LETTER 
 
 OF 
 
 THE MOST KEY. DE. NULTY, 
 
 BISHOP OF MEATH, 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MOST REV. DR. BAGSHAWE, 
 
 BISHOP OF NOTTINGHAM, 
 
 ON 
 
 THE AVOWED HOSTILITY OF THE RADICAL PARTY TO 
 CATHOLIC EDUCATION IN VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS, 
 AND THE NECESSITY OF UNION BETWEEN 
 ENGLISH AND IRISH CATHOLICS TO 
 RESIST THEM. 
 
 DUBLIN: 
 
 BROWNE & NOLAN, PRINTERS, NASSAU-STREET. 
 
 1885. 
 

 
 HOW MAY THE HOSTILITY OF ENGLISH 
 RADICALS TOWARDS CATHOLIC EDUCA¬ 
 TION IN VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS BE 
 COUNTERACTED AND DEFEATED ? 
 
 My Dear Lord, 
 
 The feelings of exceptional kindness, affection, and 
 esteem, which you invariably display towards our race and 
 nation, are extremely grateful and pleasing to us. To think 
 kindly of us, to speak respectfully of us, and, on all suitable 
 occasions, to write elegantly and eloquently in favour of our 
 temporal as well as of our spiritual interests, seem to be a 
 positive enjoyment to you. Though we are but mere Irish , 
 yet you maintain that we are genuine Catholics notwith¬ 
 standing; that, as such, we inherit glorious traditions; and 
 
 / that we hold in our hands incontestable claims to the respect 
 and esteem of our co-religionists in England, and in every 
 ^ other country as well. Although we are poor, humble, and 
 , persecuted, your Lordship regards our being so as rather an 
 argument in our favour ; because you remember that poverty 
 and lowliness were the distinctive characteristics of the early 
 Christians, whom the Apostle loved, and of whom he wrote 
 that there were not among them “ many wise according to 
 the flesh, nor many mighty, nor many noble.” Keenly to 
 appreciate kindly feelings like these—gratefully to remember 
 and generously to reciprocate them—are amongst the noblest, 
 and, at the same time, the most incontestable traits of our 
 national character. Should similar sentiments of mutual 
 respect and esteem, of reciprocal affection and confidence 
 
 L 53161 
 
4 
 
 ever arise between the English and the Irish races—drawing 
 them nearer and closer together, and moulding them into one 
 harmonious moral body, animated with one spirit and 
 actuated with the same friendly desires for each other’s peace 
 and welfare—then it could be said with truth that tho 
 Christian religion had done a great deal for the elevation 
 and improvement of both races. 
 
 It appears to me that the Cardinal Archbishop of 
 Westminster and your Lordship have done more than any two 
 men living for the creation of such a feeling of international 
 charity as would merge social aversions, political differences,, 
 and national prejudices, in a supernatural brotherhood of 
 peace, confidence, and mutual good-will. 
 
 One can more easily discern and measure the strength 
 and energy of the obstacles that have hitherto impeded the 
 realisation of these laudable designs, by viewing them from 
 the standpoint opposed to his own. We find it very hard to- 
 keep ourselves above the suspicion that some English 
 Catholics regard us with feelings kindred to those which, in 
 the very infancy of the Church, the first Christians entertained 
 for the first Gentile converts. We learn from St. Paul that, 
 whilst these proselytes from Judaism regarded the great gift 
 of faith as a thing to wdiich they themselves were entitled by 
 a kind of right of inheritance, they held that it was purely 
 owing to a great and exceptional mercy on the part of God 
 that it was not withheld from the converted Gentiles. They 
 fancied that, whilst they themselves ennobled and imparted 
 dignity to this great gift by embracing it, the very admission 
 of the converted Gentiles to a share in that gift, to some 
 extent degraded and dishonoured it. But how shocked and 
 humiliated must they not have felt when the Apostle assured 
 them that, to receive the gift of faith, they needed the mercy 
 of God just as much as the Gentiles whom they despised; 
 and that it was not through any deserts of their own, nor of 
 their fathers either, but through the purely gratuitous mercy 
 of God, that they themselves, no less than the converted 
 
5 
 
 Pagans, became believers. Peer and peasant must therefore 
 thoroughly convince themselves that, to become true 
 Catholics, each equally needed the mercy of God ; and, 
 further; that in the Divine organization of the Church, there 
 is neither inferiority nor superiority, but the equality of a 
 Divine brotherhood, which ennobles both, by raising 
 them to the dignity of membership in the mystic Body of 
 Christ, that is to say, to a sort of Divine and mysterious 
 kindred and union with our Lord, which, the Scripture tells 
 us, is in the exact prototype of the union that exists between 
 the head and the members of the human body. 
 
 The gift of divine faith is the root and source, the very soul 
 and vivifying principle of membership in Christ’s mystic body 
 and of justification itself. True Catholics always esteemed it 
 as a gift of transcendent importance ; and the Irish people 
 proved their loyalty and attachment to it, by suffering the 
 forfeiture of their property and the confiscation of (heir 
 estates; by their courage and constancy in the prison-cell, 
 •on the rack, under the lash, and even on the blood-stained 
 scaffold. Honours, riches, emoluments counted as things of 
 no value when there was question of imperilling, or safely 
 preserving, the precious jewel of the faith. It is indeed true 
 that England, as a nation, apostatized from that faith; but 
 there were countless glorious exceptions—heroic confessors— 
 who fearlessly resisted and boldly denounced the national 
 apostacy. For their advocacy of the faith a price was 
 set on their heads; hundreds of them suffered fines and 
 imprisonment; and many of them, like Bishop Fisher and 
 Sir Thomas More, sacrificed for it not only their fortunes, but 
 their very lives. Besides the great and brilliant galaxy of 
 learned, disinterested, and self-denying converts who are at 
 present the pride and glory of the English Church, English 
 Catholics proper , considering the paucity of their numbers, 
 ought to be regarded as the lineal descendants of Confessors 
 and Martyrs. 
 
