The Cross and the Shamrock / Or, How To Defend The Faith. An Irish-American Catholic Tale Of Real Life, Descriptive Of The Temptations, Sufferings, Trials, And Triumphs Of The Children Of St. Patrick In The Great Republic Of Washington. A Book For The Entertainment And Special Instructions Of The Catholic Male And Female Servants Of The United States.

To the faithful Irish-American Catholic citizens of the whole Union, and especially to the working portion of them, on account of their piety, their liberality, their patriotism, and their steady loyalty to the virtues symbolized by the Cross and the Shamrock, —on account of their attachment to the land of St. Patrick, and to the religion of her patriot princes and martyrs,—this work, written for their encouragement and instruction, is respectfully inscribed by
Their humble servant, And devoted friend and fellow-citizen,
THE AUTHOR.
September, 1853.
There are moments when every citizen who feels that he can say something promotive of the welfare of his countrymen and of advantage to his country is authorized to give public utterance to his sentiments, how humble soever he may be. — Letter of Archbishop Hughes on the Madiai , February, 1853.
There may be, in public opinion, an Inquisition a thousand times more galling to the soul than the gloomy prison or the weight of chains. — National Democrat , March, 1853.
1st. The above extracts, from different but respectable sources, comprise the author's chief motives in the publication of the following work. It is a well-known fact, that thousands of our fellow-Christians, in all parts of this vast free country , are continually subjected to a most trying ordeal of temptation and persecution on account of their religion, and that the wonderful progress of Catholicity and renewed power of the church only add to the malice, if not to the influence, of sectarians, in their efforts to make use of this odious persecution of servant boys and servant girls, of widows and orphans, to build up their own tottering conventicles, and to circumscribe the giant strides of what they call the man of sin.
A very intelligent American lawyer lately remarked to the writer of this, that, about twenty-five years ago, the parsons fulminated all their eloquence against Satan; but they seem to have formed a league with him now, for all their vengeance is directed against the pope, who, they say, is far more dangerous than Old Harry.