"It was forbidden them to speak Irish, under pain of fifty strokes of the whip; and the magistrates, who for the most part belonged to the 'Protestant clergy,' sentenced also to the whip and to close confinement those who refused to go hear their sermons, and to assist at a service which their consciences disavowed."
In 1820 two fresh missionaries replaced Mr. Flynn. They found the little church where their predecessor had left our Lord two years before still in the same state; and soon the insignificant flock, which ever multiplies under persecution, began to increase wonderfully, so that twelve years later, out of the whole population of the colony—one hundred thousand—there were from twenty to thirty thousand Catholics.
Meanwhile, their emancipation in England had secured their rights in the British colonies. There was no longer the threat of the whip hanging over those who refused to hear Protestant sermons; there was no longer fear of their missionary being sent back by the first ship to England. Hence the Holy See immediately established the hierarchy of the Church, on a regular and permanent basis, there, Dr. Polding being the first bishop.
This may be called an era in the history of the Catholic Church. A hierarchy, independent of the state in heretic and even infidel countries, is a modern thought inspired by the Holy Spirit to the rulers of the flock of Christ to meet modern requirements. By this new system the long list of so-called Protestant countries was at once swept away. For no country can be called Protestant which has its regularly-established bishops of Holy Church, with their authority permanently secured. Their dioceses cover the land, and the land consequently belongs to the Church, however great may be the number of heretics or infidels, and however powerful the organizations antagonistic to Catholicity. The "people of God" is there, to multiply with the years, and finally absorb all heterogeneous bodies. The Church, as we saw, is a growth; other bodies are crystallized and do not grow; more, they become materially and necessarily disintegrated by the action of time and the friction of surrounding bodies, of spreading roots and living organisms.
This plain, unmistakable, eventual truth was the real cause which brought about the violent explosion of fear and hatred following directly the reestablishing of the Catholic hierarchy in England. The opposing forces felt that their hour was come, and they could not but shiver at their approaching annihilation, small as was the body of the English Catholics at the time. But it is not for us to enter here on these considerations, which would call for long developments, and which belong more fittingly to the general history of the Church than to Irish emigration to Australia.
The few facts glanced at above afford ample grounds for picturing the state of the first Irish exiles who set foot on that broad island of the Antipodes. It was only a repetition of the scenes witnessed at the same time wherever the Irish strove to propagate the true faith. Later on it will be our pleasure to come back to this field and wonder at the growth of a blooming garden which has replaced the old sterility.
Of the other British colonies wherein a certain number of Irishmen began to settle at the time of the present investigation, no details can yet be furnished. It is easy to suppose, however, without fear of mistake, that the spiritual destitution and state of more or less open persecution which we have found existing in America and Australia, prevailed also at the Cape Colony, at Natal, in Guiana, Labuan, Ceylon, etc. A very different spectacle is about to be unfolded before our eyes, and we hasten on to behold its wondrous development and splendor—a splendor, however, ushered in by scenes of extreme woe.
CHAPTER XV.
THE "EXODUS" AND ITS EFFECTS.
The stream of Irish emigrants, starting from the one source, separated now and continued flowing to the four quarters of the globe, and, at length, its influence was beginning to be felt in England itself, the last of the lands whither the Irish exiles could think of turning. The poorest, unable to pay their passage- money to North America, began to show themselves among the thick populations of the great manufacturing centres of Great Britain. More than fifty thousand departed annually to settle in other climes and plant Catholicity in regions that, from a religious point of view, were wildernesses.