lesson — a glorious lesson — a lesson that every true-hearted Irishman should preach, the glo- rious lesson of union and concord amongst all classes of Irish- men. It was very unwise of England to afford us such an opportunity of uniting. So long as it was a question of race she could keep us apart ; as long as it was a question of nation- ality she could keep us divided ; but no man — be he Protestant, or Methodist, or Quaker, or Presbyterian, or Catholic — no man likes to have a bad penny thrust upon him when he ought to have a good one. The moment the Irish found that, by uniting upon any question they could gain whatever they wanted, they discovered the grand secret of national success. Events followed each other quickly. There was, at this time, an Irishman named Molyneaux, who wrote a book called, " The Case of Ireland Stated," which proved so clearly the claims of Ireland to national freedom, that the book was burned in London by the common hangman. The eventful year of 1775 came. America was up in arms. England dealt with her the way she dealt with Ireland. She was accustomed to impose taxes upon us without asking our leave. She laid an embargo upon our commerce ; she destroyed our trade ; and she thought The Volunteers of '82. 235 she had nothing to do but just do the same thing to Brother Jonathan over the water, that she was doing to poor Paddy at home. But Jonathan was a man of other mettle — more power to him ! The colonists of North America rose in arms. Eng- land would not give them tea to drink without laying a tax upon it ; and when the tea arrived in Boston, they took it out of the ships and flung it into the sea. At first, as we know, America had no idea or wish to separate from England ; they only wanted to assert their rights fairly and conscientiously ; and they appealed to the British Constitution — ^just as Grattan did in Ireland, when he said : " I am ready to die for England ; but I must have her charter in my hand, even when I am dead ! " They only asked the law that England's glorious Constitution has provided for her subjects, if that law were fairly adminis- tered ; for the law is just ; the charter is grand ; the Constitu- tion is, as the great Dr. Newman says, perhaps the grandest thing in the world after the Catholic Church. But the Consti- tution has been warped ; its benefits have been denied, over and over again, to the people ; and the law has been adminis- tered in a partial and unjust spirit. Well, my friends, 1775 saw America in arms. England was obliged to send every available soldier that she had here ; and not only this, but, to her eternal disgrace, she poured her Hessian mercena- ries in upon America ; and she hired the North American Indians to cut the throats of the colonists and scalp them. I don't know, I confess, why there should be this great friendship — this great "cousinship," and all this talk about " blood thicker than water," which you always hear between England and America. When an Englishman speaks in Amer- ica, of " blood thicker than water," you may ask, if it was so very thick, why did England hire the Hessians to shed it ? Why did she hire the Indians to shed it if it was so very warm, so very friendly? It suits England to-day, in the hour of her de- cline and weakness, to be constantly talking to Americans about the " same race " and " a common origin ; " but it was a pretty manner in which she served her own race in the American Revolution. A call was made upon Ireland for four thousand troops. The Anglo-Irish Governor said : " Give us the Irish soldiers, and we will give you four thousand Hessians to keep Ireland 236 The Volunteers of 82. quiet ; " and it was added, by way of inducement, that all the Hessians were the very best of Protestants. Now, mark how significant that is. We are told that the Irish were men unable to fight ; told that they never made a good battle in any cause ; we are told that the attribute of bravery in the Irish character is a doubtful one, and, in a word, scarcely due to us. Now, may I ask, if England thought that four thousand Irishmen wouldn't fight as well as four thousand Hessians, why did she ask for the Irishmen and ignore the Hessians ? Why didn't she send the Hessians to America instead of sending them to Ireland and taking the poor Irish ? It was because she knew well that, perhaps, the Hessian might turn his back, but the Irishman would fight till he'd die. Well, my friends, the Irish Parliament gave them four thousand soldiers, but, for once in their lives, they had a ray of the grace of God upon them, and refused to take the Hessians. They said : " No ; we will not take any foreign mercenaries into Ireland ; but we will tell you what we will do : If you will give us arms, we will organize volunteers for the defense of the country." The moment the word was mentioned in Belfast, in the north, Irish volunteer companies were formed. Irishmen stood again shoulder to shoulder. The government reluctantly, in 1779, gave them arms, and Ireland, in six months, beheld a native army of fifty thousand men, as well organized and drilled as any army in the world. The volunteer organization spread ; the nation made them presents of artillery ; the first ladies in Ireland wove their flags. They were of all classes of men, officered by the best nobility in the land. Lord Charlemont, Henry Grattan, the Duke of Leinster, and Henry Flood — all the highest intellects in Ireland — the noblest and best blood of the country, were at the head of the " Volunteers." In 1 78 1, according to Sir Jonah Barrington, their numbers had swelled into eighty thousand perfectly drilled and perfectly organized men. The originator of all this was the famous Henry Flood, a man intolerant in his religious ideas — for he hated us Catholics " as the devil hates holy water." But, although intolerant in religion, he was a man of great mind and of great love for Ireland. So soon as the English Govern- ment saw the willingness of these men, springing up all over the land ; under the Earl of Clanricarde, in Galway and Mayo ' The Volunteers of '82. 237 in the south, under O'Brien ; in the north, under other chief- tains; in Leinster, under the Earl of Kildare, Lord Charle- mont, Henry Grattan, Flood, Hussey Burgh, and others, the English Government got afraid of their lives, and wanted them disbanded, and to get their arms back. But Ireland was armed ; and then the immortal Henry Grattan assembled their leaders. Flood was amongst them. Lord Charlemont, and other dis- tinsfuished members of the Irish Protestant Parliament. When they all met together, they asked the significant question : " Now that we have fifty thousand men armed, what are we going to do with them?" The answer to the question came from the fiery soul and the great head of the immortal Grattan. He said : " Now that we have them at our back, we can speak as an united nation. We will not allow them to lay down their arms until we have achieved legislative and religious independ- ence for Ireland." Accordingly, in 1779, as soon as ever the " Volunteers" were got together, Grattan brought into the Irish House of Commons a proposition to abolish Sir Edward Poy- ning's Law, which declared that the Irish could not make laws for themselves, unless they first got permission of the English king. He proposed this in the Irish Parliament. All the weight of the English Government was against him; all the rottenness of the country was against him ; but the streets of Dublin were lined with the "Volunteers ; " and they had their cannon drawn up in the square before the House of Commons. They had cards around the mouth of the guns, inscribed : "Jus- tice to Ireland, or else — " Poyning's law was repealed. The English King was only too glad to say: " Gentlemen, Ireland has a right to make her own laws ; make them for yourselves," A few weeks later, Grattan brought in another bill ; and it was that there was no more re- striction to be laid upon the trade of Ireland. He said : " You have ruined our woolen trade. You are ruining our linen trade with excessive taxation." When the American Revolution had broken out, England made a law prohibiting the Irish to send any cattle or food of any kind to America. It is easy, to-day, to say that the Catholics were all opposed to America. If the Catholics of Ireland were always opposed to America, and to her cause, why did England make a law to oblige them to send ao help or, succor in the way of food to America ? This law 238 The Volunteers of '82. had crushed our commerce and trade. Grattan brought in his bill, in April, 1779. Once more the Government of England was opposed to him. Once more the king wrote over to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, " Don't send me any bill that will release Ireland. I will not hear of it. I won't sign it." Grat- tan proposed his bill in the House of Commons, and the slavish House was afraid to pass it. They tore it before his eyes; it was thrown at him; but Grattan fell back upon his fifty thousand men, and said : " Here — here are the men with arms in their hands, with flags tossing and waving for Ire- land. You must give her commercial freedom." A united, an armed nation spoke these words, and they were obliged to suspend and to repeal every law, and to declare with the sanction and signature of the English king that Ireland was free to trade in her woolen manufactures and all the exports, with the West Indies, with America, or, in fact, with any nation. Then Grattan made the memorable remark in his speech to the Irish Parliament ; he said : " Gentlemen, your forefathers, sitting in this House, sold and destroyed the trade and liberty of Ireland. Now, I have returned to her her trade, and now I demand that you return to Ireland her liberty." The fifty thousand, by this time, were become eighty thousand ; and on that glorious April day of 1782, Henry Grattan proposed in the Irish Parliament, and it was passed and sanctified as a law, that Ireland was a free nation, wearing an imperial crown, in these memorable words : " It is enacted that the crown of Ireland is an imperial crown, and inseparably annexed to Great Britain, on which connection the interest and happiness of both nations essentially depend. But that the kingdom of Ireland is a distinct kingdom, with a Parliament of her own and legis- lative power ; and that there is no body of men competent to make laws to bind this nation, except the King, the Lords, and the Commons of Ireland." The crown of Ireland was an im- perial crown. She was a nation, with her own Parliament, her own laws, her own genius, her own influence over her own resources, and her own debts ; with her own right to tax her- self; her own laws to execute, and every other right ; and she merely acknowledged the union with England in the interest and for the well-being of both countries. That was the decla- The Volunteers of '82. 239 ration of Henry Grattan, and it struck terror into the heart of England. It was the most magnificent declaration that Ireland ever made of her nationality and her claim to full and imperial freedom as a nation and empire. Grattan had eighty thousand men at his back ; and in one month his message was sent to England. " I send this law," he said, " to England ; I give England one month to decide ; and if she decide not in one month — there are the men." That was on the 17th of April, 1782. Before the month was over — before the 17th of May — ■ it came back acknowledged by the English Parliament, and signed by the English King — acknowledging that Ireland's crown was an imperial crown — that Ireland was a nation united, and, in truth, perfectly equal with England ; that the English Parliament had no right or title under heaven to govern Ire- land, but only the Irish Parliament, submitting to the English crown. Then Grattan made his famous speech in the Irish Parliament. He said : " I found Ireland upon her knees. I lifted her up. I watched her as she took her place amongst the nations ; I saw the crown upon her head. And now, all that remains for me is to bow before that august form, and pray — * Este^perpetiia ' — be thou perpetual." This was the climax of the triumph of the " Volunteers." They had gained all they asked or sought for, for Ireland. One year later, they met in convention ; and I regret to have to say what I am about to say. Their generals and officers met and took measures for the reformation of the Irish Parliament, and to consider the representation of the people. When it was proposed to these officers and generals of the " Volunteers " to demand the emancipation of three millions of Catholics in Ireland — to my heart's regret I have to say it — they refused to grant to these, emancipation, or to petition for it. They refused to give to their Catholic fellow-countrymen the liberty which they had won for themselves. And Catholic Ireland felt her heart within her growing faint, and breaking — to see the very force in which she had put her trust, now wanting in the hour of her danger and of her strength. At the same time, deserted by their brethren, their Catholic countrymen lost heart in them. When they were organized, no Catholic was allowed to enter the ranks of the " Volunteers," or to carry arms. The poor Catholics of Ireland collected and sent money to Dublin — they 240 The Volunteers of *82. sent ;^ 1 00,000 to provide uniforms for their Protestant fellow- citizens. After a time, as the American war went on, and the colonists waxed stronger, England got more fearful. And, when Burgoyne was taken prisoner, and when Clinton retired before the unconquerable sword of Washington, England was obliged to permit the Catholics to join the " Volunteers." Instantly the Irish Catholics sprang into the ranks, and took their arms into their hands. Without one feeling of rebellion or disloyalty, but only the pure love of Ireland, they stood prepared to die for the liberties of their fellow-countrymen, as well as their own. Then came the sad dispersion. The English Government had introduced the element of disunion even among the "Vol- unteers." Some were in favor of emancipating the Catholics ; others were not. A fatal division was introduced, and then a law was quietly brought into the Irish Parliament, that it would be better to increase the regular army to twenty thousand men — not fifteen hundred, but twenty thousand men. It was also passed that they should give twenty thousand pounds towards arming the militia ; and in three or four short years the " Vol- unteers " were dispersed ; their arms were taken from them and put into the hands of a militia entirely controlled by mili- tary officers who were all English. The last hope of Ireland died for a time. Then began the series of bad laws. The " Convention Act " was passed under the influence of the Duke of Wellington. As soon as they found that the " Volunteers " were disbanded, they knew that they could do as they liked with the liberties of Ireland. One of the first laws they made was that it was not lawful for Irishmen to hold political conventions, or any other kind of conventions, or nominate delegates who were to speak on any occasion, on any subject. One injustice followed another, until the country, inflamed by the maxims of the mighty French Revolution, goaded to desperation, made the ineffectual effort of '98. Then, crushed, wounded, bleeding, deceived, and degraded, nothing remained but for the accursed Castlereagh to walk over the prostrate ruin, and over the bodies of his countrymen, and, in spite of oaths, entreaties — in spite of the signature of the King, declaring that Ireland alone had a right to make her own laws — in the year 1800 they took the Parlia- The Volunteers of '82. 241 ment from us ; and from that day to this our laws are made for us by Englishmen in England. Thus ended the " Volunteers ; " but the lesson which it teaches has not died with this glorious movement. My friends, it is not a lesson of revolution or of rebellion that this glorious movement of '82 teaches ; it is the higher lesson of union among Irishmen. It was not the " Irish Volunteers " that the English feared so much — though they were a powerful army, it is true ; but their main strength lay in the fact that they had three millions of their Catholic fellow-countrymen united to them heart and soul. It was not Ireland armed, but Ireland united, that made the tyrant tremble, and made the English Government sign every bill as soon as it was put forth. A sin- gular example of the union which bound up all these men was given at that time. Some of the Belfast and Antrim " Volun- teers " were Protestants, all Orangemen, to a man, yet, so united were they in that day with their Catholic fellow-countrymen and all classes of men, in that perfect union, that they actually marched out, on Sunday, and heard Mass. Ireland was united. Of course, there must be religious divisions where there is dif- ference of religion. If I can't unite with my fellow-countryman in believing what he believes — or rather, to pare down my be- lief till it comes to nothing to suit him — am I, therefore,. to say to him " stand aside " ? am I, therefore, to say to him,. "We have no common country. I have nothing in common with you " ? Oh ! no. The most glorious battles of modern times have been fought in the trenches where the Protestant and Catholic stood side by side. And England, who knows so well how to divide us on the religious question, at home, knows as well how to unite us, abroad, in the ranks of her army. The 88th " Connaught Rangers " were Catholics to a man ; and they were side by side, on the field of Waterloo, with the Protestant soldiers of the north of Ireland, and of England. There are questions second only in their sacredness to that of religion, which is first. The question of nationality is second only in importance to the religious question, because on that great national question depends what Catholic and Protestant alike hold dear — public liberty. On this great question, thanks be to God, every man can be united with his fellow-man, no matter what shade of religious division may exist between them. I 16 242 The Volunteers of '82. accept the word of the English historian who has come amongst us, in the case of Ireland — I accept the word that he has said. If he be reported rightly, he said, that in the day that Ireland is united, Ireland shall be invincible. Away, then, with all reli- gious animosity that would interfere with man's co-operation with his fellow-man for native land. Away with that fatal divi- sion that would fain make one Ireland for the Protestant Irish- man and another for the Catholic Irishman — whereas the " Green Island " is the common mother-land of all. My Catho- lic countrymen, at the peril of your eternal salvation, be as firm as the granite rock upon every principle of your Church and your religion ; be as conservative of that faith as you are of your immortal souls, else you will lose that faith, and those souls with it. But, I say to you, just as you are to be conserva- tive in your faith as you can be, so, upon the grand question upon which the freedom and happiness of the dear old land de- pends, be as liberal, as large-hearted, as truly united upon it as you are to be strong and united upon the question of your own religion. Then shall the future, seen by the prophetic eye of Grattan, when he hailed his Ireland as an independent nation, be realized by the men of to-day. Then shall the dream of the lover and the aspiration of the patriot shine forth in the glory of its fulfillment: when domestic laws, made by Irishmen, for Ireland and for Irishmen, shall govern the state affairs of Ire- land ; when every want of Ireland will be the best forethought of Irish loving minds and intellects ; when every Irishman will have the first place paramount in the deliberations of an Irish Parliament ; when from out the intellect and the fullness of the heart of Ireland, in the future day, shall beam around my mother-land and realize the glories of days long past the sun that has set for so many years in clouds of blood — but which shall rise serenely in the new Orient of freedom, for dear old, much-loved Ireland. RODERICK O'CONNOR, THE LAST MONARCH OF IRELAND. [Lecture delivered in the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, on Sunday evening, No- vember 2, 1872, for the benefit of St. Anne's Church.] ^^^ADIES AND Gentlemen: Generally speaking, when a man comes to speak on an Irish subject, he has some room, some scope, some opportunity of making his audience laugh, or at least smile ; there is so much of humor, or, if you will, fun, in the national character, that it is almost impossible to avoid laughter in the discussion of an Irish subject. I regret to say that I will not create a single smile on your faces to-night. I am come to discuss the history of a dy- ing nationality, and its last king. I am come to tell you of your own fathers and mine — how they lost the last greatest gift of God, after that of divine faith, namely, the gift of their free- dom, and of their national liberty. The theme which I am come to discuss before you this evening is the life and the times and the character of Ireland's last king, Roderick O'Connor — as brave a man, perhaps, as ever drew a sword for God and for father-land ; — as unfortunate a man as ever was doomed to pre- serve his dignity, and to go down to his grave in the midst of misfortunes, but without a taint of dishonor. Now, in order that we may understand the times and the life of this man properly, I must invite your attention to the close of that dreadful contest which took place between the Irish and the Danes. For three hundred years Ireland was peaceable and happy — the home of saints and of scholars — the university of the Christian world, and the light of the ages, from the fifth down to the close of the eighth century. For three hundred years the whole world beheld her light, and gloried in the bright- 244 Roderick O'Connor, ness thereof. Her saints went forth from her green bosom, and evangelized the whole world. Every nation in Europe — aye, down even to the south of Italy — preserves the memory of the Irish saints, and loves to dwell, year by year, upon the virtues and the grandeur of character of the men who came from the fair isle of the Western Ocean, to preach to them the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and His sanctity. Then came that fearful invasion that swept simultaneously over Ireland, over England, and over France. The Northmen — those fierce, tall, blue-eyed, fair-haired warriors of the North — pagans, who adored Odin and Thor, and the Scandinavian gods — zealous for the cause of their false divinities — zealous, because of the bravery of their spirits and indomitable heart — they swept over all the northwestern countries of Europe : they subdued England, fixed themselves in the North of France, and invaded Ireland. For three hundred years, every year be- held a new army of the Danes poured into the land. Still the Irish Gael met them, hilt to hilt, and foot to foot, and disputed every inch of Irish land, and fought them as only men can fight who are animated by a true love for God, for the altar of God, and for their native land. Sad and weary was the contest. An army was defeated on one day, only to reproduce itself on the morrow in the shape of a new army landed from the Northern Seas. Finally, towards the end of the third century of the Danish invasion, Almighty God gave to Ireland one of His grandest and highest gifts, namely, a man heroic in mind, heroic in heart, capable of commanding the situation, capable of understanding the wants of his age — a man who was able to bind up all the incoherent elements of the nation, to make them as one man, and then, united, to lead them against the common foe ; and that was the illustrious and immortal Brian, King of Munster, commonly called Brian Boroimhe. History acknowledges that, amongst its heroes, amongst the men of that twelfth century, amongst all those that figured in the various lands of Europe — the great- est and most massive character that shines out, is the character of the Irish monarch and hero who was able to lead an army of united Irishmen into the plains of Clontarf, and to vanquish the Danes. And yet, my friends, if we reflect upon it, this man — the grandest figure in our history — was still an usurper The Last Monarch of Ireland. 245 of the national crown. You know the ancient constitution of Ireland, under the Brehon laws, and under the system of tan- istry, was that each of the provinces of the empire had its own monarch or king. The great leading families governed these prov- inces for two thousand years and more, under the ancient Mile- sian constitution. The O'Connors, of Connaught ; the O'Briens, of Munster; the O'Neills and O'Donnells, of Ulster; McMur- roughs, O'Byrnes, and O'Tooles of Leinster. Two thousand years before Christ was born, the sons of Milesius landed in Ireland from the coast of Spain. The ancient Druid, or prophet of their race, foretold to them that it was their destiny to land upon and to colonize the green Island of the West ; and the poet describes their arriving on the coast of Ireland, dreaming of their destiny — hoping, even in their day-dreams, to behold the island that was to be theirs : " They came from a land beyond the sea ; And now, o'er the Western main, Set sail in their good ships, gallantly, From the» sunny land of Spain. ' Oh ! Where's the isle we've seen in dreams — Our destined home or grave?' — Thus sang they, as by the morning's beams, They swept the Atlantic wave. " And, lo ! where afar o'er ocean shines A sparkle of radiant green, As though in that deep lay emerald mines, Whose light through the wave was seen. • 'Tis Innisfail ! 'tis Innisfail ! ' Rings o'er the echoing sea ; While, bending to heaven, the warriors hail That home of the brave and free. " Then turn they unto the Eastern wave. Where now their day-god's eye A look of such sunny omen gave As lighted up sea and sky. Nor frown was seen through sky or sea. Nor tear o'er leaf or sod, When first on their Isle of Destiny Our great forefathers trod." They brought with them that peculiar constitution, the grandest, perhaps, of any ancient form of government that ex- 24^ Roderick O'Connor, isted — the most like to that grand republican government under which you citizens of the United States live to-day. There was no serfdom amongst them. No Celtic man was ever born, or ever lived, or ever died as a serf or slave. It is a re- markable fact, my friends, that nearly every country — aye, every country in Europe began under the system of serfdom and slavery. The common people, as they were called — the vulgus — were mere serfs attached to the soil. If a nobleman, a great man, or prince, wished to sell his estate, he not only sold it, but he also sold the people. If he had five hundred families on his estate, he sold them all ; they were transferred from him to another man : and they had to serve that other man as they served their former master. This system of serfdom or slavery was the original condition of every nationality in Europe — as it was in Russia down to our own days — with the sole excep- tion of Ireland. In Ireland, certain great families ruled the land ; and they were all " Mac's " and " O's." To this day, let me know your name, and if you be a " Mac " or an " O," I can tell you what part of Ireland you or your fathers came from. Some time ago, in New York, a poor fellow came to me, asking me to give him a letter, to get him a situation as porter or something, in some establishment. When I sat down to write the letter, I asked him : " What is your name ?" " Well, your reverence," he said, " I am a McGuire." " And what made you leave the County Fermanagh ? " " Oh ! then, God knows," said he, " I left it through misfortune ! " If you hear the name of an O'Reilly, you at once say, " Oh ! he came from the County Cavan." If, on the other hand, a poor fellow comes into the store to you, and says. " I come from Ireland, and my name is McDermott," you at once say: "Oh! you are a Connaught man." If, again, a tall, square-shouldered, dark-haired, hazel- eyed man steps in like a giant and stands before you, and says : " I came to this country, and I am one of the O'Neills ; " then you say : " Ah ! then you came from Ulster, my friend — from the County Tyrone." There is no mistake about it ; even our Norman name of Burke is altogether Connaught. Well, my friends, in the ancient Constitution of Ireland there was no such thing as slavery — every man was free ; every man was of the same blood, the same family, the same name with his chieftain. They elected their chieftains; they elected not The Last Monarch of Ireland. 247 only the princes of the name and of the line, but also the " tanist," or man who had the right to succeed him. If the King of Ireland died, his son did not succeed him, as the Prince of Wales would succeed Queen Victoria. Not a bit of it. They elected the best man, the bravest man, the man fitted to govern ; and they made him their chieftain ; and he was called, during the life of his predecessor, the " Tanist," according to the law of tanistry. Accordingly, when a time of war or trouble arose, the chieftain gave the signal and drew his men around him. He was called The McMahon, The O'Neill, The O'Dwyer, The O'Rourke, The O'Donnell — he blew his horn and rallied his men around him; and they came: the blacksmith from his forge, the thresher from the threshing-floor, the ploughman from his plough ; they took their battle-axes and spears, and went out to fight with their chieftains as man to man, not as slaves under their ruler. This being the Constitution of ancient Ireland, it happened that, toward the close of the Danish in- vasion, the king selected as " Ard-righ," or High King, was a Meath man, Malachi McLaughlin, one of the bravest and best kings that ever ruled in Ireland. It is written of him that his delight was to take a young horse that never was broken in, and, placing one hand upon the animal's neck, he would bound to his back, draw his sword, and dash with the unbroken ani- mal into the midst of the enemy — slashing right and left, and cutting his way right through them. Wise in council, holy in his life was this grand and magnificent Malachi ; and he was the man whom the poet commemorates when he says — " Let Erin remember the days of old, Ere her faithless sons betrayed her, When Malachi wore the collar of gold Which he won from the proud invader. When her Kings, with standard of green unfurled, Led the ' Red Branch ' Knights to danger ; Ere the Emerald Gem of the Western world Was set in the crown of the stranger." In the glen of Glenamadda, in Wicklow, near to that lovely vale where the two rivers meet — where their waters blend to- gether — near that wonderful vale of Avoca, Malachi, the King of Ireland, at the head of his troops, met a great army of the Danes. They joined in battle, the Danes with the cry of their 24S Roderick O' Connor ^ heathen gods — McLaughlin and his men with the cry, " For God, His Christ and His Holy Church," and before the evening sun set, six thousand Danes were stretched dead upon the green hill-sides of that valley of Wicklow. Thrice on this day did this glorious king meet a certain Danish warrior in single com- bat, and after striking him dead with his battle-axe tore the golden collar from his neck and hung it around his own as a tro- phy of Celtic victory over the Scandinavians. And yet, brave and wise and holy as he was, there was an- other man in Ireland brave and wise and holier than Malachi n, ; and that was the illustrious Brian, of the house of Kin- cora, by the Shannon, in Munster. This man saw the evils that were on the land ; he saw the Danes on every side, around the sea-coast ; he saw the people divided — the very chieftains divided amongst themselves ; and he saw at the head of the nation a man whose bravery he acknowledged, whose wisdom and goodness he was the first to admit, but who was not equal to the occasion. Brian seized the reigns of government in his own strong hands ; he gathered his armies around him ; he rallied the grand old race of the O'Brien's ; he advanced from the banks of the Shannon ; he received the fealty of Connaught on his left hand, and of Leinster before him ; and with these three provinces around him he attacked the Danes on Good Friday morning. With the crucifix in one hand and his drawn sword in the other, the man over whose head eighty winters had passed, rode before his Irish troops and cried out from his war-horse, " Behold this sign, O Irishmen ! Re- member that this is the day on which your God died for you ; and for that God strike a blow ! " And under his hand the Irish struck such a blow, that on that day at Clontarf they achieved what England was never able to do — what glo- rious France was unable to do — Ireland shook the Danes from her bosom, right into the sea, even as St. Paul shook off the venomous serpent from his hand, in the island of Mileta. Ah ! How sad was the evening of that day. The sun set over the western coast of Ireland ; the nation was rejoicing — the soldiers, resting upon their swords and spears, were tell- ing each other of the events of the day. But there were three corpses upon that field of Clontarf; and with these three the hopes of Ireland perished. Brian was stretched a corpse The Last Monarch of Ireland. 249 there. The old man had retired into his own tent in the even- ing, and he was absorbed in prayer before the image of Christ, when a Danish fugitive chanced to pass that way. He peered in, and seeing the old king, entered his tent and transfixed him through the heart with his spear. Upon the field lay his brave son, Prince Murrough, and his grandson, Turlough, who was also a prince. Three generations of the one royal house of Ireland perished. And now, anarchy and confusion reigned in the land, until another man arose, second only in bravery, in wisdom, in piety, to Brian Boroihme, and that man was Turlough O'Connor, Prince of Connaught. Brave in the field was Tur- lough ; wise in council was he. He subjected all the various tribes around him to his own chieftainship, and they acknowl- edged him. The star of the house of O'Connor of Connaught arose to guide the nation that was sorrowing over the grave of Brian, with the bards who had sung over him, " Remember the glories of Brian the brave, Though the days of the hero are o'er — Though lost to Mononia and cold in the grave, He returns to Kincora no more." Thus spoke the bard of Brian, and all Ireland wept. Yet still the hopes of the nation revived when the rising star of the western race of O'Connor, the head of that race — brave, as I said, in the field, wise in the council, holy before the altar of God — assumed the sovereignty of the western part of Ireland. He extended his sway all over the land of Erin, that only de- sired to see the character of the true Catholic and Christian shining out acknowledged in her brave king, Turlough O'Con- nor — that he was as holy as he was brave ; and they all sub- mitted to him. He lived until the year 11 56 — thirteen years before the Norman and Saxon invasion of Ireland. Toward the close of his life — wearied with the battles and strifes of his manhood, he founded and endowed the royal convent of Clonmacnoise, for the Cistercian monks and canons regular of St. Augustine ; and he retired into the midst of them. The sanctity of the olden days was returning upon Ireland. The days of Columba and Columbanus — the days of Kieran and the saints of old were coming back upon the land. Mala- chi, a saint of God, was Primate of Armagh ; Laurence O'Toole, a saint of God, was Bishop of Glendalough ; St. Cel- 250 Roderick O'Connor, sus was sitting on another episcopal throne in Ireland ; and Ireland had the honor and glory of three living saints ruling her Church at the same time. The clergy and bishops, in their council at Kells, laid down wise laws for the regulation of eccle- siastical affairs. The kings and rulers of the land were most anxious to give to the world and to their subjects the ex- ample of the holiness of the ancient days. The Danes had passed away, and new hopes were blooming for Ireland ; and the people looked contentedly on the figure of their monarch, as he retired from their view into the cloister, and there lived and died in the odor of sanctity. He brought with him royal gifts into the house he had endowed. History tells us that he brought with him forty thousand ounces of gold ; that he adorned the altars, and built up the glorious shrine ; and when he saw peace and calm around him, he glided quietly into that eternity which was before him ; and, as was befitting an Irish hero, an Irish monarch, a prince of the ancient house of O'Connor, he died, leaving to his people as an inheritance the legacy of a memory that was hallowed by them as that of a saint. But speedily there arose from the same house, and from the line of Turlough, the young monarch, Roderick O'Connor. Young, splendid in figure, a prince in heart, in bravery, and in strength, he grasped the royal sword of Brian, and waved over Ireland the sceptre of a monarch. He was scarcely installed in his royal dignity, when a great calamity fell upon Ireland, that looms over her and blights her like the dark shadow of a black cloud to this day. All Ireland acknowledged Roderick as " Ard-righ," or " High King." The glories of Tara had passed away; Tara was in ruins then as it is to-day; but there, upon the plains of Boyle, in Roscommon, rose the high towers and lofty palace of Ireland's king ; and there Roderick held undoubted and undisputed sway over the whole of Ireland. The O'Briens, the McCarthy Mor, the O'Sullivans, of the South, bowed before him ; the proud O'Donnells and O'Neills, of the North, yielded their tribute and homage to him ; the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes of the Wicklow Glens and Kildare Plains of Lein- ster; the O'Rourkes, of Breffni and Meath, acknowledged him as their king ; whilst all the septs around him, in his The Last Monarch of Ireland. 251 own province of Connaught, gloried in the name of their great and brave, valiant and puissant ruler, Roderick O'Connor, the King of Ireland. His name was known in the halls of the Plantagenets, in England. His name was known in the halls of the princes and kings of France and of Germany; his name resounded in the Vatican as the descendant of a saint, and as one who emulated the virtues as well as rivaled the bravery of his great ancestor, Turlough O'Connor. Now, my friends, whilst St. Laurence O'Toole was on his archiepiscopal throne of Dublin — whilst peace reigned over the country — whilst Ireland was healing the deep wounds which the Danes had left upon her stately form — a man came to Ire- land to reform the Church and State, and bring the barbarous Irish into a state of civilization ; and that man was Henry II., the Plantagenet King of England. Let me tell you something about him. He was of a family so wicked that the great St. Bernard said of them — and it was believed all over Europe — that they came from the devil. The words of St. Bernard were these : " From the devil they have come, and to the devil, their father, they will go." This man held all the bishoprics of Eng- land in his own hands. He claimed the right of appointing and investing the bishops. In those days the Church was very rich ; and whenever a bishop died, the good King Henry took the ten or twelve thousand pounds — that is to say, fifty, or sixty, or eighty thousand dollars — and he kept it for three or four years in his own hands before he appointed a bishop. He wanted the money ; and I will tell you why. He was an immoral, an impure, and debauched man. He wanted the money that belonged to the poor and the Church of God, to expend it upon his own vicious, impure, and immoral pleasures. In order to show what manner of man he was, he sent three of his knights — I say he sent them, — what- ever may be the equivocations of history — to shed the blood of Thomas a Becket. Henry's three knights entered the cathedral at Canterbury ; they found the holy bishop at vespers, in cope and mitre, standing before the altar ; and there, in the presence of God, they struck him ; they broke his skull, and they shed his brains upon the altar of God. This was the man that came over to reform the Irish ; this was the man that came over to educate our clergy and teach 252 Roderick O'Connor, them how to say Mass ; this was the man who came over to teach St. Laurence O'Toole — one of the greatest saints that ever Hved — how to behave himself properly as a Christian. Ac- cording to Mr. Froude, the Pope wanted a policeman ; and he selected a man that had violated every law of God — the man that had reddened his hands with the blood of a saint — a man that, having come from the devil, was going to the devil as fast as he could go — a man that had married Eleanor of Aquitaine, another man's wife ! He came, and he found in Ireland a hero and a saint — the saint was St. Laurence O'Toole, the Arch- bishop of Dublin ; and Ireland's hero was the great and grand Roderick, King of Connaught, and High King of Ireland. Then St. Laurence O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, cried out to the nation : ** To arms ! Draw the sword ! The land is in- vaded ! " No sooner did Henry's myrmidons land in Ireland — no sooner was the voice of the sainted Archbishop of Dublin heard, than the sword of Roderick O'Connor sprang from its sheath, and waved, bright and glorious, over the land. From the shores of the Western Ocean he marched to the eastern coast of Ireland. He had around him his army ; he rallied his chiefs, and they came. Strongbow, with his forces, landed on the coast of Wexford. Roderick knew the geography of his country ; and he knew that, having taken Wexford, the proba- ble course of the invader would be to march over the hills of Wicklow and the plains of Kildare, on to the city of Dublin ; and therefore he, with his army, stood with their swords in their Celtic hands, and waited for the invader. But there was a traitor in Ireland in those days — a traitor to his God — and to his country. The traitor to Ireland, in those days, was Dermot McMurrough, the King of Leinster ; and he was a devil from hell in his character; first, by treason to his country, and secondly, by treason to the sacredness of that marriage-tie that has always been so inviolably preserved in Ireland. He had taken the wife of O'Rourke, Prince of Breffni, from her husband ; and it speaks well for Ireland — that Ireland which needed the Pope's policeman, according to Mr. Froude, to keep us in order — it speaks well for Ireland that, in the day that one man took another man's wife, the whole nation rose up against him ; and all the manhood and womanhood in Ireland declared that the land of St. Patrick, the island of saints, should not af- The Last Monarch of Ireland. 253 ford standing-room for an adulterer. Dermot, the accursed, was with the Norman and Saxon invaders ; and well he knew that Ireland's lion prince was standing in the path, between the great capital of the nation and the invaders. He stole a march upon Roderick ; he came around by the sea-coast of Wexford, and entered Dublin secretly. To the amazement and indig- nation of the king, his capital was taken before he was aware. Now, what remained for him ? Suddenly he saw his friend, the holy Archbishop of Dublin, enter his camp. These two met ; and never, perhaps, since the world was created, did two grander or greater souls meet than when Laurence, the saint, met Roderick O'Connor, the Celtic king, both animated by one desire, by one passion ; and that passion and desire was to drive the Norman and the Saxon into the same Irish sea that had swallowed up the Dane, the latest of Ireland's invaders. Remember, O Irishmen, that when I mention Laurence O'Toole, I am speaking to you of a saint. Remember it, and if any man come and tell one of you that, in order to love Ireland, you must doubt or discredit Ireland's priesthood — I am here to tell you that I am speaking of the last of Ireland's saints ; and he came to the camp of the last of Ireland's kings ; and the burden of his message was : " Give me a sword that I may draw it in defense of Ireland's nationality, and scourge her in- vaders forever from her soil." Accordingly, a short time after Dublin was taken, St. Laurence O'Toole, with Roderick O'Connor, the king, advanced upon Dub- lin, and, according to authentic records, with an army of from forty to sixty thousand Irishmen. They invested the city. The O'Donnell and O'Neill, of Ulster, shut the invaders out from the sea by the side of Howth ; the Munster men, under the O'Briens and the O'Byrnes, held the sea-coast at Kingstown and Dal- key, and shut the invaders out from the sea on that side ; the O'Kinsella and his men took up position at Kilmainham ; and Roderick O'Connor occupied the site of the present Phoenix Park, or Castleknock. Unhappily, the investment was not com- plete. Strongbow was a brave man, my friends ; a man whom neither you nor I would wish to meet upon the open field ; brave as a lion, and with the heart and hand of a Norman warrior, I don't say it because I am of their Norman blood myself. No I I had rather have one drop of my Celtic mother's blood than all ^54 Roderick O'Connor, the blood in my veins other than Celtic. But still it cannot be denied that these Normans — clad in steel from head to toe ; mounted upon their war-horses, also panoplied in steel — were brave men ; the bravest, perhaps, in the world. There were only six hundred of them in Dublin, reduced to starvation by the Irish army, lying silent, in grim expectation of the time when the invaders would be compelled to yield. St. Laurence O'Toole, according to the historian Leland, went through the Irish ranks day by day, holding up the cross of Christ, and also girded with a sword, which he was prepared to draw as a prince amongst his people. Pressed with famine and reduced to desperation, Strongbow called his Norman knights together and said ; " The enemy is scattered around the walls ; his line is slender, and we may easily break through it. Is it not better to die like he- roes in the field, than to starve here like rats in a hole?" Ar- raying his men in full armor, he divided them into three bodies of about two hundred each ; Raymond le Gros taking command of one, Miles de Cogan of another, and Strongbow himself lead- ing the third ; they dashed right into the midst of the Irish army. The Celts, scattered all around, were taken completely by surprise. Not thinking of an assault, and having no previous warning, their lines were broken, and the Normans dashed right through the heart of the army, and again dashed back. Once again they charged, and the siege of Dublin was raised. The chieftains drew off their men and retired. Roderick sullenly and reluctantly withdrew at last, like a lion disappointed of his prey. The grand, royal heart of Ireland's monarch broke within him, when he heard from the lips of his friend St. Laurence, that the invaders were not to depart to-day or to-morrow, but were to remain for many a sad year. " They come," he said, in the language interpreted by Ireland's latest poet, — " They come to divide — to dishonor ; And tyrants they long shall remain." Oh ! the vision that was opened before him by the saint of God was too much for his heart. What ! Ireland dishonored ! Ire- land enslaved! Ireland losing her nationahty! He could not bear it. His heart broke within him ; and resigning crown and sceptre, he sought the cloister of Clonmacnoise, where his ancestor died in sanctity ; and there, for twelve years, the man The Last Monarch of Ireland. 255 who had braved every disaster was to live as a Canon Regular of St. Augustine. For twelve years he spent his time in prayer with God, for Ireland's prosperity and safety. No longer a king, enthroned and crowned, he could do no more for Ireland. Wisdom and strength were vain ; but he passed his days in sanctity ; ending his life in an aroma of prayer to God for the land that bore him. His eldest son he was obliged to send as a hostage to the English king; his dominions he was obliged to hold under him, not as under the power of a conqueror ; for never will history admit that Ireland was conquered by Henry II. The most that Henry ever claimed was the acknowledgment of superiority, then called ^' Haiit Stizerainte'' — that Ireland, retaining her independence, kingship, and nationality, acknowledged a nomi- nal submission to the crown of England. That was all that Henr)' II. ever claimed. He treated with Roderick O'Connor as a king. Roderick O'Connor retired into the cloisters of Clon- macnoise and there lived as a king though a monk. He died a king; and on the day when the royal tomb of Clonmacnoise was opened to receive him, he was buried with kingly honors. If England, to-day, denies the right of Ireland to her nation- ality and independence, England denies it by the greatest injus- tice, lying, treachery, and tyranny that ever one people exer- cised over another. If England, to-day, claims more than her first kings did from Ireland, she claims it without reason ; and although she has welded a chain, dripping blood, over our land for seven hundred years, England has never been able to extin- guish in the Irish soul the proud and heroic feeling that we are still a nation, and shall be a nation till the end of time. The body of Ireland's last monarch was laid in his royal grave. The nation wept over him ; and never, since his day, have we seen his like, except, perhaps, in the passing vision of the heroic Hugh O'Neill of Tyrone. Perchance the spirits of the just in heaven behold the things that take place on earth. If sorrow could enter there — where the chastened spirit of Ire- land's last monarch is crowned — Oh ! saddened would be his vision of blessedness, and chastened his eternal joy, to witness the centuries of agony, of persecution, of trial, and of wrong that have passed over his native land. But one thing we know, that the spirits of the just behold and appreciate the triumph 256 Roderick O'Connor. of justice and of truth upon this earth. Roderick, brave was thine arm, now mouldered into the dust of Ireland ; brave was the heart that throbbed in thy manly and kingly bosom with love for Ireland ! Roderick ! thou hast seen our sorrows ; but I, an Irishman and a priest, proclaim, O Roderick, that thou shalt behold our resurrection, our triumph, and our joy ! It is coming. The day approaches. O sainted king ! it approaches. The dawn is drawing near; for the sun of England is setting. Her political power is nearly gone ; her military power is nothing ; her commercial power is slipping fast from out her hands ; the natural resources of her once fruitful bosom are beginning to fail ; the mother of iron and coal is beginning to prove barren ; and when England's iron and coal are gone, England's prestige already gone, her political influence now rapidly on the wane, what remains ? What remains, O Celts ? Oh, ye Irish saints in heaven ! it remains for you to behold the resurrection and the glory of your race, who have kept your faith, held to your national love, and have never known how to resign the two most glorious ideas that can fill the mind and heart of man — a love for God above him, and for the native land that bore him ! CATHOLICITY NOT THE DANGER, BUT THE SAFETY OF THE GREAT AMERICAN REPUBLIC. [Delivered in St. Mary's Church, Perth Amboy, N. J., November 7, 1872.] DDRESSING, as I have the honor to do, an audience of American ladies and gentlemen, I must begin by reminding you that you are a young nation ; that when you compare your age with that of other peo- ples and nations, you are but as an infant in swaddling clothes^ whilst other nations are decrepit old men. Ireland was con- verted to Christianity more than one thousand years before Christopher Columbus was born. This will give you some idea of the respective ages of nations and of empires. Being thus young, two things must strike the observant and attentive mind in looking at America. First, the thinking man is sim- ply struck dumb with amazement in the face of so much mate- rial and intellectual greatness, the fruit of so few years. You are a nation but of yesterday; yet you have outstripped the oldest races and nations upon the earth in the march of civiliza- tion, in the cultivation of the sciences and the arts. You are but a nation of yesterday, and yet the oldest and the most civ- ilized peoples on the face of the earth not only take from you examples of government, models of machinery, but even upon great moral and historical questions, they send their best, and their most enlightened, and their most learned sons to make an appeal to the intelligence of America, and vindicate the actions of centuries long gone by. The second thing that must strike the attentive mind, con templating this land, is that, great as the progress has been- 17 258 Catholicity 7iot the Danger, but the Safety wonderful as the intellectual and material development is, there are still questions, the deepest, the greatest, the most vital that can affect the life and the future of any people, that are not yet decided in America. Amongst those, I hold that the very greatest is the question of religion. There lies the vital princi- ple of the source of the people's life ; there lies the great secret of their strength, of their energy, of their united action ; there lies the secret of that spiritual life which must be in a people before they can become really great. For it is not mere mate- rial prosperity, and breadth of material domain, or mineral re- sources, or might in arms, that make the true life of a people. These are the adornments of the life of a people. But the real life of a people, like the life of a man — is the spiritual life — the moral life that is within them — and this depends entirely upon that people's religion. Is this great religious question settled in America for ever and for aye ? I was greatly struck two or three months ago, on reading an article in a very clever and well-conducted New York paper, which described the vari- ous preachers and orators around that city, the multitude of varying doctrines that they taught, the contradictions that one gave to the other, and then it said : " In the midst of this hub- bub of religious controversy, America goes from one man to an- other, looking for the truth." The question, then, is not settled ; and the highest intelligence of America admits that this land is yet to choose its religion. Now, my friends, I am a Catholic priest ; and, naturally and professionally, I speak from out of the convictions of my mind and my heart, of what is called the Catholic religion ; and I assert that America is bound to become Catholic, and that Catholicity never will be a danger, but a true safety — a certain source of greatness — to this mighty land. First of all, I hold that the Catholic religion will be the true safety of America. Secondly, I will endeavor to prove the assertion, that it cannot by any possibility be a source of danger or of weakness to this land. What is the first element of the salvation of a people ? What is the first great element of a people's strength ? I answer, it is unity. You remember the familiar old adage, " Union is strength." You know that the Almighty God in heaven is omnipotence itself. And why? Because He is unity itself. of the Great Americati Republic. 259 You know that power always goes hand in hand with unity. You know how jealously the nations endeavor to keep their component elements together, and how fond they are, in cases of federal or internal importance, of saying, " Quis separabit ? " — " Who shall break us up or disunite us?" Union is strength, disunion, weakness. I need not give you the history of the land that bore me, whose history I know better than that of any other people. There I find a people disunited upon evel'y question except one ; and on that one question they were united ; upon that one question they agreed ; and that was the question of Ireland's Catholicity. The finger of England was able to erase the name of Ireland from the list of the nations, because Ireland, as a nation, was disunited. The right hand of England, battling for three hundred years, has been par- alyzed, unable to shake or to destroy Ireland's Catholicity, because, on the question of religion, England encountered a united people. When, therefore, we come to consider the real safety and greatness of a nation, the very first thing to find out is some common principle upon which you can really unite. It is upon the principle of patriotism or love of country that States are founded. If you have no rallying point ; if you have no idea upon which you can gather up all the scattered elements of the nation, and unite them in unity of thought and love, you have not even the elements of a people. Amongst those grand ideas upon which a nation rests, making millions and, perhaps, hundreds of millions united as one man, what is the strongest principle represented? I answer, it is the religious principle. Religion, a common religion professed by all, that is the strong- est central point of unity that God or man can establish in the heart of a nation. Why do I say this ? First of all, my friends, because, if you take any other one point upon which you seek to unite a people, you will find that it cannot be compared to the unity of religious thought. Let us suppose that they are united upon some grand political platform ; the circumstances of to-morrow or the next day may shake the minds of many ; the circumstances may so change that what was patriotism and sound policy to-day, may become the ruin of the nation to-mor- row. Weak minds are shaken ; they are divided ; they go off into a thousand forms of political belief with the changing cir- 2bo Catholicity not the Danger^ but the Safety cumstances of the year. " A man should stand to his princi- ples," you say. Certainly ; and be firm and unchangeable in them ; but remember that the greatest enemy the State ever had is a man who does not know how to adapt his conduct, to shape his political action, by the exigencies of the circumstances of the day. Take any other principle upon which you seek to unite a people, and you have the elements of discord and dissension in the very heart of it, just as the tint that comes in autumn lies in the heart of the rose, when it opens in the spring and in the summer of the year. There is only one principle that will never change, that remains the same forever and ever, to which men can always go, upon which they can always fall back as upon a certain rallying point that will never be wanting to them ; like the rock against which the Roman of old planted himself, and with heroic hand swept his enemies before him, because the rock was behind him to protect him. This one principle is the principle of religious union. It represents God ; it repre- sents conscience ; it represents the affirmation of the will ; it represents a man's hopes for the eternity that lies before him. These are things that do not change from the circumstances of the hour ; and the unity that springs from them is like the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in heaven ; it is a unity that can never be dissevered or broken, but must remain the same forever. The second reason why religious unity is the strongest point that can unite a people is, that on no other principle can you unite them, so as to make that principle a guarantee of their conduct and their lives. A man may belong to a political party. When the time comes for action, he may get sulky and decline to act with the party, and say : " I will not vote at this election ; I will not make a speech ; I will not use my influence among my fellow-citizens ; I will not tell them what my sentiments are." And his friends say : " He is wanting to us in the very hour of our danger." Again, a man may be subject to influences that will oblige him to draw back, and to refuse to act with his party. Unite men on any principle that you will, you are never sure of their acting up to that principle until you put the hand of God upon their conscience ; until you inclose in that religious grasp all their future hopes ; until you establish in their minds the of the Great American Republic. 261 immutable principle of eternal responsibility for thought, word, and act. Then, and only then, have you a guarantee that in the hour of difficulty, of trial, and of danger, your man will be up to the mark, because he will be afraid of God if he is not. Now, my friends, where, I ask you, is this great Republic of America to find the element of unity which will be the secret of her mighty power and strength in time to come, if she re- fuses to become Catholic ? Where is it ? Some years ago, a very learned and distinguished Englishman, a public lecturer, congratulated the English people upon the multitude of differ- ent churches and sects that were in the land. He said : " I see in the small country town, the Methodist preaching-house, the Baptist conventicle, the Quaker's modest, humble meeting- house, the old village church, with its tower and its peal of bells, the Catholic church, with its cross and its images around. I rejoice," he said, " for the multitude of these, and the multi- plication of them shows how deep is the religious principle in the English mind, and how fruitful it is in manifold forms of religious worship." Now, he embodied the very first principle of Protestantism in that remark. Remember that there are two principles upon which all relig- ion is based ; namely, the principle of authority, and the prin- ciple of a man's own reason and judgment. Every religion that exists appeals either to one or the other of these. Every relig- ion either says to man : " Be as a little child, submit your intel- ligence, be content to be taught ; when you acknowledge the logical necessity of an authoritative voice to teach you, then take the word and obey it." Or it says to him, " I have no authority ; you have authority; your own judgment, your own reason is the last, the ultimate tribunal to which I can make my appeal ; and whatever decision your own individual judgment comes to, let that be the corner-stone and the foundation of your personal belief." It is one or the other of these two. One is the principle of Catholicity, namely, the voice coming with a divine commission, and saying, " Here I am, here is my diplo- ma ; if you believe the Scriptures, see what it says of me ; it. says of me that the gates of hell shall never prevail against me. It says that the spirit of truth has come upon me to remain and to wrap me in the truth forever. It says of me that the Son of God Himself declared that He would be with me all days 262 Catholicity not the Danger, but the Safety unto the consummation of the world ; and it also says of me that I received from the lips of the incarnate God the command and the commission to go forth and to teach all nations. It says, moreover, of me that, when I lift up my voice to teach the nations, he that will not hear that voice is, in the sight of the Son of God, a heathen and a publican." These are the words of Scripture ; these are the principles upon which Catho- licity is based. Now, as to the authority. That is one and only one, and that one principle of authority is a divine commission and a divine guarantee that no falsehood can ever enter into the bur- den of the Church's teaching. Therefore, that teaching must create unity. And, in fact, ask the first Catholic man that you meet any question touching the faith; he will answer you ; and it is not he that answers, but it is two hundred millions of Cath dies the world over that speak in his voice. Ask the first Cath olic child that you meet — " Is Christ present in the Blessed Eucharist?" And with the voice of two hundred millions speaking as from one man, he will answer, " Yes, He is there as truly as He is at the right hand of the Father in heaven." On other questions we are broken up. Where is there a class of people more disunited than we Catholics are on every ques- tion ? Every man has perfect liberty. I may be at home in Ire- land a Whig or a Tory, and you may be here a Republican, or Liberal-Republican, or Democrat. Every man is at liberty. We are broken up into national sections, and there is a great deal of national antipathy, and Catholics in Ireland have no great liking for Catholics in England. The French that were fighting last year, and the Bavarians that were fighting against them, were both Catholics ; and there they were, putting each other to death. Divided by national interests, or philosophic and historic ideas, etc., as we are, the moment we fall back upon religion every solitary Catholic in the world, that knows his re- ligion, represents two hundred millions in the world. In other words, there is a perfect unity of thought, of faith, and practice in religion. How grand is this ! Is there anything like it in the world ? What is the religion that revolted against the Catholic Church and refused to adopt this principle ? It is an appeal made to the private judgment and the personal intelligence of every man. Now, I am going to say a strong thing. I shall of the Great American Republic. 263 defy any man living to find for me in the Scriptures, from the first chapter in Genesis to the last chapter in the Apocalypse, one sentence in which Almighty God can be proved to have said that the private judgment of man is to be the standard of his religion. Everywhere it is authority. In the Old Testa- ment it is : " Thus saith the Lord." This was the word on the lips of every prophet : " Hear, O Israel ; thus saith the Lord of Hosts." In the New Testament it is the same. It is still au- thority; it is authority everywhere. "Whatever the Father hath told Me, that I have told you," says Christ to his apostles. "As the Father sent Me with power so do I send you." " I am the light of the world — Ego sum lux mundi. Ye also are the salt of the earth." So do we find that nowhere in the Scriptures is the fallible, changeable judgment or reason of man made to be the standard of divine truth. Now, the principle on which every religion, outside of the Catholic Church, is based, is that changeable standard. Here is a book, the Bible — the most difficult book that ever was printed ; a book which, in itself, tells us that the unwary and unstable will pervert it to their own destruction. Take this book and find your religion in it, and whatever interpretation you put upon these given passages — those truths which have puzzled so many theologians and philosophers — that is to be your re- ligion ! What follows from this? As many religions as there are minds to interpret the written word of the Bible without a guide. I remember once a poor man in Ireland saying to me : " Your Reverence, tell me how many different religions are there out- side of the Catholic Church?" " Well," I said, " I don't know, but I imagine there must be nearly a hundred different forms of Protestantism." "Is that all, sir?" said he. " Well, that beats me completely. Your Reverence, I always thought that there ought to be a distinct form of Protestant religion for every single man that read the Bible and professed to interpret it." And he was right. Do you not perceive at once that there is the principle of disunion ? To multiply religious tests, to multiply religious tri- bunals, according to the judgment of each man, is the very principle upon which Protestantism, in the widest sense, rests. I grant you that at first sight it seems eminently intellectual. 264 Catholicity not the Danger^ but the Safety I am not a bigot. I grant you that at first sight it seems the grandest act of homage that was ever paid to the intellect of man to put into his hands the most difficult documents that have come down upon the stream of time, and to say : " You are able to interpret them ; do it." But I hold that in the day that that word was said to the human intelligence, there was a duty imposed upon the intellect of man to which that intellect was totally unequal. There was a load put upon the mind of man that no human mind unaided can bear. God has given us in- telligencers-extensive, profound, clear, and intuitive — for natural truths; and in this horizon of natural truths — embracing all the sciences, all the arts — the mind of man is at home, is perform- ing its own functions in disputing about all these things, and following out the grain of historic or scientific truth. But the moment it is a question of revealed truth, that transcends the human mind ; the moment it is a question of knowing the truth, not of the things of earth, but of those things that eye hath not seen nor hath ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive — that moment, if God does not come to the rescue, by revelation and by authority, the human mind will make as great a failure as if you called upon a man born blind to give you a description of the rising sun. Now, my friends, one or the other of these two principles lies before America. In one, namely, in Catholicity, this mighty nation finds one grand, magnificent, and vast principle of unity, which means strength. In the other, upon the most vital question of religion, the people are divided. It is a strange and significant fact that out of that religious disunion spring dis- union and dissension upon every social and political question almost in our daily life. Who can doubt it ? Are there not Irish Protestants, for instance, celebrating the " Battle of the Boyne," in which Irish blood was spilled, and because of which the Irish Catholic that day was weeping? It is a political and historical question. Why, then, do these two men of the same race and blood take such widely different views upon it ; one exulting, the other weeping? Because one is a Catholic and the other a Protestant. Why, on the anniversary of St. Patrick's day — because that Ireland first saw light through him — why do Irish Catholics parade with cannons and drums, and sometimes, perhaps, making too much noise — whilst another class of Irish- of the Great American Republic. 265 men would be only too happy to be let out with guns and revolvers to fire at the procession ? Is it not a great fact that this man came and evangelized us ? Then, why do men take such different views of a historic fact? Because one is a Protestant and the other a Catholic. And if the principle of Protestantism is to become the grand principle of religion in America, then in this mighty land the effort of the patriot, the grand designs of the statesman, the conflict of the warriors, will be marred, neutralized, ruined, by the prin- ciple of dissension that lies at the very source of the spiritual life of the people. Even at this day, if any line of imperial policy is marked out for America, or for England, or for Germany, or for any other divided country, half Protestant and half Catholic ; if any line of policy is marked out, in which, if the nation had the courage to strike out boldly and fearlessly, great emoluments would be the result, the first thing a statesman says is. How will the Cath- olic view it, and how will the Protestant view it ? What sup- port am I to command from one and from the other ? Do not the cabinets in those divided countries constantly lament with the English statesman, who said : " The real difficulty in my position as Premier of England is, that I have no will over a people who are antagonistic on every question because they are divided on religion." Think you, gentlemen, that the keen, shrewd, high, clear intelligence of America is going to commit itself forever and forever to such an anomaly as this? No. These dissensions and religious divisions have always been brought forward in seasons of trouble, when men did not reason, but allowed their passions to overcome them. America reasons well, reasons shrewdly ; and all that the Catholic Church has to do is to manifest her historical truths, and bring home to the convic- tion and intelligence of this mighty land the reasonableness of her devotion, the grandeur and logic of her faith ; and, as sure as God gave America that mind, which is His gift, so sure will the day come, and soon come, when the magnificent garb of religious unity and of Catholic faith shall fall upon the imperial shoulders of America. Secondly, " Catholicity is the safety of the great Republic," when we reflect that, next to a strong, abiding, unchangeable principle of unity, the great secret of a people's life, and 266 Catholicity not the Danger, but the Safety strength, and safety, is some agency — some organization or other that will bring honesty and morality home to every man in the land — not only with the command of a precept, but also with a penalty for their transgression. Remember, my friends, that we are so constituted, that although we may see a thing in its proper light, may acknowledge its just weight, yet we fail of acting according to our convictions because of our weakness, because of our inherent misery. How few men there are, in this world, whose actions and whose daily life correspond with their theories and ideas of what is right and what is wrong. Is there a man amongst us that can kneel down at the close of any day of his life, and question himself before his God and before his conscience : " Have I to-day — in every thought, word, and act of my life — have I lived up to my conviction and knowledge of what is right and what is wrong?" There is scarcely a man amongst us that will not be obliged to say, every day of his life : " I have been wanting in more things than one." Is it want of knowledge of what is right or wrong? No. It is from want of a sufficient pressure put upon us. The right must be forced upon us ; the wrong must come before us, not only as a thing that is forbidden, but as a thing that is for- bidden under a penalty — by a penal law. Look at the State, for instance. The State in its legislation appeals to the in- telligence of every citizen, and says: " It is a wrong thing to steal ; it is right to be honest." Does the State content itself with that ? No, my friends ; it says : " It is a wrong thing to steal. Now, if you steal, I will put you into jail." In other words, the right is forced upon us by the legislation of our country ; and the wrong is prohibited, not only by precept, but by punishment. Now, the next great element of a people's salvation, is some powerful organization appealing to the conscience — appealing to our inner soul, and the heart of every individual man, and urging upon that man public and personal morality and hon- esty, and urging it so that, if he violate one, or forget the other, that organization, or that law, will come down upon him, and punish him ; for it is by the dread of punishment, as well as by the hope of reward, that we are actuated in avoiding what is wrong and doing what is right. Wherever religion is, it must bring this power, or it is worthless. I ask you, where is this of the Great American Republic. 267 power? Where is the power that prohibits a wrong by a penal law, except in the Catholic Church ? A Protestant man, honorable, high-minded, a first-class citi- zen, sees an opening before him to do "a smart thing." He can make twenty thousand dollars by it. It is not a very fair transaction ; there is a twist in it ; there is something in it that he knows is not right ; but then twenty thousand dollars ! and nobody is the wiser. He does the thing and he makes the money. Conscience tells him that it is wrong. There is no power to urge the wrong upon him as a penal law. The Catho- lic does the same thing; but while he does it, the thought in his mind is : " Oh, this will never do ; when I go to confession, I will have to tell all this. And the worst of it is that the priest will make me give back every cent of it. If I am dying, and send for him, he won't lay his hand over me, or give me com- munion, or extreme unction, until he has first the draft of resti- tution." Give back he must every cent. A Protestant man gets angry with his neighbor, and in his anger he says : " That is a dishonest and disreputable fellow." He goes out and says things, and injures, and, perhaps, ruins the man's good name and character. He is very sorry for it afterwards ; and when he has said before God : " I am sorry that I have injured my neigh- bor," there is an end to it ; he thinks no more is necessary. The Catholic man knows that he must first break his heart with sorrow for saying that unkind word ; and when he has made restitution to his God, he has to go out and say to his neighbor : " Do you remember the day when I said such and such a fellow was a blackguard ? " " Oh, yes, I remember it very well." "Well, I told a lie that day; I was the blackguard myself." Now, people of America, I ask you to consider this great point. If the intelligence of America would only condescend to weigh the Catholic Church and Catholic morality on their own merits, the mind of America would be the most Catholic of any in the whole world. The third great element of the safety, security, and the strength of a people is the sanctity of the marriage tie ; the sanctity inviolable ; the sanctity so great that no hand in heaven, or earth, or hell can touch it to break it, except the hand of the angel of death. I say this is the third great element of the people's safety. And why ? Because of the inviolable fidelity 268 Catholicity not the Danger, but the Safety of the marriage tie, binding the husband and the wife, in not only the strongest human bond of love, but the strongest sacra- mental bond of union, upon which, as it were, one drop of the blood of Jesus Christ falls in the sacrament of matrimony, to seal it so that it cannot be dissolved ; upon it depends the pro- creation of children, so that the State may have citizens ; and the education of children, so that the State may have worthy citizens. A multitude of people are no blessing unless that multitude be educated, so as to bring out in them their intellectual, moral, and spiritual existence. To do that, the mother must be secure of her position. She must be the queen in her own house. From that throne upon which the Church of God seated her in the day when she sealed the matrimonial contract — from that throne, no hand in heaven, on earth, or in hell, must be allowed to drag that woman down. If she is not secure with the secu- rity of the sacrament — with the security, that is to say, of God — the very fountain of matrimonial love is poisoned, and the very source of all domestic happiness is embittered. How can a woman love with all her heart a man if she believes it is in that man's power to repudiate her ; to put her forth an exile, and an outcast from her house ; to separate her from her chil- dren, and drive her away from home, when his eye has become fascinated with another and a more handsome face and form than hers ? — how can she love him ? The children, too, depend alto- gether upon the mother. All that is to be brought out, of God or man, in that young soul, must be brought out by the moth- er's hand. The father is engaged in his business, and is always from home ; and he is toiling all the week ; and when he comes home, it is not for domestic care, but for domestic bliss. The mother's duty and business is at home. Under her hand the child must grow — the child which is "father to the man " — as Jesus of Nazareth grew under the hand of Mary. If that moth- er is not secure of her position — if that mother may be calum- niated and disgraced before any tribunal in the land, and then, with the divorce paper in hand, sent out into the wide world, a discarded wife, and a childless mother, what confidence have you then for the family ? Who will care for the children ? Who will educate them ? My friends, the day that modern society admitted the divorce, of the Great American Republic. 269 modern society did what Samson did in the temple of the Phi- listines — a mighty edifice, magnificent in all its proportions, crowded with all the nobility of the Philistines. Turning to his servant, he said : " Bring me over, and let me put my arms around the pillars." He was brought over to the two massive pillars on which the mighty edifice stood. He cast his strong and athletic arms around them ; he swayed his great chest to and fro ; they tottered and trembled under his grasp ; till, with a crash like the thunder of God, down came the whole building; and every man there, the Israelite leader himself included, was destroyed in the ruins. Modern society, in the day that it ad- mitted the law of divorce, shook its own pillars and founda- tions ; and if there were not a Catholic Church to uphold the falling edifice, the whole concern would come tumbling about your ears. You would be reduced, by that very act, to the first forms of barbarism and savagery, out of which modern civiliza- tion has come. Now, do you imagine, my friends, that the womanhood of America — to say nothing of the manhood — so intellectual, so well educated, and, you will pardon me for saying it, so anxious to assert their rights — do you imagine that the womanhood of America will allow this divorce business to continue? No ; no ! The woman must be the crowned queen in her own house ; and no hand, save the hand of death, must be allowed to pluck that crown from her head. The woman, in her household, must be the empress of her home and her children. The man whom she has honored by her love, must not only be the provider of her daily bread, but must do her the homage that he swore to her at the altar of matrimony. And as the Catholic Church assures to the women of America this social position and un- shaken privilege, if there is nothing else to make America Catholic, the ladies of America will do it. They will do it in self-defense. When that law of divorce was established in England, I hap- pened to be in Rome, and a Protestant lady, engaged to a Protestant English gentleman, was in Rome at the time. She heard a sermon of mine on these questions of marriage and divorce ; and she said : " I am bound to become a Catholic out of self-respect and in self-defense;" and she wrote that very day to release herself from her engagement to her Protestant lover, 270 Catholicity not the Danger but the Safety and said : "My dear friend, if you will become a Catholic, and will share with me the belief of the inviolable tie of marriage, I will marry you ; but if you do not do this, if you remain in a religion which makes divorce possible, I cannot marry you." The women of America will do it if the manhood refuse. But the manhood will not refuse. For the gentleman of Amer- ica knows that to restrain passion and to enforce the sacrament of matrimony by penal law, and to make the man atone for the sin he commits, is as necessary as the marriage tie. So, out of both great sources of society, I hold that the future of America must be Catholic. And if the day ever comes, that this mighty nation, flinging aside all this miserable discussion on what Mr. So-and-so thinks about such and such a text of Scripture, and what Mr. This and That thinks about such another text — as if it mattered a farthing what he says about the Scrip- ture if he is not inspired by God — when that day comes, and these glorious principles shall assert their dignity and majesty, terrible will be the strength of America in that day ; when, for all material and national purposes, the government of the land will know that the people, in millions or hundreds of millions, are with them like a unit, like one man ; when the national councils will be undismayed by the religious question ; when, wherever the interests of America are concerned, and wherever truth, and justice, and law are to be vindicated, the country will be enabled to draw that mighty sword with a certain and unhesitating hand, and with a united blow strike for God in heaven, and for the highest interests of man upon earth. But, our friends who are not Catholics say : "This is all very fine ; this priest shows us the advantages very well ; but what about the danger?" We constantly hear, "Beware of the Papists! beware of the Catholics! slavery! slavery!" Is Catholicity slavery? Listen. On every question outside of the religious question — the question of faith — we are as free as our fellow-citizens, and free to take this side or that in politics, or free to take this form or that form of government, or free to express our opinions upon every question, outside of the relig ious question. And why are we not free on the religious ques- tion ? For the simple reason that we know what the Church teaches ; and we know that to be the truth, and we do not feel ourselves free to contradict the truth. This is the only reason. of the Great American Republic. 271 And is that slavery, when a man feels that he is not at liberty to contradict what he knows to be the truth ? Is there a man here now listening to me, who would be capable of telling a deliberate lie, and contradicting what he knew to be true ? You would say, " I cannot do it. I know that I would be telling a lie if I did." Then if a man came to you and said : "You cannot do it ; you are a slave," you would say : " No, I am free ; for the supremacy of liberty is so to appreciate the truth as to be incapable of contradicting it." What was the definition of freedom that came from the lips of our divine Lord. I am sure that every man that believes in Christ, will admit that He is the best authority when He gives a definition of freedom. Here are His words : " You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." The knowledge of the truth is freedom, according to Christ — the best authority that I can give you — the God who made us — the God who redeemed us ; the knowledge of the truth is freedom. I will prove it to you. Suppose that you were all Protestants, and that I was a Protestant minister — the Lord between us and harm! — and that I came here to speak to you on a religious question which I had been studying for the last five years or more, until my brain became a little crazy on it. For instance, I had come to the conclusion that the Gospel was a myth, and that there never was such a person as our Lord at all ; that having read what Voltaire said, and what Spinoza said, and what somebody else said, and thinking what historical works have been con- tradicted, I said : " Why should not the Gospel be contradicted ? " and I come to the conclusion that the whole thing is a humbug; and I come before you this evening, and you are all Protestants, and supposing me to be an eloquent man, with great powers of persuasion ; and I began to tell you the whole Gospel was a lie ; and I denied Jesus over and over ; and I hammered upon it with energy of action, with splendid diction, with beauty of illustration, with poetic imagery, until, at last, I persuaded half of the people who were listening ; and you said : " It is true ; the man is speaking truth ; the Gospel is a humbug ! " Now, I ask, what defense would you have for your religion against my eloquence and persuasiveness ? None whatever ; because it has been a question of what is true and what is false, and you cannot tell yourself which is right. 2'J2 Catholicity not the Danger but the Safety But I may be a Catholic; and I come to you and preach to you, and as long as I am speaking of any question connected with the Church, you hear me ; and if I bring it out forcibly, and if I illustrate it beautifully, you are delighted. But suppose I just let slip a word against the Catholic faith ; suppose I gave a hint that Christ was not present in the Eucharist ; or gave a hint that the priest could not forgive sin, every Catholic would rise up and say: " Unmantle him!" Every Catholic would rise up and shut his ears, and say : " No more of this ; that's a lie ! " What is it that saves a Catholic from the most terrible form of tyranny that can be exercised, namely, the tyranny of a superior intellect trying to oppress a lower? What is it that saves you from this ? It is the fact that you know the truth. You would say to him : " I know what the Catholic Church teaches ; and she is wiser than either you or I. You are con- tradicting her now ; and you are a liar ! " Therefore, Catholi- city is not slavery. It is the highest and the grandest form of intellectual freedom, if freedom be — as Christ declares it is — the knowledge of the truth. The next great difficulty is, " Ah ! if America become Catho- lic, you priests and bishops, you will have a good time of it then. You have a knack of increasing and multiplying ; and we should have the whole country overspread with priests ; nothing but priests ; it will be old Italy over again ; a priest in every house ; a priest sticking his nose into every man's busi- ness ; a priest laying hold of this, that, and the other." My friends, there is nothing easier than to get up a cry against a man, or a body of men. And as a Quaker gentleman once said : " You might as well hang a dog at once as to give him a bad name." What is easier than to say of a dog that is going across the street, that the dog is mad, and if you cry " Mad dog, mad dog," you would have a crowd at the unfortunate animal's heels, and they would run him to death. Pretty much like this mad dog case is the cry, " Priest, priest! " Now, I put the question this way. First of all, the priest is by edu- cation a gentleman. I don't care what he is by birth. He must learn so much of Latin and Greek, and philosophy and his- tory. So that by education he must be a gentleman. Now, no gentleman pokes his nose into other people's business. I have been for above twenty years a priest, and I never yet crossed of the Great American Republic. 273 the threshold of any man's house without being first invited. I waited until I was asked. I will tell you what is more ; as a rule, the priest has to be invited oftener, and pressed harder than any other man before he goes, because he has a good deal to do, and cannot afford to lose time. Again, it is said, " Oh, but you'll gather up all the money in the country ; you will beggar us all. If America were Roman Catholic, you would have the bishops and priests rolling in money, nothing but gold and silver and greenbacks would it be ; we want nothing to do with them." Listen, again, my friends. The Catholic Church in her religious orders obliges every man, before she raises him to the priesthood, to swear a solemn oath of poverty, that he will never lay his hand upon so much as one cent, and say : " I want this for myself" That vow I made twenty-five years ago. I have been in the way of making money as much as any man. One cent I could not take and say, " This is mine, I will take it for myself." If I did that I would be guilty of sin. And all that you have to do is to multiply the cents, until you get three or four dollars, and that would make a mortal sin, and would send me to hell for all eternity. We hear a great deal about the wonderful wealth of the bish- ops and priests ; yet when we come to know the truth, they are as poor as Job — men who might be rich through ability, educa- tion, and talent, if they had lived for themselves in many of the walks of life. " Oh! Father," some men have said to me,, •' if we had you among us at the Bar, you would make a skillful lawyer." And I was once told by a comedian, " Oh ! Father Tom, you mistook your vocation ; if you had gone on the stage you would have made a fortune long since." And yet I am as poor as Job. And there is, not a hundred miles from, this plat- form on which I stand, a bishop, who has brains and intellect and education that might have lifted him to the very supremacy of affairs in America, and he is only a bishop, and poor as Job. A bishop in France will consider his fortune as made if he can get a thousand dollars or two thousand dollars a year ; and out of that he has to support all the poor of the parish ; he has to contribute to all the hospitals, and then to look after the schools, and he has to keep himself with a certain amount of grandeur — because one of the titles of a bishop in France is vatre grandeur. It is very hard, my friends,, when you have 18 274 Catholicity not the Danger, but the Safety given away to the schools, and hospitals, and churches, to be grand on a fourth part of a thousand dollars a year. When th». Pope's enemies went to Rome they thought they would find him wealthy ; but they found a man who has been twenty-five year. Pope of Rome, and his personal expense for his food and clothes, and everything else, never exceeded one hundred and twenty pounds sterling a year. Six hundred dollars kept him. We cannot be rich, and why? Because the Catholic priest is bound to preach the Gospel that says : " Blessed are the poor in spirit ; " and the Catholic bishop is bound not to tell a lie, when he has spoken in the name of God, nor to contradict it by his own actions. Where is the danger of America from Catholicity? Is Cath- olicity opposed to a republican form of government ? I answer from the history of the mediaeval republics of Italy ; they were the freest republics which ever existed — the republics of Genoa, and Tuscany, and Venice — and they were formed under the immediate patronage and protection of the Church of Rome. For hundreds and hundreds of years the little Re- public of San Marino, which is only one hill, with a few hun- dred families with their little huts, has been a republic — yes, for more than a thousand years. There it was by the side of the Pope, and, instead of crushing out the little State, he pro- claimed its liberty. And, accordingly, the few families of San Marino have been making laws for themselves for more than a thousand years. It is true that the Catholic Church herself is a monarchy. It could not be anything else. The meaning of the word is derived from the Greek monos, one, and archos, a ruler — one ruler, or chief. It must be so in religious or church matters. We must recognize a head. But one of the most glorious governments that the Catholics ever established and protected was the government that the Jesuits established in South America ; and that was a republic. Let no man say that a republic is opposed to Catholicity. On the contrary, the greatest enemy that the Catholic Church has ever had in her way was an old, pedantic, narrow-minded despot, who en- deavored to oppress the people with one hand, and to strike down the Church with the other, that he might make a god of himself. It is to the people that the Catholic Church appeals. There is no government in the world this iroment that is not of the Great American Republic. 275 opposed to her, is not trying to strike her to the earth. It is to the people that she appeals. And as long as the people have the making of their own laws, as long as they have the shaping of their own institutions, as in this country to-day, so long Catholicity will flourish here more than under any other government upon earth, I think, my friends, I have sufficiently proved my theme — that Catholicity is much more likely to be the safety than the danger of the great American Republic. What remains? It remains for such amongst the audience as have honored me this evening, who are not Catholics, to consider, intellectually and deeply, these words of mine ; what truth is in them. And it remains for you, my Catholic friends, to build up the glorious argument of the Church's liberty, the Church's purity, the Church's unity and sanctity, and to corroborate it by the manli- ness, and honesty, and sobriety, and sanctity of your own lives. Vain, vain, as is the hum of a summer bee, will be the word of the Catholic apologist or lecturer, if America be able to turn around and say : " Here are the people who are supposed to illustrate it ; and their lives are not the lives of worthy citizens." But when we are able, as we advance those glorious truths, to show that our lives are not opposed to our logic and convic- tions, we can say to the world : " Look at the great, generous heart of America ; look at these Catholics. Where have you better citizens? Have you more honest or patriotic men in the State ? Where are the m.en more able to make the laws for America, and more willing to go out into the gap, and shed their blood and give their lives in defense of America's freedom, than the Catholics ? " Then, indeed, my friends, the argument will be irresistible. America will come — young, glorious, mighty in intellect, mighty in material power, mighty in energy, in human force — she will come to demand of God, at the hands of the Catholic Church, the crowning grace of unity of faith and sacramental sanctity, which the Catholic Church alone can throw around her ; and, with this crown on her laureled brows, the ancient despotisms of the world will bend the knee in craven fear, and do homage to magnificent Columbia. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN AMERICA. [Lecture delivered in St. Patrick's Church, New Orleans, La., on January 13, 1873.] EAR Friends : Any one who wi.shes to mark atten- tively the course of events of this world must recog- nize in all that he sees around him the hand of God and the hand of the devil ; God influencing all things for good, and the devil coming in on all sides and trying to spoil God's work. Now, amongst the works of God, the greatest is the Christian religion and the Catholic Church ; and amongst the many means the devil employs to gain his end, namely, that of spoiling the work of God — one great lever that he makes use of is, to inspire the nations and the peoples with a kind of dread and fear of the Catholic Church. He says to the nations; "Don't listen to her; don't hear her voice at all ; don't have anything to say to her. She is bad. She will corrupt you, she will bewitch you." He gives them no reason for this. He has no reason for it. Nothing must strike a man more at first sight than the strange repugnance and unreasoning fear with which so many sectarians, Protestants and others, regard the Catholic Church. I remember, some years ago, a very enlightened, highly-cultivated English lady came to Rome with her daugh- ter. The daughter became a Catholic, and I received her into the Church. Her mother came to me the same day, wild with grief, the tears streaming from her eyes — a heart-broken woman. She says : " What have you done to my child ? Oh ! you wicked man, what have you done to my child? You have ruined my child and broken my heart." I said : " How is that ? " ''* Well," she said, " you have made a Catholic of my daughter." • Yes ; that is true. Under God, I have been the means of The Catholic Church in America. 277 making a Catholic of her. But do you think that is sufficient reason for breaking your heart? " "Yes, it is," said she. I said to her: "You are a well-educated lady; I simply ask you one question : What point is there in the teachings or in the practice of the Catholic Church that you object to? " She paused for a moment. " Well," she said, " I don't know ; but I know that you have bewitched my child and broken my heart." " Can you find fault," I said, "with any one doctrine of the Catholic Church that your child has embraced ? " She said she could not. And yet the woman acknowledged to me, " If my child had renounced God and declared herself an atheist, I would not be so grieved as I am for her to become a Catholic ; " and that without any reason under heaven ; without knowing the why or the wherefore — without being able to find the slight- est cause. Well, as it happened, within twelve months I had the happiness to receive this same mother into the Church, and make a good Catholic of her. My friends, amongst the nations through which I have travel- ed, nowhere have I found this distrust and fear of the Catholic Church more unreasoning and more powerful than in America. I generally enter freely into conversation with people — strangers with whom I am thrown in contact. But sometimes I have met people, to whom if I say " Good-morning," they will move off as if they heard the rattle of a rattlesnake. Sometimes I have been obliged to say, "You needn't be afraid of me; I am a priest, but I will not eat you." "Well, this is the first time in my life that I ever spoke to a Catholic priest. Do you know, I think I would rather not have anything more to say to you." But I reason with him; I ask him, "What fault have you to find? Why are you afraid of me?" "Well, nothing particular; but I don't know. It is a subject I avoid ; I will not have anything to say." Then, by a little pressing, I get the man into an argu- ment, and I find that he hasn't a single clear idea about the Catholic Church ; that he doesn't know a thing about it; that he is frightened at a bugbear — an imagination — a creation of his own fancy, like the monsters which the Chinese make, to carry before them in battle, at the sight of which their enemies turn and run away. So, Protestantism, for three hundred years, has been making a most horrible bugbear of the Catholic Church, giving it horns, 278 The Catholic Church in America. hoofs, and tail, a flaming tongue of fire, and great goggle eyes, and says to the men of the nineteenth century, who boast of their intelligence, " Don't look at it ! Don't speak to it ! Run away! It will bewitch you. Hate it ! Detest it ! Don't trust the Catholic Church ! If you do, she will put an end to your liberties, your happiness, your all ! " And the big boobies of the nineteenth century get frightened and run away. Now, the subject on which I propose to address you this evening is the glorious theme that the Catholic Church is not the dan- ger, but, under God, the future salvation of this grand and mag- nificent Republic of America. I confess to you, my friends, that, as firmly as I believe in the Catholic religion, convinced as I am that that is the only true religion ; convinced as I am that that Church, under God, is the only means of salvation, out of which there is no salvation, save and except under the mean pretext of invincible ignorance — which means that if men knew a little more they would be damned ; they are just ignorant enough to be saved — a little knowledge would be the ruin of them — believing all this, I would not have the heart nor the courage to speak to the people of America, and preach Catholicity to them, if in the secret recesses of my heart and mind I had the faintest idea that the Catholic religion would be dangerous to the State. In this age of ours, men are not even willing to accept the Kingdom of Heaven at the cost of any great sacrifice. If God would offer them heaven on condition of giving up certain advantages, they would be unwilling to accept it at such a price. But no single earthly advantage is sacrificed, but everything is gained, when a nation rises up, as Ireland rose up under the hand of St. Patrick, and like one man opens its eyes and heart to Catholicity. First, let us reason a little on this great theme. I suppose all men, Protestant and Catholic alike, acknowledge that when Christ, our Lord, founded our religion on this earth. He founded that religion for the express purpose of saving the world — that that religion was to be the salvation of mankind. Now, from what did Christ purpose to save the world. What was the evil that he came to remedy? Answer — the first evil our Lord came to remedy was ignorance — ignorance the most deplorable, the most profound. Could anything be more terrible than the state of ignorance in which Christ found the world ? Men of The Catholic Chirch in America. 279 intelligence, splendid minds, varied and profound genius, bowed down and worshiped their own vices and their own wickedness, and called those vices God. The whole world worshiped im- purity under the name of Venus ; they worshiped dishonesty under the name of Mercury, who was the god of thieves; re- venge under the name of Mars ; every vice and passion, even to the passion of avarice, that eats the heart out of the miser, which they adored under the name of Plutus, who was the pro- tector of riches and of those that sought them. It was bad enough to be ignorant of the truth ; but they went further ; they not only lost sight of heaven, but, not content with the darkness of earth, they went groveling down into hell, to find their God there. The second evil that Christ found in the world, wide-spread, was the evil of impurity, sapping and destroying the vital ener- gies, physical and mental, and the power and strength of men. He found as soon as manhood began to dawn upon them, as soon as they began to feel the throbs of virile blood in their veins — He found them yielding to every prompting of the baser instincts, going out ravening to gratify the strong, unreasoning, earthly passions that poisoned the spring of life, and destroyed all hope of future manhood. He found impurity all over the world, so that the virtue of chastity was not only not to be found amongst men, but it was not even known amongst them — it had no name. His Virgin Mother, the purest of God's crea- tures, had her virginity laid as a reproach upon her. From this impurity it would follow that there was no such thing as the family circle, with its blessed and holy influences. The Roman wife was a slave, dependent upon the mere caprice of her hus- band, who, when time had worn the bloom off her cheek, ex- changed her for another, and a fairer, and a younger woman. In the third place, Christ found the evil of dishonesty. No man's word was to be depended upon ; commercial honesty seemed to have perished. The old straightforward manner of the first republican Romans had departed ; and in the tottering, effete empire, dishonesty — commercial, social, international — was the order of the day. These were the diseases under which the world suffered. Men sinned because they knew no better ; they were ignorant. They were steeped in impurity — their manhood was gone out 28o The Catholic Church in America. of them, so that a few thousand barbarians easily broke up and smashed to pieces the mighty Roman Empire, and overcame those once invincible legions, that had given law to the whole world. And dishonesty had crept into every rank of life ; soci- ety was rapidly breaking up into chaotic elements. What did Christ say and do? He told men that he had come down from heaven expressly to teach them, in order that all men might know the truth. He emphatically declared that from His lips, and from the lips of those He appointed to teach them, the world should gain — not a spirit of inquiry, my friends, not a spirit of Protestantism looking for the truth. No ! But He said : " You shall know the truth ; you shall have knowledge of it, fixed, clear, and definite, and in that knowledge you shall find your freedom ! You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free ! " And then the Son of God laid His hand upon a little child and said : " Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God ! " And to all men He said : " Unless you become even as this little child, you shall not enter the kingdom." As if He would say : " Behold this child ! no impure thought has ever soiled its innocence ; no un- lawful crime or sinful passion has ever entered its breast. Unless you become as this little child, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven ! " And then He declared the sacred principle of conscience — that every man should act to his fellow-men as he would wish them to act to him ; that every man who perpe- trated an outrage or injury should not enter heaven until he repaid the last farthing ! He established the principle of social, commercial, and international honor — truth, chastity, and hon- esty ! Behold the three elements of the religion of Christ — the three grand sanitary powers that He put into His Church when He declared it to be the salt of the earth. It is by truth, chastity, and honor that the Church has saved, is saving, and is destined unto the end to save the world. Without truth, chastity, and honor, there is no salvation for the people. Reflect, first, upon truth. Why is truth the salvation of the people ? For many reasons. I will give you only one. I don't know that it is the highest reason, but it is the one that bears the most directly upon myself. The salvation of a people lies in unity. To be a unit is the first necessity of a people. Christ, our Lord, Himself declares that a house divided against itself The Catholic Church in America. 281 must fall. And the first element of national existence and national progress is. that the people should be united ; and the enemy of public freedom and the liberty of the people in all ages, has always begun his infernal work by trying to create divisions and dissensions amongst them. I might point, as an illustration, to Ireland, the Niobe of nations, the martyred mother who bore me. For seven hundred years we have groaned beneath the tyrant's hands, pitiless and unrelenting, unrelaxing in his grasp. Why ? Because he governed a divided people. It was but the other day that an eloquent English- man, in New York, said, in our very teeth, that Ireland was a slave because she was divided ; and on the day that she was united no power under heaven could bind her into slavery for a single hour. Union being the first element of national existence and prog- ress, I ask. What is the first element of this union ? What is the strongest bond that can bind a people together and keep them together? I answer at once, the principle of religious unity ; it is the most sacred of all bonds, because it is the most abiding, the most unchanging ; it is a bond fixed by Almighty God Himself. Nations are sometimes made one by the acci- dental circumstances of conquest. But that union that is ef- fected by the sword must be preserved by the sword, or it ceases to exist. Take the union of Ireland and England. It was ef- fected by the sword — a sword that was never allowed to rust as long as there was Irish blood at hand to keep it clean and bright by the tears and blood of the people. But that sword has begun to rust to-day. It is no longer the powerful falchion it once was in the hand of a fearless nation. It rusts in its scabbard ; the nation that owns it is afraid to draw it ; and the people of Ireland are waiting, waiting, thinking that the rust will come over the brightness of the blade : and the moment it does, that moment, the union which was effected by the sword will be broken by the sword. Why? Because such a bond is not of heaven, but of earth. Again, the accidental circumstance of mutual consent may bind nations together. For instance, the various States of this American Union — they have agreed and united upon the basis of mutual independence and State rights. So they have been united, and so they are united ; and may God in heaven bless 282 The Catholic Church in America. that Union, and inspire every American citizen, great and small, no matter who he be, with respect for the sacred principles which the nation adopted ; for it is only by respecting those, on the solid foundation of the law, that a people can be kept together. Nations, again, may be bound together by mutual commer- cial interests. England and France made a commercial treaty a few years ago. But France found the treaty worked disad- vantageously to her, and so dissolved it ; and the entente cordiale of which we heard so much was broken. There is only one bond that can bind a people and keep them together in a union that can never be destroyed, and that is, the union of heart, soul, mind, and sympathy that springs from one undivided and common faith. Every other bond may be shattered, and yet a people remain essentially one. Every other preserving element of a race may be destroyed, and yet a people will retain their national individuality, alive and vig- orous, in spite of everything on earth, because their union comes from God. Behold a case in point. For seven hundred years the people of my native land have been subjected to a series of the most terrible persecutions and trials that ever any nation in the world suffered. Her enemies wished to break in pieces the individuality of Ireland, so that the disjecta membray the broken fragments, might be cast into every nation on the earth, and amalgamate with them ; and that the Irish, as a people, might be wiped out from the face of the earth. For seven hundred years, in spite of the fact that the Irish were divided on every other point, in councils, in politics, in sympa- thies — even in race and blood — Ireland preserved her nation- ality ; and to-day represents a compact, strong, individualized nationality, full of life, youth, vigor, intellect, and energy. Why? Because God blessed us, in the midst of our misfor- tunes, with the blessing from heaven of religious unity. Now, I ask you, as reasoning men, as you are, did Christ say any- thing about the idea of unity? The night before the Son of God suffered on the cross. He had His apostles around Him ; at the Last Supper He lifted up His eyes and hands to heaven, and made His prayer for His apostles, and His Church, and for every man. What do you think He prayed for? He said: " O Father ! I pray for these that they may be one. Keep The Catholic Church in America. 