THE MOST REV. DR. MANNING ON IRELAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 37, 10 January 1874, Page 10

THE MOST REV. DR. MANNING ON IRELAND.

An Irishman without Faith is a Shame to his Mother and to Ireland." Thb following important letter of the illustrious Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev. Dr Manning, has been addressed to the Most Key. Dr M'Gettigan, Lord Primate of All Ireland ;— Mt Deab Lord Pbimate :— I can say with truth that amoug the disappointments which have befallen me in events of this kind, I can remember none greater than that of failing of ray promise to be with you at the dedication of tho Cathedral of Armagh. When your Grace first invited me, I answered that I could refuse no-thing to the successor of St. Patrick. Any Bnch invitation from Ireland would couie in his name ; but an invitation from Armagh comes with his authority. It speaks from his own See as Metropolitan atd Primato of Ireland. 1 felt also that your invitation was not only a personal and private kindness, but that it had a wider meaning. It was a bid* ding to me to come and to greet once more tho Bishops of Ireland, among whom I spent so many happy Hours during the Council of the Vatican. I may say still more, it was an invitation to the Catholic Church of England to come and join with the Catholic Church of Ireland in a solemnity which bear* witness to the indis - soluble unity of the Faith. It senied to me very fitting, and in those days very timely, and in every way very good and full of meaning, that the Primate of Ireland should have by his side a representative of the Catholic Church in England. I know also from certainsources that among the clergy and people of Ireland many kind hearts wished to give me a welcome. Therefore, Ido notthink I failed in any way to appreciate Hie reasons which now make my disappointment gi eater. Your Grace will believe me, then, when I say that no light cause would have made me deprive myself of so much pleasure, and disappoint so many kind frionda, and frustrate so many kind intentions. I may also add that no light cause would have made mo even seem to be wanting in respect to your Grace, and the Bishops, and to the clergy and people of IrelandBut in truth I had, as I wrote lust week, no choice.

Our Provincial Council, which I thought would be over in ten or twelve days, took two-and-twenty ; and, after it closed, it laid upon me many more days of work. The dedication of the church at Ruthkeala was fixed for the 17th. I could not leave St. Edmund's college, wherethe Council was held untfl the 16th. It was then impossible to reach fiathkeale in time, even if could have travelled night and day ; and I did not know till the work was aver how completely unable I was to travel at all, still more to fulfil the promise I had made of preaching in Bathkeale, uud in Dublin, ana Armagh, and of accepting the many kind tokens of welcome which were, as I knew, prepared for me. Those that weie then with ir.o know that I do not olteu break promises of wok. Between the conviction th it I ought not to undfptake any work at that time, aad the pain of disappointing so many known and unknown to me, I was in real anxiety. I can, therefore,, assure you that your Grace's kind and considerate letter, and one equally kind and considerate from his Eminence the Cardinal, have given mo a sensible relief and consolation. I will now, therefore go on to fulfil my promise to give you in print wli.it I should have said m words. Your Grace need not be afraid lest I should send you the sermon I was to preach. My purpose ia more merciful. I wish to write what I would have said about the Catholic Church in Ireland,, and also in England, their mutual co-operation and support; aad somewhat about the witness we have to bear, aad the work we have to do in our country at this strange crisis of the Church iv all nations of Euroje.

j If had been able to be among jou. I should have pxpressod as far as I could, some of the many motives of venoration with, which I .regard Catholic Ireland; for

