The Young Priest's Keepsake Part 11

[Side note: Encyclopedia Britannica]

"As Christianity made its way," says the "Encyclopedia Britannica," "the inst.i.tution of libraries became a part of the organisation of the Church. So intimate did the union between literature and religion become, that alongside every Church the Catholic bishops had a library erected." Now, if in times past, when not one man in twenty could read, the unerring foresight of the Church led her to adopt the parochial library as her most able auxiliary, the wisdom of that adoption applies with ten-fold force to our times.

[Side note: The Blunder of the Past]

Fifty years ago we taught the people how to read; awakened within them the native desire for knowledge, and then--stopped. When the national school was built had we established the parochial library and made it the means of continuing the child's education, we would have a different Ireland to-day.

We made the youth hungry and then stepped aside. The British publisher came and occupied the place we should have held. He has been feeding them on garbage and gutter literature since. G.o.d grant that it is not too late to undo the mischief of our neglect.

[Side note: What we spend]

It is estimated that we spend four hundred and forty-six thousand pounds every year on English papers, books and magazines. Almost half a million of money! How many of our honest rooftrees would not that sum keep standing? How many of our pure boys and girls would it not save from the "h.e.l.ls" of Chicago and New York.

It is bad enough to part with the bone and muscle, but a nation loses her most precious a.s.set when she exports her intellect.

While we have gone on helping the British publisher to the carriage and the suburban villa, the young Irishman, who feels the fire of genius throbbing in his blood, sees but two alternatives before him--to starve at home or sell his brains in a foreign market.

To-day the priest holds the field, but for how long? Recent convulsions should warn us; the ground may rock again; then let us arouse ourselves to the task before us.

[Side note: Awake!]

Whether the priest moves or not the library is sure to come, and what in his hands would be a centre of diffusive light to the parish, under the control of semi-educated or conscienceless men may prove a dark curse.

Let the coa.r.s.e and sensuous literature of England drop from our people's hands. Let us encourage native genius to dip her pen into the old holy well of Catholic truth, and build up a literature that will be racy of the soil and redolent of its Faith. Let us feed the minds of the young on the untainted productions of our own countrymen and women. Let us brace them with robust Catholic principles that are mortised into the solid bed-rock of knowledge. Then the most powerful foe the future holds will blow the trumpet in vain.

But to the priest who slumbers, heedless of the swift march of time, and the forces of evil now possessing our land, I say-- Dream on, dear gentle soul, dream on! The day may come when you will awake with a thunder-clap, perhaps to find the Irish Church in chains.

CHAPTER EIGHTH

THE YOUNG PRIEST'S ACTIVITIES

I should like to see the priest at the head of every movement for the bettering and uplifting of the people.

[Side note: The Last Fortress]

Ireland is the last fortress of Catholic Christendom. Latin Christianity is having to struggle for existence; and for us, time will but multiply, from within and without, the forces organised by Satan to capture the last stronghold that flies the Papal banner.

[Side note: Satan's First Move]

His first effort will be in the future, as it has ever been in the past, to drive a wedge of separation between the priests and the people. That accomplished, half his battle is won. If he can get the people to despise the priest in any capacity as a social man, a politician, &c., he knows that time rubs out fine-drawn distinctions; they will cease to respect at the altar the man they are accustomed to flout on the street; and if they once come to despise the priest, they will soon despise the sacraments he administers, and challenge the Gospel which he preaches. Let us forestall him, and bind the people to our hearts with hoops of steel. For their sakes more than for ours we cannot make our hold too firm or root ourselves too deeply in their affections. For what hope could there be for souls if a chasm should yawn between the pastor and his flock, if those G.o.d has united by so many and such sacred ties should glare hatred and distrust from opposing camps?

The priest is supreme in Ireland to-day; but in the near future he may have many a rival claimant; and should the people pa.s.s under alien sway, the last fortress is gone.