283 them in unity, as you, Father, and I are one." He repeated this over and over again, and every apostle of them took up the same message. Thus says St. Paul : " Brethren, let there be no division among you, no schism, no heresy. I pray you in the Christ and the Holy Spirit, that ye be of one mind." These are the words of St. Paul. Therefore, that unity spring- ing out of religion, a common faith, enters distinctly into the ideas as it entered into the prayer of Christ. The next question is, Where does that religious unity exist? Let us, for a single instant, suppose that the Catholic Church no longer exists in America. Have you, then, left, a single principle of religious unity? Not one ; not one. The Unita- rian denies the inspiration of the Bible. You say there is one common idea in the Protestant sect — that is, the divinity of Christ. Not at all. I can take you to Protestant churches in New York and Brooklyn, and before you are there five minutes you will hear the preacher deny the divinity of Christ. Not a principle of religious unity outside the Catholic Church — but in its place you have Shakers, and Quakers, and Baptists, and Anabaptists, and Methodists, and Mormons. In the midst of them all ; in the midst of the jarring discord, the sounds of their bickering and quarreling ; in the midst of their mutual hurling of damnation at each other, one having as much au- thority to do it as the other, rises the awful figure of the Cath- olic Church, gigantic in her proportions, towering over the whole world, many-tongued in her voice, for her word is heard in every tongue in which man expresses his sorrows and his joys ; crowned with two thousand years of undisputed glory ; stand- ing upon a pedestal sunk deep upon the rock of ages, and built up with the blood of her martyrs ; there she stands, speaking the self-same words that she spoke two thousand years ago, preaching the same truth, proclaiming the same authority : " I come from God. My message is from God. I stood by the Saviour at His cross. I stood by His empty tomb on Easter morning. I stood with the fiery flames over my head on the day of Pentecost. I speak th-e words I have always spoken, and defy the whole world to contradict me in one word of my speech." She alone can create unity, because she alone will permit no man to contradict her. As she has her message from God, and as that message must be as true as God, who sent it, 284 The Catholic Church in America. the man who contradicts it must be a liar, he must be an enemy of the truth, and a contradictor of the truth ; and the moment he raises his voice against the Church, though he were the first of her bishops, or the most powerful king in the world, the Church shuts his mouth with her hands, and says : " Kneel down and repent — or else, let the curse of excommunication be upon you. Begone, to wither and die, and fall into hell ! " What is the great difficulty with the nations to-day ? For fifteen hundred years the nations were united in their faith. No nation was Christian that was not also Catholic. But Luther came, and the nations were divided. One of the most cele- brated and greatest statesmen that ever lived, was William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, who governed, as Prime Minister, Eng- land and Ireland, in 1800, the year that Lord Castlereagh, that amiable man, who afterward cut his throat, made the union between England and Ireland. Pitt was decidedly one of the greatest minds in England, yet he was obliged to resign the Premiership, he declaring he could no longer govern England and Ireland, because the people were divided in their religion. He solemnly promised the Catholics he would grant them emancipation in 1800 — twenty-nine years before it was forced — he pledged his almost royal word that it should be done. But as soon as it was known in England, and as soon as Protestant Ireland knew it, they raised such a clamor, that the very greatest man in the three kingdoms resigned his position, and declared it was impossible to govern a people divided in religion. Two hundred years ago, in 1640, Charles I. promised to relax the penal laws against the Catholics. He saw their injustice. The moment that it was known in England, such was the turmoil and threats, that the king was obliged to break his royal word, and put his broken promise in his pocket, and let the misery go on. The present Prime Minister of England is a very fair-minded man, if they would only let him. He sees the injustice with which Catholics are treated. He sees that whilst every petty Protestant school in Ireland has its endowment and its charter, when the whole Irish nation founded a university in Ireland, they refused to give them a charter. They didn't ask for a halfpenny, only a charter. Gladstone would be glad to do it ; but he is afraid. The Catholic Church in America. 285 One of the grandest ideas of this age of ours was the unifica- tion of Germany. Bismarck, a man of wonderful genius, conceived that idea and carried it out practically — a magnificent achieve- ment ; but he is so shortsighted as to be now at work ex- asperating sixteen millions of the German people who are Catho- lics, by persecuting their religion, shutting up their schools, driv- ing out their nuns and Jesuits, and closing their hospitals. He is doing a foolish thing ; but he can't help it, because the majority of the nation decided he must do it. I must say, as a student of history, that while they lay to our doors the charge of persecution, nowhere do we read in the annals of the world of persecution carried on with so much gusto and enjoyment as the persecutions of Protestants when they have the upper hand. You see it to-day in Germany. The Protestants there have but a small majority, but they exercise their power piti- lessly. How easy it would be for Bismarck to avoid all this, if Germany were again all Catholic, as she was under Charles V. ! How easy it would be for Gladstone to govern England and Ireland, if they were a unit in religious faith ; for when this great screw in the political union is loose, the whole machinery is rickety, and is liable to come to pieces at once. The Catholic Church alone can rivet it. And yet men say that the Catho- lic Church is dangerous to America. The Catholic Church will be dangerous to America when disunion, mutual distrust, and mutual disaffection become one of the elements of the greatness of a nation, and not until then. The next element of greatness, power, and strength in a na- tion is the virtue of purity. Every evil, every sin, in the long run, no matter how pleasant it may be at the moment, and every act committed by a nation, as well as an individual, in the long run, although a hundred years may elapse, the punish- ment may be traced back to the crime that caused it. The vice of impurity has this peculiarity, that it is destructive not only of the individual, but of the race ; and it is noticeable, that though in punishing other crimes, God visited individuals, in punishing this. He has afflicted whole nations. And, finally, honesty is an element in the greatness of a peo- ple. It is getting scarcer every day. Some time ago I was in a railway carriage, and a gentleman quoted the poet : " An honest man 's the noblest work of God," when another man 286 TJie Catholic Church in America. cried from the other end of the carriage: "I am sorry to say that God Almighty doesn't seem to spend much of his time producing works of that kind nowadays." I don't speak from experience ; I know nothing about society ; I don't belong to it ; I belong to the cloister. I find those amongst whom I live are honest. It is easy to be honest amongst us, for we haven't any- thing, so nobody can take anything from us. But I read the papers, and hear great complaints of commercial dishonesty. If, then, O people of America ! — if union, founded upon the grand principle of religious unity, if the preservation of strength, manhood, genius, and intellect — if honesty, public and private — if these three things are necessary for you in America, you must come to the Catholic Church to get them, because you cannot get them elsewhere. If, on the other hand, these things are danger- ous, then the Catholic Church is a danger to America. If Amer- ica looks upon these things as dangerous — any nation that looks upon religious knowledge and unity, upon purity and chastity, upon public and private honesty — any nation that looks upon these things as dangerous, is already self-condemned. But Amer- ica does not look upon these things as dangerous. No. The in- telligence that has been thus born and cradled in freedom never yet turned away from the glorious light of the Catholic Church, but sooner or later turned to it. The nation that has opened her imperial bosom, irrespective of previous antecedents, to all who have been driven from other nations by religious or politi- cal tyranny, that nation, sooner or later, will become Catholic; and in the day when mighty America becomes Catholic, in the day when the genius of Catholicity — the foster-mother of human liberty, the guardian of human purity, the proud shield of the dignity of womanhood, the splendid and unchanging voice pro- claiming herself the strong preserver of public and private hon- esty — in the day when the genius of this Catholicity enters into the mind and heart of America ; when this mighty people will be united as one man by the sacred union of religious unity, based upon freedom, based upon integrity, and upon justice — tell me, is there any man living — tell me, is there any philoso- pher upon earth, poet or orator, whose vivid imagination can approach to the magnificent realities, the intellectual, moral, and physical grandeur that America will present to the world in that glorious day that is before her ? MARY, THE MORNING STAR. [Sermon preached in the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, New York, en Thursday evening, September 26, 1S72, the proceeds to be given to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, for the use of the poor of the parish.] Y Friends, you have assembled here, this evening, on the noblest occasion that could bring you together — namely, in the cause of the stricken poor of God. Recognizing the beauty of your charity, and the no- bility of the nature that has brought you together, I have selected for your entertainment the most magnificent theme that could occupy the mind, or dwell upon the lips of mortal man — The Blessed Virgin Considered as the Morning Star, First of all, observe, that there is a wonderful analogy between the things of nature and the things of grace ; because the Almighty God is the God of nature as well as of grace. One of the peculiar features of the Catholic Church and the Catholic religion — one of the strongest arguments to fortify the Church and religion — is the manner in which the Catholic worship meets harmoniously and naturally all the wants, all the natural crav- ings and tendencies of the heart of man. God has made us with certain aspirations, certain wants that are natural to us ; and He has provided for these in the Catholic Church, and in that Church alone. Thus, for instance, nothing is more natural to man than to unburden himself of some secret which has pressed him to the very earth, which has burdened his heart, and which he cannot bear alone. The Catholic Church only provides him with a friend to whom he may confide that secret with perfect confidence and trust, and from whom he can receive not only the highest consolation, but also complete relief for all his mental agony — the confessor to whom he kneels in the tribunal of Penance. 288 Mary, the Morning Star. Now, amongst the objects which nature presents to us, there is nothing, perhaps, more beautiful than the morning star. The shades of night are thick upon the earth ; the black clouds cover the firmament ; the storm, perhaps, has passed in all its fury, and swept over the world at the dark midnight hour; and men, awaked from their slumbers, have been terrified. The sailor on the vasty deep has almost despaired of that life which he has trusted to the treacherous element on which he lives. But, when the morning hour approaches, a faint light is seen over the eastern horizon ; it brightens, crowning the Orient hills with a golden splendor. Out of that light — the promise of the com- ing day, there rises a pale, silvery, beautiful star ; trembling, as if afraid to encroach upon the domain of night, it rises in its solitary beauty over the eastern hills ; it tells of the coming day ; it is the herald and messenger of the sun, that lies, as yet, hid- den under the eastern waves, and under the deep shadows of the hills. The moment the sailor, in his storm-tossed bark, sees that star, he hails it as the sure harbinger of the coming day. The moment the lonely traveler, out on the desolate moor-land, perceives it, he knows that presently his bewildered way will be brightened by the rising sun. The very hills seem to bow in reverence towards the messenger of the coming day. And the star, meantime, rises slowly above the horizon, as resplendent as the moon, because of the thickness of darkness around. Gradually, the aurora of the dawn of day spreads its light across the heavens; until, at length, comes the splendor of the rising sun. Then the morning star gradually loses itself in the bright- er and greater light. It was a beautiful thing to behold — the very ideal of modesty, in its solitary, trembling ascent towards heaven. The light that illumined the morning star, when it first rose over the horizon, was the light of the sun, which had not yet appeared to the eyes of man. It was reflected light, not its own. But all this beauty came from the fact that, at the mo- ment of the dawn, the morning star alone was seen ; and in that star were concentrated all the rays of the coming glory which was about to rise. Can anything be imagined more beautiful than this? The world, as it were, prepared for its splendor, by the darkness of the night; its beaming, full of hope, announcing the certainty of the coming day, another bright day of sunshine, to gladden Mary, the Morning Star. 289 the hearts of men. It hns the splendor of the reflected light of the sun which was to follow in its wake, and to rise upon that very point of the eastern horizon where the morning star rose before. The flowers, drooping during the night, open slowly their leaves, turnmg their petals towards the East. The lark, shaking the dew off his wing, rises out of the corn-field with a song of gladness, as if ambitious to catch sight of the rising sun before his beams can shine on earth. The herds in the fields rise from their nightly rest to greet the coming day. Can anything be imagined more beautiful in nature than the beauty of hope — the beauty of its brightness — the beauty of its silvery light ; than the beauty of the message it brings to this darkened earth ? No ; nothing can be imagined more beautiful in nature than the morning star, as it rises over the eastern hills. Now, God, the Son of God, the Eternal Son of the Father, when He was made man — the illuminating Sun of the earth — the true Light, the Light of life — He selected for Himself a messenger that was to go before His face; that was to proclaim the hour of His approach; that was to reflect the splendor of His light in the glory of her sanctity, before that light was to burst forth in the person of her divine Son on the earth. And in that harmony with which Almighty God binds together, with beau- tiful links, the things of heaven and the things of earth — the things of nature and the things of grace — He selected the name- of the woman that was to herald His coming ; and that woman was Mary — in the Syriac language, Myria ; which means a star rising in the darkness. And, therefore, to her, much more than to the saint of whom it was written, may we apply the words of the Scripture : " Like the morning star in the midst of the cloud ; like the moon in the midst of her rays ; yea, like the sun when he shines, so did she shine in the very temple of God," morning after morning, the promise of hope and of all light. Oh ! my dearly beloved, let us consider her as she appeared; in the designs of God. Let us consider her as she shone here upon the earth. Let us consider her in her subsequent shining, as she shines to-day in heaven. We shall behold throughout, the triple glory of the Morning Star, the purest and the fairest of all God's creatures, whoj like an unspotted mirror, throws back upon the earth, the undiminished bright- 19* 290 Mary, the Morning Star. ness and the concentrated rays of all the sanctity and of all the graces of God. Let us consider her as she appears before our eyes, as Almighty God rends the veil of His divine revelation, when the Evangelist of Patmos was privileged to stand in spirit at the very gate of heaven, and to look back into the things that were begun before the earth was made ; before the mountains were formed ; before the hills were set upon their bases ; before the waves of the sea had begun to roll under the passing breeze that flitted over its bosom. He stood for a moment, by divine inspiration, at heaven's gate. Almighty God lifted up the veil that concealed the past from human ken. What was the first thing the Evan- gelist beheld ? He exclaims, with cries of joy, and as if unable to contain himself with delight : " I beheld a great sign which appeared in the heavens ; a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet ; and on her head a crown of twelve stars ! " This woman was Mary, the Queen of Heaven, the Morning Star, as she appeared before the eyes of the inspired Evangelist. The next thing that he beheld, when God opened, as it were, the golden gates of that sanctuary of His divine Being and eternal council ; there, in the very light of God ; that light in- accessible in which God dwells from the beginning ; there, in the very full blaze of the divine counsels, enshrined, surrounded by light ; there, in the very heart and mind of God, did the Evangelist behold, with eyes illuminated by inspiration, the vision of Mary ; for so it was. We know that the decree of man's redemption was eternal. We know that from the first of that eternity that never had a dawning. Almighty God, by His will, accomplished, in the order of grace, the redemption that was already determined in His unbeginning, eternal, immutable decrees. Therefore it is, that the Holy Ghost, in Scripture, says, that the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, is " the Redeemer from everlasting ; from eternity was Thy name," the name of the Word. During countless millions of years — the measure of time by which poor human minds try to span the limitless past of eternity — the Word begotten of the Father was the Redeemer. In the counsels of God in the beginning, all things in that eternal past looked forward to the day when the Word should become flesh, and take our^ ^ Mary, the Morning Star. 291 nature ; and in that nature suffer and shed His blood to redeem mankind. This was the centre point of all the designs of God, from the beginning ; and to this, all things looked forward from the day of creation. So, now, unto the consummation- of the world, and during the eternity of heaven, all things shall look back to their centre — to the moment that beheld Jesus Christ on the cross. " The Redeemer from everlasting is Thy name." All things were prepared and formed ; all things were only, within the will of God, looking towards the redemption. Man was created that he might be redeemed. All things were pre- pared by the Almighty God, and still worked towards this great mystery of the Incarnation. The very sin of man was made the means, in the hands of His mercy, to bring about the consummation of the mystery. Wherefore, St. Augustine ex- claims : "Oh! happy sinner! Oh! happy sin! that brought Christ down from heaven to be made man for our redemp- tion ! " Now, may I ask you to consider what this mystery of the Incarnation is, as it was unfolded in the designs of God. My friends, it means two great truths, namely, that in all the full- ness of His divinity, in all His infinite sanctity, majesty, power, glory, and omnipotence, God came down from heaven and dwelt amongst men. That coming down from heaven He ceased not to be the co-Eternal Son of the Eternal Father ; that coming down from heaven He ceased not to be the Word of God, begotten, not made, consubstantial to the Father in every attribute of His divinity — the very figure of the Father's substance, and the splendor of His glory; that He was from all eternity, in heaven, the same as He was during the days of His natural life upon this earth. That is the first great truth of the Incarnation. We must admit the fullness of the divin- ity of Him who came down from heaven to save us. If it were possible — (it was not possible ; but if it were possible) — for Him to leave behind Him one single attribute or perfection of the Godhead, the world could never be redeemed. For, in order to take away the sin of man, it was necessary that God should exercise all His power, all His sanctity, every attribute belong- ing to Him, and so engage in the mighty work of atonement to His offended Father for the sins of man. The second great truth is, that coming down from heaven in 292 Mary, the Morning Star. all the fullness of His divinity, He took on earth — He formed and created on this earth — a true manhood, a true human na- ture ; for He was as really and as truly Man as He was God; He was as really and truly the Son of His Mother upon the earth, as He was the Son, the Eternal Son of His Father in heaven. The second truth is as necessary for the redemption of the world as the first. The world could never be redeemed unless God came down in all the fullness of His divinity ; in all the fullness of His sanctity. The world could never be re- deemed unless God became truly Man ; as truly a Man as He is truly God. The manhood of Jesus Christ, our Lord, was as necessary for the redemption of mankind as His divinity; just as necessary. In the eternal designs and decrees of the uncre- ated wisdom of God, the mystery of the humanity of His Di- vine Son is necessarily as precisely included, as the certainty of His divinity. This is the second great truth upon which the Incarnation rests. And this mystery of the Incarnation is the very founda- tion and basis of that Christian religion which we all profess. Deny the divinity of Jesus Christ ; deny, to that Man, bleeding, suffering, dying on the cross, one iota, or one attribute of God, and you have ceased to be a Christian ; you are an Atheist and an Infidel. On the other hand, deny to Him one single iota of His sacred humanity ; take from Him any one thing that makes the man, the true man ; and you are in like manner an Atheist and an Infidel, and no longer believe in the fundamental truths of Christianity. Now, what follows from this ? Let me remind you that I am speaking of these things as they lay in the mind of God through all eternity. The Word uncreated, the Eternal Word of God, was begotten of the Father from out the contem- plation of His own divine perfection by the eternal generation that never had a beginning. A mystery utterly inscrutable and incomprehensible to the limited mind of man ! The Eternal Father gazes upon Himself, contemplates Himself from all eter- nity ; and in that contemplation of Himself, He saw Himself in the Word. He could not but love, with an infinite, substantial love, that image of Himself — that divine, eternal conception of Himself, which He beheld in the image or conception which was itself substantially and personally distinct from the Father who conceived it. When God saw that conception He was full Mary, the Morning Star. 293 of love — with the infinite love of the Father. Behold, in this substantial, infinite love of God foi His own image, for His own conception, behold the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity — the Holy Ghost. Now, in this mystery of the Incarnation, therefore, God, the Father, contemplated Himself as the Father of the Word, who was to redeem man — " the Redeemer from everlasting." But He was also obliged to contemplate that Word not merely as God — as His own divine, eternal concep- tion ; He was also obliged to contemplate that Word made man ; because He was obliged to contemplate Him as the Re- deemer ; and the moment the Father's eyes conceived Him from all eternity, that moment the figure of the human Mother, Mary, entered into her place, to play her part in the eternal councils of God, namely, to be as necessary for the salvation and redemption of man as God was Himself. It may sound strange to say that Mary was as necessary for our redemption as God Himself. If the Son of Mary was to be the Son of God, and the Son of God was the son of Mary, the Man, Jesus Christ, was to be the Redeemer. As such the Father contemplated Him from all eternity ; as such He stands before us in those everlasting, eternal decrees and counsels of God ; and by His side stands Mary, the necessary, indispensable instrument by whi:h God was to take the humanity in which He redeemed the world. Therefore it is that the holy Catholic Church ap- plies to her the words of Scripture, as she says : " I was or- dained from all eternity ; of old before the hills were made, be- fore the rivers began to flow, before the earth sprang forth at the creation of God." Before the eye of an angel in heaven contemplated the eternal perfections of the divinity, Mary occu- pied the first place in the mind, and in the counsels and designs of the eternal God, robed and clothed with the glory of the eternal Son, for He, in the designs of God, shed the full splen- dor of His sanctity upon her ; — the moon beneath her feet, that is to say, the present earth — the earth which was to be made in the creation of God ; — the earth that was to be a great cres- cent in the following creation of the universe by the word of God — now making the earth ; then making the sea ; then cre- ating animated life; then man, in succession; — this crescent earth was beneath her feet, by which it was signified that she was to be the queen of the whole universe — the mother of its 294 Mary, the Morning Star. King, Jesus Christ, On her head a crown of twelve stars ; — the stars of God, the angeHc beings created in heaven — higher than Mary, if you will ; higher than Mary in the order of grace ; be- cause, great as she was, she was still somewhat less than the angels in the dignity of creation. Greater, therefore, than Mary in the order of grace, those angels represent her crown of twelve stars — above her head, yet shining only as the crown, as the or- nament of her queenly beauty. The choirs of God's angels looked down upon her from their high places in heaven whilst she trod the pathways of earth ; but every angel in heaven was created to be an ornament of their queen and ours, of heaven's Queen, Mary. For every angel in heaven was preserved, saved, and confirmed in grace and in glory, through the merits fore- seen of Mary's Child, Jesus Christ. How grand, therefore, was the vision that the apostle beheld — the vision of the one being, around whom are concentrated, and in whom were to be made perfect, the eternal designs that filled the infinite mind of God, from the day that never had a beginning. The Morning Star rose in heaven ; the Morning Star, in her rising, did not begin upon the earth, my dear friends ; Mary rose in heaven. Her dawning was not merely in that house where she was born of St. Ann. Her dawning was in the mind and in the heart of God ; her Immaculate Conception upon earth was only the re- flection, pure and magnificent, of the higher and more wonder- ful and infinitely grander and greater conception with which the mind of God conceived Mary as the future Mother of His Son. Consider here, next, the Morning Star on earth. The very vision of which the Evangelist spoke was beheld by the angels in heaven before Mary was created at all. The angels of heaven, who were given to behold the designs of God, saw Mary on the earth, and beneath her feet, and clothing them, the sun of the real sanctity of God ; her crown — their choirs — as they shone around her in the mind and the designs of God. The angels heralded her as the Morning Star in heaven, when she rose from heaven, trembling in her majestic beauty, outshining all the other stars of God under her feet. We may apply to her the words of holy Job, when he says: "The morning stars praised the Lord together, and the sons of God made a joyful melody," when Maty appeared over the horizon in the everlasting and eternal designs of the Most High. Mary, the Morning Star. 295 Now, let us descend from heaven. Even as the inspired Evangelist of Patmos came down from the mountain of his in- spiration, and looked around him with the ordinary eyes of man on the celestial vision as it passed away from his sight, so let us descend from the contemplation of Mary in heaven — in the bosom of the eternal God — and let us see what was the manner of the coming of this Morning Star. Every child of our nature is conceived in sin. A stain of sin is there upon the fair young soul the moment that soul and body are united — the first moment in which that little newly-conceived child begins to live, that moment the traditional curse of Adam is upon him ; and the fair young creature, so freshly and newly formed by the hand of God, is already spoiled and stained by original sin. There is no exception to this universal law ; because Adam was the father of all men, and " we have all sinned in Adam," says the apostle. No matter how beautiful the future of that soul may be, in the beginning it had its origin in the curse ; no matter how grand the sanctity that may crown the future life of the highest of God's saints and holy ones, the best of them all, the holiest of them all — Moses, who was " exceeding righteous before all men upon the earth ; " David, " the man after God's own heart ; " the Baptist, who, of all men born of woman, was the greatest ; the apostle of love, who leaned upon his Master's bosom, and listened to the beating of the heart of God to the last — all, all alike are obliged to exclaim, in the dreadful accents of Israel's prophet-king: " Have mercy on me, O God ! for I was conceived in iniquity ; and in sin did my mother conceive me ! " No exception but one ! One solitary instance stands out alone, with nothing to approach her at all, in her exceptional, exclusive creation. Mary alone stands out, from the first moment of her conception, when, descending from out the mind of God, when, breathed forth with infinite love from the lips of God, the inspiration of life in the soul of Mary came from the bosom of the Most High. Her untainted body un- stained, untouched, unapproached by the slightest taint of sin — alone she stands ; and the angels of God look down and con- template her and admire her. The voice of the prophets comes back from out the recesses of the past, and salute her, "■ My beloved," says the Holy Ghost, in Scripture, " My beloved, my sister, my immaculate one, my dove, is all pure. She is all fair; 296 Mary, the Morning Star. no stain nor soil is upon her." " Tota pulchra es, amata mea.' " Thou art all fair, my beloved, and there is no stain upon thee." This was the promise made to the people of Israel in the depths of their sorrow, whilst they hung their voiceless harps upon the willows of Babylon — even whilst they wept fruitless tears over the glory of the temple which had passed away ; even while they filled the earth with the lamentations of their exile, yet were they cheered with the promise of that which was to come ; and the Son of the Father, coming to this earth in all sorrow, was to bring forth out of the chosen and most beloved people one who was to be sinless and stainless before the eyes and the heart of God. " Hear, O Israel ! " says Isaias, " Hear, O Israel ! The Lord Himself will give thee a sign (that is to say, a promise). The Lord Himself will set a star in Jesse, and a light unto Israel." What was this sign to be? "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and shall bring forth a Son." There is the promise. There is Mary. As she shines in heaven, so does she shine upon the inspired page of Scripture — the " Morning Star," because she was to come as a harbinger and messenger, and as a certain assurance that He who conceived her and made her would come, after her appearance upon the earth, to visit this world in her, to come forth from her immaculate bosom, " a shining light unto the salvation of the Gentiles, and a glory unto the people of Israel." Therefore, upon her coming in immaculate purity — as the morning star is the brightest of all the stars that shine at that hour in the heavens, because it is nearest to the sun — as the morning star, as it rises over the eastern hills, appears with a pure, silvery light, no speck or stain upon its white face, no darkness amid the serene rays sent forth streaming from its silvery bosom — so Mary comes ; and, in her coming upon the earth, she was surrounded by the grace of her immaculate conception, and at once raised above all on this earth, above all in heaven, above all created beings in their approaches to perfect sanctity. Preferred before the angels ; and why? Because there is not an angel in heaven that was not tempted ; and Mary's immaculate conception in heaven re- moved the temptation from her. Preferred before all the daughters of earth ; for no child of earth, from the day that AJam fell, was ever conceived but in sin. No shade or thought Mary, the Morning Star. 297 to sin allied ever crossed Mary, even in the first moment of her conception. More than this, in that first immaculate concep- tion, the woman who was to be the Mother of God — the woman whose figure captivated the eye of God in His own eternal de- signs and counsels from all eternity — the woman who was to be the glory of heaven as well as the joy of the earth, in that one grace of her immaculate conception — the woman of sanctity, the woman of grace, the woman in whom all the accumulated and the united graces that God had ever bestowed upon His angels in heaven, or upon His saints upon the earth ; who was perfectly holy, came up to God's own standard of holiness, and consequently, she was united to God by a perfect union, undi- vided by the slightest taint of sin, by the slightest necessity for a tear of repentance. The Eternal and All Holy God who made her, was able to take her, at the moment of her immaculate conception, and hold her in His arms of infinite love ; and she was worthy of the embrace of the Most High. Thus does she appear on earth, the Morning Star. God could not come forth, my friends — the sun of justice never could beam upon us, unless some one creature went before His face that was perfectly pure. And why ? Because God Himself declared that there is no compact or contact between Him and sin ; that nothing that is personally defiled can approach Him. Nothing defiled can approach God. Nor can God approach anything that is personally defiled as He approached Mary. If this be true, as God Himself declared in Scripture, you see at once that it was absolutely necessary that the one unto whom He came — through whom He came upon earth, and from whom He took the nature in which He saved the world — that that person should be perfectly holy. Admit the slightest stain of defilement in Mary — in soul or body — and that moment the eternal Word of God would have fled from her with that in- finite repugnance with which God turns away from the slightest form of defilement. But grant that in the fallen race, in the race universally fallen, in a race tainted and polluted at the very fountain-head of its existence in the first father — grant in that fallen race an immaculate one, and it will appear at once that we have the gates of heaven opened to us in the humanity of that one ; at once we have the medium through which God can come down and become one of us. Undefiled humanity is 298 Mary, the Morning Star. there. Nothing is there to repel Almighty God, or make Him hesitate in His approach to us. So you see, out of her very immaculate conception grows Mary's title to be called the " Morning Star." And this star rose ; a blessed child was born in the house of her father, the holy priest, St. Joachim. Oh ! how dark was the earth in that moment of Mary's conception. God looked down from heaven and saw nowhere upon the earth a place on which His Holy Spirit could rest. That Spirit that never forgot its mercy, for four thousand years brooded over the abyss of humanity. " The Spirit of God moved over the waters ; " but, like the dove that Noah sent forth from the ark, returned again, having found no place to rest upon for an instant. So the Spirit of God returned to God ; there was no resting-place upon this dark, accursed earth — no resting-place for the Spirit of God, that was holy and pure, amongst the tainted sons and daughters of Adam. The Spirit of God returned to God, until Mary appeared, unfolding the unspotted brightness of her soul; unfolding the leaves of her virginal purity before God. Then the Spirit of God found, at length, its resting-place, and came down and brooded over Mary with the infinite love of God, as was said by the angel to Mary: "The power of the Most High shall overshadow thee." The Holy Ghost descended at His word, and Mary became the Spouse of God. I will not put before you, nor even seek to unfold the tre- mendous mysteries, for I can call them nothing else, the awful mysteries of that life of thirty years, during which the Eternal God, made man, dwelt upon the human bosom, and grew up under the hand, and repaid every maternal service by a love more tender than ever yet child gave to a human parent. I will not seek to raise up the veil that covers the mysteries of that life in Nazareth. Suffice it to say, that so dear was Mary to her divine Son, that he lived with her for thirty years. He came to save the world. He came to do a certain work ; He took thirty-three years to that work ; and only gave three years directly to it — the three last years of His life. He lingered for thirty years with Mary. Her love was the light of His human life ; her smile was the sunbeam that lighted up His sorrowful path. Yea, when He went forth from Nazareth, as if reluctant to leave that bosom that He had dwelt upon so long — reluctant Mary, the Morning Star. 299 to turn His thoughts on other purposes — He did not go alone; but Mary went with Him, accompanied Him in tlis business; heard His word when He spoke ; saw Him in the horrors of His passion ; climbed that steep hill of Calvary, and stood be- neath the cross when He died, and took His head, crowned with thorns, and put it upon her bosom, and held His bleeding body in her arms, and followed Him to the tomb, through the glories of His resurrection, and then, in that scene of the As- cension, saw Him last of all. She, whose glance was keener than all others, because intensified by her maternal love as well as her love for the perfect God, penetrated into the clouds, and saw into the brighter region beyond ; while those who stood on Olivet had long lost sight of Him, Mary still beheld Him. Her keen eyes cleft the clouds; her affection followed Him even to the threshold of the golden gates. She was the last to lose sight of her Son upon the earth. What was her subsequent life? Twelve years of hope de- ferred ; twelve long years rolled away like twelve thousand years over Mary's widowed heart, as she was left derelict upon the earth. She counted every moment that passed in the ardent longing and sighing of her heart once more to be joined to her Son ; she counted the hours as they rolled slowly away ; she felt the agony of hope deferred, a burning desire to depart, until the twelve years were to her like the three hours of agony when her Son looked up to heaven and cried : " Hast Thou forsaken me ? hast Thou forgotten me, O Father in heaven ? " So Mary cried to God in her widowed exile. To leave the earth was the desire of her soul. She had lived in the hap- piness and sunshine of His presence for the thirty years of His blessed life ; but now she looks in vain for the face of her God and of her child. Oh ! how she must have envied the lot of the first martyrs ! How her very soul went forth within her, on the wings of desire, to accompany the soul of Stephen, the first martyr, as it mounted to heaven, and laid hold on that crown which to Mary was denied. But, at length, she passed away. We have seen her as the " Morning Star " in heaven, in the designs of God ; as the " Morning Star " on earth, in her immaculate conception, and her divine maternity. What were her subsequent glories beyond the grave that God had not given her upon earth ? The happiness here was only given her 300 Mary, the Morning Star. as a preparation for the future glory of heaven. Her graces were to come upon the earth, and her glory was to begin only at the moment of her blessed passing away. And her glory began the moment that her virgin soul was yielded up, and she submitted to the stroke of the angel of death that had conquered her Son upon the cross. Then her glory began ; her first glory, as she was borne into heaven ; and there she beamed again the " Morning Star." It was fit that the body that had never known sin, the soul that had never known sin, should be taken, both alike, into the redemption and glory of the resurrection. Why is it that we die, and that the saints of God die, and that their bodies are changed and see corruption, and pass into the earth from which they were made, before they are fitted, by the last resurrection, to behold the glory of God ? Why, because the taint of original sin is there ; because this flesh, in which we live now, is sinful flesh; therefore it must perish; therefore it must be utterly dissolved ; therefore, like the grain of wheat falling into the earth, it must die and return to the dust from which it sprang before it rises to new life again ; when, in the moment of the resurrection, the soul coming down from heaven, shall be united to the body, and made a pure, newly-created body, a soul and body indeed new, springing into new life, into a new form of being, a state of glory ; and when that body, re-created by the Almighty God into a higher purer, and better being, has died a perishable body, it shall rise an imperishable body. It went down to the grave in dishonor, it shall rise in glory ; it went down in weakness, it shall rise in power ; it went down to the grave a corruptible body, it shall rise a spiritual body. But it is necessary that it first shall go down to the grave, and resolve itself into the dust, into its first elements, in order that God, in the purposes of His everlasting glory, shall bring it forth to eternity and glory. If Adam had never sinned, neither soul nor body of man would have known corruption. Adam never sinned in Mary, because she was saved from sin — saved as really and truly as we are. The same blood which Christ shed, and which falls upon our heads in baptism, fell upon her with a pre- venting grace, as He hung nailed to the cross of Calvary, as He was stretched out to take away the taint of original sin. " My spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour," she herself says. That Mary, the Morning Star, 301 soul and body were perfectly pure and untainted, as far as re- gards Adam's sin. Wc may say in truth that he never sinned in Mary. Why should she ever die that gave flesh and blood to the Son of God ? She, in order to be worthy of that, was created with infinite purity. Why should she be resolved into the first elements of her being? What necessity was there that the Almighty God should reduce that body to its native dust ? He could form nothing purer for the glory of the resurrection. He makes us much fairer, much more beautiful, as we rise into glory, than what we were in our best days ; He makes us full of the sanctity of our immortal life. But He could not make Mary more beautiful than she was, because, created as she was, she received all the sanctity, all the perfection, which was in the power of God to put into the creature. And all that the crea- ture could contain of grace, sanctity, and spiritual beauty, Mary had in her first creation. The Almighty God, therefore, saw in her a perfect being, and no necessity whatever to re-create Mary, she was created so fair. Just as the master-hand of the painter rests, when he has painted his magnificent picture, and sees it perfect in every detail, subdued and toned down by the master-hand of him who laid it on ; every ray of light is there in magnificent outlines; every shadow brought out in all its perfection ; until, at length, the master-hand and mind are sat- isfied, and he sees he can do nothing better — that the keen eye of art will not permit of anything higher in conception than this. So God made Mary as perfect as a creature could be. Not a single perfection which a creature needed was denied her. Why, therefore, should she behold corruption and linger in the tomb, or why should the worm feed upon her virgin flesh ? And why should the eyes that were first to greet the infant Saviour, the Son of God, dissolve into hideous corruption ? No ! She was fit for heaven, a being fit for eternity, and therefore God took her. The apostles were at her grave, and for three days — three years they seemed — they prayed around her grave, mourn- ing their Mother and Queen. During these three days, they heard the choirs of the angels filling the air with melody. It was not a song of sorrow ; it was a song of angelic joy. There were no tears in that song, but only the jubilant strains that proclaimed that heaven was about to receive a new star. At 302 Mary, the Morning Star. the end of the third day the angelic voices died away on the air. Before the apostles scattered to their various provinces, they would fain take a last lingering look on the heavenly counte- nance of Mary. So they opened the tomb. No body was there ! They sought for the living amongst the dead ! They opened the tomb ; she was gone ; and the creature whom they expected to find in the darkness and corruption, and the help- lessness of the grave, had already passed through the gates of heaven. The soul had already passed through the wondering choirs of God's angels, who could only exclaim : " Who is this that Cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved ? Who is this coming to us like the morn- ing's rising; fair as the moon, bright as the sun, glorious as an army in battle array? It is the Queen and the Mother of our Eternal King. Let us rejoice and be glad ; the marriage of the Lamb has come, and the bride cometh ; she has arrayed herself in all her glory." They sought for her upon the earth, but she had already passed into the upper light, high above all the thrones of the flaming cherubim and contemplating seraphim — the Mother of God had already passed into the higher atmos- phere of light eternal, into which no created being could go but Mary. There, upon a throne, at the very pedestal of the throne of God, she was crowned, with a crown of unfading glory — the " Morning Star." What does this Assumption tell us? It tells us what her immaculate conception was? It tells us what the vision of the Evangelist of Patmos beheld. It tells us that, while he was there in heaven, he recognized only the woman who was to bring forth the Man-Child that was to crush the serpent's head. We saw her in her immaculate conception, beaming in all her first beauty and brilliancy on the earth ; as she was hon- ored with the certain fulfillment of the promise that God would come, in whom the Holy One, undefiled, had made His appear- ance, through whom alone God could come. Her presence in heaven told of His coming ; her presence on the earth told of His coming. Now, her Assumption into heaven tells of His com- ing ; for it tells the greatest of all truths — that heaven is the home, not only of the immortal, glorified soul, but also of the risen body. It tells in the light of truth, that, in the day of our resurrection, we may look forward to Him who came from Mary, the Morning Star. 303 heaven that He might take Mary aloft to her place of glory. Wherefore they say — " She comes flowing with delights, lean- ing on her beloved." He came down from heaven to assume her into heaven. So shall He come and stand over our graves — the Redeemer, at whose word all things were made. Out of the corrupt earth, out of the ashes of the tomb, will He bring forth our bodies, glorified, shining, robed with the sun, and the stars of God upon our heads, if we are only worthy of the resur- rection. For He said : " I will raise him up at the last day." Therefore, Mary's assumption tells us of our hope, tells us of the future, reveals to us the promise that heaven is before us. And, thus, as all things in heaven looked from the beginning of eternity to the incarnation of the Son of God in Mary, as all things, unto the consummation of eternity, shall look back to that mystery of eternity consummated in Mary ; so our hopes, beginning with heaven's " Morning Star" — our hopes, reviving in earth's "Morning Star" — our hopes, looking forward to heaven — as she is to-day, so shall we be some day or other, with glorified bodies shining in the brightness of our glory. Therefore, she is still the " Morning Star," How well that name befits her ! How beautiful, in our loneliness, the name of Mary falls upon our ears. It fell like a beam of pure light upon this world. Mary came ; and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came with her. Mary lay dead upon the earth ; and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to our earth, and took her to heaven. Oh, " our Hope ! " O Mother, grant that when we also are lying in the prostration and agony of our last disso- lution — when those hearts of ours throb faintly and more faintly in the last terrible agonies of death — when our voices grow faint and weak in grappling with that terrible angel — our hopes are, O " Morning Star," that thou wilt come down from heaven, and bring Jesus, thy divine Son, with thee, to sustain us in our last moments. " O Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us, now and at the hour of our death." THE FUTURE OF THE IRISH RACE AT HOME AND ABROAD. [Delivered in the Music Hall, Boston, Mass., for the benefit of the Convent schools, Cambridgeport, Mass., on Tuesday evening, Sept. 29, 1872.] Y FRIENDS : I am reminded by the very title of this subject of the difficulty it presents. If I were adher- ing to my first resolution of lecturing on " The Lights and Shades of the Irish Character," I might fall back upon the past. The past is the common property of all men ; its pages are open to all alike, so that " he who runs may read." Or, if I were speaking of any question of the present, I could appeal to living witnesses for support, and my task would be comparatively easy. But when I come to speak of the future, you might well stop me at the outset, and ask me do I pretend to be a prophet or an inspired man. I am no prophet, and yet I feel in my heart and mind that I can speak confidently of the future of my race and people, at home and abroad. I can define pretty accurately what that future is to be, and I can define it with certainty, provided the men of the Irish race, and name, and blood, in America, would accept what I offer, and on the conditions with which the offer is made. Where do I find the key for Ireland's future ? I find it in the history of the past. Every race, every people, have their history, have their tale to tell of joy or of sorrow, of triumph and of shame ; and amongst the family of nations, we Celtic Irishmen have our history to look back upon ; a history covering many centuries, and going back to as ancient and hon- orable a source as any people on the face of God's earth. And from its earliest beginnings down to the present hour, although the history of the Irish race is written on many a page in tears The Future of the Irish Race. 305 and in blood, and although it tells of centuries of unavailing struggles and defeats, and of a people ground into the very dust, it is still a history of which no Irishman need be ashamed. It is into that past and its records I wish you to look, in order to find what was the source and secret of whatever strength and glory belonged to the race in the past, and also therein to find the cause of the ruin and misery that fell upon our people ; for in truth, " coming events cast their shadows before." The sur- est guaranty for a people's future is to be found in the history of their past ; the secret of what they may accomplish and what they may hope for in the future, is to be found in the record of the days that are gone. Let us look into that past history of the Irish race. What were the sources of its greatness and the secrets of its ruin ? We should examine these, in order that we may cultivate all that made our fathers great ; and that we may avoid, taught by the light of experience, the mistakes into which they fell. Coming to this question, one of the first things I find in study- ing the history of my people is that the Celtic race is prom- inently gifted with one great blessing, namely, great strength of character. Do we not often find in life a man exercising the strongest in- flluence over his fellow-men ; a man who is a power in every walk of life, social, political, and domestic ; a man who makes his presence felt wherever he is? He may not have greater abilities or more learning than others ; he may not be more tal- ented than other men ; and yet he has a power of influencing his fellow-men and making them bow down to his will ; he has a power over their acts. Such a man, we siay, has unusual strength of character. Very often we find men who are highly educated, clever, and virtuous, and yet they have no influence over their fellow-men ; and we say it is a pity that so good a man has so little force of character. As it is with men, so it is with nations. There are some nations that have not made any enduring mark in history. They are without force of character. Without that, no race can write its name on the imperishable annals of the world's history. This is the first characteristic of the Celtic or Irish race. This characteristic goes so far as to manifest itself in the type of countenance of the people. It is easy to know an Irishman by his face. Al- 3o6 The Future of the Irish Race though he may not be as good-looking as his neighbors, although his features may not show the magnificent line of Grecian beauty, although he may lack the rolling blue eye and clear skin of the Saxon, there is a type in the face of an Irishman that tells the world where he comes from. I remember a man coming up to me in a public conveyance once, in France. He said to me, "Are you an Irishman?" "Yes," said I, "I am; and you're another." "Well," said he, *' I thought you were ; for I'd almost know an Irishman if he was half burnt." The national character is more deeply engraved on the soul of the Irishman than on his face. Strong and deep convictions, vivid imagination, and a power of realizing things unseen ; that which makes the poet, that which lends inspiration to the orator — all that is strongly brought out in the characteristics of the Irish race. The surest proof of the truth of this assertion lies in the history of the people. It is a singular fact that no people ever yet came in contact with the Irish without being absorbed by them and changed into Irishmen. And this in clear contradiction to the experience of what occurred in other countries. For instance, the rule, as shown by the history of the world, is, that when one nation is conquered, the conquerors absorb the conquered ; the more powerful race not only gives laws, but tone, to the national character of the people it has overcome. The Romans, in ancient history, conquered the greater part of the world. Their language spread to Italy, then it crossed the Alps, and spread into Gaul, and it never stopped till it reached England on the one side, and the far Asiatic nations, the garden of humanity, on the other. Such was the strength of the Roman character that they not only gave language and laws to the people whom they conquered, but they uprooted and destroyed their national characteristics, and changed them into mere Roman citizens. The inhabitants of Tuscany, after severe struggles with Rome, became Roman citizens ; the Greeks, turning away from their own grand record, became mere Roman citizens ; the Gaul for- got the traditions of his ancient forest liberty, and became a mere Roman citizen ; even in England, when the Briton came in contact with the strongly-marked Roman, he lost his native character, and became so much in heart a Roman, that the peo- ple wept when the legions were withdrawn. at Home and Abroad. 307 Now we have successive waves of invasion passing over Ireland in her history as a nation. The Danes, at the close of the eighth century — the powerful Danes, so full of character and strength of disposition ; the Danes, who, landing on the northern shores of France, soon changed the French- men into Normans or Northmen ; these Danes came to Ireland. For three hundred years army after army was poured into the country. But the Dane met a character as well-defined as his own. Foot to foot the Celt fought with him, until the day came when the invader was driven into the sea from the glorious field of Clontarf. Those of the Danes who remained in Ireland were settled in Dublin, Wicklow, Wexford, and Waterford, and became " more Irish than the Irish themselves." They embraced the religion of the Irish people, and became the best Catholics on the island. They learned the language of the people, and soon spoke in as pure Celtic as any Milesian. They embraced the undying, inex- tinguishable love for the land, which is beyond other things the inheritance of the Celtic race. The men who made the fiercest stand after that for Ireland, were the descendants of the Danish conquerors. They loved the island better than the Celts them- selves. The best blood shed for Ireland in the rising of '98 was Danish blood. In that day, when the whole country should have risen, two counties only rose — Wicklow and Wexford. A hand- ful of men came out, armed only with scythes and pikes, and for many a day they gave thirty-six thousand English troops enough to do. They were finally crushed by superior numbers, but they were unyielding to the last, and the green slopes of Vinegar Hill poured their blood into the waters of the Slaney, that runs at its base. And the men of these counties, who died on Vinegar Hill, were men distinctively of Danish blood. For the men of Wexford, in particular, were almost exclusively descended from those ancient Danish invaders. How did they become so Irish ? I answer, by the simple fact that the strong, well-defined Celtic character was stamped deeply on the strangers, leaving an impression that the hands of time and change could never rub out. Still more wonderful is the fact which I am now about to re- late. Sixty years after the Danes were finally conquered, the Anglo-Normans invaded Ireland. Remember, the first invaders 3o8 The Future of the Irish Race. were not the Saxons, but the Normans who had conquered the Saxons. De Lacey, De Courcy, Fitzurse — they were the first men who planted the standard of England in Ireland, and they were Anglo-Norman knights. They were the strongest men in the world, these Normans — mail-clad warriors, mounted on horses also clad in mail, they moved against their enemies like castles of steel. There was no power in Europe able to with- stand them or able to hold the day against their lances. Splendid men ; the first in the ranks of civilization, of culture, of warlike qualities, of energy — of everything that makes the man. Above all, they were the proudest race in Europe. They not only conquered their enemies, but when they had conquered they despised them. They conquered the Saxons in England and despised them. For many a year a Norman knight or soldier would not think of marrying a Saxon woman. They would not learn the Saxon language. The language of the Court was not English, it was French. Richard Coeur de Lion was a Norman King of England, and he could not speak three words of the language of the country. These proud, splendid Normans came to Ireland, and many a hard blow was given and taken. Many a terrible field of blood there was before the invader held sway ; but in the end the Norman put his mailed heel on the neck of the nation. But mark the difference. No sooner did they go amongst the Irish to live in peace than they took Irishwomen for their wives — and glad to get them. The next thing they did was to change their Norman names and take Irish names ; the next, to forget their French and learn to talk Irish. So that thirty years after their first landing a complaint was sent over to England that they were "more Irish than the Irish themselves." The De Burgo went down into Connaught and took an Irish title, Earl of Clanricarde. The Fitzurse, the terrible Norman noble, went up into Fermanagh and changed his name to an Irish one — MacMahon. And after that, when each successive army landed to seize upon the whole island, the Irish fought them foot by foot, and the hardest blows were struck by Norman hands. Now, remember, this is a strange phe- nomenon. A race so powerful, so proud, so magnificent, so marked with force of character — they no sooner meet the Celt than they change and are absorbed. Even to this day an Englishman has at Home and Abroad. 309 only to go to Ireland, even to a part of the country that may not be so beautiful, so rich, as his own, and he soon learns to love the people. Mr. Froude, who has lived in Ireland for some time, says : " I cannot help loving Ireland and her people." This is a great historical fact, my friends ; and it comes from this — that Almighty God has given to the Celtic Irishman a strong, vigorous, powerful cast of character. And, you will ask me, is this a blessing or a curse ? Ah ! it may be one, and it may be the other. How many persons there are who would come through the world better and more happily if they had less force of character ! They are ready to knock their heads against every man and every faction, so that it becomes a source of misery instead of blessing. It leads them into contentions and dangers which they might have avoided ; for in wisely avoiding unnecessary strife and conten- tion consists all true manliness. To Ireland it has been both a blessing and a curse. It has been a blessing, inasmuch as it has preserved us intact and entire as a nation, in circumstances under which any other race would have long since ceased to exist as a distinct nationality. There is no race of which history speaks in its records that has suffered so much as the Irish race ; there is no race so ancient that has preserved so much vigorous strength of national character. This is how God's blessing clings to the Irish. Because of this strength of character we never knew when we were defeated ; we never knew when we were to sit down contented to be a prosperous province of a great kingdom, instead of a ruined, heart-broken nation. Scotland, whose record is so grand in history ; Scotland, so replete in every ennobling memory of the past ; Scotland, that may well be proud of the bravery and intelligence of her sons, has yet surrendered all her individuality, and now is a pros- perous province without a name. There was a time when the King of England called himself " King of England and Scotland ; " but now, now the title of Victoria is "Queen of Great Britain — a7id Ireland!" Out of that vigor and force of national character, Ireland has preferred to be a heart-broken and miserable country, but still to have her name before the world, written in letters of gold, and to have that name written as the name of a nation. The next grand characteristic of the Irish race, as revealed in 3IO The Future of the Irish Race its history, is a characteristic that is not a curse, but a blessing, no longer merely human but altogether divine ; namely, its Catholic faith — its adherence to that religion that came from God. From God direct came strength, so that, in good or evil, in joy or in sorrow, no power on earth or in hell has ever been able to drag the Catholic faith out of the heart of Ireland. Ireland's Catholicity is a strong and singular fact, whether we consider the manner in which it was received, or in which it was held. Ireland's Catholicity marks our race with as distinctive a mark among the nations as the Immaculate Conception marked the Mother of God among women. No nation received the faith with so much joy, or held it with such fidelity. Christ our Lord not only founded a religion, but also a Church. It is the fashion now-a-days to distinguish between religion and the Church ; and we are told by some that the Church has always been the enemy of religion. Now, reflect for an instant, What is the Church? The Church is simply a body of men, organized by our Lord to teach His laws and administer His sacraments. If Christ had left His law and sacraments without a Church to teach and administer them forever, His work would have been unworthy the wisdom of God. Did you ever hear of a nation established and its laws drawn up, and left without a government ? Such a thing is impossible. When George Wash- ington — immortal and imperishable name — when he gave to America the magnificent republican Constitution which is the palladium of this great country's freedom, did he not himself consent to be the first President? Did he not elaborate all the machinery of government, instituting the various public offices, and perpetuating the whole by the establishment of a Congress and Senate? What would the laws and the Constitution be without this government? And what would the law of Jesus Christ be if the Lord who founded it had not also established a government to take charge of, and publish His law? That is the Catholic Church, and it is nothing more. From the day that she received her commission, " Go and teach all nations," from that hour she has never been silent. Her voice has re- sounded in every clime and every language, proclaiming to the sinful man that he must be pure ; to the impious man that he must be amiable ; to the envious man that he must be charita- ble ; to the man who is weak as clay that he must make him- at Home and Abroad. 31 1 self, by self-denial, strong as the adamantine rock. The mes- sengers of Jesus Christ came to the nations, and history tells us that the very first thing the nations did was to put the mes- sengers to death. All the apostles were martyrs. This hour the Jesuit missionaries, awaiting their doom in China and Japan, are living witnesses of how the nations received the messengers of our Lord. Just one nation there is, and one only, to whom a man came to preach the Gospel, which received it in all its purity and re- ceived it in peace. Patrick came to the Irish people, and he stood fearlessly before the chiefs and kings of the land ; he came to deliver the message of the Lord, and he flung the banner of Christ to the winds of Ireland, speaking in the Irish language to king, bard, and minstrel; and as soon as they saw the force of his argument, behold, the king, the baron, the minstrel, the bard, and the people, all with one voice proclaimed their accept- ance of the faith. Ireland embraced the religion then, and she will hold it to her heart forever and ever. And Ireland's con- version never cost its apostle one tear or one drop of blood. Patrick found the entire island pagan, and before he died Ire- land was as Catholic as she is to-day. He found a nation which, as soon as it embraced Catholicity, sprang, as it were, without a summer, into the full fruitage of autumn ; the Irish people sprang at once from paganism into the possession of a national priesthood and episcopacy. When other nations were convert- ed to the faith it was long before that faith became so mingled with their blood as to produce a national priesthood. When St. Augustine, who was the first Archbishop of Canterbury, died, they had to send to Rome for a successor, and so the first seven Archbishops of Canterbury were foreigners. It is a pecu- liar fact that no sooner were the Irish converted than they became a nation of priests. But you will say that which was so easily acquired may be as easily lost. There is the magnificent fact : No nation has ever been tried since the world was created as Ireland has been tried. The strongest people on the earth made up their minds that Ireland was to be Protestant. Ireland suffered as no nation was called on to suffer since God made the world ; but she came forth from the fire with all her religious faith unscathed. Was this a blessing or a curse? A blessing and no curse. IrioJ'md 312 The Future of the Irtsh Race is the only nation whose religion is national. The nationality and faith are so united that the moment you take one away the other perishes. Strictly speaking, the contest for nationality never began until the religious element was infused into the quarrel between England and Ireland. For four hundred years the English were reigning in Ireland ; but they never dreamt of destroying her nationality. They did not claim the title of King of Ireland. The first king who took it was Henry VIII. , the man who assailed Catholicity. The moment Ireland refused to take the religion that was held out to her, England said, "We will crush Ireland down to the dust, and make her a- province," The fight began then, and from the first, religion was mixed up in it ; and it went on until it was deeply engraved on the heart of every Celtic man, that religion and nationality were a unit. Had we renounced our religion at the dictate of either Henry or Elizabeth, would we be to-day the distinctive race we are ? No ! so long as we were Catholic we took them into our bosom ; they became more Irish than ourselves when they came to live with us. The fact is that the Englishmen and Irishmen were so well inclined to join hands that the govern- ment took measures for disuniting them. With this view the district of the Pale was formed, which comprised the counties of Dublin, Kildare, Meath, and Uriel, with the seaport cities of Waterford, Cork, and Limerick; and this was done as much with the view of keeping the English in, as of keeping the Irish out. During these years the two races sprang to each other, joined by the bond of a common religion. In a ^^\n years after an Englishman came to live in Ireland he ceased to be an Eng- lishman and became a Celt. But mark the difference from the day that England became Protestant. Two great movements of the population took place in Ireland since then. Under James I. the whole province of Ulster was taken from the Irish inhabitants and given to Scotch and English settlers. They have remained on the land ever since. Have the Irish mingled with them ? No ! They stand aloof; they have no love, they have no feelings in common. The great wall of religious difference divides them. Mr. Froude says that this is a source of weakness to Ireland. He says she is not a nation to-day, that she has no national unity, because there is a Protestant and a Catholic Ireland. Yes, my friends, at Home and Abroad. 313 if ever we are to be a nation strong and united, we must go up to Ulster, not with bludgeons, but with words of love and peace, and try to convert the Orangemen. The second great emigration since the days of the so-called Reformation, was under Cromwell. He came to Ireland, and what James I. did in Ulster, Cromwell did in Munster and Leinster. He made up his mind how to deal with the Irish, and he sent them " to hell or to Connaught." He told them to take their choice. The Irish people thought it over — hell or Connaught — and they were sensible enough to decline going to hell. Perhaps they thought it would be rather crowded, and in their charity they made up their minds to leave a little elbow-room for Oliver himself. Well, on a certain day, the 15th of May, all Ireland was to be driven across the Shannon like a flock of sheep. The whole people were driven into the most inhospitable, mountainous, barren province of the island — my own Connaught — and there they were left to live and die in misery. Then came the Crom- wellian settlement, by which all the best land in the country passed into the hands of Cromwellian settlers, and the lands are in their hands to this day. The Irish landlords, to a large extent, are still Cromwellian. All the broad plains of Munster, the fields of Tipperary, are in the hands of Cromwellian land- lords. Have they intermixed ! No ! The Celt stands aloof from the Cromwellian. And yet, I say, as long as the invading race was Catholic, when they came to Ireland they were willing to remain as brothers and friends. Any man who looks at the pages of Irish history with a phil- osophic mind will find that this strength of character has been the source of whatever glory and greatness hang about the Irish race at home and abroad. Turn to the other side : How came it to pass that a people so endowed with such strength of char- acter as to be able to absorb even the haughty Norman, and with such a divine principle of unity as a common faith and re- ligion, have been so utterly divided and shattered as they have been ? Oh ! my friends, where is the land that has not heard the lament of the Irish exile ? Where is the spot of earth on which his tears have not fallen ? Even Mr. Froude says of Ireland, that were she united as a nation she would be in- vincible ; all the powers of earth could not wrest from her, her 314 The Future of the Irish Race independence. I will not grieve my own heart and yours by dwelling on the dissension and internal quarrels of chieftain with chieftain, even when the Norman invader was at the door. This English historian acknowledges that disunion was the ruin of the past, as it is the weakness of the present ; and, if not de- stroyed, will be the blight of the future. The second great curse and cause of weakness is carelessness, prodigality, showing itself in too great a love of drink. There are some men who get drunk for the pleasure it gives them ; some drink because they are thirsty. The Irishman does neither. He does not drink for himself, but for others. Light-hearted, fond of pleasant company, not encumbered with much money, he meets with some friends, and the first thing he wants to do is to do something for them, and what can he do but treat them. Good-nature and fellow-feeling is the cause of the drunkenness of Irishmen, so far as it exists. I need not speak to you on the abstract question of intem- perance — it would be an insult to Boston, where, I believe, a man cannot even get a pint of beer for sale. To talk of tem- perance in Boston would be something like a lecture on the nature of coal in Newcastle. I honor Boston for her law. When we look into the history of our race we find that this curse has cost Ireland the loss of the best of her sons. Mr. Froude says that when England was ravaging the country, the Irish chieftains were fighting, eating, and drinking among themselves. Ireland lost her greatest hero through this curse — Owen Roe O'Neill. He was the greatest of her sons. He was General Commander- in-Chief of the armies of Spain at a time when Spain was the first military power in the world ; he was a princely-hearted man, and one of the most cultured men and best scholars in Europe. He was coming down from the north of Ireland to measure swords with Oliver Cromwell, and he was the only man in the world who was a match for Cromwell. On his march with his forces, he gave an entertainment to his followers and friends ; and while he was drinking his wine, the emissary of the enemy dropped poison into the cup — and Ireland lost, that day, the best son that God ever gave her. Look at the last struggle for Irish independence. The men of Wexford and Wicklow stood on Vinegar Hill prepared to fight as they had fought at New Ross. The English army encir- at Home and Abroad. 315 cled the hill, and the sentries stood around its base. And at night the English sentries heard the sound of wild carousing and up- roar. The Irishmen were drinking. The next day, when they should have stood clear-headed and wary, found them unable to handle the pike, sick in body and demoralized in mind. What is the future of this race? I answer, the future of a nation or a race, like the predestination of a man, is in its own hands. If you ask me what is your future to be, I answer, my friends, that your future life is in God who has given you that future ; if you elaborate it with care and prudence, you can make it happy here and happy for eternity ; but if you refuse or neglect to do this, you will be unhappy here and hereafter. So it is with nations. The duty of Irishmen to-day, the lesson which they should learn from the history of their race, is to preserve that which was great in the national character, and give up that which was the source of ruin and weakness. First of all it is necessary to preserve our national character. There is very little in the Irish national character that we should be ashamed of. We have never gone out to conquer any people, we have never robbed and plundered another country. Ireland's escutcheon, battered by centuries of struggle, shows no bar sinister that makes the Irishman blush to-day. But that name, that Mac or O, that has come down to us, that strong character, that love for the land that belongs to the Irish race — if you wish to carve out a grand future you must preserve all that. Sometimes it happens that a man comes here and gives up a grand old name, like O'Brien or O'Neill, or some other that was perhaps proudly borne by a chieftain or a belted earl. Some- times a man comes here and changes his Irish name, to call him- self some abominable patronymic like Muggins or Jenks. I met since I came here a man who had a splendid Irish name, that was borne once by a prince of the western part of Ireland, and I asked him how he was and how he got on, and said I, ** Are there many men of your name here ? " " Oh," said he, " I gave up my Irish name, and I thought I might as well get as English a name as I could : now they call me Jenks." Far away from the land where our race was individualized, with a thousand influences around us to weaken the recollec- tions of home, here a man may be tempted to forget that he is 3i6 The Future of the Irish Race an Irishman, or the son of an Irishman. Why should he forget it ? Is it not an ancient race, an honorable race, as brave a race as any in the world ? Is it not above all other races the one that has known how always to preserve faith with God and man? Ireland's future, as a race, will perish when her children and grandchildren born in America repudiate their ancestry. There is an end then. You amalgamate at once with the nations around you. You give the lie then to that history that tells how the strange races were always absorbed when they touched the Celt. Secondly, you must preserve your old unflinching faith in the Catholic Church. It is as necessary for salvation now as it was in Ireland long ago. It is as much the source of all sacramental power, the secret of all God's favor, to us now, as it was to our fathers, when they laid down their lives rather than change or re- nounce it. It has been the strongest possible bond to make a unit of the race. The strongest bond of unity is religious faith. If that is lost through drinking in the strong miasmata arising from strange clouds floating around, if in that respect you degenerate, there is an end of the autonomy of our race here. If that is lost you have no grand future before you. The grand future may be before America, it may be before the men who shall be called in to take your places in the kingdom of God; but it will not be yours unless you clutch that faith with all the firm- ness with which your fathers laid hold of it in the days gone by ! Oh ! how grand was their valor in defense of their faith ! How magnificent was the attitude and firmness of Hugh O'Neill, the only man who ever struck terror into the proud heart of Elizabeth. She sent over an offer to make him Earl of Ty- rone, if he would only renounce the Catholic faith. The mes- senger came, and met Hugh, who heard his offer, and then said proudly, " I am a Catholic. A Catholic I have lived, and a Catholic I will die." This danger of losing our faith is far more likely to come to pass than the danger of losing our Irish character. That lives in our very nature. We have strong impassioned feelings of indigna- tion, pleasure, love, and hatred, and these we cannot easily lose. But our religion comes from God ; the faith comes from heaven, and it is taken away from a man when he makes himself un- worthy. So sure as the practices of the Catholic Church are at Home and Abroad. 317 neglected by a man here, he will bring up in the light of that example, children who will deny the very profession of his faith and his name ; and in this, too, I hold that the mystery of Ire- land's future is involved. The next thing is the disunion of Irishmen. It was the source of misery in the past, and, if allowed to grow untouched, it will be the blight of the future. Why should we be disunited ? Let every man hold the Catholic religion as he holds his soul ; but let him be liberal and kind-hearted, and allow to all men a perfect right to their own religious opinions. At this moment, if I am informed rightly, there are other nations that are more united here than the Irish. The Germans vote together, while the Irish vote is divided. If two Catholics and two Orangemen come together they must celebrate the meeting with a fight. Oh ! my friends, we have fought long enough. It is not by breaking a man's head that you can make a Catholic of him ; nor can he change us to his way of thinking by insult. Let there be toleration ; and, above all things, overruling all forms of religious belief, let there be feelings of charity and forbear- ance for our fellow-men. There are a thousand questions of primary importance outside the religious question. Is it neces- sary for a man to hate Ireland because he is a Protestant ? The very Orangemen shed their blood for Ireland's independence. The men of '98 were, the best of them, Protestants from the north of Ireland. Why, in God's name, should we tear our- selves to pieces, and destroy our power for good by fighting with our fellow-men on questions upon which we can unite without sacrificing a particle of our religious belief? Again, it is necessary for every honorable Irishman to set his foot on the vice of intemperance ; to stamp out that pestilen- tial evil, the sin, meanness, and degradation of drunkenness. America is, in many respects, a singular country ; in most respects the greatest country in the world. In other lands, my friends — and I speak now especially to those of my hearers who were born in America — in other lands a man may be born to wealth and title, and plenty of money, and consequently to a high station and much power; yet he may be a born ape, a booby. How many a titled " swell " there is, who is not fit to say a word. I have often gone into the House of Lords, and I found them there making a '* holy show " of themselves, " beg- 3i8 The Future of the Irish Race ging — a — to inform — a — to state — a ; " and looking into their hats as if they carried their brains in them. More ; given any amount of intelHgence, of energy, of ability, there is a power in those old countries, that lies in the path of every man, and tells him he can go so far, but no farther, for when he reaches a cer- tain point he strikes against a privileged class. But here, the way of honor, the broad path that leads up to the highest of your public offices, is open to all men ; no barrier of caste or of privilege lies in the way. America stands on her great shores, and says to all the peoples : " Come ! there is room for you all here ! and wealth and honor, great as the world can show, for all who can claim the glory of my citizenship. All I ask for is the aristocracy of intellect, industry, genius, energy, and sobriety. Come to me with these ; I seek no other endowment. I will not ask what honors your fathers bore. I only want the present worth — 'The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man's the gold for a' that.' " And in this race, open to all, may I ask, if this be the require- ment, who is there that comes to America with so fair a chance as the Irishman ? Is he deficient in brains? Try him with a joke ; say a good thing to him, and his great, ready laugh will tell you how clear is his intelligence. Sydney Smith said that the only way to get a joke into a Scotchman's head was to get a gimlet and bore a hole and put it in. Have we brains ? Two things only did England leave us ; she took independence, nationality, trade, property. Two things she could not take — Irish brains, and the Catholic faith. In the darkest "hour of Ire- land's history, the greatest leader of opinion in England was Edmund Burke, an Irishman; the greatest orator that was ever neard in the halls of the British Parliament, to whose magnifi- cent sentences Pitt used to beat time as if to music, was Henry Grattan. Of another, John Philpot Curran, Lord Byron said : " I have heard more poetry in one half-hour listening to Curran speak, than I ever read in books." The greatest soldier of modern times, the Duke of Wellington, was an Irishman, although he was ashamed of the fact, and said " it was his misfortune, and not his fault." Go through any walk of science, art, or literature, look at the poets, soldiers, and paint- at Home and Abroad. 319 ers, and you will find that the choicest laurels of England have rested on the brows of Irishmen. If, then, America demand as the first condition, the posses- sion of brains, Ireland can furnish her with a large contingent. Well, the next great requirement that she demands of her sons is energy. Are the Irish energetic? Who made the railroads of the world ? Who built the great cities? Who is building Chicago to- day ? I could go through the rising streets of Chicago to-mor- row, and from the tongues of the workmen tell every province of Ireland. They might be speaking the English language ; but it would be like the young lady from Westmeath speaking French. She wrote back to a friend that Mullingar French didn't do very well in Paris. What remains to insure this grand future for the Irish race ? All these gifts of intelligence, industry, energy — all are poisoned, spoiled, ruined, the moment the devil of intemperance is allowed to leave its hand on a man. Give your Irish brains fair play. Be temperate; teach your children to keep their nature firm and free from that curse that destroys the grace of God in heart and brain. Oh ! how grand it is, as I see it to-day — this future of my race! Eight millions of people in America of Irish birth, and eighteen millions of Irish blood ! In thirty years there must be fifty millions, born in this great country, spreading it- self out in all things, rich beyond all other nations in minerals, rivers, harbors. Fifty millions of Irishmen here will overshade all the nations of the earth. Think of the magnificent element of fifty millions of Irishmen, filling the public offices, and guid- ing the destinies of this country, and all bearing the distinctive marks of Irish character, an ornament and a pride to the land that adopted them, by their Catholic temperance and purity. A power in this land will they be assuredly, to guide and in- fluence her actions, to draw the sword in the moment of dan- ger, and to strike such blows in the cause of God and truth as have never yet rung on the shield of injustice. A power in Ire- land before which the generous heart of America will be sure to bow in homage ; a power that will not prevent you from being the best American citizens, while you will not lose the vision of Ireland and of the debt you owe her. Then, and not till then, 320 The Future of the Irish Race at Home and Abroad. every enemy of Ireland will stand paralyzed to injure her, and unable to touch her with hostile hand or finger, because the great phantom of Ireland in America will cause them to recoil, and force them to respect the dear, old, venerated, and beloved island. WHAT THE POPES DID FOR ROME. [Lecture delivered before the Catholic Union, Circle of New York, in the Cooper Institute, on the evening of September 19, 1872.] Y DEAR FRIENDS : It would be affectation in me to pretend to be ashamed to meet you this evening. I have met you so often before, and have so often received from you that hearty welcome which you have accorded me just now, and for which, as an Irishman and as a priest, I am more grateful than I can express. I have had the honor to address my fellow-countrymen on many important topics since I came to this country, but the subject upon which I propose to speak to you this evening is at once the most important, and tO' you the most interesting, upon which I could address you. It is the most important, because bound up with it is that holy faith by which we hope to be saved ; and it is also the most in- teresting, for it takes in not the people of one nation or of one race, but the whole Christian and Catholic world. It is, more- over, the most interesting to you not only as Catholics, but also- to a great majority amongst you who are my fellow-countrymen, to whom I speak on a subject that has never yet failed to stir up the tenderest and strongest emotion of every Catholic and every Irish heart : namely, the glorious subject of " The Pope of Rome." And now, my friends, before I come to the especial object of the lecture : namely, " What the Popes did for Rome," I ask yo*" to consider briefly with me the position which the Holy Father,, the Head of the Church, holds in relation to the mystic body of Jesus Christ, which is His holy Church. When Christ our Lord, the Eternal Word of God, became man. He came to give to this world by His own action and His own mercy the redemption of 21 322 What the Popes did for Rome. sin. He came by his own personal act to wipe away and wash away the sins of mankind, and to shed that blood without which there could be no remission : namely, the blood of an Infinite and divine victim suffering upon the cross. He came, moreover, to dispel the darkness of a benighted world, over which hung the thick cloud of four thousand years of curse and of sin, through which no ray of divine light penetrated, so that the in- tellect of mankind was darkened, the mind obscured, and error in its most hideous form was not only propagated amongst men but was adored, as if it was the very principle gf divinity and of light. He found the world in darkness, and He said, "I am the Light of the world," and forth from Him streamed the divine light of heaven, the light of divine knowledge of faith which dis- pelled the darkness that overhung the intellect of man and let in the " admirable light," as the apostle expresses it, of Jesus Christ. He came, moreover, to leave to mankind the means whereby they were to sanctify and purify themselves unto the end of time, the graces flowing from the sacraments, without which, in the ordinary designs of God, no man can be sanctified or saved. And in order that the world for all future time should possess that light, pure, clear, brilliant, even as it shone forth in the words and from the heart of the Redeemer, and in order that the world might have unto the end of time, easy access to the sacraments, the sources of purification, the fountains which were brought forth at the touch of the Lord unto the cleansing of the sinner and the unclean ; in order to this, Christ our Lord established His Church. He founded her in sanctity ; He founded her in light and in truth ; He breathed upon her the breath of a life which was to be im- mortal and imperishable, and He set her up upon this earth to be the light of the world, and to be the salvation of mankind. Now, the first thing that was necessary for this Church was, that all men should know her ; that her claims should be palpable and clear before all mankind ; that her voice should be heard in every land, always speaking the same word, because the word of truth ; always dispensing the same graces, because the necessities, the spiritual wants of mankind were the same. It was necessary that this Church should be essentially one, never changing one word of her teaching, What the Popes did for Rome. 323 because her teaching is the word of God, and the word of God, eternal truth, can never change. It was necessary that she should be one, because she was the spouse of Jesus Christ, His representative upon this earth, carrying on His work of illumination and of sanctity, and, therefore, that she should be His image, and He was essentially one. Let us pause for a moment upon this thought. Unity of doctrine, unity of an unchanged and an unchanging truth, unity of the Word that never was to contradict itself, unity of obedience whereby all mankind was to be bound as one, not only in the union of intellect by faith, but in the union of will by obedience. Unity of discipline was absolutely necessary for the Church that was founded by Jesus Christ, if for no other reason, that she might represent the principle of unity that was in Him. For mark, I need not tell you that He was God, the Second Person of the Adorable Trinity, true God of true God, the Incarnate Word of the Eternal Father ; but I need not tell you, moreover, that He was also the same identical nature with the Father, indivisible in essence and in nature, co-equal in power and existence from all eternity ; and that God is essen- tially one, and that the Eternal Word was essentially one from all eternity with the Father. Then He came on earth, and He took to Him our nature. We might imagine that now, at least, when God takes to Him a nature which is foreign to Him- self, when God takes to Him a humanity which He Himself created, that now, at least, there must be some division in God, that He is no longer to remain essentially one. But no ; mark, in the mystery of the Incarnation, how the verj' Word of God needs a preserving principle of unity. He took a human body and a human soul ; He took a human will and a human heart ; He took human relations and human affections ; He became the true child of a human mother ; He become the son of man ; yet taking all this. He carefully put away from Him the human individuality or personality, and He assumed the humanity into His Godhead, so that He that was born ot the Virgin, although God and man, was God and man so united as to make but one person, and that person was divine, and the mother that bore Him was the Mother of God. Thus was the principle of unity still preserved in the manner in which that Eternal Word took human nature and human 324 W/iaf the Popes did for Rome. flesh. That unity by which He was one with the Eternal Father, that ineffable unity of nature, that unity by which He was one with manhood, with His humanity in the mysterious and wonderful union of person, and the hypostatical union of incarnation, that unity the Son of God expressly declared was to be represented in His Church to the end of time. This is the point which the men of our day lose sight of outside the Catholic Church, in that wild waste and confusion of all ideas, for every idea of religion is so mingled up that no man knows what he believes, and what he does not believe ; that no man knows in what he agrees or in what he differs from his feHow- men. The principle of unity is entirely lost sight of, so much so that actually English writers of our day are boasting of the number of religions that are formed in their native land. A certain noted lecturer of great fame and great name, some time ago, lecturing before a very learned and highly respectable as- semblage, gave thanks to God — the fool, for I cannot call him anything else — because of the multiplicity of religions ; Shakers and Quakers, and Baptists and Anabaptists, Methodists by primitive communion. New Methodists, Independent Metho- dists, Methodists without any dependence on God or man. Look at them, says he, our country is covered with churches. Oh, isn't it a glorious thing to see a people so intent upon re- ligion? "Oh," said the Son of God, the night before He died, when the thoughts of death with all their solemnity were upon his mind ; when the cross and all its accompanying horrors were clear before Him in the mystery of the coming morning ; upon that night of Holy Thursday, He put up His last prayer to His Father, and His prayer was this : " Oh, Father," He said ; " you and I are one. I ask you that even as we are one, so those whom I have gathered together in My name may re- main one ; that the unity with which I am bound to Thee in nature may be effected in them by the grace of faith, and that they may be one ; " and the last dying words of the Saviour set upon His Church, upon her brows, as the sign and the counter- sign by which all men were to know her, the sign of " unity ;" she was to be one, admitting no rival, admitting no contradiction, allowing no man or body of men to rise up and say to her : " You lie." She cannot lie, because she tells the truth ; the truth of God is upon her ; it is in her, and he that contradicts her is a liar against God. W^af the Po^s did for Rome. 325 Now, you may say to me : " This is all very fine ; but we come here this evening to hear something about the Pope, and you are talking to us about the Church." Well, my friends, I am just coming to it. Christ our Lord set the seal of unity upon His Church ; but now mark how He acted when He was founding the Church's constitution. A learned and great man of our age, the illustrious Dr. Newman, has said that there is only one thing in this world finer than the British constitu- tion, and that is the constitution of the Catholic Church. And well might he make the distinction. As for the British consti- tution, splendid as it may be, we Irish only know it in the- ory, God help us! If it is the fine thing they say, we have never known it in practice — but still, such as it is, it is the work of man, and many a renegade, and many a bad, traitorous, false-hearted man had a hand in the making of it. The consti- tution of the Catholic Church is the work of our Lord and Sa- viour Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Therein lies the difference. Now, when the Son of God, the incarnate wisdom of the Father, was blessing the constitution of His Church, the very first principle that he laid down, as we have seen, was unity, and that unity was to be represented visibly before the eyes of men, easily recognizable by all men. What did He do in order to effect this? He selected twelve apostles, my friends ; but twelve men do not constitute unity; but when He had selected the twelve to be the foundation-stone of His Church, He then chose one out of the twelve and picked him out, and to that man He said : " To thee, O Peter, I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; thou must feed my lambs, thou must feed my sheep. I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. Arise, O Peter ! and confirm thy brethren." Mark how beau- tifully he sketched out the constitution of His Church. He preached to the people, and converted them by thousands ; then out of the ranks of the people He selected seventy-two disciples ; then out of the ranks of the seventy-two He culled and selected twelve apostles, and out of the twelve He took one, and He put that one before them, and in the da)'' that He ^ ascended into heaven He left that one man standing before the whole world, the representative of the unity of the Catholic Church. That man was Peter, the Pope of Rome. Now, if you ask me why did our Lord do this, I answer, he \ 326 What the Popes did for Rome. did it to preserve the faith. He did it for other reasons. I am speaking in the presence of priests and theologians ; I am speak- ing in the presence of a bishop, learned as zealous (Bishop Quin- lan, of Mobile) ; I am not speaking to you this evening without fear and trembling. There are those on this platform who could teach me ; but well they know, and we know, and you know, that Christ our Lord established the unity of His Church and the unity of her visible head for many reasons, but the first rea- son was in order to preserve the faith ; I will not go beyond that ; I appeal to histoiy ; the Pope of Rome represents the faith of the Catholic Church in its unity. And now let me prove this at once in two sentences to satisfy you all. There have been many separations and divisions in the Church since the day that Christ our Lord founded it ; many heresies have sprung up, my friends, many, but amongst them all there is this rule — the moment any man, or any number of men, or any nation of men, separate from the Pope of Rome, even if they do not touch one single article of the Catholic faith except that, they are lost, and lost forever. It is a singular fact that the devil, who is the author and the father of all heresies, when tempting men into heresy, has almost invariably only asked them to separate themselves from the Pope; not to deny — he has never tempted them to deny, any article of Catholic faith, only separate from the Pope ; that is enough for him. In twenty years we find them lapsed into every form of error and heresy, in addition to this first false step. Take for instance, the Greek schism, the first great division of the Church — the Archbishop of Constantinople as- serted that he was the equal of the Pope of Rome, and re- fused to obey him. He did not deny a single article of the Catholic faith, not one single truth did he deny ; all he said was, " I am equal to the Pope of Rome ; I am as good as he is ; he is not the head of the Church, and I will not obey him," nothing more. How stands the Greek church to-day ? Nations followed him in his disobedience, as the rebel angels followed Lucifer ■when he cried out in the height of heaven : " I will not be sub- ject ; I will not obey." Nations followed him in his disobedience. How are these nations to-day ? They are fallen into heresy ; they deny the procession of the Holy Ghost as the third person in the Blessed Trinity ; they are fallen into spiritual imbecility. W/iai the Popes did for Rome. 2>-7 The Greek schismatic priesthood and episcopate are at this mo- ment a living reproach to the name of Christianity. How came all these disorders upon them? They are actually bound as slaves to the Emperor of Russia, and a slavery to the State has come in amongst them so degrading, that to-morrow, if the Em- peror of Russia got up with a headache, and took it into his head to deny any article of the Greek Catholic faith, they would all be obliged to follow him, and believe as he ordered. Just the same as if the Queen of England and her privy council were to-morrow to decide that there were four persons in the Blessed Trinity instead of three, you would have his grace of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, and all the others go with him and take off their mitre and bend the knee and say: "Your Majesty says there are four persons in the Blessed Trinity. Yes ; we believe it." The next thing they would be obliged to do would be to go into their pulpits and preach to the people : " Thus saith the Queen ; thus saith the council of the Queen ; there are four persons in God instead of three." That is the position to which every church reduces itself which separates from the Pope of Rome. Take again the Church of England as she is ; look at her ; look at that proud Protestant Church that reigns in Eng- land to-day, that reigned in Ireland for three hundred years, seated upon a throne, the foundations of which were laid in the blood of the martyrs of Ireland. What does the Church of England teach to-day ? Does she teach Baptism ? No. She teaches that baptism is not necessary to salvation. Does she teach Confirmation ? No. She says it is no sacrament. Does she teach the Eucharist? No. She denies the presence of Jesus Christ. Does she teach Penance? No. She tells the people they must not go to confession. Does she teach Ex- treme Unction? No. She lets her people die like dogs. Does she teach Holy Orders? No. She lets every Spurgeon, and every Methodist, and every Baptist, and every tinker in the land get up into her pulpits and preach in her name. Does she teach Matrimony? No. The lawyer who pretends to preach the words of the council has admitted upon the authority of the courts and the English Parliament the propriety of divorce. I have counted up the seven sacraments that we all know since we were children, and not one of them remains among them, 328 What the Popes did for Rome. not one. Just fancy a church without sacraments, that is to say, a church without a single element or channel of divine grace. Now I ask you to consider how that church began. See where she is to-day. What was she three hundred years ago? All that Henry VIII. demanded of England was to deny the papal supremacy, not a single thing more. He did not ask them to give up the mass, nor to give up confession, nor to give up baptism. All in the world that Henry VIII. said, was, " I want to marry five or six wives ; the Pope won't let me. But I am as good as the Pope, and I am not going to be subject to him any more, it is much more convenient for us to do without him. Let us go on. Let us separate from Rome, but we will keep everything else ; we will keep our bish- ops and our priests, and have mass every morning, and you will all go to confession, and all be married in the church, and no man shall leave his wife and take another man's wife, except myself." Henry VIII. died, and the day he died, England had not yet renounced one single article of Catholic faith. She had only separated from the Pope of Rome, but that separation alone destroyed in her the power of faith, the existence of faith, the unity of faith, and hence, to-day, not a single vestige of di- vine grace or of divine faith remains with her Church. Thus you see I have proved by these two examples, and I might multiply them, that all in the world the devil asks any nation to do is to separate from the Pope of Rome, because he knows well that in twenty or thirty years' time he will get them to deny, if necessary, the existence of God. The Pope is the guarantee of the faith of the Church, because he is the repre- sentative of her unity, and the faith must essentially be one. Our Lord ascended into heaven ; Peter took His place before men as the viceroy of the Son of God. Christ remained the Invisible Head of His Church ; remained with her as the un- changeable Truth, which He is by nature and by essence ; re- mained with her as the fountain of divine grace, which was opened from the five bleeding wounds upon the cross of Cal- vary, and which has never ceased to flow from that to this in the channels of the sacraments. Christ remained, but invisible ; Christ remained, but hidden. No man sees him. This morn- ing, all unworthy as I am, and with my fellow-priests, we have all touched Him with our hands, spoken to Him with our own What the Popes did for Rome. 329 lips, received Him into our hearts; but no eye amongst us saw the awful God that lay hidden there — hidden under the appear- ance of the morsel of bread and the drop of wine. Christ re- mained, but hidden ; but it was necessary that His Church should see Him, and, therefore. He set up Peter to represent Him, and said : " Be you the Head of the Church, the founda- tion-stone upon which I shall build My Church, with confirming power to keep thy brethren in the faith unto the end of time." And then Peter took the obligation of Christ. And now, my friends, just as Christ our Lord, says the apostle, never dies, Christ, rising from the dead, he says, dies no more ; just as Christ cannot die, who is eternally, essentially alive, so Peter, who represents Christ, can never die — never ! Peter may go up to the Janiculum of Rome — Peter in his old age ; his hair, white as the untrodden snow, flowing over his aged shoulders — may lie down upon the cross, and have the nails driven into his hands and feet, and be treated like his divine Master ; Peter may be lifted up upon the cross, and the word may go forth in Rome that the old man who was the head of the Christians is dead, but Peter did not die ; he arose again and lived in Linus, and Linus was carried away to martyrdom, and he arose and lived in Anacletus, and Anacletus shed his blood, and arose and lived in Clement, and so on, Peter dying in one, rising in the other, like His divine Master, until at length, Peter died in Gregory XVL, and came to life again in the glorious and venerable Pontiff who waves his hand in bless- ing to America to-night — Pius IX. And, dearly beloved, your cheer at the sound of that ven- erated name is music to my heart, my fellow-Catholics. Would to God that its echoes might sweep over the Atlantic wave, and resound to-night in the Vatican of Rome ! Would to God that those around him, who have known him and basked in the blessings that he has poured out upon them — would that they had your hearts to-night of love and bravery, and your strong arms to draw the sword and rally like men around him ! Time rolled on, sweeping away upon its rapid wings the rev- olutions of ages, and broke up that Roman Empire which spread over the world, which was cemented in the blood of nations and in the blood of the martyrs of God, and which man in pride declared should last forever and be eternal. A temple 330 What the Popes did for Rome. was erected in Rome, and upon its portals were written : " The Eternal and Everlasting Temple." They thought because they had conquered the nations that their power should remain forever. They thought because they had dabbled in the best blood of early Christianity for three hundred years, that no power on earth or in heaven could resist them ; but in the fifth century, forth from the storm-ridden clouds of the far north of Europe, was heard the ominous sound of the tramp of the coming nations ; even as the thunder-storm gathers upon the horizon and approaches until it covers the whole face of the heavens, and the black cloud is seen rising up through the sea, creeping along the seashore, enveloping and enfolding the mountains in its black shade, and then dashing in fury over the city, whilst the terrible thunder comes before the storm, so in the hour of pomp, and power, and pride of Rome, a cloud was seen approaching from the north and the thunder was heard, but it was the tramp of the nations upon the march. They had risen like the locusts; they had risen in thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands. They swept along down from the fastnesses of Northern Asia and Europe in their resistless course, trampling upon the nations, ruining kingdoms, breaking down provinces, leaving no green or flourishing thing of life behind them ; and so, on they came, enlarging themselves, sweeping away everything, devouring everything before them, until they concentrated their forces and dashed against imperial Rome. Now, we come to the question. What did the Popes do for Rome ? It was in the year 440, the provinces of Germany were overrun by the Huns ; they were a nation of barbarous savages, only used to one thing, and that one thing the exercise of their lives — war, war, terrible, devouring war. On they came. Every city that lay in their path was destroyed and demolished, until you could run the plow over the place where once all the glory and splendor of civilization had lived. Every vestige of order, of law, of power, of comfort, of life