 Standing, therefore, on these glorious traditions, nothing 
 
6 
 
 could be more reasonable than to expect that the eminently 
 wise and practical suggestions lately thrown out by your 
 Lordship, would at once meet with the sanction and approval 
 of our co-religionists in England as well as of ourselves. The 
 Irish Parliamentary Party had already received from the 
 Irish nation a commission to strive and struggle by all con¬ 
 stitutional means for the recovery of our national rights and 
 liberties in the Imperial Parliament. Whatever may be said 
 for or against the justice and reasonableness of these rights, 
 the fact that, in the coming Parliament, they will be demanded 
 by the practically unanimous vote of a thoroughly Catholic 
 nation, is an argument of no small weight in their favour. 
 This same Parliamentary Party had been further deputed by 
 the unanimous voice of the whole Irish Episcopate to assert 
 and promote in Parliament the rights and interests of Catholic 
 Education in Ireland. Your Lordship then suggested the 
 wisdom of also entrusting it with a similar commission in 
 favour of Catholic Education in England. Thus the united 
 Catholic opinion of the whole Empire would then acquire 
 increased, indeed irresistible, force by being authoritatively 
 accredited to the only Party existing that was capable of 
 formulating and giving expression to it. As a natural and 
 logical consequence of this arrangement, it would become a 
 duty with Catholics, at the coming Elections, to strengthen 
 the hands of the Party which was charged with the destinies 
 and momentous interests of Catholic education. 
 
 Now, if a crisis can ever possibly arise in which the 
 Catholics of the two nations would be imperatively called 
 upon generously to divest themselves of their political and 
 national jealousies and differences, and to throw their united 
 energies into one combined effort to save their common 
 Mother, the Church, from disaster and ruin, it appears to me 
 that we are in the very turning-point of such a crisis at 
 the present moment. The fundamental, natural rights of 
 parents, liberty of conscience, and the most sacred and 
 venerable privileges and interests of the Church, are just 
 
7 
 
 now insolently questioned, and, a little later on, will be 
 impiously violated and destroyed, if they be not ener¬ 
 getically defended. Catholic Education, which supplies 
 the Church in these islands with her heart’s blood, is threat¬ 
 ened with simple annihilation just now in England at all 
 events: shortly^after, Catholic Education in Ireland will be 
 similarly assailed. 
 
 The fundamental law ot nature itself emphatically 
 proclaims that the education of the child belongs of right 
 to the Parents, through whose instrumentality God Himself 
 imparted to [it existence, life, and individuality. On the 
 Parents, with whom the existence of the child thus originated, 
 rests the responsibility of preserving and perpetuating it. 
 While thelrest of the world regards that child with coldness 
 and indifference,[and feels no interest whatever in its life or 
 its welfare,?it, is dearer and nearer to its Parents than they 
 are to themselves. There is no relationship so close or 
 kindred so[near, there are no ties of affinity stronger or closer 
 than those which [exist between a child and its parents. He 
 is truly “ flesh of their fleshy and bone of their bone,” and 
 their dearest and best-beloved blood circulates through his 
 veins. The love with which nature itself has inspired them 
 for that child is the strongest, the noblest, the most dis¬ 
 interested, and the most indestructible passion of the human 
 heart. By implanting that parental love in the heart of man, 
 God has abundantly^ provided for the enlightenment and 
 culture of the immortal soul, as well as for the animal wants 
 and requirements of the mortal body, during the helplessness 
 of infancy. He has endowed even the fiercest of savage 
 beasts with instincts|which make it impossible for them to 
 neglect providing, even at the risk of their own lives, the 
 food and nourishment required for the support of their young. 
 Should reckless,[dissolute, and intemperate parents sometimes 
 neglect to make similar provision for the bodily wants and 
 necessities of their children, it is because they run counter to 
 the very instincts [of humanity, and have degraded human 
 
8 
 
 nature to a level lower even tnan that of the beast. But, 
 besides the part of that child that is material, mortal, and 
 perishable, there is another and a nobler part which is 
 spiritual and indestructible. And, as the instincts of nature 
 oblige the beast to make the best provision it can for the 
 animal wants of its young—and it has no other; so the 
 noble feeling of parental love, enlightened and guided by 
 reason, enables Parents to recognise and appreciate the 
 higher wants and necessities of the soul, and constrains them, 
 with an irresistibly persuasive force, to supply the mental 
 culture and the intellectual enlightenment on which the 
 happiness of their children in time and in eternity depends. 
 The immortal soul, which is the principle of life to the body, 
 enjoys a higher independent life of its own, which survives 
 and flourishes after the body has passed into a state of 
 corruption and decay. That life of the soul began certainly 
 in time ; but it will end neither in time nor in eternity. The 
 soul has indeed an important part to act in time ; but it has 
 a more exalted and divine destiny to fulfil in eternity. The 
 object, therefore, at which the true education of a child must 
 always essentially aim, is the improvement, the perfection, 
 and the happiness of its existence in the one state as well as 
 in the other. The good or bad use which he makes of his 
 life, his liberty, and his free-will in time, will fix irrevocably 
 the character of his destiny in eternity. Education is, 
 therefore, a kind of apprenticeship in which the child is 
 instructed, trained, and prepared for the due and efficient 
 discharge of his duties and obligations, and for the 
 proper performance of those self-denying deeds which 
 will make him just, righteous, and noble here, and 
 entitle him to never-ending bliss hereafter. It must, 
 in consequence, be essentially religious as well as secular. 
 This is exactly the idea which we Catholics have formed of it. 
 
 A system of education which avowedly disbelieves, 
 denies, or even doubts the immortal existence and the eternal 
 happiness of the child in the world to come, and which 
 
therefore merely instructs and prepares him for the part he 
 has to act and the things he has to do in this world 
 exclusively, is fundamentally false, and, moreover, supremely 
 mischievous and irreligious. An education which professes 
 not to disbelieve or to deny the immortal existence of the 
 soul in a future state, but professes simply to ignore it, and, 
 by ignoring, discredits and decries it, besides being imperfect 
 and incomplete, is, in a Christian country, impractibie, and 
 tends gradually and insensibly to paganise the child subjected 
 to its influence. This is, I think, sometimes called State 
 Education. For my part I can see no practical difference 
 between these two systems : both appear equally mischievous; 
 and, of the two, avowed secularism seems the honester. 
 
