66 'Och, musha, bad luck to her," said Shemus, "I donna where she is." "Is that an answer, you big blaggard, for the likes o' you to give your poor ould mother?" said she. "Och, musha," said Shemus, "don't kick up such a bollhour about nothen. The ould cow is safe enough, 1 be bail, some place or other, though I could find her if I put my eyes upon kippeens; and, speaken of eyes, faith, I had very good luck o' my side, or I had nare a one to look afther her." swear it was the same; and yet it wasn't, as you shall hear by-and-by. 'Shemus and his mother brought the dead beast home with them; and, after skinnen her hung the meat up in the chimney. The loss of the drop o' milk was a sorrowful thing; and, though they had a good deal of meat, that couldn't last always; besides the whole parish faughed upon them for eating the flesh of a beast that died without bleeden. But the pretty thing was, they couldn't eat the meat afther all; for, when it was boiled, it was as tough as carrion, and as black as a turf. You might as well think of sinking your teeth in an oak plank as into a piece of it; and then you'd want to sit a great piece from the wall for fear of knocking your head against it when pulling it through your teeth. At last and at long run they were forced to thow it to the dogs; but the dogs wouldn't smell to it, and so it was thrown into the ditch, where it rotted. This misfortune cost poor Shemus many a salt tear, for he was now obliged to work twice as hard as before, and be out cutten heath on the mountain late and early. One day he was passen by this Cairne with a load of brooms on his back, when what should he see but the little dun cow, and two red-headed fellows herding her? "That's my mother's cow," said Shemus-a-sneidh. "No,it is not," said one of the chaps. "But I say it is," said Shemus, throwing the brooms on the ground, and seizing the cow by the horns. At that the red fellows drove her as fast as they could to this steep place, and with one leap she bounced over, with Shemus stuck fast to her horns. They made only one splash in the lough, when the waters closed over 'em, and they sunk to the bottom. Just as Shemus-a-sneidh thought that all was over with him, he found himself before a most elegant palace built with jewels, and all manner of fine stones. Though his eyes were dazzled with the splendour of the place, faith he had gomsh enough not to let go his holt, but, in spite of all they could do, he held his little cow by the horns. He was axed into the palace, but wouldn't go. 2 z The hubbub at last grew so great that the door flew open, and out walked a hundred ladies and gentlemen, as fine as any in the land. "What does this boy want?" axed one o' them, who seemed to be the masther. "I want my mother's cow," said Shemus. "That's not your mother's cow," said the gentleman. "Bethershin!" cried Shemus-asneidh; "don't I know her as well as I know my right hand?" "Where did you lose her?" axed the gentleman; and so Shemus up and tould him all about it, how he was on the mountain-how he saw the Good People hurlen-how the ball was knocked in his eye-and his cow was lost. "I believe you are right," said the gentleman, pulling out his purse"and here is the price of twenty cows for you." 66 No, no," said Shemus, "you'll not catch ould birds wid chaff. I'll have my cow, and nothen else." "You're a funny fellow," said the gentleman. "May be you'd stop here, and live with us?" "No," said Shemus-a-sneidh, "I'd rather live with my mother." "Foolish boy!" said the gentleman, stop here, and live in a palace." "I'd rather live in my mother's cabin." "Here you can walk through gardens loaded with fruit and flowers." "I'd rather," said Shemus," be cutting heath on the mountain." "Here you can eat and drink of the best." "Since I've got my cow, I can have milk once more with the pheaties." "Oh!" cried the ladies, gathering round him, "sure you wouldn't take away the cow that gives us milk for our tea?" "Oh!" said Shemus, "my mother wants milk as bad as any one, and she must have it; so there is no use in your palavar-I must have my COW." At this they all gathered about him, and offered him bushels of gould, but he wouldn't have any thing but his cow. Seeing him as obstinate as a mule, they began to thump and beat him; but still he held fast by the horns,till at length a great blast of wind blew him out of the place, and, in a moment, he found himself and the cow standing on the side of the lake, the water of which looked as if it hadn't been disturbed since Adam was a boy; and that's a long time since. Well, Shemus-a-sneidh drove home his cow, and right glad his mother was to see her; but, the moment she said "God bless the beast," she sunk down like the breesha of a turf rick; and that was the end of Shemus-a-sneidh's dun cow. ' And sure,' continued my companion, standing up, it is now time for me to look afther my brown cow, and God send the ganconers haven't taken her! Of this I assured him there could be no fear; and so we parted. MR. BLANCO WHITE'S EVIDENCE AGAINST THE CATHOLICS. which they were exiled by the predecessors of those whose champion you have become, and whose religious and political principles you have espoused. The ties of kindred and country you