prisoners and I myself almost an outlaw. It is true, these outrages are chargeable on the wretched sycophants who are now crouching before Ormonde's footstool; but you, even you, have I not wherewith to reproach you? You whom I have ever befriended, to whom my purse was always open so long as it contained a crown—you for whom I have braved the anger of the Council, for whose sake I ventured on that exercise of questionable jurisdiction which has stirred up against me the animosity of half the clergy of the kingdom -even you have cast me off, now that my resources are exhausted, and have sought in an alliance with the arch-traitors, Monk and Jones, the support I am unable to give you."

"It were idle now to enter into a defence of my conduct, or to explain the sacrifices I have made to second all your Grace's plans," returned O'Neill, "yet I would not that you should regard my truce with the Parliament as disloyalty to you. It is the only expedient left me to save from Ormonde and his flatterers the fast-failing race of which I am the chief. By this alliance I may yet be able to withstand the odds against me. Fortune may yet offer me an occasion of retrieving my losses. I am persuaded the occasion will come, my Lord Archbishop. Stay with us yet a little longer: your Grace's name will be a power on our side in the struggle which is at hand. Come with us to Ulster. Out of our poverty we will provide for your becoming support, and Sassenach or Scot will not venture thither to molest you."

The Nuncio shook his head, impatiently. "I will not be tempted," he replied; "I have already staked all-health, reputation, fortuneand I have lost. I can venture no more-I will not try again. The game is played out. It would be wisdom in you, too, to abandon it. It will be your ruin. Disband your forces and fly this land which God has doomed. High commands and brilliant posts in the armies and courts beyond the seas may be yours for the asking."

"Your Grace consults for my safety rather than for my honor," answered O'Neill, proudly. "I have shared in the momentary triumph of my people: I will perish with them if they must fall."

"Nobly, if not wisely answered," said Rinuccini.

"Rather, wisely because nobly," returned O'Neill.

"Be it so. I leave you with regret to the fate that awaits you." "I trust I shall meet it firmly when and howsoever it comes." Hurried footsteps were heard approaching the door of the apartment. The Nuncio drew his cloak about him, and had barely time to retire into a darkened corner of the room when an officer of O'Neill's cavalry entered.

"What has befallen, MacDermott ?" inquired the General, somewhat alarmed by his subordinate's excited manner.

The officer addressed presented to his commander a folded note. O'Neill glanced over the contents, and, as he read, a bitter smile spread over his face.

"They do well to come to us for protection," he said, angrily. "Do you hesitate as to the answer you shall send ?"

"It is not mine to answer as I would; the reply must be dictated by you."

66

Then hear it. Tell them we are at war with the Sassenach, that it is not according to the rules of war to lend assistance to a foethat if their roofs were smoking round us and themselves hanging from the rafters, we could look on with satisfaction and think the deed well done. Add, if you will, that we ourselves shall soon be on the side of the destroyers, and that we will carry fire and sword where they have not made desolation. Tell them this, and bid them when they next address themselves to us to deprecate our vengeance rather than request our aid."

"The reply is harsh, is almost unworthy the character of The O'Neill," remarked MacDermott; "and it is a woman that prays for help."

"Ay, a Sassenach woman, and we have been well taught how to answer such a petition. Look you! the shrieks that shook the hoary rock of Cashel have startled this land, well accustomed to such sounds, and are even now waking echoes of horror throughout Europe-and, see, the butcher who directed the slaughter is feasted and flattered as if his hands had wrought a blessing for the nation. We have been generous too long. These scornful lords of the Pale can listen with indifference to the dying shrieks of our wives and daughters. It is time that they should learn how outrages such as we have borne can wring the heart.”

"Not if we must wring our own to teach them the lesson," answered MacDermott. "I am not a friend of Sassenach or Palesman, yet I would risk the best blood within my veins to save from insult the writer of these lines. I have partaken of their hospitality, have felt their kindness, when adhesion to you made me hateful to their caste, and

"Though betrayed by Lucas Plunkett, have been bewitched by his cousin's bright eyes," suggested O'Neill, in a whisper, which made the blood mantle in the browned cheeks of the young soldier. "This is not the time to give way to a romantic sentiment of gallantry. We must not sacrifice our men for those who will repay our benefits with scorn, and, like the drowning cur dragged from the water-pit, turn their teeth against the hand that saves them."