 Now, every system of education carries on its operations, 
 through the mental or intellectual culture of the soul, by 
 secular or by religious knowledge. The soul has its wants, 
 its necessities and requirements ; and these are ordinarily just 
 as imperative and as exacting as are the animal wants of the 
 body. It hungers and thirsts and yearns after its proper 
 congenial food with as mucheagerness and keenness of desire 
 as the body. The bread on which it lives; the food and 
 nourishment on which it thrives and grows into the fulness 
 of perfection and maturity in time and in eternity, are 
 knowledge, enlightenment and truth. To withhold from it 
 its proper and congenial food; to leave it in ignorance of 
 what it has to do here, of why it came into this world, and of 
 what is to happen to it when it leaves this life—is virtually to 
 starve it. It will consequently linger and languish, and 
 become worse than worthless, and eventually it must die of 
 the mortal maladies of vice and idleness. During the 
 helplessness of infancy, the child is as incapable of providing 
 for the higher crying and exacting necessities of the life of 
 the soul, as he is of supplying the requirements and wants of 
 the body. The very fact of nature’s having implanted those 
 intellectual necessities in the soul, implies that somebody is 
 under the responsibility of providing for them. But nobody 
 
10 
 
 except its parents cares for it. As, therefore, nature has, in 
 instinct and love, made ample provision for the animal wants 
 of the young of even the brute creation, so has it made 
 similar and sufficient provision for the spiritual wants and 
 necessities of the soul of the child, in the reason and in the 
 exceptionally noble and disinterested love which it has 
 implanted in the hearts of its parents. The duty, therefore, 
 of benefiting the child with its greatest possible good, of 
 providing for its most pressing and indispensable want, of 
 enriching it with what conduces more than any other thing 
 on earth to its temporal and eternal happiness, devolves, in the 
 arrangements of Divine Providence, only on those who cannot 
 help loving that child with an ardent and unchangeable love. 
 The parent who neglects to provide for the animal wants of 
 his child, and who sees it perishing with hunger and want, 
 when it is in his power to preserve it, is unnatural and more 
 degraded than the beast; but the parent who wilfully neglects 
 the education of his child is more depraved and more 
 unnatural still, because the life of the soul is of vastly greater 
 moment than the life of the body, and the spiritual hunger 
 and thirst and destitution of the soul are the worst of all 
 evils, because they are of a higher order, and are often not 
 merely temporal but eternal. 
 
 Here, then, is an Apostleship established by nature 
 herself. It is the first and the oldest of all Apostleships. It 
 was established by God Himself in all nations, and for the 
 instruction and education of all successive generations. The 
 individuals elected for this Divine mission are parents 
 exclusively, because they and they alone have been prepared 
 and qualified by nature successfully to fulfil it. The education 
 given by this Apostleship of nature is essentially religious, 
 because Christian parents feel a deeper interest in the eternal 
 salvation of their children than they do in even their temporal 
 happiness. To force these parents, in defiance of their natural 
 rights, to accept for their children a system of education 
 which their consciences condemn, is an intolerable and a 
 
11 
 
 revolting tyranny. Should Mr. Chamberlain and his Radical 
 following succeed in forcing on the country a system of 
 Secular Education and Board Schools, it will then become 
 the duty of parents to do, at the bidding of the Church, what 
 St. Joseph did at the bidding of the Angel—to arise at once 
 and carry off their children in safety to Egypt: that is to say, 
 to withdraw their children from these schools, and let them 
 remain in the safety and security of comparative ignorance, 
 rather than have their faith corrupted and murdered by the 
 poison of heresy or infidelity. 
 
 Many years have now elapsed since the Infidels and 
 Atheists of France formed the diabolical design of extirpating 
 Christianity, root and branch, out of that beautiful old 
 Catholic country. After much 'discussion, deliberation and 
 debate, the surest and quickest and most effective agency which 
 they could find for the accomplishment of their purpose, was 
 exactly that system of Education which Mr. Chamberlain now 
 endeavours to force on the reluctant acceptance, not alone of 
 all the Catholics, but of all the Christian communities in 
 England and in Ireland. In France they formulated their 
 educational system with clearness, accuracy and precision; 
 and, as Frenchmen never halt in compromises, but follow their 
 principles out to their logical conclusions, they gave it 
 at once , in all its entirety and/w^m. They put it into a highly 
 attractive and elegant epigram, consisting of only four words : 
 Education gratuite laique et obligatoire . If this system had met 
 with anything like general acceptance, the power and courage 
 and political influence of the Church of France would be very 
 different from what it actually displayed at the late October 
 elections. Till very recently the Catholics of France were 
 distracted, divided, and split up into political factions bitterly 
 opposed to one another. Their profound distrust and 
 deplorable estrangement from each other made union and com¬ 
 bination amongst them on any common ground—even in defence 
 of the Church herself—seem impracticable and impossible^ 
 The apparent indifference with which they regarded the 
 
12 
 
 suppression of the Religious Orders, the attempted annihilation 
 of Catholic Education, and the suffering of the Church itself, 
 became the scandal of Europe. But they were weak because 
 they were divided ; and it was really because they were too 
 weak thatthey did not prevent the excesses which they bitterly 
 deplored. They have at last awakened from the nightmare 
 in which they slumbered; they have flung their political 
 differences to the winds, in the face of the common enemy, 
 and although badly prepared and very imperfectly organized, 
 they have, at the late elections, led their battalions in millions 
 into action, and have dealt their godless oppressors a stunning 
 blow from which they will not soon recover. They are 
 now sensitively alive to the importance and indispensable 
 necessity of union, organization and discipline; and it can 
 hardly be doubted that the next General Elections will prove 
 that the infidels and freethinkers who are represented by 
 the faction now in power, are no more than a mere fraction 
 of the people of France. 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain’s educational system then has not the 
 merit of originality nor even of novelty : it is an antiquated, 
 worn-out and cast away instrument, not of educational 
 enlightenment, but of educational impiety. It originated 
 with the freethinkers and infidels of France; it was offered 
 to the people of France with the avowed object of destroying 
 the Christian religion; but the people of France have scornfully 
 and disdainfully rejected it, and hence, as the late elections 
 conclusively prove, the masses of the French people are 
 profoundly Christian still. 
 
 A most remarkable peculiarity of English legislation is 
 that, as a rule, it accepts principles, not in their complete and 
 absolute truth; but piecemeal and, as it were, in fragments. 
 Hence it is that many of our laws continue for years nothing 
 more than compromises with the principles on which they 
 profess to be founded. These compromises, however, display 
 a perceptible tendency to gravitate, by a slow tentative 
 process of development in harmony with public opinion, to 
 
