"There is still some hatred of England, but not very much. It is a sentimental, a poetic hatred, not a political hatred. One finds it among a few individuals. What agitation is now going on is secret and underground, a sure proof that it is unrepresentative. We ignore it. It means nothing. No; the passing of the Home Rule bill has given balance to the Irish mind.
"It has helped Irish-Americans to realize that the dreadful sins of England are sins of a dead and gone England, and it has helped them to see that the present England, so far as its democracy is concerned, sincerely desires to make reparation for the past. In fact, the war and the Home Rule bill together have produced such a transformation in the Irish-American nature as I, for one, never expected and never hoped to see."
He then warned me that this great change might suffer a dangerous reaction if England allows the religious bigotry of Ulster to split Ireland into two camps. To the Irish-American Ireland is a country, a home, and a shrine, one and indivisible.
"Such a surrender," said my friend, "would not only be fatal to Ireland but fatal to something even greater than Ireland, and that is the cause of religion in an age of increasing paganism. For the world can only be saved from the ruin of paganism, as we are beginning to see very clearly in America, by a union of religious forces.
"I am a Catholic, but I say that any man who says 'Only through my door can you enter into heaven' is a bad Christian. There are many doors into heaven. What we have all got to do, Catholics and non-Catholics, is to insist together that there is a heaven, that there is a life after death, that there is a God. The more doors the better. No one has a monopoly of heaven.
"And to Ireland is offered the opportunity, greater than politicians appear to perceive, of presenting to the world an example of tolerance and compromise in the supreme interests of religion which may have incalculable results for the whole world. But what will happen if England bows before the worst and the stupidest bigotry the modern world can show? Not only will you strike a blow at Ireland and a blow at Irish-American sympathy, but a blow at the vitals of religion.
"For it is only by sinking religious differences and making a common advance against this universal paganism that religion can save the soul of civilization. If you do not see the truth of that fact in England I think you must be blind. The fullness of civilization hangs upon religious union; religious dissension is the enemy."
Change in Ulster.
Another Irish-American who was present on this occasion, an accomplished man of letters and a traveler, asked me what England felt about Ulster's share in the responsibility for the present war.
"I myself have seen two letters from Ulster," he said, "in which the phrase occurs, 'Rather the Kaiser than the Pope.' These letters were written before the war. Ulster, no doubt, has now changed her tune. But it was that spirit, surely, and the reports sent to Berlin by German officers who visited Ulster and inquired into the military character of Carsonism which persuaded Germany that England would not fight."