He does not see that, in order to obtain that "unlimited power," the rulers had thrown off the yoke of Church authority everywhere, and that Christendom disappeared with the "old national freedom" as soon as the key-stone of the edifice, the papacy, was ejected from its place.
Nevertheless, he was keen enough to perceive it necessary to call in armed force to uphold that usurped power of rulers:
"For the strength of the states no other criterion was known than standing armies. And, in reality, there was scarcely any other. By the perfection which they had attained, and which kept pace almost with the growing power of the princes, the line of partition was gradually drawn between them and the nations;theyonly were armed; thenationswere defenceless."
This great German historian carries his views further still, and confesses that, "if the political supports were in a tottering condition, the moral were no less shattered. The corner-stone of every political system, the sanctity of legitimate possession, without which there would be only one war of all against all, was gone; politicians had already thrown off the mask in Poland; the lust of aggrandizement had prevailed . . . . The indissoluble bond connecting morals and politics being broken, the result was to make egotism the prevailing principle of public as well as private life."
Admirable reflections, doubtless, but incomplete; the Protestantism of the writer not allowing him to perceive that, the only sure defender of morality having been discarded, egotism could not but prevail. Therefore does he complain, being blind to the true cause of the disorder, that "democratic ideas, transported from America to Europe, were spread and cherished in the midst of the monarchical system—ready materials for a conflagration far more formidable than their authors had anticipated, should a burning spark unhappily light upon them. Others had already taken care to profane the religion of the people; and what remains sacred to the people when religion and constitution are profaned?"
This last observation, thrown in at the end of some very sound considerations, would have made them far more striking, had it appeared at their head as the great source of all the catastrophes which ensued. But it requires a Catholic eye to take in the whole truth, and a Catholic tongue to give the right explanation of history, as of all things else.
Many reflections similar to those above quoted have been made by non-Catholic writers, and the defenders of the Church have spoken with clearness and energy throughout. Nevertheless, the evil has continued to grow more universal and more alarming, until, to-day, no principle on which the social fabric can securely stand is acknowledged by those who rule the exterior world. And of what Heeren calls the violation of "the sanctity of legitimate possession," let Poland and many other states speak, nay, those of the Father of the faithful himself, to whose warning voice rulers have now so long persistently turned a deaf ear. Where are now even the fragments of that "corner- stone" of the old "political system?"
Such is the state of affairs, not only in Europe, but generally throughout the world, so that the Catholic Church has at length entered fully upon that stage of her existence when she possessesindividualsubjects full of tender affection and devotedness, whose number, thank God! increases every day, but not a singleStatewhich acknowledges her as its director and teacher.
Ireland may be destined to become the first one which shall acknowledge her, and set an example to the rest. If ever she enjoys self-government, she will surely do so, for Catholic she is to the core, and Catholic she cannot but remain.
When it was said that home-rule would not serve as a sure panacea for all her evils, it will be understood as applying to the actual moment and nothing else. That it would not be a good thing for her ever to enjoy real self-government was never in our mind. Moral force is bringing this nearer to her; and step by step she is learning how to walk without support. Already, she possesses something of political franchise, and enjoys municipal government more truly than Frenchmen do after all their social convulsions.
There are men, Irishmen even, who pretend that she would subside into anarchy if her destiny were confided to her own care. They point to the constant wranglings which have been her bane for centuries, and the "prophet" who wrote the "Battle of Dorking" represents her, as soon as the humiliation of England left her free, struggling painfully in the throes of anarchy. That this general opinion of men with regard to Ireland is but too true, was conceded in another place, yet only so far as concerned interests which were trifling, or, at best, of no high character; that when the object at stake is one of great importance, there was more steadiness, unanimity, energy, and true heroism in the Irish people, than in any other known to history in modern times. And this reflection is certainly borne out by the issues of all the secular struggles of the Irish with Scandinavianism, feudalism, and Protestantism.
