Page images
PDF
EPUB

"Madeline is having her picture taken, Signorina Grazia, and it is so beautiful, we want to go and see it. May we go this afternoon and have ours taken too ?"

I turned to the calmer Maud for some respite from the torrent of questions. She said, gently

[blocks in formation]

"Pray do, Miss Armytage," said Madame St. Aubyn; "Monsieur Lesellier is painting quite a lovely miniature of my little girl; I would like you to see it."

66 I should like to see it very much," I said, " and will take the children to the studio with pleasure; but, of course, we must go when you are there."

"I am going this afternoon; it is Clemence's last sitting. join me there at three o'clock, Miss Armytage ?"

Could you

"Assuredly, madam ;" and, amid reiterated bursts of delight on the part of the three children, Madame St. Aubyn left us.

"May we not have our miniatures taken, too, Signorina Grazia ?" said Marguerite, when we were alone, "Maud and I want to have them to give to papa, to surprise him."

I remembered then that I had seen no portraits of the children of Mr. Lydyard or their mother, which was curious in a house where everything bespoke taste and wealth. In fact, the "Beatrice Cenci" was the only painting, so far as I knew, in the house, where there were several choice pieces of sculpture. Perhaps Mr. Lydyard did not care for any other art. While these thoughts were in my mind, Maud said, with great earnestness— "Yes, dear, we would like to give all our own money for the pictures papa, and will take us, you and you wont tell him, will you ?" "I will certainly take you to see Clemence's likeness, my children, and then we will see about the rest. How much it would cost must be considered, for, perhaps, all your money would not be enough." [TO BE CONCLUDED IN OUR NEXT.]

for

THE ANCIENT IRISH CHURCH *

THERE is a bright spot in Irish history, which Irishmen have always delighted to contemplate, and which is all the brighter for the dreariness of the gloom through which it shines. Once on a time, indeed, it was more than a spot-it covered a very large space; but now, from its remoteness, it is only seen like a star far off in the deep vault of heaven, though it sheds its holy and mysterious rays over a whole hemisphere.

* THE ANCIENT IRISH CHURCH: Was it Catholic or Protestant? By the Rev. JAMES GAFFNEY, C.C. Dublin: JAMES DUFFY, 15, Wellington-quay, and 22, Paternoster-row, London.

That bright spot is the early Christian period of our history. It began with our great Apostle, St. Patrick, in the fifth century, and continued with but slight diminution of lustre to the end of the eighth century, when the Danish invasion began to spead darkness, terror, and desolation over the land. It was this period which obtained for Ireland the proud title of "Island of Saints," by which it has been recognised all over Christian Europe. Its progress is beautifully indicated by the prophetic vision which some of his biographers attribute to the Irish Apostle, when Ireland appeared to him first as if enveloped in a flame, then with its mountains alone seeming to be on fire, and finally with only some lamps, as it were, glimmering in its valleys.

This early Christian period has always, as we have said, been the boast of Irishmen who deserve the name. Their country has not the same pretensions as other nations in the shape of power, temporal prosperity, or military glory. We do not refer, of course, to the deeds of individual Irishmen, or of Irish exile, or other legions, fighting under foreign banners. The Irish, no doubt, carried the terror of their arms beyond their native shores at the time about which the Roman poet sung

"Totam cum Scotus Iernem

Movit, et infesto spumavit remige Tethys."

But this may have been questionable glory-very different, indeed, from the glory of that great Christian epoch, to which we have referred. This latter glory was won abroad as well as at home. It was a mild, salutary, holy, civilizing glory, which contributed only to God's honour, and the enlightenment, perfection, and happiness of mankind, and the title to which has been recognised all over Christendom. No wonder, then, that Irishmen should look back with pride and satisfaction to that brilliant and happy period of their history-that in all the long ages of gloom which followed they should

"Remember the bright things that blessed them of old."