disappeared before them. They were as the breath from the lips of an angry God, and the nations fled before them down to Italy, until they brought the news to Rome ; " Attila, Attila is coming! behind him five hun- dred thousand men, before him the wrath of the Most High, and he is called the Scourge of God." On he came, no power W/ial the Popes did for Rome. 331 to resist him ; every army that the Roman Empire sent against him withered and destroyed before his furious presence. His sword swept down the warriors who had conquered the world, even as the mower reaps with his scythe the blooming grass of the meadow. It was his boast that nothing ever lived in his presence, and no living thing remained behind where he had once passed over. On he came towards Rome. The Roman people were affrighted, terrified, looked to this side and to that. There was no help. Their city, with the accumulated riches and magnifi- cence of eight hundred years, a thousand years, was about to fall a prey : their women to be destroyed, their children's blood to be shed upon the marble pavements of Rome. Nothing was to remain. Down came the conqueror; his hordes were seen crowding the snowy summits of the Alps ; their barbarous lan- guage was heard re-echoing amongst the valleys of the Tyrol and of northern Italy, and at length they came as far as the city of Mantua ; and Rome, the persecutor, Rome, the proud, imperious mistress of the world, fell on her knees to one man and prayed that one man to save her, for he alone could do it, and that one man was the Bishop, the Pope of Rome. His name was Leo, and he is known in history by the title of " the Great." Great before God, because of his personal sanctity, great before the Church, because of his empire over her as her visible head and the representative of her divine founder ; great before the world because of his learning ; great in the history of Rome because his arm alone saved her from destruction. He went forth from the city; he traveled into the north of Italy, and he found Attila, the Scourge of God, surrounded by his myriads, his hundreds of thousands of warriors. He came near the river Mincio, near the present city of Mantua. The man to whom he was going did not believe in God ; the man to whom he was about to present himself was never known to spare a human being. The historians of the time tell us that the women, when he turned his fiery eye upon them, fainted away from terror; that the very stoutest soldier in his army quailed like a coward and trembled before the terrible tiger-glance of the " Scourge of God." This was the man to whom the Pope of Rome went. He found him in his camp, surrounded by his barbaric splendor and by the spoils of Italy. He came into his presence, appearing 332 What ike Popes did for Rome. before him with his tiara on head, cape on shoulders, crcsier in hand. He appeared as if he was a vision from God, armed with the terrors of the Most High, and he said to him : " Oh, tyrant ! oh, blood-stained and merciless ; thus sayeth the Lord God of heaven, thou shalt never lay a hand upon Rome." The warriors who stood around expected that this terrific man would rise up in his strength, and with his iron mace would shatter to earth the man who thus dared to address him. What was their astonishment when Attila bowed his head in his hands, covered his averted face, and said, '* Take him away, put him away, I promise him that I will not approach that city which he protects." So terrified was this awful man at the sight of the Pope, that next day he sounded the trumpets to his army and crossed the Alps again, and returned into his native forests of Pannonia, and there he sickened and died, all from the terror of having seen the Vicar of Jesus Christ. And when his amazed warriors said to him : " Oh, master, how comes it to pass that you, who were never afraid of tens of thousands of soldiers be- fore you, and of the bravest kings and generals in the world, how is it that you quailed before this unarmed man?" and he answered : " I looked at him and then lifted up my eyes, and I saw in the air above him two terrible figures, shining out as if the brightness of ten thousand suns were upon them, and they both came with angry countenances, and their flowing garments overshadowed and overspread him and covered him as he spoke to me, and in their hands were flaming swords directed towards me, so I knew he was a man protected by heaven and I was afraid of him." The figures, the glorious figures that overshad- owed the Pope of Rome and that brandished the sword of God, were the figures of Peter and of Paul, whose bodies lay that day beneath the Vatican temple in Rome. What did the Popes do for Rome ? A few years after, another king, as terrible as Attila, appeared. Genseric, the unconquera- ble leader of the great Vandal race, marched down upon Italy, and spread terror and devastation on every side. Once more was heard the cry, resounding from three hundred thousand warriors' lips : " To Rome ; give us Rome, that we may enrich ourselves with its plunder, and that we may walk in the blood of its inhabitants." The cry was heard : " To Rome, to Rome." Once more Rome, on her knees, implores Leo, and the aged What the Popes did for Rome. 333 man rises from his pontifical throne and goes out. The Vandals were within six miles of the city. Their barbaric cries were heard in the streets, and re-echoed in the public places in Rome, striking the chill of terror, as of death, into its inhabitants, as within six miles of the city they pitched their tents. Another day, yea, another half day, Rome would have been even as Pal- myra in the desert, or Thebes, which can scarcely be found to- day. Leo went forth again, and again standing before the bar- baric chieftain, he said to him : " All the power of the earth is given to thee ; no hand can resist thee ; and Rome lies within thy grasp, yet I, I tell thee, and my commission is from Heaven, that I stand between thee and Rome, and into Rome thou shalt never enter," Like the spirit of evil, as he fled, in the day of God's first victory, before the arm of the great archangel Michael, so fled, in Italy, the barbaric king and his thousands and myriads of soldiers, before the one word and the one up- lifted arm of the Pope of Rome. To-day the ungrateful Italians have hurled him for a time from his throne. To-day the enemies of God and His Church have dared to lift their hand and pluck the ancient crown which Rome, of her own free-will, set upon the brows of her saviour ; from these honored and glorious brows, that have worn it for more than a thousand years. To-day men, calling themselves Christians and Catholics, tell the Pope of Rome that he is no longer to have a throne, no palace, nor a house, nor a home within her walls. These walls would not exist to-day, not a vestige of the once glorious imperial mistress of the world would remain ; the traveler might seek in vain in the white sandy plains of the Campagna for the faintest traces of ancient Rome, were it not for the man whom ungrateful Italy tells to- day to depart, and that he is to have no longer a place within the walls of Rome. But shall he depart? Shall the pontifical crown go down into the dust ? Shall the hand that saved Rome be no longer permitted to wave its blessings from her ancient imperial walls ? Two hundred millions of Catholics, from end to end of the earth, send forth a voice as of one man, and that one voice says : " No, never ; we never will permit our Holy Father to be driven from Rome, the place of his rightful sover- eignty." That voice, that loud, imperious note, is " Rome is ours, and we have a right to it ; " as I shall prove to you, that 334 What the Popes did for Rome. note goes forth in every language that is spoken under the sun. It goes forth and re-echoes in the islands far away in the lone Pacific. It is heard resounding in the primeval forests of Australia and New Zealand. It comes from the lips of the scarcely reclaimed yet sanctified savage of these aboriginal tribes. It is heard in the voice of the Japanese and Chinese, converted to Catholicity, and it is heard on the lips of the glorious Jesuit lingering in his Chinese prison, awaiting for the crown of martyrdom. It is heard throughout the length and breadth of glorious young America. It resounds amidst the snows of the North. It re-echoes throughout Europe in every tongue. It is caught up in the ancient Emerald Isle, thrown out into the Western Ocean. The faithful old land speaks as if every sham- rock upon her soil were gifted with a voice, and the voice is : " The Pope forever, and he shall remain." Throughout the ages of Christianity the Almighty has per- mitted many great persecutions to fall upon His Church, There is not a single point of her doctrine that has not been again and again assailed. There is not a single truth in her volume of sacred deposit of divine revelations that has not been sealed over and over again with martyrs' blood. There are those here this evening, sitting upon this platform, members of an order instituted for the last three hundred years, familiar to us all — for the name falls upon the ear and heart and thrills us with joy and with emotions of love — the Jesuits. There is scarcely a clime under the sun that has not been sanctified, and where the Catholic Church has not been sealed with the martyr's blood of the glorious, persecuted sons of the great Ignatius. They are persecuted to-day, and I speak of them now as simply an illus- tration of what I lay down as a principle, that there is not a single truth in the Catholic deposit of doctrine that has not been assailed in some age or other, that has not cried out loudly for defense against her traitorous foes, and I speak of them now be- cause they are under the dire persecution which is so familiar to them. The most powerful hand in the world is raised against them ; the most powerful armed hand on the face of the earth ; the hand that to-day can strike down monarchs and build up thrones, has concentrated all its power to dash the holy and sacred Order of Jesus to pieces. The hand that was uplifted before Attila is uplifted in defense — the hand of the Pope oi What the Popes did for Rome. 335 Rome. As well might Attila have dashed his force against the forbidden walls, to recoil in utter destruction, as any power of earth seek to destroy the glorious Order, which alone, amid all the orders in the Church, represents the risen and the glorious life of Jesus Christ. Now, my friends, from age to age in the Church we find this great principal truth. For nearly three hundred years the Catholic Church was persecuted on the question of the unity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thousands of martyrs shed their blood for it. The Arian heresy had scarcely subsided, when the Church was called once more to suffer in defense of the Blessed Virgin Mother, the Mother of God. Thus, from age to age every point of her doctrine has been assailed, and to-day the powers that have assailed her vainly for eighteen hundred years have concentrated their force against the Pope of Rome, and he is the great centre of their attack ; but invariably the spirit of the Catholic Church has come forth with a mighty power and force in proportion as each doctrine was assailed, and pre- cisely that point of her doctrine that was assailed was the point for which the Church came out, struck her blows, lifted up her voice, and shed her blood, and to-day the touchstone of the Catholic Church, the very point upon which all her energies are rallied, upon which her voice is loudest in its acclaim of her faith, for which she is most ready to shed her blood, is in the maintaining of the glory, the position, the headship of the Pope of Rome. The proof lies here. Why are the Jesuits persecu- ted beyond all others to-day ! Because the wicked, infidel, and heretical world imagines and believes that they, beyond any other order in the Church, are the great supporters of the Pope. Why does Bismarck assail them ? Because Bismarck, like Attila of old, like Genseric of old, has had the hardihood to come out in front of the soldiers and say : " I challenge the Pope of Rome ! " Oh, foolish man ; he might as well challenge Jesus Christ. What did the Popes do for Rome? Three centuries passed away after Leo had twice saved it. Italy was under the power of the Lombards ; a nominal allegiance was given to the em- peror, who lived away in Constantinople, immersed in pleasure and luxuries, and surrounded by his musicians and his artists — what did he care for Italy? He only endeavored to draw as 33^ W/iat the Popes did for Rome. much money as he could from it. He looked upon the people as only fair game to be plundered, just as England has looked upon Ireland for many a terrible year. They are poor; they are trodden to the earth ; if they have another guinea, they take it from them and grasp it. Thus did the Emperors of Con- stantinople treat the Church. The Italian people cried in vain to them, and said : "You are taking our money — you are tak- ing our taxes ; why, then, don't you preserve us, and save us from our enemies?" Every age, every year brought down new armies of barbarians ; the Goths, the Vandals, the Visigoths — all these swept year after year down, destroyed the people, ravaged the lands, plundered and demolished the cities, and at length the people of Rome, in the eighth century, turned to the Pope, and said: "You have saved our city over and over again ; you have saved our lives ; you are the only man that can protect us. Let us, in the name of God, crown this man, and let him be our temporal sovereign ; " and they set the crown of the Roman Empire upon his head, and they said : " The man that is the head of our faith, and that has saved our lives, will be our ruler ;" and thus it was that the Pope came to be the King of Rome. What did the Pope do for Rome? About the year 750 — about the middle of the eighth century — the Saracens, gather- ing their forces in hundreds of thousands, made a tremendous invasion of Europe. For the preceding centuries, men were ac- customed to look for the scourge from the north ; the nations who expected ruin and destruction awaited it from the fortresses of Russia and of Tartary, in the north ; and now the voice is heard again — the murmur, the thunder of invasion. Whole nations are on the march ; all the southern nations are aroused — all the great nations of Europe and Africa. The Saracens, the people who had embraced the Mussulman religion, all armed, desperate men, made an invasion of Europe through Spain, sweeping up into France, and were preparing to turn around and sweep down over Italy, and civilization, humanly speaking, seemed to be threatened with utter destruction. Once again, and now not Rome alone, but all Christendom turns to the Pope of Rome, Gregory III., who was then seated upon St. Peter's chair. They cried out to him : " O Father, you alone can save us ! " The cities of Spain were in ruins and in flames, What the Popes did for Rome. 337 the people were destroyed ; there was only one choice given to them — renounce Jesus Christ or die. The Pope alone was equal to the occasion. He sent his legates into France, and aroused the loving heart of Charles Martel. He sent his mes- sengers through Germany and the northern countries. They rallied the Christian nations whom the missionaries had just converted to the faith ; they brought them together, these gigantic sons of the German forests and the northern parts of Europe — the sturdy, and the nimble, and the brave, and, in spite of the misfortunes of to-day, the still glorious Frenchmen. They assembled, led by one of the greatest heroes that ever God gave to this world or to His Church — Charles Martel. He was called Charles of the Hammer, for he went into the battlefield clad with steel, mounted on a strong horse covered also with steel, and bearing no weapon except a tremendous iron bar or mace with a great knob at the end of it, with which he was accustomed to dash out the brains of his adver- saries. Upon the plains of Poictiers, in the south of France, the- Christian host met the Saracens. They were astonished when they saw the whole country around covered with cavalry, the horsemen with turbans upon their heads, men clad in Oriental, splendor, with their crooked cimeters gleaming in the air. There they hovered around in thousands and tens of thousands, so that the Christians, wherever they looked, beheld the whole country filled with Saracens. And now the delegates of Greg- ory HI. move among the ranks; the voice of the monk, the preacher, the bishop, the legate is heard ; the cry of Christ and His Holy Church is raised ; the banner that Gregory blessed in Rome is uplifted and flung to the glorious breeze. For ten days the two mighty armies stood before each other like two strong athletes looking at one anather, measuring each other, until, on Saturday, the Mussulraen arose early in the morning and prayed. The Christians, in their camp, had a holy Mass celebrated before each regiment. Then they stood arrayed for a moment, front to front, the cymbals of the Moors clashing ; their army dashed forward, and thousands of the bravest horsemen in the world dashed themselves right up against the steel-clad line of the Frank, the Gaul, the German ; and just as the ocean wave dashes against the sea- 22 338 W/ia^ the Popes did for Rome. bound coast, dashes against the mighty rocks only to recoil again in foam, so, twenty times, did the Moors renew their charge, and dash with loud cries, and as with the fury of hell, against the ranks of the Christians. That barrier of ice, that wall of brass was unmoved, and, after twenty charges, a voice was heard — a warrior arose in his stirrups, waved his mighty iron mace, cried out from beneath his helmet of steel : " For Christ and for His holy Church ! " The ground trembled and shook beneath them ; the cry that was heard along those steel- clad ranks was for Christ ; and the soldiers dashed in upon the Saracens, the Moors, and swept them from before them until the very soil of the plains of Poictiers was trodden deep and wetted with the blood of Saracens ; and Christendom was saved, Europe was saved, civilization was saved, and, in that day, the whole world which is now civilized recognized in Gregory III. of Rome the great mind that conceived, and the great heart that effected their redemption. What did the Popes do for Rome? Centuries passed away, and now the Kings of Rome found themselves in the midst of a city which was a sanctuary of all that was most precious of the 'remains of ancient science and art — Rome, the precious treasury of all the most ancient things of antiquity. Ah! they guarded it and touched it with a tender and scientific hand ; its ancient j-uins were preserved and guarded most jealously. When •crumbling, by the action of time, to their ruin, they were upheld by the lofty buttresses and strong walls that were thrown up against them, without marring their beauty or in the least dis- guising their ancient splendor. Every ancient monument of pagan Rome, everything that the student of history and the antiquarian loves to behold, everything that illustrates the studies of the young scholar, all that Rome has to-day has been preserved to her by the action of her Pontiffs, guarding them, ■caring for them, propping them up with tender and scien- tific hands. An untold treasure of money has been lavished in preserving the ancient vestiges of the beauty of imperial Rome. At length came the year 1309. In that year, such were the revolts and such were the insurrections and disturbances in Rome and in the neighboring cities, that the Pope, in order to show the Romans that they could not get on without him, in W/iai the Popes did for Rome. 339 order to teach them a salutary lesson, got up one morning, like a sensible man, if you will, and he said : " The whole world is before me ; these people seem to think I am an incumbrance to them, and I will go away and leave them." And so he went away to Avignon, in France. Now, mark what followed. The day the Pope left Rome there were one hundred and fifty thou- sand inhabitants in that city. There was left to them peace, and comfort, and plenty. In fact, they didn't know what to do with themselves they were so well off. The Pope remained away for seventy years, and in the year 1371 Gregory XI. returned to Rome — came back to live in the city. He left it one hundred and fifty thousand strong. How many thousand do you think were in Rome the day he came back ? Seventeen thousand ! And how were they living ? They were half starved ; they did not know where to look to get a morsel of bread. The historian tells us that the grass was growing, and the cows were feeding on the grass as it grew, in the streets of Rome the day the Pope came back. Rome says she can do without them. Rome does not say it to-day. I have lived twelve years in Rome. I know the Roman people. They are as anxious for their Pope as we are. But you can easily understand the position in which a quiet, timid people are placed, with the riff-raff and vagabonds of all Italy and France thrown in upon them, looking for something to plunder and something to steal, who, knowing there were three hundred and sixty-five churches in Rome, said: "I want to rob somebody, and the best person to rob is a priest, because he won't strike you ; he won't draw a revolver." " The churches in Rome," they said, " are full of gold and silver, splendid chal- ices, magnificent furniture ; they are worth robbing. Now that we find the King of Italy is going to plunder them on his own account, we will go in and help him, and take our pickings on the way." In this way, at this moment, Rome is filled as a cesspool with all the infamous dregs of the population, the blackguards, and villains, and atheists of Italy and France. What wonder the poor Roman people do not know what to do with themselves? The Roman father and mother to-day cannot send their children to school. The first thing a child will be taught is that there is no God. A Roman lady cannot go to mass in the morning. When she is seen coming out of the church she is insulted by the first rude vagabond that meets 340 What the Popes did for Rome. her. The Pope himself cannot leave the Vatican Palace ; it is true he is not a prisoner, he can go out if he likes ; but he will go out to hear the name of his God and all that he holds most sacred blasphemed. What did the Popes do for Rome ? Coming down from the days of Gregory XL, who came back to Rome and found but seven- teen thousand inhabitants, and in twenty years time after his return there were one hundred and sixty-two thousand people in the city, happy because the pope was back amongst them ; coming down from his days, ah ! what did the man who is suffer- ing in Rome to-day, what did he do for Rome ? It was the boast of Augustus that he found Rome a city of brick, and that he left it at his death a city of marble. I say, having seen Rome in the first days of the Pontificate of Pius IX., and having seen it almost yesterday, after he had passed his hand over it, Pius IX. can say, more truly than did Augustus : " I found Rome a city of brick and I have left it a city of marble." He built lodging-houses for the poor; he put fountains in the parts of the city where the poor people had not fresh, clear water to drink, I have seen him myself in that quarter of Rome in which I lived. He erected there a magnificent fountain be- cause the poor people complained to him ; he was in the habit of walking amongst them, getting outside a little from the crowded parts of Rome, alighting from his carriage and walk- ing ; and then every child that passed, and every poor woman that came along knelt down and got his blessing, and if they wanted anything they told him. I have seen the women my- self go to him and cry out to him on their knees : " Oh, Holy Father, isn't it too bad that we can't wash our clothes, we haven't any water and we have to wait ; we only get a little water in the week, and if we are not ready then we cannot wash for the rest of the week. Look at the state we are in," says one old woman, holding up her gown. There was the Pope smiling at her, and saying: "I am nearly as poor as yourself, but still I will get you a fountain." He erected a splendid fountain ; he brought the water along from a distant aqueduct, and gave them three great streams of the purest, freshest, finest water, flowing out in marble basins, flowing up into a great hall that he built, open at all times, always water running through it, and there they could enjoy themselves. What the Popes did for Rome. 341 It was near my convent. The day that the fountain was opened he came and stood in the midst of the poor people, one telling him : " I took a drink of the water yesterday, the finest water I ever drank." Another woman coming and clap- ping her hands : " Now we can have our duds cleaned." There is the aged man in the midst of them, smiling, feasting his heart because he had found the means to supply a want for his peo- ple. He founded hospitals the most magnificent in Europe. There is no city in Europe that has a better hospital than the San Spirito, which Pius IX. founded in Rome. There the poor man goes in and finds everything prepared for him. There are no set hours when his wife and his children come to see him while he is sick, and are kept away at all other times and have the door shut in their faces. The door is swinging on its hinges from morning to night, and they are with him just the same as if he was at home with his family; there are doctors, the best that can be procured ; nurses in abundance attend him with comforts of every kind ; the priest going in and out constantly, so that there are consolation and sacrament for those who re- quire it, as soon as desired. I have visited this hospital, have walked through it over and over again, and there they were, sur- rounded not by the legal charity of political economy, not at- tended by careless, heedless nurses that had no interest in them except to draw their pay, but attended by the priests of St. John of God, who have vowed to live and die in the hospitals in the service of the sick, and by the Sisters of Charity ; visited every other day as they were by the aged man that built the house for them — for his delight was to pull up his carriage at the door and get out and go in amongst them — the Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ ; and as long as he had a shilling in his purse he put it into the sick man's hands, blessed him and passed on, so that actually he lifted up the load of sickness and sorrow from the shoulders of the poor by his own kindness and his generosity. What did the Pope do for Rome ? He built the finest church in the world after St. Peter's, over the place where St. Paul was beheaded, outside the walls of Rome. He made the most mag- nificent streets ; he widened out the public places ; he establish- ed the best laws, administered justice freely and cheaply to his people ; he saved them from heavy taxation. On the house that I lived in, I calculated from the amount of rent that we paid, and 342 What the Popes did for Rome. the amount of land that we possessed, what the taxes would be in Ireland, and I found they would be exactly £\6 a year, $80 a year in gold. What do you think were the taxes that we paid ? and we were more heavily taxed than the lay people, be- cause Pius IX. always put the heaviest tax on the priests, and said : " Let us spare the people ; you pay me the money." The tax we paid was $15 a year, instead of $80. They had no con- scription : the father and mother could do what they liked with their children. There was no one to interfere with them. They sent them to school ; they knew that they would neither hear nor see anything bad in these schools, conducted by the priests of St. Joseph Calasanctius ; for the poor, conducted by the Christian Brothers, and conducted for the better class by the Jesuit Fathers ; and there they were in hundreds, a school in almost every street. Nay, more, at eight o'clock in the morn- ing you saw the priests of St. Joseph Calasanctius and the Chris- tian Brothers go out ringing a bell, calling through the streets, making the parents send out their boys to school. If they had no breakfast for them, they would give them a breakfast at school ; and then, in the evening, instead of letting the children out wild on the streets to return home, perhaps picking up evil, there you saw the children marching out like soldiers, and after each ten or twelve of them a priest, and he brought them each to the father or mother's door, and handed them in, and said : " Here ; you gave them to me this morning." What did Pius IX. do for Rome? If you want to know what Pius IX. did, all you have to do is to look to what Victor Emmanuel is doing, and just take the opposite of that, and you will know what the Pope did for Rome. Victor Em- manuel is driving out the priests, so that the sick and dying may not have the ministration of their religion. The rule in Rome, under the Popes, was, when a sick man sent for a parish priest, the parish priest went there, and if he found the man was dangerously ill he was bound to remain in the house, never to leave that bedside, until the man was either dead or pronounced out of danger. Not the slightest fear, day or night, that any one would die without the ministry of religion and the sacra- ments there. Victor Emmanuel has taken the schools from the Jesuits, and he has given them to the Jews. God bless the mark ! Christian children are to be taught by Jews. I have W/iai the Popes did for Rome. 343 the greatest respect for the Jews, as I have for every class of people. I disrespect no man. I despise no one. There is only- one in this world whom I despise, and whom I hope to have always the grace to despise, and that is Father Tom Burke. I have the greatest respect for the Jews. I know, as jewelers, and diamond-setters, and watchmakers they are splendid, perhaps the best that we have. I know also, as merchants, and as men of business, they are among the most respectable and polite of our citizens. But, tell me, would you like to send one of your children to learn his catechism from the Jews? The first thing that a Jew would be obliged to tell the child would be, that there never was so great a liar, nor so great a malefactor, nor so wicked a man on the face of this earth, as our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Now, I have seen the men that Victor Emmanuel has put in place of the Jesuits, to teach the Roman children. Victor Emmanuel has passed a law that every man in Rome, even the priest at the altar, is liable to be dragged out of his house and put into the ranks as a common soldier, and sent out to be shot. That is what Victor Emmanuel is doing. You may know from all this what the Pope did not do, or rather what he did do, for his people. Victor Emmanuel is taxing the people so that the cobbler that used to sit in his bulk mend- ing an old shoe cannot buy an awl, nor can he buy a wax-end, nor can he buy a pound of sparables, until he has first paid the taxes. Would you believe it, that they have brought things in Rome io this pass, that the farmer who goes out with his men to reap the corn has to pay taxes on it before he can carry it into the barn, and then again when he has it threshed, and is going to take it to the mill, he must pay taxes on it the third time before he can take it out of the mill — upon the necessaries of life. How would you like that ? How would you like to have the corn taxed in the field before it could be removed, taxed in the barn while it was being threshed, and then taxed a third time at the mill ; paying all these taxes to the government, profits to the farmer, profits to the baker ; what would be the price of a loaf by the time it came into your hands? My friends, Rome cannot get on without the Pope. To-day they are establishing a kind of government there, but the thing cannot last. It has been tried over and over again. 344 What the Popes did for Rome. A greater man than ever Victor Emmanuel was, tried to establish a government in Rome against the Pope, and he failed, and that man was the great Napoleon I. ; and I think if Napo- leon I. failed, we may easily imagine how speedily the end of Victor Emmanuel's business may come. More than this. If Victor Emmanuel had the power of a thousand Napoleons the Catholic world would be more than a match for him. You ask me if Pius IX. made Rome a city of marble, did he do it with- out money? No. He spent millions and millions of money on Rome during the twenty-five years of his pontificate. Where did he get the money? Did he get it from the Romans? No. He did not tax them, nor ask them for it. Had he it him- self? No. Though of a noble, he is of a poor family. Where did he get it ? He got it from the Catholic world. Got it from you and from, me, and he has invested it in Rome, and it is our money, and Rome is ours, and we shall claim our rights. Vic- tor Emmanuel may drive out the Jesuit at the bayonet's point, we will bring back the Jesuit and set him up in honor and in dignity. Victor Emmanuel may imagine that he has conquered, because he has shaken, the Pontifical throne. Ah! my friends, it is not so easy to overturn a throne whose foundations are set deep in the hearts of two hundred millions of men. To-day we are called upon to speak, and to pray, and to help. To-mor- row or next day, God — God who holds the destinies of the nations in his hands — will so shake the world that he will give an oppor- tunity and a chance to the manhood of the Catholic Church to rush in, strike a strong blow, and carry the Pope in triumph to his throne. And when that day comes, it will be a day of bene- diction to Rome, and to the world — when that day comes, it will not be necessary to have seven millions of men under arms as there are in Europe to-day ; seven million of men whose only work is to learn how to slaughter one another. Seven million of young men living in idleness, and in barrack life, and in sin. Seven million of the population of Europe going forth at the very time when a man's character is to be formed ; when they are seventeen years old, and coming back when they are three and twenty, confirmed atheists and and ruffians from their as- sociation. Seven million of men trained to destroy the body, and in training find the destruction of their own immortal souls. W/iaf the Popes did for Rome. 345 When the day comes that the Pope of Rome will be estab- lished upon his time-honored throne again, then at least Europe and the world will have the benediction of one throne founded, not in blood, but in eternal right and justice. All honor to the martyred dead ; all honor to those who, in the hour of danger, and in the hour that brought them face to face with death upon the battle-field, drew the sword for that glorious cause, and in the most magnificent and glorious uniform that ever yet was donned by men, the uniform of the soldier fighting for his spir- itual Father, and the vicar of Jesus Christ. They have gone forth few, but mighty in valor; they have gone forth from every nation, because the cause was Catholic. English blood was shed, the blood of Catholic England ; shoulder to shoulder, the Catholic Englishman stood with the stalwart son of Erin, and for once through the blessing of God there was a field on which the Englishman and the Irishman could mingle their blood in the same glorious cause of religion. The generous blood of France was shed ; the blood of Germany was poured out ; in a word, every Catholic nation had its representatives there, the highest, and the best, and the noblest in the land were there, proud, and justly proud, to have the blessing and the privilege to be able to strike a blow, and shed a drop of blood for the Sovereign Pontiff, the representative of their God. Now, this Catholic Union to which you belong represents in a special manner the spirit and the devotion of the Church of God to-day. If it was the divinity of Christ that was assailed by the Arian- ism of this day, then would you be enrolled in the glorious union of those who uphold the divinity of the Son of God. If it was the maternity of the Mother of God that was assailed to- day, then would the Catholic Church enroll you as amongst her best children in some great union or fraternity to assert Mary's glory. But it is the Pope that is assailed, and you of the Cath- olic Union are devoted to him by an especial bond, and bound in the fervor of your faith to maintain him by your prayers, by your best wishes, by your outspoken faith, by every help in your power, and when the day comes to strike a blow for him if it be in your power to do it. Fourteen hundred years ago St. Ambrose said : " Where Peter is, there the Church of God is," and to-day, after this fourteen hundred years, the Catholic Union of New York says, 34^ W/iat the Popes did for Rome. " We are banded together for Peter, whom we recognize in Pius, for where Pius is, there the Catholic Church is." The time of your membership is drawing to a close. The members are expected to-morrow to surrender their tickets, and to renew their association with this society. I charge you, as Catholics, I charge you, as enlightened Catholics, I charge you, as fervent Catholics, and I charge many amongst you, as Irish Catholics, that every man amongst you renew his affiliation and associ- ation with this union. Let every man amongst you try to spread it by bringing your friends within its salutary and glori- ous influence. The blessing of Pius IX. is upon it, and through it upon you. The blessing of that hand which, v/hen uplifted, represents the uplifted hand of the Saviour and the Redeemer, is upon your heads, and upon you and your families. It will bring you domestic comfort and Christian peace, purity and joy upon your family hearth, temporal prosperity, power, posi- tion in this land of your adoption. It will bring to you the blessing that was promised of old to the people who never changed their faith from their God. It will bring to you a soothing comfort in tribulation ; the indulgences of the Church of God at the hour of your suffering, and at the hour of your death. It will bring to you a blessing that will come down like a stream of God upon you, and rest with your children, and your children's children after you. Therefore I hope, that if it be my privilege in the coming year once again to address you upon this topic, and to enter upon this labor of love for you and for me, that I will find you all here, your numbers in- creased and multiplied, your influence increased and multiplied and, perhaps, I may be able to congratulate you upon some glorious news from Rome. Now, I have spoken to you at some length. If I have inter- ested you, I know it is the subject that has interested you ; and I hope that subject has so interested you that you have not been tired of the time that you have spent here this evening. If, on the other hand, I have tired any one amongst you, made you yawn — I didn't see anybody yawn — made you feel that it was high time for me to give up and go to my convent and say my prayers and go to bed — I say if I have tired any one amongst you to such an extent, the only excuse I can offer is that I had no intention to do so. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH THE IMAGE OF GOD. [Sermon preached at the laying of the corner-stone of the Church of St. Columba, Brighton, Mass., on Sunday, Sept. 22, 1872.] " I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house, and the place where Thy glory dwelleth." HESE words are found in the Book of Psalms. First of all, dearly beloved brethren, remember that the man who spoke those words is declared in the Scriptures to be " a man after God's own heart." He had his fail- ings, like other men. God permitted him to fall into great sins ; and great was the penance with which he paid for his sins. But, in spite of his failings, in spite of his sins, he was still declared to be " the man after God's own heart," because his zeal for the house of God, and for the glory of the dwelling-place of the Lord, devoured him. Why do I say that it was in this especially that the royal prophet was a man after God's own heart ? Be- cause I find that when God Himself became man, the virtue, beyond all others, that shone forth in Him — flashing from Him like the lightning of His divinity — was zeal for His Father's house, for its beauty and its grandeur. And the only time when the angry God shone forth in the person of Jesus Christ — the Redeemer, the God of mercy — was when he found them de- filing His Father's house, and with His own hands He scourged them from the holy place. . Observe, secondly, beloved brethren, that although the prophet of Israel declared that he loved the beauty of the house of the Lord, he spoke not of the Temple of Jerusalem. It was not yet in existence ; not a stone was yet laid upon a stone in the house which David's own son, Solomon, erected. Therefore. 348 The. Catholic Church the Image of God. when the prophet exclaimed, " I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house, and the place where Thy glory dwelleth," nothing remains but to conclude that when the prophet spoke the Almighty God had lifted up the veil of the future, and appear- ing before his prophetic eye revealed to him the glories of that Church which was to come, and which was founded on the prophets and the apostles, the great corner-stone being Jesus Christ Himself; that Church of which the apostle said : " Christ our Lord loved the Church, and gave Himself for it ; laid down His life for her, that He might make her in all things perfect and worthy of Himself; without spot or wrinkle;" but a glorious Church ; that Church of which the inspired one in the Apocalypse said : " Behold the Tabernacle of God with man. He shall dwell in the midst of them. They shall be His people, and He the Lord their God." What Church is this ? It is the only and the one Church, of which Christ our Lord, the Son of God, is the Divine Architect. " Wis- dom hath built unto herself a house," says the inspired writer, " and carved out seven columns." Faith is to be there, supporting the atrium over the altar of God ; pru'clence, justice, wisdom, fortitude, and the inestimable treasure of all others — adorning and beautifying the dwelling-place of God with man — charity. Oh ! it was this beauty which captivated the heart of Israel's prophet-king ; it was this beauty which Christ Himself set upon the brows of His Church, as a crown of unfading, im- perishable splendor. Thus the prophet's eye, turning from Jerusalem, and from his home, entered into the future of time, and into the designs of God, and he exclaims : " Oh ! how fair are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts ! I have loved the beauty of Thy house, and the place where Thy glory dwelleth." Now, first of all, my brethren, let me congratulate you that you are here to-day. If David was pronounced " a man after God's own heart," because he was zealous for the beauty of the house of God, may I ask you, my friends, what has brought you here to-day with love in your hearts and eyes, and with gifts in your hands, if not that self-same zeal and desire and love for the splendor and the beauty of God's dwelling-house which filled the heart of the prophet, and, in spite of his defects and his sins, still made him the man conformable to the heart of God ? It is the sign of predestination — the sign that God intends and pro- The Catholic Church the Image of God. 349 poses to raise that man to a high place in heaven, and to carve for him a tabernacle of peculiar glory — when He pours into a man's heart on this earth a lively and anxious zeal for the honor and beauty of the house of God. Again, let us consider what was that beauty which captivated David's heart. What was that glory which he was loving when he made that exclamation which I have quoted in my text ? Was it a mere material beauty ? Oh, no ! It was not the beauty of the material edifice only ; it was the spiritual, divine, heavenly beauty which he saw in the Catholic Church, in that she is the image of God. You saw that it was published amongst you that this was to be the purport of my salutation to you this morning : — " The Catholic Church is the Image of God." There are certain pretensions about this that would be altogether blas- phemous if they were not divine. There are certain words which can be uttered with truth only by the lips of God ; and upon any other lips they are rank blasphemy. Now, in the world of this our day — the intellectual world, the learned society world, is stupified and amazed when the Catholic Church comes forward with what to them appear such outrageous and absurd pretensions. She says : "I alone have salvation." Men say: ** She blasphemes ; salvation is only from God." She comes for- ward and says: " I alone, of all human institutions, of all things upon this earth, am imperishable, immortal, and eternal." And men cry out : " She blasphemes — this Catholic Church ; for God alone is imperishable, immortal, and eternal." Well, my friends, if the Catholic Church were not the image of God ; if she were not divine in her origin ; if she were not altogether supernatu- ral in her institutions and in her life, these pretensions would be blasphemy; these words of hers would be impiety. So it was with her divine Founder. When He said : " I am the Light of the world. Come to Me whilst the light is shining amongst you " — that word would be blasphemy only He was God who said it. When He said : " Without Me ye can do nothing. Unless you believe in Me you shall be lost forever, and die in your sins " — that word would be blasphemy only it was the Son of God who spoke it. And when He said : " You cannot de- stroy Me. You may destroy the temple of this body, if I per- mit you ; but in three days I will rise from the grave, imperish- able, immortal, never to die or see death again " — that word would 350 The Catholic Church the Image of God. be blasphemy, only He who spoke it was the Son of God. So these pretensions of the Catholic Church, these words she speaks, would be blasphemy on any other lips. They who do not be- lieve in her origin and her institution speak words of human wisdom when they say " she blasphemes." But, is she divine ? does she come from heaven ? does she come to us from God ? does she bear His image? When we approach the sublime truth — that the Catholic Church is the image of God — it is necessary for us first to con- template what God is, as reflected in Jesus Christ, our Lord. The apostle, speaking of our blessed Saviour, calls Him the image of God : " Christ Jesus, who is the image of God — Chris- tus, qui est imago Deiy If we contemplate our divine Redeemer, in the height of heaven, before His Incarnation, we behold Him the image of the Father who begot Him, the very figure of that Father's substance and the splendor of His glory ; we behold Him equal to the Father in nature, in eternity, in power, in every attribute of God. For He was the uncreated Word of God ; and, being the Word of God, He was in heaven the very essence of truth. Being God — " true God of true God," He was the quintessence of sanctity; being equal to the Father in divine nature and in essence, He was, like the Father, eternal. He came down from heaven to earth — this infinite, eternal God — and became the child of a human mother, and took her nature and her flesh, and lived amongst us. He conversed with us ; and He died at our hands — the Lord Jesus Christ ! Oh, great Son of God ! my Creator ! my Redeemer ! my only Hope ! give me words to sound Thy praises ! He brought from heaven all that He was in heaven. He was God in heaven ; he was God upon the earth. He was essential truth in heaven ; He was essential truth upon the earth. He was infinite sanctity in heaven ; He was infinite sanctity upon the earth. He was, in heaven, the principle of the life that could never die ; so, com- ing to earth, He asserted His immortality in the glory of His resurrection ; having passed through the gates of death He rose again, never again to die. Thus do we behold Him — the Word uncreated in heaven — the Word made flesh upon the earth; but still the same — the image of God. Now, mark, that, in His coming, in the fulness of His divin- ity, in the greatness of His truth, in the power of His sanctity, The Catholic CJmrch the Image of God. 351 and in the privilege of immortality, Christ our Lord remedied, upon this earth, the great evils of the sin of man. God created man without sin. "He made him right," says Ecclesiastes. He created man without sin, and conferred upon our first parents four magnificent privileges. The first of these was that He gave to man the enjoyment of the presence of God. Thus we see that, before Adam fell. Almighty God was accustomed to come down from heaven in some wonderful, mysterious form of rapturous beauty, to appear before His newly-made creature, man, and to converse with him familiarly as they walked through the shades and groves of Eden. Secondly, He con- ferred upon unfallen man the light of knowledge and of wisdom. All wisdom He gave him — a comprehensive intellect, informed by the highest knowledge of the things of earth, but still more of the things of heaven. Thirdly, He gave to unfallen man the privilege of sanctity and purity of heart; bravery; strength of affections ; nobility of impulses ; generosity of sentiment ; and thus, also, He made him the image of God. Fourthly and lastly, He gave to man immortality that never was to see death ; for man, once created, was designed, without tasting the bitter- ness of death, to enjoy the participation of eternity with the God that made him. Now, these were the four things which God gave to man, and in which He made man, before his sin, the fair image of Himself; and these are precisely the four things which, lost to man by the sin of Adam, are restored to us again by our Lord Jesus Christ, in His Incarnation. First of all, man lost the presence of God. God came, in an angry moment, after his great sin. He spoke — Ah ! no longer in the sweet tones that were once heard, falling like music on the ears of unfallen man ; but, like the voice of angry thunder muttering in the sky, he heard — "Adam, where art thou? Come forth. Cursed art thou and the earth in thy work this day ! " Then God departed into the high heavens ; and for four thousand years His voice was never heard again upon the earth. Man lost the gift of high knowledge. " Truth has diminished amongst the children of men," says the Psalmist. And we know that one of the terrible effects of sin was the darkening of the human nature and intellect. No longer was it compre- hensive, no longer intuitive no longer quick in its scientific glance. He must nov^ labor — the student must now labor all 352 The Catholic Church the Image of God. his years, in trying to discover a few natural or a few super- natural truths, that he may be saved ; because truth alone can save the soul of man. By degrees, in the course of time, the very idea of God perished out of the minds of men ; and they adored the basest things. They deified their passions and their own vices ; and they bowed down before them ; and gradually they lost God. By sin, Adam not only lost the presence and knowledge of God, but he lost the divine grace of God that was in his soul. No longer did that soul look up, like an unspotted mirror, to throw back in all its clearness and freshness the outline of the glorious figure of Almighty God, who stamped Himself — an image of Himself — on the soul of man. Oh ! no ; but shattered as into a thousand pieces, it broke, like a broken mirror, into a thousand reflections of all things around — the reflection of sin and of shame; the reflection of every form of misery and confusion. The image of God was no longer seen ; the likeness of God ■was no longer reflected in that soul and face. His only desire was to take a form of being, grovelling and seeking for the things of this earth, as if he was created for them ; debasing and dishonoring the soul that God had made for Himself in heaven. Finally, by disobedience sin came into this world ; and by sin, death. Man lost his immortality ; he was no longer immortal. Death came — the angel commis- sioned by the Almighty God — by the word he received from God, which was : " This race I created having sinned, go thou in amongst them. Strike them down of all ages. Let no man escape — no, not even my divine Son Himself, when He be- comes man; for it is decreed for all men once to die." This is the fourth tremendous loss. Now, mark what Christ our Lord restored. First of all, coming. He brought to us that God who had fled, in His anger, into the recesses of His own infinite holiness, in order that He might not see the crimes of men. He brought from heaven with him, in the hour of His Incarnation, the fulness of His divinity corporally. He brought with Him the voice that spoke to Adam in the groves of Eden. He brought with Him the power that created Adam from nothing, the sanctity that filled heaven and the earth. And that voice of God was heard amongst men — no longer as on the summit of Sinai, in the roll- ing and sweeping thunder, striking terror into every heart ; no The Catholic Church the Image of God. 353 longer as heard by the prophet on the mountain-top, preceded by the earthquake and the storm of fire ; but He came, the Virgin's Child, full of sweetness ; and, as the last word the Father had said in His anger was: "Cursed be the earth," so the first public word that Jesus Christ spoke was the word, "Blessed are ye, O ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven." He brought with Him, moreover, the knowledge of God — the di- vine knowledge that, springing from heaven and from earth, was a certain knowledge, not admitting of any doubt, or any dispute; coming home to the intelligence upon the authority of God, that cannot err; unchanged and unchangeable; that is, never to contradict itself, never to deny a single utterance ; — the knowledge supreme, never to permit of contradiction, never to allow any form of error to exist for an instant in its presence. Such was the knowledge He brought who said to all men : " You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." He brought with Him the sanctity of God, His own infinite sanctity, to pour out from Him, like a mystic fountain, " unto the cleans- ing of the sinner and the unclean." He said to the Magdalen who fell at His feet, " Arise, O woman, thy sins are forgiven thee." He imparted of His own infinite purity and sanctity, sa that she arose at the sound of His words as pure as an archangel: of God. He said to the paralytic man : " Be of good cheer, my son ; thy sins are forgiven thee ; " and, at the sound of His voice, the cerements of sin burst ; the vile load of sin was re- moved from him, and he was in newness of life. Thus, we see the great truth, that when our divine Lord and Master made atonement for the sins of man in general, upon the Cross of Calvary, paying the price due for our sins, that He went into detail, teaching, as well as dealing with their sins, individually and personally, unto their cleansing and absolution. Finally, He brought back to man the immortality that man had lost, not, indeed, by dispensing with that law of death to which He Himself conformed, but by lifting up our hopes, and giving that immortality beyond the grave, which is the inheritance of the true believer in Jesus Christ. He said, that " He that believeth shall be saved. He that believeth in Me, and lets Me live in him, the same will I raise up at the last day." Now we come to the great question — How did Christ our 23 354 The CatJtolic Church the Image of God. Lord perpetuate all these amongst men ? He came to give all these to men. We know no man can dispute it. If there be any here that are not Catholics, I have not yet said a single word that one of them can contradict. It is common to all who believe in Christ, to say that He was the son of God, and came down from heaven, and brought the truth and His own sanctity, and came, restoring to man the immor- tality of everlasting glory and life eternal in heaven. But the Scriptures tell us of Christ, that what He came to do eighteen hundred years ago, the same He was to continue unto the end of time. Wherefore the apostle saith that " Jesus Christ, the anointed Saviour — the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, " is as necessary now, in this nineteenth century, as He v/as in the first century. He is still the only Saviour, " the only name under heaven by which we can be saved ; " the only source of salvation. He is as necessary for us in His presence, in His truth, in His sanctity, in His immortality, as He was unto the people of Jerusalem eighteen hundred and seventy years ago. Did he remain? Of all the most important ques- tions it is the most important — Did he remain, or did He leave us as we were before ? Did He, on that day of Ascension, withdraw Himself from us so that no man can hear His voice, audible, as at first, to us, in His well-known accents of sympa- thy for our sufferings, as we kneel down at His feet to hear that Saviour's word? Did He depart, or did He remain? He Himself tells us emphatically : " I will abide with you ; I will be with you all days, unto the consummation of the world." If we ask Him, For what purpose ? He answers, and says : " I am to be with you in order that My truth may remain un- changed and unchangeable ; in order that My sanctity may remain, and My embodiment, unto the cleansing of the sinner and the unclean ; that where sin abounded grace may still more abound." Christ came down in order that all men may have light, and have it more abundantly. And so He will remain ; He will remain with you all days until the consummation of the world. Lest men might doubt a vague promise and think that He would remain only as an influence, as a presiding agency in a kind of spiritual communion by which we were able, on the wings of prayer, to soar aloft to Him — (we hear men again and again saying this) — the Eternal God, on the night TJie Catholic CJiurcJi the Image of God. 355 before He suffered, took the elements of life, bread and wine, and by a solemn and most explicit word, He changed the bread and wine into Himself. Himself: God and Man. The Eter- nal Father is in the Son of the Virgin again — all that He had as God, all that He had as Man ; all that must come from Him by the union of the two natures in one person. He said : " This is My Body ; this is My Blood ; all that I am ; all that I have been. Do ye this unto the end of time." And : " He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood shall have life eternal ; and I will raise him upon the last day." He specified, He defined. He localized His presence. No doubt or cavil about it. Never, for fifteen hundred years, did the Church He founded express a doubt as to that presence ; but all men be- lieving in the name of Christ, adored Him, present on the altar, for fifteen hundred years ; until, three hundred years ago, a man who once himself adored — a man who had been for years a sacrificing priest upon the altar — came and said : " Christ is not here ; " and the nations had the misfortune to believe him. Christ said He would remain : and He expressed, moreover, not only that abiding presence in the Eucharist, but also de- clared He would remain as a guiding influence in the Church, which she was ever ready to follow, and which she never could escape. He said : " I will build My Church upon a rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her; I will send My spirit of truth upon her to lead her into all truth ; to keep her in the truth, and to remain with her all days unto the consumma- tion of the world." And all this He said before He told them to go and teach the nations. Then He said after this promise : " Receive ye the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth." Then He gave them His commission, " Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." Why did He give this promise to them? Why did He so emphatically teach the truth and the fullness of truth, that He would never leave them, and that the gates of hell — that is, the spirit of error — should never prevail against them? Why did he say this? Because He knew well that unless they were able to connect this commission with His presence and His spirit and His name, no man of sense from end to end of the earth, would be obliged to believe them. Not a word ! Peter, you may preach to me, Paul, you may write to me, Matthew and John, you may evangelize 35^ The Catholic Church the rmage of God. me : I will never believe one word you say, Oh ! Peter and Paul — Oh ! Matthew and John, until you first are able to prove to me that the God I adore is with you, with His spirit of truth, unchanging, unfailing, in the midst of you forever. I cannot conceal my astonishment, my friends, that men bow down and believe the Gospel ; believe its teachings ; and yet calmly declare that there is no infallible guide upon this earth to teach men the truth. I would rather live and die an infidel, in honor of my humanity, in honor of my reason. It would be more honorable in me, at least, to live and die an avowed infidel than to demean my intelligence, stultify my reason, and say I believe, without being able to assign the infallible authority upon which it comes to me. And there is no infallible authority upon this earth save and except the Catholic Church. She comes with her proof from God. If she had not that proof, her words would be rank blasphemy, as her enemies assert that they are. Thirdly, He remains in her, not only that His truth, silent, bright, divine, should shine forever in the intelligence of man, but also that His divine grace might find its way to our souls to cleanse us from our sins, and preserve us in our purity, and strengthen us in our weakness, and crown our virtues with the Christian grace of final perseverance unto death. How did He effect this ? He said to His apostles and to His Church : " You go now to preach the Gospel. I have given My power and My authority to you ; you are to do it in My name, in My promised presence ; for My Spirit is with you." That is not enough. " You are going to preach to sinners, to men who still have their weaknesses. Go and preach not only as a source of illumina- tion, but also as a powerful remedy against their spiritual foes, and against the power of temptation ; as a cleansing influence upon the impurity of man's fallen nature." Therefore, I say to you : " As the Father sent Me, so do I send you ; all power in heaven and on the earth is given to Me by the Father ; I give you also all power in heaven and upon earth. Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; whose sins ye loose upon earth are loosed in heaven; whose sins ye retain on earth are retained in heaven ; and between Me and the sinner, stand in My person ; stand in My commission, and in My strength ; and say unto the sinner unto the end of time, what I said to the Magdalen : ' Arise, go in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee.' " And in this divine com- TJie Catholic Church the Image of God. 357 mission He sanctioned His own presence in the Church of God, not only as the source of light, but also as the source of divine cleansing and grace. Therefore He said to His apostles: "You are the light of the world; " but he added: "You are the salt of the earth." Finally, He remained in His Church, conferring upon her not only His own divine presence on the altar ; not only His truth on her lips; not only His flowing graces in her hands; but He remained with His Church, conferring upon her the privilege and the attributes of eternity. The Church of Life can never di'^ ! Can never die ! Kingdoms may break up ; empires may dissolve ; systems of philosophy may crumble and fall to pieces ; principles, received as the first principles of science, may be dis- proved ; but there is one institution, one power, one system of knowledge, one champion and teacher in the world that can never change or die — and it is the Catholic Church. Why? Be- cause Jesus Christ founded it, and declared that it should con- tinue unto the consummation of the world. " The heavens shall pass away, but My word shall never pass away ; and My word is, that I shall be with my Church unto the consummation of the world." Behold, dearly beloved, the beauties that the prophet saw and loved. He saw them not in Jerusalem ; the altar and the Tem- ple of Jerusalem had only the offering of the " holocaust ; " the whole burnt oblation was offered, and the blood of animals was poured out as a peace-offering and as a sin-offering. The altar of the Catholic Church immolates another victim ; perpetuates another and more glorious sacrifice. God Himself is offered to God. Christ once more renews, in a different form, the action of Calvary, unto the obtaining of all blessings and all graces for His people. David saw not the beauty of the sanctuary of Jerusalem ; for the law made no man perfect ; the sacrifices of the law gave no man the assurance of pardon. But in the Catho- lic Church the priest, in the tribunal of penance, says : " I ab- solve thee, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Not in my name, not in my person, but by the power which Christ has given to me, I absolve thee ; " and the penitent, sorry for his sin, knows that that word, though it comes to him from the lips of a priest, comes from Jesus Christ, as if He Him- self had spoken and breathed over him, as over the Magdalen in the day of her repentance. 358 The Catholic Church the Image of God. And now, my friends, not only does the Church possess all these beauties, as she dwells on that spiritual foundation which Christ our Lord made for her, " but she is founded upon the prophets and the apostles," says the apostle ; and Christ says : " I will place thee, O Cephas ; I will make thee a rock, and upon that rock I will build My Church." Peter, indeed, may be the foundation-stone, but Christ is more so. And, just as the foundation-stone here is imbedded, and laid into the strong supporting masonry under it, so that it can never move, never sink — no declining out of a perfect rectangle, on account of the solidity of the base upon which it rests — so the Lord said to Peter: "Thou art a rock." He meant to say Peter should be the foundation-stone ; but, still, the Lord Himself, coming in His unseen power of truth and sanctity, was to be the solid bed on which Peter was to be imbedded, and on which the Church was to be built up. I say, all these duties, all these privileges, remain with the Catholic Church everywhere. She endeavors to bring them forwards always. Not only by the voice of her preachers ; not only by the action of the priests upon the altar and in the tribunal of penance ; but she brings them forward and puts them before the world, that no man may be ignorant of them. She is constantly preaching, and saying to the na- tions: " I come from God ; God is with me ; I am the truth, be- cause God is with me ; and God has His Israel. I am able to purify, because I have the pure, divine grace, which is instru- mental in conferring immortality. I, alone, am immortal." She not only preaches this, in order that all men may know it and be saved, but she endeavors to embody all this beauty she proclaims, even in her material buildings. Every stone in the sacred house of God ; every rock that is imbedded here, has, in the perfection and in the symmetry still of its beauty, a living sermon, telling the people, " Here is the house of God ; the tabernacle of God with men ; here is the home of truth, where no man can ever hear error ; here is the fountain of sanctity, welling forth unto the cleansing of the unclean sinner ; here is life for the dead ; here is the Lord of the resurrection, Jesus Christ." ■* You are come together here to-day to lay that foundation- stone and rock with joy, and full of zeal for the house of God ; full of hope that some day there your eyes may feast while they The Catholic Church the Image of God. 359 feed upon its consummate beauty. Upon this I congratulate you. But think how great is the task and noble work that God has given you to perform. When David was making prepara- tions for the building of the Temple of Jerusalem, he said : *' The work indeed is great, for it is no house for man, but for God." If he said that, how much more truly may you say it ? First of all, the Catholic Church has compressed, as it were, all her privileges in these walls ; the mystery of the Incarnation is perpetuated within these walls. Yes, yes ! the walls and the altar will stand here, and the tabernacle will be reared, and be- neath the cross, within its golden gates, here to linger, God, the Eternal God, will dwell as really, and truly, and substantially as He dwells upon the Father's right hand, in His glory in heaven. Not a house for man, but for God ; not a house for prayer only, but for the presence of God ; not a house for sanc- tification only, but for God, the author of sanctity. Here will He dwell, because we listen and hear, " Behold the Tabernacle of God with men ! He shall be in the midst of them ; they shall be His people ; He shall be their God." Oh ! what can I say of this Divine Presence hovering over that altar, divinely invoked by the voice of the priest ; hovering while God moves the hearers, and shakes the hills and the mountains to their bases. " The mountains," saith the prophet, "shall bow down, and the hills be shaken before the glory of thy eternity." At the voice of the priest sounding upon this altar all heaven will be in commotion ; the Eternal God will rise upon His throne, and with the swiftness of thought take His way to earth on the wings of His own divine promise to be on her altar personally. Every angel and archangel will start on his throne to give glory or accompany in adoration, and veneration, and love. No day without the beauty of His presence. Here will He remain, that the afflicted may be consoled in body and mind ; that the peni- tent may be absolved by Him ; that the young child may re- ceive at his baptism life through Him ; that the aged and dying may receive their last strength and food from Him. Here will He remain, even when you are thoughtless and forgetful of Him, ever living to make intercession, and to scatter His graces. This neighborhood was yesterday like any other place of man's dwelling. The sanctity of the domestic home was here ; the joy of the family was here; the energy of the enlightened 360 The Catholic Church the Image of God, and energetic people was here ; the administration of human law, admirably carried out, was here. But when this church is built, and this altar is erected, I shall be able to add, that the Eternal God is here. As different, therefore, as heaven is from earth, must this place be from the moment you have built your Father's house, and raised up a tabernacle and altar for Jesus Christ, As different as a throne in heaven is from the lowliest place of earth, when this place shall be honored, and God comes and takes His dwelling amongst you. How will the Church proclaim His presence? Oh, my friends, by the solemn and distinctive beauty of its architecture. The most casual observer, the most ordinary passer-by will look upon the dwellings of men, and say, there dwells a man of dis- tinction. He will say, that is a hall of justice, or of legislation. He will say again, there dwells a counsellor of men ; and the moment he comes within sight of these Gothic walls, he will see the cruciform building and pointed arch ; in the window a paint- ing of heaven ; the tower resting upon its massive buttresses, lifting to the clouds the sign, the mystic sign of the cross. The moment he sees this, he stands and says : " There dwells God." The truth of the Church will be upon its summit, for its steeple will bear the sign of the cross, the sign of the unfailing truth of God. Within these walls the Word that will be preached unto the end of time will be not the word of man but of God. I may not come inhere to-day, and preach the word of man. I may not give you my own word. I may not give you my own opin- ions. I am responsible to the Church, represented here, to the Church of God. I am responsible for every single word that falls from my lips ; because she will permit me only to preach as long as I preach the truth of Jesus Christ, received from Him. What follows from this? If you were not Catholics, if you were of any other form of religion, I might try to use whatever pow- ers of persuasion God has given me, to lead you into my opin- ions and form of belief. I might propound to you the falsest principles of so-called philosophy, and surround it with such beauty of imagery and language, as to make you believe it, and so might exercise over you the greatest tyranny that one man can exercise over another. But you are saved from that. If, on this platform, on this matter, I should utter a single word which the Church of God doth not teach, there is not a man The Catholic Church the Image of God. 361 here amongst you who would not say, "Out with him. He is a heretic. He no longer teaches the Word of God." In the Catholic Church, therefore, you are freed from my persuasive- ness and from any powers that I might exercise over you. Now, in the Church's freedom you stand, for He said : "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." That truth shall resound within these walls, not- by our words, but by the word that comes from the mouth of God. God selected as the place for His nativity " the house of bread " — Bethlehem, the house of bread ; and the bread sent down from heaven, which the angels eat, shall be in this house, where that very bread shall be broken. " Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." More than this. The Church will represent to you, even in this material form, the sanctity of God. Everything about it speaks to you of Christ, and of Him alone. Everything — un- derstand me well. This will be the house of Jesus Christ, and of Him alone. You may see the Virgin Mother painted upon the wall, or standing, in the beauty of statuary, within a niche. She will speak to you of her Divine Son, and of Him alone. Why is she there ? Because she had the honor of being the Mother of Jesus Christ — the King. You will see the confes- sionals in their place ; they will speak to you of Him, and of Him alone. The priest enters into them in the presence of His Lord and of his Master. All tends to one point — that you may be worthy to receive Jesus Christ. The baptismal font in the baptistery will speak to you of Him, and of Him alone. There you will see the child of sin, the child of earth, the child of the curse, the inheritor of the fallen nature, submitted to the sacra- ment — the sprinkling of a few drops of water, and the words of the Son of God. That child is now the brother of Jesus Christ. Above all, everything in the Catholic Church, from the moment you cross the threshold, subserves to bring the thought, and the mind, and the eye to one spot, and before that one spot hangs a silvery lamp ; gleaming in its living flame, it teaches that life is there. For it is not death, but life is there. "In Him was life, and the life was the light of man." Every window, every stone, every statue in its niche, every painting on the wall — ■ all will seem to point to the altar. Every face turns to the altar, so that the moment you cross the threshold of the door, 362 The Catholic Church the Image of God. the first thing that will strike you will be the altar, with the golden gates of the tabernacle, and behind those doors our God, the Lord, the patient, long-suffering, forgiving, omnipo- tent, glorious Lord, all merciful. Again, behind those doors, Jesus Christ will stand and wait for you. Finally, this church, which you are about to build, will also proclaim the immortality of the Catholic Church. My friends, you may ask yourselves, as you look at these walls to-day, "Why are they so solidly built? why are rocks of tons in weight put into them? why, in the depth of their foundation, in the lordly way are they pushing out their buttresses, taking and seizing on the soil, as if they were fortresses we build — places of defense for cannon to be mounted upon ? " I answer, the Catholic Church cannot afford to build a light, perishable edifice ; because the Catholic Church, when she builds, builds for all time. Not for to-day, nor for a year, nor for twenty years. She sets no date over her door ; does not put up the day when the church was built ; but proclaims by lier solidity that she was built for ever. This has ever been the thought of the Catholic Church — the voiceless sermon her marble tem- ples have ever preached in the lands more ancient than your own. Cross the seas, take shipping at any of your ports, and the first land that will meet your eye as you bend your prow towards the East — the rising sun — the first land that will meet your eye is the green mound of Erin, as it springs like an emer- ald out of the Western Ocean. Set your foot upon that sainted island of Ireland, and, with reverence, kneel and kiss the sacred soil of the isle which has been for fifteen hundred years the home and the mother of saints. It is wet with the martyr's blood ; it is sacred for the hero's undying valor ; it is blessed by God with a spirit which no power of earth or hell could ever break. It has been the land whence went forth the missiona- ries who converted more than half the world. Ask for its his- tory, and behold the group of the seven churches ; behold the ruins of the ancient abbeys and monasteries. The storms of a thousand years have swept over them ; the snows of fifteen hundred winters have fallen upon them ; the fire of the wrath of man has desolated them; every destroying influence has swept over them. And yet they stand, flinging their ruined heads towards heaven, proclaiming to the world that Ireland's Tlic CatJiolic Church tJu Image of God. 363 Church was immortal and imperishable ; that men might despoil her, but could never destroy her; because the men who built those churches, those abbeys, raising aloft their venerable tow- ers, built not for time, but for ever — as you are building to- day. Nothing remains for me but to encourage you in the glorious work you have begun. Your pastor, my friends, has under- taken , a heavy duty, which indeed it is in every land, but more especially in this young land of America. Yet, the great virtue is hope in the great time of the future, as in the past. It is, I say, in this land the principal care, and the weary- ing anxiety of the priest, to have the responsibility of the debts which he incurs in building the temple of God. He stands be- fore you a solitary man ; he has undertaken a building that will cost thousands and thousands. Is the money in his purse ? No ! The Catholic Church, to-day, more than for many years, has in- herited, in all its fullness, the prerogative of apostolic poverty, because the nations of the earth have plundered us of whatever little we have had. If it is a blessing to be poor, most certainly the Catholic priest of to-day can claim that blessing. Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Sweden, England, all the nations, whatever else they have neglected, have not neglected to plunder and to impoverish the Catholic Church and her priesthood. With not a penny in his purse he stands before you. I give him encouragement. I give him the ineffable promise which comes as surely as these deep foundations bespeak a tabernacle which will be in some degree worthy of the dwelling of God. Ah ! he laid the foundations, not so truly in the material soil, as, trusting in the future, he laid them in his faith in your charity, in your munificence and zeal towards the building of a house of God. He trusted to your faith, to your hope, to your love; and well he has reason to trust. He has reason to be grateful, and he is grateful, for the generosity even of those who are not Catholics, but who, in this liberal, high-minded, enlightened neighborhood, acting in a spirit of true liberality, have con- tributed their means, largely and munificently, to enable the priest to make his work perfect. For they know well how much a beautiful Catholic church contributes to the respectability and prosperity of a city, or town, or neighborhood. They know well that it is " a thing of beauty, and a joy forever." And, in 364 The Catholic Church the Image of God. their artistic zeal, if not from higher motives, they also have contributed to this work ; and to them I am bound to express the heartfelt gratitude of the Catholic pastor. You, my friends, have contributed fiom two motives. First of all, because your faith teaches you that the highest privilege that God can confer upon man in this world is to give him the honor and glory of building a house for Jesus Christ, the Son of God. David, the man after God's own heart, was not found worthy to do this, because of his sins. The grace which was denied David has been conferred upon you, and the Son of God says : " Give me a house, give me a place in the land with you ; in order that I may build a place in heaven for your everlasting glory." You hear more ! The only thing that our Lord com- plained of, of all that he suffered upon earth, was that they refused Him a house. They robbed Him of His good name. He com- plained not; they tore His garments to tatters, He complained not ; they scourged Him at the pillar, He complained not ; they crucified Him upon the cross, no word of complaint, but only a word of prayer for forgiveness, fell from His lips. There was only one thing of which He complained, when He said: " The birds have their nests, and the foxes have their holes, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." He was refused a house in Bethlehem, in Jerusalem, and even when dead upon the cross, it was the charity of one man that opened another man's grave to let Him rest there, even for the three days of His death. The Catholic Church, with tenderest love, has always endeavored to wipe out that reproach. Therefore, as Catholics, the priest trusts to your zeal. He also trusts to your zeal, your co-operation, as Irishmen. What shall I say now .'* I will only say this : If you carefully study the history of your race, or the history of the men whose blood is in your Irish veins, you will find that, amongst the nations of the earth, the Irish people were at all times the great- est church builders. In their excessive zeal for the house of God they built them seven in a group. The crosses of their churches cover all Ireland. Every art that arose in architecture they seized upon, and embodied on their native soil in some form of beauty ; until the antiquarian traveler to-day stands oppressed with beauty, as he sees the ruins on the Rock of Cashel, or the beautiful ruins of Mellifont, or Monasterboyce. The Catholic Church the Image of God. 365 Even in the days of penal law, of oppression, they still went on, and as soon as one church was destroyed another sprung up ; and when the Almighty God lifted off from the nation the chains of her slavery ; when the mightiest of Ireland's sons, heroic O'Connell, struck, with a giant blow, the fetters, and they fell from his mother's arms, the first thing the Irish people did was to cover the whole land with the most magnificent churches on the face of the earth. That zeal falls to us by tradition ; it is in our nature. We cannot help it. We must do it ; it is our destiny ; a glorious destiny. It is one of the signs of our na- tional tradition. Hence, in the nation's migration to America, with all their faults, with all their defects, every one brought with him the grand national traditional energy which has covered America with Catholic churches. What they are doing every- where, from the instinct of their national character and tradi- tion, you will do here. He saw that which would rise here, who laid the foundations of his church not only in the material soil, but in your faith, in your zeal, and in his trust in your traditional character as Irishmen, and as a race. It will never come to pass that any one will have cause to remark : " See ; here is a man who began, and could not finish." Never, for he did not found this church upon the sand ; he laid his foundations upon the Rock of the Catholic Church, and the firm rock of Irish love, and Irish fidelity, and Irish generosity, and Irish spirit and manhood. Upon these has he founded, and no man will ever point up and say that he ever mistook his men, or laid a false foundation for his people. It may be given to me, my friends, at some speedy future time, not, indeed, to tire you as to-day, but to come here and offer up my prayers and thanksgiving in the church which your generosity and your zeal shall construct, and to praise with you the Lord Jesus Christ, in this the house of His dwelling. Thus, then, we may look forward, with con- fidence, to that hour of our judgment, when the question will be, between you and me and our God, Are we to be admitted or excluded from His kingdom ? for, surely, the God who says " that any who gives a cup of cold water to one of these little ones, shall receive a reward," will not refuse His house in heaven to the zealous hearts and loving hands who have built Him up a beautiful mansion upon the earth for His dwelling. THE HARMONY OF THE WORSHIP OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [Lecture delivered in the Music Hall, Boston, Mass., September 25, 1872.] ADIES AND Gentlemen : — I have first to crave an act of indulgence on your part, namely, that you will per- mit me to change the subject of the lecture. After the very heavy labor of last Sunday, my voice is scarcely harmonious enough to speak to you this evening on such a sub- ject as the music of Ireland. If the music of Ireland were a grating, hoarse, inharmonious sound, I might then venture to touch on it, even with my hoarse voice. If, for instance, I had to speak to you of some music that is performed upon the Scotch bagpipe, I dare say I should find voice enough for it. But, in- asmuch as the subject would involve the bringing out, as far as the voice of man can, the thrilling echoes of the sweetest harp that ever resounded upon this earth, I am not equal this evening to the task. Yet that which I propose to you in its stead I con- sider far more important and still as musical. I will ask you to reflect with me upon The Harmony of the Worship of the Catholic Church. First of all, my friends, let me remind you that I am not come here this evening to weary your minds with the language of controversy. Controversy may be very good in its way. Personally, I do not believe in it. I will spare you the language of controversy, because I am not come here this evening to speak to you of the truth of the Catholic worship, but only of the harmony of Catholic worship. Nor am I come to speak to you of the beauty of Catholic worship, though I believe that there is nothing under heaven more beautiful than the liturgy of Harmony of tJic Worship of the Catholic Church. 367 the Catholic Church. I want to speak to you of the harmony of its worship ; and, in order to explain my meaning, you will allow me to tell you a little story, I need not remind many amongst you of the sorrowful years which I myself had the agony to wit- ness, when the angel of God's sentence spread his wings over my native land, and cast the shadow of death upon her people ; when the children of Irish parents cried to heaven for bread, and there was no hand to break that bread for them. Now, in those sad and terrible years, a great effort was made to perform a miracle that has been tried for ages, and has never yet been accomplished, namely, to make Ireland turn Protestant. Some of our poor people, without employment, without food, — but very few in number — had the weakness to yield, and, for the sustenance of to-day, to barter and to give up what they knew to be the true religion. Indeed, we have heard of one of those who changed his religion, but did not change his faith. A zeal- ous Anglican clergyman in the neighborhood came to him, and asked him, as he was starving and had nothing to live upon, was it not better for him to become a Protestant. He would then find work; he would find clothing; he would find food. So the man took thought and made the bargain. He was to get so much a week. He was to get nominal employment and good wages. He stipulated for a new suit of clothes ; and he was particularly anxious to get a new hat. " Your honor," said he, "no matter how well I am dressed, if I keep my old caiibeen on, they will never think I am a Protestant. But if they see a new hat on me, they will know that I have ' turned.' " Accordingly, he was arrayed in his new clothes, and had his new hat on him. He perched it very knowingly over his right eye, and he drove off with the Protestant clergyman in his buggy. Early on Sun- day, they passed near to the Catholic Church. All the neighbors were there. " Hold a minute," said he, " I will be with you in a minute." The moment the neighbors saw him they said ; " Oh, Jimmy, is that you that got out of that carriage ! Are you going from your church ? " " Whisht, your soul," said Jim- my, " whisht, I could not help it. Make way till I get a place for my hat," and he turned around to the chapel door, and knelt and blessed himself: " Good-bye to you now, God Almighty. 'Tis going I am, and I can't help it. Be easy on me, and don't take a short turn on me while I am away, and I promise you," 368 The Harmony of the Worship said he, " that when you send back the potatoes to the country, I will come back to you again." Well, my friends, I met once one of these unfortunate men, who came to me and put himself into my hands, truly repentant, and sincerely sorrowful for what he had done, and I had the pleasure to receive him back into the Church. Now, I asked that man a question which may be interesting to you, as it was to me. I said to him, " Tell me this : you were two years amongst them?" "I was, your reverence, God bless you." " Now, what sort of feeling had you ; — what impression did the Protestant religion make upon you ? " " Well, your reverence, I felt like as if it were not natural like. I went in of a Christmas morning ; there was a sermon. I went in on Good Friday ; and there was a sermon. I went in on Easter Sunday ; and there was a sermon ; and there was no difference at all between one day and another ; and I felt, even if it were a true religion, as if it were not natural, as if it would not help a man." Now, that explains the meaning of what I am about to say to you. There was a man who had his natural cravings ; there was a man who had his natural feelings ; and he could find nothing harmonious with these cravings and feelings the moment he went out of the Catholic Church. I am not speaking of the truth or falsity of this religion or that. Here was a man who confessed that this religion, which he embraced, did not come home to him — was not natural to him — that he had a thousand feelings which could not find vent out of the Catholic Church. Here it is that the charm of the Catholic Church comes in ; that its religion, certainly bears with it in its worship certain agencies and ap- pliances which fully harmonize with the natural wants and in- clinations of the soul of man. I invite your consideration to four great points of Catholic worship. These four I select amongst many, because they are the four that are most known outside of the Church, and are controverted. These are : first, the Blessed Eucharist ; Jesus Christ present upon the Catholic altar ; secondly, the Con- fessional, and the same Lord administered in the Sacrament of Penance ; thirdly, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the place that she holds in Catholic worship ; and, fourthly, the Liturgy of the Catholic Church in its round of feast and fast — in its expres- sions of joy and of sorrow. Let us consider these four briefly. of the Catholic Church. 369 I shall endeavor to do it in a manner that will interest you as much as possible, and yet to prove home to every mind of those whom I have the honor to address how completely the Cath- olic worship harmonizes with our nature, and with our spiritual wants. First of all, then, the presence of God in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. You are all aware — at least all Catholics amongst my audience — and I believe, also, if there be any who are not Catholics, that they are also aware of it — that the Catholic Church has taught from the day that she stood, the first Easter morning, by the empty tomb, and heard the angel's voice say to her: "Why seek ye the living among the dead ? " — from the day when Peter preached his first sermon, on Pentecost morning, down to this hour, the Catholic Church has taught, and must teach to the end of time, that the Son of God is really, truly, substantially, and personally present upon her altars, under the hidden form of the Eucharistic elements, the bread and wine. But, as I said before, I do not mean to enter upon the proofs of this presence. This is not the time, nor the place to do it. I simply assert the doctrine ; and then I ask you to look at it from this stand- point ; how it harmonizes with the designs of God and with the natural wants of man. My friends, there are two kinds of virtue. There is a virtue that makes a man honest, straightforward, truthful, humble, pru- dent, temperate ; that makes him a good, intelligent husband, a kind and loving father, a faithful friend. And this class of virtue is called moral virtue. It makes a man all that he is ex- pected to be in his relations to his wife and his children and his family ; in his relations to his fellow-men, and the society in which he lives and moves. These moral virtues are beautiful. They are also necessary. The well-being of society depends upon them. What would we be if we could not trust each other's word ? What would society be if commercial, interna- tional, political honesty, were utterly destroyed, as it promises^ fair to be, in this our day? What would we be if there were no temperance amongst us, and if our people were all self-indulgent in that basest of all forms of crime — the greatest dishonor to God and degradation to man — in the crime of drunkenness ? There would be an end to all society. Therefore, these virtues 24 370 The Harmony of the Worship that make man fit to play his part in the world, and fulfill the duties of his state here, are necessary and beautiful, and the welfare of the world depends upon them. But they are not, after all, the highest virtues. There are other virtues that re- gard Almighty God directly and personally, and these are the highest of all, because the object of them is the highest — God, the Almighty and Eternal. These are virtues without which, no matter how fitted a man may be for earth, he never can be made fit for heaven ; and these are the virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. In the designs of God, the sanctification of man and the salvation of man's soul, depend upon the exercise of these three virtues. It is easily seen. God Himself tells us that " Without faith it is impossible to please God." And else- where. He says, " Ye are saved by hope." Elsewhere, again, it is written : " If I have possession of all things and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." Therefore says St. Paul: " Now, there remain, brethren, Faith, Hope, and Charity, these three." They are the Christian's inheritance, as distinguished from the mere man of the world. They are the supernatural and divine grounds of that fair edifice which is based upon and built up with all other moral virtues which are so necessary for the welfare of man and of society. And faith is absolutely ne- cessary, hope is absolutely necessary, and charity is indispensa- ble, in order that man may be a citizen of heaven as well as a citizen of earth. Now, my friends, reflect that these three virtues regard Al- mighty God Himself directly. Faith may be defined to be the virtue of the intellect in man, catching sight of God through the medium of revealed truth. Hope is the virtue of the heart or will of man, straining after that God whom he sees by the light of faith. Charity, the greatest of all, is the virtue which clutches Him, and makes Him our own, so that we clasp Him to our bosom, and are united to Him by love. From the beginning these three virtues were necessary to man, and it is through these three that his way to the Almighty God lies. Therefore, we find God commanding the people in the Old Testament, and telling them, that they must have faith and hope and love. By the mouth of His prophet He said: " For all those who wish to approach to God, it is necessary, first, to believe in Him, then to hope in Him, and then to love Him." But it is a remarkable of the Catholic Church. 371 and significant fact, that amongst the Hebrew people, as their history comes down to us in the Bible, which you all read — that they were constantly failing in the exercise of these three virtues ; constantly falling from their faith, and into every form of idolatry that lay around them ; now bending the knee to the god of the Moabites ; now worshiping Dagon, the god of the Philistines ; now bending down, in the vilest of all idolatrous passions, to the base and inhuman altars of Moloch. And so they went into the ways of the nations, God constantly humilia- ting them ; now handing them over to their enemies on one hand ; now, on the other ; constantly sending His prophets to them, and saying, " O, Israel, turn to the Lord, and abandon your idols ! " Still, with all their admonitions, and all their warnings, we find these Jewish people constantly falling into idolatry, and transferring their hope in their own true God to every idol that was lifted up before them ; forgetting their God completely, and breaking every sacred and golden bond of divine love. Let me ask you, did you ever consider why the Jewish peo- ple found the exercise of faith, hope, and love, so difficult to them? Oh, it was, my dear friends, because the object of these three virtues was so far removed from them. He left the earth in the day of His anger; and as the figure of the Almighty God retreated from before the eyes of the first sinner straining after Him — whilst the tears of his first sorrow were upon that first sinner's face, he heard from the God who was leaving him, a sol- emn voice, like thunder in his ears : " Cursed, O sinner, is the earth, in thy work, this day." Then God retreated into light in- accessible, and men saw him no more. They heard no more the voice that fell like the music of ten thousand harps upon the heart of man; and His voice, when it was heard, was heard like ten thousand thunders upon the mountain-top ; was heard amidst the pealing of the storm and the flashing of angry lightnings as Israel heard it around Mount Sinai, and the people fell almost dead with terror. The Hebrew man, before he could make his act of faith, and hope, and love, had to find the object of that act ; had to soar in thought and in imagination, painfully and laboriously, from out of the sounds and the sights of earth ; had to lift his soul aloft ; and it was only when he reached the threshold of God's own imperial kingdom, then, and only then, could he make his 3/2 The Harmony of the Worship act of hope and faith. God saw this, and, filled with divine compassion, He arose from His throne ; He opened the gates of heaven ; He bowed down the everlasting clouds, pregnant with the honey of His mercy ; and He came from heaven to earth into Mary's bosom, and He became the Son of a woman. And, now, in Jesus Christ, God met man ; and we have in the midst of us the object of our faith, the subject of our hope, and the centre of our love. No longer was it necessary for man to soar aloft to heaven. Heaven had come down upon the earth ; and the voice of man was heard upon the mountain-top, saying: "Blessed are ye, O ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven ; and ye again are the sons of God." No longer is it necessary to seek God amid the thousand clouds of error that obscure the intelligence of man ; He comes. He comes ! He speaks in plain language ; His voice falls like music upon the ear of the broken-hearted and afflicted; His hand wipes away the tear from the widow's eye ; His voice resounds through the darkness of the tomb, and the man who is lying dead in his grave arises and comes forth, obedient to the voice of God. He comes ! Now, indeed, every man may have faith ; for faith means the realizing of God ; and God is here ; hidden, to be sure, under human form, but present. "Who do men say that I am ? " He said to His apostles. They answered and said : "Master, some say that Thou art a prophet; some say that thou art Elias, or Jeremiah, or John the Baptist." " But who," said the Saviour, " do ye say that I am?" speaking to the men who were familiar with Him every day of His life: " Who do you say that I am ? " Then Peter, advancing from the midst of the apostles, knelt and said ; " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." It Avas easy for thee, Simon, son of Jonah, to make that noble act of faith, for God was so near to thee ; it was easy for thee to clasp Him to thee. He was so near thee. Men could take the hand of God in theirs ; men could look into the eyes of God ; men could sit down at the feet of God, and hear His voice, until divine light flooded the darkness of their souls. Thus God, in the Incarnation, made the exercise of faith and hope and love easy to man. The exercise of faith was easy, for God was so near. The exercise of hope, which is based upon divine promise, was easy, for God Himself was making with His own lips these promises which fell upon human ears, and He of the Catholic Church. 373 was Himself pledging His divine assistance to their fulfillment. The exercise of love was easy for men. Oh, Catholics, if any man among you had lived with Him; if you had seen that gentle heart ; if you had seen that benign action ; if you had seen that manifestation of mercy to every form of affliction, who is there amongst you that could withhold himself from loving the great, the royal, and the manly heart of Jesus Christ? Now, mark this design of God. One of the first, one of the most essential, one of the broadest facts of the Incarnation, of the work of man's redemption, was, that it brought God in the midst of His creatures, and made the exercise of these three virtues so easy But He only remained thirty-three years. Then they crucified Him. He went down into the darkness of the grave. He burst the cerements of the grave upon Easter morn- ing, and came forth in the brightness of the glory of the resur- rection ; and, after forty days of glorified existence amongst them, He lifted Himself up, by His own power, into the highest heaven, and men beheld His face no longer. Did He withdraw Himself? Did He utterly withdraw from the midst of us? Oh, my friends, if so, then the exercise of faith and hope and love becomes as difficult to us, once more, as it was to the Jews of old ; and by what are we better than the people of the old dis- pensation? If our God has withdrawn Himself, and if, to be- hold Him by faith, to strain for Him by hope, to grasp Him by love, it be as necessary to us as to the Jews of old to mount, in spirit, to the highest heaven, then we cannot meet our God. Did God, the Almighty God, do this ? I say that He did not. I say, that if there be one truth more forcibly and frequently asserted in Scripture than any other, it is, that Christ our Lord, having come down from heaven to save men, was determined never to leave this earth until the last day of the world's ex- istence. I say, that He Himself declared expressly, that He would remain, and not depart. "I am come," said He, "to you ; I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you again ; and I will remain with you all days, unto the consummation of the world." Elsewhere He adds, " Behold, I am with you." And St, Paul, in speaking of Him, said : '* Jesus Christ, yester- day, to-day, and the same forever." Yesterday, in the halls of Judea ; to-day upon the altars of the Catholic Church ; and the same forever. For, from that Church, He solemnly declared, upon the word of God, that He never should depart. 374 The Harmony of the Worship How, then, my friends, do you harmonize these views of God with the actual state of things in the Church? Did He promise to remain only as a guiding influence ? He promised to remain as a guiding influence when He said, " My Spirit is with you. My Spirit shall not depart from you. I will remain with My Church ; and the gates of hell shall never prevail against her." Here He declared that He would remain as an abiding and a guiding spirit in His Church. But He did more than this. Lest any man might be unaware of His existence in the Church, lest any man might say, " He promised to remain, and yet where shall I find Him?" He actually located, or localized Himself, and established His presence in the infallible sign of the species that remain when the substance is gone. He took bread and wine, and said : " This is My Body ; this is My Blood." It is not for me — for you or for me — it is not for me, O Christ ! to demand why You were pleased to take this disguise or that. If it pleased Him to take the sand of the desert ; if it pleased Him to take a blade of grass, or a branch of a living tree, and holding it up before me, say: "I am here; this is Myself" — then, before that visible sign I would bow down ; for I am prepared to adore my God, I care not what disguise He takes. He took, as He lay hidden in the womb, the fullness of His divinity ; and, in the appearance of the little child at Bethlehem ; in the appearance of the grow- ing boy at Nazareth ; in the appearance of the man teaching in the temple at Jerusalem ; under the appearance of the criminal crucified upon Mount Calvary — God was there ; God was there in all the fullness of His divinity. Disguise Him as you will, Jesus Christ was still there ; and Peter, when he adored Him as the Son of God, adored what his eyes had not seen ; for the eye of the flesh saw but the manhood of our Lord ; and he adored the Godhead in the man. Disguise Him as you will, it is enough for me to know that He said : " I am here in all the fullness of My divinity; in all the integrity of My human nature ; in the graces that flow from these two, as the Redeemer and Saviour of the world ; " and the Catholic Church, for eighteen hundred and seventy-two years has bowed down and worshiped and adored. Now mark, my friends, that in order to exercise the virtue of faith two things are necessary : God must be there ; for if of the Catholic Church. 375 God is not there, there can be no faith ; for faith is the effort to realize God. But God must be there hidden ; not visible to the eye, not palpable to the senses ; for if He make Himself visible to the eye, and palpable to the senses, as He is visible to the glorified in heaven, there can be no faith ; for faith is the argument of those who have not seen ; and Christ said : " Blessed are those who believe and have not seen." God must be present, and He must be present not seen. Behold the wonderful harmony of the Catholic worship of the Eucharist in bringing this out ! The humblest Catholic child, the poorest and most illiterate person in the Catholic Church, if they want to realize God, know where they can find Him. They have only to turn into the nearest Catholic Church, and go to the altar ; and there they meet God ; and it is an act as heroic as that for which Peter was beatified by his divine Master. Again, the virtue of hope involves two things. It involves, my dear friends, a distinct promise from the Almighty of some- thing in the future. Now, if God had never said a word to us about our future — if He had never told us what He intended to do for us — there could be no hope for us, for what rould we hope for? A man does not hope for a thing that he does not know anything about. The very first element of hope is to know what you are hoping for. But God has spoken and said that the future of man, in the design and intention of God, is a glorious resurrection and an immortality in heaven of everKst- ing bliss and glory. This is our future. To this all things tend, God has said : " O son of man, I intend that, when you have passed through time, you shall enter into an eternity of life and happiness — into My Kingdom of heaven." The first thing that is necessary for our hope is, that God should have revealed to us upon what condition and by what means we can make that promise our own. It is not an absolute promise, my friends ; God has placed some conditions upon it. What are they ? They are all bound up with the Blessed Eucharist. God says: " O man, thy hope is the glory of a happy resurrec- tion ; and this I say to you, that unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink of His blood, you shall not have life in you." " He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me ; and I will raise him up at the last day." We look for heaven. God has promised it. He has promised 37^ The Harmony of the Worship it upon that condition. And where is this condition fulfilled and verified ? Where are we to find Him who has said : " Un- less you eat My flesh and drink My blood you can never rise to glory ; but, if you do it, I will raise you up ? " Where, but in the Blessed Eucharist of the Catholic Church ? He only can hope who is able to come, with a pure conscience and loving heart, and receive into his human bosom the Lord Jesus Christ that saved him. Finally, beloved, how this mystery of the Eucharist harmon- izes with God's demand of love. It was really hard to love God amidst all the counter attractions of this world. It was not so easy to love Him, there were so many passions boiling up in the uneasy heart of man ; there were so many rude incli- nations swaying him hither and thither, because of his fallen, degraded nature ; there were so many forms of created beauty passing before his senses, and before his eye, and before his im- agination. For nearly four thousand years, the poet was led by his own visions and wrapped in all their beauty and glory. The painter and the sculptor were transported, in their love of art, to forgetfulness of God in their representations of beauty. And the people were carried away by their own bad passions, until the nations deified their own vices, and adored their own degradation, and called it God. But now, God comes down from heaven, because He knows that nothing is so necessary to make a man love you as to come and be near to him, and let him see you. Nothing is more natural than that a friend should like to see his friend. And, therefore, He came down from heaven, took a human form, placed Himself among sensible objects upon earth, took His stand, as it were, among the people of this world, that men might love him. And, in the Incarnation, perpetuated in the Eucharist, the Son of God — Christ, the gentle, the holy, the Almighty, Christ, the model man — stands forth and says to every Christian soul : " I came down from heaven incarnate, for thy love. I felt lonely in the midst of My everlasting light, because thy love was not there. I felt uneasy, enthroned amongst My angels, because I saw not thy heart amongst them ; I am come down from heaven to earth to secure thy heart, and to say : Oh ! son of man, is there one so ungrateful, so narrow-minded among you, as to refuse to yield to Me the tribute of your love ? " of the Catholic Church. '^yj Thus do we behold, in the Eucharist, the virtues of faith, hope, and charity — those necessary virtues, those first elements of the love of God ; the requirements of our nature are har- moniously fulfilled ; and we come to our altars, and there we find the object of our faith — a hidden God ; the subject of our hope ; the condition to which the promise is attached ; the centre of our love — because love, infinite and worthy of God, is the only motive that keeps Him upon the altar. Behold, also, how this bond of Catholic worship harmonizes with the cravings of man. What is more natural — independent of revelation altogether — what is more natural than that man should seek his God ? God has stamped it upon saint and sinner alike. No matter how keen the pleasures of the world ; no matter how joyous the cup of life may be ; no matter how bright the promise of youth, how serene the mature pleasures of the man of old age — there is, in the heart of the worldling and the sinner, as well as of the saint, one secret chamber which God alone can enter and fill. Hence it is, that he who had tasted all pleasures, St. Augustine, exclaimed : " Thou hast made me, O God, for Thyself; and my heart was uneasy within me until it found its rest in Thee! " What says another — the greatest man of our age, a man upon whom God had showered every human gift — the poet Byron? He sought to feed his hungry soul upon every pleasure of sense ; and, when he was thirty years of age, he sat down to write, and this is what he wrote : " My days are in the yellow leaf ; The fruit, the flower of life are gone ; The worm, the canker, and the grief Are mine alone." And why? Because God was not there. Oh ! my friends, in Catholic worship, the little child, the full-grown man, the aged woman, the sick, the strong, the weak — all alike — all know that they have only to go into the church to find their God ; to give vent to that mighty craving of the heart of man ; to receive that ineffable consolation that the prophet of old thanked God for, when he said : " I have spoken, and my God has heard my voice." It would be vain for us to seek comfort if we did not know that God was near to hear our voice. It would be vain for us to look forward to the promise, if we did not know that 3/8 The Harmony of the Worship God was there — the necessary condition for its fulfiUment. It would be vain for me to seek the love of my God, if I could not find Him, somewhere or other, near me ; because it is the nature of man to love that which is near him. And thus do we behold how this august and tremendous mystery harmonizes not only with the designs and the requirements of God, but also with every better craving and every higher want of the nature of man. May we not, therefore, say with reason, that, in the day when Luther and his fellow-laborers denied the presence of Christ, and taught the people that that which Christ said was not to be so interpreted, the nations suffered an irre- parable misfortune. Christ said : "This is My body; " Luther said : " This is not : " — you can choose which of the two spoke the truth — but in the day when Luther got the nations to be- lieve him, he deprived mankind of a very great consolation ; he left the heart of man void ; he flung back Christianity, as far as his action prevailed, two thousand years into the realms of ancient Judaism. He left the Christian altar worse than the altar of Jerusalem ; for man had no longer the comfort nor the help of a visible sacrifice. Now, come to the second great feature of Catholic worship — the Confessional. Some years ago, a man wrote a book in Eng- land, and he called it " The Confessional Unmasked." He was a dirty, filthy fellow ; a fellow who, in all probability, had never been to confession ; and he put in all the dirt and the filth that could pass out of his filthy mind ; and it was passed off as " The Confessional Unmasked." Let me unmask the Confessional to you. I will not speak to you of the divine side of this argu- ment. I will not say a word to you of the proof that Christ, having exercised the divine right and the power to forgive sin, left that power to man. It is not to prove this that I came here, but only to show that, in the Catholic Church, the confessional harmonizes with the cravings and the wants of our nature. Tell me, do you not all know that it is very hard to pass through life without committing some mistakes? and sometimes, in the thoughtlessness of youth or the heat of passion, we are liable to commit very great mistakes, to say and do things the very re- membrance of which, years afterwards, brings the blush to the cheek, and draws the tear to our eye. Now, do you not know, my friends, that there is nothing more painful nor more difficult of the Catholic Church. 