Surely is there in them the right material for a nation; and, when the day comes for the country to take in hand, under Providence, her own destiny and work it out, the "prophet" will find himself sadly mistaken when, freed forever from the degradation of pauperism, she is at liberty to raise her thoughts above food and raiment; when her children, lifted by a solid Christian education to the high level of intellectual foresight, shall be able to discuss the great objects of their national interests, with no question of clan and clan; then wrangling will cease, as far as public questions are concerned, and be merely left to matters of minor importance, or private affairs, as with all other nations. But that concentrated energy which has marked the race throughout that long fight of centuries against such overwhelming odds, will still continue as their distinguishing characteristic, but turned now to the question of their own national welfare, and no longer to the aversion of doom.
Then will Europe see what a truly Christian people is, for then there will be no other left; and the superiority of principles, of strength of mind, energy of character, naturally fostered by deep religious convictions, will afford another proof of Montesquieu's reflection, that "the Christian faith, which seems to have for its object only the future life, is likewise the best calculated to make people happy and prosperous during this."
If ever men are brought to acknowledge the fatal error they made in rejecting the sacred safeguard which Christ left them in his Church, it will be by looking on the example of a nation actually existing, governed by the great principles which alone can insure the happiness of the individual and the prosperity of the whole people.
In all the foregoing considerations Ireland has been looked upon as a nation full of vigor and energy; but, as this vital point is denied by some, who bear the reputation of thoughtful writers, it is well to establish it clearly before our minds.
Is Ireland a nation? Some say, No; others, among them Mr. Froude, say she is divided into two nations.
The first of these assertions, that she is not a nation, is in appearance so self-evident and true that it seems folly to deny it. She has no government of her own; her destinies seem to be altogether in the hands of a hostile race, which rules her by a Parliament, where her voice is scarcely heard. She has no army nor navy, no commerce, no treasury, not the lowest prerogative of sovereignty. There is a green flag still somewhere with a harp on it and a crown above the harp, reserved for state occasions, and unfurled now and again, when a show of loyalty and a little enthusiasm is called for; but that flag never waves the Irish to battle, not even when fighting for England. There is no Irish standard-bearer for it, as there was under the Tudors, when the flag of Ulster was seen amid the armies of Elizabeth. The name of Ireland is never mentioned in any treaty with foreign powers; and, when the sovereign of England, Scotland, and Ireland, signs a treaty, a convention, nay, a poor protocol, with any foreign state, the name of Ireland is not to be seen on the parchment, save at its head, among the titles of the monarch. There is no Irish seal even to affix to the document: the country is a national non-entity.
But other men, and wise men too, discover a strange anomaly in this curious country. They hold that it is composed of two distinct nations, and furnish excellent reasons in support of their theory.
They talk in this fashion: "Look at the people; travel the country north and south, and converse with them as you go. What do you find? Unity of feeling, aims, agreement of opinion on all possible subjects? Just the opposite! You find Jacob and Esau on every side struggling in the womb of their mother. The quarrel between Sassenach and Gael still goes on. What two figures can be found more antagonistic than the Orangeman of Ulster and the Milesian of Connaught? Yet they are both children of the same country."
And so deep-grained is the difference between them that, although they have lived side by side for centuries, they are still as hostile to each other as when they first met in battle array. The Danes, after a struggle of a little more than two centuries, gave up the contest and became Celts. Strongbow's Normans soon adopted the manners of the old inhabitants, intermarried with them, and, after a lapse of four centuries, though quarrels often broke out between the one and the other, they were to all intents and purposes Celts, the old race, as it were, absorbing the Norman blood, and always showing itself in the children.
But, when will the children of James's Scotchmen or Cromwell's Covenanters coalesce with the descendants of the Milesians? The longer they dwell together, the farther they seem apart, the more they seem to hate each other; and every 12th of July, 5th of November, 17th of March, or even 15th of August, brings danger of bloodshed and strife to every city, hamlet, and town. Surely, this fact speaks of two nations in the country.
The question here presented is indeed a complicated one, requiring solid distinctions in order to elucidate it; and, strange to say, this last difficulty of the presence of two nations in Ireland offers greater obstacles to the firm establishment of our opinion than the first assertion, so clear and undeniable in appearance, that there is no Irish nation!
