seen dead bodies placed in their coffins, and one evening he alluded to
it, asking me by significant gestures if they would ever open their eyes
again. Considering that he had often been present at the interment of
the dead, and had also witnessed the decay of animals cast out to
perish, it struck me as a singular question, plainly indicating that the
consciousness of immortality is natural to man, and unbelief in a future
state foreign to his untaught feelings. On the present occasion, my
heart being then lifted up in prayer for divine assistance on this very
point, I caught at the encouragement, and instantly proceeded to improve
the opportunity, I sketched on paper a crowd of persons, old and young;
near them a pit with flames issuing from it, and told him all those
people, among whom were we, had been "bad" and God would throw us into
the fire. When his alarm was greatly excited, I introduced into the
picture another individual, who I told him was God's Son; that he came
out of heaven; that he had not been bad, and was not to go in the pit;
but that he allowed himself to be killed; and when he died, God shut up
the pit; so the people were spared. This seemed to myself too strange,
vague, meagre, to convey any definite idea to the boy's mind; but how
effectual does the Lord make our poorest efforts when HE wills to work!
After a few moments' deep thought, Jack astonished me by an objection
that proved he saw the grand doctrine of a substitute for sinners, which
I was so hopeless of bringing before him. He told me the rescued people
were many; he who died was one, and his earnest "What?" with the
eloquent look that now peculiarly belonged to his once stupid
countenance, showed his anxiety for a solution of this difficulty.
With unutterable joy in my heart, but great composure of manner, I rose,
and taking from a vase a bunch of dead flowers, inadvertently left
there, I cut them into small bits, laid them in a heap on the table, and
beside them my gold ring: then pointing to each, with the words "many-
one," I asked which he would rather have? He struck his hand suddenly to
his forehead, then clapped both hands, gave a jump as he sat, and with
the most rapturous expression of countenance intimated that the one
piece of gold was better than the room full of dead flowers With great
rapidity he applied the symbol, pointing to the picture, to the ring, to
himself, to me, and finally to heaven. In the last position he stood up
and paused for some time, and what a picture he would have made! A smile
perfectly angelic beaming on his face, his eyes sparkling and dancing
with delight, until, with a rush of tears that quite suffused them, he
gazed at me, then again raised them to the ceiling, his look softened
into an expression of deep awe and unbounded love, while he gently
spelled on his fingers, "Good ONE, good ONE!" and ended by asking me his
name.
"How sweet the name of Jesus sounds In a believer's ear!"
Jack was not to hear that name with his bodily ears until the voice of
the archangel and the trump of God should call him from sleeping in the
dust of the earth; but he received it into his mind, and the gospel, the
glorious, everlasting gospel, into his soul, and the Holy Spirit into
his heart, without the intervention of that sense. In that hour it was
given unto him to believe, and from that hour all things were his--the
world, life, death, and a bright immortality. Never but once before had
I laid my head on the pillow with such an overwhelming sense of perfect
happiness. The Lord had indeed shown me his glory, by causing his
goodness to pass before me.
Henceforth I had a Christian brother in my little dumb charge: his love
to Jesus Christ was fervent and full; his thoughts about him most
beautiful. By degrees, I gave him some knowledge of our Lord's mortal
birth, his infancy, work, death, resurrection, and ascension; together
with his coming to final judgment at the end of the world. * * *
Very great indeed was Jack's emotion when he discovered that the Saviour
in whom he was rejoicing was the object represented by the image he had
been taught to bow down before. He resented it deeply: I was quite
alarmed at the sudden and violent turn his feelings took against Popery.
* * * He spurned the whole system from him, as soon as the light of the
gospel fell upon its deformities.
