That God knows and governs all things—that whatever happens is either done
or permitted by him, and that he proposes to himself wise and beneficent
ends in all he does or permits—are truths which lie at the foundation of
all religion. The wicked may refuse to obey his commands, but they cannot
withdraw themselves from the reach of his power. While their wickedness is
entirely their own, _God_ makes them, however unwilling or unconscious,
instruments to work out his ends.
It is thus that individuals and nations have each a peculiar destiny. Not
that there is a blind fate, such as Pagans imagined; but that an
all-seeing and all-governing God proposes to himself certain objects,
which he is determined to attain, despite the perversity of man.
To learn the purposes of God in the development of human events, to trace
his hand in the complicated movements of society, to see him overruling
and directing all to his own great ends, is one of the most sublime
objects to which the study of history can be applied. Frequently, indeed,
we may be unable fully to comprehend the designs of his providence in the
moral, as in the physical world. Fancy, or pride, may easily have a great
part in suggesting our theories. But, if we confine ourselves to certain
facts and undoubted principles, we can often trace the design in both
orders, and admire in it the wisdom, the power, the goodness—all the
attributes of God. Nay, all these shine more brightly in the moral than in
the physical order.
The history of his chosen people is an example of this. We find empires
rising and falling, at one time to punish, at another time to try, at
another to deliver his people. The good and the wicked, the weak and the
strong, become in turn his instruments. The whole history of that people
is but a record of the acts of his overruling providence, directing all
things to the accomplishment of the designs which he had announced.
This is, indeed, so evident in this case that it may not be considered a
fair instance to prove my general position. For it is admitted that God’s
providence over the Jewish race was quite extraordinary. Still, it proves
that God does so intervene in human affairs, and it illustrates many of
the principles that must be kept in view in these investigations. It
shows, for example, that many, unconscious of the fact—nay, with quite
another object in view, acting perhaps from avarice, hatred, or ambition,
are yet instruments in the hand of God for the accomplishment of his wise
purposes. It shows how things, and persons, considered as of little or of
no value, according to human views, may, in reality, be the pivots on
which the destinies of vast empires turn, connected, as they may be, with
the accomplishment of purposes which weigh more in the scales of Heaven
than the mere temporal condition of all the empires of the Earth.
It is in this view that many Christian writers assert that the Roman
empire obtained universal sway, that civilized nations being thus brought
closely together, an easier way might be prepared for the spread of the
Gospel. The generals and statesmen of Rome had no doubt a very low idea of
the poor fishermen of Galilee, and of the tentmaker of Tharsus. It may be
safely presumed that they did not even allow their names to divert their
thoughts, for a moment, from the grand projects of conquest and government
by which they were engrossed. Yet, in the designs of God, it was, most
probably, to prepare a way for the work of those fishermen, and of that
tentmaker, and their associates, that wisdom had been vouchsafed to their
counsels and victory to their arms.
The endless invasions of the Roman empire by northern tribes is another
instance of whole races being used by God for his own purposes, without
their having any idea of the work in which they were employed. They came
to punish those who had revelled in the blood of the saints, and to supply
fresh material for the great work of the Church of God.
Towards the close of the fifteenth century, an Italian sailor, led by some
astronomical observations and some half understood, or rather
misunderstood, tales of ancient travellers, to believe that there must be
another continent far away beyond the western waters, wandered from court
to court, in Europe, in search of means to fit up an expedition to
discover it, and he finally succeeded in making known a new world. It
requires little faith in divine Providence to believe that it was God who
was impelling him thus to open a new outlet for the energies of the
ancient world, which were then about being developed on a gigantic scale,
and, still more, to prepare a field for a more extensive spread of the
Gospel, in which the Church might repair the losses she was about to
sustain in the religious convulsions impending in Europe.
Numberless similar instances might be quoted. These designs of God are
sometimes manifest, sometimes hidden; sometimes they are far-reaching,
sometimes limited. Ignorance and pride may mistake or pervert them. But
they always prevail; they are always worthy of their Author; and let me
add, that the salvation of men being the object most highly prized by God,
it is not only rightfully considered the most noble, but it is that to
which his other works may be justly accounted subordinate.
It is under the light of these principles that I undertake an
investigation of the purposes of God regarding the Irish race. These
purposes seem to me no longer matter of speculation; they may be
pronounced manifest; for they are written in unmistakable characters in
the development of events.
The history of Ireland is, in many respects, peculiar. Few nations
received the faith so readily, and no other preserved it amidst similar
struggles. St. Patrick first announced the Gospel to the assembled states
of the realm at Tara. He received permission to preach it, unmolested,
throughout the length and breadth of the land. By his indomitable zeal and
heroic virtue, he succeeded in winning over the natives so effectually,
that at his death few pagans remained in Ireland. Not a drop of blood was
shed when Christianity was first announced. Heroism was displayed only by
the exalted virtues of the Apostle and of the neophytes. Nowhere else did
the Gospel take root so quickly and so firmly, and produce fruits so
immediate and so abundant. Catholic Ireland soon became the home of the
saints and sages of the Christian world. To many of the nations of the
continent her apostles went forth, charged with the embassy of eternal
truth. In every realm of Europe her children established sanctuaries of
piety and learning; and to her own hospitable shores the natives of other
lands flocked to receive education, and even support, from her gratuitous
bounty. Homes of virtue dotted her hills and valleys; and thus were laid
deep the roots of that strong attachment to the faith, which, later, was
to be exposed to trials the most severe.
We thus find God preparing Ireland for a future, then hidden to all but
Himself. For the day of trial came at last. She was reposing in peace,
under the shadow of the Gospel, when the barbaric invasion, that swept
before it every vestige of learning and religion in many parts of Europe,
reached her shores. Ireland was the only country that rolled back its
wave. But she did this at the cost of her life’s blood. For two centuries
the Dane trampled her sons under foot. His cruelties yet re-echo in the
national traditions. But the Irish race at last arose in its might, and
drove the barbarian from its shores. The churches of the country had been
pillaged, its monasteries plundered, its institutions of learning
destroyed—everything that the sword could smite, or fire consume, had
perished; but the Irish race came out of the ordeal preserving its own
integrity, and the jewel which it prized above all else—its glorious
faith.
Not long after this deliverance, and before Ireland had succeeded in
obliterating the traces of Danish cruelty, another invader set his foot on
her shores. Availing himself of the discords naturally arising from the
disorganized state of society, he succeeded in gaining a foothold. By
fanning these discords, he kept possession and gained strength. The rule
of the Saxon became thus almost as severe a calamity as had been the
oppression of the Dane. To the hatred, which is generally greater in the
oppressor than in the oppressed, were added, in time, religious fanaticism
and the desire of plunder, which became its associate and assumed its
garb. The _mere_ Irishman, who was hated under any circumstances on
account of his race, was now hunted in his own country as if he were a
wild beast. The property of the Catholic people was confiscated, and most
stringent laws were enacted to prevent its renewed acquisitions. Priests,
wherever found, were put to death, and the severest penalties were
inflicted on those who would harbour any that escaped detection.
Extermination by fire and sword was ordered in so many words, and was
attempted. When this failed, a system of penal laws was established, which
were in full force until lately, and which a Protestant writer of
deservedly high repute (Burke) calls a “machine of wise and elaborate
contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and
degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature
itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man”. Upon the
partial abandonment of this form of oppression, a system of proselytism
was adopted, and is yet in full vigour (for it has become an institution,
and the best supported institution in Ireland), which, by bribes to the
high and the low, appeals to every base instinct to draw men away from the
faith.
Yet neither confiscation of property, nor famine, nor disgrace, nor death
in its most hideous forms, could make Ireland waver in that faith which
our forefathers received from St. Patrick. There were, of course, from
time to time, and there are, a few exceptions. Did not these occur, the
Irish must have been more than men. But, as a general rule, the places
that could not be procured or retained, except by apostacy, were resigned.
