CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BEQUEST OF STEWART HENRY BURNHAM 1943 Cornell UnlvarsHy Library arV11838 First American edition of th^e^w^^^^ 3 1924 031 448 743 olin,anx Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031448743 FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF THE WORKS OF THE REY. D. W. |!AHILL, D.D. THE HIGHLY DISTINGUISHED IRISH PRIEST, PATRIOT AND SCHOLAR : CONTAINING A BRIEF SKETCH OF HIS LIFE, THE MOST IMPORTANT ADDRESSES, SPEECHES, CONTROVERSIAL SERMONS &C. DELIVERED mmELAND, ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND, TOGETBEK WITH HIS CELEBRATED LETTERS TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL, LORD PALMER8T0N, THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, THE EARL OF DERBY, THE EARL OF OAELISLB. &c. &c. &c. BEING THE MOST INTERESTING WORK EVER PRESENTED TO THE CATHOLIC PUBLIC. BOSTON: PATRICK DONAHOB, 23 Feankldj Steebt INDEX. Page FaEfACE A BRIEF BlOGRAPar OF THE Rev. Dr. CaHILL'...-. ... 1 CoNTKRSioss IN EsGLAND — Letter of Rev. J. Collins to the Eev. D. W. Cahill— Reply 6 Address to the Catholic inhabitants of Greenock 12 Controversial Sei-mons -. ... 15 Address to the Catholics of Liverpool and Birkenhead.. 27 Address and Presentation to the Ret. Dr. Cahill, from the United Sons of Erin Society, Liverpool . . .. 35 Dr. Cahill's reply.. ..... 37 Anniversary Dinner in honor of St. Patrick's day.. • 44 Dr. Cahill and the Hibernian Friendly Societies .. .. 56 Ret. Dr. Cahill and the Catholics of Glasgow... 61 Letter to the Ret. J. Burns of Whitehaven.. ........ 81 Eet. Dr. Cahill and the "Rambler" 108 Second letter to the Editors of the Catholic Journals... 122 Rev. Dr. Cahill's Speech at a Great Meeting in Liverpool. 14C Rev. Dr. Cahill Lecture on the Social Condition of Ireland 153 Dr. Cahill's Speech in Liverpool .. ... .... 177 Letter to the Right Hon. Lord John Russell 19C ** to the same . .. .. 202 " to the same 217 " to the Duke OF Wellington 334 " to the Earl OF Derbt 249 " to the same .. ... .............. 362 " to the same 278 " to the same 395 " to Lord Pal.merston 314 " to the Right Hon. the Earl or Carlisle 330 " to the Ret. Dr. Cahill from the Earl of Carlisle 341 Dr. Cahill's reply - 342 Letter to the Ret. Williah Anderson....... — .. 356 " from FiTE Protestant Clergymen to Dr. Cahill.. 362 Dr. Cahill's reply - 363 Letter of Dr. Cahill to 31 Protestant Ciergtmen 374 TO THE READER. Wb present to public attention, in book form, the Letters, Discourses, Responses and Controversial Ser- mons of that eminent Divine and Scholar, the Rev. D. W. CAHILL, whose eloquent and manly voice and pen, have, like the bursting thunderbolt, cast dis- may and confusion among the ranks of his country's oppressors and persecutors — -when pestilence, plagues and famine, and an unfeeling and tyrannical Govern- ment and its subservient agents, had swept Ireland of millions of its bravest sons and daughters, and le- velled their humble habitations to the earth — when annihilation would seem inevitable — then in Ireland's supposed weakness, degradation and humility, her heartless despoilers would feign re-enact and legalize a new edition of the desecrated "Penal Laws," which have crimsoned Ireland's verdant soil with blood, and consigned many a Holy Divine and Scholar to the scaffold or banishment for life from an ancestorial inheritance. To meet, and counteract in embryo , these contemplated evil designs of the Government, and an intriguing Cabinet, we find this invincible and uncompromising champion of the Church — the PREFACE. philanthropic, patriotic and eloquent orator, pen in hand in the field, confronting the degenerate " Iron Duke," or upsetting the wily schemes of a Palmerston or a Russell, and awakening from her lethargic slum- bers the Courts of Europe, which would have soon fallen victims to English intriguing, and deceitful and designing emissaries, with bland faces and cra- ven and hollow hearts, who with a smile of deception and a tongue of suavity, were plotting destruction wherever they went. Whether we view the Rev. D. W. Cahill, amidst impending threats and frowns, undismayed, bearding the insatiable and growling lion, or in his astrono- mical researches, with mind absorbed among the hea- venly bodies, scanning the starry firmament, and de- fining each luminary orbit and revolution, with the ease and familiarity we would define or depict ob- jects momentarily exposed to observation — or, his philanthropic and patriotic heart overpowered as he reflects over some death-scene of starvation, where his last shilling administered to the corporeal wants whilst his eloquent voice conveyed the last consoling words, ere his holy hand extended the Unction or the anxious soul started from its earthly tenement on its celestial journey of eternal bliss — no matter in what capacity we regard the Rev. D. W. Cahill, we must pronounce him the greatest living man in Eu- rope at the present period. PREFACE. To wrest from oblivion, and collect in a neat vo- lume the Letters and Discourses of this distinguished and learned Divine has heen our object — knowing how unwieldy, and how liable to destruction news- papers are, the only manner in which anything of his productions has appeared in this country as yet. But did we say to vrrest from oblivion ? No, while there remains an honest descendant of "the Island of Learn- ing and of Saints;" an uncontaminated descendant of the line of Kings and chiefs — of patriots and war- riors — of Statesmen, poets and wits — of honest, indus- rious and manly fathers, or beautiful, virtuous, reli- gious and affectionate mothers — so long as there re- mains a living remnant of the Celtic race, that has not abandoned their God, their country or their faith ; so long will a Cahill live in the hearts of his coun- try people, and all discerning admirers, of genuine worth — and to such we humbly present this volume. A BRIEF BIOGBAPHT OP THE EBV. DE. CAHUi. The disdn^ished divine and scholar is now in the full vigor of his age and intellect — he is approaching his fifty-third year. He is the son of a gentleman well known in the midland southern portions of Ireland, as an emi- nent engineer and surveyor, and w^as thus almost necessa- rily, from his earliest years, practised in those exact scien- ces upon which in a larger degree, eminence in those professions are dependent. Thus, — and in those early years it is when instruction is imparted to command sue cess, and when skill is acquired with a readiness almost intuitive — w^as laid the foundation of that scientific emi- nence for which, in after life, Dr. Cahill has been re- markable. By the female side, the subject of our sketch is of Spanish descent ; his patronymic is thoroughly Celtic, and the whole temperament and habitudes of the man, so far as the discipline of the priest permits them to be mani fested, develops, in an eytraordinai-y degree, the charac- teristics of both these ancient races. The Rev. Gentle- man's physique, too, is indicative of this descent. His complexion is brown, his hair dark, his eyes black, and deeply thoughtful; his person tall, and of massive yet graceful proportions ; he presents, in these respects, a per- sonification of the attributes of both peoples, most striking and demonstrative. In stature, Dr. Cahill far transcends the ordinary, standing not less than six feet five inches. The Rev. gentleman is a native of the Queen's County 3 BIOGRAPHY OF DR. CAHILL. in Ireland, and a subject of the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin. over which presided, when he was a young man the celebrated Dr. Doyle, the 'I. K. L.' of the pre-einanci- patlon period. The tendency of studies which he inevitably entered upon, the combined Spanish and Celtic tempera- ment, the physical development with which nature had endowed him, tended naturally, one would almost say, to direct his views toward the army, which, in those days, presented a noble field to the aspirant after military fame, and a theatre upon which engineering skill and scientific knowledge were sure to rise in fame and station. Accord- ingly younff D. W, Cahill was originally intended for the army. A more glorious field of operation, how^ever, awaited him, — a warfare more noble and more suited to the powers he has since displayed — a contention in which he has won a fame, which no facilities in another career could have ever equalled, and from which Christianity, it is hoped, has reaped some harvest, and mankind been the gainer. The young intended soldier rejected, like St. Ignatius, the colors, the war-steed, and the cannon, to enlist under the banner of the cross ; and while yet a youth, entered upon those studies which qualify the man to become the minister of God, and the servant of the altar. The Rev. Dr. Cahill was, at an early age a student of the lay side of Carlow College, after which he studied, for some time, under those masters of education w^ho have outstriped all other professors of the sciences, the Jesuits Here, having entered somewhat upon those studies more appropriate to the profession he had chosen, he was dis- BIOGRAPHY OP DR. CAHILL. 3 ringuished as a scholar. In due time he entered May- nooth, and commenced that course of severe study and rigid discipline, ■which have rendered that ground so eminent, and made its alumni so eminent as scholars, so self-denying as priests. At Maynooth, Dr. Cahill read a full course of theology and natural philosophy, under the distinguished professors of that time. Dr. Delahogue, and Dr. McHale, now the illustrious Archbishop of Tuam. In Hebrew and the cognate studies, he became a great profi'dent under Dr. Browne, for many years past the exemplary Bishop of Dromore. Under Dr. Boylan, who was himself an ornament of the Iris)- Prelacy, he studied German, French and Italian, in all which languages our Reverend Friend obtained such proficiency, as placed him amongst the most proficient not only of his age, but of his college. Having completed the usual but severe routine of the minor ordinary studies, the Rev. Gentleman then received orders, and was selected to the Dunboyne estabUsament, of Maynooth, where he spent an additional period of years in reading a more advanced course of theology and eccle- siastical history. In due time he was taken into fiill orders in the Church, of which he is now^ so happily an ornament. We have not spoken of the eclat -with, which the sub- ject of our notice went through his college studies ; we may say one for all, that the capax;ities then manifested w^ere such, and so prominent, as to prefigure the maturi- ty of their present development. The estimation in w^hich he -was held at home, where his qualities were best know^n, was shown by his being selected for the professorship of 4 BIOGRAPHY OF DR. CAHILL. natural philosophy in Carlow, then under the Rectorship of the Right Rev. Dr. Doyle, himself a, literateur of the most distinguished character; and, as a proof his ta- lents were recognised beyond the sphere in which they were exercised with so much efficacy, we may mention that the degree of Doctor in Divinity was conferred upon him by the Pope. In Carlow college, he continued for some years to teach not only natural philosophy, but mathematics and astro- nomy ; in which latter science, we believe, he possesses an eminence not exceeded by any man of our day. As a scholar in practical science, we should mention that the Rev. Doctor studied chemistry, as a laboratory student, under the late Dr. Barker, of Trinity College, Dublin ; a gentleman who produced such celebrated pu- pils as Sir Robert Kane and others. So far of Dr. Cahill as a student and a professor, the rest is known to all his countrymen ; it may briefly ,be communicated to others. After a residence of some years in the Colleges of Carlow, the Rev. Gentleman, at the earnest desire of many distinguished personages, who being Catholics, were desirous of having their children educated in the faith, as well as in the higher sciences, transferred the sphere of his operations to Dublin. For many years subsequently the Doctor had a seminarv at Seapoint, near Blackrock, which, for eminence and res- pectability, was not exceeded by any in the country. During all this time Dr. Cahill was known as a preach- er of singular force and clearness, and of great, yet simple, eloquence — characteristics, which his scientific BIOGRAPHY OP DR. CAHHI.. acquirements, and kno'wledge of ancient and modem clas- sics, qualified him largely to put forth. He weis invited, consequently, to preach in many and distant portions of the kingdom of Ireland and in this country also, upon im- portant occcisions. At ■whatever inconvenience to \.a.- self, he never negatived these applications, ■which are s© frequent ; the result was, that he gave up the semmary to proclaim more and more the great truths of the g03p CO REPLY TO THE HIBERNIAN FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. and ending in the transpoi't ship or the reeking scaffold. With what pleasure, therefore, do I behold your socie- ties, established on such clear legal foundations, and effect- ing such incalculable good amongst our poor but unparal- leled Irish females — in feeding them, in clothing them, protecting them, sustaining them. Oh ! such a Godlike work, to protect these innocent, ill-fated children, far from home, and to gladden their breaking hearts w^ith kindness and charity. I fondly hope to see the auspicious day, when I shall see all the Irishmen in Liverpool, and in all the other En- glish towns, living-in mutual national love. It makes the heart sick to see Irish against Irish, heart against heart, kindred and blood against kindred and blood. It is a na- tional disgrace, and a national reproach ; if we are faith- less to ourselves, how can strangers rely on our fidelity ? If we are enemies to each other, how can we complain of the persecution of strangers ? Wolves do not devour each other — and there is no shame which causes such a crimson blush in the face of every real friend of Ireland, as to hear of Irishmen eating Irishmen's flesh; or, as Cromwell would say it, roasting each other on a spit for interest or revenge. I hope very soon to have the pleasure of meeting you all in Liverpool ; and one of the proudest moments of my life would be to find myself surrounded Isy the different heads of all your societies, from the four provinces, and to place your hands joined together within my hands, when I would make you all give a pledge to me, and be- fore God, to abandon party strife, to love each other like ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. 61 brothers, and to stand together in one united confederacy of vii-tue, and order, for the remainder of your lives. I shall feel highly honored to become the Vice President of such an united body of men as I have here sketched, and you may command my services to any extent, and rely on me with most implicit obedience. I thank you most sincerely for the remarkable expres- sion of your respect to'wards me, and believe me, beloved fellow-countrymen, your devoted Irish Priest, D. W. CAHILL, D.D. REV. DR. CAHILL AND THE CATHOLICS OF GLASGOW. The Catholics of Glasgow, numbering between two and three thousand persons, entertained the Rey. Dr. Cahill at a" public Soiree in that city. The Rev. J. Danaher occupied the chair, and delivered the follow- ing introductory address : Ladies and Gentlemen. It now becomes my pleasing duty to call upon you for a demonstration of respect towards the distinguished in- dividual whom we have the honor of entertaining this evening. ( Gi-eat demonstrations of applause, which continued for several minutes. ) — After the cheermg had subsided, the Rev. Gent, in the course of his elo- quent observations said — ^As a pnest, a patriot, and a scholar, Dr. Cahill is entitled to our respect, esteem and admiration. (Loud cheers.) In this threefold capacity, he has now for years occupied a high position in the affections of the neople. He has made his vast scientific acquire- •nents subserve the cause of religion, and by his golden eloquence, has caused the learned, and the wealthy, and the great, to respect a 62 ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. creed which they were in the habit of regarding as a folly. ( Cheers , During his stay amongst us, you have all become acquainted with his ap" tirude to illustrate Faith by the mysteries of nature. But, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Oahill has established other claims on our admiration, which it is impossible not to advert on the present occasion. When on a recent occasion a tremendous deluge of woe swept over our country, prostrating the energies of a nation ; when our countrymen become the victims of famine, and pestilence, and law ; when men and women and children were sheltering in the damp ditches, and rotting off the earth one by one ; when the workhouse doors were crowded with gaunt, nak- ed, and hunger-stricken human beings ; old women with the bones protruding through their skin, and children with the hideous fur of fa- mine thick over their iieshless limbs; when the loud but unavailing wail- ing of famine rang from shore to shore, a surer index of a more indis- criminating slaughter than was ever effected by the hand of the desti-oy- ing Angel ; when desolation thus hung over tlie country, like a pesti- lential pall, eager to embmce within its deadly folds the wasted rem nants of a devoted nation — this was the time above all others selected by a British ministry to proclaim war against our church, and this was the time above all others, that the champions of a free constitution showed their zeal for civil toleration by branding bishops, insulting priests mobbing nuns, pulling down churches, and preaching up infidelity; then it was that Dr. Cahill, in those powerful letters with which you are all acquainted, published to the world his indignation of the criminals and the crime, and inspired an universal hatred ; or rather gave expres sion to an universal hatred, already inspired against enormities de- tested by God and execrated by man. At the conclusion of his brilliant speech, the Rev. Chairman read the following address from the Catho- lics of Glasgow to the Rev. Dr. Cahill. It was printed on white satin with golden letters. ADDKBSS TO REV. DR. CAHILL. Rev. Doctor. — The Catholic inhabitants of Glasgow, beg leave to offer you, on this festive evening their united expression of protound res pect and affectionate regard. They unanimously hailed your visit to this ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. 63 city with feeling^s of joy and exultation, and they now bid yon farewell with sendments of increased admiEation. We are proud of you as an Irishman —we value you as a patriot — and we venerate you as a priest. When a hostile government planned and abetted the overthrow of Catholic monarchy on the continent of Europe, the cause of truth and justice was indebted to you for tliose letters which have unmasked the hidden treachery of our deadly enemies — which, in their wide circula- tion throog^hout the nations of the earth, have awakened a universEil feeling^ of execration against this infidel conspiracy ; and which, have ultimately resulted in the final overthrow of this infamous scheme against civil and religious liberty. There is no Caliolic mind or Catholic heart in this empire, which does not feel an involuntary impulse of gratitude towards the name of Dr. Cahill, when we recollect the burning invectives which burst from your pen against England's ci-uelties during the famine and pesti- lence that aflBicted your country. These noble appeals in favor of your poor countrymen, are written in all hearts, and are pronounced by every Irish tongue. Whilst they consoled the poor victim in the wasting poor-house, and cheered the hi oken-hearted emigrant on his melancholy banishment from the home of his fathers, they will remain for ever in Ireland, an imperishable monument of the melting generosity of your heart, and the unquenchable love you bore your ill-fated country. We confess here, publicly, that we thank a kind Providence for hav- ing raised up such a man in Ireland to defend our name and our faith. We are proud to feel that the man who at this moment possesses the affections of the whole heart of Ireland, by his" patriotism — who takes his place next to the Liberator, in the public confidence, has wrung, at the same time, from our bitterest foes the expression of their admii'a. tion for the extent of those literary tind scientific attainments which the public voice now willingly concedes to you, almost witliout a riiral in this age of letters. At one time, the public listen with ecstacy to your lectures on Astro- nomy — at another, we hear of your brilliant dissertJitions on Chemistry; again, the Press refers to the crowded audiences of the learned who attend you on Geology, Mineralogy, and the whole round of the varied branches of Natural Philosophy, But the most astonishing fact yet re- 64 ADDRESS AT GLASGOW, mains to be told — that is, while you are thua lecturing on different bud jects, the churches are, immediately after, everywhere filled with thou- sands, hanging" on words of almost inspired eloquence, and the Press is filled with these splendid letters, w'bich start into existence almost in an hour. Any of your avocations would be more than sufficient work for the most learned amongst us, and hence the aggregate of these labors ca^ only be executed by the man, whose surprising attainments we are en- deavoring to describe. When we heard, through the public prints, that in Liverpool, Man- chester, London, and elsewhere, you attracted whole cities after you wherever you went, we could never understand the circumstance, till we have been honored by your present visit to Glasgow. We now un- derstand it, and we behold a tide of human beings — in fact, the whole Catholic population, following you wherever you go. The result is, that an amount of moral good has been effected in this city through your discourses, which cannot be sufficiently appreciated. Reformations and conversions have been made in several instances, and in the short space of five weeks, since you commenced your lectures in our churches, we have collected several thousands of pounds for the various charities of the town. We therefore beg leave to thank you — we are all desirous from our hearts to honor you — and with the united voice and prayer of the thou- sands who are assembled here this evening to bid you farewell. We join in a heartfelt, universal prayer, that God may long preserve you, the ornament of the priesthood, and the fearless, invincible champion of your creed and your country. The chairman was frequently cheered during the reading of the address, and on Dr. Cahill presenting himself was received with unbounded enthusiasm. The Glasgow Free Press in alluding to the effect of this powerful speech, says : " On bowing and taking his seat, an assembly of between two and three thousand ladies and gentlemen standing, the Rev. Gentleman was greeted with a demonstration of enthusiasm which was never,-^ which could not be surpassed — the gentlemen cheering and the ladies waving their pocket handkerchiefs. '* APURBSS AT GLASGOW. 65 R£7. DR. CAHILL'S ADDRESS. Mk. Chairman Ladies and Gentlemen : I am laboring on the present occasion under a deficiency, for which I am convinced you ■will pardon me, namely, T am afraid you will not understand me, in consequence of my Irish ac- cent. (The conclusion of the sentence, like the wand of a magician, set the whole house in a roar. ) I now beg to tell you with the deepest feelings of a lasting gratitude, that, although I have- received many marks of public favor heretofore in Ireland and in ^England, I have never found myself placed in a position of such exalted distinc- tion as on the present occasion. Surrounded as I am, not by hundreds but by thousands of gentlemen and ladies, by priests and people, I return my homage for your ad- vocacy on this evening, of a great principle in thus honor- ing the individual w^ho now addresses you. (Loud cheers.) Your eloquent and valued address written on satin in golden letters, shall be preserved by me as long as I live ; it is a model of exquisite taste, and conveys impres- sions of affection w^hich I shall carefiilly bind up with the most cherished feelings of my life; but there is an elo- quence of soul w^hich the golden ink could not express; and that silent thrilling language must be read in the mer- ry faces, the sparkling looks, and ardent bosoms which reveal to my inmost heart tBe sincerity and the intensity of your feeling towards me. (Enthusiastic cheers.) In associating me in the most remote connexion with the great O'Connell — ( at the name of O'Connell the whole assembly rose and cheered) — you do me an honor 66 ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. which would raise even a greatman toimperishable fame: as you illume mo with a ray from that immortal name which sheds unfading lustre on the records of Ireland's saddest and brightest history, and which will live in the burning afToctions of the. remotest posterity of a grateful country. (Loud and long cheering.) I am like a jolly- boat following a line of battle-ships, as I move in the foam- ing track of this leviathan guardship of Ireland. Large as I am, I am lost in the spray of the rudder ; and no one who has ever witnessed the discharge of his broad- side against the enemy, heard the thunder of his command, or saw the fatal precision of his aim, will ever think of comparing any living man to the great departed Irish champion. (Loud cheers.) And it was not the fault of our old commander if his invincible bark did not convey the liberties of his country to a successful issue — he sailed in shallow vi'ater, he was. stranded by necessity ; but no one has ever dared to say, that either he or his gallant crew^ ever quailed before danger, or struck their colors to the enemy. And when the returning tide rises and the breeze freshens, the old noble ship shall again set her sails beforethe wind; and, changing her name from Repeal to National Equality, her fearless crew shall again shout for freedom, and, with some future O'Connell at the helm, she will, and shall again face the storm, and ride the swol- len flood in pride and triumph. (Enthusiastic cheers, which continued for several minutes. ) Whenever I go to Dublin, I pay a sorrowing visit to the tomb of our old commander, w^here I shed a tear over his ashes, and plant a flower on his grave. (Here the ADDRESS AT OLASGO'W. G7 « «jie aMsomMy audibly vrept and sobbed.) I moam for thw lip ol fire which was wont to kindle into resistless ft^ine our -iniversal patriotism ; I grieve for the melting tongue that could dissolve the whole national will into a flood of resistless combination : and as I gaze on the dark vault that spans the horizon of Ireland, and see pretty stars shining in the Irish skies, I w^eep as I think on the brilliant sun that once careered in these skies in peerless splendor; the luminary which guided our destinies for upwards of half a century, but which now^, alas ! has set forever below the saddening west of time, leaving the crimsoned clouds, like funeral drapery, to shroud the fad- ing twilight that hangs over his departed memory. (A loud burst of the most enthusiastic emotion rose from every bosom at the conclusion of this sentence.) Oh, if he had lived to stand on the heights of Ireland, as the churchyards auring the last seven years, sent their united wail of woe across our stricken land : oh ! if he had lived to gaze on the red w^aves of the Atlantic, and heard the wild sinking shriek of Irish despair, wafted from the moaning abysses of the deep, as our kindred perished on their exiled voyage — ^he, and he alone, could raise a cry of horror, w^hich would be heard in the ends of the earth — could shake the foundation of the nations, and w^rench justice from even the iron bosoms of our cruel oppressors. None but he, could pronounce the fu- neral oration of the Irish, for he had a voice that could fill the world, and enchain the attention of mankind ; and he alone had a heart to express the greatness, the perfec- tion, the fidelity, the sufferings, and the death-struggles 68 ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. A Ills unfortunate country. He was Ireland's own son, the impersonatioii of Ker own heart — and he alone could sit at her bedside and speak woids of consolation for tho extermination and the massacre of her defenceless chil- dren. (No one can describe the rapturous cheers which greeted the orator at this part of his speech.) Your allusion to my public letters, makes me very happy. There can be no doubt that England has endea- vored, since the year 1815, to bring to a successful issue the largest conspiracy, ever perhaps, known in the whole world. When she placed Louis the Eighteenth on the throne of France, after the Battle of Waterloo, she found herself for the first time, for the last 700 years, virtually directing the politics, and practically planning the coun- sels of France. This was a bright opening to her in- trigues and ambition ; and from this period may be dated the commencement of a scheme, which for hypocrisy, anarchy, deceit, and infidelity, has no parallel in the liis- toi'y of the civilized world. Secure in organizing an English party in France, she next proceeded to enslave to her vievirs poor Spain, already demoralised, plundered, weakened, and exhausted by the presence of two contending armies. England, therefore, first planned the separation of her South American depen- dencies and allies, and hence she revolutionized all that territory into petty republics, and located a powerful, designing party in the Republics of Guatemala, Chili, Peru, Columbia, La Plata, and Monte Video. Spain her- self, thus become an easy prey to her perfidious diplo- macy ; and hence, in the year 1832, she changed the sue- ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. G9 cession to the throne, divided the nation into two hostile factions, and raised up at the Court an ^English party, which governs there at the present moment. She even made a bargain, w^hich I am able to prove from undisput- ed documents, to lend money to the Queen's party, on condition of guaranteeing to her the repayment of the funds so given from the confiscation of all the Church property of the nation. In the year 1833, she carried out the same design pre- cisely, in Portugal; placed the daughter of a rebel son on the throne, advanced money for the execution of this palpable rebellion, on the condition of being repaid in the same way — namely, the confiscation of all the Church property in Portugal. Here again she planted her En- glish party, w^ho rule to this day the kingdom of Portu- gal. And with such desperate fidelity did England carry out her plans, that, within tw^o years, she sold the churches in both countries, and converted them into theatres : she took possession of all the convents in Spain, both male and female ; she seized all the large convents in Portu- gal : she banished from their cloisters, one hundi"ed and fifteen thousand monks, friars, and nuns, who perished of hunger, affliction, and a broken heart. The debt due to England by Spain, has been already paid ; but I am in a position to prove that the w^retched Portuguese have not as yet, cleared ofi" their unholy national mortgage to the English bankers, Avho, twenty years ago, advanced the money on English Government security. (Enthusiastic cheering.) The Duke of Wellington has received many Protestant laurels from his campaign in Snain, and the partial histo- 70 ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. rian pronounces glowing panegyrics on his honor ancl character in the Peninsular War. True, he paid, in gold principally, for the food of the English army there ; but, he inflicted a thousand times more injury on that country than the plundering army of the French. Under pre- tence of depriving the French of any point of attack on the English, he threw down the Spanish factories, burn- ed their machinery, beggared their merchants, ruined their commerce from that day to this, and has thus been a greater enemy to Spain, than the most savage Hun that ever spread death and desolation over that fine country. 1 must tell you an anecdote of Wellington. About the year 1816, there was a tavern in old Barrack Street, hav- ing over the door ' the sign of the old goat.' The tavern keeper made a fortune by the call of the County Meath graziers, who frequented his house. He gave his daugh- ter in marriage to a young man on the opposite side of the street, who, seeing the good luck of his father-in-law, set up a public house in opposition to the old man, and he, too, placed 'the sign of the goat' over his door, to de- ceive the customers. The old man then, in retaliation wrote, in large printed letters, under his sign, ' the real old goat.' (Loud laughter.) But soon changing his mind, as the Battle of Waterloo had taken place the year before, he ordered a painter to draw out the Duke of Welling- ton in full military costume, in place of the old goat. The painter did execute the work, but he forgot to efface the words of the old sign; and there the Duke of "Wellington appeared with the General's truncheon in his hand, and having the words, ' the real old goat,' written under him. ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. 71 (Roars of laughter, which lasted several minutes.) I tell you, now, that the real old goat w^as the most persecuting foe, the most deadly enemy, that Spain ever saw. The English conspirators being now secure in the prin- cipal thrones of Europe, proceeded to Austria, where they encouraged the civil war w^hich has reddened the soil in human gore, and has eventuated in the most disas- trous results to that great Catholic country. Not a city, town, village, in Austria or Hungary, in which an En- glish agent was not found -working like the devil in his vocation of civil strife and national revolution : and it is an admitted fact, that the English party had become very powerful through every part of the empire. But Swit- zerland was the great focus, where the English party openly avowed their sentiments, and publicly threatened the Catholic powers of Europe w^ith immediate civil revo- lution. The w^orld w^ill be surprised to hear, that the English party and their confederates, amounted in that country alone to the astounding number of 73,000 sworn enemies of Catholic monarchy. I here pledge myself before this assembly, to prove the perfect accuracy of this statement. They next spread themselves into Naples, where the king, unaware of this English conspiracy, admitted them into his confidence, and .gave them official places in his public schools. They ultimately succeed in forming a perfect network over the whole surface of Europe ; and while they were laboring to lay the materials of auniver- eal explosion beneath all the Catholic thrones, they were confederating all the Protestant powers to act with one 72 ADDRESS AT GLacoOW. simultaneous effort when the day of their matured plans should have arrived. (The entire assembly, who, up to this moment, listened with the most breathless attention to this statement, now gave vent to their feelings in one universal burst of applause.) During all this time, England appeared kind to Ire- land : spoke largely of Catholic monarchy in the Queen's speeches, and talked of honor and international law^. But under this exterior of good feelings, she preserved feel- ings of the bitterest private rancor towards universal Ca- tholic policy. This conduct reminds me of an old Tory grand juror, from the hanging town of Trim, in Ireland, during the judicial reign of Lord Norbury. It was in the year 1818, when O'Connell was working for Emancipation. This old gentleman had dined with Norbury, heard him speak against Catholic Emancipation — took too much cham- paigne, and fell in a ditch on his way home — ^lie wore a fashionable red waistcoat, and a turkeycock seeing the red colour, flew to him in the ditch, and commenced blubbering over the head of the juror. (Loud laughter.) He fancied it was Lord Norbury who was still inveigh- ing against Emancipation; and whenever the turkeycock paused in his blubbering elocution, the old juror would exclaim " Quite true, my lord; these are noble sentiments, worthy of your lordship, and highly honorable to the Crown." (Roars of laughter.) Here the turkeycock would again resume, and cry out "blubber, blubber, blub- ber," to which the old Brunswicker would reply—" 1 agree with your lordship; your remarks proceed from ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. 73 true Protestant principles worthy of a bishop; and they eloquently defend our holy church; I always admired vour language as the ornament of the bench, and w^e both shall die sooner than retract one word of your brilliant speech, or emancipate these Catholic rebels." (Roars of laughter, which burst out again and again for several minutes.) Now^, here was an old fellow so drunk that he could not distinguish between Lord Norbury and a turkeycock, and yet the devilment of bigotry was so much in him that he would not agree to unchain the very men, who, perhaps, sat by his side on that day, and for whom he had pretended to entertain feelings of friendship and toleration. (Loud cheers.) Up to the year 1846, the office of a British Minister seemed to be revolutionizing the neighboring States, and making royal matches. They have attempted to place a Coburg in all the royal palaces of Europe, and to trans- fuse the influence of England into the blood of several royal houses. Not a revolutionist in Europe, who was not the intimate friend and correspondent of the English Foreign Secretary. The very men most abhorred in their own country, were received at all the English embassies ; and there could be no mistake that England advocated their cause, approved their schemes, and assisted their machinations. Every rebel foreigner appealed to Eng- land for advice, and in his difficulty flew^ to her for pro- tection. (Breathless emotion chained the entire audience.) Concomitantly with this political scheme, the English Bible Societies, under the protection of England, sent their emissaries into all these countries ; and by misrepre- 74 ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. ' sentation of the Catholic doctrine, hy lies of the grossest invention, and by bribery, they opened a campaign of proselytism in every Catholic city in Eurof o, and united their efforts against Catholicity with three resident con- spirators against monarchy. The lodging-houses, the hotels, and the watering places, were everywhere filled with a swarm of Soupers and Biblemen, Tourists, novel- ists, naval officers, military men, young lords, correspon- dents of the London press, were to be found at every town of the European continent, all pressing forward to carry one point — namely, the slander of the Catholic priesthood. Stories about convents, lies about priests, anecdotes of monks, filled thousands of nicely bound small volumes, and sold at all the railway stations in England; and "no less a sum than five millions pounds were annu- ally expended by these societies through Europe in this flagitious work of calumny, lies, profanation, and perjury. Not an ambassador, an attache, a charge d'affaires, a messenger was employed in our diplomatic circles who was not as unprincipled a writer as Sir Francis Head, as conceited a historical libeller as Macauley, as great a hypocrite as Sir Stratford Canning, as ridiculous a Soup- er as young Peel, and as mean a bigot as Sir Henry Bul- wer. Not a man would be accredited to any Court who had not the kidney of Shaftesbury, the rancor of Palmer- ston, and the intolerance of Russell. It was a strange sight, indeed, to behold other names, which I shall not mention, teaching sanctity by corruption, publishing faith by infidelity, propagating truth by lies, enforcing purity by profligacy, and really worshipping God by the devil. ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. 75 (The whole audience here again, after a long pause of si- lence, burst out into the loudest acclamation.) Fortunately for the cause of religion and of order, this doubly infamous conspiracy has been wholly detected and laid before the gaze of mankind : most propitiously, Louis Napoleon has succeeded in rescuing France from an abyss of national disaster, and most providentially every Catholic country has escaped an awful catastrophe; and they all now, by a united reaction, have detected England's perfidy; have banished her spies from their respective territories; have degraded her diplomatists ; insulted her name ; banished her from their international councils; and at this moment, she hangs her head like a convict, in the presence of foreign courts — the detected assassin, the perfidious enemy of the religion and the li- berties of Catholic Europe. (Loud and- enthusiastic cheering.) All these men are now defeated and^ degraded : Rus- sell is a discarded hanger-on, vsraiting at St. Stephen's be- hind the chair of a successful rival : Palmerston, like an ill-conducted servant, has been reduced from Foreign Secretary, to a detective superintendent of police; and like an old j aded actor, who once took a first part in the performance, but being ultimately unable to act, still clings to the stage, and earns his bread in a minor office ; we behold in pity the Foreign Minister, once the terror of Louis Philippe — once sweeping the Mediterranean with an invincible fleet, now reduced to be a Crown pro- secutor against his former companions at Old Bailey by day, while at night he receives a precarious employment. 76 ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. snuffing tlie candles behind the scenes at Lord Aberdeen's benefit. (Vociferous and wild cheers.) Lord Palmerston's fate reminds me of a man in the County Leitrim — a terrible bigot — who, during one of the paroxysms of a brain fever, fancied that one of his legs turned Catholic. (Loud roars of laughter.) In his indignation at seeing Popery contaminating his Protestant, person, he jumped out of a window to kill the Catholic leg, but he unfortunately fell on the Protestant leg, and he limped on the Protestant leg all the days of his life after. (Continued roars of laughter.) Poor Palmerston, I think, will have an unbecoming halt during his life on his Protestant leg. (Immense cheering.) In what a proud contrast does not Lprd Aberdeen ap- pear in reference to his "Whig predecessors. The friend of the Catholics, the advocate of justice, the enlightened and consistent supporter of toleration, he has won our willing veneration, and has earned the respect of Chris- tian Europe. No bigot, no hypocrite, no persecutor, he has already gone far to heal the wounds of former admi- nistrations; and by perseverance in his honorable career, he will succeed in due time, in removing the contempt, and suspicion, and the hatred in which the British Go- vernment and the Protestant creed have been held during the last few years, by the Catholic Sovereigns and peo- ple of Europe. Many a million of money this British fanaticism will yet cost England in the maintenance of an army to defend her shores against the numerous enemies she has made : and the Protestant church will soon learn to her cost, that her lies and infidelities will yet concen ADDRESS AT GLASGOW 77 trate upon her the just indignation of mankind, and, at no distant period, will sweep her tenets and her name from the map of Christian Europe. (Cheers.) When I use the word "England," I do not mean the noble, generous people of England; no, I mean the mean, the perfidious, the persecuting Government of England. And all Europe now understands this distinction as well as w^e do ; we thank God, that England is at length de- tected, convicted, and degraded all over the world. At this moment, whenever she speaks of civil liberty, all the world call her liar, tyrant, assassin ; whenever she talks of liberty of conscience, all Europe scouts her as a perse- cutor, a hypocrite, an unblushing slanderer; whenever she attempts to introduce the name of God, and to talk of sanctity, and of English Christianity, all Europe bursts out into an immoderate fit of laughter, and cries shame at her, and points to her treachery, her scandals, her mur- ders, her suicides, her blasphemies, her infidelities, her crimes, her enormities ; and mankind considers Sodom and Gomorrah, and Babylon, as so many earthly paradises in comparison of the multitudinous sinfulness of England. She is met in every market place in Europe at this moment, and called liar, and demon ; her ambassadors are iibed at this moment at every Court in Europe, and call- ed hypocrites, Soupers, infidels ; and her travellers, tour- ists, correspondents, are watched in every corner of Eu- rope, as so many burglars, assassins, and demons of naked infidelity. The Lord be praised, she is caught at last, and poor Ireland shall soon be free. (Loud cheers.) Yes, Ireland shall soon be free from English persecution, and from the oppression of the Protestant establishment. 78 ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. Two curses have been inflicted on Ireland — namely, the rackrenting landlords, and the accursed tithes. These two embodiments of malediction, have bent Ireland to the earth, and have crushed her body and soul ; and, like a Bwarm of locusts, they eat up' every green and living thing, and left nothing behind but the flint of the land. — After centuries of this oppression, it suddenly pleases our rulers to make a law of Free Trade. No one, more than I do, advocates the principle of cheap bread for the work- ing man, and of employment for his children in the mecha nical arts of commerce. But the principle has introduc • ed a scene of woe, which no pencil can paint. The poor are exterminated, the ditches are crowded with the weak and aged; the poor-houses are charnel places of pesti- lence and death ; and the emigrant ship, like an ocean hearse, is sailing with her flag of distress hoisted, moving slowly through the waves, as she throws out her putrid dead ; and, like the Telegraph Company laying down their submarine wires, the crews of the emigrant ships have learned, by long practice, to tell off a line of the Irish dead along the bottom of the deep, and, at the same time to sail six or seven knots an hour. (The deepest sensa- tion.) England has practised them in this ocean sepul- ture, so that, before the end of the year 1849, they could smoke, tell off the winding sheets, and sail, all at the same time, from this dexterous, nautical, cholera practice. — (Death-like silence pervaded the entire assembly.) Men there are, who assert that the Government could not avoid this catastrophe. I answer, it is a cruel lie. If there must be a change in the laws of trade, well, then ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. 79 et it be made; but let the law-makers bear tie respon- ability. (Loud cbeers.) If tiey must have a new law, Weil, then, let them pay for their whims; let them make compensation for the damaging results of their own free, deliberate acts. They say the law^ is good in principle ; I answer, but bad in detail. They say it has healthy pre- mises; I reply yes, and a deadly conclusion. They say, it is perfect in argument; but I assert, it is murder in practice. They assert, it is tie law ; but I resume, and say, so much the worse — ^it legalises and authorises the public massacre of the people. This is a legal mockery, to hear the legislators tell the dying, starving, rotting pea- sant, that he ought to be quite content with his lot, since he dies a constitutional death, he will be buried accord- ing to law, in a Parliamentary churchyard, and will sleep till the day of judgment in a logical grave. (Here the whole assembly cheered.) I am no politician ; all I know^ is, that the English laws have killed the people ; and what care I for the principle of Protection, or the logic of Free Trade, if the triumph of either party murder the poor. And I reply to the Freetrader, and to the merchant, and to the Cobden's school, by saying, if you -wiW and must have your way, then be prepared for the consequences, meet the conse- quences, pay for the consequences — if there is to be suf- fering, then let the guilty suffer — ^punish the landlords — afflict the money lenders — exterminate the House of Com- mons — ^murder the English Cabinets — extirpate the Pro- testant church — ^yes, punish the guilty who produced the catastrophe : if there will be a famine, then buy bread 80 ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. for the dying, give them the twenty millions of gold yon have in the Treasury ; add twenty millions more to the National Debt if necessary — treat the Irish with the same justice as you have treated the slaves of Jamaica — do pay for your own acts — do punish the guilty — ^but in the name of honor, truth, justice, humanity ; and in the sacred name of oaths pledged and ratified at the foot of the throne, do not punish the innocent poor — spare the unoffending pea- santry — shield the defenceless tenantry wrho trusted you ; do not massacre the millions who confided in your former laws — (here the gifted orator lifted high both his arms, with clenched hands,) and as you have done it — and mas- sacred all, Ireland trusting in you, I swear, before high Heaven, that you have mixed up a curse with your bread, which will eat into the marrow of your bones ; and you have awakened in the swelling bosom of Irishmen, a flame of legitimate anger which will never be quenched, till you shall have made satisfaction for the sufferings, the extermination, the expatriation, the death ; and, I shall add, the massacre of the unoffending children of Ireland. (Any attempt to describe the wild enthusiasm that follov?^- ed this sentence, is totally vain.) Ladies and Gentlemen, after a very happy sojourn of nearly two months amongst you, I must say the sad word farewell. I am impressed with many struggling feelings at this moment : sorrow, pleasure, gratitude, enthusiasm, pride, are strangely mixed up in my bosom ; they are all your work ; you have remoulded me. I came from Lon- don to G-lasgow^, and in parting from you, I proceed to Derry in Ireland. You gave me a warm welcome on ADDRESS AT GLASGOW. 81 my arrival, and 1 must bid you a sorrowing farewell till our next meeting. I can well understand now the wiirds of the ballad familiar to you in Glasgow : — •* If England were my place of buxh, I'd love her tranquil shore ; If bonnie Scotland were my home. Her mountains Vd adore ; Though pleasant days in each I've passed, StiU I dream of hours to come. Then steer my bark to Erin's Isle, For Erin is my home : Oh, steer my bark to Erin's Isle, Old Erin is mvhome.'' LETER OF REV. DR. CAHILL TO THE REV. J. BURNS OF WHITEHAVEN. Ret. Sir — ^Your letter published yesterday evening in the Ou/mberland, Packet reached me last night. Many thanks for the kind expression of your good wishes for my salvation, and for desiringthe eternal welfare of all Catholic souls. I hope the public voice of this town will learn fully to appreciate the sincerity of those feelings, and to make you a suitable acknowledgment. I beg to tell you, with great respect, that you are jrro- hably unacquainted with our doctrine of the Eucharist ! we do not "create our Creator." If this language were uttered by any other person but by one of your known liberality and acknowledged education, I should desig- nate it as the lowest form of vulgar bigotry Such words. 82 ON THE EUCHARIST. coming from you, are simply a mistake ; and your only fault in tlie present case is, your writing on a subject which avowedly you have not studied. The editor of the Whitehaven Herald, will not keep his columns open for my reply to you longer than twelve o'clock on Friday ; and hence I shall conclude this short note, and reserve any further observations on the subject for my public answer. — I have the honor to be, Rev. Sir, your obedient servant, U. W. CAHILL. " Feelings of unmingled love and compassion for your soul, and the Bouls of those who are misled by the Romish priests, constrain me to use every effort in my power to awaken in you and in them the dor- mant feelings of common sense, and to arouse you and them to attend to the voice of reason and the voice of God. I believe your religion to be false, and truth and justice compel me to publish my conviction, I seek to gain your soul and, therefore, I write plainly, and let none of my fellow-men judge me an enemy because I tell the truth. * * " Every hour you consecrate a bit of bread you create your Creator* " Grant me, sir, as a common ground of argument, that God Almighty made you, and gave you the faculties you possess, and I will undertake to show, by self-evident truths that the doctnne of transubstantiation is subversive of the foundation of human belief, and therefore incapable of being proved by any evidence, or being believed by any man under the influence of common sense. If God made man, then the testimony of the sence, is the testimony of God. To seek to support this testimony is absurd, and, to doubt it, is to be mad. # « # " Now, Sir in all controversy, the proof rests on him who takes the aifirmative side of the question. If you wish me to receive your doctrine you must furnish me with the grounds on which to rest my faith. To justisfy me in rejecting your dogma, I am not even obliged to produce direct proof of its falsehood. It is enough if I can show that the proof you allege is not sufficient. — The doctrine is overturned if it be notproT* ON THE EUCHARIST. 83 ed If I can show that every passage you bring forward is according to the usual laws of language, fairly capable of another sense, I have cvertumed your doctrine ; and if this principle be just, then the battle is won without firing a single shot of direct disproof at all. * * • I think the soul can no more feed on flesh and blood than on bread. If, then, the body of .lesus be food to the soul, it must be so, not lite- rally, but figuratively. The soul cannot eat His flesh in any other way than by believing in H)bi. It eats by faith, and not by teeth. See how hard it is to force Scripture to sanction what is false and absurd « #'» # * # » n " I beseech you, Sii-, to put all your trust in the blood of Christ which cleanseth from all sin, and renounce the vain effort of adding to its perfection. Cease that blasphemy that represents the work of Christ even yet imfinished, and keeps Him continually a sacrifice on the altar. Come to Him and He will give you salvation without mo- ney and without price. " — Vide Letter of Rev. J. Sums, "Whitehaven Wednesday Dec. lih. Rev Sir :^-I have selected a few passages of your courteous letter to me, to which 1 shall more particularly direct my reply ; and if I were not made acquainted wth the profession of the writer, I should have never suppos- ed that the author of these extracts could have read even the elements of theology or moral philosophy ; but above all, I could not have believed that a clergyman of high character and station, could make a statement exhibiting Buch a deplorable ignorance of the fundamental principles of our common Christianity. Firstly, then, since you set up in spiritual things the the evidence of the senses (as you call it) as the infalli- ble standard of your faith, you will tell the world how can you believe in God, wlio is a pure spirit, and there- fore cannot Dossibly fall directly within the domain of the 84 ON THE EUCHARIST. senses ? Secondly, will you say by what evidence of the senses you discover three distinct persons in one God? Do, Rev. Sir, say how you arrive at the conclusion by the senses, that ti-inity is unity, in essence, and unity essen- tially trinity? Thirdly, will you kindly inform poor for- lorn Catholic souls, how you detect the presence of divine grace by the senses; that is, how^ can you see, feel, taste, smell, and hear divine grace, which St. Paul describes as " the emanation of God, " and " the charity of God poured abroad?" Fourthly, will you say. Sir, how you can even know you have a " soul, " by the evi- dence of the senses ? Fifthly, w^ill you tell the Romish priests, w^here did you learn the existence of eternity, of heaven, or of hell, from the evidence of the senses ? St. Paul tells us, that "neither the eye hath seen, nor ear heard, or the heart of man conceived, this place," and therefore, will you be pleased to tell us, how it has happened that the air of Whitehaven has so elevated the action of your senses, that you and your congregation can behold, with an unclouded vision, what the tongue of St. Paul could not utter, or the heart of St. Paul could not conceive ? We poor Romish priests educated at Maynooth, always fancied these things were known by " faith, " and not by the senses; and we have foolishly believed faith to be "the gratuitous gift of God," and not at all the philoso- phical result of the most perfect examination of the senses. Sixthly, will you be pleased to inform the senseless Catho- lics how you discover the original sin, in a newborn baby, by the aid of the senses ? I venture to say, that even a Whitehaven baby appears to the senses the very same. ON THE EUCHARIST. 85 selfsame child before and after tLe sacrament of baptism? If therefore. Rev. Sir, you will believe nothing but what can be proved by the senses, your act of faith must, be- yond all dispute, deny every single word of the creed ■which you publish on every Sunday from your pulpit to your unfortunate congregation. You seem very fond of employing the w^ords "common sense " while speaking of faith. They are not accidental terms in your mouth ; they are scientific, o£Scial, profes- sional phrases ; and you so jumble together logical, theo- logical, and elocutionary language, that, in almost every sentence you have written, there is a scientific mistake, a mistake of words, and a clear incongruity in theological terms. You reject everything which you cannot conceive is your common sense. This is certainly your state- ment. Firstly, then, will you therefore prove to us Romish scholars, how does your common sense understand and explain that God has no beginning ? Our Popish common sense cannot conceive any existing thing w^ithout a cause. Now, as you admit nothing w^hich you cannot understand, pray tell us on w^hat principle you understand an effect, which is not an effect, a generation without being gene- rated ; motion, life, and power without a beginning. Secondly, the earth cannot be as old as God, as it would then be God ; nor can it be made out of the sub- stance of God, as matter would then be composed of spirit, and inanimate clay formed of the essentially living God. Hence the earth must come from nothing, and called from tliia nnthinp- bv a mere act of God's will. Will you say, 86 ON THE EUCHARIST. in your scier.ce of your common sense, if you understand the natural mystery? If you do not understand it, of course, as you have said, you cannot believe it ; and there- fore you are hound, in vindication of your system, to state publicly, for the salvation of the Romish priests, and of all the Papists, whose interests are so near your heart, that, as you cannot conceive by common sense how mat- ter was created, or how man was formed, that therefore there is no such thing as Protestant tithes ; that the Scot- tish kirk is a public delusion ; that the sermons in your church are baseless visions; and that the public letter late- ly addressed in this town to Dr. Cahill is a dreamy image and a fantastic, ideal, deceptive sound. Thirdly, will you again explain the incarnation by your system 1 I have learned in the schools, that divine faith cannot be tested by the rules of logic, much less by the common sense of the world. I. have been taught, that although there are three persons in the Trinity, each dis- tinct, and each God; still, it does not follow from these de fined premises, that there are three distinct Gods. Fourthly, will you be pleased. Sir, to explain to me, by common sense, how^ the two distinct natures of God and man, have only one person in Christ 1 how can there be nature without a person ? how can a finite human nature fill an infinite divine person? or how can an infinite divine nature be confined within the figure of a finite humar person ? Will you kindly say whether the spirit was hu- man or divine, or a mixture of both, half finite, and half infinite 1 Fi."thly, pray explain again, how God could become ON THE EUCHARIST. 87 man, the incarnate unembodied Word could become flesh; how the eternal person could be torn; how immortality could die; how an immaculate God could assume human guilt; how the mockery, the agony, the cries of the belov- ed Son of God could please the Father i Sixthly, wiU you say how it is, that, although God is w^hole and entire, in the million and tens of million of places in space, there is but one God ? Ah ! Reverend Mr. Bums, your loose assertions and unscientific statements, convince me of the truth of Lord Shaftesbury's report on die lamentable deficiency of Protestant clerical education; demonstrate that you can malign a creed without having studied its tenets, and cir- culate wounding mis-statement under the cover and the imposition of religious zeal. Finally, will you explain the justice of God, inchai"ging on a child born 1853 the crime of Adam's desobedicnce committed nearly six thou- sand years ago ? — It w^as metaphysically impossible that the free will of this child could enter into this act of Adam as an accomplice, the sotil of the child being not created at the time ; and it was equally impossible for the same will to prevent or avoid this fault of Adam — Now the common sense and the common laws of English- men, to which you appeal in matters of faith, will not charge one man with the guilt of a third party, who was not, or could not possibly be an accomplice. You have. Sir, to account for this fact by your system of common sense, and thus settle this most vital question. The plain palpable result of this absurd and fatal misapplication of reason to faith is, that you have made 88 ON THE EUCARIST. your creed a mere worldly system ; and you have forced even your friends to regard your religion as a huraait constitution, sustained by the same kind of principles as you smelt iron, spin cotton, form railroads, and conduct commerce. Your public, perfectly understand this sys- tem, and hence they have lost confidence in all your spi- ritual ministrations, and all respect for your profession. The laboring classes seldom enter the Protestant church- es. Their common sense, they think, is as good as yours ; and as they can read the Bible, and " eat faith " at home, they generally sleep till two o'clock on Sun- days, and never listen to the parson until he has invented a story about a priest, a monk, or a convent, or the bones of a child being dug up, some time ago, somewhere, by somebody, in some nunnery. The total absence of all religious instruction in these churches, added to the con- stant teaching of doubting the entire evidence of antiquity, has converted the finest nation and the most generous peo- ple into a ferocious multitude of bigoted infidels. Lord Ashley's Report (which I have not read, but of which I have heard,) reveals a state of religious ignorance in this country beyond the most exaggerated powers of credibility. His description of the factories and collieries, awakens thrilling feelings of pain and shame in the bo- som of every honest religious Englishman. Think of hundreds of grown girls, who could not tell "who was God, or Christ, or the Holy Ghost," and who were sunk at the same time, in the lowest state of immorality, too extended and too gross to be named in this letter. Hun- dreds of colliers were never even once in a church — had ON THE EUCHARIST. 80 never learned one word of their catechism, and perfectly ignorant of the cross. One man being asked who made him, answered, " My mother :" a second being questioned as to the number of Gods, replied, " That there w^ere seven, and that he was able to fight any one of them :" a third, being pressed to tell who was Christ, said, " He did not know him, as he had never worked in his pit : a fourth being asked if he was afraid of God, replied, " Na, na, but that it was the other i he dreaded," (meaning the devil) : a fifth, being interrogated if he was afraid ol the punishment of the next world, appeared quite surprised at hearing of fiiture punishments, and replied that, "If his friends would bury his pickaxe with him, there was no place made, even of the hardest rock, could keep him confined." Why, Sir, the history of the Snake Indians, or of the Bosjesmen, does not reveal such hyper-barbarian igno- rance as can be met w^ith in some districts, callings, and trades in England. How can the Protestant clergy, who receive annually eight millions sterling, look men in the face, w^ith the crimes of this barbarity on them? And how can the acute English nation continue to be gulled by the notorious lies of Irish conversions, invented by hired calumniators, in order to divert the public mind from beholding the annual millions of this overgrown rob- bery, or canvassing the flagrant hypocrisy, and the anti- christian slander of this infidel conspiracy ? The brutal murders, the wife-killing, the infanticides, and the avo\y- ed spreading of infidelity, and the thousands of children whose deaths are daily concealed, are the frightful fruits 90 ON THE EUCHARIST. of your system of the doctrine of the senses, and your hn man faith. Was there ever heard such insane audacity as to assert that God could reveal nothing which the Pro- testant conventicle, or the Scotch kirk could not under- stand ? It is the same kind of rampant and ridiculous sil- liness, as if a congregation of oysters or frogs denied that there existed such things as the truths of algebra, music, or photography, merely because some few elders of these tribes could neither see, hear, feel, nor understand the subject. This system will soon make all England infidel. Hired lecturers, are now publicly delivering lectures on the opposition between what they call " the secular creation and the gospel creation,"^-that is, on palpable open fidelity. Depend on it, that your teaching will, at no distant day, sap the very foundations of social order in this country; that you will call into existence a genera- tion of men, who, if not checked, will threaten the very existence of English monarchy ; and the throne of Great Britain will yet have to rely on Catholic allegiance and Catholic fidelity for its preservation and security. You seem much captivated with the reasonableness (as you call it) of the figurative sense being applied to the words used by our Lord at the Last Supper. Now, Sir, I look on the Protestant doctrine of the Last Supper, to be such an aggregate of incongruity, that, if one were not certain of its being believed by a large section of persons in this country, it could never be supposed that such an opinion could be seriously held by men who believed Christ to be God, and to have uttered intelligible lan- guage. ON THE EUCHARIST. 91 That doctrine states, that " the Last Supper is a memo- rial of Christ's sufferings and passion : where bread and wine being taken in faith, Christ is spiritually received." The four terms, therefore, within which this doctrine is included, are the words " memorial, faith, (bread and vrine,) and the spirit of Christ." As you, therefore, appeal to the standard of the Scrip- tures, and the standard of language on this point, I shall, for a inomemi, meet that appeal, by quoting some texts from the Gospel of St. John, chapter the sixth : — ** V. 52. — If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world. "v. 53. — The Jews, therefore, debated, among themselves, saying, how can the man give us his flesh to eat ? " V. 54. — ^Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. ** ▼. 55. — He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath ever- lasting life, and 1 will raise him up in llie last day. • T. 56. — For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed, " V. 5? . — He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, abideth in me and I in him. " T. 58. — ^As the living Father hath sent me, and as I live by the Fa- ther, so he that eateth me, the same shall live by me." In the foregoing texts our Lord uses the words "eat my flesh" five times; and it must be well remembered, that these words were employed four times after the Jews debated among themselves "how can this man give us Jiis flesh to eat." He heard their objection (" how can he;") and, of course, according to all the rules of a pub- lic speaker to his audience, he replies to the difficulty which they proposed ; and in place of retracting his 92 ON THE EUCHARIST. words, or altering them into other clearer words, or mak- ing any change or explanation in his expression, htf, on the contrary, becomes more emphatic in his manner, and repeats four times, with evident increased energy, the self same words. And it must not be forgotten, that, in thus re-asserting these words four times, in the teeth of their contradiction, he also adds some new circumstances of vital interest to the question under debate ; namely, in v. 53, he threatens damnation to the man w^ho merely omits vfhax he orders ; in V. 55, he oSers justification to the man who fulfils his statements ; in v. 56, he asserts twice, that what he has said is a literal statement {aZethos;) in v. 57, he again de- clares, that the man who corresponds with the conditions named, is intimately identified with him ; and lastly, in V. 58, he utters Two oaths — namely, "by his mission and by his life," that what he stated would give eternal life ; and finally, in all these assertions, threats, promises, and rewards, he uses the word " eat his flesh" w^ith an unva- rying consistency in reply to their objection. Now as the w^hole Jewish religion was made up of types and fi- gures; and as a matter of course, the Capharnites were perfectly acquainted with this fact, can any man believe, that Christ w^ould hold out threats of perdition, and would swear twice, in order to make them believe the most known fact of their country] Now, Sir, by what authority do you, w^ho seem so much attached to the word of God, take it on yourself to change the clear, expressed words into a meaning certainly not asserted, or affirmed in the toritten or spoken language? ON THE EUCHARIST. 