I KNOW NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD

More tFuly Chriatij.ii, nor any Catholic people that Iris retained its faitL and traditions more inviolate. The one only exception I know is, indeed, out of ull comparison — I nvan liome. It is truf r indeed, thut the immutability of Komi' is thrown out into higher relief by the fact that tho city has be.n subiiurgeil, tunes without number,, by every form of anti Christian enmity ; and that it has been tho centre of all the warfare! of the woild against i ho Faith ; but it has been sustained by ito exoept'on v cLvmu fhereforo.remains iiumovai iC Ireland hus not the tpoCitl suppoit of cither "Tv cc Petrus," o of " E-!o rogavi pro te;" nevertheless it remains to this day, for fourtepn hundred j eats, as t. Patrick left it, unstained ajid inviolated m Catholic fi lehty. I know of no other province iv the kingdom of our Divine Master of which tins can be said. Every other country in Europe hns had its heresy, uud its periodb of obscuration. Some have lisen and £allen again, aud h,i\e been restored once more ; some alter ceutuiies of light and grace have apostatized utteily, and lie dead to this day j but Ireland is tho li eland of St. Patrick to the present hour. lam well uwaro that nibbling critics and historical scavengers may rake up from the twelfth or thirteenth centuiies of Irish history, but: this stiil more confirms cr.y assertion. E\e lin the to dark days the nulh of Ireland never failcJ. It was Catholic and Roman as t. Patrick taught it. I note this, not only because it is a groat glory, which has been won by centuries of suffering even unto death ; and Ireland may indeed be truly inscribed in the calendar of the Church as both Confessor and Martyr ; but I note it because it seems to me to be related to other great truths. If England had been less prosperous in tbii world, it might have heon more faithful to God. If Ireland has had an inheritance of sorrow, it basreeeieed, in the otdcr of grace aud life eternal, tho recompense of a great reward.

In tins I tee, some explanation of the unexampled spiritual fertility, of Ireland. What other race rihee the Apostles has so spread tha Faith on earth? There is at tins' hour- an .Irish and Catholic population in England and Scotland, Canada, Australia, nad the United States, double in number as compared with the whole population of Ireland. THEY ABE MULTIPLYING BETOSTD ALL OTHEB RACES ; founding churches and episcopates, building cathedrals ; raising everywhere altars, schools, colleges, convents ; and covering the surface of new countries, I may say new continents, with the Catholic faith, as fervent, fruitful, and pure, as in Dublin, Tuarn, Cashel, and Armagh. I knon nothing else like this in the world, I may say in Christian history. When I remember how this faith has been preserved, through what sorrows and sufferings, with what a prolonged martyrdom of generations, I must believe that our Divine Master lias called the Irish 1 nation to a great mission and a great destiny. And this comes out all the more visibly in this age of national apostasy. The nations have fallen away one after another from the unity of the Kingdom of God. Germany and the North fell first ; France, and Italy, and Austria, and now Spain, have followed. By anti-Cnristian revolutions and public rejection ot the Vicar of Jesus Christ they have as nations ceased to bo Catholic, and seem bent on ceasing to be even Christians ; but Ireland, in heart, and soul, and will, in its private life and public opinion, in its popular voice and political action, is Christian and Catholic ; with a noble pride and manly indignation at the apostasy and cowardice of the rations who are hiding their face from the Redeemer of the world, and disowning His Vicar upon earth. With oil my heart I love Ireland for this apostolic fidelity, for this chivalry of Catholic fortitude and Christian love. Your Grace is at this moment, while lam writing, surrounded by the bishops and clergy of Ireland, de Heating the cathe dral at Armagh. I am consoling myself for my privation by writing these words, and praying that the promise made to St. Patrick may be abundantly fulfilled in all the world, and with a special benediction on the province of Ulster, and upon the faithful, fervent, generous people of Ireland.

Edmund Burke said that, with some changes, the Catholic Church of Ireland, to his mind, bore the closest resemblance of any church on earth to the Church of the Apostles. I fully believe this ; foi\ it is the most Pastoral Church in the world, where pastors and flock are in the closest bonds of confidence and love. Where this is Christianity is in its primitive purity of life. I am not going to dwell on these topics. now. Ireland, its adversaries being both judges and witnesses, is at the head of the nations for purity and moral's, and freedom from ordinary crime. For years I have declared my belief that Ireland is (lie most Christian country in the world. Its Christian traditions are universal and unbroken ; its people know their religion ; the intelligence of Ireland has been illuminated, quickened, enlarged by the inherited faith of fourteen hundred years ; to your flocks Cmistian and Catholic are convertible terms.