The rich allowed their property to be torn from them, and they willingly
became poor; the poor bore hunger and all other consequences of wretched
poverty; and though every Earthly good was arrayed temptingly before them,
they scorned to purchase comfort at the price of apostacy. During the four
years from 1846 to 1850, nearly two millions either perished from hunger
or its attendant pestilence, or were forced to leave their native land to
escape both. In the midst of the dead and the dying, proselytisers showed
themselves everywhere, well provided with food and money, and Bibles, and
every one of the sufferers felt, and was made to feel, that all his
sufferings might have been spared had he been willing to barter his faith
for bread. Yet the masses could bear hunger and face pestilence, or fly
from their native land; but they would not eat the bread of apostacy. They
died, or they fled; but they clung to their faith.
In vain, I think, will history be searched for another example of such
vast numbers, generation after generation, calmly, silently facing an
unhonoured death, without any support on earth but the approving voice of
conscience.
This fidelity can be predicated with truth of the whole Irish race,
notwithstanding the numbers of those in Ireland who are not Catholics. For
these, besides being a minority of the inhabitants, are but an exotic,
planted in Ireland by the sword. They were imported, being already, and
because they were, of another faith, for the purpose of supplanting that
of the inhabitants. Many of them adopted the faith of the old race, so
that the names that indicate their origin are not a certain test of their
religion. But so steadily has the old stock adhered to its faith, that an
Irish “O”, or “Mac”, or any other old Celtic name, is almost sure to
designate a Catholic. Indeed, such names are usually called “Catholic
names”. Whenever an exception is found, it is so rare an occurrence that
the party is considered a renegade from his race as well as from his
religion.
It would, however, be not only unfounded to flatter ourselves that this
stability in the faith is the result of anything peculiar in the Irish
nature, but it would be, I may say, a blasphemy to assert it. God alone
can preserve any one in the paths of truth and virtue; how much more must
we attribute to Him the fidelity of a whole race, under the trying
circumstances here enumerated?
Such grace may have been given, as many believe, in reward of the
readiness and the fulness with which our ancestors first received the
faith of the Gospel, and it is hoped that God will to the end grant the
same grace of fidelity to their descendants. Our great Apostle is said to
have asked this favour from God for the nation which so readily responded
to his call. Let us unite our prayers with his, and, like Solomon, ask for
our race not riches, nor power, but true wisdom, which is, above all and
before all, allegiance to the true faith. This was the prayer, no doubt,
which the millions of our martyred ancestors poured out. They themselves
sacrificed property and liberty; they gave up everything that man could
take away, that they might preserve this precious jewel. They believed
that in doing this they were following the dictates of true wisdom, and,
in their fondest love for their remotest posterity, they wished and prayed
that similar wisdom might be displayed by them. May their prayer be heard
to the end.
This prayer has been heard, or at least this grace has been granted, up to
the present. When the sons of Ireland on this day return in thought to the
homes of their fathers, they may indeed look back upon a land inferior to
many in the elements of material greatness. They may behold her castles
and rich domains in the possession of the stranger. They may view the
masses of their race with scarcely a foothold in the land of their
fathers, liable to be ejected from the farm, and driven out on the public
highways, and from the highways into the crowded town, and from the hovels
of the crowded town into the poorhouse, and even at the poorhouse denied
the right of admission. But amidst all the miseries of those who yet dwell
in the old land—in spite of the wiles of unscrupulous governments, and
heartless and tyrannical landlords, and hypocritical proselytizers—in
spite of open violence and covert bribes, their undying attachment to the
faith remains unaltered, unshaken—a monument of national virtue more
honourable than any which wealth or power could erect, or flattery devise.
But all this is a grace, a great grace of God. It reveals a purpose of
Heaven more bountiful in regard to this people than if he had raised them
to the highest place in material power amongst the nations of the Earth.
Temporal prosperity, in its various forms, though a favour from God, is
not his most precious blessing. He himself selected the way of the Cross.
In abjection and suffering he came into the world; he lived in it despised
and persecuted, he died amidst excruciating torments. To those whom he
loved in a special manner, he says, “Can you drink the chalice which I am
to drink, and be baptized with the baptism with which I shall be
baptized?” and when they reply, they can, the promise that this shall be
fulfilled, his leading them to follow him in the way of the Cross, his
calling them to suffer for righteousness, is the best pledge of his
greatest love.
This grace he has given to Ireland. Her children have received and
accepted the call; they have reaped the reward. Indeed, I have found the
opinion entertained by many clergymen of extensive experience, that there
is not probably a people on this Earth of whom more, in proportion to
their number, leave this world with well grounded hopes of a happy
eternity. They do not, it is true, display a boastful assurance that they
are about to ascend at once into Heaven. But vast masses serve God with
humble fidelity in life, and, at death, acknowledging and sorry for their
sins, doing all they can to comply with his requirements, they throw
themselves, with resignation to his will, into the arms of his mercy.
Were nothing else apparent in the purposes of God, we might stop here. We
would find a great and worthy object for all that Ireland has suffered,
and cause to thank the Almighty Ruler for having given her the grace to
suffer in union with and for the sake of his Son.
But God’s graces are often given for ulterior purposes; and it may be
asked whether the extraordinary preservation of this nation’s faith has
not another object in his wise and merciful counsels.
It appears to me that this is now clear in the case of Ireland. But, to
understand it properly, we must reflect more closely on her connection
with England, and on the condition of this latter country.
In the sixteenth century England abandoned the faith to which she had
adhered for a thousand years. Her apostacy, though consummated by degrees,
may be said to have become at last complete. The blood of her best sons
flowed at Tyburn. The priests that were not of the number were banished,
or forced to seek safety in hiding places. The same price was put on the
head of a priest as on that of a wolf. The property of Catholics was
confiscated, their children were taken from them, and educated in the
religion of the establishment. These and analogous measures produced their
effect at last. Were it not for these things, a great part of that nation,
if not a majority, would be Catholic to-day. Though they desired no share
in the plunder of the Church, and had no fancy for the new theories of the
Reformers, they were weak enough to yield to a pressure, under which
compromise first, and then apostacy, afforded the only means of escaping
confiscation and the loss of every social advantage, frequently the only
means of escaping death. The old faith stamped, indeed, its mark on the
institutions of the kingdom in a manner that could not be blotted out. It
left its memorials everywhere throughout the land. The noble universities,
the gorgeous cathedrals, and the splendid ruins scattered over the surface
of the country, are witnesses of its departed power; but it is itself
effectually blotted out from the hearts of the people. Though the most
noble kings and princes of the land had delighted in honouring
Catholicity, though England had sent her apostles and her saints into many
a clime, though her hills and valleys had re-echoed for centuries with the
sweet songs of Catholic devotion, her people now know nothing more hateful
than the faith under the auspices of which their fathers were civilized.
They nickname it “Popery”, and the name expresses that which is to them
most hateful.
Yet this England, this Catholic-hating England, has become one of the
greatest nations of the Earth in the material order. Her fleets are
mirrored in every sea; her banner floats on every continent. It has been
truly said that the sound of her drums, calling her soldiers from slumber,
goes before and greets the rising sun in its circuit around the globe.
But what is most remarkable, and certainly not without some great purpose
in the order of divine Providence, England has become in our day the great
hive from which colonies go out to people islands and continents in
distant parts of the world; lands which were before vast wastes, tenanted
only by the wild beast, or by the savage scarcely less ferocious. Indeed,
she is the only nation in our day that seems to have received such a
mission.
And is it then to an apostate nation exclusively that God has given the
mission to fill up these wastes? Is it a corrupted faith only which is to
be borne to these savage nations, and to be planted in those vast regions,
which God has made known to civilized man in these latter days? Were this
the case, we might tremble, though we should adore it as one of the
inscrutable judgments of God, dealing with nations in his _great_ wrath.
