“God help our unhappy Church,” said he, “for she is suffering much; but still she is suffering nobly, and with such Christian fortitude as will make her days of trial and endurance the brightest in her annals. All that power and persecution can direct against us is put in force a thousand ways; but we act under the consciousness that we have God and truth on our side, and this gives us strength and courage to suffer. And if we fly, Mr. Reilly, and hide ourselves, it is not from any moral cowardice we do so. It certainly is not true courage to expose our lives wantonly and unnecessarily to the vengeance of our enemies. Read the Old Testament and history, and you will find how many good and pious men have sought shelter in wildernesses and caves, as we have done. The truth is, we feel ourselves called upon, for the sake of our suffering and neglected flocks, to remain in the country, and to afford them all the consolation and religious support in our power, God help them.”
“I admire the justice of your sentiments,” replied Reilly, “and the spirit in which they are—expressed. Indeed I am of opinion that if those who foster and stimulate this detestable spirit of persecution against you only knew how certainly and surely it defeats their purpose, by cementing your hearts and the hearts of your flocks together, they would not, from principles even of worldly policy, persist in it. The man who attempted to break down the arch by heaping additional weight upon it ultimately found that the greater the weight the stronger the arch, and so I trust it will be with us.”
“It would seem,” said the priest, “to be an attempt to exterminate the religion of the people by depriving them of their pastors, and consequently of their Church, in order to bring them to the impression that, upon the principle of any Church being better than no Church, they may gradually be absorbed into Protestantism. This seems to be their policy; but how can any policy, based upon such persecution, and so grossly at variance with human liberty, ever succeed? As it is, we go out in the dead hours of the night, when even persecution is asleep, and administer the consolations of religion to the sick, the dying, and the destitute. Now these stolen visits are sweeter, perhaps, and more efficacious, than if they took place in freedom and the open day. Again, we educate their children in the principles of their creed, during the same lonely hours, in waste houses, where we are obliged to keep the windows stuffed with straw, or covered with blinds of some sort, lest a chance of discovery might ensue. Such is the life we lead—a life of want and misery and suffering, but we complain not; on the contrary, we submit ourselves to the will of God, and receive this severe visitation as a chastisement intended for our good.”
The necessities of our narrative, however, compel us to leave them here for the present; but not without a hope that they found shelter for the night, as we trust we shall be able to show.
CHAPTER IX.—A Prospect of Bygone Times
—Reilly's Adventure Continued—Reilly Gets a Bed in a Curious Establishment.
We now beg our readers to accompany us to the library of Sir Robert Whitecraft, where that worthy gentleman sits, with a bottle of Madeira before him; for Sir Robert, in addition to his many other good qualities, possessed that of being a private drinker. The bottle, we say, was before him, and with a smile of triumph and satisfaction on his face, he arose and rang the bell. In a few minutes a liveried servant attended it.
“Carson, send O'Donnel here.”
Carson bowed and retired, and in a few minutes the Red Rapparee entered.