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George Bell on board. That gave me
hope.
“ ‘The lugger has come up with them.’
says I. ‘Thank heaven, George will
got them; I know he will, mother.’
‘T tried to speak certain for the poor
old woman’s sake, for she seemed like to
die; but I feared it was a bad job my
self. Anyhow, I plucked up courage,
and kept looking out as well as I could.
George's boat was fetching about iu
the storm, trying to save some of
them.
"My heart was up, ready to choke me:
I couldn’t breathe. My wife wanted to
take the glass from my hand to look her
self; but Lar,’ she couldn't have held it a
iniDute, and her eyes were so wild, 1
don’t believe they .-aw at all.
" ‘No, Mary,’ says I, ‘I must look.
Yon pray God to help us.’
"I could see the lugger’s main-sail
shaking in the wind, and her crew lean
over the side and get something in. It
was a man.
" ‘Have they got him, John? Have
they got him? Tell me! How many
are saved?”
“I couldn’t answer, sir; I couldn’t
draw my breath. I knew they had got
one—only one.
" ‘Cheer up, mate,’ I says, ‘cheer up.
They have got one; there is one chance
for us out of four. Lord have mercy on
us, Mary!’
“What misery we felt then, sir! But
hope was still with us, and we rank down
the beach with as much heart as we
could muster, through we dreaded to hear
our fate.
“0, how I did pray that time! I
said no words of prayer, but all my heart
andjsoul seemed to rest upon God’s mercy,
and to beseech him in silence to spare
my boy.
“I had taught Joe to swim when he
was a child; and 1 knew he was a strong
lad and wouldn’t give in easy. But then
he had on heavy boots and a tarpaulin
coat, and I don't know ybat besides.
He would not be able to hold out long,
and in such a sea, too. He might
perhaps keep afloat for a few minutesT
‘ By the time we had got down to the
waterside, the lugger had tacked and was
standing in. There was a number of
people out then, for the accident had
been seen all along the shore, and othei
boats had put off through the surf,
though they could not hope to be of much
use.
“The crowd stood down at the water’s
edge, watching the lugger getting nearer
and nearer to the land. Some were
crying out, waving handkerchiefs, and
looking wildly at her as she rolled about
on the waves, with her bow straight to
ward the shore.
"There was one poor woman down
there, sir, holding" a child by each hand.
It would have broken your heart to see
her. She didn’t say anything, or cry,
like many of them. Her face looked
white and cold like marble. Sin had a
husband and a son in the galley-punt
when she upset, and she knew, as we did,
that only one man was saved out of the
tour. I don’t know w4iich she hoped to
see alive—her son, I believe, though he
had never been no comfort to her; but
the mother’s heart, you know, often
loves the bad as well as the good.
“My old wife and I tried to keep as
quiet as we could, for, somehow, we did
not like to make a show.
"At last the lugger began to draw
near the beach. She was only three or
four cables’ lengths off; but our eyes
were too wet to see who was aboard of
her. I pulled my sleeves across mine,
and pushed foiward almost into tnc surf
1 could just count them. The man
they had picked up was in the stern with
the others; and I stiained my old eyes to
catch a look at him as the boat rose on
the waves; but, before I could make out
who it was she would give a roll to wind
ward or to leeward, and the foot of
the double-refed sail would hide him
away again.
"I shall never forget that moment,
sir. All the agony of twenty lives seem
ed crowded into those few seconds.
Hope and fear together were like to
break my heart. It was too much to
bear for long. And the old mother kept
calling out to me:
‘“0, Jack! tell me—who is it? Who
is it? is it Joe?’
_ “Just then, as the lugger rose, I saw
him for a second. He had come for’ard,
and was standing, holding on the to stay,
with his hand up, as if he wanted to show
himself. He had a red handkerchief
around his neck. I san „ out . <Qh
Mary! it is him ! Oh! °thank, God|
he’s saved!’
