484
AN GAODHAL.
of England. It is high time that this blessed sign
so dear to the heart of the patron saint of the
Green Isle should be restored to the country to
which it properly belongs, and should receive due
prominence and veneration as the holy palladium
of the most faithful nation in Christendom.
It appears from the columns of the last GAEL —
as had been previously predicted — that the Order
of the Cross has found an opponent. I am sorry
to find a gentleman coming out over his proper sig¬
nature to sound the tocsin of alarm for
Protestantism as if he desired to ingratiate himself
and manufacture personal capital out of his need¬
less advocacy. I have recommended prayers to be
offered for the conversion of the British nation,
but the same thing had been previously done by
the highest dignatories of the English Catholic
Church; and what we call heresy did not seem
conscious of being the object of a direct physical
assault. I have suggested the advisability of off¬
ering prayers for the propagation and triumph of
the Catholic faith; but the same thing has been
done by the Popes and has received due rocogni¬
tion from the faithful throughout the world, and
Protestantism has not on that account been seized
with any remarkable degree of trepidation. The
Catholic Church allows and causes prayers to be
offered for many temporal blessings, such as
health, propitious weather, a safe journey, peace
and deliverance from captivity, but there is no
temporal blessing that can in magnitude compare
with the redemption of a long-oppressed, plunder¬
ed, persecuted and tortured nation: When Ire¬
land was writing in the agony of despair, under
the cruel tyranny of the Danish usurper, Turge¬
sius, the zealous clergy of the people betook them¬
selves to the caves, woods and mountain fastnesses
and fasted and prayed, as did also the faithful laity,
for the deliverance of their country from the in¬
supportable yoke of foreign bondage ; and conse¬
quently the Divine Ruler of the universe, who re¬
gards the tears, groans and afflictions of his peo¬
ple as He did those of the Israelites in Egypt,
employed an innocent native virgin, and twelve
beardless youths to be the means of hurling the
implacable alien despot from the pinnacle of his
usurped dignity, and of restoring to pious and re¬
joicing Erin the unspeakable boon of her lost au¬
tonomy (see O'Mahony Keating on the reign of
Maolseachlainn) I am of opinion that prayers have
lost none of their efficacy, since that period, and
that the priests of Ireland are as holy and as pious
to-day as they were in the days of King Malachy,
and that they will oppose no obstacle to the em¬
ployment of prayers and good works for bursting
the shackles that impoverish and degrade their
country. Now, if the supposed redoubtable edi¬
fice of Protestantism be, after all, of so frail, and
flimsey a structure as not to be able to withstand
the lack of the battering-ram of prayer, and the
sound of the trumpets of faith, its fall, like that
of the walls of ancient Jericho, would be certainly
from God, and therefore a consummation to be
devoutly wished for by every true Christian. St.
Paul tells us that in his time some were called
Jews who were not Israelites; and it may be said
with equal propriety to-day that many are called
Irishmen who are not Gaels, or who do not belong
to the patriotic
Firéin:
and certainly a native of the Emerald Isle who vo¬
luntarily engages to serve the enemy,
and who strenously opposes the offering of
prayers for the redemption of his oppressed moth¬
er land must inherit from some quarter false blood
in his veins: and may, perhaps, be able to trace
the lineal pedigree of his sept to that Judas Isca¬
riot of Irish treachery, Dermod MacMurrough,
who sold and betrayed unfortunate Ireland into
the power and possession of the British nation. —
Nemo me impune lacessit. — But, after all, it may
possibly be that my censor has set himself up as a
nine-pin to be easily knocked down in the interest
of the Order of the Cross; for his ground is so
untenable and his arguments so vapid that there
is no need of endeavoring to squelch him with an
avalanche of ratiocination.
My ambition is compared with that of "Peter
the Hermit." I do not know but that I may
be unconsciously indued with a spark of the
ardent spirit of that eminent recluse. I glory
in the man who by the eloquence of his convin¬
cing declamation could arouse the latent enthusi¬
asm of apathetic Christendem to thwart the aggres¬
sive insolence of Moslem fanaticism; and I am
firmly convinced that were it not for the fiery, no¬
ble, soul that God had infused into his energetic
frame Mahometanism would not only be to-day a
ruling religion in Asia, but would have centuries
ago, moulded and shaped the destinies of Europe,
and swayed the imperial sceptre of the world. But
my adversary surmises that no large accession of
members will assume the insignia of the new socie¬
ty I do not anticipate that he may in this respect
prove a true prophet; but perhaps a secret or
sworn conspiracy like those that have ruined Ire¬
land in the past and which may not be spy-proof
like the institution which I have presumed to in¬
augurate may be more acceptable to unsophistica¬
ted minds not sharpened by experience, and which
may not be able to realize the fact that a holy
island cannot be delivered by unholy means: and
that so-called "sensible" revolution, in as
far as Ireland has been concerned, is but a
palpable synonym for charlatanism; but if
there should not, within the present year,
be found among the Irish race more
faithful persons to adopt the sacred symbols of the
new order than the few required of old to save So¬
dom, the society, will in due time fulfill the
sion for which it has been established. and Ire¬
land — ruat Britannia — within the life-time of men
