The Cross and the Shamrock Part 2

"'Tis hard for him to provide for all that are in distress," said Norry.

"I know it; but it would be a murther to let such well-reared and decent children into the hands of those poormasters, but especially that Van Stingey, whose great delight is, they say, to convart the children of Catholics to his own sect. See what he done to the little Cronin children, whose father and mother died lately."

"I heard of that; but I am afraid the priest won't be able to call on to-morrow, as he promised, if it continue to snow so."

"_O yea_, G.o.d forbid; but it is a terrible night. Do ye hear how it blows? _O Heirna Dioa._"

"Yes, and the snow is falling in mountains; the roads will be blocked up, and hills and hollows will be on a level in the morning."

"G.o.d help every poor Christian that is out to-night," said Mrs. Doherty.

"I hope the Lord will save his reverence from all harm."

"Amen!" answered Norry. "He will have a hard night of it. Had he far to go?"

"He had, _agra_, forty miles out in Vermont; but sure he could not refuse going. The woman is just dying; and besides, she is a Protestant, who wants to die in the faith."

"Happy for her," said Norry, "if he overtakes her alive. How good the priests are to these Yankees, although they are always ridiculing the clergy; yet, if one of them is going to die, the priest not only forgives them, but is willing to travel any distance to do them a service."

"Sure that's the orders of G.o.d and the church," said Mrs. Doherty. "It is not for them alone they are working, but for G.o.d, you know."

"That's true," said Norry. "But still and all, when one hears how they are always ridiculing priests and nuns, and sees how they hate our religion, it is very hard, I think, to forgive them."

"Yes, _agra_," said Peggy, who was better informed than Norry; "so it is hard for flesh and blood to forgive the heretics; but, unless we forgive them, G.o.d won't forgive us. The priest knows this well; and so, if there were two sick calls to come at one time to him, as happened lately, one a Protestant and the other a Catholic, he would go to the Protestant first."

"That beats all," said Norry, "and is more than I would do, if I were the priest; for I know well all that is said of him behind his back."

"What harm will all that scandalous talk do the priest?" said Peggy. "It only does him good; and he has a blessing for being 'spoken evil of'

like our Lord. He forgives all those whom G.o.d forgives; and so, if his enemy, the Protestant, falls sick, and wants his services, he goes to him _first_, in order that he may be brought into the church, where alone he can be saved."

"Thanks be to G.o.d," said Norry. "Is not it a wonder the Protestants don't understand this, and look on the priests and the church as their best friends, seeing that the priests are as ready, and readier, to attend to them than to the Catholics themselves?"

"How can they understand it when they are blinded by love of money, impurity, and the hatred that the ministers excite against the church in the minds of their hearers? Wasn't our Lord himself hated by those whom he most loved, and put to death by them? It is so with every priest who follows his steps, now as well as then. The world will always hate good."

This Christian philosophy was a little too sublime for poor Norry's mind, who was a long time among the Yankees, sufficiently instructed in the customs of this "free country" to be ready to observe the law of "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and life for life;" and who, besides, had her naturally warm temper rather spoiled from her continual rencontres with her mistress on such subjects as confession, priests' celibacy, purgatory, and other subjects too profound for the understanding of her mistress to know any thing about them, and too sacred in the eyes of Norry to allow them to be irreverently handled without saying something in their defence. It requires not only a perfect acquaintance with the sublime and heavenly tenets of Catholicity to speak of them with precision and propriety, but, in addition to a deep study of the truths of true religion, the _practice of her precepts_, and the frequent reception of the sacraments, are necessary to imbue the mind with the true Christian notions regarding her high commands.

Poor Norry "had not a chance," she said, of going to her duties for several years; and that is why she considered "Peggy Doherty's" talk about forgiveness so strange and unaccountable.

"Yes, a _Greffour_," resumed "old Peggy," "we must forgive all the world; and myself would forgive any thing sooner than kidnappin' or stealing away the children of Catholics, which these Yankee parsons are so fond of doing."

"O, so they are, the villains," said Norry. "Did they take away or steal any of this poor woman's children? 'Tis a wonder if they didn't."