Returning from the chapel one day, soon after this, he came up to me
under great excitement: he took up a clothes-brush, set it on one end,
and with a ludicrous grimace bowed down before it, joining his hands in
the attitude of prayer and chattering after his fashion; then asking the
brush if it could hear him, waiting in an attitude of attention for its
reply, and finally knocking it over and kicking it round the room,
saying, "Bad god, bad god!" I guessed pretty well what it was all about;
but as he concluded by snapping his fingers exultingly and seating
himself without further remark, I spoke on other subjects.
Next morning, Jack was very animated, and came to me with an evident
budget of new thoughts. He told me something very small came out of the
ground, pointing in opposite directions; it grew: and then two more
points appeared. I found he was describing the growth of a plant, and
expecting some question, was all attention; but Jack was come to teach,
not to learn. He soon showed that his tree had reached a great height
and size; then he made as if shouldering a hatchet, advanced to the tree
and cut it down. Next came a great deal of sawing, chopping, planing,
and shaping, until he made me understand he had cut out a crucifix,
which he laid by, and proceeded to make a stool, a box, and other small
articles; after which he gathered up the chips, flung them on the fire,
and seemed to be cheering himself in the blaze. I actually trembled at
the proceeding; for where had he, who could not form or understand half
a sentence, where had _he_ learned the Holy Spirit's testimony as
recorded by Isaiah?
The sequel was what I anticipated: he feigned to set up the imaginary
crucifix, and preparing to pray before it, checked himself, saying,
"No;" then with animated seriousness reverted to the springing up of the
little seedling, saying, "God made;" and as it grew, he described the
fashioning of the trunk and branches and leaves most gracefully, still
saying "God made;" he seemed to dip a pencil in color, to paint the
leaves, repeating, "God made beautiful!" Then, that God made his hands
too; and he came to the conclusion that the tree which God made, cut out
by his hands which God made, could not be God who made them. Then he got
very angry, and not satisfied with an unsubstantial object for his holy
indignation to vent itself upon, he ran for the clothes-brush, and gave
it a worse cuffing and kicking than before; ending with a solemn inquiry
whether I worshipped crosses, etc., when I went to church.
I trembled to give the encouragement I longed to bestow. However, I
distinctly intimated my detestation of idolatry, and confirmed his
strong repudiation of it. He told me he would not go any more to chapel,
but I told him, as well as I _could_, the almost certain
consequences, and he then remembered that other boys had told him those
who ate meat on Fridays would go to hell. He became greatly distressed
as the next Sabbath approached, but contrary to all my expectations
returned from mass in excellent spirits. Pat told me, laughing, that
Jack was become so musical he insisted on going to sit by the organ,
that he might feel the vibration; and when alone with me, Jack joyfully
told me that he had run up the stairs from the outer door to the organ-
loft, and so escaped even the necessity of bowing down to the cross.
This plan he persisted in from that day. Some years afterwards I asked
his brother if he had any suspicion at the time of the boy's object in
so doing: he answered, None at all; and that if he had, he would have
forced him into the body of the mass-house, and compelled him to
prostrate himself.
* * * * *
Early in the summer of 1824, I received a summons to return to England.
