[14]. Toler, now Lord Norbury, of whom the common people had a great dread.
“And even the schoolmasters don’t punish young children for the same thing,” remarked I.
“Why should they?” rejoined Michael Heney. “Sure Mr. Beal, though he’s a Protestant, does not forbid it.”
“How so?”
“Why, because he says if he did, it would encourage disobedience to their parents, which is by all clergy forbidden as a great sin as well as shame.”
“Disobedience!” said I, in wonder.
“Yes; the fathers and mothers of the childer generally curse and swear their own full share every day, at any rate: and if the master told the childer it was a great sin, they would consider their fathers and mothers wicked people, and so despise and fly in their faces!”
“But, surely you are ordered not to take God’s name in vain?”
“And sure,” said Heney, “its not in vain when it makes people believe the truth; and many would not believe a word a man said in this country unless he swore to it, Master Jonah.”