"Well, besides the four children you see here, _asth.o.r.e_, she had another neat child, one year old, named Aloysia, whom a lady up town took with her, two months since, to rear her up along with her own children; and it was only about ten days since she got news of her death. When the poor woman heard this, the heart broke entirely within her, especially as she could not be present at the child's death bed or at the funeral."

"Why, that's rather strange," said Norry. "Did they send her word that she was sick?"

"Not a word. It was only when I went up to Mrs. Sillerman's, the other day, to inquire about the child, she comes out and tells me the child died, and was decently interred. When I told the mother, she cried out, 'O Aloysia, Aloysia, my darling! are you, too, gone?' And she was not herself since."

"I do think there must be something wrong in the matter," said Norry.

"Did you tell the priest?"

"No, I did not, for I had not time," said Mrs. Doherty. "G.o.d forgive me.

I have a doubt in my own mind that the lady of the house (I renounce judging her) was not honest when she told me of the child's death.

'Perhaps,' says I to myself, 'she is kidnapped.' And she was such a purty angel, with a face you would delight looking on; and on her right hand,--the Lord save us!--a circle like a ring was on her middle finger.

She was too good to live; and was made for heaven, I suppose. Glory be to G.o.d."

CHAPTER III.

AN OFFICIAL.

Our poormaster, Van Stingey, was a very conscientious officer. He never squandered what he called the people's property, the commonwealth. He was none of your vulgar, ordinary poormasters. He did not want the office; they only forced it on to him. Like some of your great statesmen, he acted for _man_, as he emphatically said; not for poor widows and orphans, taken one by one; that was only a secondary consideration. His whole duty, his very existence, seemed to be needed for the good of man, or humanity in general. The question with him was, not how to relieve this or that poor man or woman. _That_ might engage the attention of a man of no intelligence, no education, or no philosophy: what he aspired to was, always to act by principle; to act so that the state, or the people who owned _real estate_, and who elected him against his will, to see that their interests were attended to, whatever became of the poor. Accordingly, when he heard of any case of particular distress, such as that a poor emigrant died of misery in a cold, deserted house, our poormaster regretted it, as an individual; but, as an officer, he said, he acted according to principle. He could not betray his const.i.tuents, who elected him against his will, by any act of extravagance; and the good of the many must be consulted. "Even the Lord," he used to say,--for he was a religious man,--"when he created the sun, left spots in it." The best statesman must sometimes do what may be cruel to the few; but, in the end, it would turn out for the good of man. This district, since his election, now twice successively, had made a saving of some two hundred a year since he became its officer; and that would, in time, open the eyes of the people as to who were proper candidates for office, tend to diminish taxes, and, in fact, be a work for man--progress and virtue. Besides this, Mr. Poormaster Van Stingey had "got religion," by which he was wonderfully enlightened, having been so lucky as to gain that valuable accomplishment just six months, and only six months, before his election, at a camp meeting held near the village of M----ville.

"I tell you what, the fact of the matter is, Mr. Knicks," said he, "there is nothin' like religion. Before I got religion, and jined the church, I didn't have any knowledge of G.o.d. I used to pity these emigrants, seeing them poor and pale looking as death; but now, sir, I reads my Bible, and finds that the Lord must not regard nor love these Papists, wher'n he lets them run down so. The word of life is great."

"Wal, I do not know. I care not a straw about any church; but my old mother used to teach us, when children, that poverty and crosses were no sign of the Lord's displeasure; as witness holy Job and Christ himself, who were poor. In fact, she never stopped telling us, when boys, that riches were dangerous, the love of money the root of all evil, and that 'whom he chastiseth the Lord loveth.'"

"O, but your mother was a stiff Papist, you know, and did not understand the word of G.o.d."

"Yes, sir-ee, she did that; for I well recollect that, in the many arguments she had with father, she always had the best of it. That she had."

"She may argue from Jesuit books and the like; but the Bible she durst not look at, you know, Knicks."

"I know better, Van. Don't you talk so. I have got the very Bible she used and read every day--a great large one, printed in London. Mother was English, and herself a convert to the church of Rome, though father was Dutch."