have burst through, the claims of honour you have disregard MR. JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE, YOU come before us in a questionable shape.' You have proclaimed yourself a renegade Spaniard, an apostate Catholic, an ex-Jesuit, and an enemy of that unfortunate country which your forefathers loved, and from *Practical and internal Evidence against Catholicism, with occasional Strictures on Mr. Butler's Book of the Roman Catholic Church in Six Letters, addressed to the Impartial among the Roman Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland. By the Rev. Joseph Blanco White, M. A. B. D. in the University of Seville; Licentiate of Divinity in the University of Osuna; formerly Chaplain Magistral (Preacher) to the King of Spain, in the Royal Chapel at Seville; Fellow, and once Rector, of the College of St. Mary a Jesu of the same town; Synodal Examiner of the Diocese of Cadiz ; Member of the Royal Academy of Belles Lettres, of Seville, &c. &c.; now a Clergyman of the Church of England:-Author of Doblado's Letters from Spain. Murray, 1825. A few Observations on the Evidence against Catholicism. By the Rev. J. B. White, &e. &c. &c. Booker, 1825. ed, and you have obtruded yourself a labelled and voluntary national informer. Nay, more, in contradiction, we suppose, of the usual boast of Catholics, you have revealed the secrets of the confessional, you have drawn arguments from your own disgusting vices, and libelled the religious females of your native country, advancing your own experience as a proof of the immorality of Spanish nunneries. Perhaps these are offences pardonable in our modern ethical schools, and no doubt would be regarded as harmless in a Court of Equity; but, amongst men of honour, and of the world, nay, amongst pious men, we are convinced they will be received in a very different light. They will consider such barefaced exposures as indecent and uncalled for; and, applying the worldly maxim, they will doubt the statements of the gallant who could kiss and tell ;'for it is pretty generally known that he who is in the habit of boasting of ladies' favours has seldom been in the enjoyment of any. Mr. Blanco White, with all the littleness of a pedant, has ostentatiously set forth' his learned titles and academical honours; but, whatever his other acquirements may be, logic is decidedly not one of them, for we have never met with more disjointed arguments or more unwarrantable conclusions. His friends-and they are the advocates of exclusionhave, however, declared that Mr. Blanco White, the ex-Jesuit of Seville, has opposed Catholic emancipation by new arguments, and that he is the ablest champion which has yet appeared for Protestant ascendency. We are glad that they have done so; we are glad that therenegade Papists,' Phelan and O'Sullivan, are put upon the shelf, because these latter imbeciles are thus treated as presumptuous ignorance merits; and because that, if every thing Mr. Blanco White has said respecting the Catholic religion were true, the necessity of speedy and unqualified emancipation would be only made the more apparent. Suppose we admit that the Catholic religion generates intolerance-that it is not infallible-that it has no unity-that monks and nuns are immoral-that Rome is the enemy of education-and that the Breviary in Spain is a compound of lies-(and these are the amount of Mr. Blanco's objections)-what then? Why that in a country where Catholics form only one-third of the population, they should be emancipated at once. Admit them to the light of truth, if they are in darkness; for that which is supported by reason will naturally attach men to it, when not withheld by the fear of being reproached with mercenary motives. Mr. Blanco might have found this fact in the works of a man, to whose writing, if the exJesuit is to be believed, he is indebted for his conversion from atheism to Christianity: but, alas! Blanco is no philosopher; and, though he has dipped into theology, it does not appear that he read Paley's moral and political works at all. In the work before us, however, the Renegade' supplies an answer to his own arguments, for he repeatedly says that men are Catholics only because they are prevented from acquiring knowledge; and, in this as in other instances, he adduces himself as an irrefragable proof. Then why not allow them the means of seeing the deformity of their own creed? Why keep them for ever brooding in the errors of superstition, when, by opening the portals of the constitution, you would be shedding on them the light of a purer religion, and introducing them to scenes where they could not fail to recognise the loveliness of truth? Exclude them, and, judging the future by the past, they will continue for ever Papists; remove their restrictions, and you give them a chance, at least, of abandoning error. This is the only answer such divines as Blanco merit. Admit all their premises, and then turn their conclusions against themselves. But we are not so slightly read in the philosophy of the human mind as to suppose, for an instant, that Blanco believes in all he has stated: he has been for some tine an author by profession, and knows better how to write a book that will sell than a book that will