Chapter XXXIII: Part VII: I (3)

This is a good stout volume, like St. Thomas himself. It is a book for its outward appearance such as we seldom see. We have many well-printed books, but this one is remarkable for its large, clear type, which makes it pleasant and easy to read. The subject is one of the greatest interest and importance. The life and times of St. Thomas have a peculiar charm about them, aside from the history of his genius, and of his philosophical and theological system. The two together make a theme which far surpasses in grandeur and attractiveness even the history of the majority of great saints. St. Thomas is the great doctor of the church. His intellectual sway is something without a parallel. The study of his works is on the increase, and he is likely to acquire even a greater and more universal sway than he enjoyed before the Reformation. We have never before had a really good biography of St. Thomas in English. Father Vaughan has taken hold of the work with zeal and ability. It is only half published as yet, but the first volume presents so large a portion of the angelic doctor's life before us that we can estimate its value as well as if we had the whole. An analysis of some of the principal works of St. Thomas is given by F. Vaughan, and he endeavors to present to the reader a picture of the times when he lived, as well as to describe the events of his personal history. Every student should have this book. It is indeed a wonderful thing to see such a specimen of genuine old monastic literature issuing from the English press. It makes us hope that England may yet become once more the merrie Catholic England of the olden time.

MY STUDY WINDOWS. By James Russell Lowell, A.M.,
Professor of Belles-Lettres in Harvard College. Boston:
James R. Osgood & Co. 1871.

Met with in the pages of a review or magazine, Mr. Lowell's prose is always sure to be more or less pleasant reading. His wit, his refinement, and a certain something which we are only unwilling to call his delicacy of appreciation, because, in spite of his generally acknowledged merits as a critic, he seems to us not always perfectly reliable in that capacity, always find him willing and amused readers. But when he shuts up too much of his work at once between a pair of covers, and gives whoever will a too easy opportunity of comparing him with himself, we doubt whether even his admirers--a class in which we are not unwilling to include ourselves--do not find him a little wearisome, and discover in him a poverty of suggestion and a timidity of thought which gibbet him as a book-maker, although, being in a measure counterbalanced by an abundance of lighter merits, they would have left him an easy pre-eminence over most of his contemporaries as a magazinist. Nor, if we may for once adopt a method of criticism from which our author himself is not averse, and trust our instinct to read between the lines, is Mr. Lowell altogether free from a suspicion that such may possibly be the case--and that, as affecting his own culture and habit of mind also, it was a far-reaching mistake in our Puritan ancestors to cut themselves quite asunder from the traditions of the past before they came here to establish free thinking and free religion along with a free government. However it may be with government, neither thought nor faith seems to flourish well without having its roots in the past. Like their transcendentalist sons, our New England progenitors were themselves "Apostles of the Newness," and simply antedated them by a few generations in the experiment of throwing overboard a great deal of valuable freight, and trying to right themselves by laying in a supply of useless ballast. The sentiment which they dignified by the name of trust in Providence appears nowadays under a less equivocal disguise as self-reliance; and while it produces certain easily appreciable results both in society and literature, it makes instability, a want of solidity, and an absence of germinative force permanent characteristics of both of them. Not, however, to make an essay on a sufficiently suggestive topic, but to confine ourselves to the particular matter in hand, it is perhaps Mr. Lowell's _thin-skinnedness_ as an author, and a characteristic modesty as to the value of his utterances, none the less apparent for being put carefully out of sight, which give him, to our thinking, his best claim to the liking of his readers--while at the same time it is a modesty so well justified by the actual state of the case as to explain why it is that one is always more ready to accept with satisfaction what he has to say about an author whose claims have been tested by more than one generation of critics, than to trust him for a thoroughly reliable estimate of a literary workman of to-day. Even in the former case one inclines to believe that he may sometimes feel a just preference for his own opinions in contradistinction to those of Mr. Lowell--who is not, for instance, likely to elicit much intelligent sympathy with his verdict on the poetical merits of the "Rape of the Lock." By far the pleasantest portions of the present volume are the three opening essays, in which Mr. Lowell quite forgets that he is a critic, or, at least, that he is a critic of books. The essays on Carlyle and Thoreau contain also a good deal of sound, if not particularly subtle, criticism; and in general, although the book does not show Mr. Lowell in his most characteristic vein, it pleases us all the better on that account, as giving us what substance there is in his thought, with much less than ordinary of the technical brilliancy which wearies quite as often as it entertains.

DION AND THE SIBYLS. A Classic Christian Novel. By
Miles Gerald Keon, Colonial Secretary, Bermuda, author
of "Harding the Money-Spinner," etc. New York: Catholic
Publication Society. 1871. 1 vol. 8vo, pp. 224.

