A WORD FOR THE IRISH POOR.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume v, Issue 232, 12 October 1877, Page 15

A WORD FOR THE IRISH POOR.

Tears ago there was in Ireland a pair of famous brothers connected with Trinity College, Dublin. One of them, James Henthorae Todd, as a fellow of Trinity rose to great wealth and almost the highest honors of the Irish law Church. He was, besides, eminent as an Irish antiquarian and a scholar, although he wrote a foolish history of St. Patrick, the ineffectual attempt of which to demonstrate that the apostle from Borne was a Protestant, was admirably refuted by Bishop Patrick F. Moran, of Ossory, when Vice Rector of the Irish College in Rome. The other brother had a different fate. He was honorable even in this world, though not so richly endowed, but of more substantial account in the world to come. He had heard the summons to the true faith, which Trinity College was founded to destroy, and leaving fortune and advancement behind him in the establishment, became a poor Catholic priest. His mission was cast among the Irish toilers of the great maelstrom of the world, the English metropolis. His exertions year after year have won him a creditable renown as a good priest, which will avail him more than all the reputation which he might have won as a fellow litterateur, or antiquary. His history has been recently brought back to us by reading a spirited defence of t*>a poor Irish in London, which he has made against an English publication, which, with great and characteristic bitterness, described the Irish poor as "loathsome" and "savage" — two sweet adjectives which we commend to the American press. Canon Todd's reply leaves nothing to be desired by the Englishman — or possibly it may be a degenerate Irishman whom he thus answers :: — ♦< Ido not presume to make any remarks upon your article relating to Farm Street Catholic Church, but I ask you in common fairness to allow me to protest against an expression which displays an unusual degree of bad taste, in addition to the falsehood. The Irish poor ore neither " loathsome" nor " savage." I have a right to give my opinion on this matter, because I am a priest of twenty-five years standing and a native of Ireland, well acquainted with the poor at home and in England. Ido not wish to enter into a discussion, and shall therefore content myself with making a protest against language at once uncharitable and insulting. Whatever be the faults of individuals, the Irish people in this country, as a body, are quiet, industrious, patient under the pressure of severe poverty, religious, and virtuous. In the lanes of London you will find many a pure soul which one day will enjoy a high place in the kingdom of God. The English Catholict one everything to the Irish poor. They owe to them their political emancipation. They owe to them their present political consideration ; because no Protestant government would care anything for them if it were not for their connection with the masses of the Irish people, with whom they are religiously associated. And there are few good works in the cause of education, church building, ka. t &c,, whether in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, or any other large town, which are not considerably assisted by constant offerings from the pence of the poor. Lord Archibald Douglas has a large institution in the Harrow Road for the support of destitute boys. He reckons that he receives annually from £400 to £500, collected in penny weekly alms from the Irish lower classes. I have one more remark to make. Our Blessed Lord tells us that "He was appointed to preach the Gospel to the poor." I know nothing more repressive of warmth, earnestness, and zeal than to preach before an audience dressed np in the extremest stiffness of the latest fashion, erect, still and immovable like marble ; having ears and not appearing to have them, and having eyes>nd not condescending to see, Give me the

choice of preaching in one of two churches — Farm Street, Berkeley Square, at the West-end, and the Catholic church of Poplar, at the East-end — and 1 should prefer, ten thousand times over, to preach to the poor Irish of Poplar. A Catholic congregation without the poor is like a body without a soul."