But, in preserving the faith of the Irish race, God has provided a leaven of truth for these masses. By the side of systems of religion which men have devised, stands the everlasting Church—that Church which, as Macaulay remarked, is the only connecting link between the civilization of the ancient and modern worlds—the Church which taught the name of Christ to every nation that knows him, even to those who afterwards fell from the fullness of truth—the Church which Augustine brought to England, and Patrick to Ireland—the Church that raised the dignity of the poor, and humbled the pride of the high, placing all on the level of the Gospel—the Church that claims no new inventions, but is itself an invention of God, infinitely surpassing all inventions of man, holding out nothing to the nineteenth, which it did not present to the first, to the tenth, and to every other century, but presenting to all the faith and institutions of God, able to save all, to elevate all, to bring all into one fold, that all may be united in one happiness in Heaven. Is not this great result worth all the sufferings which Ireland has endured? The ways of God appear often circuitous. But in their circuitous course they are everywhere fraught with blessings. The children of Ireland suffered; yet, even in their sufferings they were blessed. He himself pronounced “blessed those who suffer persecution for justice’s sake”; for in their trials they redeemed their own souls. But they were doubly blessed, because they were preserving the ark of God, and carrying it through the waters of tribulation to bless more amply unborn and numerous generations. The ways of God are circuitous, and though, like the course of the planets, they sometimes seem to us to retrograde, they are always onward. The sufferings of Ireland at a time seemed without a purpose, or even the very contrary to what we might have expected for so faithful a people. But, who knows what might have been the result, if justice and humanity had marked the course of the English nation towards Ireland? Who knows but the temptation to the latter to be drawn into apostacy would have been too powerful? Had Apostate England dealt generously or justly with Catholic Ireland, who knows if, in the alliances that would have been formed, she would have been equally steadfast in her faith? And though for a long time confiscations, and plunder, and persecution, and slaughter, and even now, harsh treatment condemning her sons to famine and banishment, have been the effects of the English connection; if these have been the means of creating a barrier that prevented the spread of heresy amongst her sons, has too great a price been paid for the “pearl” that has been bought? When, particularly, the cross borne by the children of Ireland shall have been erected in the Western and Southern Hemispheres, and flourishing Churches in Catholic unity established under its shade,