_Dion and the Sibyls_ is a work of uncommon merit, and may be classed, in our opinion, with _Fabiola_ and _Callista_, which is the highest compliment we could possibly pay to a romance of the early period of Christian history. The Dion of the story is Dionysius the Areopagite in his youth, and before his conversion. The Sibyls are introduced in reference to their predictions of a coming Saviour of mankind. The object of the author is to exhibit the fearful need which existed in heathen society for a divine intervention, and the general, widespread desire and expectation of such an event at the time when our Lord actually appeared on the earth. This is done by means of a plot which is woven from the personal history of a nephew of Lepidus the Triumvir, a young Roman noble of Greek education, and an intimate friend of Dionysius, who came to Rome with his mother and sister at the close of the reign of Augustus, to claim the sequestrated estate of his father, one of the generals who helped to win the battle of Philippi. The appeal of the young Paulus Æmilius Lepidus to Augustus at a time when the latter was visiting the wealthy Knight Mamurra at his superb villa at Formiæ, and a plot of Tiberius Cæsar to carry off Agatha, the young man's sister, afford an occasion of describing the principal persons of the Roman court. This is done in a graphic and masterly manner. The representation of the aged Augustus is something perfect in its kind. The portraits of Tiberius, Germanicus, Caligula, then a child, the royal ladies, Sejanus the Prætorian prefect, Velleius Paterculus, Thellus the chief of the gladiators, and a number of other persons representing various classes of Romans, are admirably and vividly drawn. The breaking of the ferocious Sejan horse by the young Æmilius at the public games of Formiæ is a scene of striking originality and power. The campaign of Germanicus against the Germans is also well described. In fact, Mr. Keon makes the old Roman world reappear before us like a panorama. He shows himself to be a thorough and minute classical scholar and historian on every page and in every line. But beyond and above all this, he exhibits a power of philosophical reasoning, and an insight into the deepest significance of Christianity, which elevate his thrilling romance to the rank of a work of the highest moral and religious scope. The description of the demons by the Lady Plancina is an original and awfully sublime conception surpassing anything in the _Mystique Diabolique_ of Görres. The author's great masterpiece, however, is the argument of Dionysius on the being of One God before the court of Augustus, a piece of writing of which any professed philosopher might be proud.

The history of Paulus Æmilius, who is really the hero of the work, brings him at last to Judæa at the time of the murder of St. John the Baptist, and the closing scenes of the life of our Lord. This gives the author the opportunity of describing a momentary glimpse which the brave and virtuous Roman was favored with of the form and countenance of the Divine Redeemer, as he was passing down the Mount of Olives. Mr. Keon undertook a difficult task, one in which many have failed, when he ventured on introducing the august figure of our Lord into his picture. We are fastidious in matters of this kind, and not easily satisfied by any attempt at giving in language what sculptors and painters usually fall short of expressing in marble and on canvas. Mr. Keon's bold effort pleases us so much that we cannot help wishing he would try his hand at some more sketches of the same kind. We should like to see some scenes from the evangelical history and the Acts of the Apostles produced under an ideal and imaginative form with an ability equal to that which our author has displayed in his pictures of the Augustan age. The success of Renan's _Life of Jesus_ is due not so much to the popularity of his detestable and absurd theories, as to the attraction of his theme and the charm of a vivid, lifelike representation of the scenes, manners, and events of the period when our Lord lived and taught in Judæa. A similar work, produced in accordance with the true Catholic idea of the august, divine person of the Son of God made man, would do more to counteract the poison of the infamous infidel literature of the day in the popular mind than any grave argumentative treatise. We pronounce Mr. Keon's _Dion and the Sibyls_ without hesitation to be a dramatic and philosophical masterpiece, and we trust that he will not allow his genius to lie idle, but will give us more works of the same sort. Whether the vitiated taste of the novel-reading world will appreciate works of so classical a stamp, we are unable to say. But all those who relish truth conveyed through the forms of the purest art will thank Mr. Keon for the pleasure he has given them, if they shall, as we did, by chance take up his book and peruse it attentively, and will concur with us in wishing that a work of so much merit and value might be better known and more widely circulated.

LITERATURE AND LIFE. Edwin P. Whipple. Enlarged
Edition. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. 1871.

The essays contained in this volume are ten in number: Authors in their Relations to Life; Novels and Novelists; Wit and Humor; The Ludicrous Side of Life; Genius; Intellectual Health and Disease; Use and Misuse of Words; Wordsworth; Bryant; Stupid Conservatism and Malignant Reform.

Of these the first six were originally delivered by Mr. Whipple as popular lectures many years ago, and were collected and published in 1849.

The last four articles are later productions of the author, and are first published together in this enlarged edition of his early work.

In a somewhat extended notice of Mr. Whipple's essays on the "Literature of the Age of Elizabeth" more than a year ago, we pointed out some of his excellences and defects as they appeared to us. Both are perhaps even more apparent in this book.

Its style is marked by that command of expression for which the author is always so remarkable, and is at the same time clear, pointed, and unaffected.

Yet the essays sometimes bear marks of the object for which they were written, and one cannot help wishing that the author had not been so evidently restricted in the materials he used and in the characteristics of his style by the necessity of their adaptation to the audience of lecture-goers to which they were addressed.

The distinctively critical essays are the best, and it is in literary criticism that Mr. Whipple is always most at home.

His appreciative estimates of the genius of Dickens and of Wordsworth have, we think, been very seldom equalled in force and justice by any of the numerous criticisms of those authors which have been published.

Those who are familiar with Mr. Whipple's essays will be glad to see them republished in so elegant and convenient a form, and those who are not cannot now do better than to make their acquaintance.

