I formed a high opinion of the Irish priesthood from the examples I was able to meet and to know. They impressed me as an unusually high class of men intellectually as well as spiritually, and every one must admire their devotion, their sincerity, and their self-sacrifice. Some of them naturally become dictatorial, for it is often necessary for them to assume an air of authority to preserve discipline in their parishes, but I think that is more or less the rule in other countries and in all denominations. You cannot talk back to a judge or a school-teacher or a parson. And that is undoubtedly the ground for the charge so frequently made that Ireland is "priest ridden." But the average of intelligence, culture, and efficiency among the Irish priesthood is probably higher than it is in any other country, and their influence is correspondingly greater. There is a great deal of criticism in certain quarters about the activity of the Irish priests in politics and that I found to be largely a misrepresentation. Many of the priests do take an active part in political affairs, but it is entirely a matter of individual taste and inclination, and the proportion is probably no larger than it is among ministers of all denominations in the United States. Those who are well posted on this subject assured me that about one-third of the total number of Catholic priests habitually interest themselves in political affairs, local as well as national; a still larger number take an active part in educational matters, and about one-half of them let politics entirely alone. This is probably a fair estimate and will apply to the clergy of the Church of Ireland and the nonconformist denominations with equal accuracy, although they are much less numerous than the Roman Catholic clergy. It is always interesting to attend mass at a Roman Catholic church on Sunday in Ireland, particularly in the smaller towns and country parishes, where everybody except those who are too infirm to come out is present in his best clothes, and, no matter how poor he may be, no one passes the man who stands with a box at the entrance without dropping in something, most of them only a penny or a halfpenny, but none without an offering. The appearance of the people, and particularly the women, is in striking contrast to that on week-days, and I am told that this depends very largely upon the priests, many of whom insist that every man, woman, and child shall have a suit of Sunday clothes and "wash up" before coming to the house of God.