Part 4

The magnitude of this work is not to be measured even by the importance of these transplanted churches at the present moment. The countries to which I have alluded are but in their infancy. We can see on this continent the rapid strides of such infant colonies. Within three quarters of a century this country has advanced in population from three to over thirty millions, and in most other elements of greatness in still grander proportions. If it continue to increase, as it has done regularly from the beginning, at the end of this century, or soon after, it will have a population of over one hundred millions—that is, as great as is now the population of France, and Spain, and Italy, and Great Britain combined. If this be expected in this country in forty years, what will the case be in one or two hundred, in this and so many others similarly situated?

Australia starts with all the advantages of this country, and some peculiar to itself, and is following it with giant strides. It may overtake it before long, if not outstrip it. But the position of Catholicity there is very different from what it was at the commencement, or even at an advanced period, in the United States. The Catholics in Australia occupy a position of practical social equality with others. They will grow with the growth and strengthen with the strength of their adopted country, and have their fair share in its importance.

England herself, from which the Catholic name was thought to have been almost blotted out, has been deeply affected by this exodus of Irish Catholics. In her cities, and towns, and hamlets, the Cross has been raised from the dust. At the side of the ancient monuments which remind England of her apostacy, humble spires rise in every part of the land, and tell that nation that the faith which they thought destroyed still lives, and is ready to admit them again to its wonted blessings. They stand there, and betoken the unity and stability of that faith of which they are the symbols—of that faith which reclaimed the fathers of that people from barbarism, and continued to be the faith of the land for a thousand years, and is yet a faith, and the only faith, in which men of every tongue and every clime are united. The English people see its unity and stability, while they are forced to witness the ever shifting and clashing forms of the religion that was substituted for it. For, in the name of the one Christ and the one Bible, altar is everywhere erected against altar, pulpit thunders against pulpit, the teaching of to-day is contradicted in the same pulpit on the morrow; yet each one proclaims his own device as the plain teaching of Scripture.

This confronting of unity with confusion, of steady adherence to truth with the ever varying shifts of error, of the mild but bright glory of an everlasting Church with the frivolities of the proudest inventions of men, is a grace, and a great grace, which God grants. It is a grace for the use of which that people will give strict account. And oh! may that use be, that they will make it fructify to their salvation. For while we appreciate the blessings granted to ourselves, we have no other feeling in their regard than a wish that they, too, may share in these blessings, and be like unto us in everything “except these chains”.

But whether well used or abused, whether unto “the ruin” or “salvation” of many in that country, this grace is given chiefly through the Irish emigration.

I am not unaware of, nor do I undervalue, the importance of the faithful remnant that has in England steadfastly continued in the faith once delivered to the saints, nor of the accession made to their numbers by the conversion of so many noble souls, to whom God gave light and strength to overcome the many difficulties that would have fain prevented their following that light. But of both we might not inaptly ask, “What are these amongst so many?” They are like those few tints that gild the skies here and there, when the sun’s light has all but departed; or like those stars that pierce at night the cumbered heavens—bright, indeed, and beautiful—but only showing forth more clearly the dark outlines of the heavy and murky clouds that shroud the horizon. They make us feel only more sensibly, and keep fresh in our memory, the loss of the sun that has set.

It is the Irish emigration that has chiefly supplied the multitudes who flock around English altars, that has made churches and schools spring up, that has finally called for the restoration of a numerous hierarchy; and, as if to mark this fact, and point out the great part that Ireland had in restoring Catholic life to England, God has so arranged it that the first head and brightest ornament of that new hierarchy should be the son of Irish emigrants; for such is the great and illustrious Cardinal Wiseman.

And even in these United States, let people say what they please, has not the Irish race held the first place in planting the cross throughout the length and breadth of the land?

In this, and wherever else I speak of the Irish race, I do not, of course, confine myself to those born in Ireland. The work which a race is called to do is to be done by those who now live, and by their children and their children’s children, wherever they happen to be born. Indeed, it would be a contradiction in terms to consider the father and son, wherever born, as belonging to different races. Be it for weal or for woe, be it unto honour or unto shame, the fathers cannot disown the children nor the children the fathers. If it depended on feeling or wishes, I, for one, would be very glad to dissolve connection with any one who insists that he owes nothing to the race that gave him a father or a mother. I would readily leave such a one to his proud claim of owning no paternity but the land on which he vegetates, and I only regret that he will scarcely bring to it much credit or advantage. He who is unwilling to acknowledge the father that begot him, or the mother that gave him suck, is not a prize worth contending for. But whatever we or he may wish, whatever be the results to us or to him, he is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. What God has united, neither he nor we can put asunder.