FIFTY CATHOLIC TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS. First
Series. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 9
Warren Street. 1871

The wish so often expressed of seeing "The Catholic Tracts" in a book form has been met by this volume. The variety of its contents makes it a book for circulation among all classes of society. Short, popular, and conclusive answers are given on questions of the day, making it of great value as a work of actual controversy, while not a few of the tracts are instructive and devotional, rendering it equally important to Catholics.

The volume is printed on good paper, and its price brings it within the reach of every one. We recommend it to the attention of clergymen, and the confraternities, sodalities, and Rosary societies, as a book for distribution among a reading and thinking people seeking after religious truth. We give the preface entire:

"In the spring of 1866, the Catholic Publication
Society issued its first tract. Since that time it has
published fifty tracts on different subjects. More than
two and one half millions (2,500,000) of these short
and popular papers have been sold and circulated. This
is sufficient evidence of their value and popularity.

"Some of the ablest writers in our country have
contributed to this work. Although we have never given
the names of the authors, we feel at liberty to say
that eminent prelates and learned theologians--men who
have a world-wide reputation--have written many of
these tracts. A well-written tract often costs more
labor than an essay or an article for a magazine.

"Nor have these tracts been written and circulated
without good effect. We know of Protestants converted
and received into the church by their means. Countless
prejudices against our religion have been removed, even
when persons have not been led to become Catholics.
Their minds have been thus prepared for accepting the
truth at some future day. In addition to this, we
must remember that many of the tracts are written for
the instruction of Catholics. Numerous letters from
those in charge of hospitals, asylums, and prisons,
in various sections of our country, bear testimony to
their value in this respect.

"An objection is sometimes made to the word 'tract.'
We do not altogether like the word ourselves. If any
friend can suggest a better, we will cheerfully adopt
it. Until then, we must continue to use it. Surely
Catholics have a right to any word in the English
language. Sometimes an objection is made to the tract
form of publication. Those who have scruples on this
score are relieved by the publication of this volume.
These tracts now form a book. No one can fairly object
to the matter it contains.

"We trust, therefore, that they who find benefit from
this little volume of tracts will endeavor to increase
its circulation. To the clergy we recommend Tract 50 as
one intended to place before them a practical method of
circulating Catholic literature among their people. We
cannot close without expressing the strong desire to
see this volume spread over the length and breadth of
our land."

MEDITATIONS ON THE LITANY OF THE MOST HOLY VIRGIN.
By the Abbé Barthe. Translated from the French by a
Daughter of St. Joseph. Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham.
1871.

This handsome work supplies a want long felt. It contains meditations on each phrase of the Litany from the _Kyrie eleison_ to the _Agnus Dei_. These meditations are of suitable length for May devotions, and are admirable for their solidity no less than for their piety. The Abbé Barthe is an honorable Canon of Rodey (France); and we cannot do better than quote the letter of his bishop. He says: "I rejoice that a priest of my diocese ... has given to learned and Christian France a work which will be widely diffused, and which will make the august Mary loved, admired, and venerated in these lines, when, more than ever, we need to place ourselves under her glorious protection."

There are also letters of commendation from Cardinal Giraud, Archbishop of Cambria, and his grace the Archbishop of Paris, to which is added the approbation of the Bishop of Philadelphia.

May this "Monument to the Glory of Mary" (as it is called) meet in this country with the circulation it deserves, and be the means of spreading wide and deep the love and worship of her whose Immaculate Conception is our patronal feast.

THE WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS. By Camille Flammarion. From
the French, by Mrs. Norman Lockyer. With forty-eight
illustrations. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1871.

To those who take a delight in reading about the planets and stars, this work will prove both instructive and interesting. The illustrations are very fine, and the work is got up in uniform style with the other volume of "The Library of Wonders," noticed in these pages before, of which it is one of the series.

THECLA; or, The Malediction. By Madame A. R. De La
Grange. 1 vol. 12mo. New York: P. O'Shea.

This is an interesting story descriptive of a family living in the Roman province of Cappadocia in the fifth century, giving quaint pictures of life in those early days, and lovely glimpses of the natural beauties of the country. The object of the tale is to illustrate the special judgments of Almighty God on disobedient children and an overindulgent parent, who out of a weak fondness put no restraints upon her children in their youth. The terrible retribution that follows a parent's curse, and the remorse and bitterness of heart that must be the portion of neglectful parents, are well portrayed by Madame De La Grange. The volume will be an excellent addition to our Sunday-school libraries.

We would suggest to the publisher the propriety of a thinner and better paper. It does not look seemly to print books on common paste-board.

THE THEOLOGY OF THE PARABLES. By Father Coleridge,
S.J. With an Arrangement of the Parables, by Father
Salmeron. London: Burns, Oates & Co. For sale by The
Catholic Publication Society.

This is a paper of no great length, but of great service to the cause of faith. It is in every respect worthy of the pen of Father Coleridge. He sets before us the parables in quite a new light, as meant to teach us the ways of God to men. Why our Lord chose the parabolic form of teaching and why he said so much about his Father are shown with great force and clearness.

NATURAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK. PALÆONTOLOGY. Vol. IV.
Part. I. Albany: Printed by C. Van Benthuysen & Sons.
March, 1867.

