The Cross and the Shamrock | Page 8

to travel any distance to do them a service."
"Sure that's the orders of God and the church," said Mrs. Doherty. "It is

not for them alone they are working, but for God, you know."
"That's true," said Norry. "But still and all, when one hears how they
are always ridiculing priests and nuns, and sees how they hate our
religion, it is very hard, I think, to forgive them."
"Yes, agra," said Peggy, who was better informed than Norry; "so it is
hard for flesh and blood to forgive the heretics; but, unless we forgive
them, God won't forgive us. The priest knows this well; and so, if there
were two sick calls to come at one time to him, as happened lately, one
a Protestant and the other a Catholic, he would go to the Protestant
first."
"That beats all," said Norry, "and is more than I would do, if I were the
priest; for I know well all that is said of him behind his back."
"What harm will all that scandalous talk do the priest?" said Peggy. "It
only does him good; and he has a blessing for being 'spoken evil of'
like our Lord. He forgives all those whom God forgives; and so, if his
enemy, the Protestant, falls sick, and wants his services, he goes to him
first, in order that he may be brought into the church, where alone he
can be saved."
"Thanks be to God," said Norry. "Is not it a wonder the Protestants
don't understand this, and look on the priests and the church as their
best friends, seeing that the priests are as ready, and readier, to attend to
them than to the Catholics themselves?"
"How can they understand it when they are blinded by love of money,
impurity, and the hatred that the ministers excite against the church in
the minds of their hearers? Wasn't our Lord himself hated by those
whom he most loved, and put to death by them? It is so with every
priest who follows his steps, now as well as then. The world will
always hate good."
This Christian philosophy was a little too sublime for poor Norry's
mind, who was a long time among the Yankees, sufficiently instructed
in the customs of this "free country" to be ready to observe the law of

"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and life for life;" and who, besides, had
her naturally warm temper rather spoiled from her continual rencontres
with her mistress on such subjects as confession, priests' celibacy,
purgatory, and other subjects too profound for the understanding of her
mistress to know any thing about them, and too sacred in the eyes of
Norry to allow them to be irreverently handled without saying
something in their defence. It requires not only a perfect acquaintance
with the sublime and heavenly tenets of Catholicity to speak of them
with precision and propriety, but, in addition to a deep study of the
truths of true religion, the practice of her precepts, and the frequent
reception of the sacraments, are necessary to imbue the mind with the
true Christian notions regarding her high commands.
Poor Norry "had not a chance," she said, of going to her duties for
several years; and that is why she considered "Peggy Doherty's" talk
about forgiveness so strange and unaccountable.
"Yes, a Greffour," resumed "old Peggy," "we must forgive all the world;
and myself would forgive any thing sooner than kidnappin' or stealing
away the children of Catholics, which these Yankee parsons are so fond
of doing."
"O, so they are, the villains," said Norry. "Did they take away or steal
any of this poor woman's children? 'Tis a wonder if they didn't."
"Well, besides the four children you see here, asthore, she had another
neat child, one year old, named Aloysia, whom a lady up town took
with her, two months since, to rear her up along with her own children;
and it was only about ten days since she got news of her death. When
the poor woman heard this, the heart broke entirely within her,
especially as she could not be present at the child's death bed or at the
funeral."
"Why, that's rather strange," said Norry. "Did they send her word that
she was sick?"
"Not a word. It was only when I went up to Mrs. Sillerman's, the other
day, to inquire about the child, she comes out and tells me the child

died, and was decently interred. When I told the mother, she cried out,
'O Aloysia, Aloysia, my darling! are you, too, gone?' And she was not
herself since."
"I do think there must be something wrong in the matter," said Norry.
"Did you tell the priest?"
"No, I did not, for I had not time," said Mrs.