If true nationality existed only in the externals of government, in an army, navy, commerce, a public seal and flag, and recognition by foreign powers, further discussion would clearly be useless, and the subject might as well at once be dropped.
But the true idea of a nation embraces much more than this; there is such a thing as a national soul, and all the array of accidents alluded to above constitute only the body, or, more truly, the surroundings. As a writer in the North American Review (vol. cxv., p. 379) has well expressed it, a nation is "a race of men, small or great, whom community of traditions and feeling binds together into a firm, indestructible unity, and whose love of the same past directs their hopes and fears to the same future."
In this sense nationality assuredly belongs to Ireland. More, perhaps, than among any other people on earth, is there for the great bulk of them "community of traditions and feeling," binding them together into "a firm and indestructible unity;" and who shall say that they feel no love for their past, because that past has been clouded with sorrow? Nay, this fact makes the past dearer, and tends all the more to direct their hopes and fears to the same future; a future, indeed, still dim and uncertain, and not to be named with perfect certainty, but wrapped in mists like the morning; yet the faint flush of the dawn is already there that shall pale and die away when the full orb of the sun appears.
The reader may remember what was said of the unanimity so striking in all Irishmen, wherever they may be found; that, though private disputes may be taken up among them with such ardor that their quarrels have become proverbial, when the question refers to their country or their God, in a moment they are united, suddenly transformed into steady friends, ready to shed their blood side by side for the great objects which entirely absorb their natures.
This feeling it is which forms the soul of a nation. Wherever this is to be found, there is an indestructible nationality; wherever it is absent, there is only a dead body, however strong may seem its government, however vast its armies, however high its so-called culture and refinement.
These reflections being kept in view, judicious men will agree that, among Europeans at least, there is scarcely any other nationality so strong and vigorous as the Irish. Their traditional feeling keeps their past ever present to their eyes; their ardent nature hopes ever against hope; misfortunes which would utterly break down and dishearten any other people, leave them still full of bright anticipations, and, as they seem to weep over the cold body of a dear mother—Erin, their country— they think only of her resurrection.
But are there not two nations among them—two nations radically opposed to each other and incapable of coalescing? Supposing a resurrection of the people, which of the two is to prevail—the numerical majority, or the so far influential minority? In either event, it is fair to suppose a new state of helotism for the one party or the other. Is this the spectacle which the regenerated nation is likely to present?
In speaking of the resurrection of Ireland, the old, massive, compact body of the people, the venerable race, Celtic in its aspirations and tendencies, if not altogether in its origin, has always been kept in view; and that anomalous, foreign excrescence which has so steadily refused to assimilate with the mass, and has until our days remained "encamped" in Ireland, as the Turks are justly said to have remained "encamped" in Europe, has never entered into our reckoning.
The true Irishman has ever been catholic—the word is used in its grammatical and not in its religious sense—in fellowship. The race, as now constituted, is assuredly of mixed origin, and large drafts of foreign population have been added from time to time to the primitive stock, which has always been kind to admit, absorb, and make them finally Celtic. Strongbow's Normans were not the last who submitted to that process; as was seen, many Cromwellians became the fathers, or grandfathers at least, of as sturdy an Irish branch as ever flourished in the strong air of the country.
But a comparatively small body of men has doggedly refused to submit to this process, and continued to this day an English or Lowland Scotch colony on the Irish soil. The future of Ireland does not take them in, for the very simple reason that they are not of her, they do not belong to her, they are as much foreigners to-day as they ever were. Therefore do we admit the existence of two nations, if people are pleased to call them so, in Ireland, but of one nation only have we written. The only question in regard to this second "nation" is: What will become of them in the future? Are they, in their turn, to become helots, after having vainly striven so long to make helots of the others? God forbid! No true Irishman nourishes in his soul such feelings of retaliation or revenge.
Assuredly, they will be prevented from disturbing any longer the public order, and forced at length to respect the majority, or rather, the mass of their countrymen. No one can object to having such a necessary measure imposed upon them. In the many civil discords which, for more than a century and a half, have disgraced the north of Ireland, they have almost invariably been the aggressors. The government openly taking their part for a long time, they had the whole field to themselves, and what use they made of their privilege, and how they improved their opportunity, is known to all. When, at last, the public authorities could no longer pretend to ignore their hateful spirit, and began to show some signs of protecting the hitherto much-abused majority, by forbidding those odious processions to which the others always attached such importance, they gave themselves the airs of a persecuted body of men, and pretended that henceforth their lives, and those of their wives and children, were no longer safe.
