Moreover, the property of the Catholics was confiscated, and the nobles of the land were reduced to poverty, because their consciences would not allow them to bow to the supremacy of the crown in religious matters. What shall we say of the ingenious system of penal laws, which, with Draconian cruelty, was enacted against Catholicity? A father was not allowed to give a Catholic education to his children; and the child of Catholic parents, if he became a Protestant, could disinherit his brothers, and reduce his father to beggary. Catholic education and Catholic schools were proscribed. A Protestant university was instituted and richly endowed with confiscated property, in order that it might be an engine for assailing Catholicity, and a bulwark of Protestantism. Charter schools were established for the purpose of infecting poor children with heresy. A court of wards was instituted, in order that the children of the nobility might be seized on, and brought up in the errors of the new religion. It was in this way that the Earls of Kildare and other noble families lost their faith. Catholics were excluded from all offices of trust; they could not be members of parliament, they had no right of voting at elections, and they were not even allowed to hold leases of the lands from which their fathers had been violently and unjustly expelled. Such were the evangelical arts adopted to spread Protestantism in Ireland. What a contrast with the means employed by Providence to propagate the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
Thanks be to God, the faith of the people of Ireland overcame all the agencies which were employed for its destruction, and is now producing wonderful works of piety and charity at home, and bringing the blessings of salvation to foreign lands that heretofore were sitting in darkness and the shades of death. However, active efforts are still made to propagate the religion of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and it is hoped that what those corrupt and wicked, but powerful and despotic, sovereigns could not effect by fire and sword, by cruel penal laws, and confiscation of property, may be compassed by a degraded and contemptible system of pecuniary proselytism, which consists in collecting money in England for the purpose of bribing poor Catholics to become hypocrites and to deny their faith, or of purchasing children from miserable or wicked parents, in order to educate them in the religion, whatever that may be, of the Church Establishment, or more probably in no religion at all.
The Report of St. Brigid's Orphanage, mentioned at the head of this notice, gives most interesting details regarding this new method of propagating the errors of Luther and Calvin. This document, though brief, is most worthy of the perusal of every Catholic. It describes the activity and perfidy of the proselytisers, and it shows that they have immense resources, even hundreds of thousands of pounds per annum, at their disposal. The zeal of those men and their sacrifices in a bad cause, must be a reproach to Catholics, if they are not ready to stand forth and exert themselves in defence of the Holy Catholic and Apostolical Church, out of which there is no salvation.
The Association of St. Brigid in the few years of its existence has saved a large number of children from the fangs of proselytism. It has been able to perform so great a work of charity because its funds, though small, are managed with great economy. No expense is incurred for buildings, or for the rent of houses, or for a staff of masters and mistresses. The ladies who manage the orphanage receive no remuneration, but give their services for the love of God. The poor orphans are sent to the country, and placed under the care of honest and religious families, who, for five or six pounds for each per annum, bring them up in the humble manner in which the peasants of Ireland are accustomed to live. In this way the orphans acquire that love for God, and that spirit of religion, for which this country is distinguished, and, at the same time, they become strong and vigorous like the other inhabitants of the country, and are prepared to bear the hardships to which persons of their class are generally exposed in life. Were those children educated in large orphanages and in the smoky air of the city, they would perhaps be weak and delicate, incapable of bearing hard work, and likely to fail in the day of trial.
The education of the orphans of St. Brigid is not overlooked by the managers. They require the nurses not only to teach the children by word and example, but also to send them to good schools, where they learn reading, and writing, the catechism, and all that is necessary for persons in their sphere of life. Some of the ladies of the association call them together from time to time for examination, and considerable premiums are awarded to the families in which the children are found to have made the greatest progress. In this way great emulation is excited, and a considerable progress in knowledge is secured.
When the orphans grow up, as they are generally strong and healthy and able for farm work, they are easily provided for. Many of them are adopted by those who reared them. In this way great economy is observed, and this is a consideration which cannot be overlooked in a poor country like Ireland, where the charity of the faithful has so many demands upon it. However, everything necessary is attained, as the orphans are prepared to earn a livelihood in this world, and trained up in the practice of those Christian virtues and practices by which they may save their souls.
The report of the Orphanage is followed by the speeches which were made by several gentlemen at a late meeting of the Association, held on the 16th November last. They will be read with great interest. Canon M'Cabe's address thus sums up the results already obtained by St. Brigid's Association:—
"I thank God", said he, "that I am here to-day to testify to the glorious fact, that already 525 destitute orphans have found a home in St. Brigid's bosom; and that 247 of these, nursed into strength, moral and physical, have been sent forth into the world to fight the battle of life; and we may rest perfectly satisfied that if, at the hour of death, they are not able to exclaim with the apostle, 'I have kept the faith', the fault most certainly will not rest with the friends of their infant orphan days".
What a contrast with such happy results does the sterility of all Protestant religious undertakings present! This is illustrated in the course of his discourse by the learned Canon. We give the following extract:—
"Marshall, in his admirable book on Christian Missions, assures us that the sum annually raised in England for missionary purposes, is not less than two millions sterling; but he also tells us, on the authority of the Times newspaper, the consoling fact, that before one penny leaves England, half a million is consumed by the officers at home. We may rest quite satisfied that out of the £88,000 annually expended here in Dublin, a very decent sum goes every year to bring comfort, elegance, and luxury to the homes of pious agents and zealous ladies engaged in the good cause. We have also the consoling knowledge that English gold and the grace of conversion are very far, indeed, from correlatives. Even in pagan lands its only power is to corrupt the hearts of those to whom it purports to bring tidings of Gospel truth. The spirit which influences the missioners whom it sends forth, and the converts which it wins, is beautifully illustrated by a story told by a missionary—Mr. Yate. He holds the following dialogue with a converted New Zealander:—'When did you pray last?' 'This morning'. 'What did you pray for?' 'I said, O Christ, give me a blanket in order that I may believe'. This same Mr. Yate innocently records a letter written to him by a New Zealand convert, which aptly strikes off the character of master and disciple. 'Mr. Yate, sick is my heart for a blanket. Yes, forgotten have you the young pigs I gave you last summer? Remember the pigs which I gave you; you have not given me any thing for them. I fed you with sucking pigs; therefore I say, don't forget'. Need we wonder that such converts and such teachers were equally strangers to the blessings of Divine grace, and that the success of their preaching may be universally summed up in the words of a report which a famous Baptist preacher gave of his year's harvest. 'During last year', he writes, 'I had 25 candidates; out of that number six died, seven ran away, six are wavering backwards and forwards, and six are standing still'. So the good man's success was represented by large zero. The same characteristics in teacher and disciple mark the history of the crusade carried on against the religion of Ireland. The Irish New Zealander expects his blanket as the grand motive power of believing in souperism. The Irish Mr. Yate gets his 'sucking pig', and very often is ungrateful to his benefactors. In one word, if any success attend the efforts made by the proselytiser, it is read in the total overthrow of the morals as well as the faith of their victims".