But is such the fact? It would indeed be the fact were it not for faithful
Ireland. But, united as England is with Ireland, the result is quite
otherwise. The very ambition and desire for gain which impel England to
extend her power and plant her colonies in the most distant countries of
the globe, become the instruments for carrying also the undying faith of
Ireland to the regions which England has conquered.
Saul went to seek Samuel, thinking only of finding his father’s asses. God
was sending him to be anointed king over his people. England sends her
ships all over the world, thinking only of markets for the produce of her
forges and her looms. God is sending her that she may spread everywhere
the faith of the Irish people.
Under the “Union Jack”, on which the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew
are blended, but so blended as to prevent any Christian symbol being
recognized (a fit emblem of the effect of the union of jarring sects, each
professing to proclaim Christianity, but between them only obscuring and
obstructing it)—the Irishman, too, is borne to the distant colony. He
goes, probably, before the mast or in the forecastle, but he bears with
him the true faith; and when he lands he hastens to raise its symbol. This
may be at first over a rude chapel. But it is a signal to other
way-farers, and they gather under its shade to offer up the sacred
mysteries. As soon as his means permit, even before he can build a good
dwelling for himself, he takes care that the house of God be, in every
possible degree, worthy of its sacred character. And so the Church creeps
on and grows, and regions that sat in darkness are now blessed by the
offering of the Adorable Sacrifice and the announcement of the true faith.
The Irishman, generally speaking, did not leave home through ambition, or
for conquest. He departed with sorrow from the shade of that hawthorn
around which the dearest memories of childhood clustered. He would have
remained content with the humble lot of his father had he been allowed to
dwell there in peace. But the bailiff came, and, to make wider pastures
for sheep and bullocks, his humble cottage was levelled, and he himself
sent to wander through the world in search of a home. But in his
wanderings he carries his faith with him, and he becomes the means of
spreading everywhere the true Church of God.
It is thus that the tempest, which seems but to destroy the flower,
catches up its seeds and scatters them far and near, and these seeds
produce other flowers as beautiful as that from which they were torn, so
that some fair spot of the prairie, when despoiled of its loveliness, but
affords the means of covering the vast expanse with new and variegated
beauties.
It is thus that the famine, and the pestilence, and the inhuman evictions
of Irish landlords, have spread the faith of Christ far and near, and
planted it in new colonies, which, when they shall have grown out of their
tutelage, will look back to the departed power of England and the undying
faith of Ireland as, in the hands of Providence, the combined causes of
their greatness and their orthodoxy. Macaulay’s traveller from New
Zealand, who will, on some future day, “from a broken arch of London
Bridge, take a sketch of the ruins of St. Paul’s”, may be some Irish “O’”
or “Mac” on a pilgrimage to the Eternal City, who passes that way—having
first landed on the shores from which his ancestors were driven by the
“crowbar brigade”, and visited with reverence the hallowed graves under
whose humble sod lie the bones of his martyred forefathers.
It is thus that the Catholic faith is being planted in the British
colonies of North America; it is thus it is carried to India, and to
Australia, and to the islands of the South Sea. Thus are laid the
foundations of flourishing churches, which promise, at no distant day, to
renew, and even to surpass, the work done by Ireland in the palmiest days
of faith, when her sons planted the Cross, and caused Christ to be adored,
as he wished to be adored, in the most distant regions of the earth.
The magnitude of this work is not to be measured even by the importance of
these transplanted churches at the present moment. The countries to which
I have alluded are but in their infancy. We can see on this continent the
rapid strides of such infant colonies. Within three quarters of a century
this country has advanced in population from three to over thirty
millions, and in most other elements of greatness in still grander
proportions. If it continue to increase, as it has done regularly from the
beginning, at the end of this century, or soon after, it will have a
population of over one hundred millions—that is, as great as is now the
population of France, and Spain, and Italy, and Great Britain combined. If
this be expected in this country in forty years, what will the case be in
one or two hundred, in this and so many others similarly situated?
Australia starts with all the advantages of this country, and some
peculiar to itself, and is following it with giant strides. It may
overtake it before long, if not outstrip it. But the position of
Catholicity there is very different from what it was at the commencement,
or even at an advanced period, in the United States. The Catholics in
Australia occupy a position of practical social equality with others. They
will grow with the growth and strengthen with the strength of their
adopted country, and have their fair share in its importance.
England herself, from which the Catholic name was thought to have been
almost blotted out, has been deeply affected by this exodus of Irish
Catholics. In her cities, and towns, and hamlets, the Cross has been
raised from the dust. At the side of the ancient monuments which remind
England of her apostacy, humble spires rise in every part of the land, and
tell that nation that the faith which they thought destroyed still lives,
and is ready to admit them again to its wonted blessings. They stand
there, and betoken the unity and stability of that faith of which they are
the symbols—of that faith which reclaimed the fathers of that people from
barbarism, and continued to be the faith of the land for a thousand years,
and is yet a faith, and the only faith, in which men of every tongue and
every clime are united. The English people see its unity and stability,
while they are forced to witness the ever shifting and clashing forms of
the religion that was substituted for it. For, in the name of the one
Christ and the one Bible, altar is everywhere erected against altar,
pulpit thunders against pulpit, the teaching of to-day is contradicted in
the same pulpit on the morrow; yet each one proclaims his own device as
the plain teaching of Scripture.
This confronting of unity with confusion, of steady adherence to truth
with the ever varying shifts of error, of the mild but bright glory of an
everlasting Church with the frivolities of the proudest inventions of men,
is a grace, and a great grace, which God grants. It is a grace for the use
of which that people will give strict account. And oh! may that use be,
that they will make it fructify to their salvation. For while we
appreciate the blessings granted to ourselves, we have no other feeling in
their regard than a wish that they, too, may share in these blessings, and
be like unto us in everything “except these chains”.
But whether well used or abused, whether unto “the ruin” or “salvation” of
many in that country, this grace is given chiefly through the Irish
emigration.
I am not unaware of, nor do I undervalue, the importance of the faithful
remnant that has in England steadfastly continued in the faith once
delivered to the saints, nor of the accession made to their numbers by the
conversion of so many noble souls, to whom God gave light and strength to
overcome the many difficulties that would have fain prevented their
following that light. But of both we might not inaptly ask, “What are
these amongst so many?” They are like those few tints that gild the skies
here and there, when the sun’s light has all but departed; or like those
stars that pierce at night the cumbered heavens—bright, indeed, and
beautiful—but only showing forth more clearly the dark outlines of the
heavy and murky clouds that shroud the horizon. They make us feel only
more sensibly, and keep fresh in our memory, the loss of the sun that has
set.
It is the Irish emigration that has chiefly supplied the multitudes who
flock around English altars, that has made churches and schools spring up,
that has finally called for the restoration of a numerous hierarchy; and,
as if to mark this fact, and point out the great part that Ireland had in
restoring Catholic life to England, God has so arranged it that the first
head and brightest ornament of that new hierarchy should be the son of
Irish emigrants; for such is the great and illustrious Cardinal Wiseman.
And even in these United States, let people say what they please, has not
the Irish race held the first place in planting the cross throughout the
length and breadth of the land?
In this, and wherever else I speak of the Irish race, I do not, of course,
confine myself to those born in Ireland. The work which a race is called
to do is to be done by those who now live, and by their children and their
children’s children, wherever they happen to be born. Indeed, it would be
a contradiction in terms to consider the father and son, wherever born, as
belonging to different races. Be it for weal or for woe, be it unto honour
or unto shame, the fathers cannot disown the children nor the children the
fathers. If it depended on feeling or wishes, I, for one, would be very
glad to dissolve connection with any one who insists that he owes nothing
to the race that gave him a father or a mother. I would readily leave such
a one to his proud claim of owning no paternity but the land on which he
vegetates, and I only regret that he will scarcely bring to it much credit
or advantage. He who is unwilling to acknowledge the father that begot
him, or the mother that gave him suck, is not a prize worth contending
for. But whatever we or he may wish, whatever be the results to us or to
him, he is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. What God has united,
neither he nor we can put asunder.