13 
 
 the full recognition of the principles on which they are based,, 
 and to the consequences logically deducible from them. Not 
 many years have elapsed since the principle of compulsory 
 education—the “ education oibligatoire ” of the French infidel 
 system—was accepted by the legislature and incorporated in 
 English municipal law. After years of incubation and slow 
 progressive development, and after public opinion had been 
 carefully and skilfully manipulated in its favour, the Radicals 
 now assume that the National mind is ripe for the admission 
 of the principle of free education—the “ education gratuite ”— 
 of the French infidel system. After these two principles shall 
 have been admitted to thesanction of law, the recognitionof the 
 “education laique ”—the third and last plank in the infidel 
 platform—becomes necessary and inevitable, on the 
 universally admitted principle that representation should 
 accompany taxation. All voluntary schools are then 
 necessarily destroyed. Mr. Jesse Collins and his Bradford 
 admirers seem then to have acted rashly and imprudently the 
 other day, and perhaps spoiled the game now played by 
 abler hands than theirs, in precipitating at once the question 
 of the universal establishment of School Boards and Godless 
 Schools. They would have acted on more enlightened 
 tactics had they confined their admiration and approval to 
 the principle of free education itself, which, as yet at least, 
 has to be carried into law. Should it, however, pass into 
 law, the universal establishment of School Boards and the 
 universal destruction of voluntary schools will follow of 
 necessity, and as a matter of course. Making, therefore, due 
 allowance for the slow, progressive development of English 
 laws towards the full recognition of the principles they 
 embody, it must be plain to any thinking mind that the 
 Radicals are now, and have been for years past, trying to do 
 in England what the infidels have tried and failed to do in 
 t ranee i that there is no substantial difference between their 
 respective educational systems ; and that, it England accepts 
 what France has refused, she must in a very short time 
 
14 
 
 become thoroughly unchristian. Protestant England and 
 Catholic Ireland have here, for once in their histories, a 
 common platform on which they can stand together, and 
 unite their energies in a common effort to resist this impious 
 principle of free education, which aims unquestionably at 
 nothing short of the extirpation of Christianity out of these 
 islands. 
 
 This principle is, as I have shown, not merely impious, 
 but false and even absurd. For if any earthly reason or 
 necessity existed to bind or justify the State in relieving 
 parents from the responsibility of the education and en¬ 
 lightenment of the souls of their children, that same 
 reason would bind it, and with greater force, to release 
 them from the obligation of providing food and raiment 
 for their bodies also. . Parents are bound by the severest 
 and most sacred of all natural obligations to the due 
 fulfilment of both these duties; and, therefore, to relieve them 
 of all responsibility to the one, and leave them manacled bv 
 the severest of all moral obligations to the other, is irrational 
 and absurd. The same principle that justifies the State in 
 charging itself with the responsibility of the child’s education, 
 strictly obliges it also to submit to the responsibility of 
 supporting and maintaining it. Again, no authority on earth 
 has the power of repealing or of dispensing wholesale with a 
 law of nature, enacted by God Himself and published to 
 mankind by the light of reason. But Mr. Chamberlain and 
 the Radicals tells us that at the time of the passing of that 
 law, God was badly informed ; that in fact He mad§ a mistake, 
 and entrusted the education of the child to the wrong parties. 
 Therefore they feel themselves called on to take that sacred 
 trust out of the hands in which God had placed it, and 
 where the heart of the Parent watches over it with jealous 
 affection and love, and transfer it to the State, which has no 
 heart at all, and can feel no affection whatever for it. But 
 no power on earth can take that trust out of the hands in 
 which God has placed it, more especially to recommit it to 
 
15 
 
 the State; that is to say, to the worst hands that could be 
 charged with it. Undoubtedly the State can, and in many 
 instances would be bound, to aid and assist the Parent in 
 effectively fulfilling and carrying out the provisions of the 
 trust that Providence had committed to him. The State 
 could, and in several instances would be bound, to assist and 
 co-operate with the Parent in securing for the child the 
 education he preferred, and which he conscientiously believed 
 would be the best and the most useful for him. But the 
 State can never wrest from the Parent the trust committed 
 to him by Providence; it can never seize or appropriate it. 
 Neither can it ever question the Parent’s right to lead the 
 education of his child into the regions of religious knowledge ; 
 but whilst it must not stop him or offer the slightest resist¬ 
 ance to him in going there, the State may not follow him, 
 nor feel itself bound to assist or co-operate with him. In the 
 region of secular knowledge the State is, as it were, in its 
 own congenial element. But whilst always respecting the 
 sacred rights of the Parent, and never meddling with the 
 absolute and unconditional control given to him by God 
 even there over the education of his child, the State can and 
 ought to cheerfully and generously co-operate with the 
 Parent in carrying on the secular education which he deems 
 the best and the most useful for the child, and liberally 
 remunerate the literary and scientific results which that 
 education produces. This is the principle that underlies, and 
 more than justifies, the ungenerous and niggardly assistance 
 extended by the State to voluntary schools. 
 
 But should death have robbed the child of its Parents, 
 and reduced it to the destitution of orphanage, then the State 
 steps in, in loco parentis , and inherits all the obligations and 
 responsibilities of a parent to that child, during the helpless¬ 
 ness of its orphanage. It must, therefore, make provision for 
 its temporal wants, and, at the same time, charge itself with 
 the culture of its mind and the enlightenment of its soul in 
 secular and religious knowledge. The first of these duties is 
 
16 
 
 left absolutely and unconditionally to the humanity and dis¬ 
 cretion of the State; but the fulfilment of the second duty is 
 by no means left discretional with it. In that event the law 
 of the land, as well as the common sense of mankind, has 
 issued an instruction to the State that the orphan must be 
 brought up in the religion professed by its parents, and that 
 its intellectual culture and enlightenment in secular and in 
 religious knowledge, must all go to make up that specific 
 form of education which his parents would have preferred, and 
 which they would themselves have naturally given it. British 
 law, therefore, as well as the common feeling and public 
 conscience of civilized and Christian nations, unanimously 
 and emphatically proclaims that the parent, and not the 
 State, is the divinely appointed guardian and arbiter of the 
 education of his child ; and, therefore, that even when he is 
 dead, his will is the law by which the religion in which his 
 orphan child is to be reared, as well as the education he must 
 receive, will be finally settled. 
 
