Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886

If you take them a cake or a loaf of bread, a roll of chocolate bonbons, a basket of eggs, it is all good for them. They must be absolutely without food for twenty-four hours before they may ask help from the outside world; and when they have looked starvation in the face, then they may ring a bell, which means: "Help us! we are famishing!" Perhaps you take them nothing eatable, but you place on the edge of the cut orange, by which you sit, some money, demanding in return their "cartolini," or little papers.

The barrel turns slowly round, then back again, and you find on the ledge, where you had laid your lire, a paper of "cartolini." These are very small, thin, light-printed slips, neatly folded in tiny packets, three to each packet, which, if you swallow in faith, will cure you of all disease. After your talk is ended, the barrel turns around once more and presents its face as of an immovable and impenetrable-looking barrier. One of the pretty traditions of Rome is, that each sister has her day, when she throws a flower over the convent wall as a sign to her watching friends that she is still alive. When she has been gathered to the majority, the flower is not thrown, and the veil has fallen forever.

Harvard College and the Catholic Theory of Education

Slowly, but with unmistakable certainty, the logic of the Catholic teaching regarding true education is forcing itself upon non-Catholic minds. Day by day some prominent Protestant comes boldly to the front and declares his belief that education must be based upon religion. One of the latest accessions to this correct theory is President Eliot, of Harvard College, who declared at a recent meeting of Boston schoolteachers that,—

"The great problem is that of combining religions with secular education. This was no problem sixty or seventy years ago, for then our people were homogeneous. Now, the population is heterogeneous. Religious teaching can best be combined with secular teaching and followed in countries of heterogeneous population, like Germany, Austria, France and Belgium, where the government pays for the instruction, and the religious teachers belonging to different denominations are admitted to the public schools at fixed times. That is the only way out of the difficulty.... I see, growing up on every side, parochial schools—that is, Catholic schools—which take large numbers of children out of the public schools of the city. That is a great misfortune, and the remedy is to admit religious instructors to teach these children in the public schools. This is what is done in Europe. And all those who are strongly interested in the successful maintenance of our public school system will urge the adoption of the method I have described for religious education."

These are strong words, and coming from such a source cannot fail to have their legitimate result. The fearlessness and sincerity of President Eliot in thus stating his position on this most important subject merits the appreciation of every American, Catholic or Protestant.

We add in connection with the above, the remarks of the Christian Advocate, a Protestant paper published at San Francisco, Cal.:—

"The course which the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, in this country, are taking in regard to the education of children is, from their standpoint, worthy of praise. They see that in order to keep their children under the rule of the Church, they must keep them from the public schools, where they think Protestant influence predominates. Therefore they are providing for them in their parochial schools and academies at an extra expense that does credit to their zeal and devotion. Their plans are broad, deep and far-reaching, and they are a unit in the prosecution of them. They are loyal to their convictions, making everything subservient to the interests of their religion. Understanding, as they do, the importance of moulding character in the formative period, they look diligently after the religious culture of their children. In all this they are deserving of commendation, and Protestants may receive valuable hints from them of tenacity of grip and self-denying devotion to their faith."

An Affecting Incident at Sea

Seldom have passengers by our great Atlantic steamers witnessed so solemn and impressive a scene as that at which it fell to the lot of the passengers in the outward voyage of the Inman liner, "City of Chester," to assist. It appears that one of the passengers was a Mr. John Enright, a native of Kerry, who, having amassed a fortune in America, had gone to Ireland to take out with him to his home in St. Louis three young nieces who had recently become orphans. During the passage Mr. Enright died from an affection of the heart; and the three little orphans were left once more without a protector. Fortunately there were amongst the passengers the Rev. Father Tobin, of the Cathedral, St. Louis; the Rev. Father Henry, of the Church of St. Laurence O'Toole, St. Louis; and the Rev. Father Clarkson, of New York. Father Henry was the Celebrant of the Mass of Requiem; and Colonel Mapleson and his London Opera Company, who were also on board, volunteered their services for the choir. They chanted, with devotional effect, the De Profundis and the Miserere; and Madame Marie Roze sang, "Oh, rest in the Lord," from "Elijah." The bell of the ship was then tolled; and a procession was formed, headed by Captain Condron, of the "City of Chester." The coffin, which was enveloped in the American flag, was borne to the side of the ship, from which it was gently lowered into the sea. The passengers paid every attention to the orphans during the remainder of the voyage, at the termination of which they were forwarded to the residence of their late uncle in St. Louis.