This is a continuation of Professor Hall's able researches on the fossils of this state. It contains descriptions and figures of the Brachiopoda of the Helderberg, Hamilton, Portage, and Chemung groups. The plates are admirably executed, like those in the previous volumes, and the name of the author is a sufficient proof of the accuracy and value of the descriptions which they illustrate. The work is a solid and valuable contribution to science.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

From JOHN MURPHY & CO., Baltimore: The Child's
Prayer and Hymn Book. For the use of Catholic
Sunday-schools.--The Expiation. A Drama in Three Acts.
Translated from the French by James Kehoe. Paper.

From J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., Philadelphia, Pa.: The
Virginia Forest. A Handbook of Travel in Virginia.
By E. A. Pollard. 1 vol. 16mo, paper.--History of
Florida from its Discovery by Ponce de Leon in 1512,
to the Close of the Florida War in 1842. By George R.
Fairbanks. 1 vol. 12mo.--The Conservative Reformation
and its Theology: as Represented in the Augsburgh
Confession, and in the History and Literature of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church. By Charles P. Krauth D.D.
1 vol. 8vo.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XIII., No. 76.--JULY, 1871.[107]

AN IRISH MARTYR.

Towards the close of the year 1645, the venerable oratorian, Father Peter Francis Scarampo, who had spent two years in Ireland on a special mission from the Holy See, was permitted to resign his position and return to Rome. He was accompanied thither by five young students whose relatives desired that they should complete their theological studies in the colleges of the Eternal City. Of these, the most distinguished for early proficiency and gentleness of disposition was a youth named Oliver Plunket, then in his sixteenth year, having been born at Loughcrew, county of Meath, in 1629, a near relative and protégé of the Bishop of Ardagh, Doctor Patrick Plunket, and closely connected by ties of kindred with some of the noblest families of Ireland, and with many distinguished ecclesiastics at home and on the Continent. Father Scarampo had borne himself so wisely and with so much charity and discretion while in Ireland, that his departure was regarded as a public misfortune, and his retiring footsteps were followed to the sea-coast by thousands of pious and grateful people; and, though his humble spirit would not allow him to accept the distinguished post of Papal Nuncio, and so remain among them, he never ceased to remember their hospitality and long-suffering and to befriend their cause at Rome upon all occasions. On the young men entrusted to his care he bestowed every possible favor, and especially on young Plunket, in whom he took a fatherly interest up to the day of his untimely death on the plague-stricken Island of St. Bartholomew, even to the extent of defraying that student's expenses for the first three years of his novitiate.

Soon after his arrival in Rome, Oliver Plunket entered the Irish College of that city, then under the charge of the Jesuit Fathers, and for eight years devoted himself with great industry and success to the study of philosophy, mathematics, and theology, subsequently attending the usual course of lectures on canon and civil law in the Roman University. Previous to his appointment to the See of Armagh, the Rector of the Irish College, in response to an enquiry of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, presented the following honorable testimony of the character and abilities of the future Primate:

"I, the undersigned, certify that the Very Reverend
Dr. Oliver Plunket, of the diocese of Meath, in
the province of Armagh, in Ireland, is of Catholic
parentage, descended from an illustrious family; on
the father's side, from the most illustrious Earls of
Fingal; on the mother's side, from the most illustrious
Earls of Roscommon, being also connected by birth with
the most illustrious Oliver Plunket, Baron of Louth,
first nobleman of the diocese of Armagh; and in this
our Irish College he devoted himself with such ardor
to philosophy, theology, and mathematics, that in the
Roman College of the Society of Jesus he was justly
ranked among the foremost in talent, diligence, and
progress in his studies; these speculative studies
being completed, he pursued with abundant fruit the
course of civil and canon law under Mark Anthony
de Mariscotti, Professor of the Roman Sapienza,
and everywhere and at all times he was a model of
gentleness, integrity, and piety."

Having at length received his ordination in 1654, Dr. Plunket was obliged by the rules of the college either to proceed forthwith on the Irish mission or to obtain leave from his superiors to remain to further perfect his studies. He chose the latter course, and at his own request the General of the Society of Jesus, to whom he applied, permitted him to enter San Girolamo della Charità, where for three years he quietly devoted himself to the accumulation of knowledge and the duties of his sacred calling. Marangoni, in his life of Father Cacciaguerra, speaks of Doctor Plunket's conduct while in that secluded retreat in the following eulogistic terms:

"Here it is incredible with what zeal he burned for the
salvation of souls. In the house itself, and in the
city, he wholly devoted himself to devout exercises;
frequently did he visit the sanctuaries steeped with
the blood of so many martyrs, and he ardently sighed
for the opportunity of sacrificing himself for the
salvation of his countrymen. He, moreover, frequented
the Hospital of Santo Spirito, and employed himself
even in the most abject ministrations, serving the poor
infirm, to the edification and wonder of the officials
and assistants of that place."

The disturbed condition of his native country has been alleged as the cause of Dr. Plunket's delay in Rome, and this in itself would be sufficient reason, if we reflect that at that time the soldiers of Cromwell were in full possession of every nook and corner of it, and that hundreds of priests, left without congregations, were obliged to fly for their lives to the Continent, or to seek refuge in mountains and morasses; but it is more than probable that the young ecclesiastic had an additional motive for remaining longer in the Holy City, and, having a forecast of his future eminence in the church, and of the vast benefits he was capable of rendering to the cause of religion and his country, desired, as far as possible, to qualify himself for the glorious task to which he was afterwards assigned at the fountain-head of Catholicity, before undertaking a labor which he must have known would be accompanied by many trials and dangers.