It was most unwelcome, for my heart was knit to Ireland, and to share
the lot of her devoted people was its earnest desire. At home I had many
old friends; but what were they to the beloved brethren and sisters in
Christ, who had been my fellow-helpers for the last four years in the
work of the Lord? All ties were weak to that, save one, the tie that
bound me to my beloved brother. Him I had not seen for nine years: he
had continued on the staff of the Portuguese army until the
establishment of the Cortes, who dismissed all British officers; and
then he settled in the interior of that country, cultivating some of the
land which he had gallantly fought to rescue. It was a subject of
continual sorrow to me that he was residing in the heart of an
exclusively Popish country, far from every means of grace; not even a
place of worship within many leagues, and wholly shut out from Christian
intercourse. I knew that he had been equally dark with myself on the
subject of religion; and truly can I say, that from the very hour of my
being enabled to see the truth as it is in Jesus, my life had been a
constant prayer for him, that God would make him a partaker in the like
precious faith. There was now a prospect of his returning, and this
added to the summons I have mentioned, made my way plain. The state of
Jack's mind, too, on the subject of Popery, helped to reconcile me,
since I had made up my mind to take him with me if his parents would
agree to it. There was no difficulty in bringing them to do so; they
gave a willing, a grateful consent. His mother's words, while tears
rolled down her cheeks, were, "Take him; he is more your child than
ours." His father remarked, "Why shouldn't we let him go with you,
seeing he would grieve to death if you left him behind?" When I began to
state that I could not promise he would not openly embrace my religion,
they interrupted me, repeating that he was my child more than theirs,
and could never come to any harm under my care. Coward as I was, I did
not use the opportunity then given to set before them their own danger,
and commend the pure faith that I knew their child held. I had
occasionally talked in a general way, and once very strongly, when the
mother told me of the dreadful penances she had done, walking on her
bare knees over a road strewed with pebbles, glass, and quicklime, to
make her sufferings greater, in order to obtain from God and the saints
the restoration of the boy's hearing and speech. She was then pleading
the power and holiness of her clergy, and their superiority to all the
rest of the world. I looked from the window, and said, "See, there goes
your bishop; now do you think this bright sun warms him more than it
does any Protestant walking beside him?" "Troth, and I am sure it does,"
answered she. "What, do you think he has any particular advantage over
other men in things that are common to all?" "That he has, being a holy
bishop." "Well, now, if I call him up, and we all put our fingers
together between these bars, do you think the fire would burn him less
than us?" She hesitated; her husband burst into a laugh, and archly
said, "I'll engage his reverence wouldn't try that same."
I was now to bid adieu to my pleasant haunts, chief among which was the
lordly castle of Kilkenny, where I had passed so very many delightful
hours. Its noble owners were abroad, but by their favor I had a key to
the private door beside the river, and full access to every part of the
castle and its beautiful grounds. It was there I used to muse on days of
Ireland's bygone greatness, though not then well read in her peculiar
history, and gradually I had become as Irish as any of her own children.
How could it be otherwise? I was not naturally cold-hearted, though
circumstances had, indeed, greatly frozen the current of my warm
affections, and I had learned to look with comparative indifference on
whatever crossed my changeful path; but no one with a latent spark of
kindly feeling can long repress it among the Irish. There is an ardor of
character, an earnestness in their good will, a habit of assimilating
themselves to the tastes and habits of those whom they desire to please
--and that desire is very general--that wins on the affections of those
who possess any, a grateful regard, and leaving on the scenes that have
witnessed such intercourse, a sunshine peculiar to themselves. Reserve
of manner cannot long exist in Irish society. I have met with some among
the people of the land, who were cold and forbidding, insensible and
unkind, but these were exceptions, establishing the rule by the very
disagreeable contrast in which they stood out from all around them; and
I never found these persons in the humbler classes, where the unmixed
Irish prevails. Hospitality is indeed the polestar of Ireland; go where
you will, it is always visible; but it shines the brightest in the poor
man's cabin, because the potato that he so frankly, so heartily, so
gracefully presses upon your acceptance is selected from a scanty heap,
barely sufficient to allay the cravings of hunger in himself and his
half-clad little ones. In this, as in all other particulars, a change
for the worse has come over the people of late; priestly authority has
interposed to check the outgoings of kindness from a warm-hearted people
to those who are indeed their friends, and a painful, reluctant
restraint is laid upon them; but the evil had not become evident at the
time of my sojourn there, and I can only speak of them as the most
respectful, most courteous and hospitable peasantry in the world.
