Hyacinth left the Rectory that night with three well-read numbers of the Gleaner in his pocket.
Afterwards he had many talks with Canon Beecher and the Quinns about the work of the missionary societies. He learnt, to his surprise, that really immense sums of money were subscribed every year by members of the Church of Ireland for the conversion of the heathen in very remote parts of the world. It could not be denied that these contributions represented genuine self-denial. Young men went without a sufficiency of tobacco, and refrained from buying sorely-needed new tennis-racquets. Ladies, with the smallest means at their command, reared marketable chickens, and sold their own marmalade and cakes. In such ways, and not from the superfluity of the rich, many thousands of pounds were gathered annually. It was still more wonderful to him to discover that large numbers of young men and women, and these the most able and energetic, devoted themselves to this foreign service, and that their brothers and sisters at home were banded together in unions to watch their doings and to pray for them. He found himself entirely untouched by this enthusiasm, in spite of the beautiful expression it found in the lives of his new friends.
But it astonished him greatly that there should be this potent energy in the Irish Church. The utter helplessness of its Bishops and clergy in Irish affairs, the total indifference of its people to every effort at national regeneration, had led him to believe that the Church itself was moribund. Now he discovered that there was in it an amazing vitality, a capacity of giving birth to enthusiastic souls. The knowledge brought with it first of all a feeling of intense irritation. It seemed to him that all religions were in league against Ireland. The Roman Church seized the scanty savings of one section of the people, and squandered them in buying German glass and Italian marble. Were the Protestants any better, when they spent £20,000 a year on Chinamen and negroes? The Roman Catholics took the best of their boys and girls to make priests and nuns of them. The Protestants were doing the same thing when they shipped off their young men and young women to spend their strength among savages. Both were robbing Ireland of what Ireland needed most—money and vitality. He would not say, even to himself, that all this religious enthusiasm was so much ardour wasted. No doubt the Roman priest did good work in Chicago, as the Protestant missionary did in Uganda; only it seemed to him that of all lands Ireland needed most the service and the prayers of those of her children who had the capacity of self-forgetfulness. Afterwards, when he thought more deeply, he found a great hope in the very existence of all this altruistic enthusiasm. He had a vision of all that might be done for Ireland if only the splendid energy of her own children could be used in her service. He tried more than once to explain his point of view. Mr. Quinn met him with blank disbelief in any possible future for Ireland.
‘The country is doomed,’ he said. ‘The people are lazy, thriftless, and priest-ridden. The best of them are flying to America, and those that remain are dying away, drifting into lunatic asylums, hospitals, and workhouses. There is a curse upon us. In another twenty years there will be no Irish people—at least, none in Ireland. Then the English and Scotch will come and make something of the country.’
From Canon Beecher he met with scarcely more sympathy or understanding.
‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘no doubt we ought to make more efforts than we do to convert our fellow-countrymen. But it is very difficult to see how we are to go to work. There is one society which exists for this purpose. Its friends are full of the very kind of enthusiasm which you describe. I could point you out plenty of its agents whose whole souls are in their work, but you know as well as I do how completely they are failing.’
‘But,’ said Hyacinth, ‘I do not in the least mean that we should start more missions to Roman Catholics. It does not seem to me to matter much what kind of religion a man professes, and I should be most unwilling to uproot anyone’s belief. What we ought to do is throw our whole force and energy into the work of regenerating Ireland. It is possible for us to do this, and we ought to try.’
‘Well, well,’ said the Canon, ‘I must not let you make me argue with you, Conneally; but I hope you won’t preach these doctrines of yours to my daughters. I think it is better for them to drop their pennies into missionary collecting-boxes, and leave the tangled problems of Irish politics to those better able to understand them than we are.’