The province of Ulster being closed to them as a field of operations, they transferred to Upper Canada the exhibition of their blood-thirsty hatred, and on several occasions the Catholic population of the country had to protect their churches, musket in hand. Even in the United States they have rendered themselves odious to the people by foisting their spirit of strife on a land where they cannot but be strangers, and by staining some of the streets of New York with blood, in order to gratify their senseless animosity.
It is surely time that an end be put to such absurd and dangerous antics, not abroad only, but at home. In the new order of things now dawning upon Ireland, there can no longer be room for them; and the very name of Orangeman must disappear forever from the vocabulary of the new nation, to the joy of all peaceful and law-abiding citizens.
That is all the persecution they need expect. Not only will there be room for them still in the country of their birth, but of course they will have their due share in all the privileges of citizenship. Political distinctions between themselves and the old race will be unknown; social distinctions will be a question for themselves to settle. Should they show the slightest desire of combining with the majority of their countrymen, these latter will be generous enough to forget the past, and perhaps the others may imitate their predecessors, the Danes, the Normans, and even some of their Cromwellian kin, and become, at last, Hibernis hiberniores.
What is said of political and social distinctions will hold good also for religious tenets. Let them, if they choose, continue to stand by their Presbyterian dogmas, provided they do not quarrel with the majority for professing what they love to believe; but that belief must come to an external and public profession. They will often hear the bells of Catholic churches; as they pass outside, if they do not enter, the strains of the glorious music and noble anthems, resounding within, will fall on their ears; they will see the statue of the Blessed Virgin borne through the streets on the 15th of August, amid showers of snowy blossoms, falling from the innocent hands of children; all this they must endure, if it be so hard to endure it; but this is not persecution. Even to their eyes, if their heart be not frozen by a cold belief, the sight will bear some attractions. And if they come to think, that what is oldest in Christianity is the best, and that, after all, Catholicity has something in it which makes life sweet and pleasant, it can scarcely be held a crime in the universal Church to open her arms and receive back to her bosom those wandering and so long obstinate children.
When will all this come to pass? Who can tell? But stranger things than these have already taken place in Ireland, and we are confident that future historians of the race will have to record greater wonders still, and facts more stubborn and difficult of explanation.
At all events, should the inflexible Puritanism of the Scotch colony stand proof against the allurements of a motherly and tender-hearted Church, they must at least become subject to the iron laws of population and absorption. When the public statutes are no longer drawn up for their special benefit, when no new swarms of brethren come to swell their ranks, when they are abandoned to the merciless laws of loss and gain in numbers, then will people soon see on which side is true morality, and by which the ordinances of God are really respected; then will many vapid accusations against the holy Catholic Church of themselves disappear, and the eyes of men will open to the great fact that Ireland must be and remain one in race, feeling, and, above all, in religion. The foreign element will have dwindled to insignificance, if it shall not have utterly disappeared. Indeed, it may be safely predicted that the day will arrive when the announcement of the natural demise of the last Puritan in Ireland will appear in the daily newspapers as a curious piece of intelligence, not devoid of a certain interest.
Though moral force, as the agent of the regeneration of Ireland, has been our theme all through, we would not have our readers infer that Irishmen should adopt the do-nothing policy, and leave to God alone the work of raising them up. The moral force spoken of is that of human beings endowed with activity and determination; steady and persevering in the pursuit of well- organized plans of their own conception.
Let Irishmen lift up their eyes and behold what they might do, did they only appreciate their strength and husband it. Dire calamities, which God designed from the first to convert into blessings, have scattered them over the world, and brought out that power of expansion which was always in their nature, but lay dormant and cramped under the pressure of terrible circumstances. They again show themselves as that old race which three thousand years ago spread itself all over Europe and Asia. They now bear in their hands an emblem which they had not then— the cross of Christ! And the cross is the sign of universality in time and space. To that sign, since the triumph of the Saviour on the day of his resurrection, is given the rule of the world till the end of time. Now that our globe is known at last, the cross must be planted all over its surface, and in this great work the Irish race is clearly destined to bear a conspicuous part.