Sing, Sing for Christmas

Sing, sing for Christmas! Welcome happy day!
For Christ is born our Saviour, to take our sins away;
Sing, sing a joyful song, loud and clear to-day,
To praise our Lord and Saviour, who in the manger lay.

Sing, sing for Christmas! Echo, earth! and cry
Of worship, honor, glory, and praise to God on high;
Sing, sing the joyful song; let it never cease;
Of glory in the highest, on earth good-will to man.

Dead Man's Island

THE STORY OF AN IRISH COUNTRY TOWN

T. P. O'Connor, M. P

CHAPTER XVII.

THE DOOMED NATION

A passion of anger and despair swept over Ireland when it was at last announced that Crowe had sold the pass. For some days the people were in the same dazed and helpless condition of mind that followed the potato blight of '46. In that terrible year one of the strange and most universally observed phenomena was that the people looked, for days after the advent of the blight that brought the certainty of hunger and death, silent and motionless and apathetic. And so it was now, when there came a blight, less quickly, but as surely, destructive of national life and hope. There was a dread presentiment that this was a blow from which the nation was not destined to recover for many a long day, and though they could not reason about it, the people had the instinctive feeling that the rule of the landlord was now fixed more tightly than ever, and that emancipation was postponed to a day beyond that of the present generation.

The landlords appreciated the situation with the same instinctive readiness and perception. At once the pause which had come in the work of eviction was broken, the plague raged immediately with a fierceness that seemed to have gained more hellish energy and more devilish cruelty from its temporary abatement. The roads were thick with troops of people rushing wildly from their homes and fleeing from their native country as from a land cursed alike by God and by man. Mat Blake, passing along from Dublin to Ballybay, was almost driven to insanity by the sights he saw at the different sections along the way.

Every station was besieged by vast crowds of the emigrants and their friends. There are few sights so touching as the sight of the parting of Irish families at a railway station. The ties of family are closer and more affectionate than anybody can appreciate who has not lived the life of an Irish home. The children grow up in a dependence on their parents that may well seem slavery to other peoples. The grown son is still the "boy" years after he has attained manhood's years, the daughter remains a little girl, whom her mother has the right to chide and direct and control in every action. Such ties beget helplessness as well as affection, and the Irish peasant still regards many things as worse than death, which, by peoples of less ardent religious faith, are regarded more philosophically.

When Mat looked at the simple faces of those poor girls, at the bewildered look in the countenances of the young men, and thought of how ignorant and helpless these people were, he could understand the almost insane anguish of their parents as they saw them embark on an ocean so dark and tempestuous and remote as the crowded cities of America, and Mat could penetrate down into the minds of his people and see with the lightning flash of sympathy the dread spectre that tortured the minds, filled the eyes, and darkened the brows of the Irish parents.

Station after station, it was always the same sight. The parting relatives were locked in each other's arms; they wept and cried aloud, and swayed in their grief.

"Cheer up, father; God is good."

"Ah, Paddie, my darlint, I'll never see ye agin."

"Oh mother, dear, don't fret."

"May God and His Blessed Mother in heaven protect my poor girl."

Then more kisses through the carriage windows.

The guards and porters frantically called upon the people to stand back; they clung on, careless of danger to life and limb; and as the black, hideous, relentless monster shot away they rushed along the line; they passed into the fields, and waved handkerchiefs, and shouted the names of the parting child or sister or brother; until at last the distance swallowed up the train and its occupants, and then they returned to homes from which forever afterwards the light had passed away.

Such were the scenes which Mat saw, and when he got to Ballybay station there was that look on his face which to any keen observer would have revealed much in the Irish character and afforded the key to many startling episodes in Irish history. It was a look at once of infinite rage and infinite despair; it spoke of wrong—hated, gigantic, at once intolerable and insurmountable. One sees a similar impress in the faces of Irishmen in Massachusetts, though the climate of America has reduced the large, loose frame to the thin build of the new country, and has bleached the ruddy complexion of Ireland to a sickly white or an ugly yellow; it is the look one can detect in the faces of the men who dream of death in the midst of slain foes and wrecked palaces; it blazes in the eyes of Healy, as with sacrilegious hand he smites the venerable front of the mother of Parliaments.