‘‘And then she ran forward, like to
drown herself, and called, Joe, ‘Joel’in a
sort of wild yell, as if her weak voice
could have reached the lugger through
the roaring of the sea and the gale,
"I got sight of him at last, sir, as he
come close to the shore. It was not
Joe! Joe was gone where no mother’s
voice can ever reach him again, and
where his poor father’s see him
no more. It was the other woman’s son.
He leaped from the lugger’s side almost
before she buried her bows in the shingle,
and his mother, and they both
laved on the beach, and cried and laugh
ed like mad people. They were nigh
out of their minds with joy and grief,
fur, though the son was saved the mother
was no more,
"When she come to, we walked up to
this house again. But the light of it
was gone, sir. It seemed dark and
lonely; and I couldn’t abide to see all
things about that had belonged to
my boy, and to think that he was floating
about cold and stiff in the dark waters of
the channel.
"My old woman took her bed; and it
was soon all over with her. When she
was dreadful bad, the parson came and
told her she would see Joe again above,
and it was the only thing that gave the
poor creature comfort. I often tried my
best to cheer her up; but Lor,’ I was that
down myself that I only made her worse.
The parson came the last night, when
her life was ebbing away, and told her
again that she would see Joe. Then
she lifted her eyes to heaven; and they
looked as they used to look forty years
ago, when we first married, aud I was
young and hearty, like my pocr boy
when he left us that morning. She look
ed up and gave a kind of smile, as if she
saw him through the darkness, and then
she died.
"I often wonder if she did see him.
I’ve been at many people’s deathbeds,
ashore and afloat, and the wild stare in
their eyes at the last moment al
ways made me think that they saw into
the other world just as they was leaving
this.
"As for me, sir, I never forgot Joe’s
death for a moment. It finished me.
After my wife died, I used to wander
about alone all day, as if T was looking
for him; and at night I would come down
on to the beach there, and sit among the
boats, and look at the black wild sea,
and cry like a child. It’s this day two
years that his body washed ashore at
that point of land out there, where you
see the big stone.”
As the low rumbling of the night
train up to London lulled me to sleep
among soft cushions of a first-class car
riage, I fancied I could hear the whistling
and wailing of the storm, though the sky
was still and starlight; and through my
dreams I saw the mournful figure of the
old man sitting alone on the shore
among the boats, lookirg out on the
dark sea and crying like a child.
Tinsley's Magazine for May .
EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENCE
OF THE BANNER OF TIIE SOUTH.
Editor Banner of the South :
For three hundred years has England
been playing a dark political game in
Ireland, in every stage of which she has
been hitherto baffled, and she now stands,
with her hand trembling on the last
move—a move that cannot restore her
hapless fortunes, but must forever pro
nounce the whole, from first to last, a
a hopeless, graceless, ignominious failure.
Three hundred years ago, when England’s
power was confined to the limits of the
pale,” with fiery chieftains on every side,
that hourly threatened the “Sassenaghs”
with death and destruction, England en
tered heart and soul into the great and
arduous enterprise of perfecting the con
quest. Her great design was by every
means in her power to extend her present
dominion over the Island, and by oblit
erating every distinctive feature of Na
tionality to thoroughly incorporate the
people with herself, and thus in every
possible manner to Anglicise Ireland.
While the great barrier of Faith existed
between the two peoples, she knew that
success was more than doubtful, and she
determined to spare no effort to induce
the Irish to desert the grand old Faith
of her fathers and embrace the empty
tenets of the Reformation. Thus she
conceived her second great design—to
Protestantize Ireland. Far be it from
us for one moment to suppose that Eng
land entered upon the fell work of prose
lytising the Island of the Saints, from any
conviction of the truth of the heresies
she had herself adoyted, or from any
pious desire of extending the blessing—
such as it was to Ireland, but simply that
she might smooth the asperities of the
conquest and blend the sympathies of
the two races by inducing or forcing the
Irish people into an unholy alliance with
herself and heresy—in short that her
Faith—her Nationality and the distinctions
of race might all be forgotten in what
she fancied was soon to become the new
regenerate Anglicised Protestant Ireland.