In the fulfilment of that divine vocation they are dispersed, and whatever is dispersed is deprived of a great part of its strength. How can the disjecta membra, scattered far and wide by Typhon, become again Osiris? Under the guidance of God, by that great instrument of modern times, the power of association and organization, aided by a steady, energetic will.
Ezekiel has admirably described the process in his thirty- seventh chapter. The Lord must first speak: "Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. . . . Behold, I will send spirit into you, and ye shall live; and I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to grow over you, and will cover you with skin; and I will give you spirit, and ye shall live."
All this seems to be the work of God alone, yet, in the very words of the prophet, the dry bones have their part to perform:
"As I prophesied, there was a noise, a commotion, and the bones came together, each one to his joint."
There is the whole process; it supposes a noise, a commotion, a rising, an assembling together, and a fitting each one into his own joint. They possess an activity of their own, which they must use. And the phenomenon is to take place in the midst of "a vast plain "—two great continents—over the surface of which the "bones" are found on every side, appearing "exceeding dry."
With what a power will that army be invested when it rises up and stands upon its feet! We may form some faint idea of it, when in our large cities any thing occurs to excite the interest and warm up the feeling of that apparently inert Celtic mass. The largest halls constructed cannot contain the multitudes who have only read the announcement of a meeting, a lecture, or a charitable undertaking. Such scenes are witnessed every day along the banks of the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, and the Delaware Rivers; by the shores of Chesapeake Bay; in all the great centres of population dotting the Atlantic coast; in the heart of the continent along the winding course of the Mississippi and Missouri; and already, even in the far West, on the spreading shores of the Pacific Ocean. The same is occurring all over the inhabited portion of Australia and the adjacent islands. What power, then, would be theirs did those "bones" know how to come together each in his own joint!
How is it that we hear of no concerted action among them for their country's sake? Is each man so busy, and lost in his own little sphere of interest and speculation, that he cannot spare a moment's thought for the claims of his native country? Who can say this? Moreover, the best means of promoting their own private interests would be to raise before the eyes of all the status of the country with which they are naturally identified. The truth is, each one waits for another to set the example, the mass being ever ready to follow a lead and show its good-will. Association is needed.
When they turn their eyes to the incessant struggle going on in the mother-country, when they read in their own newspapers the discussions of the Irish press, of the questions debated on the soil most dear to them, and the agitation of the momentous interests pending and awaiting a final decision among their former countrymen, no doubt their feelings are strongly moved; the hopes and fears of their youth, before they left their native shores, are revived with renewed force, and their love for their green island is as ardent as ever.
But is this all? Is it enough that the heart of each one is stirred within him? Is it not for them to see that the influence of their new name, new position, and bettered circumstances, be brought to bear, however far away they may be, upon the great home questions of land-tenure, education, the elective franchise, a native Parliament, commerce, manufactures, and all matters touching on the general welfare of Ireland? If, having become adopted citizens of a new country, they can no longer act as citizens of Erin, they may and ought at least to interest them selves in these matters as far as true loyalty to their adopted country may allow them; and this they can best do by association.
The bonds of a wise organization would give firmness and compactness to the whole moral force of the dispersed nationality. By association, the scattered "dry bones" would be speedily changed into a solid array of living warriors standing upon their feet, and the startling spectacle would astonish the whole world, and win for the race the involuntary respect of all who should witness or hear of it. Nothing would be easier than to set such a thing on foot, for, although so far apart in appearance, the ma- jority of Irish families, from the very fact of emigration, have half of their members at home and half abroad, joined together by an active correspondence and a constant transmission of funds. The managers of the movement would only have to organize for a general object, what already is organized in fact, and direct to the common good what is now done privately.
A word has already been said on the possible management of such an organization: that the movement should begin at home, in the island; that its supervision should be left to the true leaders of the nation; and that all the workings, details, and executive part, may be safely intrusted to the active members of the association.