At the same time they were in many respects the most degraded. Nothing
could equal the depth of their abasement before an insolent priesthood,
except the unblushing effrontery with which the latter lorded it over
them. For any infraction of their arbitrary rules, the most cruel and
humiliating penances were imposed. I knew an instance of a young woman,
a Romanist, who engaged in the service of a Protestant family, and went
out with them to America. While there, she was led to join in family
worship, but without any intention of forsaking her own creed; neither
had they attempted to draw her out of the net. On her return to Kilkenny
she went to confession, and among other things divulged the fact of
having heard the Bible read, and prayed in company with heretics. This
was an enormity too great for the priest to deal with alone; so he
ordered the girl off, fasting, to her original confessor, who then
officiated in a chapel seven good Irish miles distant. On hearing the
case, he ordered her to go thrice round the chapel on her bare knees,
and then to set off, still fasting, and walk back to Kilkenny, there to
undergo such additional penance as his reverend brother should see good
to impose. The poor creature scarcely reached the town alive, through
fatigue, exhaustion, and terror; she was ill for some time, and on her
recovery subjected to further discipline. These particulars I had from
one of her own friends and a bigoted Papist to boot, who told it in
order to convince me that the girl had committed a very great sin.
I once asked a young man how he got on at confession--whether he told
all his sins. He replied, "Sometimes I disremember a few, and if the
priest, suspects it, he pulls my hair and boxes my ears, to help my
memory." "And how do you feel when you have got absolution?" "I feel all
right; and I go out and begin again." "And how do you know that God has
really pardoned you?" "He doesn't pardon me directly; only the priest
does. He, the priest, confesses my sins to the bishop, and the bishop
confesses them to the pope, and the pope sees the Virgin Mary every
Saturday night, and tells her to speak to God about it." "And you really
believe this monstrous story?" "Why shouldn't I? But it is no affair of
mine, for, once I have confessed, all my sins are laid on the priest,
and he must do the best he can to get rid of them. I am safe." Of such
materials is the net composed that holds these people in bondage; and
who can marvel that such prostration of mind before a fellow-mortal
should lead to an abject slavery of the whole man, body, conscience, and
understanding? We see the effects, and abhor them; but we do not go to
the root of the matter.
The priest himself is equally enslaved; his oath binds him to an
implicit blind reception of tenets which he is not permitted to
investigate, and which make him the pliant tool of a higher department
of this detestable machinery. He receives his cue from the bishops, and
they are wholly governed by the Propaganda at Rome, whither each of them
is bound periodically to appear for personal examination and fresh
instructions. The Propaganda is, of course, the _primum mobile_ of
the system, set agoing by Satan himself. Hence the mischief that is
perpetrated by the unhappy beings who form the operative section of this
cunning concern--the handicraft men of blood. It is an awful spectacle,
and one that we cannot long avert our eyes from contemplating with the
deep interest that personal peril excites. All is preparing for a burst
of persecution against the people of the Lord, and happy is he who shall
be found armed with watching.
LETTER IX.
ENGLAND.
We started for Dublin with sorrowing hearts, for it was likely to be a
long, if not a last farewell to friends who were endeared as well by a
participation in danger as in feeling. * * *
Jack had never before been beyond the environs of his native town, and I
expected to see him much astonished by the splendid buildings of Dublin.
He regarded them however with indifference, because, as he said, they
were not "God-mades;" while the scenery through which we had travelled,
particularly the noble oaks on Colonel Bruen's fine demesne, and the
groups of deer reclining beneath their broad shadow, roused him to
enthusiasm. It was wonderful to trace the exquisite perception of beauty
as developed in that boy, who had never even been in a furnished room
until he came to me. His taste was refined, and his mind delicate beyond
belief: I never saw such sensitive modesty as he manifested to the last
day of his life. Rudeness of any kind was hateful to him; he not only
yielded respect to all, but required it towards himself, and really
commanded it by his striking propriety of manner. He was, as a dear
friend once remarked, a "God-made" gentleman, untainted with the
slightest approach to any thing like affectation or coxcombry: indeed he
ridiculed the latter with much comic effect: and the words "Dandy Jack,"
would put him out of conceit with any article of apparel that drew forth
the remark. He would answer the taunt with a face of grave rebuke,
saying, "Bad Mam, bold Mam; Jack dandy? no; Jack poor boy." He had not,
indeed, arrived at so copious a vocabulary when we left his home; but he
was rapidly acquiring new words.
