The Untilled Field Part 22

The Pope would be only told of its contents! The cardinals are men whose thoughts move up and down certain narrow ways, clever men no doubt, but clever men are often the dupes of conventions. All men who live in the world accept the conventions as truths. And the idea of this change in ecclesiastical law had come to him because he lived in a waste bog.

But was he going to write the letter? He could not answer the question!

Yes, he knew that sooner or later he must write this letter.

"Instinct," he said, "is a surer guide than logic. My letter to Rome was a sudden revelation." The idea had fallen as it were out of the air, and now as he sat knitting by his own fireside it seemed to come out of the corners of the room.

"When you were at Rathowen," his idea said, "you heard the clergy lament that the people were leaving the country. You heard the Bishop and many eloquent men speak on the subject, but their words meant little, but on the bog road the remedy was revealed to you.

"The remedy lies with the priesthood. If each priest were to take a wife about four thousand children would be born within the year, forty thousand children would be added to the birth-rate in ten years.

Ireland would be saved by her priesthood!"

The truth of this estimate seemed beyond question, nevertheless, Father MacTurnan found it difficult to reconcile himself to the idea of a married clergy. One is always the dupe of prejudice. He knew that and went on thinking. The priests live in the best houses, eat the best food, wear the best clothes; they are indeed the flower of the nation, and would produce magnificent sons and daughters. And who could bring up their children according to the teaching of our holy church as well as priests?

So did his idea speak to him, unfolding itself in rich variety every evening. Very soon he realised that other advantages would accrue, beyond the addition of forty thousand children to the birth-rate, and one advantage that seemed to him to exceed the original advantage would be the nationalisation of religion, the formation of an Irish Catholicism suited to the ideas and needs of the Irish people.

In the beginning of the century the Irish lost their language, in the middle of the century the characteristic aspects of their religion. He remembered that it was Cardinal Cuilen who had denationalised religion in Ireland. But everyone recognised his mistake, and how could a church be nationalised better than by the rescission of the decree? Wives and the begetting of children would attach the priests to the soil of Ireland. It could not be said that anyone loved his country who did not contribute to its maintenance. He remembered that the priests leave Ireland on foreign missions, and he said: "Every Catholic who leaves Ireland helps to bring about the very thing that Ireland has been struggling against for centuries--Protestantism."

This idea talked to him, and, one evening, it said, "Religion, like everything else, must be national," and it led him to contrast cosmopolitanism with parochialism. "Religion, like art, came out of parishes," he said. Some great force was behind him. He must write! He must write... .

He dropped the ink over the table and over the paper, he jotted down his ideas in the first words that came to him until midnight; he could see his letter in all its different parts, and when he slept it floated through his sleep.

"I must have a clear copy of it before I begin the Latin translation."

He had written the English text thinking of the Latin that would come after, and very conscious of the fact that he had written no Latin since he had left Maynooth, and that a bad translation would discredit his ideas in the eyes of the Pope's secretary, who was doubtless a great Latin scholar. "The Irish priests have always been good Latinists," he murmured as he hunted through the dictionary.

The table was littered with books, for he had found it necessary to create a Latin atmosphere before beginning his translation. He worked princ.i.p.ally at night, and one morning about three he finished his translation, and getting up from his chair he walked to the whitening window. His eyes pained him, and he decided he would postpone reading over what he had written till morning.

His illusions regarding his Latin were broken. He had laid his ma.n.u.script on a table by his bedside, and on awakening he had reached out his hand for it, but he had not read a page when he dropped it; and the ma.n.u.script lay on the floor while he dressed. He went into his breakfast, and when he had eaten his breakfast his nerve failed him. He could not bring himself to fetch the ma.n.u.script, and it was his housekeeper who brought it to him.

"Ah," he said, "it is tasteless as the gruel that poor James Murdoch is eating." And taking a volume from the table--"St. Augustine's Confessions"--he said, "what diet there is here!"

He stood reading. There was no idiom, he had used Latin words instead of English. At last he was interrupted by the wheels of a car stopping at his door. Father Meehan! Meehan could revise his Latin! None had written such good Latin at Maynooth as Meehan.

"My dear Meehan, this is indeed a pleasant surprise."

"I thought I'd like to see you. I drove over. But--I am not disturbing you.... You've taken to reading again. St. Augustine! And you're writing in Latin!"

Father James's face grew red, and he took the ma.n.u.script out of his friend's hand.

"No, you mustn't look at that."

And then the temptation to ask him to overlook certain pa.s.sages made him change his mind.

"I was never much of a Latin scholar."

"And you want me to overlook your Latin for you. But why are you writing Latin?"

"Because I am writing to the Pope. I was at first a little doubtful, but the more I thought of this letter the more necessary it seemed to me."

"And what are you writing to the Pope about?"

"You see Ireland is going to become a Protestant country."

"Is it?" said Father Meehan, and he listened a little while. Then, interrupting his friend, he said:--

"I've heard enough. Now, I strongly advise you not to send this letter.

We have known each other all our lives. Now my dear MacTurnan--"

Father Michael talked eagerly, and Father MacTurnan sat listening. At last Father Meehan saw that his arguments were producing no effect, and he said:--

"You don't agree with me."

"It isn't that I don't agree with you. You have spoken admirably from your point of view, but our points of view are different."

"Take your papers away, burn them!"

Then, thinking his words were harsh, he laid his hand on his friend's shoulder and said:--

"My dear MacTurnan, I beg of you not to send this letter."

Father James did not answer; the silence grew painful, and Father Michael asked Father James to show him the relief works that the Government had ordered.

They walked to where the poor people were working, but important as these works were the letter to Rome seemed more important to Father Michael, and he said:--

"My good friend, there isn't a girl that would marry us; now is there?

There isn't a girl in Ireland who would touch us with a forty foot pole. Would you have the Pope release the nuns from their vows?"

"I think exceptions should be made in favour of those in orders. But I think it would be for the good of Ireland if the secular clergy were married."

"That's not my point. My point is that even if the decree were rescinded we should not be able to get wives. You've been looking too long in the waste, my dear friend. You've lost yourself in a dream. We shouldn't get a penny. Our parishioners would say, 'Why should we support that fellow and his family?' That's what they'd say."

"We should be poor, no doubt," said Father James. "But not so poor as our parishioners. My parishioners eat yellow meal, and I eat eggs and live in a good house."

"We are educated men, and should live in better houses."

"The greatest saints lived in deserts."

And so the argument went on until the time came to say good-bye, and then Father James said:--

"I shall be glad if you will give me a lift on your car. I want to go to the post-office."

"To post your letter?"

"The idea came to me--it came swiftly like a lightning flash, and I can't believe that it was an accident. If it had fallen into your mind with the suddenness that it fell into mine, you would believe that it was an inspiration."

"It would take a great deal to make me believe I was inspired," said Father Michael, and he watched Father James go into the post-office to register his letter.

As he went home Father James met a long string of peasants returning from their work. The last was Norah Flynn, and the priest blushed deeply. It was the first time he had looked on one of his parishioners in the light of a possible spouse; he entered his house frightened, and when he looked round his parlour he asked himself if the day would come when he should see Norah Flynn sitting opposite to him in his armchair.

And his face flushed deeper when he looked towards the bedroom door, and he fell on his knees and prayed that G.o.d's will might be made known to him.