AN GAOḊAL.
471
throughout these two states, and all of these grea
families belong to some protestant denomination
or another. No doubt, indeed, but that the ances¬
tors and forefathers of all these families were Cath¬
olic as well as Irish. Now, what is really the
cause of this great falling away from the Church
of Rome, the Holy Catholic Church: Was it per¬
secution or not? The forefathers of these families
of course, were here long before the Revolutionary
War. England, cursed tyrannical England, for 170
years. that is, from the year 1606 A. D. third year
of the reign of bastard James the VI. of Scotland
and I. of England, Although the son of the Cat¬
holic Queen Mary of Scotland who was put to
death for the Roman Catholic faith, by her cruel
cousin, Elizabeth, Queen of England. James I. of
England commenced the most cruel persecution
known in history against the professors of the
Roman Catholic Religion, and this persecution ex¬
tended to the American Colonies. It was carried
on by James I, Charles I, Cromwell, then Charles
II. then William and Mary, then Queen Ann, then
down to the reign of George III. when America
drove off the cursed British yoke in 1776. It was
during this Revollutionary period that the early
Irish immigrants to America lost their faith and
language, and with them of course, thier nation¬
ality. Their children, grand children, and great-
grand children grew up without any instruction in
the language or faith of their forefathers, all Cath¬
olic books being destroyed by order of the English
government. So this accounts for the apostasy
of our early Irish settlers in America.
(To be Continued.)
Denis O'Keefe.
ANONYMOUS.
Editor of the Gael, —
You ineffable pig. You talk of freedom but would
enslave others both in this world and the next.
Have not Mr. Beecher and Miss Cleveland as
good a right as you to think and express their re¬
ligious sentiments. "Did ever the devil," to use
your own beastly expression, record intolerance
equal to yours. You would fain burn as the Ro¬
man Catholic Church used to burn all who differ
from you.
(We received the above anonymous
postal card a few days' since. The post
mark shows that it was mailed at Gros¬
venor Street, Belfast, Ireland, on Aug
15th. The writer, we presume, did not
expect to see it printed as it is the sec¬
ond card received from the same par¬
ty. The orthography etc. is faultless,
so that it must be the production of a
man of fair literary education. The
reader can form his own ideas of his
other parts.
Our anon. friend charges us, unjust¬
ly with a pert expression introducing
the second paragraph of Mr. Collins'
letter on page 460 of the Gael. But
Mr. Collins had the manliness to en¬
dorse his sentiments with his signa¬
ture. We printed Mr. Collins' letter
without comment, and the only refer¬
ence we made to Miss Cleveland is at
the bottom of the same column, and
there is nothing in that respecting her
religious belief, and we presume that
Mr Collins' scathing reference to her
was evoked by HER studied and gratu¬
itous interference with the religion of
others.
If our complimenting anon. friend
has carefully read the Gael for the last
four years he must be well acquainted
with our views on religious bigotry, —
They are these: Being firmly ground¬
ed in our own, we do not inquire or do
we care for the belief of others, or whe¬
ther they have any belief: in a word,
we believe that the religious belief of
a man or a woman is his of her indivi¬
dual concern and that it is the height
of impertinence to pry into or interfere
with it, when not subversive of social
order.
But when sanctimonious, canting,
hypocritical ranters use religion as a
cover to rob the populace, we certain¬
ly will not sing dumb.
Again, we have no fault to find with
nor do we question Mr. Beecher's right
to his non-belief in Christianity; but
we have this fault to find with him,
that, being a non-believer in any reli¬
gion, he should particularize ours to its
injury for his own personal benefit,
as he has done.
After turning his back on his politi¬
cal party at the last election, because
of a personal spite against Mr. Blaine,
his church became deserted, and, see¬
ing the source of his income thus
gliding away, he had recourse to lies
and bigotry to retain it. He got him¬
self "interviewed" at Atlanta so as to
advertise his fictitious reason for opp¬
osing Mr. Blaine. In that interview
he declared that his reason for oppos¬