 The principle, therefore, of free, gratuitous education by 
 the State is false, irreligious, and utterly subversive of the 
 sacred natural rights of parents, and besides leading logically 
 to palpable absurdities, is plainly repugnant to the feelings 
 and public conscience of Christendom. Nevertheless, 
 Mr. Chamberlain and the Radicals are just now pushing that 
 principle to the front with matchless ability and skill, and 
 claiming for it such an amount of importance and precedence 
 over all other public questions, as v? ould lead one to believe 
 that the very existence of the Empire demanded its imme¬ 
 diate recognition by the Legislature. And yet they cannot 
 allege the pressure of any public necessity, or the peril of 
 any public danger, in its favour. Neither can they hold out 
 any reliable promises that any great exceptional good will 
 accrue from it to the public, even in the matter of education 
 itself. England has enjoyed for years all the advantages 
 arising from the principle of compulsory education; and it is 
 hard to conceive on what other principle the actual school 
 
17 
 
 attendance in that country can be increased and multiplied 
 much further. What then is the motive of the excessive 
 zeal, and the deep exceptional interest, which the Radicals 
 feel in the principle of free education ? What is the living, 
 active, energetic principle that underlies and has started into 
 life the movement now set on foot in its favour; that is daily 
 increasing its strength, adding to its influence, and multi¬ 
 plying enormously the number of its adherents ? Three 
 acres of land and a cow, together with the principle of 
 free education by the State, are the two great public benefits 
 on which the Radicals confidently hope to ride triumphantly 
 into place and power. I can find no satisfactory explanation 
 of this phenomenon, except by assuming, what I believe to 
 be an unquestionable fact, that the Radical Party in England, 
 like the infidel factions in Italy and France, is (perhaps 
 quite unconsciously to itself) profoundly and fanatically 
 anti-Christian. Anti-Christian hatred is now, and ever has 
 been, fiercely aggressive and combative, especially where it 
 sees that by storming one stronghold only, it becomes 
 absolute master of the whole situation, leaving the enemy no 
 alternative but unconditional surrender. If the Radical Party 
 now succeeds in passing into law the principle of free 
 education, then the public education of the Christian youth 
 of these Islands becomes at once “ laique,” that is to say 
 unchristian and irreligious, as it has already become com¬ 
 pulsory or “ obligatoire ” The Radicals themselves admit, and 
 glory in the admission, that the voluntary schools must then 
 go and go at once. The Christian youth of this Empire will 
 then pass directly under the influence of godless Board 
 Schools, with the result that the coming generation of 
 Englishmen will become, not exactly infidel and hating God, 
 but purely pagan, profoundly forgetting and ignoring Him. 
 The question then arises, will the Radicals succeed in luring 
 Christian Parents by false and deceitful promises into a base 
 betrayal of the trust that Providence has placed in their 
 hands? Will they, at the bidding of the Radicals, resign the 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 duty of educating their children; even at the cost of the 
 severe and painful, but at the same time, the noble and 
 generous sacrifices which God expects from them’ for the 
 temporal and eternal welfare of their children ? Or will they 
 be so weak, so profoundly selfish, and so utterly insensible to 
 to their children's welfare, that, to rid themselves of the 
 trouble of educating them, they will make an absolute and 
 an unconditional surrender of their immortal souls, to be 
 cruelly murdered by the impious and pestiferous falsehoods 
 which the Radical creed teaches? The only bribe which 
 Radical statesmen can hold out for this unnatural betrayal 
 of their trust, is that they will no longer be required to 
 deduct from their earnings the sixpences or the shillings per 
 week which they had hitherto paid for the education of their 
 children. But the Christian parent who would sell the soul 
 of his child for such a miserable pittance would be lower and 
 more degraded than the starving peasant, who would barter 
 the soul of his child to the infamous Irish Proselytisers for 
 “soup, penny rolls, and bacon.” This bribe, like Dead Sea 
 apples, is fair and attractive to the eye, but bitter and 
 nauseous to the taste, and is incapable of bearing a moment’s 
 examination. For under the proposed arrangement, the 
 Radicals relieve the parent of the burden of the education of 
 his child, only for the purpose of re-imposing it in a heavier, 
 a severer, and a more galling form. They will not pay for 
 the education of his child out of their own pockets, but 
 wholly and entirely out of the public rates. Now, British 
 parents are all, nearly to a man, directly or indirectly British 
 ratepayers. Therefore they must pay into the rates the whole 
 amount that the Radicals think fit to take out of them for 
 the education of their children; and they must pay, 
 in addition, for the costly and luxurious maintenance of a 
 cloud of idle, worthless Board School officers, and miles of red- 
 tapeism; besides being fraudulently cheated and deceived 
 into the bargain. Therefore the bribe now offered to the 
 public by the Radicals has no earthly advantage to recom- 
 
19 
 
 mend it, and every honest man must reprobate the fraudulent 
 designs of those who hold it out as a bait to lure thoughtless 
 and unsuspecting parents into the unnatural crime of having 
 a hand in the moral ruin of their own children. 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain commences his aggressive operations 
 against the voluntary schools of these islands, in England, 
 where he thinks they are weakest, and where he anticipates less 
 serious and less stubborn resistance than in any other place. 
 He leaves the task of destroying the Irish voluntary schools 
 to the Irish themselves ; and he confidently expects that their 
 fate will be exactly the same as that of their kindred 
 Institutions in England. I do not write from conjecture 
 or hearsay, but with absolute certainty, wheii^I accredit 
 Mr. Chamberlain with a fixed determination and purpose 
 of destroying the English voluntary schools on the first 
 favourable opportunity. And yet a very large proportion 
 of these voluntary schools were erected by the Catholics of 
 England in the face of the most formidable and discouraging 
 difficulties. Enormous sums of money were expended in 
 building and furnishing them, and in purchasing the sites on 
 which they stand. After years of severe and incessant 
 labour, and with an incalculable amount of mental anxiety 
 and toil, their system of management has been immensely 
 improved. The training the intellectual culture, the efficiency 
 and zeal of their teaching staffs have risen to a high standard 
 of excellence, and the splendid educational results they have 
 produced—when contrasted with those of the Board schools— 
 were achievements of which English Catholics felt justly 
 proud. And now the fruit of years of excessive toil, of patient 
 and persevering labour, and of enormous pecuniary sacrifice, 
 is to be cruelly destroyed and mercilessly brushed away. 
 
 Anyone who has studied the conditions under which 
 modern social or political warfare is carried on, will at once 
 admit that the tactics adopted by Radical statesmen against 
 these voluntary schools are judicious and skilful. The justice 
 the necessity and usefulness of Catholic Education in voluntary 
 
20 
 
 ♦schools, counts certainly as something considerable in their 
 oming struggle with the Radicals. The clearness, per¬ 
 suasiveness and force with which the argument made by the 
 English Bishops in their favour appeals to the public 
 conscience, to the public sense of justice and fair play, 
 adds certainly very much to their chances of success. 
 These conditions are useful, perhaps even necessary, but they 
 are not sufficient to save them. They must, moreover, have 
 the support of a strong social or political power, powerful 
 enough to inspire and command public respect for them on 
 the one hand, and to discourage and discomfit their enemies 
 on the other. But no such power is forthcoming for their 
 protection and defence; and their present condition seems 
 one of utter helplessness. Catholic Education in Iiish volun¬ 
 tary schools is by no means so defenceless. 
 