379 to man, than to keep, locked up in his own heart, some secret or other that is worrying him and weighing him down ; to walk about with that skeleton in the closet of his soul — with that accusing voice ever crying out : " You have done it," and recall- ing all the circumstances, with the halls of memory thronging with the foul recollections, and the accusing remembrances of these past errors of our youth and of our thoughtlessness, glar- ing upon us with infernal eyes that will never close, to rest or let us rest ; speaking to us and resounding in our hearts in the darkness of the night with a voice that will not be quieted ; gnawing at our hearts like the worm that can never die ? Oh, how sad, how painful it is for a man to carry such secrets as these to the grave with him ! Do we not know what violent efforts men make sometimes to throw it off? Some years ago, a murder was committed in Ireland. They made all sorts of efforts and could not find out the man. But after a few years a haggard, heart-broken man came and presented himself to the authorities, and said : " I am the man that committed the mur- der in such a place," They were thunderstruck, and asked him what could make him come forward and accuse himself; and he answered : " I have borne this secret with me for years ; it has ruined my health, and it has broken my heart ; and it has driven me to this, that I shall feel more light-hearted on the scaffold, with a rope around my neck, than walking around among my fellow-men, with the cry of blood ringing in my heart." He could not keep the secret. Do not we know the common say- ing that when a woman has a secret troubling her she is " like a hen on a hot griddle," until she goes out and finds some one of the neighbors that will sit down with her, perhaps, over a cup of tea ; and then, out it will come. My friends, let me remind you that I am only speaking of the human, natural side of this argument of the Church's wor- ship. Now, I ask you, was it not God that made us as we are ? Was it not God that gave us that sensitiveness, that a secret locked up in the man's heart may go far to kill him unless he finds some friend to whom he can give it — unless he can find some man that can lighten his sorrow and the burden of his soul, as Simon of Cyrene lifted the cross from the shoulders of our Lord. But the difficulty that men find is twofold. First of all, one is, if you have any thought that is fretting you in secret — that is 380 The Harmony of the Worship worrying you — anything that you feel in the dark about — you will be anxious to tell it ; but where will you find a friend that you can trust — a man that will keep it to himself — a man in whose honor, in whose secrecy, you can rely as you would rely upon your own life ? Where do you find this man ? It is very hard to find him. I do not speak at all of finding a woman. As a rule, the best way to have a thing published to the four winds of heaven is to tell it to a woman. I remember once I was going to preach a sermon in Dublin, on a Sunday, for some charity or other ; and they came to me at the last moment, and said : " Will you preach on Sun- day ; we want money for this thing or that." " Very well," said I. It was on Friday. " But," said they, " there is no time to publish it ! " " Oh," I said, " do you leave it to me, I will pub- lish it." And I went to a lady friend of mine, and I said, " I want to tell you a secret. They have asked me to preach on Sunday at such a place ; but I would not have it known for the world." " Ah," said she, " I am the soul of honor." I went away. I came back that road in about half an hour, and I met four or five peo- ple on the way. " Well, Father Tom, you are going to preach at a certain place, on Sunday, at a certain time." There was not a paving-stone in Dublin that did not hear it. There is our first great difficulty, to find a reliable friend. It seems almost inconsistent in God — if I may so say — it seems inconsistent in God to have given to man such a nature, such a heart, that he cannot bear his own sorrows alone; and yet to make the true friends so scarce, and so difficult to find. For, if you find a true friend that can keep a secret, the next thing is what can he do for you ? If you tell him your secret, can he lead you out of the difficulty? Can he take the burden off from you ; or can he enable you to throw it off, and think no more about it ? How many times do we meet a friend in whose honor we can trust, but a fool, who does not know how to say any- thing ; and if you get anything from him, it will be "ah ! " I knew an old man once who looked very wise — very wise ; looked just like a man that would give you a good advice ; and I had something or other that was fretting me very much ; and I knew that I could trust to his honor. So I said to him : " I want you to show me the way out of this difficulty." Do you know the answer I got? " Oh, blood alive! Oh, blood alive! " I remember, when a little boy, my mother had something fret- of the Catholic Church. 381 ting her — some family difficulty; I do not know what it was — but, at any rate, she went to a confidential friend to get advice, and unbosom her trouble ; and all the advice she could get was, as she was telling the story faithfully, with all the circumstances about what " she said," and " he said " — all she could get from her friend, as she was rocking herself this way and that way, to and fro, was, " Oh, wirra, wirra ! " Now, if our friends can do nothing more for us than to open their eyes, and say, " Lord help you ! " and " Oh, wirra, wirra ! " it is not worth while to go to the trouble of telling our secrets, or of asking advice from them. But God has provided in the Catholic Church a mighty vent for this natural craving of man. Mark how beautifully the confessional harmonizes with all this. The Catholic man or woman who has something or other as a source of mental anxiety and fretting — something that has been said or done, the keeping of which, in his own bosom, is breaking his heart ; — the Catholic man or woman knows that, in the first priest he meets, he has a friend whom God has provided for him ; in whose honor and secrecy he can place implicit confidence ; who can give him as much relief as Jesus Christ would give him if he came to Him. He knows he can trust to the secrecy of the priest ; for in truth, my friend, the Catholic priest has no merit for keeping secrets : he has no secrets to keep. The priest sits in the confessional and hears the sin of the penitent in one ear. He pauses for an instant, looks at that sin ; judges its gravity, its enormity, and the circumstances ; says a few words of advice, and tells the penitent, "You must avoid this thing or that ; this sin is great- er than you imagine ; see the injury you have done ; see how painful to the heart of God such and such an action must be, for He says so and so in the Scriptures ; " and he gives such and such advice ; and he lets the sin out of the other ear; and it does not stay in his mind at all. St. Augustine says, in his own admirable manner : " The priest knows less about what he hears in the confessional than if he never heard it at all." The man going to confession is like a little child taking a pebble from off the sand, and, going over the waters, on a still, calm day, he drops the pebble in the lake. For an instant there is a ripple upon the water ; but the wavelets die away ; the face of the water becomes smooth again ; and the pebble that the child has dropped, no man. no human eye, shall ever see again. We go 382 The Harmony of the Worship to confession ; we drop our sin before the priest ; we tell him of such and such a deed. For an instant it makes a ripple upon the organ that receives it ; for an instant, the wavelets of con- sideration are rippling over the mind of the priest ; then that mind settles into its own calm serenity again. The sin is gone ; but no eye of man upon the earth, nor of gasping demons in hell, nor of angel in heaven, shall ever behold that sin again. My friends, it is painful and difficult for a man to be obliged to go frequently and tell every thought of his mind, his inmost secrets — raking out his heart, analyzing his motives ; taking his actions to task, and seeing whether they are conformable with the just judgment of God. It is a difficult thing, and painful ; and yet it is the greatest consolation, by far, of the Catholic life. It is the one doctrine of Catholicity which converts to Protestantism find most difficult to give up. We read that a certain town in Germany having given up the practice of the confessional for a certain number of years, things were going back so, and getting so bad that they actually petitioned to have the usage of the confessional restored. I remember a man coming to me to confession once ; and when he finished his con- fession — he was a great big, strapping, whole-souled Irishman ; he was six feet two — and when he got up from his knees, he did this : [Here the lecturer threw his hands above his head, and stretched himself as high as he could] — " Just look here, your reverence ; look at me. Did you see that stretch ? " "I did." " That was more than I was able to do at all when I came in." If there be any Catholics amongst you who neglect this sacrament ; if there be any Protestant friends amongst you who do not believe in it, tell me, my friends, is it any great advantage to you to be carrying your harrowing secrets to the grave? Is it any advantage to you, humanly speaking — for I am only speak- ing from the human side — is it any advantage to you — this in- crustation of sin and remorse upon you — when before you is a man with his divine commission in his hand — with Christ Him- self at his side — saying: " Whose sins you shall forgive upon earth, I will forgive in heaven? " Thirdly, the third great point of Catholic worship is the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the position she holds in the doctrines and the practices of the Church. If there be one thing more than all others that seems to me unnatural in the frame of mind of the Catholic Church. 383 and in the language of those who are outside of the Catholic Church, it is the manner in which they think and speak of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Now, in order to understand how har- moniously the Virgin Mary fits in with the thoughts and aspira- tions of the natural heart of man, all that you have to do is to reflect with me for an instant. Christianity, my friends, the Christian religion, no matter in what church it may really be — we know that it is in the Catholic Church, and in the Catholic Church only — Christianity is based upon two great truths — name- ly, that the Eternal God came down from heaven ; and that He became as truly man as He was God. If you deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, you are no Christian. If you deny the humanity of Jesus Christ, you are no Christian. Belief in one is as necessary as belief in the other. It was a question of redeeming mankind ; and only God could do it. Yet God alone could not do it. How strange this may sound to you ! God alone could be the Redeem- er ; yet God could not be the Redeemer alone, unless he consent- ed to become man. A victim was necessary, of infinite merit. God alone could be such a victim, but God, in His own divine nature, could not suffer ; therefore He had to come down from heaven and take our human nature, and become as truly man as He was God. What does this mean ? It means that the redemption of the world was effected by Christ, our Lord, as the Son of the Virgin Mary ; because it was effected in His humanity. She was as necessary to the scheme of redemption as the eternal Father in heaven. The Word eternal was begotten before all ages of the Father ; and the Father gave His eternal Son to earth. " The Word was made flesh " in Mary's womb ; and Mary brought forth her Son, God ; because when He took our human nature. He did not take our human personality; He did not take the human individuality ; the individual, or person, was divine. The two things were there : all that was God was there ; all that was man was there ; and the person that was born of Mary was the Son of God ; because Christ, our Lord, was one person, though two natures ; and that person was divine, and not human. But it was in virtue of that nature, and through that nature, which He, the eternal God, took from Mary, that he saved the world.. Now, reflect upon this. God gave Him from heaven ; Mary gave Him from earth. His rela- tion from eternity to the Father was that of the true Son of 384 The Harmony of the Worship God. His relation to Mary, from the moment of His Incarna- tion was that He was her own true Son. Now, Christianity is based upon the adoration of Jesus Christ, and of Him alone; the love of Him ; the proclaiming and upholding of His glory. There is no other name given under heaven, whereby men may be saved. There is no other God but the Lord Jesus Christ. He is " true God of true God." What do I mean when I say that Christianity is based upon the adoration of Jesus Christ? Do I not mean that, whatever Jesus Christ is. He is my God ; that He is the object of my adoration as the Son of the Virgin Mary as well as the Son of God ? Nay, more. The very name, Jesus — which means Saviour — He took not from heaven but from Mary. He was the Saviour of the world, because He was able to suffer for the sins of mankind, and shed His blood ; and He was able to shed that blood, as His Mother's Son — as the Virgin's Son. Therefore, when we venerate Him and His adorable name, the name at the sound of which every knee un- der heaven must bend — when we speak that name, it is as the Son of the Virgin as well as the Son of God. Now, I ask, can there be anything more unnatural than to love the Son and to despise the Mother? Nay, more ; to love the Son because He is His Mother's Son ; to love Jesus Christ as such, because He is His Mother's Son, because, as such. He is our Redeemer — can you imagine a man adhering to and loving Christ, our Lord, precisely because He was the Virgin's Son, and yet turning around and despising the Virgin Mother that gave Him birth ? It is certainly against the law of nature. What is the consequence? Every pious and high-minded Prot- estant, in his heart and in his soul, has the deepest love and reverence for the Virgin Mary. His heart must be better than his system. Is it a wonder that Catholics say so much of her ! There was a little boy in Ireland playing about on the road, and there was a Protestant clergyman passing by and he was very fond of children. He took the boy up and patted him. "Well, little fat boy, are you a Catholic?" "Yes, sir." " Now, tell me this : Why do you think so much of the Virgin Mary? Was she any better than any other woman?" "Oh yes, she was a sight better than any other woman." " Oh, well, she was not much different from my mother." " Oh, yes," said the little boy, brightening up, " if the mothers were so wonder- of the Catholic Church. 385 fully like one another, is not there a great difference between the two sons ? " In the mystery of the Incarnation, as it fitted in the mind of God, Mary stood forth as the prominent figure. " I saw," said the Evangelist; "and behold, a great sign appeared in heaven," — not upon earth, but in heaven, that is, in the great counsels of God. What was this sign? "A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." The woman — the great co-opcratrix with God — the woman, the Mother of the Son, from whose veins were taken the blood that was shed upon Calvary that washed away the sins of men. But Protestants say, " That is not quite the question. Our difficulty is that you pray to the Virgin Mary." I answer, " We do." Let us see if this harmonizes with the facts and nature of man. Tell me, if you wanted a favor from some high, mighty person, and that you knew if you spoke a word to his mother, and she said a word to him, he would grant your peti- tion — would you not be a great fool if you did not apply to the mother? "Ah! but," you say, " if you speak to the mother, and ask her to ask Him, it shows distrust in Him." Not at all-. Why, if I did not have confidence in Him, I would not ask Mary to ask Him for me. If we ask Him anything, it is because we know that we are poor, needy creatures. Shall we presume and say God will give me anything I ask at once? Now, we know that when one of Job's companions was in sin, God said : " Go to my servant Job, and get him to offer sacrifice for thee, and for his sake I will forgive thee." We know that in the days of Jesus, there were certain persons that went to Philip, and said, " Will you be kind enough to speak to the Master; we want to speak to Him?" And Philip goes to Peter, be- cause he was the great man amongst them, and he said: " There are people here that want to speak to our Master." And Peter went and said : " There are persons who want to speak to you." There were two intercessions before they spoke to our Lord. Does that show that they lacked faith in Him ? They wanted to speak to Him ; that is why they spoke to the apostles ; and that is the reason why Catholics pray to the Virgin Mary. We know that she can do nothing for us ; she is only a creature like us. We know that she is not the fountain of grace ; but 25 386 The Harmony of the Worship we know how dear she was to Him. Ah, we know that, in the day when He went forth from Nazareth, on His pubHc mission, she was by His side. On their way, they sat down to a wed- ding feast, at Cana; and the people saw the Son, and saw how reverential He was to His mother; and how careful He was with her. And when they ran short of wine, they went and spoke to Mary, and she spoke to her divine Son, and said : "They have no wine." She immediately turned round to them, and said : " Whatever He tells you to do, do it." And He told them to fill six great vessels with water; and He glanced upon it with the eye of God, and it was wine ; because His mother wished it. Now, I am not speaking as a Catholic priest ; I am reasoning, as if not a Catholic, with these facts before me. I say that Christ, our Lord, is the typical man, and that we, Christians, are called upon to form ourselves upon Him. And, I ask, would you not think less of our Lord — be it said with all reverence — would you not think less of our Lord if He disregarded His mother ? Would He be the model man ? And is it not consonant with our own thoughts, that she who suffered so much for Him, that she who was thought worthy of Him, who was honored by Him above all creatures — that she should have it in her power to say a word for you or me if we invoke her name, and say to her: " Holy Mary, Mother of God, of yourself you can do nothing for us ; but pray for us, sinners, now and in the hour of our death ! " Is it any wonder that, when I asked the poor fellow what he thought about Protest- antism, he scratched the back of his head, and said : " I felt that it was not natural like." Now we come to the fourth great feature of the Catholic Church, which is, in fact, the worship itself — the Liturgy. Mark how different it is in the Catholic from other denomina- tions. You enter any other temple in the land ; you look up ; you see a table with a piece of green baize over it, a couple of chairs, and an organ ; and that is about all. You enter the Catholic Church, and the first thing you see is the blessed altar, and the crucifix. Perhaps an image of the Blessed Virgin is over her altar, and an image of St. Joseph is over his altar; the lamp is burning before the tabernacle ; fresh flowers are upon the altar ; and beautiful candlesticks are upholding the lights ; the organ is pealing forth ; and everything is leading your of the Catholic Church. 387 thoughts and your heart to the idea of worship. You enter the Catholic Church, and you find it differing almost every day. To-day you find it lighted up in splendor ; to-morrow it is robed in black. What does all this mean ? Why, worship means the external form and manifestation of the faith that is within. Worship is not faith ; worship belongs to the virtue of religion : that is to say, the manifestation of faith. Thus, every form of religion has its worship. The ancient Greek bowed down before Jupiter and Apollo. The fire-worshiper in ancient Ireland sent his priest up to the summit of the round tower, and there the ancient Druid sat and turned an expectant eye to the East, and watched the morning star as it twinkled in the sky, and then, as with eager eye, he saw Aurora rising with her crimson blush, he watched for the very first wave that came over the eastern hills, and then he cried : " He comes ! He comes!" and they fell and worshiped the sun in heaven. That was their worship. Now, Catholic worship means the manifestation of the faith which the Church of God has. That faith is centred in Jesus Christ as its all in all. He is the centre ; He is the circumference of the Church's faith, the object of her faith, the object of her hope, the centre of her love ; and the Scriptures expressly tell us that the duty of every Christian man, and, consequently, of the Church of God, is to reproduce in worship the life of Jesus Christ. That life is our all in all. It is our religion. The consequence is, that the Catholic Church is incessantly, unceasingly reproducing the life of Jesus Christ, driving it into their minds and into their hearts, appealing to their senses, appealing to every element of knowl- edge that is in them, and always the one story, the self-same recurring tale, the life of Christ, the life of Christ. The twenty- fifth of March comes ; the Catholics enter their church ; and the moment they enter, they hear the choir pealing forth from the organ gallery, or the priest : " The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a Virgin, and he saluted her and said : ' Thou shalt con- ceive and bring forth a Son.' " Over the altar is a picture of the angel bowing down before the wonder of divine grace which his eyes beheld in Mary. There is the image of Mary decked with flowers, as becomes one crowned with so great a glory. The Son came down from heaven and set for a while in Mary, that from Mary He might rise again as man 388 The Harmony of the Worship unto the illumination of the Gentiles and the salvation of tlie people. Later on, a Christmas morning shines forth upon the crisp hoar frost and snow. Amid the rigors of winter there arises a sound of joy, a chiming of the midnight bells, a pealing forth of the organ, filling the night with its melody; and the burden of the song is as the angel sang in the night-watches around Beth- lehem : " Glory in the highest heavens to God, and on earth peace to men of good will ! " You enter the Catholic Church, and it is all a blaze of light ; around every altar a riot of joy ; in the side chapel the figure of the Babe newly born, and the men and the women adoring, and the shepherds kneeling and presenting their gifts. Does this not bring home to every man more forcibly the mystery of the day. Through all this jubila- tion it seems to us, in the joy of our Christmas morning, as if we beheld the Church of God holding the new-born Man, and lifting Him up to His Father in the first ecstasy of delight at beholding His face. When, after a few days, the joy of the Epiphany passes over, let the feast of all the solemn mysteries of His life be solemnized. Ash Wednesday comes. Christ our Lord began His public mission by entering into the desert as an humble and a penitent man, bowed down by the sins of four thousand years of the generations of men ; and He knelt down in the silent desert place, and put up His hands to pray. The sun rose, and the first beam fell upon the upturned face of the Man, and its long shadows passed over the surface of the earth ; and still He prayed. The sun was in its meridian glory to high noon, and its ardent rays beat upon the upturned face of the kneeling Man ; and still He fainted not, but prayed. The sun sank in the desert, and yet the shadow of Him who prayed was flung over the sand. Still were the hands lifted up ; still quiv- ering with earnestness and love did Jesus pray. Night came, and the stars came out silently upon the blue face of heaven, and like glittering gems they glistenened and trembled as if they had life, looking down upon the face of their God. The moon shone with adoration all around Him ; and still he prayed. And forty days and nights pass on, and there was the Redeem- er, His eyes never closed one moment to rest. No food crossed those pallid lips, no drop of water refreshed Him in the thirst of the burning day. He remained there and prayed. Ash of the Catholic Church. 389 Wednesday comes once a year, and the Church of God puts aside her splendid robes, her Christmas and Epiphany joy ; and the song of praise and joy is no longer heard. She clothes herself in sack-cloth and puts ashes upon her head, and to her chil- dren she says : " My spouse is in sorrow ; my God, and your God has gone into the desert to fast and to pray ; and together let us approach and join Him ; " and she leads us into the des- ert of fasting and prayer during the forty days of Lent — His forty days of prayer. You enter the Catholic Church and there is desolation all around you. You behold nothing of all its or- naments, and all its tokens of praise and joy; but, high above a mass of sombre drapery rises a great figure of Jesus Christ crucified. Looking down we behold there — very grave and very much cast down, as one helpless in desolation and sor- row at the foot of that cross — we behold the prostrate figure of the holy Church, the spouse of Jesus Christ. What sorrow is upon her? Oh, the sorrow of the Virgin Mother ! " Come, oh, come, into this mountain of desolation ; come and stand here with me, and behold my Son upon that cross ! " Oh, you who have sorrowed, was there ever sorrow such as the sorrow of the Catholic Church? The young Protestant man goes to his Church, and hears the peal of joy in the organ, and is told to rejoice in the atonement ; he is told to rejoice and be glad ; he knows nothing of the dying sorrow of the Saviour. The Cath- olic goes home to eat his morsel of dry bread. The Protestant goes home and enjoys his " hot cross-buns," and then takes his fowling-piece and goes out ; for the banks are closed, and in fact it is a " holiday." Oh, how strange that a man who will keep the anniversary of his father's death as a day of gloom ; who will on that day clothe himself in the weeds of mourning, and will not appear at festival or dinner-table, will not go to his business, but spend the day in sorrow ; — how strange and how unnatural that such a man will dress himself in his best, and go out on pleasure with his friends, on the day that beheld the Virgin's Son^-the Son of God, naked and dying on the cross ! But, wait a while. Only wait for another day. Let the storm of her desolation and her sorrow sweep over the Virgin's breast, and over the holy Catholic Church ; but another day ; and now, enter the church on Easter morning; oh, what a change ! No 390 The Harmony of the Worship sound of grief is within her ; no blood-stain is upon her ; she has cast aside all the cerements of sorrow. The fairest flowers of Spring are upon the altar; lights innumerable are brilliant there ; a song peals forth from her lips ; it is the hallelujah of joy, " He has risen again. He shall never die any more. Hal- lelujah ! let us rejoice and be glad, for the Saviour is risen, and we have sought the living amongst the dead ; but we have found Him not ! " Here we are called upon to rejoice and to accom- pany Him, step by step, until with the apostles we lift up our eyes, straining after the figure that recedes from us in the clouds of heaven, and waves above our heads His last benediction, whilst with our ears we catch the hosannas of the nine choirs of angels, bursting from heaven, and coming forth to welcome Christ on His return. The life of Christ — how beautifully and harmoniously is it brought out ; how much we are assisted by this. " I got no help," said the poor man. " Even if the Protestant religion were the true one, it does not help a man. I went on Good Friday, and Easter, and Christmas ; and it was the same, and I was never helped." But the Catholic Church, the great mother, constantly brings forth mystery after mystery, forever reveal- ing the untold beauties of her Lord, her spouse, in the thousand forms in which they reveal themselves in every fair action, and in every divine mystery of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. One word, and I have done. This is the faith, this is the harmonious worship that my native land received from the lips of St. Patrick fifteen hundred years ago. Pardon me. my friends, such of you as are not Irish, nor of Irish birth, pardon me, if the last word that I have to speak to you this evening be spoken to you as an Irishman. My dear American friends, you have not on the face of this earth a more honest nor a more ardent admirer of yourselves nor your country, than I am. There is not a heart throbbing this night in the bosom of man that beats towards America with greater gratitude than this heart of mine, for the noble welcome that this mighty Columbia gave to my afflicted brethren from Ireland, And yet, I crave your pardon if I remind you that it was a thousand years before ever Colum- bus sailed for America that Ireland heard from the lips of St. Patrick the glories and the beauties and the harmonies of the Catholic Church. And when he had preached and converted of the Catholic Church. 391 our fathers, and when he had set up that glorious electric light from heaven, of divine faith, that shed its rays in noonday splen- dor over the whole land, and when he had seen that sanctity that flowered forth under his own eyes in the first virgin saint of Ireland — St. Bridget — when he had done all this, and when one hundred winters were over his head, he lay down to die, and, in his last moments, the love that was in his heart was the thought of his beloved Ireland. It was in the Irish language that he spoke the last words of love and prayer to the Virgin Mary's Son, through Mary, His mother, whom he had taught the Irish people to love. And what were his last words of prayer ? Struggling, like a strong man, with the angel of death, he cried out with a loud voice : " O Jesus Christ, Thou know- est that I have loved and labored for Thee alone, and for this country of Ireland and its people. Hear, O Son of God, hear the last words of a dying man, dying from the labors I have undergone for them. I claim as my only reward, and I put it forth as my last prayer, O Son of the Virgin, let Ireland never lose her Catholic faith." The loud cry of the dying saint pene- trated the clouds. It came, like the voice of an archangel, storming at the doors of heaven, that it might be heard. It passed through the nine choirs of God's angels. It encircled Mary's throne — that last prayer of her dying servant and lover upon earth. Mary rose at Patrick's call. She knelt be- fore the throne, and said : " O Son of God, I join my prayer with that of Thy servant. Rise, O Son of God, enter Thy judgment." The Son of God arose, and, bending, let His glance fall upon the Emerald Isle of the Western Ocean, and He said: "Thus saith the Lord God — who saith that which shall never pass away to the end of time — Ireland, I bless thee ; thy faith shall never pass away to the end of time." THE POSITION AND PRIVILEGES OF THE POPE. [Delivered in the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, N. Y.] Y FRIENDS : You know the subject on which I am about to address you. Of all the names that the world has given to men to designate their office, there is not one more familiar to be found than the name of " The Pope." The whole world is divided into two real, distinct camps on this question of the Pope. The moment his name is mentioned — either personally or in virtue of his office — you in- stantly hear a cry of detestation from his enemies, or a shout of joy and love from his friends. There is no man, no emperor, warrior or statesman, who occupies so much of the public mind or public attention ; and this is just and reasonable ; for, whether for friend or for foe, the Pope is still the most remark- able man in the world. For his friends, his lovers, and his children, he is all that I shall endeavor to prove him this night to be ; and for those who do not believe in his position, in his power, or in his privileges, he is still the greatest mystery in existence, simply because he is in existence at all. For, that a man with the Pope's power, if his purposes be false — that a man whose existing claims are acknowledged by so many — for the Pope claims his privilege in foundation, in fact, and in truth — that a man claiming to be the interpreter of the voice of God, the one voice of divine truth on the earth, commanding the obedience and guiding the councils of hundreds of millions — that such a man can exist in this nineteenth century of ours, is one of the greatest mysteries of the age. If there be one thing, my friends, that we plume ourselves and pride ourselves on. The Position and Privileges of the Pope. 393 more than anything else, it is that, in this nineteenth century of ours, a sham and a humbug is very soon found out, and vain, grandiloquent professions are exploded in a shout of laughter. This century of ours will stand a great deal. It will stand breakers of treaties ; it will stand a great deal of bad work behind the scenes, both in peace and in war; but there is one thing that every man of this age of ours says that the nine- teenth century cannot stand ; and that is a patent sham. If the Pope be not all that he claims to be, where, since the world was created, can we find such a sham and humbug as he is. For instance, if he emphatically said to you : " You must believe my word, because I am a very learned man. You must believe my word, because I am a profound historian or a great philosopher ; " well, you may say, he may be a learned man ; he may be a historian ; but not fit guidance to such as need that instruction. He would be laughed at. But when a man comes out and says : " You must believe my word, and take it as the word of God ! " oh ! if that man could only be proved to be a false interpreter, why he would go down amidst peals of de- risive laughter from every man in this age of ours. Therefore it is, that both for friend and for foe, the Pope is the most re- markable and the most important of men. Now, I am come here this evening to tell you what he is ; to justify our faith and belief in him ; to prove that the very highest efforts of human intelligence, straining after the truth, must find that truth upon the lips, on the hands, and in the Head of the Cath- olic Church. I am here to prove to you what the Pope of Rome is in the sight of the Son of God. Surely, what the Pope is before Him, he is also before us ; because we are all disciples and adorers of the same God made man. You have heard it said, my friends, that " an honest man is the noblest work of God ; " and, indeed, in this boasted age of ours, some of the greatest swindlers that have disgraced every path of life, until the moment the discovery of their villainy was made, were very fond of repeating this philosophical maxim, thereby insin- uating that they were that " work." But, I answer, that there is something now on this earth more worthy of God — higher and nobler than the mere " honest man," even in the world's acceptation of that term. I assert that the noblest and highest work of God on this earth is the Holy Roman Catholic 394 T^^^^ Position and Privileges of the Pope. and Apostolic Church ; and, in order to prove this assertion, I ask you, quietly and patiently, to travel with me a little into argument. You know, my friends, that, when Almighty God created man in the beginning. He made him a noble creature, and that He intended to found upon him a perfect state of society. The perfection of that society, which was to spring from the un- fallen, sinless man, consisted in the possession of three great gifts : First, in the possession of God ; in enjoying his society ; in his conversation ; in his fellowship — as Adam enjoyed it before he committed sin. The second was in the possession of the truth; all the light of God beaming upon human intelligence ; bringing a clear, intuitive light of earth's knowledge of all things — a divine and perfect knowledge of all the laws and mysteries of nature. Such knowledge did Adam possess until he fell. The third grand gift in which Almighty God intended to build up a perfect society in man, was the perfect beauty of order ; for, as you know, my friends, " Order is heaven's first law." That order was to consist in the submission of human intelligence, or rea- son, to the illuminating influence of God. In the submission of his will to the intelligence, and in the dominion of will over all the passions, all the interior nature of man was in perfect sub- mission to the eternal law ; a creature to command the admira- tion of the world — the mystery of divine intelligence — sinless man ! Oh, how fair, how beautiful is this man, as he comes forth from out the mind, from the loving heart and omnipotent hands of God ! Oh, how grand is that soul, beaming with knowledge, filled with light ! To him all the highest things of God, as well as the most intricate secrets of nature, are open — his mind illu- minated by their contemplation. How grand is that creature that rises before my eyes of faith, as I go back, contemplating him before he allowed sin to ruin his soul and to destroy in him the gifts of God ! When I behold my first parent entering into familiar conversation with Almighty God, his voice falling upon the ear of the Most High as sweet music — when I behold him commanding with undisputed sway every passion, every power of his soul and body ; whilst, when he goes forth from his leafy home, the eagle, soaring amid the clouds, descends rap- idly upon his powerful wings, and swoops to his feet ; the tiger The Position and Privileges of the Pope. 395 and the Hon come forth from their lair to h'ck the feet of their imperial master ; all nature is obedient to the command of man ; because man is, in turn, obedient to the command of God. Then came sin ; and all this fair order is spoiled. All that God intended ; all that God designed — worthy of His wisdom — worthy of His power — is ruined. The fair things of God are destroyed by sin. The first consequence of sin was the separation between God and man. God left him ; for God will not converse with the sinner. The second consequence of sin — the loss of truth, of knowledge, of the intelligence of man ; for a cloud of darkness and of error settled down upon that mind, so illuminated, so bright before. The third consequence of sin was the complete revolution in man himself, and the world around him ; and as he revolted against heaven, now comes the uprising of the angry passions, lustful desires, vain, foolish curiosity, begetting uneasy thoughts. Then he is no longer able to command those thoughts to begone, to molest him not. Every passion arises to assert its will ; and he, who a moment before was lord of all things, now, indeed, possesses some inheritance, but, in the language of the poet, it is " a heritage of woe." Going forth from his home — driven from the Garden of Paradise, and from its delights ; every creature now rises up in rebellion against him. No longer will the winged creature of the air come at his command, but far on high over his head circles the fierce vulture, looking upon the lord of creation as his possible prey. Suddenly, in his path, the deadly snake hisses, and rises to strike him. The lion and the tiger war with him from their lair. All nature revolts ! Behold the ruin — behold the order of God's law, destroyed by the sin of man. Then, after four thousand years, God, the eternal son of God, came down from heaven, upon the wings of His mercy, to make all things good again ; to restore all that Adam lost ; to make perfect the order that was deranged. All that man lost in Adam was restored, and more than restored, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, made man. First of all. He brought from heaven that which Adam had lost by sin, the presence of God ; for, " His name was called Emanuel, which means, God with us." Sec- ond, He brought from heaven the light complete in the fullness of divine truth; for, " in Him was the life, and the life was the 39^ The Position and Privileges of the Pope. light of men." Third, He brought from heaven the light, com- plete in the fullness of divine and magnificent order, that was thoroughly destroyed in Adam's sin ; so that God and man were united b}- a union far more intimate than the union that was spoiled by Adam ; for in Adam was ruined only the mortal union between God and man ; that union was restored by the personal union in which God and human nature became one person, and in that person was the divine light of knowledge and of truth. What was lost to us by Adam's sin, was more than restored to us in the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ ; for in him flowed the fullness of the divinity — all light, all knowl- edge was in Him ; and the order that was deranged and de- stroyed in Adam was more than restored in Jesus Christ. In Him and by Him all those passions were completely governed ; humanity and divinity were united in Christ, who was God. Man's human intelligence receives from His divinity all the ef- fulgence of His light and knowledge ; and his affections receive from His divinity all their tenderness and all their infinite power. At this day we see how Adam sinned ; and we see the fallen rise again, upheld by the grace given to govern demons, through the Virgin's Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, my friends, you rise at once to behold before your minds the grand and magnificent design of God. Christ, the Son of God — coming down from heaven, and remaining upon the earth — came not for a day, nor for a year ; not for one peo- ple, nor for one time ; — but, as He Himself declared. He came to remain forever ; to build up a perfect people ; to give to all men the power to be what He was. " He gave them the power to be made the sons of God." How was this done? All the grace of Jesus Christ — all the glory that surrounded Him, He left with His Church. He founded His Church to be the mother, the parent, the protector of the world ; the creator of that perfect society destroyed in Adam, which He brought back to earth again in the Son of God made man. In His Church, therefore, must you look to find the same order, the same beauty, the same truth that we find in our di- vine Lord and Saviour. In order to effect this, Christ, our Lord, declared that He would never leave His Church ; that He would never turn aside from her ; never allow her to take one step but by His guidance ; never allow the world to impede The Position and Privileges of the Pope. 397 her progress ; but she was to be animated by His grace, and guided by His counsels ; for He declared Himself to be the abiding Head of His holy Church. For, says St. Paul, " Christ is the head, as the Church is the body." Therefore, my breth- ren, we speak of Him as the Head of the Church, not as we speak of the Church as being the head, in a sense, as the father is the head of a family. No ; but we speak of her head as in the organization of a human body. Wherefore, the apostle says: " Christ is the head of the body of the Church." Now, when the whole body is compacted, making it increase unto charity, it is because of His friendship and affection over the body of that Church. He abides in that Church ; He has given to her — He has set upon the shoulders of that human body — the head of the wisest philosopher — and all that the body re- ceives, the mighty, singular intelligence, the glory He has given to her, shines forth in her words of wisdom. The great intellect, the power which flows from the lips set upon the body of the divine heart for the whole body, becomes divine through the head. Thus it is that the Church — through the fullness of the grace of her divine Head and founder — all that she teaches is the truth of God. The knowledge, the light of God, the order of God, shines forth in the holy Catholic Church. In heaven, where the Church is triumphant, where they see even as they are seen, Christ is the visible Head of His Church. On earth — where we cannot see Him with our corpo- ral eyes, He has appointed a viceroy, and He commands us to hear his voice, for His viceroy is under His influence and feels and experiences the touch of His divine and guiding hand. The Son of God governs His Church, through its visible head; and that visible head of the Church, from the day that Christ gave the keys to Peter, down to this hour, when the aged man in Rome holds the keys — that head of the Church has been the glorious Pope. When the Son of God, like a divine architect, devised the foundation of His Church — He united in her all that she was to have. He began by taking a man ; and He conferred upon that man three most wonderful graces, privileges, and powers, each and every one of which is proved in Scripture in language as clear as noon-day, and as emphatic in character as if the sal- vation of man depended upon it (as in reality it does). The 398 The Position and Privileges of the Pope. man that was chosen was Peter, one of the twelve apostles. He was not the most perfect amongst them. He was a man who had, in the beginning, before the holy spirit of God came upon him, many defects of nature, as I suppose we all have. He was a man of naturally impulsive character, and yet not very constant in disposition, before the Almighty poured out upon him the fullness of His holy Spirit. We might, perhaps, if ive had the choice, have fixed upon the young virgin, St. John ; or we might take his elder brother James ; or we might choose some other of the apostles. But we had not the choice ; Christ had ; and Christ chose Peter. What were the gifts, special and personal, that He gave to Peter? They were precisely the three things that were necessary in order to leave Peter behind Him upon the earth as His worthy representative, and the visi- ble head of the Church. He gave him, first of all, clearly and emphatically, the appointment to be His vicar and viceroy in the government of His Church. Second, He gave him the power, the obligation, of supreme pastor or shepherd of the whole Church. Third, He made him the immovable rock upon which His Church was to be founded — built, with the power of divine strength — against which every storm of persecution and every power of hell should exhaust itself forever, but forever in vain. By making him His viceroy, by this fact, Christ, our Lord, the Son of God, gave to Peter every participation of His own power in the government of the Church. By making him supreme pastor of the flock, with the very word that cometh from the mouth of God, He made him the infallible exponent of the Church's doctrines on earth. By making him the rock upon which the Church is built, He made him the unfailing voice of that Church forever. As viceroy of God, he commands our obedience, as the Lord will command it as supreme pastor. He commands the allegiance of our intellects and the love of our hearts. As the rock set in Christ — imbedded in the Master, never to be moved — he commands that confidence of hope un- shaken, that free, simple, truthful confidence that is never dis- turbed by a single doubt, which every Catholic feels he has when it is a question of the destiny or future of the Pope of Rome. Now, my friends, I must ask you to have a little patience with me while I illustrate as clearly and as emphatically as I can — I must prove these things ; because in this world nowadays, no The Position and "Privileges of the Pope, 399 one expects to believe on mere assertion without proof. I as- sert, first of all, that the Son of God made St. Peter His viceroy. He commissioned him over all things as the Head of His Church. He made Peter His visible head and His representative. He said to him, as recorded in the Gospel : " Blessed art thou, Si- mon Bar-Jona, I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven." Reflect on the power of these words. First of all, they were spoken to Peter in the presence of the other apostles ; these words were not to the others, but to Peter — to Peter precisely — to Peter individually. What did He mean in this exclamation ? We read that our Lord is de- scribed as " the Faithful One," the " true Man who openeth and no man shutteth." It was shut — the door of heaven ; and He alone was able to insert the key and by His power to roll back that door. This He meant by His exclamation. It is the power of Peter, by the inspiration of God ; for it is precisely the power and privilege of Christ. Now, when I find one part of Scripture explaining and telling me that this is the individual attribute of our Lord, to hold the key, " to open and no man shutteth ; " when I find that same Lord talking to Peter in the presence of all His apostles, saying to him, " Thou art blessed amongst the sons of men. To thee will I give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatsoever thou shalt bind shall be bound ; " — I ask you is it not as clear as human language can convey it, that Christ, by that, intended to make that man His representative. Peter, therefore, after the ascension of our Lord, was intended by Him to be His representative; he was the viceroy of Christ. What does this mean ? My friends, when a king appoints a viceroy, he does not renounce his crown ; he does not give up his throne ; he is as much king as ever ; he simply confers all his power and all his authority upon the person to whom he gives that power. He calls upon the people, his subjects, to accept his viceroy as they accept himself ; the laws the viceroy makes are considered to be made in the name of the king, and by the power of the king. He is supposed to interpret the commands of the monarch ; his acts are interpreted as the acts of the king. If a subject disobeys or rebels against him, that 400 The Position and Privileges of the Pope. subject will be considered as a traitor against his monarch. This is the clearest idea of a viceroy, the representative of a supreme ruler. If it is so in human affairs, so, in the divine Church of God, Peter, as viceroy, is king himself in office in all that regards the government of the Church ; in all that regards her laws, her morality, Peter is Christ in office, Christ in juris- diction, Christ before man. As, in the case of a viceroy, the seal of the monarch is set upon his every act, so, upon every act of Peter is set the seal, the authority of Christ. What follows from this ? It follows, in plain, simple language, that the Church is bound to obey Peter as she is bound to obey Christ, our Lord, as if He were before her. It follows that Peter is as little likely to deceive the Church as the Son of God would be to deceive her. It follows that, if the Church of God is declared by Christ, our Lord, to be infallible — never to be obliged to believe a lie ; never to be called upon to accept any- thing unholy, in faith or in morals — it follows that, if Peter be viceroy of Christ, the Church is bound to accept his teaching, and that, in the government of that Church, Peter cannot err in faith nor in morals. Remember ; let me define precisely what I mean. Peter cannot err in faith, when he acts as viceroy of Christ ; that is to say, when he speaks authoritatively, or, as the theologians put it, " ex cathedral When he speaks as viceroy of God we are bound to believe and to obey, for we take that as the infallible declaration of Christ, the Lord of eternal truth. He said the Church itself can never believe, nor be made to believe, a lie. When I say Peter represents Christ in holiness and morality, I do not mean for an instant to say that the Pope cannot commit sin ; this is not my meaning ; he has human frailties ; he may commit sin ; don't we all do so ? But what I say is, that he cannot preach error or propound to the Church anything false in doctrine or unholy in moral obligation. That sanctity of the Church, that morality and beauty that make her the spouse of Christ — the glory and sanctity of His spouse, which He set upon her — was in Peter's hands, to guard her, to never doubt the unfailing strength and truth of His promise — so, he cannot teach her a lie ; he cannot teach her anything un- holy in her morality. What I claim for Peter belongs also to Pius. After many years of incessant toil — in his old age, when he had " fought the The Position and Privileges of the Pope. 401 good fight," and conquered the world — Peter, the head of the Church in Rome, was led one morning up the steep sides of the Janiculum (one of the seven hills of the " Eternal City "). Then the aged man, bowed in years and with infirmities, was stripped of his garments ; he was nailed to a cross ; and, weeping, — not for himself, but because he remembered the scene of Jerusalem, when his Lord and Master was nailed to a cross — -when they asked the old man had he any request to make before he died, he said : " There was One crucified upon a hill outside of Jeru- salem ; His head, crowned with thorns, was lifted up into the air, worthily, as the Head of the world ; for He was God. I am not worthy," he said, " to die like my Lord and Master. I only ask you, when you have nailed me to the cross, to let my head be turned towards the earth, as a poor, miserable sinner ; a child of earth ; and a worm thereof." Thus died Peter, upon one of the hills of Rome. Rome crucified her first Pope. When Peter passed away, the succession passed to Linus, from him to Cle- tus, from him to Clement, who became all that Peter was». Peter was the head of the Church ; all that Christ had given to. him, he gave to them for the government of His Church. Peter died ; the Church lived on. Therefore, Peter's successor inherited all his privileges. All that was given to him, the keys, the golden chain, the apostolic succession, the concentration of the power of truth and jurisdiction — have gone down from link to link. The chain that Christ held in His hand, and of which He gave the first link to Peter, is still on the earth ; and Pius IX., in Rome, holds the latest link of that chain in his hand. The second privilege that God gave to Peter, for His Church — consequently to Pius — was the obligation; to feed the lambs, to feed the sheep ; in other words, the power of supreme pastor. Now, mark here ! what astonishes me is the weakness of man's intellect to deny these things after this revelation. After the resurrection, when He had arisen at Jerusalem, Christ, our Lord, appeared to His apostles. Now, remember, the Gospel clearly tells us that He gave to those twelve apostles all the power and jurisdiction that they were free to exercise — the power to bap- tize, the power to preach, the power to forgive sin, the power to consecrate the bread and wine into His body and blood. Full power, before He left this world, He had conferred upon them. Now He came ; He stood before them ; they all kneel 26 402 The Position and Privileges of the Pope, round their Master. He is the Truth. He speaks to Peter ; He calls him forth, first of all. The Master says to him : " Si- mon Peter, I have something to say to you ; tell Me, do you love Me more than these other men love Me?" What a strange question to ask, when John the Evangelist, the apostle of love, was there ! " Lovest thou Me, O, Peter, more than these? " And Peter said : " O Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee." There was a terrible pause ; the eyes of the Redeemer pierced Peter's soul. Again He spoke : " O Peter, lovest thou Me more than these?" The astonished apostle again an- swered : " Master, Thou knowest that I love Thee." Another pause, more terrible still. " Simon Peter," He said, " lovest thou Me more than all these?" Peter burst into tears, and he said: "O Lord, O Christ, Thou knowest all things ; and Thou knowest that I love Thee ! " Then the Master said to him : " Feed My lambs ; feed My sheep." Now, I ask you, what did Christ mean ? It would be blasphemy for me to say that He meant nothing. If He meant anything, that thing that He meant was something expressly to be conferred on Peter. He had already given to him all the power that belonged to him as an apostle, in common with the others. Peter had already heard from the Lord every word that was spoken to Philip, James, John, and the others. Therefore, if He meant to give him anything new, it was something beyond what belonged to the other apostles. Now, what was that thing? Christ in- tended to make him the head of all ; and, consequently, the supreme pastor of His Church. Nothing else was reserved for Peter, if the words of Christ meant anything ; for He said : " Feed My lambs; feed My sheep." Let us follow Peter throughout the subsequent years of his life. Read the Acts of the Apostles ; read the Gospel ; read the early history of the Church ; and you will find that Peter was invariably addressed by his fellow-apostles as the head and supreme ruler of the Church of God. When St. Paul was con- verted, when he received, mysteriously, that reclaiming grace for his apostleship — he went up to Jerusalem, he himself ex- pressly tells us, to see Peter. Afterwards, we read that, when St. Paul and St. Barnabas, both apostles, were in difficulties in Antioch, they came to Jerusalem to see Peter, and to get Peter's decision. When St. James was in prison — when Herod was The Position and Privileges of the Pope. 403 preparing for his terrible martyrdom — the Church grieved as she would grieve to-day for a cardinal or an archbishop. But, oh, when Peter was in prison, the whole Church put up prayers of anxiety without intermission, because the whole Church recognized in him the supreme pastor — the representative of Christ — the Pope. Christ's word to Peter was the greatest and most singular privilege of all. Peter was the " Rock." He himself form- ing the foundation of that Church, as it is written in Scrip- ture, that He founded His Church upon a foundation of prophets and apostles. He Himself, Jesus Christ, being the great corner-stone. Christ is the immovable foundation, im- movable in sanctity, immovable in truth. But, as He, this Supreme Pastor, appoints Peter to represent him as the visible head, so He, this Supreme Pastor, deputed Peter to feed the flock ; so also Christ, the real foundation of the Church, took to Him Peter, and imbedded Peter in Himself. Therefore, He said : " Thou art Peter. Upon this rock will I build my Church ; and the gates of hell shall never prevail against her." Now, my friends, let us suppose for an instant that Peter is able to lead the Church astray. Let us suppose that Peter — that is to say, Pius — is now to propound something false in doctrine, some- thing unholy in morality, and asks the Church to accept that, if that were possible. The very man who would lead the Church astray was the man who was appointed to govern her as viceroy of God. Now, the only means, the power that he would have whereby to lead the Church into error, would be precisely the very power which he received from Christ. Remember, the Pope teaches the universal Church ; the Pope speaks to the whole Church, as the vicar of God. As Bishop of Rome he may address his diocese ; but in this case he does not speak as the Pope. As a learned man, taking an interest in science, if he reads the papers, he may give his opinion of electricity or of anything else. As a politician, he may prefer this form of gov- ernment or that. In none of these does he act as Pope. He acts in virtue of the power of Christ only when he defines texts for governing the Church ; and then he speaks to the whole Church of God, defining the Church's truth, commanding and enforcing the Church's morality and law. If, by any act, he was capable of deluding her, then that lie would come forth in virtue 404 The Position and Privileges of the Pope. and by the very authority and power that he gets from a God of eternal and essential truth. Can any man in his soul believe it ? Can any man be so blind as not to see that, because, as viceroy of God, he speaks in virtue of the authority of Jesus Christ, no word can come from that man's lips but the Word of God's eternal and essential truth ? For, as pastor of the Church, he is bound thereby to guide the flock into the healthy pastur- age — bound to provide us with food for our souls — which is Christian doctrine and Christian grace. And were it in the power of the Pope to administer to us a doctrine of error or of falsehood, does it not follow that the very hand that fed us — that fed us in the power of Jesus Christ — would be the hand that would destroy us ? " Who is there amongst you," says our Lord, in the Gospel, " who, if his child asks him for bread, will give him a stone ? Who, if his child asks for a fish, will give him a serpent ? " If the Pope could teach falsehood, we might answer, "O Christ! there is but one man can do this ; and that is the very man whom You Yourself have ap- pointed to lead Your Church, to guide the flock with words of truth and sanctity until the end of time." But the Pope — the head of the Church — cannot force us into error or heresy. He is the representative that Christ left upon the earth to guard His Church, in order that she might remain forever, in order that she might defy all the powers of hell, in order that she might resist all the storms of time, in order that she might remain in all her majestic beauty, the spouse of Christ, the citadel of God. If the Pope can teach error, the very rock upon which the Church was founded is shattered, destroyed, and broken into pieces. You have heard of the foolish man who built his house upon sand, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house and threw it down. Why ? Because it was founded upon sand. But the wise man built his house upon a rock. The storm arose and the wind beat upon that house ; but it moved not, because it was founded upon a rock. But, if the rock itself moves, if the rock itself is shaken by error, how will the house remain standing? How foolish, therefore, is the thought of those who imagine that the darkness of error, the spirit of in- iquity, shall shake or undermine that foundation that He, the eternal God, set in Peter, the immovable rock, upon which His Church is built. The Position and Privileges of the Pope. 405 I think, my friends, that we have sufficiently proved the power of the Pope and his privileges, as defined in Scripture ; but I engage to do more than this for you this evening. I en- gage to show you how these self-same privileges, namely, the supreme government, the infallible guidance which we have seen foreshadowed so clearly in Scripture, and in the history of Rome — especially the history of the Church — that what Christ said and what Christ did for Peter, have been carried on by Peter, and Peter's successors, for more than eighteen hundred years. Now, to prove this. The first great transaction that we have recorded, after the ascension of our Lord, is the council that was called at Jerusalem. We have heard of the little diffi- culty that occurred to Sts. Paul and Barnabas in their mission at Antioch. St. Paul went up to Antioch, and with him he brought St. Barnabas ; for, while he was preaching the Gospel, certain of the Jewish people came and received the truth from St. Paul, but insisted on their own idea of the Gospel, that all should observe the old law. The subject is almost too serious to be treated with anything like levity, yet those Jews were very like the sectarians of the present day, interpreting every obser- vance of the old law ; making it a terrible crime for a man to wash his hands on Sunday ; crying out, in their virtuous hypoc- risy, for the observance of the old law. It is one of this kind of people of whom the poet amusingly said, that " He hanged his cat on Monday For killing a rat on Sunday." Now, St. Paul did not know how to deal with these men. What did he do? He came to Jerusalem, where St. Peter then was. He laid the matter before the apostles, in council there assembled. Now, remember that the council was held in Jeru- salem ; that St. James, the apostle, was Bishop of Jerusalem, and, therefore, had a right, unless Peter was something greater than he was, to preside at that council. Paul and Barnabas came and laid the matter before the apostles. Peter was there. After much discussion Peter arose, and he said: "Men and brethren, you know that in former days God made choice amongst us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the Gospel and believe. And He made no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. This is the law." And the moment Peter spoke every man in that 406 The Position and Privileges of the Pope. council held his peace. All silence was there. There was not another word. St. James, Bishop of Jerusalem, promulgated Peter's decree, and said: "It is written; Peter speaks (that is, Christ)." Later on, we find St. Ignatius of Antioch, the successor of Peter himself, admitted that the Roman Church, over which Peter presided and was presiding — that she held the supreme See over all the other churches. Later on, we find St. Irenaeus, disciple of St. Polycarp, in the year 177 came to Rome. Here are his words: "It is necessary for the faithful of every country to conform to the teachings of the See of Rome, because of its eminent primacy, in which has always been preserved the tradition of the apostles. The Church of Rome," he adds, " is acknowledged to be the supreme head, with whom it is necessary the Church everywhere should agree." Who said these words ? The man who was actually acquainted with Polycarp, and who received his authority from St. John the Evangelist, and he was the man that lay upon our Lord's bosom. Here, then, is the eternal link; the disciple of John says : " Every church — that is to say, the faithful of the whole world — ever must agree with the Church of Rome, for she is supreme over all the Church." Twenty years later, we find evidence of another kind. One of the most learned doctors of the Church, a priest called Ter- tullian, fell into heresy. He disobeyed the Church ; he refused to believe certain doctrines touching the remission of sin. The unfortunate man was excommunicated. Now, surely, when a man of that kind falls under the censure of the Church, that he believed the supremacy of the Pope proves that in his time every one believed it. He never appealed ; he never denied it ; for every one believed it. Tertullian went over to heresy, he admitted the supreme power of the Pope, although he didn't be- lieve the decision of Rome. Consequently, if the Pope was not more than ordinary bishop, he would have nothing to say to him. But, because he was the Pope, Tertullian was excom- municated. Tertullian himself, writing to a friend, said : " I hear that a solemn decree has been published. The bishop of bishops remits certain sins for those who will do penance." The " bishop of bishops," he says; — with evidence from such a source we may well believe the power of the Pope. The Position and Privileges of the Pope. 407 We have also the evidence of writers and historians to prove that the power and supremacy of the Pope were ad- mitted by most of the Protestants. Martin Luther, when he founded Protestantism, laid down this example. He said : "The Catholic Church was all right up to about the year 608 ; then she began to fall into error." The consequence is, that Luther precisely declared that the first six great Councils of the Catholic Church were held under the guidance of the Holy Ghost. He believed that the Church was truth itself, for he already acknowledged that it was only in the Middle Ages she fell into error, and that then she began to talk about priests, nuns, monks, celibacy, and all those things. But as far as the sixth century or seventh we all agree that the Church was the Church of God, Precisely during those six first centuries were held the six great councils. Every Protestant historian admits that these councils were under the influence of the Holy Ghost ; that the Church was guided by the Spirit of God in them. The first of these councils was held in the year 325, at Nice. Pope Syl- vester sent word to all the bishops that they should meet on such a day. It is admitted by all that that council was a great council of the Church, because the Pope was represented there by his three legates, who presided at that council. And what do you think did the bishops do ? They wrote a letter to the Pope respecting these decrees, calling him the blessed Roman Pontiff, to confirm them by his apostolic authority. Well done, Luther! Well done, Luther! For once in his life he spoke the truth ! At the Council of Nice the Holy Ghost presided ; the Holy Ghost was there. The Church was still in all the grandeur and the fullness of her prime. Not one word from the bishops, until the old man in Rome took his position on the questions at issue ! Twenty years later we find another council assembled at Laodicea. The occasion of the assembling of this council was, that certain bishops in the East, who were good men, zealous for their people ; but, through jealousy of some other bishops, began to persecute them, and, calling a council together, de- clared them unworthy to govern the Church of God. What did the bishops ? They went straight to Rome, and laid the mat- ter before the Pope — St, Julius — who, when action had been 408 The Position and Privileges of the Pope, taken, found that these were good men, and who respected the See ; and, as a consequence, they were sent to their respective Sees from which they had been ejected. Therefore, it was agreed that every bishop had a right to appeal to Rome, be- cause the Pope of Rome was the supreme head on earth over the whole Church. Well done, Luther, I say again ! You may be within hearing of my voice to-night ; perhaps it resounds in your ears ! Twenty years later, in the year 383, a blackguard kind of a Mormon, in those days, who came from Spain to Rome — he was exactly a Mormon ; neither more nor less — but amongst other things, he brought with him a bundle of old books that he had written himself, in which he defended some false gos- pels. The Pope looked at these, and at once became satisfied, by the crimes that this fellow was committing, that he was de- fending false gospels and uninspired writings. And, in order to set the matter at rest, what did the Pope do ? He condemn- ed this man in order to save the people and the Church from the danger of his books. The Pope wrote a letter in the year 383, declaring which books of Scripture were inspired, and which books were spurious. From that day to this, that one word of the Pope has been recognized as infal- lible truth, defining what is Scripture, and what is not ; not a voice was raised against it. This is in itself sufficient to prove Papal Infallibility. But Protestant historians say the Pope is acknowledged the supreme head ; the Pope is respected because he was in Rome, which was the primatial seat, the capital of the Western World. If the Archbishop of Paris were to come to America, he certainly does not regard the Archbishop of New York ; he regards only the power that is vested in Rome. Now, my friends, to prove this. In the year 518, Rome was in ruins. In the year 408, the King of the Visigoths entered Rome, destroyed the whole city, burned and ruined everything, and banished men, women, and children ; so that for forty days the sun shone upon the streets of Rome without shedding a ray upon the face of a human be- ing. Attila and Genseric followed. Rome was burned three times. The barbarians entered Rome, ravaged and destroyed it ; in a word, before the horde of barbarians that came with Alaric, until the time of Odoacer, Rome was a heap of ruins. The Position and Privileges of the Pope. 409 The very time that Justin was Emperor at Constantinople, while the Eastern Church was in all its power, the Pope, in Rome, hadn't as much as a house wherein to lay his head. At that time, as God would have it, the Eastern Emperor, through his bishops, sent a message to the Pope of Rome, demanding the decision of his jurisdiction. By it the schism, which was carried on amongst them, was broken up. The Pope, St. Hormisdas, wrote a circular to them, telling them what they would have to believe, according to the Catholic Church, before he would have anything to say to them. The letter was sent to Constantinople. There was the Eastern Em- peror upon his exalted throne ; there was he, surrounded by his noblemen, by his clergy and his great army, by all the wealth and grandeur of a king, ready to hear and abide by the decision of the poor old man in Rome, when the poor old man had not a roof over his head. The bishops arose like one man ; the people arose like one man, and cried out : " This is the truth of the Catholic Church ; because Peter has spoken through his successor; Christ has spoken through Peter." Where is the use of multiplying truth ? Let us go over to the enemy's camp. Let us see what Protestants, through their Protestant historians, say on this Catholic point. We must be- lieve the greatest Protestant historian that ever lived, who, at the same time, though profoundly learned, was very much op- posed to the Catholic Church. He was a German named Leib- nitz. Now, what does this man say when he had occasion to speak of the faith of the Church in the Pope's supreme infalli- bility. Here are the words: "We know well," says he, " that the ancient Councils attest that the Apostle Peter governed the Church from Rome. His successors resided in the city of Rome, which was the capital of the world. No other bishop was ever recognized to have authority over the body of the Church." " So, justly," says this great Protestant historian, " that the Bishop of Rome is the chief and supreme ruler over all the rest." Gibbon, the historian, a sneering infidel, one who never missed an opportunity to divert history from every high purpose by the sin of infidelity, says : " No reasonable man can doubt that the Pope of Rome, during the first four ages of Christianity, was ac- knowledged to be the head of the Catholic Church." Finally, let me turn to my friend and former brother so long as he wore / 41 o The Position and Privileges of the Pope. the religious habit, as long as he was faithful to his vows — Mar- tin Luther. Deposed from the Church early in the sixteenth century, one of the first things he did, after he separated from the Church, when he began to form his new religion, was to marry a wife. Well, he was surrounded by a great many learned men ; and after his departure six or seven years, he found that Prot- estantism was deficient by the fault of its founder ; for each one wanted to be head ; and they were forced into the belief that the grandeur of their new religion was misunderstood. And so, in the year 1530, Luther and Melancthon, the heads of the Protest- ant factions, came together, and said : " This thing won't do ; better go back to the Pope again." So said the " Reformers " of Germany, Philip Melancthon and Martin Luther. Luther put himself in communication, in the name of the others, with the Pope ; and what do you think he said ? " Holy Father, we are ready to believe your voice as the voice of Jesus Christ." These words went straight to Rome. Now, you ask, " Why did they not become Catholics?" Well, my friends, they would not do penance ; and the women were in the way. Yes, they said they were willing to believe and did believe everything, and declared it in that little note. The Pope sent them word that they could come back; that all should come back and do penance, and not continue their scandal. There was an end of the matter, Lu- ther and the heretical factions remained. He declared the voice of the Pope to be the very voice of Jesus Christ. No Catholic priest or bishop has ever pronounced more forcibly that doctrine of faith of the Church than Luther did, when he said these words. Thus follows the brightest evidence, from the pages of earliest history, from saint and sinner ; from Catholic and Protestant ; from believer and unbeliever alike ; from all, swells up the united chorus of truth in the assertion that Peter, and Peter's succes- sor, is the head of the Church of God; that he is the Pope and supreme ruler ; that he is infallible, and that he cannot lead the Church astray. There remains that quality for Peter with which our Lord invested him when He said : " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church." On every side Christ intended to found that which was for the perpetuity of His Church. He was not content with setting upon her virgin brow the shining crown, immaculate in sanctity ; He was not content The Position and Privileges of the Pope. 411 with leaving upon her lips the message of truth, unmixed with a single shadow of error ; but He also set upon her — He breathed upon her — His own life, which was eternal, immortality. He de- clared that she should remain forever, in spite of the power of earth, in spite of the power of hell. The Church of God, there- fore, is not only all truthful in her teaching, all holy in morality ; but she must remain forever with this truthfulness as immovable as the rock upon which Christ founded her — that rock which is Peter. It follows from this that she cannot lead us astray. I may judge by the faces before me, that more than one of my hearers has come from the dear old country — that dear " green island," so supernatural in her instincts ! — that faithful island, that has given to this my subject the grandest and most infalli- ble testimony of all the nations of the earth ! — that nation that suffered for three hundred and fifty long years, rather than sepa- rate from the rock of ages — the Pope of Rome ! — that glorious Catholic island of ours — that blessed and holy island, that never, for fifteen hundred years — never was mistaken in her in- stincts, even when the whole world was confused by the appear- ance of anti-popes. It is a singular fact, that Ireland and the Irish knew by a kind of instinct the true Pope from the false Pope, and were prepared to fight for him. Italy more than once mistook the anti-pope, and was ready to sustain the anti- pope. But Ireland never. Even when England — Catholic England — was, more than once, led away by the arts of the anti-pope, Ireland always found out the true pope, by a kind of instinctive knowledge, and upheld his name, and, if necessary, was ready to shed her blood to save her faith. To you, who come from that blessed soil, perhaps, my friends, it is one of the greatest privileges that God has given to you, and to me, perhaps, the greatest of all, to be born in Ireland, to be born in a land impregnated with Catholicity ; to be born of a people, though poor, I will add, in spite of her natural misfortunes, the bravest of the brave. In the old country they never believed the cry which was raised amongst the Protestants, *' Oh, the Church is in danger ; the Catholic Church is in danger." Some few years ago a Protestant parson, a very respectable man — his church was in Kilmainham, the place where Jimmy O'Brien was hanged ; — in that sacred and venerated spot, this decent man — this good Protestant clergyman — first heard very surprising news 412 The Positio7i and Privileges of the Pope. — for the times were something like the present. The cry was raised by all the Protestant papers that the " Church was in danger ; she is gone at last : Oh, the Church is in danger." If a Catholic said this you would turn around and say to him, " My friend, you must have lost your faith ; " for it is a point of Catholic faith that the Catholic Church can never be in danger, because the Son of God is with her; because the power from on high is with her ; because the rock on which she stands is as un- shaken to-day as it was on the day that Christ our Lord put the keys into Peter's hands for the perpetuity of His Church. The question is raised, Was St. Peter ever in Rome ? Now, you will scarcely believe it. The men of this age of ours, who pretend to learning — who boast of their progress, but, blinded by prejudice, they deny that St. Peter was ever in Rome in his life. Now, if any of these men wrote to prove that Napoleon was not at the battle of Waterloo, or that the English were de- feated at Trafalgar, that neither Washington nor Napoleon ever existed at all, or any other absurdity that they might choose to set up, you might believe them ; but they would begin, my friends, to prove that a man's grandfather never was born at all ; that it was all a mistake. So these men have begun a discus- sion, and said St. Peter never was in Rome in his life ! St. Pe- ter was in Rome for nearly twenty-six years. The first years of the Christian era he spent in Antioch. We know that, by the order of the Emperor Claudius, the Jews were expelled from Rome, and Peter amongst them. He went straight to Jerusalem ; but before Peter left Rome, he with his own hands consecrated St. Linus, St. Cletus, and, it is believed, St. Clem- ent, in order to govern the Church in his absence. How well St. Irenaeus says the Church of Rome was founded by the holy apostles, Peter and Paul. And, at this hour, two thousand years later, there are men who deny that St. Peter ever was in Rome. In Rome the man was ; in Rome he suffered ; in Rome he was in prison ; in Rome he was crucified ; in Rome he fell into the power of his enemies ; in Rome he was scourged and put to death ; in Rome, for eighteen hundred years, scenes of every hour of Peter's life and sufferings have been again and again reproduced in Peter's successors. They come before mine eyes. I behold them with the eyes of my memory from Peter to Pius IX. ; but scarcely one of them who has not re- The Position and Privileges of the Pope. 413 ceived the crown of martyrdom — that crown of crowns — the type, in some way or other, of the tiara that crowned his pon- tifical brows. I see them in the three hundred years of the Church's early history, lying hidden in the catacombs of Rome, governing from her hidden caves the whole Catholic world, only waiting day after day in the sure and certain expectancy, until the hand of the Roman soldier is laid upon them, waiting to be thrust into prison, and cast before the wild beasts of the amphi- theatre. I see them before me, protecting the people from the fierce monarchies of the Middle Ages ; settling the disputes of the petty sovereigns. I see them, with patience more than human, regardless of their own injuries or wishes, interpreting laws for the wants, for the necessities of society. I see them reviled and insulted, now by a German Emperor, now by a domineering King of France, now by a more bloody warrior coming up from Sicily, with his Norman name, his rash Nor- man folly. I see them persecuted from the days of Nero, now by a robber, again by the followers of Genseric. I see them protecting wifely honor and virtue, by wielding the Church's power; now over a Frenchman, now thundering the anathemas of the Church at the sinful head of an English king. I see again the greatest of them all in heart — the greatest in sanctity — the greatest in the extraordinary gift that he alone has lived to the years of Peter — the greatest mark of power. Oh, had you seen him, as I have, when, kneeling in Catholic Rome, I have felt the touch of his paternal hand on my unworthy head. Oh, I see him now ; his brows are whitened, for the winters of eighty years have passed over his head. His virgin form is bent down, for the care of the Church for nearly thirty years has been upon him, and the sad ingratitude of the whole world has almost broken that loving heart. I see him now ; no crown upon that glorious head, no sceptre in that consecrated hand, afraid to go outside his own door, because the rabble, such as followed Peter at Jerusalem, such as surrounded Jesus Christ on Calvary, are daring to insult and deride him. But he will yet wear his crown ; I verily believe that. Pius IX. — that champion of Mary, that champion of humanity, the champion of the right freedom of mankind, the champion of the Church of God, the glorious man who answered the tyrant's every com- mand by that '' Nonpossumus ; " "We cannot do it " — no king 414 The Position and Privileges of the Pope. on earth can force that crown or sceptre from him, nor coerce that will. For Christ has set that sacred crown upon his head, and placed the sceptre of power and of justice in his hands. I verily believe we shall live to see the morning of his Easter, when the veil of his night shall be lifted up, and will rise, lifted by hands more than human ; and we shall see such glory as the world once saw that Easter morning — surrounding the figure of Jesus Christ. ST. LAURENCE O'TOOLE, THE LAST CANONIZED SAINT OF IRELAND. [Lecture delivered at the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, September l8, 1872, for the benefit of the new Church of Holy Cross, Flatbush.] Y FRIENDS : Coming over to Brooklyn this evening, I confess I did not expect to find so large a house as this which I have now the honor of addressing. I thought to myself that, perhaps, the subject might not be sufficiently interesting to many amongst you ; for in this nineteenth century of ours, saints are rather out of fashion, and people don't take much interest in them. But your presence here, in such numbers, this evening, cheers me, and gives me another argument, if such were necessary, to be proud of my fel- low-countrymen and countrywomen, who find, amidst the varied attractions of these two great cities in which they live, nothing more attractive to bring them together than the record of a saint of the Catholic Church — as true a saint and as true a patriot as ever the Island of Saints and of Martyrs produced. I have had, before now, the honor to address you in this hall ; but never, either here or elsewhere, have I been furnished with a nobler theme than that upon which I propose to speak to you this evening. It comes home, my friends, to your hearts, and to mine ; for there are two blessings for which we all thank God. The first of these is the blessing of that Catholic faith in which we live, and which we enjoy ; and the second is the blessing of that Irish blood which flows in our veins, and throbs around our hearts. When, therefore, I mention to you the name of Laurence O'Toole, the last canonized saint of Ireland's children, I name one of the grandest figures that rises up regis- tered upon the annals of the Catholic Church, and one of the grandest figures that passes before the historian's eye, when he 4i6 St. Laurence 0' Toole, contemplates the great men and the great glories that make up the history of Ireland. Interesting to you as Catholics, I shall endeavor to describe the saint ; interesting to you as Irishmen, I shall endeavor to describe the patriot ; and I shall invite you to reflect upon the great lesson that this man's name and his- tory teaches us, namely, that the highest sanctity, upon which the Catholic Church sets the crown of her canonization, is com- patible with the purest and strongest love of fatherland ; and that the Catholic Church never refuses to crown the patriot in the saint, and the saint in the patriot. The subject will neces- sarily oblige me to touch upon the most lamentable and dolor- ous part of our history. The historical muse, in tracing the rec- ord of other nations, writes with a pen dipped in characters of gold ; the historical muse, in writing the history of Ireland, dips her pen in tears and in blood. Laurence O'Toole lived in the day that witnessed his coun- try's downfall ; and he went down to his grave a young man — only forty-five years of age. The physicians could not tell what was the malady that terminated that glorious life ; but his Irish attendants, who surrounded his death-bed, in a foreign land, said to each other that he died of a broken heart. In his veins flowed the blood of Ireland's royalty. It may be new to some of you — to many amongst you, I am sure, it is no novelty — to tell you that the ancient form of government in Ireland subdi- vided the island into five distinct kingdoms, and that the an- cient Brethamael, or Celtic Constitution, recognized one supreme monarch, elected at stated periods to govern all. These kingdoms were Ulster, Meath, Leinster, Connaught, and Munster, and although each province was governed by its own chief or ruler, the king — still, under these again there were several independ- ent chiefs, or petty sovereigns, who governed the powerful clans into which the nation was divided. The beautiful mountains and glens of Wicklow, which the traveller of to-day loves to visit, and where he beholds scenery as lovely in its pastoral beauty as any he can find upon the earth's surface — this beau- tiful land of Wicklow was subject to a chieftain of the name of O'Byrne — in possession of his sept or clan, who were all men of his own name. Even to this day, after more than a thousand years, a few of the name of O'Byrne still hold freehold property in Wicklow. The Last Canonized Saint \f Ireland. 417 Never will I forget how, in one of my trips on foot through that romantic land, there was a man pointed out to me, working in the field, as the last lineal descendant of the ancient sept, or clan, of O'Byrne, who once ruled and possessed the county of Wicklow. I went over to speak to him. He was eighty-six years of age, tall, erect, majestic ; his hair, white as silver, and combed back, fell in venerable locks upon his shoulders ; his blue eye still retained somewhat of the chieftain's fire of the ages long past ; and, at the age of eighty-six, he was doing a hard day's work, suited to a young and able-bodied man. But he had the privilege so rare to the Irish peasant ; — he was digging his own soil, the land that belonged to himself. He leant upon his spade when I spoke to him ; I asked him his name. Draw- ing himself up to his full height — which was considerably more than six feet — he answered, like a hero : " My name is O'Byrne ; and I am the last of them." " Of whom," I said, " do you rent your land?" "This little spot," he answered, " into which I send this spade, was my father's before me ; was his father's be- fore him ; and so on, until we go up to the time when the first of the O'Byrnes sat upon his chair in the hall of Tara, and heard from Patrick's voice the name of Jesus Christ." The sim- ple, poorly-clad, royal peasant, in a few words, flung back his ancestry and genealogy through generations of heroes, until he reached the very fountain-head of Ireland's religion and Ireland^s history. Where is there a nation on the face of the earth, where the peasant, laboring in the field, can make such an answer to the casual inquirer — tell of ancestors who wore royal crowns fif- teen hundred years ago. Adjoining the possessions of these clans, and the mountains of Wicklow, lay, surrounding them, the fertile plains of historic Kildare. The traveller threading down his way from the sum- mit of the mountain of Kippure — called in the Irish language Ceann B awn, ox "White Head," because of the snow which almost perpetually rests upon its summit — beholds before him the verdant plains of Kildare, in slightly-swelling, undulating hill and dale — the richest land in Ireland, save and except the " Golden Vale " of glorious Tipperary. Through this beautiful plain, winding in and out, he sees, like a thread of silver, the river Liffey, from its rising in the mountains of Wicklow, until, after many windings and murmurings, it passes through the ^1 41 8 St. Laurence C Toole, glens and the romantic scenery of Poula-Phouca, finds its way to the city of Dublin, and mingles with the sea where it was red- dened by the blood and covered with the corpses of the Danish invaders, when the sword of Ireland gleamed in the hand of Brian Boroihme. These plains of Kildare were owned by an Irish chieftain named O'Toole ; and, as his territories lay adjoining the septs of Wicklow, it happened that early in the twelfth century, about the year iioo, Maurice O'Toole, prince of Kildare, took as his wife a princess of the house of O'Byrne of Wicklow. God blessed their union with many children ; and amongst them a fair child was born to the Kildare chieftain ; and by divine in- spiration, revealed by a man of God — a holy man that travelled through the land — the child, at the baptismal font, received the name of Laurence, or as it is in the Irish language, Lorchan. He was baptized before the shrine of St. Bridget, in Kildare. He was born in his father's palace, near the spot whereon now stands the town of Castledermot. In accordance with the tradition of his royal family he was sent to the shrine of Ireland's first great virgin saint. There he received the sign of his Christianity — his Christian name and his adoption into the children of God, Thence, taken once more to his father's house, the child was reared there by his Irish mother, drawing from her breasts the pure, untainted, maternal nourishment that the mothers of Ire- land have given to so many holy priests and bishops of the Church of God, that have sprung from them for fifteen hundred years. Never from that mother's lips did he hear a word save what might form his young spirit, his young heart, in the love of Jesus Christ his Lord. Never did he see under that mother's roof a sight that might for an instant taint or sully his young virgin soul. So he grew up under that mother's hand, even, with reverence be it said, as the Child of Nazareth grew under the hand of His Virgin Mother Mary; until, when he was ten years old, the young Laurence was the delight of his father's house, the joy of that Irish father's heart, and the very idol of Ills pure and holy mother's bosom. When the child was ten years old a scene occurred, alas ! too frequent in the history of Ireland ! War was declared against Prince Maurice O'Toole, of Kildare. His territories were invaded ; his people were put to the sword ; his royal palace destroyed ; and he was obliged to The Last Canonized Saint of Ireland. 419 fly with his princess wife and her child. Who was the invader? Out of this heart, consecrated to God — out of this heart, filled with the love of Ireland — I send my curse back seven hundred years upon the head of that invader, who was no other than the thrice-accursed Dermot MacMurrogh, the traitor that sold Ire- land. He was the King of Leinster — born in an hour accursed of God and of the genius of Irish history. He was that Dermot Mac- Murrogh who stole away the wife of O'Rourke, prince of Breffni. And when Ireland arose, like one man, and declared that no adul- terer should be allowed to live in the Island of Saints, he was that Dermot MacMurrogh who fled over to England, kneeled down before Henry II., and asked him to help him in Ireland, and he would lay his country, enslaved and enchained, at his feet. Mac- Murrogh invaded the glens of Wicklow and the plains of Kil- dare in the year 1142. The Prince Maurice, unable to contend against so powerful an enemy, was obliged to come to terms of peace with him ; and the very first thing that the accursed Der- mot MacMurrogh asked was, that he should obtain possession of the young child Laurence, to be held by him as a hostage for his father. The child of ten years — the child who had never seen evil — the child, covered with the blessings of God, was handed over into the hands of the King of Leinster, to be treat- ed by him, as became his lineage and degree, as a royal prince. For two years he remained in that captivity; and history tells us, that no sooner had MacMurrogh got hold of the young prince of the house of O'Toole, than he sent him into a desert part of his kingdom ; the child was only allowed as much food as would keep him alive ; only allowed a covering of rags suf- ficient to keep life in him ; and for two years the young prince lived the life of a slave. It seemed as if he, who was to be the last great saint of Irish blood, was to go through the same pro- bation of suffering which the Almighty God permitted to fall upon Patrick, the first great saint of Ireland's adoption. Two years were thus spent in misery and slavery ; two years in starvation, cold, and want ; and during these two years the child learned, in the school of sorrow and suffering, to despise the world ; to despise his royal dignity and his royal name ; to despise everything except two things ; and these two things he learned to love, namely, Jesus Christ, his God, and Ireland, his country. Oh ! my friends, it is not prosperity that teaches a 420 St. Laurence O' Toole, man the true, deep love either of his God or of his fatherland. The test of this twofold love is in suffering. The Church honors her martyrs, because they suffered for her ; and I honor the man — 1 do not care how different his views are from mine, I do not care how mistaken, how rash he may have been — I honor, from my inmost soul, the man that has shown his love for his native land by suffering in her cause. Meantime, word was brought to Prince Maurice, the father, of the treatment his son was receiving. And now, mark here again — for, remember, that this evening I am not come so much to speak of this saintly man as an individual ; I am come to speak of him with all his surroundings, all his associations, as the very epitome and essence of Irish genius, Irish character, and Irish history ; — no sooner did the Irish father hear of the sufferings of his son, than he. rose up, unprepared as he was — unfit to make war against his powerful adversary — he rose up ; he drew his sword ; he rallied the men of his name around him ; and he declared war against Dermot, King of Leinster, for the recovery of the young prince. The Irish father went out like a man ; went out from the embrace of his pure Irish wife ; went out with his soul in his hands, to stake his life, in the day he drew his sword, for his child. He was not one of those forget- ful of his own offspring, heedless of the education they receive, not caring for their sufferings — provided he himself enjoyed his own bread and his own peace. No ! He was an Irish father. He was what Irish fathers and mothers have been in every age of her checkered and sorrowful history. He was prepared to lay down his life — to sacrifice himself and shed his blood — rather than suffer his young child to be brought up in igno- rance, in misery, and in sin. He forced the unwilling tyrant to restore to him his boy. The graceful, beautiful child appeared before his father's eyes. He was led to that home blessed by his loving mother. Oh, how changed from the darling child, who two years before had won every heart, in all the grace, in all the beauty, in all the comeliness of a young prince, arrayed as be- came his dignity, with every sign of the tenderest care, and the most zealous guardianship around him. How did they find him? Grown, through misery, beyond his years, he had at- tained almost to the stature of a man, with all the signs of suf- fering — the signs of emaciation, of misery, and of hunger upon The Last Canonized Saint of Ireland. 42 1 him ; his eyes sunken in his head ; his pallid face expressing only all the trials he had gone through ; his head bowed down, as that of a man old before his time ; his beautiful figure all wasted away to a mere anatomy of man, and clad in unprinccly rags. So he appeared to them. But the Irish father, who was a man of faith, discerned the inner beauty that had come upon his son — recognized in his dear son the sign of predestination — the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accordingly, he took him to the Abbey of Glendalough ; and there he consigned him to the care of the bishop of that ancient See. Let me say a word about this place whither the young man went to enter upon his studies at twelve years of age. High up in the heart of the hills of Wicklow, surrounded by those towering mountains that throw their shapes, in fantastic forms, far up into the clouds ; high up in the heart of these hills, there is a valley enclosing a deep lake surrounded by beetling rocks. There, upon the borders of that lake, there still remains an ancient round tower, and the ruins of seven churches — nothing more. Silence reigns around. No voice is heard save the voice of the singing bird upon the hawthorn-tree, or the bleating of the cattle on the sides of the distant hills ; but there was a day, a year, a century when, for many ages, that deep valley resounded to the voice of praise, from the morning watch even until night, and from the setting of the sun until the stars fled before his coming splendor in the east. Morning and night ; at the midnight hour; at the rising of the sun ; at the proclaim- ing of high-noon ; at the sinking of the orb of day to his golden home in the west — every hour was marked by the voice of praise, of benediction, and of prayer, sounding forth from hundreds of Irish lips and Irish bosoms, in those happy days, when the glens and valleys of the surrounding hills were filled with the monks of old, and when from the choirs of Glendalough — numbering from five hundred to eight hundred monks — the voice of praise was never silent upon the lips of the servants of God. They dwelt in their little cells, each man living in a little hut, made by his own hands, upon the mountain-sides around ; they came forth at stated times to public prayer in some one or other of the seven churches. They were all skilled musicians ; for, as the ancient chronicler of Ireland's monasticism tells us, " It is a poor church, indeed, that is without a choir." They were skilled musicians; 422 St. Laurence O'Tooley and, therefore, as one group finished their utterances in the di- vine offices of praise to God, there was another ready to take up the note and perpetuate the glorious song. The rest of the time not given to prayer was spent in study ; for the solitaries of Glendalough were not only the holiest of men, but were also the most learned men in the world, for three hundred years, and, during that time, gained for Ireland, amongst the nations, the singular title of the " Mother of Saints and of Scholars." The founder of this famous seat of anchorites was the great monastic father, St. Kevin ; and the place where he retired to study and to pray is still pointed out — one of the caves imbed- ded high up in the face of the mountains, amid the poplar for- ests. And the traditions of holiness and learning which St. Kevin established were perpetuated in Glendalough, not only for the three hundred years of Ireland's first Christianity, but act- ually outlived the ravages of the three hundred years of Danish invasion and bloodshed and war. The land was desolated ; but Glendalough flourished. The cathedral was in ruins ; but the choir of Glendalough was vocal as before. The scholar and stu- dent fled from every sacred receptacle in the land ; but the monks of Glendalough, even in the darkest hour of the Danish war, still upheld the glorious purity of Ireland's learning and of Ireland's holiness. And thus, for five hundred years, the valley in the heart of the Wicklow hills was the home of the servants of God, and resounded to His perpetual praise. So great was the importance of this monastic seat, that it was erected into an Episcopal See ; and there was a Bishop of Glendalough. Now, it was to this man that Maurice O'Toole brought his child of twelve years old. He had, besides him, several other sons, tall, strapping, brave, and pious Irish youths, full of love for Ireland ; full of love for its ancient, glorious history ; full of love for their honored, royal name ; full of love — as every true Irishman shall be until the end of time — full of love for their holy religion and for the Catholic Church of Ireland. These young princes came with their father to Glendalough ; and, as all stood around the bishop, the warrior prince said to him : " My lord, here are my sons. I want to give one of them to God. They are all willing ; and I must cast lots to find which of them the Lord will choose for His own service in the sacerdo- tal state." While the father was deliberating, out stepped the The Last Canonized Saint of Ireland. 423 young but chastened and sanctified Laurence. " Oh, father ! " he said, " the lot is already cast in heaven ; and it has fallen upon me. I, Laurence, belong to God, and to Him alone. I have known His support in the days ol my misery and my exile. I have fed upon his love in the days of my wretchedness and my hunger. I have separated my heart from all other love, save that of my God in heaven and my fellow-countrymen upon the earth. To that God and to Ireland will I devote myself. Let me be the priest." And, my friends, right well did he express, in this determination, and in this choice, the true love of a true- hearted man — for God and for his country. Let no man de- ceive you ; the best lover of God and of his country is the priest. The man who, in the days of his youth, in the days of his awak- ening passions, in the days when nature makes her loud demand for enjoyment — the man who then says, " I will sacrifice my heart, my affections, my life, my body, and my soul," for whom ? For God alone ? No ; for he does not go into the desert ; he goes out amongst his fellow-men ; he grasps every man by the hand with a loving grasp, and he says, " I belong to God and to you." No man is so consecrated to his fellow-men as the priest ; because he comes to them with a consecration from God. There is no man upon whom the people can fall back, as they can upon the priest ; for no matter what angel of pestilence may stalk in the midst of them — no matter what demon may scatter death or destruction around them — every man may fly ; the priest alone must not, dare not, cannot fly, because he is sold to God and to his neighbor. In the day, therefore, that the young prince said, " I renounce my principality ; I renounce the prospect of reigning amongst my people ; I renounce the glory of the battle, the praise of the minstrel, and the luxury of the palace ; all I ask is the hut upon the mountain-side in Glendalough — my God above me, and my country around me" — -in the day that he said that, he gave proof that, amongst the sons of the Kildare chieftain there was not one that loved his God and Ireland as he did. How well that love was tested, we shall see. The father, like an Irish father, gave up, willingly, the son whom he loved best of all ; for it is the peculiarity of Irish par- ents to give to God the best that they have, and give it cheer- fully ; because " God loveth a cheerful giver." I have seen in 424 St. Laurence O' Toole, other lands, in France and Italy, young men asking to be ad- mitted to the priesthood, and the father and mother saying, " How can we give him up ? How can we sacrifice our child ? " — trying to keep him back with tears and entreaties. Oh, my friends ! when I witnessed that, I thought of the old woman in Galway, who had no one but me — her only son ; I thought of the old man, bending down towards the grave, with the weight of years upon him ; and I thought of the poverty that might stare them in the face when their only boy was gone ; and yet no tear was shed ; no word of sorrow was uttered ; but, with joy and with pride, the Irish father and the Irish mother knew how to give up their only son to the God that made him. Laurence bade adieu to his father and his brothers ; they bent their steps down the slopes of the neighboring hills unto their own principality ; and he took possession of the monk's cell, at Glendalough. For thirteen years he remained, a model of the most exalted sanctity, even to the aged ones who were versed in sanctity. They knew what was demanded of the monk and the consecrated priest ; they knew by old-time experience — the experience of years — how complete the sacrifice of the heart must be. But the presence of the young prince amongst them, as he came forth in his monastic habit, with his eyes cast to the ground, and his face radiating and shining with the love of God, that, borne forth from his heart, came like rays from the bright- ness of heaven, falling in light around him — they saw in that holy youth, kneeling, hour after hour, before the presence of God, upon the altar — they heard in that voice, ringing clear and high in its tones of praise, above and beyond the chorus of voices of those who praised the Lord, as if it were an angel from heaven in the midst of them striving to uplift his angelic spirit, totally and entirely, upon the wings of song — they saw, in all this and more, an ideal of sanctity, an embodiment of holiness, a whole pentecost of love of God such as they had never con- ceived before ; and they all declared that God had sent them a saint in the young Irish prince. Silent as the grave, he spoke only with God or of God. Hour after hour, spent in prayer and study, made him grow in every knowledge of the age, even as he grew in divine love. His food, a morsel of brown bread, with a cup of water from the lake ; his i)ed, the bare earth ; his pillow, a stone — he mortified his body until he impressed The Last Canonized Saint of Ireland. 