other occasions; whereas, thus far, the sword has not wrought the independence of Ireland.

And here we hope we may be pardoned some reflections, as we may have occasion to refer to this subject again.

We do not read in the Gospel the principle of resistance to established power; but we do find that men were commanded to obey a government that persecuted them. The Catholic Church is opposed to revolution per se, but she has not committed herself to the doctrine of passive obedience at all times and under all circumstances. She has lived through many stormy periods of revolution, and though pronouncing no authoritative solution of the difficulty in her official capacity for the guidance of her children, her theologians have elaborated the question in all its bearings. We could fill pages from their writings, but it might seem an affectation of learning we do not possess. We will content ourselves with the reflections of Sir James Mackintosh, who, we are inclined to think, borrowed them from the great Catholic theologians.

He says that in the awful conjunctures when men deliberate between rendering legal obedience and an appeal to arms, their conduct, considering the time, place, opinion, example, temptation, and obstacles, must be judged by the immutable principles of morality. He considers war in general; and points out that there may be occasions in which a war even in self-defence by a nation may be unjustifiable. By the same principles he examines into the justice of a war by a people against their own government. Government exists to protect men from each other's injustice, and this duty it cannot perform without obedience from the people. But when a government systematically oppresses a people, it commits the same species of wrong towards them which warrants an appeal to arms against a foreign enemy. Thus far civil and foreign war stand on the same moral foundation; but he draws this grave difference between the two. Though the passage be lengthy, owing to its grave importance, we give it without a verbal alteration. He thus

continues:

"But there are certain peculiarities of great importance in point of fact, which in other respects permanently distinguish them from each other. The evils of failure are greater in civil than in foreign war. A State generally incurs no more than a loss in war: a body of insurgents is exposed to ruin. The probabilities of success are more difficult to calculate in cases of internal contest than in a war between States, where it is easy to compare those merely material means of attack and defence which may be measured or numbered. An unsuccessful revolt strengthens the power and sharpens the cruelty of the tyrannical ruler, while an unfortunate war may produce little of the former evil and of the latter nothing. It is almost peculiar to intestine war that success may be as mischievous as defeat. The victorious leaders may be borne along by the current of events far beyond their destination; a government may be overthrown

1 Review of the Causes of the Revolution of 1688, chap. 9, p. 382. VOL. IV.-28

which ought to have been only repaired; and a new, perhaps more formidable, tyranny may spring out of victory. A regular government may stop before its fall becomes precipitate, or check a career of conquest when it threatens destruction to itself; but the feeble authority of the chiefs of insurgents is rarely able, in the one case to maintain the courage, in the other to repress the impetuosity of their voluntary adherents. Finally, the cruelty and misery incident to all warfare are greater in domestic dissension than in contests with foreign enemies."

. Then pointing out some of the special evil consequences of civil war, such as the loss of virtue, the estrangement of families, the perpetuation of feuds, etc., he concludes:

"A wanton rebellion, when considered with the aggravation of its ordinary conse quences, is one of the greatest crimes. The chiefs of an inconsiderable and ill-concerted revolt, however provoked, incur the most formidable responsibility to their followers and country. An insurrection rendered necessary by oppression and warranted by a reasonable probability of a happy termination is an act of public virtue, always environed with so much peril as to merit admiration."

The leaders of the new departure read and knew all this, for Smith O'Brien, Gavan Duffey, John Dillon, and other prominent men were men of extensive information. The writer of this remembers having had many and long conversations regarding the crisis, though it may be indelicate to mention it, with the late Richard Dalton Williams, one of the greatest of men, and the poet, almost par excellence, of the Nation. His complaint was that himself and friends were openly denounced as at least almost infidels, when they felt conscious they were not. They thought "they had a reasonable probability of a happy termination," for they had on paper an army of over tens of thousands of men. The country clubs sent in the most glowing accounts; young men on the threshold of manhood convinced of their own sincerity and courage would promise to make any sacrifice. They had yet these two withering lessons to learn; that there may be betrayers in their midst, and that personal courage without military discipline and training is of little avail; for to the eyes of the bravest civilian the veriest coward clad in the panoply of war generally seems to be a giant.

In critical times the people clamor for success, and scarcely have eyes to see or ears to hear the causes of failure. Smith O'Brien, trusting to the paper army returned by the clubs, cast himself upon the country, and found too late that the foregoing reflections were too true. He could, however, have destroyed hundreds of her Majesty's army, as we know from trustworthy men who were on the spot. Wellington said a tender-hearted man was unfit to be a general. O'Brien revolted from unavailing bloodshed. He saw that all was lost; he was not backed by even a respectable part the nation. He himself has left on record that he was willing to

of

sacrifice his life for his country, but he was not willing to head a jacquerie. He was right. His life and fortunes were wrecked; but we are pretty certain that his good name will never be disparaged in Ireland. And when, in 1859, he visited America, he was received in a private way, because he so wished it, with marked courtesy by the first men of every section of the United States and Canada.

Again, as half a century before, the cause of Ireland seemed to be dead; but it was not. A new party was organized on the Land question as a basis. Certainly it did not effect what it aimed at; but it helped to keep alive the spirit of the people; it made manifest the grievous thraldom of the tenant farmers, and, perhaps, ultimately led to the modicum of legal protection now awarded them. Some few used the organization as a stepping-stone to power, though almost sworn to hold themselves independent of the government. But they soon fell from "their bad eminence," and made their exit from the stage of life after the manner of Castlereagh.

