It is evident that our Divine Redeemer watches over the Holy See, and defeats all the assaults of the powers of darkness that are directed against it. It is Heaven that inspires the Catholics of the world to institute associations for the relief of the Vicar of Christ on earth, and to aid in bringing about the triumph of truth over error, and of light over darkness. Ireland, we trust, will always be ready to assist the good cause even from the depths of her poverty. The few who sneer at the sufferings of their father, and refuse him sympathy and relief, are unworthy of the name of Irish Catholics; they are degenerate children of forefathers who died rather than renounce their attachment to the See of Peter.
| 1861— | December 26th, | £180 | 0 | 0 |
| 1862— | February 19th, | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| February 26th, | 30 | 0 | 0 | |
| March 26th, | 100 | 0 | 0 | |
| May 19th, | 200 | 0 | 0 | |
| July 28th, | 200 | 0 | 0 | |
| August 9th, | 500 | 0 | 0 | |
| September 4th, | 500 | 0 | 0 | |
| November 14th, | 120 | 0 | 0 | |
| November 28th, | 30 | 0 | 0 | |
| 1863— | March 9th, | 150 | 0 | 0 |
| May 13th, | 150 | 0 | 0 | |
| May 29th, | 50 | 0 | 0 | |
| July 15th, | 700 | 0 | 0 | |
| July 29th, | 500 | 0 | 0 | |
| November 26th, | 300 | 0 | 0 | |
| 1864— | April 14th, | 200 | 0 | 0 |
| July 27th, | 1000 | 0 | 0 | |
| November 8th, | 350 | 0 | 0 | |
| £5,460 | 0 | 0 |
POLAND.
His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin has honoured us by addressing to us the following letter:—
To the Editors of the Irish Ecclesiastical Record.
55 Eccles Street, 22nd December, 1864.
Rev. Gentlemen,
The sad condition to which Russian despotism has reduced our Catholic brethren in Poland must be a source of grief and affliction to every Christian heart. Tens of thousands of the inhabitants of that generous country, so long the bulwark of Christendom against the encroachments of pagan or Mahometan hordes, have been condemned to pass their days in the deserts of Siberia, and to suffer an exile worse than death: noble families have been totally destroyed, and their children dispersed: even young ladies of the highest rank have been dragged from the convents where they were receiving a Christian education, and sent to pass their days among the Calmucks or the Tartars. The property of the Catholic nobility and gentry has been confiscated; many churches and colleges and almost all the convents and monasteries, have been stripped of their possessions, or suppressed. The scaffold has been purpled with the blood of innumerable victims, lay and clerical, and some bishops and hundreds of priests are now scattered over the continent of Europe, undergoing the sufferings of exile. "Crudelis ubique luctus, ubique pavor et plurima mortis imago". All these evils have been afflicted on Poland in the presence of Europe, and all the great powers have been silent, looking on with indifference. The Holy Father alone, acting with the usual spirit of the Apostolic See, has raised his voice in favour of suffering humanity; but heresy and schism shut their ears against the words of truth, and Sarmatia is left to her unhappy fate.
The scenes now enacted in Poland cannot but remind us of the calamities with which our own dear country was visited in the days of Cromwell and the Puritans, when the streets of our towns ran with the blood of massacred Catholics, and multitudes of Catholic children were torn from their homes and sent to drag out a miserable existence in the swamps of Georgia or on the scorching sands of the Antilles.
Ireland having suffered in the same cause and in the same way as Poland, must feel deep sympathy with her afflicted sister—"Haud ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco". Hence, I am confident that our charitable people, though severely tried themselves, will do everything in their power to assist the poor exiled Poles, who have been obliged to take refuge in France and other countries of Europe, in order to avoid the sword or the halter of the Russian despot.