Let all the sons, and the sons of the sons, of Ireland be, like him, faithful to their duties as citizens, ready to sacrifice their all for their country, whether that all be little, or as great as was his vast wealth; just and respectful and charitable to men of all races and creeds, not anxious either to conceal or obtrude their own, but rather to live worthy of both; determined, in a word, faithfully to discharge all their civil and Christian duties, let them be earnest in elevating the one by greater fidelity to the other. Acting thus, they will imitate Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, and fulfil all I would wish them to do out of fidelity to their country, their religion, and their race.
It was also one of the Maryland stock, but of this same Irish race—another Carroll—who was chosen the first bishop, and the founder of the hierarchy, of the young American Church; as if [pg 078] Providence here too wished to indicate from which race the chief strength of Catholicity was to be derived in this land.
Would it be overstraining matters to say, that a hint of this was also given by Providence in the Irish name of the future metropolitan see of the United States—the first in time, and always to be the first in dignity? The word Baltimore is an Irish word, and, through the founder of the colony, was derived from an Irish hamlet, which from the extreme south-west coast of Ireland, is looking, as it were, over the waters of the Atlantic to this continent for the full realization of its name. The word, in the Irish language, means “the town of the great house”, and it was beyond the Atlantic that Baltimore, in becoming the chief see of a great church, has truly become “the town of the great house”, for the church, or house at the head of which it stands, extends probably over a wider surface than any other church or churches amongst which any one bishop holds pre-eminence, excepting only the church governed by the Vicar of Jesus Christ, to whom is committed the care of all the sheep and lambs of God's fold, that is, the whole of Christ's Church. In names, which God has given, or permitted to be given, he has frequently foreshadowed the destinies of individuals and races. Would it be superstitious to suppose that in the Irish name of this American ecclesiastical metropolis—the only important city in this country that has an Irish name—Providence pointed, on the one hand, to its future position in the Christian hierarchy, and on the other to the character of the chief portion of the family of that house or church?
But, be this as it may, it was a scion of the Irish race who was the founder of the new American hierarchy. For some time he held the crozier alone. The whole country was his diocese. But he did not depart until he saw suffragans around him forming a regular hierarchy, that was destined to multiply and, mainly on Irish shoulders, carry, everywhere, the ark that would spread blessings throughout the land.
The work that has thus been commenced is no doubt destined to prosper. It is not without a motive that in this country the lines are drawn, and the foundations laid by Providence for a noble church. Its beginnings (for we may say it is yet in its infancy) bear many of the marks of the process by which the work was effected, It is destined to grow, and may it grow, particularly in the mild beauty of Christian virtue, and win, by love, the homage of all the children of the land, that all may receive through it the graces of Heaven, and even their Earthly prosperity be consolidated and become the means of their acquiring higher blessings.
But whatever be said of the United States, the Irish race is [pg 079] certainly almost alone in the work of diffusing Catholicity in the various other countries in which the English language is spoken.
The sufferings of Ireland were, therefore, the means, and evidently intended by God as the means to preserve her in the faith, to give her its rewards in a high degree; and this preservation of her faith was as evidently intended to make her and her sons instruments in spreading that faith throughout the English-speaking world. This is, therefore, what I claim to be, in the counsels of God, the destiny of the Irish Race.
Did we endeavour to draw this conclusion by far-fetched arguments, we might fear the delusions of fancy, but I think it is plainly written in the facts to which I have alluded, when looked at with faith in an overruling Providence. The diffusion of the true faith enters too closely, and is too primary a thing in the designs of God, to suppose it for a moment to be the work of accident. It is his work first of all. Where it exists it exists because he so willed it. The instruments that effected it must be those which he has chosen and placed to the work with this very view. When, therefore, the results obtained, and those we see in the certain future, and the means by which they are obtained, are a matter of intuition, rather than of reasoning, the conclusion drawn seems to me to have all the force of demonstration, and in no way liable to be considered the product of fancy or of national pride.
This interpretation of the facts of history will, by some, be considered a complicated theory, and therefore unworthy of God. But the simplicity of God's operations by no means excludes multiplicity and combination of agents in themselves most inadequate or discordant. Our inclination to exclude these, though we imagine the very contrary, is the result of the consciousness of our own weakness, which we would fain attribute to God. We may, indeed, be overwhelmed, or at least embarrassed, by many instruments; and therefore we think it wise to avoid their use. But, it is as easy for God to use and direct many as few, or to produce results by his own immediate action. Nay, though sometimes he performs wonderful works in a moment, he is more often pleased to act through numerous and far-reaching instruments, which, at times, seem even to work in opposition to his designs, and by overruling and directing them, to prove that he is Ruler and Master over all things in action, as well as the Author of their being.
By one word he made the Earth produce “every green herb” and “every fruit-tree yielding fruit according to its kind”; but he is now pleased to make the fertility of the earth, and the various ingredients of the air, and the heat and light of the sun, labour through a whole season to produce the flower, that for a [pg 080] few days wastes its fragrance on the meadow. At one time he sends his angel to strike down in one night myriads of the enemies of his people; at another he is pleased “to hiss for the fly, that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria” (Is., vii. 18), that they may come and be the instruments of his vengeance. At one time he rains down bread from Heaven to feed a whole multitude; at another, he sends his angel to take the prophet by the hair of his head from Judea, even unto Babylon, that he may supply food to his servant.