It is not that we should form separate classes or castes, or that we claim other rights or privileges, or have other duties than those of other races; but the one to which each man belongs has been fixed by the Almighty Provider in the very act of giving him being, and he who would fain conceal, or disown, or be ashamed of his race—that is, of the order of Providence to which he owes his existence—could succeed in nothing else but in proving himself unworthy the esteem of men of any race.

I know and gratefully acknowledge the important services rendered to Catholicity in the United States by persons of other races. There was, first of all, the Maryland colony, with whose noble history that of few, if any, of the other colonies can compare. By their justice and humanity in treating with the native tribes, by similar justice and fair dealing with other colonists, of every religion and every race, by their domestic virtues and patriotic course, the men of that colony deserved and received a high place in the esteem of their countrymen and of the world.

But their number is small, too small—indeed. Would that they were more. Were they all put together they would not form one average diocese of the forty-six now existing in this country.

God has sent us many illustrious men from France, and Belgium, and Italy, who have occupied the foremost ranks in the ministry, whose heroic virtues and zealous works are even now as beacon lights to all who labour for God’s glory. But as to the people from these countries, they are not many more than those from the Maryland stock. Germany has sent many of her hardy sons to labour with the steadfastness of their countrymen in building up the walls of the sanctuary. These are, indeed, a most important element, and are destined to become more and more important every day. They may yet exercise a greater influence on the destiny of the Church in this country than the Irish race. But so far, I think, no one will claim that they can be compared with it in numbers, or as to the results hitherto obtained. Of the converts in this country we may say the same thing as of those in England.

Giving all, therefore, what belongs to them—for there is not, nor should there be here, any room for jealousy—I think it will be admitted that it is above all others to the sons of Ireland and to their children that the spread of Catholicity is due in this land. No matter who ministered at the altar (though there, too, the sons of Ireland have had their share), in the body of the church you will find that, in the majority of places, they constitute the bulk, and in many the whole of the congregation. Their hard earned dollars were foremost in supplying means to buy the lot and raise the building from which the Catholic faith is announced. The priest, no matter what his own nationality, was nowhere more confident of finding help and support than among the Irish emigrants or their children. Wherever a railway, or a canal, or a hive of industry invited their sturdy labour, the cross soon sprang up to bear witness to their generosity and their faith.

Even the old Maryland colony, though consisting chiefly of English Catholics, seeking here a freedom of conscience denied them at home, had its Irish element, and that not the least noble in deeds nor the least conspicuous in virtue.

When at the period of the Revolution the noblest men of this land stood together, shoulder to shoulder, and issued that Declaration of Independence to which they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honours, it was a Catholic of the Irish race who affixed his signature for Maryland. In doing this he pledged an honour as pure, and a life as precious as any of the rest, but he staked a fortune equal to, if not greater than, that of all the others put together. When he signed his name, one standing by said, “There go some millions”. Another remarked, “There are many Carrolls; he will not be known”. He overheard the remark, and to avoid all misconception, wrote down in full, “_Charles Carroll, of Carrollton_”.

Yet this noble scion of the Irish race, for so many years the pride and the ornament of his native state, while fulfilling all the duties of an illustrious citizen, was not ashamed of the race from which he sprang. Instead of selecting amongst French _villes_ or English _parks_ or _towns_ a name for his princely estate, he stamped on it a title with the good old Celtic ring. He called it after a property of one of his Irish ancestors, _Doughoregan Manor_, thereby telling his posterity and his countrymen that if they feel any pride in his name, they must associate him with a race which so many affect to despise.

Let all the sons, and the sons of the sons, of Ireland be, like him, faithful to their duties as citizens, ready to sacrifice their all for their country, whether that all be little, or as great as was his vast wealth; just and respectful and charitable to men of all races and creeds, not anxious either to conceal or obtrude their own, but rather to live worthy of both; determined, in a word, faithfully to discharge all their civil and Christian duties, let them be earnest in elevating the one by greater fidelity to the other. Acting thus, they will imitate Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, and fulfil all I would wish them to do out of fidelity to their country, their religion, and their race.

It was also one of the Maryland stock, but of this same Irish race—another Carroll—who was chosen the first bishop, and the founder of the hierarchy, of the young American Church; as if Providence here too wished to indicate from which race the chief strength of Catholicity was to be derived in this land.

