It is, however, for the interests of Protestantism and of Great Britain, as well as of Catholicism, that the education of Catholics should be carried on more perfectly in accord with the desires of the Catholic people. The principle of religious neutrality in education has been tried in Ireland, and found wanting. It has not resulted in bringing into the same school-rooms the young of various creeds, and educating them in mutual love. Three or four Protestants may be found in the same school with a hundred Catholics; or three or four Catholics may attend a school frequented by a hundred Protestants. But nowhere in Ireland is it possible to find a school where one half of the pupils are Protestants and the other half Catholics, or where the Protestant clergyman and the Catholic priest, as joint patrons, superintend their respective classes. It is true, indeed, that proselytism is discouraged by the rules of the board, and that no favor is shown to one denomination more than to another. But with all this endeavor after impartiality by its administrators, the system inflicts a serious wound upon Catholicity. The authority of the board is substituted for that of the Catholic Church. The national school teacher, when in training for his office, learns his duties from men of various religious denominations, who are not permitted, even were they desirous, to impart a devotional color to what they teach. The virtues must be commended on moral, not on religious grounds. Patriotism may take root in ignorance; for no book of Irish history is to be found in the list of Irish national school books. When the trained teacher is set over a school, he still regards himself as dependent upon the board which is his paymaster. Catholic teachers may, and sometimes do, hold opinions different from those of the priest, and even upon occasions refuse to carry out the priest's directions in the matter of religious teaching. The influence of the priest upon his flock is weakened by that very separation between secular and religious instruction which is the basis of the system of national education. Protestantism may flourish under the impartiality, neutrality, and secularization of education at which the originators of that system aimed; but Catholicism must inevitably become deteriorated.
It was in past years the almost universal belief of Protestant governments, that an Irish Catholic, in proportion as he ceased to be loyal to his spiritual, would advance in loyalty toward his temporal sovereign. Toleration was offered, even under Elizabeth and James, to Catholics who would abjure the spiritual supremacy of the pope. In modern times the same spirit of distrust shows itself in the endeavor, on the part of some Protestant statesmen, to offer to Catholics educational and other advantages upon conditions inconsistent with Catholic practices. Those greatly err who thus fancy that Great Britain will gain—either politically or religiously—by the undermining of the influence of the Catholic priesthood, or by leavening the education of Catholics with the spirit of secularization. The Irish Catholic may be taught to unlearn his faith, to neglect confession, and disobey the injunctions of his priest; but no one will say that thereby he becomes, necessarily, either a better Christian or a better subject to his sovereign. Such a one may, or may not, become a Protestant or an infidel. When the influence of the priest is weakened or destroyed, the Irish Catholic becomes an easy victim to those who teach disloyalty and rebellion. But his lapse into treason should be ascribed to the fact not of his being a Catholic, but of his being a bad one. No good Catholic who values the sacraments, and respects the precepts of his church, could possibly join the treasonable brotherhoods denounced by the Catholic priest from the altar, by the bishops in pastorals, and by the pope himself. There are, however, too many Irish Catholics whose obedience to their church is partial, or but nominal. Perhaps these men first learnt in Irish national schools the lesson that religion, like every thing else, has its appointed time and place; that Catholic devotion forms no indispensable portion of secular studies, and that priestly intervention in affairs not strictly religious is intrusive and impertinent. The want of a truly Catholic training in early life doubtless has led many an adult Catholic to hold that a priest out-steps the proper sphere of his office, when he cautions his flock against revolutionary excesses.
If misdirected and uncatholic teaching occasions many Irish Catholics to become rebels in thought if not in deed, their education has advanced and is advancing in another point, so as to render their treason more dangerous. Irishmen in former years were prompt to seize occasions for the overthrow of British rule, but lacked certain qualities requisite for permanent success. They seemed incapable, for any length of time, of combined action and resolution in the field or the cabinet. They carried into battle the dissensions and jealousies of their divided council-chambers. Brilliant displays of military valor served only to mark more distinctly the fatal effects of indecision and insubordination. Victory itself was often the prelude to that demoralization of forces which is the worst consequence of defeat. But now the Irish are swiftly learning to acquire those qualities of organization and self-government which will render their revolts more formidable and disastrous to England than hitherto they have proved. Irishmen have shown themselves in American campaigns not soldiers merely, but generals, and not merely skilful tacticians in handling masses of troops before the enemy, but also able organizers, clever in moulding and disciplining untrained materials into effective battalions. Habits of promptitude, self-control, and self-reliance belong to the Irish-American in perhaps even a higher degree than to the Anglo-Saxon. The number is rapidly increasing of Irishmen who, having acquired those habits in America, repair to Ireland and communicate them in some degree to their brethren at home. The peasantry of Ireland—already familiarized with trans-Atlantic ideas of independence and republicanism—are apt to become Americanized. Their sympathies are with the United States rather than with England. If war broke out between Great Britain and the States, no one doubts but that the first American army flung upon Irish shores would find Ireland one vast recruiting field, and that swarms of soldiers of Irish descent would fly from distant lands to Ireland to lend their aid in rendering it, throughout its length and breadth, a garrison impregnable to British attacks. And no one doubts but that England—even though eventually victorious by land and sea—would depart from such a conflict crippled in half her strength. Ireland, alienated irrevocably, would be to England like a paralyzed limb to the combatant, both a sign and a source of weakness. At no very distant period from the termination of such a war, Ireland would virtually become an American outpost, and would cease to be an integral part of Great Britain. Without Ireland to rely upon, England could scarcely be expected to maintain a position as a first-class power in the event of war among European nations. Mercenary troops might, indeed, for a time supply the want of Irish soldiers and sailors. But the nation which has to hire foreign troops to fight its battles is already in decay.
