“Bishop of Cloyne.”
I desire to add an extract here from a letter written to me by the late Rev. Father Horgan, P.P. of Kilworth, Co. Cork. He was a very cultivated man; he had been for eight years in the Irish College at Rome and had also made a voyage round the world. He had “read in the book of the world,” and in addition to his extensive and accurate knowledge of theology he had acquired a great knowledge of Art from his residence in Rome. About two years before his death he wrote me a very touching letter from which the following is an extract:
“I have given up all thoughts of change of place. My outlook and my hope are homewards, and may the good God support and strengthen us both to and through the end which awaits us to our rest.”
I fear there may be too much egotism and too little reticence in my placing such kindly and even confidential communications as these before the public, yet my motive for doing so is simply to show how much real kindly feeling and friendly intercourse exist between members of the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches in Ireland, especially in those districts where the vast numerical predominance of the former Church might, as some suppose and suggest, provoke her to intolerance, which in my opinion is not the case at all. Of course I do not profess to do more than offer a general opinion founded on my own personal experience, and on my knowledge of Irish history in [pg 460] the past. But when I look back upon the past and think for example on the state of Ireland during the “Tithe Wars,” as described by such a writer as Lecky, and on my own recollections of Ireland in the days of the Land League, and compare with these periods the present happy and peaceful condition of the country, and ask myself what has produced such a blessed and beneficial change, is not the answer plain enough that it has been the progress of healing and remedial legislation? Well, then, if impending legislation in the direction of Home Rule is a further concession to national sentiment and likely to prove a further development of and outlet for national knowledge of what the country requires, and an application of her own energies and resources for the purpose, why should one dread and deprecate the experiment? I have lived through too many Irish crises to be afraid of another. I do not venture to speak dogmatically, still less despairingly, but I feel on the whole that this new departure will tend to good like its predecessors. I am inclined to ask, why should the Roman Catholic people of Ireland persecute Protestants, if Home Rule be granted—some will say, oh, because they will then have greatly increased power and influence in their own hands, and they will therefore be tempted to use it, and will use it in this direction. I find it hard to believe this, I am very slow to believe it, judging from my own experience of Ireland. May I not put it in this way plausibly and reasonably enough: why should not such an extension of self-government gratify the Irish National Party, and produce even better and still more kindly feeling towards their Protestant fellow countrymen than already exists? If we must make a calculus of probabilities in such an event, ought we not to take into account the mollifying influence of the possession [pg 461] of increased powers, just as much as the temptation to misuse them in the direction of intolerance. Besides, will it not be the policy of the leaders of the Home Rule movement, should it become an accomplished fact, to conciliate—much rather than to coerce—those who oppose the movement? As Mr. Redmond has recently said, “some repudiate Ireland, but Ireland will not repudiate them.” We may for a time in the near future have a period of some unrest, anxiety, possibly even danger, but we must hope that this will pass. Certain Irish proverbs show something of the tone of the national mind. Here are a few: are they not very instructive and descriptive?
“One must cut the gad nearest the throat.”
“The first thread is not of the piece.”
“A small share of anything is not worth much, but a small share of sense is worth much.”
“It isn't day yet.”
“Nil lā fòs e.”
All these proverbs show that Ireland has “learned to labour and to wait:”