But in proportion to the just and natural pride with which the Irish Catholic turns from the heart-sickening chronicle of his country's wrongs and misfortunes, to that time when she was the acknowledged mistress of Europe in sanctity and learning, must be his indignation at the impudent pretension which would deprive him of that proud reminiscence. To any one who hears it for the first time, it will scarcely be credible that such a pretension is made; yet made it is, and the Catholic Irishman is told that he has no claim to any of the honour due to the saints and learned monks who rendered his country so illustrious of yore; in fact, that all these were staunch Protestants, and belonged to that church which he has only known as the curse of Ireland, since the days of the hideous hag, Elizabeth! It is scarcely credible, we repeat, that such an assertion should be made, yet it is daily reiterated, and that avowedly for the discreditable purpose of proselytism. That the ancient founders of monastic institutesthe Columbkilles and the Brigids, with their trains of holy conobites;

the anchorites, who practised life-long mortification; the authors of the penitential canons; the men who used the sign of the cross at almost every moment of the day, and who erected so many beauteous, ancient crosses throughout the land, each one of them with an invocation to the passer-by to pray for the soul of him whose name it bore; the men who spoke so fervently of the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist; who invoked the Blessed Virgin and the hosts of heaven in such long litanies; who read mass from the venerable missal of Bobbio; who founded monasteries, not alone at home, but in every other country of the Latin Church, and peopled so many other Latin foundations with their monks; that these men, in a word, who were the most striking personifications of every thing that constitutes the very essence and most distinctive peculiarities of Roman Catholicism were Protestants were identical with the people who scoff at monasticism and mortification; with the iconoclasts of the sixteenth century, who tore down the sign of salvation wherever it was within their reach; with those who reject the invocation of saints, prayers for the dead, and the sacrifice of the mass-to assert all this, certainly evinces profound ignorance on the subject, or very reckless audacity. However, all this is asserted, and instead of standing by in mute wonder at the audacity or the ignorance, it is necessary to meet the calumny with argument, as has been done in a very effective and able manner by the Rev. Mr. Gaffney, in the interesting volume before us.

To us,

If a man were called on to demonstrate the proposition that "two and two make four," he might very probably hesitate how to begin. the question which Father Gaffney has undertaken to solve appears so self-evident, that we could almost suppose him to have been in a similar predicament; but our reverend friend has had more patience than we confess we should have had under the circumstances. He has treated his opponents as rational men, and with singular forbearance and courtesy. He has argued the question with great learning and great research; and has shown himself intimately acquainted with all the best authorities on the subject. Taking under separate heads all the principal doctrines which distinguish the Catholic from the Protestant Church, he has shown, by numerous references to the very highest authorities-to authorities which are all recognised by every Protestant writer on the subject—that the primitive Irish Christians held, on all these points, precisely the same opinions as the Roman Catholics of the present day. These doctrines he thus sums up :

"1. The real presence of Christ in the most holy Eucharist, and the Sacrafice of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Mass.

"2. The power of absolving from sin, exercised in the Sacrament of Penance, and, consequently, the practice of Confession.

"3. Prayers for the dead, and the doctrine of purgatory. "4. Constant use of the Sign of the Cross, and miracles.

"5. Veneration for the saints, and the practice of asking their prayers--in

cluding a special reverence for the Mother of God.

"6. The necessity for mortification and penance, as shown forth in the laws of the Church, enjoining fasts during Lent, and at other seasons.

"7. The supremacy of the Pope, as successor of St. Peter.

"8. As a matter of discipline, the celibacy of the clergy, the practice of reciting the divine office, and the strict observance of holidays as well as Sundays.

9. Absolute belief in, and a profound reverence for the Sacred Scriptures."

It is unnecessary for us to follow the author through his arguments and quotations. He has derived irrefragable proofs from that mine of Irish antiquarian learning, the late Professor O'Curry's invaluable Lectures. No man in our days ever did so much for our Catholic antiquities, as the lamented O'Curry. Again, "St. Adaman's Life of St. Columbkille," edited for the Archæological Society, by the Rev. Dr. Reeves, Rector of Lusk ; Dr. Todd's "Liber Hymnorum ;" and Dr. Petrie's learned work on “Irish Ecclesiastical Architecture," have all been minutely consulted by our author. The publication of these great works ought surely have set the question at rest long ago. We do not believe that any honest and intelligent man could have studied them, or any one of them, with attention, and still assert that the ancient Church of Ireland was not the Catholic Church. We do not point directly to Mr. Whiteside, who has thrust himself forward without much credit in the question. He has probably derived his whole knowledge of ancient Irish history from a few hours' reading in a railway carriage, or has made himself up upon it as he would have done on one of his briefs in an ex-parte motion. Some one has said, that besides the right way and the wrong way of seeing any thing, there is also the crooked way, and Heaven knows it must be strange obliquity of vision that would see Protestantism among the ancient monks of Ireland, because in those remote times there was not as frequent an interchange of consultations and encyclical letters between Rome and our Ultima Thule as at the present day.