It is possible, however, that Ireland, instead of becoming the occasion of ruin and dismemberment to the British empire, may prove its mainstay and the bond of its integrity. If Ireland shall become prosperous and contented under the changed policy of England, if its population shall increase under prosperity, and if its nationality shall be recognized and fostered—then no combination of European foes, unaided by America, can hope to prevail against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. But why should America withhold her hand, when opportunity shall have presented itself for dealing a blow in repayment of old wrongs aggravated by recent disputes? France may demand the armed assistance of the States, whose existence as an independent government she so powerfully helped to create. He reads ill the face of nations who fails to perceive that the great body of Americans desire to see the pride of England humbled, and that they are treasuring up their wrath against the day of wrath. The native-born Americans are moved by the transmitted rancor of past injustice. Those of Irish and Catholic descent have the wrongs of Ireland and of the Catholic Church to avenge. All the traditions of faith and patriotism are now arrayed against England, and the influence of the Irish and Catholic population of the States is sufficient to decide the political action of Congress in the eventuality of the reasonableness of war with Great Britain becoming a subject for discussion. Yet the Irish and Catholic element in the American population might, under circumstances to be created by English policy, prove the means of restraining from an almost fratricidal contest the two great empires. Ireland may become so linked to England that any blow struck against England would equally harm Ireland. An enlightened legislation concerning the soil of Ireland may lead to the break-up of absentee landlordism, and substitute tens of thousands of owners and occupiers in place of the few hundred feudal proprietors who now exact rack-rents from an impoverished tenantry. The multiplication of resident working farm-owners may afford remunerative and permanent occupation to numerous agricultural laborers for whom there now offers only an intermittent and precarious employment. The agricultural prosperity of Ireland is a powerful bond of union with England, the nearest and best market for Irish produce. Another bond of union may be found in the grant of legislative independence, or such a modification of the present parliamentary system as may place the disposal of purely Irish interests in the hands of Irish representatives, satisfy the just desires of the patriotic, and leave no room for sentimental grievances to fester into international feuds. The Catholic religion, subjected to no disabilities in either kingdom, and overshadowed by no hostile establishment—for Englishmen themselves in a few years will remove their present church establishment in the interests of their church and of Protestantism—will form another tie between the countries. English Catholics have always been loyal to the British government. Irish Catholics may become just as loyal. Education may render the rough Irish laborers, who frequent the centres of English commerce and manufacture, as loyal as the most loyal in England, and a valuable counterpoise to the ultra-democratic semi-infidels who form the dangerous mobs of London, Liverpool, and other vast trading and industrial cities. And if the social and political interests of Catholic Irishmen and of Catholics in England become recognized as identical with those of English Protestants, then the union between Great Britain and Ireland will be completely consolidated, and the Irish party in America will have neither excuse nor opportunity for joining any other party which may desire, disregarding the welfare of Ireland, to inflict a wound upon Great Britain. On the contrary, the Irish and Catholic element in the States will be both able and willing to throw its effective influence into the scale upon the side of peace and good-will, whenever the differences between the cabinets of London and Washington demand settlement. Ireland will thus indirectly become the mediator between the contending empires—the arbiter to reconcile the angry parent and the aggrieved son. But Ireland, to be enabled to act this part, must be cherished as Irish and Catholic, with its nationality unimpaired and its faith untrammelled. And if the political interests of Great Britain shall be served by the flourishing condition of Irish Catholicism, the religious interests of Protestant England will not necessarily be damaged. Nay, it may prove an advantage to Protestantism to be brought upon equal terms into close and harmonious relations with the fervent faith of the Catholic Church, which nowhere appears to greater advantage than in Ireland. Rationalism and scepticism are on the increase in Great Britain and elsewhere, and will prove far more dangerous neighbors than the Church of Rome to the Church of England. Infidelity is an enemy against whom both would do well, if not to unite their strength, at least to direct their separate attacks. As rivals in opposing vice and unbelief, they may learn to respect each other, and, alas! have before them a field only too ample for their most vigorous exertions.
MARY.
Sweet name of Mary, name of names save One—
And that, my Queen, so wedded unto thine
Our hearts hear both in either, and enshrine
Instinctively the Mother with the Son—
The lisping child's new accent has begun,
Heaven-taught, with thee; first-fervent happy youth
Makes thee the watchword of its maiden truth;
Repentant age the hope of the undone.
To me, known late but timely, thou hast been
The noon-day freshness of a wooded height;
A vale of soothing waters; the delight
Of fadeless verdure in a desert scene;
And when, ere long, my day shall set serene,
Be Hesper[35] to an eve without a night.
B. D. H.