Now, when we unroll the map of social Ireland, we discover a mult.i.tude of ways by which the priest can keep in touch with, direct and uplift the people, and each effort for their sakes means a fresh strengthening of the bonds that bind the hearts of priests and people.

Let us take a survey of the situation. That done, the number of ways by which the priest can become the reformer of his parish will at once disclose themselves.

[Side note: A Statement of Facts]

Have you ever faced the sad problem:--Why are our asylums enlarging while our general population is shrinking?

Three main causes are responsible.

[Side note: Food]

_The food we are eating_, especially the use of overdrawn tea. A gentleman of over twenty years' experience, as governor of a lunatic asylum, a.s.sured the writer that next to drink, overdrawn tea was the most responsible agent for insanity. That week he had received a farmer's wife and five strapping sons all stark mad from the poison stewing by so many of our hearths.

Whilst we were guided by the healthy traditions of our own race, we fed on solid food--oatmeal, specially suited to our climate, being a heat-producer, a bone-builder and a tissue-former, rich milk, b.u.t.ter, vegetables and home-cured bacon. What a poor subst.i.tute for these luscious foods are the weak white bread and thin cup of tea! The Scotsman has stuck to his national diet; he has done more, he has forced his porridge on the bill of fare of every first-cla.s.s English hotel.

[Side note: Activity I]

Could not the curate, from the lecture platform, in the school and in private conversation, drive home to the people and open their eyes to the suicide they are committing? I know one priest who gets every farmer in his parish to sow every year a quarter acre of oats for home use. Could not others do the same?

[Side note: Drink]

_The second cause is Drink_. On this question I shall content myself with quoting a few statistics. They supply melancholy food for reflection.

In 1899, out of every three placed in the dock for drunkenness in the capital of this Catholic country one was a woman. I think you may search the world for a more shameless exhibition.

Out of every thousand of the general population in England, fifty persons are arrested for drunkenness; out of every thousand of the general population in Ireland, one hundred and forty-three.

In other words, we produce almost three convicted drunkards to their one. And still we plume ourselves on our superior virtue.

Our total income from agriculture, the staple industry of the country, is forty millions. On this, mainly, the nation has to live. Yet before a penny is touched for food, clothing or education, almost fourteen out of the forty millions are handed over to the sellers of drink.

Within fifteen years we lost half a million of our people, but we consoled ourselves by opening eleven hundred and seventy-five new public-houses within the same period.

[Side note: Activity II]

To these figures I shall not add one word: it would only weaken the argument. Will any one deny that the young priest has here an ample field for his zeal and energy, and a splendid opportunity of proving himself the reformer and saviour of the people?

[Side note: Emigration]

_The third, most powerful source of lunacy, is Emigration_. It may seem a paradox to say that the lessening of our people must naturally mean the increase of insanity. When we say the country loses forty thousand of its inhabitants yearly, we make but a partial statement of the case. Whom do we lose? Not the average cla.s.s--the youth, and the youth only go. Two consequences follow.

A boy, when he has arrived at his eighteenth year, has cost the country two hundred pounds, and a girl one hundred and fifty. Up to that time they were consumers, they produced little. This enables us to arrive at the appalling fact that Ireland every year pours seven millions worth of human cargo into the emigrant ship.

Would that this was all, but worse remains to be said. Who stay with us? The aged, the delicate, the infirm. The kernel of the race is going, the husks are remaining with us. Intermarriage among these, intermingling of enfeebled and tainted blood is one of the main contributory causes why the walls of our asylums are enlarging.

[Side note: Remedies]

Let us see what the priest can do to fight the national curse, and stay the national haemorrhage.

[Side note: The Points to Fix on]

In dealing with the drink question his main purpose should be to purify public opinion. Till that is done, every other effort must fail. What use in our inveighing against a vice if the people insist on labelling it a virtue? Our first effort must be to get the people to view it in an honest light--to see it as we see it.

Public opinion up to this could scarcely be more depraved.

[Side note: The Village Scandal]