The first great instrument of this second
design, the Irish Church Establishment
was manufactured to order—the fold was
delivered to the wolves, and the Island
inundated and garrisoned with the emis
saries of her new Propaganda of Heresy.
They little knew the people with whom
they had to deal. The Parliament-sent
apostles preached the State gospel at the
point of the bayonet, and the logic of the
sword was applied in vain. Nettled at
the opposition it encountered in this
early stage of its great design, the State
grew furious. The Faith was ruthlessly
prescribed—the heroic Priesthood mar
tyred, and a reign of terror commenced,
in which nothing was left undone that
the fiendish malice of statesmen could
suggest or the brutedike violence of
their bailiffs accomplish. Amid every
tribulation—amid the rage of war and
persecution and the fury of the oppressor,
the Irish Catholic heart bade defiance to
the powers of hell and heresy, aud after
three centuries—three centuries of blood
and bondage England was driven
from her entrenchments by the civiliza
tion of the age, wearied, baffled and dis
appointed. She had not, however, the
most remote intention of sacrificing what
she considered her interests upon the
shrine of either justice or of civilization or
allowing any consideration to divert her
from what she considered would directly
or indirectly contribute to her welfare.—
By this time the material conquest had
been completely effected, but the great
difficulty of ever reconciling the Celt to
the rule of the Saxon was stiil as formida
ble, and the great immovable Catholicism
of the Irish still widened the gulf be
tween them—still preserved their Na
tionality distinct, and still kept the
smothered fire of patriotism glowing in
the hearts of the people, that ever and
anon broke out in wild scenes of rebel
lion and massacre. As the substance at
least of her ends had been effected, Eng
land could now afford to change her tac
tics aud modify her policies so as to ren
der her modus operandi more in con
formity with the civilization of the age
and the advanced ideas of the times.
Consequently, the sword of oppression
was sheathed, and the statute books,
with all the dread tales of the penal times
was hurried into the shadows of the past,
and to the fiendish cunning of statecraft
was entrusted the success of the work
which tyranny and violence had failed to
accomplish. From first to last, England
had found in the Priesthood of Ireland
the great stronghold of the Faith and of Na
tionality of the people. She had left
nothing undone to annihilate it by every
means she could command, but in vain,
and the altar was raised on the glen
side, and the Faith proscribed at home
was nourished from the great seats of
learning and sanctity abroad England
now determined to try moral force where
physical force had tailed. She knew the
powerful influence she possessed over
the faithful people, and it struck her
forcibly that if she could win them over
to her interests they would become in
struments of her power. Her first move
was to withdraw them from all foreign
influences—for in their education in the
colleges of France, Italy, and Spain, they
imbibed ideas and principles little favora
ble to England or her cause—and to in
corporate them with the Nation and
gradually sever every connection exist
ing between them and the Continent, and
if possible seduce them from their allegi
ance to the Holy See. Her third great
design was thus to Nationalize the Priest
hood. The College of Maynooth wa*
immediately endowed with nearly £30,-
000 a year, and subsequently overtures
were made by the Arch-hypocrite States
man—Lord John Bussell—offering, on
the part of the State, to secure a regular
salary to the Priests. This offer was
nobly refused. Though the Priesthood
were undeniably useful to the English in
restraining the fiery patriotism of their
flocks, whenever it threatened to lead
them into a useless rebellion, they still
remained where they ever were and ever
will be—heart and soul ultramontanes and
Irishmen. Once more baffled in her ma
chinations, England had recourse to a
new stratagem. Sho had failed to se
duce the Priesthood from their principles,
she now determined to seduce the people
from the Priests. Her fourth great
move was thus to secularize the laity.
Any attempt to withdraw the people from
their union with the Priests, from long
experience she knew to be impossible,
so with fiendish cunning she determined i
to exercise her influences in the minds
of the young and chose an effective in
strument in the establishment of a great and
powerful system of "Secular” Education.