"Why, I never knowed that, Knicks. That was a great misfortune. These priests, by the arts of Antichrist, will come round simple folks so, that they often succeed in leading them down to destruction."

"Well, sir," said Knicks, "I can tell you I never met a Christian but my mother; and I cannot believe or listen to you say she went to destruction, but to heaven, if there is such a place. And again: if I were to embrace any religion, it would be the Roman Catholic religion; for it is the only _honest religion_ there is. Father often brought Methodist and Presbyterian ministers to make mother give up her'n; but it was no go. She always treated them civil; but they had the worst of the argument, I can tell you. They brought their Bibles, and she her'n; and then they would set to, and be at it, till at last they were obliged to give up. The only difference between her Bible and theirs is, that her'n contained some fourteen or fifteen books more than the Protestant Bible. The end of it was, that father turned with mother, and had the Irish priest O'Shane to attent him afore he died. Mother got us all baptized too."

"Indeed!" carelessly e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed our official. "I must call and see that Bible of yours some day."

This conversation--which happened a few days before the death of our emigrant widow--between his neighbor "Knicks" and our official shows what an _enlightened gentleman_ he was. Since his elevation to office, he also got promotion to another situation, which, though not so lucrative as that of poormaster, in the course of time, by proper management, promised to come to something. In a certain school house in his vicinity, where the faithful were too poor, too irreligious, or too pernicious to hire a preacher, our official held forth every Sunday, and several evenings on the week days, at prayer meetings, protracted meetings, and other roaring exercises. And to do him credit, his nasal accent and piercing shrill voice made him a capital subst.i.tute for the _hired_ regular Methodist preacher. He could be heard for nearly a mile distant calling on the _brethern_ and _sistern_ to come to heaven.

"O, let us come!" he would cry; "we were made and intended for heaven. I see the s.h.i.+ning seats, I see the crystal fountains, I see the Lord sitting on the throne. Come, sisters, come! I could embrace ye all for the Lord's sake. I could hide ye in my bosom. O! O!"

There were some whose faith was not strong enough to place implicit reliance on the veracity of this very enlightened "minister of the word;" but the great majority believed, or pretended to believe, and expressed their faith by crying out, "Glory! glo-ry! glo-r-y!"

If a more particular or personal description of our official is required, we can state, from minute observation, that Mr. Van Stingey was of the middle size, of thin, cadaverous appearance, short neck, snake head, with lank, sandy hair, nose flat and simex-like, small eyes, one of which he kept continually shut, as if he supposed himself a match for the poor whom he had to deal with by keeping one "eye skinned,"

reserving the other for some important office in church or state, to which he unquestionably aspired. Several times during the two months the dest.i.tute widow and her family were reduced to penury and sickness. Our worthy master was apprised of their condition by the neighbors; but he always answered that the law did not allow him to spend any more, just now; that these emigrants ought to remain at home; that they had no right to this country; that he heard a very G.o.dly minister foretell last year, at camp meeting, that the Romanists would yet have this country; that too many were coming by millions; that he feared that they could not be converted as fast as they were arriving; that they ought to be made pay a heavy sum, or sent back. "In short," said he one day to poor Mrs. Doherty, "I was not elected by them Irish paupers, and I never expect to be."

"If every thing you say was as true as that last word, I think you would be an honest man for wonst," said Mrs. Doherty; "for there is no fear that an Irishman's or a Christian's vote will ever elect the like of you. G.o.d forgive you this day!"

To suppose that any man could display such _bona fide_ ignorance as this official did in the foregoing, would be to form an incorrect and inadequate estimate of the human mind. The fact was that Van Stingey was a false, low, cruel man, whose soul, steeped in the sensuality of his past life, had lost all that was divine in its nature. His circ.u.mstances were so reduced by his crimes and dissipation, that, being "too lazy to work, and ashamed to beg," he a.s.sumed first the guise of religion to gain popularity; and when he had "got religion," then the teachers of the stuff which they call by that n.o.ble name, to keep it respectable, procured him this office as a reward for his hypocrisy.

This was the official who startled the inmates of our house of mourning about five o'clock in the morning, when, thrusting his head inside the door, he cried out, "A corpse there, eh?"