93 You reply that it must be received in a spiritual orjigu- rative sense, from the impossibility, as your common sense asserts, of understanding these written words in their lite- ral sense. You, therefore, assert that flesh means "faith," means "figure of flesh," means "spirit," means "meta- phor," means "image or memorial." In the first place, this is, on your part, a most unwarrantable assumption, it not being affirmed in the w^ords : and secondly, it may tarn out, as I hope presently to show^, that your meaning must end in an absurdity of idea, and in an incongruity of language, such as would deprive Christ of all fiiture confidence in the expression of his thoughts; and convert the language of the Testament into an unmeaning or in- congruous symbol. If, then, your meaning be correct, it foUow^s, of course that, that mode of expression must be just, w^hich describes a man, as " eating a spirit, eating an image, drinking a metaphor, eating an allegory, and drinking a shadow." Now, Sir, if all this language be perfectly just, and the ideas congruously expressed, it follows, of course, all the other cognate words of" the verb to eat," can be similarly used, with equal justice and equal correctitude : hence. Sir, we can employ with equal truth the words " to wash a spirit, to w^eigh a spirit, to bleed a spirit, to boil a spi- rit, to roast a spirit, to salt a spirit," as well as we can say " to eat a spirit." The w^ords are decidedly of the same cognate character, and if one of them can be used with precision, so can all the others. Then, it is perfect- ly correct to say, " to wash an image, to bake a meta- phor, to boil an allegory, to salt a trope, to eat a shadow, 94 ON THE EUCHARIST. to wash a shadow, to bake a shadow." And then, again. Sir, It will follow, that the image of a thing can justify the soul, and the metaphor of a thing can feed the soul. And again, Sir, you represent Christ as swearing by tioo oaths that these are his words, and that this is his meaning ! ! ! You have, therefore, adopted the most incongruous and ridiculous form of words, such as no rational human be- ing has been ever known to use ; you have, in the face ot heaven and earth, translated the word " flesh" into " spi- rit, image, shadow, metaphor;" and you have done all this, forsooth, because you could not understand how " He could give us his flesh to eat." But if you will re^ fleet on the crib, on next Christmas night, and ask how can a trembling, poor, naked, abandoned child, be the eternal, consubstantial Word, the King of Kings ; your common sense will be shocked, till you see the heavens opened, and hear the angelic choirs rend the blue vault of His Fathers skies, saying, " It is he." How can you understand a ■word to be flesh, a Grod to be a man, infinite dominion to be weakness, infinite power to be destitution, infinite riches to be poverty, infinite majesty to be sla- very, immortality to be death, and infinite sanctity to stand charged with human guilt. Now, all these mysteries are placed in the very alphabet of Christianity, in order to level all human reason on the very threshold of the New Law. Our doctrine is just the same kind of mystery; and while we are astounded at the statement contained in tho words, we at the same time hear him re-assert it over and over again, and we bow and believe. And I could ON THE EUCHARIST. 9§ no more consent to believe the absurd, ridiculous, the in- congruous, the newly invented meaning of your altered, text, than I could consent to believe our blessed Lord to be an idiot or a maniac. You, therefore, perceive Sir, how absurd is the novelty, how ridiculous is heresy. In order to see more fully the consistent language of our Lord, I shall again quote some texts froni St. Ma- thew, chap. 26 " V. 26. — And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread and blessed and broke, and gave to his disciples, and said, take ye and eat, this is my body. " V. 27. — ^And taking the chalice, he gave to them, saying, drink ye all of this. " V. 28. — For this is my blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many, for the remission of sins." No'W, Sir, according to your assumed meaning, Christ Baid " this is ray body," meaning that this is my spirit. Now, Sir, since the invention, improvement and perfec- tion of human language, have you ever seen, read, or heard of any human being, in any age, or any country, use the word "body" to mean "spiritl" It is precisely the very opposite, and cannot by the rules of language, be employed even as a metaphor, as there cannot be any resemblance between two things which are metaphysi- cally opposite. And -when we come to apply your mean- ing to v. 28, it is hard to say whether one feels a greater amount of ridicule, or pity, or contempt, for the teachera of a doctrine which would go to say " that the blood of the spirit was shed, the blood of a metaphor shed, the blood of a shadow shed, the blood of ar image shed, th« 96 ON THE EUCHARIST. blood of faith shed, the' blood of a memorial shed! !" — Now, Sir, in your own language, do you see how ridicu- lous IS error, how absurd is human novelty in Revelation? I shall, in conclusion, quote by your standard of the Bible, and the criticism of language, some texts on the subject from St. Paul to the Corinthians, chapter the ele- venth of the first epistle, v. 23 : " V. 23. — For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus the night in which he was betrayed took bread, " V. 24. — ^And giving thanks, broke and said, * take ye and eat, this is my body, which shall be delivered for you ; DO this in commemo- ration of me.' ** V. 25. — In like manner, also, the chalice, after he had supped, say ing this chalice is the New Testament in my blood ; this bo ye as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of me. " V. 27. — Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink tne chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. " v. 28. — But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. " V. 29, — For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself; not discerning the body of the Lora.* You see. Sir, in these texts, that St. Paul keeps up the same consistency of word and idea as our Lord; and that he asserts his having received the above communication, not from the Apostles, but from tAe lips of Christ himself, after his resurrection, in order to stamp that communica- tion with an importance beyond anything he had to tell them. Here St. Paul clearly speaks of the guilt of the body and blood of Christ. Now, Sir, be candid with me : has any man, in any age or any country, ever heard of ON THE EUCHARIST. 97 " spilling the blood of a spirit, murdering bread and wine, killing a metaphor, sheding the blood of bread g.nd wine, killing a shado\ir, bleeding an allegory, taking the life of a trope, and murdering a shadow ?" But, above all, can you have the cool hardihood to preach before any assembly of rational beings, that Christ ■would pronounce a double dam/nation against a man for not " discerning a body in a spirit, a body in a metaphor, a body in faith, a body in a shadow, a body in bread and ■wine ?" — that is, he has pronounced double damnation on a man for not discerning what cannot be discerned, for not discermng an absurdity, an incongruity, an impossi- bility : — that is, he damns a man in double torments for not seeing a part greater than the whole; for not seeing a square as a circle ; for not seeing the colour of white as black. What Christian acquainted with the life of Christ, could seriously believe that his last will, (which David foretold in reference to Melchisedeck, and ■which he him- self foretold in his disputation ■with the Capharnites,) con- tained the bequest of metaphors, figures, and shadows, to Jeed and nourish, and strengthen the life of the soul ! !— This is theology ■with a vengeance ! ! May God, Almighty God, forgive you, Sir, for teaching such insanity to your poor dupes; and may HE in his grace open your eyes, and the eyes of the poor creatures who are doomed to listen to such absurd, and ridiculous, and degrading doc- trines as England and Scotland have adopted since the days of Luther and Knox. Your church has never ceased to publish through the world her great respect for the Scriptures, and to expreu 4 98 ON THE EUCHARIST. her horror at any robbery, as she calls it of the Word if God. Will you, then, tell me why you have, with such palpable shamelessness, mistranslated, subtracted, and added to the most important passages of both the Old and New Testament? I shall', therefore, select one text in reference to the present subject — namely, the 26th verse of the 26th chapter of St. Mathew. As it happens that I have not a Greek Testament with me, I must quote from memory; and as your journals here have no Greek type, I must write in the English character. You will, of course supply the long vowels where they occur. Your Greek original of the text alluded to, is : — Esthionton de auton, labon o lesous ton arton, Ttai eulo- gesas, eMase, kai edidou tois maihetais, kai evpe : Ldbete, phagete, touto esti to soma mou. Your translation of this text, taken from an edition in 1846, printed by Mr. Spottiswoode, Fleet-street, London, is: "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to his disciples," &c. Here you introduce the pronoun "it" three times, in order lo carry the antecedent " bread," as it were, through the whole text, and therefore show that it was this said bread the Apostles eat. Now, the pronoun " it," is not found in the original; and thus the Protestant church with a pal- pable and a shameful interpolation, corrupted the Greek text, in order to make out a lie to meet their absurd doc- trine on this vital point. I have taken the trouble of com- paring with the original text the gospel of Saint John, the epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians and to the Hebrews; ON THE EUCHARIST. 91> and I have found one hundred and eighty four texts mis- translated, being either interpolations, or new meanings, opposed to the philology, the genius, and the received construction of the Greek language. There are upwards of sixteen hundred errors in trans- lations and additions or subtractions, or interpolations in your Bible. The Protestant church can lie in print as well as in speech : the pen can lie as w^ell as the tongue, I freely admit the honor and truth of their clergy in so- cial intercourse : there is, however, no lie however dis- honorable ; no misstatement, however discreditable, to which they will not stoop in matters of Catholicity. I should be sorry to say one word hurtful to you personal- ly, as I can have no cause to do so, and as I can have no feelings towards you but those of respect ; yet, consider- ing the shamefiil forgery of the Protestant Bible, I w^ould prefer that a Catholic should read the worst books of im- morality, than this forgery in God's Word — ^this slander of Christ. Old age can check immorality, but the forge- ries of God's book, the lies told of Christ, the w^icked per- version of the inspired volume, the base substitution ot words, the flagrant robbery of the text of life, are so many hideous crimes of Protestantism, that, in vengeance for such blasphemous interpolation, the curse of all crimes, and of all errors, and of naked infidelity, seems to be in- flicted on your entire nation. And this is the Bible, this public forgery on the name of the Holy Ghost, this libel of God the Father, this slander on Christ, which you w^ish to give to the poor children of the Irish. You seem to smile, in w^hat you are pleased to call 100 ON THE EUCHARIST. "indignant sarcasm," against the follies, "the nonsense", of transubstantiation. If, Sir, you have any sympathy to spare, may I beg you will reserve it all for yourself, in order to console yourself in the midst of the indignant sarcasm to which your clear unacquaintance with this question, will expose you even before your friends. — Transubstantiation, though a stupendous, mysterious fact, and beyond the power of men, is yet. Sir, a very common occurrence with God, and, indeed, may be called one of the most general laws of nature, and may be seen among the very first evidences of His omnipotent wll towards the race of men on earth. First, then, he created man by changing " the slime of the earth" into the flesh and bones of Adam, in his first official act of transubstantiation — that is, by the word of Grod on matter. His second official act, of changing the bony rib of Adam into the flesh and blood of Eve, was also transubstantiation, by the Word of God the Father on bone. The first official act of Christ on entering on the three years of his mission, was performed when he changed the water into wine at the wedding of Cana, by the word of Christ on water. The food. Sir — that is, the bread and wine, which you, and all men may have eaten on this day, has been changed into flesh and blood on your own person, and on the persons of all men, by the word of God on the vital action of the stomach. The univer- sal crop of wood and grasses, and flowers and vegetables, and human and animal food, which the earth actually produces, is an animal evidence of tra.nsubstantiation of clay by the word of God the Father, on the productive ON THE EUCHARIST. 101 Ciiergy of the entire earth. The hat on your head, the silk in your cravat, the lines on your back, the cloth of your wearing apparel, the ■wool or cotton in your stock ings, the leather in your boots, the Whitehaven coals in your grates, the gas in your lamps; the bread, the butter, the cream, the sugar, the tea-leaf on your breakfast table, the mutton, the beef, the bacon, the fowl, the -wine, the brandy, the ale on your dinner table ; in short, almost every object the eye beholds on earth, is one vast aggre- gate of evidence of transubstantiation, by the w^ord of Grod on matter. Beyorfd all dispute, all these came from clay. Even the paper of your spurious Bible, the leather on the back, the Indian ink, are such evidences of transubstantiation that one can scarcely conceive how you could read that very Bible w^ithout being burned with scalding shame at the stark-naked nonsense, and incongrous maniagm you have written to me on the subject. God has supplied us, during four thousand years with this mighty, universal, constant evidence, in order to prepare us for the more mighty, infinitely more stupendous evidence of the same principle in the New Law, by the power and the w^ord of Christ. The Father bas given life and preserved life in all living things on earth by this principle of nature, 'n or- der to make us behold the uniformity of action in the Trinity, when Christ at his coming will give life to the soul and preserve it in grace on the self-same principle, " the bread that I will give is my flesh _/5w the life of the world. " I would undertake, as a chemist, to prove, that there are more, far more mysteries (butof courseof a dif- 102 ON THE EUCHARIST. ferent kind), in a handful of clay, than are contained in the entire code of the Christian Revelation. You will reply to me and say, that while God has done all I have said, yet that man could not do it. You mis- take ; a man can do it, when commanded to do so, by the Word of God. Moses changed a rod into a serpent, and changed a serpent into a rod ; he changed the waters of the river Nile into blood, and the same river of blood into water, by the word of God on his lips. And do you not think, Sir, even in your common sense, that a man in the New Law could do the same thing as a man in the Old Law, if he were commanded to do so? The word of God will certainly have the same power in every place, in every age, and in every man on whom that word will descend. Now, Sir, you have seen in St. Paul to the Corinthians the text where St. Ep,ul, in an ecstasy of as- tonishment, told them that he heard from the lips of Christ how he changed bread and wine into his body and blood, and concluded by also informing them that in the same breath, Christ had ordered the Apostles, by two distinct commands, to mark its importance, to do the SAME in remembrance of Him. And lest it should occur to your common sense that the Apostles had not the power to execute the command, will you hear. Sir, the words of Christ to them ? " Ml power is given to me in heaven and on earth ; receive ye, there- fore, the Holy Ghost. " This text, therefore ^ves not only the gifts of the Holy Ghost, but the third person oi the Trinity himself, as an official resident, with the Apos- tles and their successors, in order to communicate the per ON THE EUCHARIST. 103 manent official presence of the Holy Ghost, equal to the Father and Son, I think. Sir, your common sense must yield at length, and acknowledge with candour that our case is complete, our warrant of office in this great act most decided, and, of course, efficient exercise of our power beyond the reach of cavil or contradiction. But you will say that such a fact has never occurred in the New Law. This is a mistake ; it happened in the In- carnation. When the archangel (a creature,) announced to Mary the will of God who sent him to wait on her, and to tell her that she would bring forth a son, " she re- plied HOW CAN IT BE, as I know not man : " he resumed, " it will be done by the power and operation of the Holy Ghost. " Here, Sir, is a position which might he argued as a clear case of transubstantiation in the very first act oftheNew^ Law — namely, the blood of Mary, the relative of Adam the criminal, changed into a human body for the second person of the Trinity by the power of the Holy Ghost. Thus, Sir, if the redemption and the perfection of fallen man commenced by an act of transubstantiation in the Incarnation, why not continue the same principle among all future men by the power and operation of the same Holy Ghost ? But you will certainly re-assert, as you have dene in your illogical, untheological letter to me, that a thing must be always essentially what it appears to be. You are generally right, Sir, in the laws of nature; but in the laws of grace, the senses must be silent under your most favorable position, whenever the word of God makes the contrary statement. Thus the dove, which alighted oa 104 ON THE EUCHARIST. the shoulder of Christ at the Jordan, had all the appear ance of a dove to the sense of seeing; and this sense was not deceived, because its domain is entirely confined to appearances. But, Sir, it was not a. dove : it w^as the Holy Ghost under the appearance of a dove to point out the spotlessness of Christ. Again, the twelve tongues of fire, which descended on the apostles, were not tongues of fire, but " the form of tongues of fire ; " but they were really the Holy Ghost, in order to express the new burn- ing zeal and gift of language given to the apostles. Will you say why cannot Christ appear under the appearance of bread and wine, as well as the Holy Ghost under the appearance of a dove and tongues" of fire, in order to point out how he -feeds the soul, and thus carry out the promise he has made, when he said — " the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world ." Why do you not tell your congregation at Whitehaven not to believe that "the dove or the fiery tongues, " ■were the Holy Ghost ? You are bound to do so in your sys- tem of the infallibility of your Protestant eyesight. You ought to tell them that you consider the testimony of the senses, as the senses of God, and therefore the eye is right ! You ought also to inform them, when you are alone in your drawing room, and neither see, smell, taste or feel the air, that therefore there is no air, Whitehaven ; tell them, also, that as the eyes of the Jews did not see the Godhead in Christ, that therefore he was not God ; tell them also, that as he appeared a criminal, it must there- fore be a fact (founded on the senses and God ) that he was a melefactor; tell them, also, that the ascension of ON THE EUCHARIST. 105 Jup Lord is a mere fable, because from the laws of gra- vitation { to -which the senses bear unerring testimony ) no body can ascend upwards composed of flesh and bone as ffis was — "The senses are God's own law, and he can- not contradict himself. " Tell them, also that as fire can- not burn a man's thoughts, that therefore it cannot reach the soul; that the senses tell you that the fire can only reach matter, and consequently you have the testimony of the senses and God, that there is at present no hell, as the body has not yet risen. Do, Sir, tell the world all this Whitehaven theology, and let nothing be believed unless it is as palpable as a railroad, and can be seen working like a steam engine ! You also ask, how can His body be present on our al- tars unseen ? and when 1 reply, " by the sacramental mode," you cannot comprehend me, and you have recourse to your " indignant sarcasm." Now, Sir, as you are perfectly acquainted with the coals Whitehaven, will you be pleased to see hard coal going into the furnace of a gasometer : see it very soon bituminous, tarry, liquid coal — that is to say, it is palpable in the furnace, impalpable in the gasometer: that is to say, again, invisible in the tubes, and vinihle in the jets; that is to say again, dark- ness in the tubes, and light in the lamps ; that is to say, opaque in the furnace, and transparent in the tubes — ^will you kindly tell us, how^ can the same thing be palpable and impalpable, visible and invisible, darkness and light, opaque and transparent? Now, Sir, if all these modes, apparently contradictory and even contrary, belong even to the ordinary forms of matter, will you tell us, why can- 106 ON THE EUCHARIST. not Christ assume any hulk, or any form in any mode of existence He pleases, and still he the self-same Christ, but m anew mode of existence? This, Sir, is the case on our altar ; it was the case when, after His resurrection, when He entered- the closed doors and stood in the midst of the apostles. I am now done with the mere cursory view of this question, with one additional remark on the words you have used, namely, " that we create our Creator" This phrase does not bee )me you ; and your bigotry will gain notoriety by this phrase, at the expense of your educa- tion as a theologian. You are clearly palpably ignorant of our doctrine, and it is distressing to reflect how a gentleman could not have honor to spare the Catholics, and disaretion to spare himself, by publicly writing on a subject which decidedly you have never studied as a scholar. No, Sir, we do not create our Creator ! Hear me. We just do what we are commanded to do; hence, when He took bread and changed it into His body He commanded us to do the same, and we believe we do change it into His body. In like manner he chang- ed the wine into His blood, and told us to do the same, and we believe we change the wine into His hlood. But He has not said " this is my divinity, do this, " and therefore, we do not do that ; and hence you malign and calumniate when you say " we create our Creator." Our office is changing the bread and wine into the humani- ty, not the divinity of Christ; but as the humanity is now, since the resurrection, essentially united with the divini- ty, therefore, wherever the humanity is present there also ON THE EUCHARIST. 107 must be tie divinity, not by our creation, as you are pleas- ed to write to your dupes at Whitehaven, but by the essential concomitance of the two natures of Christ, which, since his resurrection, can never be separated, standing before God for ever as the living triumph of His mission, as the eternal pledge and security of man's unchanging justification. I have the honor to be. Reverend Sir, your obedient servant, D. W. CAHILL, D.D. F. S.-^You cannot retort on me, and against my belief on the Eucha- rist, the same cognate words -which I have applied to your new inter- pretation. The retort would only prove that my belief may subject the host to be profaned — I admit it ; it may be profaned by shmerSf but adored by all the good. But even so, that profanation, since the resur rection, cannot be accompanied with sbazne, or sorrow, or agony, and when the infidel asks you, can you belief in a God who was mocked, blindfolded, spit upon in the hall of Pilate, flogged naked at a pillar, crucified between two thieves, and his blood spilled and profaned ; will you say, Sir, what is your reply t You admit the whole charge, and answer tliat diese &cts, so far from destroying yoiu: belief, only confirm it, and prove beyond all other facts that he was our Saviour. If your reply to the infidel be valuable and invincible, the same reply from me to you must be equally valuable and invincible. If his i^tort on you would be foolish in Christian faith, yours would be equally foolish against me. You cannot make an argument serve two opposite points —an argument cannot be urged pro and con. If your retort against me possesses force, the infidel triumphs over you. Therefore I admit that the Sacred Host may be profaned by sinners — and if everything in faith must be rejected which is or may be profaned, you must on this prin- ciple reject the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and gmce and &ith, and tbe entire Christian Law. All the objection you can raise to our doctrine is, that it expodbs Christ to be sacramenUtUy -profanedf a fact, which he once home m hU 108 DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. nattiral form\ what happened once can never, therefore, be deemed ab surd or incongruous ; whereas, our objection to your interpretation is, that it stands before the mind, if I may so speak, an evident absurdi ty, a plain impossibility. Our doctrine may therefore end in the pro- fanation of Christ from sinners, a position which, I presume you fre- quently put forth, in reference to the conduct of sinners, before your congregation; but our creed can never be charged with a metaphysi- cal absmdity, such as eating an image, boiling a ghost, bleeding a spi- rit, salting a metaphor, and baking a shadow; and feeding the soul with the nutritious spiritual food of metaphors, tropes, allegories, fi- gures, and ideal resemblances ! ! ! REV. DR. CAHILL AND "THE RAMBLER". In consequence of the former letter, an anonymous article was published in the London Monthly Ram- bler, under the title of "Dr. Cahill's Letter on Tran- substantiation," and a friend of our author wrote to the Editor, asking a convenient space in the next number of that Journal in order to answer to the mis- statements, gross falsehoods, and calumnies of said ar- ticle, "which," he added, "did produce what may be called a wide-spread feeling of dissatisfaction amongst the clergy and laity." He proposed "to show by a single reference to the letter of Dr. Cahill, that his arguments were misrepresented ; and that an unjusti- fiable meaning has been attached to his words." This the Editor refused to do under several pre- texts, and Dr. Cahill thought proper to address him- self to the Editors of Catholic Journals, relating these DR. CAHILI. AND THE RAMBLER, 101 facts, and stating, that "in every paragraph — ^indeed, in almost every sentence — gross falsehood is asserted, palpable calumny is uttered, my clearly-expressed meaning is distorted, and whole sentences are carefuUy suppressed." After a full preliminary notice of all these incidents, the Rev. Doctor came to the contro- versial part of his letter, as follows : New Brighton, February, IS54. In approaching' the theological part of this letter, I feel unusual pain in being compelled to expose the want of truth on the part of the Rambler. God knows, I cannot rejoice in a triumph over the w^riters — victory in this case is defeat. Exposure of those who have joined ray Church, at much personal sacrifice, is, to me, the bitterest pain; but they have forced rae into this unwilling course by, an inevitable necessity. Before criticising my letter at Whitehaven, one should suppose that the writer would, as a Catholic, have sent to me a private letter, stating his objections, and demand- ing an explanation; but no such prudent letter came from the English Vatican, No. 17 Portman-street, London — or, at least, one should imagine, that this model of logic, criticism, and grace, would have read the original letter of the Rev. Mr. Burns, to which my reply was directed, and he could then understand the line of argument adopt- ed against the objections made. Yet, strange to say, this eminent censor has not read that letter: and, hence I shall, beyond all dispute, prove to the reader before I ghall have concluded this letter, that this clique have mis- ]1C DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. taken their case, and that they have earned the crushing expression of public ridicule and public censure. Hear tHem on this point: — " Of the letter of Mr. Burns, which has called forth this reply from Dr. Cahill, we know nothing more than is to be gathered from the extract) which the latter has prefixed to his rejoinder." Now, if he had read that letter, he would have earn- ed the direction of my answer, and have avoided the im- prudent article he has penned. Hear Mr. Burns, — " I ask you. Sir, what can be the reason that Mother South- cott was thought crazy for pretending to give birth to the Messiah? and that you, a priest of Rome, can, without exciting ridicule, make a Messiah every time you cele- brate Mass ? — What is the extravagance of Joanna South- cott to the extravagance of the priests of Rome 1 * * * If God made man, the testimony of the senses is the tes- timony of God: if the senses deceive me, then God, my Maker, is the deceiver. And thus your doctrine is incap- able of being believed by any man under the influence of common sense." In order to meet his appeal to his common sense, I ask him, how he can apply the rules of common sense, and of his senses, to the doctrine of the Trinity, Grace, Original Sin, the Incarnation, the Existence of the Soul, or even the Immortality of Man : and I conclude by inquiring how he could even explain the Transuhstantiation which is every day elaborated by nature through almost every substance by which we are surrounded ? Although my meaning could not be misunderstood by any one outside No. 17 Portman-Btreet : and although my words are clear- DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. Ill iy applied to the modal changes in nature ; and although I have adduced this section of my reply, as a mere illus- tration, a mere comparison sub una respectu, and not at ^1 as an argument of demonstration, the writers in the Ram- hler, by introducing words of their own forgery, by sup- pressing wJiole sentences of my letter, and by an evil-de- signed ingenuity seldom surpassed, have devoted nine pages of deliberate falsehood and scandal to the palpable distortion of my clearly-expressed meaning. In order to convince the reader of the truth of my statements, I shall select only two extracts from my letter. The first is as foUow^s : — " God has supplied us during four thousand years with this mighty, constant, universal evidence {i. e., of nature), in order to prepare us for the more mighty, the infinitely more stupendous evidence of the same principle in the New Law^, by the pow^er and the w^ord of Christ." Now, I ask any candid, any honest man, if I have not in this extract pointed out the changes in nature as a m,ere preparation for a change infinitely more stupendous in the New Law ? Surely one thing infinitely more stupen- dous than another thing, cannot be the same thing. Now, gentlemen, hear the writers in the Rambler on this point so clearly expressed : — " What, then, must we think of the snares which beset the * popular * controversialist when we turn to the next paragraphs of Dr. Cahill's let- ter, in which he asserts that the miracle of Transubstantiation is * a very common occurrence with God, and may be called cmeqfthe most general laws cf Tiaturef^ Again we say' that we acquit him of intending any- thing approaching to that which liis words imply. He is carried away by that unfortunate desire to bring down the ineffable mysteries of faith to the level of human capacities, which is the bane of some minds; and 112 DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. which has here led him into statements, which, viewed merely as rhe* torical ilhistrations, are inaccurate and worthless, but if looked wpon ak a declaration of Catholic doctrines, are shocking to the last degree." In the quotation just made, Gentlemen, there are two cases of grievous injustice : — firstly, it is clear that I have not identified the changes in nature with the mysteries of the Eucharist ; I have clearly stated these two things as infinitely distinct : and yet, the Reviewer would fain make me say, that they are identified. But mark his he- sitation while he writes : he says he is sure I do not in- tend it : that it is a mere illustration : and yet observe his dishonesty, where he insinuates again, in the same jhesitating style, that I have put forward these changes in nature as declarations of Catholic doctrines ! On this point I shall leave the public to judge of the prudence, the candor, and the justiqe of the writers. But I have a heavier charge still to bring forward against this last quo- tation of the Reviewers. They have uttered a palpable falsehood in the extract adduced — they have forged a word which I did not use ; and I therefore brand them before the public with the most dishonorable trick which I have ever experienced from the veriest characterless bigot of the enemies of the Catholic Church. The forgery is as follows, as you will soon see. Their words are : "Dr. Ca- hill asserts, that the miracle of Transubstantiation is a very common occurrence with God, and may be called one of the most general laws of nature" Gentlemen, I have not used the word " miracle :" this is a plain forgery : any reader can see the truth of what I say. I was speaking, beyond all doubt, at that time of the DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. 113 laws of nature : they wish to distort my words as applied to the Blessed Eucharist : I was not speaking then of the Eucharist: Idid not lorite the word miracle in that or any other place. Although it is but one word, it is decisively applied to the Eucharist : it fixes irrevocably a particular meaning : I did not use it : xhey forged it : and introduced it, w^here it is evident I could not have employed it: and I have thus caught the malevolent clique in their own snares, from which, and I say it with sorrow, they can never extri- cate their honor as Gentlemen, or their honesty as Catho- lics, as long as they live. But, Gentlemen, I have still a far more weighty charge against the ecumenical trio of Portman-street. What will the public think of them when I shall quote extracts from their anonymous article, where they ask whether my meaning is such as they describe, and where they palpably distort it, and fix to it a sense of their oion construction the very opposite of mine? And, Gentlemen, what ■will the public think, w^hen I shall prove beyond all contradiption, that these good Catholics, these pillars of the council of Portman-street, have — with a du- plicity, a perfidy, of which there is no parallel outside their former theatre of Exeter-hall — suppressed the very section of my letter, w^hich is a perfect categorical answer to the questions they put ? Firstly, then, hear their own quota- tion — their questions : "For oarselves, we would ask Dr. Cahill whether he really means to insinuate that the change produced by the consecration of the sacra- mental elements, is olthe same natnre as the chemical changes to which he has likened it; a mere natural growth from one form to another, an aggregation of additional particles of matter to an original substratum? He eeaatM mean it. We will not wrong him for a moment by the suppo 114 DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. In this passage, again the writer utters his contradictory hints : he asks, " Can't I mean a certain thing?" then he says again, " I can't mean it:" and yet he leaves the clear impression behind, that I do mean to say that the change in the Blessed Eucharist is of the same kind as the chemi- cal changes of nature. Now, Gentlemen, will you hear me while I make the extract from my letter, and while I inform the. reader, through you, that this clique of parsons have suppressed the entire extract, which follow^s the very extract which they put. Gentlemen, when you will have read over again the above quotation from the Reviewers, read the following extract of my letter : " I undertake to prove, as a chemist, that there are far more mysteries, but, of course, of a different kind, in a handful of clay, than are to be found in the entire of the Christian Reve- lation." This extract was the concluding sentence of my illus- tration from nature ; it is a perfect, direct answer to the questions put by the Reviewers, and this extract they have suppressed. As 1 conclude this section of my reply, I charge the writers so far as I have gone, with an unde- niable forgery, with a dishonorable suppression of the truth, with the hostile publication of a calumnious and scandalous article, and with the cowardly injustice pi re- fusing to an English gentleman, and accomplished clergy- man, the opportunity of making a defence for his slander- ed friend. But depend upon it they shall not calumniate me with impunity : and I finish this sentiment by ex- claiming, "Oh, would mine enemy should write a book!'*' In reference to these passages, in which the Reviewer on. CAHILL AND THE RjtMBLER. 115 speaks of " illustrations and metaphors, " one is amused by the hesitations and contradictions which occur almost every sentence. It is evident, that he would fain find fault if he could: it is clear he comes prepared for censure at all hazards, but not having sufficient data, lie hesi- tates, advances, withdra^ws : says and unsays the sef-same thing, in the same paragraph. " Many and many are the faJ^e and pernicious impresstons which Iiave been conveyed through the medium of illustrations, — powerful and beneficial, as is the effect of metaphors in theological wiiting, when they ore critically correct and applicable — harmless, as they may be when employed uncritically on trifling subjects ; and delightful, as the charm rhey convey when springing from a deep, clear, and vigorous imagina tion, we cannot but think that the greatest catUion is needed in their use when employed to illustrate those ineffable mysteries ; " and in page 172 the same writer calls " illustrations profane and irreverent.'' I have read the passages quoted over and over again, to learn what is really the opinion of the Reviewer witli regard to illustrations : and I have been unable to glean any accurate idea from the halP-smothered sentiments ot the writer except a wish to express a censure which he cannot justly make, and which he is afraid plainly to ntter. The reader can see that in the same paragraph, he calls the same thing "false, charming, profane, irreve- rent. " The only thing required in the use of them is '' caution, " w^hich of course, no man or set of men living can employ to perfection, except the three parsons of Portman-street ! ! ! Be it known, therefore, to the church of England, Ireland, and Scotland, that, when- ever any one wrishes to employ an " illustration " in reli- gion, the incautious and illiterate English, Irish, or Scotch preacher must write a polite note to the ecumenical 1 16 DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. triumvirate of Portman-street to learn the precise use of metaphors, and after waiting for a reply from these mo- dels of learning and good breeding for nine days, perhaps they may be favored with " a hearing, " as to whether they will be permitted, in the judgement of these pro- found theologians of Oxford ( where theology is less than half taught ), to read the following Gospels w^ithout the presence and instructions of " the three tailors " from Tooley-street : — The kingdom of Heaven is likened, a treasure hid in a fieii.— Matthew^ The kingdom of Heaven is likened to a merchantman seeking pearls. —Matthew. The kingdom of Heaven is likened to a householder going to hire laborers. — Matthew. The kingdom of Heaven is likened to a certain king, who made a marriage-feast. — Matthew. The kingdom of Heaven is likened to ten virgins with lamps, going to meet the bridegroom. — Matthew. The kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man travelling in a far coun- try . — Matthew. The kingdom of Heaven is likened to a sower going out to sow seed. The seed is the word of God. — Mark. *^As the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith, without good vorks, is dead. " — St. Janics. In the whole course of my experience, I have never read anything that can even approach the sickening con- ceit, exciting a smile of pity, of the writers of the above paragraph on illustrations, where they clearly set them- selves up as the models of criticism, the teachers of the priesthood, and the infallible guides of the whole church of these countries. On that part of their Review, where they cavalierly DA. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. 117 avow that they had not read the original letter which called out my reply at Whitehaven, I have one remark to make, in order to prove the reckless imprudence of the writers. Every theologian recollects the trouble and vexation which the Popes Leo and Gelasius endured from the Manicheans of their day, w^ho refused to admit the doctrine of the church in reference to the consecrated w^ine in the chalice. Hereupon the Popes refused to ad- mit these persons to Communion, unless they received Communion in hoih Tcinds, adding " that they could not permit them to divide the Sacrament and thereby render itnidl. If these w^ords are read in a mere logical and theologi- cal point of view, and detached from the case of the Manicheans, it >rould seem as if Communion, under both kinds were essential to the integrity and validity of the Sacrament. Protestants constantly quoted these Popes on this point. But w^hen it is recollected that the language of the Popes is directed against persons who deny the chalice, it will then be evident that the command of the Popes to drink of the chalice, is imposed (in this particu- lar case ), not because both kinds are essential, but in or- der to uproot at once the growing heresy, and to silence perfectly the objection that Christ is not present in the chalice. If the Reviewers had the prudence to under- stand the objection against which my illustrations w^ere employed, they w^ould not have now to defend themselves against the reckless falsehood they have uttered of me ; nor would the public have to deplore the scandal they have given to the faithful. 118 DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBI,F,R. I have seldoiK read the sermons of Catholic preachers, or studied the doctrine of the Church, as laid down by the Fathers, in which are not to be found abundant illus- trations such as the Scriptures themselves present ; and so accustomed are the public to these illustrations that not one individual amongst the most illiterate of our commu- nion would ever think that these illustrations are to be taken as strict declarations, sub omni respectu, of doc- trine. In the Gfospels already adduced, what man would ever think that the kingdom of Heaven was " money hid m a field :" or " the captain of a ship : " or " a farmer hiring labourers ; " or " a king : " or " ten young women :" or " that faith died like the body, and was buried and grew putrid ; " or " that the word of God was an ear of corn, made of potash, phosphorus, and sulphur 1" Every one knows the value of illustrations ; and hence the readers of my letter have perfectly understood my views. I have received communications from Bishops, thanking me for the letter : and one of the first Theologians in England, a Professor of twenty-one years' standing, wrote to me to say, that he considered that letter "a masterpiece of cor troversy, both in matter and manner. " There is in nature a change from one substance to ano- ther, from natural, chemical, and mechanical agencies ; but there is no " total conversion; " according to our idea of the difference of substances, the wool on the sheep's back is different from the turnips on which it feeds : but this change is modal; and except under the one solitary iZZ^s^raiiora of " change," has no relationship whatever with the change or " conversion " in the Eucharist, which DR. eAHILL AND TUE RAMBLEIt. 119 firstly, is of a different hind, Euid secondly, is not z.modal changu but "a total conversion. " While on this point I would suggest to the Theologians of the Rambler to for- bear their ea^lanations of the manner Iww this change is effected. Their -words, are it is effected by the annihila- tion of one substance, and the svhstitution of another " It would be much more prudent in them, to read the Cate- chism of the Council of Trent, and adopt the old words, "A conversion is made of the w^hole substance of bread, into the substance of the body of Christ, and of thew^hole substance of w^ine, into the substance of his blood. " These words annihilation and substitution, are unneces- sary w^ords, and at present I shall merely call the attention of Theologians to these phrases, but shall not utter one word more on this point of my subject. Gentlemen, I have at this part of my letter, met hajf the objections made by the Editors of the Rambler; you will therefore be kindly pleased to keep your columns open to me in your next publication, for a second letter from me of the same length as the present one. In that part of their Review, vsrhere they speak of the Protestant Bible, I -will fill w^ith bitter sorrow the Catholics of this country, w^ith the view^s of our infallible council of Port- man-street. In all my life, I have not read anything to resemble the combination of glaring falsehood, and palpa- ble Protestantism, rampant Protestantism, to be deduced from their assertions in this part of their Review. I also demand from you. Gentlemen, that you will not permit any opponent to reply to me, till my second letter shali have been published : that is, till my full reply shall 120 DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. be given. This request I demand, as an act of justice. I should be very sorry, indeed, to identify these three wri- ters of the Rambler with all the converts. God forbid ! Their conduct is the act of individuals, and not of the body. Oh, no ! And their motives cannot be mistaken. It is a small movement on Puseyite principles — ^it is a lit- tle imitation of Tractarianism. It is the old idea of pro- gress. The Lord knows where it will end. Perhaps it may terminate in a new Puseyism, as far beyond old Ca- tholicity, as the first Puseyism is on this side of it. The Lord protect us, the old fashioned Priests, from the gen- teel theology of Portman-street ! The motives of this movement are clear : I wrote to Rev. Mr. Burns, Dec. 7, 1853 : and although weeks and weeks elapsed after that letter, yet not a word of censure from Portman-street — not a line in the Rambler of January, 1854. But some few weeks ago I wrote a letter to Prince Albert, and T mildly quoted the Oxford Commission, when instantly one convert from Bayswater, in connection, as he stated, with other converts, wrote to me a letter, with which the public are already acquainted. He again received a let- ter from another convert, thanking him ybr hisjalsekood; and, lastly, the three converts of Portman-street, in an article embodying the word " we" in every sentence, made the unjustifiable attack, which is the subject of this reply. These simultaneous, combined, and coincident letters, ook very like a malignant spirit, proceeding from men, who should more appropriately be consigned to the posi- tion of learners, rather than assumingly usurp the office of (Oppressive dictation. DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. 121 They have mistaken their case: they have built their spite too high, and it will fall : and virhat I regret most, is, they have ruined their once useful perjodical. It will in future, be called the Parsons' Hornbook. These gen- tlemen, remind me very much of the old fable, where a boy being once very fond of his cat, prayed to Jupiter, that the cat might be changed into a woman. Jupiter gi'anted his request; but some time afterwards this lady having heard a mouse at night making a noise behind the curtains, forgetting she was a woman, jumped out of bed, and pursued the mouse w^ith the former instinct of the cat. The application is not inappropriate : our Reviewers of Portman-street, although changed into Catholics, can- not divest themselves of the old instincts of the Protest- ant alliance ; and, in some instances, would, if they dared, pursue the Priest, their old victim, with the same male- volence, trick, and misrepresentation, as w^hen they for- merly stood on the hostile platform of Exeter-hall. Gentlemen, I am now done for the present. Your readers must recollect who have commenced this painful controversy, and no man of candor, can complain of me, if I repel gross falsehood, and gratuitous misstatement by public exposure. I am. Gentlemen, your obedient servant, D. W. CAHILL, D.D. THE REV. DR. CAHILL AND THE "RAMBLER." SECOND LETTER TO THE EDITORS OF THE CATHOLIC JOURNALS. New Brighton, February 21, 1854. Gentlemen — Within the last two years, an opinion and a feeling have been extending through almost every rank of Catholic society, that some few converts have been erecting themselves into a sort of inquisitorial tribunal; in these coteries the habits of the old clergy have been rather too freely criticised, and an unbecoming assump- tion and an ill-concerted dictation gave much pain to numerous Catholics, who w^ere too respectful to check and too confiding to notice, this now almost universal im- pression. When the heart is full of anything, the mouth cannot long keep the secret enclosed within the gushing bosom ; and hence our new critics are not ashamed to tell the public, that they themselves are henceforth the infal- lible guides and the sole teachers of Catholicity in Grreat Britain and Ireland. Let us hear them in page 176 : " There is no foundation whatever for the prevalent Pro- testant notion that he (Dr. CahilH is to be taken as a chosen champion of the faith." It is the first time during my three years' residence in England, I have heard of the championship of England in Theology even talked of; it is to me quite a new^ id^a ; and it appears to me to be a phrase, rather borrowed from the old London Ring than from any modern rumor. I have never heard that phrase applied to my humble labors ; I have asked several clergymen if they had heard it ; and all have declared the idea to be quite a new thing DR. CAHILL A.ND THE RAMBLER. 123 lately promulgated from Portman- street. But, although the public have never conceived the bright topping idea referred to, not so the three Parsons in Portman-street ; their indignation at any one occupying any place, how- ever humble, becomes so irresistably consiiming that they cannot avoid telling all whom it may concern, that Dr. Cahill, or any priest, , or the most eminent ecclesiastic in England is not to dare to light a farthing candle iif the Church without their kind permission; that Portman- street is the great ecclesiastical gasometer of the nation ; that no lamp can be fed from any other source ; and that they, (not Dr. Cahill, or any other priest, not having under- gone the double-milled training of Portman-street), are the sole importers of theology into this country and the redoubted champions of England. Let any candid reader review the page quoted from their malicious arti- cle, and it is impossible not to see the absurd affectation and the killing self-sufficiency of these blind half-bred zealots. But the public will be much surprised at the next quo- tation from these models of Christian teaching. In page 176 they say : " Why do the Bishops and Clergy permit him to write and lecture as he does?" What will the reader think of the constant, the un- broken falsehood of these men, when I now tell them, that, since I came to England, I have w^ritten only four letters on religious subjects ; and these letters were answers to challenges, repeated challenges from Protestant clergy- men. Hear me. Up to March, 1853, I never even ac- knowledged the receipt of the numerous and insulting let- 124 DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. tcrs of challenge which I received from all quarters Having made a rule to give no offence in my duties as a priest, to any human being in his consclencious belief, I did not even reply to these challenges. But, an English Bishop, second to none in his lofty position, having heard me utter these sentiments at his own table, where I had the honor of being invited, suggested and requested that in future I should reply to all these letters of challenge. Accordingly I sent my first reply to a clergyman in Grlas- gow. My second reply was made in Letterkenny, in the house of the venerated and beloved father of the Irish Bishops. My third reply, at Birkenhead, was written in the house, and with the cordial sanction of an English Canon and Dean, a gentleman most decidedly equal to any clergyman in England of his years and station, and who, I fondly hope, will yet add an expected ornament to the English hierarchy. And my fourth and last letter was penned while travelling in the company of the Bishop of that diocese, w^hose consent (on my own responsibility) I had previously obtained to answer any of the numerous challenges I had received in his diocese. Gentlemen, I have here explained an important point in the letter of the veracious Parsons of Portman-street. Their language is an unmitigated falsehood ; and affords an irritating instance, that while these parsons have changed their faith they cannot change their logic ; and that in furthering an ungenerous and an ill-fourided feel- ing, they canhave recourse to the self-same bare-faced mis- statements as their former companions — the calumniating mountebanks of the Protestant Alliance. DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. 125 But this is not all; let any one read pages 176 and 177 of (what I am wozc justified in calling) their lying article, and he will read about as impertinent a lecture to the Bishops and Priests of England as could securely be pen- ned by any man, outside of Bedlam — read it. Gentlemen. The Bishops are there taught what their rights are, and what they are not. They are informed to temper their authority with prudence; that much of their authority is a mere moral influence, not a right; and, of course, as the superior teaches the inferior, the English hierarchy must in future learn Canon law, and above all they must learn to behave themselves well while under the ecamen- ical tuition of " the three tailors from Tooley-street." Nor is this all, on this long homily, " ex sennonibv^ sanc- torum Redactorum." Not at all ; the English priests are also informed that the only reason why Bishops do not more frequently reduce them to the proper sense of their dutyt is for fear they would " recalcitrate hopelessly." The English clergy are, therefore, placed in the position of eternal gratitude to these sleepless sentinels, for putting them on their guard under their perilous circumstances, and warning them w^ith such timely prudence, in their conciliating periodical, of the fate that must await them, if they trespass too far on the endurance of their Bishops- While on this point, I gladly here seize the opportunity of expressing in an enduring public letter, what I said in Ireland with undymg gratitude, in reference to the English Priesthood. As 1 am leaving England in a few weeks, perhaps never again to return; and as I have made a final engage- 126 DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. ment to visit America in some months hence, I can now freely indulge my own heart in giving utterance to feel- ings which just now, at my departure, cannot be liable even to a suspicion of flattery or selfishness. During the three years I have been in England, I have lived exclu- sively with the clergy ; and from the moment I entered under their roof, I was placed entirely under their con- trol. I never delivered a lecture or moved one step with- out their command or sanction ; , and their courtesy, their kindness, their affection to me, cannot be expressed in any one form of words which I can here employ. They all, without even one exception, received me as their nearest friend ; I made their house my own ; and if I were to add any one feature more remarkable than another in their attention to me, it is, that I always felt they accumulated on me the distinguished compliments because I was an Irishman. I wish to repeat this idea over again, that my countrymen may read this letter in Ireland; and that whenever they shall have an opportunity (when I am far away from them), they will ever express to an English Priest, wherever they meet him, for vay sake, some token of the vast amount of the gratitude which I ow^e them, which I shall carry with me to the grave, but which I can never hope to repay. In reference to the article of the Reviewer, therefore, where they ask: "Why do the Bishops and Priests per- mit me to lecture ?" it furnishes a sad instance of the folly, the pitiful, exasperating folly — and I will be excused now, when I add the lies of these three self-sufficient inquisi- tors; and on this point I would venture to offer one DR. OAUII.L AND THE RAMBLER. 127 remark to the Bishops, whom they presume to lecture ; and this is, that these prelates would, in common charity, take their mad lying pens out of their unsteady hands and close the new shop in Portman-street, w^here they have erected their forge, for manufacturing culpable falsehood and public scandal. Their remarks in reference to the clergy, in the extract quoted above, do not press on me so much as on the gentlemen who have invited me to their churches ; and before the expiration of a month hence, it may be, that they shall find it necessary to retract their foolish offensiveness. I have said, in my last letter, that I should surprise the Catholic public with the rampant Protestantism of these virriters ; and hence I proceed to fulfil my most unwilling promise ; at the same time believ- ing that my remarks on this part of their article will give an additional warning to Catholics against the Protestant Bible. Those half-converted gentlemen, are so unconscious of their want of biblical and theological knowledge, that they undisguisedly, but disedifyingly utter sentiments in refer- ence to the Protestant Bible, w^hich are the appropriate expressions of the Soupers of Connemara — misstatements, genteel Protestantism, and rank heresy are contained in almost every word they have written on this subject. In page 170, they say : " The Protestant Bible has abundance of errors, and some of them of very serious importance ;" and in a few lines further on in the same page, they call these errors "mistranslations." Here we learn from our superiors at Portman-street, that clear, decided additions, subtractions, suppression of whole books, denial of the inspiration of the whole ISS DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. books, alterations, in facts, in words, in tenses, and con- sequently in doctrine, are things of rather " serious import- ance;" that is to say, they are things not to be laughed at. Has any one ever heard of serious heresy — a term, which, I suppose, these teachers employ by way of contrasting it with "jocose heresy." And has any Catholic work ever described sins, as sins of "iraport- ap.ce!" this word so offensive to "ears polite," makes the crime of heresy look rather a respectable thing. The old priests who have not had the advantage of being brought up and educated at Portman-etreet, would call these wil- ful perversions of the Bible, according to the example of St. Paul, by the names of grievous, soul-killing, damnable, subversive of authority, and giving the lie to the Holy Ghost : but now, the Lord be praised, we are informed that these mistakes are merely like the fluctuation in the funds or the cotton-market ; or like an increased duty on tea, they are rather serious and important ; and they are to be described in the same language, as when w^e speak of the improvements in our shipping interests, or the casualties of commerce; they are things not quite a joke, and therefore are matters of importance. The very phrase proves that our Reviewers do not know the ordinary language of our ancient Catechism. But they go further, where they call these heretical declarations of false doctrine by the genteel name of " mistranslations." Indeed! Upon my word, we have a right to be proud of the masters of the Rambler, when the omission in the Protestant Bible of two books of the Slaccabees, containing thirty-one chapters, is only a " mia- DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. 130 translation !" We have splendid teachers, indeed when we learn from our superiors in Portman-stz-eet, that six books of the Old Testament, declared apocryphal by the Protestant Bible, against the supreme authority of the Church, is a fault merely amounting to a mistranslation, and is just a sort of thing that a man ought to think of before dinner, ■when he is disposed to be serious. And when any of the old-fashioned priests (who have not read the genteel Theology of our new masters,) charge the old Protestant Bible (still adopted by the Lutherans) ^vith throwing out of the Canon, the epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews, the epistle of St. James, the second epistle of St. Peter, the second and third of St. John, and the epistle of St. Jude, the Lutherans and all Protestants can quote the Theologians of Portman-street, as superiors, and the champions of all England and Wales and the Colo- nies, by observing that these trifling things are indeed rather "serious " and are " mistranslations!'' And when any poor persecuted Catholic from Dingle, Kells, Achill, or Connemera will ask our infallible Theologians of the unfortunate Rambler, if there be any harm in purchasing, keeping, and reading a Bible, which throws out books declared canonical by the authority of the Church, which despises therefore that authority, which substitutes facts, which adds prepositions, and in fine which changes the word of God at pleasure, how happy must that poor Catholic feel, when he has the superior advantage of learning (the Lord be praised) that this kind of a thing, is indeed rather a " serious" consideration; that the thing is of some "importance," and that the whole weight of 130 DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. the thing may be classed under the head of a " mistrans- lation." Only think of the accomplished and respected parish priest of Connemara, Rev. Mr. Kavanagh, exhorting his flock against the Soupers and Bible-readers, telling them that the danger of receiving Bibles from these wolves, was rather a " serious" thing; but that the guilt of their receiving these Bibles, amounted to an important literary fault, namely, mistranslation. But, as these gentlemen are so finished in Greek and Hebrew, I shall take the great liberty of daring to ask them some few questions, touching this case of " mistrans- lation," and concluding this section of my observations by calling their learned attention to the view taken of the point at issue, by the Council of Trent in its serious declarations, called "Anathemas." I shall now proceed to examine the facts of the case, to see if our masters of the Rambler have critically told the truth, in calling the errors of the Protestant Bible by the name of "mistranslations." One of bur proofs of the doctrine on the ofllicial right of the Church to impose tem- poral punishment, or penance for sin, is taken from the first epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, chapter the 5th : "Ede kekrika os paron ton onto touto katergasame- non." Our translation is : "I have already judged as though I were present, him that hath done so." — The Protestant version is : "I have already judged concerning him," &c. Our translation, which any one can see, gives St. Paul the power to judge the man — "ton katergasame- non :" while the Protestant translation makes St. Paul only j-idge the case, not the man: and this palpable cot- DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER, 131 ruption is done, not by a mistranslation, but by the intro- duction of a preposition not contained in the original text. In Matthew, chapter 3rd, the Church translates the word "metanoeite," "do penance ;" whereas the Protes- tant Bible has it, "repent ye." Their meaning is founded on the philosophical derivation, "jraetowooi," change of mind. On the same principle might they translate our word "collation" (viz., our fasting meal,) into the word "conference." And hence, if they use the words "repent ye" in the case before us, with philolo gical accuracy, it can be said with the same propriety, that on fasting days, the Catholics at their breakfast eat a conference ; as every scholar knows that the philosophical meaning of the word "collation," is "a conference." But there is more mis- chief in the two cases adduced than the genteel fault of "mistranslation." These two gross additions and perver- sions involve a greater crime than this delicate Protestant phrase : they go to invalidate the Sacrament of Penance : they not only insinuate, but palpably deny the existence of penitential works; and they ascribe the justification of the sinner, to mere internal sorrow, to the exclusion of the w^orks of penance. Now, in order to convince the readers of the Rambler, of the false guidance of the three Parsons of Portraan-street, I shall quote the Canons of the Council of Trent on this point, which will show these readers that these mistranslations are not quite so jocose as our masters have stated them : Canon the Twelfth : " If any one saith, that God always remits the whole punishment, together with the guilt: and that the satisfaction ol the penitents is no other than the faith, whereby they apprehen'l that Chfut has satisfied for them, 'et him be Anathema." 132 DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. Canon the Thirteenth : " If any one saith, that satisfaction for aim is nowise made to God by the punishment inflicted by Him, or patient ly borne, or by those enjoined by the priests, let him be Anathema." Canon the Fifteenth :" If any one saith, that the satisfactions by which penitents redeem their sins, are not a worship of God, but tradi- tions of men, let him be Anathema. " I undertake to say, gentlemen, that before I shall have concluded the genteel doctrine of " mistranslations," the public will learn that curses upon curses, Anathemas heaped on Anathemas, will fall upon the unfortunate dupes who may be induced to follow the palpable igno- rance, the undisguised Protestantism, and the heretical teaching of the Parsons' Hornbook. But I proceed : — In the Epistle of St. James, where the sick are com- manded, in the imperative mood, to bring in the Priests of the Church to annoint the sick man, and to forgive hira his sins — the Church translates the words, " Proskalcsas- iho tous JPreshuterous tea Ekklesias," — " Let him bring in the Priests of the Church;" whereas the Protestant Bi- ble has it, " Let him call for the Elders of the church." Now, in reading Cicero, if any schoolboy, meeting with the words, " Patres conscripti," translated them, " O con- script married men having children," the world would laugh at the stupidity of the boy : and his master would tell (not the paragons of Portman-street,) that the word " fathers," did not critically mean married men with chil- dren, but men of official, senatorial, legislating, governing dignity. And precisely on the same principle and histo- rical fact, (independently of the authority of the Church,) the word " Presbuterous," does not mea^ any old man in the Church, but it means the men invested with official, DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. 133 •ndicial, governing dignity : it means authority, not years : and hence the Protestant mistranslation substitutes one fact for another in this case, and is a clear, decided, obvi- ous declaration of a heretical doctrine. But let us examine the Council of Trent on this thing, which is not a joke, or a thing rather serious : vide Homi- liam de Portman-street : CANON THE FODETH ON EXTREME UNCTION: " If any one saith, that the Presbyters of the Chm'ch ax-e not Priests, who have been ordained by a Bishop, but Elders in each community . . let him be Anathema." Now, it is clear from these Canons, tnat the Anathema of the Church are pronounced on any one who saith the doctrines referred to; but our Protestant Bible expresses these doctrines as clearly as words can express them ; and hence, I feel, their own imprudence has placed them in a difficulty from which not all their stratagems can extri- cate them. But, I shall proceed: In Genesis, chapter 14th, " Mel- chisedech," king of Salem, bringing forth bread and wine, for he was a priest of the Most High God, blessed Abra- ham." In this text, the caiLsal Hebrew particle, " for," is introduced, in order to show that Melchisedech brought forth bread and virine because he was a priest: and. that therefore his office was to offer bread and wine. But the Protestant Bible takes away the particle " for," and sub- stitutes the propositional copulative conjunction " and," in order to make the words " bread and wine" be a mere casual occurrence, and not a thing necessary to be offered : and thus laying the foundation of denying the Priesthood in the New Law. 134 DR. CAHII.L AND THE RAMBLER. In Malachy, chapter 1st, we find the words : "From the rising of the sun to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is oiTered to my name a clean oblation." In the Protestant Bible, the words are : — "And in every place incense shall be oiTered to my name: and a pure oiiering.' In this text, the very sense is not only mutilated : false words are not only introduced, as any one can see by re- ference to the original text ; but the w^ord incense is sub- stituted for sacrifice. It is putting the thing which accom- panied the sacrifice, for the sacrifice itself: as if Protestant writers would put the candles that are lighted on the altar during Mass, or put the bell that rings during the Eleva- tion, for the Mass itself; and then tell the world, that the Mass is a mere ceremony of a bell and a lighted candle. In the same way, in all the Prophets, wherever any re- mote or covered idea of sacrifice is hinted or expressed, the Protestant Bible, in all these passages, always substitutes the word "prayer." In order to show how exceedingly incorrect and mis- chievous it is for any untutored tyro, in our Church, to call these gross corruptions and misstatements by the name of "mistranslations," we have only to read the Council of Trent on this point, in reference to the sacrifice of the Mass Canon the Second : " If any one saith, that the sacriiicc of the Mass is only a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving ; or that it is a bare com- memoration of the sacrifice of the cross, and not a propitiatory sacrifice let him be Anathema." DR. CAniLI. AND THE RAMBLER. 