 The Irish Church still retains the great moral power of 
 withdrawing the Catholic youth of the nation from all the 
 Educational Institutions in which their faith might be im¬ 
 perilled, and to which their parents and their clergy were 
 conscientiously opposed. This was her great, and indeed, her 
 only defensive weapon against the countless educational 
 systems that were successively forced on the country, for the 
 certain, and oftentimes for the avowed, purpose of destroying 
 the faith of our people. 
 
 It appears to me that the value and efficiency of this great 
 defensive weapon have not been appreciated as they deserve,, 
 even by Irishmen themselves. But, beyond all question, we 
 have often stood in good need of it. It has often rendered 
 incalculable service in many a perilous crisi\of our history. 
 In the reign of George II., A.D. 1733, an Act was passed 
 authorizing “the erection of English Protestant Schools in. 
 the Kingdom of Ireland.” In the preamble of this Act the 
 common motive for erecting these schools, as well as the 
 Royal Schools, the Diocesan Schools, Erasmus Smith’s 
 Schools, and all the other educational Institutions of a 
 kindred kind, is clearly and distinctly stated, as well as the 
 
21 
 
 common objects at which they all aimed; and, further, the 
 great moral agency by which their aggressive and malignant 
 influence had been repelled and defeated is also clearly set 
 forth in this same preamble. At the risk of becoming intoler¬ 
 ably tedious, I will transcribe the greater part of this 
 preamble : 
 
 “ That the generality of the Popish natives appear to have very 
 little sense or knowledge of religion but what they implicitly take 
 from their clergy, to whose guidance in such matters they seem 
 wholly to give themselves up, and thereby are kept not only in gross 
 ignorance, but also, in great disaffection to our person and govern¬ 
 ment, scarce any of them appearing to have been willing to abjure 
 the Pretender to our throne. So that if some effectual method be 
 not made use of to instruct these great numbers of people in the 
 principles of true religion and loyalty, there is little prospect but that 
 superstition and idolatry, and disaffection to us and our royal pos- 
 teritv, will, from generation to generation, be propagated amongst 
 them. That amongst the ways proper to be taken for converting and 
 civilizing of the said deluded persons and bringing them (through the 
 blessing of God) in time to be good Christians and faithful subjects, 
 one of the most necessary, and without which all others are likely to 
 prove ineffectual, has always been thought to be the erecting and 
 establishing of a sufficient number of English Protestant schools, 
 wherein the children of the Irish natives may be instructed in the 
 English tongue and the fundamental principles of true religion.” 
 
 The “ignorance, the superstition, and the idolatry” with 
 which our countrymen of that day are here charged, are a 
 remarkable confession, and furnish an unanswerable proof, 
 that they were genuine Catholics at all events, and that they 
 had intelligence enough to discern and discriminate between 
 Catholic truth and heretical falsehood. The frame of mind 
 in which these Irish Catholics then happened to be, and 
 which influenced them to accept “ no sense or knowledge of 
 religion except what they implicitly took from their clergy,” 
 and which made them “ give themselves wholly up to their 
 guidance in these matters,” has been carefully kept and 
 
22 
 
 jealously guarded by their successors, and forms a noble 
 inheritance, of which Catholic Irishmen of the present day 
 feel legitimately proud. These schools, instead of destroying 
 the implicit obedience to their clergy to which the Irish 
 Papists of that day “gave themselves wholly up,” were extir¬ 
 pated and destroyed by it themselves. At the bidding of 
 their clergy, the people kept clear of them, and thus rendered 
 them useless and innocuous. It was by the exercise of this 
 great moral power of withdrawing Catholic youth from 
 schools that were interdicted as dangerous to their faith, that 
 the Irish Church was enabled to transform the mixed systems 
 of national elementary education into one that is practically 
 denominational. It would not be even tolerated on any 
 other conditions. This too was the great social and religious 
 force that annihilated the Queen’s University, and that 
 emptied the Queen’s Colleges of their students, the moment 
 these Institutions were authoritatively proclaimed to be 
 “intrinsically dangerous to faith and morals.” In fine, this 
 was the great religious influence that closed up the Model 
 Schools that had been erected at enormous expense in every 
 partof the kingdom, that scared away National School Teachers 
 from the Training College in Marlborough-street, as if it had 
 been a moral plague-spot, and paralysed its efficiency so 
 completely, that Mr. Trevelyan and the late Government 
 could tolerate it no longer, and would have put an end to its 
 existence, had it not been saved, when in extremis , by an 
 unworthy compromise, which the present illustrious 
 Archbishop of Dublin holds up as a sad example of “ the folly 
 of submitting to injustice.” If the system of Intermediate 
 Education does not speedily reform its ignorant, unnatural, 
 and absurd programme of subjects for the examination of 
 girls, it appears to me that it will soon become the duty of 
 the Irish Church to try what effect the exercise of this great 
 moral power may have in bringing it to its senses. Till the 
 Irish Church, therefore, surrenders the tried, true and for¬ 
 midable weapon with which she has fought so many battles, 
 
23 
 
 won so many victories, and conquered so many enemies, 
 astute politicians like Mr. Chamberlain, will think twice 
 before entering the arena to encounter her in mortal combat* 
 But the Catholic Church in England, by submitting voluntarily 
 or involuntarily to the principle of compulsory education, 
 has lost or forfeited this highly effective weapon, and is thus 
 comparatively defenceless. 
 
 According to the conditions under which political or 
 social warfare is now carried on, the fate of English voluntary 
 schools, will be decided at the polling booths in the present 
 Election, or by the action that will be taken by one or other 
 of the great political parties in the coming Parliament. As 
 the Irish Parliamentary Party is sure to be sent again to 
 St. Stephen’s by the practically unanimous vote of the Irish 
 Nation, so they will speak and act there, beyond all doubt, 
 with the true and duly recognised voice and influence of 
 the whole Irish people. It will return there with increased 
 numerical strength, and with vastly increased political in¬ 
 fluence. As a party it is strong, able, eloquent, courageous, 
 and marvellously united; and, besides being thoroughly 
 disciplined, is guided by a skilful and experienced leader. 
 It is not wantonly aggressive, but when wantonly assailed, 
 it is singularly brave and defiant. The guardianship of the 
 interests of Irish Catholic Education has been specially 
 entrusted to its care. With such an able and experienced 
 party to protect them and to fight for their interests and 
 existence to the last extremities, the Minister who would 
 assail Irish voluntary schools, would be littlq better than 
 crazed or demented. 
 