The class here designated as leaders of the nation is already known to the reader. The old nobility having been destroyed, there is no other body which truly represent the Irish people to-day save the clergy. This is, no doubt, a misfortune, but none the less a fact. It offers the anomaly of clergymen meddling to a certain extent in politics; but, in Ireland, this is unavoidable.
How does the whole body of the European Catholic clergy understand its position in all those Catholic congresses and unions, which are now, thank God! starting up in all Christian countries? How do the laymen, on their side, appreciate the share they have to take in those various movements? How do they act under the lead of their spiritual advisers? Are any odious distinctions ever known in those associations? Can any misunderstanding arise among men animated with a true love for religion? And why should not the same be true of Ireland, among a people so full of love for country? This is what is meant when the terms leaders and followers, clergy and laity, are here used.
Another consideration will show still more forcibly the importance of the great measure here proposed. One circumstance must have struck those who read the detailed reports of the Catholic congresses mentioned above—the sudden appearance of a large array of laymen, illustrious by their birth, wealth, political power, or literary attainments; but, for the most part, not so well known for their deep attachment to the cause of the Church. A new channel of activity was suddenly opened up to them; they threw themselves into it, and became the bold champions of a cause to which, undoubtedly, they had been individually attached, but of which they now became the public men. And there is little doubt that many young men, lukewarm before, and perhaps with nothing more than the remembrance of the Christian education they had once received, suddenly revived in spirit and made a solemn profession of a cause which, perhaps, they would not have had the courage openly to advocate, did not the number and names of the first originators of the movement encourage them to join in it heart and soul.
Now, it is said, perhaps too truly, that the warm religious feeling which has been all along claimed as the most striking characteristic of the Irish race, is no longer shared alike by all classes of Irish Catholics; that, too often, when individuals among them rise in the social scale, and reach a step in the social ladder from which they imagine that they can look down upon the despised mass below, they no longer feel that deep reverence for their religion which had characterized their youth, and, after all, are not very different from the mass of non-Catholics among whom they prefer to move. This class of men has been well described by Moore in his own person, in various passages of his "Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion."
The fact is, indeed, too true; but what is the chief cause of it? One of the most active means of bringing about such a result we take to be the complete isolation in which young men of the class referred to find themselves in their own sphere of life. There is, in fact, no motive for displaying their attachment to their religion, and no respectable means of doing so. They do not feel their souls moved by sufficient proselytic ardor to induce them, of their own accord, to originate any thing of that kind, and the generality of them have, probably, not received from Nature the talents requisite to make them leaders in any cause whatever. No one around them moves in that direction; hence their apathy and consequent lukewarmness in the practice and outward profession of their faith.
But change all the surroundings; present them an influential body to which it is an honor to belong—a body marching openly under the banner of the true Church of Christ and of their country, bound together as of old—and then will it be seen whether or not they indeed are the degenerate sons of martyred ancestors they now appear to be.
It is indeed very remarkable that, of all countries, Ireland seems to make the least show in those Catholic unions and congresses now so widely spread throughout Europe. The reason for this, perhaps, is, that there seemed less cause for their existence in Ireland than elsewhere. But, as, in Ireland, their object would not only embrace the interests of religion, but likewise those of the country itself, it seems natural to think that there they are particularly wanted.
Let the leaders of the nation, then, bestir themselves. Long ages of oppression unfortunately have rendered them somewhat timid and seemingly afraid of jeopardizing the important interests confided to their care. Let them lift up their eyes and see that the time for timidity has passed away: the enemy is reckless and open in his attacks; their resistance must be equally undisguised and fearless. The people themselves understand this and occasionally display a boldness which shows that the old heroism still lives in them; but they want leaders, and, if the right ones are not fast to take hold of them, they may fall into the hands of wrong-headed guides. Let the true guides look out and see how broad are the lines which divide the good from the evil, and that victory is sure to the stout of heart, when backed by the serried masses of a united people.
