The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

When we compare this single fact of Irish ecclesiastical history with what was then transpiring in Europe—the most insidious errors spreading throughout; the faith of many becoming unsettled, a general preparation for the social deluge which was impending and so soon to fall—we cannot but conclude that Ireland, in the midst of her misfortunes, was happy in being separated from the rest of the world. The breath of novelty could breathe no contagion on her shores. Happy even was she in not seeing her sons enlist in the army of the Cross, if the result of their victories was, to bring back from the Holy Land the Eastern corruption and the many heresies nestling there and settled, even around the sepulchre of our Lord, during so many ages of separation from the West and open communication with all the wild vagaries of Arabian, Persian, and Indian philosophies.

Even in the midst of such a trial we believe that Ireland would have held steadfast to her faith, as she did later on when heresy came to her with compulsion or death; and this firmness of purpose, which the Irish have always manifested when the question was a change of religion, is worthy our consideration. For the facility with which some nations have, in the course of ages, yielded to the spirit of novelty, and the sturdy resistance opposed to it by others, is a subject that would repay investigation, but which we can only slightly touch upon.

In ancient times the Greek mind, accustomed from the beginning to subtlety of argument, and easily carried away by a rationalism which was innate, offers a striking contrast to the steady traditional spirit of the Latin races in general. Except Pelagiaism and its cognate errors, all the great heresies which afflicted the Church during the first ten centuries, originated in the East; and the various sects catalogued by several of the Greek Fathers, as early as the second and third centuries, astonish the modern reader by the slender web on which their often ridiculous systems are spun, of texture strong enough, however, at the time to form the groundwork for making a disastrous impression on a large number of adherents. The infinity almost of philosophical systems in pagan Greece had prepared the way for the subsequent vagaries of heresy, and we must look to our own times, so prolific of absurd theories, in order to find a parallel to the incredible variety of dogmatic assertions among the Greek heresiarchs of early times.

But, at the outbreak of Protestantism, in the sixteenth century, the world witnessed a still more striking example of diversity in the various branches of the Japhetic family - the nations belonging to the Teutonic and Scandinavian stocks chiefly embracing the error at once with a wonderful spontaneity. The various remnants of the Celtic race and the totality of the Latin nations remained, on the whole, obedient to the guiding voice of the Church of Christ. It is customary with modern writers, when imbued with what are called liberal ideas, to ascribe this difference to the steady, systematic mind of northern nations, and to their innate love of liberty, which could not brook the yoke of spiritual despotism imposed by the Church of Rome. But all this is mere supposition, inadequate to accounting for the fact. The Teutonic and Scandinavian mind is certainly more systematic and apparently more steady than the Celtic; but it is far less so than the Latin. No nation in the whole history of mankind has ever displayed more steadiness and system than the Romans, and the Latin family has inherited those characteristics from Rome. The Spanish race has no equal in steadiness (in the sense here intended of steadfastness), and the French certainly none in system, which it often carried to the verge of absurdity.

As for love of liberty, as distinct from love of license, it had absolutely nothing to do with the great revolution which has been called the Reformation. No nation can relish despotism, and the whole history of Ireland is a living example that her sons are steadily opposed to it to the death. And it is now too late to pretend that the cause of true liberty has been served by the spread of Protestantism over a large portion of Europe. Balmez and others have proved the falsehood of such pretensions. If any modern writers, such as Mr. Bancroft, for instance, men otherwise of sound mind and great ability, continue to assert this, the assertion must proceed from prejudice deeply ingrained, which reflection has not yet succeeded in eradicating, and their opinions on the subject are necessarily confined to bold assertions, of a character which in others they themselves would stigmatize as empty and unfounded.

The reason of the difference lies deeper in the constitution of the human mind, in the Celtic and Latin races on the one side, in the Teutonic and Scandinavian families on the other. Any one who has studied the Irish character in our days—a character which was the same in former ages—will easily see something of that great and happy cause.

The difference lies first in the good sense which enables them to perceive instinctively that the eternal should be preferred to the temporal. If all men kept that distinct perception ever present to their minds, they would not only accept at all times the truths of faith, since faith, according to St. Paul, is "the substance of the things hoped for," but they would remain ever faithful to the moral code given us by God. The Celt indeed will at times lose sight of the eternal in the presence of a temporal temptation; but he is never blind to the knowledge that faith is the groundwork of salvation, and that hope remains as long as that is not surrendered. Therefore he will never surrender it. The need of reviving his faith is rarely called for, when, after a life of sin, the shadow of death reminds him of the duty he owes his own soul. The great truth that, after all, the ETERNAL is every thing, remains always deeply impressed on his mind; and half his labor is spared to the minister of God, when bringing such a man back to a life of virtue. There is scarcely any need of asking an Irishman, "Do you believe?" For, every word that passes his lips, every look and gesture, every expression of feeling, is in fact an act of faith. How easy after this is the work of regeneration!

0 happy race, to whom this life is in truth a shadow that passeth away! to whom the unseen is ever present, or comes back so vividly and so readily!

This supposes, as we have said, a sound, good sense, which is characteristic of the race. We may say that this nation possesses the wisdom of Sir Thomas More, who esteemed it folly to lose eternity for a life of twenty years of ease and honors. Is not this, at bottom, the thought which has sustained the nation in that dread martyrdom of three centuries, whose terrible story we have still to tell? Have they not, as a nation, one after another, generation upon generation, lived and passed their lives in contempt, in want, in frightful misery, to die in torments or hidden sufferings, without a gleam of hope from this world for their race, their families, their children, their very name, because they would not surrender their religion, that is to say, truth, which alone could secure the eternal welfare of their souls?

Speak to us, after this, of a steady and systematic mind! Prate to us of the love of liberty, of self-dignity! Where are such things to be found in their reality, on their trial, if not in the scenes and the nation we have just pictured?