FAITHFUL IRELAND !

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 137, 17 December 1875, Page 15

FAITHFUL IRELAND !

In a recent sermon preached by that noble specemen of an Irish Bishop— John Mac Hale —lie paid the following- beautiful tribute to the fidelity of the Irish people to their faith through all the fires of persecution in the past : We are no strangers to persecution in this ouv beloved land. For three hundred years the fire and the sword, and every other engine of persecution were relentlessly employed to destroy the sacred tree of Catholic faith, which St. Patrick's hands had planted, and which had yielded such abundant fruits of heavenly blessedness to our fathers. Many an heroic Bishop and many a priest were then punished with death, and many were sent to slavery in lJarbadoes, Avhich was worse than death, for ottering the Holy Sacrifice or administering the Sacraments to their flocks. Some were even burned before a slow fire, and thus were privileged to share the martyrdom of a Lawrence. Innumerable wore those who attained their crowns on the gibbet ; and of very many it is recorded that, when put to death with the greatest cruelty, their bodies wore torn to pieces and treated with the greatest ignominy. We have heard a great deal about the maxim that no faith is to he kept with heretics — a, calumny against our faith which has been a thousand times refuted— but what is to be said of those who, with the boast of liberty of conscience on their lips, would yet, openly, unblushingly, and legally seek to exterminate our whole Catholic nation ? and what of those who would call on their followers to root out the Irish people, young and old, as " worse than idolaters," or with Dopping, Protestant Bishop of Meath, would publicly and solemnly teach from the pulpit that " no faith was to be kept with the Irish Catholics." It was from such principles that the penal laws sprung forth, and so long as Irishmen will read their country's history, the burning words of Edmund Burke shall not be forgotten : " The code against the Catholics was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." What was the result of all this persecution ? Was the tree of Divine faith destroyed? No; but refreshed with thu dews of heaven, and with the blood of Irish martys, it now nourishes as an imperishable plant, and at no period of history was the Church of Ireland more fervent in faith or more abounding in piety, or more fruitful in good works, than at the present clay. It is well to recal these things to mind when we sou the Catholic Church, oppressed in so many countries around us, and when Satanic bigotry would clamor for new persecution nearer home. In God's own time these storms, too, will cease, and pe-xce and sunshine will smile on the holy Church. Despite all the powers of the world God's work will remain; prayer, and patience und suffering must triumph. In every trial and affliction that should present itself we should look to those who have preceded us in the faith, that we may be comforted by their oxample and strengthened by their heroism : "We are the children of saints and look for that life which God will give to them that never oh an 40 their faith in Him." (Job ii. 18.)