It is not that we should form separate classes or castes, or that we claim
other rights or privileges, or have other duties than those of other
races; but the one to which each man belongs has been fixed by the
Almighty Provider in the very act of giving him being, and he who would
fain conceal, or disown, or be ashamed of his race—that is, of the order
of Providence to which he owes his existence—could succeed in nothing else
but in proving himself unworthy the esteem of men of any race.
I know and gratefully acknowledge the important services rendered to
Catholicity in the United States by persons of other races. There was,
first of all, the Maryland colony, with whose noble history that of few,
if any, of the other colonies can compare. By their justice and humanity
in treating with the native tribes, by similar justice and fair dealing
with other colonists, of every religion and every race, by their domestic
virtues and patriotic course, the men of that colony deserved and received
a high place in the esteem of their countrymen and of the world.
But their number is small, too small—indeed. Would that they were more.
Were they all put together they would not form one average diocese of the
forty-six now existing in this country.
God has sent us many illustrious men from France, and Belgium, and Italy,
who have occupied the foremost ranks in the ministry, whose heroic virtues
and zealous works are even now as beacon lights to all who labour for
God’s glory. But as to the people from these countries, they are not many
more than those from the Maryland stock. Germany has sent many of her
hardy sons to labour with the steadfastness of their countrymen in
building up the walls of the sanctuary. These are, indeed, a most
important element, and are destined to become more and more important
every day. They may yet exercise a greater influence on the destiny of the
Church in this country than the Irish race. But so far, I think, no one
will claim that they can be compared with it in numbers, or as to the
results hitherto obtained. Of the converts in this country we may say the
same thing as of those in England.
Giving all, therefore, what belongs to them—for there is not, nor should
there be here, any room for jealousy—I think it will be admitted that it
is above all others to the sons of Ireland and to their children that the
spread of Catholicity is due in this land. No matter who ministered at the
altar (though there, too, the sons of Ireland have had their share), in
the body of the church you will find that, in the majority of places, they
constitute the bulk, and in many the whole of the congregation. Their hard
earned dollars were foremost in supplying means to buy the lot and raise
the building from which the Catholic faith is announced. The priest, no
matter what his own nationality, was nowhere more confident of finding
help and support than among the Irish emigrants or their children.
Wherever a railway, or a canal, or a hive of industry invited their sturdy
labour, the cross soon sprang up to bear witness to their generosity and
their faith.
Even the old Maryland colony, though consisting chiefly of English
Catholics, seeking here a freedom of conscience denied them at home, had
its Irish element, and that not the least noble in deeds nor the least
conspicuous in virtue.
When at the period of the Revolution the noblest men of this land stood
together, shoulder to shoulder, and issued that Declaration of
Independence to which they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their
sacred honours, it was a Catholic of the Irish race who affixed his
signature for Maryland. In doing this he pledged an honour as pure, and a
life as precious as any of the rest, but he staked a fortune equal to, if
not greater than, that of all the others put together. When he signed his
name, one standing by said, “There go some millions”. Another remarked,
“There are many Carrolls; he will not be known”. He overheard the remark,
and to avoid all misconception, wrote down in full, “_Charles Carroll, of
Carrollton_”.
Yet this noble scion of the Irish race, for so many years the pride and
the ornament of his native state, while fulfilling all the duties of an
illustrious citizen, was not ashamed of the race from which he sprang.
Instead of selecting amongst French _villes_ or English _parks_ or _towns_
a name for his princely estate, he stamped on it a title with the good old
Celtic ring. He called it after a property of one of his Irish ancestors,
_Doughoregan Manor_, thereby telling his posterity and his countrymen that
if they feel any pride in his name, they must associate him with a race
which so many affect to despise.
Let all the sons, and the sons of the sons, of Ireland be, like him,
faithful to their duties as citizens, ready to sacrifice their all for
their country, whether that all be little, or as great as was his vast
wealth; just and respectful and charitable to men of all races and creeds,
not anxious either to conceal or obtrude their own, but rather to live
worthy of both; determined, in a word, faithfully to discharge all their
civil and Christian duties, let them be earnest in elevating the one by
greater fidelity to the other. Acting thus, they will imitate Charles
Carroll, of Carrollton, and fulfil all I would wish them to do out of
fidelity to their country, their religion, and their race.
It was also one of the Maryland stock, but of this same Irish race—another
Carroll—who was chosen the first bishop, and the founder of the hierarchy,
of the young American Church; as if Providence here too wished to indicate
from which race the chief strength of Catholicity was to be derived in
this land.
Would it be overstraining matters to say, that a hint of this was also
given by Providence in the Irish name of the future metropolitan see of
the United States—the first in time, and always to be the first in
dignity? The word _Baltimore_ is an Irish word, and, through the founder
of the colony, was derived from an Irish hamlet, which from the extreme
south-west coast of Ireland, is looking, as it were, over the waters of
the Atlantic to this continent for the full realization of its name. The
word, in the Irish language, means “the town of the great house”, and it
was beyond the Atlantic that Baltimore, in becoming the chief see of a
great church, has truly become “the town of the great house”, for the
church, or house at the head of which it stands, extends probably over a
wider surface than any other church or churches amongst which any one
bishop holds pre-eminence, excepting only the church governed by the Vicar
of Jesus Christ, to whom is committed the care of _all_ the sheep and
lambs of God’s fold, that is, the whole of Christ’s Church. In names,
which God has given, or permitted to be given, he has frequently
foreshadowed the destinies of individuals and races. Would it be
superstitious to suppose that in the Irish name of this American
ecclesiastical metropolis—the only important city in this country that has
an Irish name—Providence pointed, on the one hand, to its future position
in the Christian hierarchy, and on the other to the character of the chief
portion of the family of that house or church?
But, be this as it may, it was a scion of the Irish race who was the
founder of the new American hierarchy. For some time he held the crozier
alone. The whole country was his diocese. But he did not depart until he
saw suffragans around him forming a regular hierarchy, that was destined
to multiply and, mainly on Irish shoulders, carry, everywhere, the ark
that would spread blessings throughout the land.
The work that has thus been commenced is no doubt destined to prosper. It
is not without a motive that in this country the lines are drawn, and the
foundations laid by Providence for a noble church. Its beginnings (for we
may say it is yet in its infancy) bear many of the marks of the process by
which the work was effected, It is destined to grow, and may it grow,
particularly in the mild beauty of Christian virtue, and win, by love, the
homage of all the children of the land, that all may receive through it
the graces of Heaven, and even their Earthly prosperity be consolidated
and become the means of their acquiring higher blessings.
But whatever be said of the United States, the Irish race is certainly
almost alone in the work of diffusing Catholicity in the various other
countries in which the English language is spoken.
The sufferings of Ireland were, therefore, the means, and evidently
intended by God as the means to preserve her in the faith, to give her its
rewards in a high degree; and this preservation of her faith was as
evidently intended to make her and her sons instruments in spreading that
faith throughout the English-speaking world. This is, therefore, what I
claim to be, in the counsels of God, the DESTINY OF THE IRISH RACE.