When every source ofeducation was poison
ed—when the first lesson the young receiv
ed was a contempt for anything Catholic
and profound admiration for everything
English. When the student was taught
to laugh at- the patriotism and sneer at
the Catholicism of his fathers, what might
the Church hope for in the future of the
new generation. For once indeed, was
England on the brink of success. Na
tional Schools and Queen’s Colleges were
now to effect what centuries of persecu
tion had failed to accomplish. It was
then that Ireland’s Priesthood once more
proved her salvation unceasingly, un
tiringly, undiscouraged, undismayed.—
Bishops and Priests labored to counteract
the torrent of evil that threatened to in
undate the land, and after many years
Queen's Colleges and Model Schools
were deserted by the Catholics and the
National Schools purged of everything
prejudicial to the faith of the children,
who, in the absence of every other alter
native, were obliged to attend them.
Thus, after three hundred years of
proselytism, aided with every instrument
of oppression, Ireland cf to-day'is, if pos
sible,more Catholic and more ultramontane
than in the earlier days of e6nquest, and
the machinations of England have proved,
from first to last, a miserable failure.
The tide of fortune has now turned more
than ever against her. Terrified at the
prospect, and the unmistakable evidences
of a Fenian invasion she has had to aban
don the hopeless game, and seek injustice
and conciliation the only chance of pre
serving her power in Ireland. She has
sacrificed her Irish Church Establish
ment—her Orange Bailiffs, and the
great strongholds of oppression and Pro
testant ascendancy. To conciliate the
Priests—now more powerful tnau ever—
she is about to introduce anew system of
education—a system in which faith will
go hand in hand with science under the
rule and guidance of the Church. Thus,
in Ireland, the Church gains more power
ful prestige every day—powerful in its
own truth and unity, and powerful iu its
influences.
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN
IRELAND.
The Protestant Church here is nothing
more than a hopeless ruin—distracted,
disunited and powerless. Only a few
days since and the parishioners of the
Protestant Churches throughout all their
dioceses met for the purpose of denounc
ing the Ritualism ot their own Arch
bishop of Dublin, whilst some, aided by
the Ministers, have ventured on a defence.
The idea of Church authority seems
never to occur to those would-be uphold
ers of orthodoxy, but the chief aim and
end of every Protestant layman seems
to be to keep his Minister "in the way he
should go,” whilst that Reverend person
age on the other hand as far as an un
qualified disgust for the vulgar, Low
Church orthodoxy goes, seems equally
persistent in "departing from it.”
TIIE COUNCIL.
The discussion on Cap. 3 of the Schema
on the Infallibility has just been com
pleted. The debate on the 4th and
last is to begin this week. It is supposed
that it will be solemly proclaimed on St.
Peter’s Day.
SPAIN.
The Spanish Cortes have offered to
restore to Queen Isabella her personal
income and crown jewels if she will ab
dicate. Veritas.
NEW ORLEANS (LA) CORRESPONDENCE
OF THE BANNER OF THE SOUTH.
New Orleans, June oOtb, 1870.
St. Stephen’s Parish is the only one I
believe in which processions in honor of
the Blessed Virgin Mary are held
annually. On Sunday, June 12, the ac
customed ceremony took place, and was
a very beautiful affair. The cordon of
honor was carried as it was last year, by
a number of little girls dressed, in white,
with wreaths of roses aud garlands of
blue ribbon. They thus form, as it were,
a guard of beauty and iunocence to her
whom they honor as their queen, for her
statue is carried immediately in front of
them, surrounded by the young maidens
who are called "Children of Mary.” The
colored children, also, tastefully dressed,
likewise carried a cordon of honor, sep
arated from the little white girls by the
body of the clergy. This arrangement
impressed me, even as it did last year,
with the thought how well the Church
knows how to assign to each class jts
proper place in the social scale, and yet
unites them all into one perfect and peace
ful whole.
Sr. Stephen’s Society presented verv
full ranks, headed by its President, Gen
Blanchard, who had that day received
for his Society an elegant and costly ban
ner which they had had made in Ger
many.