The General spoke with a vehemence unusual in him, he was smarting under injuries done him by men whose lives and fortunes he had saved, and the incident which now occurred recalled to him vividly his wrongs. MacDermott began to despair of obtaining what he sought.

own.

General O'Neill," he persisted, "you do much mistake the character of those for whom I ask your protection. But I will not any longer solicit your interference for their sake; I will beg it for my I have followed your flag with a devotedness which misfortune has not been able to shake, I have shared in all your reverses and my constancy was proof against the trial. If I have a claim on your gratitude, I urge it now. Give me but forty troopers, to sweep this

horde of marauders into the Shannon, and I will live your debtor. Say that I may begone; each moment's delay imperils' lives I would give my own to save.'

O'Neill was clearly perplexed by this appeal to his sense of gratitude, and his nobler nature struggled for a moment with the dark mood that was upon him. The struggle, however, was but for a moment. The look of stern resolution again settled upon his face, and he replied:

"I owe much to friendship, but I owe more to vengeance-let them perish."

MacDermott was about to expostulate afresh with his commander, but before he could speak he felt a hand laid upon his shoulder, and turning he encountered the dark eyes of the Papal Nuncio for Ireland fixed upon him.

"Young man," he said, with bitterness, "you have outlived the need for your services; you plead in vain. I have enticed you into this service, which is requited so badly. I give you now the opportunity of quitting it. The frigate that bore us to these ill-fated shores waits the wind in Galway Bay to bear its owner away from them again. I will restore you to your own land. I have influence enough left me in my disgrace to obtain for you in the army of King Louis a rank above that which I prevailed on you to abandon."

The sudden apparition of Rinuccini, his excited manner and vehement language, took MacDermott by surprise, and it was some time before he could collect himself sufficiently to reply to the proposal so abruptly made. When he had recovered from his surprise he replied:

"I thank your Grace for the interest you are pleased to take in my fortunes. I am bound by honor to this desperate cause. If I live, I shall be among its last defenders."

O'Neill heard the answer made by his officer, and, as he did, the angry cloud which darkened his features melted gradually away.

"MacDermott," he said, in a low voice, "you have taught me how to triumph over the promptings of passion, how to be generous at the sacrifice of self-interest. Your troop is at your disposal. Lead it to the succour of your friends. You need not return hither: await our arrival at Roscommon."

"The O'Neill is himself again," remarked MacDermott. “Au revoir, mon Général. Adieu, my Lord Archbishop; when next we meet, let us hope a brighter sun will shine on Ireland."

"Then, my son, farewell for ever," was the prelate's only answer.

IT

MR. GLADSTONE AND MARYLAND TOLERATION.