But even from the seclusion of San Girolamo his fame as an accomplished and profound scholar soon spread to the outer world, and in 1657 Dr. Plunket was appointed professor of theology and controversy in the College of the Propaganda, a position which he held with great credit for twelve years, until his departure from Rome. Though thus occupied in the responsible and laborious duties of his professorship, he was also consultor of the Sacred Congregation of the Index and of other congregations. In the performance of the high trusts thus imposed upon him, the young professor was frequently brought in contact with many of the most exalted personages of the Roman Court, some of whom subsequently filled the chair of St. Peter, from all of whom he experienced the greatest kindness and repeated proofs of affection, as he frequently mentions with gratitude in his correspondence. Still the confidence reposed in him and the companionship of so many holy and erudite men failed to satisfy the cravings of his soul or reconcile him to his enforced exile. Of a highly sensitive and even poetic nature, his patriotism and attachment to his family were second only to his love for learning and religion, and his mind was constantly tormented by the accounts daily received in Rome of the barbarities practised on his compatriots and co-religionists by the licentious soldiery of the English Commonwealth. In writing to Father Spada, in 1656, on the occasion of the death of his friend and counsellor Father Scarampo, he exclaims in the bitterness of his spirit:

"God alone knows how afflicting his death is to me,
especially at the present time, when all Ireland is
overrun and laid waste by heresy. Of my relations, some
are dead, others have been sent into exile, and all
Ireland is reduced to extreme misery: this overwhelmed
me with an inexpressible sadness, for I am now deprived
of father and of friends, and I should die through
grief were I not consoled by the consideration that I
have not altogether lost Father Scarampo; for I may say
that he in part remains, our good God having retained
your reverence in life, who, as it is known to all,
were united with him in friendship and in charity
and in disposition, so as even to desire to be his
companion in death, from which, though God preserved
you, yet he did not deprive you of its merit."

But, notwithstanding his own afflictions, he was ever ready to succor by his slender purse and powerful influence such of his destitute young countrymen who sought an opportunity in Rome to procure an education, of which they were so systematically deprived at home; and it was doubtless from a just perception of his great repute and thorough acquaintance with ecclesiastical affairs in Rome that, in the early part of 1669, he was requested by the Irish bishops to act as their representative at the Papal Court, an office which he cheerfully accepted and filled to the entire satisfaction of his venerable constituency.

But he was not long allowed to occupy this subordinate position in connection with the church in Ireland, nor even to retain his chair in the Propaganda. He had now entered on his fortieth year, his mind fully developed and stored with all the sacred and profane learning befitting one called to a higher destiny, and his soul imbued with a zeal so holy and so far removed from worldly ambition that no temptation was likely to overcome his faith, and no persecution, no matter how severe, to shake his constancy. He was therefore appointed Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, to succeed Dr. Edmond O'Reilly, recently deceased in Paris. Like the great apostle of his country, of whom he was about to become the spiritual successor, he had spent a long probation in the society of men remarkable for the purity of their lives and the extent of their knowledge, and as St. Patrick longed to revisit the land of his adoption, he also yearned to be once again among the Irish people. Yet his appointment to the primacy of Ireland was neither sought nor anticipated by Dr. Plunket at this time, as we learn from a letter from the Archbishop of Dublin to Monsignor Baldeschi, Secretary of the Propaganda, in which he says:

"Certainly, no one could be appointed better suited
than Dr. Oliver Plunket, whom I myself would have
proposed in the first place, were it not that he had
written to me, stating his desire not to enter for
some years in the Irish mission, until he should have
completed some works which he was preparing for the
press."

The names of many clergymen distinguished for piety, devotion, and learning had been forwarded to Rome, from which to select a fitting successor to Dr. O'Reilly; but, while their various merits were under discussion, the Holy Father, Clement IX., it is said, simplified the matter by suggesting Dr. Plunket as the person best qualified to fill the vacant see, and to govern by his experience and force of character the hierarchy, and, through it, the priesthood of Ireland. The views of the Pope met with unanimous approval, and, the selection being thus made, it was out of the power of Dr. Plunket, no matter how diffident he might have been of his own abilities to fill so elevated a position, to decline. We have seen how this important decision of the Sacred Congregation was viewed by Dr. Talbot, of Dublin, and his opinions seemed to have been shared by all the bishops and priests in Ireland. Dr. O'Molony, of St. Sulpice, Paris, afterwards Bishop of Killaloe, writes:

"You have already laid the foundations of our edifice,
erected the pillars, and given shepherds to feed the
sheep and the lambs; but, now that the work should
not remain imperfect, you have crowned the edifice,
and provided a pastor for the pastors themselves,
appointing the Archbishop of Armagh, for it is not
of the diocese of Armagh alone that he has the
administration, to whom the primacy and guardianship of
all Ireland is entrusted. One, therefore, in a thousand
had to be chosen, suited to bear so great a burden.
That one you have found--one than whom none other
better or more pleasing could be found; with whom (that
your wise solicitude for our distracted and afflicted
country should be wanting in nothing) you have been
pleased to associate his suffragan of Ardagh, a most
worthy and grave man."

