AN GAOḊAL.
459
Jacta Est Alea.
Tá An Dísle Caite!
Feb. 2nd., 1885.
To the Editor of the Gael:
Dear Sir, — In my last letter which you publish¬
ed, I hinted my intention of demonstrating in the
next issue of the Gael the true and only method
of effecting the rehabilitation of the Gaelic lang¬
uage, the elevation of the Gadelin race, and the
complete autonomy of the Irish nation. I now
come to fulfill my intimated purpose: Forty years
have now fully elapsed since a venerable aged la¬
dy wearing a dark mantle appeared to me in a vis¬
ion of sleep, and spoke to me in English nine im¬
portant words of the meaning of which the follow¬
ing Gaelic sentence affords an exact equivalent, —
"Is tusa an fear do ċlaoċlóċaḋ an
Ṗrotestúntaċt fós."
From the ominous import of the foregoing predic¬
tion, I understood that after a long interval of
time it should be my destiny to suggest the mode
of bringing about the regeneration of my native
land, and the triumph of the faith of its people.
I think I cannot be fairly accused of ill-governed
precipitate enthusiasm, or of being the dupe of a
sudden visionary infatuation, when I have taken
so long a time for deliberation upon the condition
of the affairs of my country ! and for witnessing
the untoward culmination of the various projects
which have eminated from the brains of leaders
for the amelioration of her condition and for even
procuring her independence itself. I have had
many reasons for holding aloof from the turmoil
of Irish agitation, some of which are; that I am
a meek, diffident, unobtrusive person who did
not desire to fling obstacles in the way of move¬
ments which profess to be in direct march towards
the goal of freedom, or become a drag-chain to
the scythed chariot of oratorical warfare: And be¬
sides this, I well knew that I could not expect to
receive attention from the ear of beligerent Irish
patriotism, or from the duped multitude who
trusting in the efficacy of parliamentary petitions
had their arms to the shoulders in Pandora's box
blindly groping for the talisman of political hope,
until after repeated failures and protracted dis¬
appointment that much despised preceptor, called
common sense, had been for some time the nation¬
al pedagogue. I had from my youth learned the
propriety of holding my credence from dreams, in
accordance with the teaching of my catechism.
but when I came to understand that the disappro¬
val of the church could only be partial, and could
not be levelled at "Dreams that are from God," I
began to look upon my own vision with more con¬
fidence. I was more inclined to do this when I
discovered that Jacob had been promised an in¬
heritence in the land of Canaan and Solomon had
been gifted with wisdom only in dreams, and that
a pagan monarch had foretold the vicissitudes of
the kingdom of God from the beginning of the
fourth century to the end of the world; and that
another unbelieving king had averted the ruin and
death of millions perhaps by a belief in his dreams
interpreted by his neglected prisoner. It is an ap¬
parently uncontrovertible truism judging from the
circumstances and facts that were it not for the
dreams of the first Joseph there could have been
no immigration of the children of Israel into Eg¬
ypt: no dividing the waters of the Red Sea ; no
promulgation of the Law from Mount Sinai; and
consequently no Mosiac religion: Were it not for
the dreams of the second Joseph and the wise
men who came to Bethlehem, according to the most
reasonable hypothesis of human judgment, there
could have been no flight of the Holy Family into
Egypt; no crucifixion, no resurrection from the dead
and therefore perhaps no Christian dispensation.
But the church of God very wisely places the ban of
her condemnation upon the indiscriminate belief in
dreams, the overwhelming bulk of which must be
pregnant with the chaotic germs of vain delusion:
But the remarkable dreams of St. Patrick, and
those of the mother of St. Augustine who declar¬
ed that her dreams were her title-deeds to the ful¬
fillment of God's promises to her; as well as
those mentioned in the seventeenth verse of the
second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles were
never intended to be referred to such a category.
But in this connection I must declare that for a
long time the sombre hue of the other garment of
her who appeared to me had filled me with sinister
misgivings, but when I came to discover that the
image of Our Lady of perpetual Help was arrayed
in such a colored habiliment my prejudice altoge¬
ther vanished. It may be a mystery to many why
an humble individual like myself, of stinted tal¬
ents, and mediocre abilities, who has not been
privileged to drink deeply of the Pierian Spring
of learning, and who has been scarcely permitted
to peep over the first hill of the Alps of science
should allow myself to engage in a stupendous
undertaking worthy of the giants who made war
upon the Olympia heaven: And why I should
have chosen the little tiny, apparently inadequate
Gael to be the sword and buckler of my incipient
aggression: My answer to the incredulous and
the doubting is that "All things are possible to
him who hath faith," and that God chooseth the
weak things of this world to confound the strong,
and the foolish things of this world to confound
the wise." It was in fulfillment of this attribute
of his divine majesty that God declared that he
had raised up Pharoah to the eminence of unpar¬
alleled worldly grandeur that he might manifest
his own almighty power in that tyrant's overthrow,
and in order to effect which he only picked up a
precarious waif from the bulrushes of the Nile.
Ceasar, in his Commentaries, informs us that the