425 upon every sense and upon his whole frame the mortification of the cross of the God whom he learned to love. And so, in his twenty-fifth year, Laurence — the Monk Laurence — was recog- nized as the most enlightened and the most holy man in the island, which still claimed the title of the " Mother of Saints and of Scholars." The abbot died, and the young monk was elected Abbot of Glendalough, and placed at the head of his brethren. There he remained for five years ; and the old Irish chroniclers tell how every poor, stricken creature in the land, even to the furthest ends of Ireland, made his way to the glens of Wicklow, that he might get relief, food, and clothing from his bounty, and the blessing of God from the touch of his sacred hand. We are told that, while he was Abbot of Glendalough, there came, through the visitation of God, a terrible famine upon the land. Lau- rence arose, gathered together all that the monasteries possessed of clothing and of food ; he took all the sacred implements of the altar — the very chalices of the sacred service ; he opened the treasures his fathers had deposited with them ; away went every- thing to feed and clothe the poor and the naked. So, in that year of famine, when the angel of death had spread himself in deso- lation over the land, the people, in these years, were fed, and clothed, and saved through the wonderful charity of the Abbot of Glendalough. O saint in heaven ! where wert thou in '46 and *47 ? O Irish heart ! O Irish sainted soul ! where then were thy hands ? Why didst thou not burst the cerements of the tomb, and rise out of thy far-distant grave in Normandy, to break bread for thy countrymen in the year of their dire trial ? Alas ! no saint was there ! If Glendalough had been, the peo- ple would not have died. But Glendalough was swept away, and the infernal spirit of Henry VIII., and of England's supremacy, was upon the land, to let us perish. Now, after five years of this glorious rule of the Abbot of Glendalough, in the year 1161, the Archbishop of Dublin died. The people, long accustomed to the sanctity and the glory of :heir great Abbot of Glendalough ; long accustomed to con- template the shining light that was before them ; all, with one accord, cried — and their voice rang from end to end of the land — " W° miist have the prince and abbot, Laurence, for our axchbishoi; ' One man only was grieved ; one man only re- 426 SL Laurence O' Toole ^ fused ; and for twelve long months he fought against this dignity sought to be forced upon him, with so much energy and success, that it was only in the following year, 1162, that, by main force, he was obliged to allow himself to be consecrated Archbishop of Dublin. Archbishop of Dublin ! Laurence O'Toole, in whose veins blended the royal blood of two of Ire- land's chief houses ; Laurence O'Toole was the last man of the Irish race who sat — recognized — upon that glorious throne. For seven hundred years have passed away, and from the day that St. Laurence died, there has been no man of Irish blood, or Irish race, recognized as Archbishop of Dublin. For three hundred years after the death of St. Laurence the archbishops were Catholics; but they were all Englishmen. For three hundred years after that — for the last three hundred years — the archbishops, the so-called Archbishops of Dublin, were all Prot- estants ; and they are all Englishmen, too. Now, my friends, we come to contemplate the monk in the archbishop. He entered the city of Dublin, and took posses- sion of Christ Church, in the year 1162. How did he find his people? I am grieved to be obliged to tell the tale. It was now sixty years since the Danes were banished from Ireland, after they had remained in the country for three hundred long years. During these three hundred years there never had been a day's peace throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, but con- stant war. Every year brought its campaign, every month — every week — its pitched battle, between the soldiers of Ireland and the Danish invaders. Let this sink into your minds. Con- sider it well. There is not a nation on the face of the earth that can stand three hundred years of constant war without be- ing destroyed. The churches are burned, the priests put to the sword, everything in confusion ; the sacraments neglected, the schools shut up. A people compelled to fight for their lives, begin to forget God the moment the demon of war comes to them. You have had the proof of it in the four years* war from which you have just come forth. Now, realize all this if you can. For three hundred years — a term nearly as long as from the day Columbus discovered America to the present hour — there was not a hill-side nor a valley in Ireland that did not resound, year after year, to the various war-cries of the Dane and the Celt. Their bodies covered the land. Six thousand The Last Canonized Saint of Ireland. 427 of these Danish invaders were left dead upon the field in the glorious day when Malachi II. drew the sword of Ireland, and smote them in the valley of Glenamadagh, near the Vale of Avoca. The sea around the coast of Ireland, for many a day and year, was covered with the corpses, and the rivers ran red with the blood of the Celt and the Dane. Thus v. was for three hundred years. What wonder, my dear friends — what wonder is it, that the history of our land tells that, by the time Ireland finally conquered her Danish enemies, after three hundred, years, every vestige almost of holiness, learning, and piety had disappeared from the land? Nothing remained except the faith which the Irish race still hold dear as their life, and that Ic/e for Ireland that had nerved their arms during these three hun- dred years of bloodshed and war. But the moment th^t the Danish invasion was ended, and that the Irish nation ureathed freely for a time, that moment the bishops, and priests, and thf people put head, heart, and hands together, to build up the an cient edifice of Ireland's learning, and Ireland's sanctity. It Xi a well-known fact, that although disorder, confusion, and in iquity had crept into the land and abounded — that neither tht priesthood nor the people reconciled themselves to it ; but, immediately upon the departure of the Danes, set to work. The bishops and priests met in council ; the schools and col- leges were reopened ; and Ireland's sanctity and holiness was fast returning, at the very time that St. Laurence O'Toole took possession of the See of Dublin. Still he found the chieftains of Ireland divided amongst themselves. He found every prov- ince in the land, every sept or clan in the land, fighting amongst themselves, and disputing. Not content with having shed their blood generously for Ireland during three hundred years, they would now fain flood the land again with Irish blood shed in domestic broils and contentions, unworthy of a people who had passed through such an ordeal, such a trial. And then, more- over, amongst the people incorporated in his own city of Dub- lin, the marriage-tie was not sufficiently regarded. And I verily believe that the reason of this was that the greater part of the people of Dublin at the time were descendants of the Danes, and not pure Irish ; for I can scarcely imagine the pure stock of Ireland renouncing under any pressure the virtue with which the Almighty God endowed them at the hands of Patrick, both 428 Si. Laurence O' Toole, men and women. That virtue — the virtue of purity, crowned by sacramental love, and through it alone, crowned by their con jugal fidelity — has been the first and grandest boast of the Irish race. Grieved and excited to indignation by what he beheld, the solitary from Glendalough, accustomed to silence, retirement, and communion with God, as soon as he came, a mitred arch- bishop, to his people, ascended the pulpit of Christ Church, in Dublin, and there, in the Irish language — so grand, so poetic, so vigorous, and so majestic in its expression — he hurled out his denunciations against every form of impiety and of iniquity around him. He sent forth his voice, as a prince as well as an archbishop, unto the ends of the land, and said to the chieftains of Ireland : " Unless you cease your unworthy contentions, I tell you, in the name of the Lord God, that God will punish this bloodshed and this unworthy contention, by sacrificing the liberty of our country." Clear and terrific was the voice. Clear as the angel's trumpet announcing judgment, the voice of the great Irish prince-archbishop went out upon the land, and fell upon the unfortunately heedless and unwilling ears of the Irish chieftains. Their dissensions continued. The kings of Ulster, retreating into their own kingdom, took no share in the affairs of the rest of Ireland. The clans of Munster made war, under the leadership of the O'Briens, against the royal house of O'Connor, in Connaught ; while Ulster itself was divided by a hundred different feuds, which separated the whole country into so many battle-fields. Thus was Ireland in the day when the news was brought the Archbishop of Dublin that the Nor- man forces had come upon the shores of Ireland; that the in- vader's accursed foot was once more upon the soil of Erin. It came to him as though it was the knell of his own doom ; it came to him as though it was the judgment of God, which he had foreseen, for the sins and dissensions of his own people. And yet, even thus coming, it roused within him all the zeal of the prelate, and all the fire of the prince of Irish royal blood. It roused the lion spirit in the chaste bosom of the archbishop ; and when Laurence came forth amongst the people they scarce- ly knew him. There seemed to be a new spirit in the indigna- tion which came from him. The eye, accustomed to be cast down upon the earth, with virginal modesty, now glared around The Last Canonised Saint of Ireland. 429 with a fiery glance, because the sacred cause of Ireland was in danger, and the invader was upon her soil. The voice that was accustomed to speak only words of peace and benediction, now sounded forth, in its clarion notes, " War! War! Let slip the spirit and the dogs of war ! Draw the sword of Erin ! Let your blood flow as rivers in the land, until the accursed and de- tested invader shall be driven into the sea." He went out from Dublin ; he left his city, his cathedral, his people behind him ; he went straight down into Connaught, the seat of Ireland's monarch, and he said : " Oh, my high king, arise ; gather up the forces of Ireland, and march with me to Dublin. I will be in the front ranks in the day when we do to the invaders what Brian did upon the plain of Clontarf, when he swept them into the sea." His voice went out in Ulster, and called O'Melaghlin, King of Ulster, from his ignoble repose, to arise, gird on his sword, and draw it for Ireland. His voice penetrated into the south, re-echoed upon the shores of the Shannon, and swept like a trumpet-blast through the ruined halls of Kincora, rous- ing the McCarthy Mor and the O'Brien. They rallied ; they came together ; they stood between the Norman and the walls of Dublin, the archbishop in the midst of them. With all his power, with all his love of his country, with all his spirit of de- votion, he was unable to keep them together. Domestic feuds and dissensions sprang up amongst them. Oh ! the accursed spirit of dissension, that has kept us divided for so many years, and that keeps us divided to-day! We have heard of united Ireland ; we have heard of those brave hearts who took that name ; but when were Irishmen united ? The very last time that Irishmen were united was on that Good Friday morning, eight hundred years ago, when the plain of Clontarf was cover- ed with the dead bodies of the Danes, and when Dublin Bay was filled with their floating corpses. From that day to this, our united Ireland is but the dream of the poet, and the inspiration of the lover of his native land. Dublin was taken. Roderick O'Connor, King of Connaught, retired into his own kingdom ; the Ulster men went home across the Boyne ; the septs of Leinster were obliged to make their submission. Two or three years later, the English monarch himself arrived ; and every prince in Ireland made a nominal submission to him, save and except the glorious, the immortal 430 SL Laurence O' Toole, O'Neill, who still upheld the oriflamme of Ireland — the national flag of Erin. When Dublin was taken, the Archbishop Lau- rence interceded for his people in this fashion. When the Nor- mans laid siege to the city the first time, the people felt that resistance would be useless ; so they called on their archbishop to go out and meet Dermot MacMurrogh, the adulterous trai- tor, and the celebrated Richard, Earl of Pembroke, surnamed " Strongbow." The archbishop went out to make terms for his people ; and whilst he was thus engaged on one side of the city. Miles de Cogan entered on the other side, and be- gan to slaughter the people. Their cry of horror reached the archbishop's ears, as he stood in the presence of the Norman victors. The moment he heard the cry of his people, which resounded in his ears as the cry of the first-born babe in danger resounds in the heart of the mother that bore it, he fled from their presence and rushed forth, and found that the blood of his people actually flowed in the streets of the city. Then, for- getful of his safety or his life, he threw himself between them and the assailing army, and to the invaders he said : "Hold! hold ! Not another son of Ireland shall be slain. Not another drop of my people's blood shall be shed, until you have first pierced my heart ; for I am their father and their bishop." The city was surrendered. Now, what did the archbishop do? Did he give up the cause of Ireland, like a faint-hearted man ? He saw the Irish kings actually fighting with each other — shedding each other's blood at the very time the invader took possession of their capital. He saw that no two of them could agree to obey one common head, or adopt one common line of policy. He had labored in vain. Did he give up the cause? No ! No faithful Irish bishop or priest ever did or ever will give up the ^ cause of Ireland. He went out from Dublin once more ; he went again to the court of King Roderick, shook him once more into courage and hope for Ireland, and rallied his people. He called the Ulster men again from their fastnesses, rallied the men of Munster, the McCarthy Mor, the O'Donnells, and the O'Briens ; he roused all Ireland. And the archbishop marched at the head of sixty thousand men, in order to lay siege to Dublin, vowing that as long as an English invader re- mained on Irish soil, he could never know a moment's rest. Dublin was besieged. The Irish forces, to the number of sixty^ The Last Canonised Saint of Ireland. 431 thousand, lay around it. O'Melaghlin, of Ulster, took possession of the Hill of Hovvth ; on the plain of Clontarf, Roderick O'Con- nor, with his large army, spread over to the site of the Phoe- nix Park. On the other side, east of the hill, lay the O Briens of Munster ; the passes by the coast of Dalkey and Dunleary were held by the O'Tooles and the O'Byrnes of Wicklow. They pressed the siege until the Norman knights were almost famished in the city ; and driven by desperation made one des- perate sally, broke through one portion of the line of the King of Connaught's army, and so liberated themselves. The Irish host, instead of closing around them, and destroying them, losi courage and heart. Divided for so many years, they separated once more. The O'Connor withdrew into his Avestern province ; the O'Neill and the O'Donnell withdrew again from the town ; and once more, despite the tears, the prayers, and the devotion of Laurence, the land of Ireland was left at the mercy of its ruthless and tyrannical conquerors. If we credit the evidence of the Irish historian, Leland, one of the most ancient and re- spectable of our historians — he tells us that, in that siege of Dublin, the archbishop was seen passing from rank to rank ani- mating the men, speaking to them in the ringing tones of their native Irish language, appealing to them by all that they held most sacred upon earth, and by their hopes of heaven, to do battle like men for their native land, and to destroy its invaders. Leland goes further. He tells us — upon what authority I know not — that so carried away was the Irish prince archbishop, when he saw the day darkening for Ireland, that he laid aside his episcopal station for an hour, girded on the sword, and led o" the Irish forces, charging into the midst of their enemies as be- came a prince. And now the heart of the man was broken ; his high hopes were crushed forever. Perhaps, with his prophetic eye, illu- mined by the spirit of sanctity that was within him, perhaps he foresaw and caught a glimpse of the ages that were to come ; perhaps he saw his country, year after year, century after cen- tury, until her very name went out amongst the peoples of the earth as " the Niobe of nations," the most stricken, heart-broken of peoples. Certain it is that the heart of the man was broken within him. In the year 1 171, all the princes of Ireland, ex- cepting Ulster, having made their submission, nothing remained 432 St. Laurence O' Toole, for the holy prince-archbishop but to do all he could for his peo- ple. One of Henry's pretexts for conquering Ireland was that they were so wicked a people, and he was so good and holy, it was necessary that he should conquer the country to preserve the faith. How did he begin to make himself so good and holy? He shed the blood of St. Thomas of Canterbury. That blood was upon his hand — the blood of a holy archbishop, slaughtered at the foot of the altar, in the very presence of Jesus Christ, by the order of the tyrant ! That blood was red upon the hands of the man who came to teach the Irish people their religion ! Before him came the Archbishop of Dublin, fearless, although his fellow-prelate had been slaughtered. He demanded terms for his people. He spoke with authority, as became a prince of the people, and in the name of God. He frightened the tyrannical English monarch of that race of which St. Bernard said : " They came from the devil, and to the devil they will go." Those were the words of St. Bernard, of that very house of Plantagenet of whom Henry II. was one of the great founders — the man who invaded Ireland. Now, my friends, twice did the saint cross the sea to intercede for the Irish people ; to make treaties of peace for the Irish kings with the English monarch ; and to obtain the recognition of Ireland's freedom and Ireland's nationality. And history tells us that it is to the last of Ire- land's saints we owe that treaty of peace which was concluded between O'Connor, King of Connaught, and Henry II., King of England, and which recognized Ireland's nationality, Ireland's existence as a distinct nation, embodied in the person of her monarch. You may say to me it was a small thing for him to recognize Ireland's nationality when he had his foot upon her neck ; but I say it was a great thing that, for seven hundred years of war and persecution, through the action and the spirit of the last of Ireland's saints, we are — I thank my God in heaven — we are a nation still. We are not a province ; Ireland was never a province of the British Empire. To-day, the Queen of England calls herself " Queen of Great Britain and Ireland." To this day she sends to Ireland her viceroy, which means one who takes the place of the king. A viceroy is not sent to a province, but to a nation. But you will ask what does all this serve ? I answer, a noble idea always serves ; a noble idea, maintained and upheld by the hand of priest and layman, and The Last Canonized Saint of Ireland. 433 upheld by the hand of the martyr — a noble idea, upheld by a worship recognized for ages as the rallying-point of a people, when the hour of their destiny arrives — such shall Ireland's nationality be for Irishmen. You have all often heard that, when the English king invaded Ireland, he came in virtue of a Bull which he received from the Pope. Writers of English history assert this, and many amongst them bring their proofs of it. Now, I have my doubts whether he got that rescript at all. I have studied this question as well as I could, and I don't believe that the Pope ever gave the English monarch a commission to invade Ireland. It is singular that of Irish archaeologists the greatest now living — the present re- spected Bishop of Ossory, Dr. Moran, who has studied for years at the fountain-head, in Rome — gives his conclusion, de- liberate and calm, that he does not believe one word of the story of Adrian IV. making a present of Ireland to the English king. It may be so. It may be that such representations were made to the people that inferred this ; it may be that the English, monarch sent his ministers there, who told the Holy Father that the Irish were such terrible people, and had given up legiti- mate marriage altogether ; and their priests were a bad lot ; and if he would give him leave to go over, he would set every- thing to rights ; for English historians tell us that was the case ; and that, when Henry II. came to Ireland, he had in his hand a letter from the Pope, authorizing him to go and take posses- sion of the island. Now, I answer, if he had that letter, why did he not show it ? He never showed it. When he came to Ireland he never said one word about that letter — that permis- sion from the Pope. He called all the Irish together (St. Lau- rence O'Toole was there), at Cashel, in 1171 ; he had them all, except a few from Connaught, and some of the Ulster bishops, who held aloof because they were not yet conquered ; and when all the bishops and priests were there, Henry came and said to them, " Now you must make laws and set everything to rights." He never said one word about the letter of the Pope. When Henry II. came to Ireland, all the historians tell us, the only man in Ireland of whom he was really afraid was St. Laurence O'Toole ; because there was no man in Ireland who had such power to bind the people together ; no man that loved Ireland as he did ; not a braver man on that battle-field of Clontarf, 28 434 ^^- Laurence (9' Toole, than that man whose Irish heart beat beneath the cope of the Irish Archbishop of Dublin, The English king was so much afraid of him that he endeavored by the use of every means in his power to gain him over. Now, the English king knew well that if St. Laurence O'Toole knew he had a letter of that kind from the Pope, like an humble and obedient man, he would cease his opposition ; he would not array sixty thousand men against him ; and yet he never showed that letter to St. Lau- rence O'Toole. He waited until Pope Adrian IV. was ten years dead and in his grave, and then he produced the letter. And so I say that, although there be grave and weighty arguments on one side, I have such doubts as to the authenticity of that Bull of Adrian IV., that I don't believe one word of it. Nay more, seven years later, when St. Laurence went to Rome to the Council of Lateran, Alexander was then Pope; and of all the bishops that came to that council there was not a single man that received so much honor as the Archbishop of Dublin did, from the Pope, because of his sanctity. He put him in the highest place, gave him the pallium of archbishop, ordered the Bishops of Ossory, of Gallatia, and others, to be subject to him, made him his own Legate-Apostolic, and crowned with glory •sent him back to Ireland. Now, if the Pope had really given (Permission to Henry II. to go and take Ireland, and the arch- bishop should, in the face of that, have as it were taken Henry II. by the throat — if that Bull of Adrian IV. was shown, you, Laurence O'Toole, saint in heaven to-night, you would have gone to Rome as a man under a cloud, a man who forgot where he owed his obedience, a man who dared to excite the people after the head of the Church had declared they should sub- mit. But he did go to Rome in that capacity ; he went to re- ceive more honor than any other bishop ; therefore, I conclude that he never saw this letter of the Pope, because I believe the Pope never wrote it. In the year 1180 Roderick O'Connor, King of Ireland, was again in trouble with the English monarch ; and he had to send one of his sons as a hostage to Henry. St. Laurence took charge of the boy, and brought him over to England, to put him into the hands of the English monarch, thinking, perhaps, with sorrow of the day when he himself, a young prince, was put into the hands of a cruel, heartless tyrant. The King of England The Last Canonised Saint of Ireland. 435 was not in the land, he was in France at the time ; but before he went to France he left orders that if Laurence O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, was to come over to England, he was to be kept prisoner, and not to be allowed back any more. This was the man who came to reform the Irish Church, and teach the people how to be good ! No Irish king was ever known to lay hand on a bishop. The first English monarch that came, as Cromwell came in after years, with the words of God's holy Scripture on his lips ; he who had shed the blood of St. Thomas a Becket, laid hands upon and bound the Irish archbishop in England. But the Irish blood — the spirit that can never bend, though it may be broken — revolted against this treatment. When he found he was going to be detained as a prisoner, he instantly arose, took the young prince, and went over to France, to stand before the English monarch, and beard him to his face. He arrived in France ; and as soon as he touched the soil of Normandy you can easily imagine how he turned around, saw the white cliffs of Dover — the English coast — and, lifting up his hands, left his last curse upon it. Travelling a little into the country, the heart-sorrow that weighed upon him became too great. What! An Irish prince, an Irish archbishop, the son of an unconquered race, of a people that had never known serf- dom or slavery, has the eldest son of Ireland's monarch, Rod- erick O'Connor, and is bringing him, a prisoner, to put him into the hands of the tyrant that had shed the blood of his people ! It was too much for him, because he thought of Ireland. He saw his country invaded and enslaved ; the chieftains divided, the holy work in which he was engaged broken and ruined ; the sanctuaries of St. Mel, at Armagh, in flames ; the churches de- stroyed ; Columba's saintly monasteries sacked and ruined. His heart was broken within him. He turned aside to the Abbey of Yew, in Normandy, and, entering in, he said to the abbot: " Give a dying man a place whereon he may lie down and die." Because of his high dignity, as Archbishop of Dublin, they re- ceived him with all honor. Now, the angel of death was ap- proaching. With his dying breath he commissioned his sec- retary, the Irish priest that was with him, to take the young prince and carry him to Henry; and tell him, that " When the agonies of death were upon me, I charged him, in the name of the God before whom I am about to appear, with my last words 436 5/. Laurence 0' Toole, I charged him, in the name of Almighty God, to treat this prince as the son of a king ; not to forget that this prince's father is a king ; and that the people are still a nation, having a king at their head." Then, as he lay upon his humble bed, the monks came around him, and they heard him pouring forth his soul to God in prayer; and they said to each other: " This man must be very rich ; he is archbishop of the richest diocese in the world ; perhaps he has not made his will." They did not know St. Laurence. When he was Archbishop of Dublin he fed five hundred poor people every day at his own table, and he clothed and fed four hundred others outside, and constantly provided for two hundred orphans. And when they came and said to him ; "Will you not make your will? "he looked up, and said : " I declare to my God, that I have not a single coin in this world to leave behind me." Then the agonies of death came upon him. There he lay, communing with his divine Lord. And now, at last, in this last moment, the patriot must be lost in the saint, the prince forgotten in the dying Christian. No thought can come between the man of God and that God whom he is about to meet. Hark to his words : " Into thy hands, O Jesus Christ, I resign my spirit. O strong Son of God, take me. I have now known I will see Thy face, and re- joice forever." Then the French monks, praying around him, heard strange words from his lips ; they did not understand them, for they were spoken in the Irish language. His last words were : " O foolish and senseless people ! what will now become of you ? Who now will relieve your miseries ? who will heal you, now that I am going away? " With these words he died. He is canonized by the Church of God ; his Christian soul passed straight to the high throne which he had earned in heaven ; and his last words upon earth proved that the most sacred love that ever filled the heart of man, next to the love of his God, was his love for the land that bore him, and the people of his own blood. This was the last of Ireland's canonized saints. He was canonized in Rome by Pope Honorius III., in the year 1226. His body is enshrined in the abbey church in which he died ; and his name has gone forth — St. Laurence O'Toole — as the last of the great prelates the Irish Church produced ; and she was the mother of many saints and of great prelates. The The Last Canonized Saint of Ireland. 437 spirit that animated his love for home — the love that broke his heart — has survived in the hearts of those who came after him, inheriting his priesthood. It was the spirit of Laurence that kept the Irish people faithful to their priests, and the Irish priests faithful to their people, when every power of earth and of hell was raised up against them. When all the might of England declared that it must separate that priesthood from that people — corrupt that priesthood and destroy the Catholic faith in Ireland — the priesthood, animated by the spirit of Laurence, the Irish people, animated by the spirit of their holy faith, joined hands in that day, and answered : " Those whom God hath joined together no man can sever." Never did the Irish people separate themselves from their clergy, nor the Irish priesthood from their faithful, loving people. When the Prophet Elias was taken up to heaven, Eliseus cried out to him : " Let me have thy twofold spirit. Leave thy spirit upon me." And he who was borne aloft on the chariot of fire, let fall his mantle, and with it his twofold spirit, upon him. Laurence, ascending to heaven, must have heard some great, some faithful bishop in Ireland : " Oh ! chariot of Israel and its charioteer, leave behind thee thy twofold spirit — the love of God and of thy country. Leave that twofold love to be the inheritance of Irish priests and Irish bishops." The prayer was answered, the mystic mantle has fallen. Ireland is bound to-day, as of old, as one man, the priests to the people and the people to the priests, by the golden fillet of a common faith, and the silver cord of a common love for their motherland. Let me conclude. Oh ! may the spirit of Laurence be still upon us, at home and abroad. Thousands of miles of ocean lie between me and the land of my birth ; between you and the land of your best recol- lections, your truest aspirations, and your strongest love. But, whether at home or abroad, whether upon the green hillside, with its shamrocks covering the graves of the saints, or upon the splendid shores of this mighty continent, oh ! may the spirit of Laurence be still your inheritance and mine, and that we may sanctify ourselves in our love for our religion and for our faith, and that we may sanctify ourselves before God and the world, in our love for the green land that bore us, and that holy religion handed down to us — the most magnificent history that ever yet was the heritage of an afflicted people. THE IMPORTANCE OF PRAYER. [Sermon preached in the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, May 5th, 1872.] " Hitherto you have not asked anything in My name ; ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full." OU are aware, dear brethren, that next Thursday will be the feast of the Ascension, consequently we are drawing near that mystical moment when the earth lost sight of the visible presence of the Saviour. We may, therefore, say, that these are the last words that we shall hear from Him in His bodily presence — the last Gospel that the Church puts before us, while she commemorates His pres- ence before His ascension. And it is worthy of remark that she selects for this last utterance of our divine Lord, precisely that which was the subject-matter of His first utterance. He was thirty years upon the earth before He spoke to man ; before He preached ; before He announced Himself to man ; and when, at the end of thirty years, He opened His mouth to preach His first sermon, the gospel tells us that the subject- matter of that sermon was prayer; for He went up into the mountain and taught the people to pray — (so says the Evan- gelist) — saying : " Thus shall you pray ; " and He delivered the " Lord's Prayer," as it is called, which was the first sermon of Christ. Now, we come to His last utterance before He ascended into heaven. He said to His apostles : " I am about to leave you, and you shall see Me no longer. Mark, therefore, the words I have to say to you. Pray in My name. Hitherto you have not done so ; ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full." Behold then, dearly beloved brethren, the importance that Christ our Lord and His holy Church attach to the act and to The Importa7ice of Prayer. 439 the exercise of prayer. It is the first word and the last ; the first teaching and the last ; the first precept and the last in- junction of our divine Saviour. Why all this? Because of the absolute necessity and the immense advantage and privilege of prayer. The absolute necessity of prayer arises, dearly be- loved, from its inherent and intrinsic connection with divine grace. You know that without the grace of God no man can be saved. " By the grace of God," says St. Paul, " I am what I am. Of myself alone I am nothing, I can do nothing ; but I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me by His divine grace." The whole question, therefore, of man's salvation, de- pends upon the grace of Almighty God. He that has it and treasures it, shall be saved ; and he who, not having it, seeks it and finds it, shall find salvation. He that is without it shall be lost inevitably. We cannot so much as even mention the name of Jesus as He ought to be spoken of, except in the spirit and in the grace of God. Such being the absolute necessity of divine grace, it was in order that we might have this — in order to obtain it for us — that the Eternal God came down from heaven and was Incarnate of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, and was made man, "that where sin previously abounded, grace should abound still more." That grace of God which was denied to man could only be obtained by the blood of Christ ; and, therefore, gen- erously, lavishly, did He pour forth His blood that all men might find grace, and find it in abundance. Such was the price which was paid, that the sacred and saving blood that was shed upon Calvary might open the whole treasury of heaven to man. Nor is there a grace in the Father's gift too high, too great, too magnificent to be out of the reach of the humblest among us. But to the graces thus absolutely necessary to salvation, our Lord Himself has attached one essential and indispensable con- dition ; and that condition is prayer. Do you stand in need of grace? He says : *' Ask and you shall receive it ; seek and you shall find it ; knock at the door of the treasury of God's graces ; and, My infallible word for it, that door shall be opened unto you." On the other hand, we have the authority of the Scriptures that the man who prays not for grace shall not obtain grace. When some of the early Christians complained of the strength of their passions, of the presence of sin and 440 The Importance of Prayer. misery in the midst of them, St. Paul told them emphatically that all these things were to be accounted for by the absence of grace. But he added : ** Therefore, you have not received it, because you have not asked it." What follows from all this ? Simply this chain of reasoning — without grace there is no salvation. Without prayer there is no grace ; therefore, without prayer there is no salvation for man. Wherefore, the wisest and the greatest of theologians, St. Thomas Aquinas, says it is impossible for a Christian to be saved without prayer. Behold, then, the necessity of prayer. It is necessary as a means ; it is necessary as an indispensable condition to salva- tion ; and, if you wish to know whether you are in the way of God, or in the way of salvation, ask yourself: " Do I pray; do I know how to pray; do I practise prayer ; do I love prayer? " And the answer to that question will be the answer to the more important question, " Am I in the way of salvation, or am I not?" But, dearly beloved, a thing may be necessary not only as a means, but it may be necessary as a command of God. There are many things that are not necessary in themselves to salva- tion ; and yet they are necessary, because Almighty God com- mands them. For instance, to hear mass on Sunday, to sanc- tify that particular day, is not in itself necessary to salvation ; it is necessary, however, because God laid His precept upon it. And so, in like manner, prayer is not only necessary as a means in its own nature indispensable, but it is also necessary as a precept, distinct and emphatic, that is imposed upon us by Al- mighty God. So that — even if prayer were not connected with grace, even if God gave His graces without being asked, even if He had never bound up the giving of His graces with the condition of prayer — yet, still, because of the emphatic precept of Christ, prayer would be necessary, on account of that pre- cept, for man's salvation. Where in the Scriptures do we find a precept more frequently and emphatically laid down than that in which the Saviour says : " You must pray always." " Watch and pray," He says elsewhere, " that you may not enter into temptation." " I say to you, be instant in prayer." And so the apostle repeats the command of his Lord, when He says : " Pray at all times, lifting up your hands to the Father of The Importance of Prayer. 441 grace." Thus do we behold the precept enforcing its own necessity, and enjoining that which, if it were not commanded, would still be necessary as a means, because of its indispensa- ble and intrinsic connection with divine grace. I need not tell you, dearly beloved, that in this, as in every other precept of Christ, He first gave the example before He laid down the command. Before He told the people that they should pray, He gave them the example of His own prayer. He who stood in need of no grace — for He was the fountain of all grace himself-— yet, for our example. He was emphatically a man of prayer ; and when He had labored all day preaching in the Temple, or teaching ; when he had journeyed all day, heal- ing the sick, comforting the afflicted, raising the dead ; when evening came, and every other tired laborer sought his place of rest whereon to lay His head, we read in the Gospel that our Lord went, then, into the lonely places, or that He ascended the mountain-side, or that He went into the depths of Geth- semane's shades, or that He went out into the desert, and spent the night in prayer with God. Prayer to Him was the repose of His soul ; and He arose from His prayer, as another man from His bed of rest, refreshed and renewed in all His di- vine strength, to pursue the same work of man's redemption for which He came. Consider, secondly, the excellence — the importance of prayer. What is prayer? " It is," says St. Augustine, " an elevation or an uplifting of the soul to God ; it is an act of personal commu- nication with God ; it is an interview between the soul and Al- mighty God ; it is an audience that the King of Heaven vouch- safes to give to every individual man, when that man lifts up his voice and opens his lips to pray." Now, what greater privi- lege can we have, as the creatures of God, as the children of God, than to be thus able at any moment to enter into the penetralia, the inner chambers of our Father's heavenly palace, and there, kneeling down before Him, speak to Him, while He, all attention to our words, lends His ear and inclines His heart to us ; as if there were no other creature in existence, save and except that one man who prays? What higher privilege can a subject have than to have the right of entry at all times to his sovereign ? What greater privilege can a statesman, even of the first order, or a great general, have, than that the head of the ( 442 The Importance of Prayer. State, or emperor, or great king, should permit him to come in at all times, to command the monarch's attention, and to com- municate with him freely ? Even so this privilege was given to us by our divine Lord, when He gave us the power and the pre- cept of prayer. Consider again our special privilege. " Hitherto," He said to His apostles, "you have not asked anything in My name. You have prayed, indeed ; but you have not asked in my name." " Hitherto ; " and when He said that word. His thoughts went out into the dreary past of four thousand years, when man in- voked Almighty God, as "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob," but they could not appeal to Him as their own immediate Father through the adoption by which we were made His sons in Jesus Christ. Many names, indeed, did they put before God ; but the magic name, the omnipotent name of the Man-God, Jesus Christ, was not yet upon their lips. Many pleas did they put before God — the faith of Abra- ham, the love of Jacob, the devotion of Israel, the meekness of Daniel and Moses ; but the transcendent, omnipotent, grace- creating merits of Jesus Christ were not yet theirs ; nor had they " hitherto been able to ask in His name, at whose sound " every knee must bend, of those that are in heaven, upon the earth, and even in hell." This is our privilege. Now He said to them, "You can ask in My name ; and whatever you ask in My name, the Father will grant to you." For how can the Father refuse the Christian man that which he demands in prayer, when that prayer comes up to the Father's throne enshrined in the merits and enriched by the name of Jesus Christ. And when is this prayer, of which I speak, necessary ? My brethren, it is necessary at all times. According to the word of our Lord you must always pray; but there are certain moments when that which is at all times necessary becomes a matter of vital importance, and it is a question of life or death whether we pray or neglect to pray. There are moments in the lives of every man amongst us — nay, moments in every day of our lives — when it is a question of life and death to pray or to neglect to pray. When are these moments? They are moments of temp- tation ; moments when nature, corrupt in us all, will rise in de- fiance of God ; moments when the temptation of pride, of re- venge, or some other glittering temptation, presents itself before The Importance of Prayer. 443 our eyes ; moments when the senses speak to the soul, and say : " Now, now is your moment for enjoyment ; forget God." That moment it is a question of life or death, for all eternity, whether a man prays or not. Christ appeared upon the waters walking. He walked upon them, naturally, because He was the Lord and Creator of them. There was no fear for Him that those treach- erous waves would separate and swallow Him up. Peter saw his Master ; and he threw himself out of the boat ; and, with fearful and uncertain steps, still keeping his eye on Christ, he followed his Lord. That which was so easy for Christ was a perilous undertaking for Peter. According to every law of nature the mere man should have gone down into the depths, while the God-man walked upon His own creation. After a time, Peter felt that the water, which before was as solid as the adamantine rock beneath his feet, was waving to and fro ; he felt the unsteady foundation upon which he walked ; he cast his eyes down, and he saw that the treacherous waves were giving way, and that he was sinking, and sinking rapidly, to a certain death. Then he lifted up his voice — his great danger prompt- ing him to the action of prayer — " Lord, save me, or I perish ! " The next moment Peter's hand was in the hand of Christ ; the man was raised from out his danger ; and the moving waters be- neath him became again as solid as the firm earth or the rock upon the mountain-side. A bright example of the power and the necessity of prayer ! Christ in his God-like nature stands before us ; and to every man amongst us He says : " Follow me. If any man wishes to be saved, let him come after Me. Follow Me." " Whither wilt Thou lead us, O Son of God ? " Over the troubled waters, over the treacherous waves of our own nature ; in paths of purity and of power ; in paths of divine virtue must we follow Christ, triumphing over all the baser instincts and vile passions of our corporeal nature ; triumphing over our pride and our pas- sions ; or walking upon these waters of humanity — treacherous, death-dealing to all who sink beneath them ; over these, with the firm tread of the man of faith, must we walk and follow the Son of God. But, my friends, whenever that rebellious nature stirs us ; whenever, in moments of temptation, we find the ground beneath us trembling ; whenever we find we are sinking — rapid- ly, rapidly losing sight of Christ — sinking into some hideous 444 The Importance of Prayer. form of sin, then, O young man, cry, " Lord, save me, or I per- ish ! " If that cry escapes from your heart or your lips, the next moment will find you with your hand in the strong hand of the Son of God. If Peter had been silent in that hour — if Peter had not prayed in that hour — the next moment the waters would have closed over his head, and the eyes of Christ would have beheld him no lon- ger; he would have sunk out of his Master's sight. Oh, dearly beloved, how often has the young soul sunk out of the Master's sight, because that soul was silent ! Well may each and every one of us, looking back to some black, terrible spot in our past life — recalling some recollection that brings shame to our faces, and perhaps, if God grants it, a tear of bitter regret to our eyes — looking back upon those moments when temptation assailed us, and when we yielded — well may we exclaim, " Woe is me, O God, because I kept my peace and was silent." But it is not only for the man who is walking upon the waves, in sight of his Master — it is not only for the man who is tread- ing the dangerous path of Christian morality — walking and trampling upon the elements of his own passions and his own selfishness — it is not only for such a one that prayer is necessary, and is at once his comfort, his assurance, and his highest privi- lege. It is also necessary for, and the only privilege of, the man who has sunk beneath the waves. Peter cried from the surface, " Lord, save me, or I perish ! " He cried in time. But, dearly beloved, for our comfort there is another cry recorded in the Scriptures ; and that is the cry of him who said : " Out of the depths I have cried unto Thee, O Lord ; Lord, hear my voice." Over David's head had closed the angry, terrible, deadly sea of impurity and injustice ; upon David's soul had fallen the warm drops of Uriah's blood, unjustly shed ; down into the depths of malediction, down into the depths of God's anger, went this man ; nothing remained to him but the last and the only privi- lege of the sinner. " O God ! " exclaimed holy Job, in his deepest misery, " noth- ing is left to me but the lips that are above my teeth." "Much is left to thee, O Job," exclaimed the great St. Gregory ; "much is left to thee in thy misery, because there is left to thee the power of using t'hy lips in prayer." And so, out of the depths of his misery, of his sins, of his degradation, came the voice, The Importance of Prayer. 445 and it reached Almighty God. " If thou, O Lord, observest iniquity. Lord, who shall sustain it ? " The same voice that thus spoke commemorated afterwards in joyful accents the an- swer to the prayer. " Blessed be God ! " exclaimed David, " who did not remove my prayer nor His mercy from me." It is the last and the only privilege of the sinner. All is gone except prayer. His works are gone ; for, in his sin, if he give all that he hath to the poor, and deliver his body to be burned, if he has not charity, it profits him nothing. His talents are gone. " If I speak as with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." The merits of his life are gone. " If the just man shall turn away from his justice, so as to work iniquity, I shall not re- member the justice which he has wrought," says the Lord. His future, therefore, seems to be gone. There is no peace, no com- fort, no joy, either in time or eternity, for the sinner. All is gone except the power to cry, even from within the very depths, and to send forth a prayer for mercy to Almighty God. And so we see that, in His mercy and goodness, he left one thing, even to the sinner. And the sinner can never be said to be utterly aban- doned, until he despises and utterly ignores the virtue of prayer. Ask yourselves, then, dearly beloved, are we men of prayer ? How many there are. Catholics even — good men, apparently — who content themselves with a hurried prayer in the morning after rising, and a hurried prayer at night before they go to bed ; scarcely thinking of what they say ; never raising their souls to God ; never humbling themselves before God. There is neither earnestness nor fixedness of purpose, neither humility nor confi- dence in their prayer. What do the Scriptures say of such prayer? " These people call upon Me with their lips ; but their hearts are far from Me." And if we find that, hitherto, we have not asked the Father in the name of His divine Son, as we should, then let us, in God's name, recognize the necessity, the importance, and the privilege of prayer. And blessed shall we be if, at the hour of our death, even with our dying lips, we are able to say, in the words of David : " Blessed be God, who re- moved not my prayer, nor His mercy from Me." NO SALVATION OUTSIDE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [Preached in St. Michael's Church, New York, Sunday evening, October 20, 1872.] Y FRIENDS : The subject upon which I have chosen to address you this evening is a most important one. The question which most nearly concerns every man in this world, is the question which the people asked the apostles on the day of Pentecost : " What shall I do in order to be saved ? " There is before ever}'- man a double future— the future of time and the future of eternity — a future made up of the few, passing, fleeting hours of time, with their burdens of joy or of sorrow. But whether, indeed, they be crowned with every delight — like the lives of those reprobates of Scripture who filled every valley with their pleasures, and who denied themselves nothing — or whether, on the other hand, this future of time be a period of suffering unmingled with joy, of sorrow and of misery, it matters but little. Life is so fleet- ing, time flies by so rapidly, it remains with us for so brief a moment, that it really matters little whether that moment be made up of joy or of sorrow, of misery or delight. For instance, how small and insignificant to the man of pleasure, how worth- less and scarcely deserving even the tribute of a passing remem- brance, are all the pleasures and the joys of a man of the world when he lies there agonizing upon his death-bed, reviewing in a moment the brief and passing pleasures that he enjoyed, bidding them a last farewell, and then turning with uncertain and with gloomy eyes to contemplate the mighty eternity that is before him ! How little to the greatest saints and to those miracles of penance which the Catholic Church has nourished — how little and how trifling to them did all their mortifications and all their No Salvation Outside the Catholic Church. 447 labors appear, when, for one instant, they thought upon these things as they were dying. They were all now gone, swept away upon the wings of time, and nothing remained of their bitterness ; but all was changed into the hope of future glory and joy that should never know end. When St. Theresa was in prayer, her friend, St. Peter of Alcantara, passed away from this life. For more than fifty years he had restrained every passion, guarded every sense, denied himself every joy, and made, indeed, his life upon this earth a real crucifixion of that body in which he served God. And whilst the holy nun of Avala was in her prayer, suddenly a great light appeared before her, she lifted up her eyes and saw the familiar face of her old Franciscan friend. But, oh ! how changed it was ! No longer the emaciated face worn away with fasting, no longer the cheeks furrowed by the constant tears of repentance which flowed from his eyes, no longer the eyes languid and weak from loss of sleep and of rest. No ! but the brightness of heaven was around him, and it seemed to her as if all that this world had of light came forth from him, and he said to her : " Oh, Theresa ! Now, now, in the first moment of my joy, I realize how happy was the penance, and mortifications, and the sorrow that brought me so great a return." This future of time, then, is of little or no account, but beyond the grave lies the future of an eternity that shall never know end. When years shall have swelled into ages, when ages shall have rolled into millions and myriads of ages, when the mind shall have spent itself in trying to measure eternity by its own ideas of time, then will that eternity have only just begun for the ages to last forever and forever. It is the life of God. In that eternity lies the solution of the problem of what our place shall be. Where shall we find our place in that unending eternity that is before us ? Once created we cannot die; our destiny is to live forever, and to share in the immortality of the God who made us. Oh, then, who will tell me whether my portion for the unending years is to be the brightness of heaven's glory, or the everlasting flames of hell ! O God ! my soul within me, my heart, trembles with fear to think that there is even a chance — a probability, I need not say — but even a chance, or a fear that I may lose this soul of mine, and that this soul of mine shall be cast away from the sight and enjoy- 44^ No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. ment of God forever. It was this thought of God that frightened the servants of God at all times. It was the pos- sibility of being damned, cast away from God, that made David look with such fearful eyes on that future of time which was before him. Turning to God, he cried : " Woe is me because my pilgrimage here is prolonged." Therefore the most important question that any man can ask himself or his fellow-men, is: How am I to be saved? What shall I do to be saved ? Now, I come here this evening, not without authority, not speaking for myself at all, but speaking the doctrines of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and I say that all-important as the question of salvation is in the designs of God, there is, as a rule, no salvation outside of the Catholic Church. At first sight this proposition seems to be the quintessence of bigotry. If there were one here to-night not a Catholic, that man might probably, in a bitter moment, say, " Thou speakest well the language of thine order, oh, persecuting monk of the thirteenth century. Oh, thou, who hast cast out from thy monkish heart all love for thy fellow-men ! Thou who learned the bad lesson that the heart, in order to be sacred to God, must be a hard, unloving heart." Such thoughts might pass through their minds ; and it may sound, and it does sound, in the ears of men to-day. as the very quintessence of bigotry and cruelty, to say calmly, after considering what it is to be saved and what it is to be lost forever, that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. But, my friends, it is only one of those truths that must be appreciated, recognized, and acknowledged by the mind of every man. What does this proposition mean, There is no salvation outside the Catholic Church? It means simply this, that the Almighty God has made as an es- sential condition for the salvation of a man's soul that that man should know the sacred truths that God has taught. That he should know the truth — the truth, not a travesty of the truth, no mere crooked opinions of his own mind, which he mistakes for the truth ; no mere prejudices, or distorted views of the truth, but the truth as it is in God, as it is revealed by Almighty God, as it is in Jesus Christ. The knowledge of that truth the Almighty God demands as the necessary condition for sal- vation. No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. 449 In order to prove this, it is not necessary, my dear friends, to rely simply and entirely on the word of Scripture ; the Scrip- ture expressed the same ; but before we come to any evidence of Scripture, by the mere light of human reason, I ask you to consider this proposition. We know that God made all things. We know, moreover, that God made all things for Himself. Human reason tells us that a God of infinite perfection, as well as of infinite power, could not make anything for any other ob- ject but for Himself; because the act of creation is the exercise of omnipotent power, and God, being infinite wisdom, could not exercise omnipotence, except for a motive as great as the om- nipotence itself. God being infinite wisdom could not create by this power, except for an object as great as that power. If there must be, because of the wisdom of God, an exact proportion be- tween the motive which God has in view, and the act which He proposes, an act without an adequate motive would be imper- fect and unwise; therefore, God could not do it. If, then, my dearly beloved, the Almighty God puts forth in the act of crea- tion the full omnipotence of His power, the object for which He creates must be great as the act which makes ; and no- where can God find that object except in Himself; for God is infinite — infinitely holy, infinitely perfect, God alone. There- fore, by the light of reason, a God of infinite wisdom could not create anything except for Himself. He has, moreover, revealed this to us. "God made every- thing for Himself," says the inspired writer, and all the creations of God are thus created for God, thus bound by the very elements of their nature and of their being to tend to that God for whom they are made. All things come to Him after the manner of the nature which He has given them. Things that have no reason fulfill the end of their creation without reason. Things that have no life or feeling fulfill the ends of their dormant existence without the exercise of life or feeling. Creatures that have reason, creatures that have intelligence, creatures that have intellect, mind, and soul, must go to God and approach God through the exercise of that reason, intelli- gence, mind, and soul. God made all things for Himself. Did He make man then for Himself? Most certainly. For Him- self ? What does this mean ? That man should return to God who made him. The way of God lies through the intelligence 29 450 No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. of the human soul. God is infinite wisdom. God is power and knowledge — the spirit endowed with the power and the knowledge must meet God through knowledge. There is no other way. The way of sense will not lead to Him ; the way of the inferior nature of man will not lead to God. It is the soul, capable of knowing, that must spring to the principle of all knowledge. And, therefore, by the light of reason do we see that the knowledge of truth is a necessity for man — a neces- sary condition for his salvation. Take a man utterly unin- structed and uneducated ; take a child and shut him out from every element of knowledge, human or divine. Is there a man on the face of God's earth, Christian or pagan, who will say that that child is fit for the salvation which consists in an act of intellect comprehending God? Not comprehending Him fully, for only an infinite intellect can do that, but compre- hending and contemplating God to the full extent of every power of intellect that God has given to man. No ; knowledge is a necessary preparation on earth for the sight of the beatific vision in heaven, and, therefore, the Almighty God has laid down knowledge as a necessary condition of the human intel- lect for all purposes in this world, as well as for the purposes of eternity. But what kind of knowledge does the Almighty God demand for salvation ? The knowledge of Himself, as He has revealed Himself — the knowledge as it is in the mind of God. Re- member, my friends, that no knowledge is worthy of God unless it be the knowledge of the truth ; and no knowledge is worthy of God, nor can be the means of approach to God, unless that knowledge be based upon a certainty in the divine author- ity of the God who gave it. If, therefore, as we see, a knowl- edge of the truth be necessary, the next great question is, Where is that truth of God to be found ? Where is it to be found ? Remember, there are certain attributes that belong to the truth and that are inseparable from its nature, even human truth. The first of these is unity. The truth, wherever it is, must be one. Take, for instance, my friends, historical truth. One man asserts that an event happened in such a year, another man says that it did not happen then, but in some other year. Now, must not some one or other of these be wrong, and that of necessity? The thing happened in one of these periods, and No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. 451 one, of necessity, must be wrong, for the reason that the other is right. Why ? Because you can't divide the truth ; you can't compromise the truth. You can't say of anything: "Well, it is more or less true ;" of any positive assertion, " it is either true or it is false." If any amount of falsehood creeps into it, it so far deviates from the standard of perfect knowledge of the truth. Unity, therefore, is the very first principle of truth. Where is truth to be found ? Has God spoken His own ipse dixit? Where is His word to be found? The Protestant an- swers, in the Bible. The Catholic answers, in the Bible, only so far as that Bible is interpreted by the authority of God, invested in the living voice of the Church. Which of these propositions is true? Remember, it is a question of salvation, my dear chil- dren. Remember, that the Almighty God, as we have seen by the light of reason, has made the knowledge of the truth the natural means by which man is to approach Him; that, more- over, He has added to that light of reason His own express word, that the ignorance of the truth is in itself a sufificient rea- son for man's never beholding God. God has said this. He has said, " This is the will of God, that all men should be saved, and should come to the knowledge of the truth." Therefore, if they do not come to the knowledge of the truth, they cannot be saved. Thus, where it is said, " You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Therefore, where the knowledge of the truth does not exist, there is no freedom ; but in heaven all is freedom. Therefore, without a knowledge of the truth, as a rule, there is no salvation. Thus, where the apostle expressly says, " And if any man be ignorant, he shall be ig- nored," what does that mean ? It means that he shall be cast out of the thought, out of the mind of God. In other words, that he shall not be saved. It is therefore a question of salvation. Which of these two propositions is true : That the Bible alone, without note, and without the living voice to ex- plain it, holds the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth — the truth expounded, through its only channel, to man ; or that that Bible requires the exposition and the guardianship of a voice authorized by the Almighty God to explain it? I answer, that the Bible alone cannot be the medium for giving divine truth in such a way as to make the knowledge of that truth the salvation of men, for the simple reason that truth lies 452 No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. in the Bible without note or comment, without the voice of the Church to explain it. In the truth in the Bible alone lies the first essential attribute of truth, which is unity. The Episco- palian sees in the text of the Bible, Protestantism. The Calvin- ist sees in the same text, Calvinism, and Calvinism means some- thing very different from Protestantism. The Baptist, the Methodist, or any other ist, sees his own view there. The Unitarian comes and sees his view. The Voltaires and the in- fidels come, and they see in the Bible something that tells them that there is no God. Are they all right, or are they all wrong? Can they all be right ? When Martin Luther said that the Bible proved to him that faith was the element of justification alone without good works — when he refused to admit good works into the scheme of God, for the justification of men — he con- tradicted a view that was taken from that Bible for fifteen hundred years without a dissenting voice. Can the Bible, then, be the only element — the only vehicle and channel of divine truth, out of which men justify the wildest things that can come into their heads ? It will not do to say : *' Ah ! they justify their opinions by distorting texts of the Bible, and put- ting false interpretations upon it. The very fact of their doing this, does it not exhibit that the Bible alone does not represent that eternal and essential unity that belongs to the truth ? Wherever the truth is, it is one ; where God gave the truth, He gave one truth. Nay, more, if God demands the knowl- edge of the truth. He demands the knowledge of the one truth. Therefore, He must have given a sufficient means of arriving at the knowledge of the one truth. Men who have the Bible alone arrive at twenty different versions of the truth, and each one calls his own idea the truth. Therefore, the Almighty God did not sufficiently provide for the wants of man's salva- tion when He left that Bible to the exposition of every wild, and perhaps fanatical, reader who reads it. The principle on which I speak has had a fair trial. This book has been in the hands, for three hundred years, of the generations of men who threw off the authority of the Church, and refused to hear her explaining voice. They said : " We have the Bible, and that is sufficient for us." So, for three hundred years, they have tried the experiment in the world : the Bible alone was sufficient. Has that experiment been a success or a failure ? Truth is No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. 453 one. Have men, acting upon that experiment and on that principle — have they arrived at unity ? No ! Up to the time of the declaration of Protestantism, three hundred years ago — up to the time that that form of religion sprung up, which was based upon the Bible alone, rejecting any living infallible au- thority to explain it — up to that time, whatever Christianity might have been, it meant but one thing ; the people, at any- rate, were not divided. It may be said, but falsely said, that they were taught superstition ; it may be said that they were taught priestcraft — thousands of such charges may be made ; but one thing cannot be said — that they were divided. Chris- tianity meant one idea, one thought, one thing, until the prin- ciple came in that the Bible alone was a sufficient guide into the truth of God which is necessary for salvation. Since the day that that principle was adopted, sects have gone on and multiplied themselves until their name has become legion. And every high-minded but honest Protestant, as well as Catholic, deplores the wretched divisions that have sprung up in religion, exposing Christianity by the multiplying forms in which it pro- pounds itself to the derision of the infidel world, weakening the cause and practically annihilating the evidence. A Protestant missionary goes into China ; he preaches the Protestant re- ligion, but he has scarcely finished his sermon when a Baptist missionary comes and tells the heathen that this man is wrong, and that he is the true exponent of the faith ; scarcely has he finished when a missionary of the Society of Friends contradicts them both. If there were no other reason for that man's re- jection of the whole thing, the very fact of the contradictory evidences and the multiplied forms being put before him is sufficient to shake his faith in Christianity and even in all religion. - The Catholic says, I believe that every word in the Bible is the revealed truth of God ; I believe that the sources of infor- mation of everything recorded there came from heaven ; I be- lieve that the Bible contains the truth and nothing but the truth. This is the faith of the Catholic Church. Let no man believe that we think little of the Scriptures. The Scriptures contain the truth and nothing but the truth ; but they do not contain the whole truth. Nowhere does the Bible contain the assertion that it contains the whole truth. Nowhere does the 454 ^'^ Salvation outside the Catholic Church. Bible make the assertion that it may be read with safety as a certain guide of the truth, without a commenting, authoritative voice to explain it ; but it distinctly tells us that it does not contain the whole truth. And it distinctly tells us that it was never intended to be the sole and solitary guide of religious faith. " Many other things did Jesus," says St. John, "which are not written in this Book ; for if they were all written, the world, I imagine, could not contain the books that would be required to record them." Here is the Book telling me dis- tinctly : " Read me ; I am the Word of God ; but I warn you beforehand that the Son of God did many things that are not written in my pages." That is enough for me ; that distinctly tells me that every action of Him which was of infinite impor- tance is not recorded in the Bible. Again, the Bible expressly tells me that there are many things in the writings of some of the inspired authors — for in- stance, St. Paul — " that are difficult to be understood," " and that the unstable and unwary wrest to their own destruction." The Bible expressly tells me that Jesus Christ, when He came from heaven to save mankind — that the very first thought of His mind of infinite knowledge and love was, to create and to found a Church, a living Church, an in- fallible Church, a divinely-guided Church ; and that every man that wished to know the truth, was to hear the voice of that Church, and in hearing it, was to receive the faith that comes through it from God. Then He founded it — a Church ; that is, a teaching body. " Go ! " He says to the apostles, "Go ! teach all the nations." " Go, you living men, and teach them ; you are the light of the world ; go out and tell the peo- ple everything that you have heard from Me ; and I will send My Spirit of divine truth upon you, which will recall to your mind everything that you have heard from Me. I will be with you, I will remain with you unto the consummation of the world to lead you into all truth." " Behold, I am also with you until the end of time ! " A speaking Church. St. Paul took good care to tell us that it is not by reading the Bible that a man gets divine faith ; that is to say, the knowledge which is necessary for salvation. "Faith," he says, "comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." But how shall they hear unless they have a preach- No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. 455 er ? Therefore, the word of God, which creates faith, comes by the voice of the preacher, and that preacher must be sent by a divinely commissioned Church, and that Church that preaches must be sent from God. For he tells us in the same place, " For how shall they preach unless they be sent ? " The word of that preacher must be the infallible word of God, otherwise it can never create that divine knowledge which is the truth as it lies in the mind of God. It never can create that faith in the mind and heart of man. A preacher must not be an individual merely coming and securing the trust which the people must put in him for the sanctity of his life, for the greatness of his learning, and the persuasiveness of his elo- quence. No! no! He must come with a divine commission, and that commission must have the seal of God upon it. He must be, in a word, the mouthpiece of the speaking, living, in- fallible Church of Jesus Christ — and if we do not hear her voice, this teaching Church, then our divine Lord says to us in sor- rowful accents : " He that will not hear My Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican." For, as St. Paul tells us, "The Church is the pillar and ground of truth " — the Church, of whom the same apostle says: "Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself up for her, that He might present her to Him- self all holy, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," but a perfectly holy Church. If there be one word in Scrip- ture more emphatic than any other, it is the guarantee that Christ our Lord gives, that that Church will never teach a lie. For He says to Simon Peter : " Thou art Cephas, and upon this Cephas I will build My Church." Speaking in the Syriac, that word Cephas means rock ; " And on this rock I shall build My Church," and I promise you " that the gates of hell shall never prevail against it." If the Church founded on Cephas — a rock — ever taught, or ever could teach, the people a lie, and say, " that is the truth of God," the gates of hell would have prevailed, and Christ's eternal wisdom would have been stulti- fied. No ! If we have to wait until the Catholic Church, tracing her priests in unbroken succession to the voice of Peter, and from the voice of Peter to the voice of Christ, if we have to wait until she propounds to us a lie, we shall have to wait until the Son of God, the Eternal Truth, breaks the promise of giving us the truth in the oath that He swore. 456 No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. My beloved, where do we find unity except in the Catholic Church ? If unity and oneness of God be the essence of truth, where do we find it except in the Catholic Church ? There may be unity in the profession of a falsehood ; but there can be no disunion in the profession of a truth. Unity is not of necessity truth ; but truth of necessity is unity. Wherever, therefore, there is division, there is the seal and the sign that the truth cannot be there. Now, I ask you, where is this unity to be found ? The Catholic Church has existed for eighteen hundred and seventy years. She has during that time con- verted many nations. Up to three hundred years ago, wher- ever the Christian faith was professed, her authoritative voice was acknowledged. Schisms broke out from time to time, but no heresy was propounded. But, during that long course of years, there is not a single doctrine of the Catholic Church that has not been from time to time disputed and de- nied. Sometimes an emperor, very powerful, able to protect the Church, and able to persecute her, would demand of her some portion of her teaching, as the iconoclastic Emperors of Con- stantinople demanded that the Pope and bishops of the Church should pull down the images from their places around the altars of the temples ; at other times learned men rose up in the pride of their intellect, contradicting the Church. Nestorius denied that the title of the mother of Jesus Christ was the " Mother of God." Arius denied that Christ our Lord, the Eternal Word, was consubstantial with the Father. Pelagius, another learned man, denied the necessity of divine grace, teaching that a man might save his soul without any grace or help from God, and so on. Every mystery, every doctrine, from time to time, has been disputed. Sometimes whole nations arose as one man and declared that they no longer believed this, that, or the other doctrine of the Catholic Church. The moment the Church of God heard the voice, whether it was of the emperor ; whether it was of the bishops ; whether it was of the learned professor ; whether it was of the whole nation, the one and the only answer that the Church gave was: "You must believe all that I teach or else you must depart from me and follow your own advice." They turned round and said : " But we will persecute you." The Church said : " I can suffer ; I can bleed ; I can die ; but I No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. 457 cannot change a letter, or tittle, or iota of the unity of the truth of God." Whole nations left her, and she beheld their departure, weeping ; but what could she do ? The Catholic Church told the Arians of the fourth and fifth centuries ; she told the Nestorians of the following centuries ; she told the Donatists, the Wickliffites, and the Protestants of Germany and of England, that the moment that they departed from her they lost the truth, and in losing the truth they lost their salvation. Now, my friends, may I again ask the question : Since the days that these nations departed from the Catholic Church, has not the element of division, the element of insincerity, the sub- stitution of mere opinion for knowledge, has it not been ever the mark upon them of the truth, that if unity of thought, unity of exposition, unity of sentiment, be of necessity the nature of the truth, that truth cannot be amongst them ? The truth, wherever it is, the truth of God, must be knowledge and not opinion. This is another great error of our day. Men say that religious opinion is religion. Nothing is more common than to hear of the religious opinions of such and such a one, and, in fact, religious opinion has become one of the cant phrases of our day. Religious opinion means nothing, there is no room for it. Either God has revealed a thing or He has not. If He has revealed it, it is no longer a matter of opinion ; it is a mat- ter of positive knowledge. I must know the truth, and not be looking for it : I must have it, and not be groping for it. This was the word of the Saviour: ''You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." And the very first principle of that spirit of truth that came at once upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost, was that it was knowledge, and not mere opinion. I have a great respect, my dear friends, for every form of re- ligious opinion ; I know how faithfully and sincerely they are professed by many amongst our fellow-creatures ; I have a great respect for the simplicity and the fervor that take up these re- ligious opinions ; but as far as they are an expression of faith, I have no respect at all for them. Because, faith is knowledge coming from God — coming from the Authority that cannot err. Every natural truth that we are acquainted with may be ad- mixed with some error. The speculations of the astronomer, 458 No Salvatioji outside the Catholic Church. the very conclusions of the mathematician, may be subject to error ; but the things that God teaches are eternal, unchange- able truth, and the knowledge they produce is certain as is the knowledge of the Almighty God Himself. Where is this certainty of knowledge, except in the Catholic Church ? Take any one of the doctrines revealed in the Scrip- ture, take one of the great truths that are laid down there, look outside of the Catholic Church, and you will find them bandied about from hand to hand, treated as mere speculations, as mere conjectures. You meet one man, and he tells you : "Well, you know, my view of that passage of Scripture has always been so and so ; " and another time you meet one of his fellow-Protest- ants, who says to you : " I never could quite coincide with such a view of that passage ; my view is so and so." And so we find it all confusion, shifting, and speculation, and correcting the ideas of yesterday by those of to-day. Was it for this that the Almighty God has declared that we should have knowledge ; knowledge fixed and firm in the in- tellect as the adamantine rock ; knowledge admitting of no cavil, no doubt ; knowledge going straightly and simply to God, taking the word as it fell from the lips of God in the first mo- ment when He inspired it? It is in no spirit of bitterness that I say it, my friends ; it is certainly in no offensive spirit I tell you of it. But, tell me, is it not a perpetual change outside the Catholic Church? Just look at it. For three hundred years the Church of England sang the Athanasian Creed in her service. That creed contains three tremendous truths, namely : the truth of the Eternal and Divine Trinity; the truth of the Incar- nation of the Second Person of the Trinity, our divine Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ ; and, finally, the truth that the man who does not believe these two will go down to hell forever ! Now, that was sung as a profession of faith for centuries in the Protestant Church ; but at this moment, in England, they are moving heaven and earth to make the bishops and clergymen of the establishment leave out the Athanasian Creed altogether. They don't want to hear it any more, and they will succeed. You will see within the next twelve months that an act of Par- liament in England, signed by the Queen in council, will declare that the Athanasian Creed is no longer to be read in the Prot- estant churches. No longer are the ears of our separated No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. 459 brethren to be offended by being told that they must beh'eve in mysteries which no mind of man can comprehend. They do not want it; and w^hy? Because the Protestant mind of Eng- land — in a certain class which is largely spread among the peo- ple, a class that is represented in the newspapers, a class that has its learned essay writers, a class large and influential — refuses to accept the fact that the Son of God became man ; that He was incarnate of the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary, and was made man — the divinity of Jesus Christ. They don't want it ; they want to make out that He was no more than any ordinary man. They speak of Him as if He was no better than an ordinary man. They began at the Mother, three hundred years ago. They took exception to the Catholic veneration for the Blessed Virgin Mary, and said she was no more than an or- dinary woman ; they began with the Mother, and they have come to-day to touch her divine Son, and say that He was only a man. They compare Him with Plato and with Socrates, the philosophers ; they compare Him with our own Catholic saints. If I recollect truly the words that were reported to me, it was said, a very short time ago, by some distinguished man — a preacher of religion — that St. Francis of Assisi was a much finer and a much nobler character than our Lord Jesus Christ ! O Lord ! in Thy mercy forgive the man that said it ; for, truly, if he had known Thee, he never could have so blasphemed Thee ! There is no security or certainty of faith, there is no exist- ence or certainty of knowledge, except where the Church comes, instinct with the living voice of the Living God, that dwells within her, and says : this is the law, this is the truth ; heaven and earth shall pass away, but this word of God shall never pass away. Moreover, my friends, all Christianity is based upon our divine Lord Jesus Christ — the great corner-stone — " The only name under heaven given to man whereby he may be saved." And the intention of God is that no man can enter heaven except through our Lord Jesus Christ ; the only gate to heaven. No man can think that the Catholic Church teaches that there is any other gate to heaven except our Lord Jesus Christ. In the litany of the Blessed Virgin we call Her the Holy Mother of God and the Gate of Heaven ; it is only a figurative expression ; we mean by that that heaven was opened to man in Mary, on the day that she received into her virginal 460' No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. bosom the Son of God incarnate in her womb, and then earth possessed its God. But, in the sense of the salvation of man, there is only one gate of heaven, and that is Jesus Christ ; and the Scripture expressly tells us, that no man can enter heaven except through Him and in Him. Here is the saying of St. Paul : " No one ascends into heaven except He who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven." Are we all then excluded ? We are not, we are surely not, the sons of God ; we surely never came down from heaven. And does the apos- tle mean that we can never ascend into heaven because we never came down from heaven ? " No man," he says, " ascends into heaven except He who came down from heaven." Are we then excluded ? No ! St. Augustine explains it beautifully. No, we are not excluded, but the great fact is, that no man can as- cend into heaven unless he be taken by the hand and be lifted up by Him who came down from heaven. So that in ascending into heaven we ascend into the arms of Jesus Christ, our only means of ascending into that heaven. It follows, therefore, that just as there is no salvation without the knowledge of the truth, so there is no salvation without Jesus Christ. Has he defined where to find Him ? what we are to do with Him? what we are to let Him do with us, in order that He may be able to lift us up, in order that we may ascend into heaven with Him who came down from heaven? Has he laid down clearly and distinctly the conditions for this? For, see, we must find out what these conditions are ; we must do as he tells us and wishes, otherwise there is no salvation for us. No Christian man ever built up any hope of ever seeing the glory of God except in Jesus Christ. Thus, my friends, Christ our Lord has expressly said that He would do a certain thing ; that which He was about to do would place Him in the hands of His creatures, to make a certain use of Him, and thus fulfill His promise. He promised that He would remain with His creatures forever. Behold, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. He specified. He localized the place and manner of his remaining. When, at the Last Supper, He took bread and wine and by His own mighty and omnipotent word He changed the bread and wine into His own most Sacred Body and Blood — taking the bread. He said, " This is my Body ! " taking the wine. He breathed upon it and changed it and said, No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. 46 1 " This is my Blood, which shall be shed for many unto the re- mission of sin," — turning to His apostles He said, That change which I have done, you must do in commemoration of me. Then He solemnly declared, If any man desires to ascend into heaven he must eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. " He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me and I in him, and I will raise him up at the last day." Without this there is no salvation. Christ our Lord, who surely knows best what the conditions are for salvation, has laid down this injunction, " Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of His blood ye shall not have life in you." The Kingdom of Heaven and Salvation means Life Eternal. With- out this condition you shall not have life within you. There- fore, He said, "My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." Words could not be clearer; could not be more em- phatic. If, therefore, I wish to be saved, I must find where they are. O Lord Jesus Christ, not only must I find Thee, but I must make this use of Thee. I must eat of Thy flesh and drink of Thy blood, and only then can I build up my hope of salvation. Now, where is He? Where is He to be found? Enter the portals of a Protestant temple, ask the preacher in the pulpit. Yes, walk up through that church and you will find the preacher at his desk. Ask this simple question, " I am looking for the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, that I may eat and drink there- of, and so be saved ; have you it to give me ? " What answer would you get ? He would be obliged to say to you, like the an- gel on Easter morning to the three Marys, when they came to look for their Lord: Ah, seek not here the living amongst the dead. He is not here. He goes out into other churches and temples that profess to proclaim the glory of His name, and he receives the same answer. He crosses at length the thresh- old of the Catholic Church ; before the altar beams the lamp of living light that tells us some life is there. There, upon the altar, is the tabernacle, there are lights burning around it, and there in front of the altar is the commissioned priest saying to you, He that is here invites you, and says, " Come, come to me, and eat of the bread and drink of the wine that I have mixed for you ! " Only in the Catholic Church do we find the express conditions as expressly fulfilled. Now, I ask you, if the knowl- 4^2 No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. edge of the truth, not opinion, not research, if the knowledge of the truth, one undivided, unchanging and certain — if that be a necessary condition of salvation, and if, on the other hand, we do not find that truth thus united, thus represented, except in the Catholic Church, is it not perfectly true, is it not perfectly necessary to say, outside of the Catholic Church there is no salvation? If, on the other hand, union with Jesus Christ, and such a union • — a union which comes from taking Him as your food — be expressly laid down by Him as a necessity of salvation, then I ask you is it too much to say that outside of the Catholic Church there is no salvation? But I may be asked this question, "Is every one who is not a Catholic to be damned ? " Ah ! my friends, I do not come up on this altar to damn any man ; I follow my divine Lord and Master's word : " I am not come," He said, " to judge the world, but that the world might be saved by me." I am not here to condemn any man. The Church that commands me to speak, and honors me with the supreme honor of preaching her word, tells me at the same time, "Judge not, that thou mayst not be judged, for judgment is mine, saith the Lord." I have, from time to time, in lectures, said hard things about Henry VIII. and Oliver Cromwell. Speaking of them, I may have been understood, perhaps, to have said, surely they are lost. Well, no matter how strong my suspicion or my fear may be, no matter how I may be in my own mind influ- enced by a thousand historic prejudices, influenced perhaps by the living Celtic blood that flows in my veins, no matter how hardly I may have spoken, here, upon this altar, here, within these sacred walls, I assert that the Catholic Church condemns no man ; the individual she leaves to God, to His judgment. She only proclaims the truth that her message is to all men in every land and every clime ; that her message is the message of salvation to all men, and that the man who will not listen to her, who will harden his heart, steel his mind against her, that man is out of salvation, he has imperilled his eternal salvation. How many there are, my friends, who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ ; how many there are whom the Church's message has never reached. Shall they be condemned because they believe not? God forbid that I should assert it. They are in what is called " invincible ignorance," that is to say, igno- No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. 463 ranee that cannot be avoided. If a man never heard of a law, of the existence of that law, never was in a place where he could have heard of the existence of that law, that man, if he violates the law, surely he cannot be held accountable, as he knew nothing about it, he could not have any knowledge about it, circumstances were such that he really could not know of its existence, and, therefore, if he violated it, it was because he did not know it. Surely God and God's Church would not hold such a man accountable. What about those who hear the voice of the Catholic Church and who harden their hearts and their minds, who cling to their own prejudices and jaundiced views, who refuse the evi- dence and spurn the conviction put before them, saying, " No, I will never make my submission to these priests." Because the devil always tries to get up some slighting word or another, and calls it, " priestcraft," " Romanism," " Papistry," and so on, because he knows there is a good deal in a name. So they harden their hearts. Are they in invincible ignorance? My friends, again I say I will condemn no man ; but I do say that such a man is not in invincible ignorance. I say such a man is bound to pray, such a man is bound to beseech the God of light to illumine him, he is bound to prepare his heart and say, " If there are no graces in that which I believe, I wish to live for that Church of which yow have spoken, when you tell me, ' He that will not hear her voice let him be as a heathen and a pub- lican,' and if this Church which preaches in her name be the one infallible authority, then open my eyes, that I may behold it." My friends, I know many men doubting, fearing, thinking, almost convinced of the real presence of Jesus Christ in the blessed Sacrament, yet they don't become Catholics. Why? Because they don't pray. The apostles were out upon the angry waters of Genessareth's lake. As they were tossed to and fro they beheld in the distance a strange halo of misty light coming towards them, and becoming brighter as it approached, until, at length, they saw the outlines of a man ; until, in the very heart of that white light, they beheld the features of their Lord, and one said, " It is the Master ; " and then St. Peter said, " Lord, if it be Thou, command me to come to Thee." Jesus said, " Come." It is the duty of those who are outside the Catholic Church, doubting, struggling, inquiring, searching, 464 No Salvation outside the Catholic Church. fearing — it is their duty, when in the beaming white sacramental appearance of a morsel of bread, held up in the trembling hands of a priest, they see their Redeemer, I say it is their duty to say, " Lord, if it be Thou, command me to come to Thee ; " and hence, although it may sound hard, bigoted, and severe, yet the Catholic Church condemns, as I say, no man, and leaves the in- dividual to God ; but declares that he who is without her pale, and yet has not the plea of invincible ignorance, is without the way of salvation. And this she says because she must say it. It is not from any wish at all to condemn our fellow-creatures that we Catholics say this. We don't want to condemn ; we had much rather bless than curse ; but, my friends, we can- not say anything else. It is the Word of God ; it is the message of God. The Church would cease to be the messenger of God unless she deliver the message, and therefore it is that she is obliged to bear the stigma in the accusation of bigotry and of heartlessness, in this age of ours of false liberality and latitudi- narianism in religion. In this age of ours, which seems to think, kindly and generous- ly, that every man will be saved, it is all the same what you be- lieve or think, if you have only a general misty outline of the great truths of Christianity — even holding these in an uncertain grasp — all men will be saved ; there is no devil, no hell, no jus- tice among the attributes of an all-perfect God. It is the fashion of the age thus to speak, and the Church of God is obliged to stand before them and to bear their reproaches, and the stigma set upon her of persecution, and bigotry, and narrow-minded- ness. She cannot help it, because it is the message her divine Lord has put upon her lips to preach. Oh ! that all the nations would hear her voice. Oh ! that all her own children would open their ears to her sanctifying sacramental influence. Then, indeed, would the reign of religious peace begin upon the earth; then, indeed, would many a noble mind be set free from the harass- ing and incessant inquiry and doubt on matters of religion, and pursue with a wider scope, and a more intuitive perception, all the researches of every highest form of science upon this earth. Then, indeed, might the nations once more unite, disband their great armies, and proclaim that justice and not might or power alone, should be for the future the arbiter of their dissensions. Then, indeed, would a sacramental God walk abroad upon the No Salvatio7i outside the Catholic Church. 465 earth ; God's presence would be hailed by the admiring millions of the people. Then would Mary, His mother, be looked up to as the very type of all that is purest in the maiden and most tender in the mother. Then, indeed, would the glory, found in comparatively few to-day, be given to all ; and all that I have been saying of the heroism, the strength of intellect, the faith, of my own race and of my own people, would be the common eulogy of all mankind. Shall the day dawn, O Thou who didst dawn upon the earth, and wast first beheld in the arms of Thy Virgin Mother ? Saviour, Lord, we treated Thee badly ; we nailed Thee to the cross ; for this we have wept our tears. Arise, O Son of Heaven ! Arise in all thy undivided light ! Arise in Thy pure and heavenly glory I Let Thy rising go forth unto the illumination of the Gentiles and of men, that all men may walk in Thy light, and that all, O Saviour Jesus Christ, may exult in the brightness of Thy glory ! 30 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. [Lecture delivered in the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, April 24, 1872.] Y FRIENDS: You are here, this evening, as an illus- tration of the old proverb, that a man can get used to anything. I have heard of a man who was seven times tossed by a mad ox, and he vowed he was tossed so often that he got to like it. The last time that I was in this great hall, when I looked up and saw the mass of friends that were around me, I confess that I was a little frightened. This evening I have got used to it ; I have also got used to your kindness; and I hope I shall never abuse it. We are assembled this evening, my dear friends, to con- template the greatest work of all the works that the Al- mighty God ever created — namely, " The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church." In every work of God it has been well observed that the Creator's mind shows itself in the wonderful harmony that we behold in all His works. There- fore, the poet has justly said that " Order is heaven's first law." But if this be true of earthly things, how much more does the harmony of God — in the order which is the very expression of the divine mind — come forth and appear when we come to contemplate the glorious Church which Christ founded upon this earth. The glorious Church, I call her, and in using those words I only quote the inspired Scriptures of God ; for we are told that this Church, which Christ, the Lord, established, is a glorious Church, without spot or wrinkle, or defect of any kind, but all perfect, all glorious, and fit to be what He intended her to be — the Immaculate Spouse of the Son of God. Now, that our divine Redeemer intended to es- The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. 467 tablish such a Church upon the earth is patent from the re- peated words of the Lord Himself; for it will appear that one of the strongest intentions that was in the mind of the Re- deemer, and one of the primary conceptions of His wisdom, was to establish upon this earth a Church, of which He speaks, over and over again, saying : "I will build my Church so that the gates of hell shall never prevail against it." " He that will not hear the voice of the Church, let him be as if he were a heathen or a publican." And so, throughout the Gospels, we find the Son of God again and again alluding to His Church, proclaim- ing what that Church was to be, and setting upon her the signs by which all men were to know her as a patent and self-evident fact among the nations of the world, until the end of time. And what idea does our Lord give us of His Church ? He tells us, first of all — and tells us over and over again — that His Church is to be a kingdom, and He calls it — " My Kingdom." And elsewhere, in repeated portions of the Gospel, He speaks of it as " The Kingdom of God." One time He says : " The Kingdom of God is like unto a city which was built upon the mountain-side, so that all men might behold it." And again : " The Kingdom of God is like unto a candle set upon a candle- stick, so that it might shed its light throughout the whole house, and that every one entering the house might behold it." And again : " The Kingdom of God is like unto a net cast out into the sea, and sweeping in all that comes in its way — both good and bad." And so, throughout, Christ always speaks of His Church as a kingdom that He was to establish upon this earth. When, therefore, any meditative, thoughtful man reads the Scriptures reverently, dispassionately, without a film of prejudice over his eyes, he must come to the conclusion that Christ, beyond all, founded a spiritual kingdom upon this earth, and that that kingdom was so founded as to be easily recognized by all men. Now, if we once let into our minds the idea that the Church of Christ is a kingdom, we must at once admit into the idea of the Church an organization which is necessary for every kingdom upon this earth. And what is the first element? I answer that the first element of a nation is to to have a head or ruler — call him what you will — elect him as you will. Is it a republic ? it must have a president. Is it a monarchy ? it must 468 The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. have its king. Is it an empire? it must have its emperor; and so on. But the moment you imagine a State or kingdom of any kind without a head, that moment you destroy out of your mind the very idea of a State united for certain purposes and governed by certain known and acknowledged ideas called laws. That head of the nation must be the supreme tribunal of the nation. From him, in his executive office, all subordinate offi- cers hold their power ; and even though he be elected by the people, and chosen from among the people, the moment he is set at the head of the State or nation, that moment he is the representative or embodiment of the fountain of authority. Every one wielding power within that nation must bow to him. Every one exercising jurisdiction within the nation must derive it from him. He, I say again, may derive it, even, from the choice of the people ; but, when he is thus elevated, he forms one unit, to which everything in the State is bound to look up. This is the very first idea and notion which the word State or kingdom involves. It follows, therefore, that, if the Church founded by Christ be a kingdom, the Church must have a head ; and, if you can im- agine a Church without a head, yet retaining its consistency, its strength, its unity, and its usefulness, for any purpose for which it was created, you can imagine a thing that it is impossible to my mind, or to the mind of any reasonable man, to conceive. Luther imagined it, when he broke up the nations of the earth with his Protestant heresy ; when he rent asunder the sacred garment of unity that girded the fair form of the holy Church, the Spouse of God. When he broke up the Church, he was obliged to retain the principle of headship. The Church of England had her head ; the Church of Denmark had her head ; that is to say, her fountain of jurisdiction, her ruling authority, her unity, the existence of which in all these States we see, with at least the appearance of religion — kept up the phantasm of a real Church. It is true, my friends, when you come to ana- lyze these different heads that spring up from the different Prot- estant Churches in the various countries of Europe, we shall find some amongst them, that I believe here, in America, would be called " sore-heads." Harry the Eighth was a remarkable •* sore-head." We next come to the question — Who is the head of the The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. 469 Church of Christ? Who is the ruler? Before I answer this ques- tion, my friends, I will ask you to rise in imagination to the gran- deur of the idea that fills the mind contemplating the unfathoma- ble wisdom of God, when He was laying the foundations and sink- ing them deeply into the earth — the foundations of His Church. What purpose had Christ, the Son of God, in view, that He should establish the Church at all? He answers, and tells us really, that He had two distinct purposes in view, and that it was the destiny of the Church, which He was about to found, to make these purposes known and carry them out, and with the extension of them to spread herself and be faithful unto the consummation of the world. What were these purposes ? The first of these was to enlighten the world and dispel darkness by the light of her teachings. Wherefore He said to His apostles: " You are the light of the world. Let your light so shine before men that all men may see you, and seeing you, may give glory to your Father, who is in heaven." " You are the light of the world," He says. " A man does not light a candle and put it under a bushel, but sets it upon a candlestick, that it may illumi- nate the whole house, and that all men entering may behold it. So I say unto you, you are the light of the world and the illumi- nation of all ages." This was the first purpose for which Christ founded His Church. The world was in darkness. Every light had beamed upon it, but in vain. The light of pagan philosophy — even the highest human knowledge — had beamed forth from Plato, and from the philosophers, but it was unable to penetrate the thick veil that overshadowed the intellect and the genius of man, and to illumine that intelligence with one ray of celestial or divine truth. The light of genius had beamed upon it. The noblest works of art this earth ever beheld were raised before the ad- miring eyes of the pagans of the world. But neither the pencil of Praxiteles, nor the chisel of Phidias, bringing forth the high- est forms of artistic beauty, were able to elevate the mind of the pagan to one pure thought of the God who made him. Every human light had tried in vain to dispel this thick cloud of darkness. The light of God alone could do it ; and that light came with Jesus Christ from heaven. Wherefore He said : " I am the Light of the world ; " and " in Him " says the Evan- gelist, " was Life, and the Life was the light of men." 470 The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. The next mission of the Church was not only to illumine the darkness, but to heal the corruption of the world, which had grown literally rotten in the festering of its own spiritual ulcers, until every form that human crime can take was not only es- tablished amongst men, but acknowledged amongst them — crowned amongst them ; not only acknowledged and avowed, but actually lifted up on their altars and deified in the midst of them ; so that men were taught to adore as a god the shameful impersonation of their own licentiousness, debauchery, and sin. Terrible was the moral condition of the world, when the hand of an angry God was forced to draw back the flood-gates of heaven and sweep away the corruption which prevailed through all flesh, until the spiritual God beheld no vestige of His resemblance left in man ! Terrible was the corruption when the same hand was obliged once more to be put forth ; and down from the heaven of heavens came a rain of living fire, and burned up a whole nation because they were corrupt ! Terrible was the corruption when the Almighty God called upon every pure-minded man to draw the sword in the name of the God of Israel, and smite his neighbor and his friend, until a whole nation was swept away from out the twelve tribes of Israel! Christ was sent out as our head ; and He came and found the world one festering and corrupt ulcerous sore; and He laid upon it the saving salve of His mercy, and declared that He was the purifier of society ; and to His disciples He said : " You are not only the life of the world, to dispel its darkness, but you are the salt of the earth, to heal, and sweeten, and to preserve a corrupt and fallen nature." This is the second great mission of the Church of God — to heal with her sacramental touch, to purify with her holy grace, to wipe away the corruption, and to prevent its return by lay- ing the healing influence of divine grace there. This is the mission of the Church of God — which was Christ's — to be unto the end of time the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Now, from this twofold office of the Church of God, I argue that God Himself — the God who founded her, the God who established her in so much glory and for so high and holy a purpose, the God who made her and created her. His fairest and most beautiful work — that He must remain with her, and The Const it 7it ion of the Holy Catholic Church. 