After his visit to Thurles, he came back to Carlow and gave a retreat to the lay students in their own oratory. He then went off on a begging tour through Kildare, Carlow, and Kilkenny. Whilst in Kilkenny he went to look at the old cathedral (now in Protestant hands); his cicerone was a very talkative old woman, who gave him a history, in her own style, of the crumbling worthies whose names he deciphered on the different monuments. One account she told with especial gusto: the last moments of an old lady "of the Butlers." This old lady, according to the cicerone's account, had once been a Catholic, and on her death-bed wished to receive the rites of the Church. She was told that if she died a Catholic, those to whom her property was willed would be disinherited, and that the property would pass over to others. She hesitated some time on hearing this announcement, and after a few minutes' reflection expressed her decision as follows, "Oh, well; it is better that one old woman should burn in hell than that the family of the Butlers should lose their estate." She died shortly after —a Protestant. Father Ignatius used to say that he never was more surprised than at the manner of his guide as she concluded the climax of her narrative. She seemed to think old Granny Butler's resolution showed the highest grade of heroic virtue and self-sacrifice.

In Carrick-on-Suir he says: "Made the best day's begging in my life up to this, £50." He then went to Tipperary, Cork, visited all the convents and priests, came to Birr, spent an afternoon with Lord Ross and his telescope; begs in Limerick, Drogheda, Newry, Dundalk, Ardee, Castle-blaney, Carrickmacross, Londonderry, Strabane, Omagh. When he was in Omagh there was a tenant-right meeting, and he went to hear Gavan Duffy. He begs through Dungannon, Lurgan, Enniskillen, Ballyshannon, Clogher. He then came to Dublin, from which he paid flying visits to a few convents, and to the colleges of Maynooth and All-hallows. He returned to England on the 17th of November; and, during his two months' tour in Ireland, he had preached seventy-nine sermons, on the conversion of England chiefly.

He heard of the re-establishment of the hierarchy in England while travelling in Ireland, and one of his first acts, on returning to London, was to pay his respects to his old friend, the new Cardinal. This year we were put in possession of St. Saviour's Retreat, Broadway, which has been the noviciate of the order since. St. Anne's, Sutton, was also colonized about the same time. Father Ignatius gave a mission in Glasgow during this Advent, and brought two young priests with him to train into the work of the missions. One of them was Father Bernard, and he gives wonderful accounts of Father Ignatius's labours. He slept but about four hours in the twenty-four, and was all the rest of the time busy either in the confessional or on the platform, with the exception of the time he took to eat a hurried meal or two.

In going through Liverpool on his return from Glasgow, in his habit, a crowd gathered round him to hoot and insult him. In his journal he says: "I got two blows on the head," for which he took good care to thank God. The year is concluded by preaching in Dublin, and giving the renewal retreat to the Sisters of Mercy in Birr.

Any one that will glance over this year of his life, and see him perpetually moving from place to place, will certainly think he had little time to himself. It was about this time that he made the resolution of never being a moment idle, a resolve he carried out to the last. During this year and the preceding he was occupied in translating into English Da Bergamo's Pensieri ed Affetti. The greater part of this book, which was published by Richardson, under the name of Thoughts and Affections on the Passion, was translated by Father Ignatius, on railway stations, while waiting for trains, in every place, before or after dinner, in intervals between confessions, in all kinds of out-of-the way places; and so careful was he to fill up every moment of time that we see noted in his journal his having done some of Da Bergamo in the fore cabin of the steamer that took him from Holyhead to Kingstown. He wrote it mostly in pencilling, on the backs of envelopes, scraps of paper of all sizes, shapes, and quality; so that it was nearly as difficult to put those sibylline leaves in order and copy from them as it was to translate, if not more so. Besides this he wrote a number of letters; and his letters were no small notes with broken sentences, but long lectures on difficulties of conscience, written with a care and consideration that is perfectly surprising when one reflects upon his opportunities. He used to say that no one should ever excuse his not answering a letter for want of time: "If the letter is worth answering we ought to get time for it, for it becomes a kind of duty." He certainly had no time to spare or throw away, but he had always enough for any purpose in which charity or obedience could claim him. His days were indeed full days, and he scarcely ever went to bed until he had shaken himself out of nodding asleep over his table three or four times. No one ever heard him say that he was tired and required rest; rest he never had, except on his hard bed or in his quiet grave. If any man ever ate his bread in the sweat of his brow, it was Father Ignatius of St. Paul, the ever-toiling Passionist.

CHAPTER VIII.
A New Form of
"The Crusade."

We find Father Ignatius, at the beginning of the year 1851, begging in Ireland. It was not his custom to go regularly from house to house; he preferred collecting people together, and addressing them, and, if this were not practicable, getting permission from the priests to speak to their flocks on Sundays and festivals. He wanted prayers more than money, and he was delighted that the plea of begging justified his moving about, and gave him a kind of faculty to preach on his favourite topic, "the conversion of England." Oftentimes the spiritual interfered with his temporal interests, as when an Irishman, who was about to give him an alms, refused it as soon as he spoke about England. Strange enough, Father Ignatius thought England-hating Irishmen the very best subjects to practise his art of persuasion on. He thought them true souls, sensitive of their wrongs, and valued them far more than those who lauded England through lack of patriotism.

He met many adventures during this begging tour in Ireland. In one parish, the priest promised to allow him to preach to his congregation on the Sunday, and collect from them. The priest did not seem to possess indifference to earthly things, or generosity either, in a very high degree; for, when Father Ignatius came to his place on Saturday, his reverence told him that he intended to claim the collection in the church, whilst Father Ignatius might stand at the door and beg for himself as the people were going out. Father Ignatius thanked God, and was content, only remarking that, with the priest's permission, he would prefer to hold his hat under a large tree that grew near the church-door, instead of at the door itself.

He preached at the last mass, and never said a word about where or when he was to receive the people's offerings; the collection was made by the priest, and a most miserable one it proved to be. Father Ignatius held his hat under the tree, and, since the day in Carrick-on-Suir, never had such a collection. It was a marvel to him; he could not account for it, and he was the more surprised when he compared notes with the parish priest after all was over. He found out the solution of the mystery that same evening. It seems that, on Saturday, he told a respectable lady in the neighbourhood of the priest's decision. She, without telling him a word of what she intended doing, went home, sent her servant through the village, and collected twelve stalwart active young men; she harangued them on what the priest was about to do, and sent them all off to different parts of the parish to tell the people of it, and also of the spot where Father Ignatius would receive their offerings. The people had reason to think their pastor was a little fond of money, and their indignation at his proceeding helped to increase their liberality.