T would hardly be fair to disguise by any change of name a paper that merely proposes to give the substance of a long and very valuable article bearing the above title in the December number of the Catholic World-a New York magazine which, especially since the recent cessation of the Last Series of Brownson's Review, is at the head of the Catholic Press of America. It was the duty of such an organ to encounter Mr. Gladstone boldly on the latest of those polemical raids which have beguiled the tedium of his too abundant leisure since he was relieved of the cares of office. The point attacked by him at present has a peculiar interest for American Catholics. In reprinting with his two other tracts the notorious Quarterly Review article on the "Discourses of Pius IX.," which people thought had been attributed to him by calumny, it seemed so unworthy of him at his worst-Mr. Gladstone takes occasion in his preface "to deny to the Catholic founders of Maryland the honorable renown accorded to them heretofore by historians with singular unanimity, of having, when in power, practised toleration towards all Christian sects, not only by their unwavering action and practice but also by giving it the stability and sanction of statute law." The American periodical proceeds to establish very fully and clearly from the highest Protestant authorities the points denied by Mr. Gladstone, who contends that the toleration practised and enacted in the Maryland State had no nobler motive than self-interest, and that it was, in any case, not the work of Catholics. These two assertions are easily shown to contradict one another, but Mr. Gladstone's critic consents to deal with them separately. As regards the first, he cites the emphatic eulogiums pronounced by Bancroft, Chalmers, Bozman, Story, Chancellor Kent, and other Protestant writers of the highest character. On the other side there is no one but the Rev. Ethan Allen and the Rev. Edward Neile, Dissenting Ministers, who have published sectarian pamphlets of a few pages, reprinted from obscure American. newspapers-Mr. Gladstone's only predecessors in the daring attempt to prove that Maryland was not a Catholic colony. Probably their new ally would never have heard of these insignificant pamphleteers if some zealous anti-Romanist across the Atlantic had not bethought himself of supplying grist to his mill. He indeed cites Bancroft also, yet he ignores the conclusion of that historian's account of this interesting passage in the history of the States: "The asylum of Papists was the spot where, in a remote corner of the world, on the banks of rivers which as yet had hardly been explored, the mild forbearance of a proprietary adopted religious freedom as the basis of the State."

Of the thousands who have read the pages in which Mr. Gladstone strives to deprive Catholics of the credit attaching to the early history of the colony planted by the Catholic convert Lord Baltimore, how very few will read the careful and moderate refutation of this

American writer who discusses thoroughly every detail of the subject. He shows that the tolerant legislation was the work of the Catholics, and that the toleration Act of 1649 only confirmed what had been practised for years. He shows also that that Act was framed and enacted by Catholics, one item of his proof telling very pointedly against the Author of Vaticanism. Unhappily Mr. Gladstone has said that "the dogma which exempts the Virgin Mary from sin and guilt perverts Christianism into Marianism, and virtually substitutes the worship of a woman for the worship of Christ." No doubt the Protestants of Cromwell's day thought no better of the Blessed Virgin than Mr. Gladstone does. Therefore, not Protestants but Catholics passed this Maryland law, which decreed penalties against "whosoever should use or utter any reproachful words or speeches concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Saviour." Is this like the language of a Protestant, of that day especially? For, since then, Protestants have learned to speak very differently from Mr. Gladstone, who would no doubt censure Wordsworth for addressing the Blessed Virgin as "our tainted nature's solitary boast."

The question is settled, however, by the lists preserved of those who voted for this Act of Toleration. The writer who seems to have gone most minutely into the case is Mr. Davis, the Protestant author of "The Day-star of American Freedom." As he proves that Maryland was a Catholic colony from the records of courts, lawcases, wills, rent-rolls, and from the naming of the districts-five out of six being called after Saints-so on this second point, raised by Mr. Gladstone, he with the most laborious conscientiousness analyses the composition of the legislative assembly by which this famous Act of Toleration was passed, gives even a personal sketch of each member, and proves from their public acts, their deeds of conveyance, their land patents, their last wills and testaments, &c., that the majority were incontestably Catholics. This candid Protestant proves also that after many years the Protestants were only one-fourth of the colony; which fact again establishes the character of the assembly that represented them. Yet Mr. Gladstone ventures to write: "Of the small legislative body which passed it [the Maryland Act of Toleration], two-thirds of them were Protestant, the recorded numbers being sixteen and eight respectively." He has almost reversed the real numbers as given by all impartial authorities like Mr. Davis. who furthermore urges that the privy councillors were the special representatives of the Roman Catholic proprietary; and according to this arrangement we have eleven Roman Catholic against three Protestant votes. Moreover, without the authority of the lord proprietary no law could be passed; and thus again the credit of Maryland Toleration is due to this co-ordinate Catholic authority.

The historians of Maryland have been almost exclusively Protestants; and they and all writers who have treated the question have always unanimously accorded to the Catholic founders of the State the chief credit of this enlightened toleration which was so much in advance of the time. Mr. Gladstone and the two ministers whom he copies so readily are the sole dissentients. This triple alliance is