135 I have thus, Gentlemen, taken pains to prove that the plain miswording, the additions, the corruptions, the entire removal of whole hooks, the denial, and the contempt of the authority of the Church, involved in denying the au- thenticity of other books of the Holy Scriptures, consti- tute an awful amount of guilt in the Protestant Bible ; and I trust I have demonstrated that this guilt is expressed in such clear langfuage. that no reader can mistake it; and I have added to this indictment against the Protestant Bible several Anathemas of the Council of Trent, in all these points at issue : and hence 1 shall be enabled, in the re- maining part of this letter, to place before this nation (what I now^ am justified in designating) the ignorance, the assumption, and the impertinence of the article of the RamMer, proceeding from the half-bred, half-converted clique, w^ho have written such calumnies of me, and vrho have deliberately penned the foUow^ing most gross mis- statement, and which at the same time evinces such a de- cided leaning to the Protestant Bible : Hear their w^ords: " Take, for instance, the astounding assertion, that he * would prefer that a Catholic should read the worst hooks of immorality,' than the Protestant Bible .' If any of our readers have not already seen Dr. Ca- hiirs letter, they will lift up their hands in astonishment, and question the accuracy of our quotation; nevertheless, we assure them that we are giving the exact words.*' In the w^hole course of my life, I have never met any- thing like the undeviating falsehood, the reckless disre- gard for common honesty and of truth, w^hich appear al- most in every sentence of these malignant Parsons. In the following quotation from my letter, you wiU sea at a glance, whether they have given my exact words, as 136 DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. they have emphatically "assured" their readers. My words are as follows, in answer to Mi. Burns's appeal to his Bible : " Considering the shameful forgery of the Protestant Bible, I would prefer that a Catholic should read the worst books of immorality, than this forgery in God*s Word, this slander of Christ. Old age can check immorality ; but the forgeries of God's book, the lies told of Christ, the wicked perversion of the inspired volume, the base substitution of words, the flagrant robbery of the text of life, are so many hideous crimes of Protestantism, that in vengeance for such blasphemous inter- polation, the curse of all crimes, and of all errors, and of naked infide* lity, seems to be inflicted on your entire nation. And this is the Bible, this public forgery on the name of the Holy Ghost, this libel of God the Father, this slander on Christ, which you wish to give to the poor chil- dren of the Irish." Could it be believed possible, that any man, pretending to the character of common decency, could write such a gross falsehood and trick, as are contained in the quota- tion which he calls my "exact words." I need no great- er revenge over this wi'etched clique, than the indignant contempt which they must receive from the decision of any man who reads even this one shameful mi.s statement. And now let us read their next paragraph, which follows : In speaking of Protestants they say : — *' What story of Catholic wickedness will they not henceforth believe ? What tale of priestly licentiousness will from this time, be too mon- strous for their credulity? The Protestant Bible has abundance of er- rors, it id true, and some of them of very serious importance ; but is it not a violation of all common sense and decency, to pretend that a Ca- tholic had better read the filthy productions of obscenity, than the book in which these mistranslations occur?* Is there a priest in the United Kingdom who would bear out Dr. Cahill in such a notion ? Would not all, with one accord, denounce it as a perfect portent in the domain of morals and casuistry?" DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLER. 137 Here any one can behold tlie wrathful resentment of the Parson, at my denunciation of the mistranslations. — Could any speech at Exeter-hall surpass the malignant spirit detectable in this quotation 1 But I repeat again the same sentiments ; and I again declare, in spite of these advocates of the Protestant corrupted, forged Bible, that I ■would prefer (between the two evils,) works of immo- rality to works of infidelity ; and I shall forthwith state my reasons : Firstly, then, old age, of itself, cools down the immoral heart, while infidelity and heresy gains strength over the enfeebled intellect. Secondly, immorality is scouted in all society of every creed, and must not dare to lift its head except in secret ; w^hile Protestant infidelity is laud- ed, encouraged, rew^arded, and therefore confirmed by the very society that condemns immorality. Thirdly, immo- rality stands opposed only to the ten commandments of God; ■while infidelity adds to this crime, the opposition to Christ and the authority of the Church. Fourthly, immorality practices vice, but dare not teach it m public ; while infidelity not only practices deadly, mortal guilt, but teaches it, declaims it, demands honor for it ; and can command large audiences to learn it. Fifthly, immora- lity has generally but one accomplice at a time, ■while in- fidelity can have ten thousand. Sixthly, all the infidels of Christian countries are apostates from the Church, and St. Paul tells us that, " it is impossible for such persons to be renewed again to penance ;" whereas there is no such impossibility pronounced against immorality. Se- venthly, the immoral man can repent, and be prepared to 138 DR. CAHILL AND THE RAMBLSR. be forgiven in a short time : but the infidel man has to repent also, and to learn the Christian doctrine, which re- quires time and perseverance. Eighthly, the immoral man merely injures himself and a few accomplices; while the man who adopts the Protestant forgeries, in spite of the Church, joins the Soupers, encourages the Protestant Alliance, betrays the Priesthood, sells his country, and is the enemy of God and a perjurer to man. Ninthly, the immoral man acknowledges his w^eakness and his crime, and so far pays homage to God's law and judgments ; while the infidel refuses homage, makes a profession of opposition to Inspired teaching, and opposes an obstacle to the success of the Cross. Tenthly, the Canons of the Council of Trent, have pronounced several Anathemas against the man that saith any of the clear infidelities of the forged Protestant Bible ; while the immoral man is left to the ordinary denunciations of the Gospel. 1 there- fore repeat the proposition I have advanced, and which has so much offended our masters the Convert Parsons ot Portman-street. Lastly, one act is on moral principles more grievously sinful than another, if in its " end, object, and circumstances," one contains a larger amount of guilt under these tliree heads than the other : and hence as infi- delity, for the reasons already stated, opens an extent of guilt indefinitely larger than mere immorality, it strikes me, that the Converts have read as little of our moral trea- tises, as they have of Mr. Burns' letter ; and that they have, with all their other qualities, a matchless effrontery, of which the public will soon form a correct opinion. I have thus given my reasons for the statement which DR. CAHILL AND THE RJIMBLER. 139 I made, and I undertake to say, that in place of denounc- ing the casuistry of Dr. Cahill, the whole nation, lay and clerical, will say of the clique who praise the Protestant Bible, that if they were alive in the days of Elizabeth, they would be found near Tom Crammer's grave prais- ing the new parliamentary prayers, and trying to patch up a piebald Puseyite gospel, in order to suit the genteel Protestant taste of the day. Gentlemen, I am not dope w^ith Portman-street as yet. I have not reached as yet, the lowest depths of their folly, their uncharitableness, their malignity, and their calumny. I beg to assure the public that I have charges still more grievous to put forth, on the subject of their articles in the Rambler, which will still more surprise the public ; and hence, while I ask the fa-vcor of a third and last let- ter in your columns, I think I can with truth convey to you the thanks of the clergy and laity of these countries for your kindness to me in the present instance. The Reviewers, of course, will answer me in their anonymous periodical ; but give me your impartial columns, and, depend upon it, that their conduct to me will not leave ten readers to the Parson's Hornbook within three montlis from this date. The public know me too long to encour- age a book of falsehood and calumny against me : and I feel my humble name has been stamped with too flatter- ing partiality by the public approval to permit any mar living, or set of men, be he or they who they will, witli out putting forth whatever power I possess, and cover mg my gratuitous calumniators with universal and well merited censure. In all this exposure they must blame 140 SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. themselves : when they joined us, we clothed them inthe lion's skin, and admitted them to our society, begging of them to be silent : but if they foolishly begin to bray, and imprudently raise their voice and show their long ears, the fault is entirely their own. I am Grentleraen, your obedient servant, D. W. CAHILL, D.D. REV. DR. CAHILL'S SPEECH AT A GREAT MEETING IN LIVERPOOL. On August SOtli 1852, a large and important meet- ing of Catholics took place in the Concert Hall, Liverpool. The secretary having read an address to the Rev. Dr. Cahill on his appearance amongst them, and then having detailed the happy results exhi- bited by the absence of a procession on St. Pa- trick's Day last, stated that the people were resolv- ed in future to abstain from all processions. The .celebrated Divine came forward, and delivered a speech, of which "sve copy the abstract given by the journals ; and as it was pronounced amidst the most rapturous enthusiasm, and immense cheering, we will omit the frequent exclamations which did interrupt at every moment the orator. The multitude dispers- ed after adopting a resolution to the effect that the Catholics of Liverpool were deeply grateful to the Rev. Dr. Cahill for the magnificent address he had SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. 141 delivered, and that they were resolved iu future to do all in their power to carry out the views expressed by him and the venerated clergy of Liverpool. The Eev. Doctor said : He could assure them, that in the whole course of his life, he never heheld a more important and influential meeting — none but an Irishman could understand it. And what was he to say to that great meeting? He had it. He was a " chip of the old block " himself, and as such he stood before them. He was glad to hear them praise him so, for he was sure he must deserve something when they did so, for if he did not, such applause would not come from that great meeting. He would, if he could, contra- dict them in w^hat they had said, but, if he did so, he w^ould be contradicting himself. If he were anything in their sight, it was they who made him so' — they had created him something. They had given him strength in Liver- pool, and that proved their own power. He had some- thing to tell them — ^he had got a new suit of clothes since he last saw them. He w^ished to appear before them as respectable as he could ; and who did they think was his tailor 1 Why no less a personage than Lord Derby. It was a fact. Lord Derby had made the coat he wore; and he believed they would think it a good fit. He beg- ged of them also to look at his vest. It was cut precisely after the fashion of the 4th Victoria — the Processions Act — by Lord Derby, who had become tailor and general barber to the Pope. Yes, it was Lord Derby who made his clothes ; and as that Noble Lord had turned tailor and barber to the Pope, and as he (Dr. Cahill) was a Popish 142 SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. priest, he thought it right to patronise Lord Derby ; and so now he appeared before the meeting in his new parlia- mentary dress, and if any one in that meeting had gar- ments to make, he would advise them to take such, for • manufacturing to Downing-street. He had been writing a letter to Lord Derby, and they would find it in the Dub- lin papers of Saturday next. It was that letter which made the clothes he now wore. When he looked on that great meeting, and saw such a number of people present, his point was gained in Liverpool. What could he say. or how could he thank them? They had followed the advice which he had given them, to observe peace, law, and order, and if they wished to continue in that brilliant course for the future, he would ask them to hold up their hands as a pledge for the future. Before he quitted the subject of Lord Derby's tailoring, he must observe that although he was long aware of the dexterity exhibited on the thimbles by that Noble Lord, yet he was not aware that his Lordship was so expert at the needle as he proved him- self to be. They had told him that it was he who instructed and guided them on the late occasion of their having given up their annua,! procession. Well, if he were their guide and instructor, he would do something in return for them for their obedience; he would there- fore tell them some news — news from the Continent, and even other places in the world, and be was much mis- taken if they would not be pleased with what he had to tell them. He would begin with Austria. When it trem- bled and shook with revolution — when Hungary raised up Kossuth in order to free his native land, that miscreant SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. 143 committed suicide on liis country. Yes. he did, but who were the prime levers in that murder? — the English Government. Mark, not the English people, for it should be always borne in mind that he made the most emphatic difference between the English Government and the English people. To illustrate that, he had never yet met an Englishman who did not cry over the misfortunes and the misgovern- ment of Ireland — sigh for the advancement of the trade and commerce of that country, and longed to see her free and happy. Therefore, let no one connect the English Government with the English people. It was now on record, that the English Government were the engines which deluged the Continent w^ith blood, and made the w^hole fabric of European kingdoms tremble with revolu- tion. It was by the machinations of that Government, that Lombardy, Sardinia, and other countries were left tottering on their unsteady foundations. He need only refer them to the manner in which poor Charles Albert was treated and betrayed by one Howard — they were all pretty well aware of that, and now that unfortunate monarch was rotting in his grave, the victim of English perfidy. Let them again look at Rome — Rome, that belonged to the Popes — a few Italian States, about half the size of Connaught in Ireland. These States were given as presents by the emperors and kings of Europe to the Popes, and no power in Europe had a right to interfere with the government or management of these States. In fact, they were private property given to the Popes, but England's Government 144 SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. cast its eyes towards Italy, and sent a Lord Minto there. They had heard of Lord Minto. He (Lord Minto) said, he was asked to go to Rome, but he was not ; yet he did go, and by his vile conduct he involved the whole coun- try in a state of frightful confusion, and attempted to upset the very foundation of the Vatican itself. The King of Naples trusted in the English Government, and . the English Ambassador at that court supplied a torch that nearly destroyed that poor country. Let them go to Spain, and look at the English work there in 1832. The English Government promised to place a usurper on the throne of that kingdom, provided they got in' return the Church property of Spain— -and they did get it, and placed the usurper on the throne. They demolished the Convents and Nunneries — turned out the Monks on Is. 3d. a day, and the Nuns on 10 l-2d. — they left but one Con- vent standing in the kingdom — ^broke down the religious establishments — destroyed the dynasty of that country, and committed the most awful acts the world ever beheld — and were guilty of the most perfidious cruelty ever heard of in any country on the face of the earth. Again, let them look at Portugal— the English Government entered into a conspiracy there, against the Catholic Church property, and in that country there w^as another instance of the murderous hand of England in the spoliation of Church property. He now came to France. The revo- lution of 1830, (he saw it, for he was there at the time,) was fomented and got up by the English Government. The English Government was at the beginning and end of the revolutions that had taken place' on the Continent, SPEECH IN LIVERPOOI.. 146 and which shook the foundations of the empires. They almost annihilated Catholic education in those countries he had mentioned. The Cross — ^the emblem of man's salva- tion, -was trodden under foot. Morality ceased, and all those horrors were committed by a clique of the English Government for the purpose of extinguishing the Catholic Church. However, he was glad to tell them, that the aspect of aiFairs had lately changed, and that Austria, Sardinia, and Naples, w^ere not now cursed w^ith such iniquity. And as for France, just now, she had it all her own way. Austria, Italy, and France, had seen the machina- tions practised towards them; and they had driven the usurpers from their territories ; and these countries were now free in religion, politics, and Catholic education. The English Government had fired the Church with the torch of infidelity; but he (Dr. Cahill,) had come to tell them, that the Catholic Church had recovered part of its property on the Continent. In Austria, the Emperor had placed the Catholic schools under the Jesuits — and could the youth of any country have such perfect instruc- tors? The King of Prussia had given a full and fair extension to Catholic education. Rome had maintained her ancient name for religion and education. The King of Naples had discovered his mistake ; and now all the schools in Naples were under the control and vigilance of the Catholic clergy. The best of all remained to be told — France — glorious France — ^had recovered her long losi rights, and now^ enjoyed the blessings of Catholic educa tion. He then alluded to the College of France at a for- 146 SI>EECU IN LIVERPOOL. mer period, when the students were ordered to read the Catechism, but so far had infidelity worked there, that they refused, ran out of the College into the streets, shouting out, " Long live the Devil, but no Catechism for us!" Look at France now — the oldest daughter of the Catholic Church, which can date as far back as the renowned Charlemagne — at least one thousand years. He next alluded to the conduct of France, who drove seventy-three thousand plotting miscreants from Switzer- land — fellows who were bribed to foment rebellion and revolution all over the Continent; but the Prince Presi- dent, soon made them walk about their business. In 1846 and 1847, the Catholic colleges, the monasteries, and nun- neries in Switzerland were overthrown by the miscreants whom he had spoken of. And they even penetrated so far as the monastery of Mount St. Bernard, and commit- ted ravages wherever they went. No country on the earth presented such scenes of murder and bloodshed. He would now tell them the object he had in these matters, in order to contrast such horrible atrocities with peace, law, and order. The workings which he had mentioned, were the workings of the British Grovernment, but Ireland, amidst surrounding nations, preserved peace, law, and order, and loyalty to the throne of England. But Lord John Russell was not satisfied with that, he sent out his missiv# to create a revolution — he did not succeed. How has he been answered ? He (the Rev. Dr. Cahill,) would tell them how Louis Napoleon had answered him. The other day, at the ceremony of blessing the eagles, SPEECH IN LITERPOOL 147 the imperial eagles of France, -which belonged to his uncle. Prince Louis Napoleon, with an army of three hundred thousand fighting men — in presence of the Archbishop of Paris, had a throne raised for that celebrated prelate seventy-two feet high, and above that throne, a cross one hundred and forty -four feet high. The Archbishop cele- brated solemn High Mass, in the presence of three hun dred thousand French soldiers, armed in steel — and at the elevation of the Sacred Host, 100 pieces of French ordi- nance were discharged in thanksgiving to God. That -was not all; the 300,000 soldiers of France, drew their swords, knelt on one knee, (as is the custom in all Catholic countries for soldiers,) and amidst the clang of three hundred thousand swords, and the thunder of one hundred cannons, the Holy Host was lifted to Heaven — the grandest spectacle ever witnessed in Paris, since the days of Charlemagne. That w^as the answ^er given by Louis Napoleon to Lord John Russell, who incited the people of this country to trample on the Cross, and burn the effigy of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was a good reply on the part of Louis Napoleon. When his (the Rev. Dr. Cahill's) tailor. Lord Derby, issued his procla- mation against a religious procession which took place at Ballinasloe — the Irish name of that place was "Kylena spithogue," — ^Le liked the Irish names — Louis Napoleon answered bim as follows : — Riding in his carriage the other day along the Boulevards, the Prince saw^ a religious procession headed by a number of clergy, who carried a Cross, and when he saw it, he bowed to the Priests, raised hia hat, and when the Cross appeared, he stood up in the 148 SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. coach, took off his hat, and remained uncovered, bowing his head all the time until the procession passed on. That was the answer he gave LorJ. Derby. He answered John Russell one way, and he replied to Mr. tailor Derby in another. The Reverend Gentleman w^ent on to detail the pro- ceedings which had recently taken place on the Continent, in reference to the expulsion of English incendiaries ; and, attributed such to the firmness, good sense, and determina- tion of Louis Napoleon, who was a good Catholic, and loved the religion in which he was educated, and in which he would die. He (the Rev. Dr.) would call another witness in the shape of America; and the Sultan of Con- stantinople, who assisted a short time ago, at the marriage of a Catholic lady and Greek gentleman in that city, the ceremony being performed by a Catholic Bishop. The Sultan attended and remained uncovered, and expressed himself in terms of admiration for the Catholic Church ; and observed, that no man should stand povered in the presence of God, and while assisting at a most sacred rite of the Catholic religion. He then summed up his observations, and said he had thrown them out for the consideration of the English Government, if they still wished to pursue the persecution of the Catholic Church. He then referred to Greece — the late intended quarrel, w^hich arose about the loss of some Englishman's breeches and a cabbage garden ; and after dwelling in a happy strain on the return of an En- glish fleet crowned with victory from Greece, (after mak- ing the above conquest,) he went on to state the difficul- ties of England with America, China, India, Kaffirland, SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. 149 &c., and said that England ■was not at present able lo fight an American tom-cat. And as to prevent the Ame- ricans from going where they pleased, he was sure so far as any opposition that England co^ld give to Ame- rica, the boats of the latter, might sail into the bay of Gal- way, and catch as much fish as they could. China, the Burmese Empire in India, Raffirland, America, Canada, the latter only w^aiting for a favorable opportunity to shake ofi" the English yoke. France, with nearly a mil- lion of soldiers — ^but no one could tell what France ■would do yet; and they should remember that in England alone there w^eretwo millions of Chartists only w^anting to put their hands to their staves, for they all had staves ; and the Manchester factory people, w^ho if deprived of cheap bread, and the import of eleven million of pounds worth of cotton from America, would assuredly starve if the supplies were stopped — they ■would have nothing to eat unless they devoured brick or the Established Church. The latter, he thought, w^ould be more agreeable picking than baked clay. All those things ■were pressing on England at the present moment, and yet she w^as the only country in the ■whole world that persecuted her sub- jects for their religious opinions. Yes the government of England was the solitary one on the earth's surface that persecuted her ow^n people for the sake and in the name of religion. Let him again not lay this cri^ne on the peo- ple of England — it was the Government. If England only knew her duty, she ■would hold out the right hand of fellowship to her subjects in Ireland, and that hand w^ould be met in affection and harmony. He drew a picture of the desolation to ^vhich IrelanJ 150 SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. had been reduced, and gave, amongst others, an instar of where a poor widow woman in Mayo (her name v Byrne,) had to carry her seven sons to the grave, wh; she dug w^ith her own hands, and when the last of 1 boys was deposited there, she died herself, and was bui ed in the same grave, shroudless and ooffinless ; two pi women Having borne the body wrapped in hay, to its nal resting place. All this, while there was ninett million of money in the Exchequer of England, a gr portion of it having been plundered from Ireland, gave several instances of where the dead bodies of l people were dragged from tbe holes into which they Y been thrown, by dogs. He knew an educated man in Dublin, an apotheca who had to go into the South Union Workhouse. 1 poor of Ireland had sunk into the grave — the midi classes bad descended to the vacant place of the poor, a the landlords had been swallowed up by the infernal 1 made by themselves and the Government. Emigrat was now sweeping away the bone and sinew of Irela; and whatever money was left in it. And was it for hau of the country the people were flying to glorious Ar rica 1 No, it was hatred of the English Grovernme and who could tell, in the course of a short time, w that hatred might not eventuate in 1 In the midst of Ireland's misfortunes, she lost one of the greatest patri that the world ever saw — the burning flood of whose < quence made tyrants tremble? Oh ! if he were alive ne with what a meteor voice would he not fly through country, comforting the afilicted, and seeking redress the people of his glorious native land 1 SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. 151 He need not tell that meeting that he alluded to the immortal O'Connell. Oh ! when he was called to the re- ■ward of a w^ell-spent life — liberty gave a departing sigh in Ireland, and patriotism's sun set in the land of his nativity. Such a time did the enemies of the country take upon them to renew persecution. And yet during seven centuries there w^as not one act of disloyalty ever proved against the faithful clergy of Ireland. On the con- trary, the people of Ireland had suffered and died in de- fence of the English throne. He then vrent on to show how the Irish had acted in the case of Charles the First, and from him down to King James — ^that they had suffered for their loyalty ; and the only return they got, was persecution, insult, and death. He then proceeded to thank the Irish people in Liverpool for their cheerfiil obedience to his request, and the re- quest of the venerated bishop and clergy of the town and district, with whose co-operation he had been successful in preventing a procession on St. Patrick's Day last. He told an interesting anecdote about a man, (to show what feeling the Irish entertain for anything belonging to the country,) whom he saw leaving Dublin and taking a dog with him to America. The man told him the dog cried so much w^hen he saw the house pulled down by the landlord, that he could not leave the poor brute behind him. At this moment the dog began to bark, when the man said, " Sir, he hears us talking of the landlord now, and he knows all about the way he treated us, as well as myself!" The Reverend Speaker then drew a comparison be- 152 SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. tween the adventures of Lord John Russell, Lord Derby, and others, and the travels of Gulliver, in which he was most happy, and loudly applauded. He then impressed on the assembly the necessity of their strictly adhering to the principles of peace, law, and order, and to continue in the good resolve they had formed — to abide by the advice of their excellent clergy, and that they would be happy in this world and the next. He next alluded to the determi- nation of the Irish Members, and said, although the Go- vernment might vapor under their weakness, yet the reso- lution of a steady band in St. Stephen's, would soon wring justice from them. He implored all, to be united in bonds of peace and charity, and to take the hand of the English and Scotch, and identify themselves with these people; and for their cheerful acquiescence to his request last year; he promised them an excursion to Wales next May, when they would renew their friendship, and invite even their enemies to accompany them, in order to show that they were the preservers of peace, law, and order. It was by such conduct as this, that they could conquer their persecutors, and defy the world. He then passed a well- merited compliment on the chairman, for his honesty, pa- triotism, and love of religion ; and said, while the people had the wise counsel of such a man and the clergy, they need not doubt of their success. He sat down amidst the most rapturous and prolonged cheering. REV. DR. CAHILL'S LECTURE. SOCIAL CONDITION OF IBBLAJJD. In accordance with announcement, the Eev- D. W. Cahill, D D., de- Evered, for the henefit of St. Augustin's Schools, four Lectures at the Concert Hall, Lord Nelson street, Liverpool — three on Natural Philo- soph/, and the fourth, which is reported as follows, on the Social Con- dition of Ireland. The Hall was crowded to excess, there heing not fewer, perhaps, than 2,500 persons assembled. On the platform were several of the well-known Catholic Clergy of Liverpool and neighbor- hood. Upon the Doctor making his appearance, successive rounds of the most enthusiastic cheering greeted him. As soon as tbe enthusiasm had somewliat subsided, he commenced by saying : — " Ladies and Gentlemen, I have ag^n to repeat my sincere thanks to you for this most ardent reception ■svhich you have given me: Though someiwhat accustomed to receive those hearty demonstra- tions, yet, I must coniess. that on this occasion, you have outdone yourselves. (Cheers.) Several nations are very remarkable for music, others for drawing, others for sculp- ture, others for eloquence ; but I don't think there is a nation in the world able to shout w^ith the Irish. (Loud cheers.) I assure you. Ladies and Gentlemen, I have a most difficult office to discharge to-night. The statement of Lecture is w^orded in this way — " The Social Condition of Ireland." There never w^as a heavier or more respon- sible task; yet, to an Irishman, it is a somewhat easy task, as it is bis constant study. (Hear, hear.) I don't appear here to-night to inflame your feelings with animosity, to 154 SOCIAL CONDITION OP IRELAND. introduce amongst you national feelings. No, I appear here to-night as Counsel for Ireland, and you shall stand over me as a jury. (Cheers.) In the present instance, I have a two-fold object in view — I wish to inform the Irish about our country, and to the Englishmen, to give a clear and impartial apology for the condition in which my country is placed, on ac- count of the constant and horrid discord into which mis- government has plunged it ; and the terrible poverty con- sequent upon this mis-government, which, so pressed the yoke upon the finest country and the finest people in the world. (Cheers.) The charges brought against us, are : that we .are lazy and won't work ; that w^e are improvi- dent, and won't accumulate capital ; that w^e have no en- terprise, and would not engage in commerce ; that w^e are discontented, and would not be propitiated ; that we are rebellious, and would not submit to the laws ; that we are disloyal, and w^ould not be content ■with the throne. Now, my business here to-night is not to make a speech, for my language w^ould be unable to do justice to the sub- ject : but, as a Reverend Counsellor, to lay bare and un- cover the wounds of Ireland. And, as I know that seve- ral wounds have been inflicted upon the body of Ireland since I was born ; and my father said deep w^ounds had been inflicted upon the body of Ireland since he was born ; and my grandfather told him wounds deep and ghastly, had been inflicted in his days ; my great-grandfather had said the same. I found myself taking off the bandages for the last three hours before I came here. (Cheers.) — I only point out to you the grievous distress our poor SOCIAL CONDITION OF IRELAND. 155 country has suffered. I have to go back, not for a cen- tury, nor for two centuries, but very near 700 years, be- fore I can do justice to this most distressing case of Ire- land, which I promise to lay before you. I should be exceedingly sorry if any English gentleman should think that I was guilty of stirring up any anti-national feeling, or giving any expression unbecoming the sacred profes- sion which I hold. (Cheers.) First : Therefore, I begin with the years 1172—7, when Henry II. conquered Ireland through the dissension and treachery of our own countrymen ; and from this time down to 1570, for nearly 400 years, there was continued struggling between England and Ireland; and 'during these 400 years, they could never conquer Ireland — never able to pass Leinster, so that three other Provinces were never conquered. And in these times the most barbarous cruelties w^ere practised on the people. (Hear.) It is scarcely sinful to say, that never w^as the Protestant cru- elty of England surpassed by the Catholic cruelty of Ire- land. Amongst other instances, he w^ould mention that the English soldiers were not allow^ed to deal with us — not to spread even what civilization they might boast. Never w^ere the conquered treated with greater cruelty than from the reign of Henry II. to that of Henry VIII. The execution of Clare he would allude to, when the Bri- tish soldiers outraged the wives and daughters of the Irish before their faces, and shot them, or tossed them over the rocks if they complained. Five hundred lashes w^as the punishment if a British soldier married an Irish girl ; and I am happy to say to you, to the credit of the gallantry 156 SOCIAL CONDITION OF IRELAND. and taste of some of those men, the beauty of the Lasses of Limerick tempted them, in spite of five hundred lashes. (Cheers and laughter.) I could point out to you, if T pleased, several instances of the most blackened cruelty ; but it is not necessary, since I look upon them as dread- ful stories ; and it is more to the credit of a lecturer to moralize on fact of history, than merely recount them. Now, I ask, what agriculture could have been success- fully pursued in a country like ours, which, during the four hundred years we have now in view, was a scene of perpetual struggles between the oppressing conqueror and the poor conquered 1 (Hear.) How^ could commerce be entered into, while the enemy's camp w^as at their gates, and they were nearly all occupied jn repelling the invaders 1 (Hear.) Every honest Englishman will bear me out in these conclusions. In England, at the very time commerce was beginning, the crusades had begun, and all their opening and kindling influences of chivalry. During these 400 years England was cultivating learning and the arts and sciences, with the most important cha- racteristic — combination amongst themselves: while poor Ireland viras learning war, and feeling its fury, which made it a theatre of animosity and dissension. (Hear.) To you. Ladies and Grentlemen, my jury, I now appeal, and ask whose fault was it that our country was so wretched ? Was it the fault of the Irish ? (Cries of no, no.) No, Gen- tlemen, it was the fault of fate; a strong and foreign ene- my was against us, and pressed us down. (Applause.) And after this, next came the disastrous period of Henry VIII. He found fault with his queen; dismissed herj SOCIAL CONDITION OP IRELAND. 157 qnarrelled with the Pope, because he condemned Wm ; and married a subject in 1553. He was succeeded by two or three young princes, whose career lasted, including Eli- zabeth, until 1603. Those years were the most disastrous in Irish history. England had changed her national faith, but failed in changing the Irish. The conquerors took every acre ol land, as the law^ said : " An Irishman must only have an acre of arable land, and half an acre of bog. The law^s of Elizabeth were levelled against the three most important things in a nation's welfare — ^property, education, and the religion of the people (the Catholic faith.) During the seventy years w^e have now in review, persecution raged to the greatest extent ; and Elizabeth contemplated the entire subjugation of Ireland. About the end of her reign, by dint of the cnielest w^arefare, and the banish- ment of 70,000 Irish, she subjugated that country, leaving behind her the most withering, burning destruction, and heart-rending cruelty that have ever been recorded against any nation. Look, now, at the position of our poor country — ^no agriculture, no commerce, no learning, no education, bo homes, no property, no position ! And don't you think, now, that succeeding historians behave very wrongly, ■when they charge and upbraid the Irish with want of education, when all education in it was by law extinguish- ed ? And don't you think that the English historian is a villain to so charge them. But I will say, to the credit of the generous frankness of the English, that I never sat with an Englishman for an hour, that would let me go on 158 SOCIAL CONDITION OP IRELAND. with my statements, before his generous disposition swell- ed with indignation at the injustice and iniquity of the treatment of my country. To the glory of my country I tell it, though so persecuted, even the seventy thousand banished Irishmen never gave up their faith. England gave it up — ^but all Ireland remained faithful. She never flinched, but perished at the block sooner than forswear one shred of her ancient faith. I give you an idea of the fidelity of Ireland. I will give an instance : in 1654 nineteen Catholics were seized in old Leighlin, on account of their faith. They were promised extensive landed property, if they would change their faith. Three days were allowed them in prison to think upon the subject; but when asked on the first day, they all replied, "No." The second day, and again the same answer. On the third, w^hen told to prepare for the block ; they all answered as one man, " The sooner the better." One of the company, a young lad of eighteen, when brought before the executioner, requested to see the Governor; his request was granted, as something important was expected. He humbly asked pardon for being so bold in soliciting the Governor's presence, and then begged that he might be beheaded first, as his father was among the others, and he could not bear to see him put to death. The youth's request was granted, and then followed the decapitating of the rest, the nineteen heads being cut off upon the block, sooner than say they surrendered the faith of their fathers ! And so terribly was the persecution carried on in these days, that to shoot an Irishman was only <£5 penalty. I will SOCIAL CONDITION OF IRELAND. lo9 give you an instance. Some soldiers were passing an hotel, into wliich they entered. In some difference or frolic they shot the waiter dead. The landlord, deep in gnef, made a statement of the grievous murder to the colonel. This gentleman treated the matter quite /loolly, saying- that he must have given some reason, and jocosely said, " Oh, never mind ; put him in the bill ; I'll make it all right." So, Grentlemen, the ■waiter was put in the bill, which ran as follo\7s : " Breakfast, Is. 6d. ; dinner, 2s. 6d. ; shooting a waiter, £5." And shooting a w^aiter was only £5 ! And now, as I have gone over the events of these seventy years, will you allow me again to moralise i How do you think Irishmen could preserve their property, be educated, and maintain their faith under such trying cir. cumstances 1 Their heroic conduct under these oppress- ing times, was far better and more glorious than was that of the noble Greeks under Leonidas, at the pass of Ther- mopylae; for they stood bravely under it for seventy years. It w^as in these times, that the Irish priest and the Irish people became first pferfectly acquainted with each other. The people only knew us before as the heads of the Church ; knew us in our rich vestments, gorgeous ceremonials, golden croziers — the Irish Church being rich and powerful in these times. The people knew the Priest only by the great superiority of his learning, by his religious counsel. But the days of persecution came; the Priest had to put off his vestments and assume the freize coat ; had to leave his altars and preach by the hedges ; had to rol' 160 SOCIAL CONDITION OP IRELAND. about himself the chains that bound the people, live in the forest with them, and descend with them into caves ; and still more, if necessary, to perish with them. And from that hour to this, the people venerate the place called the "Mass bush," or the "Mass rock." For the poor Priest, at the risk of his life, would privately attend at these places ; and perhaps, as the morning sun arose, he w^ould uncover the Host of Salvation to the people and to God. Yo'u know, that I am acquainted with the inmost chords of an Irishman's heart, and can touch them w^hen I like ; and none but an Irishman can know how to speak to you. No persecution, no events since, not the most refined tyranny, have been able to break these bonds of sympathy between the Clergy and the people, which will go on, and strengthen in Ireland to the very end of time. And now, vre go on to the third period of Irish history, from the reign of James I., 1603, until the beheading of Charles I., in 1649 ; and how did w^e fare now ? Worse. Poor Ireland was conquered ; and now we might naturally suppose that there would be an end to it. But no ; we were again subjected to the fresh evils and crael persecu- tion by our conquerors under the Scotch Monarch. And again, I ask, how is it possible, with such evils to contend against, for Ireland to have advanced in those arts which w^ould make her happy, prosperous, and free 1 In the troublesome time of Charles I., we fought for ou King, the King of England ; and yet, the English historian calls the Irish rebels, because we did fight for Charles I. and the same historian calls the English loyal, though they fought against him. But it is one -of those cases which SOCIAL CONDITION OF IRELAND. 161 the Catholic historian puts forward as a proof of Irisli loyalty. Catholicism is eminently monarchical ; the loyal Catholic throughout the world has ever died at the foot of the throne ; and it is the only religion in the w^orld which stands without a stain as the tried ftiend of monarchy. We now arrive at 1649, w^hen Charles was beheaded. And what sort of a period now follows. If the devil himself ever came upon earth, he came in the shape of Cromw^ell. He came to Ireland, wrote to the ancesto. of the present Marquis of Ormond, to the following effect . " Ormond, I command you, under the penalty of death, to surrender to Cromwell; and if you surrender, you shall have ^30,000, and do so, I advise." I saw the mami- Bcript of this letter in Trinity College, Dublin. Ormond did surrender ; but the Irish Catholics, to the last man, fought for their King. And when the greatest persecutor that ever lived came to our country, we resisted him, and yet w^e got the name of rebels. Tipperary w^as the most violent in the defence of their King. Tipperary pre- viously had been very wealthy, and the most religious people in Ireland. They had more to lose, more to fight for. These tw^o things taken from them — their property and their religion — have made them the most violent of all Ireland from that day to this. Cromwell, in order to curb them, made a plantation here; yet, not a man would volunteer to face the Tipperary boys, excepting the most reckless and depraved. So, the earliest settlers were the wickedest of the troops ; and these becoming landlords, had been the most tyrannical; whilst the people had been the most furious in opposition to them. 6 162 SOCIAL CONDITION OP IRELAND. Now, it is pleasing to me to read the history of the- struggle, as it shows how nobly they fought for the defence of their country and their faith. As an instance of the condition of Ireland, and the opinion formed of us at this time by the English; there was in 1654, a wonder- ful bear exhibited in London, which could tell the age of the moon, tell what o'clock it was, and could tell w^ho was the biggest rogue in the room. It was so clever that the whole audience took it to be a Tipperary man. And, one day, the population actually came to the theatre, to insist that the manager should bring out the bear, to show it was a bear, and not a Tipperary man. Such w^ere the results of misgovernment. And while I look upon the government of England as being the most diabolical and the most infernal on God's earth, I look upon the English people as the most honest, arid the most noble. I have travelled Europe over, and I must say, if the English people were Roman Catholics, there never would be a finer people upon earth, I have only just tp mention their earnest exertions in having fifty-three Bible Societies, and spending one and a half million a year in religious works, which may be regarded by them as exponents of their deep religious feeling, although I diflTer from those societies. Again, in reviewing the last period — sixty years of cruel war. I ask what could we do ? Could we carry on agriculture 1 advance in science ? engage in com- merce ? Don't you see I am going on year by year, and minute by minute, to lay bare to you, as my jury, the deep wounds I have alluded to ? Was there a moment SOCIAL CONDITION OP IRELAND. 163 for Ireland to breathe in the midst of all this ? Some people would ask, how do you account for the remaining at all, under these violent persecutions, of any Irish in Ireland' I will tell you. When James I. made his first planta- tion in Ireland, he said to his men, "You must take as much land as you can keep." So these soldiers and adventurers invited the poor Catholics from their hiding places, and let them small parcels of land by the year, at high rents ; and, by this means, from a desire to make the Irish subservient to his aggrandizement, the Irish people and Irish religion, were preserved in Ireland. From this began the idea of tenure in Ireland. Notwithstand- ing the gross misrepresentation of the English historian, they could see that the only tw^o faults of Ireland are the defence of her political rights to the very death. To this day, you w^ill hear men talk, how the Irish hated the English. And why not? Would any man smile if a dagger "was stuck in his bosom ? How could a nation respect laws which deprived the people of their lands, robbed them of their religion, and deprived them of edu- cation 1 Yet, I am not depreciating the English of the present day. I am proud when abroad of being addressed as an Englishman. Much as I love France, I would rather live in England a thousand times than in France. If England virould only give us laws, as she has herself, , we would do well. There never were any such laws before, or elsewhere. But Ireland was subject to every persecution, and from none did she suffer more than from Orange Irishmen. We have a story in Ireland about one of these Irish Orangemen, called Tom Smith, a bailiff of 1C4 SOCIAL CONDITION OF IKELAND. Leinster. He was a remarkable man, being blind of one eye and lame. Nature closed one of his lights, and he could not see much with the other, which he always kept half shut, as if afraid to see, or be seen. He was also an appraiser, in connection with Orange authorities ; and as persons would not pay tithes, Tom Smith was called in to take the goods in payment. He was so excessively con- fecientious, that when called upon to testify that he had only *aken goods to the value required, he would put his little finger through his waistcoat button-hole, and declare upon oath, that it was through (true.) Another instance of legal justice. A man w^as tried for murder ; and after the jury had found a verdict of guilty, and the Judge had put on his black cap, to pro- nounce sentence — the man alleged to have been murder- ed walked into court. The Judge thereupon took off his cap, and addressing the foreman of the jury, said, they must reconsider their verdict, as the circumstances of the case had been altered. The jury did retire, and after a long deliberation, returned with a verdict of guilty. The. Judge, in astonishment, asked how that was, when he was told, ' the prisoner at the bar stole an old grey mare eight years ago from one of the jurymen, for which he w^as not caught, and so v/e'U let the verdict stand as it is.' — (Groans and hisses.) Now, all such abuses were carried out under sanction of law. The Reverend Lecturer again reviewed the historical period down to William III., Prince of Orange, who overcame James II. at the Battle of the Boyne. He is usually taken as the representative of Orange principles, but he was far from any such low character. This king was a most worthy man — ^he had many excellent qualities. He was very SOCIAL CONDITION OF IRELAND. 1G5 imperfectly appreciated and misunderstood in Ireland. He was a man of wide and tolerant principles, and Orangemen did him much injus- tice. However, the moment he succeeded in his conquest, his party were let loose upon Ireland, and the people never suffered such tyranny. (Hear, hear.) From George I., 1714, to Greorge III., 1760, Ireland "was still persecuted. The Catholics were deprived of all their rights, except what was given to them by stealth. But George III. was a good man; but a stubborn old fel- low. He sat on the throne for fifty-three years, with his judgment matured, but he never could spell the word emancipation without the letter **,' instead of *c.' When George IV. and the Duke of York were boys, under tui- tion, the old king heard them crying. He asked what w^as the matter, when the master said, it was the Latin Grammar they were averse to. *Pho, pho,' said his Ma- jesty. ' What do they want with Latin V There's plenty of fellows about them that will know plenty of Latin for what they will want. (Laughter.) The year 1760 is a most important period. George III. came to the throne in perfect peace, and having nothing to do, they were determined to tax the American people. The Ame- ricans remonstrated, and sent Washington to London to state their grie- vance. He waited on the Prime Minister several times in the Court, to get a heeiring. He was treated so lightly, that at last, he said to the Minister: ' I call here frequently, and yet I get no conclusive answer ; what shall I do?' The Minister laughed at him; and when Washing- ton got into the street, with his hat oif, he vowed vengeance before God against England. (Rapturous cheering.) He returned home, fired the zeal of his countrymen. In battle after battle, he was victorious over the English, and in 1782, he lifted the flag of American independence. (Applause.) I intend going to America shortly, and I will take a bot- tle of Irish poteen, and when within the nearest distance of Bunkei's Hill, I will drink on deck to the American flag. (Cheers.) 166 SOCIAL CONDITION OF IRELAND. After these reverses, you never saAV anything in your life so agreeable as England became to Ireland. Again, the French Revolution began in 1789, in which she over- turned her altar and her throne ; and England, in terror, then gave us the privileges we now enjoy, and which gave us leave to worship God. Maynooth College was found- ed about this time, 1795. Carlow College, 1799. And we also got leave to vote at elections. England yielded through fear, what she would not give to justice; and the heads of our party said they did not thank England for what she had done. England gave a paltry c£9,000 for the College of Maynooth, and <£30,000 to the Lock Hos- pital in Dublin, for the encouragement of vice. In the language of those great men, Shiel and O'Connell, Eng- land's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity. As Shiel said in one of his parliamentary speeches — "Ireland is like a convicted felon in a convict ship, his only hope of escape and relief is the w^reck of the ship." From the year 1793 to 1830, when the Irish were al- lowed to have property, and vote at elections, they ac- quired two twenty-fifths of the whole property of Ire- land, by which the industry of the country was encou- raged ; a clear proof that if we had accomplished so much under a tolerant Government in a few years, we should have done very much under a propitious Government. — There is no other nation under heaven, that has accumu- lated money with more honesty, more industry, and more frugality than the Irish. Again, look at the illustrious names, that like stars, burst forth in the firmament of literature, when the ban upon education was removed. SOCIAL CONDITION OF IRELAND. 167 We have Milner, Lingard, Shiel, O'Connell, Dr. Doyle, and many others, ■who stand before all Europe, as the most eminent men who have graced the annals of any country. On the contrary, from 1622 to 1793, we had not a single individual to write in our favor, and repre- sent our grievous case, in opposition to the lies of Eng- lish historians, which, like the pediments of a bridge, are the foundations upon w^hich succeeding historians have built their bridges; so that there are lies lying beneath the very depths of the structure. The 40s. freeholders, were created about this time, to carry out a deep laid plan for the destruction of our Na- tional Parliament. In eight years, by bribery and inti- midation, England succeeded in taking away from us our National Parliament. It w^as a remarkable time ; it was on a first day of a first week", of a first month, of a first year, in a new century ; on a Monday January 1st, 1801. They succeeded, by spending four and a half millions, and have left Ireland without a Parliament from that day to this. Our Parliament gone in 1801, what more did England do ? She took away our Linen Trade, by put- ting a duty upon them : she discouraged our trade, beg- gared our commerce, and made that verdant, beautiful Island a desert. Yes, it was the Irish landlords sold our birthright, and by their treacherous conduct has come upon us, the greatest curse Ireland has ever sustained. Between the years 1793 and 1815, land rose cent, per cent, m Ireland ; provision rose in equal proportion ; the wealthy left it; clothes became dearer, and the young men entered the army ; so that the Irish could live no longer 168 SOCIAL CONDITION OP IRELAND. in their own country ; they had to leave Ireland, come to England, and go abroad. The gentry lived upon their incomes, in luxury and waste, so' that they sank Ireland into still greater depths of poverty — 14-25ths of the land- ed property being mortgaged. We now come to 1830, and look at our position. We have cruel middlemen upon our lands, exacting the high- est prices, and the poor tenantry rent-racked, the landlords spending their money, and living out of the country ; corn cheap, and no money ; no manufacture, not a chimney in Ireland except in Belfast. Catholics then got the Eman- cipation Bill, but what did that do ? It introduced elec- tions, but yet, when they elected Roman Catholic friends, they were ejected and turned out of their homes the next day. Awful times followed. Mr. O'Connell began to agitate for another Parliament, but his professions were doubted ; as it w^as alleged, they wanted to separate Ire- land from England. A new spirit arose amongst the young men of Cambridge and Oxford, the nursery of statesmen, to look with suspicion upon the movements of Ireland. The press headed the outcry, and scarcely a newspaper in England, but what contained something to the discredit of Ireland. The Protestant church in Ire- land was consolidated by law. English feeling was never more jealously manifested. So what did we get by Eman- cipation ? Thus we see we have only had about twenty three years, in which it may be said Ireland could ad- vance in improvement. And now for the charges brought against us. We are idle. Idle ! Where is the work to do 1 There is no SOCIAL CONDITION OF IRELAND. 169 work. We are improvident and beggarly. Yes, like a story I heard tte other day of a poor fellow that w^as go- ing to America, by one of the emigrant ships at the Wa- terloo Dock, vyhen he w^as accosted by a German, who sold boxes, with — ' Buy a box. Sir.' What for 1 said our friend. ' To put your clothes in,' replied the German. 'Bedad if I do, then, I'll have to go naked on deck.' We have no enterprize, and not a single chimney or manufac- tory. We are dirty — but give us the price of razors and soap, and we w^ill show you that we are clean. - I'll tell you a story of a party of Cromwell's soldiers, w^ho went into a cabin in Ireland, and demanded the second best bed in the house. " That's bad news for Mor- gan, Sir," replied a poor fellow, sitting at the fire. " Who the deuce is Morgan?" asked one of the party. "Mor- gan, Sir," answered the owner, " is no other than the pig." Not contented ; when able-bodied men are laboring for 4d. a day, and some girls, young women, for 1 l-2d. a day. I dined w^ith a Scotchman lately, near Limerick, who recently invested much money in Ireland, and this gentleman said, speaking of laborers, " I never saw such men,; I had no idea of them before I came. I w^ill give them Is. Id. a day, with a kind word, and they will lay dow^n their lives for me. I never saw^ such men." Idle they are called, when there is no virork to do. What ! Lazy upon 1 l-2d. a day! Would it not be better to starve by a ditch rather than work for 1 l-2d. a day ? And now, will you allow me to ask you, as my jury, who is to be blamed for all these evils 1 1 don't want to blame the English solely. We call upon the Irish land- 170 SOCIAL CONDITION OF IRELAND. lords tc open the rich and varied mines- that are beneath our feet ; to open manufactories ; to amend their laws of land-letting, and stimulate Irish commerce. Look at our kindred in America ; don't we see them there, free from the vices attributed to them here ? We have been much maligned by the press and Protestant Church during late years, when our only crime has been, we have fought for our political privileges and our religious creed. But yet, he was proud, notwithstanding, of the English character. Just look at a company of ten gentlemen, none speaks before the other is finished ; how bland, how graceful, each listens, and none obtrudes. Get ten Irish gentlemen, just as well bred, and ybu will hear them a mile oif, all speaking at once at the top of their voices, and each begin- ning his speech ten minutes before the other ends, so that he may come in at the finish ; but if you get into the com- pany often Irish ladies, you would hear them two miles ofl". But I must certainly say, that the English are always grumbling, because they have too much to eat, and an Irish- man grumbles because he can't get enough to eat. There was a fine little fellow lived down in the west of England, he was the son of a nobleman, and one day he was sitting on the garden wall, enjoying himself with a large piece of plum-cake ; when all of a sudden, he alarmed the whole household by most heart-rending and piteous moana. His poor mother flew to him and clasped him to her bosom inquired most anxiously, " Johnny, dear, what is the mat- ter?" Johnny, with big tears in his eyes, exclaimed, "Oh, Mammy, I can't eat any more!" I will now sum up as Counsel for Ireland. I only wish SOCIAL CONDITION OP IRELAND. 171 I might have a week's discussion with Lord John Rus- sell or Lord Palmerston, and you know you would have the better side of the question. You that are in England. I would charge you not to think of returning to Ireland, but identify yourselves with this country, and try to place yourselves in respectable positions. There is no w^ork for you in Ireland; there is in England. I congratulate you upon the good use you have made of my letter of counsel to you from Scotland, last July. It has saved you from many broken heads, and breaking the peace. I w^rote to Sir George Grey, who thought 1 was a fire brand. But I was no firebrand, but a peace maker. The only firey trick I ever did, was to bring the blush into Lord John Russell's face. I am in correspondence with every Court in the whole world. I have just had a letter from Vienna, which says there will be no \var, though Russia depends upon the perfidy of England. By this right hand, and by my influence with you, I have laid the basis of permanent peace in this city, and when I come to Liverpool, the merchants of Liverpool ought to acknowledge the debt they owe me. At your soiree — at my soiree — ^you did not mention the name of Dr. Caliill, then in Scotland. I did not forget it, and I do not for- give it. I will conclude with the year 1847, when the potato- rot &mine, and fever staggered the living and scourged the land. The poor Priests lived by your side at the time, they did not neglect you. In Liverpool, thirteen Priests, in their black shrouds, lie buried under your feet. Then came the cholera. The poor tenantry, turned ofF_ 172 SOCIAL CONDITION OF IRELAND. their farms, and under the burning heat of July, might have been seen without shelter — 290 persons living in the fields, lying dying in all the horrors of wretchedness. The famine and plague were not sufficient, but the exter- minating landlords levelled the cottages of his poor ten- antry to the earth, and sent tbem out in emigrant ships, packed so that it became almost a floating funeral hearse over the broad waters of the deep. Ten thousand of these poor persons perished in America, and others perished through ague. But Ireland, now, fs getting better; she is getting free from all her poverty and ailments. The green grave is closing over her wounds, labor now^ begins to look up in Ireland. Manufactories are springing up in large towns, the people are spreading over the earth to improve their condition, and in America, in every vil- lage may be found and Irish home. Irish abound from the shores of Canada to the forests of Mexico. A lamentable scene was mentioned a few days ago, of a poor Irish woman in New Orleans. In one of the chief streets was to be seen at noon-day a poor woman, raving in sorrow, with her hands to her eyes, and clinging to her on each side was a child. Before her, in a cart, driven by a negro, was the corpse of her husband, carried off in the yellow fever. She pitifully exclaimed, " Oh, Jack, dear, was it for this I came to America, to lose my poor hus- band ! Oh, that 1 had never crossed the salt seas. Here I am and nothing to eat, and nowhere to go." A gentle- man, overhearing her, kindly gave her a sovereign, but her grief was so heavy that she scarcely recognised the gift. SOCIAI, CONDITION OF IRELAND. ] 73 Suet were the hardships our people pass through. I perceive now there is no slander or articles against us in the Times. And do you know why 1 Because Napoleon III. stands at the head of 150,000 me.-. The Emperor and Empress lately attended a review in France, where 100,000 men were present. They attended High Mass in the field, and in the sight of the whole troops, knelt down humbly before the Priest. One hundred and ten cannons w^ere discharged when the Priest lifted the Sacred Host to the blue vault of Heaven, and 100,000 men bent upon their knees and adored their Lord and God. When Prince Albert was in Dublin, I thought to write a letter to him upon the grievances of Ireland. I shall do so yet. The Governments of Europe are beginning to stir. Austria has turned the Times newspaper out of her dominions; the Queen of Spain has prohibited it also. Bulwer was turned out at forty-eight hours' notice from Spain, in con. sequence of his interference with the Catholic worship. We have now^ seven Catholic thrones; and virhen Leopold dies, his son having married into a Catholic family, we may expect an eighth. So, as God is just, we may expect the triumph of the true Faith. And, as all nations come to an end, there may be a time when England shall fall, and receive that retribution attending all injustices. To use the words of Macauley, whom I don't like to quote, there may be a time when a New Zealander will stand upon London bridge, sketching the ruins of that great city. Nineveh, with all her beauty, perished ; Palmyra, the great seat of learning and architectural splendor, is now crumbling into dust. Babylon, the great terror of 174 SOCIAL CONDITION OF IRELAND. hor time, is now punished for her cruelties. Scarcely a vestige of ancient Rome is now standing — all gone^ ruined ; and I wish England to take my warning in time, and beware of the wrath of God, in persecuting his Church, and the faithful Irish people, for in the words of the Scotch poet — *' By oppression's woes and pains. By our sons in sernle chains, We shall drain our dearest veins. But we shall be free " The Rev. Gentleman then retired amidst the most enthusiastic cheering. DR. CAHILL'S REPLY TO AN ADDRES OF THE CLERGY OF BEVERLY. The members of the clergy of the diocess of Bever- ly, availing themselves of the opportunity of a second visit of the Rev. Doctor to their neighborhood, tender- ed an address, testifying their admiration and grati- tude for the services rendered to religion ; and won- dering " that men calling themselves the children of the Church, should have stood forward to misrepre- sent his arguments, to deny his right to be consider- ed as an exponent of the Catholic Faith and to stig- matise him." Dated February 27th. 1854. Very Reverend and Reverend Gentlemen — The regard, the affection, and the kind condescension which breathe through every line of your most valued address TO THE CLERGY OP BEVERLr. 175 render it impossible for me to make a suitable reply in any form of words at my command. This public docu- ment is, under existing circumstances, a most necessary rebuke to persons who, from being treated with courtesy, and perhaps flattered, seeta to have lost sight of all pru- dence, by putting forth their crude knowledge without sense, their blind zeal without charity, and their offensive criticism without learning. They appear to have concei- ved the possibility of converting their old friends, by praising Protestantism and by abusing Catholicity ; they seem to think that they can reduce their present position to a happy mean between our Gospel and the Book of Common Prayer; and it would strike any penetrating observer, that these gentlemen have joined us, more be- cause they try to scape the contradictions of Protestantism, than to embrace the convictions of Catholicity. This li- beral compromise will never succeed, "No man can ser- ve two masters." But it is fortunate they have been checked in this early stage of their Tractarianism : no one could volunteer to give the public correction w^hich they compelled me most reluctantly to administer; and if proofs w^ere w^anted to show^ the untamed tone of their minds, it can be found in every sentence they write in reference to me, where, in place of making an apology for their gross misstatements, they are still struggling to defend their foolish conduct in the face of the indignant public. Gentlemen, just read that sentence in their article, where they say that the word " Transubstantiation " was created by Catholic Theology to express " the annihila- Il6 TO THE CLERGY OF BEVERLY. tion of one substance and the substitution of another" Here they identify the questionable opinions of some few theologians with the unquestionable dogmas of faith ; and if they read Bellarmine and St. Thomas, instead of Vaz- quez and Perroni, they would pause before they expo- sed themselves to the just criticism of the scholars of the Church. Again, hear them while they tell the faithfuU, in page 173, that the "Accidents in the Eucharist (the only por- tions of matter, which are, as far as we know, cognisable . by the senses) remain unaltered." ! ! Here we are infor- m'-d, firstly, that our sensations are " portions of matter;" and secondly, that although the Council of Trent decla- res that there is a total "convertion of the substance of bread," yet here it is stated that "portions of matter " re- main unaltered after the consecration. In reference to the shameful observations made by the writers in the Rambler on your "English Choirs and Church Services," there can be but one opinion. These gentlemen have carried into our Church, all their former antipathies against everything Catholic, without adopt- ing the charities of their new faith. Only hear them de- signating the English Church by the name of "Anglo Catholic ;" calling the sacred music performed at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass by the name of "Mass Music." They speak as lightly of it as of a Scotch reel or an Irish hornpipe. Listen to their description of the English Choirs, where they use the words — "gross irreverence, pi- liable ignorance, scandals, concerts, offensive exhibitions. the congregation smiling, the performance, some of the SPEECH IN LITERPOOL. 177 Choir kneeling in mockery, the confiasion, the disorders, a system, the church converted into a concert room, irre- verence behind the gallery curtains. " Gentlemen, you have done well to call the public attention to this distres- sing article ; and I hope it will be at once the means of discontinuing the further scandalous publication of the la- mentable Periodical, till the Bishops and Priests, in their ow^n defence, ■will place it under the guidance of some person w^ho has solid learning, who can w^rite the Catho- lic sentiment, and who understands the Catholic doctrine. I might regret having taken so much notice of these imprudent persons if I had not received this address ; but now I am pleased that any circumstance has occured, which has placed before me a precious document, w^hich makes my heart so happy, and which I shall bind up with my choicest and warmest feelings, as long as I live. I am. Very Rev. and Rev. Gentlemen, your for ever attached, D. W. CAHILL, D.D. P. S.