Did we endeavour to draw this conclusion by far-fetched arguments, we
might fear the delusions of fancy, but I think it is plainly written in
the facts to which I have alluded, when looked at with faith in an
overruling Providence. The diffusion of the true faith enters too closely,
and is too primary a thing in the designs of God, to suppose it for a
moment to be the work of accident. It is his work first of all. Where it
exists it exists because he so willed it. The instruments that effected it
must be those which he has chosen and placed to the work with this very
view. When, therefore, the results obtained, and those we see in the
certain future, and the means by which they are obtained, are a matter of
intuition, rather than of reasoning, the conclusion drawn seems to me to
have all the force of demonstration, and in no way liable to be considered
the product of fancy or of national pride.
This interpretation of the facts of history will, by some, be considered a
complicated theory, and therefore unworthy of God. But the simplicity of
God’s operations by no means excludes multiplicity and combination of
agents in themselves most inadequate or discordant. Our inclination to
exclude these, though we imagine the very contrary, is the result of the
consciousness of our own weakness, which we would fain attribute to God.
_We_ may, indeed, be overwhelmed, or at least embarrassed, by many
instruments; and therefore we think it wise to avoid their use. But, it is
as easy for God to use and direct many as few, or to produce results by
his own immediate action. Nay, though sometimes he performs wonderful
works in a moment, he is more often pleased to act through numerous and
far-reaching instruments, which, at times, seem even to work in opposition
to his designs, and by overruling and directing them, to prove that he is
Ruler and Master over all things in action, as well as the Author of their
being.
By one word he made the Earth produce “every green herb” and “every
fruit-tree yielding fruit according to its kind”; but he is now pleased to
make the fertility of the earth, and the various ingredients of the air,
and the heat and light of the sun, labour through a whole season to
produce the flower, that for a few days wastes its fragrance on the
meadow. At one time he sends his angel to strike down in one night myriads
of the enemies of his people; at another he is pleased “to hiss for the
fly, that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt, and for the
bee that is in the land of Assyria” (_Is._, vii. 18), that they may come
and be the instruments of his vengeance. At one time he rains down bread
from Heaven to feed a whole multitude; at another, he sends his angel to
take the prophet by the hair of his head from Judea, even unto Babylon,
that he may supply food to his servant.
It is not for us to prescribe ways to Providence, but to study His design
in the events which we witness, and to bow down and adore his Power, his
Wisdom, and his Goodness.
To give power to an apostate and persecuting nation, and the grace of
fidelity to another; to use and even to create the material resources of
the first as the instrument of his design over the latter, may appear a
circuitous course, but it is only another instance of that unity of
purpose and multiplicity, variety and apparent incongruity of means, which
we witness in almost all his works.
When the people of God were carried away into captivity, “the priests took
the fire from the altar, and hid it in a valley where there was a pit
without water”. There “they kept it safe”, while the Gentile hosts reigned
triumphant in the land. But “when many years had passed”, and the people
returned, they sought the fire, but found only “thick water”. This they
sprinkled on the new sacrifices that were prepared, and “when the sun
shone out, which before was in a cloud, there was a great fire kindled so
that all wondered”. (II. _Mach._, i. 19, 22).
An analogous phenomenon, methinks, has been presented in Ireland. That
combination of frenzy and irreligion, which men have called “The
Reformation”, swept before it almost every vestige of faith from many of
the northern countries of Europe, and seemed in a special manner to have
enveloped in darkness the islands of the West. Men were like “raging waves
of the sea, foaming out their own confusion”, boasting of liberty and
light, but treating the faithful with savage cruelty, and showing their
own inability to hold fast any positive principles which they proclaimed
as truth. The ancient faith of these islands, overwhelmed in the waters of
tribulation, seemed hidden in the hearts of the Irish people, saddened by
persecution and sufferings of every kind.
But the day has come for pouring forth this water on nations. By their
sufferings, the Irish race, driven into many lands, mingles with the
progeny of its oppressors. The sun of God’s grace, which seems under a
cloud, is now shining forth, and a great fire is enkindled and is
spreading its light and its heat far and near. The Church of God is
everywhere showing itself again in its pristine beauty. English-speaking
nations that were the ramparts of heresy, are beginning again to fall into
the ranks of Catholic unity, and, as happened once before, the light of
faith that took refuge in the most distant island of the West, is, from
that sacred spot, sending forth its beams and gladdening the Church by
giving her whole people as her children.
So far we are led, I may say, by the mere logic of facts. Were we to
indulge in speculation, but in a speculation quite in conformity with the
beneficent designs of God, we might expect still more from these effects
of the steadfastness of Ireland.
Notwithstanding all the faults of England, the Catholic heart throughout
the world has never lost its interest in that land, once so faithful.
Other nations, once as Catholic, have been lost, and they are almost
forgotten. The land where the Saviour Himself lived is, indeed, remembered
on account of the sacred spots which he trod; but no hopes are entertained
for the conversion of its people. The Churches planted by the Apostles
have been destroyed. We cherish the memory of the holy confessors and
martyrs who adorned them; but despair of their return to the truth is the
only feeling in their regard that we can discover in the Catholic world.
But in one way or another the Catholic heart seems never to have despaired
of the return of England. Opinions and expectations which are, probably,
nothing more than an expression of the intensity of this feeling, are
everywhere to be met. They exist among the learned and the high, as well
as amongst the humble children of the Church, and are found to be
cherished in different lands. England, with her long catalogue of saints,
seems to be considered, not as an outcast, on whom the sentence of
spiritual death has been executed, but rather as the prodigal, who in a
moment of thoughtlessness demanded, what he called his own share, and
wandered from his father’s house. The father is looking out, expecting
every day to see the wayward one return, and is ever ready to kill the
fatted calf, and to call on his friends and neighbours to rejoice and be
merry, for “he that was dead is come to life again, and he that was lost
is found”.
But, alas! there is much reason to fear that such joy is not to be
expected. We know of no instance of a whole nation once fully and
deliberately apostatising from the faith ever again returning. The grace
of faith, if lost by individuals by formal apostacy, is seldom recovered.
It has never yet been recovered by any nation that once enjoyed its full
light, and deliberately abandoned it. It is not for us, to be sure, to
place bounds to the mercies of God. Who knows but that in these latter
ages God may do a work which he never did before? and, now that the Church
has encircled the globe, and announced the Gospel to every nation under
the sun, God may send her back on another mission more glorious than the
first, showing forth his power in giving new life to fallen nations as he
did before in converting those who knew not his name. His first work might
be compared to that which he performed when he took the clay and breathed
into it the breath of life; this, to his raising up the dead already
mouldering in the tomb. But he has done both in the physical, and he may
do both in the moral order.
Without having recourse, however, to this extraordinary dispensation, the
hope of which would be unwarranted by anything we have yet seen, may not
the hopes to which I have alluded, and which could scarcely have existed
without some influence of the divine Spouse of the Church, be realized in
the conversion of the children, rather than in that of the mother? May not
the expectations of the Catholic world be realized by a return of
English-speaking brethren in the various colonies which the mother country
has planted? May _they_ not receive the graces which the latter has cast
away, and thus more than compensate the Church for the loss of that one
island?
Such results would be no anomaly in the experience of the Church. Several
nations first learned Christianity under a heterodox form, and some of the
most Catholic to-day are their descendants. Their errors were not their
own faults, _as nations_, and God had pity upon them.
We may say the same thing of this, and of several other countries, where
great and independent peoples will be found one day as they now are here.
This nation has never apostatised from Catholic truth, simply because it
never possessed it _as a nation_. At its birth it was already entangled in
the meshes of heterodoxy, and it found the Catholic Church in its midst,
with few adherents. Yet, at its very birth, it struck off the shackles by
which she was bound. Several circumstances, it is true, aided this course
of justice. But, who will say that these existed otherwise than by God’s
Providence, and for the nation’s benefit, as well as for ours? This course
of justice, moreover, was adopted cordially and fully by the founders of
the country’s independence, and that at a time when the Church was so
treated by few even of those nations on whom she had the best claims.
