equally true of our own England? Has not the building of churches, chapels and general places of worship proceeded as merrily in the poorer districts of the larger English towns during the past decade as ever it did in Ireland? Where can you turn in England without seeing a spire? Where is the townlet, or suburb, or slum that has not got its brand new red-brick Anglican church, or its ruddy, stone-fronted Bethesda, or its castellated, prison-like Salvation Barracks? Furthermore, the English temples are seldom half full. You have to provide a sort of religious variety entertainment, with services of song, magic-lantern sermons, brass bands and the like to get the people in at all; whereas the churches of Ireland are full to overflowing, and the congregations do not require the lure of a steady succession of novelties, or, indeed, any departure from the prescribed offices. The fact is that the Irish Church and the Irish priesthood have been cruelly and brutally maligned by pretty well every sand-blind writer and carpet-bagging politician who has visited the country. We have blamed upon the Church poverty and distress and ignorance and squalor which are the direct outcome of bad government and not of priestly cupidity. We have said in effect to our Irish brethren, “You are too indigent to have a religion, or churches, or spiritual guidance. Every penny you pay for these things is sheer waste of money, particularly as it keeps our rents down. And inasmuch as you are of one Church and one mind—which is a thing unthinkable in this free and enlightened England—you are slaves and soulless.” But the Church of Ireland goes on its way, and in the words of Archbishop Croke, which by the way Mr. M’Carthy, Irish Catholic, quotes with a sneer, “[The Irish priesthood] holds possession of the people’s hearts to a degree unknown to any other priesthood in the world.” CHAPTER IX MORALS