"They are all chips of the same block;" and the description in the following pages of their attempts to proselytize, seduce, and corrupt, is not at all exaggerated, as thousands of candid American Protestants can testify. Perhaps the sectarian dominies do not see the sad consequences that are infallibly produced on the minds of their hearers, after they come to detect the frauds and falsehoods which the parsons inculcate on them when children; but they are in _the cause_, and morally responsible for that doubt, irreligion, and downright infidelity which are the well-known characteristics of the male and female youth of our great country, and which threaten such disastrous consequences to society. Yes, dominies, you are responsible for all the extravagances of modern times, for the irreparable loss to virtue and society of the noble youth of your country. You hate the church of God because she is a witness against you. The priest, the nun, and the recluse are objects of your malice; for they are living examples of what you call impossible morals, and refuters of the code of low virtue you practise and preach. The faith of the Catholic laity, too, you endeavor to destroy, in order more securely to deceive your hearers, and to secure your children, your wives, and yourselves, that bread which you eat by the dissemination of error, contradiction, and contention, and which you are too lazy to "earn by the sweat of your brow." _Finally._ This work is submitted to the reader by one who will be well pleased if it affords the former any pleasure or amusement during one or two of such few hours of leisure as it took the latter to write it. Regarding style, method, and arrangement of the matter, the author has no apology to offer, except that the work has been written in great haste, and by one who, in five years, has not had a single entire day for recreation or unoccupied by severe missionary duty. Let not the critics forget this. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. A DEATH BED SCENE, 13 CHAPTER II. GETTING THE MOTHER'S BLESSING, 23 CHAPTER III. AN OFFICIAL, 32 CHAPTER IV. THE POORHOUSE, 41 CHAPTER V. THE O'CLERYS, 52 CHAPTER VI. THE COUNCIL, 60 CHAPTER VII. A RUDE LOVER OF NATURE, 69 CHAPTER VIII. THE ORPHANS IN THEIR NEW HOME, 77 CHAPTER IX. THE PRYING FAMILY, 87 CHAPTER X. A RAY OF HOPE, 97 CHAPTER XI. VAN STINGEY AGAIN.--HOW HE GETS RICH AND ENDS, 106 CHAPTER XII. MASS IN A SHANTY, 117