Would it be overstraining matters to say, that a hint of this was also given by Providence in the Irish name of the future metropolitan see of the United States—the first in time, and always to be the first in dignity? The word _Baltimore_ is an Irish word, and, through the founder of the colony, was derived from an Irish hamlet, which from the extreme south-west coast of Ireland, is looking, as it were, over the waters of the Atlantic to this continent for the full realization of its name. The word, in the Irish language, means “the town of the great house”, and it was beyond the Atlantic that Baltimore, in becoming the chief see of a great church, has truly become “the town of the great house”, for the church, or house at the head of which it stands, extends probably over a wider surface than any other church or churches amongst which any one bishop holds pre-eminence, excepting only the church governed by the Vicar of Jesus Christ, to whom is committed the care of _all_ the sheep and lambs of God’s fold, that is, the whole of Christ’s Church. In names, which God has given, or permitted to be given, he has frequently foreshadowed the destinies of individuals and races. Would it be superstitious to suppose that in the Irish name of this American ecclesiastical metropolis—the only important city in this country that has an Irish name—Providence pointed, on the one hand, to its future position in the Christian hierarchy, and on the other to the character of the chief portion of the family of that house or church?

But, be this as it may, it was a scion of the Irish race who was the founder of the new American hierarchy. For some time he held the crozier alone. The whole country was his diocese. But he did not depart until he saw suffragans around him forming a regular hierarchy, that was destined to multiply and, mainly on Irish shoulders, carry, everywhere, the ark that would spread blessings throughout the land.

The work that has thus been commenced is no doubt destined to prosper. It is not without a motive that in this country the lines are drawn, and the foundations laid by Providence for a noble church. Its beginnings (for we may say it is yet in its infancy) bear many of the marks of the process by which the work was effected, It is destined to grow, and may it grow, particularly in the mild beauty of Christian virtue, and win, by love, the homage of all the children of the land, that all may receive through it the graces of Heaven, and even their Earthly prosperity be consolidated and become the means of their acquiring higher blessings.

But whatever be said of the United States, the Irish race is certainly almost alone in the work of diffusing Catholicity in the various other countries in which the English language is spoken.

The sufferings of Ireland were, therefore, the means, and evidently intended by God as the means to preserve her in the faith, to give her its rewards in a high degree; and this preservation of her faith was as evidently intended to make her and her sons instruments in spreading that faith throughout the English-speaking world. This is, therefore, what I claim to be, in the counsels of God, the DESTINY OF THE IRISH RACE.

Did we endeavour to draw this conclusion by far-fetched arguments, we might fear the delusions of fancy, but I think it is plainly written in the facts to which I have alluded, when looked at with faith in an overruling Providence. The diffusion of the true faith enters too closely, and is too primary a thing in the designs of God, to suppose it for a moment to be the work of accident. It is his work first of all. Where it exists it exists because he so willed it. The instruments that effected it must be those which he has chosen and placed to the work with this very view. When, therefore, the results obtained, and those we see in the certain future, and the means by which they are obtained, are a matter of intuition, rather than of reasoning, the conclusion drawn seems to me to have all the force of demonstration, and in no way liable to be considered the product of fancy or of national pride.

This interpretation of the facts of history will, by some, be considered a complicated theory, and therefore unworthy of God. But the simplicity of God’s operations by no means excludes multiplicity and combination of agents in themselves most inadequate or discordant. Our inclination to exclude these, though we imagine the very contrary, is the result of the consciousness of our own weakness, which we would fain attribute to God. _We_ may, indeed, be overwhelmed, or at least embarrassed, by many instruments; and therefore we think it wise to avoid their use. But, it is as easy for God to use and direct many as few, or to produce results by his own immediate action. Nay, though sometimes he performs wonderful works in a moment, he is more often pleased to act through numerous and far-reaching instruments, which, at times, seem even to work in opposition to his designs, and by overruling and directing them, to prove that he is Ruler and Master over all things in action, as well as the Author of their being.

By one word he made the Earth produce “every green herb” and “every fruit-tree yielding fruit according to its kind”; but he is now pleased to make the fertility of the earth, and the various ingredients of the air, and the heat and light of the sun, labour through a whole season to produce the flower, that for a few days wastes its fragrance on the meadow. At one time he sends his angel to strike down in one night myriads of the enemies of his people; at another he is pleased “to hiss for the fly, that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria” (_Is._, vii. 18), that they may come and be the instruments of his vengeance. At one time he rains down bread from Heaven to feed a whole multitude; at another, he sends his angel to take the prophet by the hair of his head from Judea, even unto Babylon, that he may supply food to his servant.