AN IRISHMAN WITHOUT "FAITH.

is a shame to his member and to Ireland. The laity of Ireland, as I well know, are as prompt and clear when Catholic doctrine or principle is at stake, and speak as authoritatively and logically in defence of the Catholio religion, as if they had been trained in a seminary. The whole action of lush homes, Irish public opinion/ and the social life of the* nation, moulds them, not l>y constraint and unwillingly, but insensibly and spontaneously, to the instincts and character of Christians. Muv God preserve this iulnr.tance of His grace to you. In England it hubeen shattered and wasted ; every year mutilates more and more the remaining Chiistiun traditions of publij life and opinion among us. We can test t .is comparative difference under our own hands. TV difference of Catholic formation between those who come to us froi i lroiund and thosf who are born of Irish parents in England is sadly marked. The atmosphere of Ireland unfolds and ripens the Catho'ic instincts of faith ; tue atmosphere of England, like untimely frosts, c'aeoks and cuts them o(F.

I could have wished also to say to my Irish brethren what, os on looks at Ireland from a. distance, may perhaps be a mirage or au illusion ; but it may also be i. truth and a reality, more promptly soot, by those who look from a distance than by those'who live in tho m «n.> tony of everj day and the importunate presence of the common hf< which Mii-rounds them. Perhaps no one is to quick to perceive tingrowth of (he trees about n friend's house as a visitor who comes onl\ from timo to time. One conviction, then, is strongly impressed upoi.. my mind. Ido not believe that Ireland was ever 6o"full of life, power and resouice ns nt this day. I can fully understand how the constan. sense of the many v\i\s and wrongs you daily see, may make it bar. l to, realize this f.u-L : but I believe it to he the simple truth. 1. First, was there ever any timeia the history of Ireland when its people were so completely united ? There hive been in past times many interests of races, families, aud classes, which huve hindered the fusion of t unpeople iuto one whole. At tins day they are as solid I 3 united as the people of Scotland or Yorkshire The moral importance of this fact will be estimate.! by ull who know the past history of Ireland.

2. Next it may wi'h ceitainty be said that the people of Ireland ■were never £.0 well or so universally educated as at this day. The College of St. Patrick's, at Maynooth, has now, sinoe the beginning of Ihis century, wionjht its effect throughout the Catholic clergy ; a number of lesser colleges throughout, the provinces has powerfully affected the Catholic laity.

the system: of education

nh'ch for the last thirty years has covered Ireland with national schools, has diffused education through the whole body of the people. Popular education in Ireland is move widely spread than in EiM-lund. What was intended to undermine the Catholic religion in Ireland has turned to the confirmatijn of the Faith. The mats of the people at this day are an intelligent and educated Catholic nation ; all the more Catholic because all the more intelligent j and thereby ablo to appreciate explicitly the grounds of their faith, the notes of the Church, the history of heresy, and the emptiness of all anti-Catholic systems which after ages of pretenbion aro visibly dissolving every day before their eyes, Firm and icvinciblo as ItvUncl has ever beeu in. 'its faith, it is

more so now than ever. Everything has been, tried agairiit itj ' from martyrdom' and' pit cheaps to' e'oujyand secular eduction I'«ner^«j?ro/undo pulchridr evetiit. I am' old enough. to remember, the, higli days of Exerer Hall, and Irish missions at Dingle and the. lite, ; ausPri«ist Protection Societies, and the new' reformation in Con'nemar^, of which the great public oracle of England, declared that,, .if, its' progress should be long maintained, Roman Catholicism .would- one da/ be ap extinct in Ireland as the worship of the Phoenicians , in Cornwall. , But, alt these things have gono to the limbo of the South Sea Bubble ; ,atd the people of Ireland are rising and consolidating every year in rigorous intelligence and immutable faith. ',

3. To this I may add one more sign of prosperous growth in Ire* land. Since the day when its people were put out of their inheritance in the soil there was never a time when so much land had returned again into Catholic hands. Famine and fever, and the exodus have indeed done their mournful work in assuring to those ,who survive or remain a better remuneration for their industry ; but, apart from this, there never was, I believe, a time when more industry was at work }n Irelatid, when more capital was invested, more activity of production and exchange was in motion, and when, therefore, better returns were secured to the employers and better wages to the employed. Of this I lately had an unlooked for and trustworthy proof. A very intelligent Englishman, who had raised himself, as he. told me, from the plough's '.ail, went over last autumn to Connomara to see with his own eyes the material condition of the peasantry in Ireland. On his return ho assured me that in abundance and quality of fcod, in rate of wages, ani even in the comfort of their dwellings,

