Let us turn now and change our manners,
Let us make repentance of our sins together—
It is thus that the Israelites came out of Egypt;
Nineveh was given pardon for all its sins,
And even Peter for denying Christ.
O saints of Ireland, arise now together;
O Patrick, who hast care of us, bless this flock;
We who are exiled, we who are forsaken,
This sod is gone out unless thou blow upon it;
Is thy sleep heavy or is thy hearing slow
That thou dost not give an answer to us?
Awake quickly; let it not be as a tale with thee
That there is no help for the fate of the Gael.
This, Patrick, is my own quarrel with thee
That every enemy of thy flock is saying
That thy ears are not ears that listen,
That thou art not troubled by the sight of thy people,
That if they did trouble thee thou wouldst not deny them.
Be with us nevertheless with thy strong power.
Make our enemies to quit Ireland for ever.
1900.
MOUNTAIN THEOLOGY
Mary Glyn lives under Slieve-nan-Or, the Golden Mountain, where the last battle will be fought in the last great war of the world; so that the sides of Gortaveha, a lesser mountain, will stream with blood. But she and her friends are not afraid of this; for an old weaver from the north, who knew all things, told them long ago that there is a place near Turloughmore where war will never come, because St. Columcill used to live there. So they will make use of this knowledge, and seek a refuge there, if, indeed, there is room enough for them all. There is a river by her house that marks the boundary between Galway and Clare; and there are stepping-stones in the river, so that she can cross from Connaught to Munster when she has a mind. But she cannot do her marketing when she has a mind; for the nearest town, Gort, is ten miles away. The roof of her little cabin is thatched with rushes, and a garden of weeds grows on it, and the rain comes through. But she is soon to have a new thatch; for she thinks she won't live long, and she wouldn't like the rain to be coming down on her when she is dead and laid out. There is heather in blow on the hills about her home, and foxglove reddens the clay-banks, and loosetrife the marshy hollows; and rush-cotton waves its little white flags over the bogs. Mary Glyn's neighbours come to see her sometimes, when the sun is going down, and the hurry of the day is over. Old Mr. Saggarton is one of them; he had his learning from a hedge-schoolmaster in the old times; and he looks down on the narrow teaching of the National Schools; and he was once in jail for nine months, having been taken in the very act of making poteen. And Mrs. Casey comes and looks at the stepping-stones now and again, for she is a Clare woman; and though she has lived fifty years in Connaught, she is not yet quite reconciled to it, and would never have made it her home if she could have seen it before she came. And some who do not live among the bogs and the heather, but among the green pastures and the grey stones of Aidne, come to Slieve Echtge and learn unwritten truths from the lips of Mary and her friends.
The duty of giving is taught as well as practised by these poor hill-people. 'For,' says Mary Glyn, 'the best road to heaven is to be charitable to the poor.' And old Mrs. Casey agrees, and says: 'There was a poor girl walking the road one night with no place to stop; and the Saviour met her on the road, and He said: "Go up to the house you see a light in; there's a woman dead there, and they'll let you in." So she went and she found the woman laid out, and the husband and other people; but she worked harder than they all, and she stopped in the house after; and after two quarters the man married her. And one day she was sitting outside the door, picking over a bag of wheat, and the Saviour came again, with the appearance of a poor man, and He asked her for a few grains of the wheat. And she said: "Wouldn't potatoes be good enough for you?" and she called to the girl within to bring out a few potatoes. But He took nine grains of the wheat in His hand and went away; and there wasn't a grain of wheat left in the bag, but all gone. So she ran after Him then to ask Him to forgive her; and she overtook Him on the road, and she asked forgiveness. And He said: "Don't you remember the time you had no house to go to, and I met you on the road, and sent you to a house where you'd live in plenty? and now you wouldn't give Me a few grains of wheat." And she said: "But why didn't You give me a heart that would like to divide it?" That is how she came round on Him. And He said: "From this out, whenever you have plenty in your hands, divide it freely for My sake."'
And this is a marvel that might occur again at any time; for Mary Glyn says further:—