The principle of association and the machinery of organization must be applied to all subjects connected with the resurrection of the country. What has been done so effectually for the cause of temperance must be done likewise for education, for the purchase or tenure of land, for the development of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, for the true representation of the nation, for free municipal government, for the securing of a truly Irish yeomanry and gentry, for a thousand objects on which the future welfare of the nation depends. All classes of society, persons of every age and of either sex, yes, women and children, ought to be induced to take an interest in what concerns all alike. Every possible occasion should be taken advantage of to insure the attainment of the ultimate object. When such a work is really entered upon in earnest, the results will be astonishing.
This is the complete development of moral force, and, until all these means have had fair trial, no one can say that moral force has been fully tried and has failed.
Such a system would, we firmly believe, result in the ultimate restoration of Ireland's rights and would surely culminate in her final resurrection at no distant date. That the Irish would enter with spirit into those various associations has been sufficiently demonstrated by previous examples, particularly under O'Connell; and it is impossible to see how surer, greater, and speedier results could be obtained by any amount of physical force of which Ireland is capable. What array of physical force can the Irish muster to compete at all with their powerful rivals, situated as they are with the chains of centuries still binding them down, for, though the shackles may be actually removed, their effect is still there. The very statement of the terms, Ireland versus England, is enough to show the hopelessness of such a combat. It is a very easy thing to magnify the old heroism of the Irish, and cast opprobrium on the present bearers of the name, as did several newspaper writers recently, for not displaying the "pluck" of their ancestors who fought against Elizabeth, Cromwell, and William of Orange. It is forgotten that circumstances have altered considerably since those days when the Irish possessed a regular army led by experienced generals: restore those circumstances, and the Irish of to-day might outdo their ancestors; at all events, there is no reason for supposing that they would be inferior. However, there is such a thing as impossibility, and any attempt of such a nature, with such surroundings, must be deemed by all sensible men not merely rashness, but folly.
In concluding these pages, the author begs to be allowed a word as to their general character, in reply to a dogmatic and comprehensive criticism which it is easy to foresee will be passed on them. It will undoubtedly be asserted that an undue prominence has been given to the religious side of the Irish question, while its many political aspects have been left in the background. This charge will be laid at the door of the clerical and religious character of the writer, and may give rise to the notion that the view here taken of the subject is not the right one, but a radical failure.
The answer to this objection is, in brief, that no one can treat seriously and properly of the Irish race without taking a religious view of it. Whoever adopts a different method of treating the matter would, in our opinion, go completely astray; would take in only a few side-views; would, in fact, pretend to have made a serious study of it, which he offered to the public as such, while ignoring the chief and almost only feature.
The Irish is a religious race, and nothing else. It seems that such was its character thousands of years ago, even when pagan. At the time when Hanno was sent by the Carthaginian senate beyond the Pillars of Hercules to explore the western coast of Africa, toward the south—of which voyage the short narrative is still left us—Himilco, brother to Hanno, was similarly commissioned to form settlements on the European coast, toward the north. The account of this latter expedition, which was extant in the time of Pliny the Elder, is unfortunately lost; but, in the poem of R. Festus Avienus, entitled "Ora Maritima," there are copious extracts from it, in which, at least, the sense of the original is preserved. Avienus, after speaking of the "Insulae OEstrimnides," which Heeren thinks must be the Scilly Islands, goes on to say:
"Ast hinc duobus in Sacram (sic insulamDixere prisci) solibus cursus rati est.Haec inter undas multam caespitem jacet,Eamque late gens Hibernorum colit."
The passage runs almost into literal English as follows:
"Thence in two days, a good ship in sailingReaches the Holy Isle(1)—so was she called of old—That in the sea nestles, whose turf exuberantThe race of Hibernians tills."
(1 Dr. Lingard, evidently perplexed by this expression, asks himself, "What might its origin have been?" and suggests that the name of Ierne—the same as Erin—having been given to Ireland by the ancients, and the Greek iepa—holy— bearing a great resemblance to it, Avienus might have thus fallen into a very natural mistake of confounding the one with the other. But, in the first place, Himilco's report was certainly not written in Greek, but in Phoenician, and Avienus seems merely to have translated that report. Moreover, the word iepa begins with a very strong aspirate, equivalent to a consonant, while there are few vowels softer in any language than the first in Erin or Ierne. Heeren does not attempt such an explanation, but concedes that the Carthaginians, as well as the Phoenicians before them, called Ireland the Holy Isle.)
