speed, and at length halts within gunshot of the lurking place of his foes. Thank Heaven!-he is saved. The silence became, if possible, deeper and more painful, during the momentary suspense that ensued. The commander of the detachment of cavalry conversed eagerly with some of his followers near him, while the Parliamentarian soldiers bent low behind the furze-bushes.

All at once a rushing sound came from the direction of the farmyard. A huge column of smoke rose into the air, bright tongues of flame shot up above the tree-tops, and the cries of men and animals mingling in wild confusion came from the scene of the fire.

The ruse was successful. Shawn-na-Coppal brandished his long hunting pole, uttering frantic cries of distress and impatience, and seizing the bridle of the captain of the troop endeavoured to urge forward his horse towards the pass. The soldier needed no such persuasions. The tokens of the devastation which was in progress seemed to make him forget his precautions, or perhaps made him think them unnecessary. He settled himself in his saddle, and with a hoarse command to his men to follow, and a warning cry to the lad who still held his bridle, he dashed towards the defile. He was already within a few strides of the entrance. Dillon could mark the eager ness with which the officer bent forward over his charger's neck and struck his spurs into the animal's panting sides. Arthur Dillon was not a daring man, perhaps not even a brave one, in the ordinary sense of the word, but the spectacle of these strangers advancing to certain though unexpected death for his sake, their eagerness excited by what they believed to be his danger, the reckless impetuosity with which they advanced, while the cold, glittering pistol-barrels of their concealed foes rising slowly to a level with the tops of the furzebushes marked them out for death-all this made him for the moment a hero, oblivious of himself and his kindred. He cleared the fence before him at a bound, waved his hat above his head, and uttered one loud, warning shout which woke the echoes of wood and defile for miles around. He had not time to repeat the signal, there was a flash from the thicket behind him, a sharp report,-he staggered, and

face downwards he fell to the earth.

The warning which it cost him so much to give came almost too late. The shout he uttered checked the horsemen in their swift career, but that single pistol-shot which followed was the signal for dozens of others directed upon the astonished troopers by dozens of unseen weapons from out the brushwood on both sides. They were thrown into confusion for a moment, more than one saddle was emptied by the volley, and, to add to their dismay, a strong detachment of Parliamentarian Lancers suddenly appeared on the crest of the hill before them, and began descending the slope at headlong speed.

The Irish leader was not unequal to the emergency. With a steady voice which reassured his followers, he gave the order to retire. His lieutenant led the retreat, he himself, according to the rules of war, brought up the rear. The order was executed with the promptitude and steadiness for which O'Neill's cavalry were remarkable. But the movement which was the saving of his men placed the Irish leader

himself in the power of his enemies. His horse had been crippled by a pistol shot, and could no longer keep pace with the troop. He saw himself outdistanced by his men, and he heard more and more distinct behind him the clatter of the pursuing Lancers. To no one would he give notice of his distress-his first duty was to save the soldiers entrusted to him.

"Bayard is failing fast," remarked the trumpeter of the captain's squadron, who was reining in his own horse, in order not to pass ahead of his commander.

"Poor brute!" said the officer, in a troubled voice, patting fondly the neck of the noble steed he rode, "he has led his last charge."

The wounded animal, encouraged by the voice and caresses of his master, and conscious of the sympathy he excited, struggled to regain his place in the rear of the retreating column.

"It is hopeless, Bayard, it is hopeless," said his rider, despondingly, feeling the agonized quivering of the sinewy frame that bore him along. "Ride on, O'Duigenan; rejoin the troop. I will empty one Sassenach saddle before I go down.'

"Leave Bayard to me," rejoined the trooper, pretending not to have heard the command; "there is strength in him yet. I know him well, and could lift him across the ground better than you. Quick! quick!" he cried, impatiently. "These Sassenach devils will be on us in a few minutes."

"Thanks, O'Duigenan! it must not be," replied the officer, who saw through the generous plan of his subordinate. “Ride on, I command you.

Wait not for me!"