support the interest of truth. Indeed, when we find that the Pope, according to his account, can absolve a man from any crime, cancel oaths, and do several such wonderful things, we are half inclined to suspect that Blanco is only a Jesuit in disguise that he is, like a good Catholic, advancing the interest of his religion under the gown of a Protestant clergyman; for he tells us the Papists are obliged to do every thing for the destruction of heresy, provided they do nothing that injures their own religion. We are not in the secret; and perhaps some of the Continental powers, or even the Pope himself, might think, that opposing the emancipation of theIrish Catholics is the best way to extend the influence of the church of Rome. The daily conversions to Catholicity seem to confirm such a supposition: we would have the Bishop of London look to it in time. It is now time that we should tell the reader who Joseph Blanco White is; but the ex-Jesuit has saved us a part of the trouble by furnishing the following account of himself: 'I am descended from an Irish family, whose attachment to the Roman Catholic religion was often proved by their endurance of the persecution which, for a long period, afflicted the members of their persuasion in Ireland. My grandfather was the eldest of three brothers, whose voluntary banishment from their native land, Tooted out my family from the county of Waterford. A considerable fortune enabled my ancestor to settle at Seville, where he was inscribed on the roll of the privileged gentry, and carried on extensive business as a merchant. But the love of his native land could not be impaired by his foreign residence; and as his eldest son (my father) could not but grow attached to Spain, by reason of his birth, he sent him in his childhood to Ireland, that he might also cling to that country by early feelings of kindness. It was thus that my father combined in his person the two most powerful and genuine elements of a religionist-the unhesitating faith of persecuting Spain; the impassioned belief of persecuted Ireland. My father was the first of his kindred that married into a Spanish family; and his early habits of exalted piety made him choose a wife whom few can equal in religious sincerity. I have hallowed the pages of another work with the character of my parents: yet affection would readily furnish me with new portraits, were I not anxious to get over this preliminary egotism. It is enough to say that such were *Letters from Spain, by Don Leucadio the purity, the benevolence, the angelic piety of my father's life, that, at his death, multitudes of people thronged the house to indulge a last view of the dead body. Nor was the wife of his bosom at all behind him, either in fulness of faith or sanc tity of manners. The endeavours of such parents to bring up their children in conformity with their religious notions may, therefore, be fully conceived without the help of description. No waywardness of disposition appeared in me to defeat or obstruct their labours. At the age of fourteen all the seeds of devotion, which had been assiduously sown in my heart, sprung up as it were spontaneously. The pious practices, which had hitherto been a task, were now the effect of my own choice. I became a constant attendant at the congregation of tended for the church, generally had their the Oratory, where pious young men, inspiritual directors. Dividing my time between study and devotion, I went through a course of philosophy and divinity at the University of Seville; at the end of which I received the Roman Catholic order of sub-deacon. By that time I had obtained the degrees of Master of Arts and Bacheof the College of St. Mary a Jesu of Selor of Divinity. Being elected a Fellow ville, when I was not of sufficient standing for the superior degree of Licentiate of I took that degree at Osuna, where the staDivinity, which the Fellowship required, tutes demand no interval between these academical honours. A year had scarcely elapsed since I had received priest's orders, when, after a public examination, in competition with other candidates, I obtained the stall of Magistral or Preacher, in the chapter of king's chaplains, at Seville. Placed, so young, in a situation which my predecessor had obtained after many years' service as a vicar, in the same town, I conleisure to the study of religion. I need ceived myself bound to devote my whole not say that I was fully conversant with the system of Catholic divinity; for I owed my preferment to a public display of theological knowledge: yet I wished to become acquainted with all kinds of works which might increase and perfect that knowledge.' We take the subsequent part of his life from the author of Observations,' &c. 'Light clouds of doubt begun to pass over his mind, and to get rid of them he preached a sermon on Infidelity to the Royal Brigade of Carabineers. The recipe seems strange, the effect of it still more Doblado.' Previous to the degree of Doctor of Divinity a severe examination takes place, which gives to the Licentiate all the rights, though not the honours, of Doctorship. These may be obtained by a Licentiate, at any time, by the payment of some fees.' singular. This sermon quickened his conversion, and he was an atheist before the end of the year. What effect it had upon the Royal Carabineers he does not say,no doubt it made them all athiests too,that is to say if they heard it, and were not of the soldier's opinion, “Qui’l ne faut pas parler de la religion dans la guerre.' He then gives his reasons for believing,one of which was that without a living (infallible interpreter) the Bible was a dead letter.