— The third letter, which I promissed on next Saturday, I shall reserve 1 and I shall, if necessary, pnblish it in some future occasion. DR. CAHILL'S SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. The following speech was received with great ap- plause at a meeting of the Irish residents of Liverpool to express their sympathy for Mr. John O'Connell, as the son of the Liberator, and to open a subscrip- tion for him. 178 SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. The orator commenced witli a brilliant Bketch of the political career of O'Coniiell : the injustice inflict- ed on his country did not rouse his energies so much as the wrongs perpetrated on his creed ; he was the impersonification of Ireland's own child ; he was the master of all ages, the patriot of every nation ; his name is raised higher in the national history than the Irish eternal mountains ; he has rivalled Cicero in classic eloquence, has equalled Demosthenes in patri- otic fire, and has surpassed both in national virtues ; he placed himself at the head ofideas, not soldiers; all the nations were his people; all mankind are under an obligation to him, which they never can repay, and Ireland stands at this moment charged with the whole debt duo to the imperishable success of O'Con- nell, who has descended to his honored tomb without a nail in his illustrious cofi&n purchassed with the mo- ney of Ireland. John O'Connell can show his own achievements in the field, to prove his claims on his country ; he has never betrayed the cause of his coun- trymen, as many recreants have done ; he has avowed the noblest feelings for them. "When the speech was over, a number of subscrip- tions canie in, and several persons called for collec- tors' books. The meeting shortly afterwards separ- ated, cheering most vociferously for John O'Connell, Dr. Cahill, Mr. Levingston &c. Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen — There is not a nation under the sun, able to shout with the Irish SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. 179 Catholics Being bound band and foot so long in national chains and penal servitude, and being prevented from Epeaking by the Attorney Greneral-^the eternal, undying Attorney General — of Ireland, there was no way left to express our &elings, except by national shouting; and hence, there is an eloquence, a poetry, a patriotism in the Irish cheer, 'which is more tragic than Shakespeare, more burning than Demosthenes, more inspiring than Milton — and if ever that cheer rose up into the regions of divine &ncy itself, it is when the Irish soul is stirred up from its deepest recesses of feeling by the magic sound of the immortal O'Connell. (Here the entire assembly rose again and cheered again and again for the immortal name of O'Connell.) When, in the beginning of the present century he com- menced his political career, he could procure only thirteen persons to attend a meeting in Dublin, to petition for Catholic Emancipation. He was then, if I may so speak, a mere ensign in politics ; but he rose from rank to rank with a brilliant name, and with unexampled success, till he took, by universal consent, the supreme command of the national force, and in numberless skirmishes and one hundred battles, he met the foes of Ireland foot to foot, and shoulder to shoulder, and by courage that never .quailed, a perseverence unsubdued, and a genius without a comparison, he struck off our national chains, conquered ancient oppression, and won the Emancipation of Ireland. (Wild and rapturous cheers, w^hich lasted several minutes.) And when we throw ourselves into his mind and examine his heart, we learn that the injustice inflicted on his coun* 180 SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. try did not rouse the great energies of his being in half the mightiness as when he concentrated his power against the wrongs perpetrated on his creed. No one ever heard him address a jury who did not find his feelings enlisted foi* his client; it was impossible to listen to him for five minutes in an assembly of his coun- trymen, as he poured forth from his burning bosom his own flood of melting eloquence, over the woes of Ireland, without resentment for our national degradation; but when the insults to his religion awoke his passion into legitimate anger, his whole soul glowed with brilliant fire, and as he directed the flashing torrents against the opponents of his Church, his consuming words resembled the rapidity and terrors of the lightning. (Tremendous cheering.) He was the impersonification of Ireland's own child; he was the son of Ireland's own heart ; he possessed the tongue and the soul of the true genius of his country. Other men have had an evening in life, he had none; other great characters were seen to ascend to the horizon of their career and gradually set, his sun stood fixed in the meridian in full dazzling splendor, without a motion to the west; and when he departed from us, it was the whole span from mid-day to night, leaving his country covered with a sudden darkness and mouraing, after burn-' ing skies, during half a century of patriotism that never has been surpassed, and a national fame that perhaps never can be equalled. (At the conclusion of this sentence no words could describe the enthusiasm that followed.) But if ever a memory could be said to be palpable, it was SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. 181 his — and if ever the instmcdons of a master could assume a living form, Hs lessons are still breathing and alive aU over the world. He was not merely the teacher of Ire- land and of his own age — he was the master of all ages> the patriot of every distinguished nation. (Loud cheers.) When the present representatives of Ireland defend our country and our creed in the British Senate, I think I hear his w^ords in their mouths. They are children, to be sure, compared with the aged father of Ireland; but virhen they speak with energy, and honor, and patriotism, I think 1 recognise the accent, hear the voice, and feel the enthu- siasmof the ancient orator of my country. (Loud and continjied cheering.) I fancy he is still alive in Ireland, when I read in the newspapers the success of the poor Irish tenantry to return to Parliament a friend to the poor; w^hen I dw^ell on the speeches at elections, the orations at the public dinners, given to the tried advocates of our national rights, I recollect well that they are only repeat- ing the language they once heard from him, retailing his arguments which he once flung from his great mind, and rekindling the fire which once blazed on his electric lips. (It is quite impossible to describe the enthusiasm of the assembly at thi» moment.) And the fire bums in America at this moment with a brilliancy that will yet send its glorious illuminating beams back again across the Atlantic, to the poor old mother land — many a fervid heart along the rapid St- Law^rence and the swollen Mississippi, w^ho have learned patriotism at the feet of Ireland's orator — many a patriot out there who has been trained in the lessons of national 182 SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. independence in our popular assemblies in poor Ireland—' and many a thousand hearts in time to come will be ready, when necessary, to lend a suitable aid (when Irelard shall most need their succors,) to the cradle of their faith, the scene of their patriotism, and the theatre of their national struggles. (Wild cheering, and waving of handkerchiefs.) Wherever an Irishman is placed, all the world over, he boasts of the name of O'Connell ; that name is raised higher in our own national history than the eternal moun- tains of our country, and it will last as long in imperisha- ble existence; and when the Romans talk of their Cicero, and the Greeks of their Demosthenes, we point to the Irish forum, and the British Senate, to a name that has rivalled the one in classic eloquence, that has equalled the other in patriot-fire, and that has surpassed both in national virtues. (Any attempt to describe the emotion of the meeting is impossible.) And not alone has Ireland learned from him the science of freedom, and the art of national independence : he has taught all the nations of the earth, by the science of reform, by a moral and peaceful combination. He placed himself at the head of ideas — not soldiers ; he took the command — not cannon; and by the triumph of reason, he gained victories such as no conqueror ever achieved by the flashing sword, or the thunders of the artillery. (Loud cheers.) Twenty-three French peers, with Count Montalambert at their head, presented to him an humble address, in which, after offering to him their homage, they acknowledged that be had invented a new political strat- agy ; that he was the audior of a new principle of national SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. 183 reform ; that he had discovered a mighty plan, by which the greatest advantages to man could eventually be acquired by the steady application of the primary lavifs of God, and that, by carrying out his ideas, the combination of men's hearts would be in the end more successful than the united terrors of the sanguinary steel. (Loud cheer- ing for several minutes.) From Ireland, as from a professor's chair, he delivered his lessons to universal mankind — all the nations of the earth were his people; and his voice w^as heard from East to West, from North to South, and for half a century along the boundless horizon. No man can ever again take his place. He filled the whole world with his fame — he w^as the light of our skies, the undying creation of our age, the ornament of our race, and the imperishable mon- ument to the name and character of Ireland. (Loud cheers, waving of hats, handkerchiefs, &c.) There can be no doubt that he has placed all mankind under an obli- gation to him which they never can repay ; and his name will go down through each successive generation of his countrymen, gathering accumulated honor, as it is heard through coming time. The poor Irish did endeavor to give their devotion to him while living; the poor man contributed his mite, in his yearly duty to the national gratitude. But whatever the nation gave, the nation received back again ; their national devotion was annually repaid; what they bestowed on the patriot, the generous patriot refund- ed the same year; and thus our nation stands at this mo- ment charged with the whole debt due to the imperisha 184 SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL ble success of O'Connell. (Loud cheers, and cries of "it's true, it's true.") If Ireland purchased an estate, in fee for O'Connell, and that his children's children inherited it, and lived on it, I could place a graven plate on the gate ol the family mansion, to commemorate the sciences of the departed orator, and the honor of my grateful country. — But I protest, when I consider the disinterestedness which returned the gift each year to the poor who bestowed it, T place the nobility, the honor, the pride of this act alone, the highest point of the patriot's fame ; and his memory stands before me unsullied in its purity, by retaining foi himself not one penny of the money of the nation. (Here the audience rose and expressed their feelings of delight by a loud burst of applause.) Mr. O'Connell died without being indebted one shilling to our nation ; and consequent- ly we still owe to him the full amount of her services. — He lived in comparative poverty on our account, and we therefore stand indebted to him for his sacrifices. Not one of his sons or family wear a single glove or ribbon purchased from the donation from Ireland; and hence, while I value his success, while I am grateful for his sacri- fices, while I venerate his patriotism, while I admire his genius, and worship his eloquence, there is one point high- er than all, and that is the lofty pride of his heart, by which he descended to his honored tomb without one nail in his illustrious coffin purchased with the money of Ireland. (Loud and rapturous cheering.) The only act of his glorious life with which the future historian will find fault, is that he. deprived his family of the large re- sources of his profession, and that in fact he robbed his SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. 1S6 sons of their just hopes, their expected fortune and nr.e rited position, in order to devote his whole life and re- sources to the services of Ireland. (Loud cheers.) But when Ireland has followed his example for fifty years, there is one part of his character in w^hich our nation w^ill not take part in his career, and that is, Ireland will not rob John O'Connell of that just debt which Ireland owes him. (No one can describe the emotion of the meeting at this time, amidst cheering, &c., all standing.) No, I thank you for this rapturous enthusiasm. No, no, Ireland is too honest, too grateful, to rob John O'Connell, on his own account — and on this evening, and in this place, shall be- gin our instalment of the debt which Ireland will certain- ly discharge. (Here loud cheers were given for John O'Connell.) John O'Connell need not point to the statues of his an- cestors to prove his claims on his country ; he can show his own achievements in the field, already the tried cham- pion of nineteen years. In every battle for Ireland during this eventfiil period, he stood by his father's side, and whenever the heat of the fight raged most violently,. there might be seen the unflinching, foarless son, with his sw^ord draw^n, standing in front of the lofty plumage and glitter- ing armor of the giant father, as he repelled the advance of the enemy. (Loud and rapturous cheering.) I am de- lighted to find that you are^in such good humor. (Loud laughter.) They tell a tale of an Irishman once in France, and being asked by a Frenchman what kind of a looking man was the great O'Connell 1 The Irishman paused for a moment, and then said : " Why, then, I'll tell you that 186 SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. he is, for all the world, like the Lakes of Killarney."— . (Roars of laughter.) Now, if any one here has not seen my friend Mr. O'Con- nell, I must tell them that he is descended of the Lakes of Killarney; and that if you remove the father out oS view, while you are looking at him, his political honesty and national fidelity will not suffer by a close comparison with any one of his age or standing. Since he commenc- ed his political career, many a recreant betrayed our cause — John O'Connell never (cries of never, never;) many a man left our ranks and sold Ireland for gold, but John O'Connell never: and if the creed of St. Patrick, and if the religioh of Ireland be maligned, listen to the rising voice, observe the boiling anger, and look in his face and see his passion, as it mantles his indignant brow, while with all his mind, and with the whole of his father's heart, he defends his country's faith against the malignant as- saults of its Continued enemies. (Loud and long cheering^.) But this meeting is not a political assembly ; if it were political, I should not have attended, lest one word might escape my lips that could give offence to any one of the advocates for the rights and the liberties of Ireland.-— (Cheers.) I like every one who struggles for Ireland ; I love all who maintain the political interests, and defend the religious creed of Ireland. One man may labor to ad- vance the civil rights of myjcountry, another person may strive to strike off the chains that bind the cross of Christ, but give me the man who labors for both ; I respect all the others — ^but I love with my whole heart, and all my sympathies are with the poor — the poor abandoned, pai'ife* cuted Irish peasant. SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. 187 When I go on board your emigi'ant ships, (which I do whenever I am in your city,) and when I see the poor old grandfather, with his worn frame and haggard look, and white scattered locks of tangled hair, carrying his lit- tle grand-daughter on his back ; and when I Behold the poor tottering old grandmother, without a bonnet or a cap, with her little grandson on her back ; w^hen I look at them carrying the children to the ship, my heart melts to see the miserable looks of our poor Irish children, their little bare legs hanging in front, in the pelting snow and the biting frost — I weep for those poor little exiles, when I think of their bring wrenched at such a tender age from the fostering care of a mother and kind home. It is a heart-rending sight to see three generations, the grandfa- ther, the son, and the grandchild, crawling in hunger on the gangfways of the emigrant ship, doomed never again to kiss the Irish primrose, and lay their feet on the green turf of their country. (Here the meeting was affected to tears.) I always bid these poor exiles a last farewell, with my eyes full of tears, and my heart bursting with unmingled feelings of Irish sympathy, and legitimate po- litical anger; and when I take my place on the shore, and see the ships ■*>reighing their anchors, swell their canvas, and move slow^ly on through the foaming deep, I hear my heart foretelling as she clears the river, that she is a large ocean hearse, and that before, the sun sets twice, she will bury her living cargo in the foundations of the sea, amid&t the crashing horrors of the yawning abyss, and the moan- ing terrors of the midnight tempest. (The entire audi- ence here felt deeply aifected.) 188 SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. How graceful I felt, on reading the speech of Mr. John O'Connell, to see the feelings he entertains for his poor countrymen. It is what I expected from his generous heart, and gives an additional credence, if such were wanted, of his devotion to his country. But I must say, that as all my sympathies are with the poor banished, persecuted, exterminated tenantry, I feel all my soul engaged in the plan that can give to Ireland such a law of tenant right, as will protect her poor from the cruel law of wholesale extermination ; and the men who struggle to procure such a law for the poor, deserve the admiration of their country, and the gratitude of posterity; (cheers) and I feel great pleasure in stating here, that in a commu- nication I have had in London with one of the first (I may say the first Catholic Irishman,) of our present Irish party in the House of Commons, he stated to me that if a national testimonial of ten thousand pounds were decided on for Mr. John O'Connell, he would be found at the head of th& list, and, by his fortune and exertions, carry out the work to its fulfilment. (Loud cheers for Mr. Moore.) I did not name Mr. Moore, but I suppose as I said he was the first, you have selected him. (Cheers.) Well, as you have named him, I shall leave it so, from my respect for your opinions. (Cheers for Mr. Moore.) You all recollect the tale of the Q,ueen having, during her stay at Balmoral, asked a Scotch girl w^hat o'clock it was ? The girl replied, " Whatever you please, Ma'am." (Roars of laughter.) Now, I say to you, in reference to Mr. Moore, "Whatever you please;" but when I have a good thing to say between friends, I like to say it. I SPEECH IN LIVERPOOL. 189 wist I could make up the breach in tlie ranks of our gal- lant Irishmen; I would willingly go on my knees to implore of all our friends to bury private opinions, and unite in one compact body for the protection of the poor. (Great cheering, and cries of " You are the man who can bring them together.") I have only one more word to say — namely, that Dr. Yore, the Vicar General of Dublin, is the treasurer of this O'Connell tribute — an additional reason why I am here this night; and, as I act under Dr. Yore, and Dr. Yore under his Grace the Delegate Arch- bishop, and so-on, you have a regular pyramid of living ecclesiastics as a model for your conduct in this national testimonial. (Loud cheers.) Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am now done ; I thank you exceedingly for your overwhelming kindness, and your w^arm enthusiasm. We shall reward Mr. O'Connell for his past honest politi- cal career, and his faithful services in the cause of Ireland, and we shall do an act of justice which we owe to a tried patriot, which we owe to the cause of our countiy, and •which we owe to the feelings of our own hearts. I thank vou on my ow^n part as the private friend of the O'Con- nell family— I thank you on the part of John O'Connell, and I thank you w^ith all my heart on the part of my country. (On bowing and retiring the Reverend and elo- quent Gentleman was greeted w^ith a degree of heartfelt applause quite indescribable.) DR. CAHILL TO THE RI&HT HON. LORD JOHN RUSSELL. Upper Gloucester Street, Dublin. My Lord — I make no apology for the liberty which 1 thus take in addressing so exalted a personage as the first minister of the most powerful empire in the world. On this point, your Lordship must recollect that I have not presumed to go up to your place; it was you, w^ho, by your most unexpected letter, came down to mine ; and if your Lordship find yourself now in my presence, you must see, it was you who have approached me, and not me you. As you have attacked — ^in a letter which will yet surprise yourself, as much as it has astonished all Eu- rope — every Catholic in the whole world, from the Supremo Pontiff down to the "heathen" Irish, it follows, as a mat- ter of course, that, in this large and incomprehensible in- sult to two hundred millions of Catholics in the old world, your Lordship must necessarily have included me ; first, as being a countryman of the heathens, and secondly, as being one of the traitors, whom (as Hume hints) you pre- tend to be afraid of, as aiding the Pope in his sole and undivided sway over the realm of England. Your Lord- ship's late letter I consider, therefore, as partly directed to me, and therefore do I feel myself partly bound to send your Lordship an answer to certain passages w^hich appear to me not noticed by aiiy of those persons who have already replied to you. There can be no doubt at all that your Lordship intend- ed to fill all England and Ireland with the cry of no Popery, and to pelt the Catholic Priesthood with the old LETTER TO LORi) JOHN RUSSELL. 191 degraded slander of being traitors to the Throne. The Pope could not assume " sole and undivided sway over the realm of England," unless the Catholic Priests and people withdrew their allegiance from the Queen, and gave it undivided to him ; nor could his sway be sole over the realm, unless the Priests and the Catholic peo- ple entirely ignored the Queen's supremacy, when able to do so, and transferred their entire allegiance to him. This, then, I take to be your decided meaning — to inflame the English mob, if English words have any decided sig- nification. Although this ungenerous charge has been already made ten thousand times, it ought — as Cobbett used to say — to be again refuted w^ith scorn ten thousand times; and this is the point w^hich I shall presume, first, to discuss with you. Your Lordship knows better than I do that the history of all Christian time over the world has but one page in reference to the allegiance of the Catholic Church to the throne — and that page is, an unbroken, unshrinking fidelity to legitimate monarchy, to legitimate power, in every country, and in every age, even to chains and death. Let us examine the various countries, and come to facts and dates : — Firstly — Is not the French revolution in 1789, written in the blood of the Royal Family and the French Priest- hood ? . They lived united, and they fell together — ^they were the faithful servants of their Royal Master, and hence the streets of Paris ran red with their blood, and thousands died in exile in a foreign land for their fidelity. Secondly — In Spain, when the ancient constitution was changed, and when fas the English Cabinet knows ?| the 1.92 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. euccession to the Throne was altered, the Priesthood clung, with fidelity to the legitimate heir to the Spanish Crown, and suffered trials and persecution — from what ia still called there the English party — which makes the blood freeze. In one day, the 17th July, 1833, upwards of one hundred Priests were butchered in Madrid alone; in Toledo, thirty-three Convents of Nuns and Friars were closed, and the aged inmates pitchforked into the streets, and left to die of hunger and cruel treatment- on the pub- lic highway. They w^ere attached to Don Carlos, and therefore became the objects of plunder and assassination to the enemies of order and to the conspirators against the ancient laws. Thirdly — When rebelion broke out in the Canadas — what is termed the Papineau insurrection — the Catholic Priesthood there received the thanks of the Legislature for their distinguished allegiance; and all Catholics, are, since that time, admitted to a full share in the offices, emoluments, and honors of the State. Sir Francis Head states, that the Catholics of Canada are the best support, there, of the English Crown. Fourthly — ^When Norway was taken from the King of Denmark, and given by the allied powers to Bema- dotte, for his services to them, and his treachery to Napo- leon, the Roman Catholics — few^ in number— offered their roperty and their lives to their King to resist the encroachment, and, as Beere's narrative states, gave a noble instance of fidelity to their Lutheran King. Fifthly — ^In the various revolutions which have con- vulsed Europe since 1847 in Lombardy, in Naples, in LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 193 Austria, in Hungary, and in France, the Catholic Clergy have not been so much as named for any disloyalty in these eventful times ; and when the whole populations ol w^hole kingdoms, such as Hungary, have been hurled along in one tempestuous revolution, in a perfect hurri- cane — w^hen prince, ministers, and generals, and armies, yielded to the storm, will you point out, my Lord, the kingdom, the province, the parish, the town, the village, in all these countries, where the allegiance of the Priest has been violated to the Crown? Tell me the place, the same, the date, the office of the Priest who has been a traitor to the King, in this European phrenzy, when mo- narchs fled from their capitals for fear, w^hen their friends abandoned them, and when almost half the Thrones of Europe were nearly crumbled beneath the violence of popular fiiry? Sixthly — Did not the Pope himself, who nov? seeks the sole sway over the realm of England, did he not fly from his capital sooner than declare war against Austria And yet, my Lord, are all these Priests, and this Pope, now^ leagued in England to rob our Queen of her realm! and claijn undivided sway in her empire alone, w^here we have the most perfect constitution that ever the world saw^, and w^here we are governed by the most exemplary, the most illustrious, the brightest, and the most beloved so- vereign that ever sat on the throne of Alfred? Are they the men ^vho bled at the foot of all the Thrones of Europe in defence of their Kings — are they, my Lord, seeking the sole sway over the realm of Victoria? Shame, my Lord— I will not retract the word — shame, shame. Lord J. Rus- 194 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. sell, to have made such a charge of attainder against the most faithful subjects of the Queen, and to have inflicted a deep, deep, and burning insult on millions of your for- mer friends, and nearly one half of the entire human race. Seventhly — When I turn from Catholic Europe, and come to Protestant England, let me ask you, when revo- lution raised its horrid head in England, 1649, who was it, I ask, who sold a King, who fled to them for protec- tion ? who was it who bought that King with a national oath to spare his life? who was it, who, in the teeth of these national engagements murdered that King in mid- day, before the gaze of mankind; and before God and man, committed an act of national baseness, national per- fidy, national dishonor, and national cruelty, of w^hich there is no paralliel in the history of the civilised w^orld ? Eightly — ^Who again were these men, who, in the year 1688, joined an unnatural daughter in her disobedience to her royal father? who were they who conspired with an usurper, and expelled their legitimate monarch, and left him to die in a foreign land, a beggar at the gates of the French Court? who were these men, therefore, who, in your own country, overthrew the realm which you now pretend to be in danger? who were they? were they Irish or English ? echo answers English ! Aye, and the heathens, poor faithful fellows, clung to these Kings and suffered from Cromwell, the foul monster, a cruelty which can never be known, till the eight hundred women, whom he murdered at Wexford, will stand before God, on the last day, and cry for vengeance. These are your black pages, my Lord ; and before you ventured to raise a state LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 19J> rebellion in England, in 1850, as your Cabinet did in Ire- land, 1798, you should have weighed the difference of times, and have seen that what a Prime Minister could do in the end of the last century, your Lordship cannot effect in the middle of the present; therefore, it is the half cen- tury in advance, and not the intention of Lord John Rus- sell, ■which has defeated the state trick. Your Lordship has been pleased to designate the creed which I profess as the "mummeries of superstition." — This phrase is certainly not very courteous, although coming from the fountain of toleration ; and, in making a reply, one is little disposed, even to you, to speak in lan- guage too highly perfumed. The Rev. Mr. Bennett, w^ho styles himself " your Parish Priest," asserts, that you profess three distinct creeds — " that you turn your back in the evening on the principles which you professed in the morning;" and that, "when it suits your purpose, you gladly ignore all the laws and obligations of every church whatever." You are a Presbyterian in the morn- ing, a Protestant at noon, and a Methodist in the even- ing; in fact, faith to you, my Lord, is a matter of taste rather than of principle. You change your religion with your dress ; and hence you are a follower of John Knox, in your morning-gow^n, of John Calvin in your dress boots, and of John Wesley, in your night-slippers. You seem fond of namesakes in your various religions ; and if Pope Pius IX. happened to be called John, ten to one, if the humor took your Lordship, but you would be found on next Christmas night, at Saint George's-in-the-fields at the miflnitrht Mass of Cardinal Wiseman. St. Paul, uses the 196 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. words "one Faith, one Baptisni, one Lord;" by which he clearly teaches that unity of Faith is as essential as the unity of the Godhead ; and, consequently, that two or more faiths are as absurd as two or more Gods. Hence, my Lord, according to the clear logic of Samt Paul, your professing three faiths (as Mr. Bennett asserts,) is the same absurdity as if you worshipped three Gods ; so that, after all, your Lordship is, unknown to yourself, a greater pagan, in point of fact, than all the heathen Irish, w^hom you have condescended to jibe in your late ency- clical. The only thing in nature that bears any resem- blance to this multitudinous faith-and worship of yours is the sun-flower, alluded to in nice poetry in Moore's Me- lodies, as worshipping its God all day in different direc- tions : or, as Mr. Bennett would say, turning its back in the evening on the point where it bowed its head in the morning; in fact, my Lord, there is a sort of diurnal ro- tation in your creed, which partakes rather of mathema- tics and natural philosophy than theology. Your Lord- ship appears to read the Athenasian Creed through a ka- leidoscope, where every article appears under a variety of combinations, all equally beautiful. This idea enables me to .comprehend w^hy yon pity so much .the ecclesias- tical system of the heathen Irish — poor wjetches, they have, I admit, only one faith ; and, therefore, they must appear extremely illiterate in revelation when compared with those elevated minds which have learned and pro- fess three or four. You profession in this respect, re- minds me of an anecdote -of a man at an election for a Member of Parliament in Ireland, who carried jh,e pla- LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 197 card for tbe Tory member on his breast, and the placard for the Whig member on his back, and thus earned his hire shonting for the parties. This man was what might be called by your Lordship a liberal politician. Your Lordship states, that the danger "within the gates is even greater," and causes to you greater indignation ! than even the danger from the Pope. On this point I have the advantage entitely to agree with you ; but the danger to be apprehended is, that all England will rush into wild infidelity, in consequence of your governing the Protestant Church, (of which I wish to Speak with great respect) by the decisions of a Privy Council, and defining by your degree the doctrine, which is not necessary to be taught. All the world has heard of the Rev. Mr. Gor- ham. Vicar of Stampfordspeke, who believes in certain opinions relating to baptismal regeneration, the minutiae of w^hich are so well know^n to your Lordship. His Bi- shop refuses to present him to the vicarage — >Mr. Gorham appeals, the Bishop persists ; one says, that baptismal re- generation is not an essential doctrine of Christianity ; the other says it is-"— Mr. Gorham says no : the Bishop of Exeter says yes : Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, of the Court of Arcees, says no : the Archbishop of Canterbury says, yes. The Chief Justice, Lord Campbell, says neither yes nor no : but in a letter to an English lady, says it is an " open question." At length, my Lord, you who are learned in all creeds, take up the question, as chief in your Privy Council, and like the cat settling the dispute between the rabbit and the weazel, you make short work of it, and by a decision 198 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. of the Privy Council ! you decide what is not necessary to be taught in the Protestant church ; ajid by way of proving the apostolicity of your mission, you would send down to Stamfordspeke a troop of dragoons, if necessary, to give a gentle hint of your infallibility. By the deci- sion of your council, you have bonaJidei^TiaieA the Pro- testant religion in England ; and you would do well to record the event, by the following memorandum : '* The Protestant religion commenced in Germany, in the little town of Spires, about the end of the year 1517; flourished for 300 years and upwards in England, particularly in the neighborhood of cannon foun- dries and powder magazines; and ceased to be on the 16th July, 1850, when by an order of the Fnvy Council, Rev. Mr. Gorham was informed it was not necessary to teach any longer." Now, my Lord, you are unknown to yourself, the Lay Pontiff of England, and your committee of three Judges are your infallible tribunal — and the decision which you and they assumed to Mr. Gorham, proves that you all be- long to the respectable body of the " Society of Friends," Bince you all have decided against the doctrine of baptis- mal regeneration. Your Lordship, therefore, has by this act, shown that you have altogether four creeds ! at pre- sent known to society. Now, my Lord, in sober sadness, can you imagine, that any thinking man will, or can re- main in what you call " a church," ■where your Privy Council literally claims infallibility for the time being — that is, till the next variation of this thing called a church, will be made? In the time of Bossuet, there were 253 variations, and the remainder of changes since that pe- riod, are not necessary to be introduced in this letter.^ But, can you seriously expect that men of learning and feeling can continue in an establishment where you set LETTER TO LORD JOHN RCSSBLL. 199 aside the ancient doctrines, once held to be essential — ■where you set aside the authority of a Bishop over his clergy, as you ■would the authority of a Custom-house Officer : ■where the Gospel is shuffled like a pack of cards : where the articles of faith, ■which ■were " trumps" to-day, may not answer " suit" to-morrow^ ; ■where you settle the exact amount of the in^^isible grace of Grod, as a minera- logist would determine the per centage of iron ore ; ■where you sell the cure of souls, as Rothschild would dispose of government stock to the highest bidder ; and where you make essential doctrines, which were above par a year ago, no^w received at a discount, according to the whim of your Privy Council, and the demand for the gospel in the English market? St. Paul, in the quotation which I have already adduced, makes Baptism as essential a prin- ciple as " Faith, or as God ;" but your Infallible Council thinks otherwise, and hence you decide the thing at once Bishops exclaim against you ; but what do you care for bishops ? The diocese of Limerick, in this heathen country, petition; but what does your Council care for the Protestant clergy of Limerick ? Eighteen hundred Protestant clergy cry oat against this interference with their doctrines and the authority of their bishops; but ■what care you for their clerical demonstration? All cry out for the right of private judgement in this grave discus- sion, the essential principle of their religion ; but you cry out Tunis avons change tout cela ; that ■was heretofore the act of parliament, but since the seven hundredth variation! has been made, that principle no^w rests entirely in the Privy Council, and not at all in the bishops, or clergy, 200 LETTER TO LORD JOHN KUSSELL. or people, per Deum Jidniinuinque Jidem ! Where this thing will end, no one living, not even your Lordship, so distinguished in theology, and in polytheism, can tell. Your Lordship has been pleased to brand my churcTi as a church of "ftiummery and of superstition ;" but if ever mummery can be made palpable, it certainly can be seen and felt in three judges and a country gentleman, like your Lordship, changing the way to heaven as you would change a turnpike road ; and if ever superstition stood naked before mankind, it is certainly to be seen in the act by which you expect that any rnan, in his plain senses, that any man except a born idiot, can make "an act of faith," in you who profess four creeds at once, as we knovsr at present- — in you, who, as Mr. Bennett asserts, are "bound by the laws and obligations of no church whatever" — ^in your Lordship, w^ho make creeds, as a potter makes crocks, shaping them according to the pub- lic taste and the public demand — you even forgive sins. The Bishop of Exter says it is a crying sin not to teach baptismal regeneration — ^ybu deny this assertion, coming from a common Bishop, and particularly not a member of the Privy Council ; and, to show your spiritual power, you absolve Mr. Gorham from all guilt, and you give him your warrant of authority to present to God as a guaran- tee against his justice. 'Tis endless to recount the circum- stances, the incongruities, the rank absurdities of your present Church establishment; and ten to one, unless it be managed by a skilful hand, it will bring a sad revolution on all the land. You seem to wonder at the danger arising from the crowds leaving your system, and joiriing LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 201 the Dissenters or the Catholics — can you be so blind as not to see the just cause of this secession? In order that any Christian shall conscientiously belong to this creed of your Council, it is necessary that he shall make " an act of faith " in its decisions ; and ■what man under the siin can do that? — that is, "to make an act of faith " that you and your Council transmit the precise meaning of revelation from God — that what you decide is precisely the same as if Christ spoke — that your decis- ion is beyond all doubt the unerring truth ; that you and your Chancellor and Chief Justice, cannot deceive or be deceived. Now, without meaning any disrespect, you both are the two last men in England, on whose vrord in spirituals, a Christian would make an act of faith. You are clearly no theologian, or you would not profess four creeds at the same time, and the Chancellor has not read even Church history, as Mr. Bennett has already proved. Your decisions are, therefore, filled with doubt which is incompatible with belief; he who doubts clearly does not believe; and hence thousands of the unthinking masses of Englishmen are going into infidelity, as Rev. Mr. Jones has proved before a committee of the House of Commons ; and all the reasoning portion, like the one hundred and forty-nine converts from Oxford and Cambridge, are coming to lay their weary heads beneath the roof of the Catholic Church, where God's testimony need not a war- rant of the Privy Council as the foundation of their faith, and where they can with all their souls say, "I firmly believe." 1 shall now conclude for the present, my Lord, and I 202 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL, hope I have not uttered one word of disrespect towards you. I apologise if I have done so. I think I have read every printed speech and other works of yours which appeared these last twenty-five years ; and having so long admired and followed you, I should be sorry to be want- ing in courtesy towards you. I have the honor to be, my Lord, your obedient servant, D. W. CAHILL, D.D. DR. CAHILL TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD JOHN RUSSELL. My Lord — I shall take the liberty to trouble you with a second communication in reference to some additional passages in your late letter, which might create, if unex- plained, considerable alarm in the minds of the Catholic Clergy and the people. The first passage is that where your Lordship w^rites: — "Upon this subject, then, I will only say, that the present state of the law shall be carefully examined, and the propriety of adopting any pro- oeedings with reference to the recent assumption of power carefully considered." From these clear words, it appears evident that you are determined, if the present state of the law cannot meet the recent grievance, to adopt such measures as will effec- tually crush any further progress of the Papal power. This is a serious threat ; and your Lordship being the Premier of England, you hold the precise office which can enable you to carry this threat into execution. You have, indeed, thus re-opened a burning question ; and, from the history of your former life, you are the last man LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 203 in England who, one could suppose, would so degrade your splendid name as to prop up your ministerial office with the old rotten " rack " and rusty " gibbet " of the six- teenth century. You have exhumed " More and Fisher," with tens of thousands of English and IrisTi martyrs to conscience ; and you have called a coroner's inquest on the murdered dead, w^hich will receive at present from all nations of the earth a verdict of " guilty" against all these sanguinary statesmen ■whose laws you are now about to "adopt." You have brought to us the cruel remembrance of England's worst persecutors; you have stirred up from the forgotten depths of their crimson history a national agony which makes the Irish heart reel; and you have evoked an English spirit of intolerance which will not easily subside into its former composure. We, Catholics in Ireland, thought you incapable of entertaining oven one intolerant feeling; but, my Lord, you have been edu- cated, after all, in a prejudiced school, and, with your mother's milk, you have sucked in hostility to Catholicity. You took the bent in your infancy, w^hich, now unknown to yourself, you evince against the Catholic Church : — " A pebble in tbe streamlet scant Has turned the course of many a river, A dew-drop on the baby plant May WARP the giant oak for ever." Since, therefore, you are resolved to turn back on the path of legislation, and thus to rehearse the national tra- gedy of the penal code, will your Lordship be pleased to inform us, in which of the past reigns will you begin ? which of the past Ministers will you take for your guide? §04 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. and which of the " legal proceedings" of these memorable days will you " adopt " in order to repel the Papal power? These are important considerations for the " aggressors," as they will direct them to examine the conduct of the Catholics of the past days, and endeavor to imitate their fexample. Pray, then; Sir, will you begin in the reign of Henry the Eighth, arid, with l^homas Cromwell for your model, will you " adopt the proceedings " of plundering the abbeys, demolishing the colleges, applying gunpowder to the priories, expelling the Priests, hanging the laity, and seizing thfe aiicierit Ifegal property of the poor to the amount of forty millions of our money ] If ydtir Lordship will bfegih in this reign, and imitate your fefEfeieiit ancestor of that memorablfe dra, ydtl will soon put an end to the present "Sole Elnd undivided sway of the Pdpe," and you Mrill, at one blow, annihilate all the "mummeries of our superstttioii." But perhaps you mi^ht rather choose to begin in the l-eign of Edward the Sixth, and follow "Somerset" as your exahiple, ^t^hen one Lord Russell hanged a Priest in Devonshire from the belfry of his own Chul-oh — when Bishoprics were seized to jjut down the bad example of the Bishops — when Churches were thrown down in honor of Grod's pure worship — ^when creeds were made and re- made, in ordei^, like a badly-made suit of clothes, that these treeds might have the newest cut; and fit tight to the con- science — ^when books of prayer were received or rejected by vote by ballot — when the office of St. Paul was set up to auction — and when the Apostles' Creed was won, or lostj or kept up by the distinguished players like a game LETTER TO LOKD JOHN RUSSELL. 205 of "spoiled five" or "blind hookey." There can be no doubt at all, this "reforming" reign will supply you with several facts which may serve as material for a second letter to the Bishop of Durham and the mob, and will en- able yoTj to "adopt legal proceedings" as "plenty as blackberries," for putting an immediate stop to Papal ag- gression. I shall pass over the reign of Elizabeth^ as I cannot suppose you would resolve to begin in this reign, and take either Cecil, or Walsingham, or Wentworth, as your models; and I feel rather confident that you would not " adopt the proceedings " of this Gospel reign, which entirely consisted of the constitutional laws of " hot-irons, racks, ropes, buckling-hoops, gibbets, and rippingrknives." These legal proceedings, if adopted, would save your Lordship the trouble of -writing your late letter: "the Canon law on the doctrine of Grace, and on our enslav- ing mummeries," because these English decrees of the glorious Reformation, not only put an end to the abstract idea of Papal aggression, but they entirely silenced, removed out of England, and, indeed, out of this sublu- nary ^vorld altogether, the very aggressors themselves, together with their wives and children ; and, alas ! bear- ing on* their mangled flesh and broken bones in the grave, the marks of " the proceedings " adopted by the Russel! of these days to establish the Royal supremacy, and to crush the Papal power. More blood has been spilled in England and Ireland on the subject of the Royal supremacy, than has ever been .u„A in anv country on the earth, either from war, famine. 206 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. or pestilence, or from all three taken together. Neithei the Poles, under the Russian tyrant; or the Greeks, under the Turks, have lost so many of their children by the sword, the faggot, or banishment, as our country has lost by the axe, the rope, and by torture, in sustaining the ques- tion which your Lordship has introduced, by a gratuitous and w^anton revival. Will you say, therefore, in what glorious reign ; under what Christian chief, and under what legal statute, will you take your stand at the next Session of Parliament 1 I wish to inform your Lordship, that 1 am not one of those who think your letter harmless, because it has, in point of fact, produced up to this period no very pernici- ous results. The same apology might be made for the assassin w^hose pistols hung fire, and missed his aim; the same excuse might be made for Guy Faux, who, in point of fact, did not blow up the whole Parliament. I do hold you guilty, and I do believe that you intended, to produce a most violent attack on the Catholics in England and in Ireland ; and, moreover, I believe, that if your letter were not ignored by the sense of the English people, and by the never to-be-forgotten liberal feeling of the Irish Protes- tants, and by the Presbyterians in Ireland and Scotland, the Churches of England would in all probability have been torn down, and the Priests perhaps murdered in the streets. There is one passage in your letter, in which any impar tial man will clearly see you had intended the worst re- sults. Your Lordship says : " ISven if it shall appear that the Ministers and servants of the Pope LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 207 in this country have not trantgressed the law, I feel persuaded we are tlTong eiumgh to repel any outward " attack:" and again, " I rely with confideL-ce on the;)e0p/£of England.'^ No language can be more clear than these -words, to publish through England " that the Pope was not within the power of the law ;" and that consequently, you relied on the people to exercise their strength (as mobs do) to trample down, kick, cut, and demolish the Papists, who w^ere the enemies from without. And hence, on the receipt of your command, scenes were commenced and acted, which the future historian of England will attribute '.o your name, with a censure from w^hich that name can never escape. French Revo- lutionists, hear the conduct of the English mob, under the command of Lord John Russell ! Yes, under your com- mand — I repeat the words. Followers of Robespierre — you, w^ho bow^ed dovirn before the Goddess of Reason, hear, and reflect on the London mobs, under the com- mand of the English Prime Minister ! They burned the Pope in effigy — they burned Cardinal Wiseman in effigy; they biimed Monks ; they burned Friars ; and, proh pu- dor ! they burned the Sisters of Charity ! ! ! Lord John Russell, you have done this ; and let me t< your Lordship, that the most ferocious bandit that ever lurked in the dark trackless Alps, w^hose dagger has not dried for years from the crimson stain of human blood — even from the black heart of that monster one generous feeling has been known to rise, and float above the tem- pest of his troubled conscience. That monster would not cross the path of a Sister of Charity, for fear his presence might alarm the consecrated virgin in her silent rounds to 208 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. visit the abandoned sick, to bind the broken heart, to heal the wounded stranger. And, proh jiwdor ! Jiinc lachryma ! I Alas ! what next % Your mob burned in effigy ; yes, they did — ^your mob, to the number of several thousands, burned in Put- ney, on the 5th Jan., 1850, the ever Blessed Virgin Mary ! The daughter of David, the Virgin of Lebanon, and the mother of .the God-man ! — the descendant of Royalty, the genius of the Prophets, the Virgin " full of grace," the Mother of the Messiah, " blessed among women," could not escape your mob. Yes, my Lord, you did this in free England ; and the French Revolutionists never thought of such an act. — Even " Pilate" did not molest her, standing amongst the Jewish mob, while he condemned her adorable Son to the Cross ; even the Deicide guards of thrilling .Calvery did not insult her' while she sat weeping at the foot of the Cross. No, no, my Lord, they did not ; that act was re- served for the " Reformed" Minister of proud Albion, and for his Christian mob, " as by law established." No, no, she received protection from the Jews, but not from the Christians of Putney. Sixty-two days elapsed from the date ofyour letter till this shameful occurrence at Putney; although you saw, and heard, and read the various insults offered to Nuns, Priests, &c., you never contradicted, by word or com- mand, these proceedings ; and hence, according to a well- know phrase, as " an accessory before the fact, during the fact, and after the fact :" you are decidedly guilty of this outrage against religion and common decency. Would LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 209- you SO treat the descendant of Alfred, merely because he revived Roman law, and drew the first draft of Magna Charta ? Would you so treat the mother of " Nelson," merely because he widened the boundary of your Ocean Empire ? I shall not dare the conclusion by making com- parison between man and God. I shall only say on this point, that nothing fiirther can be added to the insane ex- travagance of England's apostacy. And pray, my Lord, is the savage " Haynau" to be condemned for flogging w^omen, ^yho, after all, conspired against the State — w^ho took part with their sons and husbands ? And are your men to escape with impunity for burning inoffensive Nuns in efligy, and caricaturing the Mother of God 1 What anibition is there in taking the place of savage Haynau ? He flogs — your men bum ; he bleeds — ^your men scorch Nuns and the Blessed Virgin ; and w^hen next you honor us with a visit in Ireland, would it be surprising if the draymen of Cork or Dublin, would cry aloud, " Haynau, the burner of Nuns — Haynau, the caricaturist of the Blessed Virgin 1 But the day may come, ^hen Englishmen may have some heavier work to do than burning Nuns of paste- board, and Cardinals of straw ; and when Prime Minis- ters may have more important duties to mind besides en- couraging infidelity, spreading national discord, burning swaddling preachers, manufacturing a splendid pinchbeck religion of the most modem pattern at present in use in England/ and placing Christian Faith in the very apogee of Scripture, tradition, and theology. My opinion, my Lord, of your penal threat is, that, 210 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. when you will have seen the general opposiiion to your proceedings, you must let the contemplated measure drop ; and that, too, for many reasons — firstly, because the sub- ject of the public panic is exceedingly frivolous, the w^hole thing being, the difference between the words " Bishop " and " Vicar- Apostolic ;" and, again, between the words " District " and " Diocese." The dispute reminds me of the national horrors mentioned in Gulliver's Travels, where two nations went to war, and fought several sanguinary battles, to determine which end of an egg might be broken at breakfast ! One nation contended that the little end should be broken, and hence they were called the " Little Endian," somewhat resembling iihe diocese men of the pre- sent controversy ; others contended for the hig end, and were called the "Big Endians," somewhat resembling the district men of the present controversy, and fairly repre- senting your Lordship, the Bishops, the Clergy, and the London and Putney mobs. There can be no doubt, that there is no more difference in the English controversy than in the Lilliputian ■wa.r; that Bishop and diocese, are convertible terms with Vicar- Apostolic and district ; and that when men will seriously reflect on the matter, both your Lordship and the English people will be perfectly indifferent ^vhether Cardinal Wiseman belong to " the Little or the Big Endians." Secondly — The Catholics, Presbyterians, and Dissen- ters, are very numerous in our European part of the em- pire; (more numerous than Protestants,) and hence, it would be dangerous to make a law, which, in point of fact, would and should, and ought to be equally insulting to them, LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 211 to the Catholics ; and these are not rimes, my Led, to be playing Parliamentary tricks with millions of people, and quarrelling with loyal subjects and devoted friends, in order to gratify the ■whims of a Church which cannot be in existence in one hundred years to come. Your Lord- ship's Cabinet will, of course, advise laws not only for the present generation, but for their successors; and I think it will appear evident (as Sir Fowell Burton used to say, talking of slavery in the West Indies,) that no Legislator ought to make laws, which he ought to forsee must end in revolution in half a century to come. Thirdly, mj Lord, I must take the liberty of telling you, that there is not the least use in your framing laws against the Catholic Church. She has triumphed over more pow^erful nations than England ; defied even a greater man than the present Premier of Grreat Britain ; and she has outlived tongues, and creeds, and dynasties, ■which had a stronger case against her than the Putney heroes. Your countrymen are not more powerful than the fol- lowers of Ruric and Alaric the First ; they never ■were so terrible as Atrila or Genseric ; your Bishops are not more learned than Grobaldus; nor any of your orators and phi- losophers at the late county meetings, to be compared with Julian. Your national creed, is not more extensive than Arianism ; and yet, my Lord, these are all gone, depart- ed, and forgotten, and their progeny extinct ; ■while here we are, the young Catholic branches of the old stock, flourishing through the spring of ages, without sign or symptom of decay. As long as the old roots of the old 212. LETTER TO LURD JOHN RUSSELL parent stock are fixed in the soil, (which is true,) you may cut down as often ais you can; we spring up again when the winter is past; and our motto is "Recissa Resurge." You threaten us with Acts of Parliament. Excuse me: we laugh at Acts of Parliament, because we know that the same hand that balances creation has raised our Altars, and will never disturb the foundation of His own Church ; because we know that the power which can chain the whirlwind, and tame the swollen empires of the ocean, can, when he pleases, subdue your heart and the Putney mob ; and, above all, we know that it is quite as foolish in you, to attempt to impede our onward progress against the will of God, by Acts of Parliament, and bonfires, and bags of chaff, and barrels of pitch ! as it would be, if you sent the 12th Lancers to stop the tide, or called on your astronomer at Greenwich to put off till evening an eclipse of the English people. And will you permit me to ask your Lordship, if we are the barbarian Priests of a heathen people, why are you afraid of us 1 How can such barbarian Priests, with their rude clubs of "mummery" stand a moment before the discipline of your Ecclesiastical "reformed" infantry of Oxford and Cambridge? What are you afraid off Why do you meet our logic with the bayonet 2 Why guard off our theology with burning faggots, and stop our mouths with your favorite Scripture proofs (the rope) if we are the sadly educated wretches, the Pagan vul- garians, the heathen mummers whom you represent us ? Pray, Sir, why are you so much afraid of us? If our superstitions are so filthy; surely the merchants, the LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 213 traders, the barristers, the solicitors, the physicians, the scholars of Great Britain, so remarkable for their talents, experience, tact, and knowledge, tave only to see us, and hear our doctrine, to be horrified at our confining the in- tellect and enslaving the soul — why, then, are you a&aid to let them hear us, and listen to our arguments '? Is there no internal evidence in the prohibition to hear us, that you fear the force of our reasoning and the resistless strength of our traditionary title deeds ? . Say what you will — conceal it as you can — your fears show that we are your masters in learning, and that we alone possess the legitimate inheritance of being the lineal descendants of the Apostles. We have met your best men in controversy foot to foot, and they were obliged to respect our learning, and pay deference to our talents. Your most polished men are becoming converts to our doctrine; and the erudition of 1800 years belongs confessedly to the Catholic name, long, long before your Lordship's many-colored Faith was known in the world. And yet, we, the modern Catholic Priests, fight only with the small arms of our ancestors in the Church. .There is no man of the present day amongst us whom the armor of St. Augustine would fit : it is too large for modem men and too heavy for our strongest controversialists to bear up for a moment. No man of the present day could lift the club of TertuUian, with which, in his ancient battles, he conquered all the enemies of his creed ; and the mouth of the " Amazon " can alone give you the best idea you can form of the gold- en flood of language, the resistless power of eloquence, which poured from the Catholic lips of St. Chrysostora. 214 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. My Lord, may I ask if you have read the history of these men, and the victories they won] Have you read the history of the brilliant exploits performed by their sue cessors in all the Christian ages, and in all the countries 'i and if not, I shall only say, when you have read them, your Lordship will see at once how foolish it is to think of subduing conscience by faggots of burning straw ; how insane it is to hope of teaching the Faith of the Gospel through the light of pitch-barrels and bonfires ; and how ridiculous to fancy that " the children of the Saints could tremble before the sons of Voltaire," or how the descen- dants of "Fisher and Plunket" could blench before the successors of Cranmer. Fourthly, your Lordship will not, I am sure, introduce the penal bill, simply because you have too much to do with other matters of greater moment to yourself person- ally. You have to compose all the elements which you have called into furious antagonism. Thus you have made an adversary of Lord Roden and his party some time past; and hence you have hoped to pacify him by giving the Catholic heathens (the Chippewa Indians,) the late knock on the head. You have irritated the Dissen- ters of England by your late education policy, and you wished to propitiate them by the late pitched-barrela, and the phantasmagoria of G-uy Fawkes. You have oifended the Protestant Bishops of England by your late liberal policy ; and hence it was necessary to return back to the sixteenth century, and satisfy these Divines with recent lectures on penal enactments ; and most strange (as a proof of your great talents,) you have so deeply offended LETTER TO LORD JOHN KUSSELL. 