The Bishop of Ferns, also, in addressing the Secretary of the Sacred Congregation, says: "Applauding and rejoicing, I have hastened hither from Gand, to the Most Reverend and Illustrious Internunzio of Belgium, to return all possible thanks to our Holy Father, in the name of my countrymen, for having crowned with the mitre of Armagh the noble and distinguished Oliver Plunket, Doctor of Theology;" and Dr. Dowley, of Limerick, adds, "Most pleasing to all was the appointment of Dr. Plunket, and I doubt not it will be agreeable to the government, to the secular clergy, and to the nobility."

These warm expressions of esteem and regard, if known to the new primate, must have inspired him with renewed courage to accept the grave responsibilities imposed upon him, and truly, if ever man required the support of friends to nerve him to encounter dangers and unheard-of opposition, he did. But he seems to have had within himself a courage not of this world, but superior to all earthly considerations. It is recorded on the very best authority that, when about to leave Rome, he was thus accosted by an aged priest, "My lord, you are now going to shed your blood for the Catholic faith." To which he replied, "I am unworthy of such a favor; nevertheless, aid me with your prayers, that this my desire may be fulfilled."[108] The condition of the country to which the primate was hastening fully justified this prophecy. It was to the last degree forlorn and full of discouragement. The sufferings of the Irish people at this period defy description; and were it not that we have before us the penal acts of parliament, numerous authenticated state papers, and the published statements of some of the highest officials of the crown and the agents of the Commonwealth, we would be inclined to believe, if only for the credit of human nature, that the relation of the atrocities at this time perpetrated by English authority on the Catholics of Ireland was the work of some diseased mind that delighted in horrors and revelled in the contemplation of an imaginary pandemonium. The Tudors and the Stuarts as persecutors of Catholics were bad enough, but their ineffectual fires paled before the cool atrocity and sanctimonious villany of the followers of Cromwell; men, if we must call them such, who, arrogating to themselves not only the honorable title of champions of human liberty, but claiming to be the exemplars of all that was left of what was pure and holy in this wicked world, perpetrated in the name of freedom and religion a series of such deeds of darkness that not even a parallel can be found for them in the annals of the worst days of the Roman emperors. So deep indeed has the detestation of the barbarities of Cromwell taken root in the popular mind of Ireland, that, though more than two centuries have elapsed since his death, his name is as thoroughly and as heartily detested there to-day as if his crimes had been committed in our own generation. Previous to the Reformation, though wars were frequent and oftentimes bloody between the English invaders and the natives, they were generally conducted in a certain spirit of chivalry and with some degree of moderation, which usually characterize hostile Catholic nations even in times of the greatest excitement. Churches and the nurseries of learning and charity were respected, or, if destroyed through the stern necessities of warfare, were apt to be replaced by others. But the followers of the new religion knew no such charitable weakness, for from the first they seemed actuated, probably as a punishment for their sin of wilful rebellion against the authority of God's law, with an unquenchable hatred of everything holy, and a craftiness in devising measures to destroy the faith and pervert the minds of the Catholics so preternatural in its ingenuity that we can only account for it by supposing it the emanation of the enemy of mankind. That any people stripped of all worldly possessions, debarred so long from religious worship and the means of enlightenment, outlawed by the so-called government, ensnared by the spy and the magistrate, and ground to dust beneath the hoofs of the trooper's horse, should not only have preserved their existence and the faith, but have multiplied amazingly, both at home and abroad, is one of the most remarkable incidents in all history, as well as one of the strongest proofs of the enduring and unconquerable spirit of Catholicity.

There were probably at this time in Ireland nearly a million and a half of Catholics, though Sir William Petty estimates their number at about 1,200,000; the native population having been fearfully reduced by the late war and the pestilence and famine which succeeded it, by the emigration of forty or fifty thousand able-bodied men to Spain and other countries, and by the deportation of an equal number of women and children, as slaves, to the West Indies and the British settlements on our Atlantic coast. Yet, notwithstanding the immense loss of life occasioned soon after by the Williamite war, the constant drain on the adult male population in the latter part of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries, to fill up the decimated ranks of the Catholic armies of Europe, amounting, it is said, to three-quarters of a million, the periodical famines to which the peasantry were constantly exposed, and the great famine of 1846-7 and 1848, which swept away at least two millions, the Irish Catholics of to-day and their descendants in all quarters of the globe number at least fifteen million souls. It is a singular and interesting fact that the Irish Catholics resident in London out-number the entire population of the city of Dublin; that in the cities and towns of England and Scotland there are more Catholics of Irish birth than existed in every part of the world two hundred years ago; and that, while the children of St. Patrick count nearly five millions on the soil which he redeemed from paganism, many more millions of them and their descendants born within the present century are planting the cross of Christ everywhere in America and Australasia. This indestructibility of the Irish race seems to have raised an insurmountable barrier against the designs of the reformers. James I. having planted part of Ulster with some success, the Long Parliament determined to follow his example on a more comprehensive scale, and to utterly exterminate the people who persisted in adhering to their ancient faith. Accordingly, in 1654, all Catholics were ordered under the severest penalties to remove before a certain day from the provinces of Ulster, Leinster, and Munster, and take up their abodes in Connaught, the least fertile and most inaccessible division of the island. In their front a strip of land some miles in width, following the sinuosity of the sea-coast, and another in their rear along the line of the Shannon, were reserved for the victors and protected by a cordon of military posts, the penalty of passing which, without special license, was death. Thus encompassed by the stormy Atlantic and the broad river, with an inner belt of hostile settlements, it was fondly hoped that the remnant of the gallant Irish nation, completely segregated from the world, would speedily perish, unnoticed and unknown, among the sterile mountains of the west. A more diabolical attempt on the lives of a whole people is not to be found recorded in either ancient or modern history, and, to do but justice to the canting fanatics who conceived the plan, no means were left untried to carry it out to a successful issue. But Providence, with whose designs the Cromwellians assumed to be well acquainted, decreed otherwise, and no sooner had their leader sunk into a dishonored grave, and the legitimate sovereign been restored to the throne, than every part of the country swarmed again with Catholics, who seemed to spring, as if by magic, from the very soil. The people, it was found, had actually increased in numbers, and the clergy, who it was supposed had been effectually destroyed by expatriation, famine, or the sword, still amounted to over sixteen hundred seculars and regulars, as devoted as ever to the spiritual interests of their flocks.

