Yet neither confiscation of property, nor famine, nor disgrace, nor death in its most hideous forms, could make Ireland waver in that faith which our forefathers received from St. Patrick. There were, of course, from time to time, and there are, a few exceptions. Did not these occur, the Irish must have been more than men. But, as a general rule, the places that could not be procured or retained, except by apostacy, were resigned. The rich allowed their property to be torn from them, and they willingly became poor; the poor bore hunger and all other consequences of wretched poverty; and though every Earthly good was arrayed temptingly before them, they scorned to purchase comfort at the price of apostacy. During the four years from 1846 to 1850, nearly two millions either perished from hunger or its attendant pestilence, or were forced to leave their native land to escape both. In the midst of the dead and the dying, proselytisers showed themselves everywhere, well provided with food and money, and Bibles, and every one of the sufferers felt, and was made to feel, that all his sufferings might have been spared had he been willing to barter his faith for bread. Yet the masses could bear hunger and face pestilence, or fly from their native land; but they would not eat the bread of apostacy. They died, or they fled; but they clung to their faith. In vain, I think, will history be searched for another example of such vast numbers, generation after generation, calmly, silently facing an unhonoured death, without any support on earth but the approving voice of conscience. This fidelity can be predicated with truth of the whole Irish race, notwithstanding the numbers of those in Ireland who are not Catholics. For these, besides being a minority of the inhabitants, are but an exotic, planted in Ireland by the sword. They were imported, being already, and because they were, of another faith, for the purpose of supplanting that of the inhabitants. Many of them adopted the faith of the old race, so that the names that indicate their origin are not a certain test of their religion. But so steadily has the old stock adhered to its faith, that an Irish “O”, or “Mac”, or any other old Celtic name, is almost sure to designate a Catholic. Indeed, such names are usually called “Catholic names”. Whenever an exception is found, it is so rare an occurrence that the party is considered a renegade from his race as well as from his religion. It would, however, be not only unfounded to flatter ourselves that this stability in the faith is the result of anything peculiar in the Irish nature, but it would be, I may say, a blasphemy to assert it. God alone can preserve any one in the paths of truth and virtue; how much more must we attribute to Him the fidelity of a whole race, under the trying circumstances here enumerated?