215 the Catholics of the whole world by your letter; you now think, therefore, (in order to please us,) of uprooting the Protestant Church in Ireland ! ! That you will do this "Ttork, is as certain as that I am -writing to you at the pre- sent moment ; but on this subject I shall not say one'word, for fear I should utter one syllable of disrespect towards any one member of that Church. You have, therefore, a great deal to do. My Lord, during the next Session of Parliament, you have to pour oil on the waters which you have lashed into fury. In feet, there has never been a Minister of Great Britain who has been playing such tricks virith the nation, as your Lordship has been playing with all parties during the past year ; you have been encouraging the nation to carry on the children's play of "w^eighdee bucketdee ;" you have yourself presided over the machinery — ^lifted all parties up and down at your pleasure, like a magician, and all thist in order to throw dust in the eyes of all England and Ireland, while you yourself keep the secure post of Prime Minister. But if the Protestants and Catholics of Ireland could only see this lessening performance of yours in its true colors of knocking our heads together for the amusement of the English, we would unite in one compact body of [rishmen, (making it a crime even to introduce the demon discord of religious rancor into their Assemblies,) and if this body would enter on their duties, not in giving oppo- sition to Government, or in doing any such foolish thing, but attending to their own national interests, they would icon compel your Lordship, or any of your oiBcial sue- 216 , LETTER TO LORD JOHN KUSSELL. cessors, to treat us with more respect, and more serious- ness than setting us to fight with each other, and carrying on a shameful State-hoax upon the entire country. In conclusion, my Lord, there is no more reason to show that you w^ill not unfrock the English Bishops just now. There is a Royal personage who will not peimit you. Her most gracious, and most beloved, and most ex- cellent Majesty will not give you leave to put your thumb- screw upon our Church. No person can ever forget the silent, dignified censure which her Majesty passed upon you, during the reading of five most important addresses. I need only mention the address alone from the Corpora- tion of London, her own chief city ; yet she never alluded in her answer to this address from her own city, by even one word, to any one word in your letter. This Royal silence on this important occasion, was, without any excep- tion at all, the most withering, the most degrading rebuke to a Prime Minister recorded in English history; and there you stood in a pillory, swallowing your own words, and, (to use a term from the clubs,) '"snubbed" to your face. I say, that the Pope can never return sufficient thanks to the Q,ueen of England for this most brave and gene- rous conduct. I question much, if any Catholic Sove- reign in Europe virould have the heart or the courage, un- der similar circumstances, so to treat her Prime Minister. She did not endorse any one of your Lordship's senti- ments. You are, therefore, clearly, my Lord, no longer the exponent of the Royal mind, and not to be the expo- nent of the Royal mind, is the very definition of your dis- LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 217 missal. Yet, yonr Lordship holds your place. For this and all her other acts of kindness, may she long live to rule over her boundless empire — ^may she triumph over all her enemies, and confound their politics ; may God add still more to her domestic happiness ; may her court continue to be a model of virtue to every Palace in Eu- rope ; and may the stability of her throne be transmitted to her children's children, is the prayer of every Catholic Priest in her invincible empire. I shall, my Lord, watch the progress of the next Ses- sion of Parliament; and if you will persevere in fulfilling your promise of enacting any penal law against my Church, I shall, most humbly, trouble you with a third letter, in continuation of the same subject. I have the honor to be, my Lord, your Lordship's obedient servant, D.W.CAHILL, D.D. DR. CAHILL TO THE RI&HT HON. LORD JOHN RUSSELL. AiRDRiE, Scotland, November 4, 1851. AIy Lord — This day brings before the minds of the Catholics of the whole world the painful recollection of your letter to the Bishop of Durham. Tw^elve months have now elapsed since the publication of that inflamma- tory and persecuting document; and time and experience, which are the best tests of political w^isdom, have proved that your views have been incorrect and your speeches 218 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. exaggeiated. The Bishops have assumed their titles, and they exercise their diocesan jurisdiction without infring- ing on the principles of the Constitution, or trenching on the prerogatives of the Crovsrn. Your statesmanship, therefore, is a palpable failure — your penal law is a poli- tical lie; and Lord John Russell stands before the gaze of mankind, a false leader, and a naked bigot. As your Lordship is about to enter on this day into the second year of your ministerial Hegira, it may not be amiss to present to your Lordship, a historical review of the conduct of your Cabinet during the last few^ years — and to inform the people of Ireland and Great Britain, of the disastrous position to which you have reduced the British Empire, both as regards its internal interests and its external relations. I have already laid before my most persecuted fellow-countrymen the intrigues of Lord Pal- merston and his corps of diplomatique, in aiding the revo- lutionists of five different countries in Europe; and I have proved, that he attempted at the same time to overthrow the authority of the Pope, and to uproot the discipline and the Faith of the Catholic Church. You were, of course the abettor and the prime mover of these two-fold intrigues; and thus, we clearly convict you of appearirii, during five years, as the advocate of our national and re- ligious liberties, while, in fact, you were secretly under- mining our inherent rights, and treacherously sapping the foundations of our creed. Your letter of November, 1850, disclosed your real character, developed your long concerted plans, and will be distinguished in our future history, as the Russell con- LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 210 Bpiracy ; and it will take its place in enormity, and pre- cedence in the paragraph, next to the atrocious memory of the Gunpowder Plot. Guy Fawkes and Lord John Russell, will, therefore, fill two correlative pages, alike in their aim, treachery, and their failure. I informed my poor faithful countrymen, in last March (that is such of them as you had not starved, and pitted at that time,) that your intrigues were well known in every Court in Europe ; that you were digging a pit for England, ■which very soon would engulph the whole Em- pire; and that a European combination against the machi- nations of the English Cabinet, would be the inevitable result of your unexampled political and religious deceit. And I informed my bleeding country not to despair, that the sword of God's justice would be soon drawn against our oppressors — that the hour of their deliverance was nearer than they imagined; and to stand fearlessly and firm together in a national confederacy. I am now in a position to prove these points, and to lay before the Queen and the country, the undisguised expression of universal hostility, which your unprecedented cabinet schemes have lashed into fiiry in almost every Court in Europe. May I, therefore, my Lord, beg your calm perusal of the fol- lowing extracts; they will point out the unmistakable combination of foreign Courts, and the gulf which you are preparing for England : — ■ " A private letter from Frankfort, dated the 6th, and received in Paris on Monday, states that Lord Palmerston has directed a note to be presented through Lord Cowley to the President of the Diet, Count Thun, in which he requests the Assembly to take steps with respect to the Neapolitan government, in order to induce it to abandon the poll- deal system it has hitherto followed. The note was accompanied by S20 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. several copies of Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet. The affoir wa.s discussed in the sitting of the Diet, held on the 20th September. The President, in an address at once clear and precise, showed how unusual and unbe- coming such a demand was. He dwelt particularly on the extraordi- nary proceeding of a government claiming on the authority of any in- dividual statement to interfere in matters purely domestic of another nation, and with the administration of justice of an independent govern- ment, and he concluded by calling on the Assembly to reject the de- mand made upon it. The Minister of Prussia to the Diet, declared it as his opinion that the demand of Lord Palmerston was neither more nor less than dejiance to all continental policy, and should be met by a very decided answer. It was, therefore, resolved that the President of. tlie Diet should be authorised to reply to Lord Palmerston to the effect that the German Diet, having made itself acquainted vrith the note of the British government, and the contents of which appeared to it as unusual, as they were little in harmony with the ordinary usages of in- ternational relations practised by all Governments, felt all the less dis- posed to interfere with the domestic affairs of a foreign Government as independent of itself, as it would Tiot permit any one, whoever he may be, to meddle with those of the Confederation ; and it was for that reason, it disapproved and rejected the line of conduct proposed by Lord Palmerston in the name of his cabinet. An answer to that effect has been made to Lord Cowley." The Frankfort journals state, that Russia has replied to Lord Palmerston's note, inclosing Mr. Gladstone's letter, in a strain exactly similar to that put forth by the G-er- manic Diet against interference with the concerns of fo- reign countries. In the foregoing communication. Lord Palmerston, with his usual duplicity, endeavors to concoct a conspi- racy against Naples, and he sends one of his characteris- tic despatches to one of his characteristic companions (your nominees and servants,) to intrigue with the German Diet — and Prussia to intrigue with Russia, and when this snaking and most cowardly conspiracy should be finally formed, then to menace Italy and Naples with a combin- ed attack, in order to redeem your pledge to the unfortu- nate dupes and victims whom your diplomacy excited to LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 221 revolution, and drove to exile and death. But Germany, and Prussia, and Russia, have clearly " snubbed" your colleague, and have read to you and to him a lesson of defiance, which places your Cabinet in the most humilia- ting posture. But the contempt oflFered to yon, does not end here; Lord Palmerston grounded this your conspi- racy, on the private communication of Mr. Gladstone, ■which has been disproved, word for word, by Mr. M'Far- lane and Monsieur Condon. And here T shall take leave to present to the Queen, " snub the second," which your honorable colleague has received from Prince Castelci- cala. Minister of the King of Naples; let England read this second contumely cast on this country: — FbIKCE CASTEI.CICAI.A TO VISCOUNT FAXHEKSTON. ) 15, Frince's-street, Cavendish-square, August 9th. S Mt Lord — In a report which appeared in the Times paper of yes- terday, of the sitting of the House of Commons, I have read that your Excellency, in answer to a question put by Sir De Lacy Evans, relative to some publications of Mr. Gladstone against the Government of the King my August Master, said you considered it your duty to send copies of the same to tbo British Ministers at the various Courts of Europe ; and since a reply to the said publication, grounded upon substantia] documenfi has recently made its appearance, 1 have the honor to send fifteen copies to your Excellency, and therefore request your Excel- lency will take precisely the same means for distribution, as you have done for those of Mr. Gladstone. The known maxim Audi alteram 'partem ; the courtesy of your Ex- cellency, and, in the present conjuncture, what is better, your justice; all lead me to hope that your Excellency will not find my request indiscreet. Castelcicala. It is impossible not to see the sneer of contemptuous derision with which the foreign Prince demands repara- tion for the national slander, backed as he is by all Eu- rope, and the painful position of Lord Palmerston in his shifting reply, excites pity for the man, and shame for the 222 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. . Minister. Your Minister of War stammered, hesitated, shuffled, before this honorable, and firm, and decided request of Naples ; and finally, with a doggedness so pe- culiarly his own, refused to make the reparation of a gen- tleman, for the most palpable misstatement, and the most obvious perversion of facts. My next extract shall be taken from one of the highest ministerial and commercial journals of Austria — an ex- tract which places your Cabinet in a position degrading to the whole empire, tending to tarnish the high reputa- tion of British honor, and w^hich ought to be a sufficient reason to remove you from a station which you fill with discredit to the State, and with injury to the Crown. No British subject can read the following extract without shame, and horror, and indignation : — , (i^Vom the Austrian Lloyds.) "The ovations which are now under preparation in England, in ho- nor of an Austrian subject guilty of treason to his Sovereign, and of having ignited the flame of revolution in his native country, do not arouse our indignation to any gi-eat extent. We feel a pity, mixed with uncommon contempt, for the stupid, well-fattened (stvpidm wdhlgemas- tatem) aldermen of Southampton and London. In 1848 the English Foreign Office gave itself every possible pains to dismember the Austrian Empire, The noble Lord at the head of the government tried all that mlrigue, duplicity, treachery and deceit could do, to obtain his ignoble ends. Whilst a Minister of the highest diplomatic rank, represented his Queen at the Austrian Court, and ostensibly in public, spoke of the friendly relations existing between Great Britain and Austria, secret agents in ihepay of the English Cabinet, and its public servants — men Kke Lords Minto and Abercrombie — were laying intrigues which were soon to acquire an historical importance. The mines were dug, the powder laid, and on a signal transmHtedfrom Downing street, the ex- plosion followed. A portion of South and Central Europe was in flames. Lord Ponsonby remained in Vienna, a guarantee of England's Punic faith to her old ally. Meantime, that unhappy King, whose tra- gic fate shields him from too severe a judgement being passed upon him, was driven to distraction and to death by British intrigue; and as Kossuth can boast of Lord PalTnerstorCs friendship, with equal right may it be claimed by all the rebel leaders in the different parts of Europe LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 223 That many of them were discarded by their quondam friend in their hour of distress, is no refutation of the fact. Even English Journals have declaimed against Lord Palmerston for having* uninercifkiUy aban- doned the men he had mislaid^ as soon an tkeir plans proved unsuc- cessful. " Every victory of the Austrian arms in Italy and Hungary — the close alliance between Austria and Russia— the successful suppression of the revolution wherever it broke forth — the failure of the Prus- sian scheme to drive Austria out of Germany — finally, the con- solidation of the power of the Empire — were so many severe and keenly felt blows to English policy. Never was a Cabinet com- pelled to make so many miserable retractionsy never did a Cabinet suf- fer so many painful defeats, or lose so much it^ueticey honor and res- pectj as the English Cabinet ar this period. Its influence in the Mediter- ranean, to which England attached so much importance, vanished. The Cabinets of Madrid, Naples, Athens, justly regarded England as their enemy. The infamous proceedings against (Sieece, aroused the slumbering sense of honor and justice even of the British Parliament, and threatened the ministry with a disgraceful termination of the office. "Rage at foiled plans, vexation at ^e defeats sustained by Sardinia, shame at being convicted cf dishonesty, had been gnawing for some time at the hearts of leading men in England. Their impotency to harm Austria makes them give vent to their feeling, by making gi'imaces at it. A man convicted in Austria of high treason, is liierefore to be received as an honored guest. This is not done so much in his ho- nor as to oSend loyal Austrians. We scarcely think this demonstra- tion will attain its object. The loyal Austrian has reason to rejoice, that the mightiest and most hostile endeavors, that the most deeply laid and deceitful plans of one of the most powerful Cabinets of Europe; have not succeeded in preventing the regeneration of his country; and that England has no other means left to resort to, to express its rage at its failure, but to render honors to a man who bad been banished from hia coimtry for political offences." Venly, my Lord, your diplomacy on the European Continent, is likely very soon to inflict a heavy blow on our common country. There can be no doubt that all Europe is beginning to combine, and, in fact, to arm itself against England. You have roused (and the -world will say, justly,) the anger of Switzerland, and Naples, and G-er- many, and Prussia, and Russia, and Austria, Lord Palmerston is, in fact, the Captain Rock of Europe, and under the pretext of preserving European peace, you are 224 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL, fomenting a European war. Take care, lest tlie mines you are digging under other nations, may be imitated in return under England ; and beware, lest the explosion you have prepared for them, may not involve your own country in irretrievable ruin. Verily, Lord John Russell is rather unfortunate in his foreign relations, and as Lord Stanley has already prophesied of your Cabinet, "unless you are checked in this unrestrained career, you will inevitably bring on a European war." There can be no greater enemy to England over the civilized world, w^hich sooner or later will check her dominant pow^er, lower her high national name, and vitally damage her commercial interests. The clear statements of all reform associations show that the taxes, direct and indirect, on every twenty shillings worth of consumption and manufacture in England, amount to thirteen shillings and two pence ; that the people of England, therefore, can claim as their own, (for their capital and skill,) only six shillings and ten pence in every pound, which they give the State. And hence, Sir, if through your unbri- dled ministerial dictation and domination through Eu- rope, you compel foreign nations to quarrel witlj us, to dread our connexion, to establish their own factories, and to annihilate or diminish our trade, you will cause a revo- lution in England, such as history has never recorded, and your name will be transmitted to posterity, as the gfreat- est enemy that England ever saw. For the first time in English history, we behold a decided and universal atti- tude of defiance, assumed by Europe against England ; your Ambassadors are insulted, your votes of diplomacy LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 225 scoffed, and one loud voice of contempt and indignation is raised against your diplomatic conduct and your coun- try, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. This is a fact beyond all dispute, and it establishes by a clear demonstration, that England is regarded at this moment by universal Europe, as the disturber of interna- tional peace, the fomentor of revolution, the secret enemy of foreign thrones, and the insidious persecutor of the Catholic Church. If I were actuated by the revenge to vrhich your unexampled perfidy has reduced your coun- try ; but I am neither a revolutionist or a rebel, but I am an Irish Priest. These two words contain the record of national honor and of national loyalty. And ■when you and your colleagues would behead the sovereign, as you did Charles, and join a plebeian usurper, as you did Cromwell, and expel your monarch, as you did James, and receive a foreigner, out of a poor house, as you did William I., and every one of the ancient order to ■which I belong, ■would bleed at the foot of the throne, as we have done, through every age and country. And when you and the class to ■which you are associated, ■would change your creed from Presbyterianism to Protestantism, and vice versa; and from somethingism to anythingism or nothing- ism; and w^hile you prove before scorning men, weeping angels, and laughing devils, that your official cravat, or the cut of your official coat ; ■we, the glorious Catholic people, and we, the heroic Priests, stand through all time, and place, and circumstances, faithful to God, and loyal to the throne; and we stand forth, a contrast to your officiality, like truth to falsehood, light to darkness, and national honor to national perfidy. 226 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. Such, my Lord, being your official work on tie Euro- pean Continent, I shall proceed to enquire how matters stand at home, in persecuted Ireland. But before I shall commence this melancholy view of your disastrous legis- lation, I must beg leave to tell you, that, although Ire- land is bent to the earth by the heartlegsness, the calum- nies, and the cruel oppression of your rule, we are still firm and fearless, and we' are undismayed, either by the threats of unjust power, or the scandalous jibes of a lying and bribed press. You may cut down, but you cannot eradicate — you may strike us prostrate for a time of fero- cious triumph, but we shall rise again — you may expel us from the soil of our fathers, but we shall- appear again, renovated in number and power, on the glorious American Continent. You may make cruel laws for the yeai" 1851, but take warning of the results of these laws before the year 1951. You cannot keep us always in slavery and degradation, the history of the world is against this posi- tion. Where you least expect a reaction, you may receive a fatal national blow ; and your name as an English gen- tleman, and your character as a statesman, will live longer in the future applause of the historian, for being the advo- cate of honor and justice, rather than the supporter of perfidy and persecution. Powerful as you are, we shall never learn a lesson difficult to the instructions which our fathers have taught us ; we have never yet yielded to your injustice through three centuries of cruelty, and we shall not now begin to take you, for our political and na- tional master. We believe, besides, that between the Kaffirs, and the LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 227 Australians, and the Canadians, and the peoples of all Eu- rope, you have rather too much on your hands just now, to appear in the second act of thelate dramatic State Trials, and we think (that is, as many of us as are alive,) that in the present state of France, (with which your Captain Rock appears on such good terms,) you 'will rather defer, for the present, the ancient custom of erecting your gib- bets and your old racks, on the red cross-roads, ■which bear your name. Indeed, I may as well tell you, my Lord, that, without meaning the least disrespect, of course, to the Queen's Minister, we fearlessly set you at defiance ; and we are thoroughly convinced (a position which I could prove, if I wished,) that you have not the most re- mote notion of persecuting us at present; and we know, that you know, that we know that you are very near a crisis, w^hen you will be compelled to cultivate our friend- ship rather than provoke our further anger at your unpre- cedented conduct. Alas! alas! where shall I begin to tell your political career, as regards poor trodden-down, faithful, persecut- ed Ireland 1 Nor is it with ink and paper, I w^ould at- tempt the description of the woes of your rule. No, no, my Lord ; the deserted village, the waste -land, the unfre- quented chapel, the silent glen, the pale face, and the moumfiil national voice, stamp the history of Ireland with the deep, deep impression of your administration; while the ferocity of the unbridled landlord, and the ter- rors of the uprooted and mouldering cabins, and the cries of the houseless orphan, and the tears of the broken-heart- ed widow, and the emigrant ship, and the putrid work- 228 LETTER TO LOKD JOHN RUSSELL. house, and the red oozing pit of the coffinless and shroud- less dead — these, these, oh ! all these, are all the thrilling and eloquent witnesses, to publish to coming generations, and to unborn Irishmen, the character and the laws of the Russell Cabinet ! Ah, Sir, when you had read the terri fie facts of the mother living on the putrid remains ofhei own child ; and w^hen you saw the awful account of seve ral cases, of the dead bodies of the poor Irish being ex posed for days in unburied putridity, and devoured by dogs in this unheard of state ; and when you had heard the cries that were wafted across the channel for help, and those that rose to heaven for mercy, from Skibbereen, from Ballinasloe, from Kilrush, and from Ballinrobe-; — ^has your heart, Sir, ever smote you with remorse, that you heard these cries of Ireland with a pittiless composure, and sent to starving and dying millions, a heartless pit- tance from your overflowing treasury 1 I distinguish your Cabinet from the English people — they stretched forth their hands with the characteristic generosity of their nation; the Society of Friends well fulfilled too, the expectations of their own philanthropy in our regard — ^but you. Sir, from an exchequer filled with eighteen millions of bullion ; you doled out in withering insult, (as to the beggars of a foreign countrjT,) a misera- ble and totally inadequate relief: and you called by the name of charity an act, which should be designated the first demand on the realm, and the highest duty of the Crown. Lord Stanley paid twenty millions sterling, to give liberty to a few descendants of African slaves in your petty West Indian colonies; to men who never manned LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 229 your fleets, or swelled your armies, or fought for your name. But you. Sir, grudgingly lent in part, and bestow- ed in part, the paltiy sum of eight millions, to aid the last struggle for life of the faithful people, w^hose misfortune in all our past history, w^as imperishable* loyalty to the throne, and undying devotion to our unfortunate kings — men w^ho belong to an ancient, unbroken race of forty generations ; lion hearts, which crimsoned with their blood every ocean ^rhere your navy fought and conquered — which stood before the bristled steel of England's foes in all your struggles ; w^hich shared the perils of a thousand fields of blood by the side of your countrymen, and won your victories — these are the men, and this is the nation to w^hom you have given your paltry usurious charity to preserve their lives. But the history of all nations will yet tell that you permitted Jive in ten to perish of hunger, w^hile your exchequer w^as filled with gold. You, there- fore, Sir, have made my country a desert — you have ba- nished and starved the people — ^you have made a grave for the Irish — and you have buried our race and name. May God forgive you this cruel treatment of our fine peo- ple — this ministerial atrocity. We charge you before a revenging Heaven, with the exile and the death of our people ; both crimes lie at your door. And you have added ingratitude to cruelty. We honored you, we fol- lowed you. You did not so much surprise us by the in- troduction of your Penal Bill, as by the historical false- hood, and the insulting bigotry of your speeches ; they were unworthy the historian, below the dignity of the Btatesman, and dishonorable to the man. A third-rate 230 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. orator amongst your own party, and a fifth-rate speakef in the whole house' — ^you never could lay claim to distinc- tion, except from the supposed honesty and liberality of your political opinions ; but now your inconsistency and your bigotry, having torn from your face the mask which concealed your mediocrity ; it is agreed, that the foremost leader of the Whigs, has now been befittingly transform- ed into the last hack of the Tories. Oh, for the ancient truth and honor of the old English statesman ! — oh, for the sterling word, the generous foe, the brilliant genius or the days that are gone ; or as Pope would sing it: — " How can I Paltney, ChesterfieU forget While Roman spirit charms and Attic wit ? Argyle, the State's whole thunder bom to wield. And shake alike the Senate and the field, And if yet higher the proud list should end. Still all will say — no follower hut a friend." Now^, the origin of all these misfortunes at home and abroad, arises from a two-fold cause ; firstly, to organize an English party in every country, as you have done in Spain and Portugal ; to keep a perfect internal system of disorder in every nation, in order to keep the power of each country engaged in quelling this Confederacy, and thus leaving England free to pursue her views of conquest and commerce, without fear of resistance from the sur- rounding nations : and secondly, the object is to uproot Catholicity. This latter point, is in fact, your chief and sole aim : and so wide-spread are your present stratagems to speech-down, preach-down, write-down, drink-down, eat-down, dress-down, sail-dow^n, and shoot-down Catho- licity, that all orders of the State are actually gone mad, with what may be called a furious fanaticism to get rid LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 231 of Catliolicity. All the lawyers are infected, from the well-known Chancellor to the parish beadle ; all the cler- gy are bitten, from Canterbury (the cubical head of your present creed,) down all along to the thin curate ; who being the living definition of a mathematical straight line, may be considered as the clerical element of the Archbi- shop. All your ambassadors, are actually become swad- dlers in every Court in Europe, as I have already prov- ed — so that yours should be called the Swaddling Cabi- net. And the omnipresent navy, and the invincible army of Great Britain have raised their swaddling colors nearly as high as the Union-Jack all over the earth. All your modem writers are innoculated with swaddleomania, down from the historical lies and rhetorical foppery of Macauley, to the half-penny sheet; there are even swad- dling commercial travellers, swaddling hotels, and swad- dling boarding-houses ; and such is the vast ramification of this most absurd, but terrific movement against Catho- licity, that " Moore's Melodies," are banished from the society of all anti-papal pianos, because they relate to Ire- land, and were composed by the native fancy, that drank its poetic inspiration at the fountain of Irish genius ! But amongst the various incongruities of this mania which you have originated, there is not one ■which strikes the observer with such preposterous associations, as to see an admiral of a fleet dressed in the garb of Joanna South- cote ! or to see a general of an army converted into a Praise-Grod Barebones. Nothing can be so extremely ludicrous as to see Neptune kneeling and praying on a three-legged stool, dressed in a white cravat and a coat 232 LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. of shabby black! or to behold Mars habited in lawn sleeves and a powdered wig, reading and singing psalms on a tar-barrel! There is scarcely a "paper which does not contain, with the cognizance of the Duke of Welling- ton, religious collisions in chapels, in barracks, and in churchyards, between the faithful, fearless Priest, and some Jumper in epaulettes, at the different military sta- tions. Take my advice, my Lord, humble though it be, and put an end to this monstrous state of things. The individual who checks this incongruity, is the best friend of the throne and the Catholic Church ; stamp on the earth, and stop its motion ; command the tide, and arrest its progress; prove your commission, and preach down the Cross, and we shall believe you ; but until you will have demonstrated that your words are more credible than "the language of an angel from heaven," w^e shall laugh at your folly and despise your impotency. In conclusion, my Lord, I must tell you, with the great- est respect of your exalted position, that this letter is not so much intended for you as for the Courts of Russia, Prussia, Austria, France, Naples, Spain, Portugal, and the glorious Republic of America. I do not mention this fact from any puerile allusion to myself; T cannot so far forget the rules of public courtesy, as to be wanting (while in your presence,) to the serious respect and becom- ing reverence which so humble an individual as I am, owes to your exalted station ; but I repeat that, men equal to you in station, and your superiors in aristocratic asso- ciations, have made official arrangements to publish my letters to your Cabinet all over the civilized world. My LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 233 only merit consists in publishing the woes of my country, and the unparalleled cruelties of your administration to the whole people of Ireland, and to our ancient Church, and I shall undertake to say, that the united voice of Eu- rope is already expressed against you in the various cabi- nets, (which I shall furnish to you in a succeeding letter,) and that your treatment of Ireland, and your persecution of the Catholic Faith, will raise such a combination against you, during the next three rrumths, that your So- vereign will be necessarily and justly compelled to remove you from an office w^hich you hold at present ^srith such injury to the English name, and so much indignity to the British Crown. I am not influenced in the course I am taking, by any revengefiil feeling towards you. I am grateful to England for whatever favors she has conferred upon Ireland, and I am most ready to ackne'vrledge it ; and I pray to God that he may change the hearts of our rulers to govern us by the justice of la'vsr, and not by the bigotry of persecution ; but I shall never flinch from the post I have taken in defence of my country and my creed, though that defence were visited with punishment or death. I am, my Lord, your obedient humble servant, D. W. CAHILL, D.D. LETTER OF THE REV. DR. CAHILL TO HIS GRACE FIELD MARSHAL THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. "The French could detach a force from their army, which, if it were transported across the Channel, could reach and occupy London, The passage across the Channel could not be with any certainty 'prevented by an ENGLISH Fle£T. As to smaller expeditions, an urmy, exceeding in numbers the entire milirary forces of Great Britain, could in all hvr man probdbitity be lodged in a fortified camp on our shores within a loeek after the declaration of wai-. Not to mention the purely military considerations, it is obvious that in the very names of peace and humo' nity such measures tcould be frefehked as would terminate the war at the earliest moment by forcing the enemy to terms." (London Times, Friday Jan. 23, 1832.J Newcastle-on-Tyne, England^ ) Saturday, Jan. 24, 1852. J My Lokd Dcke — The announcement just quoted, and published on yesterday by your own journal, cannot fail to fill with surprise and delight all those who, through- out the world have been accustomed, up to this period, to hear no language uttered by England except the voice of triumph, defiance, domination and tyranny. There can be no mistake in the official succumbing of the Times, For the first time in the history of the last six hundred years, England acknowledges the superiority of her old rival, the facility of the occupation of her shores, the successful stortti of London, and the total weakness of your fleet to meet the emergency. Alas ! is it come to this, in the craven article of your own organ; that England sues for " peace " before war is declared — already offers "terms to the enemy; and, more strange still, talks ot "humanity" in arms? Proud Albion at last cries for LETTER TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 235 mercy ; and the world has lived to see the joyful hour, when the fleets of Marlborough and Nelson lower :lieir meteor flag before the old Eagle of Napoleon. The hour of her degradation is therefore come ; her name is fallen; her prestige is at this moment a mere historical remembrance ; and I think I speak the universal sentiment of mankind, when I say, that the voice of jus- tice, liberty, and religion, will be heard all over the earth, proclaiming the news that Babylon is fallen ; and the armament which rode over all the oceans in undisputed sway ; which swept the waters as with a brush; which dictated laws to the wiorld from Trafalgar and the Nile, is the same armament which now craves " terms " in the very Channel which flows by their best fortified gates, and where the chiselled coast was once declared impregnable under the cover of their bristling guns. But there is a Providence which, sooner or later, will inflict just punish- ment on human wrongs, will listen to the cries of the per- secuted, and will humble the oppressor ; and the history of Babylon, and the drunken sacrilege of the cruel rulers of that infamous city and Government, stand as a warning to all future tyrannies, to prove that the most powerful nations and the most impregnable cities, surrounded by armed fortresses and by gates of massive brass, are no defence against the almighty vengeance of heaven and against the retributive justice of God. My Lord, there is no concealing the fact, that England has provoked all the nations of the earth by her insidious policy. She has created sanguinary revolution in all the Catholic countries, and she has employed all the machi- 836 LETTER TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. nery which bribery and infidelity could place at her dis- posal, in order to overturn Catholicity in Europe. Your Grace knows much better than I can presume to inform you, that the unprincipled agents of Lord John Russell have fomented rebellion, and published infidelity in not less than five kingdoms of Catholic Europe, an^ the excesses of unbridled mobs, the pillage of Monasteries, the plunder of Convents, and the crimes of mutilation, rape, banishment, the flogging of women, the exile of men, pil- lage, fire, and murder, and then all the consequent and just retaliation of the offended laws of those countries in the infliction of confinement, exile, and death, have been the clear and the culpable results of the mad and fanatical career of a Cabinet, which has trampled on all the legal institutions of man, and w^hich has set at defiance the very ordinances of G-od. I should not dare to make any assertions in the grave presence of your Grace, w^hich I am not prepared to substantiate by unexceptionable docu- mentary evidence; and, I can, therefore, produce for your perusal, letters, and despatches, and testimonies, which demonstrate, beyond all dispute, that the present Whig Cabinet did begin, conduct, and bring to maturity, political and religious rebellions in Rome, Naples, Lom- bardy, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Germany, and Prussia. All the rebels, and revolutionists, and infidels, in these various countries, claim acquaintance, and even friendship, with Lord Palmerston and his colleagues ; and, whether the object on hand was to overthrow a for- eign king, or a Catholic Bishop, an English Envoy; or Ambassador was recognised in the van of the foreign LETTER TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 237 insurgents ; and a printed English libel on the foreign Government, or an English printed tract of religious slan- der on the Catholic religion, were always found scattered round the quarters of the well-known English agents. No record of infamy, of either ancient or modern his- tory, bears any comparison with the profligate and insane fanaticism of this English bigotry ; and at every scaffold in Europe, ■where the victims of this English demoniacal scheme w^ere executed for their crimes, the names of Rus- sell and Paimerston are heard in the piercing cries of the living, and may be read in the atoning blood of the dead. At this moment, there is but one opinion amongst the crowned heads of Europe — ^namely, that England planned the ruin of their thrones ; and amongst the classes of order and of religion, there is a universal shout of horror and execration raised against the Cabinet which could employ the resources of an empire, and degrade the majesty of our Queen, in the execution of a system subversive of justice, abhorrent to humanity, and accursed by God. And what renders the national disasters inflicted on these countries so unendurable, is the incongruous and perfidi- ous tone of the English despatches. These curious, vile productions, publish panegyrics on jtistice, while they advocate national spoliation; and they put forward the words "righteousness" and "sacredness" in almost all these documents of holy dissimulation, while at the same moment, the writers of them were slandering religion, juming the efl[igy of the ever-blessed Vir^n, and spitting on the Cross. But this conduct, my Lord, as you are aware, is the 238 LETTER TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. usual, plausible, sanctified show of holy insulting cant, which England has ever practised during all her national wickedness, since the beginning of the sixteenth century. Henry issued a holy commission under the sanctified Tom Cromwell, to inquire into the morality (!) of the Religious Orders in England, while he was debauching his own daughter, taking off the heads of his wives, and commit- ting peijury and murder before God and man. He piously complained of the injustice of all rich, wealthy Monas- teries, while he was plundering, by fraud and force, the entire Church property of this country ; and he piously inveighed, in holy indignation, against the intolerance of the Pope, while he was preparing knives, and the gibbet, and the rack, to rip up men's bellies, to stake them through with steel, and to break their bones, if they dared refuse subscribing to his new formulary of faith. Elizabeth red- dened the soil of Ireland with the blood of the Irish, at the time when she was set up in England as the Apostle of " the Reformation," the head of Christ's Church, and the fountain of divine perfection. And Cromwell and his soldiers, sang psalms to God, while amusing themselves in the holy recreation of tossing grown children into the air, and in their descent catching them in scientific zeal on their holy bayonets ! or these ancient Whig zealots in epaulettes, changed the holy fun, by holding a Papist infant by the legs, turning round twice or three times, and then dashing out its Papist brains against the wall. You know, Sir, I am stating facts, strictly historical facts, which time, and your scanty toleration, had covered up in our aching hearts, and sealed up in our burning LETTER TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 239 souIb; and ^vhich, in our sickening hopes, we never sus- pected should be revived into malignant vitality, till the iniquities, the cruelties, the oppressions, and the slanders pf the Russell Cabinet had worn away the superstratum of charitable oblivion, and revealed the bleeding ■wounds of the ancient persecution and tyranny which robbed us of our national rights, proscribed our faith, murdered our fathers in cruel torture, and consigned their mangled flesh to a martyred grave. In a word, the history of England, during the three last centuries of her godliness, ftirnishes but one unbroken narrative of calumny, slander, lies, spoliation, perfidy, perjury, persecution, exile, chains, and death. And the spirit of the English Cabinet towards Ireland, possesses, at the present moment, the same malignant char- acter which it had during the most sanguinary period of Elizabeth's reign. The power, not the will, is wanted to renew the list of proscription, and to repeat the scene of Mullaghmast. What part of the tragical history of the last three hundred years has been omitted in the Russell Administration towards Ireland 1 With a treasury over- flowing with nineteen millions of bullion, he permitted the death by starvation of upwards of half a million of poor faithful loyal Irishmen. I am speaking facts — ^he is the guilty man. A jury of respectable men, on their oaths, at a Coroner's Inquest on the starved death of a poor Irish- man, brought in a verdiet of "willful mwreZer against Lord John Russell, in the year 1848." The Coroner refused to admit the verdict ; but still, that rejected verdict ia registered in Heaven, and will form part of the Aiture 240 LETTER TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. judicial history of Ireland ; and it is true, to say, that if Buch sworn verdicts would be received by the Irish Coro- ners, Lord John Russell would stand charged by tha united oath of a nation before God with more cases of Irish murder than all the Irish culprits, taken together, of your entire Penal Colonies. He therefore, folded hS arms on the Treasury benches, and he did aid culpably in the starvation and death of our fine people. His Cabi- net encouraged (and justly,) the fitting up various naval expeditions in search of one man in the North Seas ; but, alas ! you would not send one ship or one surgeon to convey the poor Irish exiles to a foreign land while liv- ing, or give one shilling extra to buy a shroud for them when dead in putrid, national neglect. The English Cabinet makes laws to protect the Irish wild fox and the game, while they look carelessly on, see- ing the cruel landlord uproot whole villages, exterminate the poor, and kill them like vermin, as they make their escape from the falling walls of their ancient home, and the burning roof of their birth. Mazzini is lauded. Gari- baldi caressed, Ciceroacchio modelled in plaister and mar- ble, and Kossuth embraced ; all the rebels of foreign na- tions are entertained ; all the revolutionists feted, or pen- sionedj and all the infidels of the whole earth panegyrized in the periodicals of the day, by this anti-Irish, anti-Cath- olic English Cabinet, while any one who dares to raise his voice in defence of Irish liberty, or the Irish Faith, is seized as an assassin, tried for his life, condemned to be " hanged, drawn, and quartered ;" sent in chains to (he English terrestrial hell, and even there, amongst the liv- LETTER TO THE DUKE OP WELLINGTON. 241 ing damned, liis mouth is gagged by his English keeper, lest he utter a word of reproach against the persecuting laws that murder the living and dishonor the dead. Al- giers has offered a home to the Irish exile ; Spain has allotted part of one of her richest provinces to shelter our afflicted race, while England, that has grown great by our labors, powerfiil by our numbers, and triumphant by our courage, banishes us in tens and hundreds of thousands of naked victims to America, where the hospitable forest gives us a free home, and where the sheltered, untrodden valley, affords us a friendly and honored grave. We carry nothing to America but our ancient Faith, and we bring nothing from Ireland that belongs by right to Eng- land, but our undying, inappeasable vengeance. And when every poor exiled, persecuted Irishman, (stript of everything,) sets his foot in the ship which is to convey him to a distant shore, he looks to the avenging skies, as the swelling canvas urges his breaking heart from the home of his fathers, and in the language of the English merchantman, once mutilated by a Spanish crew, " he cries to Heaven for mercy and to his country for revenge." And be convinced, my Lord, that this universal cry shall yet be reverberated from America on cruel England, in the ferocious shout of national triumph, and in the just retaliation of accumulated revenge. Oh, Sir, no pen can describe, no language can paint, the heartless cruelties of the Whig Cabinet towards Ire- land during the last four years ; and that cruelty has, if possible, been increased, -by the shameless bigotry and the slanderous malignity with which our national charan 242 LETTER TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. ter and historical race ; our political principles, and our religious convictions have been assailed by the bribed press, and the venal literature of every department of the English administration. Having robbed us of our trade, we are described as incapable of commercial enterprise; having banished to America all our best tradesmen and artisans, we are put down as men incapable of progress in artistic talent; having filled all places of trust and emi- nence with men of English kidney, they ask where are our men of distinction ? and having centralized all emolu- ment, and all gain, and all wealth in England, they jibe our poverty, and proclaim the national beggary produced by their elaborate injustice, as the result of Celtic blood and hereditary recklessness ! Having made at different times what is called "plantations" of Scotchmen and Eng- lishmen, in all the rich parts of Ireland ; having banished the proprietors to "hell or Connaught;" having allowed only half an acre of bog and an acre of arable larid to the persecuted Irishman, with fetters on his feet, manacles on his hands, and a halter round his neck, with rackrents, and middlemen, they then employ such fabulous writers as the black Calvinist, Macaulay, to publish, under the name of history, the hereditary English lie — that Popish agricul- ture has never flourished in Ireland or anywhere else like Reformation tillage ! ! This rhetorical fop is about to favor us with a, continu- ation of the fabulous production; and it would be only doing justice to his system, if he would furnish a botanical diagnosis, explaining why the "Reformation" potatoes have failed in Ireland during the last four years, placed LETTER TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 2-13 as they were in such favorable circumstances of Lutheran cultivation. What a pity, my Lord, that Lord Minto did not succeed in scattering more Bibles in France and Italy! If Macaulay be correct in his calculations, the grape and the maccaroni of these countries must be prodigiously improved by the holy presence of the English Bible there. If mangel wurtzel, my Lord, grow to such perfection un- der Lutheran culture, to what celestial improvement could not the Popish French champagne be brought, if your Bible could be only read under the idolatrous branches of the vine of these countries. Such an infamous system of perfidious lying, and atrocious humbug never has been carried on in any part of the world, for the degradation, the oppression, and the burning injustice of a people, as is shamefully practised towards Ireland in every depart ment, by every villainous conspirator employed by a per- secuting and a fanatical Government, to set our nation mad, and to drive a whole people to distraction and des- pair. But, above all, and beyond all, having uprooted our altars, demolished our churches, plundered our mo- nastries, robbed us of all our legal ecclesiastical revenues of ages, and still,'w^ithall, saddled the nation w^ith the yearly revenue' of eight millions and a half! for the sup port of this apostolical establishment. Lord John Russell has, in addition to this scalding ty- ranny and consuming insult, encouraged the agents of this living congregation of impostors to calumniate our creed, during the last five years in every city, town, village, hamlet, and cabin in Ireland — to slander us by sermons, speeches, tracts, ballads, and placards — to call the priest? S44 LETTER TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. by the names of idolaters, perjurers, murderers, and asas sins — to post them on all the pillars, \valls, gates, and corners of streets, as the priests of Antichrist — the emis- saries of the devil — the corrupters of God's gospel, aiid the preachers of perdition. Can the nations of Europe believe, that England can encourage such disorder, such injustice, such blasphemous antichristian antagonism as forms the daily record of present Irish history ? — or how can you calculate on the allegiance and dutiful loyalty ot a people, whom England thus excites to disaifection by every art which the most refined perfidy could produce in the hearts of an excitable people ? And can you again wonder, my Lord, when you hear of an agrarian murder in Ireland ? If Government set the example of perjury, and persecution, and death, why should you not expect to see the exa^nple followed by the victims of your tyranny 1 If you form a conspiracy against them, can you wonder at Ribbonism against you ? On the contrary, one is rather astonished that there are not more scenes of blood, under a system of such mons- trous national provocation, insult, and oppression. And before God, I hold the Government of England more guilty of the Irish murders, than the scarlet assassin who reddens his accursed hands in the blood of his marked vic- tim The Government are absolutely guilty of the mur- dered blood that cries to heaven for vengeance, from their maddening career in Ireland. What can we Irish priests do to arrest the murderer, while such extended materials of provocation to slaughter, lie all round us on. every side 1 For my part, my Loi-d, I would willingly, most LETTER TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 245 willingly, most ardently, take the duties, if I could, of a policeman, and follow the assassin of Mr. Bateson, and arrest him, at the risk of my life. I would, with pleasure, if it were necessary, stand sentinel before the door of Mr. Fortescue, and watch and protect his life, or the life of any other man, be his creed or his politics what they may; and every priest in Ireland would do the same to prevent the curse on the soil, imprinted there by the shedding of innocent blood. But what can we do, calumniated, abus- ed, distrusted, as we are on one side, while on the other side, there exists a fearful amount of provocation, which the cruel Government seem rather disposed to increase than to diminish ? And as if to render the entire nation frantic, and incapable of entertaining one solitary ray of hope, from the kind, altered feeling of our rulers, the jour- nals in pay of the Government, suggest the withdrawdl of all former Catholic privileges — ^the removal from office of all Papists, and the total extermination of Irishmen from the soil of Ireland. There is, my Lord, no resting place now^ left for hope for our country. All is persecution. A war is made even upon our intellect ; and we are called on neither to read, or write except through a Parliamentary tutor. Know- ledge of the most refined manufacture at Bamfordspeke, is offered to our longing Irish minds ; but we must drink it from a scientific distillation, through a Lutheran alem- bic. The mediseval and imperfect education of Bossuet, Liguori, and Doctor l)oyle, is to be removed, and re- placed by the modem and improved system of Carlisle, Tom Payne, and Straus. The ancient vulgarity of intro- 246 LETTER TO THE UUKE OP WELLINGTON. ducing the name of God in science, Bhall in this modern polite programme of studies, be entirely omitted ; and the imbecile meanness of mixing up the old fables of religion with the fashionable development of the modern human mind, will be avoided through the new collegiate curri- culum, as an exploded thing, and only suited to such undeveloped minds as those of St. Thomas and La Place. Why, my Lord, one would think, to hear these "raw- head and bloody-bone" scholars speak, that the studies of a modern apothecary and the doctrine of potash constitut- ed the very extreme point of literary, scientific and Cris- tian education ; and if a beardless tyro happened to have A.B. attached to his ragged classics and shabby science, he is put forward in collegiate reports as a man capable of teaching the Tw^elve Apostles, and making laws for Charlemagne. The world is disgusted with this loath- some and nauseous canton education; and it is quite cer- tain that if the illustrious Sir Robert Peel lived now this fanatical and schoolboy ribaldry would not have been to- lerated. From the absurd notions of this inane class one might suppose it impossible that Shakspeare could com- pose HaTnlet as he had not read "the Binomial theorem" under a Bible-man ; and it is even ■wonderful how^ your Grace gained the battle of Waterloo, since the metallurgic difference between potasium and sodium was not discover- ed till after the year 1815. And besides this intellectual war these is also another war made upon our conscience. We are compelled to believe that the Queen has received a commission to teach the scriptures, so very superior to the commission of the LETTER TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 247 Apostles, that any one named and appointed by them to teach (contrary to her wishes) is to be silenced, deposed, and deported beyond the evangelical boundaries of this eucu- menical empire; and we are called on to deny an office which we have sworn to profess, to commit perjury as a duty to the Queen ; to deny God as a proof of our loyal- ty, to tell a lie, as a mark of our integrity ; and, we are gravely told by Parliament, that in order to make us good and trustworthy subjects, we must be first perj urers, blasphemers, and consecrated hypocrites. My Lord, I have always, since 1829, presumed to entertain the lofti- est notions of your naked candor, and your transparent integrity. And will your Grace, therefore, permit so hum- ble an individual as I am, to ask you, could your Grace depend in the field of battle on the fidelity of the soldier w^ho would forsw^ear God to please the Queen ; and who, at the bidding of a minister, would sell his faith for gold 1 And there can be no doubt, my Lord, that you will want perhaps, even sooner than your Grace imagines, the whole energetic and loyal support of every man in Ireland to maintain the very existence of your Empire. Being ra- ther successful in my predictions during the last twelve months; do not, I pray your Grace, make light of these warnings of mine. The lightest and smallest cloud that floats on the breath of the morning, is the first to announce by its flight, the approach of the storm. England is cer- tainly in danger — and war once proclaimed by France, her fate is sealed. Russia takes India — Canada revolts ; and how can we, the priests, or your Grace's name, keep in fixed loyalty the Irish discontent, inflamed by wrong 248 LETTER TO THE DUKE OP WELLINGTON. and insult? Should the French, (which is not improba- ble) make a successful descent on our Irish shores, I would most delicately suggest to your Grace not to enlist the Irish, till at least you strike off our chains — till you with- draw entirely the burning insult of Lord John Russell — till you confine the Protestant calumniators within their own mock churches — till you promise tenant-right ; that is to say, a bed to lie on, and a house to live in, for the vi'ives and children of the soldiers — till you induce the English journals to cease telling lies of Ireland, and till the Queen can return to revisit us, and hear from our de- voted hearts {when all these conditions shall have heen fid- filled,") the loud, long, and ringing huzza, declaring that we forgive and forget — and that she can command our life's-bloood in the service of her throne, and the mainte- nance of her authority. I am no rebel, my Lord, and I ahhor national agitation, as a most unhealthy state of so- ciety ; but I would rather die than flinch from the post of duty, when my Irish country, and my Irish creed demand my services. But w^hile such is the character of my determination, I am prepared also to live in peace and amity w^ith the Go- vernment of the country ; to thanh them for their favors; to aid them in their efforts ; and to identify my heart with thoir duties. But I will never consent to execute these dutiful conditions till my hands are unchained, my coun- try emancipated, and my creed set at liberty — perfect- ly free. With distinguished admiration for your Grace's unri- valled military fame, and craving your pardon for this LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 249 long letter, I have the honor to be, with profound res- pect, my Lord Duke, your Grace's most obedient servant, D.W.CAHILLiD.D. LETTER OF THE REV. DR. CAHILL TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DERB7. "In the first place, then, I can sincerely assure you of my earnest de- sire and detennination to pr«n]ote, to the utmost of my power, the cause of Protestant truth, in opposition to Popish error; and upon he particular question of the grant to Maynooth — my inclination and my opinion are, and have always been, opposed to the grant I am strongly in favor of an inquiry, and shall support Mr. Spooner's mo- tion for a committee on the whole subject of the grant ; and shall cor- dially and strenuously concur with Lord Derby's Government.. .. for the entire repesj of the act of '45. More than this, I cannot think yon will require from one, who aspires to he a Member of the Adminis- tration to which alone you can look with confidence for the sincere and efiective support of Protestantism against the spirit and inroads of the Papacy." — Fitzrm/ Kelly. Parochial-house, Navan, April nth, 1852. Mt Lord Earl — The extract just quoted, is taken from a letter recently written by your Solicitor-General; and as he mentions your Lordship's name, the sentiments expressed in his Communication must, of course, be adopt- ed by you. So, then, your Law Officer for England and Ireland sends forth a preliminary missive, in imitation of the far-famed "Durham letter;" and the Parliamentary eloquence of '52, is about to rehearse the same foul-mouth ed bigotry as the disgraceful Session of '51; and the words " Popish error," and " the Papacy," are again to fSrm the filthly vocabulary of legislative rancor ; and the 250 LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. new Tory Cabinet are ranging themselves under the old faded colors of the "mummeries of superstition;" and the Catholics of Europe, and the Catholic victorious army of England, are again to hear the language of burning insult uttered from the seat of justice, and stamped by the au- thority of the Crown. If, my Lord, the lowest law-offi- cer of the lowest court of (what is called) justice in this Empire, uttered the words of the extract quoted above, he would be pronounced, by. universal condemnation, as unfitted for the impartial discharge of his duties ; and he would be distrusted in his decisions by every client of his C ourt. And can it be, that what would be disgraceful at the Old Bailey, is honorable at St. Stephen's? or, that the language and the conduct which would be contemptible and criminal in the lowest officer of police, is professional and suitable in your Lordship's colleague? Europe has not as yet had time to take repose since the revolutionary convulsion which was planned and executed by your Whig predecessors in office. The name of English bigotry is associated with the plundered Convents of Switzerland, with the assassination of the Priesthood, with the floggings and hangings of the monster Haynau, and with the san- guinary scenes of Hungary, Germany, Prussia, Lombardy, and Naples. Since the expulsion of the perfidious Russell, and since the humiliation of his colleague. Captain Rock, we, the Catholics of this country, seemed to have a gleam of hope that the official descendants of Pitt and Fox, of Greijville, the Duke of Wellington, and Sir Robert Peel, LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 251 would not have the mean cowardice to kick us on the ground, as we lay prostrate beneath the ravages of fa- mine, the cruelties of extermination, and the insatiable vengeance of religious penalties. We fancied that the Earl of Derby, would not condescend to w^alk in the foot- steps of Lord Stanley — that the narrow prejudices of the green lordling would be lost sight of on the elevated ground of the matured Earl; w^e fancied that the unripe, petulent acrimony of the beardless Secretary of Ireland would be dissipated before the meridian greatness of the Imperial Premier of England ; but we have been deceiv- ed, and the letter of your subordinate, proves that the giant-oak will take the warp of the baby-plant, and that tlie ministerial successors of Somerset are ready to-dav, in the nineteenth century, to malign, to insult, to perse- cute, and to exterminate our race and our name, as their ancestors w^ere, in the very worst days of our ill-fated country, and in the reddest scenes of our disastrous per- secution. The history of the w^hole world presents no parallel to the ceaseless and the unmittigated ferocious bigotry with w^hich England has assailed our creed since '46. The records of the Catholic Courts of Europe, furnish no mo- dem instance where public official insult has been offered to the Protestant creed of their subjects ; but in Great Britain and Ireland, the Priest is not allowed to touch the ermine of a judge, although he has sworn to maintain the supremacy of the laws; and his name or his profession cannot be pronounced in the presence of royalty, although he is prepared to fight for the honor of the Queen, and to spill his blood in defence of the throne. 252 LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. This gratuitous insult, this governmental persecution, the scalding bigotry, the flagrant injustice, this anti- Catholic, this anti-Irish conspiracy, may be clearly defin- ed, the perfect exponent of English tyranny; and if we^ the Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland, will tamely submit to this incomprehensible insult, our base cowar- dice is the admitted definition of national slavery. The insane bigotry may, for a time, by its cumbrous weight, smother our crying revenge; but the day may not be far distant w^hen Europe and America may adopt the insult offered to Ireland, and prove to your Lordship's Tory successors that there is more loss than gain in exciting religious sanguinary animosities, in alienating the unbro- ken allegiance of seven hundred years, and in dividing the devoted strength and proverbial courage of the one- third of your Empire. As your Lordship is pledged through your colleague, to support, in reference to the grant to Maynooth, Mr. Spooner's motion for the entire Repeal of the act of '45 ; I can, therefore, have no hopeof arresting your Lordship's decision, in what I shall call " this mad career of legisla- tion on this question;" but, like the humble historian, who can, perhaps, describe the battle much better than the general who commands, your Lordship will not, I trust, consider it presumption in me, to lay before you what I consider the clear case of "the act" referred to, and to warn you against the trick, and the deceit, and the injus- tice of "the repeal," to which your subordinate seems to pledge both your Lordship and the Cabinet. For several years before 1782, your country attempted LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 253 to trample on America, in something of the same fashion as your Cabinet now attempts to overawe unfortunate Ireland; you inflicted' "tonnage and poundage" on the insulted Americans, just as you now inflict your spurious Bible and your piebald creed on the maddened Irish Catholic. And, as there is nothing new under the sun, be convinced, that in the same manner as your beardless senators, and your Biblical Cabinet lost heretofore glorious America, the time is fast approaching when your scalding tyranny all over the world, may yet rehearse the tragical history of Bunker's Hill and New Orleans. The revolution of France followed in 1789, and Eng- land, therefore, gave the Catholics a vote in the election of a Member of Parliament in 1793. England was threat- ened by French Republicanism in 1794, and therefore England determined to educate the Irish Priests at home, in 1795 ; and Napoleon conquered Italy and Austria be- fore the end of 1796, and therefore Maynooth received the grant of c£8,700 a year. I am not ungrateful for this act of English political generosity; on the contrary, I am ac- tuated by deep feelings of acknowledgment, although I am forced to believe (from the avowal of the government of that day,) that State policy, and not friendship towards Catholics, urged the Parliament to decide on the paltry, unwilling endowment. Sir R. Peel completed in 1845, the common decency of English justice, in raising the yearly grant to 6630,000; and, although the Protestant Church, of only half a million of souls, has 661,300,000 annually, and although the Presbyterian conventicle, of a mere section of the population, has .:£38,000 a year, the 254 LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. Catholics, who numbered seven millions, were grateful for this additional, kind, and unsolicited grant of Sir Robert Peel. And although the Catholic Monasteries have been thrown down, the Colleges dismantled, the Churches plundered, the Abbey lands seized, and the consecrated legal property of the poor and the stranger confiscated by Henry and Elizabeth, and then settled by what are called "Acts of Parliament," on our Slanderers and calumnia tors : and although this plundered State of the poor of Ire- land and England amounts, at the present day, to the as- tounding sum of eight and a half millions sterling, (annu- ally,) we, the Catholics, had nearly forgotten this rob- bery of our Church, and of the patrimony of the poor : and we were beginning to entertain feelings of charitable intercourse with the descendants of the greatest villains, assassins, and murderers, that ever the world saw in any age or country, till Lord John Russell raised the fury of the Empire against us, by an insult and a slander, with- out a parallel in modern history. And as if it is intended to tread out every feeling that could bind us to the throne, your colleague, (which means your Lordship,) has com- menced the Session of 1852, by a gratuitous insult on oui creed, and has threatened, in a rare combination of slan- der and bigotry, to support Mr. Spooner's motion for the entire repeal of the grant to Maynooth. And now, my Lord, will you be kind enough to tell us, Catholics, how we have forfeited the confidence of the English Government, and what fault have we committed which merits the penalty of reversing the act of 1845.-— LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 255 This is a case in wUcli the laity are not implicated, it is a charge which solely concerns the Priestshood : I am a very humble individual, indeed, but I demand from your Lordship the precise criminality which justifies you in making this grave charge through your subordinate, and to pronounce the verdict of guilt, by visiting us with the penalty of oESO.OOO a year. Your Lordship has, no doubt, your Parliament at your back, to defend you ; but we, too, have our Parliament to support us. You have bigotted England, rancorous Scotland, and Orange Ireland on your side; but we have all Catholic Europe, and all-glorious America on ours. You shall have your verdict at home, and we shall have ours abroad. And great as is th eEarl of Derby in Downing-street, it may happen that the Irish Priesthood may be more respected at Washington, and that the shouts of your triumphant, base, bigoted majori- ty in your venal House, may be drowned in the loud, an- gry cry of shame and scorn, which we shall rise against you all over the civilized world. As your Lordship is about to put us on our trial, we shall demand your evi- dence ; and if you are determined to pack your jury, we shall publish to all mankind the lies and perjury of your witnesses, and then your verdict will be national dishonor, and your victory w^ill be royal disgrace. Pray, then. Sir, what crime have w^e committed to jus- tify your judicial " Praise-God-Barebones," in insulting one-third of the Empire by the words " Popish error," and " the inroads of the Papacy 1" And will your Lord- ship condescend to inform us, in what manner Maynooth, forfeited the confidence of your Cabinet, to deserve to be 256 LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. ejected on the " crowbar" principle 1 We, the Priests of Ireland, have never, within my recollection, even in "ne instance, opposed the administration of the laws. We have never, in any one instance, encouraged insubordina tion to the constituted authorities. There is not a stain on our conscientious allegiance. We are the avowed abettors of order, an^ the public advocates of peace. Oui fault, if we have any, is our slavish submission to the most grinding tyranny tkat ever the world saw — a tyranny that has ejected the aged, banished the youthful, starved the survivors, and dishonored the dead. If your Lord- ship, therefore, persevere in your determination of repeal- ing the Act of 1845, you will be guilty of a palpable in- justice, which has no parallel even in English Legisla- tion, save the perjury of Limerick, and the murder oi MuUaghmast. If you succeed in this injustice and insult, we shall publish your Lordship throughout Europe, as de- scending to a mean trick, practising a low deceit, and guilty of a dishonorable injustice. When your official ancestors (for the ends of State po- licy,) first endowed Maynooth, the Irish Clergy had for- ty-six friendly colleges on the Continent of Europe, hav- ing funds appropriated for the education of the regulai and secular Clergy of Ireland. Portugal, Spain, France Italy, Austria, Holland, Belgium, and Germany, opened their seminaries to the Irish student, when the racks and the gibbets, and the ropes, and the scaffolds of your Evan- gelical Government were reeking with human Irish blood, in honor of God. And if you had left the Irish Priest- hood to continue their educational course on the Continent LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 257 ever since, these forty-six colleges -would now be suppli- ed with superabundant additional funds from the cha- rity and the zeal of Catholic Europe, in favor of persecut- ed Ireland ; and we should be now spared the galling in- sult of your Tory fanatical Solicitor, and of your Lord- ship's known bigotry. Why did you take us on board your State ship against our will in 1795, and then heave us into the ocean in 1852 ? Why did you encourage us to build our houses over your political magazine, in order to blow us up at a given mo- ment? Why did you dry up the charily of Europe in our ft.vor, in order that after upwards of half a century of suspended charity, you might cast us abandoned and friendless on the world 1 Why did you flatter us, in or- der to throw us off our guard for our ruin 1 But above all, why do you slander and malign us, eject us, banish us, starve us, put us to death ? But in the name of the honor of your nation, do not be- lie us — do not forge calumnies on our coffins, or print per- jury on our tombs — ^break our bones, as your ancestor Wentworth did — banish us, as did your predecessor So- merset ; let your Solicitor hang us without a jury, as his countryman Jefieries has formerly practised his profes- sion at the bar of the ancient Lord Truro : but. Sir, leave us our name, our zeal, our honor, our patriotism. Earl Derby ! let not your hatred of Ireland, or your insatiable rancor against the Catholic creed, make you forget the dictates of conscience, the principles of honor, and the law^s of justice. . Do not, in imitation of some infamous landlords of Ireland, eject the Priesthood with their rent 9 8t58 LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. paid. Do not brand the honor of the Queen, by associat- ing Royalty with the Crowbar Brigade. Give us due no- tice to quit, till we can have time to secure a Collegiate home on the Continents of Europe and America: and if your Lordship is the person selected to act the part of Tom Cromwell, in Ireland ; you may, like your prede- cessor, be approaching a near abyss of personal humilia- tion. At all events, our case is clear ; namely, that with- out a shadow of a fault against the laws of our country, against our allegiance to the throne, and against the honor due to the Queen, you have, in the face of God and man, opened your ministerial career with a threat of persecu- tion, which, if carried into execution against us, has never been surpassed, . even in our country, for trick, insult, falsehood, treachery, deceit, and injustice. But, believe me, the time is fast approaching when the Methodists, the Presbyterians, and the Chartists, will force you or your successor to repeat the same experiment towards the Pro- testant Church, which you now practice to Maynooth ; and a breach once made in the old walls of the establish- ment, not all the artillery of your Lordship's eloquence can repel the assailants, or defend the rotten, tottering citadel. What your Cabinet will do next, no one can tell ; one mistake, often leads to another more fatal error; and that It may happen that " the errors of Popery," with which your Solicitor seems so well acquainted, may bear no com- parison in point of number and magnitude with the errors of the Derby Administration. But while we are partly ignorant of the precise line of your persecuting policyt LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 259 our course is clear and decided ; namely, to combine to- gether legally and constitutionally, as one man, through- out your Empire ; and if it appear that your instructions are decided on new penalties, and on increased injustice, we must be equally determined to raise a shout of con- tempt at your policy, and boldly set you at defiance. When Lord. Stanley purchased liberty, in 1833, for a handful of slaves in Jamaica, he gave seven years' no- tice to their masters, for fear of injuring the feelings of two hundred and forty slave-drivers ; surely, then, when the Earl of Derby (related somehow to that Lord Stan- ley,) inflicts slavery on the millions of Catholic Ireland, and on the spotless Priesthood of their nation, he should give a proportionate notice to the Ministers of God. But the rage against Popery and the Papacy is the present cry of bigotry ; and from the Premier to the village Sex- ton, all are inoculated with the virus of this insane dis- temper, and all look delirious, when the name of the be- nevolent, inoffensive Pope, is uttered. And one should think, your Lordship has had a salutary warning against this shameful trick in the downfall of Lord Palmerston, and in the defeat of Lord John Russell. Europe is now perfectly aware of their machinations, and alive to the danger of trusting English fanatical diplomacy. An Eng- lishman is now watched all over the Continent, as if his presence were tho signal of treachery, and his correspon- dence deceit. Your Biblical Societies have been expell- ed fi:om all the Catholic and Protestant countries of Eu- rope, at fifteen days' notice, and the letters of the English correspondents to the London journals, are stopped or 260 LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. opened in all the post-ofEces, with the same terror as if they contained treason against the Monarchs of those countries. And I think, I speak the exact feeling of those nations, -when I assert, that while they hold the name of English Whig in contemptuous detestation, they view the name of English Tory in irreconcileable abhorence. The universal voice of mankind, at this moment, brands England as standing alone in the civilized world, the per- fidious advocate of religious persecution; and the conduct of the Sultan, standing uncovered, while a Catholic Bishop in last August, married at Constantinople the daughter of a Greek functionary of the Court to an Italian Roman Catholic, (Signer Fetaldi,) stands in reproaching contrast to the audacious bigotry of the Queen's Chamberlain in the late case of Monsignore Searle ; and it proves that we can expect more courtesy and higher consideration from a royal Mahomedan and a royal Turk abroad, than we can hope for at home from the Christian Monarch, for w^hose honor, name, and throne, our fathers in arms have died, and for whom we ourselves are prepared, from con- science and duty, to spill our heart's blood. There is no one department of your Empire, social, naval, military, forensic, religious, political, in which we Catholics are not now met by studied insult and ribald slander. The word " Popery," (as you insultingly call our Faith,) is the universal watchword of reproach — the combining signal of persecution; and if the Catholics who fight your battles on the banks of the Sutlej, and w^inyour victories, are subject to your degrading insult, even w^hile leaning on their bleeding arms, the trophies of their cou LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. 