The restoration of Charles II. in 1660 was hailed by the Catholics as a favorable omen. They had faithfully supported his father, and had lost all in defending his own cause, and hence they naturally expected, if not gratitude, at least simple justice. But Charles was a true Stuart. Opposed to persecution from a constitutional love of ease and pleasure, as much as from any innate sense of right, he had neither the capacity to plan a reform nor the manhood to carry out the tolerant designs of others. He was, moreover, weak-minded, vacillating, and insincere, more disposed to conciliate his enemies by gifts and honors than to reward his well-tried friends by the commonest acts of justice. The greatest favor that the Catholics could obtain was a toleration of their worship in remote and secret places, and even this qualified boon was dependent on the whim of the viceroy, and was soon withdrawn at the command of parliament.

But the evils of the English Protestant system did not stop here. The death or involuntary exile of most of the Irish bishops and the dispersion of the clergy created a relaxation of ecclesiastical discipline, particularly among the regulars, and the impossibility of obtaining proper religious instruction at home, and the difficulty of procuring it elsewhere, necessarily lowered the standard of education among the priests of all ranks. Left for the most part to their own guidance, and only imperfectly trained for the ministry, many friars, particularly of the Order of St. Francis, so illustrious for its many distinguished scholars and eloquent preachers, were disposed to rebel against their superiors when the least restraint was placed upon their irregular modes of living, and some were found base enough to lend the weight attached to their sacred calling to further the designs of the worst enemies of their creed and country. Ormond and other so-called statesmen, while avowing unqualified loyalty to their sovereign and a secret attachment to the church, were insidiously betraying the one by placing him in a false position before Catholics and Protestants, while vainly endeavoring to strike a blow at the other by using these apostates to create a schism in her ranks. In the latter scheme they signally failed, and their defeat was mainly due to the untiring energy and profound foresight of the Archbishop of Armagh during the ten years of his administration. The very announcement of Dr. Plunket's appointment seems to have struck terror into the secret enemies of the church in Ireland, and to have given new hope to the friends of religion. This event occurred on the 9th of July, 1669, when the bulls for his consecration were immediately forwarded to the Internunzio at Brussels. Dr. Plunket was desirous of receiving the mitre in Rome, and even made a strong request to be granted that privilege, but the prudential motives which induced the Sacred Congregation to select Belgium in the first instance still remained, and the favor was reluctantly refused. As his first act of obedience, the archbishop bowed cheerfully to this decision, and after presenting his little vineyard, his only real property, and a few books to the Irish College, he bade a final adieu to his Roman friends in the following month, and commenced his homeward journey--his first step to a glorious immortality. He arrived during November in the capital of Belgium, and was cordially welcomed by the Internunzio, who was not unacquainted with his extensive learning and unaffected piety. At the request of that prelate, the Bishop of Ghent consented to administer consecration to Dr. Plunket, and the solemn ceremony was duly performed on the 30th of November, in the private chapel of the episcopal palace in that ancient city. Dr. Nicholas French, Bishop of Ferns, one of the few persons present on the occasion, thus describes it:

"I present a concise narrative of the consecration
of the most illustrious Archbishop of Armagh. His
excellency the Internunzio wrote most kind letters
to the bishop of this diocese requesting him to
perform it, and he most readily acquiesced. But I,
on receiving this news, set out at once for Brussels
to conduct hither his Grace of Armagh, bound by
gratitude to render him this homage. A slight fever
seized our excellent bishop on the Saturday before the
Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, which had been
fixed for Dr. Plunket's consecration; wherefore that
ceremony was deferred till the first Sunday in Advent,
on which day it was devoutly and happily performed in
the capella of the palace, without noise, and with
closed doors, for such was the desire of the Archbishop
of Armagh. Remaining here for eight days after his
consecration, he passed his time in despatching letters
and examining my writings."