 But the case of Catholic voluntary schools in England is 
 very different indeed. They seem utterly helpless and wholly 
 unprotected, and they lie literally at the mercy of their 
 deadliest enemies. They will hardly have even one true 
 representative to open his mouth in their defence in the coming 
 Parliament. And yet it appears to me that half a dozen of 
 earnest, able, and experienced men, banded together in the 
 
24 
 
 House of Commons for the defence of these voluntary schools, 
 would give them a better chance for their lives than their 
 manifest intrinsic justice and merit, or all the friendly efforts 
 that can be made from without to save them. On the other 
 hand, the Radical party are fiercely and fanatically bent on 
 destroying them. The support they expect from the Tory 
 party will be insincere and half-hearted at the best ; and if 
 the Tories can manage (as it is not improbable they might) 
 to save their own schools by sacrificing them, they will let 
 them go, not only without regret, but with pleasure. In 
 this situation of affairs, the unwillingness of some English 
 Catholics to join hands with their co-religionists in Ireland, 
 and with their representatives in Parliament, to make an 
 united effort to save Catholic education in their own 
 country from being simply annihilated, passes, I confess, 
 my comprehension. By refusing to accept the suggestion 
 offered to them by your Lordship, they have, in my humble 
 opinion, placed themselves in as false, as painful, as humili¬ 
 ating, and as unenviable a position as their worst enemies 
 could wish to see them in. Why! speaking quite recently, 
 through their recognised organs in the press, they have 
 praised, eulogised, and literally lavished their admiration 
 and approval on the noble, generous, and disinterested course 
 of action recently taken by the Catholics of France in the 
 late General Elections of that country. Till quite lately, 
 French Catholics, with the characteristic impulsiveness of 
 their Celtic nature, clung with an obstinate loyalty that 
 was almost fanatical to the rival political factions that 
 divided and weakened them. But with an. effort of self- 
 sacrifice that was simply heroic, they flung their political 
 differences and preferences to the winds in the face of the 
 common enemy, and uniting their scattered and distracted 
 energies into one mighty effort, they dealt their persecutor a 
 blow which brought him at once to his knees, and made him 
 penitently promise that he should meditate no further aggres¬ 
 sive designs against them. But the very men who eloquently 
 
25 
 
 extolled and fervently admired the heights of heroism to 
 which French self-denial rose in their late glorious achieve¬ 
 ment, when it comes to their own turn—because their 
 prejudices are strong and their self-denial weak—find it 
 painful, humiliating, and indeed quite impossible, to join their 
 Irish fellow-Catholics in an effort that is absolutely necessary 
 to save the cause of Catholic Education in their own country. 
 Speaking on the question of Home Rule in one of my late 
 audiences with the Holy Father, I perceived that the only 
 argument against that measure that in any way disquieted him 
 was, that the withdrawal of the Irish Parliamentary Party 
 from the English House of Commons would leave Catholic 
 interests throughout the whole British Empire wholly defence¬ 
 less and unprotected. That argument was evidently of English 
 origin, and fortunately admitted of a satisfactory answer which 
 it would be out of place to repeat here. But it is not out of 
 place to observe that the advocacy of the Irish Party, which the 
 Sovereign Pontiff so highly prized, was not asked, need not be 
 offered, and would be respectfully declined, even on a question 
 of vital importance to the very existence of Catholic Education 
 in England. One is reminded of the drunken tailor who, on 
 learning that he had been rescued from drowning by an 
 Orangeman, threw himself into the water again “that he 
 might not be under a compliment to such a fellow.” 
 
 But it may be said that if English Catholics accepted 
 Irish Parliamentary aid for the protection of Catholic 
 voluntary schools, they would thereby virtually bind them¬ 
 selves to strengthen Mr. Parnell’s hands in the coming 
 Elections, and commit themselves to his Parliamentary 
 Programme. But Mr. Parnell’s Parliamentary Programme 
 now practically confines itself to one great measure, the 
 Legislative Independence of his country. English Catholics 
 will find it hard to convince the world that the simple right 
 of governing itself, which is now claimed by the unanimous 
 voice of a thoroughly Catholic nation, is intrinsically an 
 essential evil —a malum in sc —and an evil of such magnitude 
 
26 
 
 that rather than co-operate in its attainment, even in an 
 infinitesimal decree (and English Catholics at their very best 
 could do no more), the lesser of the two evils is—to let Catholic 
 Education, the Catholic religion itself, and the salvation of 
 the souls of their own countrymen, go. 
 
 But in return for the refusal of English Catholics to accept 
 Irish Parliamentary aid for the protection of their own 
 voluntary schools, we will take what I hope may 
 not irreverently be called a Christian’s revenge, and respect¬ 
 fully press that Parliamentary aid on their acceptance 
 still. We have the gravest reasons for doing so. If 
 the blighting curse of secularism be forcibly imposed by the 
 Badicals on the English people; our poor dear countrymen 
 in England, and not high English Catholics, will be the 
 principal sufferers under that odious system. Irishmen at 
 home can never foster anything like a feeling of indifference 
 to the great spiritual or temporal interests of their countrymen 
 in exile—especially in England. For, besides being our 
 co-religionists, they are our own flesh and blood; and their 
 affection and love for their kindred and country are enough 
 to make Irishmen at home feel heartily ashamed of themselves. 
 It is only in exile that an Irishman fully realises even to him¬ 
 self the depth and the strength and the fervour of the love, 
 and the undying devotion that, he instinctively cherishes for 
 the land that gave him birth. It is only by looking deeply 
 into the heart of an Irishman in exile that you can fully com¬ 
 prehend the strong, vehement, and passionate attachment 
 with which nature herself seems to have inspired the race for 
 the land that is peculiarly their own. Seas and oceans may 
 flow between that Irish exile and that land of his birth; and 
 years upon years may have passed over his head, in the land 
 of the stranger, since he lost the last fond glimpse of his own, 
 yet his love for that land and the interests he feels in its 
 happiness and welfare are fresher, stronger and tenderer than 
 he ever felt them at home. One of the results of the mis- 
 government of centuries is, that an Irish exile, in quitting his 
 
27 
 
 - native shore, hardly ever carries with him anything of any 
 value except his faith, and a generous spirit cheerfully to 
 make every sacrifice that his faith may demand in whatever 
 land he may happen to settle down. 1 have frequently heard 
 American Bishops declare that the splendid churches and 
 cathedrals which are the pride and the glory of Catholic 
 America, were mainly erected by the earnings of Irish servant 
 girls. Although I have no positive authority for the state¬ 
 ment, yet I venture to say that Catholic voluntary schools 
 in England were built and furnished mainly by the earnings 
 of Irish Catholics. The destruction, therefore, of these 
 voluntary schools would imply the cruel and unjust confisca¬ 
 tion of a vast property, chiefly created by the labour and 
 sacrifices of Irishmen. If Radical spoliation and injustice 
 stopped here, we might perhaps have patience with it. But 
 the Radicals aim at nothing short of the wholesale and 
 merciless destruction of the education, the faith, and the 
 religion of the Irish race in England. They aim directly at 
 robbing it of its faith—the only valuable property it 
 possesses—the only solid consolation and comfort that 
 reconcile it to the painful weariness of jexile. 
 