261 rage and your dominion, how can we expect your truth, or your sympathy, or your friendship at home? Although my poor Catholic countrymen pour out their life's blood for you on the burning sands of India, you refuse them the happiness of a Chaplain of their own creed, in all the internal stations of the country; and when the poor Ita- lian Priest, Father Francis, followed the 50th Regiment to the battle of Moodkee, and was killed, while in the heat of the fight, among the dying, your Christian Grovem- ment refused to give him a mule to carry himself and his slender baggage, you refused him the common necessa- ries of life, you would not give him one penny to console the dying Catholic brave soldier. And hear it, Robespierre ; hear it, elder Napoleon in your grave ; hear it, French Guards of Marengo ; hear it thou, Irish Commander of our Forces at the Horse-Guards : w^hen poor Father Francis lay dead on the field, with two sabre cuts on his neek, no British hand bore him to a fo- reign grave, no British honor saluted the fallen Priest over an honored tomb, two poor Catholic privates laid him in a rude co£5n, made from the remains of two tea-chests, and the abandoned fate, and the cruel neglect, of poor Father Francis, at Moodkee, is the w^hole history of Eng- land to Catholic Ireland, from the first moment, when their red gibbet was erected in 1543, to the late episto- lary insult of your Lordship's Solicitor. I shall' take the liberty of occasionally coming into your presence, and publishing my humble view^s of your policy to Ireland ; and I wish to inform you, that, these letters of mine, will be read in every city in Europe, and 262 LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. in every village and hamlet of America. I have the ho- nor to be, my Lord Earl, with profound respect, your Lordship's obedient servant, D. W. CAHILL, D.D. LETTER OF THE REV. DR. CAHILL TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DERBY. HOUSE OF LORDS, Mat Slat. " Earl Derby said; 'What I have stated before is, that her Majesty's Government have' no present intention of nftiking' any alteration in, or proposing any repeal of, the existing act, by which an endowment was granted to the- College of Maynooth.' " (Hear, hear) HOUSE OF COMMONS, Mat 21st. '*Mr. Spooner, in answer to the appeal made to him as to whether he believed in th» present Session that an inquiry could be carried to a sa- tisfactory conclusion, would at once say that he did not think it could. (Hear, hear, from the opposition.) "The Chancellor of the Exchequer said — 'The vote meant that the House of Commons should express an opinion whether there should or should not be an inquiry in respect to the system which was carried on at Maynooth, and when he heard the words *a mockery and a delusion, used with respect lo this debate, and the manner in which it l]^d been conducted, he must say, that with regard to the people out of doors, it would indeed be a farce and a mockery, if, after all that had been said, and all the feeling that had been expressed, the house did not come to some conclusion on the subject of Maynooth.' (Hear, hear.) " The Attorney General for Ireland said — 'The Hon. Member for Middlesex, refei'ring to the Established Church, renewed the old exagge- ration with respect to the value of its property,and the Right Hon. Mem- ber for the University of Oxford, as well as the noble Lord the M-ember for London, warned the friends of inquiry to be careful what they were about, lest they should bring about the reconstruction of religious esta- blishments in Ireland generally. As a Representative of the Church, however, he ( Mr. Napier ) would not acept that statement. If it were thought a desirable thing, on its own merits, to interfere with the Established Church of Ireland, let such a proposition be brought for^ ward, and he would give it a fair consideration. He did not forget that in earlier days that church had neglected its duty ; that Ireland con- demned it, tliat the Almighty condemned it, but let it be boine in mind LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 263 diat Eng'-ond did not condemn it. Now, however, that it had become an active and living interpreter of God's word; speaking in the native language, and had acquiied spiritual power, an inquiry into the esta- blishment was menaced, with a view to its reconstruction.' *' Caernarvon, Wales, June 2, 1852. Mt Lord Earl — The history of our Imperial Legis- lature, affords no parallel to the hypocrisy, the meanness, and the trick, hy ■which the Grovemment of England is now systematically executed. I presume to express to- wards your Lordship, personally, the most profound res- pect; but what politician of any age of England's history, has ever seen such contradiction, such swaddling, such shuffling, or, as it is now-a-days termed, such " dodging," as are all contained in the extracts quoted above ? The Mover, (Mr. Spooner,) for the Maynooth inquiry, who, but some few days ago, spewed such filthiness on the con- fessional, now^ gives up that inquiry as not likely to lead to a " satisfactory conclusion;" next comes your Chancel- lor, who contradicts the mover, and thinks an inquiry necessary to "satisfy people out of doors," and to escape being branded with the charge of "mockery and delu- sion ;" your Lordship next comes forward in the order of the political dodging, and takes a course peculiar to your- self, stating, that you have no intention of making " any alterations in the act of the endowment of Maynooth ;" from whence it must be concluded, that all the past de- bates on Maynooth have been a mere Parliamentary farce; and lastly, your Attorney-General for Ireland, concludes the official melo-drama with a kind of ministerial doxo- logy, in w^hich he declares, as ex-offido theologian to your Lordship, that the Irish (Protestant) Church has " ne- 264 LETTEE TO THE EARL OP DERBY. ■ glected its duty," (oh,*strange fact !) that it had been " con- demned by Ireland, and the Almighty," (what a happy coincidence of opinion, between Lord Roden and the Al- mighty,) that at present the same condemned Church has learned to speak and pray in Irish, (oh ! liturgy of Eliza- beth ! ) that consequently (the Lord be praised,) it has again recovered the good opinion of Ireland and the Al- mighty ! and is, at the present moment, (oh, ghost of Oli- ver Cromwell ! ) the " active and living interpreter of God's word." I declare, I have never read, in the same number of words, coming from the members of any responsible so- ciety so much trifling inconsistency, reckless insult, and swaddling puerility, as may be collected from these speci- mens of Cabinet wisdom. I assure you, my Lord, no- thing but my deep personal respect for your Lordship, pre- vents me at present from laughing in your face, seeing the ridicule and the contempt with which your administra- tion must be covered, all over the world, before every man of common sense and common honor. Who can avoid smiling in melancholy scorn, at seeing the reins of Go- vernment in this great, and powerful, and enlightened country, entrusted to men who plainly avow that they are humbugging the nation, and that, in order to please the unjust cry of ferocious bigotry, they are keeping alive the feelings of religious rancor ; and, without necessity or a useful aim, ranging two hostile parties of our common country in a perilous and a sanguinary struggle ? And is there never to be an end of this furious malig. nity against the Catholic name? Is the British Parlia- LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 265 ment to assemble, year after year, uttering the grossest falsehoods, publishing the basest lies, and encouraging the most relentless persecution against the creed of Catholic Ireland 1 From Dioclesian to Elizabeth, from Julian the Apostate to Lord John Russell, there never has been dis- played, in any part of the world, a more debased, unceas- ing system of shameless misrepresentations, ribald insult, and debauched lies, than has been promulgated from your Senate House, against the Faith of two hundred and fifty millions of the present population of the world, against the creed of your English ancestors, and against the ve- nerable and imperishable records of all that has been great, learned, and virtuous, of the past eighteen'centuries, in every nation of the earth. This frantic warfare did not begin in drunken clubs, or in infuriated fanatical enthusiasm ; it did not commence in Tyburn or Smithfield. No, it burst forth in the British Senate : it was first announced from the Treasury Bench- es : it originated with the Premier of England : it was the offspring of the English Cabinet: it was planned in silent deliberation, urged in ministerial eloquence, and executed under the sanction of Parliamentary wisdom. It employ- ed Lord Minto to deceive the Pope; sent Peel to lightjhe fires of Switzerland ; licensed Canning to endorse the pil- lage of the Monasteries ; gave a military medal to Gari- baldi; feted Kossuth; aided Haynau to erect scaffolds to hang men and to flog women; encouraged Bern; and trans- ported Smith O'Brien ; and, while standing in Lombardy, in the sight of Europe, flinging the red hissing balls of sanguinary revolution over all nations ; it was seen, at the 266 LETTER TO TUE EARL OF DERBY. samt time, turning with the other hand the leaves of the Bible, polluting God's gospel with reeking hypocrisy, and provoking the indignation of man, and the vengeance of God. Yes, my Lord, the Legislators of EnglanjJ, during the last three hundred years, have practised the Reformation Act of presenting the appearance of sanctity in language, while perpetrating, in fact, the blackest enormities of crime. From Dean Fletcher, who had the shocking in- decency to preach incongruous godliness to the Queen of Scots, while the perjured executioner uncovered his mur- derous axe, down to the Jumpers of Connemara, it is all the same^ystem of lies, hypocrisy, and guilt. And, as a matter of course, from the 4th November, 1850, (the date of the Durham letter,) up to the present sittings of your " crime and outrage committee," there could be no possi- ble phase of calumny and insult put forth in sanctimo- nious baseness against the discipline, the doctrine, the prac- tices, and the Ministers of the Catholic Church, which has not been shamelessly exhibited with a perseverance, a malignity, an indecency, and a fury, which have no paral- lel in the history of modern times. Depend on it, my Lord, that all this base slander and national injustice, will end in the disgrace of your name, and in the w^eakness of national power. Vespasian and Caligula, tried this policy before the ad- ministration of Lord John Russell, and they failed : At- tilla attempted in his day to uproot the Gospel and letters, before the time of Lord Palmerston ; and while the furi- ous Hun is forgotten, they both survive : and Tom Crom- LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 267 well was appointed the head of a commission, similar to the plan by vyhich you now assail Maynooth; and Catholic Colleges still remain in spite of Cromwell and his profligate master. All the enemies of Catholicity through the past ages, have had the malignant triumphs of their short space of life against Our Church ; and they are all now dead, and she lives. Their lives w^ere count- ed on the narrow scale of years, months, and days, I ut her age is reckoned on the endless revolving circle of ages; she enjoys a perpetual spring of youth, they are sealed in the frozen winter of death. Their forgotten ashes are now inorganic clay, the grave- worm sleeps in their black hearts, and brings forth her young in their dis- astrous brain, while her lofty spires, and million altars, and myriad congregations, spread all along the nations, from the golden gates of the Sast, to her sombre turrets in the Western twilight, proclaim her activity, and her life, and her jurisdiction, wide as the National horizon, and comprehensive as the human family. Depend upon it, my Lord, you are placing yourself in a wrong position, by employing the prestige of your great name (for great it is,) in the cause of bigotry — persecuting a people whose loyalty is without a stain; and inflicting an unmerited insult in gratuitous vengeance against a Seminary, which, during the venerable period of upw^ards of half a century, has sent forth a Priesthood, the teachers of morality, the abettors of the public order, the promoters of peaes, and the too faithiul and zealous defenders of the stability of the English Throne. Your Lordship has ac- quired great practical pow^er ; you have a just political 268 LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. illustrious reputation amongst your followers, and hence^ you can, with prudence, calm the storm of party strife, subdue the rage of religious prejudice, and be the father of your country, not the demagogue of a ferocious faction. — Those who presume to know best your Lordship's senti- ments, assert, with confidence, (what 1 am anxious to be- lieve,) that you are personally and sincerely opposed to the religious persecution of Cntholic Ireland; but that the tide of popular opinion running against you, you are forced to yield to the public clamor. But it must not be forgotten, that, it was your official predecessor, who has excited this popular fanaticism ; and hence, your Lordship, who now holds the helm of the State ship, has only to reverse the machinery, go back to the liberal, just course of Sir Ro- bert Peel, silence insane devilry, unite the conflicting energies of the Empire, give liberty to conscience, cor- rect past errors, and surround the throne with the civi- lized courage and the invincible fidelity of the universal people. The entire aim of the present English Legislation, in reference to Ireland, is based on insult, misrepresentation, and injustice ; the minds of men in office are so infected with a hatred towards everything Irish and Catholic, that it is painful to hear, in every society where the traveller mixes, one unbroken tale of the grossest lies and the foul- est bigotry. The' slanders uttered in the Houses of Pair- liament, have passed for legalized facts through all. the walks of lifein these countries; and although one listens at every turn to the most, monstrous calumnies, it is per- fectly useless, in the present diseased state of the publio LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. 269 temper, to attempt to correct their absurd statements, op to allay their ferocious rancor. Time alone, and the good sense of the gfenerous English people, will remove this ■wicked scheme of the English Government; and as sure as the swollen tide will recede in due time to the oppo- site shore, the excited feelings of the Nation will yet re- coil in accumulated anger against the base Ministry, which could from motives of vengeance, or mischievious power, gain majorities by perjury, make laws by political prosti- tution, and stamp on the doors of the Senate House, a notorious national lie, on the religion and the people of Ireland. Perhaps, the most fatal error your Lordship has com- mitted since the commencement of your administration, is the foolish malice of your spiteful Attorney in his Orange interrogatories at " the crime and outrage committee." — The attempt to connect the priest with the murders of Louth, is a clumsy device, and shows what the heart of. your subordinate could execute if he held the power. But the priest stood considerably beyond the range of the Orange rifle, and the lead fell harmless at the feet of the unsuspecting victim. I consider the assassin of character and the assassin of life, to stand in nearly the same cate- gory of guilt; and the priests of Louth, must in future begin to learn, that they have foes in power, with hearts, as deadly scarlet as the murderers of Bateson. I could wish it lay within the rules of Parliamentary usage, that my oppressed poor countrymen could appoint me as an occasional chairman of that committee, and I thmk, I should be able to prove to the satisfaction of the S70 LBTTEH TO THE EARL OP DERBY. whole world, that the English G-overnment are the real assassins of Ireland — that the English Church is the great Biblical mill, where all the lies against religion and mora^ lity all over the world, are manufactured ; that Lord Pal- merston, is the Captain Rock of Europe ; and, that Lord John Russell, is the " Ryan Puck" of Ireland. If I were permitted to examine the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord John Russell, and Lord Truro, for three hours, I should hope to elicit to a perfect mathematical demonstra- tion, that all the lies, and all the uncharitableness, all the religious rancor, and all their smothered hatred, that, like the tide, rises and threatens to roll in flooded devastation over the barriers of Irish society — all the disorders, and the heartburnings, and most of the riots of Ireland, are solely to be ascribed to the irritating, unceasing provoca- tion and insults of the Established Church. I should be able to prove, that each successive Grovernment of Eng- land have robbed Ireland, (by successive enactments of oppression) of her commerce, her protecting laws — have transferred to England every removable place of honor or emolument — have purchased her Constitution by bribery; have debased her leaders by corruption ; have drained her resources, weakened her strength, gutted the national fabric of hei- ancient rights, and left her a helpless victim, a whining beggar, and a chained slave at the gates of Eng- land. I could prove, that the law^s are made to protect the Irish trees and the Irish fences ; that the fishes and the foxSs are taken within the care of our cruel masters, but that the poor Irish Catholic ; the poor faithful, grateful, enduring Irishman, is placed at the mercy of a capricious LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. 271 or cruel landlord; that he may be ejected, exterminated, and banished without appeal ; that he is deprived of the right to live in the country of his birth ; that the law^a leave him friendless, unprotected, deserted ; that the cru- elty of his Legislators fills him with revenge ; the ill- treatment of his landlord teaches him retaliation ; that the combination of his superiors against him, produces a corresponding confederacy of his class ; thousands perish by his side from extermination, disease, and hunger ; that the laws make him savage, and their administration pro- vokes him to revenge, and in his madness and iury he slains his hands w^ith murder; and w^hile he erroneously yet naturally, thinks you kill his class in tens of thousands, he cannot be restrained in his wild anger from taking your lives in dozens. More lives have been lost in Ireland since 1847, under the vile accursed administration of the Whigs, by exter- mination, starvation, and exile, than have fallen in aU the countries of Europe during the late revolutionary wars of Napoleon ; and while my unhappy country is si arved, banished, murdered, and shovelled, and pitted, by the cruellest and most heartless Government that ever degrad- ed the name of law ; and while their tyranny still rolls over the soil, like a spring-tide, forsooth, a committee of crime is called together to try, (by jibing and insult,) and trace to a few assassins in Louth, the heartburnings, and the disorganization, and the wild phrenzy, by which the Whigs have torn asunder the very frame of society. My Lord, I am not drawing a picture to my own taste. I am copying from your original, which I abhor. I am 272 LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. Bketching the strict historical truths of Ireland ; and sc help me God, I look upon the frame-work and the admi- nistration of your laws, together, with the monstrous grie- vance and the provoking insult and lies of your Church Establishment, to be the cause of all the disasters of Ire- land ; the source of our social disorders ; the root of all illegal combinations ; and, the sole maddening draught which arms the hands of the assassin, and stains our coun- try with the red mark of murdered blood. Lord Derby, I hereby accuse ybu and your subordi- nate, with a shameful and an insulting perversion of our oppression and your conduct, to attempt to shift the mur- ders of Louth, which your laws have notoriously excited, from your own guilty heads, to the shoulders of the zea- lous, pure, unoffending priest. That is to say, w^hile Ire- land lies at your feet a bleeding corpse, assassinated by your treachery, you, forsooth, summon a jury, and, in fe- rocious mockery, you examine into the cause of her death; while you yourself are stained with her blood, and the reeking knife is seen in your hand. This insulting hypo- crisy and conspiracy is a crime which no time can efface; it is a sin against the Holy Ghost, since it ascribes the w^icked results of your own unjust laws to the agency of the holy priest of God. Ah! my Lord, we have received already superabundant insult from Russell and his despis- ed cabinet ; but surely, while the rotting masses of human flesh still are scented on the putrid air of Skibbereen — Russell's work — while the oozing blood still reddens the clammy pit in Lord Sligo's field at Westport, (where fa- thers, mothers, and children died under a melting sun LETTER TO THE KARL OP DERBY. 273 without covering in the wild agonies of scarlet fever and desertion,) you should not have permitted your Attorney to add the last drop of shameless provocation to our for- mer trids. While the history of the workhouses of Bal- linasloe and Ballinarobe is recollected ; while the name of Gross Island is remembered ; while the smoking roofs of demolished villages are still seen ; w^hile the emigrant ship is still laboring under its load of your ragged, starved, and exiled victims, your man should have the decency not to outrage every feeling of common sense, by abscrib- ing the clear, palpable, ferocious results of your own vile legislation to the humble minister of God, who would ar- rest the murderer if he could, who counsels obedience to the laws, honors the Queen, and prays for his enemies. And he is only one of a class. Every Priest in Ireland is the same, it is our duty to respect even your bad laws, to maintain obedience even to your cruel authority, to support even a wicked Administration, to aid you in the suppression of all illegal societies, and to die, if neces- sary, in defence of the throne. Lord Derby, you have behaved very badly to insult us, by the shameiiil insinuations of your Orange official. We are not able to resent this cruel injury, this crying in- justice : but we have the gift of speech left in spite of your "committee of outrage," and we shall make all nations re- echo the meanness, the indecency, the venom, and the sneaking, cowardly insinuations of your swaddling Attor- ney; and we shall inform all mankind, that while reli- gious intolerance and fanatical persecution are certainly given up in every country in the civilized world as obso- 274 LETTEB'TO THE EARL OP DERBY. lete and disgusting, England alone keeps up her heaven- ly hatred-England alone has sickly mottoes from the can- ticles carved on her Protestant mouse-traps, electrotypes her reformation -crockery- ware with orthodox prayer and lovely hymns, and pours the abhorrent cant of her saintly hypocrisy round every word of Godly slander which she utters on Ireland. Your Irish Attorney, my Lord, has thought proper to enter the field of Theology in the extracts quoted above, and in his swaddling divinity, has made some gross mis- statements, or rathgr blunders, in reference to my creed. He is very candid, in saying, that the Irish Church had neglected its duties, and was condemned by the voice of Ireland and heaven; but that having recovered from her church frolic, she is now rather a sober, well-conducted church, and is going on very respectable indeed in her line, having had the advantage of learning Irish, within the last twenty years, and thus is enabled by vernacular flippancy to be an active servant, and very lively in the interpretation of God's word. Really, my Lord, your Theologian is no great witch in logic, or he could never have uttered such a facetious admixture of the forcible- comical, and the feeble-religious, as is contained in the oflficial extract of his notable speech. I think, my Lord, I understand him, when he stated that Ireland condemned the Irish Law Church. Your Theological Law^yer must have alluded to the tithe-sys- tem, when the Widow Ryan's son was shot in Munster; when the murder of Carrickshock was perpetrated for your church in open day ; when Father Burke, of Meath, LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 275 refused to take ihecensus of his butchered flock, and wrhen the cross-roads of Ireland were red with the blood of the Irish Catholic, slain in the name of God, in order to feed the profligate luxury of the huge Moloch of your sangui- nary creed. I think I understand your subordinate, when be asserts, that your crimson church once stood " con- demned before Ireland and before God." I think, too, I can well explain the true meaning of that passage of your Law Ofilcer, where he states, that his recovered church is now "an active interpreter of God's word." And I as- sure your Lordship, that in following the absurd position of Mr. Napier, it is very hard to abstain from expressing the ridicule which his speech deserves, and to maintain at the same time the solemn respect, the distant venera- tion, and the becoming reserve which suits my position w^hile addressing your Lordship. No doubt your church has been a most active interpreter of God's word, since it has put seven hundred and seventy- six different interpre- tations on that word since the time of your great refor- mer, Luther; for the truth of which statement, in part, I beg to refer your Lordship to Bossuet's Protestant Variations. By the first active interpretation, Luther threw^ off the authority of the Pope. Secondly — ^He modified, re-interpreted, re-modified, re- believed the doctrine of Transubstantiation and the Holy Eucharist. Thirdly — ^He and his followers, interpreted the Sixth chapter of St. John, as " conpanation, impanation, perpa- nation, hyperpanation," and ultimately, this active church 276 LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. has settled down into a Judaical type on this Christian doctrine. Fourthly — The old Mass, and the Invocation of Saints, and Purgatory, and the Sacrament of Penance, Confir- mation, and Extreme Unction, and the Sacrament of Mar- riage, have been successively abandoned by this holy " activity" of your chuijch : and the Archbishop of Can- terbury and Lord John Russell, have respectively given up the Sacraments of Holy Orders and Baptism within the last two years. The "activity" of the ministers, has given up the divinity of Christ : and the activity of the " Greek Protestants, has denied the personality of the Holy Ghost ;" and thus your Christian church has re- duced her faith to the simple idea and doctrine of merely belief in the existence of God. This is pure Paganism — and when we add to this fact, that Luther sanctioned plu- rality of wives, with the Landgrave of Hesse, (that is Ma- homedanism,) we are forced to conclude, from clear pre- mises, that your church, in its "active interpretation of God's word," has unchristianized, has Mahomedanized, has unscripturalized, has infidelized, has paganized, and has demoralized the whole world. There can be no doubt that, by the active interpreta- tion referred to, the Protestant Church (as its very name implies,) has protested against the entire ancient record of Christianity, has thrown down the whole fabric of the new law, and has raised on its ruins a system of human theory, wild speculation, philosophical compromise be- tween reason and faith — all of which, clearly subject religion to the laws of progress, inconsistent with the im,' LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. 277 mutable decrees of God, and with the mysteries of Revela- tion. The Church of your Attorney-General possesses at this moment an imperfect (scripture) of the New Law^ — the mere words of the Law, without the inherent rights of that Law; and as well might a Laplander, who chanced to find and possess the parchment of the English Magna Charta, insist he w^as an Englishman, and entitled to the rights ot British subjects, as for your Church to call herself Chris- tian and Catholic, from the mere possession of a printer's copy of the Law, ■without acknowledging the legitimate authority, w^ithout possessing practical allegiance to the recognized head of the Christian Constitution, without her name being enrolled amongst the accepted subjects ; and without fulfilling the practical duties required, as the es- sential legal conditions to enjoy the rights and the privi- leges of the new Royal Heavenly Dispensation. Your Lordship must blame your Attorney, and not me, for this brief theological reply to his unnecessary and unexpected strictures. Believe me, my Lord, that no Attorney can be a proficient in theology ; and hence, the sooner you keep your man in his own department of ex -officio informations, the better for the reputation and the honorof your Adminis- tration. Penetrated with the greatest respect for your great name and lofty position, I wish I could presume to tell you how much good you can effect for the Empire, by a course of truth, honor, and justice to Ireland. The disas- trous divisions which your Government has excited at home; the unmeasured contempt, with which your name is assailed abroad; the perilous state of your commerce; 278 LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. the conflicting interests of the various factions of your country; but, above all, the keen watchfulness with which a hostile neighboring power observes all your panics, should induce you to heal the public acerbity, to forget past rancor, to begin a new era of legislation, and com- bine all your strength, to govern with impartial justice, to leave conscience between God and man, to soothe the flagrant oppression of Ireland, to soften the tyranny of ages, to be the father of the poor, the advocate of the op- pressed, the emancipators of the slave, to have your name graven on our hearts in national love, and to combine, unite, concentrate, and bind in indissoluble amity the energies, the courage, and the loyalty of this great Em- pire, in one great invincible bond of national fidelity. This is a work worthy of you, and a work which you can execute; and a victory over bigotry and falsehood, which will transmit your name to posterity as the benefactor of my country, and not the persecutor of my name and race. I have the honor to be, my Lord and Earl, with pro- found respect, your Lordship's obedient servant, D.W.CAHILL. D.D. DR. CAHILL TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DERBY. BiLSTON, England, August 24, 1852. My Lord Earl — As your Lordship has thought pro- per to dictate new laws for reforming Popish cravats ; and as you have condescended to apply the English evangeli- LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. SVD cal Standard to the length and the cut of our Catholic beard ; and as you have surprised the ^world by becoming Constitutional tailor and barber to the present Pope ; and, finally, as your co-reformers in the Old Clothes Depart- ment of our glorious Constitution, are actuated with such zeal to advance your Protestant vie^ws throughout this !Empire, as on several occasions to seize anti-Derbyitei scar&, to knock ofiF anti-Derbyite hats, to spit in the faces of anti-Derbyite Priests, and to do several other Cabinet celebrities, you cannot be surprised, if I, too, influenced by your Lordship's example, change my former official posi- tion, and assume the novel character of satirist on Privy Councils, and of impartial chronicler of the incomprehen- sible follies of Ministers, and the incredible meanness of Cabinets — ^when grave Judges turn bufibons on the bench, w^hen they discharge the tripple office of ■witness, judge, and jury; and w^hen Prime Ministers turn Jack Ketch, I fancy I am not much out of the present fashion in my new vocation. My silence since your Lordship's late proclamation, (which I am flattered to think you have observed,) has arisen from die fact, that I have been occupied in search- ing the pages of ancient and modem history to find some Pag^ or Christian parallel to the official careers of Lord John Russell and yourself. Being aware, that there is no- tUng new under the sun, I concluded there must have been some persons somewhere like you both, in the for- mer records of our race. You must not be surprised or angry, if I tell you, that I have discovered the exact resem- blance of you both in the History of Grulliver's Travels. 280 LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. Lord Joha Russell's tour in Greece, in 1849, in order to settle the vast claims of the loss of some furniture and a kitchen-garden belonging to Messrs. Finlay and Pacifico, is most perfectly identical with Gulliver's career in Lilli- put ; and your Lordship's late expedition to the Bay of Fundy, is precisely the history of Gulliver in Brobdignag The poor Grecians (a diminutive race, only two inches high in stature,) retired beyond the pass of Thermopylae, when they beheld the great Whigman from England; they proqjired ladders to scale the heights of his breast, as he lay asleep at the foot of Mount Helicon. The en- tire Grecian fleet weighed anchor, and sailed out under full canvas, with the yards manned, between his colossal limbs, as the giant British Minister bestrode the Gulf of Lepanto. The flags of their men-of-war at their mast- heads, did not reach higher on that thrilling occasion than the large circle which surrounds the immeasurable cir- cumference of his unponderable mighty Whig. legs. Ac- cording to the despatches received from our Admiral in the Mediterranean, he stood on Parnassus in the sight of the Muses; and the enormous creature (according to the Greek historians,) extinguished a raging conflagration in the palace of King Otho, with the same kind of an effort, and with nearly the same description of mechanical ap- pliances, and with the same sort of eclat, as Gulliver, (after a night's hearty wine,) put out the fire which threa- tened destruction to the palace of the Empress of Laputa. And so wonderful and tremendous in Greece, is the ter- restrial glory of the great Whig, (as he is called there,) that King Otho, as you are well aware, has ordered him LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 281 to be Styled henceforward, " The Whig Man-Mountain." -The remaining part of. the history is perfectly illus- trated in your Lordship's late voyage to America. The scene, however, is strangely changed. Your Lordship, w^hen compared with the monstrous Websters of that coun- try, appears only about four inches high — placed side by side with the great Leviathans of the fishing grounds, you don't seem much larger than a scorpion ; you w^ould be considered a mere dwarf at Bunker's Hill; your Lord- ship would not be a match for a tom-cat at New Orleans ; your Lordship and Lord Malmesbury, and the Right Hon. Mr. Walpole, and your entire Right Honorable Cabinet, placed over each other, pillar-like, on each others Right Honorable shoulders, could not raise the uppermost Right Hon. Minister high enough to enable him to look into an ordinaTy sized teapot at Philadelphia ! You could hide your whole Cabinet in a lady's muff at Washington ! and if the reports be true, which the American giants have circulated at the fishing-grounds against ^English greatness, your Lordship was nearly dro^wned in a Yan- kee cream-jug (others say, a small fish-kettle,) at the Bay of Fundy, in your endeavor to escape from an American rat, in order to hide your Lordship's head in the breeches' pocket of Mr. President Fillmore. Your Lordship can scarcely believe the indignation of all Europe, to see [England so contemptuously treated; our noble country! the mistress of arts and science ! the scourge of France ! the arbitress of Europe ! the seat of virtue, piety, sanctity, honor, and truth ! ! ! the pride and the envy of the whole world ! ! ! the patron of the oppressed ! the emancipator 282 LETTER TO THE EAKL OP DERBY. of the slave ! the country of the free, and the beloved sis- ter of Ireland ! ! ! Ah, Lord Derby, your Government can bully, and per- secute, and spoliate, and infidelize, when your victims are changing, and unable to offer resistance to your tyranny and your accursed oppression; but. Heaven be forever praised, the scene is at length beginning to change ; the sun of Great Britain is fast descending from its culmi' nating point; your day of unrivalled sviray is certainly drawing to a close ; your national character and prestige, are beyond all doubt gone; your nation is now universally branded as deceitful and degraded ; you have decidedly forfeited the confidence of Europe, and you are hated, despised, and abhorred, by the whole world : your two successive Governments have exposed England to the contempt of mankind; you have made her a jester at St. Petersburgh ; a revolutionist and a base cringer at Vien- na ; a time-server at Paris, and an infidel at Rome ; a traitor at Naples ; a burglar at Madrid ; a p&rjurer at Lis- bon ; a persecutor at Berne ; a tyrant at Athens ; a co- ward at Washington ; a hypocrite at Rome ; apd the devil in Ireland ! Oh, shame on you. Lord John Russell ! and oh fie, fie on you, Lord Derby, to employ the time of two successive Parliaments in degrading your country, and to engage the official services of bishops, judges, barristers, surgeons, lords, and ladies; in endeavoring to dethrone the Pope; searching out for the private scandals of ecclesiastics ; koending and dressing up for inspection at Exeter Hall, old tattered calumnies on our creed ; peeping into the bed- LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 283 rooms of Convents; listening behind our confessionals; dogging our school-girls to the Church ; watching our orphans at their meals ; jibing Priests at their prayers ; mobbing Nuns in the public streets ; counting the charities they receive for their humble support ; and stealing through lanes and alleys, looking for a case of slander against the Faith of two hundred and forty millions of the human population, and against the creed of the most an- cient families in England and the most devoted subjects of the Queen. Oh, fie on you, Lord Derby! to join in this most disgracefiil and insane ribaldry, and, instead of walking in the footsteps of Canning or Peel — ^instead of standing before the world as the sublime exponent of British honor, truth, and justice, to ally your great name and proud position with such gross bigotry, and to seek renown from rolling in the mire with canting hypocrisy, indecent impiety, and blasphemous falsehood. Is there never to be an end of this Parliamentary absur- dity ? — is there no business to be done by the Cabinet but nqaligning the Catholic faith ? — will Government ne- ver cease the degraded and shameful practice of uttering the grossest indecencies, and the most filthy abominations and palpable lies against the Catholics of the whole w^orld? Why do you appear in a farce 1 — ^why seek applause from the gallery 1 — why do you become a harlequin when i/ou can succeed in the deepest characters of Moliere and Shakespeare ? — w^hy do you take Russell for your model, ^vhen you can iynitate the meteor genius of the master- spirits w^hose place you fill ? You are a man of talent, we own it ; and why employ your great mind in the 284 LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. scullery of St. Stephens ? If you are called to be tlie centre of a microcosm, why are you not the sun of the creation? — why do you choose to be the satelite of the world of which you ought to be the light and the ruler ? Believe me, you are fallen ; your occupation is gone; your jaded audience will not hear you much longer. Rely on it, if you persevere in your present career, you shall feel the disgrace 'of being universally hissed off the stage. — Your own countryman, Mr. Pope, will read your Lord- ship a lesson on this point : — "Fortune in men has some small difference made, One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade: The cobler proned and the parson gowned, Tlie friar hooded and the monarch crowned,; *What differ more/ you cry, 'than crown and cowl*? I'll tell you, friend — a wise man and afooL" There can be no doubt at all, tbat Lord John Russell and his vile Cabinet, endeavored to create throughout Catholic Europe a revolution in religion and government; and although your Lordship and Lord John, hold oppo- site opinions on general politics, you are the conjugate foci of each other on Catholicity, and you reflect each other's hostile feeling on my creed, as faithfully as the un- erring science of your positions. You are certainly agreed with him in his policy of weakening all Catholic sovereignty, and of overturning the Catholic Faith. But you both have signally failed, and in your discomfiture, you have added a new proof of the strength of my church, and you have at the same time, ruined your name and your country. You have unconsciously done a lasting service to Catholicity, and you have permanently awa- kened all Europe to the perfidy and the deceit of your G^overnments. whether Whig or Tory. LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBT. 286 While you were laying the plans of your traitorous views on the surrounding nations, the Irish Church seem- ed cherished w^ith your perfidious care; your gifts had nearly worked her ruin ; but since your schemes have been detected here, and in the neighboring States, we are made the appalling victims of your disappointed rage. — Our defenceless institutions, and tie unprotected monu- ments of Irish piety, are now^ assailed by all the malig- nant power of your hostile Empire — your Senate, your Courts of Law, your army, your navy, your universities, your literature, your church, your historians, your pam- phleteers, your novelists, your caricaturists, your aristo- cracy, your mercbants, your ardzans, your mobs, are all united into one pow^er&l force of infuriated assailants against our creed; and by misrepresentation, falsehood, calumny, slander, lies, persecution, extermination, banish- ment, starvation, and death, you and your associates have attempted, through solicitation, seduction, place, pension, bribery, intimidation, and stratagem, to thin our ranks, to shake our faith, and to break a passage through our an- cient camp, and seize our fortresses ; and although you have uprooted the cabins of the poor, thrown down our villages, wasted our fields, starved our tradesmen, expa- triated the living, murdered the dead, and filled the poor- houses and the red grave with the martyred Irish; praise be to God for ever, and honor to the ever blessed Virgin Mary, you have not taken one stout heart from the faithful ranks, or distiirbed one stone in our ancient and time-ho- nored turrets. Eternal praise to the faithful Irish, who preferred exile to an alliance with you — who died of star- 286 LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. vation sooner than taste the bread of apostacy, and who preferred the coffinless grave, rather than live in the dress of perjury and perdition. Your perfidious predecessor and yourself, are avowedly beaten ; the worst is passed, and w^e now set you at defiance. We have the voice of Europe and the world in our favor : and our honor, our courage, and our national fidelity, will damn you and your cruel confederates to eternal fame. You are certainly de- feated ; and when you now^ calumniate us, vire have an' answer ready from the sympathy of Europe. When you malign the Jesuits, we point to Hungary, where the Emperor is now employed in placing these pious, exemplary, and learned men, over all the schools of his subjects. When you speak of the success of your Bible Societies, we send you the judicial decision of Aus- tria and Naples, where an English Protestant missionary is ordered from these countries within fifteen days under penalty of public and forcible expulsion. When you talk of your Protestant liberality, we call your attention to Na- ples, also, where no Protestant teacher would be permit- ted to superintend any public class, in consequence of the interminable calumnies which these creatures are ever introducing against the Catholic faith. English travellers, English tourists, are now stopped, questioned, and exa- mined throughout Europe, as if they were intriguing vil- lains, disseminating rebellion and infidelity wherever they go. The correspondents of the English journals are hunt- ed like felons from every city in Europe, their letters exa- mined, and themselves ordered to quit in forty-eight hours, when their occupation of slander and infidelity is known. LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 287 Yee, our answers to your base calumnies are now publish- ed in our favor, by the universal cry of shame from all foreign nations. Hear it my Lord — \irhile you were slandering us in the Lords, and while Russell was spcvi-ing his Wobum apos- tacy on Bishops in the Commons, the French army, the 'nvincible sons of the glorious Franks, were kneeling be- fore the mitred Archbishop of Paris ; and as he raised the adorable Host beneath the blue unfathomable vault, the loud clang of the French steel, at " the Elevation," as the army drew their swords, and presented arms to the Grod of battles, amid the thunders of one hundred pienes of ordnance, was the significant and appropriate answer which glorious Catholic France sent on the morning breeze to bigoted England, in reply to your Parliamen- tary vituperation. And when you issued your proclama- tion against the processions ivhich took place at Jacob's Ladder ! and at Solomon's Temple ! and in all Christian places all over the world, from Constantine to Prince Louis Napoleon, nnd when you spread the awful majesty of your law^s (w^ith such a master-stroke of statesmanship) over the evangelical town of Ballinasloe, formerly called by the Popish name of Kylenaspithogue; in order to pro- tect these holy places from the danger of wax-candles and w^hite rosin : did your Lordship remark the cutting reply w^hich the Prince immediately sent to you in the studied bow, which on his return from the passage of the Rhine, he made to the surpliced Archbishop and Clergy of Paris; and did your Lordship read that passage in his processional progress along the Boulevards, where seeing 288 LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. the cross raised " he rose in his carriage, took off his hat, and bowed long and reverently to the cross." There, Sir, is the glorious answer of France to your far-famed poclaraation ; there Sir, is the triumphant, scath- ing, crushing reply to your "anti -long-beard — anti-can- dle — anti-cross — Derbyite — anti-shortbreeches-proclama- tion." I have never read anything on any subject which has filled me with more sincere pleasure than that Chris- tian conduct of the Prince. In that bow. Sir, -read your own shame ; and in his bare head before the cross, learn to spare your Catholic fellow-subjects ; and learn to res- pect the emblem of your salvation, the cross of Christ. — For that glorious act of the Prince, I hereby oiler him my heartfelt gratitude and my sincere homege ; and I. also present him with the ardent love of one million of my countrymen, proceeding from breasts as faithful and as brave as the world ever saw. I must also inform your Lordship that the Prince will read this letter on next Thursday morning before his breakfast; and moreover I must tell you that he will send to me a vote of thanks by the very next post — a piece of good breeding and cour- tesy which I have seldom received from my correspon- dents in the English Cabinet. You have decidedly put yourself at the head of a vast mob in these countries by issuing your late proclamation ; and it is quite true that we are indebted to the good sense and generous feeling of the English people for having escaped the most degrading ill-treatment in all places of public resort. But we have our satisfaction in the univer- sal contempt with which your name and your laws are re LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 289 ceived in every country in the world. Three members of the American Cabinet (Protestants) have already spoken on the subject with unmeasured ridicule ; and one of them joined in a Catholic procession, as the best testimony he could offer against English bigotry. I beg, therefore, to offer to President Fillmore, and to these three mem- bers, my warmest acknowledgmients, and to assure them that they command the liveliest gratitude of the Irish and the English Catholics in these countries, and that we all long for some occasion to testify to them that w^e love them as much as we abhor the English Government. The case between you and Catholicity, stands thus : the schemes which your Government have been devising against our Faith, our discipline, and our system of educa- tion, have been palpably detected, and as clearly defeat- ed. Your name is detested in all the neighboring coun- tries, and your accomplices have been expelled with a summary command, and, indeed, with an insult, which you have not, or dare not resent. Beyond all doubt, you and your rebel and infidel accomplices have been remov- ed from Austria, Hungary, Prussia, (Protestant,) from Rome, Naples, and Lombardy. Your Bible Societies, w^hich are reported as your emissaries of insurrection, have been watched as public enemies ; and it is an his- torical fact, admitting of no doubt whatever, that neither in public, nor in private, will these countries tolerate Eng- lish influence to be exercised in their religious, social, or political concerns. The Continental education, which you had nearly corrupted by your money and your emissaries, has now undergone a total change. The Catholic Clergy 290 LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. are now placed in all these countries as the sole directors and guardians of the education and literary and religious training of the rising generation; and Prince Louis Na- poleon, now so much abused by your journals, has intro- duced changes in all the educational schools of France, and will soon restore the ancient discipline of the Catho- lic Church, which placed education in the hands of the ministers of religion. The " College de France," which, according to the testimony of the Count Montalambert, sent out nine infidels to one Christian pupil, (un sur dix,) has been remodelled, and the infidel element extracted under his vigilant care. You are, therefore, defeated in every part of the world in your schemes against the Catholic religion and education. Your last effort is carried on against Ireland, ^vhere as sure as the sun will rise to-morrow, you will be surely defeated : and if the Board of Education in Ireland, will permit you to interfere in their arrangements, Ireland will lose her life's blood sooner than have Voltaire her class- book, and Carlisle her master. Depend upon it, if there be a God ruling His Church, you cannot change His laws, no more than you can arrest the tide, or stop the earth's motion by a proclamation from Downing-street. Our Faith, and our discipline, and our mode of education, ex- isted before you were born, and will, in all likelihood, sur- vive your Lordship's name many years, and even out- live the English rule and German blood. ''Shall burning Etna, if a sage requires, "Forget to thunder and recall her fires, "On air or sea, new motions be impressed, "Oh, blameless Albion! to relieve thy breast ; "When the loose mountain trembles from on high, "Shall gravitation cease when you go by " LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 291 Under tliese circumstances, our duty ■will be, to obey all the laws, as we have ever done, but to keep clear from all contact w^ith you. During the late revolutions of Europe, there is not one instance recorded against tht Catholic Clergy, of disloyalty to the throne. Under all the provocation and insult which you and your coadjutors have heaped upon us, w^e stand blameless before God and the law^s of our country. We appeal to universal man- kind for a verdict of our innocence and blamelessness under the most grinding tyranny, calumnies, and lies, that perhaps ever the world saw. We have been ever, we are at present, and we shall continue to be in the right. Let you proceed then against us in your usual course, and advance in the wrong — go on in your career of insult, and injustice before mankind, and we boldly set you at defiance. We do not court your hostility, or challenge your persecution; no, but take your own course, proceed in your national perfidy, and we despise your last effort of vengeance. We have been grateful to former states- men and former friends, for the small measure of justice which they offered to our plundered Church, and to our wounded and bleeding country. I ow^n it, w^e have been grateful; but if you. Sir, retrace their steps and blot out their generous acts in the consuming fire of your well- known bigotry, we boldly hold your threats in utter con- tempt ; we believe it better to have our Church surround- ed with a crown of thorns than purchase a diadem for it made of apostate gold ; and we are convinced it is better, far better, to have our rising generation bred and educat- ed Irishmen and Catholics, as our fathers, at the foot of 292 LETTER TO THE EAKL OP DERBY. the mountain, (if necessary,) sooner than drink fromyom poisoned fountain of knowledge the coward draught of education, which must be swallowed at the expense of na- tional honor, and by an insult on our ancient Faith. Pray, Sir, how have you returned from America? How did you effect your escape from Mr. President Fillmore's breeches pocketl Ten thousand blessings upon his giant heart, if he had kept you and the "great Whig," and all your tiny Cabinets,- a sport for his cats at Fundy. But, indeed, he has exhibited you before the world in your fallen greatness. England has been literally horse-whip- ped, and she sneaks away a grumbling coward, degraded by Whiggery and sunk by Toryism. You had no idea, my Lord, of going to war. What ! With the Kaffirs decimating you; the Burmese occupying your time; the old Sikhs beyond the Sutlej ; the Chinese keeping you engaged; the Canadians waiting their time; a national debt of nine hundred and fifty -four millions ; w^ith a Pro- testant establishment of nine millions and a half yearly; with two millions of Chartists, with their staves ready for an onslaught on your purses, the day you sell a dear loaf; with one million of armed hostile Frenchman at your gates ; and with one million of Irishmen, goaded, and wounded, and bleeding with the chains of your wanton cruelty; and you pretend to go to war with America, (or as Lord Palmerston calls them,) your cousins, with all these trifles on your hands ! ! Pshaw — the world knows you are water-logged, and that an additional ton would sink you. No, Sir, but the Americans could even come into the Bay of Galway to fish, and you could nor LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. 293 resist thera, you dare not ; and more than this, if they laid claim to Ireland, in right of all the Irish whom you have unlawfully and unjustly expelled from their country, you would surrender Ireland to America, nearly as readily as have given up your claim to the Lobos Islands. You, Sir, are openly, and avowedly snubbed, and cuffed, and kicked, all over the world at this moment ; and the only glorious achievement in which you stand unrivalled above all mankind, just now, is your conquest over poor, help- less Nuns, and unoffending Priests. If you could be influenced by the magnanimity which belongs to your exalted place, you should be struck with admiration at the incredible fidelity of the Irish people, who present to the impartial historian a spectacle of na- tional virtue and national greatness not surpassed, or equal- led by any generation in the story of Grecian and Roman patriotism and virtue. You behold a people ground to the very dust, with the most merciless administration of law w^hich ever cursed society — you see them beset on all sides, with the persecutions of land grievances and sur- rounded with all the torturing machinations ■which the furious zeal of a bigoted hostile Church would employ against their Faith ; you observe them crowd the putrid poor-houses, fill the emigrant ships, and die in naked star- vation sooner than surrender what they believe their truth and national honor, and with such faithful instances of the endurance of a whole people, could any, except a Boul pierced through with the incurable cancer of bigo- try, fail to give credit to the feeling which could stand with such invincible firmness in defence of creed and of 294 LETTER TO THE EABL OP DERBV. country? Why would you not court the confidence and secure the love of such a race 1 Why would you not en- deavor to connect them with the throne by a tie w^hich Ireland never broke — namely, the tie of gratitude ? Why would you not open our metallic mines to keep them alive, rather than open the grave for their death 1 Why would you not purchase implements of trade and husban- dry for the w^ealth of the nation, rather than buy coffins for the extermination of the people 1 Why do you not give us bread instead of your apocryphal Bible? Why not justice instead of calumny? Why not treat us as sub- jects, and not as slaves ? Why meet us as enemies in all the walks of the Empire ? Why not try the rule of equality with us ? Why do you weave Protestantism into all your dealings with Catholicism? Will you never permit us to address God unless through an act of Parliament? Why do you insist on putting a chain of Swedish iron on our consciences? Protestantism has deceived you ; bigotry has set you mad ; and in placing your laws above God you have insulted mankind, misin- terpreted religion, and ruined your country. In my next letter, I shall place before your Lordship some few important facts, with which I do believe you are unacquainted ; and till then, I have the honor to be your Lordship's obedient servant, D. W. CAHILL, D.D. DR. C&HILL TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DERB7. New-Brighton, Saturday, October 21, 1852. My LoRn Earl — Some few months ago our gracious 3,ueen, in a speech from the throne, very emphatically announced her royal determination to uphold the princi- ples of the Protestant church, and she called on her ser- vants there assembled, in her presence, to assist her in maintaining the liberties of the Protestant Constitution. There must be, my Lord, in the royal mind some hidden fear of this church being in danger, in order to account for the large space which this idea has taken up in the royal oration. If this -declaration had been made by your Lordship, or by any one of the present Ministry, it would still command an important attention ; but when it pro- ceeds from the head of your church — ^from the ecuminical source of all Protestant truth, it comes before the world, invested with all the realities of parliamentary gravity, and English history. For the first time in my life, I do agree with the sentiments deduced from a. royal speech ; and I do, therefore, believe that your church is in immi- nent danger at the present moment; and I believe, more- over, that neither her most gracious Majesty, with all her royal power, nor Lord John Russell, with the base Whigs, nor your Lordship, with the most judicious combination of Whig and Tory, which your skill in parliamentary chemistry can produce, will be able to stay much longer the downfall of an institution, which is a libel on God's 296 LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. Gospel, a fortress for public injustice, and the scandalous disturber of our national peace. The danger to be appre- hended, however, will not proceed, in the first instance, from an external enemy; it will come from her long in- ternal rottenness ; and the public shame, and the public common sense, and the public indignation will soon be seen struggling for the mastery in levelling with the earth, and eradicating from the soil this anti-Christian monster, which has been reared on the plundered food of the wi- dow and the orphan, and which now makes its enormous daily meals and annual feasts on the life-blood of the en- tire nation. The long silence of the Catholics under your shameful and shameless calumnies, and our superhuman endurance under savage parliamentary insults and lies, such as are actually unknown in any other country in the whole w^orld, have had the effect of encouraging our insatiable enemies, in place of mitigating their fanatical ferocity. — The oblivion which our writers have cast in charity over the first flagrant iniquities of your church, has been mis- understood by your professional bigots, who, like a swarm of locusts, crowd every thoroughfare in the Empire, ena- bling the passengers of all nations to read, in the malig- nant domination of their brows, that the hatred of Catho- licity, the fury of unappeasable malignity, and not the mild spirit of Christianity, is the predominant feeling of their hearts, and the very mainspring of their entire conduct.' The Catholic public, too, have forgotten the early pedi- gree of the Reformation; and have, therefore, consider- ably relaxed in their watchfulness against their deadly LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 297 foes; and hence the public mind must be again roused to a universal resistance against a congregation of calumnia- tors, who, not content with living on the plunder of our ancestors, are engaged, year after year, in maligning their victims, spreading abroad uncharitableness, disturbing the public peace ; and positively, and without any doubt, dis- turbing the name and maternal interests of England, throughout the entire world. As Lord John Russell and your Lordship, have been the principal promoters of this strange evangelism, I have decided on addressing to you twelve letters on the subject just referred to. They shall be divided into distinctions, in w^hich I shall prove 'beyond all doubt — ^Firstly, the un- scriptural enormities and the theological incongruities of these Protestant principles w^hich you say are noAv en- dangered — Secondly, I shall demonstrate beyond all con- tradiction, that this Protestant Constitution has committed the largest crime of plundering the poor, ever recorded in history, and — Thirdly, T shall enumerate, to the satis- faction of every impartial man, the historical records by which this church is charged w^ith spilling more blood of innocent, and defenceless, and unoffending Catholics, than has ever been shed by the most ruthless tyrant that ever crimsoned the page of human w^oe. In the treatment of this subject, I wish to inform you, that I mean no offence to the present generation of generous-hearted, honest Englishmen ; my charges are not against individuals, but against the anti-Christian system, of which they are made the wretched dupes. Nor shall I found my observations upon exclusively Catholic authority, or on hearsay, how- 298 LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. ever respectable the testimony, or on loose historical as- sertion. I shall quote all my proofs from your own great historians, from the Protestant Synods of Germany, Swit- zerland, Holland, and France; and I shall complete my demonstrations from the acts of the English Parliament. I shall not confine my views on the horrors of your evan- gelical system to Great Britain and unfortunate Ireland. I shall trace them through northern and central Europe ; and I shall place before the Christian world the clear fact, viz., that in whatever country Protestantism has been tn- trodued in the room of Catholicity, there may be traced all the maddening disorders which have almost ever accompanied and followed it ; namely, ferocious bigotry, relentless persecution, sanguinary atrocities, social dis- union, and universal wasting, public brand of beggary and national distress, graven by the ruthless bigot on the heart, and the bones, and the narrow of the wretched, subdued Catholic. And if I shall, fullfil faithfully these my preliminary promises, there is no honorable English or Irish Protes- tant, (who will take the trouble to read my proofs,) who can, as a scholar, a gentleman, and a Christian, be reaso- nably angry with me for exposing to the public indigna- tion, a system calling itself the Gospel of Christ, and which, on examination, will be found an iniquitous aggre- gate of hypocrisy, lies, rebellion, spoliation, murder, and blasphemy. I own it requires much deliberate reflection before these grave charges should be made agaijist your national Church, and addressed to so exalted a person as the Earl of Derby. I feel this responsibility, and I fully LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 299 conceive my position ; but I again repeat my charges, and I shall forfeit all claim to tnith, if I do not perfectly sub- stantiate every point I have adduced. It is with feelings of tremulous confusion that the historian of the present day, will even attempt to write the details of the crimes of this in&mous band of anti-Christian monsters; and hence, who can describe what must have been the bewil- dering, the shocking, the racking w^oes, of the persecuted past generation which witnessed, and bled under their ter- rific realities. The first unparalleled imposture w^hich "the Reforma- tion" invented, and which it has practised to this day, was the self-appointment, and self-consecrationof Henry VIII., to assume the title of "Head of the Church." One might suppose that the man who robbed the Convents of Eng- lishmen to the amount of millions of money, built and se- cured by the ancient laws of the realm, would be ashamed to appear before his countrymen stained, as his character was, with this public profanation ; one might believe that a monster w^ho had divorced three wives and beheaded two, (one of them probably his own daughter,) would be afraid to let the eye of mortal see his hands reeking with the blood of his innocent victims. Through all the past history of mankind, if such a demon succeeded in escap- ing the arm of public justice, or the hand of the avenging assassin, he fled from human intercourse to bury his guilty head and racking conscience in the lonely cell of perpetual penance, in order to expiate the thrilling enormity of his black crimes. But your apostle, the first head of your Church, seem- 300 LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. ed ratlier to rise, than sink by his iniquities ; they appear rather to qualify than incapacitate your gospel-founder for his exalted spiritual post ; and hence, he stands before your tabernacle with his red hands lifted in prayer to God ! Yes, in prayer to God, your accredited pro to-apostle, your appointed Bishop and your consecrated Pope ! the guar- dian of innocence, the model of virtue, the terror of vice, the teacher of Gospel truth, the ornament of religion, the standard of evangelical perfection, the infallible guide to heaven, the successor of the Apostles, and the Vicegerent of Christ himself on earth! He appointed and conse- crated Jiimself (Act Par., 1538,) Pope and Head of the Church ; and he appointed Tom Cromwell (Act 1533,) his "Vicegerent in spirituals;" and he gave him, as his Vicar-General, a commission with nineteen sub-commis- sioners, named by his "English Holiness," to report on the discipline and moral conduct and Faith of all the Re- ligious Orders of England ! The only parallel that could be devised to equal this incomprehensible farce on Chris- tianity, would be to see the Devil ascend the Mount where our Lord delivered his first sermon, and to hear him ad- dress the multitude on the Eight Beatitudes, in mimicry of our Saviour, without any attempt during his discourse to conceal either "his cloven foot or tail" from the congre- gation. Do you wonder. Sir, why we Catholics laugh and shudder at this, your first hierarchy? Can you be sur- prised why a learned Catholic trembles at this blasphemy of the Holy Ghost, this mockery of Christianity, this jest- ing with God, this sporting with the Gospel, this jibing LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. 