After this short delay, the Primate continued his journey, stopping long enough in London to see his friends at the English court, and to present his credentials to the Queen, who was a devout Catholic, and who received him with great cordiality. He had also leisure to become somewhat conversant with the policy and views of the leading public characters in the English capital, and to study the workings and temper of the parliament. After a tedious and fatiguing journey, he at length landed in Ireland, in March, 1670, having been absent from that country a quarter of a century, where he was joyously received by his numerous relatives and friends. Great was the change which had been wrought in his life during those twenty-five years, but, alas! how much greater had been the alteration in the circumstances of his countrymen. As a lad he had left them in the full enjoyment of their religion in almost every part of the island, their nobility in the possession of their estates, the peasantry and farmers prosperous, the clergy respected and freely obeyed, and all full of hope for the future, and sanguine of yet attaining their independence. As an archbishop and primate, he returned to find nothing but desolation and ruin, sorrow and dejection. The nobility had either been banished or reduced to the condition of mere tenants on their own property, so that only three Catholic gentlemen in the province of Armagh, which embraces eleven dioceses, held any real estate; the original cultivators of the soil who had been spared by the sword and had not been transported or compelled to emigrate were formed into bands of plunderers, and infested the highways under the name of _tories_, while such as remained of the bishops and clergy were to be found only in bogs and mountains or in the most obscure portions of the larger towns and cities.

Undaunted by the scenes of woe and destruction around him, the Primate, like a diligent servant of God, had no sooner set foot on his native soil than he proceeded to the performance of his pastoral labors. Writing to Cardinal Barberini, Protector of Ireland, an account of his journey from Rome, he says:

"I afterwards arrived in Ireland in the month of
March, and hastened immediately to my residence; and
I held two synods and two ordinations, and in a month
and a-half I administered confirmation to more than
ten thousand persons, though throughout my province
I think there yet remain more than fifty thousand
persons to be confirmed. I remarked throughout the
country, wherever I went, that for every heretic there
are twenty Catholics. The new viceroy is a man of
great moderation; he willingly receives the Catholics,
and he treats privately with the ecclesiastics, and
promises them protection while they attend to their
own functions without intriguing in the affairs of
government."

The nobleman here alluded to was Lord Berkeley, who held office in Ireland for a few years, and under whose politic and tolerant, if not very sincere, administration the Catholics enjoyed at least comparative security. Personally, he, as well as his successor, Lord Essex, entertained a very high respect for the primate, and treated him with great kindness, when it was possible to do so without incurring the displeasure of the ultra-Protestant faction. Indeed, Archbishop Plunket, well aware of the difficulties which constantly beset his path, and feeling the futility of defying the government authorities, set his mind from the first to conciliate those whom he knew had the power to thwart or second his efforts, without yielding anything of his episcopal dignity or compromising his character as an ardent patriot. His long probationary course in Rome and his intimate association with so many of the best and most accomplished minds at the Papal court must have eminently qualified him for dealing with the leading British officials in Ireland. In his voluminous correspondence with the Holy See, he frequently alludes to his interviews with the lord-lieutenant and other noblemen, and to the judicious use he was able to make of his influence with them for the benefit of his less fortunate or more demonstrative brethren in the ministry. In a letter addressed to Pope Clement, dated June 20, 1670, he says:

"Our viceroy is a man of great moderation and equity:
he looks on the Catholics with benevolence, and treats
privately with some of the clergy, exhorting them to
act with discretion; and for this purpose he secretly
called me to his presence on many occasions, and
promised me his assistance in correcting any members of
the clergy of scandalous life. I discover in him some
spark of religion, and I find that many even of the
leading members of his court are secretly Catholics."

Again, to Dr. Brennan, his successor as Irish agent, he writes:

"In the province of Armagh, the clergy and Catholics
enjoy a perfect peace. The Earl of Charlemont, being
friendly with me, defends me in every emergency.
Being once in the town of Dungannon to administer
confirmation, and the governor of the place having
prevented me from doing so, the earl not only severely
reproved the governor, but told me to go to his own
palace, when I pleased, to give confirmation or to say
Mass there if I wished. The magistrate of the city of
Armagh, having made an order to the effect that all
Catholics should accompany him to the heretical service
every Sunday, under penalty of half-a-crown per head
for each time they would absent themselves, I appealed
to the president of the province against this decree,
and he cancelled it, and commanded that neither clergy
nor Catholic laity should be molested."

It is not, however, to be supposed from these isolated instances of toleration that the new primate was allowed the full exercise of his functions in the land of his nativity, and where his flock so vastly outnumbered their opponents. On the contrary, we learn from a letter of Lord Conway to his brother-in-law, Sir George Rawdon, that even before Dr. Plunket reached Ireland orders had been issued by the lord-lieutenant for his arrest as being one of "two persons sent from Rome, that lie lurking in the country to do mischief;" and even when he had taken possession of his see, his labors for the most part were performed in secret or in the night time. This was more particularly so after 1673, when the persecution was renewed against the Catholics, that we have his own authority and that of his companion in suffering, Dr. Brennan, Bishop of Waterford, for saying that at the most tempestuous times he was obliged to seek safety by flight, and frequently to expose himself to the horrors of a northern winter and almost to starvation in order to be amid his people, and ready to administer spiritual consolation to them.