471 be her true head unto the end of time. And why? Who is the Hght of the world? "I am," says Christ. Who is the purifier of the world ? "I am," responds the same Christ. If, then, thou, Christ, be the purifier of the earth and the light of the world, tell us, O Master, can the light of grace or purity come from any other source than Thee? He answers: "No; the man who seeks it in any but in Me, finds for his light, dark- ness, and for his healing, corruption and death. The man who plants upon any other soil than mine, plants indeed ; but the Heavenly Father's hand shall pluck out what he plants." Christ, therefore, is the true Head of His Church, the abiding Head of His Church, the unfailing, ever-watchful Head of His Church, and is as much to-day the Head of the Church as He was eighteen hundred years ago. Christ, to-day, is the real Head, the abiding Head. He arose from the dead after He had lain three days in darkness. He had said to His apostles : I am about to leave you ; but it will only be for a little ; a little while and you shall not see Me any more ; but after a very little while you shall see Me again. But I 'will not leave you orphans ; I will come to you again, and I will remain with you all days unto the consummation of the world. Oh ! my friends, what a consoling thought, this unfailing promise of the words of the Redeemer ! Oh ! what a consola- tion has this world in Him, who said : " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall never pass away ; " "I am with you all days, unto the consummation of the world." And how is He with us? Is He with us visibly? No. Do we behold Him with our eyes? No. Do we hear His own imme- diate voice? No. Have any of you ever seen or heard Him, immediately and directly, as John the Evangelist saw Him when He was upon the cross ; as Mary heard Him when He said to her: " I am the resurrection and the life "? No. Yet He founded a visible kingdom — a kingdom which was to be set upon the earth, as a candle set upon a candlestick. Therefore, if He is at the head of that kingdom — if He is to preside over it — if He is to rule and govern it, a visible kingdom. He must show Himself visibly. This He does not. In His second and abiding coming He hides Himself within the golden gates of the Tabernacle ; and there he abides and remains ; but when it was a question of governing His Church, 472 The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. Christ our Lord Himself appointed a visible head. And who was this? He called twelve men around Him ; He gave them power and jurisdiction ; He gave them the glorious mission of the apostles ; He gave them a communication of His own Spirit; He gave them inspiration; He breathed His Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, upon them ; and He took one of the twelve, and He spoke to one man three most important words. They were meant for that one man alone ; and the proof is that on each occasion when Christ spoke to them, He called the twelve men around Him, and He spoke to that one man alone in the presence of the other eleven, and that there might be eleven witnesses to the privileges and the power of the one. Who was that one man ? St. Peter. St. Peter was chosen among the apostles ; St. Peter, not up to that time the one that was most loved, for John was " the dis- ciple whom Jesus loved ; " St. Peter, who, more than any of the others, was reproved by His Lord, in the severest terms ; St. Peter, who, more than any of the others, who were faithful, showed his weakness until the confirming power of the Holy Ghost came upon him ; Peter was the one chosen ; and here are the three words which Christ spoke. First of all. He said : " Thou art the rock upon whom I shall build my Church." Christ heard the people speaking of Him, and He said : ** Whom do they say I am ? " and the apostles answered : " Lord, some of them say you are Jeremiah, and some of them say you are John the Baptist, and some say you are a prophet." Then Christ asked them, solemnly: "Whom do you say I am?" Down went Peter on his knees, and cried out : " Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God." Then Christ our Lord said to him: " Bless- ed art thou, Simon, son of John, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father, who is in heaven. And I say to thee that thou art Cephas, and upon this rock I will build my Church." The man who denies to Peter the glorious and wonderful privilege of being the visible foundation under- lying the Church of God, and upholding it, is untrue to Christ, the Head of the Church. The second word the Son of God spoke to Peter, was this : "To thee, O Peter," he says, in the presence of the others, "To thee, O Peter, will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound in The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. 473 heaven." He gave His promise to them all, but to Peter, singly, he said : " To thee do I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; " that is, the supreme power over the Church. On another occasion Christ our Lord spoke to Peter, and the others were present, and He said to him : " Simon, Simon, the devil has asked for thee, that he might sift thee as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not ; and thou, being confirm- ed, confirm thy brethren." Now, any man who denies to Peter, in the Church, that eternal kingdom that is never to come to an end, and to Peter and his successors, the power over his brethren, to confirm them in the faith which shall never fail — in the faith which was the subject of the prayer of the Son of God to His Father — any man who denies this supremacy of Peter, gives the lie to Jesus Christ. On another solemn occasion the Son of God spoke to Peter, when He was preparing to bid His apostles and disciples a last farewell. They had seen Him crucified ; they had seen Him lie disfigured, mangled, in the silent tomb. From that tomb, with a power which was all His own, He rose, like the lightning of God, to the heavens, sending from before Him, howling and shriek- ing, all the demons of hell, conquered and subdued. Now, His apostles were gathered together. Suddenly a flash lights up the heavens, and He appears in their midst. Then He goes straight to Peter, and He says: "Simon Peter, do you love Me more than all these ? " Peter did not know what He meant, and he said: "Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love You." A second time, after a pause, the Son of God said : " Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more than these .'' " Peter said : " Lord, Thou knowest I love Thee." Another awful pause, and a third time He raised His voice, and, letting the majesty of God flash out from Him, He says: " Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me more than these ? " And then Peter, bursting into tears, said : " Lord, Thou knowest all things ; Thou knowest I love Thee." Then said the Redeemer : " Feed My lambs ; Feed My sheep," Elsewhere, the same Redeemer had said : " There shall be one fold and one shepherd ; " and He laid His hand on the head of Peter, and said : " Thou art Peter, the son of John, be thou the shepherd of the one fold ; feed My lambs ; feed My sheep." He who denies, therefore, to Peter, and to Peter's successor, whoever he is, the one headship, the one office of shepherd in 474 l'^^^ Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. the one fold of God, gives the lie to Jesus Christ, the God of truth. The day of the Ascension came. For forty days did Christ remain discoursing with His apostles, instructing them concern- ing the kingdom of God. And when the forty days were over, he led them forth from Jerusalem, into the silent, beautiful Mountain of Olives, and there, as they were gathered around Him, and He was speaking to them and telling them of things concerning the kingdom of God — that is, the Church — slowly, wonderfully, majestically, they beheld His figure rise from the earth ; and as it arose above their heads it caught a new glory and splendor that was shed down upon it from the broken and the rent heavens above. They followed Him with their eyes. They saw Him pass from ring to ring of light. Their ears caught the music of the nine choirs of heaven, of millions of angels, who, from the clouds, saluted the coming Lord. They strained their eyes and their hands after Him. They lifted up their voices, saying, as they did of old to Elias : "Oh! Thou chariot of Israel, and its charioteer ! wilt Thou leave us now and abandon us forever ? " And from the clouds that were surrounding Him He waved to them His last blessing; and their streaming eyes caught the last lustre and brightness of His figure, as it disappeared in the empyrean of heaven, and was caught up to the Throne of God. Then an angel flashed into their presence and said : "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye here looking up to heaven? This Jesus, who is taken up into heaven, shall so come as you have seen Him going into heaven." And the eleven disciples bent their knees to Peter, the living representative of the supremacy, the truth, and the purity of Jesus Christ. Henceforth the life of Peter, and of Peter's successors, became the great leading light around which, and toward which, the whole history of the world revolved. It became the central point to which everything upon this earth must tend ; because,in the de- signs of God, the things of time are but preparation for the things of eternity ; and Peter, in being the representative and viceroy of the son of God upon earth — in the external headship and government of the Church — was the only man who came near- est to God, who had most of God in him, and most of God in his power — in the distribution of His grace, in the attributes / The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. 475 that belong to the Saviour — and, consequently, became the first, and highest, and greatest of men, and the only man that was necessary in this world. For many long and weary years Peter labored in his Master's cause, watering the way of his life with the tears of an abiding sorrow, because, in an hour of weakness, he had denied Jesus Christ ; until, at length, many years after the Saviour's ascen- sion into heaven, an old man was brought forth from a deep dungeon in Rome. There were chains upon his aged limbs, and he was bowed down, with care and austerity, to the very earth. The few white hairs upon his head fell upon his aged and drooping shoulders. Meekly his lips moved as in prayer, while he toiled up the steep, rugged side of one of the seven hills of Rome. And when he had gained the summit, lo ! as in Jerusalem, many years before, there was a cross, and there were three nails. They nailed the aged man to that cross, straining his time-worn limbs, until they drove the nails into his hands and feet. And then, when they were about to lift him, a faint prayer came from his lips, and the crucified man said: " There was One in Jerusalem whose royal head was lifted towards heaven, upon a cross. And He was my Lord and my God, Jesus Christ. I am not worthy," he said, " to be made like Him even in suffering; and, therefore, I pray you that you crucify me with my head towards the earth, from which I came." And so, thus elevated, he died ; and the first Pope passed away. For three hundred years Pope succeeded Pope. Peter had no sooner left the world than Linus took his sceptre and gov- erned the Church of God. Though down in the catacombs of Rome, he governed the Church of God ; every bishop in the Church, every power in the Church, recognized him and obeyed him as the representative of God — the living head, the earthly viceroy, of the invisible but real Head — Jesus Christ. For three hundred years Pope after Pope died, and sealed his faith in the Church of God with a martyr's blood. And then, after three hundred years of dire persecution, the Church of God was free, and she walked the earth in all the majesty and purity of her beauty. In the fifth century, the Roman Empire yet preserved the outward form of its majesty and power. All the nations of the 47^ The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. earth bowed to Rome. All the conquered peoples looked to Rome as their master, and as the centre of the world ; when, suddenly, from the forests and snows of the North, poured down the Huns, the Goths, and Visigoths, in countless thou- sands and hundreds of thousands. The barbarian hordes sallied from their fastnesses, and, led by their savage kings, broke in pieces the Roman Empire, and shattered the whole fabric of pagan civilization to atoms. They rode rough-shod over the Roman citizens and their rulers, burned their palaces, and de- stroyed their cities, leaving them a pile of smouldering ruins. Every vestige of ancient pagan civilization and power, glory, and art, and science, went down and disappeared under the tramp of the horses of Attila. One power alone stood before these ruthless destroyers ; one power alone opened its arms to receive them ; one power arrested them in their career of blood and victory ; — and that power was the Catholic Church. " In that day," says a Protestant historian, " the Catholic Church saved the world, and out of these rude elements formed the foundation of the civilization, the liberty, and the joy which is our portion in this nineteenth century." In the meantime, Rome was destroyed. The fairest prov- inces of Gaul, Spain, Italy, and Germany were overrun by the barbarians, and the people oppressed. Fathers of families were cut off, hearth-fires extinguished, and the blood of the young ravished maiden and of the weeping mother was wantonly shed. The people, in their agony, cried out to the only man whom the barbarians respected, whom the whole world recognized as something tinged with divinity — the Pope of Rome. The cry of an anguished people went forth from end to end of Italy ; and in that ninth century the cry was, "Save us from ruin ! Cover us with the mantle of your protection ! Be thou our monarch and king! and then, and then only, can we expect to be saved." Then did the Pope of Rome clothe himself with a new power, independent of that which he had received already, and which was recognized from the beginning — namely, that temporal power and sovereignty, that crown of a monarch, that place in the council-chambers of kings, that voice in the guidance of na- tions, and in the influencing of the destinies of the material world, which, for century after century, he exercised, but which we, in our day, have seen him deprived of by the hands of those The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. 477 who have plucked the kingly crown from his aged and venera- ble brow. How did he exercise that power ? How did he wear that crown? What position does he hold, as his figure rises up before the historical vision of the student, looking back into the past, and beholding him as he passes amongst the long file of kings and warriors of the earth ? Oh, my friends, no sword dripping with blood is seen in the hands of the Pope King; but only the sceptre of justice and of law. No cries of a suffering and afflicted people resound about him, but the blessings of peace and of a delighted and consoled world surround him. No blood follows, floating in the path of his progress. That path is strewn with the tears of those who wept with joy at his approach, and with the flowers of peace and of contentment. He used his power — and history bears me out when I say it — the power which was providentially put into his hands, by which he was made not only a king among kings, but the first recognized monarch in Christendom ; the king highest among kings : the man whose voice governed the kings of the earth, convened their councils, directed their course, reproved them in their errors, and restrained them from shedding the blood of their people, and from the commission of every other injustice ; — all these powers he used for the good of God's people. He used that power for a thousand years for purposes of clemency, of law, of justice, and of freedom. When Spain and Portugal, in the zenith of their power, each commanding mighty armies, were about to draw the sword and devastate the fair plains of Castile and Andalusia, the Pope came in and said : " Mighty kings though you be, I will not permit you to shed the blood of your people in an unnecessary war." When Philip Augustus of France, at the height of his power — when he was the strong- est king in Christendom — wished to repudiate his lawful wife, and to take another one in her stead, the injured woman ap- pealed to Rome ; and from Rome came the voice of Rome's king, saying to him : " O monarch, great and mighty as thou art, if thou doest this injustice to thy married wife, and scanda- lize the world by thine impurity, I will send the curse of God and of His Church upon you, and cut you off like a rotten branch from among the community of kings." When Hen- ry VIII. of England wished to put away from him the pure and high-minded and lawful mother of his children, because his 47^ The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. licentious eye had fallen upon a younger and fairer form than hers, the Pope of Rome said to him : " If you commit this iniquity ; if you repudiate your lawful wife ; if you set up the principle that because you are a king you can violate the law ; if no power in your own country is able to bring you to account for it, my hand will come down upon you ; and I will cut you off from the communion of the faithful, and fling you, with the curse of God upon you, out upon the world." And I say that in such facts as these — and I might multiply them by one hundred — the Pope of Rome used the temporal sovereignty and his kingly power among the nations in establishing the sacred cause of human liberty. I speak of human liberty — I speak of liberty ; I thank my God that I am breathing the air in which a free man may speak the language of freedom. I have a right to speak of freedom ; for I am the child of a race that for eight hundred years have been martyred in the sacred cause of free- dom. Never did a people love it, since the world was created, as the children of Ireland, who enjoy it less than any other na- tion. I can speak this night, but rather with the faltering voice of an infant, than with the full swelling tones of a man. For I have loved thee, O Mother Liberty. Thy fair face was veiled from mine eyes from the days of my childhood. I longed to see the glistening of thy pure eyes, O Liberty ; I never saw it until I set my foot upon the soil of glorious young Columbia. And there, rising out of this great Western Ocean, like Aphro- dite of old — like Venus from the foam of the rolling billows — I beheld the goddess in all her beauty ; and as a priest as well as an Irishman, I bowed down to thee. But what is liberty ? Does it consist in every man having a right to do as he likes? Why, if it does, it would remind one of the liberty that a man took with another man in Ireland. He took the liberty to go into the man's house, and to sit down without being asked. And he took the liberty to make free with the victuals. And, at last, the man of the house was obliged to take the liberty of kicking him down stairs. No, my friends, this is not liberty. The quintessence of freedom lies, not in the power of every man to do what he likes, but that quin- tessence of freedom and liberty lies in every man having his rights clearly defined. No matter who he is, from the first to The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. 479 the last, from the humblest to the highest in the community, let every man know his own rights ; let him know what power he has and what privileges ; give him every reasonable freedom and liberty, and secure that to him by law ; and then, when you have secured every man's rights and defined them by law, make every man in the State, from the highest to the lowest, from the President down to the poorest — the greatest and the noblest, as well as the humblest and the meanest — let every man be obliged to bow down before the omnipotence of the law. A people that know their rights, a people that have their rights thus de- fined, a people that are resolved to assert the omnipotence of those rights — that people can never be enslaved. Now, this being the definition of liberty — and I am sure that it comes home like conviction to every man in this house — what is freedom ? That I know what rights I have, and that no man will be allowed to infringe them. Give me every reasonable right, and when I have these, secure them to me, and keep away from me every man that dare to impede me in the exercise of them, that I may exercise them freely, and that I may be as free as the bird that flies and wings its way through the air. Now, I ask you, who is the father of this liberty that we enjoy to-day ? — who is the father of it, if not the man who stood be- tween the barbarians, coming down to waste with fire and sword — to abolish the law, to abolish governments and destroy the peoples — the man that stood between those destroyers and the people, and said : " Let us make laws, and you respect them, and I will get the people to respect them." That man was the Pope of Rome. Who was the man that for a thousand years, as a crowned monarch, was the very impersonation of the princi- ple of law, but the Pope? Who was the man that was equally ready to crush the poor man and the rich man, the king and the people — to crush them by the weight of his authority — when they violated that law and refused to recognize that palladium of human liberty ? It was the Pope of Rome. Who was the man whose genius inspired and whose ability contributed to the foundation and the very institutions of the Italian Republics and of the ancient liberties of Spain in the early Middle Ages? Who was the man that protected them from the tyranny of the cruel barons, fortified in their castles ? He was the man whose house was a sanctuary for the weak and persecuted, who sur- 480 The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. rounded that house with all the censures and vengeance of the Church against any one who would violate its sanctity. Who labored, by degrees, patiently, for more than a thousand years, until he at length succeeded in elaborating the principles of modern freedom and modern society from out the chaotic ruin and confusion of these ages of barbarism? Who was he — the father of civilization — the father of the world ? History asserts, and asserts loudly, that he was the royal Pope of Rome. And now the gratitude of the world has been to shake his ancient and time-honored throne, and to pluck the kingly crown from his brow in his old age, after seventy years of usefulness and of glory, and to confine him, a prisoner, practically, in the Vatican palace in Rome. A prisoner, I say, practically ; for how can he be considered other than a prisoner, who cannot go out of his palace into the streets of the city, without hearing the ribaldry, the profanity, the obscenity, and the blasphemy, to which his aged, pure, and virgin ears had never lent themselves for a mo- ment of his life. Yes — he is dethroned, but not dishonored ; uncrowned, but not dishonored ; not uncrowned by the wish of his own people, I assert, for I have lived for twelve years amidst them, and I know he never oppressed them. He never drove them forth — the youth of his subjects — to be slaughtered on the battle-field, because he had some little enmity or jealousy against his fellow-monarch. He never loaded them with taxes, nor op- pressed them until life became too heavy to bear. Uncrowned, indeed, but not dishonored, though we behold him seated in the desolate halls of the once glorious Vatican, abandoned by all human help, and by the sympathy of nearly all the world ! But upon those aged brows there rests a crown — a triple crown — that no human hand can ever pluck from his brow, because that crown has been set on that head by the hand of Jesus Christ and by His Church. That triple crown, my friends, is the crown of spiritual supremacy ; the crown of infallibility ; the crown of perpetuity. In the day when Christ said to Peter : " Confirm now thy brethren ; feed My lambs ; feed My sheep ; to thee I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; " in that day He made Peter supreme among the apostles. His words meant this or meant nothing. Peter wielded that sceptre of supremacy ; and nothing is more clearly pointed out in the subsequent inspired history The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. 481 of the Church, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, than the fact that when Peter spoke every other man, apostle or otherwise, was silent, and accepted Peter's word as the last de- cision, from which there was no appeal. Never, in the Church of God, has Peter's successor ceased to assert broadly, emphati- cally, and practically, this primacy. Never was a council con- vened in the Catholic Church except on the commands of the Pope. Never did a council of bishops presume to sit down and deliberate upon matters of faith and morals except under the guidance, and in the presence of the Pope, either personally there, or there by his officers or legates ; never was a letter read at the opening of any council — and they were constantly sent to each succeeding council — that the bishops of the Church did not rise up and proclaim, " We hear the voice of the Pope, which is the voice of Peter ; and Peter's voice is the echo of the voice of Jesus Christ." Never did any man in the Church of God presume to appeal from the tribunal of the pope, even to the Church in council, without having the taint of heresy affix- ed to him., and the curse of disobedience and schism put upon him. For centuries it has been the recognized principle of the Catholic Church that no man can lawfully appeal to any tribunal from the decision of the Pope in matters spiritual, or in matters, touching faith and morality, because there is no tribunal to ap^ peal to, save that of God. He represents (as the visible head of the Church) the Invisible Head, who is none other than Jesus Christ. The consequence is, that the Church, as a kingdom,, like every other State, has its last grand tribunal, just like the House of Lords in England, just like the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington, from which there is no appeal. What follows from this ? There is no ap- peal from the Pope's decision. There never has been. Is the Church bound by that decision ? Certainly ; because the Church is bound in obedience to her head ; one man alone can command the obedience of the Church and the duty of submission ; and that man is the Pope, He has always commanded it ; and no one has dared to appeal from his decision, because, as I said before, he is the viceroy, the visible head of the Church, in whom, officially, is the voice of Jesus Christ present with His Church. What follows from this, my friends? If it be true that the 31 482 The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. Church of God can never believe a lie ; if it be true that she can never be called upon by a voice, that she is bound to obey, to accept a lie ; if it be true that nothing false in doctrine, or un- sound in morality, can ever be received by the Church of God, or ever be imposed upon her, for He who founded her said : " The gates of hell shall never prevail against My Church ; " then it follows that — if there be no appeal from the Pope's decision, but only submission on the part of the Church — it follows that the Pope, when he speaks as the head of the Church ; when he preaches to the whole Church ; when he bears witness to the Church's belief and the Church's morality; when he propounds a certain doctrine to her — upon a body that can never believe a lie, that can never act upon a lie, whose destiny it is to re- main pure in doctrine and in morality — pure as the Son of God who created her; it follows that when the Pope propounds that doctrine to the Church, he cannot propound a lie to her, or force that lie upon her belief. In plain words, the Pope may make a mistake. If he write a book, as a private author, he may put something in it that is not true. If he propound certain theories, unconnected with faith and morals, he may be as mis- taken as you or I. But the moment the Pope stands up before the holy Church of God, and says : " This is the Church's be- lief; this has been from the beginning her belief; this is her tradition ; this is her truth ; " then he cannot, under such cir- cumstances, teach the Catholic Church — the spouse of Jesus Christ — a lie. Consequently, he is infallible. I do not give the Church's infallibility as the intrinsic reason of Papal infallibility, but I say this : That if any reasoning man admits that Christ founded an infallible Church, it follows, of necessity, that he must admit an infallible head. It was but three or four days ago that I was disputing with an Unitarian minister, a man of intelligence and of deep learning, as clever a man, almost, as I ever met ; and he said to me : " If I once admitted that the Church was infallible, that she could not err, that moment I would have to admit the infallibility of the Pope ; for how on earth can you imagine a Church that cannot err, bound to believe a man that commands her to tell a lie ! It is impossible ; it is absurd upon the face of it." And so, my friends, it has ever been the belief and faith of the Catholic Church, that the Pope is preserved by the same spirit of truth that preserves the Church, The Co7istitiition of the Holy Catholic Church 483 But, you will ask me, " If this be the case, tell me how is it that it was only three or four years ago the Church declared that the Pope was infallible?" I answer that the Catholic Church cannot — it is not alone that she will not, but she cannot — teach anything new, anything unheard of. She cannot find a truth, as it were, as a man would find a guinea under a stone. She can- not go looking for new ideas and saying, " Ah ! I find this is new! Did you ever hear it before?" The Church cannot say that. She has from the beginning the full deposit of Cath- olic truth in her hand ; she has it in her instinct ; she has it in her mind; but it is only now and then, when a sore emergency is put upon her, and she cannot help it, that the Church of God declares this truth, or that, or the other, which she has always believed to be a revelation of God, and crystallizes her faith and belief and tradition in the prismatic form of dogmatic definition. Which of us doubts that the very foundations of the Catholic Church rest upon the belief that Christ our Lord, the Re- deemer, was the Son of God ? It is the very foundation-stone of Christianity. This has been the essence of all religion since the Son of God became man. And yet, my friends, for three hundred years the Catholic Church had not said a single word about the divinity of Christ ; and it was only after three hundred years, when a man named Arius rose up and said : " It is all a mistake ; the Son of Mary is not the Son of God. He who suf- fered and died on the Cross was not the Son of God, but a mere man ; " — then, after three hundred years, the Church turned round and said : " If any man says that Jesus Christ is not God, let that man be accursed as an infidel and a heretic." Would any of you say, " Then it seems that for three hundred years the Church did not believe it?" No, she always believed it ; it was always a foundation-stone. " If she did believe it, why didn't she define it ? " I answer, the occasion had not arisen. It is only when some invader, when some proud, heretical man, when some bad spirit manifests itself among the people, that the Church is obliged to come out and say — " Take care ! take care ! Remember this is the true faith," and then, when she declares her faith, it becomes a dogmatic definition, and all Catholics are bound to bow to it. Need I tell you, Irish maids, Irish mothers, and Irish men — need I tell you how St. Patrick preached of the woman whom he called Muire Mhathnire^ 484 The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. " Mary Mother," the woman whom he called the Virgin of God ? Need I tell you that the Church always believed that that woman was the Mother of God ? And yet you will be surprised to hear that at the time that St. Patrick preached to the Irish people, the Church had not yet defined it as an article of faith. It was only in the fifth century that the Church at Ephesus declared dogmatically that Mary was the Mother of God. Didn't she believe it before ? Certainly. It was no new thing ; she always believed it ; but there was no necessity to assert it till heretics denied it. Then, to guard her children from the error which was being asserted, she had to define her faith. Did not the Church always believe the presence of Christ transubstantiated in the Eucharist? Most certainly. All history tells us that she believed it. Her usages, her ceremo- nies, everything in her points to that divine presence as their life and centre, but it was sixteen hundred years before the Church defined it as an article of faith, then only because Calvin denied it. He was the first heretic to deny it. It was denied by Be- rengarius, a learned man in the thirteenth century ; but he im- mediately repented, and burned his book, and there was an end of it. But the first man to preach a denial of the real presence of Christ was Calvin. Luther never did. We must give the devil his due. The Church of God declared that Christ was present, and that the substance of bread and wine was changed into the body and blood of the Lord. And so, in our day, the Church for the first time found it necessary to declare that her head, her visible head, cannot teach her a lie. It seems such an outrage upon common sense to deny this — it seems so pal- pable and plain, from the very constitution of the Church, that it seems as if the definition of this dogma was unnecessary. Yet, in truth, it was to meet the proud, self-asserting, caviling, questioning spirit of our day that the Church was obliged to do this. It was because, guided by a wise Providence, scarcely knowing, yet foreseeing that which was to come — that the Pope was to be deprived of all the prestige of his temporal power ; that all that surrounded him in Rome was to be lost to him for a time ; that, perhaps, it was his destiny to be driven out and exiled, and a stranger amongst other men on the face of the earth, so that he might be unknown, lost sight of — that the Church of God, with her eight hundred bishops, rising up in the The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. 485 strength of her guiding spirit, fixed upon the brow of her Pon- tiff the seal of her faith in his infallibility, that wherever he goes, wherever he is found, whatever misfortunes may be his lot, he will still have that seal upon him which no other man can bear, and which is the stamp of the Head of the Catholic Church, And now, my friends, we come to the last characteristic of that spiritual tiara that rests upon the brow of Pius IX. It is the crown of perpetuity. There is no man necessary in this world but one. We are here to-day ; we die to-morrow, and others take our places. The kings of the earth are not neces- sary. Sometimes — the Lord knows — it would be as well if they did not exist at all. The statesmen and philosophers of the earth are not necessary. My friends, the politicians of to-day are scarcely a necessity. We might manage by a little engineering — and, above all, by a little more honesty — to get on without them. One alone was necessary to this world from the beginning, and that was He whom we be- hold upon the cross on Good Friday morning — He alone. Without Him we were all lost ; no grace, but sin ; no purity, but corruption; no heaven, but hell. He was necessary, from the beginning ; and the only man that is now neces- sary upon the earth is the man that represents Him. We cannot get on without him. The Church must have her head, and He who declared that the Church was to last unto the end of time will take good care to keep her head. He is under the hand of God ; and under the hand of the Ruler of the Church we can well afford to leave him. He will take good care of him. As a temporal ruler I assert still that the Pope is the only necessary ruler on the face of the earth. He is neces- sary, because, not establishing his power by the sword ; not preserving it by the sword ; not enlarging his dominions by the sword, or by injustice ; as a monarch, as a king, he represents the principle of right unprotected by might, and of justice and law, enthroned by the common consent of all the nations. In the day when might shall assume the place of right ; in the day when a man cannot find two square feet of earth on which to build a throne, without bloodshed and injustice; in that day, when it comes, the Pope will no longer be necessary as a tem- poral sovereign ; but pray God, that before that day comes, you 486 The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. and I be in our graves ; for when that day comes, if ever it comes, life will be no blessing, and existence upon this earth will be a curse rather than a joy. The Pope is necessary, be- cause some power is needed to stand between the kings and the people ; some power before which kings must bow down ; some voice recognized as the voice, not of a subject, not of an ordi- nary man, or an ordinary bishop ; a voice as of a king amongst kings ; some voice which will confound the jealousies, and pas- sions, and scandals of the rulers of the earth, which only serve as so many means to shed the blood of the people. Our best security is the crown that rests upon the brow of a peaceful king. Our best security is the crown that rests upon the brow of a man who was always and ever ready to shield the weak from the powerful, and to save to woman her honor, her dignity, her place in the family, her maternity, from the treach- ery, and the villainy, and the inconstancy of man ; to strip off the chains of the slave, and to prepare him before emancipation for the glorious gift of freedom. This power is the Pope's, and he has exercised it honestly and well. Protestant historians will tell you that the Pope was the father of liberty ; that he was the founder of modern civilization, and that the crown that was upon his head was the homage paid by the nations to his clemency, and mercy, and justice, and law. And therefore, he must come back; he must come and seat himself upon the throne again. The day will come for which all the Catholics in the world are desirous. And when that day comes, and not till then, justice shall be once more tempered by mercy; abso- lutism shall be once more neutralized by the constitutional lib- erties and privileges of the people. When that day comes, the people, on their side, will feel the strong yet quiet restraining hand enforcing the law ; while the kings, on their side, will be- hold once more the hated and detested vision of the hand of the Pontiff brandishing the thunders of the Vatican. That day must come, and with it will come the dawn of a better day, a day of peace. And I believe, even now, in this future day, in this coming year, we shall behold the Pope advancing at the head of all the rulers of the earth, and pointing out, with sceptred hand, the way of justice, of mercy, of truth, and of freedom. We shall behold him, when all the nations of the earth shall greet his return to power, shall greet his entry into The Constitution of the Holy Catholic Church. 487 the council chambers of their sovereigns, even as the Jews greeted the entry of Christ into Jerusalem, and hailed Him King. I behold him when, foremost among the nations that shall greet him in that hour, a sceptred monarch and crowned king, a temporal ruler, and, far more, a spiritual father — amongst these nations the mighty, the young, the glorious, and the free America will present herself. When this land — so mighty in its extent and the limits of its power, that it cannot afford to be anything else than Catholic — for no other faith can be com- mensurate with so mighty a nation — when this land, this glori- ous America, developing her resources, rising into that awful majesty of power that will shake the world and shape its desti- nies, will find every other religious garb too small and too mis- erable to cover her stately form, save the garb of the Catholic faith, the Christian garment in which the Church of God will envelop her ; — and she, strong in her material power, strong in her lofty intelligence, strong in that might that will place her at the front of the nations, shall be the first to hail her Pontiff, her father, and her king, and to establish him upon his ancient throne as the emblem and the centre of the faith and the glori- ous religion of a united people, whose strength — the strength of intellect — the strength of faith, the strength of material power — will raise up, before the eyes of a wondering and united world, a new vision of the recuperative power and majesty and great- ness of the Almighty God, as reflected in His Church. THE CATHOLIC VIEW OF EDUCATION. [Delivered in St. John's College, Brooklyn.] Y Friends : When a Catholic priest addresses a Cath- olic audience, the subject which he puts before them must always be of very great importance ; for the bur- den of his message is something touching the eternal welfare of the people, the glory of God, and the well-being of society. And, amongst the range of subjects which are thus opened to him — sacramentally and otherwise — there is not one so important as that upon which I am now to address you, namely : the subject of " Catholic Education." For it regards the young children ; and we know that, as the child is father of the man, so the society of children is the parent of the fu- ture of society which is to bloom and to flourish in every coun- try. Whatever affects children, affects society ; whatever influ- ences are brought to bear upon them in youth — which is the spring-time of life — those influences will produce that correla- tion, either for good or evil, for joy or sorrow, in the future of that society. Therefore it is that the question of education is the most important question of all. First of all, because the future depends upon it. When the farmer breaks his land in the spring ; when he runs the plough through it ; when he har- rows it — he has it all prepared ; but the greatest question of all is what kind of seed is he going to put into that soil ? For if he throw in infirm wheat, or bad seed, the harvest which he will reap, in three or four months' time, will be bad, because the seed was bad. If, on the other hand, he throw in good seed, he may reasonably look forward to an abundant and good harvest, because of the seed which he had sown. For an authority The Catholic View of Education. 489 more than human tells us: "Whatsoever a man shall sow, the same shall he reap." The question is most important, not only because the future depends upon it, but because any error committed in relation to this question of education is an error that can scarcely be reme- died. If the farmer sows bad seed — if he perceives, when the green blade is coming up, that his sowing is a failure ; if he per- ceives that the crop promised by the distant harvest will be a failure, because of the infirm wheat — it is too late for him, in the month of May or June, to discover his error. He cannot break ground again ; he cannot make that seed good ; he can- not, like him of old, order the sun to stand in the heavens, or bring back the genial time of spring upon the earth once more. So of education ; it is the sowing of the seed in the young mind — in the spring-time of life — in the days when the soil is prepared to receive that seed, when the heart is yet soft to re- ceive its impressions, before it hardens, and these impressions become indelibly fixed in the man's character by the ripening action of age. Whilst the mind is yet open to receive the treasures of knowledge — human and divine — if the seed that is thrown into that young mind and that young heart be bad or poisonous, most infallibly the future life of that man will be a bad harvest of the seed which it received in the spring. No man can expect an abundant harvest of grace, morality, or goodness unless he be provided in the beginning with a good education. Again, if there be any fault in the seed, if it is found to be of an inferior character — if it has been found to be largely mixed with bad grains — it is too late to make this discovery when the child has ripened into youth — when the youth has matured into manhood — for then principles are well established, and opinions are deeply and indelibly fixed. Again, the state of life is chosen by him ; he has found the road which he will go ; for wisdom — again more than human — tells us, it is too late to try to bend the tree when it has grown into goodly proportions. That work of bending must take place while it is yet a tender twig. This being the case, it follows that there is as necessity for education for all. Coming to this first aspect of this great question, I find the Redeemer of the world — the highest authority, because He is God — declaring that the first want of man is education, and 490 The Catholic View of Education. that all the evils that fill the world may be traced, as to their source, to the want of education. Christ, our Lord, my friends, was not only the Redeemer of the world, but he was also a prophet. The Scriptures speak of Him as a teacher. "Grace poured abroad from His lips ; therefore. Lord, let us bless Thee for ever." The Scriptures speak of Him as a prophet of this world. Moses says : " I will send unto thee a prophet of thine own nation, like unto me. Him shalt thou hear." Now, upon a solemn occasion. He was approaching the city of Jerusalem. The people went forth to meet Him, with acclamation and with joy, waving palm branches before Him ; a sign of their grati- tude ; for He who came to them was blessed, coming in the name of the Lord, Israel's king. And they cried, " Hosanna to the Son of David ! " But, in the midst of their joy, in the midst of their tumultuous gratitude, we read in the Gospel, that the Son of God — who saw the city — wept over it bitter tears. He said : " O Jerusalem, the time will come to thee when thine enemies shall encompass thee around, and straiten thee on every side. They shall cast a trench about thee, and beat thee flat with the ground ; and they shall not leave of thee a stone upon a stone." What was the cause, the sign, of this terrific prophecy? He immediately added the reason : " Because thou hast not known these things that are good for thee ; because of thy ignorance, O Jerusalem ; therefore shall all thine enemies come in upon thee." Is not this what He said? And to the Jewish priests: "Hear Me; ye are not of My priests," He says, "because you have rejected knowledge, I will reject you, and you will no longer fulfil the duty of the priesthood unto me ; because My people were silent ; because they have no knowledge." Elsewhere, the prophet says : " There is no truth, there is no knowledge of God in the land." He immediately added that, " Cursing, lying, infidelity, adultery, abound, because there is no knowledge of the Lord in the land." To cap the climax of all that the Omnipotent says on this point, we have the apostle and the inspired writer saying of the Jewish people, " If they had known, if they had knowledge, they never would have crucified the Lord of Glory." And, passing from the evi- dence of the grand words of Scripture — looking at this great fact simply with eyes of reason — do we not know, my friends, that there are two lives in man ; that man is a wonderful being in The Catholic View of Education. 491 whom two distinct natures meet. Almighty God has created in this world the mere animal and material nature — the animal, that reasons not ; that only feels and lives. The trees of the forest grow, and the flowers of the field ; they reason not, neither do they feel ; but they live. The animal object that is in man has not feeling, but only existence. On the other hand, God has created in heaven a higher order of purely spiritual beings, in the angels — like to Himself, in that they are pure spirits, in that they are utterly dissociated from everything gross, corporeal, and material ; in that they are pure intelligence, pure love, gifted with power and virtue over the will. Observe the difference of these two great ranks of creation — things that do not reason at all, that only feel ; and things that do not feel at all, but reason — the animal and the angelic. Then comes the man — the golden link in the creation of God ; in whom the inferior creation and the superior meet ; in whom the angelic soul, the prime spiritual essence, and the mere animal, the mere material thing, embrace. Therefore, man is a being made up of two natures ; the angelic — spiritual, God-like — which is his soul ; and the material — animal and brutal — which is his body. As these are elements, or sub-divisions, united in man's life, so, in the divine destiny, he lives, in his two-fold figure of life, the life of the body and the life of the soul — the life of the body, with its appetites, v/ith its passions, with its strong, almost ungovern- able desires, and with its animal propensities — the life of the soul, with its lofty aspirations to heaven, and, as regards its ultimate destiny, of everlasting glory. The body must be born ; so must the soul. The body must be fed ; so must the soul. The body must be exercised ; so must the soul. Now, the life of the soul, the exercise of the soul, the food of the soul, I assert, is knowledge ; and, therefore, it is as necessary for the soul as food for the body. The soul we are obliged to exercise as well as our inferior corporal nature. If you neglect either one or the other, its power fails. A little infant is born into this world ; if you neglect that child, or stint that child in its food, it grows poor, and puny, and weak. If you give that child no sustenance, it will die. And why ? Because it is mor- tal. The soul, on the other hand, when deprived of food, grows not at all ; it cannot die, because it is immortal ; but it can re- main in the same state of helplessness, of infancy, of imbecility, 492 The Catholic View of Education. in which it was in the first day of its birth, unless it receives ali- ment, strengthening, the food of instruction, education, and morality. Man differs from all other creatures in this world, in that he has been created by Almighty God to live in society. Every other animal on the face of this earth leads an isolated, solitary, and independent life, each one living for itself. Man alone is created for society ; to live for his fellow-men ; to enter into their cares ; to commune with them ; to take a portion of the public burden of society ; to move through life, not only for himself, but for those around him. Now, that state of society is rude that has no intercommunication of intellectual feeling : and the man who is utterly uneducated is incapable of fulfilling his obligations to society. Take a man utterly without instruc- tion, and what have you as far as regards society? He is in- capable of communicating with his fellow-man ; for all such com- munion of intellect or of power he is incapable, because he is utterly uninstructed. He is the greatest enemy of society. Why ? Because every power of his soul is left untouched. The angelic nature lies dormant within him. No gentle thought, no softening remembrance of heavenly things ever comes to move the unenlightened wretch. No generous impulse, no lofty pur- pose, no spirit of heroic sacrifice, is found in him. He is the enemy of society ; for he turns in upon his solitary self, in whom he finds no actual quality of good ; the very idea of moral good is a stranger to him, because of his benighted condition. Take him in his relations to God. What says He of him who has not knowledge ? What says the Almighty God of such a one ? " Man," says the Psalmist, " when he was without knowledge, understood not ; he had no knowledge in him, he is compared to the senseless beasts, made like to them." The body grows apace, the uninstructed soul remains in its infancy. The body becomes a giant of passions, of evil propensities, and of all the baser desires. The infant soul is unable to oppose these pas- sions by a single principle. It is unable to coerce them or purify them by a single element of intellectual, moral power or grace. The consequence is, that the will of man — the source of all his moral power — is removed from the jurisdiction of intel- ligence, to which God made it subject. The allegiance of the will thus follows the submission of the mind to passion, to The Catholic View of Education. 493 pride, and to all the disorders of the brutal nature. Therefore it is that the thoroughly uninstructed man is unavailable for any purpose, whether for God or for human society. The statesman finds the ignorant man his difficulty ; because it is impossible to legislate for an uninstructed people, who are un- able to comprehend even the idea of law. The Church finds the uninstructed man her greatest enemy; because faith, in its highest form, is an appeal to the intellect, for which that intel- lect must be prepared by education, because that very act of its exercise, that the Church imposes upon a man, requires in- telligence of a kind of which the thoroughly uneducated man is incapable ; he is unable to act for himself. The world finds in the uneducated man, in the utterly uninstructed man, its great- est enemy ; for, though ignorant, he knows how to do one thing, and that one thing is, to follow the brutal instincts, to follow the base inclinations, of his passions ; and in the pursuit of them he will set at hostile defiance every law, human and divine ; and we see that he makes himself the pest, the canker-worm, the great enemy of society — an object of dread. Hence it is, my friends, that the whole world, the whole civilized world, to-day cries out for education. The churchman, the statesman, the priest, the philosopher — Catholic and Prot- estant — all alike, cry out, We must educate ; we cannot live in society — society cannot exist — without education. And they are right ; for, if we could imagine a time when men were thoroughly and completely uninstructed, then we imagine that there was a time when human society was an impossibility, because the es- sence of that society is intercommunication. The statesman and the churchman alike declare that we must educate. And they approach this question — let us see how. The statesman has his own views of education ; the Christian man — outside the pale of the Catholic Church — he, too, has his view of education ; and the Church has her view of education. I want to put these three before you, in order that I may vindi- cate the action of our holy Mother, the Church ; to show you that she alone understands the meaning of that much-abused word, education. All acknowledge the evil of ignorance ; all acknowledge it is the root and source of all evil in society. First comes the statesman, and he says : "I will educate." And he builds up 494 The Catholic View of Education. his common schools and his colleges. He says to the Catholic bishop : " Stand aside. You have no right to educate the chil- dren." And he says to every man : " I will have no fixed form of religious belief! Stand aside; you are only sectarians ; I am prepared to administer an unsectarian education." Unsec- tarian education ! What does this mean, my friends ? It means, in plain English, teaching without God. I wish you, above everything else, to remember these three words, when you read political pamphlets, when you hear political speeches, when you hear men talking about this glorious land of America, the splendor of the country of England, the enlightenment and wonderful intelligence of our age. All that " unsectarian educa- tion " means, is teaching without God. And now, reflect a little, my friends, upon what this means. We read in the Scrip- tures that St. Paul said : " The world has committed crimes such as I am ashamed to mention ; " and, turning to the Christians, he said : " let them not be as much as named amongst you." They must learn, because God gave them will and intelligence. The State refuses to put God in their knowledge. Formerly, they taught without God. The world was not uneducated when Christ came. Oh dear, no ! The schools at Athens and the schools at Rome were as flourish- ing as any that we have to-day. No doubt, among the children that were educated at Rome and Athens, there were philoso- phers and writers as enlightened as any that we have to-day — pooh-poohing the idea of religion. When Christ and His re- ligion came upon the earth. He told them that they must change, that they must teach their children something about God. And they said : " This man, indeed, raises a few from the dead ; He opens the eyes of the blind ; He heals the sick and the paralyzed ; and He works many strange miracles that we cannot understand, for this is the language of that Christ who tells us we must teach our sons about God." And they answered the Son of God, eighteen hundred years ago, pretty much in the same way as the " unsectarian " man does to-day. What is teaching or instructing without God ? What is the meaning of the word educate ? It is derived from two Latin words, namely, ex and duco, to lead forth — to educate — or, as the true derivation has it, to bring out all that is in that child. That child is there before you, a child of seven ; that child has The Catholic View of Education. 495 to become a man ; that child is the father of the man that is to be in twenty years' time. Now, to educate means to bring out in that young mind all that is necessary to make the man. Task you, Christian men, can that man be thus brought out in the child without God ? Education, if it is to make the man, if it is to bring out all the powers that are in him, must train him up in the two great sources, the education of the head and the edu- cation of the heart — the two great powers of the man that reasons. Now, the " unsectarian education " of the State means to educate the mind ; it gives the mind every form of human knowledge ; it teaches the mind geometry, history, elec- tricity, mathematics, geology, and everything else ; but not a word about God at all. Not a word of God must be mentioned. The science of God — the knowledge of God — is the principal point of knowledge which that child must not hear : he must have no God. Therefore, whilst the mind of that child is re- ceiving every form of human knowledge, his heart is hardening every day, more and more, into the hardness of unbelief, into the preparation for every form of helplessness, hypocrisy, and sin. Not a single scintilla of divine knowledge is let into that child's mind ; nothing but the knowledge of this world, human knowledge. Itself human, it is vain, I say. And, if you were not Catholics, I would still ask these men, who pretend to teach without God, tell me: As you wish only to teach human knowl- edge, thus excluding God, then you wish to teach history? And to teach history you must come to the fountain-head of history; and there you find the creating God. Will you exclude this? If you teach the progress of history, the true philosophy of history is the over-ruling providence of God, guiding and shaping all things. Will you exclude it, and pretend to teach that child history? What will you tell that child of the history of his race, its acts, and its power, if you exclude Almighty God from his knowledge ? Will you teach that child philosophy — the philoso- phy that seeks and searches after truth, that loves the truth in interior things — the philosophy that means the analysis of the human mind ; the philosophy that traces every effect to its cause — touching that cause with the true genius of its acquaint- ance with theology — and that follows the great first cause of all things ? No ; the philosophy that excludes God is simply ab- surd. Fancy a man going to teach mathematics — to teach 49^ The Catholic View of Education. figures — excluding the figure one, and starting with the figure two. Why, the simplest child would say, " But, my dear sir, isn't two the multiple of one ? " " It is not," this teacher says; " there is no one." If he says there is no one, how can he tell us there is two or three ? How can a man teach philosophy in a system ignoring the first principle, beginning without the One, which is the precise cause of all ? In a word, the system is too absurd; it is not worthy the consideration of any man of thought. Teaching without God is an impossibility, even for the men who pretend to do it ; and in its results, it is fatal to society. Well, let us suppose they had their way; that they brought up our children without God. Let us suppose that the favorite theories of the statesman were carried into effect. The Prot- estant, the Catholic, the Quaker, the Shaker — all want us to teach their form of religion ; and, as we cannot teach their re- ligion, the best plan is to exclude religion altogether. We know nothing at all about religion ; but we know how to teach them to read and write. We will teach philosophy, and every- thing; but without God. Now, the favorite theory of the statesman is put in practice ; and what do they send home to you ? Oh, think of the monsters living in the house with you — think of the young man, or the young woman, fourteen or fif- teen years of age, coming home to you ! They know every- thing ; they are ready for any profession; they have studied law ; they have studied chemistry, philosophy, history ; they know all the sciences; they are well fitted for the service of this world ; and you ask a child : " Do you know your duty to me — your father or mother? " " No ; I never heard of it." " Do you know that you are bound to love and respect me ? " " Who said that?" " God said it." " I never heard of God before." I met a student who had spent a great part of his life in an Euro- pean college. He was studying, amongst other things, geology — the nature of the earth, the history of the earth's foundation — and that young man assured me that for eighteen months that he was attending the school, or college, every day, dur- ing the eighteen months the professor there was lecturing, he never once made use of the name of God. There will follow from that education an infidel mind, and an infidel heart ; a ripened intellect, and a will debased, corrupted, enslaved to the The CatJiolic View of Education. 497 dictates of every passion. Now, my dear friends, a child so educated will come home in a few months filled with impurity and iniquity. For that teacher who does not teach God, by that very act teaches the devil. Well, the next great system of education is that which is pro- posed and directed by so many who are not Catholics. They say: "Oh dear, it is highly improper to exclude Almighty God." They said, when they were agitating the question of education, they never heard of such a thing ; it isn't in the American Constitution — God bless the mark ! Well, they build schools ; they get a large grant of Government money for these schools ; they open these schools ; and they ask Catholic parents to send their children to them; and they say: " Doti't be afraid ; we will not teach your children infidelity. We have God in our education. We have the Bible laid on the table — open — we will teach your child to read it. We won't teach a word that the Catholic children are opposed to — not a word against their religion ; but we will go in to educate on the basis of our common Christianity." There is "common Christian- ity " — the favorite theory of those who are outside the Church. Let us analyze it. We have disposed of the theory of " Unsec- tarian Education," or teaching without God ; " the basis of our common Christianity " is the next big word we have to deal with. The " basis of our common Christianity " means teach- ing only as much as the Catholic believes, in common with the Protestant ; reducing the religious education of the Catholic child to a few elementary truths that the Protestant and Catho- lic believe together. Now, if you will remark, how much is there in that "common Christianity," can I go one step fur- ther? I v/ill ask you that question — shall I go one step further? I defy you, my Protestant friends, to tell me one single point upon which the Protestant and the Catholic are combined, ex- cept this one point — the existence of God. You say you be- lieve in Jesus Christ. I say you do not. I don't mean to in- sult you, my friends ; but I want to prove it to you. There are some of the very first and most intelligent of Protestants, to-day, who deny the divinity of Jesus Christ. There were some books written some time ago — essays and reviews — they were written entirely by Anglican clergymen, learned men, and honest men. God forbid that I should hurt their feelings ; for 32 498 The Catholic View of Education. some of the dearest friends that I have in the world, the best and most intimate friends, are Protestants and Englishmen ; but I still say that Protestants, as such, are not bound to be- lieve in the divinity of Christ. If the Protestant says he does not see his way clearly in baptismal regeneration, and every such question, he discovers they are only " opinions." For Christ has said in the Scriptures : " The Father is greater than I ; " and some one will say: " Now, if He was God, He would not say that. My ' opinion ' is changed on that subject. My children must be brought up in the widest form of that belief in Christ." This is the belief of a great many others. But I ask you, would he be a bad Protestant for saying that ? Would the Protestant Church excommunicate him for saying he did not believe in baptism, or in the divinity of Christ ? By no means. There are clergymen now in England, preaching the Gospel, •who don't believe one bit in the divinity of Christ. If a Prot- •estant, to-morrow, wrote a letter to this Herald newspaper, sta- ting that he " did not believe in this question of the divinity of Christ ; it is not so clear at all ; " would that Protestant lady or gentleman be expelled from the Church? Would they be de- nounced as heretics, and declared to be no longer members of the Protestant Church? Not at all. Now, my Protestant friends, you must keep to the existence of God, because if you deny that, you are atheists ; but the moment you step from the mere truth of the existence of God — the very first step in your eccle- siastical doctrine — at that very moment your faith and ours differ. Your reason is upon a different foundation from ours. With you it is perfectly immaterial ; but if I deny the existence of Jesus Christ, if I deny His divinity, here, on this platform, I would go down speedily. The bishop, this night before to-mor- row, would tell me I was no longer to preach in his diocese. There is not an altar from which I would not be denounced ; the Catholics would be warned in this way; "Don't listen to Father Tom Burke ; he has lost the faith." But, even admitting a few elementary truths, such as the divinity of Christ, the atonement of our Lord upon the cross — the all-sufficiency of that sacrifice — admitting what, for the most part, the great body of the Protestants admit and believe as well as we do— every man here has the liveliest belief in these doctrines — a loving and devoted belief in all these doctrines The Catholic Vieiv of Educaiton. 499 which our Protestant friends are in so much trouble about- after all, you think in vain to unite us on the basis of our " com- mon Christianity." Take the highest form of Protestantism, as far as it goes with Catholic principle, even in the mind of the little child ; before you can let him into the Protestant school, on a religious footing, upon a footing of religious equal- ity with his Protestant companion, on the basis of our " common Christianity" — that Catholic child will have to forget confession, communion, examination of conscience, devotion to the Blessed Virgin and to the saints, the sacrament of confirmation. He will have to forget that his father and mother were united in the sacrament of matrimony. He will have to forget prayers for the dead. If his old grandmother, when she was dying, laid her hand upon his head and said : " Son, I want you to pray for me when I am gone ; " he will have to forget that before he can go in with the Protestant child " on the basis of our common Christianity ; " which means that the Protestant child takes his own ground, and says : " Here is my ground ; I have every privilege, every enjoyment of my Protestantism." Then he says to the little Catholic child : " Come in with me ; stand on this platform ; but you will have to come down ever so many flights of stairs before you can do it." Now, my dear friends, I need not tell you that, whether in religious matters or not, very few people like to be coming down stairs to meet their friends ; you would much rather stand on your own land- ing, and, if your friend wants you, let him come up stairs to you. If he does not choose to come up to you, why you would say : *' You can stand in the hall ; but I will stay where I am." Now, we approach the great question of the Catholic Church, her ideas, and her system of education. The Catholic Church lays down a few principles which no reasonable man, I think, can deny. First of all, the Catholic Church says, education must take in every element or means of intellectual and spiritual well-being. Education must apply itself to the whole soul of man, to every capacity of that soul. Education must bring out and develop everything and every power that is in that soul ; not giving undue prominence to one, to the neglect of the other. And every reasonable man must say that this is the proper idea of education, which means to bring out. What 500 The Catholic View of Education, would you say of the man who would bring up his child in this way, accustoming that child to work with his hands, to lift weights, to perform every exercise with his hands — if he never allowed that child to walk ? Why, you would say, he will make a strong-armed cripple of him. As, in like manner, if that child's hands had been bandaged and he was obliged to exercise himself with his feet until he was twenty years of age, he would be unable to lift the lightest weight. So it is with the soul ; the child, in order to be educated, must be altogether educated — not one faculty or one power developed at the expense of the others. This is the first principle of Catholic education. The second principle of Catholic education is that of the edu- cation of the heart, of the affections, and of the will ; it is as im- portant, fully as important, as the education of the soul, and more important than the education of the intellect. And why? Because, my friends, it is by the education of the heart and of the will that man's moral life is determined. No amount of knowl- edge that you can give to man's intellect will make him good or honest, will make him pure, will make him obedient. You have no guarantee because a man can read and write well, be- cause he is ingenious, that, therefore, he will make a good hus- band, a faithful, loving father, or an honest man. Why, my dear friends, here in America, as far as I can see, if you have great talents, if you have great ability for business, that makes people rather shun you, and be.on their guard of you ; for, seeing so much intellect, they say you are wanting in the moral qual- ities. They mind this in dealing with such a man ; for they say he is a " mighty smart man ; " a " mighty smart man " in intel- lect ; an educated man ; a man that, because he is your superior in education, in intellect, knows how to get at the blind side, or the green side of you. What does this prove? Only as an il- lustration. It proves a great principle, namely, that the edu- cation that is to make a man pure, high-minded, amiable, faith- ful, and loving — that is education of the heart rather than that of the mind. The Catholic Church, therefore, says, I must apply myself, as in education, first to the will, first to the affec- tions. I must teach the mind. I must bring out these powers. I must stamp this will and soul with the one divine resemblance that has been fixed into them ; and, at the same time that 1 educate and give with the one hand education to the heart The Catholic View of Education. 501 and to the will, with the other I will pour into the intellect every form of knowledge, so as to make an intellectual as well as a holy man. How does she do this — this Church of God ? My dear friends, she takes the child before that child has come to the use of rea- son ; she brings the child or the infant to school ; the Sisters of Mercy, or the Sisters of Charity, are ready to receive that child. Reason has not yet dawned upon that little mind ; the child has not yet begun to understand the mystery of unlawful desires. The Church of God takes that child before the mys- tery of sin — before the passions — are developed or made known to it. The Sisters begin by teaching that young child, before it begins to reason, the things of heaven. The very Sister that ministers that education to the infant, in her religious habit — iri his consideration, uniting all that is purest, highest, and holiest with all that is tenderest and most human — is an argument in- sensibly made upon the little mind, that there is something better for men to live for than the things of earth. The image of the infant Jesus is put before that little child ; it captivates the young sense, and teaches that little creature the beauty of heaven, before that creature's eyes open to see and comprehend the dangerous beauty of the world. Reason dawns upon that child ; but that child has already turned its thoughts upon the Lord of heaven. The devil comes to tempt that little child with the opening eye of passion, with the opening eye of reason ; but that little child is already instructed beforehand in the thoughts and in the things of Jesus Christ. The Church, as soon as that child comes to the use of reason, begins to teach him the first lesson of man's responsibility to God, by teaching that child how to prepare for his first Communion. That little child is taught, as soon as ever it becomes able to think for itself, the first lessons — " For every thought, for every word and act, you are responsible to God and to your own conscience." That responsibility is brought home to the young soul by the prepara- tion for Confession, by the duty of self-examination — which is one of the first duties taught in the Catholic school. And when the time is come, when the intellect is more perfect, when the heart, more grown, is capable of higher and more magnificent ideas, that little child is brought, with its baptismal innocence shining upon its soul, and receives the body of the Lord in 502 The Catholic View of Education. Holy Communion. Then, during the subsequent years, for every lesson that is taught of human knowledge, there is also a corresponding lesson of divine knowledge. Every new idea that is brought into the mind is accompanied with new forms of grace, falling upon the heart and will ; for, as knowledge is the education of the intellect, grace divine is the education of the heart of man. This is the Catholic system of education. This is the system of Catholic education that sends out, in a few years, a man able to contend with all his compeers, in every rivalry of intel- lectual knowledge, in every race of life ; a man who is able, by the fact of his education, to take any position that is possible to be filled by any of them ; a man that is fully as well educated as any of his Protestant brethren in the land, with this differ- ence — that he brings forth from that school a soul that has grown in purity, a maturity of intellect without forfeiting a sin- gle ray of the purity or of the innocence of his childhood. Now, my friends, I appeal to your intelligence, and to any person who is not a Catholic in this room — which of those three systems, do you think, answers most fully and most completely to the definition of the word " Educo,'' to educate, to bring out ? Which of these three systems is the most perfect ? I ask you as parents, as men, can you afford to give your chil- dren that Godless education where the name of God is not mentioned? Can you, Protestants of this country, ask us, your Catholic brethren, to believe, as you do, that which is but a part of all that our religion teaches, as you do when you say it is an advantage for our children to be brought to a common level, and stand together with yours on a " common Christian basis " ? It is too common (alas ! that we should be addicted to it). We know and believe Christ, our Lord, to be present on His altar; but you cannot recognize this truth — you, so in- tellectual, so high-minded, so refined. You are willing to em- brace that gladly, if you only could believe that He is there. But you do not believe it. And, as you believe it not, do you mean to tell me that you are able, that you will educate and fit a man to receive his God, and receive Him frequently ? Do you believe it ? No; certainly not. Now, I ask you, my Protestant friends, have you any right to educate our children as if they believed it not .'^ Have you any The Catholic View of Education. 503 right, I ask you, to give that child such an education as to make him a very good Protestant, but a very bad Catholic ? A very bad Catholic is one who doesn't prepare for confession by an examination of conscience ; and a very good Protestant who never thinks of one or the other. He is a very bad Catholic who doesn't hear his Sunday's Mass, and hear it attentively and worthily; but he would make a very good Protestant without ever crossing the threshold of a church at all. A very bad Catholic he is who has hardly any love, affection, or veneration for the Mother of Jesus Christ — the woman who said : " Hence- forth all generations shall call me blessed." And he would be a very bad Protestant if he had any principle of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. So you see the essential differ- ence. The Catholic Church says to the Protestant children : " If you will come, such as I have I give to you. I have sacra- ments; I have grace; I have remission of sin; I have sacra- mental power; I have examples in millions of saints and phi- losophers to encourage and develop all that is highest, holiest, and purest. And with all these in my hand, I offer it to you — to you, Protestant children ; and if you do not accept it, I will not force it upon you ; I will educate your children in simple obedience." " But," says the Protestant, " what right have you to force your mysterious religion upon us ? " If a man had a dinner of roast beef and a magnificent turkey set out before him ; and another man, sitting near him, had but two salt herrings — if the man with the roast beef and the fine dinner should say to the other — " Come over and sit with me; let us eat together and be neighborly." " No," says the other. " Very well," says the first ; " I will not press you." But if the man with the two salt herrings should say : " Leave your beef and turkey and eat a herring with me," it would seem to me to be pretty much the same as the case between the Catholic and Protestant. They tell us, " It is bad — actually bad in itself — for you Catholics to send missionaries out to build schools for edu- cation, when you know well we have the means in our schools to impart it." The Catholic says : " It is very hard to be com- pelled to contribute to their support without any benefit ; but I believe we must send our children to our own schools, because we have things in our schools that we believe to be absolutely 504 The Catholic View of Education. necessary for ourselves and our children." To be sure, I know very well it is a hard thing. Both here and in Ireland we have to bear the common burden of the State education ; which is a hard thing to bear, especially when we cannot avail ourselves of it. It is something hard on Catholic parents, not only in Amer- ica, but in the old land — it is too bad that they cannot send their children to the Queen's College, or to the model school : as, in- deed, I remember a man coming into our house when I was be- ing educated ; and he said to my mother : " A great fool you are, paying twelve pounds a year for a classical education for your boy, when, if you send him to the Queen's College, he will be educated for nothing ; and if he gets a prize, he will bring you home twenty pounds." My mother answered : " He will bring me home twenty pounds ! Not for ten thousand pounds will I allow him to cross the threshold of their Queen's College ; for the lessons that I want my child to be taught," said she, " are, that he shall know his duty to God, and his duty to me ; and there he won't be taught either one or the other." I say again, it is a hard thing to have your well-earned money wrung from you for the building up of State schools ; and when the priest is at you, hammer-and-tongs, about his schools. But, my friends, when you consider all that the Catholic child cannot get outside the Catholic school, all that that Catholic child requires, which the Eternal God has said, and the Church has said, he must get — when you consider all this, all you can say is, that you give but little, much as you give, com- pared with what you receive, when you receive from the hands of the priest, the monk, or the nun, a boy not ashamed nor afraid of his religion ; not ashamed of his parents, not ashamed of his duties ; and a girl that comes home to you captivated with the beauty of the Mother of God, and reflecting that beauty in the purity of her own angelic soul. What shall be the future of this question in America? I cannot help in everything asking myself " What is to become of it ? " At home in Ireland, somehow or other — because it was an old country, perhaps — we were constantly " ochoning," cry- ing over the glories that are gone, talking about the persecutions that we suffered hundreds of years ago, and talking about Brian Boroihme. We seldom or never started the question, " What is in store for old Ireland for the time to come ? " But since I The Catholic View of Education. 505 came to America I look upon everything as yet in its infancy, every great question yet unsolved in these infant States, every great interest almost untouched ; and I am constantly asking myself, " What is the future of this thing or that thing?" In what way will commercial interests develop themselves? What is the religion of x'\merica to be? What is the political action of America to be ? And, as I believe in my soul, that the future of America will be the future of a glorious, united, and en- lightened Catholicity, so I believe in my soul that God has reserved for this mighty country the blessing of a pure, univer- sal, and Catholic education. I cannot believe that the American mind will ever consent to banish God from its schools and from its teachings. I cannot believe that the American intelligence will refuse to arrive at the wise conclusion, that the education of the heart by grace is as necessary as the education of the intellect by knowledge. And in the day that America arrives at that conclusion — in that day America will open her schools to educate, throughout the land— in all the sacraments for God's service, all the truth of Catholic teaching, acts of de- votion to the Virgin Mother and the saints, all that cheers and delights the infant, or brings grace upon the young heart — in that day America will open her schools in order that the Lord Jesus Christ may take possession of them, to sanctify them by His strength, purifying them to enable the future action of the most enlightened people to be the very perfection of Christian- ity, to uphold through all nations — wherever the name of an American shall be heard — the very idea of right and of justice, of legislation for God and for His eternal law. "DRUNKENNESS THE WORST DE- GRADATION-TEMPERANCE THE GREATEST BLESSING OF MAN." [Delivered before the Total Abstinence Union of New Jersey, in Library Hall, Elizabeth, on Monday Evening, September 17, 1872.] ONSIDERING the purpose for which we have come together, my friends, I hope you will not consider it out of place if I put a little water in the glass. You are temperance men. My friends, I thank you for the reception which you have given me ; and I am impressed with the solemnity of the occasion which brings us together this evening. As men, mostly, of one race — and all of one faith — it is, indeed, a most solemn occasion, when such men come to- gether to discuss the greatest evil of the age — which is drunken- ness — and the greatest blessing of the age — which is temperance. If I were addressing men of the world only, I should only use arguments suited to them. I should tell them of the temporal prosperity and blessings which follow from temperance. If I were addressing Catholics only, I might confine myself to an entirely ecclesiastical and religious view of this great question. But I do not wish to address you here to-night exclusively as men of the world or as Catholics. I have the high honor to be an Irish Catholic priest ; and I have the equally high honor to address an audience mostly made up of men of Irish name and of Irish birth. And when an Irish Catholic priest meets his fellow-countrymen, he has to appeal, first of all, to their intel- ligence — for God has blessed the Irish race with the gift of in- tellect. He has, secondly, to address their faith, for God has blessed this Irish race with the gift of the one true, holy Catho- lic faith. He has, thirdly, to address the heart as well as the head ; because the Omnipotent God has given to the Irish people Drunkenness the worst Degradation of Man. 507 not only the gift of intelligence — crowned with the gift of faith — but he has also given to them tender affections, strong and pure affections, loving hearts ; and he would be a fruitless Irishman, and a fruitless priest, who, in addressing his fellow- men, would forget to appeal to their hearts, as well as their heads. Coming, therefore, before you this evening, dear friends, to speak to you on this great and solemn subject of temperance, I ask you to consider it, first, by the light of reason ; and the ap- peal is to your intelligence : secondly, by the light of revela- tion ; and the appeal is to your faith, as Catholics ; and thirdly, by the light of your own experience ; and the appeal is to your hearts, as true Irishmen, and true men. First of all, then, let me consider this great question of tem- perance by the light of reason ; and what do I find? I find — in reviewing the mighty creation of the Almighty God, and fixing the determined position in the order of nature given to every creature which God has made — that some He created in the high heaven, pure spirits, like Himself; and they are the blessed angels ; some He created upon the earth, without soul, without intelligence, without a spirit at all, but only an animal existence, animal bodies, animal propensities, and desires, and instincts ; and these are the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air, that surround us. Now, between these two great orders of beings — the earthly, with its absence of intelligence, its absence of soul — and the heavenly — purely spiritual, without the slightest admixture of the material existence — between these two great orders there lies a mighty chasm — an abyss — the gulf that divides spirit from matter. In the midst of that chasm stands man. God created him a mixture of two natures. God gave him, in his body — in his bodily passions and appetites and desires — the mere nature of a brute ; nothing more. And if man had no soul, then he would be a brute beast, like to the other beasts upon the earth. Everything that regards the body is animal — "of the earth, earthly." The senses that we enjoy are all ani- mal ; we share them in connection with the beasts of the field. We see with our eyes ; so do the stag in the forest, the buffalo on the prairie, the eagle on the wing. We eat and drink ; so do the beasts. We walk, and take exercise ; so do they. We clothe ourselves ; nature has clothed them. Thus we see that 5o8 Drunkenness the worst Degradation — ■ this body of ours, this material flesh, with its eyes, its sense of taste, its sense of hearing, all its powers, is merely the animal or the brute in man. But in that body — so base, so vile, so animalesque — the Almighty God has enshrined a spirit the very image of Himself — the very reflection of His divine perfection — as pure a spirit as God is spirit — pure as the angels of God are spirit. In this body of man He has enshrined a soul gifted with the power of knowledge ; and God is knowledge ; gifted with the power of love ; and God is love ; gifted with freedom of will ; and God is eternal and essential freedom. And in this lies the grand nobility of man — the magnificent place he fills in the creation of God — that he stands between heaven and earth, sharing the nature of both ; taking from the slime of the earth the body in which he lives* taking from the very mouth of God the spirit that was breathed into him in his glo- rious, angelic, immortal soul. Let me fix this in your minds. There was a great chasm of vacuum in the creation of God. God, in the beginning of His ways, made a heaven, in which He dwells, and the angels who surround Him. God, then, moved out, as it were, unto the very threshold of that heaven, and saw around him the immensity of space in chaos and confusion ; and He said : " I will create a material world." And He made the world in which we dwell. Five days did He labor. He created the hills and mountains, covered with the verdure and beauty which adorn them. He created the earth and the sea, the skies and the atmosphere. He created the fishes that swim in the ocean's depths, the brutes that browse in the field, the birds that fly, the fowls that wing the healthy air. He filled all creation with life. And yet, for five days there was an immense distance between God and His own work — the distance that lay between pure spirit and mere material existence. To fill that gap, to connect these two, God created a being who was to be not altogether material, but in whom spirit from heaven and matter from the earth were to meet, and embrace; and that being is man. In him two things blend — the nature of the body and the nature of the soul — as distinct from one another as night is from day. He is the golden link which binds together the heaven, where God and His angels dwell, and the earth, which is the natural home of only material and animal beings. Temperance the greatest Blessing of Man. 509 Such is man. Now, the philosopher — even guided by the light of the old pagan knowledge, without a single ray of divine revelation, will tell you that the whole nobility of man — the perfection of man — lies, not in the body, which he got from the earth, nor in the bodily senses, which are made up of the slime — but in the soul — the spiritual being which is within him ; that wherever man is to rise — even one inch — towards the perfec- tion of his being, that elevation must come to him through his soul. Why? It stands to reason, if God gave me a principle of immortal life — a principle of knowledge, of love, and of free- dom within me ; if, morever, He tied down — chained down — ■ that principle to a mere earthly, material body, destined to walk the earth, to cling to this earth, to die upon this earth, and to go down to a grave and be mingled with itself once more — it follows from this twofold nature of man that whenever we look up at all, in the order of nature or grace, the upward glance must be from the soul. The nobility of my being lies in the develop- ment, in the strengthening, of the knowledge, the love, and the freedom of my immortal spirit within me. Would you say that that man was a noble creature of his kind who merely devel- oped the muscles, and the nerves, and the powers of his body ; who became a strong man, developed in every material element of his being ; but whose soul was left without a single ray of thought, without a single illumination of reason, without a single noble affection of his heart, without a single generous impulse of his soul ? Nay, more ; let us conceive a man — a slave — una- ble to exercise his freedom, unable to assert himself, unable to speak a language which will reflect one high idea of his mind — only developed in his body ; what would you say of such a man ? You would say he was a powerful brute, not a man. We some- times meet idiots — creatures altogether deprived of their reason, and the doctors will tell you that in proportion as they are de- prived of reason, in the same proportion they become healthy, have huge appetites, and often get to be very strong. Why, in the lunatic asylums, they become so powerful and dangerous that they have to be bound down with chains, and the keepers are afraid of them. They become mere brutes, and instead of speaking like men they jabber like monkeys ; no human feeling, no humanity about them ; only strong animals, going about on two feet instead of four — only strong animals without tails. 510 Drunkenness the worst Degradation — Such is man. All that is noble within him — all that is capa- ble of perfection in him — lies in the soul. The more he knows, the clearer and better his thoughts are ; the more powerfully he is able to think ; the more pure his life ; the more steadfast his word ; the more honorable his principles ; the freer he is from every form of slavery, whether it be the slavery of earth or of hell — the more perfect the man becomes. Thus the light of reason teaches. Now, my friends, the design of God in creating all things is, that every creature that God makes should grow to the natural perfection of his being. The design of the devil is to hinder that growth in man, to destroy the soul, to destroy, as far as he can, his natural powers — to destroy his supernat- ural powers — to take away from him that glorious image of knowledge, love, and freedom, with which God has stamped his soul ; to drag man down, as far as he can, to the mere con- dition of the brute. That is the design of the devil as distinct- ly opposed to that of God ; and I put it on this ground because I am here to speak as a Catholic priest ; and when I appeal to your intelligence, I appeal to an intelligence formed not only by natural talent, but informed by the knowledge of divine faith. I say that wherever there is a sin in man there is degra- dation. Sin is in the body ; sin operates through the body ; through the body the soul is vitiated and destroyed. Wherever there is sin in man, that sin pulls him down from the pedestal where God placed him. Take whatever sin you like in the catalogue of sins, and I will prove to you that it is a degradation of man. The man that is seeking a place — the ambitious man — is a degraded man. Why? Because he is seeking for some place here on this earth _ which he can only enjoy for a few years ; going about asking people to give him this place — praying for it and working for it, as if Almighty God had created him for the sole purpose of fill- ing that place ; as if Almighty God intended man, whom He created for eternity, to expend all his energies upon some miserable distinction that must only last him for a ^&\^ days. And if this is so of the spiritual vice of pride and ambition, what shall I say to you, my friends, even as though I were a pagan talking to pagans, of the one vice that utterly destroys in man every vestige of that immortal and spiritual being that God created in his soul — the one vice that completely annihi- Temperance the greatest Blessing of Man. 511 lates and extinguishes the light of reason ; which completely destroys, for the time, every emotion of life ; and that so robs man of his freedom as to make him not only a slave but a help- less slave ? That vice is the vice of drink, or drunkenness. It destroys the natural nobility and perfection, aye, and the very nature of man. It is a sin not only against God, but against man ; not only against grace, but against nature ; not only against the divinity which ought to be in us, but against the very humanity that is in us. In what consists our human nature ? It consists in our power of thinking, of living, and of acting freely. Take away this from a man, and I defy you to tell me in what a vestige of' human nature remains in him. Not a vestige remains of that which makes him man ; for a man is made by soul as well as body. Take away the soul and you have destroyed his humanity. For instance, if you saw a dead body lying there before you, stiff, cold, and stark, you would not say it was a man. You would say it was the remains of a man. They will not write on my grave — " Here lies Father Tom Burke ; " but, in all probability, they will write — " Pray for the soul of Thomas Burke, whose remains lie here." The moment you take away the soul, nothing is left but the remains of a man. And what does the remains of a man mean? A mass of putrefying, rotten earth ; a mass of rottenness. That is the meaning of " the remains of a man." Why are we so anxious to bury our friends as soon as the breath is out of them ? Because we cannot keep them. " The remains of a man " is a very noisome business. You very soon have to put your fingers up to your nose and say : " We loved him dearly as long as he was with us ; but we love him no longer; for the soul has gone." Now, every sin that the devil can tempt us to commit — even though we may do it, or fall into it — no matter what it is, it still leaves us men. The proud man, with all his pride, is a man still, and knows what he is doing. The revengeful man may swear that he will have the heart's blood of the man who has insulted him ; he still knows what he is about, even when he stands at night, with the dirk or the gun in his hand, watching for his victim ; — he is still a man. The impure man, ravening for his impurity-— the vilest specimen of a man — is still a man, and knows what he is doing. There is only one sinner through whom the devil passes 512 Drunkenness the worst Degradation — with so much power that he leaves him only the remains of a man. A man goes into the saloon or store ; he drinks one glass — that only makes him good-natured ; he drinks another glass — that makes him loving — ready to kiss everybody ; he drinks a third glass — that makes him cross ; he drinks a fourth glass — then he begins to lisp, and people don't know what he is talk- ing about ; they do not know whether he is cursing or blessing ; he drinks a fifth, and a sixth glass, and falls to the ground — the remains of a man. Will any man amongst us dare to call that infamous wretch a man ? A man means the image of God. Is there a man amongst you having the hardihood to blaspheme the eternal and Al- mighty God, by saying that that speechless, senseless, unrea- soning, unloving, lifeless brute there is the image of God? Stand over him, my friends, and look at him as he lies there. Speak to him. You might as well speak to a corpse. He does not under- stand you. Reason with him. You might as well reason with that table. Ask him to look at you. There is no light in his eyes. Did you ever see a man stupidly drunk? Did you ever look into his eyes ? I remember, when I was a little boy, seeing, at home, in the kitchen, in Galway, hanging up on a hook behind the kitchen door a hake, that my mother had bought the day before. I was curious enough to go up and look at its eyes. It had been dead about twelve hours. That same day I saw a man drunk, lying in the gutter. Boy as I was, I said to myself, "the hake's eye again ! " Let his wife come there and kneel at his side ; he does not know her ; he is unable to speak to her. Lift him up on his feet, then let go your hands, and down he falls again. May I ask you — is he a man ? Why, if he was a man he could speak, he could reason with you ; he could see you and know you if you were there. How can you call this creature a man? He has lost the power of speech, of discerning, of rea- soning, of loving, of moving. No, my friends, he is only the re- mains of a man ; with this difference between him and a corpse : a corpse is killed by the angel of God, commissioned to do God's sentence ; but this man has killed himself, by calling in the devil to help him in his infamous suicide. And, remember, that we may insult the Almighty God not only as the author of our redemption and of our sanctification, but we may also insult Him as the author of our nature. I do not speak to you Temperance the greatest Blessing of Man. 5 1 3 now as Catholics and as Christians, but only as men I say now nothing more than this, that when God made us, He gave us soul and body together, in all the activity of their powers. The man that annihilates his soul for a single instant, commits an outrage against the God that has made him, as the author of his nature. I might dwell upon this subject. I might show you that as everything in grace is founded in nature, so there is no evil so great as that which destroys even for a time the integrity of our nature ; because it destroys the possibility of grace. Every other sinner might cry out to God and get grace, get forgive- ness, get redemption. The drunkard alone is incapable of send- ing forth that cry. We have the dreadful truth before us — that if the Son of God came down from heaven and stood over the drunkard, omnipotent as He is, He could do nothing for him. I have had the misfortune to stand over such a man dying in his fit of drunkenness. I have had the misfortune, as a priest, to be called to his side; and I could only say to the heart- broken woman that was there — the very picture of despair, with her starving children around her — " My child, I can do nothing for you!" God Himself can do nothing for that man ; because he is only the remains of a man. Now, I ask you, can there be any degradation greater than this? Remember, when a man falls from his manhood, he has nothing to fall to except to brutality. In the steps of creation you mount from the rock to the tree, from the tree to the brute, from the brute to the man, from the man to the angel.. If a man makes a step upwards, it must be towards the angel. If a man, on the other hand, falls from his humanity, the only level he can find is that of the brute. And this is the meaning of the words of Scripture : " Man, when he was in honor, lost his intellect ; he has been compared to the senseless brutes, and made like to them." And yet, unfortunately, he falls below the level of the brute. I would not insult one of God's creatures by comparing them to a drunken man. What right have we? We have a right to take them to the slaughter-house, and to put them to death ; but no right to insult them, or to degrade in any degree the humblest creature that crawls upon the earth. I would not in- sult any such by comparing them to a drunken man» Why ? 514 Drunkenness the worst Degradation — Because that poor creature, or four-footed dumb beast, you can lead into the slauj^hter-house, or put him into the shafts to draw us around, or put him into our service any time of the day or night; and you find him such as Almighty God made him, with every faculty that God has given him. But the drunkard is not as Almighty God made him ; therefore, not equal to the brute. Such a man has ceased to be a man, and falls below and be- neath the level of the brute. The brute can give forth signs of pleasure, sorrow, or pain ; the drunkard cannot. The brute can give intelligent signs, by the law of nature, to his fellow-beasts in the field ; the drunken man cannot converse with his fellow- man. The brute can walk and labor ; the drunken man cannot do one or the other. How dare any one of us compare him to the brute? No! there is only one creature of God to whom we can compare him. And that creature of God was seated upon a high throne in heaven, and now lies in the depths of hell. He is the devil. Thus, by the light of reason ; now, by the light of revelation, I have to appeal to you as Christian people through what God has revealed to His people in the inspiration of the Scriptures. In the record of God's dealings with men what do I find, my friends ? I find that the very moment that God made man, and gave him that glorious humanity which we have seen, that -moment Almighty God put that humanity to the test ; and the test was TEMPERANXE ; to abstain. We find God created all things in this world ; but he spoke to no creature but man. He put an intelligent law upon no creature except man. He gave man the nobility of his nature. He made him the master- piece of His creation. And the moment he was created and opened his eyes, he beheld the face and beauty of God, and hearkened to the music of God's voice. The very first thing God said to him was, " You are a man. You are the prince and ruler of all this world, which I have made for you. I will test your humanity ; abstain from the fruit of that tree ; be temper- ate." The very test of his humanity ! " If you are a man, as I have created you — abstain ; be a temperate man." "What brought all the miseries and all the woes from which we suffer into the world? The intemperance of the man and the woman. They could not restrain themselves. They saw the forbidden fruit ; took it, and ate it. Just ?ike the drunkard, who will tell Temperance the greatest Blessing of Man, 5 1 5 you, as they have often told me, " Well, your reverence, if I did not see it, I would not think of it from Monday morning to Sat- urday night." When they have it before their eyes they cannot help taking it. It is the usual way. Hence, we priests are always telling men who are inclined to be drunkards, " In God's name keep out of the saloon ; don't look at it ; turn away from it ; don't smell it." For the worst of this passion is, that when once it has been excited in man, it is the worst of slavery, and leaves a man no will of his own. It not only destroys the rear son, but leaves him no will. I have known of a man who took the pledge. He swore — before he went to the priest to take it — a solenm oath, in the presence of his companions, that, if he were to die for it, not one drop of whiskey should ever pass his lips. He went to the priest, and there made a tremendous pledge. His companions had made a bet on it that they would not ask him to drink, nor treat him in the house, but only fill a glass of whiskey, and talk to him, and lead him gradually over until he got a sight of it. The moment he saw it the hankering for drink took hold of him, and he lifted the glass. Then they gave him another chance. When he had it in his hand they said to him : " Now, remember, you took the pledge, and a sol- emn oath ; you become a perjurer before God, and commit a mortal sin, if you drink it!" He drank it; and this was the excuse — that he could not stand the smell of it. They let him near enough to smell it. Reflect again. The two greatest crimes recorded in the Scriptures, which Almighty God has revealed to us, were ex- pressly committed under the influence of drink. The first, the crime committed by Lot, in the days of Abraham, after he had escaped from Sodom. Secondly, the great public apostasy of the Jewish nation, who worshipped their idol in the very pres ence of God. The patriarch Lot lived for many years in the city of Sodom. It was the worst and most infamous city in the world. So Almighty God opened the floodgates, and rained down living fire from heaven, and destroyed the whole city and nation. In the midst of that city lived Lot. So holy was he, and so pure had he kept himself, that when the three angels were sent by Almighty God to destroy the city, they came and said to him: "Go out of this place ; take your wife and children and go out." He arose and took his wife and two 5i6 Drunkenness the worst Degradation — full-grown daughters, and fled from Sodom. The city was burned by fire ; the wife was struck dead for her disobedience ; and there remained to him only the two women, his own daugh- ters. An impious thought came into the minds of these two women. They wished to commit sin with their own father. It is enough to make a man's blood run cold to think of it. What did they do ? They got a bottle of strong wine, and made the old man drunk ; when he was drunk he committed the sin ; and thus brought down the greatest curse. So great was the anger of God, that of the children born of that infamous act, all their race were cursed to the end of time. St. Jerome, looking at this example, says : " My God ! there was a man able to live in Sodom, the worst place in the whole world ; so pure as to be fit to entertain the angels of heaven ; who no sooner got the bottle of wine in his hand than he commits one of the greatest crimes that can be imagined or conceived by man." The next crime committed, the greatest recorded in Scripture, was this. Moses led the people of Israel through the desert until they came to Mount Sinai. There arose the mighty, soli- tary, solemn mountain before them. All Israel encamped around it. He said : " I will go up and speak unto God ; re- main here until I return." The moment he said these words, the clouds covered the mountain-tops ; the thunders of heaven rattled ; the lightnings flashed ; and the people were frightened, and they cried, " O God, Thou art present ; spare us ! " The voice of God ceased thundering forth from the clouds. Moses ascended the mountain ; and the people "sat down to feast and to drink." What did they do? When they got well warmed up with wine, and half drunk — while the cloud was upon the hill, with the thunders of God's voice yet echoing in their ears — with their prophet and leader up in this cloud, and a terrible darkness on Sinai — the people put up a golden calf, and kneeled down and adored it ; because they were half drunk ! " The peo- ple," says the Scripture, " sat down to drink." It was the first great idolatry of Israel ; the first great sin since God had brought them forth from Egypt. So great was the sin, that God in His great anger proposed to the prophet and said, " I will destroy them and create a new people for myself." And it came through drink ! Consider again. We see that the first curse came to and Temperance the greatest Blessing of Man. 517 upon Adam and Eve when they refused to abstain, refused to be temperate. When God destroyed the world in the universal deluge, Noah and his family were spared, and the curse of God was washed away. All the iniquity of the world was washed away in the deluge ; nothing remained, therefore, now, but the blessing. How, my friends, I ask you, how did the curse upon the earth come again? How did the curse, extinguished in the waters of the deluge, revive again to be perpetuated in the whole race ? Through the sin of drunk- enness. Noah sat amongst his vines, and pressed the grape; he drank the wine and got drunk. Out of that drunkenness of the Patriarch came the curse that fell upon Chanaan and his descendants ; upon the whole nations of his posterity to the end of time. What need have I, therefore, to multiply the exam- ples from revealed truth of the awfulness of this sin of drunken- ness ? What need that I should tell you that if there is one truth prominently put forth in the Scriptures, more than any other, it is the word that was spoken — "That the drunkard shall never inherit the kingdom of God." Passing from the old law, what does the Gospel tell us ? Oh ! my friends, the sons of temperance, I ask you to stand in spirit at the foot of the cross, on which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, hangs dying! Behold Him, wounded from head to foot, bleed- ing from every member of His body; His heart throbbing faintly within Him, as it approaches its breaking; and the thirst of the agony of death upon His lips ! That we may know that He thirsted, with His dying lips He cried: "I thirst." That crucified Man-God, lifted up on the cross, sent forth this word : " I thirst 1 " I am dying of thirst ! They took a sponge, and steeped it in wine mixed with myrrh, and put it upon the end of a cane, and put it up to His lips, the lips of the dying Man, a Man dying of thirst ; the Man permitting the complaint of thirst to come from His lips quivering in agony ! Did the Lord take the drink? No! He closed His lips, the dying lips ! Oh ! that I could send it forth to ring as it came from the lips of Jesus Christ Himself that word—" I thirst ! " Oh I that I could send it forth to ring in every Christian heart, what the Evangelist says — "He refused to drink ! " He shut His lips, and turned away His dying head, that we may know that the curse was in the drink. 5 1 8 Dj-nnkc7iness the worst Degradation — And now, my friends, I have said enough to you as Cath- olics. I now speak to you as Irishmen. I appeal to your ex- perience. 