301 With damnation? There is nothing like this scene of pal- pable mimicry of Christ and the Apostles to be found in the entire record of the most insane infidelity. It sur- passes in atrocious and tragic infamy, anything that has ever happened in the whole world ; and it stands before all mankind as the first page in the charter of your reli- gion, the inauguration of your hierarchy, and the undoubt- ed source of "the Reformation." There were many faith- ful, courageous Englishmen, who resisted this monstrous iniquity, and if you wish to learn their names, go to the prisons of your Apostle, where thousands of your coun- trymen died in confinement; go to glorious France, where hundreds of your relatives fled for safety ; and. Sir, go to the reeking block, where you can read in the martyred blood of the illustrious More, the venerable Fisher, and in the shameful murder of the noble Countess of Salisbury. Read there the origin of your creed, the law of your Gos- pel, the decalogue of your ethics. If these astounding scenes were enacted under the ex- citement of mere popular, or mere political fury, they should not find a place in this letter to your Lordship, ■which is intended for the discussion of the religious foun- dation of your Church ; but they were the Acts of Henry, as your ecclesiastical superior, [see Act,] they w^ere exe- cuted in the name, and under the sanction of this new Church ; as such they w^ere agreed to by the Drummonds, and the Russells, and the Derbys of that day of English infamy, and in the preambles of the Acts of Parliament, the Assembly satin deliberation "in the Spirit of the Holy Ghost," and hence, these Acts ofHenry, form, without con- 302 LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. tradiction, a record of your ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and not of your political history. There is no generous, can- did English Protestant, at the present day, who, I believe, does not blush at the recital of these atrocities, and yet he lives contentedly and unconsciously under the very same hierarchal law; is governed by the reigning monarch as the head of the Church ; pays religious obedience in faith and morals to the persons called, appointed, and commis- sioned to lead men's souls to heaven ; and all this by vir- tue of the royal prerogative, as the supreme spiritual au- thority of the realm. Take away the crimes of your first founder, and your present system is perfectly the same — namely, human commission, human jurisdiction in the kingdom of Christ! You might as well apply the laws of gravitation to the soul, as to adopt a temporal rule to produce the spiritual results of grace. You might as well tell the world, that original sin is remitted in baptitm according to the laws of hydrostatics, as to assert that the queen or king of any country can give, ex-qfficio, a com- mission to save the souls of their subjects. It is the Monarch alone of that Spiritual Kingdom who can frame its laws, appoint his officers, give them autho- rity, define their duties, and decide rewards and punish- ments ; and this leads me to examine this principle of supremacy in the reign of Edward the Sixth. Mr. Cob- bet has already glanced at this subject; but Mr. Cobbet was no theologian — I am; and he confined his views to England; I shall extend mine to every country in Eu- rope where your Gospel has been preached ; and I here- by humbly request of the Ambassadors of the Catholic LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERB7. 303 Courts now resident in London, (to each of whom I shall send a copy of this letter,) that they will so far have mercy on Ireland as to publish my proofs in each of their capi- tals, in order to inform their Nations of the insatiable injus- tice exercised tow^ards us, by the cruelty of the English Government, and to warn their countrymen of the danger of permitting English missionaries and English spies to reside amongst them, calumniating their creed and revo- lutionizing their law^s. One can scarcely avoid bursting out into a commingled torrent of indignation, contempt, and horror, against a band of plunderers, infidels, and assassins, who, in the face of civilized Europe, could set up a child of ten years of age as Pope the Second, thus placing the nation in a position of spiritual ruin, and perpetuating the mad apos- tacy of the last reign. This, my Lord, is a new practical- spiritual phase of your Church. In the late reign, the King proclaimed himself Pope ; but here we have a born Pope, a bom Bishop, an Apostle in swaddling clothes, coining into the world with a mitre on his head, the inspi- ration of the Holy Ghost transmitted to him from his father Henry, like freehold property, the grace of God running in the child's pure blood by virtue of the character and ecumenical position of his father ; a born saint, like his fa- ther, and, like a child born with a wooden-leg, holding the crozier in his new-born hand, and wearing the mitre on his apostolic-hereditary head ! Lord Derby, are you serious in belonging to a system of such disgusting, incom- prehensible folly? You might as w^ell assert that a hawk could beget a whale, as that a Bishop could be naturally 304 LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERUY. elaborated from the blood of Henry VIII. But this is not all; this child-Pope made the "Book of Common Prayer," and almost entirely drew up the Thirty-nine Articles of what is called your creed. And what renders the thing so utterly shameful, is, that this weak, sickly boy, never perhaps, saw the hook, or read one of the Articles referred to ; so that this principle of the headship of the Church, which, in itself, is so ludi- crous, is, besides all this, a most monstrous, notorious, pal- pable lie, as the baby-Pope, who is said to be head, has actually, and in point of fact, no more part in this Refor- mation-jugglery, than the G-rani '"•^rk. The idea of a child making Articles of Faith, and c««iposing prayers, through an Act of Parliament as head of Christ's Church, is so palpably ridiculous, that the Catholics at once ask you : "What insanity has come over you, to leave a learn- ed old Pope and a Council of Bishops, in order to follow a child in a cradle and a Senate of shopkeepers?" You decide religion, as you decide the duty on your manufac- tures ; you settle the way to Heaven, as you fix the direc- tion of a turnpike road — namely, by a majority of votes; and in the face of mankind you set up a baby in a cradle as the expounder of the Gospel, although it cannot read; as the teacher of the Gospel, although it cannot speak; and as the head of your Church in all its duties, although it has not got one idea in its head of any one thing in this world ! ! But the principle has to be examined, in a new, astound- ing, third phase, viz : — After the death of Edward, it ia to be seen, residing in a young woman of Bix-and-twent\- LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBr. SO^ years of age ! of course, she too, is the sanctified descen- dant of the first head, Pope Henry. She, too, it seems, inherits her father's sanctity; but the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, does not fall upon her, till the mature apos- tolic age of tw^enty-six. Blessed family! to "have men, women, and children, all born apostles — angels of grace. This lay Pope, this royal Nun, this consecrated virgin, ■was the person ■who completed the inspiration of the far- famed Thirty-nine Articles of your Faith, not more than ten of w^hich, any educated respectable Protestant can con- scientiously believe. Some of them are contradictory, others absurd, and two or three of them impossible. You, my Lord, ■who are so deeply read in canon-law, as to see heresy in our cravats, and to read the ■violation of your constitutional laws in our shoes and hosiery, will you say how many of these articles do you believe ? I never knew any Protestant who had such a capacious draught of sanctity. Lord John Russell, although a Presbyterian, a Puseyite, a Methodist, a Protestant, and a Pagan, (as he has expunged baptism,) does not, perhaps, believe from these five creeds of his, so many as these Thirty -nine Articles of Godliness. I believe it to be true, my Lord, that; like razors made to sell, but not to shave; these Arti- ■■.les are made more for sho^w than devotion. Excuse me, *iy Lord, if I, at the present moment, smile in your face. It seeing your name enrolled in such an incongfruous, in- Bane system of absurdity, imposture, and infidelity. But, my Lord, I am not quite done with this young lady-Pope. There is a new feature in her apostolic reign, which we learn from Act of Parliament, passed in 306 LETTER TO THE EAKL OF DERBy. the year 1571, and in the thirteenth year of her reign, to which I refer yoii. In this Act, passed by her Pailia- ment of Englishmen, (manufacturers of faith,) and sub- scribed of course, by her holy hand, as head of your church, it was enacted (Christ protect us !) that the crown of England should descend, if she had no lawful heirs, to her " natural issue." Do you blush. Lord Derby, to see the crown of Alfred and Edward given by your evange- lical Senate to such "an issue," by Act of Parliament! Do you blush to see the head of your church subscribe a public law of her own public shame ! signing her hand manual, to an act that would degrade the most infamous inmate of the lowest of your London brothels — ^haunts of pollution ! I fancy it was this Act of Parliament which Mr. Drummond read, on the night when he spewed the filth of his Reformation creed on the spotless consecrated Catholic virgins of Europe. He mistook them for the virgin head of your church ; he did — the wretched old Reformer — ^he did mistake them ; and in his filthy lan- guage he was protected by the Speaker, and thus applaud- ed by the whole Senate of England. I say, Sir, he was, and Catholic Europe should never forget the insult offer- ed to their honor, their morality, and to their creed. My Lord, what do you now say, so fa-r as I have gone as yet, to the early foundation of your " Reformed Church V Amidst the records of the human race, there is a sense of shame in the most abandoned, which prompts them to conceal their personal crimes — wretches -who have lost every virtue, and are immersed in every vice, have still left in their black hearts one small remnant of untainted LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 307 nature; namely, the in-ward feeling of condemnation of their own guilt. It is bo in the most degraded wretch that expiates on the scaffold the enormities of a long obdu- rate life ; it is particularly so in woman, whose fine nature can never be utterly trampled out by vice, but with her life ; and hence, w^hen we find a Queen of a most po'wer- ful Empire, the head of a church calling itself Christian, in the face of mankind, at the age of forty-nine, summon a Parliament to make her prospective shnme legal by En- glish law I and w^hen we behold herself in person sign the record of her own crime — she stands before the world the vilest miscreant, the most abandoned wretch, the most shameless monster, in woman form, that has ever stained the profligate records of either ancient or modem infamy. We have borne your calumnies too long in charitable for- bearance — ^w^e have abstained these many past years from repeating the anti-Christian, the scandalous, incongruous tenets of your abhorrent creed — w^e have carefully kept from the hands of the rising generation of Ireland the re- cords of your Church infamies — we have actually robbed our Irish children of the history of their fathers, in order to maintain peace w^ith you ; but you have outraged our endurance ; you and i/our church party, both Whig and Tory, have aided in calumniating us, with an indecency of falsehood, that makes even bigoti-y blush ; and you forced us to come forward against our inclination, to re- commence the exposure of your blood-stained creed, which will end, as sure as I am penning these lines, in the over- throw of this iniquitous establishment, and perhaps in the de£;radation of your country. We shall no longer be si- 308 LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBY. lent on a system of religion, where your piety .8 vice- where your Gospel is imposture — and the charter of your creed is hypocrisy, shame, and sin. In order to meet the objection, " that these Acts of Parliament had reference to the political, the religious, not prerogative of Eliza- beth," I subjoin the words of the Synod of London : "The sovereign government of all her subjects, "lay and clerical, be lungs to her m all matters without being subjected to any foreign power." Having thus glanced at the principle of the supremacy of your Monarch, the next point in the regular order of your hierarchy, is the ludicrous variety of your confes- sions of faith. From the year 1530 to the year 1557, Protestantism has issued not less than eighteen confessions of faith — all different, and varying not only in general principles, but contradictory in most of the Articles of Faith, and conti'ary on the same points of belief in not less than four essential dogmas of Christianity. Your Confes- sions of Faith, are as follows : — Augsburg, 1530 ; Genoa, 1531 ; France, 1534 ; Melancthon's Apology, 1535 ; Scotch Confession, 1536 ; Smlacald, 1537 ; Dort, 1541 ; Szenger, 1543 ; Sendomar, 1546 ; Saxonic, 1551 ; Wur- temberg, 1552 ; Book of Concord, 1556 ; Explications repeated, 1557. Now, my Lord, if any one of our theories in chemistry, in reference to the analysis, or the products of any che- mical agents, underwent eighteen different, contradictory and contrary demonstrations, is there any scientific scho- lar in the whole world, who would take his oath that all these contrary theories were right : and, moreover, w^ho would hang, behead, and quarter any one who should re- LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 309 fuse to take his oath in the same contraritxes 1 And if this doctrine in science would make all mankind shudder, will you say in what language shall I attempt to explain your faith, which ascribes to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, eighteen different systems of the grossest lies, the most palpable contradictions, and absurd contrarities ] If the meanest man in Great Britain, were charged with wil- ful prevarication on his oath, in his statement in eighteen different assertions, he would be branded as a debased wretch, a public perjurer ; and hence to ascribe this con- duct to the Holy Ghost, in your eighteen sworn Confes- sions of Faith, is a depth of blasphemy, a hardihood of insane iniquity beyond the comprehension of the impartial observer ; but, like an old Juggler swallowing a dozen of razors at a time ; a feat which w^ould kill twelve ordinary men, your long habit of unpunished infidelity, has accus tomed you to stand before the gates of heaven, and call God a liar to his face. Saint Paul, endeavoring to express to us unity of faith, could find no other image by which he could convey his belief, except by likening it to the unity of God, in that remarkable passage of Holy Writ, where he writes to the Ephesians — "one Lord, one faith, one baptism." As this language is so clear, it follows that there cannot exist in true faith any change, contra- diction, or contrariety, any more than in the very being of God ; and it follows, moreover, from_the clear logic of the text, that two or more faiths, are just as absurd as two or more Gods. But what signifies the testimony of St. Paul in compa- rison with that of Elizabeth, and what value can be at- 310 LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. tached to any scriptural record, when placed In juxta posi- tion with an English Act of Parliament ! When a church has arrived so far in the mysteries of faith, as to place at the head of all spiritual power a monster, who has dis- carded three wives and murdered two ; when it can pro- pose for the salvation of the soul, a creed said to be made by a child in a cradle ; when a public sin against the sixth commandment, by the head of a church is made legal by an Act of the English Parliament; when the Holy Ghost is publicly declared on oath, to have published for the guidance of the soul in sanctity, eighteen avowed systems of palpable lies, in the short space of twenty-six years — I .fea,rlessly say, if these records cannot be disputed, there is no candid Protestant who can complain if such a system of perjury, pollution, and blasphemy, be vigorously de- nounced before the indignation and the horror of the entire Christian world. Notwithstanding these synodical contrarieties, w^e learn the strange doctrine from " the Synod of Charteron," that the entire varying Protestant communities of Europe are still "the one society" of true Christian believers ; that eighteen different " distinct things " are the self-same "one thing," is a proposition so utterly incomprehensible, as even to surpass the phenomenon of your supremacy. The only thing I ever read, which can at all approach this article of your faith in point of absurdity is the Dutch tragedy representing Adam, about to be created: at a cer- tain part of the tragedy, when all eyes are turned to the deep, solemn tragedian, who is about to perform the act of creation. Adam himself, the first man, (though not yet LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBV. 311 created,) comes out on the stage, with a new doeskin breeches, boots, and spurs, to be created ! With these palpable absurdities, you call your Church the spouse of of Christ — a lie which makes the skin creep, and the blood run cold, to hear you connect w^ith the name of the Saviour, such an aggregate of obsceneness and impiety. From the first year of your foundation, through the three hundred years of your existence, no three individuals of your co- religionists could agree in doctrine ; and at this moment you present to the laughing w^orld, a congregation divided in all points, except the stereotype doctrine of "hatred of Catholicity." Lord John Russell, w^ho can agree to almost any form of Faith, cannot admit baptism ; the Archbishop of Can- terbury, w^ho is paid ,£24,000 a year for the gigantic amount of his Faith, will not admit Holy Orders as neces- sary : even in time of general English cholera, our Doctor Wheatley, in Dublin, the pre-anti-Catholic Archbishop of Ireland, exempts unmarried clergymen from their at- tendance in blue Asiatic cholera. In their Lordships' theological opinions, the attendance of clergy is only necessary in fine vreather, when new kid gloves can be w^om, w^hen the tainted aii" does not blow from the east, when the patient can receive these apostles on Turkey carpets, and w^hen there is no fear of the stench of the dying Christian coming "between the wind and their holy nobility." And more strange than all, is the new change of the Bishop of Exeter, approving the practice of "hear- ing confessions;" what an edifying Church you have I What a venerated Senate ! 312 LETTER TO THE EARL OP DERBV. • You abuse, malign, and insult us, for the practice your good Exeter now exclaims is the sure road to heaven. And this is what you call the " enviable wisdom of the English Parliament, and the evangelical unity of the Re- formation." And these are the laws which you call on us to respect and obey; this is the religion to which you hope to convert the Irish people ; and this is the creed you offer to poor old Erin, in the fourteenth -hundredth year of her Christian age. The venerable old lady, I as- sure you, is not accustomed to see her apostles dressed in diamond rings and London boots. After her long tuition under Saint Patrick, she is quite surprised to re- ceive religious instruction from your Voltaires and Paynes; she cannot understand why the education of Faith in Christ, musthe preceded by the knowledge of potash and pyrites ; and she is utterly astounded, to hear men assert that the temple of the science of the saints must be ap- proached through fields of Swedish turnips and nicely- drilled mangel wurtzel. After her long intercourse with Columkill and Saint Bridget, she has learnt so completely the Irish accent, that she can with difficulty comprehend your Lordship's Saxon tongue ; and although she has often heard of the dialects of Greek, and the vocalic varie- ties of the Eastern languages, she has never understood, till she read your Eighteen Confessions of Faith, how there could be such a thing possible, as varieties and dialects in the unchangeable professions of God's Gospel. If you give me fair play, my Lord ; if you do not set your Times, and your Globe, and your Standard, and vour Punch, to ridicule and to abuse me; if you call on LETTER TO THE EARL OF DERBY. 313 them to reply to me by argument, and not by abuse, I undertake to rid this Nation of your Church Establish- ment, and thus to save for the Empire the eight and a half millions annually, which it devours from the just revenues of the naked ■widovsr and the starving orphan. Depend upon it, my Lord, that I shall lay bare the appall- ing foundation of your Church, before I shall have con- cluded my next three letters on that subject. And believe me, I shall convince you, that it is far wiser to make Ca- tholic Ireland your friend, than to make all Europe your enemy; it is cheaper to secure ihe arms and the hearts of one million of Catholic Irishmen by the words of truth, honor, and justice, than to pay half a million a year to an inefficient militia, by a useless, a pernicious, an angry tax- ation. Rely upon it, that your diplomacy will be more respected and feared by foreign nations at seeing peace than divisions in your own country; and take the advice of an humble individual, when I presume to tell you, to commence the next Parliament, (w^here you w^ill keep office precisely till the Christmas recess,) by retracing your steps towards Ireland, and legislating for your coun- try, not in the burning records of persecution and insult, but in the imperishable laws of eternal truth and public justice. And never forget the remarkable words of the illustrious Lous Napoleon the Third, " Woe be to him (that is to you,) who gives the first signal of collision, the consequences of which will be incalculable." I have the honor to be, my Lord Earl, your Lordship's obedient servant, D.W.CAHILL, D.D. DR. CAHILL TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD VISCOUNT FALMERSTON. Cambridge, February 23d, 1853. My Lord Viscount — I feel much difficulty either in renewing my correspondence with you, or reviving the controversy in the case of Madiai — that controversy is now at rest. Proofs incontrovertible have been brought before the public notice, to show that palpable misstate- ments have been made by English correspondents, and by the universal press ; and an additional case has thus been placed on the records of English bigotry, to confirm the public impression that the British Government will grasp at any vague stories, and pervert every dubious occurrence, in order to malign Catholic political legisla- tion, and to belie the Catholic Church. But, my Lord, I have, in the present instance, a graver charge than all this to settle with your Lordship in the case before us. I am come to accuse you and Lord John Riissell with a guilty suppression of the truth, on the point at issue. In your ministerial capacity; and conse- quently arraign you both before this Nation and the Ca- tholic world, of having encouraged, during the last eight months, in this country public vituperation of the Catholic Church, and the Catholic community; while at the same time you both held in your hands the despatches frorc your own ambassadors, which contradicted in toto this unceasing and groundless insult to two-thirds of the citi- zens of this country, and the millions of the population of those kingdoms, with which you state you hold interna- LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON. 315 tional and friendly relations. I owe it to the Catholics of this country, to expose your unpardonable conduct in this case, and I owe it to myself as a public writer, to prove the accuracy of my statements, and to demonstrate the indubitable sources from w^hich I have, in my late let- ters to the Earl of Carlisle, derived my political informa- tion. I shall divide this letter into seven heads ; and I beg to assure you, that in the treatment of the subject, I mean no personal offence either to your Lordship or Lord John Russell. I am solely actuated by the desire of doing pub- lic justice to injured truth, placing the subject before the impartial judgment of an honest British public, and warn- ing them in future (an advice scarcely necessary,) against giving implicit credence to any assertion of yours involv- ing any statement •where the Catholic Church, Catholic Faith, Catholic practices, or the political law^s of Catholic States, are the subjects under your official examination. Firstly, then, every one who has read the furious arti- cles of the daily London press, must have been struck this some time past, with the painful description given, of "the appalling prison in which the Madiais w^ere confined; the damp floors on which they lived, the unendurable penal dress in w^hich they were clothed, the cruel treat- ment they received, the barbarous tyranny of excluding all intercourse with their friends, and the murderous results of this Papal persecution, w^hich must very soon end in the death of these most unoffending, most resigned victims of Pqpish intolerance." Even Lord John Rus- sell, writing on the subject to Sir Henry Bulwer, the pink 316 LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON. of toleration and truth, has said, " It is the same thing in effect," said his Lordship, "to condemn a man to die by fire like Savornarola, or to put him to death by the slow tortures of an unhealthy prison." Here is the Foreign Secretary himself joining in the cry of the furious bigots, charging the Duke of Tuscany with the indirect murder of the Madiai, and, as w^ill pre- sently appear, clearly prejudging the case. This point will, I fancy, be sufficiently proved by the following let- ter of Mr. Erskine, in reply to Lord John Russell, and received by him on the 4th of the present month : — "I am informed by Mr Chapman," writes Mr Erskine, *' an English gentleman, who has interested himself most warmly in favor of the Madiai, and who is permitted to visit them occasionally in prison, that he has no fault to find with their treatment. The prison is in a healthy situation at the top of a hill : and the infii'mary in which the husband is lodged, is in every respect as comfortable as any well regulated hospital for persons at large. Mr. Chapman is equally satisfied with the attention bestowed on the physical wants of those Madiai at Lucca." Again, we have an additional testimony in the Hon. Mr. Scarlett, directed to your Lordship, December 19th, 1851, as follows: — "In consequence of the great interest felt in the state of the Madiai, I conversed with Rosa Madiai for some time in orison, and I am happy to inform your Lordship, that the place of her confinement, though small, is exceedingly clean, well ventilated, and warm. She possesses, by her own admission, all the accommodation she requires under the circum- stances. She makes no complaint of want of good food and clothing ; she has books to read, and she speaks in high terms of the superinten- dent of prisons, Mr. Peri : and she has not suifered in health." Upwards of a year has elapsed since your Lordship has received the letter referred to, and nearly a month has expired, since Lord John Russell has heard the facts issue from Mr. Erskine, and hence, the public w^ill learn with surprise, that in place of the one retracting his mis- LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON. 317 cunceptions, or the other checking the misrepresentatioiiB of the press, you both, on the contrary, have repeated, on last Thursday night, in the House of Commons, (as is reported,) nearly the same ■words, in the face of the pub- lic cognizance of the fact^, and in the teeth of the official letter of your public servants. These brief remarks of mine on this point, spoken in pity for you both, rather than in anger, will, I fancy, settle lie the first. Secondly, the entire press, Exeter Hall, and the inocu- latedconversion of private society, have all promulgated, during the past eight months, " that there was no liberty of conscience tolerated in Tuscany for any dissenting creed." This statement being perfectly understood, what must be the astonishment of the thinking portion of our community, when I inform them that in Leghorn, there are, at the present moment, a Mahomedan Mosque, a Jew- ish Synagogue, and a Protestant Episcopalian Church ; that there are at least five thousand Jews residing there, and possessing (as I am instructed to say,) about two- thirds of the landed property of that district ; and that there is not even one instance on record where any Pro- testant, Methodist, Presbyterian, Jew, or any member of any religion w^hatever, has ever been prevented from wor shipping God as they may think proper in their own houses of worship, and in their own families ! But, my Lord, I have the authority of the Hon. Mr. Scarlett, your official servant' at Florence, in a letter written to yourself on the same subject, nearly two years ago — viz., on the 22nd Aug., 1851 — as follows : — "I have been made aware by tbe Duke of Casigliano that all foragTi- »*± tyrijfesstinst a different reUffionJrom that of the Roman CatJtolic, were 318 LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON. always permuted in Tuscany, as muchfrecAom of conscieiux as they pita* ed in regard to themselves^ Here, my Lord, we have a clear statement made to yourself nearly two years ago, giving an authentic account of the point at issue ; and yet you have in the midst of the public misrepresentation of this country, kept the above correspond ence from the public eye — suppressed the clear known truth at the very source of official information ; and thus. Sir, 1 impeach you before the whole world, of the greatest crime a public officer can commit — namely, cushioning a public document, and thereby encouraging, and being a principal party to the slander, the censure, and the calumny, which, during eight months of unprece- dented bigotry in public meetings and acrimonious jour- nalism, has been flung (through your culpable connivance) on the temporal laws of an unoffending State, and on the tenets of a Church, which even your own official organ has been compelled to vindicate in the letter just quoted; and this statement will, I trust, fully prove my second point — or lie the second. Thirdly, the public report has everywhere declared in this country, that the Madiai have been condemned for " reading the Bible." To this statement is opposed the fact, that Rosa Madiai had been a Protestant since 1847; that she attended the worship of that church, and had never been disturbed in reading the Bible, no more than all those other religions — Jews, Mahomedans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and all other foreigners referred to in the foregoing letter of the Hon. Mr. Scarlett ; and this short statement, my Lord, settles the proof of lie the third. Fourthly, it has been industriously circulated, that at LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON. 319 least no Tuscan Catholic dare change his religion and be- come a Protestant, under the heaviest penalties of the Pa- pal la-w. To this statement of the English press, and to this mistake of the universal .English people, it will be suffi- cient to quote an extract of a letter from Mr. Erskine to Lord John Russell, on this particular point : — "The Maiiiai. says he, are not, as is alleged, convicted of having apostatised from the established (GathoHc) religion, but of liaving sought to seduce from that religion." I shall not, my Lord, add one 'word to this appropriate extract, which palpably demonstrates " lie the fourth." Fifthly, the statement which through your connivance produced the bitterest feeling in England, w^as that part of the impeachment which declared " that all this tyranny was to be ascribed to the authority of the Pope in Tus- cany ; and that all the consequences of this murderous r.aee, w^ere to be traced to the doctrines of the Catholic Church." To this part of the question, it will be sufficient to say, that the case at issue, is entirely one of the civil authority of Tuscany, and has no more connection with what is call- ed Papal authority (as such) than the submarine Telegraph between Dublin and Holyhead has to do with the oath of allegiance to the Queen of England. The Duke of Tus- cany could relax these laws, change them, modify them, or abolish them altogether, without interfering in the slightest degree with the principles of the Christian cere- mony, which belongs to the province of what is known and obeyed as the Papal authority ; and these observations will make the public perfectly understand " lie the fifth." «;-.rtlilv. the most malignant part, perhaps, of the entire 320 LETTER TO LORD PALMEUSTON. English mania, is that view of the question, where, the Catholic Clergy are represented as the sole instigators of these laws and these penal enactments. Your Lordship has even given utterance to these sentiments in the reply which you thought proper to make to the deputation, which, having waited on you some few days previous, so- licited your kind interference on behalf of the martyred Madiai. Your Lordship is reported to have said : — "An Italian when he hears of the complaints made concerning the restrictions imposed on reading- the Scriptures, maintains that such res- trictions are necessary, because, if th£ people are allowed to read tke Bible, they would become Protestants either from conviction, or to es- cape the tyranny of Priests, and thus the Priests would be deprived of power and support." Without daring to contradict you, that no Italian can be supposed to utter one word of what your Lordship states, I am still very much puzzled, indeed, to comprehend the statement you make, as it is founded upon a notorious falsehood — namely, that the Italians are not allowed to read the Bible. There are, in the first place, (as far as I have learned,) upwards of forty editions of the Bible pub- lished within the last three hundred years on the Italian Peninsula; and how, and why all this trouble, care, and expense could be incurred by the crafty Italian booksel- lers ; and why all these books, which " are to take all the power away from the Priests," are tolerated by these all- powerful priests ; or why they would print in such abun- dance books which no one is allowed to read, are really such startling historical difficulties bound up with your assertion, that I hope your Lordship will excuse me if I shall take some considerable time before I believe what you say. LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON. 321 But pray, my Lord, in what part of Italy has your Lordship heard this strange statement, or amongst what description of persons has it been uttered ? As the fact to which you allude, is at variance w^ith the doctrine of the Catholic Church, which permits and encourages the read- ing of the Bible, it must, I am convinced, clearly turn put that this statement must have been made to you by the companions of Lord Minto in Italy — viz. : Mazzini, Garri- baldi, and Ciceruacchio, &c. His being your family cor- respondent there, during the last five years of your admi- nistration, it is more than probable he is your authority on the Bible-reading question; and, here, again, your Lordship must excuse me, if for a moment I pause before I receive his statements, even made through you, when placed in contradiction to my own positive knowledge of the subject confirmed by the world-wide doctrine of the Catholic Church. Go on, my Lord, and continue your correspondence, your statements, and your English bi- S°^'y ' g° °^' ^^^ have and enjoy your momentary triumph ; but it is more than probable, you will yet adopt the language of the victorious Roman general — " Another such victory will ruin me." But, my Lord, there is a meaning rather significant in this late speech to -the Madiai deputation. Perhaps you were speaking figuratively, as you did when you wept over the destruction of the Convents and of the Colleges of Switzerland — as you did when you interfered one week too late in saving the lives of hundreds of persecuted Ca- tholics from the murderous fire, and the inhuman butchery of the free corps of the sanguinary Calvinists ; or perhaps n 322 LKTTER TO LORD PALMERSTON. you intended to throw out some sage hint to your brother Whigs (previous to Mr. Spooner's motion,) that the IrisTi Priests have too much power in Ireland, and consequent- ly that the clear plan of depriving them of their power and their support, would be still more to join the Protes- tant Alliance ; to turn all Ireland into a universal Clifden, or a Connemara, or a Kells ; to expend as much money in repelling Catholicity, as you are now squandering to guard against your maligned victims, the French. Per- haps, my Lord, this was your intention, (for w^hat man living is able to fathom you, except Lord Clarendon ?)— and if so, the Catholics of Ireland have gained one advan- tage from this calumnious, or figurative speech ; namely, they must be more than ever on their guard against your machination; and these lengthened animadversions con- clude all I have to say in reference to " lie the sixth." Seventhly, the last most remarkable, and most embit- tering misstatement in this ministerial connivance, is that part where the punishment of the Madiai " is represented purely a spiritual tyranny, solely directed against the Word of God, and intended by the Priests and the Tuscan laws, to crush spiritual freedom of opinion, and the inde- feasable rights of conscience." These opinions have been circulated during the last twelve months in every English journal, and the whole mind of the British public, has been thus maddened by the baneful prejudices of frenzy, arising from the continued refuted publication of this anti-christian doctrine. And what will Englishmen say now, when I shall lay before them a letter which you received nearly two years ago LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON. 323 from the Hon. Mr. Scarlett, in which the very statement at issue is denied; and the language of the most emphatic denial communicated to you. Yet you have suppressed that document, and by that suppression you have banded the Protestants of this Empire in a course of falsehood and furious insult against their Catholic countrymen ; you have looked on quietly, while you saw the Catholics urged into unjust provocation, by an unusual outcry against us, while at the same time, you retained for eighteen months the very document w^bich would cure the public rancor, and restore peace to your injured and insulted Catholic sub- jects. The document referred to, is a letter you received August 29th, 1851, an extract of which is as follows: — "The Policy of the Tuscan government could not permit foreigners to temper with the religion of the native subjects of Tuscany, more especiuUy at this time, as it is notorious that the pretended conversions to Protestantism were a mask for carrying out political views, which were intended to sap the foundatvms of governments in Italy" I shall not take, away from the force of this extract by adding any remark of my own. This is my last point in this unpleasant subject, and I now fearlessly assert, that, in all your political career, during the last six years, there is no one phase in your official capacity, which places you before your country in so discreditable a position, as the clear proofs of your having witnessed the grossest lies published against Catholic States and people, while you held in your hands the very official documents, the bare inspection of which, would in one day, have spared this country such scenes of degrading bigotry, as has no paral- lel m any country on the face of the civilized world; and these demonstrations leave no doubt whatever as to "lie *!.*> oovflTlth." 324 LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON. "What a suitable time it was to open a mission of God- liness, just when the Pope was driven from the Vatican ! when Naples was enveloped in the flames of revolution ! when your friend and your correspondent, Kossuth, had nigh overturned Austria ! and when your victim, Charles Albert, was on his deathbed, broken-hearted ! No lan- guage can sufficiently condemn the palpable scheme of revolution, devised by a set of British officers, under the appearance of prayer and the Word of God. What a Godly, appropriate time, to commence the work of the Reformation of Tom Cromwell and Somerset ! But, above all, my Lord, what an appropriate set of apostles began the work ; namely, Captain Walker, Captain Wil- son, and a full military staff of evangelizers ! ho'iv like the work of God in such hands, and at such a time. I am surprised that the French never conceived such a holy design as this, during the rebellion of 1798 in Ireland, and send a batch of French officers to Munster, like Ledru RoUin, General Cavaignac, and others, to evangelize the Irish, just at the moment when Hoche was approaching Bantry Bay, with ten thousand men. Why, my Lord, the heart sickens at contemplating the palpable audacity of the English spies, in their cool attempt to persuade the w^orld that they mean to preach the Gospel, while the swords and the muskets of their perjured apostles appear beneath their crimsoned surplices. My Lord, I am not influenced by any desire to give the smallest offence or discourtesy to any one of her Majesty's Ministers ; I am, in my inmost soul, solely governed by a conviction that you and your Whig associates have been LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON. 325 running, during' the last few years, a most disastrous course; that you have laid a fatal plan of overturning Ca- tholicity by falsehood, by misrepresentation, and by stra- tasfem; that you have, perhaps unconsciously, been the advocate of the most notorious revolutionists of Europe; that you have made fierce and lasting enemies of some of the most powerful kingdoms on the Continent; that "you have, beyond all doubt, been laying the foundation of the ruin of your own country; that you are, at this moment, squandering the public money in building harbors, equip- ping armaments, constructing fortifications, preparing fleets to resist an aggression, w^hich your own palpable bigotry has excited against you ; and that in the midst of all these warlike preparations you neglect the chief defence, the only defence — namely, cultivating the uni- versal love, the undoubted allegiance, of the w^hole peo- ple to the throne, and giving vigor to the blood, and nerve to the arms which are to feed the cannon, and man the ships, and lead the assault on the enemy. Lord Palmerston, do not reject an advice coming from the humble individual who has the honor of now address- ing you ; high as is your ministerial flight, higher points can be reached than you have yet attained, and you may fall from the perilous eminence when you least expect it; you are not beyond the reach of other men : the lowly twig on v^hich the meteor eagle has just but a moment ago stood in pride, can be pointed with the barbed steel and propelled to reach the lordly bird in his highest flight, and it can pierce him too as he floats on the summit point of the giddy elevation; depend upon it, my Lord, 326 LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON. that when you expose yourself, a steady aim from a ■watchful antagonist may reach your outspread wing, and lay you prostrate on the plain. I have long considered you the most plausible, the cleverest man in the British Ministry of any shade of politics. I believe you also to be the greatest enemy that the Catholic Church has ever had* during the last three centuries, and I am persuaded that unless your Sovereign dismisses you from her Coun- cils, you will, in furthering the ends of your insatiable and unmitigable bigotry, involve our common country in irre- trievable ruin. And I pray you not to make light of these remarks of mine ; you must excuse me, if I tell you that I have as perfect sources of information on the sub- jects on which I write, as your Lordship can have ; and that while yon have your Parliament to cheer you at St. Stephens, 1 have my Parliament to cheer me ■wherever the English language is spoken, and have friends to pub- lish these remarks which I here make in every capital in Europe. 1 beg of your Lordship to believe, that I am not an enemy of the State; no, I am a sincere friend, as far as my humble power can go. I am grateful to the past Go- vernments of England for every boon they have bestowed upon my unhappy country. Every one of my profession are grateful for the efficient education you have extended to our rising generation of the poor ; we thank you for your generosity in educating our natior^al Priesthood ; ■we would fain be grateful to you for preserving the lives of our peasant population against the ruthless extermina- tion of the needy Orange landlords of Ireland, but you LETTER TO LORD FALMERSTON. 327 will not give us the occasion. You speak of your just laws on this subject, we point to the emigrant ship ; you expatiate on the rights of property, w^e point to the red grave ; you write on the civil liberty of the English con- stitution, w^e point to "the crowbar;" you draw up long statistics of youi impartial justice, yournational prosperity; we point to the deserted village ; you descant at public meetings called in the name of religion on the universal benevolence of your Church ; w^e read the advertisements in the Times for servants, with a nota heme " no Irish Ca- tholic need apply." Ah, my Lord, not all your plausible speeches and your able diplomacy can conceal from the world the palpable afflicting fact, that the Legislature of Great Britain is spoken with lips of honey, but written in rivers of blood — ^is published abroad in wreaths of roses, but felt within in our aching hearts, in the cold iron of persecution ; like the apples in the Lake of Sodom, you offer us fine fruit in appearance, but is poison in the taste. The persecuting Protestant Church is the great Legisla- tor of England ; it is the g^eat editor of England ; it is the amusing novelist of England; it is the Prime Minister of England ; and it is the parish beadle of England ; it is the painter, it is the sculptor, it is the traveller, it is the teacher, the preacher, it is the general and the admiral, and, alas ! in all and each of these pursuits, positions, arts, &c., it is the base maligner of Catholicity, the unscrupu- lous asserter of every falsehood w^hich converts this coun- try into a fier.ce battle-field, and makes Christianity resem- ble rather the malevolence of Satan than the charity of God. Pray, can you tell, my Lord, what will be the next 328 LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON. assault of Parliament against Catholicity 1 Tell us, pray, my Lord, that we may be prepared for the voluminous misrepresentations of your press, your pulpit, your Exeter Hall, and your Senate House. Is there any tale of scan- dal in reference to a Nun on the Continent of Europe, a Convent in Asia, a Bishop in the Pacific? Can there be no story made out against a schoolmaster for whipping a child, contrary to Martin's Act ? Can there be no indict- ment forged against Nuns, for withholding legs of mutton, bitter ale, and apple-tarts, from orphans placed in their charge 1 Is there no Priests to be exposed for asking questions in the confessional on the subject of sin, to the inexpressible horror of the spotless innocence, and of the hysterical disedification of the angelic purity of your Di- vine Church ? Is there no book in the Catholic Church which defiles the transparent mind of Protestantism, and which, therefore, ought to be brought before Parliament, and there receive the just irrevocable condemnation of the accredited judges of Christian morality and evangelical perfection? Can no Act of Parliament be framed against the unrighteous length of our Clerical surtouts, made as they are, according to a Papal pattern, and with the clear intent of ridiculing the Russell paletot ! Ah, my Lord, you have overbalanced yourself — you have brought derision on your Government and on your Administration, and you have made the name of Whig be the by-word of broken faith and official perfidy — ^you are at war witb the whole world and with God-r-your shave- beggars in Canada, in India, in Australia, at the Cape, and at home, are the theme of universal complaint in the en- LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON. 329 tire journals of the country ; and, in reference to my Mn- fortunate, persecuted, plundered country, I have heard from the lips of the illustrious, the venerable, Lord Clon- curry, that in all his experience, he "had never known more than two Viceroys who knew anything of the govern- ment in Ireland." In the future speeches which you may deliver on the state of Catholicity on the Continent, and on the character of the Pope, and the conduct of the Priests, do, I pray you to persevere. Sir, in your ridicule and misstatements. All the world now understands you, and that it happens the contrary of your statement is the truth. Do not, therefore. Sir, malign us by your praise ; do, Sir, if you please, compliment us and our Church by your distinguished misrepresentations. Do us the favor of your disapprobation, and give us the character, before all Europe, w^hich knows you, of having earned the impe- rishable honor of your ministerial malignity. In these remarks, founded on historical evidence, I fancy I am the best fiiend of England's security, and the truest ser- vant of the stability of the throne in thus exposing a sys- tem of policy, w^hich has convulsed our entire national re- lations abroad, and has disturbed the universal peace of our fellovir-subjects at home. I have the honor to be, my Lord Viscount, your humble servant, &c. D. W. CAHILL, D.D. N. B. — I shall send a printed copy of this letter to your Lordship, but I do not expect an answer ; and I shall enclose a copy of it to all the foreign ambassadors of the Catholic Courts resident in London, that they will do jus- •ino tn the iniured cause of Catholicity, by publishing it in DR. CAHILL TO THE RI&HT HONORABLE THE EARL OF CARLISLE. "1 am aware that it is thought by many, that, so far from the case ol *he Madiai being s solitary instance, the prisons of Italy are at this mo- nent crowded with the victims of religious persecution. * * They lave continually assured us, that the old principle and codes of intole- -ance, once certainly (and I readily admit, not exclusively) ffttached to -.heir Church, had fallen into practical disuetude, and were viewed by hem with at least as much abhorrence as by ourselves. "vVe gave them credit for the generous self-assertion. I will not waste your space by a reference to what is of so little moment, as my cwn career; but I feel that on the whole, it has not lagged in sympathy for their just rights. What has since happened ? A man is in danger of meeting with his death under a judicial sentence, for the offence of reading the Bible. The fact, as far as yet I know, is not controverted. It is known there are some — it is believed there «re many undergoing similar risks. I must repeat, that upon the mode in which the Roman Catholic body at large treat these contemporary occurrences, their place in the esti- mation even of their most sincere well wishers must lax'gely depend." {Extract of Lord Carlisle's Letter to the ^'Leeds Mercury") Cambrioge:, Jarmary 27, 1853. My Lord Earl, — I have been very much impressed, indeed, to learn from the London journals of yesterday morning, that your Lordship has allied your most respect- ed name, and added the prestige of your exalted charac- ter, to the insatiable calumniators of the Catholic creed ; and that, in the composed moments of a deliberate letter, you have not only thought proper to make statements at variance with historical, legal, and ecclesiastical records; but, even, as may be gathered from the above extract, to introduce half assertions and covert insinuations, almost approaching to a sneer, below the dignity of Lord Mor- peth, and the world-wide reputation of the Earl of Car- lisle. Having followed, for many years, the influential LETTER TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE. 331 language of your advocacy of my unhappy country, it is with great pain, that I have read your authority quoted at Exeter Hall, by the unrelenting enemies of Ireland ; and although I should not have condescended to reply to the scandalous misstatements, which issue like a foul tor- rent against Catholicity, from the overflowing daily publi- cations of this country, your name demands an immediate reply, and your services to Ireland, demand the most graceful answer, w^hich personal respect and public grati- tude can dictate. You are w^ell aware, my Lord, that the writings of Vol- taire, Diderot, D'Alembert, and Frederick of Prussia, and many others, deluged the eastern and southern parts of Europe, during the latter part of the eighteenth century. These political and religious revolutions proscribed all monarchical and Christian institutions ; " liberty and equality," were the two principles which their disciples published and advocated ; and the united efforts of the most abandoned men that the world ever saw, were con- centrated in the unchristian, sacrelegious, and treasonable combination to " uproot the altar and the throne." In order to carry out their principles of disorder, infidelity, and vengeance, they met together under the name of " a new and higher degree of Freemasonry, called lUumine- ism," and their places of meeting were so numerous, par- ticularly in France, that Diderot was heard to say, "We have at this moment enrolled in our society upwards o." six hundred thousand men, opposed to civil tyranny and Papal authority." The German Protestants followed in the wake of these 339 LETTER TO THE EARL OP CARLISLE. revolutionists, and under the pretext of holding meetings for religious worship, aided, as history asserts, the pro- gress of the infidels against Catholicity. It was under these circumstances, that both France and the Italian States took the alarm, and passed laws to protect the State and the Altar ; and hence, in the year 1786, the Tuscan Government enacted a law against " private con- venticles," which prohibited any one to hold a meeting in his own house, or to form a meeting in the house of a third party, under any pretext whatever — even of reli- gion, without the sanction, and the written legal license of the civil authorities. Two points, are therefore clear, from these premises ; namely: this Law, which was never before known in Tus- cany, grew^ out of the acknowledged and patent danger of civil revolution; and secondly, that Law had no reference whatever, either directly or indirectly, to forbidding the circulation of the Word of God, or punishing the reading of the Bible. Its object was, definitely to refuse hiding places to bands of sanguinary infidels, and to scatter the dens of perjured revolutionists. This is the Law under which the " martyred Madiai" have been condemned — a Law, be it remembered, intro- duced for the first time into Tuscany, in 1786 ; and framed, not against the Word of God, but against perfidy; not against religion of any kind, but against blasphemy; not against liberty, either civil or religious, but to protect God and man from a scene of blood and devastation, which these monsters soon after enacted in the streets of Paris, in the autumn of 1791. The slaughter in that city LETTER TO THE E \RL OF CARLISLE. 333 on that disastrous day, the succeeding war of Europe, the blood spilled in Spain, Portugal, Germany, Russia, and Italy, and your own National Debt — all demonstrate the prudence of Tuscany in the Laws of 1786, and prove, beyond all contradiction, that your Lordship has made misstatements, in ascribing ecclesiastical tyranny in what you are pleased to call " the Roman Church," to the pru- dent and essential enactments of the Tuscan Government. The Catholic Church, therefore, has no necessity to re- trace her steps ; her office, at present, is rather to teach history to English Lords; and to entreat poets, that, before they make speeches or write letters, they will pay more attention to their loose statements, and be convinced, that the applause of Leeds, is a small compensation for the cutting and lasting iron of the Catholic historians of Eu- rope. I am now come, my Lord, to the precise case at issue, viz., the case against the Madiai ; and I assert, that they have not been visited by a "judicial sentence," as you are pleased to write, for the reading of the Bible. I regret, for the sake of your Lordship, that you have written these words. Beyond all contradiction, you are unacquainted w^ith the case, and, therefore, your misstatement is the result of very great culpability. Under a decided igno- rance of the &ct, you charge the Catholic Church ■with intolerance ; you awaken bitter rancor in hearts not yet cooled down from a late religious burning phrenzy, which has no parallel in Europe ; and you call upon all the Ca- tholics in these countries to "earn your iuture esteem," by condemning laws which have never existed ; and branding 334 LETTER TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE. Tuscany for crushing the progress of civil revolution As I hold in my hand the indictment of the Tuscan At- torney-General, I can command your Lordship's atten- tion, while I again beg leave to instruct you in the revival of the lavir of 1786, and its practical application to the case before us. The history of Europe records in letters of fire, tha scenes of revolutionary violence which have been enacted during the last six years in Switzerland, Hungary, France^ Naples, and Northern Italy. You are, I am convinced, acquainted with these facts, and you have no doubt been made ft-miliar with the names of Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Lord Minto, Lord Cowley, Sir Stratford Canning, and young Sir Robert Peel. And, no doubt, you have heard of Garibaldi, Cicerouacchio, Paruzzi, the free corps of Berne, and the Red Republicans of at least five European kingdoms ; and I dare say, you have' seen each and every one of the revolutionists; have had the ho- nor of corresponding with her Majesty's Ambassadors at the various Courts, being personally known to them, re- ceiving presents from some of them ; and, above all, of being patronized by those official English noblemen and gentlemen, at the very time when these incendiaries were about to involve their respective countries in civil war, banishing their lawful sovereigns, and preparing for un- limited spoliation and universal treason. These are facts, my Lord, which may be read in the records of every city, from Constantinople to Turin, and from Berlin to Naples ; in each of which cities, beyond all doubt, they, the English Embassies, were the public. LETTER TO THE EARL OP CARLISLE. 335 palpable places of resort of the revolutionists. In this crisis, the Tuscan Government, finding herself threatened on all sides, as in the end of the last century, and fronx none more, than the paid spies of the English Govern- ment, revised, for the first time these last fifty years. Ar- ticle 60 of the Law of the 30th Nov., 1786, and attached new binding restrictions to the ancient Law in Article 1, 4, 9, 14, on March 4th, 1849 ; and they gave increased power to their officials in Articles 34 and 35 of the Tus- can Police Regulations. But the revival of this La'w in 1849, had no reference to the prohibiting of the Word of God ; its sole object being, as was the case in 1786, to protect the State from the explosive elements of universal revolution. The law referred to, is "The Tuscan Convention Act," which prevents men, under the appearance of religion, from meeting privately w^ithout the sanction of the civil authority. And, here again, may I beg to ask you, if this Law was not most prudent, seeing the French king hunt- ed from his throne; the Pope concealing himself in civi- lian dress, as he fled from the Vatican ; the Emperor of Austria threatened with imminent danger ; the King of Sardinia killed by treachery ; and the King of Naples all but expelled his dominions 1 It was in this crisis that a well-know^n band of fifty English evangelizers entered Florence; and, dividing themselves into five sections of ten each, proceeded to open several conventicles in this small city. They neither had, nor sought a license. Hav- ing a place of public Protestant worship in Florence, it may be asked why have there been bo many private un- 336 LETTER TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE. licensed conventicles ? Again, I have examined the sta- tistics of the city of Rome, and I lea™ that fifty Protes- tant families are the largest number ever known to have resided there during the winter; twenty, the largest num- ber in Florence, in the same season. Wherefore, then, the I'en conventicles unlicensed? And this too, during the year when the surrounding countries were shaken to their foundations. Hosa Madiai resided in England sixteen years, and returning to Florence, became, and was a Pro- testant during five years previous to the trial referred to. She read the word of Grod to w^hich you allude, during these five years without molestation; she could go to church without hindrance; and consequently your Lord- lip's statement in reference to "the offence of reading the Bible," is a shameful misstatement, wholly without foundation either in law or fact. But I w^ill tell your Lordship the offence of Signora Madiai and her "dear" husband. They perseveringly held closed-door conventicles against the warnings of the police, repeated ten times; they distributed at least eleven thousand copies of your Bible, containing, as I can prove, wards of sixteen hundred variations from the original ext : persuaded, inveigled, and bribed the Italian chil- ••en to come to these five conventicles, to hear their in- structions, and to take these anti-Catholic sources of in- struction : they were associated with several colporteurs, as they are called, in sending these Bibles through the country: they had indecent pictures of the Blessed Vir- gin in fly-sheets, to be distributed by two players of bar- rel organs, whom they hired for the purpose: they had LETTER TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE. 337 sjips of paper, on ■whicli was ■w^ritten in large letters in Italian, " w^afer-gods :" they had pictures of Purgatory, with representations of souls looking through the bars, and the priest in soutanne, bargaining with them for two " scuddi :" they had uttered most indecent things of the " Confessional," and ended all these readings of the word of God by an attack on the Pope, characterizing him, as the man of sin — the Antichrist. This case, perhaps, the most atrocious that can be ima- gined against the feelings, the convictions, the conscience, and the peace of their quiet and unoffending neighbors — and expressed by your Lordship as " reading the Bible," was decided on the Sth of June last, by Signer Niccola Nervini, and the penalties of the violated law enforced. The "judicial sentence," therefore, has been pronounced against individuals palpably in connection w^ith wealthy English associates : men who could import eleven thou- sand Bibles ; pay colporteurs, as Clarendon did in Spain ; employ barrel organ players ; print caricatures of Catho- licity ; revile the laws of the country ; insult the Pope ; defy the police; ridicule our Holy Eucharist; pay prin- ters for a constant supply of all sorts of fly- sheets, and en- tertain with great expense, the fifty holy men who would not read the Bible in a public church, but make the Word of God a pretext for maligning the laws, creating civil strife, and violating the public peace ! If the Duke of Tuscany, or any one else — no matter who he may be, imposed civil penalties for the religious opinions which his subjects may quietly and individually adopt, I should be the first to raise my voice against him, 338 LETTER TO THE 'EARI. OF CARLISLE. and cry him down as a sanguinary persecutor. But he has enforced the laws of his state against covert revolu- tionists, public calumniators, a band of foreign conspira- tors, and the unrestrained hired disturbers of the public peace. And pray, my Lord, on what authority do you state, that the prisons of Italy are "crowded with victims of persecution?" I call for your authority, and I firmly demand it. I know you are an historian and a scholar — I respect your high acquirements, but I demand the au- thority on which you utter this most false assertion. I challenge your Lordship to produce it; and I hereby un- dertake to say, that where the prisons are full, they are filled with the followers of Mazzini and Garibaldi, and with the known cut-throats of Italy. Leaving the laws of Tuscany, my Lord, for a moment to be executed by the Italians, let me now turn to exa- mine our laws on this identical point. And as I have form- ed an exalted idea of the honesty and religious feeling of the English people as a nation, I shnll not allude to times gone by, when Acts of Parliament were passed, which, I am convinced, make the present generation blush in shame; w^hen churches and lands were seized to the amount of at least fifty millions of our present currency ; when laws were enacted against nonconformists and recu- sants, which, by fines, banishment, and death, made at least seventy thousand victims in England and Ireland ; when to pray to G-od in public, was death; to read or write anything under a teacher was felony ; and, when it was a crime even to be alive. I shall not allude to these days, my Lord but shall con- LETTER TO THE EARL OP CARLISLE. 339 fine myself to the law called, "Dissuading from Worship." This law, which was passed 3.5th Elizabeth, c. 1. s. 1., and afterwards confirmed by the 3rd of Charles the First, c. i v., inflicted fine ar.d confinement on any person who would" disuade another from frequenting the Protestant worship, and who would hold a conventicle for the same." But your Lordship will assert, as is your custom, that this law has fallen into disuetude. Quite the contrary, my Lord; as the present Lord Gainsborough has been per- secuted for holding a private unlicensed conventicle, and reading the Word of God in the same ; and although his Lordship, like Madiai, set up a plea that he was only "reading the Bible," he was fined ^620 by an English judicial sentence, and if he had not paid the money on the spot, he w^ould have been confined, like your Italian martyrs, in an English Bridew^ell. Here is a case partly in point, my Lord, which cannot be denied ; and visited by English penalties although it wanted the second ingredient of the Madiai case, viz., a covert revolution against the State, and palpable com- bination Tvith foreign conspirators. But, perhaps, your Lordship will again say, this odious law is now^ at least obsolete. Far from it. It is still unrepealed, and remains in your Statute Book, to be enforced to-morrow, against any oflTending British subject, as well as Lord Gainsborough. For proof of this, I beg to refer your Lordship to the Sixth Report (page 110) of the Law Commissioners appointed to revise what are called the Catholic Toleration Laws in the year 1839, two years after the accession of our pre- sent gracious Queen. Their report is as follows : " ' '^-''■""n Toleration Laws make any mention of 340 LETTER TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE. the 35lh Elizabeth, or describe the offences therein contained. These offences consist in the inciting of others, by a person who obstinately refuses to repaii- to the church, tO' abstain from going there, or to fre- quent unlawful places of worship. Hence, there is no mode under the existing law by which a Roman Catholic who commitsmny of the offen- ces can a.void the penalties." Here is the precise case of the Macliai ; divested of the revolutionary element (propagando Protestantisrho,) here is the exact case, so far as it goes, of obstinately refus- ing to frequent the Tuscan Church, and dissuading others from the same ; so that your Laws condemn for a minor offence, what is only visited with the same penalties in Tuscany when combined with covert conspiracy and poli- tical revolution. From these premises, my Lord, it turns out, strangely enough, that your condemnation of the Duke of Tuscany, applies with far greater force, unintentionally on your part, of course, to our gracious Queen : that the speeches at Exeter Hall must be fairly shared by the Court of St. James's with the Tuscan monarch: that the deputation of Lord Roden has been a silent reproach on our own divine laws ; and that the deputation from Prussia to Tuscany, at present in contemplation, would do well to come by ■way of London, and make a remonstrance to our beloved, upright, and decorous Lord John Campbell, before they open their sacred mission on the Italian Peninsula. You must, I dare say, my Lord, thus concede to me* that I am well furnished with an accurate knowledge of the Tuscan laws, with a clear statement of all the circum- stances of the case at issue: that similar laws, divested of revolution, remain unrepealed in your own country, and have been enforced on a man still alive ; and hence, I eaU LETTER TO THE EARL OP CARLISLE. 