The honest trooper was perplexed by the order. His soldier's instinct inclined him to obey; his attachment to the leader whom he had followed for years, who had been always kind and considerate towards him, and who was, moreover, one of the "old family" which his fathers had served for centuries, prompted him to remain. He made no answer, but he did not increase his speed.

"Have you heard my orders ?" asked his commander, sternly. "Go on !"

The soldier made a feint of obeying. He took the lead by a few score yards, but almost at every stride he turned to observe the progress of the chase behind him. He saw poor Bayard's speed decrease more and more. He turned away his head for an instant to regulate the motions of his own steed. He looked back again in time to see Bayard stumble and fall, crushing his rider under him.

In an instant he was on foot, rushing to the assistance of his commander. His disobedience met with no rebuke, the fallen man lay stunned and insensible under his dying steed.

'My God! they will ride over him," cried O'Duigenan, in deep distress, as he saw the Parliamentarian Lancers bear down upon them at headlong speed.

Not so, faithful servant. It is hard to drive humanity from human breasts; and, though you know it not, there is gentle feeling lurking yet beneath the iron corselet of him who commands these lawless horsemen. With something of generous pity, and much of generous admiration,

the officer in command of the pursuing Lancers had observed the distress of his enemy and the fidelity of the Irish soldier to his commander. He turned aside from his course to avoid his helpless foe, bade two of his followers fall out of the ranks and secure the prisoners, and then rode on in pursuit of the fugitive troop, now far away on the level moors.

When MacDermott recovered consciousness, the sound of strange voices was in his ears, and strange figures moved about the grassy spot on the hill-side where he lay. He had been divested of his armour, and his left arm was wrapped in coarse bandages. He attempted to rise, but a thrill of pain shot through him, and he perceived that in the fall his arm had been broken. Near him, on the grass, lay another wounded man. He could not distinguish his features; a group of Parliamentarian soldiers stood round him, but he could hear his laboured breathing, and low, painful moaning-indications that life was waning. A man in civilian's dress knelt beside him.

man.

"I am failing fast-it begins to grow dark," gasped the dying "You will watch over them, Plunkett. I leave them to your care. They have no friends to whom I would commit them nearer at hand than their mother's relatives in Limerick. Convey them thither. They will there find a home, till Duneevin can be inhabited again-

"While I can call a roof-tree my own, they shall seek no other home than mine. Have no anxiety about their safety," replied a voice which MacDermott recognised as that of the man whose life he had once spared, and to whose treachery he now owed his wound and his captivity. Unconscious of the pain caused by his broken limb, he sprang to his feet, and, before the soldier, who was at the same time his attendant and his guard, could interfere, he stood over the man who had betrayed him. Seizing him by the coat-collar with his uninjured hand, he flung him a distance of several yards with a violence which sent the astonished Plunkett headlong to the ground.

"Reptile!" he cried, his face pale with mental excitement as well as bodily pain, "will your treachery not spare the dying? If you have a trust to confide," he continued, wildly, addressing the wounded man, "confide it to your worst enemy, charge with it the men who have murdered you, rather than the ignoble traitor to whom we owe the whole of this day's disaster."

The sufferer was already too far away from earth to understand the import of mortal speech. His glazed eyes opened on the excited soldier, and, for a moment, a look of intelligence flared within the dull orbs.

"Thanks! thanks!" he murmured, with an effort. "I would have saved you. O God! Have pity! My children, my —

The word died away upon the blue lips, the eyes fixed a stony, immovable look upon the dark sky far above; the chest heaved and quivered, and Arthur Dillon was dead.

"Your prisoners are but indifferently guarded," remarked Lucas Plunkett, with a grin, as Major Ormsby turned away from the scene

we have been describing. The rugged lines of the veteran's features had softened under the momentary influence of pity, and, it might be, of remorse. He was glad of an opportunity of concealing an emotion he did not care to acknowledge.

"Is it thus you discharge your duty, knave?" he asked, fiercely, addressing the soldier to whose care MacDermott had been committed. "Secure your prisoner, and keep stricter watch upon him till we require him, if you would avoid the tipstaves of the Provost Marshall."

THE RELATIONS OF THE CHURCH TO SOCIETY.

BY THE REV. EDMUND J. O'REILLY, S.J.

LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.

THE question concerning the nature and influence of conscience naturally enough connects itself with that of liberty of conscience, of which Dr. Newman took occasion to speak in this context, and of which I also will say something.

What then is meant by Liberty of Conscience? It is, in general terms, the recognised right to hold, profess, and practice any one of all or several Religions. This may seem, and will turn out to be, a somewhat vague definition. No other than a vague definition can be given; because liberty of conscience has ever so many degrees and phases. Of course, absolute liberty of conscience would be the unlimited right to hold, and to profess, and to practise any religion or so-called religion. Why the name of liberty of conscience should be given to such a right-restricted or not-is quite another affair. But no one will, I apprehend, controvert the popular and received signification of the phrase. First of all, liberty of conscience is a recognised right, or, more properly perhaps, the recognition of a right, whether the right itself really exists or not as a genuine rational claim. By whom is this recognition supposed to be accorded? Is it by writers and talkers, by public opinion, by sects or sections of religionists or their theologians, or by governments? Governments alone can effectually recognise the right, so as to give it legal force in civil society. But the other classes can affirm the right to be inherent in men. They may even go so far as to assert that everyone is free to think what he likes in religious matters, to suit his own taste, to make his religion for himself, that he is not tied up in this by God, and ought not to be meddled with by his fellowmen. This is a length to which anyone professing to believe in God will hardly go in words, but how far some stop short of it we cannot always easily tell. Christians even of the loosest sort confine themselves to saying that men are justified in holding what they think is the truth that comes to them from God. How far this is tenable depends on what is meant by thinking. Whoever is in invincible error is not guilty

in his holding, because invincible and inculpable are convertible terms. But every error is not invincible, and no other is excusable.

But liberty of conscience is chiefly understood to imply not so much holding only, as professing and openly practising, and, again, this liberty is spoken of in relation to one's fellowmen and not to God. That is to say, the theory is that men have no business to interfere with other men as to their creed, except so far as those other men have voluntarily undertaken to join in a particular religious profession. Even then the interference ought to be of a very confined and mitigated character. A sectarian who breaks through the rules of his sect and deserts its belief may be discarded by the sect. If he is a minister, his ministrations may be dispensed with, and even if a mere member, he may no longer be treated as a religious brother. Though indeed the laxity allowed and maintained under this respect is often exceedingly great, and, in some instances, is carried very far, even in the Church of England, which is held up as a model of Protestant-or, as some of its members would say, Catholic-orthodoxy. An Anglican parson is not easily got rid of; indeed not at all so easily as many a dissenting minister. The law of the land, which gives so much respectability to the establishment, often stands effectually to heterodox clergymen and bishops.

Well then, the theory is that men have not, outside of contracts, any business to interfere with other men in religious matters. To God alone are they accountable in this department. No man, it is said, has a right to go between God and his neighbour's conscience. This is a high-sounding, solemn, and it may be somewhat plausible axiom, the value of which we may test a little further on. We are not, however, to imagine that all advocates of liberty of conscience give the benefit of that liberty to all religions; that the freedom of worship they proclaim is universal. Many of them would confine it to Christians-a very wide term, no doubt, as things go now-a-days, yet one which conveys a limitation. Many of them too would be very glad to cut out the largest Christian denomination, the Catholic Church, though often they have a certain delicacy about saying so. Yet writers and talkers and public opinion-that great potentate of our times and sects and divines cannot give liberty of conscience nor take it away. This function rests with civil governments. These have no immediate concern with interior belief or opinions; but they have with the profession of religious doctrines and the practice of religious worship. The degrees of religious liberty as granted by the State in different countries have been and are very various. They are various as to the religious bodies so favoured; they are various as to the amount of public worship allowed; they are various as to the ecclesiastical authority permitted to be exercised within the bodies; they are various as to the civil rights enjoyed by the members; they are various as to the status which the religions hold in the country. We know that in this empire, long after Catholicity ceased to be directly punishable as a felony or a misdemeanour, its professors were rigorously excluded from the participation of many civil rights; that even now the crown cannot be worn by a Catholic, nor, I believe, certain