FATHER PECHERINE'S CASE.
In the discharge of my magisterial duties at Kingstown, I had to dispose of a charge against a Roman Catholic clergyman named Pecherine, for publicly burning a copy of the Bible. The accused party was a foreigner, who had become a member of the order of Redemptorists, and joined a number of that community in holding "a mission" at Kingstown, in November, 1855.
He preached very frequently to numerous congregations, and excited great admiration and even surprise by the fluency of his language and correctness of diction. Finding that many books and tracts had been distributed, in Kingstown and its vicinity, containing doctrines or controversial arguments of which he and his religious associates disapproved, he exhorted his hearers to bring all such publications to him, and having received a considerable quantity, he burned them in a large fire lighted within the precincts of the church where the mission was held, and between the building and the exterior railing. It was alleged that amongst the articles thus consumed, there was a copy of the Scriptures. A prosecution was instituted before me, which was met by a denial that any perfect copy of the Bible had been burned; and that if even a portion of one had been thus destroyed it was by mere mischance, and without his knowledge, intention, or approval. The proceedings before me produced intense excitement, and great manifestation, especially amongst the humbler classes, of the asperities usually incident to indications of religious differences. I sent the case for trial to the ensuing commission of Oyer et Terminer for the County of Dublin, and the result was an acquittal; but I refer to the occasion as having produced some very striking instances of the most inconsiderate and rash violence, committed without any provocation whatever on the part of those assailed, and in the supposition that they had been concerned in a proceeding with which they were totally unconnected.