Chapter XVI: Moral Force All-Sufficient for the Resurrection of Ireland (3)

Another consideration will show still more forcibly the importance of the great measure here proposed. One circumstance must have struck those who read the detailed reports of the Catholic congresses mentioned above--the sudden appearance of a large array of laymen, illustrious by their birth, wealth, political power, or literary attainments; but, for the most part, not so well known for their deep attachment to the cause of the Church. A new channel of activity was suddenly opened up to them; they threw themselves into it, and became the bold champions of a cause to which, undoubtedly, they had been individually attached, but of which they now became the public men. And there is little doubt that many young men, lukewarm before, and perhaps with nothing more than the remembrance of the Christian education they had once received, suddenly revived in spirit and made a solemn profession of a cause which, perhaps, they would not have had the courage openly to advocate, did not the number and names of the first originators of the movement encourage them to join in it heart and soul.

Now, it is said, perhaps too truly, that the warm religious feeling which has been all along claimed as the most striking characteristic of the Irish race, is no longer shared alike by all classes of Irish Catholics; that, too often, when individuals among them rise in the social scale, and reach a step in the social ladder from which they imagine that they can look down upon the despised mass below, they no longer feel that deep reverence for their religion which had characterized their youth, and, after all, are not very different from the mass of non-Catholics among whom they prefer to move. This class of men has been well described by Moore in his own person, in various passages of his "Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion."

The fact is, indeed, too true; but what is the chief cause of it? One of the most active means of bringing about such a result we take to be the complete isolation in which young men of the class referred to find themselves in their own sphere of life. There is, in fact, no motive for displaying their attachment to their religion, and no respectable means of doing so. They do not feel their souls moved by sufficient proselytic ardor to induce them, of their own accord, to originate any thing of that kind, and the generality of them have, probably, not received from Nature the talents requisite to make them leaders in any cause whatever. No one around them moves in that direction; hence their apathy and consequent lukewarmness in the practice and outward profession of their faith.

But change all the surroundings; present them an influential body to which it is an honor to belong--a body marching openly under the banner of the true Church of Christ and of their country, bound together as of old--and then will it be seen whether or not they indeed are the degenerate sons of martyred ancestors they now appear to be.

It is indeed very remarkable that, of all countries, Ireland seems to make the least show in those Catholic unions and congresses now so widely spread throughout Europe. The reason for this, perhaps, is, that there seemed less cause for their existence in Ireland than elsewhere. But, as, in Ireland, their object would not only embrace the interests of religion, but likewise those of the country itself, it seems natural to think that there they are particularly wanted.

Let the leaders of the nation, then, bestir themselves. Long ages of oppression unfortunately have rendered them somewhat timid and seemingly afraid of jeopardizing the important interests confided to their care. Let them lift up their eyes and see that the time for timidity has passed away: the enemy is reckless and open in his attacks; their resistance must be equally undisguised and fearless. The people themselves understand this and occasionally display a boldness which shows that the old heroism still lives in them; but they want leaders, and, if the right ones are not fast to take hold of them, they may fall into the hands of wrong-headed guides. Let the true guides look out and see how broad are the lines which divide the good from the evil, and that victory is sure to the stout of heart, when backed by the serried masses of a united people.

The principle of association and the machinery of organization must be applied to all subjects connected with the resurrection of the country. What has been done so effectually for the cause of temperance must be done likewise for education, for the purchase or tenure of land, for the development of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, for the true representation of the nation, for free municipal government, for the securing of a truly Irish yeomanry and gentry, for a thousand objects on which the future welfare of the nation depends. All classes of society, persons of every age and of either sex, yes, women and children, ought to be induced to take an interest in what concerns all alike. Every possible occasion should be taken advantage of to insure the attainment of the ultimate object. When such a work is really entered upon in earnest, the results will be astonishing.

This is the complete development of moral force, and, until all these means have had fair trial, no one can say that moral force has been fully tried and has failed.

Such a system would, we firmly believe, result in the ultimate restoration of Ireland's rights and would surely culminate in her final resurrection at no distant date. That the Irish would enter with spirit into those various associations has been sufficiently demonstrated by previous examples, particularly under O'Connell; and it is impossible to see how surer, greater, and speedier results could be obtained by any amount of physical force of which Ireland is capable. What array of physical force can the Irish muster to compete at all with their powerful rivals, situated as they are with the chains of centuries still binding them down, for, though the shackles may be actually removed, their effect is still there. The very statement of the terms, Ireland versus England, is enough to show the hopelessness of such a combat. It is a very easy thing to magnify the old heroism of the Irish, and cast opprobrium on the present bearers of the name, as did several newspaper writers recently, for not displaying the "pluck" of their ancestors who fought against Elizabeth, Cromwell, and William of Orange. It is forgotten that circumstances have altered considerably since those days when the Irish possessed a regular army led by experienced generals: restore those circumstances, and the Irish of to-day might outdo their ancestors; at all events, there is no reason for supposing that they would be inferior. However, there is such a thing as impossibility, and any attempt of such a nature, with such surroundings, must be deemed by all sensible men not merely rashness, but folly.

In concluding these pages, the author begs to be allowed a word as to their general character, in reply to a dogmatic and comprehensive criticism which it is easy to foresee will be passed on them. It will undoubtedly be asserted that an undue prominence has been given to the religious side of the Irish question, while its many political aspects have been left in the background. This charge will be laid at the door of the clerical and religious character of the writer, and may give rise to the notion that the view here taken of the subject is not the right one, but a radical failure.

The answer to this objection is, in brief, that no one can treat seriously and properly of the Irish race without taking a religious view of it. Whoever adopts a different method of treating the matter would, in our opinion, go completely astray; would take in only a few side-views; would, in fact, pretend to have made a serious study of it, which he offered to the public as such, while ignoring the chief and almost only feature.