It was beautiful to see him at prayer. He had never kneeled down with us
at Kilkenny; for any Romanist who had detected him doing so must have
informed, and the priest would have commanded his removal. In Dublin he
volunteered to join us, and as he kneeled with clasped hands, looking up
towards heaven, the expression of his countenance was most lovely. A
smile of childlike confidence and reverential love played over his
features, now becoming most eloquent; his bristly hair had begun to
assume a silky appearance, and was combed aside from a magnificent brow,
while a fine color perpetually mantled his cheeks and changed with every
emotion; his dark hazel eyes, large, and very bright, always speaking
some thought that occupied his mind. He was rather more than twelve
years old. In profile, he much resembled Kirke White when older; but the
strongest likeness I ever saw of him is an original portrait of Edward
VI., by Holbein, in my possession.
It was taken after consumption had set its seal on the countenance of
that blessed young king, as it did on that of my dear dumb boy.
In Dublin, he had one adventure that afforded him much enjoyment. I went
into an extensive toy-shop to make some purchase, and Jack, enchanted
with the wonders around him, strolled to the further end, and into a
little adjoining recess, well filled with toys. A great uproar in that
direction made us all run to inquire the cause, and there was Jack,
mounted on a first-rate rocking-horse, tearing away full gallop, and
absolutely roaring out in the maddest paroxysm of delight, his hat
fallen off, his arm raised, his eyes and mouth wide open, and the
surrounding valuables in imminent peril of a general crash. The mistress
of the shop was so convulsed with laughter that she could render no
assistance, and it was with some difficulty I checked his triumphant
career, and dismounted him. He gave me afterwards a diverting account of
his cautious approach to the "good horse;" how he ascertained it was
"bite, no; kick, no:" and gradually got resolution to mount it. He
wanted to know how far he had rode, and also if he was a God-made? I
told him it was wood, but I doubt whether he believed me. Thenceforth
Dublin was associated in his mind with nothing else; even at nineteen
years of age he would say, if he met with the name, "Good Dublin, good
horse; small Jack love good Dublin horse." The shipping pleased him
greatly, and many of his beautiful drawings were representations of
sailing vessels.
I had now been in Ireland five years and three months; and with what
different feelings did I prepare to leave its green shores from those
with which I first pressed them. Unfounded prejudice was succeeded by an
attachment founded on close acquaintance with those among whom I had
dwelt, contempt by respect, and dislike by the warmest, most grateful
affection. I had scorned her poverty, and hated her turbulence. The
first I now knew to be no poverty of soil, of natural resources, of
mind, talent, or energy, but the effect of a blight, permitted to rest
alike on the land and people, through the selfishness of an unjust,
crooked policy, that made their welfare of no account in its
calculations, nor would stretch forth a hand to deliver them from the
dark dominion of Popery. Their turbulence was the natural fruit of such
poverty, and of their being wholly under the influence of a party
necessarily hostile to the interests of a Protestant state, and bent on
subverting its ascendency. What Ireland was, I too plainly saw: what she
might be, I clearly understood; and the guilt of my country's
responsibility lay heavy on my heart as I watched the outline of her
receding coast.
Bristol was our destination; and for the ensuing year, Clifton became
our abode. This period of my life was one of severe trial, which it is
not necessary to particularize. Incipient derangement, which afterwards
became developed, in a quarter where, if I did not find comfort and
protection, I might expect their opposites, occasioned me much alarm and
distress, while my brother's protracted absence increased the trial.
Much secluded, I pursued my literary avocations, and watched the
progress of Jack's growth in knowledge and in grace. * * *