1 invite you to go back a little to the past ; and when I speak to you of the past, I ask you to put your hand in mine, and sweep, upon the wings of memory, the three thou- sand miles of intervening ocean, to stand with me for a moment upon the green hills of the dear old land of Ireland. I will only take one instance of our national history ; of many, I put one before you. In 1798, the weak hand of Ireland, after its three hundred years of persecution, civil and national — ^just after the seven hundred years of our national struggle — drew the national sword for the last time. There were thirty-six thousand English soldiers upon Irish soil. The curse of division, the old curse, was upon the land ; and when the nation was shaken, two counties only arose. Glorious Wicklow arose, with heroic Wexford, unarmed as they were. Taking only, the mower his scythe, and the reaper his sickle, the old man and the young man the gleaming pike in their hands, they went out to meet the artillery and musketry of England. And when, as the storm rises, a sudden gust blows the chaff of the win- nowing grain before it, so the heroic men of Wicklow and Wex- ford — rising in their national anger — drove the brave army of England like chaff before the winds of heaven. As long as they kept sober, as long as in their sobriety they kept their arms nerved for the struggle by the strong thoughts that were in their Irish minds, so long no force that England could bring against them could sweep them from the field. But a day came of reverses ; a retreat was made from Ross, from Wexford ; and the gallant men of these two counties were assembled in their divisions upon the hill adjoining the town of Enniscorthy, called Vinegar Hill. The British soldiers came in their thou- sands, and surrounded the base of the hill. What does the his- torian tell us? He says that the English soldiers spent that night in silence, preparing their arms and looking after their powder and ammunition, and putting their batteries of cannon into line ; drawing up their cavalry in preparation for the morn- ing. What were the poor fools on the hill doing ? He says they spent the night in drinking and rioting ! They thought that the old heart was in them, and it was in them ; they thought that the manly arm might do again what it had so Temperance the greatest Blessing of Man. 519 often done before. So it might. But the devil — that hates Irishmen — the demon of drink, went in amongst them ; and when the morning Hght appeared, it found the men exhausted from the riot and orgies of the night, unable to strike a blow for their God and for their country. It is the last memorable record of our national contest. We were beaten to the earth ; and the best blood of Wicklow and Wexford flowed in streams from out the hearts of Irishmen, down the sides of that fatal hill, on that day. But it was not the soldiers of England that conquered ; it was the demon of drunkenness. Now, let us leave Ireland, and come to this land. It is a fine land. It is not mine ; for, until I die, I shall have no other land except some six feet in some old churchyard, where the prayers of Irish mothers shall ascend to heaven over my grave, and where the shamrock shall bloom out of my body. But this land of America is God's gift to you. It is your land. It lies before you ; and it is for you, with the intellects and the ener- gies of Irishmen, to lay hold, each one, of his own portion of the land, so as to be able to say, what you were not allowed to say at home : " I stand upon my own." It is now, my friends, some three or four and twenty years since the heart-broken men of Ireland turned their faces to America. Crushed, saddened, not allowed to live at home, her children turned to the far west- ern, mighty land, and said : " Let us go forth, and bring our faith and our God with us ; and whatever gifts of nature and of grace that God has given us." You came ; you landed. I came to see how you were getting on. Tell me : Why have you not more wealth, more money? Why, while Ireland has sent nearly eight millions to America of her sons, why have you not, in God's name, eight hundred million acres of American soil in your hands ? Is it for want of genius or of talent amongst us ? Many nations have sent their children to America; but no nation has sent so much mind to America as Ireland. Is it for want of physical energy, strength, and determination ? The cities of America, the workshops of America, attest that no nation has sent such strong arms to America as Ireland, Is it for want of any gift of God ? No. We are the only people that touched the American shore bringing with them an united faith — a re- ligion which came to us directly from God. Why, then, in God's name, is it that we have not taken a larger hold upon this 520 Drunkenness the worst Degradation — soil ? Why are we not more in the position of the rulers of this land? I am afraid, if I go into the causes of this, I must set at the head of all, the sin of drink. I do not mean to say that we drink more than other people. I believe that the Scotch drink more than the Irish. — So they say themselves. I would not say a bad word of any man or of any nation ; God forbid ! — Still, we have the evidence of a Scottish poet, that when " Willie brewed a peck of malt," two friends came to see it. And it is said they sat there until the sun in the morning arose, and then they were able to say : " We're na that fou*. But just a wee drap in our e'e." Well, it is not a question who drinks more or less, but the man who drinks at all ; who, with impious hand, goes and cuts down the fruit-tree upon which he lives, laying his axe to the root ; and saps his very sustenance, and fells it to the ground before his eyes. The question is, who comes, with impious hands, to sap the very foundations of his own manhood by that deplorable curse of drunkenness? Well, what does our experi- ence in the land tell us ? Oh ! my friends, a man wrote in Jersey City a letter, in which he abused me, and printed it in the pub- lic press. Well, I never was abused until I came to America. Somebody said to me, when I was leaving Ireland : " Father Tom, you had better be careful, and keep quiet in America, and not make any noise at all, else some of these people will come out and abuse you." At first I thought I should feel it keenly ; but I have received plenty of abuse since I came ; and it goes off me like water off a duck's back. But I will tel\ you what I feel. I feel keenly when this man says, " What right have you to talk of your religion and about your country? Who fill our jails but your Irish people?" Well, I have a word to say about that. I believe a great many people go to jail and take Irish names. I was down in Memphis a few months ago ; and while I was there a cabman, driving a cab in the city, stabbed, and more than half-killed, an unfortunate man. When he was arrested, three or four days afterwards, for the deed, it went all over town, " Did you hear that Fatty Maginnis has killed a man ? " When I heard of it. I said to myself, " Fatty " must be an Americanism ; but, surely, Maginnis is an Irish name? The next day his real name came out; and it was Temperance the greatest Blessmg of Man, 521 "Vance." So these men will give themselves this, that, or the other name, which is purely Irish, but when you will come to scratch a little below the surface, you will find an Englishman, or a Scotchman, or a native American, of pure blood, or a Frenchman, or some other nationality. It is mighty convenient to take an Irish name. They make it cover a multitude of sins, from time to time. Still, my friends, there is some truth in what the man said ; but yet if Irishmen are found thronging the jails of the Unit- ed States, it is not a bad heart, or a hard heart, brings them there; it is not a debased and impure nature that brings them there ; they are not brought there for dishonoring their own kith and kin in the viler sins that the world commits; it is the demon of drink and nothing else. Unfortunately, we read in the papers : " Last night, at one or two o'clock, in such a sa- loon, on such a street, two men came in and asked for drink. Getting drunk, one of them drew a revolver and shot the other to the death." In nine cases out of ten, every crime we hear of — especially where Irishmen are mixed up — occurs at the saloon, at the bar. It is caused by the drink. What can be more horrible than the case before our eyes a few days ago. God forbid that I should say a word against the dead, espe- cially a man who died invoking that mercy that was never in- voked in vain — as we believe and think. Still, his career was instructive to us. Patrick Morrison, the son of an Irish father and mother, is brought to the scaffold ; and when the rope is around his neck to swing him out of this world as unworthy to live here — with his own mother's blood red upon his hands ; for he had taken a big carving-knife from the table, and plunged it to the hilt in his mother's heart! — Ah! when he came to that scaffold, and stood face to face with his God, did he not tell the world, and tell you, that he did not know what he was doing when he did the deed, or where he did it — the most un- Irish crime that he could commit! Never could a man act more against his own nature, as a Christian, and as an Irish- man. Why, if there be any peculiarity about us that distin- guishes us from other people, it is that the old people, as long as they live, have their place in our hearts. An Irishman may cross the Atlantic, and work like a slave but the first dollar that comes into his hand goes home to the old father and 522 Drunkenness the worst Degradation — mother in the old country. And his one darling thought is to bring them to him, that he may have their blessing when they are dying, or at least to cross the waves and see them once be- fore they lose sight of the world. That is the Irishman's heart. That is the Irishman's nature. Of all the men in the world, think of an Irishman standing on the scaffold, with a rope around his neck, with the blood of his mother on his hands! It was not the Irishman ; it was a drunken man. What is our experience? Oh, my God ! I could put before you here the woman yet in the prime of life, and who ought to be in the bloom of her age and of her beauty ; the woman who, ten or twelve years ago, had the misfortune to give her Irish virgin heart, and pure, loving, virginal hand to a drunkard. The red was on her lip, and the rose was on her cheek ; the light of love and the beam of purity were in her eyes. She was born one of God's own ladies; created a lady; a lady in purity of thought, in delicacy of sentiment, in her gentleness, in her modesty. But now, with her three or four starving, neg- lected children around her, she stands before me, clothed in un- womanly rags, covered with unwomanly dirt and filth ; her languid eye bears the expression of despair, tempered only with that light of hope that comes to a Christian, at all times, with the prospect of eternity. Her anguished heart has ceased to beat with any interest in the things of this world ; her voice has lost its youthful freshness, and has descended to the low, wailing cry of the poverty-stricken and the wretched. Oh, where is the bloom upon her face? Gone ! The pallor of the grave is there ! Where is the beauty that surrounded her, and followed her footsteps ? Gone ! Nothing but emaciation is there ! Where is the light of love that comes from a pure soul ? Gone ! Nothing remains but a haggard smile, and an empty laugh, that sounds from her like the echo from the tomb ! Whence all this misery ; this blighted hope ; this abandonment ; this longing desire that God, in His mercy, would take her un- der His grace and care, and come, with His angry hand, and strike the cause of her misfortune? It is all epitomized in that one, debased, besotted, unfeeling drunkard, on whom God has set, and we see, the marks of drunkenness, viz. : the brutal- ity of the mind, the infirmity of the body, the hardness and foolishness of the heart, poverty, and a debased and impure Temperance the greatest Blessing of Man. 523 love. These are the offspring of drunkenness ; and they are all upon the face of the wretch, who has not only destroyed his own life, and shattered his own reputation, but has forfeited and renounced all his prospects in this world and the world to come. Not only has he done this to himself, but he has struck, with unpitying hand, the woman whom he swore before God to cherish, and nourish, and protect ; and has brought children into this world only to swell the list of our criminals, and of our neglected and abandoned little ones. He has, in this world, only fulfilled one mission, and that is to blight and destroy, wherever his baneful influence or his infamous breath can reach. This is the drunkard. I will not follow him in my experi- ence, or invite you to follow him to his death-bed, and to his grave. I shrink away, in fear and horror, from the thought to follow him to the tribunal-seat of God's judgment, when the catalogue of his crimes comes up before God — cursing, and lying, and theft, and adultery, and bloodshed ; and the agony, when the cry comes from the nether hell, of the souls whom he has sent down there, in their despair ; and when the cry comes, from the other side, of the broken-hearted wife and abandoned children, to whom he brought misery, and destitution, and de- spair in this world ; and from others, whom he shut out almost from every hope of mercy. Now, my friends, I ask you, is not this a great evil? And is not its remedy a great blessing? Is not the mission which you men in this temperance society of New Jersey have, and which Almighty God has put in your hands, the most glorious work which He could ever give you to accomplish ? You can do it, with His grace. You can be temperate yourselves, and be lights of temperance if His grace is in you. The Church takes you to her arms, and invites you to her sacraments. For, without confession and communion, no man can have grace or virtue ; and temperance is both one and the other. Yes ! I am proud to address you ; proud, as a Catholic priest, to ad- dress his Catholic brethren ; proud, as an Irishman, to address those who love the land from which I came ; proud, as a man, addressing men — not the remains of men. Treasure, therefore, this virtue of temperance. Refuse that which your divine Model and Lord refused upon the cross. Treasure this virtue 524 Drunkenness the worst Degradation of Man. of temperance as a precious gem from heaven. Try to dissemi- nate and to propagate it. In doing this you will be making your- selves and your fellow-Irishmen, and the Irish name, an honor to your ancient motherland, a prop and a glory to the land of your adoption, a strength and an argument to the Holy Cath- olic religion which you profess. You will be making yourselves all that God intended you to be, when He made you Catholics and Irishmen, and crowned both with the glory of making you American citizens. I regret that there is one* absent from us this evening, whose presence, certainly, would have lent strength and vigor to my words. I regret that, coming before you, I have not had the advantage of that hand lifted more than once on my unworthy head in its episcopal blessing ; that hand, which, for so many years, has tioken to you the Bread of Life. I regret that he is not here to-night, whom you will speedily have the misfortune — I call it nothing else — of losing. He is going from amongst you, whose voice and clear eye ever told you the glory of your religion, and the necessity of this magnificent virtue of tem- perance. His memory you will treasure, because, though he may go forth to a higher and wider sphere of ecclesiastical dig- nity, I believe that his heart and his love will remain in the midst of you. Let every man amongst you remember that his memory can only be embalmed amongst you as long as you live, and practise, and propagate the glorious virtue which he preached, and of which he was so prominent an example among the bishops of this land. Now, nothing remains for me but to thank you for the patience with which you have heard me. If I have instructed, and enlightened, and pleased any amongst you, I am very glad of it. If, on the other hand, I have only annoyed you, or made you feel the time long, all I can say is, I did not do it on purpose. * Most Reverend J. R. Bayley, D.D., Bishop of Newark, N. J. •V I THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE IRISH PEOPLE. [Lecture delivered in the Coliseum, Boston, on Sunday afternoon, September 22, 1872, before the largest paying audience ever assembled to listen to one man, amounting to over 40,000 people ; the proceeds were for the benefit of the Home for Destitute Catholic children.] EN of Ireland, men of Irish blood, men of the Irish race, I, an Irish priest, am come here to speak to you of ** The Genius and the Character of the Irish Peo- ple." I am come to speak to you of the history of our nation, and our honorable race. I am not ashamed of the history of my people. I am not ashamed of my country. I say, taking all for all, that it is the grandest country, and the most glorious race, of which the genius of history can bear record. There are two elements that constitute the character and the genius of every people. These two elements are : The religion of the people, and their government. I need not tell you that, of all the influences that can be brought to bear upon any man, or upon any nation, the most powerful is the influence of their religion. If that religion be from God, it will make a God-like people. If that religion be from heaven, it will make a heavenly people. If that religion be noble, it will make a noble people. Side by side with their religion comes the form or system of government under which they live. If that government be just and fair, and mild and beneficent, it will make a noble people. If that government be the government of the people — governing themselves as glorious America does to-day — it will make every man in the land a lover of his government, a lover of the land, and a lover of the institutions under which he lives. But if that government be a foreign government — the government of a foreign race — it will make an alienated people. If that govern- 526 The Genius and Character of the Irish People. ment be an unjust and tyrannical government, it will make a rebellious and a revolutionary people. If that government be a mere travesty or caricature of law, it will make a false-hearted and a bad people. Now, when I come to speak of the genius and the character of my fellow-countrymen, I am reminded that, in the character of every people on the face of the earth, there is light and shade. There is the bright side and the dark side ; there is the sun- shine and the shadow. There is the side which we love to con- template ; the side in which the virtues of the people shine out ; the side which the better part of their nature governs. And there is also the bad side ; the side that we are ashamed to look upon ; the side, the contemplation of which makes a blush rise to the cheek of every lover of the land. And so there are lights and shades in the character and in the genius of our Irish people. As it is in nature, this world, in all its beauty, is made up of light and shade. My friends, there is no sunshine without shadow; there is no light perceptible to the eye of man unless that light bring out all that is fair and beautiful, whilst, at the same time, it casts its shadows over the dark places. I have said, that in the order of nature, and in the beauty of God's creation here below, there is light and shade. But there is this distinction to be made: the light comes from heaven — from the sun, roll- ing in its splendor over the clouds above us ; the shadow comes from the earth; from the clouds that are near the world ; from the deep forest glade; from the overhanging mountains; from these comes the shadow, but the light comes from heaven. So, in like manner, in the character and in the genius of our Irish people, there are both light and shade. There is the bright side, the beautiful side, the glorious side, to contemplate ; and there is also the dark side, but with this difference, that the lightsome, the beautiful side of Irish genius and character is derived from above — from heaven, from God — from the high source of Irish faith ; whilst the black side of our character, the dark and the gloomy shade, comes from below ; from the mis- government of those who ruled us ; from the treachery, the depravity, and the wickedness of man. And now, so much being said, let us approach the great sub- ject of the Genius and the Character of the Irish people. Tlie Genius and Character of the Irish People, 527 In speaking to you, my friends, on this subject, I am forcibly reminded that the character and genius of every people are formed by their history. In going back to the history of Ire- land, I am obliged to travel nearly two thousand years in order to come to the cradle of my race. I am obliged to go back to the day when Patrick, Ireland's apostle, preached to the Irish race, and in the Irish language, the name and the glory of Jesus Christ and of His Virgin mother. And coming down through that mournful and checkered history, I find that our people have been formed in their national character and genius, first of all, by the faith which Patrick taught them ; and, secondly, by the form of government under which they live. What is the first grand feature of the Irish genius and the Irish character? It is this: that, having once received the Catholic faith from St. Patrick, Ireland has clung to it with a fidelity surpassing that of all other peoples. She has known how to suffer and how to die ; but Ireland's people have never learned to relinquish or to abandon the faith of their fathers. They received that faith from the glorious apostle whom God and Rome sent to them, early in the fifth century; they strug- gled for that faith during three hundred years, against all the power of the North — unconquered and unconquerable — when the Danes endeavored to wrest from Ireland her Christian faith, and to force her back into the darkness of Pagan infidelity. They have struggled for that faith during three hundred years of English tyranny and English penal law. They have suffered, for that faith, loss of property, loss of friends, loss of nationality, loss of life. But Ireland, glorious Ireland, has never relinquished the faith which she received ; and she is as Catholic to-day as in the day when she bowed her virgin head before St. Patrick, to receive from him the regenerating waters of baptism. This, I say, is the first beautiful light in the character and the genius of the people of Ireland. Every other nation of whom we read received that faith slowly and reluctantly. Every other nation of whom we read, demanded of their apostle the seal of his blood, to ratify the truth which he taught them. Ireland alone, amongst all the nations of the earth, received that faith willingly ; took it joyfully ; put it into the hearts and into the blood of her children ; and never caused her apostle one tear of sorrow, nor one drop of his blood. More than this ; 528 The Genius and Character of the Irish People. every nation on the face of the earth has, at sometime or other, been misled into some form of heresy. Some doctrine was dis- •^ puted ; some discipline was denied ; some anti-pope set up his unholy pretensions to be the head of the Catholic Church, I claim for my nation, and for my race, that, with a divine instinct, they never yielded to any form of heresy ; they were never yet deceived in the instinct which drew them to the true head of the Catholic Church — the real Pope of Rome. In the fourteenth century, there was a protracted schism in the Catholic Church. An anti-pope raised himself up. France was deceived, Germany was deceived, Italy was deceived, Eng- land was deceived ; but Ireland, glorious Ireland, with the true instinct of a divinely inspired and guided people, clung to the true Pontiff, and adhered to the true head of the Catholic Church. Whence came this light'* Whence came the fidelity that neither bloodshed nor death could destroy? It came from God ; it came from that high heart and high mind in heaven that inspired Patrick to preach the gospel to the people of Ire- land, and inspired the Irish people to receive the message of Christian peace and love from his mouth. The next great light of our history — the next great point in the genius and character of the Irish people — is a bravery and valor and courage that have been tried upon a thousand fields ; and, glory to you, O Ireland ! Irish courage has never been found wanting — never ! They fought for a thousand years on their own soil. The cause was a good one ; the fortune of the cause was bad. They were defeated and overpowered upon a hundred, yea, a thousand fields ; but never — from the day that Ireland's sword sprang from its scabbard to meet the first Dane, down to the day that the last Irish soldier perished on Vinegar Hill — never has Ireland been dishonored or defeated by the cowardice of her children. Why? Whence comes this light of our people ? I answer, that it comes from this — that Ire- land, as a nation, and Irishmen, as a people, have never yet drawn the nation's sword in a bad, a treacherous, or a dishon- orable cause. We have fought on a thousand fields at home and abroad ; we have been, from time to time, obliged to shed our blood in a cause with which we had no sympathy; but Irishmen have never freely drawn the sword, except in the sacred cause of God, of the altar of God, and of sacred liberty— The Genius and Character of the Irish People. 529 the best inheritance of man. Search the annals of the military- history of Ireland. Did we fall back before the Dane, when, for three centuries — three hundred years — he poured in army upon army on Irish soil ? He endeavored to sweep away the Christ, and the name of the Christ, from the Irish land. Did we ever give up the contest, or sheathe the sword, or say the cause was lost? Never! England yielded, and admitted the Dane as a conqueror. France yielded, and admitted the Dane as a ruler and a king amongst her people. But Ireland never — never for an instant — yielded ; and, upon that magnificent Good Friday morning, at Clontarf, she drew the sword with united hand, swept the Dane into his own sea, and rid her soil of him forever. Ah ! my friends, Irishmen, for three hundred years, were fighting in the cause of their God, of their religion, and of their national liberty. Then came the invasion of the English. For four hundred years our people fought an unsuccessful fight ;. and, divided as they were, broken into a thousand factions, how" could they succeed, when success is promised only to union as a preliminary and a necessary condition ? They failed in de- fending and asserting the nationality of Ireland. At the endi of four hundred years, England declared that the war was nO' longer against Ireland's nationality, but against Ireland's Cath- olic religion. And England declared that the Irish people must consent, not only to be slaves, but to be Protestant slaves.. Once more the sword of Ireland came forth from its scabbard ;, and this time in the hands of the nation. We have fought for three hundred years ; and, five years ago, the government and' people of England were obliged to acknowledge that the people of Ireland were too strong for them. They were conquerors on the question of religion ; and Gladstone declared that the Protestant Church was no longer the Church of Ireland. Whence came this light, this magnificent glory, that sheds itself over the character and the genius of my people ? I see an Irishman to-day in the streets of an American city; I see him a poor man — a laborer ; I see him, perhaps, clothed in rags ; I see him, perhaps, with a little too much drink in, and forgetful of himself; but, wherever I see a true Irishman, I bow to him in spirit, as the representative of a race that never yet knew how to fly from a foe, or to show their backs to an enemy I 34 530 The Genius and Character of the Irish People, Why? Because of their Catholic faith, taught them by St Patrick, which tells them that it is never lawful to draw the sword in an unjust cause ; but that, when the cause is just — for religion, for God, for freedom — he is the best Christian who knows how to draw his sword, wave it triumphantly over the field, or let it fall in the hand of a man who knows how to die v/ithout dishonor. The third light that shines upon the bright side of the history, the character, and the genius of my people, is the light of divine purity; the purity that makes the Irish maiden as chaste as the nun in her cloister ; the purity that makes the Irishman as faithful to his wife as the priest is to the altar which he serves ; the purity that makes Mormonismand defilement of every kind utter strangers to our race and to our people. I say, the Irish woman is the glory of Ireland ; she is the glory of her country. How beautiful is she in the integrity of virginal purity ! She •has been taught it by St. Patrick, who held up the Mother of God — the Virgin Mother — as the very type of Ireland's woman- iiood, and of Ireland's consecrated virgins, as illustrated in the lives and in the characters of our Irish virgin saints. The Irish- man knows that, whatever else he may be false to — whatever other obligations he may violate and break — there is one bond, tied by the hand of God Himself, before the altar ; sealed with the sacramental seal of matrimony ; signed with the sign of the cross, that no power upon earth, or in hell, or in heaven, can €ver break ; and that is the sacred bond that binds him to the wife of his bosom. What follows from this ? 1 know that there are men here •who do not believe in the Catholic religion — that do not believe in the integrity of our Irish race — yet I ask these men to explain to me this simple fact : How is it, how comes it to pass, that whilst the Mormons are recruiting from every nation in Europe, and from every people in America, they have only had five Irish people amongst them ? and, amongst these five, four arrived in New York last week. A reporter of the Herald newspaper met them, and said to them : " In the name of God, are you become Mormons? " They said, "Yes, we are." " Why! don't you come from Ireland ? " The answer he got was this : •' Aweel, we cam' fra' the North of Ireland, ye ken ; but we're a' Scotch bodies." Men and women of Ireland, to the honor TJie Genius and Character of the Irish People. 531 and glory of our race, there was only one Irishman among all the Mormons. What brought him across them ? I don't know. I would like to meet him, and have half an hour's conversation with him. Maybe he was like the man who joined the " Shakers " in Kentucky. He put on the white hat and the dress, and was a most sanctimonious-looking fellow. He came to the priest, with his hands folded and eyes turned upwards, quoting texts of Scripture. When the priest saw him, not knowing who he was, he thought he was a Quaker. But the fellow turned up his sleeve, and showed the sign of the Cross, and the Blessed Virgin, and St. John tattooed on his arm. " Look at that, your reverence," said he. " My God," said the priest to him, " aren't you a Quaker?" " Well, your reverence," said he, " I am — for the time being." " And what made you join them?" said the priest. " Oh, to tell you God's truth, I went among them to see if they were in earnest. Your reverence," said he, " it is bacon and cabbage we get every day, and it agrees with me." Five years ago the English Parliament made a law, the most infamous, the most unchristian that could be passed — a law that a married man could be separated from the wife that he married; and the man that was separated from his wife could go and marry another woman ; and the woman could go and marry another man. The English people asked for that law, and acted upon it. They acted upon it so freely and so willingly that the Judge of the Divorce Court was actually killed, in a few months, by the large amount of business that was thrown on his hands. The Scotch people took that law. But what did the Irish do? Every man, woman, and child in Ireland burst into a loud fit of unextinguishable laughter. The women said : " The Lord between us and harm ! " And the men said : " They've gone blind mad in England ! They've gone and made a law, that a fellow that marries a woman can go away and leave his wife, and marry some one else." The Irish character and the genius of Ireland is vindicated in the care that the Irish parent has for the education of his children. He will not abandon them to the streets, to igno- rance, and sin ; he will not allow them to go into the schools where they may be taught to blaspheme the purity of Mary, and the divinity of Mary's Child. No matter what it costs him, he will insure to his children the blessing of a pure and a 552 The Genius and Character of the Irish People. high Catholic education. Look back upon the history of our people, as taught to us by the genius of history. The worst law that ever England made — the most infamous, the most unchristian — was the law that was enacted during the penal times ; by which it was declared, that if an Irish Catho- lic father sent his son or his daughter to an Irish Catholic school, that man was guilty of felony, and liable to transporta- tion. Their soldiers and their policemen went through the whole country ; and the school-master had to fly, like the priest. But in the midst of the danger, at the cost of liberty and of life, the Irish people, the parents of Ireland, the fathers and the mothers of Ireland, still had their children educated ; and En- gland failed in her diabolical attempt to brutalize and degrade the Irish people by ignorance. The next great light thrown upon our history, and upon the genius of our national character, is the love that Irishmen, all the world over, preserve for the land that bore them. The emi- grant comes from Ireland at a mature age ; he leaves his native soil after he has had time enough, years enough, to weep over her miseries, and perhaps to strike a blow in her ancient and time-honored cause. The child comes from Ireland in his mother's arms. The son of the Irish father and the Irish moth- er is born in America, far away from the native soil of his par- ents. But whether it be the full-grown man, or whether it be the infant in arms, or whether it be the native-born American- Irishman — all unite in the one grand sentiment that bound to- gether the bards, the sages, the saints, and the soldiers of Ire- land — namely, the love, pure and strong, for that ancient land that bore them. Such was the love for Ireland the great saint, the blessed Columbkille, felt, that he died, exclaiming: " Oh, now I die in the hope of seeing my God, because I have shut my eyes to the place that I love most on earth — green, verdant, and sweet Ire- land ! " An Irish soldier fell dying on the plain of Landen. When the bullet had pierced his heart, and its blood was gush- ing forth, Sarsfield, the noble Irish soldier, took a handful of his heart's blood, and, lifting it up, cried : " O God ! that this blood was shed for Ireland ! " The love that filled the lieart of Columbkille, in lona ; the love that throbbed in the last move- ment of that dying heart of Sarsfield — is the love that to-day The Genius and Character of the Irish People. 533 binds the Irishman in America, in Austrah'a, and all the world over, to the cherished land of his birth, and makes him hope for high things, and do daring and valiant deeds for the ancient land of Ireland. Whence comes this love for our native land? I answer, this light of our genius and of our character comes tO us from the faith which St. Patrick taught us. The Catholic faith teaches every man that, after his God, he is bound to love the land of his birth — his country. The Catholic Church teaches every man that, when the hour of danger — danger to his national liberty, danger to his people, and to his nation — comes, then every man is bound to gird on the sword, and to draw it in the sacred name of God, and of country. The last of Ireland's saints was the holy and canonized St. Laurence O'Toole, who was Archbishop of Dublin when Ire- land was first invaded by the Anglo-Norman. If we believe Leland, the ancient historian, the man who was ordained as a monk in Glendalough ; the man who was the model bishop, and Archbishop of Dublin, came forth and girded on his sword jii front of the Irish army, before the English invaders. In the name of the Blessed Trinity, he drew his sword in the sacred cause of Ireland. In him patriotism — the love of fatherland — is canonized, as well as the monk and the archbishop. One more light in the bright side of our character, and I have done with this portion of my address. The Irish people, irt their genius, in their national character, have kept up under the direst persecutions. Never did a people suffer so much, and still keep up their natural humor, splendid temper, and height of spirit. If any other nation on the face of the earth had gone through three hundred years of incessant war, four hundred years of national invasion, three hundred years, again, of religious persecution, the heart and the spirit of the people would have been broken ; and no smile would have been seen on the face of the nation. What do we find? In spite of all he has suffered ; in spite of all the persecution that has been heaped upon him ; the Irishman of to-day has as light a heart, as bright an eye, and is as nimble of heel in the dance, as any man on the face of God's earth. Give him an opportunity, and he will give you ^ stroke of wit, such as you never heard before. There was a poof fellow down in my native county of Galway — I daresay some of you know the place — he was standing in his corduroy breeches 534 The Genius and Character of the Irish People. and gray stockings, and the brogues that he wore were not worth mentioning, because they had neither soles nor uppers. As he stood in the door of his little cabin, the pig was inside, playing with the children. An Englishman was passing, and saw the pig in the man's house ; and he said to him : " Now, my good man, why do you allow that pig in your house ? It does not look quite right." "Why," says the Irishman, "has cot the house every accommodation that any reasonable pig would require?" Oh ! the light heart of the Irish race! If on this platform there were now an Irish piper, or an Irish fiddler, and he struck up an Irish jig, do you imagine, priest and friar as I am, that I would not feel the heels going under me ? Whence comes the light foot, the bright eye, the brave heart? Ah ! it comes from the religion that taught them that, no matter how hard the world went with them, the hand of God was with them, and Jesus Christ and His Virgin Mother, who loved them; no matter how drear their lot in this world was, their relig-ion (Opened before them a vista of a magnificent and eternal future of happiness in the next world. Hence it is that these, amongst many other traits and characteristics in the genius of the Irish people, are revealed to us with the light that always comes from above. The Catholic never changed his religion in Ireland, because he was a Catholic, and the Catholic religion does not change. The Catholic Irishman always knew how to die upon the field of honor, because his religion taught him that the noblest death that man can die, is to die for his God, and for a noble and just cause. The Catholic Irishman is as faithful as the needle to the pole-star, to the wife of his bosom ; the Catholic virgin, as pure as the unstained snow ; the Catholic mother, bear- ing upon her brow the mingled beauty of maternity and virginity^ is a model for the women of the world. And why ? Because their Catholic faith taught them the love of the mother in the vir- ginity of the Virgin Mary, who brought forth Jesus Christ. Finally, the Catholic Irishman loves his native land, because he knows that land is the most glorious spot on earth — with a faith producing the deepest holiness ; a learning brought to its highest pitch ; a bravery never disputed, constituting the high- est nobility of a race and of a people. And the Catholic Irish- man is light-hearted, because he says : " I may be hungry to-day ; I may be tired to-day ; I may be cold to-day ; but my The Genius and Character of the Irish People. 535 God is preparing for me a kingdom where neither hunger shall pinch, nor labor weary, nor cold benumb." Now, my friends, with this light and beauty in our national character, what are the shades, or the shadows and defects of our people ? You may ask me what they are. What are the shadows of the Irish people ? I think I know my people as well as any man alive. I remember a time in my life when not one word of the Eng- lish I now speak to you was on these lips, but only the sweet old rolling Celtic tongue that my father and my mother spoke before me. I have lived for years in Ireland. I have studied the character of my people, not with eyes blinded by the prej- udices of an amateur critic, but with the skilled eyes of a Cath- olic priest. I have seen the dark side as well as the bright side of our national character. I will not give to you my own ex- perience, for I have learned so to love my people and my race that I cannot find it in my heart to speak ill of them. I will let the press of England do it. I will let our enemies tell you and me what our national faults are. And what are they? The first thing of all that the English press accuses us of as Irish- men, is, that we are an improvident, reckless lot. They say : " Look at the German ; he is not a year in America before he has a couple of houses, and a couple of lots ; but look at the Irishman ; he settles down in a tenement house, and earns, perhaps, five dollars a week ; he gives one dollar to the priest, three more go for whiskey, and one to the wife." They say we have no prudence ; we don't know how to make eighteen- pence out of ninepence soon enough. I grant it. We Irish- men are a spendthrift and reckless race. I ask you, men of Ireland, who made us so improvident ? Who made us so im- prudent, so reckless? Ah! was it not the cruel, blood-stained government of England, that robbed us of every penny of our possessions ? What makes a man reckless and imprudent so soon as to deprive him of that which is his own and shut out every hope for the future? What hope had the Irishman at home? He tilled his field and drained it ; he made a piece of bog choice arable land ; but the moment it was worth twice its former value, the landlord turned him out, with his wife and his children, to die like dogs in the ditch, and gave his farm to some other person. What wonder that we spend our money 53^ The Genius and Character of the Irish People. lavishly and recklessly, when we have not, for seven hundred years, had anything left by the government worth an Irishman's while to live, to save, to be prudent for, in the land of his birth! The English press says : " The Irish race are drunkards, too fond of drink ; they spend all their money in drink. Nothing but whiskey! " Now, I answer, with my experience of Irish- men, that any man who accuses our Irish race and our Irish people of being greater drunkards than any other people tells a lie. If any man said to me here such a thing, I would say: ** You lie, and I will prove it." Take, for instance, the Scotch. What does their own poet tell us of their drinking ? He says : " Willie brewed a peck o' maut, And Rob and Allan came to see." They sat down at nine o'clock ; and they drank raw whiskey until six o'clock in the morning ; and then they were not drunk ; for he goes on to say — " ' We are na fu', we're na that fu' ; But just a wee drap in our ee ; The cock may craw, the day may daw', But aye we'll taste the barley bree.' " I would like to know if any of you know an Irishman who was able to drink raw whiskey from nine o'clock at night till six in the morning and not fall under the table. No enemy of ours ever yet alleged that we were gluttons. Thanks be to God for that ! The charge of eating too much, whatever comes of our drinking too much, was never made against the Irish peo- ple. The Irishman is a small eater, my friends. There was an Irish gentleman by the name of Colonel Martin, of Ballinahinch. He was over in England, and made a bet with an Englishman about this. The Englishman said to him — he was a member of Parliament also — " You Irish are not worth anything ; you are not able to eat as well as our people." The Irish gentleman foolishly said : " I will bet you five hundred pounds that I can bring you a man from my estate who can eat more than any Englishman you bring." The Englishman took the bet will- ingly. The Irishman was brought over; the Englishman also appeared — a fine, big, strapping man, with a mouth reaching from ear to ear, and a great long body with short legs — plenty of room ; and he did not eat anything for two days, to put him- The Genius and Character of the Irish People. 53/ self \u trim. The poor Irishman was brought in — a ploughman, with the fine bloom of health upon his face — as well able to give an account of a sceagh of potatoes, with a " griskin," or a bit of bacon, as the best of you; but he was no match for the Englishman. They sat down to the work of eating. They were given roast beef to eat. The Englishman stood behind his man's chair, and the Irish gentleman stood behind his man's chair, looking at their eating. After a while, the Irishman had got his fill, while the Englishman was only beginning to eat in earnest. There was a turkey on the spit roasting for the gentleman's din- ner. The Irish gentleman saw that his man was failing, and he spoke to him in Irish, " Michael," he said, " what do you think ? " And the man replied, in the same tongue : " Oh, mas- ter, I'm full to the windpipe! " As he spoke in Irish, the En- glishman did not understand him, and he asked Martin : " What does the fellow ^-ay ?" " He says," replied Martin, " that he is just beginning to get an appetite ; and he wants you to give him that turkey there, for his dinner, after he is done." "Con- found the b'ackguard," says the Englishman, " he shall never get a bit of \\. I give up the bet ! " But if Iri-hmen are fond of a glass of whiskey, who is to blame for it? • . ' forbid that I should excuse it. I hold up my hand against '>, ? home and abroad. I say to every Irishman that comes \ I me, " Brother, be sober, and you will be a pros- perous : " I admire your city of Boston. I say it here publicl;. . imire the legislation that puts it out of the power of a ma be a drunkard, because drunkenness is the worst degr ' jf man, and the worst crime we can commit against God ' we find Irishmen here and there taking, as they say, u ibleful too much," who is to blame for it ? Why did Et ., . d rob him? Why did England persecute him? Why did "England leave him without a foot of land to stand upon and '.all his own in the land that bore him ? Why did Ei>g' it off every hope from him? Do that to most men, 11 find that they will turn for comfort to the bottle. they say, " Irishmen are a very revengeful and a tful people." The critics of the English press say: u cannot trust the word of an Irishman ; he will tell le when he says he is telling you the truth." I answer, 4}.. , Who is to blame for the lying and deceit, if it exists in 53^ The Genius and Character of the Irish People. the Irish character ? Is it a heavy crime for a heart-broken, persecuted people to tell a lie to the man who is made a master over them, from whom they expect no mercy ? The man that will soonest try to cover his fault with a lie, is the man that knows there is no allowance made for him or his faults. There- fore, I deny that we are a lying people ; and even if it were true, I say that the seven hundred years of English rule ought to have made us the most deceitful people on the face of the earth. They say we are revengeful. If you travel in England you will hear in the railway carriage, from the Englishman, that Ireland is a most awful country ; the Irish are a most dreadful people ; that if you go out there to take an evening walk, suddenly a man will come out of the bushes, present a blunderbuss point- blank at you, and " blow you to blazes." There has been a great deal of crime, in the way of outrages against life, in Ireland. There is no doubt about it ; there has been, for a Christian and a Catholic people, too much. But, my friends, I lay down. First, this undisputed fact, that there are more murders committed in the city of London in one month, than there are in Ireland in three years. Secondly, again, I say, if the people take "the wild justice of revenge," if they go out and take the law into their own hands, who is to blame for it? Ah ! well they know who is to blame, when that Government has allowed a " crowbar brigade " to uproot the homesteads of our people, to hunt them from their dwellings like wild beasts, and leave them to perish on the road-side, or in the workhouse, or else to consign them to the hard fate of the moneyless emi- grant coming to a foreign shore. The Irish landlord comes to the door of an Irish tenant, and says to the man, " Go out ! " His family have, perhaps, lived for three hundred years under that roof; and they have to go out. He says to the woman lying, perhaps, in her confinement, or her fever, " Go out ! " He says to the little children, " Go out ! " with not a morsel of food, or an article of clothing, from under their roof, in the midst of the bitter winter. xA-nd the Irish father clubs his gun, and dashes the tyrant's brains out. I say, again — God forbid that I should justify them ; God forbid that I should encourage them ; but, as a priest, as a theologian, as an Irishman, I stand here and say, if ever there was a people who were guiltless of blood shed in murder, it is the people of Ireland, The Genius and Character of the Irish People. 539 Now, my friends, one word, and I am done ; because you can easily perceive I am beginning to be a little tired. You have seen the lights, you have seen the shadows, of the Irish charac- ter. The lights, I have endeavored to prove to you, come from above, the shadows from below. Twenty years ago, Ireland, persecuted, starving, "the Niobe of all the nations," turned her eyes westward, and with that vivid Irish imagination which has never failed to realize the beautiful and the true, beheld the magnificent shores of Columbia. She sent her people here. Eight millions of them are on American soil, the bone and sinew, the brain and intellect, and the energy of this land. The lights that came to them from above, they have brought with them : their Catholic faith, their Catholic bravery, their Catholic fidelity, their Catholic light heart, and good-humor. All these they have brought with tli£m, because it shone from above ; and no man could take it from them. The shadows in their character — the deceitfulness, the drunkenness, the improvi- dence, the revenge, if such there be — that came from the mis- government under which they lived ; the cause of them is re- moved. England has no longer any claim upon any Irishman here, except myself. You are all having the glory of being free men on a free soil. You have amongst the men of this world the first, the grandest title that man can have under heaven to- day, the title of the Catholic American citizen. The grandest shadow that can fall upon man to-day, is the shadow of the Cross of Christ ; and the next greatest shadow is that of the " Stars and Stripes " of free America. These are yours. If there be any traditions or traces of improvidence, they should not be here. We were improvident at home, because we had nothing to hope for, nothing to live for. But oh ! I be- hold the glorious future, as America's imperial hand opens for every citizen her liberties. No trace of slavery is on this soil ; no penal law, to condemn you to ignorance or to slavery ; no sceptred monarch to tell you, at the peril of your life, to think as he does, or to die ; no Harry the Eighth to tell you, if you are Catholics, he will destroy you ; and that, in order to live, you will have to forego the faith you have held for more than a thousand years. No ! America hears no tyrant footstep on her soil, and hearkens to the voice of no man who is oppressing and enslaving his fellow-men. Long may she wave the emblems of 540 The Genius and Character of the Irish People. hope and of freedom over a country vast in its proportions, terrible in its power, strong in its genius, glorious in its magnifi- cence, and in the liberty and the freedom which she grants to all men. The Irishman in America has what he never had at home ; he has the genius of freedom around him. He is able to ex- pand his glorious Celtic bosom, to breathe an air untainted with any tyranny. I am a " loyal " British subject, because I am a priest, and the Church teaches loyalty and peace ; but I confess to you that never, never, for twenty years, have I spoken in Ire- land, as I feel I can speak in America. I can't tell you what it is ; I only know that it is so. I feel like a blind man when his eyes are first opened, and he beholds the light ; I feel like the manacled man when his chains first fall from his limbs, and he knows that he can use his arms ; I feel like the worshipper of Freedom when he first beholds his goddess, and kneels before her. America ! glorious America ! The first land of freedom that struck every chain off the Irish hand that is laid upon her soil. Every shadow of the past is gone. Why, then, should not the confusion that sprang from these shadows and this misgovernment be gone? Why should not the Irishman in America be provident, prudent, thrifty, industrious? Thanks be to God ! here he has something to live for ; some- thing to hope for, for himself and for his children after him. Why should not the Irishman in America be sober, and not take refuge in the consolations of the bottle? He has a glorious land before him, bright skies above him, a splendid liberty around him, a high scope for the intelligence with which God has so large- ly endowed our people. Why should he not be a king among men, a leader of men ? Place, power, influence, civic and mili- tary glory are before him. Why should he not be in the fore- most ranks of the army of America? Was he not foremost on the bloody slopes of Fredericksburg, when the soil was steeped in Irish blood, aad the bodies of Irish soldiers covered its hills as thick as the leaves in Vallambrosa? He was in the front ranks behind the ramparts of New Orleans, with Jackson, when, as the yellow grain falls before the mower's scythe, so fell the old enemy, the red-coated soldiery of Britain, before the terrible fire of the American soldiery. Why should not the Irishman in America live in peace and fellow.ship with his fel- The Genius and Character of the Irish People. 541 low-men ? Are they not the first to vindicate the freedom that they have given him? Why should not the Irishman in America be the first man in the state? Has he not genius? American history, as well as Irish history, will tell you. Whatever else Almighty God deprived us of, Ke gave us a large amount of brains. Has he not energy? The cities and the railways of America attest the work of the Irishman's hand, and the Irish energy that triumphs beyond any other race upon the earth. Has he not virtue? His religion will answer for him, if he will only come within the shadow of her walls. The principle of unity, namely, the unity of faith, is his; the principle of conjugal fidelity is his, also. When his race shall be educated in the land, the Irishman need only ask to be allowed a generation to show the strength, the energy, the prolific grandeur, and the purity of his race, which his Catholic faith has preserved for him. Therefore, let me conclude. In Ireland we had little hope. Our foes make laws for us. If they be just laws they destroy them in detail. They declared that the Protestant Church was at an end ; but they gave nearly every penny of the money to that Church ; not one farthing to the Catholics. They declared that the Irish farmer has the right to his land ; yet the " crow- bar brigade " is at work in the land to-day. We had little hope. Why? Because our laws are made by an enemy, and when the enemy makes the laws, they will press upon you as hard as they can. Well, Ireland has but little to hope for at home. But what are our hopes here? I admire the grandeur of the pros- pect when Ireland looks across to the West, and beholds her children in great Columbia. There, when through the faith that they brought with them from the old land — the faith for which their fathers died — when through the sanctity of that faith, which enabled them for three hundred years to be a na- tion of martyrs as well as of saints and patriots, if they will only give fair play to it by sobriety, industry, peacefulness, using their brains and the talents that God has given them — then behold before you the prospect. I lift up, as it were, the veil of the future. I look with an anxious, longing eye. What do I behold ? I may be in my grave, yet it will come ! it will come ! What do I behold ? I may be sleeping beneath the shamrocks, yet it will come ! All 542 The Genius and Character of the Irish People. hail, Irish Columbia ! All hail the great and mighty power that I see advancing over the ocean's waves, in an unconquera- ble flotilla ! Genius is there ; bravery is there ; power is there ; the fair figure of Mary the Virgin is hanging at the mast-head ! They come ! they come to save Ireland, our ancient Ireland ; and she no longer shall be enslaved. A great and mighty race have risen, to elevate her, and to place her upon a high throne among the nations of the earth. DIVINE FAITH THE PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. [Sermon preached in St. Paul's Church, Brooklyn, on Sunday morning, October 20th, 1872.] " As He was speaking these things unto them, behold, a certain ruler came up and adored Him, saying : Lord, my daugliter is even now dead ; but come, lay Thy hand upon her, and she shall live. And Jesus, rising up, followed him, with His disciples. And, behold, a woman, who was troubled with an issue of blood, twelve years, came behind Him and touched the hem of His garment. For she said within herself. If I sliall touch only His garment, I shall be healed. But Jesus, turning about, and seeing her, said, Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour. And wlien Jesus was come into the house of the ruler, and saw the minstrels and the multitude making a rout. He said. Give place ; for the girl is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed Him to scorn. And when the multitude was put forth, lie went in and took her by the hand, and the maid arose. And the fame hereof went abroad into all that country." — Matthew ix. 18. HE two miracles which are commemorated in this day's Gospel, alike invite our attention to the great virtue of faith. Mark, dearly beloved brethren, the ruler came, with a sorrowing, broken heart, to our Lord. His daughter, a beautiful young maiden, was dead. The father saw her dead ; the light was gone from her eyes ; her heart was stilled, so that it beat no more. The man looked upon his be- loved child ; when, suddenly, a thought came into his mind : " There is One whom I know to be the Lord of life and death. I will go and ask Him, that He may raise my child from death." Accordingly he went out, looking for our Lord ; and the mo- ment he met Him, he knelt down, first of all, and adored Him. Why did he do this? Is it lawful for a man to kneel down and adore his fellow-man? No! Is it lav/ful for a man to kneel down and adore the angels of God? No! Is it lawful for you 544 Divine Faith the Principle of Christian Life. or me to kneel down and adore the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God? No! Adoration belongs to God alone; and we cannot take these words, " he adored him," to mean any other sense of the words than that the ruler knew that, although he only saw a man, that man was God — that he was in the pres- ence of God, and " he knelt down and adored " his God. How did he know this ? He only saw the man, Jesus Christ ; he only saw the man whom the Pharisees were watching, whom the priests were plotting against ; — a man that was despised and hated by the highest men. And yet this man came and adored Him, because he had faith ; and faith means the argument of things that appear not; — faith means the knowledge of things that eye hath not seen, that are not comprehended by the mind. Faith means more than this, the actual thought, acknowledging, kneeling down, and adoring Jesus Christ wherever He is. Then the woman came, and said in her own heart — wasted as she was by an issue of blood for twelve years ; drained of all her life-blood ; languid even unto death ; incurable ; abandoned by all human aid — the moment she saw our Lord passing she said : " Oh ! if I could only touch the hem of His garment, I know that I should be healed ! " Faintly, with a great effort, she advanced ; and the multitude mercifully let her approach. Flinging herself upon the ground, she just touched her Saviour's robe ; and that moment she was healed. He turned towards her, and said : " Be of good heart, daughter ; thy faith hath made thee whole." Now, my dearly beloved brethren, it is to this great subject of faith that I invite your attention to-day. And why? Because we live in an age that ignores and despises this divine, theolog- ical virtue. Because we live in an age and amongst men who tell us that if we have prudence, industry, sobriety, truthful- ness, and all the other manly virtues, that these are enough, and that it does not matter much, after all, what a man believes — that his faith is of little or no account — provided he has the virtues that will enable him to get on well in this world, and be an ornament to society. This is the cant of our day ; this is the language which is imputed in opposition to the Cath- olic Church. For instance, in the system of education in the public schools, the State says: "I will teach the children. I will make smart, clever men of them. I will teach them to he Divine Faith the Prijiciple of Christian Life. 545 honest and truthful. I will teach them to be upright and manly. I will teach them to be prudent, industrious men of business. But, as for faith or religion, I have no particular form of faith. I will not teach them that. But, after all, it does not matter ; it is a matter of very secondary importance." This is the spirit of our day, that has made, inside the Catholic Church, that tre- mendous evil which is staring us in the face, of thousands of Catholics who say : " I have the faith. I profess the faith. I am a Catholic to the backbone ; " yet they do not act up to it. Ask that man when he was last at confession — when did he go to communion ? " Oh, it is not necessary ! " It is years since he was at the sacraments. " I'll go when I am dying." They do not act up to it. With them it is a profession, nothing more. They believe. Yes, they have the faith ; but that faith is not the principle of their lives. Therefore, the error which, outside the Church, despises the principles of faith is found in the Church in practical contempt of the practices of faith. To such as those, then, I wish to speak. What is the faith' among men that have it or desire to have it ? St. Paul lays down this great truth — that " faith is the principle of Christian life." Again he says, man lives by faith — that faith is the gov- erning power of his actions, giving tone to all the actions of his life ; strengthening his motives, influencing him in everything, guiding him, animating him, strengthening him to make a thou^ sand sacrifices. Therefore, he says: ^' Per fidem ainbulamus, non per res videvms." — We walk by faith, and not by things that appear. It is, therefore, according to the apostle, a prin- ciple. What does this mean ? In the world, every man has, or is supposed to have, certain principles. We talk of a man's political principles ; we talk of a man's religious principles ; we talk of a man's commercial principles ; we say of a man, that he is a man of high principles ; that he is a man of democratic principles ; or his political principles are republican ; or his principles are radical, as the case may be. What does this mean ? Two things. First of all, it means that that man has a certain conviction upon his mind of the truth — a certain line of action — certain principles that he admits into his mind ; and, having admitted them into his mind, he acts upon them. Thus, for instance, a man is a democrat. What does that mean politically ? It means that according to his judgment 35 546 Divine Faith the Principle of Christian Life. —weighing the pros and cons — he thinks it is better to pre- serve the State rights of this great repubHc. Then he thinks it better to maintain each individual State in independence, as far as regards its own laws, in the Federal Union. The moment he admits that, after weighing the arguments, pro and contra — the moment he admits it into his mind, the very next thing he does is to join a democratic club, or give a democratic vote in the election. In a word, his conviction becomes principle when he puts it into action. Understand this well : a mere intellec- tual conviction is not principle. What do you say of the man» for instance, who is convinced, intellectually, that the demo- crats are right, and then votes with the radicals? You will say he is a man of no principle. What would you say of a man that said the Catholic religion was the true one, and yet went every Sunday to the Protestant Church ? You would say, he is a man of no religious principle. And why? Because his conviction is there, but he does not act upon it. It is only when the conviction of the mind is reduced to action, and the man knows which of the candidates he will uphold, and which is the enemy of his principle. Thus it is in politics, thus it is in commerce, and in all the relations of public life. Faith, according to St. Paul, is principle. I wish to look upon it in this light, measured by the standard of human prin- ciple. Now, in order that you may know what faith must be, what is the first thing necessary in man, when he pretends to Slave principles, political or otherwise? The very first thing mecessary is, that he should know precisely what his convictions are. The man that does not know the merits of his party, does not know what line of action he intends to pursue, does not know the issue of a political vote ; he knows nothing about it ; that man has no principle. A man must have a clear idea in Tiis mind, well-cut and well-defined. What do you say of a ■man, for instance, who is constantly changing, not knowing ex- actly on which side to vote ; one day with one party, another 'day with another party ; on one question on the republican, and another on the democratic side ? You would say of him that he is a man who has no clear, well-defined principles ; no clear notion, no accurate idea of what democracy, or radicalism, or republicanism means. As in politics, so, in like manner, the tnan who, in religion, does not know what to believe, and says Divine Faith the Principle of Christian Life. 547 " Well, the Catholic Church may be the true one ; I am really inclined sometimes to think it is the true one ; but, after all, I don't know ; the Protestant Church seems to me to be false, and sometimes I think it is all right." You would say that man has no clear principle at all ; and why? Because that man has no definite idea in his mind either in political or in com- mercial relations. What do you say of a man in the commer- cial relations of life who did not know the difference between right and wrong ; who, but to-day would not steal, and to-mor- row again, would stand up and say it is lawful to do this, that, or the other disreputable thing? You would say of such a man that he has no principle — no clear idea of right or wrong — he has no defined principle. The very first necessity of any principle is, that it shall be a clear principle, well cut and well defined in the mind ; without this it cannot even exist. Secondly, being thus well defined in the mind, the next thing is that a man's principle, whatever it be, shall be firm — that he shall grasp it firmly; and that it shall enter into his soul deeply, as an intellectual conviction ; so that it shall remain there un« moved and immovable. Otherwise we deem him as a man without principle. Of a man constantly changing sides, the newspapers say, in the United States: " He is a great demo- crat this year; last year he was a know-nothing. A radical to- day, he was a liberal republican yesterday. To-day he goes in for Greeley ; yesterday he was preaching for Grant." What do you say of that man ? You say he has no principle at all ; — no firm- ness of principle at all. What greater reproach can you put upon a man than to say — " You turned your coat ; you have shifted your politics." I remember once, when I was a boy, seeing a man in Galway, who became a great " repealer," and wanted to get into Parliament. His principles were well known ; up to that very time he was a great Tory. He came into the court-house ; and another gentleman there wanted to tell the people how he had changed from being a Tory to a Re- pealer ; and he took off his coat and turned it inside out. I feel that it is scarcely proper — I feel the impropriety of illus- trating, on such an occasion as this, my arguments with such familiar examples — I feel that this is not the time, nor the place to say a word that will provoke laughter; yet still, I want to impress upon you by this means that principle, wherever it 548 Divine Faith the Principle of Christian Life. exists, must be firm in the mind — must be there unmoved and immovable ; or else it is no principle at all. Thirdly, principle, wherever it exists, should be reduced to action. It must animate a man's life. It must show itself in his support of the party that he believes in, in politics, in the line he pursues in commerce, in his social relations, and also in re- ligion ; for, if not there practically, it is not principle at all, but a mere mental opinion that slides in the mind, and goes back and forth from that. These being the three great features of principle, let us apply them to faith. First of all, it follows that, if faith be the principle of Chris- tian life, that faith must be clear, definite, logical — well defined, and resting upon an intellectual basis from which it can never be moved. If it is mere sentiment, it is not faith. If it is mere opinion, no matter how strong, it is not faith. It must be an intellectual conviction, knowing well the reason why it exists, and as clearly defined, as well and accurately impressed upon the mind that conceives it as a mathematical conclusion. An opinion may change, whilst he who holds it, holds it only by the uncertain grip of his own reason. That which appears rea- sonable to-day, may appear unreasonable to-morrow. Such is the uncertainty of the mind of man. But faith, which is only comprehended in the mind as the truth of God — as the truth of God, as it is in the mind of God ; — or the truth of God as ex- pressed by the lips of God ; — that faith must be as clear and as accurate as it is in the mind of the Eternal Truth that conceived it. I ask you where do we find it? Where, under the canopy of heaven, is this well-defined faith, the moment a man goes outside the limits of the Catholic Church? In the Catholic Church — in this body, instituted by Christ to preserve, to per- petuate, and to spread his religion — every man knows accu- rately and precisely what he believes. Ask any one a question on any matter of faith, and you have asked two hundred mil- lions. Ask one Catholic man the simple question, " Is Christ present in the Blessed Eucharist ? " and he will answer with two hundred millions at his back, "Yes; He is there as sure as He is upon the Father's right hand in heaven." Ask one Cath- olic, can the priest forgive sins, in the Sacrament of Penance ? and he will answer with the voice of two hundred millions: " Yes ; he can forgive sins as surely as Christ, our Lord, forgave Divine Faith the Principle of Christian Life. 549 sins." So with every article of faith — clear, accurate, well-de- fined — the Catholic Church never teaches with an uncertain voice. The Catholic never says, " We are inclined to believe that" — or " this maybe true" — or " there may be a doubt, or probability, that Christ is present in the Blessed Eucharist ; " — *' a great deal may be said on the side of the priest's forgiving sins; " — " some men believe that the child, on being baptized, is released from original sin." The Catholic Church never speaks that way. Why? Because she has the mind of Christ living in her; because He speaks in her ; because the Holy Ghost is upon her lips. The Church is not inspired, but the Church is directed, and so she can never err, nor never teach with an uncertain voice. Ask the first priest you meet any question of faith, and he answers, " The Church teaches this ; this is true ; that is false ; this is a right thing; that is a wrong thing. He that believes this shall be saved ; he that believes not shall be condemned." No uncer- tainty ; no doubt expressed ; no wavering voice answers us in the Catholic Church. Everything is answered ; is clear, well cut, in its firm, dogmatic expression, as it lies in the mind of God. Go outside the Catholic Church, and faith ceases to have a voice of certainty. Go outside the Catholic Church, and, at once, you find yourself in the midst of contending schools, one contradicting the other ; one denying what the other admits. The Episcopalian Protestant admits the existence of an order of necessary bishops. The Calvinist comes in and says, " It is not true ; it is against the Scriptures ; and I have as good a right to the Scriptures as you." The Unitarian comes in and says: " There is no Trinity ; there is only one God, and there are no persons in God." The Quaker comes in and says : " That is true ; for the Holy Ghost has come into me." The Unitarian says: " No ; there is no such being as the Holy Ghost ; for I have as good a right to the Scriptures as you." In a word, the moment you go outside the Catholic Church, Christianity, as a religion, becomes contemptible. It cannot stand beside the paganism of old. The pagans of old, to be sure, all believed in a certain set of false gods ; but they believed in them with a certain unity of belief. They had a certain unity amongst them, a certain system of firm faith. Christianity, outside the Church, loses its respectability, because it loses its certainty. Wliat 550 Divine Faith the Prittciple of Christian Life. could a philosopher say — what could one of the Chinese or Japanese pagan philosophers say, when he came to contemplate twenty, thirty, or a hundred sects, all fighting over the open page of the Bible; all fighting over one sentence of the Bible. What could such a one say but : " Oh ! thou God of the Chris- tians, you are, surely, a God of confusion, or you never would have thrown such a bone of contention among your followers." But the moment he enters the Catholic Church, there does he find the voice that claims to be the very voice of Christ ; there does he find the great, mighty mother of truth, teaching with the certain voice of authority, laying her hand upon the grave — the empty grave of the Saviour — and saying: " I stood by this tomb, on Easter morning, when He arose, and stood in spirit with me. And when He sent down the seven-fold gifts of the Spirit upon me, preaching, I went forth upon Pentecost Sunday, and unfurled the banner of Christ in the streets of Jerusalem. That command I have carried into every land, and I defy philosophers and historians to mention one single per- secution in which I have ever failed to preach with a certain voice, or contradicted my own testimony," Again, faith must be firm, it must be immovable in the mind ; it must be unchangeable. Where do we find this, my friends? Oh! dearly beloved brethren, what a comfort it is for us Catholics to know that our history — the history of our Church, of our mother — lies there open before the criticism of a hostile world, and bears the scrutinizing glance of thousands of hostile, inimical intellects. She says : " When have I ever wavered in my faith, or given up one iota of the Gospel's mes- sage? When have I ever allowed king, or kaizer, or people to contradict me?" The moment that any man, bishop, arch- bishop, emperor, or king, with a mighty nation at his back, dared to rise up against her teachings, to deny one tittle of the Church's doctrine — that moment she cut them off as rotten branches. She lost to herself half the world, and she couldn't help it, unless she moved from its basis the magnificent faith that she got from God. "This world shall come to an end ; all things shall pass away ; but the Church of God will never sac- rifice one iota of the truth ; because Christ has said that ' the gates of hell shall never prevail against her.' " Now, for us Catholics, I come to the most important reflec- Divine Faith the Prificiple of Christiaji Life. 551 tion of this sermon. Dearly beloved, as long as any truth is only viewed as a mere intellectual conviction, or a mere pro- fession, it is not yet a principle. For instance, in politics, if a man says: "I am intellectually convinced that the democratic is the best form of government in America. I profess myself a democrat ; " then, when the election comes, he abstains from voting, or gives his vote to the opposite party — what would you say of such a one? You would say: "Your convictions may be democratic, but your principles are not ; you do not act on them. Now, so it is with faith. Faith, if it is to be the prin- ciple of Christian life, must show itself, not only in the profes- sion of the lips, but also in the actions of life. In order to do this, man must live up to his faith. Whatever that faith teaches him, he must live up to it. The Catholic faith says: " Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." It is hard for the rich or avaricious man to enter there. There- fore, the Catholic man must never allow his heart and soul to be entirely set upon the things of this world, so as to induce him to forget his God. The Catholic faith says : " Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God." Therefore, the Catholic man must restrain his passions ; he must keep his vile, earthly, lustful desires in check ; he must never, in thought, in word, or in deed, offend the God of infinite purity ; he must be pure in thought, pure in conviction, and pure in action. The Catholic Church teaches us that the sinner must approach and humble himself in sorrow, and show himself to the priest, and must, through the priest, touch the hem of Christ's robe — • the sacramental robe that flows around Him. He must come in personal contact with our Lord, through the priest, in order to be healed of his sin. Remember, in this day's Gospel, the woman did not touch our Lord; she did not touch Him at all j she did not touch His person ; she only touched the hem of His garment ; but that garment was upon Him ; and, therefore, she was healed. The Protestant says: "If our Lord were present upon this earth, I would go to confession to Him, but not to a priest." It is true, we are nothing but the hem of the garment of our divine Lord. It is true that you do not come, personally and directly, to Jesus Christ ; but j^ou touch the hem of His gar- ment — the garment that belongs to Him. We belong to Him — 552 Divine Faith the Principle of Christian Life. we are, in ourselves, as lifeless, as mean, and as despicable as that piece of cloth was which He wore, and which derived all its healing power, all its peculiar virtue, and all its divine power, from the very fact that it floated around the feet and hung from the shoulders of the Son of God. So, the priesthood is the garment — the robe which trails through this world behind Him ; touching which, every sinner finds that the priest is as the Lord of glory, touching him with a sacramental and a heal- ing hand. Now, may I ask you. How is man to be pure ? how is he to be unworldly ? how is he to be humble and forgiving ? how is he to make sacrifices, every day if necessary, even the sacrifice of life, if it be demanded, as it was demanded of our Irish forefathers in days gone by? how is he to do all this, unless the grace of God be with him ? How can we do it of ourselves ? Even with all the faith that we have ; even though we were the best of Catholics (as far as regards belief) in the world ; even though our faith were strong enough to move mountains ; without grace — that is to say, without divine charity — we can still do nothing. Therefore, whenever faith is the principle — whenever it is the Catholic principle — it must be accompanied by grace. Christ our Lord, in the day that he unfurled the standard of the Gos- pel, gave faith by His preaching. He also poured forth grace, in order that m.en, through their advancement in grace, might be able to live up to their faith ; even to bear the efficacious principle in their lives. Faith, alone, would not do this. If faith alone would do this, St. Paul never would have said : " You may have faith strong enough to move mountains, and not have charity." If faith alone — that is to say, firm belief — made man able to do good, Christ never would have said : " The devils believe, and tremble." The strength of their faith did not make them able to do good. No ! a man may have the faith of the Catholic Church in his mind, and yet he may be a disgrace to his Church and to his fellow-Catholics. Now, the fact is, as we all know well, the great truth is, the unhappy man who is a disgrace to his religion is never so demonstrative in proclaiming his Catholicity as when he is under the influence of drink, actually scandalizing his Church, and proving a stum- bling-block to the church to which he belongs. Faith must be accompanied by divine grace, or else it is mere conviction, which Divine Faith the Principle of Christian Life. 553 never will be elevated to the dignity of principle by being let into the life of man. That was the meaning of the words of our Lord when He said to His apostles : " You are the light of the world, by your preaching." " You are also," He said, " the salt of the earth ; " the healing power, which is to heal and to preserve the corruption of mankind from further corruption, by the sacraments. Whenever the Sacraments are not side by side with faith, there can be no faith as a principle. Wherefore He said : " Go, teach all nations ; teach them ; baptize them ; " that is to say, give them light, give them a principle of faith, by teaching; and give them grace, by the sacraments. Now, I ask you, where is this faith to be found? Faith — ac- companied by divine grace — where is it to be found, except in the Catholic Church? Oh, my friends, like the garden of Eden of old — the earthly paradise, around which flowed the great river — so, around the Catholic Church, through it, and irrigating it on every side, flow the channels, ever filled with the waters of divine grace, the rivers that flow from the fountain of mercy, to meet every want of our spiritual nature ; to meet every re- quirement of our souls; bringing us forth unto God in Baptism ; strengthening us unto God in Confirmation ; feeding us, as men must be fed in order to live, by Holy Communion ; healing us, in our spiritual sickness, by the sacrament of Penance ; and pre- paring us for the last terrible journey, by Extreme Unction. In a word, ever>' requirement of the spiritual body; every require- ment for society and for the individual, is to be found in the Church. Christ our Lord has opened up a new river of divine grace. W'here, outside the Catholic Church, is that faith to be found ? The most that anybody pretends to, outside the Catholic Church, is to create a conviction in the mind. The greatest preacher, or the most eloquent minister, outside the Catholic Church, does not pretend to do more than to give a mental principle or conviction. Ask any one of them — go, stand in their pulpits, and say: "I have admired, sir, the eloquence with which you have advocated the cause of Christ. You have taught me how humble He was ; you have taught me to love Him. I see many objects of human love around me, distract- ing me, drawing me away from Him ; so many evil examples among men ; and, hearing the words which fell from your lips, 554 Divine Faith the Principle of Christian Life. and through your words, I am convinced of my duty of loving Him; and that duty can be accomplished only by the divine grace given me, by which I shall be enabled to keep myself in communion with Him." Outside the Catholic Church, neither preacher nor any other man can give any guarantee to him who thus asks. He says : '* I have no power from God. I cannot touch you with a healing hand. Are you weak ? I have no food to give you ; there is no Eucharist here. Are you trem- bling in your spiritual infancy ? I have no sacramental grace of Confirmation to give you. There is no grace here ; the foun- tain is dried up ; the river of purifying waters has long since ceased to flow. A man whose name was Luther, with all the power of hell, dammed up the stream, and kept back the sacra- mental graces which flow now in their old channels around the paradise of the Catholic Church ; but here the river-bed is dry." But, on the other hand, dearly beloved, in the Catholic Church itself, where there is the water flowing of divine grace, there are children of the Church standing, who refuse to make use of the sacramental waters, and remain with all their sins upon their head. Of what avail, then, is it to be a Catholic for the man who stays away for three, four, or ten years from confession ? I re- member once meeting a man who acknowledged to me that he was ten years away from confession ; and he was a most fervent Catholic. I said to him this one word ; " Now, you believe in my power to absolve you from sin ; you know the curse of God is upon you, and not a single ray of Divine Grace can ever pen- etrate to your soul, as long as that curse is there. You cannot pretend that it is a misfortune of yours, that you had not these graces at your call ; yet, for every moment of this time, you know God will judge you. The Protestant does not know any- thing about it ; consequently he does not go to confession ; but you know it ; and I ask you, if you both stood before the throne of God, which of the two would be the most guilty? " Like a true man, he laid hold of the collar of my coat, and would not let me go until he brought me into a private room; and he did Penance and changed his life. So I say, my friends, of M'hat avail to good are the waters of Penance that are flowing, if you wash not in them ? When Naaman, the Syrian, came to the Prophet Elias, and asked to be cured of a leprosy, the prophet Divine Faith the Principle of Christian Life. 555 told him ; " If you wish to be cured, go down and bathe three times in the river Jordan." The fooHsh man said : " I will not do it ; " and was returning home with his leprosy, when his servant stopped him, and said : " Why, master, it is such an easy thing to go down into the water. Why will you refuse to do it? Come, let us go back." He bathed and came out naked, with his flesh as clean as that of a little child. Before you, Catholics, is the Jordan of Divine grace flowing — the wa- ters of penance tinged with the blood of Christ. You stand there upon these banks, in sight of that running stream of Di- vine grace, with leprosy and defilement upon you — an object of hatred to God, an object of disgust to the angels of God. You stand there like the Syrian Naaman, and you say: " I will not do it I " Was ever foolishness to be compared to this? And still you pretend you have religious principles as Catholics. No ! It is only your conviction ; it is not your action ; it is not your principle. You are believing with the Church, but you are act- ing with the enemies of the Church ; you are acting with the devil. How is it that, in this our day, there are so many Catholics that say, " I don't understand all this talk about Catholic paro- chial schools. I send my children to the public school. I send them there to learn ; for the Protestant schools are the best for education ; and it is no matter to me about religion. I do not wish to have my children educated under the hands of the priest and the nun." What do you say of a Catholic who speaks of things in this way? You say you are Catholic by conviction, and you are hostile to Catholicity by your action ; for it is the outside view — the action of a man — through the life he leads — that determines his principles, his Church, and his religion. Why is it that so many, nowadays, say : " Oh ! the Pope. It was time for him to give up his temporal power. Victor Emmanuel keeps him in imprisonment! Well, after all, there is a great deal to be said for Victor Emmanuel, who is a man inclined to fight against the Pope." The Catholic who speaks in this way would not deny any one point of Catholic doctrine, and is prepared to die rather than to do it ; yet, he is only a Catholic by conviction, and is anti-Catholic in principle. So I say to you, that unless you let this divine religion into your hearts — unless you let this divine influence purify your lives — unless you let the sacraments come and cleanse you from sin, 55^ Divine Faith the Principle of Christian Life. and rest upon you in all the cleanliness of purity, strengthening you in the way of God and enabling you to live a life which will be a shining light in the domestic circle of your friends (and, indeed, of the world), according to the word addressed to the apostles by our Lord : " Let your light so shine before men that they may see your works, and give glory to the Father who is in heaven " — unless you do this, you do not live up to the faith, to the dignity, and the principles nor to the glory of your religion. For, my friends, it is when the sad, dark days come — then it is that a man's principles are put to the test. It is only in the evil days of their crucifixion, and sacrifice, and danger — then it is that the strength and grandeur of principle shine out. Thus it was, in the olden time, a law was made in Ireland, that any priest found saying Mass should be dragged upon the spot to the scaffold and hanged until he was almost dead, and then, before the life left him, his heart was to be taken out from his body, and held before his dying eyes ! And yet, in that day, there were as many priests as there are to-day. Time was, when, if a Catholic in Ireland was found sheltering a priest, it meant confinement, imprisonment, confiscation, and banishment. Yet there wasn't an Irishman in the land that was not ready to open the doors of his house to shelter the priest of God. Thus it was, their strength of faith and prin- ciple was tested and found true. We are their children. And shall we, in this land, or in any other land, so far forget the practices of our religion as to make our lives a reproach to the religion for which our fathers died ? No ! No ! where the Irish race is, there the faith seems the grandest, and the only religious principle is in every man amongst you ! Now, let the Holy Catholic faith into your lives ; and then the arguments of the ministers of the Church appealing to the intellect of America will come with tenfold increased power, and a momentum — a rush — that no intellect in the land can withstand. And you, illustrating the Gospel which the priest preaches — illustrating it in your lives — you, as well, will become the apostles of this great and mighty land ; and every blessing of high intellectual, practical religion — one in thought, one in profession, and stand- ing in divine grace, will be the last crowning blessing that God will put upon the head of this great nation. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE ATONEMENT. [Sermon delivered in the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, May 2, 1872.] " And to the disciple Jesus said : Son, behold thy mother." EARLY beloved : On last evening I endeavored to describe to you the beautiful harmony and analogy between the things of nature and the spiritual things of grace, so admirably developed and illustrated in the dedication of this month of May to the Blessed Virgin Mary ; and I told you then, that on this evening I would endeavor to unfold to you the place and the position which the mother of our divine Lord holds in the plan of man's redemption. Now, there are two great classes that occupy the world to-day, of men who differ in their apprehension of the design of God as revealed in the redemption of man. The first are those who say, or who seem to say, that we did not stand in need of re- demption at all. They deny the fall of man — they deny the inherent sinfulness of man. Consequently, they deny the ne- cessity of the incarnation of the Almighty God. They deny the necessity of sacraments or their efficacy, and they say that man has, within himself, in the very elements of his nature, natural powers by the development of which he may attain to all the purposes of God, and to the full perfection of His being. Such, for instance, is the doctrine of the wide- spread sect of Socinius. Such, in a great measure, are the ideas of a number of wide-spread sects — the Unitarians, Human- itarians, believers in human nature alone — Progressists, men who look to this world and to its scientific attainments, and to its great developments, as effected by man and reflected in the spirit and in the intelligence of man, for all the perfection of 558 TJie Catholic Church and the Atonement. humanity and of society. This class takes in all those who refuse any definite form of religion at all — who put away from them all idea of the necessity of any fixed faith. This idea represents the vast multitude of mankind found everywhere, and nowhere more numerous than here, in this very land ; the men who, with the most accurate ideas on business, on com- mercial transactions, on law, on politics, etc., are only found to befollowingan inaccurate comprehension, but are careless, indefi- nite, and not only ignorant of, but willing to be ignorant of, every specific form of defined faith, or belief in revelation at all. They do not give enough to God in their thoughts, in their minds, in the acknowledgments of their souls in this ques- tion of man's redemption. There are, on the other hand, a vast number who profess Christianity, and who, if you will, give too much to God in this matter of redemption, who say, that when the Son of God be- came man, he effected the redemption of mankind so completely, that he wiped away the world's sin so utterly, that all we have to do is to lean upon Him, to govern ourselves by faith, with His justification, His merits; and that without any concurrent labor of our own, without any work on our part, but only the easy operation of *' believing on Christ," as they put it, we can be saved. And hence we hear so much about justification by faith ; and hence we hear so much ribald abuse of the Catho- lic sacraments — of fasting, of the Holy Mass — of all the exterior usages and sacramental appliances of the Holy Catholic Church ; all mocked at, all derided as contrary to the spirit of all true religion, which simply is, according to them, to believe with all your soul in Jesus Christ, in His redemption, in His atonement, and all sins are cleansed. A man may have a thousand deeds of murder upon his soul ; a man may have loaded himself with every most hideous form of impurity ; a man may have injured his neighbor on the right hand and on the left, and may have enriched himself upon the spoils of his dishonesty — there is no law, either of the relations of God to man, or man to his fellow- man — but only, " believe on God, and you are saved." Hence, we hear of so many who go out to these camp-meetings, and these prayer-meetings, and there work themselves into a state of excitement, and say, " Oh, I have found the Lord Jesus. I have found Him ! " There is no more question about that; The Catholic Church and the Atonement. 559 they are confirmed ; they are the elect; they arc the perfect; they are the regenerated ; and there is an end to all their pre- vious sins. They need not shed a tear of sorrow, but only be- lieve on the Lord. They need not make an act of contrition, they need not mortify their bodies, but only believe on the Lord. It is a smooth, and a very easy — a remarkably easy — doctrine; and if it only led to heaven, it would be, indeed, a sweet and an easy way by which we could enjoy ourselves here, as long as we like, in the indulgence of every vile passion, and afterwards turn and lean upon the Lord, and thus get into heaven. Between these two extremes, the extreme of unbelief, and the mistaken view and zeal of what appears to be an over-fervent faith, but which, in reality, is not faith at all, because faith means the ap- preliension of the truth, and not a distorted view of this text or that, of Scripture ; between these two stands the Holy Catholic Church of God, and she tells us, as against the first class, the humanitarians, that we are a fallen race, that sin is in our blood, that sin is in our nature, that that nature is deformed, disfigured by sin ; that the very fountain-head of our humanity was cor- rupted in Adam ; and just as, if you disturb the fountain-head of the stream, or if you poison it, the whole current that flows from it is muddy and disturbed, or poisonous, so the whole stream of our humanity that flows from the sin of Adam, is tainted, and disfigured, and poisoned by sin ; consequently, that we stood in need of a Redeemer, who would atone for our sins, and would, by sacrificing Himself and making Himself a victim, wipe away the sin of mankind. But, on the other hand, the Holy Catholic Church teaches us, as against the second class, that two wills, two actions, are neces- sary for man's salvation, namely, the will of God, and the will of the man who is to be saved ; that we must unite our will with God, and determine to be saved ; otherwise that will of God, which is never wanting, will not alone avail for the sanctification or the sal- vation of any man ; that we must not only will with God, our salvation, but that we must work with God in the work of our salvation, according to the words of St. Paul : " In fear and trem- bling we must work out our salvation." That although the gift of salvation comes from God, and is His gift, yet that He will not give it except to the man who strains himself to lay hold of it, according to that other word of the apostle : " Lay hold of 560 The Catholic Church and the Atonement. eternal life. " God is amply sufficient to save us ; God is will- ing to save us. We can only be saved by His graces, but if we do not, with our hands, lay hold of these graces, and correspond with them, there is no salvation for us. Just as if you saw a man fallen into the sea, and you threw him a rope, by which, if he lay hold of it, you can take him into your boat, or place him on the land ; you are willing to save him, you are anxious to save him ; you have put actually into his hands the means by which he may be saved, but if he refuses to lay hold of that measure of salvation, if he refuses the gift that you offer him, of life, you cannot force him, and so he is lost by his own fault. Now, as it requires for the salvation of every man amongst us, two wills, two distinct actions, the will, and the action of God, our will, and our action corresponding with Him, so also in the redemption, two things were necessary in order that man might be saved. First of all, dearly beloved, it was necessary to find some victim whose very act was of such infinite value in the sight of God, that he might be available for the salvation of mankind, and capable of atoning to God's infinite honor and glory, which was outraged by sin. A victim must be found whose very act is of infinite value, and why ? Because the atonement which He comes to make is infinite ; because no creature of God, acting as a creature, with a finite merit and power, and the circumscribed action of a creature, can ever atone to the Almighty God for sin, which is an infinite evil. The first thing, therefore, that is necessary is an infinite power of atonement, an infinite power of merit in the victim for man's sin. The second thing that is necessary for redemption is a willingness and a capability on the part of their atoner to suffer, and by his sufferings, and by his sacrifices, and by his atone- ment, wash away the sin. Where shall this victim of infinite merit, yet a victim, be found? If we demand the first condi- tion, namely, the power of restoring to God that infinite honor and glory which was outraged by sin, if we demand this, we may seek in vain throughout all the ranks of God's creatures ; we may mount to the heaven of heavens and seek throughout the choirs of God's holy angels, we shall never find him, because such a one is seated upon the throne of God Himself. God alone is infinite in His sanctity, in His graces, and, if He will consent to be a victim, in His power of atonement, The Catholic Church and the Atonement. 561 God alone can do it. Man could place the cause there — man could commit the sin ; the hand of God alone can take that sin away by atonement ; and yet, strange to say, dearly beloved brethren, God alone cannot do it, because God alone cannot furnish us with the second privilege of the atoner, namely, the character of a victim. How can God suffer? How can God be moved ? How can God bleed and die ? He is happiness, glory, honor, and greatness itself. How can He be humble who is above all things ? Infinitely glorious in His own essence, how can He be grieved who is the essential happiness of heav- en ? He must come down from heaven, and He must take a nature capable of suffering and pain and of the shedding of blood ; He must take a nature capable of being abused and crushed and victimized, or else the world can never find its Re- deemer ; yet He must take that nature so that everything that He does as a victim, and everything that He suffers as a victim in that nature must be attributed to God. It must be the ac- tion of God ; it must be the suffering of God, or else it never can be endowed with the infinite value which is necessary for the atonement of man's sin. Behold, then, the two great things that we must find, that God found in the plan of His redemp- tion ; God furnished one, the earth furnished the other ; God furnished the infinite merit, the infinite grace, the infinite value of the atonement in His own divine and uncreated Word, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity ; but when it was a question of finding a victim — of finding a nature in which this word should operate, in finding the nature in which this word was to be grieved, and to be bruised, and to bleed, and to weep, and to pray for man — God was obliged to look down from heaven and find that nature upon the earth. Therefore, my dearly be- loved brethren, heaven and earth united in producing Jesus Christ, and it is as necessary for us to believe in the reality of the divinity that, coming down from heaven, dwelt in Him, as it is for us to believe in the reality of the humanity which was assumed and absorbed by Him into His divine person. A man may exalt the divinity at the expense of the human- ity, and he may say: " He was divine, this Man, Jesus Christ, but remember He was not a true man ; He only took a human body for a certain purpose, and then, casting it from Him, went up into the high heaven of God." The man who says this is 36 5^2 The Catholic Church and the Atonement. not a Christian, because he does not believe in the reality of the human nature of Jesus Christ. Heretics have said this, and the Church cut them off with an anathema. Or we may exalt His humanity at the expense of His divinity, and say, " He was a true man, but He was not united to God by personal union ; He was not a divine person, but a human person; He was a true man, this man who was crucified for our sins — true and holy and perfect — but not God," Heretics have said this, and say it to-day. Even Mahomet acknowledged that the Lord Jesus Christ was the most perfect of men, but He was not God. The man who says this is not a Christian, because he does not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Now, I think that from what I have said, you must at once conclude that in the plan of min's redemption, the divinity was as neces- sary as the humanity; that the humanity was as necessary as the divinity ; that the world could never be redeemed without the divinity; that man alone could not doit; that the world could never be redeemed without the humanity, for God alone could never suffer. What follows from all this ? It follows, my dearly beloved, in logic and in truth, that for the world's redemption, Mary on earth was as necessary as the Eternal Father in heaven ; that in the decrees and counsels of God — in 'the plan of God — the Mother of His humanity was as necessaiy as the Father of His divinity, and that she rises at once, in the designs of God, to the magnificent part that was assigned her in the plan of redemption, namely, that the world could not be redeemed without her, because she gave the human nature of Jesus Christ, without which there was no redemption for man. Who died upon the cross ? The Son of God. Whose hands were these that were nailed to that hard wood ? The hands of the Son of God. What person is this that I behold all cov- ered with wounds, and bleeding and crowned with thorns ? Who is this sorrow-stricken person — that is the second person of the adorable Trinity? The same God, begotten in Him, consubstantial to the Father, who was from the beginning, and by whom all things were made. And if this be the Son of God, what right has that woman to look up to Him with a mother's eyes ? What right have these dying lips to address her as mother? Ah! because, my dearly beloved, he was as truly the Son of Mary as He was the Son of God. The Catholic Church and the Atonement. 563 And now, as I wish to take my own time, and to enter fully into all these things in successive meditations, let me conclude with only one remark. Since I came to the use of reason, and learned my catechism, and mastered the idea that was taught me of how God in heaven planned and designed the redemption of mankind, the greatest puzzle in my life has been — a thing that I never could understand — has been, how any one, be- lieving what I have said, could refuse their veneration, their honor, and their love to the Blessed Virgin, Mother of Jesus Christ ; for it seems to me that nothing is more natural to the heart of man than to be grateful, and that, in proportion to the gift which is received from any one, in the same proportion do we find our hearts springing with gratitude within us, and a strange craving, and a strange, dissatisfied feeling to find out how we can express that gratitude that we feel. And is this a sacred feeling ? Most sacred ; natural, but most sacred. We find in the Scriptures the loud tone of praise, honor, and ven- eration, and the gratitude that the inspired writers poured forth towards those who were great benefactors of mankind, and es- pecially to the women of the Old Testament. How loud, for instance, are the praises that the Scriptures give to the daughter of Jephtha, because she sacrificed herself according to her father's vow for the people. How loud the praises which cel- ebrated the glorious woman, Deborah, who, in the day of dis- tress and danger, headed the army of Israel, drew the sword, and the Scriptures say that all the people praised her forever- more, and they sang: " Blessed be God, because a mother has arisen in Israel." How loud the praises of Esther, of whom the Scripture tells us that the Jews celebrated an annual festival in her honor because she interceded with the King Ahasuerus and saved the people from destruction. How loud the praises of Judith, who, coming forth from the city, upon the rocky summit of the mountain, with her womanly hand slew the enemy of Israel and of Israel's God, Holofernes, and, returning in triumph, the ancients of the city came forth and cried out: " Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, and thou , thou art the glory of Israel ; thou art the glory of Jerusalem ; thou art the joy of Israel ; thou art the honor of our people." And yet, what did Deborah, or Esther, or Judith — what did any of these or any other man or woman on the face of the earth do for us compared with 564 The Catholic Church and the Atonement. what Mary did ? Judith cut off the head of Holofernes, Mary- set her heel on the head of the serpent that was the destruction of our race ; Esther pleaded for the people before the Assyrian monarch, and saved them from temporal ruin ; Mary pleaded, and pleads, to the King of kings, to the King of heaven, and saves the people from destruction. Jephtha's daughter gave her life ; Mary brought down the life, indeed, from heaven, and gave it to us. And yet, strange to say, those Avho are con- stantly talking about " the Bible, the Bible, the Bible, the open Bible, the Bible free to every man," those who call themselves Bible men, those in whose oily mouths this Bible is always, every text of it coming forth as if you taught a parrot in its cage to recite it, understanding it as much as the bird would — these are the very people who tell us that we may join with the Jews of old in the praises of Esther and praises of Deborah, that we may cry out in tones of admiration for Mary, the sister of Moses, for Rachel, but that we must not say a word to ex- press our gratitude, our love, our veneration, and our honor for the womaij, the woman amongst women, the spiritual mother of all our race, because her Child was our first-born brother, the woman that gave us Jesus Christ, the woman that gave to Him the blood that flowed from His veins upon Calvary and saved the world — for this woman no word, save a word of reproach, an echo of the hisses of hell, an echo of the sibilation of the in- fernal serpent that was crushed by God. Christ honored her; we must not unite with Him in her honor. Christ obeyed her ; we must not unite with Him in obeying her. Christ loved her; we must not let one emotion of love into our heart. Who are the men that say this? I have heard words from their lips which they would not permit any man to say of their own mothers, and they had the infernal hardihood to say these words of the mother of Jesus Christ, of the Son of God ; and, my friends, I believe we can in no wise better employ this month of May and its devotions, than in making reparation to our Lord and Saviour and to his holy mother for the insults that fall upon Him when they are put upon her. The deepest insult that you could offer to any man would be to insult his mother; and the more perfect the child is, and the more loving, the more keenly will he feel that insult. He, with His dying lips, provided for Mary, His mother, a son, a second son, the The Catholic Church and the Atonement, 565 purest and the most loving amongst men. It shows how He thought of her at His last moments ; how she was the dearest object that He left upon this earth — and that which is dear to the heart of Jesus Christ should always be dear to your hearts and minds — next to the love, eternal, infinite, essential, that bound Him in His divinity to His Eternal Father, next to that in strength, in intensity, in tenderness, was the love that bound Him to the mother who came in closest relation with Him, And, O Lord Jesus Christ ! teach us to love what Thou lovest, and to revere and honor that which Thou didst conde- scend to honor. THE PROMISES OF CHRIST FUL- FILLED ONLY IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. [A Lecture delivered in St. Peter's Church, Jersey City, on Wednesday evening, May 15, 1872, in aid of the new Church of St. Patrick, Bergen.] Y FRIENDS: The existence of the Catholic Church is the most patent fact in the history of the world. When Christ our Lord founded His Church, He em- phatically declared that she was not to be as a light hidden under a bushel, but flaming upon the candlestick, and enlightening every man that comes into the house of this world. He declared that she was to be as a city built upon the mountain summit, that every man, and every wayfarer, passing through the ways of this world, should behold her, and recog- nize her existence. If we ask ourselves what was the meaning of our Divine Lord speaking of His Church as something so palpable, so unmistakable, forcing itself upon the recognition of every man, no matter how reluctant that man may be to be- hold it — I answer, that our Lord meant to fix upon His holy Church certain signs by which she should infallibly be known and recognized, among all reasoning men, as the very Church, and the very spouse of Jesus Christ. Nor is there among the many strange mysteries of this world any one thing that more astonishes me every day, than to behold the earnest man, the high-minded man, the believing man, read the Scriptures, and yet fail to recognize the Church of Christ in the holy Catholic Church. To me this is the strangest intellectual phenomenon in the world ; for certain it is, if we attach any meaning what- ever to the words of the Son of God, it was in His purpose, and in His fixed, declared intention, to establish a Church upon The Promises of Christ, etc. 567 this earth. He alludes to it repeatedly, over and over again, calling it now " My Church ; " calling it, again, " My kingdom ; " at another time speaking of it as " the kingdom of God ; " and making certain fixed, specific promises to this Church ; in the fulfillment of which promises the world has the convincing proof of the divine origin of our holy Catholic Church and re- ligion. For, dear friends, Christ our Lord was not only the Re- deemer, the teacher of mankind, the atoner of the past, but He was also the prophet of the future. The Scriptures speak of Him, and of His coming, as of a prophet. " On that day," says Moses, " the Lord thy God, the God of Israel, will raise up unto thee a prophet like unto me. Him thou shalt hear." That prophet was Christ. And all that He prophesied of the future concerned this Church of His. We are come together this evening, my friends, to consider the prophecies of Christ, the promises that he made, to be ful- filled in the future. We are come together to look for their ful- fillment ; and if we find this fulfillment in the holy Catholic Church, then we are assembled, such of us as are Catholics, to glory in thanksgiving to God for the fulfillment of these promises ; and such of us as are not Catholics — if there be any here — to meditate profoundly, in the name of God, upon the necessity of submitting our faith and our love to that one and only Church, in whose history in the past, in whose existence in the present, are fulfilled all the promises that Christ made. Now, what were these promises, my friends ? If we search the Scriptures, we shall find that they are, principally, the following : Christ our Lord emphatically promised that His Church should be One, and should be, in this world, the very representative of unity ; that no difference of religious thought or opinion, no warring of ideas, no holding of contradictory doctrines, was ever to be found in her ; but that she was to be on earth a repre- sentative of intellectual and moral union of the very best kind. And, again, it was destined to represent the ineffable unity which binds together, in one nature, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This was the first promise that Christ our Lord made to His Church. The second promise that we find in Scripture, made to her was, that she was to have Him, her Lord, her God, her Founder, dwelling in the midst of her, with an abiding presence ; that He was to be with her in a peculiar manner, as 5^8 The Projnises of Christ Fulfilled we shall see. The third promise that Christ our Lord made, was involved in the command, that His Church, and her voice, should be heard all the world over, throughout all the nations ; that her faith was to be preached in every tongue, and in every land, and to every people. The last great promise that He made to His Church was, that He was to abide with her; though every other institution might fail and die, though nations might change their governments, might lose their very existence, though races might disappear ; but that the Church which He, the Lord, founded, should remain abiding forever and forever; that systems of philosophy might be upheld in one age, and discarded by another; that scientific opinions received to-day, might be disproved to-morrow ; but that His Church, founded by Him, was to remain immutable, unchangeable, ever young, ever vigorous, until the last day of this world's existence. Behold the four great promises which, as we shall see, are dis- tinctly conveyed in Scripture, and which, as we shall also see, are fulfilled in the holy Roman Catholic Church ; and which I assert, upon the evidence of history, upon the evidence of our own senses, of our own reason, and of our own experience, are not fulfilled, in any one iota of them, outside of the Catholic Church. From which I will conclude, that if Christ our Lord intended that His word should not pass away, that His promises should be fulfilled, that Church alone represents the divine origin, or foundation by Christ, in which we find the promises fulfilled to the letter. First of all then, the first prophetic promise was unity. The Son of God came down from heaven ; was incarnate by the Holy Ghost, of the Virgin Mary, and was made man. He came down from heaven. He found this world divided into a thou- sand different religious sects, each representing not a vestige of truth, but some distinctive form of error. And He found all the philosophers wrangling among themselves, and divided on the great questions of the existence of a God, and of the ulti- mate destiny of the soul of man. He found all the interests in society split up and divided into a thousand various forms — all at opposition one with another. But He, coming down from heaven, brought with Him the essential unity which is the es- sence and the nature of His God-head, — for, — the first perfection Only in the Catholic Church. 