Mat had come to Ireland for the Easter recess; he had drawn out of the savings bank a few pounds of the money he had placed there for the furnishing of the house which he destined for Mary and Betty Cunningham. He longed to have a share in punishing the perjured traitor who had betrayed the country. The sights he had seen along the route satisfied him as to the temper of the people, and he entered Ballybay secure in the hope that if the traitor had been raised by the town to the opportunity of deceiving the people, he would be cast into the dust by the same hand.

He had not been long in the town when he found that he had wholly misconceived its spirit. The one feeling that seemed to dominate all others, was that the acceptance by Crowe of office meant another election; and another election meant another shower of gold.

In his father's house he found assembled his father and mother, and Tom Flaherty and Mary. They were discussing the election, of course, and this was how they discussed it.

"I always thought Crowe was a smart fellow," said Fleming. "There's one thing certain; he'll have plenty of money now, and as I have always said, 'I'm a Protestant,'" and then Mat repeated his characteristic saying.

"Do you mean to say," said Mat, with a face fierce with rage and surprise, "that you'd vote again for Crowe, after his treason?"

"And why shouldn't he vote for him?" asked Mat's mother, in a voice almost as fierce as his own. "Isn't he a Government man, and doesn't every one know that the people who can do anything for themselves or anybody else in Ireland are Government men?"

Mat, fond as he was of his mother, felt almost as if he could have killed her at that moment; he could not speak for a few minutes for rage. At last he almost shrieked, "If there was any decency in Ballybay Crowe would never leave the town alive."

"Ah! the crachure!" said Tom Flaherty.

"Ah! the crachure! Why shouldn't he look out for himself; shure, isn't that what we're all trying to do? God bless us."

Mary glanced uneasily at Mat, but he refused to look at her; she seemed for a moment spoiled in his eyes by her kinship with this polluted and degraded creature. His father gave him a wistful glance, but said nothing. Whenever there was a tempest between his wife and his son he remained silent.

And so this was how Ballybay regarded the great betrayal! Mat felt inclined to throw himself into the Shannon, and have done with life as quickly as he was losing hope and faith.

He took a look once more at the bare and squalid streets and gloomy people; and then at the frowning castle and the passing regiment of the English garrison; and he despaired of his country.

But he had come to help in the fight against Crowe; and after the involuntary tribute of this brief interval of despondency, he at once set to work. After many disappointments he found a few men who shared his views of the situation, and a committee was formed to go out and ask Captain Ponsonby to stand once more; for though Mat hated the politics of Ponsonby, he thought any stick was good enough to beat the foul traitor with. Captain Ponsonby consented, and so the contest was started. The Nation newspaper sent down several of its staff; the old Tenant Right Party held meetings, asked that Ballybay should do its duty, and save the whole country from the awful calamity of triumphant treason. Everything was thus arranged for a struggle with Crowe that would test all his powers, backed though he was by the money and the influence of the Government.

Mat's speeches, the articles in the newspapers, and the vigorous efforts of the few honest men in the town, had at last roused Ballybay until it began to share some of the profound horror and indignation which the action of Crowe had provoked throughout the country generally. There was but one more thing necessary, and the defeat of Crowe was certain; if the bishop joined in the opposition, there was no possibility of his winning.

All Ireland waited in painful tension to see what the verdict of the bishop would be. Mat heard it before anybody else, for a young curate who lived in the College House with the bishop, and was a fierce Nationalist, gave Mat a daily bulletin; the bishop resolved to support the Solicitor-General.

At first nobody would believe the tale; but the next day it was put beyond all doubt, and Mat was almost suffocated by his own wrath as he saw the "Seraph," with his divine face, arm in arm with the perjured ruffian that had brought sorrow to so many thousands of homes.

Mat fought on, but it was no longer with any strong hope of winning. His face grew darker every day, and the lines became drawn about his eyes, for there was another struggle going on in his mind at this moment, as well as the political contest in which he was engaged.