It is not for us to prescribe ways to Providence, but to study His design in the events which we witness, and to bow down and adore his Power, his Wisdom, and his Goodness.

To give power to an apostate and persecuting nation, and the grace of fidelity to another; to use and even to create the material resources of the first as the instrument of his design over the latter, may appear a circuitous course, but it is only another instance of that unity of purpose and multiplicity, variety and apparent incongruity of means, which we witness in almost all his works.

When the people of God were carried away into captivity, “the priests took the fire from the altar, and hid it in a valley where there was a pit without water”. There “they kept it safe”, while the Gentile hosts reigned triumphant in the land. But “when many years had passed”, and the people returned, they sought the fire, but found only “thick water”. This they sprinkled on the new sacrifices that were prepared, and “when the sun shone out, which before was in a cloud, there was a great fire kindled so that all wondered”. (II. _Mach._, i. 19, 22).

An analogous phenomenon, methinks, has been presented in Ireland. That combination of frenzy and irreligion, which men have called “The Reformation”, swept before it almost every vestige of faith from many of the northern countries of Europe, and seemed in a special manner to have enveloped in darkness the islands of the West. Men were like “raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusion”, boasting of liberty and light, but treating the faithful with savage cruelty, and showing their own inability to hold fast any positive principles which they proclaimed as truth. The ancient faith of these islands, overwhelmed in the waters of tribulation, seemed hidden in the hearts of the Irish people, saddened by persecution and sufferings of every kind.

But the day has come for pouring forth this water on nations. By their sufferings, the Irish race, driven into many lands, mingles with the progeny of its oppressors. The sun of God’s grace, which seems under a cloud, is now shining forth, and a great fire is enkindled and is spreading its light and its heat far and near. The Church of God is everywhere showing itself again in its pristine beauty. English-speaking nations that were the ramparts of heresy, are beginning again to fall into the ranks of Catholic unity, and, as happened once before, the light of faith that took refuge in the most distant island of the West, is, from that sacred spot, sending forth its beams and gladdening the Church by giving her whole people as her children.

So far we are led, I may say, by the mere logic of facts. Were we to indulge in speculation, but in a speculation quite in conformity with the beneficent designs of God, we might expect still more from these effects of the steadfastness of Ireland.

Notwithstanding all the faults of England, the Catholic heart throughout the world has never lost its interest in that land, once so faithful. Other nations, once as Catholic, have been lost, and they are almost forgotten. The land where the Saviour Himself lived is, indeed, remembered on account of the sacred spots which he trod; but no hopes are entertained for the conversion of its people. The Churches planted by the Apostles have been destroyed. We cherish the memory of the holy confessors and martyrs who adorned them; but despair of their return to the truth is the only feeling in their regard that we can discover in the Catholic world.

But in one way or another the Catholic heart seems never to have despaired of the return of England. Opinions and expectations which are, probably, nothing more than an expression of the intensity of this feeling, are everywhere to be met. They exist among the learned and the high, as well as amongst the humble children of the Church, and are found to be cherished in different lands. England, with her long catalogue of saints, seems to be considered, not as an outcast, on whom the sentence of spiritual death has been executed, but rather as the prodigal, who in a moment of thoughtlessness demanded, what he called his own share, and wandered from his father’s house. The father is looking out, expecting every day to see the wayward one return, and is ever ready to kill the fatted calf, and to call on his friends and neighbours to rejoice and be merry, for “he that was dead is come to life again, and he that was lost is found”.

But, alas! there is much reason to fear that such joy is not to be expected. We know of no instance of a whole nation once fully and deliberately apostatising from the faith ever again returning. The grace of faith, if lost by individuals by formal apostacy, is seldom recovered. It has never yet been recovered by any nation that once enjoyed its full light, and deliberately abandoned it. It is not for us, to be sure, to place bounds to the mercies of God. Who knows but that in these latter ages God may do a work which he never did before? and, now that the Church has encircled the globe, and announced the Gospel to every nation under the sun, God may send her back on another mission more glorious than the first, showing forth his power in giving new life to fallen nations as he did before in converting those who knew not his name. His first work might be compared to that which he performed when he took the clay and breathed into it the breath of life; this, to his raising up the dead already mouldering in the tomb. But he has done both in the physical, and he may do both in the moral order.