 The Radicals, therefore, are our deadliest enemies, and 
 we must fight them bravely, manfully, and with all our might, 
 as we are struggling with them for what is dearer to us than 
 our very lives. I have no personal antipathy towards 
 Mr. Chamberlain or any of his Radical followers. I even 
 entertain a kind of qualified respect and esteem for Mr. 
 Chamberlain himself personally. I admire him for his rare 
 intellectual gifts; for his attractive eloquence; for the 
 clearness and persuasion with which he reasons, and for 
 his advanced and just opinions on the great question of the 
 land. If Mr. Chamberlain were only a true Christian or, 
 failing that, if he had not given himself up body and soul to 
 a fanatical propagandism of irreligion, godlessness, and Board 
 Schools, there is no man I would rather see in power. But 
 as Mr. Chamberlain has made himself the champion of secu- 
 
23 
 
 larism and irreligion, and thus placed himself in deadly antago¬ 
 nism to our dearest religious interests, it is fortunate, indeed? 
 that the Irish Parliamentary Party is able to supply us with 
 an advocate of Catholic truth, of Catholic Education, and of 
 Irish Nationality as well—who is fully his equal in every 
 respect, and in many respects is vastly superior to him. The 
 brilliant success achieved by the Irish Party in the late session 
 of Parliament was owing, not so much to their high 
 intellectual gifts, to their unrivalled eloquence, and their 
 splendid natural abilities, as to the patient, persevering 
 industry with which they studied and mastered, even in their 
 minutest details, the questions that came up for discussion, and 
 thus qualified themselves to bring forward in defence of 
 truth and justice, the strongest, the clearest, and the most 
 persuasive arguments that the subject admitted of. It is 
 evident, therefore, that each member of the Party must have 
 had the liberty of following his own personal inclinations and 
 preferences in chosing the subject which “he made his own” 
 and on which he was to speak for the Party, as well as for 
 himself. Acting on these enlightened tactics, there can 
 hardly be a doubt that Mr. Sexton will be the authori¬ 
 tatively accredited advocate of Catholic Education in 
 the coming Parliament. I know no living man so highly 
 qualified or so richly gifted for the efficient and successful 
 discharge of that most important duty. His persuasive 
 eloquence, his splendid abilities, his untiring industry, the 
 readiness and fertility of his resources, coupled with the highest 
 standard of Catholic instincts and feelings, make him the 
 most eligible of living men for the high and difficult tasks of 
 asserting the rights and defending the interests of Catholic 
 Education. Although endowed with the gift of severe, 
 searching and exhaustive inquiry, he takes in, as it 
 were intuitively, the bearings and aspect of any great 
 Catholic question with the nicest accuracy and per- 
 cision, and down even to their minutest details. His 
 powers of putting a great question with clear persuasive 
 
29 
 
 force before such a fastidious audience as the House of 
 Commons, and the skill with which he appeals to their feel¬ 
 ings as well as to their reason in its favour, are almost 
 unrivalled. Whilst he hits hard at the weak points of his 
 adversary's case, and often mercilessly demolishes it, he never 
 wantonly irritates him or wounds his feelings. Mr. Sexton 
 is therefore not unpopular even with his political opponents,, 
 and is always listened to with attention and respect. 
 I regard therefore Mr. Sexton’s advocacy, supported, as it will 
 be, by the Irish Party, with the whole Irish nation at its back, as 
 the only existing agency by which English voluntary schools 
 can be rescued from their present most perilous position. 
 This, then, is the assistance which we now cheerfully offer, 
 and, with the cordial co-operation of our co-religionists in 
 England, it is hardly possible that the Radicals will be 
 allowed to have their way. In the meantime, it appears 
 to me that Mr. Sexton ought to be as highly appreciated 
 and esteemed, and as popular with Irishmen in England, 
 as he is with their countrymen at home. He is a 
 great public benefactor to both. Neither can I see 
 any reason why he should not be a persona grata even 
 with English Catholics themselves. The interests of Catholic 
 Education and of the Catholic religion itself are of a higher 
 order than purely human or political interests ever can be; 
 and therefore the services expected from Mr. Sexton for 
 Catholics in England are far more valuable than anything he 
 has hitherto done for us. A great, popular and enthusiastic 
 public movement has lately been set on foot to organise and 
 prepare a National Testimonial to be presented to Mr. Sexton, 
 in grateful recognition of the splendid services he has already 
 rendered to his country and his religion. It appears to me 
 that Irishmen in England ought to fall into line with Irishmen 
 at home, and join cordially and enthusiastically in this 
 movement. 
 
 I see no reason why English Catholics either should hold 
 aloof from it, and 1 hardly think they will. At any rate a 
 
30 
 
 glorious rivalry should arise between the two sections of the 
 Irish race, to make this testimonial worthy of themselves and 
 worthy of the man the nation wishes to honour. I wish this 
 movement every success, and I heartily recommend it to 
 Irishmen in both countries, but especially do I recommend it 
 to the faithful of my own Diocese. Nobody is expected to 
 give much; but every body is expected to give a little. I 
 never knew the faithful of the Diocese of Meath to shrink 
 from the performance of a duty, no matter what might be the 
 sacrifice it would cost. 
 
 I have to apologise to your Lordship for the length of this 
 letter. I am greatly afraid that I committed more than indiscre¬ 
 tion by addressing it to you without leave or without even, 
 apprizing you of my intentions. Trusting, however, that 
 your Lordship will generously condone anything that may 
 have been wrong or reprehensible in the course of action 
 1 have taken, 
 
 I remain, 
 
 With profound respect and esteem, 
 Ever sincerely yours, 
 
 Mullingar, 
 
 18 tli November , 1885. 
 
 « THOMAS NULTY. 
 
 BROWNE AND NOLAN, PRINTERS, NASSAU-STREET, DUBLIN. 
 

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