The Irish is a religious race, and nothing else. It seems that such was its character thousands of years ago, even when pagan. At the time when Hanno was sent by the Carthaginian senate beyond the Pillars of Hercules to explore the western coast of Africa, toward the south--of which voyage the short narrative is still left us--Himilco, brother to Hanno, was similarly commissioned to form settlements on the European coast, toward the north. The account of this latter expedition, which was extant in the time of Pliny the Elder, is unfortunately lost; but, in the poem of R. Festus Avienus, entitled "Ora Maritima," there are copious extracts from it, in which, at least, the sense of the original is preserved. Avienus, after speaking of the "Insulae OEstrimnides," which Heeren thinks must be the Scilly Islands, goes on to say:

"Ast hinc duobus in Sacram (sic insulam
Dixere prisci) solibus cursus rati est.
Haec inter undas multam caespitem jacet,
Eamque late gens Hibernorum colit."

The passage runs almost into literal English as follows:

"Thence in two days, a good ship in sailing
Reaches the Holy Isle(1)--so was she called of old--
That in the sea nestles, whose turf exuberant
The race of Hibernians tills."

(1 Dr. Lingard, evidently perplexed by this expression, asks himself, "What might its origin have been?" and suggests that the name of Ierne--the same as Erin--having been given to Ireland by the ancients, and the Greek iepa--holy-- bearing a great resemblance to it, Avienus might have thus fallen into a very natural mistake of confounding the one with the other. But, in the first place, Himilco's report was certainly not written in Greek, but in Phoenician, and Avienus seems merely to have translated that report. Moreover, the word iepa begins with a very strong aspirate, equivalent to a consonant, while there are few vowels softer in any language than the first in Erin or Ierne. Heeren does not attempt such an explanation, but concedes that the Carthaginians, as well as the Phoenicians before them, called Ireland the Holy Isle.)

In the time of Himilco, therefore, five hundred years before Christ, Ireland was called the Holy Isle, a title she had received long before: Sic insulam discere prisci. In what that holiness may have consisted precisely, it is impossible now to say; all we know is, that foreign navigators, who were acquainted with the world as far as it was then known, whose ships had visited the harbors of all nations, could find no more apt expression to describe the island than to say that, morally, it was "a holy spot," and physically "a fair green meadow," or, as her children to this day call her, "the green gem of the sea."

But we have better means of judging in what the holiness of the people consisted after the establishment of Christianity in their midst; and the description of it given in the fourth chapter of this book, taken from the most trustworthy documents, shows how well deserved was the title the island bore.

From that day forth the religious type was clearly impressed on the nation, and has ever remained deeply engraven in its character. The race was never distinguished for its fondness for trade, for its manufactures, for depth of policy, for worldly enlightenment; its annals speak of no lust of conquest among its people; the brilliant achievements of foreign invasion, the high political and social aspirations which generally give lustre to the national life of many a people, belong not to them. But religious feeling, firm adherence to faith, invincible attachment to the form of Christianity they had received from St. Patrick, formed at all times their striking characteristics.

From the day when their faith was first attacked by the Tudors did it chiefly blaze forth into a special splendor, which these pages have striven faintly to represent. Before taking up the pen to write, after the serious study of documents, only one great feature struck us--that of a deep religious conviction; and, after having seen what some writers have had to say recently, the same feature strikes us still. We will not deny that this fact moved us to write, and the task was the more grateful, probably, because of our own personal religious character; but we are confident that any layman, whatever might be his talent and disposition for describing worldly scenes, who took up Irish history, could find nothing else in it of real importance to render the annals of the race attractive to the common run of readers.

And is not religion more capable of giving a people true greatness and real heroism than any worldly excellence? Men of sound judgment will always find at least as much interest attached to the history of the first Maccabees as to that of Epaminondas; and the self-sacrifice of the Vendean Cathelineau, with his "beads" and his "sacred heart," will always appear to an impartial judge of human character more truly admirable than that of any general or marshal of the first Napoleon. Religious heroism, having for object something far above even the purest patriotic fervor, can inspire deeds more truly worthy of human admiration than this, the highest natural feeling of the human heart; and, for a Christian, the most inspiring pages of history are those which tell of the superhuman exertions of devoted knights to wrest the sepulchre of our Lord from the polluted hands of the Moslem.

But religion did not confine her influence over Irishmen to the bravery which she breathed into them on the battle-field. Religion truly constituted their inner life in all the vicissitudes of their national existence; it was the only support left them in the darkest period of their annals, during the whole of the last century; and, when the dawn came at last with the flush of hope, religion was the only halo which surrounded them. Their emigration even, their exodus chiefly, was in fact the sublime outpouring of a crucified nation, carrying the cross as their last religious emblem, and planting it in the wilds of far-distant continents as their only escutcheon, and the sure sign which should apprise travellers of the existence of Irishmen in the deserts of North America and Australia.

Truly, those men are very ignorant of the Irish character who would abstract the religious feature from it, and paint the nation as they would any other European people, whose great aim in these modern days seems to be to forget the first fervor of their Christian origin. With the Irish this cannot be. The vivid warmth of their cradle has not yet cooled down; and, if it would be indeed ridiculous to represent the English of the nineteenth century as the pious subjects of Alfred or Edward, it would be equally foolish to depict the Irish of to-day as the worldlings and godless of France, Italy, or Spain. The Irish patriot could not be like them, without deserting his standard and the colors for which his race has fought. The nation to which he has the honor of belonging is still Christian to the core; and, if some few have really repudiated the love of the religion they took in at their mother's knee, the only means left them of remaining Irishmen, at least in appearance, is not to parade their total lack of this, the chief characteristic of their race.