Had the British Government, after a reasonable time, forgotten the emeute of '48, as she would have done had it occurred in Yorkshire, tranquillity and, perhaps, contentment would soon have been restored. She would only have acted on the political maxims of her own best statesmen. But instead of doing so, the occasion was used as a plea for renewed oppression. Insult was added to defeat. The doctrine of the inalienable right to revolutionize was still preached up in the English press. The Irish were taunted with the sneer, that they could fight bravely everywhere except at home, though they were designedly deprived of arms with which to fight. But if the right to revolution be so universal, can loyalty be a virtue? Such a right is a mockery; it means the right to be shot. Under such circumstances in 1825, Bishop Doyle wrote of the Irish: "Reject them, insult them, continue to deprive them of hope, and they will league with Beelzebub against you. Revenge is sweet, and the pride of a nation, like the vanity of a woman, when wounded, is relentless." Just so.

Of the lesser lights among the men of '48, there were still some in Ireland who adhered to the plan of armed revolution. Seeing the utter failure of open warfare, they resolved to work by means of secret societies. They put themselves in connection with leaders of the Commune and Lodges on the Continent, and copied their methods of operation. In due time outcropped the vastly ramified organization known as the Fenian Society. It was spread not only through Ireland and England, but assumed a bold and imposing. appearance in the United States. All things seemed favorable to

its plans for a time, but when the day for action came we know the result-sad discomfiture.

The organization is slowly dying out, and we do not wish to revive agitation on the subject. That several of the leaders were opposed to all religion, and would wish to inspire irreligious views into their followers, is well known. But we by no means imagine that the great majority of the members of the society intended to upset the Catholic Church. And last year, when a man of singular ability as a writer, Charles Kickham, fell into financial embarrassments, we find that persons of all creeds and parties, headed by the Catholic archbishop of his own diocese, contributed generously to his relief.

But good impulses on the part of many of its members could not justify the society. It was impracticable and wrong in principle. Experience has proven, especially in Ireland, that no society can be so easily betrayed as oath-bound secret societies. It was so with the United Irishmen in '98. The government was regularly informed of all their plans. The Fenians found it so in 1865. Notwithstanding all their oaths of secresy, the government was able to anticipate all their movements. Governments live by force, and will meet and crush all armed opposition, be it public or

private. This is an elementary truth.

It is strange that the promotors of the movement did not seem to anticipate any opposition from the United States. The government must enforce its own treaties. It was at peace with England and could not allow armed expeditions against a friendly power to be fitted out within its borders. To allow it would be tantamount to a declaration of war. The leaders were permitted all freedom of public discussion, but when they began to act they found themselves checked by the United States Army. Thus they had not only England, but also the United States Government against them. Those who put themselves outside the pale of the civil law must expect that the law will oppose them.

It is well known that the Church is opposed on principle to secret revolutionary societies. Some have insisted that the Church has not expressly condemned the Fenian Society here in America. But she has. We have the decision before us, but deem it unnecessary to give its actual words.' We presume it is left to the discretion of the Ordinaries to publish and enforce it. The reason why the Church condemns secret oath-bound societies is very simple. Without going into the depths of theology, no man has a right to

1 Acta Stae Sedis, vol. vi., in note on the Constitution Apostolicæ Sedis.

take an oath except for a known and just purpose, and under proper sanctions and authority. The Catechism teaches children that it is sinful to take a rash oath, and it is sinful to keep it.

The leaders caring little for, or forgetting the principles by which the Church is governed, have not hesitated to ascribe unworthy motives to its clergy. Priests ordained at Maynooth have been singled out for special obloquy. It was charged that they took an oath to maintain the British Government, and, therefore, it was that they opposed the movement. In America we are free. No English gold purchases the Church here, and yet she condemns. the society. As to the Maynooth priests, they differ in nothing from priests ordained elsewhere. With us, when the government confers any special trust on a citizen, it requires such a person to renew his oath of allegiance; thus a sheriff or a postmaster, before he enters on his duties, must take such an oath. This is precisely what is required of priests at Maynooth. By the fact of their birth they were already bound; but as they are made the recipients of a special favor, they are required, as is done elsewhere, to renew their allegiance.

It was asserted

The Holy Father even did not escape censure. that he favored England at the expense of Ireland. England has never been very friendly to the Popes. In Catholic times she grumbled at paying the Peter's pence. By the Præmunire Act she made it a penal offence to publish the Pope's Apostolic Letters. There can be no special reason, therefore, why the Pope should compromise Ireland to gratify England. The duties of the Holy Father extend to peoples and governments the most distant and diverse. He has to rebuke the despotism of Russia; he has to resist the cruel tyranny of Germany, and the butchery of the Commune in France; and, when the occasion demands, he hesitates not to pronounce censure on secret societies in Ireland.

There have been occasions in days gone by when the Popes feared not to come to the assistance of Ireland. We will refer only to one eventful period. When the Confederate Catholics, in 1642, rose to defend their religion and country, the Pope promptly aided them with money and arms. He commissioned a Nuncio to counsel and encourage them. But Ormond, a man of subtle and treacherous intellect, baffled his plans and caused division among the Confederates. The Nuncio was compelled to excommunicate. the party that thwarted him. Ormond had theologians in his council. They raised the question then agitated in France, whether the right of patronage to Episcopal sees was not vested in the Crown; and also the other more serious question, whether a General Council was above the Pope. If so, the censures of the Nuncio