TUG WORKr>TGM>X OF OOJTNTMABA are hotter off than the agricultural laborers of certain of our Englhli conn 1 ies It is, therefore, to me beyond a doubt tint the (Jatliolb population of Ireland is at this moment forming to itself a eooial organization in all its conditions of industry and commerce, labor and capital, and tilling up the unsightly chasm between the richest and the poon-st with a gradation of social classes, which must every year indefinitely increase the resources and power of the country. I know, indeed, that the last census shows onca more a diminished population; bur. when this descent has touched a certain point, emigration wilt slacken, if not cease, and the population must increase again. ' 4. Aud lastly, I must say that no one wi'hout a foresight almost prophetic could hive foretold, in 1828 and 1829, to how high a share m the public JitVnnd power of the Empire Ireland has bsen lifted by the list five and-forty yeirs. On this let raj speak out of my owa ob-ervation. I w.^sjust entering upon life whon the Catholics of thesa kingdoms were admitted into Purlian.e it. I well remember the political conflicts from the time of Mr O'Coiinell's election for the County of Clare. From that day to this many events and reasons hove made 'lit- note somewhat closely the course of our legislation ; and my clear . nd firm eonvutiou is, that at no time in the history of the English Monarchy Las lre.and had so wide, so vaiious and so powerful a share vi tho Lcgi«l aurn, in the public opinion, aud the public life of the Empire. The justice of Englishmen has admitted Ireland to the same legal privileges and powo s us England and Scotland ; and the intelligence and cncigy of Irishmen are every year converting whnt is potential in the stacutc bot>k into actual exercise and possession. It h not my intPi tiun nn,v to enter upon political matters ; but I mast ezy in passing that 1 do not 'orgot the inequalities which still

DEP'IKS-5 THB CATHOLIC POPULATION of those kingdom*. They are not, however, inequalities of the law, which i* the shik 1 for nil ; but inequalities of social and personal conliiions, which sill weigh up >:i the posterity of tlnso win were a generation ngo under penal laws. Who would hay* believed that, •ifter f'w-and-forty veai's — to Parliament — there should not be ti single I,' ai ho.ic retu nrd to thr Untise of Commous by any constituency in !t ,uj;l.in;l or Scotland ? Yn'l who would believe that, of th» hundred <uul ilvn Irish members in the House of Commons, the Catholic mam* i>f'i % s should be only one in three to represent a people of whom the '.itholic-s are ncirly loi.r to one? Neveitheless as I am aware, the I'ioto-tunt representatives of Catholic constituencies are men of honor, mcl through them, also, Oitholic Ireland makes its just churns felt, so f.ir a-i they are li b in the Imperial legisli.ture: Your G-race will correct mi' if I bo n error; but am I not right iv affirming th?.t Jre'and his a public opinion nf ifcs o»", which has matured anil strengthened in the last forty years beyond all example in the past history of the country ? And has not that public opinion a powerful action, through an e.vten-NV'3 and active press, upon the public opinion of England and upon tbe Imperial Legi-lature ? And let me add tint, in all the great enies and towns of England and Scotland, there is response to this public voice of Ireland which carries home both to the ear and to thp intelligence of this country. My belief is that there is a great future for Ireland. If less than fifty years have brought about what I have hardly touched in outline, what may not another fifty yoars with the accellerating ratio of improvement accomplish? When I look on foreign nations, and I may say also upon England, I sco cause for grave foreboding. Every n lure I sso change, or wh.it men c ill progress, without stability ; G-Jvemmmtsand nations are mirchiug into the unknown, without a base of operations and therefore without .a line of retreat ; without communications open for resource, or means of roforming in case of a disaster; States, I do not say monarchies, fjp they have sold themselves and are morally gone, but States without faith and therefore without God ; and States without God have no stability, because they have r.o vital coherence. They may hold toother by the forco of custom for a while, or by the tenacity of interest even for a long time ; but they have no source of life or curativo resources irj themselves. All these things I see in Ireland. You have a people pervaded by faith, openly serving God by every form of privuto md public duty* You have a religious unity in doctrine, worship unii communion, which resists and casts oil' all modem expedients of Lititudinarianiam of godless legislation. To be c included in our next.

Au ancient Christian church has been discovered in the interior of Japan.