* But when he found this was not so, he gave up the Bible and its Author, and all the arguments in favour of one and the other and became an atheist. Now I for one much doubt if there is any one so unfortunate as to be utterly destitute of all belief in a God; but thus far I am certain that Mr. Blanco never was. Of course I do not say it as a reproach; I am very glad he never was; but I only tell it as a warning lest he may be in fact as little of a Church-of-England man, as he was of an atheist; for as he plainly does not know what the latter means he may perhaps be ignorant of the meaning of the former. In which case he is not only deceiving himself, but the Rev. Edward Coplestone, and even one whose good opinion, if I understand him right, he would be still less willing to lose, the Right Rev. Lord Bishop of London. During the whole period of his scepticism Mr. Blanco was incessant in prayer. But if there is one duty of religion that would be more slight ed than another where all were disregard ed it would be that of prayer. To whom should the atheist pray? Did Mr. Blanco raise altars to Reason, or adore her in the shape of a naked prostitute? Perhaps not, -but he was continually assailing Heaven with prayers for grace, though to what power he addressed them, as he has not told us, must remain undetermined. Having excited the pity of all Christian readers, by declaring himself to have been an unbeliever; he next tells us that he was a son, and gives a beautiful passage on his filial piety (a virtue that he frequently arrogates to himself,) and in one place compares his feelings to those of Pope with regard to his mother. But whoever has read the poet's affecting letter will see how different was the delicacy of his feeling (" qui nequeat lacrymas perferre parentis") who brings forward no stories of his mother's weaknesses, no lamentations over her obstinate enthusiasm, but who felt in the true spirit of Christianity, that his God would be better pleased by his preservation of his mother's heart than the declaration of his own conversion. Religious enthusiasm in vain applied to him to rip up those errors for her sake which filial piety commanded him to conceal. 'I cannot help remarking upon the singularity of the scene of Mr. Blanco's sudden conversion. All such speedy transitions of faith that I have ever hitherto heard of have been made in some situation whose awfulness invoked the attention of the creature to the Creator and claimed his devotion: but Mr. Blanco felt the inspiring influence of Church-of-Englandism as he was prying about the parochial church of St. James's. Much as I admire the general doctrine of our church; I confess that I think it is rather by sober reflection in the chamber-by cool reason in the closet, that it will make converts, than by sudden enthusiasm, caught in its high places, and certainly than by the warmth inspired by its London palaces. But Mr. White entered the church by some accident, unusual I presume, to an atheist as he professed himself to be; he saw the well-fed priest ascend the pulpit and heard the enlivening tones of his voice he saw the glad glowing enthusiasm it kindled in his congregation, and he immediately concluded, that if there was not peace, there was at least plenteousness in all her palaces. Thus convinced, the sceptic Spaniard presently took English orders and then he retired to Oxford, and in so doing chose the place the least fitted to erase from his memory the religion he had originally professed, of any place in the British dominions; there he saw the monuments of popish grandeur; there he saw the plenitude of popish institutes; there he saw the remains of popish bigotry,and relics of popish superstition, popish feelings under Protestant garbs. his sleep sound at the Mitre (may he never sleep under one again !) the first night of his arrival at Oxford?-Surely the streets he had passed through, must have made him tremble to think of the piles that had been raised there for the destruction of Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer in the darker ages of Catholic superstition. Whether his dreams were of these unfortunate martyrs; or of the monks, martyrs to nothing but gout and disease that now possess those places he has not told us; but he was soon called away to superintend the education of a nobleman's children. Who that nobleman was, he has not told us here, probably from some slight feeling of shame at inserting his name in a publication the author must be too well aware how highly he would disapprove, perhaps too, deeming that some of his readers might the less excuse the man, who having had for two years the advantage of that nobleman's conversa Was If the two bracketed words were omitted, this sentence might explain some of the latter part of the Rev. Gentleman's conduct.' |