Bigots, it is true, were not wanting, then, or since. But it is a great
fact, that this nation, _as a nation_ and as a Government, has always,
since its birth, treated God’s Church with justice.
A cup of cold water, given in the name of Christ, shall not be without its
reward. Do we exaggerate in hoping that this mode of proceeding towards
his Church shall have its reward from her Heavenly Spouse—that it will
plead for this nation with the Divine Mercy, as the alms of Cornelius
obtained for him the knowledge of Gospel truth and a share in its
blessings? The grace of faith, with these blessings, is the greatest which
God gives to man, nor is it the less valuable because it is not now
appreciated or is even spurned. It is God’s grace that gives a hunger for
divine things, as it is by Him that the hungry are filled.
Yes, I do not only desire, and send up the prayer, but I candidly avow the
hope, that the light of faith is yet destined to shine brightly here, even
amongst those who now look on it with contempt or hostility. In this I am
strengthened by the desire for a knowledge of truth, which,
notwithstanding the bigotry of many, is so widely spread. I am
strengthened by the growth of the Church itself, which bears the marks of
a higher purpose on the part of God than the mere preservation of those
who came Catholics to our shores. I am strengthened by the very losses
which the Church sustains in the falling away of many of her children. For
surely God did not permit them to be driven hither by persecution that
they might perish. He sent them forth to battle, in doing which, though
many may be lost, he will grant victory to his own cause. I am
strengthened by the very dangers by which we are surrounded; nor would my
hope be shaken even if storms should impend. For it is according to the
ways of God to reach his ends amidst contradictions.
Let it not be said that the humble condition or the faults of many of the
children of the Church, forbid such a hope as this. God’s ways are not as
our ways. It is not by the great or by the mighty that his truth is
propagated. Flesh might otherwise glory in His sight, and men might say
that, by their wisdom and their efforts was His kingdom established. So
far from this being an objection, when other things inspire hope, the hope
is strengthened by the humble form in which the Church presents itself.
Our hope of its diffusion is better founded when we see it borne to our
shores by humble labourers, than if it had come recommended exclusively by
proud philosophers, cunning statesmen, or by men loaded with wealth.
What we hope for this nation, we may hope with greater reason for the
other nations yet reposing in their infancy, or growing in giant
proportions under British rule. I say, with greater reason, because in
most of these the foundations of Catholicity are laid even more deeply
than they are here. While it would be a great thing for God’s honour and
glory, there is nothing to forbid the hope that these may one day be
united in the true fold of the everlasting Church. The blood of Ireland
and of England will mingle in their veins; and, while they will look back
with shame on the apostacy of the sixteenth century, as a disgraceful
chapter in the history of their forefathers, they will glory in the
recollections of the saints and the heroes of religion who, for a thousand
years, adorned both their mother countries. With feelings analogous to
those with which we look back to the tyrants of the first centuries and
their victims, they will set off the martyr heroes of one portion of their
ancestors to the apostacy of the other, and the apostasy itself will be,
in their history, but an episode proving how far human nature may stray,
while their own conversion will be a standing monument of the power of the
cross.
If these hopes be realized, the Irish race and its sufferings will have
been the instruments in the hands of God by which the grand result will be
accomplished; but whether they be realized or not, the main point which I
have endeavoured to dwell upon seems to me to be established beyond
doubt—that is, that this race has been preserved by God in the true faith
in an extraordinary manner, for the purpose of spreading that faith
throughout the English-speaking nations which now exist, or which are
coming into being.
As Ireland owes the preservation of her faith to her being destined as the
leaven of that mass, it is but assigning to God a purpose worthy of His
goodness to say, that England owes her power to her mission to spread that
leaven throughout so many vast regions. It will not, I presume, be
considered rash to say that God, permitting her to acquire power, proposed
to himself some higher object than that other nations should have cheap
cotton or woollen fabrics, or that they should learn how to travel forty
instead of four or ten miles an hour. In his goodness he designed that
power for some purpose worthy of Heaven; and this purpose may be
accomplished whether England herself will it or not, or even though she
desire the very contrary. I have said before, that most learned and grave
writers consider the Roman power to have been intended, in the counsels of
God, to prepare a way for the diffusion of the Gospel. The rulers of Rome
despised the Gospel and its heralds. Still Rome most probably owed to them
her greatness, and but for this mission, she might have remained what she
was in the beginning—an obscure village, a place of refuge for the thieves
of the surrounding country. England may despise the Irish Catholic. Like
Rome, she may look upon the professors of Catholicity as the great
plague-spot of her system. Yet, in the designs of God, she most probably
is indebted for her power to the part she is made to act in the diffusion
of their faith. It is certain, at least, that the highest use of that
power she has yet been allowed to make, is the carrying of frieze-coated
Papists to distant shores, and the clearing of the forests where they are
propagating, and are yet to propagate more extensively, the true faith. If
a higher design in her behalf exist in the arrangements of Providence, it
is yet to be made known. But for this she might have remained, as the poet
described her, “a naked fisher” on her rock, and when she shall have ended
her usefulness as an instrument for accomplishing this object, she may
return “to her hook”, still musing, perhaps, her senseless “No Popery”,
while the churches which she has unwillingly assisted to plant, will be
growing up in beauty and praising God in one harmonious voice with the
other children of his family throughout the world.
The value and importance of this great mission cannot be overrated. It is
awful to think what would have been the condition of the English-speaking
races, in a religious point of view, if Ireland had shared in the English
apostacy. Scarcely a Catholic voice would be heard amongst those seventy
or eighty millions now using that language, who occupy so large a portion
of the Earth, and in another century, according to the ratio of their
growth, may become two or four hundred millions, or even more. The very
remnant that has continued faithful in England might have followed in the
wake of their predecessors, had not the influence of Ireland caused the
sword of persecution to be sheathed, and civil intolerance to cease at
last, and thus the temptation to be removed which had proved fatal to so
many. In that vast empire, or the empires that may rise out of its
fragments—for, in more than one place are foundations of empires laid
which would grow with giant growth, even though the power of the mother
country were paralysed to-morrow—the holy sacrifice would not be offered
up, and thus the prophecy not fulfilled, which foretold that a clean
oblation would be offered from the rising of the sun to the going down
thereof. That union of the Christian family for which the Saviour prayed
before he suffered, and which he left as a mark by which men would know
his followers, would not be exhibited to the world. Christianity would be
confounded with the products of these latter ages of so-called “light”,
and be thought, like the appliances of steam and the contrivances of
machinery, to owe its power to the genius of the Anglo-Saxon race, instead
of deriving it from Him who died on Calvary. For their Christianity, by
its very name, would proclaim that the work of Christ had failed, until
the press and the “march of light” had come to its aid. Religion, in a
word, instead of being a divine institution, would appear and be amongst
them but a brilliant work or invention of man, and, therefore, in the
supernatural order, but a brilliant delusion, not an institution which the
mercy of God transplanted from Heaven, and made to stand, and to grow, and
to bless, and produce fruit, in every age and in every form of society.
But, in preserving the faith of the Irish race, God has provided a leaven
of truth for these masses. By the side of systems of religion which men
have devised, stands the everlasting Church—that Church which, as Macaulay
remarked, is the only connecting link between the civilization of the
ancient and modern worlds—the Church which taught the name of Christ to
every nation that knows him, even to those who afterwards fell from the
fullness of truth—the Church which Augustine brought to England, and
Patrick to Ireland—the Church that raised the dignity of the poor, and
humbled the pride of the high, placing all on the level of the Gospel—the
Church that claims no new inventions, but is itself an invention of God,
infinitely surpassing all inventions of man, holding out nothing to the
nineteenth, which it did not present to the first, to the tenth, and to
every other century, but presenting to all the faith and institutions of
God, able to save all, to elevate all, to bring all into one fold, that
all may be united in one happiness in Heaven.