569 of the Almighty God, in Himself, is essentially and necessarily unity; — everything that is perfect is one. The very idea of perfection involves the idea of unity; that is to say, the one point, the one centre around and in which everything of perfec- tion that is, is centred ; and that perfection, from here and there, concentrates to constitute the Supreme Perfection. Therefore, the Almighty God, who is infinite perfection, is, also, infinite unity ; and when He assumed to have this second rela- tion to our humanity — when, coming down from heaven. He added our nature to His own — when He associated God and man. He brought down, in that hour of His Incarnation, not only the infinite perfection of His divinity, but also the essen- tial unity by which He is one with the Father. Christ, our Lord, God Incarnate, God and Man, was as much united to the Father by the essential unity of nature, as He was, from all eter- nity, in that Father's bosom upon the throne of the Most High. The fact of His becoming man did not sever, for an instant, or separate, that eternal and infinite unity by which He was united with God — and by which He was God Himself. Nay, more ; even as man, He embodied in Himself the principle of unity ; for He took our nature — a human soul, a human body, a human intelligence, a human will, human affections — and everything that was man, save and except a human personahty. That He never took. Why? Because if He took a human personality, Christ would have been two and not one. He would have been two, that is to say. The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and the human person whom men beheld upon the earth. But, in order to represent, even in His sacred humanity, the essential princi- ple of unity. He assumed that nature into His divinity; so that out of the human body, the human soul, and God — out of these three was formed the one person, our Saviour, Christ, and that person was divine. He was still one, and only one — even though He was God and man. He united them in one. Ev- ery act of His, even though performed in His humanity, was still the act of God ; because the person who assumed that hu- manity, and v/ho owned it, and who acted in it, was God. Why did He do this ? Because, dearly beloved, Christ our Lord, be- ing God, and infinitely perfect, was essentially one. Now, the design of Christ was to represent upon the earth, and to create among men the principle of unity of thought, unity of mind, 570 The Promises of Christ Fulfilled unity of heart, which was so perfect in Himself, and which He declared should be represented in His Church. Therefore it is that He laid upon all mankind the obligation of fraternal char- ity ; for in charity is a golden bond ; and hearts are united. Therefore, also, did He impose the obligation of faith ; because in faith is an intellectual bond ; all minds are united in the union of one belief, of one thought. And unity — the unity of God — springs up in its representation in that society which is the mystical body of Christ. In consequence of all this, the Son of God, the Saviour, founded His Church, provided for that Church, and promised to her the attribute of unity. For this did He pray, the night before He suffered and died. " Oh, Father," He said, " I pray for these Thou hast given me, that they may be one ; — and not only for these," He adds, " but for all who through their word shall believe in Me, that they may be all one as Thou, the Father, and I are one ; Thou in Me, and I in Thee, so that they also may be one." And again He said, "There shall be one fold and one Shepherd." And now if, passing from the words of faith, we come to reflect with the mere light of reason, does it not stand to reason — is it not absolutely necessary — that, if the truths exists, out of that truth must spring unity? If the Word of God be on earth, that Word must be eternal truth. And, if truth, it cannot con- tradict itself. It cannot say yes and no. It cannot to-day preach one thing ; to-morrow another. It cannot assert one thing at one time as true, and the opposite at some other time as equally true. This would be a lie. This would be untruth substituted for truth, and error for the unity of thought which Christ left upon earth. Wherever the truth is, then there must be unity as a matter of course. The moment division arises, the moment one man contradicts another on any subject, human or divine — that moment, the very fact of this difference of opinion, of this contradiction, involves the presence of error, because one or the other of them must be wrong. They cannot be both right. Dissension and division, therefore, or breaking up into sects, mutual contradiction, is an infallible sign, wherever it ap- pears, of the existence of religious error. I want to impress this upon you ; because in this our age a strange hallucination has taken possession of men's minds. Men recognize the sim- ple fact that in any ordinary dealing of life, if two men disagree Only in the Catholic Church. $71 upon one question, one of them must be wrong if the other be right. Both may be wrong ; either may be wrong ; but both cannot be right. But their divergence of opinion, their differ- ence, implies the fact that there is wrong — falsehood — between them. Men who see this in the ordinary dealings of life, men who recognize it so clearly and keenly as a matter of course, will, when it becomes a question of religion, in which truth or falsehood involves the eternal salvation or damnation of man — then they seem to consider it as a matter of course that there may be diversity of opinion without the existence of religious untruth. They seem to consider that division here, that con- tradiction here, is a matter of no importance. Nay, they go so far as to say that it is a good thing, an excellent thing. " The more sects we have," they say, *' the more religious we are ; the more men's minds are turned to religion. It is a good thing to have so many different forms of belief, each contradicting the other ; because, out of that intellectual and religious contest, men's minds are brought to study religion, and they are more filled with the thought of their eternal salvation, and of the things of God." This is the popular error of the day — a most deplorable error! Why? I ask you what is the popular idea of religion, in our day? Men say, "Oh, the more dispu- tation goes on, and the more difference of opinion there is, and the greater number of sects, the more men's minds are turned to religion." I deny it ! I say a man may study the Scriptures for forty years ; a man may turn all his attention to the Word of God ; but if, during all that life-time of disputation, of asser- tion, and contradiction — if that man has never reached the truth — if he has never touched the truth — if, all this time, he is dis- puting about his view, and that view be a distorted and a false one, I deny that that man is approaching to religion. It is an insult to the God of truth to say that a man who all his life is peddling about a lie, is doing homage to the essential unity and truth of God. No! Wherever the truth is, unity must be. I do not say that unity is truth, because men may be united even in their belief of a falsehood. Mind, I do not say absolutely that unity is truth. But I do say that truth is unity. I do not say that consistency is truth ; because persons might be consis- tent even in a lie. But 1 do assert that truth is consistency ; that is to say, it cannot contradict itself, nor be inconsistent with itself, 572 The Promises of Christ Fulfilled Now, I ask you, where is this promise of unity fulfilled, ex. cept in the Catholic Church ? There are two hundred millions of us scattered all the world over. There are Catholics in every land, speaking every tongue under heaven. Take any one in- structed Catholic, I don't care of what nation ; I don't care in what clime you find him ; take that one instructed Catholic, question him as to his faith, and in that man you will find the faith of the two hundred millions that are scattered over the world. In the word of that one man you find a unit, the rep- resentation of the belief that rests in the mind of every Cath- olic throughout the world, just as it is spoken by the lips of every other one. I ask you to compare this with the miserable multitude of opinions on the most important subjects that is found outside the Church. Take anyone form or denomination of religion — take Protestantism, or any other form of religious belief outside of the Catholic Church ; have they any assurance, or are they able to give you any assurance, that their doctrines of to-day will be the doctrines of next year? No. And the proof lies here — that the doctrines of this year were not the doctrines of twenty years ago. Twenty years ago, for instance, every Episcopalian Protestant in the world believed in the necessity of baptism, and in baptismal regeneration. Ten years ago, the Protestant Church in England declared that baptismal regeneration formed no part whatever of the doctrines of the Church of England. Twenty years ago every Protestant in the world believed that the matrimonial bond was indissoluble ; and they bowed down so far to the Word of Christ that they took their idea of marriage from His Word, which said: Those that God has joined together, let no man attempt to divide. To-day, Protestants, all the world over, believe in the validity and the lawfulness of divorce under certain circumstances. What is this but changing? Nay, more; no sooner was the standard of schism raised, three hundred years ago, in the Church, than every single leader of the Protestant movement broke off from his fellow-man, and established a religious sect for himself. Names that were never before heard : " Zuin- glians," " Lutherans," " Calvinists," " Antinomians," "Anabap- tists " — and so on, until, in our own day, the last, and the ulti- mate, and the logical residue of Protestantism has subsided into a form of religion which is pure deism; acknowledges that Only in the Catholic Church, 573 there is a God ; stops there ; and asserts that there is no other dogma. Nay, a Protestant bishop of England, a few years ago, made use of these words : " It is the proudest boast of our Church of England that she has no dogma ; " that is to say, no fixed form of opinion. Neither in my spoken words nor even in my thoughts, would I use an expression painful and disrespectful to any man ; but I ask you, my friends, are not these the facts ? Are they not there before your eyes? In the Catholic Church, any one instructed Catholic who knows his religion represents the doctrine of the Church. You never hear of those in the Catholic Church contradicting each other in matters of doctrine, of dogma, or belief. You never hear of strange or novel proposi- tions propounded from a Catholic pulpit. You may search the history of eighteen hundred and seventy-two years, and you will find the Catholic Church always preaching, always speaking, clearly, emphatically, fearlessly on every question ; never refusing to give an answer when she is called upon, on any question of faith or morals. After eighteen hundred and seventy-two years, the student of history turns over page after page of historic record, to all the enunciations of the Church, in her bishops, in her popes, in her councils ; and nowhere can he find a single instance, of a single line, in which the Church taught a single contradiction to herself, in which the Church ever denied one tittle or iota of her previous doctrine, or ever changed one single feature of her divine teaching. We, there- fore, are forced to believe, that if consistency be a proof of truth, if unity be the soul of truth — the sign of truth wherever it is found — that that consistency and that unity are to be found in the Catholic Church. And I wish to invite your attention, not so much to past times, nor to other lands — for I am speaking now to intelligent men — but in coming to this new country, I have found, not only among my own countrymen, but I have found in every grade of society, and in every religious denomination that I have met with, I have found a bright, sharp, shrewd, and high order of intellectuality, and of intelligence. To that intelligence of America I appeal. I ask you, my friends, if we Catholics were to withdraw from among you, if every Catholic in America were to leave the land to-morrow, and leave you to your- 574 I'^t^ Promises of Christ Fulfilled selves — would not the idea, the very idea of religious belief have departed from among you ? Try to realize to yourselves what it would be if we were to-morrow to go out from the land, and not leave a single Roman Catholic in America ? Would there be a man left in the land that could proclaim his faith, and point to a society of his fellow-men who hold that same faith in every detail of doctrine which he holds ? Not one. There is no unity of thought, much less intellectual obedience, outside the Catholic Church, But when we enter her glorious halls and cross her golden thresholds, oh ! how magnificent is the picture of unity that rises before the eyes of our souls. There do we see two hundred millions of men, rich and poor, gentle and simple, intellectual and uneducated, highest and lowest ; and forth from these two hundred millions of lips and hearts comes one and the self-same note — the voice of faith and the praise of God. One sacrifice in every land ; one word in every country; one testimony to the same faith; and this brought down to us without the slightest contradiction for near- ly two thousand years — since the day that Christ arose from the dead. Oh ! how magnificent is the image — how splendid the picture of unity that I contemplate, when, passing from the millions, I enter the sanctuary of the holy ones in the order of the hierarchy, the fittest, the brightest representation of the harmony of heaven ! There the monk and the nun, consecrated, fill their own station and their own office. There we ascend from monk and nun, and we find the robed priest on the altar, and the preacher in the pulpit. Above them again, higher in jurisdiction, in authority, approaching to the supreme head, we find the bishops of the Church of God assembled in council, and eight hundred mitred heads taking thought, and expressing and testifying to the Church's faith. Higher still, we come to another order representing the clergy of Rome — of the city of Rome — the most ancient in the world, and the most honored ; seventy-three cardinals around the papal throne — men who have received from the Church of God the extraordinary power to lay their hands on the anointed, and to designate the suc- cessor of Peter. Highest of all, seated upon his pontifical throne, is the representative, the viceroy of God, holding the keys in one hand, holding the rod of jurisdiction in the other, and with one arm governing the whole flock of the Catholic Only in the Catholic Church. 575 Church according to the word : " There shall be one fold and one shepherd." Above him — for we must yet lift up our eyes from earth, for he is but a mere man — above him, but near him, standing close to him, upholding him, confirming him in faith, crowning him with the supremacy of the Church, the great In- visible Head whom the eye of faith alone can behold in Peter and in Peter's successor — the Lord Jesus Christ — the true Head — the one great Fountain, Pastor, and Ruler of the great Catholic Church. How great is that design, how grand is that order, how beautiful that harmony, how splendid that gradation from rank to rank, from order to order, from dignity to dignity, until all are concentrated upon one man on earth — because that one man represents the Invisible Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. Behold unity ! Behold the reflection of the divinity of God in its ineffable unity, shining forth in the beauty and in the harmony of our holy Church and our holy religion! The next promise of Christ was His own abiding presence with this Church. For this He prayed : " Father, let them be one — even as Thou and I are one." So, also, did He say : " I am with you all days : until the consummation of the world." Take heed. He says; although I leave you, it will be only for a little time. A little time and you shall not see Me ; but after a little time you shall see Me again ; for I will not leave you orphans; but I will come to you, and I will remain with you, and abide with you all days until the consummation of the world! What did He mean? The man who is outside the Church, and who denies His glorious, sacramental, and real presence on our altar — that man says: ** He only meant that He would remain on earth by the union of grace in every holy soul ; that He would remain upon the earth with His elect, guiding them, preserving them from evil ; " — and so on. But I ask you, can this be the meaning of the word of Christ, when He said : "I am with you ! " Was He not always with His elect from the beginning? Every man that loves the Lord — that loves God — has God ; for God is love. And from the beginning — from the day that Adam repented of his sin — all through the four thousand years before the coming of our Lord — every- body knew that he who loved God was united to God by that charity, so far; and if He meant nothing more than this — than His presence by divine grace — than His abiding presence with 57^ The Promises of Christ Fulfilled His elect — there was no necessity under heaven for Him to say the words : " I am with you all days, until the consummation of the world." It was well understood that He was with them. He, Himself, had said, elsewhere : " If any man love Me, the Father will come to him, and I will come to him ; and we will take up our dwelling with him." Where, then, was the neces- sity of reiterating the promise, and putting it in such a formal manner : " I am with you all days, even until the consumma- tion of the world ? " Did He confer anything by this promise more than was given to the men of the old law? Nothing. In the Protestant sense. He gave nothing; because He was already under that dispensation with those that loved Him. He either meant nothing when He said those words, or He meant to in- dicate some peculiar, some special, some wonderful manner in which He was to be with His Church. Did He indicate, else- where, what the manner of His remaining was to be ? Yes. The night before He suffered. He took bread into His holy and venerable hands. He said to His apostles : " Take and eat ye all of this, for this is My body." And taking wine. He breathed upon it, and said : " Drink ye all of this, for this is My blood of the New and Eternal Testament, which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins." Then to the apostles He said : " That which you have seen Me do, do ye also in commemora- tion of Me." And He gave them the power of changing bread and wine into the very substance of His body and His blood. He gave them the power to substantiate Him under the appear- ance of bread and wine — to substantiate God ; and nothing re- mained but what was necessary to conceal the Redeemer from the eyes of flesh, in order that man might have the merit of faith ; because " faith is the argument of things that appear not." Thus did He remain. And if He did not remain thus, then I say He meant nothing — no privilege — no special endow- ment to His Church — on the day that He promised her that He would remain with her forever unto the consummation of the world. Where do we find this presence? Only upon the altars and within the tabernacles of the Catholic Church. Here again I appeal to your own sense and reason. A stranger coming to your land — a stranger from some pagan country, who never heard of the special doctrines of Christian- ity — goes through the length and breadth of this American land : Only in the Catholic Church. 577 he enters any temple of religion, and he finds four walls, a church, built in a church's form, but he sees no sign of life ! There are no adorers there, bowing down to indicate by their adoration the presence of God. There are no lights burning on the altar; there is no altar; no place of sacrifice! There is no presence there to speak a word to him of God. He may see, perhaps, verses of Scripture written round on the walls. He may see, perhaps, the Ten Commandments lifted up over a table. They may indicate to him the word of God ; but the presence of God he sees no sign whatever to show. No life is there ; no living thing is there ! He enters a Catholic Church in any one of our cities. The moment he crosses the threshold, the twinkling of the lighted lamp, before the altar, catches his eye. There at least is some idea of sacrifice. Some- thing is being actually consumed or offered to some un- seen power. Who is that power? Who is it to whom that altar has been built up ? Who is it for whom that place of res- idence has been prepared? Who is it ? He turns and he sees some poor old woman, some aged man, or perhaps some Catho^ lie youth, bowed down to the earth, making visible and sensible: signs, such as men make to God, and to Him alone — as, kneelr ing in adoration, prostrating themselves, and sinking into the nothingness of their own being before the mighty Being; whom they worship. And the thought must be forced upont that stranger's mind : " Here, at least, I have evidence of the presence of a God — a people's God." If, then, that presence be among the promises that Christ made to His Church, even, to the pagan and the stranger, the fulfillment of this promise is. demonstrated only in the Holy Catholic Church. Here, again, as I admire the unity of her faith, the unity of her worship, the unity of her praise, the unity of her sacramen- tal and liturgical language — here again do I see, rising before me, when I enter into thy walls, O Church of God, the magnifi- cent presence of Jesus Christ! Oh, what an argument of divine love for man that God should remain among His creatures forever ! Oh, what an argument for the dignity, the value, the grandeur of our human nature, that the eternal, infinite God should make His daily dwelling-place in the midst of mankind ! Oh, how wonderful the fulfillment here of all those ancient prophecies in which the Lord said: 37 578 The Promises of Christ Fulfilled " My delight and My joy is to be among the children of men!" The third promise that Christ made to His Church was, that her voice should be heard in every land, and that she should grow among the people until the ancient words of the Prophet David should be fulfilled : " Unto every land, the sound of their voice has gone forth, and their words are heard, even to the farthest ends of the earth." Where is this promise fulfilled ? He called the twelve, and said to them : " My friends, before you lies the whole world. It is made up of many nations, many tribes and races of men. They are all hostile to you. They will cast you forth. They will put you to shame, and to all igno- miny for My sake. They will put you to death, and consider they have done a good thing. Yet, now, I say unto you, go forth among them, and preach, and teach all nations of the earth." Euntes, docete omnes gentes. Their mission was to the whole world. No longer was the truth of the presence of God, or the as- sistance of the sanctity or strength of divine grace, to be confined to one nation or one people. No longer were certain narrow boun- daries to restrict the action and the presence of God among men. No longer was one nation or tongue permitted alone to possess the truth ! No ! but forth were those twelve to go, unto every land, unto every nation, bringing to them the message that He gave to them : " Go forth," He said, " and teach unity ! " Be- ,hold the message of truth, " Go forth and baptize them ! " Be- rhold the message of sacramental grace and sanctity. And, lo ! they went forth, and, multiplied by the spiritual generation, ;they created their own successors by the imposition of hands. •Grace was poured abroad from them upon the people, in light .and sanctity, within the sanctuary, unto our brethren in power .and jurisdiction. And so the Church of God spread herself into ^every land, and preached the Gospel to every nation. Where is the country that has been able to shut itself out from her ? They have built up, in their hatred to the truth — they have built up ramparts between them and the Church — ramparts ce- mented in the blood of martyrs ! They have piled up the dead bodies of the slain to defend them from the approach of this great and awful Church of God. Nowhere, among the nations, has the Red Sea of martyrs' blood been able to withhold, or to keep back the holy Jesuit missionary from going into every Only in the Catholic Church. 579 land, and proclaiming the glory of Jesus Christ. Where has the monk, the majestic, the apostolic man, ever been frightened, or turned back, because he saw the martyr's crown and the mar- tyr's blood appear together ? No ; but he has followed in the track of every conqueror ! No; but he has launched into the most dangerous and unknown seas ! No ; but he was of those who were the first companions of the great, the mighty intellect, that saw in the far West the glorious vision of the mighty country which he came to discover; and among his first companions were the children of St. Francis and St. Dominic ! Among the first sights which the Indians of America beheld was the Dominican habit, which you behold upon me here to- night. The message was preached upon this land. A grain of mustard-seed was cast upon every soil. Did it increase ? Did it multiply? Yes, everywhere. Where every other sect, where every other religion came, they came to a stand-still, and they dwindled away into nothingness. The Catholic Church, to-day, maintains all the vigor, all the strength, all the energy — and commands all the strength, all the energy, all the devotion which were hers in the days when the martyrs stood within the Coli- seum of Rome, to testify by their blood to the faith — just as in the days when Las Casas crossed the Atlantic, and, while stand- ing before the king's council, in Madrid, pleaded for the cause ot liberty, the cause of justice, the cause of freedom to the In- dian ! This is acknowledged even by Protestant writers themselves. " It is a singular fact," says the great historian, Macaulay, " that for the last three hundred years — since the day when the nations first separated from the Church of God — the Protestant religion has never made one step in advance ; has never gained a convert ; has never converted a province nor a people. They are to-day," he says, "just as they were the day before Luther died." Now, I will add — and, pardon me, if I shall endeavor to prove it to you — it has gone back! The Protestant Arch- bishop of Westminster, whom I once knew as a distinguished clergyman of the Church of England, remarked, some time ago : " It is a singular fact, that the only progress — if you will — that Protestantism has made since the day of its establishment, con- sists in lopping off, on every side, every point of doctrine." For instance : Luther believed in the presence of Jesus Christ 580 The Promises of Christ Fulfilled in the Blessed Eucharist. He never denied it, as you know. Those who came immediately after him, cut off, in fact, denied it, virtually. Their successors believed, if not in the sacra- mental nature, at least in the indissoluble nature of matrimony. This they have cut off in our own day. So, too, with bap- tismal regeneration. They have even denied, on the other side, in our own times, the necessity of a fixed form of belief; to-day that is becoming most unpopular. So that, in truth, the Anglican liturgy is so unpopular, that the Athanasian Creed is rejected, because it makes a fixed, definite confession of the two great doctrines of Christianity, namely, the doctrine of the Trinity, and of the divinity of the Son of God. Men say they believe ; but there are places in England, to-day, where, if the rector or curate read the Athanasian Creed from the pulpit, the best part of the congregation would stand up and walk out. Whence comes this ? It comes from this : that the world will not accept Protestantism, unless it be made to mean latitudinarianism — anything, or nothing. The world, then, that refuses to accept Protestantism, unless on condition of denying everything, stands before the Catholic Church as it has stood for eighteen hundred years ; and to that world this great Church of God will not, because she cannot, yield or sacrifice one single iota of her doctrine — one single word of that mes- sage of truth, which the God of Truth has put into her hands — into her hands, and into her soul. One would imagine, therefore, that this Catholic Church of ours should not be able to stand at all — accused of so many things that are false — accused of so many things that are true ; among them, that she is exclusive; perfectly true ! that she has no mercy upon any one who ventures to disagree with her in any article of faith, but cuts him off, excises him, says anathema; " let him be cut off ; let him be accursed," Perfectly true; as true as that the discipline of the Catholic Church is accused of hav- ing an iron rule, moulding every intellect in one mould, in mat- ters pertaining to religion. Perfectly true. The Catholic Church is accused of desiring to intermeddle with education, to draw, as much as she can, the education of children into her own hands, and to muster the consciences of her people into her own hands. Perfectly true ; perfectly true. It is true ; there is no gainsaying it. Why does the Catholic Church do this? Only in the Catholic Church. 581 Because she possesses the truth of Christ. Instead of paring down that truth, to bring it to a level — as has happened to the English Church to-day — she holds men up to her doctrine Dy the hair of the head, and draws them up to that divine truth which she cannot change ; and which you cannot change ; for you must admit it. The Catholic Church is charged with con- triving to control education. It is true ; because " the child is father to the man ; " and it is her duty to make her men, men of God. She begins with the child, to make him a child of God ; and she must begin in childhood ; if she does not, she never can make him a religious man. The Catholic Church is accused of moulding intellects and consciences into one mould, drawing everything, as it were, into one groove. Yes, that one mould, that one groove, is the divine truth of Christ. You cannot fit into it unless you are made conformable to the Son of God in the possession of the truth, which is one with the posses- sion of grace, in admitting the restraints that are necessary to sanctify and sweeten your lives ; unless you are made thus con- formable to the image of the Son of God, you will not have part or fellowship with Him, in the glory of the kingdom of His father. Again, the Church is accused of many things that are false ; she is accused, for instance, of being the enemy of education ; and, strange to say, I have heard — more than once — in England, this accusation made to myself against the Church. And I have heard the same men, within five minutes, charge the Catholic Church with being too grasping ; with having too much to say about education ; talking too much about it, making too much fuss about it ; and, within the same five minutes, charging her with being the enemy of all education. The Catholic Church is accused of favoring ignorance, in order that she may keep her hold upon the people. You know that is false. The Catholic Church knows well that her greatest enemy outside of her fold is the ignorance of the world, that refuses to look at her ; that the greatest difficulty within her fold is the ignorance of some of her children — of the uneducated portion of them. The greatest diffi- culty without the Church is not the intelligence of the world- No ; from the highly educated, from the highly accomplished Prot- estant, the Catholic Church gets the generous tribute which his- tory bears to her. There is not a Catholic writer that has paid, 582 The Promises of Christ Fulfilled over and over, such generous homage to the glory of the Catho- lic Church as she has received from the highest Protestant writers ; that is to say, men of the highest cultivation, and the highest intelligence. The opposition that she receives, the hatred she encounters, exists in the enmity, the ignorance, of those who are within her sanctuary, within her own pale. Her educated children, in proportion as they are educated — in proportion as they receive knowledge, and rise to the fullness of intellectual excellence — in the same proportion does the Church lean upon them, appeal to them, take a firm hold of them ; in precisely the same proportion are they the grand de- fenders and missionaries of their holy mother. And the highly educated Catholic is always the best Catholic. The more he knows, the more will he prize and love that Church in which he lives. The more he knows, the more is he fitted to enter into the field of intellectual strife, and to do battle for the faith of the holy Catholic Church, in which he lives. The Catholic Church is accused of being the enemy of prog- ress. Now, I would like to know what this means. I believe that many men, in this day of ours, speak of progress, and they actually do not know what it means. Does it mean railroads? Well, certainly, yes ; railroads are a sort of progress. Thirty or forty miles an hour is certainly a more rapid form of advance than travelling along at the rate of seven or eight. Does prog- ress mean electric telegraphs ? Cotton mills } Steamships ? Why, what has the Catholic Church to say to these things? I hear men talking of the Catholic Church as the enemy of progress ; and the only thing these men mean by progress is the making of a sewing-machine, or something of that kind. What has the Catholic Church to say to these things ? Why, she is very much obliged to the world for them ; she is very much obliged to the men who build railroads, make locomo- tives — to the men who will build a line of steamships. Why, these means will bring her bishops to Rome, to take counsel with the Pope, and will send them home again. They will take advantage of the electric telegraph. Why, these wires flashed to the very ends of the earth the decisions of the Vatican Council ; and every man was brought into communion with that instantaneity of thought which is in the unanimity, and a necessity of Catholicity. So that to say that the Catholic Only in the Catholic Church, 583 Church is opposed to progress, is a lie. But there is another kind of progress ; and the Catholic Church is opposed to it. God is opposed to it. What is it ? It is progress of an intel- lectual kind. It is progress that involves that diabolical " Spir- itualism " — dealing with spirits, whether good or bad — the superstition that arises from it ; and the progress that results in what is called the doctrine of " free love " — the progress that unsexes the woman ; that sends her into dissecting rooms, or such unwomanly places, and there debauches her mind, while she is said to be in the pursuit of knowledge. The progress that asserts that children are to be brought up from their earli- est infancy in such independence, that they are allowed to give the lie to their father or their mother ; the progress that would assert that politics is a game that men are to enter into for their own private aggrandizement and wealth ; the progress that would assert that, in commercial intercourse, a man may do a " smart thing," although there may be a little tinge of roguery or injury to a neighbor in it; the progress that would assert that every man is free to think as he likes on every sub- ject — all this the Church is opposed to. For, if the Church were not able to speak to you — to lay hold of you with bit and bridle — bind fast the jaws of this society in this age of ours — if the Church were not in the midst of you, with the monk and the nun, whose consecration never changes, whose obligation never changes, from age to age, from the cradle to the grave — where would you be ? Where would you be if this strong con- servative power of the Church of God were not in the midst of you ? Society would, long since, have been broken up — re- duced to its original elements of chaos, of confusion, and of sin. The fourth promise made to the Church was, that she was to last forever. " I have built My Church upon a rock," He said; " and the gates of hell shall never prevail against it." " I am with you until the end of the world. I will send My Spirit to breathe upon you, to lead you unto all truth, and abide with you forever." Everything else may perish ; the Catholic Church must remain as she was from the beginning, as she is now, and as she shall be unto the end. The Catholic Church must remain the same. We Catholics know this ; it is an in- stinct with us. We know that the Catholic Church can never 584 The Promises of Christ Fulfilled be in danger. We deplore the calamities of this age ; for instance, when we see the Pope persecuted ; and we grieve when we see him robbed of that which the nations conferred upon him. We grieve when we see poverty, misery, or oppression ; we grieve when we hear of a persecution in China or Japan, and that a score of Jesuits or other missionaries have been slaugh- tered or sent to prison. We grieve for a thousand things like these ; but who was ever tempted to think that the Church was in danger, or that anything could happen to her ? And we know that everything else may perish ; but we know that she must remain ; we have the evidence of it in her history. She may perish in this nation or in that ; but she springs up, by the inevitable destiny of her being, to new life elsewhere. She perished, many centuries ago, in the very cradle in which she was founded — in Palestine — in the Oriental countries ; but she took possession of Western Europe. She seems, now, to be persecuted — even, perhaps, unto perishing — in some of the most ancient Catholic nations of Europe. Spain and Italy are in danger. If they fail, the loss will be theirs, not the Church's. And by so much as the Church loses in one land she gains in another. And while we behold the bishops persecuted, the priests driven out, the churches tottering into ruins, in the fair cities of Italy, we behold, across the western wave — in this new land of America, Catholicity springing up, side by side with the great material development of the mighty land — Catholicity, the only power in the land — the only religion in the country that keeps up, stride by stride, pace by pace, with the mighty mate- rial development of young America. Twenty years ago, there was, in this Hudson County, but one little Catholic chapel; to-day, there are nineteen Catholic churches — of what form, what magnificence — look round and see. What does this mean? It means that where a nation is faithless. Almighty God per- mits His curse to fall upon that nation ; and the curse of God falls upon that nation in the day when she drives out her Cath- olic faith from her. But, so sure as that pilgrim of God is driven from one society, so sure does Almighty God send down on another people and another race the grace to open their hearts and their arms to the Church, His spouse, that wanders over the earth with truth upon her lips ; that walks upon the earth, a thing of supreme and celestial beauty, destined to go Only in the Catholic Church. 585 forth and to conquer until the end oi time. And so must she remain forever ; ever growing in the faith of her children ; ever growing in their devotion ; ever renewing, like the eagle, from day to day, her divinely infused strength and power; ever test- ing every system of philosophy ; ever denouncing every form of error; ever proclaiming every form of law ; and laboriously and patiently — the Alma Mater — bringing out, with skillful and patient hand, in the confessional and her altar, in all the influ- ence of the sacraments — bringing out, in every individual soul that she touches, the divine and God-like image of Christ. Such do we behold thee — such do I see thee, O royal mother! O royal mother! even as Paul, at Tarsus, beheld thee — thee whom Christ loved, and for whom He laid down His life, that He might present thee to Himself a glo- rious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, but holy and perfect in thy sanctity. Such do I behold thee, as the prophet beheld thee when he said : " Thou wast made of exceeding beauty, and thou wast made of perfect beauty, be- cause of thy beauty which I behold in thee, saith the Lord." As such do I recognize thee, O mother, who hast begotten me by the simple act of Christ. As such do I recognize thee, O m.ighty influence, sanctifying all that thou dost approach. As such do I behold thee, with all the brightest intelligences of the world, in times past and in times present, bowing down before thy altars, and accepting thy message of divine truth. As such do I see thee, when, turning from the past, I look into the future, and behold thee, with a crown of supreme and celes- tial beauty, shining in the unity of thy faith, and resplendent in the glory of thy sanctity ; the crowning blessing of this glorious western land, that, in these later days of the world's existence, will put forth all her strength and all her intelligence to uphold the glory of Christ and of His Church. One word before I leave. I came here this evening on behalf of this very cause ol which 1 am speaking to you — for a Cath- olic church which is being built in this city by my respected friend, Father Hennessy. Of course, a priest alone — when he faces the task of building a church — undertakes a tremendous obligation ; and, generally speaking, gets himself up to his eyes in debt. But because of the divine principle that underlies everything in the Church, he knows that no matter how gigan- 586 The Promises of Christy etc. tic the undertaking, he is sure to succeed ; because the Church, for which he labors, never dies — never fails. To whom does he look for support ? He looks to His people ; and he looks es- pecially to those among his people who have learned in the Catholic Church, under the influence of her graces, to uphold the sacred cause of temperance. He appeals to the generous- hearted people who have never been wanting in magnanimity, nor in truthfulness, nor in talent, nor in tenderness of heart — Irish Catholics, all the world over — whom the demon of intem- perance would fain touch with his hell-born hand, to dry up every highest and most generous emotion by the breath of his infernal lips. You have risen, oh ! my brothers, out of his power ; you have shaken him off, and you have declared, by your association, that, in this land of America, the Irishman will be the intellectual, generous, high-minded, temperate man of whom the Church will be proud, and of whom the State never will be ashamed. You have made yourselves the apostles of this virtue, which, next to your faith, is the grandest of virtues, and without which even faith itself is of no avail. A drunkard is rather a disgrace to the faith which he professes, and a stumbling-block in the path of those who would fain uphold that faith. Believe me, therefore, my brethren, for you do I come, and for you I w^ould willingly lay down my life to strengthen you in this glorious resolution, which, in this larger Ireland of America, will build up the glory of our people, and will bring them up as an influence in the land in everything that is highest, and most eminent, and most intellectual. And all this united in one word, when I say the sober, temperate Irishman. Persevere, in the name of God ; persevere, for the sake of home ; for the loved ones thore — for the family, for the nation. Persevere, for the sake of your own souls ; persevere, for the sake of that Church in which you live and in which you believe ; that, when she puts the words of her evidence on my lips, she may be able to point to you and say: " If you want to know what sanctity is in the Catholic Church — if you want to know what powerful influence is in her — behold her children ; she is not ashamed of them ; they are the strongest argument of the power of her voice." THE HIDDEN SAINTS OF IRELAND [Discourse preached in St. Raymond's Church, Westchester, N. Y., on the evening of the festival of " All Saints," 1872.] " Praise ye the Lord in His saints. Praise Him in the firmament of His power." HESE words are found in the 150th Psalm, and they tell us, dear friends, a great and important truth ; that is to say, that the Almighty God wishes us to praise Him in His saints; that He wishes us to reflect upon their lives, and understand their character, and, as far as we can, to discover how the power of the Almighty God is reflected in them. " Praise Him in the firmament of His power." We know that the first duty of man is to praise the Lord God who made him ; that God made us capable o{ praising Him, that all other creatures can only serve Him, according to the limited re- sources of their inferior nature, living up to that natural law under which they live, and by which they are governed ; that man alone, having the highest power of love, and freedom of will, is capable of intelligently praising God, who is intellect itself; — and, therefore, to man alone is the precept given, " Praise ye the Lord." And that praise, dear friends, is two- fold. It consists, first of all, in the faith by which we humble our intelligence to the truths that God has revealed ; and in the word of praise, by which we magnify the Lord our God, as Mary did, when she said, " My soul doth magnify the Lord ; and my spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour." Secondly, God expects us to praise Him in the action of our lives ; — not merely, by word of mouth, proclaiming the faith that is in us ; but, according to the word of the apostle, who says : ** With the heart we believe unto justification, and with the mouth we make confession unto salvation." Just as when he says, " Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh." This we give to God, in our daily 588 The Hidden Saints of Ireland. prayer, in our Sunday Mass, and in all the offices and liturgy of the Church. It ascends as incense before the eye of God and falls as music on His ear. But there is another and far higher praise that God demands from us; and it is the prayer, not of the lips, but the prayer of the life and of the will ; the prayer of our daily actions, con- forming themselves to the will of God — without which all praise by mere word of mouth is as if it were nothing. Wherefore, the Lord Himself said of old, reproaching the Jewish people : " These people praise Me, indeed, with their lips ; but their heart is far removed from Me," This double praise is meant in the word of Scripture, "Praise ye the Lord in His saints." And it involves a two-fold application. First of all, it involves the application of knowing something of the saints of God. For how can we praise God in His saints, unless we know something about these saints ? unless we know something of their lives, of their spirit, of their action? the generation in our own minds of admiration for them ; also the study of their glo- rious and heroic lives ; and thus praise the author of all grace in the wonderful manifestation of all the graces which He has made in His saints. This is the meaning of the text, " Praise ye the Lord in His saints." For the Almighty God means more when He says this ; He commands us not only to know them, but to study their lives, and to have some knowledge of them ; therefore, to have some reason for our praise ; that is, to enter into the character of the saints ; to try to enter into their interior lives, and clothe ourselves in their virtue, by try- ing to imitate them in the purity and heroism of their lives, and thus to praise the Lord truly in His saints by reproducing these saints in ourselves. This is the meaning of the word of the apostle, when he says, " Brethren, be ye imitators of me as I also am of Christ." We ought to praise God through His saints, first of all, by our ad- miration of them. " God is wonderful in His saints." Second- ly, there is the praise of the Lord, by the imitation of the saints. " Be ye imitators of me as I also am of Christ," says St. Paul. And it is worthy of remark that, amongst the forms that error takes in opposition to the Church of God, the very first dogma of the devil, in this our day, is — that there are no saints ; — that there is no homage due to them ; — that there is no imitation The Hidden Saints of Ireland. 589 due to them : — that there is no praise due to God through them, for them, or in them. Man — according to this new dog- ma of error — stands alone with God ; and there is no character, no matter how noble, no matter how God-Hke or glorious, to intervene between man and God. This is the last resolution of human pride ; this is the very spirit of Protestantism ; this Is the last climax of the pride of human intelligence, climbing up to God, without that ladder of sanctity and saintly example that the Almighty God Himself has placed there between man and Him. The sin of the devil, I hold, was, that finding himself under the rule of the Most High God, exalted in his spirit, he said : " I will climb up on high ; I will fly to the summit of all things ; I will seat myself on the throne of God ; and I will be like unto the Most High." So the genius of Protestantism says, " Let no Virgin Mother, no apostle or martyr, appear be- fore my eyes. I despise them all. I alone stand upon the earth, and am able to lay hold upon God by divine faith, through the Son of God ; and I will allow no saint, no intercessor, to inter- vene between me, and that God, to whom I aspire." That is the pride of the human intellect ; while the Almighty God, in Scripture, declares to us that the praise most acceptable to Him — that praise which fills His heart with joy — is the praise that comes to Him in the practical form of sanctity of life ; the praise that comes through His saints. Therefore, the Psalmist says, " Praise ye the Lord in His saints — praise Him in the firma- ment of His power." My friends, have you reflected upon it ? that it is not without a divine philosophy that the Almighty God has raised up these Saints, whom we celebrate ; and has put them before us. We know that, by the divine grace of God, our vocation is to become holy and perfect. " This is the will of God, that ye be perfect even as your Heavenly Father is perfect." We know, moreover, that law alone, precept alone — no matter how holy it be ; even though it come from the mind of God — is not sufficient to make men holy or perfect. There are other things required besides law. First of all is required the precept of the law, that man may know his duty. Secondly, is required the grace of God, by which man may be enabled to perform that duty. And, thirdly, is required some example, some form, some type, by which we may know how we are to perform that duty. God conde- 590 The Hidden Saints of Ireland. scended, in the mystery of the Incarnation, to our weakness and to our necessities; and not only sent down the law, in the person of Jesus Christ — not only sent down grace in the person of Jesus Christ, His Son ; but he also sent, in the Sacred human- ity of our Lord, a divine example by which all men may know how they are to become holy and pleasing to God. Wherefore the Saviour Himself said: " I have given you an example, that as I have done, you may also do." But such is the infinite dis- tance that separates us, worms of the earth — men full of weak- ness — full of passion — full of misery and yet full of pride — such is the infinite separation that divides us from our divine Lord — the infinite and perfect God, Jesus Christ — that we might lose heart, and say to ourselves " I never could do it ! " Contem- plating Him, we might say to ourselves: " He was the Son of God, God Himself, True God of True God — How can I imitate so high, so heavenly, so God-like an example?" " Oh! Lord, Eternal Father," we might exclaim : " Thou hast propounded to us too difficult a task. Thou hast given us a labor more than man can accomplish, I cannot become like the Divine Son, who is all-sinless, all-perfect, infinite and omnipotent strength itself. God, willing to take from out the mouth of every man every excuse for not being holy ; God, anxious that we should all ren- der to Him the praise of holiness of life as well as the praise of word from our lips — raises up in His Holy Church, saints in every walk of life, and puts them before us, that, through them, imitating them, we may become like to Jesus Christ. Saints, that is to say men — flesh and blood like ourselves ; with human passions, with human weaknesses, aye ! with human sins hang- ing around them ; — in order that every one may know that even as they became holy, through God's grace, so we may become holy and that the word of excuse for sin may be taken out of the mouth of every sinner. That is the reason why Almighty God raised up saints in His Church. Thus, for instance, a man might say to himself: " I have fallen into sin ! I have denied my Saviour, I have crucified my Lord — even this Lord of mine; — made a mockery of Him by my weakness, by my impurity, by my infidelity. How can I rise again? Christ never did this. Christ is the only emblem, the only sign and model of holiness that God has given us." St. Peter, chief of the apostles, comes before us, and sayeth : " Brother, fellow-sinner, friend : I also The Hidden Saints of Ireland. 591 denied our Lord and Master, and swore an oath, that I knew Him not. I abandoned Him in the hour of His weakness, suf- fering and passion. Friend, thou hast done no worse than I. But, behold, He glanced upon me with His eyes, and, under the light of those eyes of His, I turned to Him with love again, and went out weeping. I made my tears my bread, during many years. I have learned how to break my heart. Do you, fellow- sinner, as I have done ; and thou shalt be as I am to-day in the Kingdom of God." Thus, through every range, every degree of sin we find some saint, the type of the sinner, until we come to that degree of sin for which the world has no remedy. The woman who ought to be the highest, and consequently, when fallen is the lowest, because it is written, " Corruption of that which is the most perfect, most pure, is always the worst form of corrup- tion." The woman who ought to be the type of purity, because the reflection of Mary the Mother of God — the highest type of womanhood on the earth ; the woman, who ought to be the creatress of purity by the breath of her lips ; — she, fallen into sin, unlike any other sinner; in her, the sin becomes the very life of her life ; the fallen woman is the very embodiment of sin. The Scripture says of her: " I have known a woman more bit- ter than death, her hands, are nails ; her heart is a sepulchre ; and her chamber is the door into the inner place of hell ; he who is a sinner shall be caught by her." The woman, for whom the world has no remedy, save to leave her to her misfortune ; again — the woman, whose sin is said, of old, to be as bitter as damnation ; the touch of which is corruption and eternal death ; — is there no hope for such a sinner as this ? Oh ! my friends, such a one walked the streets of Jerusalem, of old ; and the wickedest sinner in it, turned aside with shame ; the veriest de- bauchee — Pharisee or Publican — gathered up his robes, and went over to the other side of the way, that the living sin, the contamination of hell, might pass without touching him. But, in the hour of divine power and benediction she came to the feet of Christ ; she heard that He was in the hall of the Pharisee's house, sitting at His meal. She entered ; and the moment she caught sight of His blessed face, she was afraid to look at Him, and she crept around until she came behind Him — creeping like a brute beast, on her hands and knees, and then 592 The Hidden Saints of Ireland. gathering herself around His feet like a serpent, she caught them in her hands, and the moment she touched Him, her sin- ful heart was broken within her by the burden of sin, and it dissolved itself into tears ! A fountain burst from her eyes. With these tears she washed His feet ; and with the hair of her beautiful head she wiped them, and broke on the marble pave- ment the alabaster box of ointment, and poured out its contents upon Him. And He — the infinite God of purity — vouchsafed to bend and turn His eyes upon the woman, and said : " Oh ! Mary, rise, thou art purified and made holy ; great is the remis- sion that is given to thee, because great is the love that is in thy heart." And Mary Magdalen — the living sin — who was the embodiment of sin — the very incarnation of hell — arose from the feet of Jesus Christ, as pure as the highest angel that ministers before the throne in heaven. Thus, do we see, for the consolation of every sinner — no matter how false, how vile he may be — the Almighty God has raised up His saints ; and they pass before us in that magnifi- cent yearly liturgy of the Church — now a martyr ; now one who preserved his purity from early youth, and in whom sanctity was a development and not a change ; now a holy monk or confessor ; now a virgin. And they all pass before us and say : " Brothers, is there one amongst you who has fallen, even as I have ?" " Be ye imitators of me, as I also am of Christ." This is the philosophy of the Church of the Almighty God, in putting these saints before you. But, my friends, though we celebrate them day by day throughout the Church, every year, still the Holy Catholic Church, the great prolific mother of all sanctity, does not for an instant, pretend that, in her canonized saints, she puts before us all those whose names are written in the Book of Life. Among the hidden saints, whose names are not known, there may be those who outshine to-day even Augustine in all his glory, and all the highest saints whom we imagine to have the highest places. We do not know. The Church selects some of the most heroic, whose heroism was known to her by human means, whose lives were public, whose characters attest that every sanctity was abounding. So, we take an apostle one day ; another day a martyr ; the next day a virgin ; the next day, a number of martyrs, who suffered death in some particu- The Hidden Saints of Ireland. 593 lar situations. But the Church of God does not pretend to confine her saints within the circle of her solemn canonization. We are aware that on this day of November, called " All Saints Day," she takes one day in the year to offer up gratitude to the multitude of saints whose names are not known to men, but are written in bright colors of gold in the Book of Life. Thus again, by this supplementary festival service, the Church pours forth her praise to God, in and through her hidden saints. And who are these ? They exist in every nation that has embraced the cross. There is no race, no people, that have ever embraced the Gospel, that have not produced these fruits of sanctity. The ancient Asiatic kingdoms, even under the old law, produced them. We know little about their names ; and yet we know of the multitudes that died in the reign of the wicked king, because they refused to violate the Sabbath; we know of the multitudes that died in the persecutions that came, time after time, sweeping over the Jewish people ; we know that in the first three hundred years after the Church was es- tablished, to be a Christian man was to be a martyr ; and that every nation, every province of the earth that embraced Chris- tianity, brought forth its martyrs, not in hundreds, but in thou- sands and hundreds of thousands. The catacombs of Rome were filled with them ; the plains of Asia and Northern Africa were covered with them ; their hordes lay throughout the length and breadth of Italy and Southern Gaul. There they were dead in the Catacombs of Rome, as I myself have witnessed, in some of the chambers where they found the slain bodies of the martyrs. We know not their names. There may be men and women, and holy children, who shed their blood for God, and went up to heaven. God only knows how many there were-; how many sacrifices they endured, and how much sanctity they possessed. They have come down from the stream of time, and we find that every nation that ever yet valued the Gospel, valued the Holy Catholic religion — was obliged to suffer for it in some form or other. Even in England — though history tells me the Anglo-Saxon never took kindly to Catholicity ; though they produced many good and glorious saints, yet their spirit throughout was hostile to Rome ; and hostility to Rome means hostility to the Catholic Church — even there, God alone knows 38 594 The Hidden Saints of Ireland. the number of saints of ancient Britain, the Christian souls that were put to death by the Saxon invaders in the various perse- cutions that came over them, until that terrific persecution that came in the sixteenth century, when England was called upon to become Protestant. But, like the dove that Noah sent forth from the ark, which fluttered over the wild expanse of water and found no resting-place until it returned to the place from whence it came, even so do the men of mind, considering the glories of the Catholic Church, in contemplating the fact that there is no resting-place elsewhere, return to the ark of life, to deliver the highest evidence of the grace of God upon this earth, revealing itself in every form of Christian sanc- tity. All the nations have an interest in this festival day, be- cause of their hidden saints. My friends, I believe firmly — upon the evidence of history — that, amongst the guardian angels of ithe nations, there is not one so honored in heaven to-night as ithe angel guardian of Ireland ; that, amongst the apostles or spiritual fathers of the nations, there is not one whose pastoral Btaff can point to such an army of saints as the staff of Jesus, which Patrick bore in his day, can point to, in that island. There they are ! In their troops of apostles — in their troops of holy virgins — in their troops of martyrs — there they are — the pride of heaven to-night, who were the glory and the strength of the Church of God upon earth in their day. And it is to Ireland's saints and to Ireland's portion of festivity on this day of " All Saints," that I invite your attention. First of all, consider that, according to the most authentic records of history, the population of Ireland in the day when Patrick came to preach to her, was something between four and five millions of people. It was pretty much what it is to-day. Much of the land was covered by forest — much of it was unre- claimed ; but still it was a glorious land and people, with their laws, their government, their system of philosophy, their science, their poetry, and their traditional national music. The coun- try was divided into five provinces, governed by five kings. There Patrick came and preached ; and the most singular instance in the history of the world was the conversion of Ire- land by this man. It was not a conversion effected like that ;0f many of the Germanic States by the Teutonic races — through The Hidden Saints of Ireland. 595 brute force; it was, not a conversion effected by armies of apos- tles thrown in upon them ; not by the spiritual power of mar- tyrs, willing to seal their testimony by blood. No doubt, he who came to evangelize our native land was willing that they should make a martyr of him, if martyrdom was required ; but Patrick came to li eland and preached the faith. Five millions of people lay like otje man before him. The sunshine of grace spread itself over the land ; for, in one day, he made the truth so plain, that the whole Irish race and people became Chris- tianized. They asked him not for blood like other nations, but they asked him for argument. That argument he gave ; and all that highly philosophical, intellectual race appreciated his argument, and bowed before his words. A pentecost of love was poured forth once more upon Ireland from the heart of Him who shed the sanctifying influences of the spirit upon us to such an extent, that, on that day of Pentecost, Ireland became Cath- olic like one man. Not only this ; but other nations arose slowly, and faintly opened their eyes ; gradually there fell upon them the light of the Gospel, removing the film and the mists of Paganism out of them ; but even then, like men born blind, who with dread, be- hold the full light for the moment ; they but imperfectly awoke to the benefit and to the participation of the full light. Not so with Ireland ; the veil of her Paganism was rent before the nations by her own hands, at the sound of Patrick's voice ; just as at Jerusalem, of old, the veil of the temple was rent at the last cry of the Lord ; and Ireland's Christianity came forth into the light — into the full blaze of Gospel light. It was not regretfully or slowly that they came into the fullness of Christian sanctity. No ! but in that day she became Catholic, the act was as natural as if the grace amongst them had ripened from a spring time, without any intermediate summer, into the full autumn of Christian holiness — producing at once a national monasticism, a national priesthood, and a national episcopacy. So, my friends, we find that our five millions, fifteen hundred years ago, became saints. And, as soon as they became Christ- ianized — throughout the length and breadth of the land — mon- asteries and glorious colleges sprung up ; every hill-side and valley beheld its group of seven churches clustered around some hoary round tower of ages passed and gone. Every village and 596 The Hidden Saints of Ireland. hamlet in the country had its monastery of holy monks ; and there — not by hundreds but by thousands — these saints of Ire- land, in those early days of Catholicity, gave themselves up to God, to prayer, and to the highest forms of religious sanctity; until Ireland became the wonder of the world, and was called the Holy Island and the sanctuary of the earth ; The grand old Mother of Saints, of Scholars and of Bards. It was the " Island of Saints." Whoever came and landed upon the shores of Ireland, no sooner did his feet touch the holy sod than his ears were greeted by the perennial praise that fell upon the an- cient atmosphere of Erin. So, throughout a complete circle of the land, the praise of the Lord was echoed from the lips of Irish saints for three hundred years. Of their names we have but few. We have the name of Columba, who went forth and evan- gelized the whole of Scotland and the southern part of England, converting those rugged Pagans to Catholicity. We have the names of his successor, Finnian, and of many others that carried on his noble work. Irish monks penetrated into France, Ger- many, Austria, crossing the Alps into Northern Italy, even unto the very gates of Rome ; and brought back to the m.other, from which they were derived, the fruits of their sanctity and Christian monastic holiness. Glendalough sent forth two or three great saints. It is these hidden ones ; these men of Irish blood, of Irish birth, of Irish faith, hope, and love ; these grand, magnificent rpen — with Irish genius, intellect, and learning — who pass si- lently from their cells in the hill-sides, from their cloister homes, into the bosom of Jesus Christ — it is these we celebrate on this grand supplementary festival of the hidden saints of God, whose names are registered in heaven alone. So at the end of these three hundred years of sanctity, the Danes came to Ireland and swept over the land. They came in their thousands and tens of thousands. Being Pagan, their first idea, their very first thought, was to destroy the faith of Ireland, and thus to ruin Ireland's nationality. Accordingly the first efforts of these enemies of God were directed against the monasteries. We know, as a fact, that the very first work to which each Danish army landing in Ireland was put, was the closing and sacking of monasteries, the destroying of churches, the burning of con- vents, the driving out and destroying of the monks and nuns ; this was the first thought of the Danish mind. And they The Hidden Saints of Ireland. 597 came and landed on various points on our island. The Celts maintained the cause of their faith and of their native land glo- riously — like men, and never for three hundred years, was the " Red Hand," or the " Sunburst " of Ireland lowered before the Danish conqueror ; never, for three hundred years was he allowed to ravage, without finding the strong hand of the Celt meeting him. But nearly all the monasteries of Ireland were destroyed, and with them also hundreds and thousands of holy monks and nuns of the land. The land was full of them. On every side monasteries and convents abounded. When these savage bar- barians rushed in upon them, Ireland's honor was not destroyed. History does not bear a single record in which the sacred wo- manhood of Ireland was violated. Ireland's monastic sons and patriots shed their blood for Christ. Ireland's soil was purpled, from end to end of the land, with the blood of the martyrs. Yet of those who perished at the hand of the Danes not a single name remains commemorated in the annals of the Church. They were counted by thousands and tens of thousands; not one does the Church remember by name on earth ; but the Church in heaven records them to-night ; and great will our joy be if we have the happiness ever of beholding their faces ; and great will our amazement be when we come to scan with eager, loving eyes the ranks of the martyred holy saints, to see so many there, hundreds and thousands bearing upon their fore- heads the mark that the barbaric savages set upon their Irish souls. We move down one step further in our history. It brings us down some four hundred years. It is true that during the Dan- ish invasion and the wars that followed — Ireland's faith, though invaded, was not distinctly challenged. The Dane never put forth, in the first and highest day of his power, the formal inten- tion to destroy the faith of Ireland. They came, to be sure, to destroy that faith, when they came to overrun the land ; they came to take possession of the land ; but they never avowed the formal intention — as history tells us — of destroying the faith of the Irish people. In four hundred and fifty years after the Danes had passed away — after Ireland, brave, brave Ireland ! — gave so glorious a record to the invaders, on that day at Clon- tarf — another class of invaders were in the land. They had been in the land for four hundred years ; they came with a pre- 598 The Hidden Saints of Ireland. tense to subjugate Ireland to a nominal adhesion to the neigh- boring island of England ; they came with a pretense of reform- ing the Irish Church. We had three saints at its head. The Irish Church, in its Synod at Kells, had already made all the rules and inculcated the authority that were necessary for the reformation of the Irish Church. From the days of its first in- vasion, it had never forgotten, in its priesthood, the index virtue of purity. So that when Henry II., with his English monks and English priests, came over to Ireland, one of the abbots of the land stood up, in the presence of Gerald Barry, an English priest, and called the people of the land about him, and said to them, " How dare you come here to reform the Irish clergy, with such instruments as you have brought over with you ; never in this land of Ireland were ever such crimes even heard of, as those our people have been obliged to witness, since you and your accursed brood came amongst us." Well, in the sixteenth century — after four hundred years of English invasion — Henry VIII. — you have often heard of him — took it into his head to become a Protestant, one fine morning. He took a dislike to his wife — got tired of her, because she was too good for him — ten thousand times too good for him ; for Catharine of Aragon was a saintly, virtuous, good woman. Henry loved her for her beauty and not for her virtue, or her chastity ; and he, consequently, resolved to put her away. He, the king of all the land, resolved to do what no man could do without a criminal action — he resolved to marry two wives. So he took another woman, Anne Boleyn. I would be ashamed to read to you the hints of a historian of the time, about Anne Boleyn. I would be ashamed to tell you the relation in which she stood to the man who dared to love her. It was enough to bring down upon England that day the raging fire of brimstone that fell upon Sodom and Gomorrah ; for remember, any chil- dren he had by her, whom he resolved to marry, he became the grandfather of those children. The Pope said, ** You cannot do it. I will not allow it ; I will not allow any man in the land, or in the whole world to violate the law of God. If you were the hum- blest man in England I would not allow it. You are the King of England, and know it cannot be done. God has placed me at the head of the Catholic Church to preserve His faith and His law. I tell you you must not do it ; and as long as I live, and The Hidden Saints of Ireland. 599 my successors after me, you shall not have permission to violate the law of Christ, and scandalize the Church or the people. I tell you, as long as I am Pope of Rome, that no woman in the world shall be injured by her husband casting her aside with a false divorce. I tell you that God has raised me up as a sceptre in defense of the weak and the poor; and, therefore, over your wife, O King of England ! I stretch that sceptre, and tell you, under pain of excommunication and eternal damnation, I will not allow you to put away the wife of your bosom, but com- mand you to be true in your heart to her." Henry finding it extremely inconvenient to be a Catholic; and to be a Catholic means listening to the Pope ; and to listen to the Pope means to be a good Catholic ; — means to be a good-living, pure-minded man ; — when Henry found it extremely inconvenient to have a Pope around him, he made up his mind and said : " I will marry the young lady, and become Pope myself." Oh! my friends, was not that a beautiful thing? The first Pope of the Protes- tant Church began by having two wives ; and he ended by cut- ting off the heads of four ; so he had six wives. The first Pope of the Protestant Church was such a blackguard that there was not a good-looking woman in England that was not afraid of her life that he would cast his eyes upon her ; because if he loved her to-day, he would marry her to-morrow, and have her head cut off the next day. And this man, unfortunately for us, had his army in Ireland ; and he claimed to be the Lord of Ire- land, to which he had no right under heaven. He sent word to the Irish people, and the message was simply this : " You may keep your priests, your masses, your churches, your monks and friars. I don't want to disturb them ; I only ask one thing of you : give up your allegiance to the Pope of Rome. I am the head of the Church. Acknowledge me ! " When he said this, the answer he got from Ireland was one prodigious laugh, that went from the Giant's Causeway down to Cape Clear. The people knew him well, and said : " Does Harry the Eighth want to be Pope! Oh! " I don't know if you are acquainted Avith the Irish language ; but the great word in Ireland that day was, " If he is to be Pope, that won't do for us." Oh, my friends, they had too much sense. I don't care what you may deny to my countrymen ; but I do hold that, impulsive as the Irish are, foolish in many things and improvident as we are, yet the Almighty 6oo The Hidden Saints of Ireland, God has given us in great things — in essential things — a great amount of common sense. No man with brains in his head could acknowledge that the bloated villaia and beastly wretch that sat there in his chair, like a feather-bed, who was too corpu- lent even to walk ; with his legs swollen, so that he had to be wheeled about by his courtiers ; who possessed all the fury of a tiger ; who apparently had no feeling, except when they brought before him some great goblet of wine ; no man would acknowl- edge him to be the Pope and descendant of the apostles. Remember, that the Protestantism of those who speak the English language all depends upon Harry the Eighth. The French and German Protestants never heard of him ; they made Luther their Pope. But the Americans that came from Eng- land, they acknowledge that their religion began with the pon- tificate of Harry the Eighth. Well, now began a singular period in our history — the time of Harry the Eighth. History tells us that Ireland had about three millions of people — not more. Indeed it would be hard for us to be more. For four hundred years we had carried on a war for our national existence. For four hundred years, Ire- land had been one tremendous battle-field, and it is no wonder that, in this time, the population was cut down to three mil- lions. But still, three millions is a great and goodly number, if only the three millions will consent to stand by their faith. The three millions of Ireland answered Henry VIII., and said: "You may shed our blood and put us to death, but we will never separate from the Catholic Church — from the Mother of God — from Patrick, our apostle — and from the faith which he taught us." Then the persecution began. Oh, God ! Oh, great Lord ! Thou knowest how grand is the testimony that Ireland rendered to Thee ! Thou knowest, O Son of God, who died for us upon the cross !— Thou knowest, O Supreme Wisdom, that never in this world didst Thou create a people, or a race that gave so glorious a testimony of Thy truth and of Thy faith as the Irish ! The persecution began with Henry's daughter, Elizabeth; it was continued by her successors, James I. and Charles I. Cromwell repeated it; it was continued by Charles II. and William of Orange — all these kings of England — the rulers in the land — had only one purpose in their policy, in their lives, and that was to The Hidden Saints of Ireland. 60 1 shed the blood of Ireland until the last Catholic drop that was in the land flowed into the soil. Did they carry it out? Oh, my friends, did they carry it out? In 1648, the Confederation of Kil- kenny was established. In 1649, Oliver Cromwell came to Ire- land. What do you think was the number of Irishmen who shed their blood under him ? The lowest estimate gives it as six hun- dred and fifty-six thousand ; and there are others who say it went up to a million ! Certain it is, he cut down the population from over two millions to a little more than half a million of men. Cer- tain it is, that, in the year in which Cromwell arrived in Ireland, there were six hundred Dominican friars and priests wearing the habit ; and that in eight short years, four hundred and fifty of the six hundred were slain, and nearly all the rest were sent as slaves to Barbadoes, where they died under the lash of the slave-driver. All these are gone. Scarcely a vestige of the history remains of those who perished under the sword of the enemy of God and the Church of God. And though the royal gates of heaven opened to them, yet their names are not known upon earth. But the Church of God celebrates to-day their memory among the hidden saints. You can easily understand, therefore, be- loved brethren, how deep an interest we sons of Ireland should feel in the festival of All Saints. It is the feast of all the nations upon the earth, celebrating their hidden saints. But in truth, we may say, it is the universal feast of the Irish saints. We have not had any Irish saint canonized by the Church since St. Laurence O'Toole — and that was more than six hundred years ago ; aye, drawing up to seven hundred years ago. With him Rome canonized the last light of Irish freedom ; on his head Rome placed her hand, and canonized the last grand Christian man, who, with his love for God, mingled so high a love for his native land, that — when that land lost her freedom and submitted to her invader, the heart of the saint broke within him, and leaving the land that he loved — leaving the land that was enslaved, he passed over to France, and there laid down and died. But since his day, nearly seven hundred years ago, not an Irishman has been canonized. And yet, during these seven hundred years, I will venture to say, that Ireland alone has sent more martyred saints to heaven than all the rest of Christendom. I say it advisedly and deliberately. 6o2 The Hidden Saints of Ireland. I say it of a nation of three millions of people that kept up their population ; aye ! swelled it up to five or six millions under persecution — a nation that brought forth her children only to become martyrs of God — that that nation has sent more saints to heaven than all the nations of Christendom put to- gether. Come down one step further. The Protestant axiom is — ' The age of saints — the age of miracles has passed." As long as that island rises from out the green bosom of that western sea ; as long as she lifts up those venerable hills to heaven out of the Atlantic waves, so long, until the end of time, the age of Catholic sanctity, the age of Catholic miracles will not be passed. Tell me, is the age of miracles passed ? Oh ! I have lived in Ireland. I was old enough to appreciate the agony that passed over my mother-land — the island that I love! I was but a youth sixteen years of age, old enough to know good and evil, old enough to appreciate joy and sorrow. I found myself on the western coast of the island in the midst of the people, when it pleased the Almighty God to send down His last and most terrific visitation upon all of us ; when the angel of famine and death spread his wings, and the baneful shadow passed over the land. I have seen strong men lie down in the streets of the city, and, with ashy lips, murmur a last cry for food, and faint away and die! I have seen the dead infant lying on the breast of the dead mother, as she lay by the wayside ! I have seen the living infant trying to draw from the breast of the mother who was dead, sustenance for its infant life ! O God ! in Thy mercy, let me never again see such sights until I die ! What was Ireland then ? Was she faithful or faithless to every tradition of holiness? Was she still a nation of martyrs and of saints ? Aye, my friends. One case out of ten thousand, one case out of a hundred thousand ; there was a family far away on the western coast of the island. They were three days without food. The father and mother were there, the young man, tlie young girls were there. There was no work to be done ; the country was a waste ; the angel of death had swept his hand over it ; the ungrateful soil refused to give sustenance to its sons ; they were living upon the dock-leaves and the grass until they were so enfeebled that they were no longer able to go out The Hidden Saints of Ireland. 603 and seek them ; and the whole family were here and there, stretched upon the floor, dying in the slow and dreadful agonies of hunger, when a sleek, Protestant lady came in. On her be- nevolent arm she had a basket ; and in it she had bread and meat. She had waited for a particular day ; and that day hap- pened to be Good Friday. She came on the morning of that Good Friday, and looked around upon the dying, intermingled with the dead ; she took out the bread and the meat, and laid them before the dying ones, and said : " If you wish to live, eat ! " With their dying hands they pushed her away ; they turned away their eyes from that which was the staff of life ; they said : " On this day Christ died for us ; and the Church commands us not to eat these things. It is better to die than to offend our God." She returned ; the hydra put back her bread and her meat into the basket and walked out of the house ; and God only knows how many curses have been upon her head because she made the life of this world the trial of a people's faith. Another example, and I have done. A good woman, it is re- corded, who lived on the western shores of Ireland, a few miles from my native town, of Galway, was accustomed, every Sun- day of her life, to be present at the Mass, and on the first Sun- day of every month to receive Holy Communion. The famine came. She was then an old woman. Her sons had gone away to look for work here and there, with a promise that they would come to her and keep her in life if they could. Her daughters had emigrated ; and she was left alone in the world, with her youngest, a boy of twelve or fourteen years of age. They lived together, the old woman and the boy; and, when the distress came upon the country, to such a degree that all were dying, the boy cried for food, and the old woman had nothing to give him. At length, wasting away under her eyes, while she gave him all that she had, denying herself, one day he laid his head upon her bosom, and, uttering one dreadful cry, he died. She was so weakened by hunger, as he fell dead at her feet, that she was not able to go out of the house to the neighbors to get them to assist in burying him. For two days he lay dead upon the floor ; and she dying — dying with a broken heart — dying without one to put a cup of water to her lips — dying of hunger and of thirst — she laid for these two days and nights, beside 6o4 The Hidden Saints of Ireland. the dead. On the third morning, which was Sunday, she heard the chapel-bell ringing for Mass. The country at the time was a desert — no neighbors about it. When she heard the bell, on her hands and feet she crawled out of the house, and tried to take herself to the chapel, about a mile away. Three times she fell on the road. Those who were nearly stricken as bad as she was, as they passed, lifted her up, and laid her against the hedge and gave her a drink of water from the running stream. She fell again and again. At length she crawled — crawled until she came to a point on the road where she could see the chap- el-doors open. The priest was on the altar saying the Mass. When she caught sight of the priest on the altar, she lifted up her dying hands and eyes to God, and cried, " Eternal praise to the Blessed Virgin's Son ! " and fell back a corpse. And the people came out and lifted the dead one, whose last Irish effort was to crawl to the foot of the altar, that God might hear her last dying prayer. Amongst these millions of people in all this famine how many apostates were there ? How many recreants to their faith in order to save their lives? I count them. I challenge the world to prove that there were two thousand apostates among the Catholics of Ireland. The people died like heroes, when they might have saved their lives by renouncing their faith ; the last cruelty of Irish Protestantism was to tempt the dying people by placing forbidden meats before them. " They were dying." The English newspapers said, " As a race they were going with a vengeance." Yes! they went in their thousands and hundreds of thousands " with a vengeance." Thousands lay down in their martyr Catholic graves, and their souls went to God ; and hundreds of thousands turned their backs reluctantly weeping for the land of their sires, and went into foreign lands where wealth and fqjftune awaited their intellect and Irish energy. And into these lands they brought the love that sanctified those that they left in their graves behind them. I have done. This is our portion of to-day's festival. Say if it is not a great one? Oh ! men and women of Ireland, you are amongst strangers in a strange land. You are amongst a strange race. Remember what I tell you — speaking to Irish men and Irish women. There is no man of Irish name or blood here to-night, there is not a man of Irish name or blood on this wide The Hidden Saints of Ireland. 605 continent, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, that does not bear in his veins the blood of martyrs that was shed for Christ — the blood of those who are shining suns in heaven to-night. You have all heard of Dr. Doyle the celebrated bishop of Kildare. It happened one of the priests of his Diocese was going out to Rome. He came to the bishop and said, "Your Lordship, I am going to Rome. Perhaps you would wish I would bring yoj back some relics." The bishop said to him, " I don't want any relics from Rome or any other place, I stand upon Irish soil, and there is not in the land one square inch of Irish soil that has not, some time or other, sucked in a martyr's blood." So I say to you that there is not a single family in Ireland ; there is not one of you whose ancestors have not produced before God, in His Church glorious saints, patriots, and martyrs, whose children we are. Oh! let us live up to every tradition. Oh! let us be faithful to the fathers who went before us. Let us not forget their glory. Oh ! let us not forget our race and inter- mingle ourselves with strangers unto the utter abolition and destruction of that which has ennobled us as Irishmen ; — of that which will ennoble us in all the world's existence, your blood and mine that we derived from Irish mothers and from martyr ancestors, and all that it brings with it. It flows through our veins with those blessings and those graces of God by which we shall not be welcomed in this life, but in death we shall be able to gain a crown in heaven and claim kindred with the highest saints shining around the throne of God, and enter into the cir- cle of their glory as one of themselves. ON THE CONSECRATION OF A BISHOP. [Sermon preached at the consecration of the Right Rev. Thomas F. Hendrlcken, D.D., as Bishop of Providence, R. I., on Sunday, April 28th, 1872, in the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, Providence.] " You know that how when I preached the Gospel to you heretofore, ye de- spised me not, nor rejected me, but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus." HESE words. Most Rev. Archbishop, Right Rev- Bishops, and dearly beloved brethren, were spoken by St. Paul to the Galatians. They were strange and daring words for a man to speak. *' You received me," he says, •' not only as if I were an angel sent unto you from God ; but you received me as if I were Jesus Christ the Lord." Yet the same apostle distinctly says in the same epistle : " Though an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you beside that which we have preached, let him be anathema." All this St. Paul said of himself, because he was an apostle and a bishop in the Church of God. To-day, dearly beloved brethren, you are assembled before this altar also to receive one who is sent unto you, and to receive him not even as an angel, but as if it were the Lord Jesus Christ that rose up before you in all the fullness of His power, in all His infinite sanctity, and in that unity of person by which He was one with the Father. This which you are called upon to witness here to-day is one of the greatest mysteries of the Church — the consecration of a simple priest into the Episcopacy ; the conferring upon a man the fullness of that power which he before, as a priest, exercised over the real and mystical body of Christ. In the consecration of a bishop, as we shall see most wonderfully, most vividly, most terribly, if you will, in the man of faith, Jesus Christ de- scends again and enters into a man, consecrating him with the On the Consecration of a Bishop. 6oy highest sanctity, enduing him with the greatest power, and binding that man to Him through the Church and the Church's head, with a unity the most wonderful of anything that is seen upon the earth. Dearly beloved brethren, we are all called upon to be made like to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In this lies the call- ing, the justification, the glory of every one among us, for the apostle says that those whom He foreknew, He predestinated to be made like unto the image of His Son, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified. But as there are diversities of gifts in the same spirit, so there are many various ways in which we are, according to our calling, to become like to Jesus Christ. In humility, in purity of heart, in love of God, in hatred of sin, we are all called upon to be made like to the Son of God. But there are in Christ higher and greater gifts, not necessary for all, but only for a few — these gifts that are in the Son of God as the founder, and governor, and perpetual head of His Church. Of these all men stand not in need, but only the few who inherit his minis- try, and who are called upon to fulfill this office in the Church of God. And now, when we come to contemplate Christ our Lord in this high and glorious function as founder and ruler of the Church, what do we behold ? I answer, we behold three especial gifts — union with God, the most wonderful ; power un- limited, even to omnipotence; and sanctity such as was becom- ing the perfect Son of God. As founder and ruler of the Church, it was necessary that He should be united v/ith God in the ineffable and hypostatical union, in which out of three one was made, namely, a human body, a human soul, and God! Out of the union of these three comes Jesus Christ the Lord. That ineffable union with God was necessary to Him as founder of the Church. Why? First, because no one but God Himself could found such a Church as that which Jesus Christ founded. Secondly, because it was necessary to stamp upon the Church herself, in unity of doctrine, in unity of obedience, in perfect unity of thought, of mind, of will, and of heart, a resemblance of the union that bound her founder, in this sacred humanity, per- sonally to Almighty God. No one but God could found the Catholic Church ; for the Catholic Church is a mystery of con- stant assertion of the same truth, ever ancient, yet always new ; 6o8 On the Consecration of a Bishop. derived from the ancient of days in heaven, unchanged through- out all the changes of time and thought, yet sufficient, and amply sufficient, for all the intellectual and all the spiritual wants of the age. That Church, whose law never changes, be- cause truth is the same throughout all ages, must be of God. She has never changed one word of her doctrine ; she has never denied what she once taught ; she has never tolerated, much less asserted, an untruth ; in the nineteen hundred years of her exist- ence she has never been found wanting as an unfailing guide ; it can never be said that in such an age, or such an age she told the people a lie. That Church must represent God, because truth is of God. Side by side with her, systems of philosophy, modes of thought, demonstrations, or what may appear to be demonstrations, of science, have all been raised up, and aban- doned and disavowed, acknowledged as false in their principles, and defective in their application, in the course of ages. In the wreck of all systems of philosophy, of governments, and of science, the Church alone rises up like a rock in the midst of the tossing, changeful waves, serene, immovable, proclaiming with a living voice the truth of God as it was in Jesus Christ. Therefore, He that founded the Church must be God, and justly does He call the kingdom that He was about to establish, and of which He was to be king, the principality of peace. Consequently, He was God, because it was necessary that the brand of that by which He was one with the Father should be set upon the Church — unity of thought, accepting the same doc- trine, clinging to the same truth, speaking in the self-same lan- guage ; unity of will, recognizing one central power, recognizing that power diffused so as to meet the wants of every people and every time, yet all centering in one, Jesus Christ, and bowing down to the Church's spiritual authority as it bowed down to God. The second attribute that Christ possessed as founder of the Church, and that passed from Him to His Church, is power. " All power," said Christ, " in Heaven and on earth is given to me." Therefore Jesus Christ, the Man God, was Omnipotent, for all power was given unto Him. His actions were divine and not human. The action of that which is divine must be omnipotent. Well might the people wonder when they saw the dead springing from their graves at the sound of His voice. On the Consecration of a Bishop. 609 Well might they wonder when He preached to them, for He taught them as one who had power, and not as the Scribes. He said to His apostles — "The Father has sent Me from heaven, and He sent Me with all power ; as the Father sent Me, I send you." And He gave them power; power for the administration of the spiritual kingdom ; power to break the bonds of sin ; power to raise the spiritually dead from the sepulchre unto the glory and strength and liberty of the children of God. That power the Church possesses in her priesthood ; power to call down and invoke the Eternal from His throne of glory, sub- stantiating Him and making Him really present upon the altar under the appearances of bread and wine ; power over the mystical body of Christ, which is the life of the faithful ; power over the people, and power to feed them with the word of doc- trine and with the imperishable bread of angels ; and power to lift from their souls the weight of sin that the hand of God alone can remove. The third and the crowning attribute of Christ, as founder and the ruler of the Church, is sanctity. The fullness of the Divinity dwells in Him ; all that God has of perfection is in Jesus Christ. He came down from heaven so holy that at the very sight of His holiness the Eternal Father forgot the sins and the anger of four thousand years ; so holy that the Heavens were rent and the voice of the Father filled the clouds, saying, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ;" so holy that one tear shed from those sacred eyes, one aspiration of prayer from those benign lips, one drop of blood from those blessed hands, was more than sufficient to wipe away the sins often thousand worlds, because of His infinite holiness and acceptability before the Eternal God. That holiness, even in its perfection, not in any graduated or lesser degree, did Christ our Lord set upon this Church, that it might be a sign of her, and that she should bind to her brows, forevermore, the very sanctity of Jesus Christ. I prove this, first of all, from the inspired Word. St. Paul declares that Christ loved His Church as He loved Himself; that He gave Himself for His Church because He loved her, and because He might present to His Father a glorious Church, perfect in her holi- ness. Therefore, the word of the prophet is fulfilled in the word of the apostle. For the nineteen hundred years of the existence of the Church, she has never for a single moment 39 6io On the Consecration of a Bishop. tolerated even the slightest sin. Examine the moral law which she has enforced for so many centuries ; I defy any man to be able to lay his finger on any edict or law of the Church in which there was the slightest sin against God or man ; I defy any man to be able to point to the time when the Catholic Church allowed a sin to go unrebuked. Now, dearly beloved brethren, having seen the three great at- tributes of Jesus Christ, as the founder and ruler of His Church — namely, unity, sanctity, and perfection — now we see the reason of St. Paul speaking these strange words to the Galatians : " You received me not only as an angel of God, but as Christ Jesus." It was because he came to them as a bishop of the Church, in the fullness of his sacerdotal power and privilege ; in the fullness of that power and sanctity which the Church gives to her priests, and completes in her bishops ; and therefore he congratulated the Galatians because they, having true Catholic faith, recognized in him, their bishop, the attributes of Jesus Christ, as the founder and ruler of the Church. For such is a bishop in the Church of God, embodying the three great attributes, so far as man can partake of them — the unity, the sanctity, and the power of Jesus Christ. The bishop is lifted up among his brethren ; he is brought one step nearer to the great represen- tative, Jesus Christ, our Lord ; he is admitted to the sacred counsels of the Church of God : he is loaded with responsibility, because of his elevation. The attributes of our Lord are his, but first of all sanctity. Oh ! my friends, I might quote the words of the greatest doctors of the Church in speaking of the sanc- tity of the priesthood. St. Augustine extols the order of men bound to virgin purity ; and St. John Chrysostom said of the priesthood : " This life is a Godlike life ; this profession is an angelic profession." How can I find words to express the full sanctity of that state ? Oh ! great God, a man speaks a few words standing at an altar, holding a piece of bread in his hands, and all heaven is in commotion. Every angel prostrates him- self in adoration ; for the Almighty God rises on His throne, and places Himself, by a wonderful Incarnation, in the hands of him whose voice calls forth a response from heaven. How can I speak of the dignity and sanctity of that state which brings a man into such awful contact with the Almighty — to hold God in his hands, and speak to God as a man speaks to his friend ? On the Consecration of a Bishop. 6i i Such is the brightness of the glory of the priesthood ; such was the sight shown to Moses on the mountain, which ever after enrayed his head with glory ; and as Moses came from the mountain, having seen God, so the priest comes down from the altar with the awful sanctity of having seen Jesus Christ. And yet in us priests the Church has, as it were, but the beginning of the priesthood. It is there in all the integrity of its power over the mystical and real body of the Lord ; but the priesthood is not there in the simple priest in its full perfection. Why? Because nothing is perfect until it is able to produce something like itself. The priesthood in the simple priest cannot generate a priesthood. But the Church comes, the Spouse of Jesus Christ, and she confers upon a man the awful attribute of being able, by the imposition of his hands and the breath of his consecration, to send forth from him unto his fellow-man the living Spirit of God ; to endow a man with power to consecrate bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. What sanctity, therefore, must be upon those lips that are able not only to speak the words of the Spirit of God, but to send forth that Spirit, in the awfulness of its power, to penetrate the soul of another man. Here are those bishops, with the priests around them, to-day : here is this man who entered this church this morning a simple priest. He em- braced the archbishop and his fellow-bishops, and they breathe upon him with their breath the power of Jesus Christ and his sanctity ; and this evening, if that man imposes his hands upon a layman among you, he makes that man a priest of God, and produces in another that priesthood which is made perfect in himself. He becomes a fountain of power and sanctity. Those lips must be holy from which the Spirit of God goes out ; those hands must be holy that are able to convey Christ into the body of a fellow-man. Behold, my brethren, the powers of the episcopacy. Here this bishop has the power to breathe upon a man the same Spirit which Christ gave to His apostles when he said to them : " Whose sins ye shall forgive they are forgiven : whose sins ye shall retain they are retained ; " and suddenly the priest who kneels before him receives the power to forgive sins. And it is not merely the power to declare the sin forgiven, but it is the power of removing utterly the stain of sin from the repentant 6i2 On the Consecration of a Bishop. sinner. It is not the priest that does this ; he is only the voice —the word must come from God ; just as my voice speaks the words of my mind, so the priest, conferring the sacraments, speaks the words of Jesus Christ. The principle of unity is preserved in the Church by that wonderful organization that is the admiration of every philosopher. Christ's divinity was hidden in His humanity; so in the Church all things stand in Christ. Christ was the image of God ; the Church is the image of Christ. All power and all sanctity come from this one inef- fable head, speaking, acting, governing through the visible head, Christ's representative, the Pope of Rome. The bishops of the Church are its interpreters and guides ; and the history of the Church tells us that whenever danger threatened the Church, the bishops have never been wanting in their duty. There is no order in the Church that has given so many martyrs as the episcopal order. Their very purple seems to be a reminder of the purple of martyrdom. The very mar- tyr of our own day, the Archbishop of Paris, laid down his life, proclaiming that Jesus Christ was the only Lord and Saviour. When we consider, then, dearly beloved brethren, what a bishop is — bearing jurisdiction to his clergy, preserving his peo- ple from every error, and securing to them and to their children eternal salvation, I ask you is it not a source of inexpressible joy to behold a new diocese instituted in this land to-day ? There is joy in heaven for this fountain of special power which is opened to the dwellers in the House of David. There is joy in heaven for him who is consecrated to-day — another in the line of bishops from whom the sacramental power shall flow for- ever. And if there is joy for one sinner who does repentance, what joy must there be to see a fountain of grace opened up to the faithful ? That joy is enhanced for me, and I know that it is enhanced for many of you, by knowing that the chosen one is a child of our race. The Church is not bound to any race or people. She comes speaking every tongue, under every clime and every government, only seeking to save the souls of men from hell. But the highest glory of any people has always been the glory of helping the Catholic Church — the glory of giving from out the national womb a priesthood to labor in and to govern this Church. That glory, even in the midst of suffering and sorrow, On the Consecration of a Bishop. 613 has been given to the Irish race. This glory, from the first day that the light dawned on St. Patrick in the land has been spreading ever abroad until Ireland's episcopacy has been rec- ognized by the world. This cedar of God, lifting its stately head from the mountain-top of desolation, puts forth to-day another fruitful branch, another ruler in the Church of Christ. This tree of Ireland's Christianity has not grown old with years, although its branches have been cut off again and again, and its roots have been watered by blood and tears. The proof of its youth and its strength is that to-day it is able to send forth another bishop in the Church, a long-tried priest, full of faith and devotion to Jesus Christ ; to give another among the lights of the world, the salt of the earth. Oh, no ! our mother is as young to-day as ever: here is the proof. One of her children has been found worthy of being raised to the episcopacy. The Church of God, declaring him worthy, calls him to this high office, that he should represent the perfect sanctity of Jesus Christ, that he should hold forth the Church's power unto the brethren of the priesthood, and that he should bear forth the sacred principles of that unity which binds the Church to her head, and binds that head to Jesus Christ, and finds in Jesus Christ its crown. i \ I PUBLICATIONS OF P. J. KENEDY, ExceSsioa* Catlaollc Ftafolashiiag- Moeise. 5 BARCLAY ST., NEAR BROADWAY, NEW YORK, Oppositii the Astor House A dventiirea of 3Iichacl LPivi/er $1 00 Adeiinar the Tcnipffn: A Tale 40 BaWids, PocniSf and S'nirfs of JFilliani Col- lins ■. 1 00 Bla n.ihe. A Talc from the Fj-eucli 40 liaftle of Ventrif Harbor 20 Bibles, from S3 50 to 15 00 Brooks and Ilmjhes Controversy 7 J Butler's Feasts and, Fasts 1 2ii Blind Affsiese. A Talc 50 Batter's Catechism 8 '<■ " witli Mass Praj-ers SO Bible Tlistorf/. Challoncr 50 Christian rirtues. 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