34 1 apon you, as a sincere friend of Ireland, and of her perse- cuted, maligned creed, either to substantiate your unex- pected charges, or withdraw your name from the list of our calumniators. We are trodden down by a nume- rous host of unprincipled revilers, but Ireland has hearts and tongues, and pens, still to sustain the ancient tradi- tions of her unblemished patriotism, and fearlessly to de- fend, even unto death, those points in the citadel of her creed where Augustin and Jerome once stood, clad in the invincible armor w^hich had never been pierced by the spear of the enemy ! I have the honor to be, my Lord Earl, with the most profound and grateful respect, your Lordship's obedient servant, D.W.CAHILL, D.D. P. S. — ^I shall send a printed copy of this letter to your Lordship, and any communication which you may con- descend to address to St. Paul's Square, Liverpool, can- not fail to reach me. THE EARL OF CARLISLE TO DR. CAHILL. Rkv. Sir — Having" sent my letter to a newspaper, and thus exposed it to any remark, refutation, or censure it might meet with^ it is not my intention to enter into further controversy on the subject ; but as you have done me the honor to call my notice to a letter you have written in reply, drawn up in a spirit of much courtesy to myself, as well as with very great ability, I diink it right to acknowledge the receipt of your communication. Upon the case in question, I content myself with observing, that in the report I had read of the sentence pronounced upon the Madiai, one -f the flistinct counts or heada of accufiation is, that they had been en- 342 LETTER TO THE EART. OF CARLISLE. ga^ed in reading the Bible ( translated by Diodati,) in company with three persons and a young girl, who was an inmate of their house ; and another is that Francesco Madiai had given a prohibited version to a young man of sixteen. I am willing to admit, that I should have ex- pressed myself with more entire accuracy if I had said "under a judi- iiial sentence for the offence of reading the Bible, and other acts of proselytism." I nm not prepared to name any authorities for my assertion, "that it is thought by many that the Italian prisons are filled with victims of religious persecution." The authority I give is my own. It is thought by many ; I have found the impression current in the society in which I have mixed, and if it is a false one, it is certainly desirable that the public mind should not be disabused. I regret that from recent change of place this brief communication will not reach you so soon as I should have wished. I have the honor to be. Rev. Sir, your humble servant, February 5, 1853 CARLISLE. REV. DR. CAHILL'S REPLY. Cambridge February 6, 1853. My Lord Earl, — I beg leave to offer to your Lordship, the unfeigned expression of my profound acknowledg- ments for the courteous promptitude of your generous and characteristic letter, to the humble individual who has had the honor of addressing you. The Roman Catholics of Great Britain, who justly va- lue your manly political career, and my unfortunate coun- trymen, who owe to your consistent sympathy a debt of national gratitude, will be rejoiced to learn from your commu nication to me, that pai"t of your charges against the political government of a Catholic Sovereign was found- ed upon mere current English reports; and that the re- maining portion of your public letter, arose from the cir- cumstance of your not being minutely acquainted with the indictment and the judicial sentence of the Madiai. LETTER TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE. 343 I shall not dwell long on this point, except to assure the accomplished, the high-minded, and the chivalrous Earl of Carlisle, that he stands acquitted on the charge of ioining the ranks of our remorseless calumniators, or of ■vounding our grateful national feelings. I shall now, my Lord, take advantage of your suggeB- don, in refeience to "disabusing the public mind of the Silse imp'sssions In the Madiai case, current in English society ;" and I shall direct your attention to the two leading misrepresentations circulated with such industri- ous malignity in this country. The first false impression which anti-Catholic journa- lism has stamped on the credulous, honest English mind, arises from a passage in the reply of the Duke of Cassa- gliano to Lord Roden, viz : "The Madiai, Tuscan subjects, to whom you refer, have been con- demned to five years' imprisonment, by the ordinary tribunals, for the crime of propagating Protestantism." The second false impression sought to be made, is found- ed on the misstatement, namely: "that the Madiais are punished for merely reading the Bible." By the first statement, English Protestants are called on to believe that a Catholic power punishes Protestan- tism as a mere religious tenet ; by the second misrepre- sentation, they are urged into the calumnious conclusion that the Tuscan Laws prohibit the Word of God, and make penal the reading of the Scriptures. I assert then, my Lord, that the first position is notoriously false, and is contradicted by the clearest records of continental his- tory; and I say that the second is a flagrant lie, and re- ceives a flat peremptory denial from the charge of the 344 LETTER TO THE EARL OP CARLISLE. judge, who was president of the court, and who pronounc- ed the judicial sentence of condemnation on the Madiai. In proving- the first point, I regret being compelled to recal past events of European history, which every gene- rous heart would fain bury in perpetual oblivion, and which makes every honest and honorable mind shudder^ at contemplating these crimsoned pages, and these anti- christian deeds of our history, written in the days of" re- formed gospel light, and executed in the name of God. — But these chronicled facts are necessary in the present instance, in order to show that the word Protestantism, in its commencement, its progress, and its final consumma- tion, did not mean, nor ever has been understood to mean, in the history of Catholic Europe, the mere element of a certain religious faith. No, my Lord, decidedly not; it means, and has ever meant, in the incontrovertible records of European history, an aggregate of tenets, and a body of collateral practices clashing with Catholicity, as a con- scientious creed, opposed to the sacred ties of Catholic so- ciety, originated in professed hostility against the spiri- tual head of the Catholic Church, and leagued by the doc- trine of their first founders against Catholic monarchy, and Catholic political power. If these assertions be true as recorded, not by me, but by the Catholic historians of Europe, is it not a mean suppression of the truth to assert, that the Italian States prescribe Protestantism, as a mere conscientious creed; whereas, wherever the word occurs, it means the aggregate of the historical indictment to which I have just referred. You must understand me, my I cd; I am not in this letter making those charges; cer- LETTER TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE. 315 tainiy aot; I am explaining tlie language of the Laws of Tusc&fiy and of other Catholic States, in the case before us; and in the succeeding part of this communication we shall see, if they are justified in their legislation on the aggressors of Protestantism, according to the universally received continental impression. I regret, sincerely, my Lord, the cause, and the existence of these impressions; I should efface them if I could ; but T must take them as I have read them, heard them, and, in fact, felt them ; 1 have not made the case, I merely exposed it. Firstly, then, my Lord, Luther and associates, w^ith one blow^ struck down, as the first precept of his decalogue, the spiritual authority of the Pope, as supreme head of the Church; and this point being the very main-spring of Catholicity, it is no wonder that such a levelling ag- gression should arouse the vigilance of every Catholic dynasty in Europe ; and this step w^as not an impulse of the man, but a doctrine of his new creed, and violently enforced to this day. Secondly, he and his entire evangelical staff, encou- raged polygamy; and, of course, plurality of wives, by granting officially permission to the Landgrave of Hesse to marry a second wife, the first being still living. And this permission he gave not from the caprice of the mis- taken friend, but from the new creed of his followers, and in order to promote the salvation of the Prince and the glory of God. In writing to the Prince on the subject, he says : — 'Your Highness, therefore, hatb, in this writing, not only the appro- bation of us all, concerning what you desire : but having weighed it in ojr reflection, we beseech and beg of God to direct all for his glcry and ynur Highness's salvation !" 346 LETTER TO THE EARL OP CARLISLE. And surely enough, my Lord, fhey all did approve of it, and all signed the document in very discreet and grave language; and in putting their names to the dispensation, so scrupulously apostolic were they, that they would not even omit the Saint's name of the day, it being executed as they wrote it, " on the Wednesday after the feast of St. Nicholas," and endorsed, Martin Luther, Philip Melanc- thon, Martin Bruce, Anthony Corvin, Adam Jeningue, Justus Winterte, Denis Melanther. .Here, again, my Lord, it is not surprising if Catholic States become exceedingly alarmed at the progress of the new faith, seeing that besides mere mental, and spiri- tual, and supernatural tenets, it introduced Mahomeda- nism ; blasted all conjugal bliss ; rent asunder the sacred ties of home) and undivided love; degraded w^omaninto Pagan infamy; converted matrimony into a licentious scheme of pei-jury and adultery; and, according to the received laws of Christianity, went directly to bastardize the rising Ca- tholic generations of the world. Thirdly, he called on the population of the German States to rise up against their Catholic Emperor ; and he openly declared, that all allegiance should be ■withdrawn from any king or potentate in communion with the Pope, whom he denounced as the devil and anti-ohrist ; and the third.development of his divine creed was not to be as- cribed to the treasonable phrenzy of the rebel, or to the wild plans of the revolutionist. Not at all, my Lord ; no such thing. It was part of the new faith — an item in the new inspiration, tending, as in the case of the Land- grave of Hesse, to the glory of God, and the salvation of the soul. LETTER TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE. 347 For the truth of this revealed, reformed, ethical dogma, I beg to refer your Lordship to your own historian, Slei- dan, book v., page 74. Such, even, w^as the violence produced against monarchy, by this article of the ne'w Protestant Faith, that the Low Countries, Switzerland, and all Grermany, burst into open revolution ; Zuinglius, the co-apostle of Luther, even joined the rebels in Switzer- land, and was found among the dead, killed in battle. The dominions of the celebrated Charles V. were menaced with such danger by Luther, and the princes ■who joined his standard, that Charles was compelled to give them battle, in which his troops w^ere victorious, scattering the enemy, and taking the Landgrave of Hesse and the Duke of Saxony prisoners, on the Elbe, May 26th, 1547. Here again, my Lord, is it a matter of sur- prise, if all the Catholic Sovereigns of Europe hastened to form a defensive alliance in order to guard their conscience, their Faith, their honor, the sanctity of their families, the cause of morality, the inheritance of their thrones, and the possession and peace of their dominions from a system, w^hich tended to change w^oman into a beast, man into a pagan, and which stood in naked defiance of the ordinances of God, the Gospel of Christ, and the indissoluble laws and customs of human society? Fourthly, if these undeniable doctrines, and these au- thenticated historic facts, ceased Tvith the name, cha- racter, and prestige of the first founders of these novel- ties, the precaution taken by Catholic countries might also fall into oblivion, and European society resume its former Christian and political peace. But, my Lord, the S48 LETTER TO THE EARL OP CARLISLE. case is otherwise ; and the history of England and Scot land, and Ireland, and France, and Germany, to which 1 shall not here further allude, supply the thrilling com- mentary — namely, that during the one hundred and fifty years which elapsed, after the death of these first apostles, a scene of practical persecution of Catholics, and a record of universal desolation, marked the track of this Faith everywhere it appeared, and made the name of Protes- tantism be identified with national spoliation, relentless persecution, withering penalties on conscience, together with the confiscation, banishment, and death of thousands of its defenceless and wasted victims. Let us be candid, my Lord ; has not this been the universal character of Protestantism in every country where a Catholic dare raise his voice in defence of his creed or his country ? Let me be plain, my Lord ; is not this the cause why every Catholic country, where the standard of Protestantism has been raised in dominant triumph, has been wasted, beg- gared, spoliated, and ruined 1 Fifthly, do you wonder, then, my Lord, that the laws of Catholic Europe have been framed with defensive, not offensive caution, against a system combining in doctrine, and in the continued practices of successive centuries, an aggregate of religious and political principles, incompati- ble with the security and the consistency of Catholic States and people ? My Lord, 1 mean no offence, either to Protestants or Englishmen, by recalling these dark scenes of your his- tory ; certainly not ; I dare not offend in your presence ■ and I feel assured, that Englishmen and Protestants of the LETTER TO THE EARL OP CARLISLE. 349 present day, in this country and elsewhere, blush for their ancestors in reading this sad and sullied page of their an- cient story. I should not even allude to these past event- ful days, under ordinary circumetances; but when I see, read, and hear, one national huge lie, spoken, cried aloud, posted, gazetted, published, printed, spouted, and preach- ed; w^hen I read American, Prussian, Dutch, Scotch, and German interference called, in order to mitigate the sen- tence of imprisonment, put publicly forward, in the gross- est falsehood ever promulgated in England ; and vrhen I behold all the journals, all the Bible Societies, all the Irish Parsons, banded'together in swelling the discord of an his- torical, public, notorious, palpable lie, against the laws, civic language, religion, creed, and defensive enactments of a foreign Catholic power, I am come fearlessly forward, sustained by the History of Europe, (to which I challenge discussion,) to defend the thesis, "that Protestantism has never meant on the Continent of Catholic Europe a code of mere religious, spiritual tenets ;" but on the contrary, its acceptation has ever been an anti-christian, anti-social, anti-Catholic, anti-conjugal mixture of paganism, infidelity, spoliation, and persecution. It is false, therefore, to assert that the word " Protestantism," in the note of the Duke de Castigliano, means a mere religious tenet, detached from its social and political associations. This assertion is unequivocally false. The Tuscan laws jn heresy are written in four volumes (quarto) in Latin, to which I beg to refer your Lordship, and which, by their dates arid provisions will prove to your satisfaction the position which I have taken 350 LETTER TO THE EARL OP CARLISLE. And will your Lordship give me leave to ask, if the con duct of Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston, the old decrepid family ministry, have served to awaken confi- dence in the case at issuw? On this point, T have, for years past, already explained my views, without contradiction, but I shall add one word more — namely, that in the whole course of official recklessness, nothing, perhaps, has ever appeared in the lives and annals of English Ministers, w^hich can bear the most remote comparison with the as- tounding assertion reported to have been made in the House of Commons, by Lord Palmerston, viz., " that it was the intention of the official men with' w^hom he acted, to form into one independent kingdom all that territory which stretches from Genoa to Venice!" Hence, read; my Lord, the present history and events of Piedmont ; look at the revolutionary spirit of Turin ; and, (just like the deceived Hungarians, the deluded Neapolitans, the relent- less Swiss, and the ungrateful Romans,) these speeches of our functionaries have encouraged the discontented of these nations to rush into rebellion, and afterwards to expiate by public degradation, banishment, or death, the evil fo- reign councils, when in a moment of misplaced confiding honor, they listened to heartless bigoted diplomatists, against the dictates of conscience, the voice of reason, and the call of national duty. In fact, wherever the emissaries of the Bible Society, or the paid spies of the English Government were permitted to innoculate the public mind with the doctrines I have referred to, their victims lost all religion to God and all allegiance to the throne. Seduced by bribery to abandon LETTER TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE. 351 the Faith of their fathers, their consciences became seared from theii perjured change of creed. From perjury and apostacy, the space, my Lord, to infidelity is not far; and hence, these conventicles of Florence and elsewhere, ■were avowed dens of revolution and atheism. Beyond all doubt, my Lord, the Tuscan Government, or any other Government similarly situated; had, in the late circum- stances of Europe, only two questions to decide — namely, " Whether their duty was to teach order and Christianity, Or to preach rebellion and atheism." And they had also another principle to decide — viz: "Whether they, the Ultramontanists, should hold their tongues, and cease to protect order, morality, truth, justice, and faith, for fear of displeasing the intolerant framers of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill ; contradicting the mild, and the wise, and the grave, far-seeing Legislators of old clothes proclamation ; scandalizing the sacred career of the Saints of Exeter Hall, incurring the holy anger of the modern, ancient, mortified primeval Protestant Church, the true follower of the cross, disturbing the last exemplary moments of the dying apostles, the probates of •whose edifying wills amount in several cases to the truly apostolic standard of tw^o, three, and four hundred thousand pounds ! these self- denying creatures, having reserved this trifle in teaching this most sacred reforming thing called Protestantism." When, my Lord, if I were not restrained by the pre- sence of your Lordship, my boiling blood, and the red fifraves of my starved and murdered poor countrymen, plundered by this anti-Christian church, would compel me to raise my voice in loud contumely, and indignant 3,'>2 LETTER TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE. scorn, against the universal cant, the unblushing hypocrisy, and the gigantic lies of a band of imposters and bigots t who have squeezed out the very dregs of our national existence, and who raise, whenever a pretext offers itself at home and abroad, a cry of misrepresentation and insult, "which degrades the fine, noble character of the English people as a nation — range in hostility to your name and your country the disgust and indignation of Catholic Eu- rope; and has already laid the materials of a disastrous explosion beneath the foundation of England's pow^er ; which, if not removed in time, by truth, kindness, tolera- tion, and national honor, may, very soon, as your Lord- ship has predicted, be ignited by your injured, insulted, and powerful enemies ; and, in a moment of unexpected fate, like your overthrow in America, shiver to atoms the entire fabric of your national greatness. In referring to the second point of this letter, I have al- ready proved, that the Madiai were not condemned for "reading the Bible." The statement put forth in the pub- lic prints is utterly false. Their crime was "holding un- lawful meetings with closed doors, contrary to the laws of the Tuscan Conventicle Act" — in which unlawful meet- ings, held without even demanding a license, a band of fo- reign conspirators, by bribery, by ridicule of the clergy, by caricaturing the Catholic religion, by reviling the laws, by distributing inflammatory fly-sheets, encouraged sedition, violated the public peace, and laid the founda- tion, as far as lay in their power, of those sudden and disastrous revolutions which convulsed all the neighbour- ing States, and had nearly crumbled five ancient thrones. LETTER TO THE EARL OP CARLISLE. 353 And while discussing this part of my subject, I shall take leave to remind your Lordship of the standing, imperish- able, eternal life which the Protestant church has stereo- typed in all her books, lectures, sermons, letters, speeches, through every part of the w^orM where her literature is cultivated, where her power is felt, and her voice heard. The enormous, unfading lie, my Lord, is "that the Catho- lic church will not permit the reading of the word of Grod." Our church declares the contrary; our bishops write it, our priests preach it, our pamphlets publish it, our writers promulgate it, our booksellers print it over their doors, in their bills, their prospectus ; and the whole w^orld know^s it, except the poor wretched dupes of the swarm of bigots who stop the ears, gag the mouths, blind the eyes of their bew^ildered followers, to such an as- tounding, incredible, heartening degree of mesmeric bibli- cism and awfiil infatuation, that you hear and read state- ments every day made in contradiction to a fact, palpable as the earth under their feet, obvious as the Thames that runs through the city of London, and clear and uncloud- ded as a brilliant noonday sun in a summer sky. It is a most melancholy thing to see a whole nation of people, placed in such a deplorable hopeless state of utter men- tal helplessness, and incapability of seeing and believing on the most notorious facts of the Old World. The only thing which I can recollect, as approaching at all in incredibility to the biblical delusion, is the case of the man mentioned in Moore's " Gentleman in Search of a Religion." This man took it into his head " that he was; made of fresh butter," and consequently could never 12 354 LETTER TO THE EARL OP CARLISLE. be induced to go near the fire ; and although his friends made every effort that moral ingenuity could devise to cure him, he went to his grave impervious to every hu- man motive of persuasion, and died under ground, out of the reach of the sun, shivering with the cold. Not tho least singular part, too, of this crafty hypocrisy on the part of the foreign spy biblicals, is, when they assert that the Catholics are hostile to the "Word of God, because they will not receive their English perverted text. And al- though it is easy to see that they w^ould not take our bi- bles, with our notes and comments; and they stand acquit- ted of all hostility to the w^ork of God, yet they will not allow the same argument to be applied to us, when we spurn their mutilated, ill-translated text, w^here whole books are omitted ; w^here inspiration is denied ; where tenses are changed; particles omitted or introduced at pleasure ; where philological meanings are received against the admitted practical, living, speaking interpretation; and above all, where the bible-reader, who distributes these stammering, broken records, does not write objectionable notes and comments — no, he speaks his comments ; he spends hours and days, accompanying his readings with caricatures of the Host ; philippics against the Confessio- nal ; ridicule of the ever blessed Virgin Mary ; lies of the Pope ; and, concludes all this pious reading in the Lanes and the Alleys of London ; in the hovels of Clifden and Connemara; in the streets of Kells, as well as in the plains of Lombardy, where he receives perjurious bribes from the hypocrites of the Bible Societies of credulous Eng- land, and the remorseless, unmitigable Orange Parsons of Ireland. LETTER TO THE EARL OP CARLISLE. 355 But time may yet tell a saddening tale, my Lord, when the Legislators of England may wish to recal these crying insults to the Catholic name ; when every available Irish hand may be wanted to repel the foreign foe ; when evei-y Irish heart, which now bleeds with the fresh opened wounds of centuries of persecution, may be called on to spring to the national defences, and there pour out, as poor, insulted, faithful Ireland has often done before, the last drop of her circling life-blood in defence of a nation that oppresses us; of institutions that degrade us ; a Par- liament that insults us ; a civilization that debases us ; a commerce that robs us — and a power that emaciates and kills us. Wait a'while, my Lord ; but I fevently pray, that the future which your Lordship seems to dread, may never become present; and that able statesmen, and not fatal bigots; wise laws, and not insults; toleration, and not persecution; honor, and not deceit, may change the aspect of English legislation, and render England the sincere, generous parent of all her subjects, and not the tyrant and the enemy of a third of her devoted, and pa- tient, and loyal servants. I have the honor to be, my Lord Earl, with the most profound respect, your Lordship's obedient servant, D, W. CAHILL, D.P. LETTER TO THE REV. WILLIAM ANDERSON, PASTOR OF THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. GrLASGOw, April 12, 1853. Rev. Sir — There can be no doubt that, in reference to the Holy Scriptures, your teaching and mine are very dif- ferent, indeed. I have learned the creed which I profess from the accredited voice of the Universal Church, from which your predecessors in your faith have avowedly se- parated. The history of all Christian antiquity bears tes- timony, through all nations and peoples, to the existence and the entirety of my belief at the time of your separa- tion. There was confessed but one church, and that Church was the Roman Catholic — and as the Church of Christ was built never to fail, but to be always existing, living, speaking, teaching, and saving ; and as the Catho- lic church was then the only churchin the whole world, it follows, it must have been the only true one at the time of your separation — ^while not even one congregation — perhaps, not even a single individual — through all past Christian time, up to the period of what is called 'this re- formation,' can be found possessing the religious opinions which you now hold. I regret that you foUow^ these no- velties, or that you teach them to others ; but most certain- ly, I do not feel any sentiment of 'odium' tow^ards you or your people. On the contrary, I entertain a high respect for you ; and in my private intercourse, and in my public professional character, I inculcate this my own sincere im- pression to all those who may be guided by my words, or influenced by my example. LETTER TO THE REV. WILLIAM ANDERSON. 357 I respectfully beg to assure you, that you make a great mistake, in supposing that Roman Catholics have any de- sire whatever, either to hear the tenets of your Church discussed, or to examine over again in your Church the motives which direct them in the choice of their Faith, The disciples of the Roman Catholic Church attach very little value (in reference to divine faith,) either to accom- plished declamation, or brilliant oratory; they are entirely guided by a living, speaking, infallible authority, which, in their daily reading of the Scriptures, they behold ex- pressed in the clearest, the strongest, the most obvious, the most literal, and the most emphatic clauses of the last Will and Testament of our blessed Lord. No human being of common sense, has ever been knojvn to bequeath in the solemn awful hour of death, metaphorical, or alle- gorical, or figurative property and power to his beloved children ; and the Catholics believe that our Lord, at His death, has left a real, honajide, substantial, living autho- rity to guide His Church in Faith. Hence, they could no more consent to go to your Church, tor subject to pub lie discussion the tenets inculcated by this authority, thai> they w^ould agree to put to the issue of a public meeting the very existence of Christ, or the value of the all-saving atonement of the cross. In fact, the very decision of con- senting to such an issue, would be equivalent to the erect- ing you and your friends into the infallible authority which you denounce, and which you challenge me to de- fend in this case before us. The second paragraph of your courteous letter to me goes to concede, in clear language, the premises — namely. 358 LETTER TO THE REV. WILLIAM ANDERSON. that you and your friends may be wrong, since you admit the just hypothesis, that I might change your opinions. On the part of the Roman Catholics, I could not admit the tenable consistency of such a case, our Faith being found- ed on a provision which excludes the defensible possibility of change — namely, an infallible authority, promulgated by Christ officially, and judiciously practised by the Apostles, and still further guaranteed through all coming time by the permanent legislative presence of the Holy Ghost. No plausible sophistry, no popular discussion, no award of men's judgment, no majority of human voices can outbalance the testimony or enactment of God, which secures the immutable unity of our Faith, no more than a single ray of light can pale the meridian splendor of the sun. A Roman Catholic can never, therefore, grant the tenable possibility of the case, which you admit, and can- not therefore consent under these existing laws, to the popular issue involved in your communication. I must say, however, that so far as you are concerned, you are strictly true to your principles, in resting your Faith on the issue of the popular will. All the varieties of all the Reformation creeds, are the results of private individual judgment, or of public Parliamentary decisions. All these creeds are acknow^ledged creations of human authoiity — all these creeds are made by man, and not by God. And they have been formed too, to fall in with the tastes, and the peculiarities, and the prejudices of the various times in w^hich they were enacted ; and the clear consequence of this accommodating principle has been the incongruous fact — namely, that, within the space of three LETTER TO THE REV. WILLIAM ANDERSON. 355 hundred years these creeds have successively passed through upwards of seven hundred variations ! The Ro- man Catholics smile in pity at a Faith, which admits the principle of progress ; they cannot comprehend how any Christian mind can call that institution so divinely estab- lished by Christ, which is still continually altered by men; and they are astounded to hear serious men declare, that the Holy Ghost could be the propouuder of seven hun- dred varieties of belief, from the self-same revelation. They believe, that Faith, in point of doctrine and institu- tion, was finished by Christ and the Apostles; and they justly conclude, that men always looking for Faith have never found it; that men always changing, must necessa- rily doubt, and therefore not believe; that men always in- quiring after truth, have never discovered it; and thus, the Roman Catholics seem to have arrived at something like a mathematical demonstration, that the interminable '■hanges, and the constant acceptance of new doctrines contained in the Reformation principle, is the very defini* tion of error; is the unmistakable mark that you have lost the one essentially true Faith ; and what is worse, that you now seek to recover it in the wrong channel — namely, the decision of human reason in public controversy, and the award of human sanction in popular disputation. — Whether, therefore, you are true to wrong principles in deciding Faith in a popular assembly, is not so much, at present, the object of my unwilling animadversion, as to tell you that I am true to the ancient Catholic doctrine in not admitting such a changeable, and such an incongruous authority. 360 LETTER TO THE REV. WILLIAM ANDERSON. In your third paragraph, you say you select for assault " the three first canons of the Council of Trent." With respect, I presume to tell you that " the three first canons of the Council of Trent, " do not treat of the Mass ; they have reference to the doctrine of "justification by grace through Jesus Christ;" a belief which I fancy you do not deny. I therefore think you made a mistake in the canons referred to in* your letter. Referring to the remaining portion of your letter, I feel quite assured (judging from the tone of your communica- tion,) that so far as could be expected, you would conduct the controversy to which you invite me w^ith an amicable temper ; but you will permit me to say, that, from my experience of public controversial discussions, a wound is always inflicted on true religion by these disputations. — Public animosities are engendered; religious rancor is in- flamed ; social harmony is disturbed ; the charities of the Gospel are extinguished; and even the ties of long and Matured friendship, are but too often rent asunder by the mutiial argumentative recrimination of theological com- oat. Catholics, whose faith is fixed since the beginning of the New Law^, can receive no benefit from these dis- plays of argumentation. Dissenters have their old pre- judices awakened, their dormant intolerance revived, and they are often driven into greater errors than their former novelties ; seeking a refuge from their inconsistencies in the unbounded license of naked Infidelity These views are the result of my experience of public religious discus- sion; and while I place them with honest frankness be- fore society, being convinced they will meet the approval LETTER TO THE REV. WILLIAM ANDERSON. 361 of every reasonable Christian man in the community, who ■witness the religious contentions, and reads the accounts of the fanatical bigotry ^th which this country is con- vulsed and degraded ; I should therefore suggest to you, Reverend Sir, that our doctrine can be better learned from the cool, clear pen of learned Divines, than from the incautious extemporaneous expression of heated debate; and I shall add, that the mind, and a heart seeking really a knowledge of the truth (as I feel confident you are,) are more aptly fitted to receive the impressions of grace in silent prayer, and in deliberate, dispassionate study, than in a crowded meeting of contending parties, where the passions are inflamed, and the judgment w^arped by the excitements of public rivalship, and the hostile prejudices of party triumph. My long professional studies; the va- rious chairs of science w^hich I have filled, are, I presume to say, a sufficient guarantee, that the foregoing observa- tions are the sole considerations which influence me, in the course which I am about to adopt in the case at issue ; and for these reasons, therefore, you w^ill be pleased. Sir, to excuse me, if I decline the challenge to which you in- vite me. In the course of religious lectures, which I am called on to deliver in this country and elsewhere, I have invited Protestants to attend. If they honor me by their pre- sence, I take care never knowing to wound their conscien- tious feelings, either directly or indirectly ; and I never address my instructions to any hearers but to Roman Catholics. You, therefore, have no right to call upon me, to account for the doctrine which I have a right to teach 362 LETTER TO THE REV. WILLIAM ANDERSON. to my people. You have thought proper to send me the challenge referred to in this letter, and I have considered it my duty (from the tone of that communication) to reply to it ; but as you can have no claim on me for the con- tinuance of your respected, yet gratuitous correspon- dence, you give me leave to say, that my numerous en- gagements will not permit me to answer any future let- ters which you may think proper to address to me on this subject. I have the honor to be. Reverend Sir, with high and courteous regard, your obedient servant, D. W. CAHILL, D.D. P. S. — As your challenge has been already made pub- lic, through newspapers and placards, I shall send this communication to the Glasgow Free "Press for reluctant publication. FIVE PSOTESTAHT CLEHGYMEST, WITH THE PROTESTANT ABCHDEACON OF BAFHOE, TO SB. n ATTTT. T. Letterkenny May 30, 1853. "Rev. Sir — We, the undersigned, having heard you deliver a con" troversial lecture this evening in the Chapel of r^etterkenny, feel it our solemn duty, as ministers of God and ambassadors of Christ, to pror test against the doctrines set forth by you, as unscriptural and conti'a- ry to rile teaching of the Catholic church. We would therefore take the liberty of inviting you to a public discussion, to be carried on in a kind and Christian spirit, in which we call upon you to prove, that the doctrines contained in the twelve supplementary articles of the creed of Pope Pius the IV were ever propounded and set forth in the Chris- tian church as a creed, before the year 1564. "Secondly — We invite you to bring on the platform your rule of faith, and give us your church's authorised interpretation of the 6th, 9th, and 10th chapters St. Paul to the Hebrews — or, if you prefer it, . your church's anihorised, exposition of the simplest portions of the Holy Writ— the Lord's prayer. LETTER TO FIVE CLERGYMEIV. 363 "Thirdly — We invite yon and any nimiber of your brother priests to meet an equal number of clergy of the church of England, to prove the a.ssertions you used in endeavoring to establish the unscriptural doc- trine of the sacrifice of the Mass. Trusting you vnll receive the invi- tation in the same spirit in which it is dictated, we remain yours faith- fully in Christ. F. GooLs^ Archdeacon of Raphoe. J. Irwin, Rector of Aughaninshin. B. SuiTH, Guiute of Cornwall. J. W. Irwin, Curate of Baymohy. J. XiissKEAf Glenalla. REV. DR. CAHILL'S REPL7. Reverend Sirs — ^I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your polite note, dictated in a spirit of great courtesy, and having stamped on it the clear impress of the distinguished character of the gentlemen whose names it bears. I shall then at once proceed to give a hasty re- ply to these passages in your respected communication, which demand commentary from me. Firstly, then, I solemnly deny, and conscientiously pro- test against your unauthorised assumption, of calling yourselves " the ministers of God and ambassadors of Christ;" and I complain loudly of your most unjustifiable intrusion, in designating your modern local conventicle by the name of the "Catholic Church." Gentlemen, I assure you I do not mean, even remotely, to utter one offensive sentiment to yon personally bytellingyou that you are libel- ling God, and calumniating the Apostles in using this lan- guage. You are, on the contrary, the ecclesiastical ministers of the British Parliament, you are the clerical ambassadors of the Queen of England, and you are the rebel children of the most terrific apostacy the w^orld ever saw. The Thirty-Nine articles of your creed (which learned Protes' 364 LETTER TO FIVE CLERGyMEN. tants call contradictory and incongrous,) are the acciden- tal result of a majority of voices in the British Senate- house of that day. This act of Parliament forms the pre- face of your Book of Common Prayer, and the decisions of that Parliamentary Session, are unavowedly the very basis and the theological title of the Anglican creed, ai expressed in these Articles. In point of fact, and accord ing to the language of the English Parliament, that creec? should be appropriately called a " bill, " like any othei parliamentary bill passed by a majority in that House. Be- yond all doubt, its proper name should be " the Protestant Religion Bill" or some other such designation, proceeding, as it does, professedly, and originating officially from the decision of the Senate-house, and from the authority of the Crown. The authority does not even pretend to be derived from Christ, as it acknowledges itself to be fnlli- ble, and of course, progressive and human. And the Prime Minister of England can lay aside any of your present opinions when he thinks fit, as was recent- ly proved in the case of the Rev. Mr. Gorham ; and the Queen can annul the united doctrinal decision of your na- tional convocation at her pleasure. Argue this case as you will, and call this authority by whatever name you please, there it is, the supreme arbiter of your Church, the essential sanction and source of your Faith. Thus, in point of fact, you pray to God as the Premier likes ; and you bslieve in God, as the Queen pleases ; and you multiply or diminish the articles of your " Religion Bill," as the Parliament decides. You are, therefore, judicially and officially, the very creatures of the State ; and you wear LETTER TO FIVE CLERGYMEN. 365 yo'jr surplices, and preach by precisely the same authority ■with which a midshipman wears his sword, or a Queen's Counsel appears in a silk go'wn ; , you derive your juris- diction from an authority, at which the very MahomedanS stand in stupid amazement — viz.: an authority, which places a child in a. cradle, a young girl in her teens, or a toothless old hag in the place of the twelve Apostles; standing in the footsteps of Christ, the seat of wisdom, the oracle of divine truth, and the expounder of revelation. Except that we know this statement to be a fact, from un- deniable evidence, no man living could ever think, that any man m his senses would submit to such an outrage on the human understanding. Sir Thomas More, the Chancellor of England, with thousands of others, prefer- red to die at the block, sooner than submit to this mockery of God. This is the ludicrous jurisdiction under which you teach and preach ; but to call yourselves " the Minis- ters of God and the Ambassadors of Christ," is an act of such reckless forgetfiilness of your position (in reference to jurisdiction,) as to set all the delicacies of truth and fact at defiance, in a matter of the most public and pal- pable notoriety ; in truth, it is unbecoming effrontery. Again, all Christians of all denominations, admit that the repeated pledges and promises of Christ guarantee the indestructible existence of a true Church for ever on the earth. The Word of God, the Father, fixing our sun in our skies for ever, is not more clear and emphatic than the Word of God, the Son, in placing the true Church in a permanent unclouded existence on the earth for ever. At the time of your separation there w^as ^ly this one 366 LETTER TO FIVE CLERGYMEN. universal Church on earth ; there being but one in exis- tence, it must have been this true one so guaranteed. You have avowedly separated from this Church ; and at that time, in order to mark the doctrinal character of your con- duct, you called yourselves by the appropriate name of Protestants. You, therefore, at that time, resigned your title to the Catholic Church, which you abandoned. You rebelled against her authority, and from that hour to this you stand expelled from her spiritual territory, and excom- municated by her judicial penalties. On that occasion you severed yourself from the source of all her spiritual power, . and broke the link that bound you to the long chain of apostolic jurisdiction. Will you kindly inform the world when and where did you become reunited to that Church? You now call yourselves "Catholic !" Or, are you now beginning to be ashamed of the word " Protestant?" You see that this word argues the want of legitimate title to the Christian inheritance, and you are trying to insert a word by fraud into your forged deed. Why do you not use the other three marks of the true Church, and call yourselves, "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic ?" Ah, reckless as you are in your assumption, you are afraid of the jibes of the historian to assume the other three marks. As long as your interminable (750) changes in Faith are recorded, it would be injudicious to invest your Church with the attribute of unity; as long as the public reads the plunder of the abbeys, and hears the universal spoliation of the poor; while the red gibbet of Elizabeth surmounts your communion table, and while your modem towers publish your recent origin, it wou^d LETTER TO FIVE CLERGYMEN. 367 be drawing rather too largely on the public credulity to stifle this glaring evidence of your sins and character, and to call yourselves, " One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic." No, no ; you are too clever and discerning to attempt this palpable imposture ; and hence, you are content to as- sume slyly the single term of "Catholic;" and thus you endeavor to regain the place you have forfeited, and re- pair the connection you have broken. But, Gentlemen, this dodge will not do ; you may impose on your own flocks, who don't know you as well as we do ; but as long as I am placed as a sentinel at the ivy doors of the old Church you shall not enter under false colors. Come in your own clothes as Protestant ministers, Parliamentary ambassadors, modem biblemen, from a petty district, but you shall not assume the mark of the universality of time and place while I am present. Like sparrows hatched in an eagle's nest, I shall teach you, that, although you have been born near us, you have neither the shape, color, or genealogy of the royal breed of the Apostles, under whose w^ings your Church has been fraudulently introduced and nurtured into an illegitimate existence. Whenever, therefore, you may in future honor me w^ith any communication, may I beg you will announce your- selves in your Protestant profession; appear in your own modern dress — assume your own Parliamentary titles — and do not add to your former prevarications to the liv- ing, by coming now in the end of time laden with the spoils of the dead. Dress yourselves like Luther and Calvin, and Knox and Cranmer; come with a sword in your hand like Zuinglius, and with an ax^ke your first 368 LETTER TO FIVE CLERGYMEN. apostles; don't assume the holy cross; do not put on the robes of Jerome or Chrysostom ; do not, for shame, rob the dead of their hoary honors ; do not appear in the un- sullied robes of the Apostles, whom your ancestors have betrayed ; do not w^ear the crowns of More and Fisher, won on the block, which your Gospel had erected. This passage brings me in presence of the second part of your note. In consequence of the existence of an infallible autho- rity framing our laws, and promulgating our faith, it would be clearly an act of the most palpable inconsisten- cy to subject to your decision, or to the award of a public meeting of fallible men the doctrines already fixed by an unerring tribunal. You are true to your principles in seeking and yielding to this decision, since private judg- ment is your first principle ; but I cannot subject my faith to such a standard, believing, as I do, that a living autho- rity has been permanently appointed in the Church of Christ, invested with a command from Heaven to leach all men, and sustained by the official presence of the Holy Ghost, as a legislative guarantee for the immutable truth of its decisions. There are no passages in the Scriptures on any subject of divine faith, put forward in stronger or more emphatic language, than these parts of Revelation which enforce the permanent unchangeable existence and practicable agency of this tribunal. The existence of Christ, or the facts of the cross, the Resurrection and As- cension, are not expressed in a clearer official enactment than the record of this living court of infallible decisice. I can no moi^doubt the existence of the Saviour than dis- LETTER TO FIVE CLERGYMEN. 369 believe this official prerogative of the Church of Christ. I believe the one with the same precise amount of evi- dence I believe the other ; and if you bring a doubt on the authority of this court, you necessarily call in question all the other parts of the record of salvation. So per- fectly logical is the inference, that history sustains my assertions on this vital point : and it is quite true to say, that since the fatal period of your separation, and since you preached the overthrow of this first principle, you have opened the floodgates of latitudinarianism, and filled every Protestant country in Europe with wild rationa- lism and naked infidelity. In a thousand years hence, when Protestantism will be only recollected in name, like Arianism or any of the other varieties of human wickedness or folly — ^the future eccle- Eiastical historian will w^rite the thrilling record — namely, that of all the phases of irreligion which have appeared on the earth, the Anglican heresy has inflicted the deepest wound on revelation, from its encouragement to human pride, and its official flattery of human passion. Human reason in its practical workings has never been the same in the same country, the same age, or even the same man. If we except the truths of mathematical science, human reason is ever changing, and I think it ought to be readily admitted, that a God of rigid justice and truth, could ne- ver build the unerring enactments of revelation and sal- vation, on a shifting basis of such a variable construction. Within the last twenty-five years, I have seldom read the proceedings of any Protestant assembly on matters of religion, in which the principal topics have not been. 370 LETTER TO FIVE CLERGYMEN. viz: The usurped infallibility of the Church of Rome, and the new articles of faith of the Roman church." The an- cient Protestant clergy of Ireland did not utter these false- hoods — they lived contented with their titles, and enjoy- ed their glebes, and drunk their claret without this eternal calumny of the plundered Catholics. But, within the last quarter of a century, a swarm of young clerical aspirants invade all the public places, stand in all the thoroughfares, and are heard on the four winds roaring and bawling, wherever you turn, against the church of Rome. They are to be seen at all the Protestant printshops, bookstands, railroad stations, bazaars, excursion trips, botanical re- unions ; and I dare say, you will admit the powerfull fact, that they have no conversation, no entertainment for all who have the misfortune to come within the range of their clerical contact, save one ceaseless, indecent abuse, misrepresentation, and calumny of the principles of the Catholic creed. And I am quite willing to admit, that these gentlemen are persons of finished education, and of delicate truth, and of elegant courtesy in their social cha- racter on most other points ; but in reference to Catholi- city, they are not ashamed to utter statements too foolish to be noticed, or too gross to be told. Having apparently no parochial duties to discharge, their sole occupation seems to be calumniating their Catholic neighbors, and forging misstatements of the Catholic clergy, who never speak a word of offence to them, either in our public or private intercourse. We cannot in these days instruct our people without public insult, nor can we defend ou r diclTines from misrepresentation without sickening chal> LETTER TO PIVE CLERGYMEN. 371 lenges from schoolboy declaimers, raw, jejune clerical gra- duates seeking notoriety in the service of God (1) by falsehood, malignity, and sedition. This is a painful state of society ; the conduct of your brethren on this subject has long since formed the topic of public condemnation, even throughout Europe, and has by its excess and extra- vagance, nauseated the public taste, and, beyond all doubt, has raised the spirit of inquiry in the detection of this indecent imposture, and now universal exposure. I am led into these observations, by your remarks on the creed of Pius IV., in which you assert that novelties have been introduced into our faith. Gentlemen, in all the public speeches and writings ofyour brethren, they all (I hope not through calumnious design,) make one common mistake, viz : — You call "a new deci- sion of a council," by the name of a new act of faith — an addition to the old creed. It is not so. The new deci- sion of a council is rather a proof of an old doctrine, than the evidence of a new one; it is the collected expression of the old belief of the church embodied in a new decree; so that, so far from being an evidence of a new thing, it is, on the contrary, an inevitable demonstration of an old thing. It is the official application of an old truth and principle, to some new^ heretic, or some new error ; so that while the heretic is new^ to whom it is addressed, and the case is new to which it is applied, the principle and the truth so ap- plied, is ipso facto already known as the statute law of the church; and ten thousand new cases maybe settled by one old principle, just as the Chancellor settles the unnum- bered new cases of his court, without adding one tittle to 378 LETTER TO FIVE CLERGYMEN. the old Statute Law of England. When Moses brou^» down from Mount Sinai the ten commandments, embodi- ed in a written decree from God, will any man assert that this was the first time for twenty-five centuries, that men received the commandments of God? Certainly it was the first written decision of God that men ever saw ; but will any man say, that this was a new faith or morality received under the Theoarchy, and that this was the first time when God forbid the crimes of murder, adul- tary, robbery, perjury and idolatry, &c. ! If, then, our doctrine of an infallible tribunal be true, as it is; it follows that a general council, directed by the Holy Ghost, stands in similar circumstances ( as far as Revelation goes, ) with this Theoarchy, and hence that these new decisions, so far from being acts of faith, are on the contrary, the best evidence of the already universally received opinions on the point decided. All the new decisions of the church against Arianism and Pelaglanism ; and the decisions on the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father ; and all the decrees on the natures and person of Christ, are all nearly expressed in one sentence of the creed: — "I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary, was cruci- fied dead and buried, and rose again on the third day from the dead, and ascended into Heaven. I believe in the Holy Catholic Church &c. &c." This short sentence with some few additional texts, form, if I may so speak, the statute laws on the varied decisions, alluded to. In fact, all the new decisions, such as your brethren allude to, and such as you have referred to in the point at issue, LETTER TO FIVE CLERGYMEN. 373 are merely so many legitimate deducibles from the record of Revelation subjected to this competent authority, and settled and published by a decree founded on the ancient truths of Christ's Grospel as taught by the Apostles. The Catholic rule of Faith, therefore, is the Word of God interpreted and taught by this living Authority, as it was from the beginning ; and this rule is so clear, so ob- vious, so comprehensive, and so easily attainable, that, with a penny catechism in your hand, and in the society of a Priest, the accredited officer, you can learn, to your perfect satisfaction, our entire faith, in construction, plan, and indefectible legislative guarantees, within the short space of one hour; and the authorized version of any portion of Holy Writ is to be learned not so much from its philosophical or philological construction, as from its inferential adjustment, and its substantial agreement with the known truths, already believed and taught in connec- tion with the passages under the examination referred to. We do not receive our Faith from disputing, contentious schoolmasters, but from ordained priests; we are occupied with the substance, not the names of things ; we take our Faith from the guaranteed inspiration of the Holy Ghost, not from the inflections and the rules of grammar ; and as the incarnation and the death of our Lord are beyond our reason, we have no idea of consulting that same reason in law^s beyond its reach, no more than the mysteries which it cannot comprehend. In conclusion, I beg to assure you, that I have felt much complimented by your attendance at my lectures on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and I have felt rather honored 374 LETTER TO TWENTr-ONE CLERGYMEN. by tlie united note of the five Protestant clergymen, trana^ mitted to me through the courtesy of the Protestant Arch- deacon of Raphoe, and the brother-in-laMr of our late Vice- roy. I have not, I hope, in any words which escaped me at that lecture, uttered any sentiment which could offend ; and I here disclaim again, intending to say one word in this note (beyond my professional duty,) to give the small- est uneasiness to gentlemen, towards whom I feel much personal respect, and to whom I beg unfeignedly to oifer the expression of high and distinguished consideration. I have the honor to be, Reverend Sirs, your obedient servant, D.W.CAHILL, D.D. P. S. — As you nave gratuitously originated this corres- pondence, you can have no claim on me for its continu- ance; and, therefore, I respectfully decline taking any fur- ther notice of any letters which you may do me the honor to send to me in future. IMPORTANT LETTER OF DR. D. W. CAHILL TO TWENTT-OIIE PEOTESTANT CLEEGYKEK 7B0II BISKEIIHEAI). On the 19th October, 1853, the Eev. H. P. Linton, calling himself Se- cretary to the Local Oomittee for special mission to the Eoman Catho- lics of Birkenhead, wrote to Dr. Oahill "notifying him die intention of the Clergy of that place and its neighborhood, of calling on him pub- licly for proofs of his assertions in reference to the recent numerous conversions from the Eoman Catholic Church in Ireland." He adds, that "popular controversialists on your side have even seemed more anxious to sustain their reputation by ad ca^tandum arguments, than by a strict LETTER TO TWENTY-ONE CLERGYMEN. 375 adherence to facts." Lastly, he enclosed a copy of a letter directed to Dr. Cahill, saying : I sincerely hope, that as you have, unprovoked by us, brought charges against our Church and missions, necessarily calling for controvei-sy, you will not now shrink from that public test of their truth, which you must consider as the inevitable result of your own acts of aggression." The inclosed letter was signed by several clergymen, and made the following proposals to Dr Cahill : — "1st. If you furnish ug wiih deiinite charges against the Irish Church Missions, giving zmmes, dates, and other circumstances connected with your charges, we undertake to bring forward credible witnesses to disprove those charges, and to give you a public opportunity of proving your assertions in the pre- sence of those witnesses. "2nd.— We are ready, on our part, to appoint a clergyman to meet you, before the same assembly to discuss the points of controversy be- tween our respective Churches. "Having come amongst us with charges seriously affecting the charac- ter of the ''united Churches of England and Ireland" and also assailing doctrines, which w^e hold sacred, we feel assured that the proposition which we hereby make will be accepted as reasonable by all thinking men, and we also hope that they will meet with your concurrence." On the 20th of the same month, Dr. Cahill addre^ed a private note in answer. He said : "I assure you I feel rather happy in the distinguished position in which the united communication of so many eminent persons has placed so humble an individual as I am ; and I trust I shall not, in my reply, de- part from the example which is set before me in the politeness of their language. "I may here state that their letter has been conceived under some most unaccountable mistake, as I am not conscious at this moment of having said or written anything to justiiy the position they have taken. Will you kindly grant me the favor of not requiring the manuscript of my letter, but be content with receiving the prinied answer in the Mer cury of next Tuesday. " REV. DR. -CAHILL'S REPLY. St. Werbueg's Birkenhead, Saturday, Oct, 22, 1853. Rev. Sirs — I have acknowledged through your Reve- rend Secretary, your public letter to me, of last Wednes- day's date ; and I feel bound to say, that the courteous tono of your communication, combined with the numerous dis- 376 LETTER TO TWENTY-ONE CLERGYMEN. tinguished names attached to that docurnent, demand from me the sincerest expression of grave respect. I shall at once enter on the subject of that le ter, by assuring you of my entire surprise at what I must call, your most un- warrantable assumptions. Firstly, then, I did not come to this town to deliver lectures "on the character of the Irish Church missions ;" and secondly, I have never either in this town, or in any other town or city in these coun- tries, lectured "on the points of controversy between the Churches of England and Rome." It is my invariable practise to explain and defend my own doctrine against Protestant calumnies, but never to discuss or ridicule the creed pf others. Such a mode of lecturing is at once opposed to my own feeling, and strictly prohibited by my superiors : "and I have never in my numerous subjects departed from this rule, except occasionally on one doc- trine — namely, whenever I maintain "the infallibility" of the Catholic Church, as distinguished from "the Bible" as a rule of faith. You, Gentleman, have fallen into the com- mon mistake ofeditors of anti-catholic newspapers, and of some Protestan clergymen who are continually calumnia- ting me, and who are really putting forth statements, be- fore the public, which in general and in detail, are one unbroken tissue of gross ( and \ am compelled to say ) malignant falsehood. I shall now place before the pub- lic, i}a.e. placards which invited Catholics (not Protestants) to my Lectures ; and the people of Liverpool and Birken- head will thus no doubt form a correct judgement whe- ther you have been justified (without reasonable data and without waiting for a reply from me) in fixing on all the LETTER TO TWENTY-ONE CLERGYMEN. 377 walls of your city and neighborhood, the letter which ap- pears at the head of this reply. There were two placards, as follow^s : — "On Sunday, the 16th uist.,the Very Bev. Dr. Cahill will pteach two sermons (morning and evening) in St. Werburgh's church, in aid of the funds of the poor schools of this parish." My subjects were — 1. "The parable of Dives and Lazarus." — 2. '*The casting out the dumb devil and the return of seven other devils, worse than die first." The second placard was as follows t — "And the Reverend Doctor will lectm-e in the same church, three evenings of the next week — viz. Tues- day, the 18th; Wednesday, the 19th; and, Friday, the 21st. — on the fol- lowing subjects : — 1. On Mortal Sin. 2. On tlie Triumphs of the Catholic Church over the world. 3. On Protestant Conversions, or the late attempt at Befor- mation in Ireland." It must be home in mind, that your letter was delivered to me on Wednesday evening, the 19th inst., that is, two w^hole days before I discussed my last subject. And now, ■will you give me leave. Gentlemen, to ask how can you account, before the impartial decision of honorable, peace- ful public opinion, for the clear, palpable misstatements of your letter? Where have I, as you say, "unprovoked," committed an "aggression" on your doctrines 1 Where have I " attacked the character of the Irish Church Mis- sion 1" and, above all, how could you accuse me on Wed nesday evening of charges which w^ere to be made on the follmmng Friday i How could you know on Wednes- day, what I should say on the next Friday % And how could gentlemen of education, character, station, eminence, and, T shall add, punctillious delicate honor, (which I willingly admit,) be guilty of deliberately writing and publishing statements, which yov, aught to hnow (by referring to the placards,) were an entire falsehood. With your hands, 378 LETTER TO TWENTY-ONE CLERGYMEN. therefore, you have written in large capitals your own blushing condemnation; and if you had printed your names in red ink, it would be a more suitable color to ex- press the ridicule and scorn with which every one of you stands at this moment branded, before the clear public de- cision. You would involve me in difficulties if you could, (a position in which I would not certainly place you, or any one of you,) and in your intemperate precipitancy, you have overstepped common discretion, and you charged me with saying, what I have never even intended to utter. But, on the other hand, as you have the peculiar logical talent of drawing conclusions without premises, who knows, but you took it into your heads to think, that I was describing the genius of the Protestant Church, while I denounced the rich glutton ; jjerhaps you indiscreetly fan- cied, as I shuddered at the eternal furnace, where he was buried, that I was depicting the future condition of your archiepiscopate ; and that while I unfolded the rich drapery of purple and fine linen, worn by Dives, or while I described the sumptuous feast of the monster, as he gazed the while on poor starving Lazarus, ten to one, but you have uncharitably understood me as painting your fat angel of Canterbury, or, what is more ungenerous, per- haps our own apostolic Tom of Dublin. And as you have the singular power of reasoning, without any imagin- able data, I dare say, you believed my description of the unfortunate man repossessed by the seven devils, as en- tirely applied to the members of the Protestant Alliance of England; and it is not improbable, that in your jealous Boal, you, conceived my graphic description of the evils ol LETTER TO TWENTY-ONE CLERGYMEN. 379 mortal sin, as a mere allegorical subterfuge, in order tc cover a pointed delineation of the doctrines and practices of the Reformation Church. Gentlemen, you have origi- nated this correspondence, without any provocation on my part, either directly or indirectly ; and I think it will be admitted by the thousands, w^ho have seen the placards of my lectures, and heard me during the past week, that you made two unbecoming mistakes — first, in making charges, in a clear ignorance of your case ; and secondly, in print- ing these charges without w^aiting for my reply. I have been particularly struck with the first sentence in Rev. Mr. Linton's letter to me, where he styles himself " Secretary to the Local Committee for special mission to the Roman Catholics of Birkenhead." This announcement has led me to iaquire, if the Catholics of this place had any connection with this society ; and, after a minute and an accurate investigation, amongst those whose office and duties enable them to fijrm an unerring judgment, I am in- structed to say, that Mr. Linton's secretaryship is an office without a duty, a position without a place; and that " the mission to the Roman Catholics," is something like the echo of an imaginary sound. I have never read any- thing like this pompous announcement, except the inscrip- tions on the signboard of a London tradesman, who, within the last few years, placed over his door in large capitals, that he was "barber and hair- dresser to her present Ma- jesty." Now this announcement could only gull the mere simple ignorant, as it is evident that this man never will or never can shave the Queen! and, therefore, the Birkenhead puff", is the only parallel that can be drawn to the show- 380 LETTER TO TWENTY-ONE CLERGYMEN. board of the absurd barber, since every man, woman, and child in this parish knows with a smile, that no Catholic here ever receives one particle of these frothy missionary ministrations. But under other circumstances, it is notorious, that Ca- tholicity supplies an abundant theme for the pulpit ha- rangues of these missionaries. The platform where you speak, the columns of the English press where you write, the festivals w^here you declaim, might be supposed to give a field wide enough for the display of your zeal and talent, against the tenets and discipline of the Catholic Church ; but it is only in your pulpits that your oratory acquires the full bulk and growth of Protestant perfection, and where it is poured forth on all occasions in a devastat- ing flood against the profession and the name of what you are pleased to call " Popery." The sober, .religious of your congregations, as I am credibly informed, look in vain on the peaceful Sabbath, for some words of charily from your reverend lips. They are deceived; there is only one subject at Birkenhead and Liverpool, viz. : the errors of Popery ; your race, being still true to the origi- nal instinct of your progenitry, still, still ^roie« the finest piece of legislative jurisprudence published in the sacred volume :— 390 LETTER TO TWENTY-ONE CLERGYMEN. 1. The appointment, and the Source of the power — "Aa the Fathei sent me, I send yati.''^ 2. The knowledge requisite to dischargee the duties— "AU things whatsoever 1 heard from the Father I have made knmm to you." 3. The office to be discharged — "Go ye into the whole world and preach the gospel '^ 4. The subjects of their jurisdipfion— " Go ye and preach the gospel to euery creatwre. " 5. The extent of territory subject to their duties.— "Go ye into all na- tions. " 6. The authenticity of their appointment, and the obedience to be paid to them — "He who hears you, hears me." 7. The crime of not hearing and obeying them— " He who despises you, despises me." 8. The rewards and penalties attached to their authority^"Go ye and preach * « # * ^jjjj j^g jjj^j believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." 9. The security which is attached to the discharge of their oflice— • **Lo ! I am with you." IC . The term and tenure of their office— "All days even to the con- summation of the world." 11. The legislative bond of Christ, like a legal security to all men as a guarantee, that these officers so appointed, can never violate their trusts to the public— "And the gates of hell shall never prevail against it." 12. The presence of the Holy Ghost, as a farther security to the per- formance of their duties "I will send' the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, who ivill bring to your recollection all things whatsoever I told you, and who will abide with you forever." In the foregoing section of this letter, I have merely glanced at what may be called the legislative enactment, under which the Catholic Church holds her office of God- like, universal, boundless, permanent, and infallible teacher of men in the Law of the Saviour. I assure you. Gentle- men, I have often read over this commission in astonish- ment, as a mere product of legislation ; and I have arriv- ed at the conclusion in my own heart, my own mind, and my own soul, that there are no passages in the entire Last Will and Testament of our Lord, put forth with even so much emphatic legal earnestness and literal energy, as the LETTER TO TWENTY-ONE CLERGYMEN. 391 comprehensive provisions ■which place in the hands of duly appointed men the ■whole po^wer of teaching and deciding Christ's law^. There is decidedly no evidence in favor of the very existence of Christ, or in support of the very atonement on the cross, which ranks higher in testimony than the clauses in reference to the subject before us ; and hence I place this authority precisely on a level, in point of essence and necessity, ■with any other pro^nsion of God's Gospel. And beyond all doubt, if I would be made to believe that all the provisions, and legal statements, and high constitutional enactments which I have quoted, had all failed, fallen into^disuse, and ceased to be necessary or essential ; I tell you frankly, gentlemen, that the charac- ter of the rest of the volume, the reputation of the remain- ing provisions, the credence of all other clauses of the w^ill, ■would be so much lessened, damaged, and, indeed, for- feited, that I could have decidedly no reasonable motive for relying on one word of the rest of the Testament. If you take a^way credit from the sincere, serious, didactic legal passages which I have adduced, I publicly avow that I could not be a Christian : and hence I presume to say ■with St. Augustine, " that I am held to the doctrines of Christianity, only by the authority of the Catholic Church. " Gentlemen, will you kindly excuse this long letter to you 1 I beg to express again my unfeigned respect for you, although I do think you have not used me ■well, in the indiscreet, precipitate, unfounded public letter you have written to me. I pity you all much in the unchris- tian mission in which you are engaged. You can no 392 LETTER TO TWENTY-ONE CLERGYMEN. more teach the truth, than I can teach falsehood. You are doomed to a permanent error, by the very same evidence by which 1 am appointed to essential truth. You must be forever wrong, by the very self-same law^s by which I am forever right. I act under a commissioned authori- ty, you speak from a self-appointed intrusion ; and by the same bond by which Christ is bound, always to set right the Catholic Church, precisel yon the same cause, it fol- lows that your local modern conventicles, must be through all coming ages and unborn time, permanently wrong. I have the honor to be. Reverend Sirs, your obedient servant, D. W. CAHILL, D.D P.S. — As I shall leave Birkenhead to-morrow for t. North of England, and as you have gratuitously commenc ed this correspondence, T beg to say, with the highest respect that I cannot attend to any valued communication with which you may condescend to favor me in future. FINIS.