Historical and biographical stories, sketches, anecdotes, etc

Introduction

The fact that the present volume consists of pieces calculated both to instruct and to edify, and which are not readily accessible to the general reader, sufficiently justifies its publication.

It must certainly afford the utmost gratification to the devout Catholic to find here so many corroborations (though of an inferior kind) of the proofs of the divine character of his Holy Mother the Church. .Here will be found the constancy of the martyrs who generously poured out their blood for Christ, and thus served as a seed which through God's blessing fructified and produced a hundred fold of new Christians. Here the reader beholds the Church which had been established in the blood of the Son of God amid the gloom and horrors of Calvary, and which had been confined in the catacombs, emerge like its Divine Founder, from its subterranean abode and break upon the world of Constantine in the radiance of a glorious resurrection. Also the saints of God, those oases in the desert of humanity, who, so admirable in their chastity, their benevolence, and their charity,

INTRODUCTION.

have adorned every rank and condition of life, serving their Master by succoring the widow and the orphan and all on whom misfortune had fallen, they passed along as delightful sunshine cheering and consoling all whom they met in their blessed progress, despising the dangers of the ocean, the horrors of the pestilence, the perils of the battle-field, that they might faithfully accomplish the grand work of their Divine Lord.

Here, too, he will see how the most mighty monarchs of the earth either bowed down dutifully before the Church's authority, or by their rebellion against it became the objects of divine vengeance and furnished terrific instances of exemplary punishment.

The infidel philosophers of France who pretended forsooth! to he plus sage que les sages — those architects of ruin who in their insane career having overturned the edifice of social order, and rudely wrenched themselves from the holy and sanctified associations of the most glorious epoch of their national history, discovered that their boasted philosophy was but a pestilential vapor, which, although it could not drive God from His creation, could in its fatal gloom hide from His presumptuous and unbelieving creatures the light and glory of His celestial countenance. Here, too, Ireland, the Niobe of nations, stands before him in her present deplorable condition, and recalls the time when she was the island of saints and sages, when Western Europe flew thither to kindle at the fires that blazed in her monasteries the dying torch of learning. We cannot but regret that she is subject to England — to cold, heartless, tyrannical, cruel England. The mask of philanthropy, which England had so long worn, has been rudely torn away,

INTRODUCTION.

and now divested of her disguise she appears in all the hideousness of her native cruelty. With a great parade of mock benevolence, she would have the world believe that she was the patroness — the benefactress of Ireland, consoling her in her afflictions, alleviating her suffering, and strenuously striving to ameliorate her sad condition; while in reality she was wringing from Ireland the capital that should afford employment to an industrious people; she was cramping her energies, and by a diabolical ingenuity producing the terrible results of artificial famine. It would not be difficult for a sagacious political philosopher, like the illustrious Irishman, Edmund Burke, with the data of history before him, to prognosticate the tremendous retribution which a just Providence will inevitably inflict on England for her criminal culpability in the government of Ireland; nor would it be hard for Burke to say when and how the poisoned cup which England has so long compelled Ireland to partake of, shall be returned at length in a just circulation to her

own lips.

" — nations keep a stern account Of deeds that tyrants do ; And guiltless blood to Heaven will mount, And Heaven avenge it, too !"

Ireland conscious of the hollowness and falsity of English professions, has turned her back upon her perfidious neighbor, and addressed her prayers for succor to the large-hearted American nation, who have responded in the most munificent fashion, surpassing even their characteristic generosity.

Yes! the country of Washington, the States for whose independence the Irish fought against the British

INTRODUCTION.

oppressor, lias kindly hearkened to the sorrowful voice of Ireland, and tenderly and charitably stretched out her great arm over the broad Atlantic to relieve her sister in distress.

May the Almighty bless America! and may the union now so happily subsisting between Ireland and America become cemented in the bonds of a closer and more affectionate connexion; may the hour speedily arrive when side by side with the Stars and Stripes of Columbia shall be seen the Green Flag of Free Erin proudly flying to the breeze of heaven, and may the two nations united in feeling become also united in the faith of God, who has called His children out of the darkness of unbelief into the admirable light of His divine revelation.

J. J. T.

Philadelphia, St. Patrick's Bay, 1880.