We shall quote one argument, which Father Gaffney puts with considerable effect, although he only regards it as collateral evidence:

[ocr errors]

"It is admitted," he says, on all hands, that the Christian Churches of France, England, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, were at this period in strict communion with the Holy See, and that this connexion was founded on the belief of the supremacy of that see; such supremacy was a dogma received in these churches. If the Irish Church rejected that dogma, then would those churches be separate from her by a clear boundary-line of faith, and the Irish would be regarded as cut off by heresy from the communion of the other churches of Europe. Did any such estrangement exist? Was any difference of belief manifested in the relation of the ancient Irish Church, with those of the rest of Europe? Not the least; but, on the contrary, the closest interchange, social, educational, and religious, existed during all the period of Ireland's glorious career, from the coming of St. Patrick, in the 5th century, to the invasion of the Danes, 300 years later." (p. 106.)

And again he observes

"In the schools of Ireland were kindled that zeal and devotion which gave so many apostles to the churches of Europe. If these men taught sound doctrine on the supremacy of the Holy See-if the churches founded by them were subject to the jurisdiction of the Popes, it is manifest that they must have learned that doctrine in the famous schools of Ireland, where they had been

educated. The history of the ages of faith record that the Irish missionaries founded monasteries, and governed churches in France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, and thus formed the closest alliance in religion with those countries, which confessedly acknowledged the supremacy of the Holy See. How, then, can it be pretended, that their faith was different from the belief of the countries with which they were so completely identified?" (p. 113.).

This argument is undoubtedly conclusive of itself; but the reader will find in Father Gaffney's unpretending book many equally cogent and satisfactory, together with a large amount of highly interesting and valuable information relative to our ancient history.

THE PUBLISHING TRADE IN IRELAND.

(FROM THE FREEMAN'S JOURNAL.)

It is always a source of gratification to us when an opportunity presents itself in which we can recognise signs or symptoms of improvement in any branch of trade in the country. Unfortunately, of late, this pleasing duty but rarely devolved on us, and therefore it is the more agreeable when we can, in justice, offer our gratulations to any person engaged in the development of any branch of manufacture in the country. It is, no doubt, by personal energy, by personal industry and application that the resources of a country must be laid bare, and made amenable to the welfare of the community. Any man, who, by the exercise of those qualities, can introduce and successfully establish a branch of remunerative manufacture, which, while it employs and sustains skilled labour in the country, contributes, it may be, no doubt, a small quota, but it is nevertheless an appreciable and sensible instalment to the general prosperity, should be esteemed a benefactor, and, if we may use the phrase, a practical patriot. The history of the trade of Ireland is a melancholy record-one the perusal of which is ; not calculated to inspire even the most sanguine or speculative with hopeful anticipations. On the contrary, an acquaintance with its vicissitudes, its obstructions, and its sufferings are more likely to inspire fear and apprehension so much so, indeed, as to induce the feeling that its resuscitation is an undertaking, if not hopeless, at least surrounded with great, and serious, and grave difficulties. But to the determined there is no impossibility; and we do sincerely believe that the principal requisites for the revival of some of the recuperative branches of trade in this country are resolution to face the magnified difficulties-application and industry to remove them-and an honest appreciation of the obligations and duties which those employed in such vocations owe to the community. These observations have been suggested by a visit we recently paid to the new concerns, No. 15, Wellington-quay, of Mr. James Duffy, the eminent Catholic publisher, for there we recognised the most practical illustration of the truth of our remarks. The new premises are extensive beyond compare with any similarly occupied in Ireland— they have been fitted up with a remarkable elegance and an appositeness to their purposes seldom met with in such concerns; and although in their

« PreviousContinue »