FOR FAITH AND FATHERLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 14, 27 July 1888, Page 29

FOR FAITH AND FATHERLAND.

{United Ireland, May 26.) To Irish Catholics who love the old fai-h und the old land the hour is one ot sore tear and bitter humiliation. Not lightly, not recklesilj, but impelled by a aid se.ise of a'era duty, we have dared lift our humble voice on tuis mome itous theme. Orer the Inquisition Circular every .mti-Irish and anti-C.th jlic journal has been lost in sardonic exultation. What is it to them ttougn the Irish faiih be endangered it only rack-rents are extortei, evictions condoned, and a tottering coercion Guverument re-established by the decree ? They lavish on tha Supreme Pontiff hypocritical and fulsome flattery more insulting than the foul slanders and contumely with which they have hitherto invariably availed him. They flippantly quote his august sanction for the atrocities that, in Mr. Gladstone's emphatic words, " desecrate the sacred name of law and order" in this unhappy land. Between the Pope and Mr. Balfour they share the glories of coercion! The decree has given new hopa to the fainting hearts of the coercionists and evictors. The savage death-sentence on John Dillon was its first outcome. It has been the longed-for signal of wholesale evictions. The clang of the crowbar, the thunder of the battering-ram is heard' in every corner of t,e land. Even the Most Vile tbe Muqus baa taken heart of grace to return; tbe " Deni's w irk "on his estate undir the sbel er and sauctiun of tt»e reacupt. We ha i a bard figit in Ireland before this last b.ow, an i we fought ie out fair y. Wu never once cried for quarter in the face of desperate o ids. Our sufferings touched the h.- a ri, our courage wakened the admiration of the civilised globe We met tae cojicionist aud the evictor face to face, and flun^ them back taunt for taunt and blow for blow. We foiled then wild rage an i cruel greed by patient, crimeless combination. Now, in the supreme moment of the long, fierce fi^ht, win n already the light ot victory and freedom d-iwus on us, to be struck from bemnd by a hand we have learned to trust aud love, is mdjea hard to bear. In this supreme hour of her trial Ir •- land can realise ihe cry ot anguish thai burst from the broken heait ot the greatest of the Hotnans wueu be saw vis well-beloved stnki w.th his enemies against bis life. Have we alone, of all the nan n-i oi thr eaitn, earned the reproaches ot Kumc ? Aie we, in truth, ttu vilest p 'ople on tne eaitn'a broad Hce, a* tie vilest we sh ,uld tie il th< li^qu sittuu denunciation wero debeived ? Is I eie no danger to faith and moraia outside th c nfi i«s of our unbuppv land 1 Is atu go forth umociradictei to the woild that the Lia.i Caiholie people have been engaged in one vast conspiracy against justice aud bum unty — -a couspiracy of greedy cxttrtion ai.d savage peisocuti >n, aided, abtt'ea, aa U-ncourtgLd by thei' bs ops aud prints? We will not oufLr judgment to go against us by default. Evai in the court of the Vatican, even at the toot ot the Supreme Pontiff's tbron ■, leverontly, bui buinlj, we plead not guilty of ibe terrible accusaucn. It is but cold comloit to ua to know that the coercion intriguers nave betin host with their own poiaid. Tbe National movement has betn enormously etiengtheueu and extended in Engli.n 1 by the Tory Goverumem's aoj. ct alignment to tie 1 ope. The sturdy Englisumau does not relish the spectacle of England on her knees to Vie Fop • for aid in the Government ol Ireland. It Irelaud caunotbe governed trom London, he does nut love tha.t tuey should be governed from U >m?. The old bogey that played so large a pan m me last general e'ectioa is dead and buried. A ever more can bigotry itself assert that Home Kule and Rome Kule in Ireland am lde.iueal. Never a-jai i c-m the most audacious coercionist lekindle .No-Popery int It ranee by a picture of an Irish Cathol.c Parliament crouching m blind subjection A t th. feet ot the Popa aud levelling a' his dioiati.-n in religious persecution of their Protestant fcJlow-countryme.i. The Inquisition has help-d, no hurt, the National cause -Lias help-d v euuiniously. V t c.iv we take no coruloit in an advantage p uchased at such peril to our people s hearttelt uevotiou to tbur ancient faith. No ma , tuat knows the lush beait cm doubt hit the peul is re il and imminent. His ' ht-ait is w juudud, nut thiougn his tear, bui his aff -ctijus. The faith that grew strunger amid iho storm oi centuries of p,-nal laws, the love ot tte Uuly Bee which survives tbe calumnies of ' our enemies is outraged by the bpecticle of tbe Supreme Head ot his Church claimed as an ally by Ireland's merciless oppressors. The enemies of Ireland and of the Pope, while they gloat o\-r the Ketcnpt, make no iecr, t of their hope ihat its i:gorous eufuicemmi may pro luce a scliiim in the Cnurch. That must rabid No-Popery, coeicion j mrnal, the Dj.Hi/ Express, while vehemently manudning the mf .liiu.e authority ol tbe Inqu sit.on Cucular iv Irish politics, maki s no secret ot us hope that it will prove fatal to the ii tehty of a people tint brib sa and threats have proved unavailing to temp: or t.rury from their an'-ient faith. "Ir id a curious tact " (even the dull cuitor ot the Daily Express f.-ela constrained to confi bs iv the fiis leader in Wedu. sday's issue) " and .«-, weieel.to wb.ch we should call attention, that upou this journal " Daily Express) " which is an organ maiuly ' (he miga' with truth Lave t><»iu wii .ily) " an o> «a i of fiotestaut opinion saould now develop the s range and unwonted " (very unwonttd) " duty of upholding the actiou oi the He 1 1 of the Roman Cathj'.ic Church." The Eoman Catholic jou;nala o£ Irelaad, he confesses, without exception

repudiate political dictation from R»tne, and repudiate still more strongly the foul slanders of our bisaops, oar priests, and our people with which our enemies and hiß abused the eara of his Holiness the Pope. The Daily Express coaaoles itself with the hope that the Rescript, if itf*ils to baot service to thaevictorand coercionist, will at least provt faUl to the Catholicity of Ireland. It concludes a virulent leader in Tuesday's issue by the authoritative declaration : " Bat we have yet to sea whether the bishops and priesta in Ireland 'will join in the new crusade and undo the work of Henry 11, in subjecting Ireland to the See of Rome." It puts its hope more definitely in tht opening sentences of Wednesday's leader, in which it assumed the novel rsle of official organ of t*ie Vatican—" The Pope," it solemnly declarer, " is in very serious earnest indeed, and action upon his part, which will put the recalcitrants between the horns of a very formidable dilemma, ii to be immediately looked for. In short, these mutineer! " (the entira Oat hoi c population of Ireland, a few rack-renting Cawtholici excep'ed) will, as we r-^d the si^.iu of iae tiaus, be compelled to c oct whether they will rdtntin in the Ciurcd of Rom*, or Uka up their stand on the outs. di as Jansenists, or any other variety of religious persuasion wlv.ch may bist suit thair attitude of rebellion and the peculiar doctunes which are to form the theological basis of thtir brand-new sect " To Catholics, of course, all this is the raving of midsummer madness but none the less it in licatea the direction in which the tides of No-Popery coercionists are tending. It was M Catholics, rather than as Nationalists, the people's representatives assembled in the Mansion Housa of Dublin, and again around tn« platform in the Park, to lay the truth open to the world, and d«« •ipate the cloud of calumnies on the Irish Catholic priests and people with whick our enemies have poisoned the atmosphere of Rome,