Is not this great result worth all the sufferings which Ireland has
endured? The ways of God appear often circuitous. But in their circuitous
course they are everywhere fraught with blessings. The children of Ireland
suffered; yet, even in their sufferings they were blessed. He himself
pronounced “blessed those who suffer persecution for justice’s sake”; for
in their trials they redeemed their own souls. But they were doubly
blessed, because they were preserving the ark of God, and carrying it
through the waters of tribulation to bless more amply unborn and numerous
generations. The ways of God are circuitous, and though, like the course
of the planets, they sometimes seem to us to retrograde, they are always
onward. The sufferings of Ireland at a time seemed without a purpose, or
even the very contrary to what we might have expected for so faithful a
people. But, who knows what might have been the result, if justice and
humanity had marked the course of the English nation towards Ireland? Who
knows but the temptation to the latter to be drawn into apostacy would
have been too powerful? Had Apostate England dealt generously or justly
with Catholic Ireland, who knows if, in the alliances that would have been
formed, she would have been equally steadfast in her faith? And though for
a long time confiscations, and plunder, and persecution, and slaughter,
and even now, harsh treatment condemning her sons to famine and
banishment, have been the effects of the English connection; if these have
been the means of creating a barrier that prevented the spread of heresy
amongst her sons, has too great a price been paid for the “pearl” that has
been bought? When, particularly, the cross borne by the children of
Ireland shall have been erected in the Western and Southern Hemispheres,
and flourishing Churches in Catholic unity established under its shade,
where, but for the fidelity of our fathers, heterodoxy alone would have
had sway, shall we not say that little indeed were their sufferings
compared to the value of such an Apostolate of Empires?
What is any Earthly mission compared to this? What is even the spreading
of civilization with its highest privileges, compared to the spreading of
the saving institutions of the Gospel? Even in this world virtue is a
thing infinitely superior to mere physical power. The man who does God’s
will, whose soul is adorned with grace, is an object of complacency with
his Maker, and enjoys his esteem infinitely more, than he who can control
the hidden powers of nature, and make them subservient to his will, but
does not make his own will conform to the great law that should govern
it—subjection to the will of God. When Earth, and all that is of Earth,
shall have passed away, the proudest human achievements will be seen to
have been as nothing, while those who shall have caused God’s name to be
glorified, shall shine as bright stars “unto perpetual eternities”.
This mission, however, has its duties as well as its dignity. What will it
avail us to be the sons of martyred sires who sacrificed all for God, if
we barter the faith for which they died, for some paltry bauble, or fail
to transmit it to those under our charge? Will not the constancy and
sufferings of our fathers be a reproach to us before God and man? Will
they not pronounce judgment upon us if, while we honour their heroic
deeds, we ourselves display nothing but pusillanimity? And even though we
preserve our faith, will not this be rather to our shame, if we do not
endeavour to practise the virtues which it teaches? When the salt has lost
its savour, it is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be
trodden on by men. The higher the vocation of God, the lower will be the
degradation of those who fail to correspond. They will be despised, and
justly despised, by God and by men.
We can see in the fate of other nations the consequences of infidelity to
a noble mission. Spain and Portugal were once great powers. They achieved
great things at home and abroad. The sails of their commerce whitened
every sea. The most distant lands acknowledged their might. They, too,
were missionary nations. They carried the faith to the East and to the
West, and in both hemispheres planted the cross on continents and islands
where Christ was before unknown. God may be said to have given them power
for this purpose. It was mainly through their agency that the missionary
work, which repaired the losses of the Church in Europe, was carried on
for two hundred years.
But the rulers of these countries listened to wicked counsels. On _one and
the same_ dark day did Spain, on another did Portugal, command the most
strenuous heralds of the cross to be seized and bound in chains. The
galleons that were wont to bear over the deep the treasures of Asia and
America, and pour them into the laps of the mother countries, or to carry
their commands and the means of enforcing them to the most distant lands,
were now spreading their sails over every ocean and sea, in the inglorious
work of conveying to home prisons, or into exile, the truest missionaries
of the cross. On that day these nations renounced their noble mission, and
the power that was given to enable them to carry it out soon departed.
The immediate agencies producing their downfall, as well as those that
gave rise to their power, may, indeed, be seen in operation before the
existence of the causes to which I have attributed them, but not before
these were known to God. Now, he frequently prepares, by a long process,
the instruments both of his rewards and his punishments, and holds them
ready to be conferred on the virtuous, or poured forth on the head of the
criminal, long before the fidelity of the one be tested, or the guilt of
the other be consummated. Spain and Portugal thus fell, if you will, by
immediate agencies long in operation, but by agencies over which God
ruled, and which He directed according to his own wise counsels. They
fell, and in their humbled condition, mocked by the remains of ancient
greatness, they teach all the important lesson, that the greater the high
calling given by God, the greater the punishment of those who prove
untrue.
Were we also to prove faithless to the mission which God has assigned us,
we know not what punishment may await us, even in this world. The trials
through which our race has passed, and is passing, may seem severe; but,
they are trials permitted by a loving father. May we never deserve that he
should scourge us in his _great_ anger. We might then find, like the
Jewish people, that to suffer for righteousness’ sake from the hands of
men, is sweet, compared to the gall and wormwood mixed in the cup of those
who fall into the hands of an avenging God.
On this day, when the Church calls on us to commemorate the heroic virtues
and the glorious deeds of our great Apostle, I would fain say to every son
of Ireland—to every one in whose veins Irish blood flows, no matter where
he himself was born: Let us live worthy of our ancestry, of an ancestry
which is the same for all, and is a noble one, noble in that which is the
noblest thing man can rejoice in—virtue and fidelity to God. We ourselves
are called in a special manner to do honour to our faith by spreading it
amongst nations that are destined to occupy the highest position in the
social scale. Let us be faithful to our calling. Let us show ourselves
worthy sons of the martyred dead. Let us make sure, like them, whatever
else we fail in, not to fail in transmitting the faith to those entrusted
to our charge, never exposing it to danger for any advantage, much less
for the trifling things that may be gained here by want of fidelity.
Transmit, carefully, the faith, first of all, but with faith spare no
effort that you yourselves, and those committed to your care, grow also in
every other virtue. Nay, endeavour so to live that _all men_ may learn to
love the faith which is the spring of your actions, and thus glorify and
love that God who is the “Author and Finisher” of that Faith.
LITURGICAL QUESTIONS. (_FROM M. BOUIX’S __“__REVUE DES SCIENCES
ECCLESIASTIQUES__”_).
1. Is it lawful or obligatory to insert, at the letter N, in the collect
_A cunctis_, the name of the patron of the locality (if there be one) when
the titular of the church is the Blessed Virgin or a mystery of our
Saviour?
2. Is it right to place on the corner of the altar the finger-towel, which
in some churches is fastened to the altar-cloth, from which it hangs
suspended?
3. Is there any obligation to ring the bell at the Sanctus and at the
Elevation, even when there is no one at Mass?
4. Is it lawful for a priest to use a cincture of the kind generally used
by bishops?