Father Mandine, the Pastor, occupied
his usual place in the procession in the
centre of the cordon of honor, the sh 1 '")-
herd among the lambs of his flock.
This morning, while listening to a ser
mon by this Reverend gentlemen, it oc .
curred to me that a translation of v
might please your readers, as much as it
charmed and edified all his hearers.
Taking the gospel of the day for his
subject, he Brought out its hidden nieam
ing in such a forcible and yet elegant
manner, that the truths then explained
assumed a newer and more beautiful form
than any I bad ever listened to. I feel
no assurance of doing justice to his words
or thoughts, but will make the effort, if
only to put in English a meditation so
full of the beauties of the French lan
guage.
"A certain man made a great supner
and invited many.” This supper, men
tioned in a parable is a figure of that
eternal banquet which awaits us all at
the end of life. And even as a supper
closes every festival, having nothing be
yond it for the guests’ enjoyment, so this
heavenly repast is the complement of
all bliss—the climax of every joy. A
great supper! great because given by
Him who is master of the L Diverse;
great because the angels themselves shall
minister unto the happy guests; great
because the wine of perfect love shall
know of no diminution, and the song of
heavenly glee continue on forever; great
because of the number of those invited ;
great because it is the boon of everlast
ing life.
"And they began, all at once to make
excuses.” Ah, poor sinners! God invites
us all by His Heavenly messengers to
come to His royal fead, and still we raake
excuses. And what excuses!
"I have bought a farm aud must needs
go out and see it.”
must needs go to sec a poor piti
able acre of ground, growing at the best
only a few fruits and flowers, and for
this we refuse the Kingdom of God—
the supper where all that the heart of
man can ask, is spread abundantly be
fore him. How we cling to Earth, to its
perishable possessions, when we might be
guests at the Lord’s feast. This Earth
we love so much, this farmstead of ours,
what will it yield us in a few more years ?
Only a grave ; and in return for our ter
restial love, the same Earth will fatten on
our bodies and grow from their decaying
elements a little more grass and weeds.
All ye who plead this excuse are wordiy
men, sordid minds, who cannot know
what God has in store for those who love
Him.
"I have bought five yoke of oxen and
I go to try them.”
‘‘Five yoke of Oxen!” Is it for such
a reason that the sweet invitation g-jes
unheeded ? Self-interest, love of gain,
wordiy success, these come before the
call of grace—the pleading voice of con
seience. Degraded men! ye live like the
brutes of your field, with heads and
hearts bowed down to love of lucre, and
from the supper prepared for you, you
beg to be excused—you have brutalized
your better nature until it no longer
cares for the things of God.
‘‘l have married a wife, and, therefore,
I cau not come.”
Wedded to voluputous pleasures, bound
by the cords of sinful enjoyment, how
can such an one think of the pure, bright
feast which awaits his coming ? There
fore he gives up his honored seat among
that celestial company; wastes ail hi;
time away from God’s service! turns
from the heavenly envoy sent with the
divine invitation and flings away his pa>s
pnrt to eternal happiness ! Ah "I have
married a wife, and, therefore must give
up my right to the heavenly buDquet!
Away with such mean, unworthy excuses.
Well might the Lord of the feast be
angry. What, a farm, five oxen, a wile
—these are preferred to Him ? A little
earth, a dumb animal, an object of plea
sure—these all heeded before that eer -
tial call which places man among the
angels.
"Go and bring in hither the poor and
feeble, the blind and lame.” Yes go to
him who not knowing his Lord, is poor
indeed; to him who is weak and feeble
in the faith, to him who has never seen
My mercy, and is therefore blind; to him
who unaided by any grace is lame in the
path that leads heavenwards; to a 1 ot
these go with My invitation of love, ana
bring them hither to this great supper o f
joy. Go even into the highways an i
hedges, into the known and unknown
parts of the Earth and compel them to
come that my house may be full. "But
I say unto you, that none ot these men
that were invited shall taste ot my sup
per.” I gave my grace abundantly to
them: with tender mercy I invited an,