In the time of Himilco, therefore, five hundred years before Christ, Ireland was called the Holy Isle, a title she had received long before: Sic insulam discere prisci. In what that holiness may have consisted precisely, it is impossible now to say; all we know is, that foreign navigators, who were acquainted with the world as far as it was then known, whose ships had visited the harbors of all nations, could find no more apt expression to describe the island than to say that, morally, it was "a holy spot," and physically "a fair green meadow," or, as her children to this day call her, "the green gem of the sea."
But we have better means of judging in what the holiness of the people consisted after the establishment of Christianity in their midst; and the description of it given in the fourth chapter of this book, taken from the most trustworthy documents, shows how well deserved was the title the island bore.
From that day forth the religious type was clearly impressed on the nation, and has ever remained deeply engraven in its character. The race was never distinguished for its fondness for trade, for its manufactures, for depth of policy, for worldly enlightenment; its annals speak of no lust of conquest among its people; the brilliant achievements of foreign invasion, the high political and social aspirations which generally give lustre to the national life of many a people, belong not to them. But religious feeling, firm adherence to faith, invincible attachment to the form of Christianity they had received from St. Patrick, formed at all times their striking characteristics.
From the day when their faith was first attacked by the Tudors did it chiefly blaze forth into a special splendor, which these pages have striven faintly to represent. Before taking up the pen to write, after the serious study of documents, only one great feature struck us—that of a deep religious conviction; and, after having seen what some writers have had to say recently, the same feature strikes us still. We will not deny that this fact moved us to write, and the task was the more grateful, probably, because of our own personal religious character; but we are confident that any layman, whatever might be his talent and disposition for describing worldly scenes, who took up Irish history, could find nothing else in it of real importance to render the annals of the race attractive to the common run of readers.
And is not religion more capable of giving a people true greatness and real heroism than any worldly excellence? Men of sound judgment will always find at least as much interest attached to the history of the first Maccabees as to that of Epaminondas; and the self-sacrifice of the Vendean Cathelineau, with his "beads" and his "sacred heart," will always appear to an impartial judge of human character more truly admirable than that of any general or marshal of the first Napoleon. Religious heroism, having for object something far above even the purest patriotic fervor, can inspire deeds more truly worthy of human admiration than this, the highest natural feeling of the human heart; and, for a Christian, the most inspiring pages of history are those which tell of the superhuman exertions of devoted knights to wrest the sepulchre of our Lord from the polluted hands of the Moslem.
But religion did not confine her influence over Irishmen to the bravery which she breathed into them on the battle-field. Religion truly constituted their inner life in all the vicissitudes of their national existence; it was the only support left them in the darkest period of their annals, during the whole of the last century; and, when the dawn came at last with the flush of hope, religion was the only halo which surrounded them. Their emigration even, their exodus chiefly, was in fact the sublime outpouring of a crucified nation, carrying the cross as their last religious emblem, and planting it in the wilds of far-distant continents as their only escutcheon, and the sure sign which should apprise travellers of the existence of Irishmen in the deserts of North America and Australia.
Truly, those men are very ignorant of the Irish character who would abstract the religious feature from it, and paint the nation as they would any other European people, whose great aim in these modern days seems to be to forget the first fervor of their Christian origin. With the Irish this cannot be. The vivid warmth of their cradle has not yet cooled down; and, if it would be indeed ridiculous to represent the English of the nineteenth century as the pious subjects of Alfred or Edward, it would be equally foolish to depict the Irish of to-day as the worldlings and godless of France, Italy, or Spain. The Irish patriot could not be like them, without deserting his standard and the colors for which his race has fought. The nation to which he has the honor of belonging is still Christian to the core; and, if some few have really repudiated the love of the religion they took in at their mother's knee, the only means left them of remaining Irishmen, at least in appearance, is not to parade their total lack of this, the chief characteristic of their race.