1. The name of the titular of the church in which the Mass is said is that
which ought to be inserted at the letter N in the collect _A cunctis_. In
the application of this general rule various cases may occur; the title
may be a mystery of our Lord or of our Blessed Lady; or it may be a saint
already named in the collect—for example, Saint Peter or Saint Paul; or
Mass may be said in an oratory which has no titular saint. The following
are the rules to be observed in such cases:
1o. That it is the name of the titular saint which is to be inserted at
the letter N is clear from the following decrees:
1 DECREE. _Question._ “In missali romano praecipitur, ut post
nomina Apostolorum Petri et Pauli, in oratione _A cunctis_, etc.,
dicatur nomen patroni praecipui illius ecclesiae, seu diocesis. In
Hispania est praecipuus illius regni patronus B. Jacobus apostolus
et ex concessione Apostolica in ecclesia dioecesi Guadicensi est
patronus specialis S. Torquatus, B. Jacobi apostoli discipulus, et
ejusdem ecclesiae et civitatis primus episcopus. Quaeritur: An in
praedicta oratione _A cunctis_ debeat dici nomen B. Jacobi
apostoli, an B. Torquati?” _Answer._ “In oratione _A cunctis_ post
nomina sanctorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli, nomen Torquati
tanquam Ecclesiae cathedralis Guadicensis Patroni dumtaxat
ponendum esse”. (Decree of 22 January, 1678, No. 2856, q. 8.)
2 DECREE. _Questions._ “... 15. S. Jacobus est patronus
universalis regnorum Hispaniae, sancti vero martyres Stemeterius
et Caledonius fratres sunt patroni particulares ecclesiae
cathedralis, et totius dioecesis Santanderiensis rite electi, et
novissime approbati a S. R. C. Quaeritur igitur: Quis ex his
patronis debeat nominari ... in oratione _A cunctis_, quando in
missis haec oratio dicitur in ecclesia matrice et in caeteris
dioecesis? 16. In casu, quo ob dignitatis praestantiam nominari
debeat S. Jacobus, quaeritur an ... exprimi etiam possint nomina
SS. Stemeterii et Caledonii in praedicta oratione ..., praecipue
in ecclesia matrice ubi sacra eorum capita ... venerantur? Et si
negative, supplicatur pro gratia ad promovendum cultum qui ipsos
decet in ecclesia cathedrali ac tota dioecesi ratione sui
specialissimi patronatus”. _Answer._ “Ad 15. In qualibet ecclesia
nominandum esse patronum seu titularem proprium ejusdem ecclesiae.
Ad 16. Provisum in praecedenti”. (Decree of 23 January, 1793, No.
4448, q. 15 and 16.)
3 DECREE. _Question._ “An patronus nominandus in oratione _A
cunctis_ intelligi debeat patronus principalis loci?” _Answer._
“Nominandus titularis Ecclesiae”. (Decree of 12 November, 1831,
No. 4669, q. 31.)
2o. If the titular of the church has been already named in the collect _A
cunctis_, no name is to be inserted at the letter N. The same holds if the
Mass happens to be that of the same saint. This rule depends on the
following decision:
“Quis nominandus sit ad litteram N. si patronus vel titularis jam
nominatus sit in illa oratione, aut de eo celebrata sit missa?”
_Answer._ “Si jam fuerit nominatus omittenda nova nominatio”.
(Ibid.)
3_o_. If the oratory in which the Mass is said have no titular saint, the
name of the patron of the locality is to be inserted. This rule is proved
from a decree of 12th December, 1840, No. 4897, No. 2:
“Sacerdos celebrans in oratorio publico vel privato quod non habet
sanctum patronum vel titularem, an debeat in oratione _A cunctis_
ad litteram N. nominare sanctum patronum vel titularem ecclesiae
parochialis intra cujus limites sita sunt oratoria, vel sanctum
patronum ecclesiae cui adscriptus est, vel potius omnem ulteriorem
nominationem omittere?” _Answer._ “Patronum civitatis, vel loci
nominandum esse”.
4o. If the titular of the church be a mystery of the life of our Lord, or
of our Lady, authors differ in opinion whether the name of the patron of
the locality is to be inserted at the letter N, or whether no addition
should be made. M. de Conny is for the latter opinion, and his authority
is a safe guide for us. The second rule we have laid down is sufficient to
show that no name is to be inserted in cases where the title of the church
is a mystery of the Blessed Virgin, seeing that the august Mother of God
is always named in the body of the prayer. The words of the conclusion are
enough perhaps to excuse from the obligation of naming the patron of the
locality in cases where the church is dedicated to a mystery of the life
of our Lord.
2. The usage here alluded to is not only not becoming, but it is also
contrary to the Rubric of the Missal. (part i., tit. xx.):
“Ab eadem parte epistolae ... ampullae vitreae vini et aquae, cum
pelvicula et manutergio mundo in fenestella, seu in parva mensa ad
haec praeparata. Super altare nihil omnino ponatur, quod ad Missae
sacrificium vel ipsius altaris ornatum non pertineat”.
3. The sole reason for ringing a bell at Mass is to give a signal to the
faithful. “Ad excitandos circumstantes”, says Gavantus (t. i. part i.,
tit. XX., l. c.), “ad laetitiam exprimendam et ad cultum sanctissimi
Sacramenti adhibetur campanula”. Other writers coincide with this opinion.
It seems but natural, therefore, not to ring the bell when there are no
assistants present, and when there is no need of any signal. Besides, it
is clearly the teaching of authors, and even of the Sacred Congregation of
Rites, that whenever a signal is not required, the bell is not to be rung.
Thus, the following decision forbids the bell to be rung during the
celebration of the divine office in the choir, at least in certain
circumstances:
“Exposito in S. R. C. ecclesiam collegiatam civitatis Senarum
habere chorum adeo subjectum oculis populi, et tali loco positum,
ut canonici dicto choro pro divinis celebrandis, et praecipue
Missae cantatae assistentibus, omnino altaria ejusdem coliegiatae
pernecesse inspiciantur, et exposito quoque tempore, quo canonici
choro ut supra assistunt, consuevisse in dictis altaribus
celebrari Missas privatas et sine scandalo prohiberi non posse:
ideo supplicatum fuit pro declaratione: an ipsi canonici in
elevationibus quae fiunt in Missis privatis, genuflectere
teneantur?” _Answer._ “Non esse genuflectendum, ne sacra, quibus
assistunt, per actum privatum interrumpantur, sed ad evitandum
scandalum, quod in populo et adstantibus causari possit ob non
genuflectionem esse omittendam pulsationem campanulae in
elevatione Sanctissimi, in dictis Missis privatis.” (Decret of 5
March 1667, No. 2397.)
Nor, as a general rule, is the bell rung when the Blessed Sacrament is
exposed, for then it is unnecessary to summon the faithful to adore the
Eucharist. “During the private Masses”, says the _Instructio Clementina_,
“that are celebrated during the exposition, the bell is not to be rung”.
Cavalieri, commenting on this passage, says: “Ex rubricarum praescripto
... interdicuntur”. He is of opinion that this rule of the _Instructio_
regards only low Masses, but Gardellini holds that it refers also to High
Masses:
“Non erat, cur instructio etiam Missas solemnes commemoraret, pro
quibus Rubrica, non jubet, ut in privatis, eadem pulsari ad finem
prefationis, et ad elevationem Sacramenti. Romae saltem in
majoribus ecclesiis obtinet mos etiam non pulsandi, praeterquam in
Missis solemnibus pro defunctis: gravis organorum sonitus supplet
vices tintinnabuli, et populi adstantis excitat attentionem”.
From all this it is clear that the bell is not to be rung whenever there
is no signal to be given. This is certainly the case when there is no one
to assist at Mass.
4. The cincture for the use of a priest does not differ from that for the
use of a bishop. It may be made either of linen thread or silk, but it is
better that it should be of linen. It may be either white or of the colour
of the vestments. These rules are drawn from two decrees of the Sacred
Congregation:
1 DECREE. _Question._ “An sacerdotes in sacrificio Missae uti
possint cingulo serico?” _Answer._ “Congruentius uti cingulo
lineo”. (22 Jan. 1701, No. 3575, q. 7.)
2 DECREE. _Question._ “An cingulum, tertium indumentum
sacerdotale, possit esse colons paramentorum; an necessario debeat
esse album?” _Answer._ “Posse uti cingulo colore paramentorum”—(8
Jun. 1709, No. 3809, q. 4.)