instances are recorded in which prisoners, made on the field or at the surrender of a fortress, were arraigned before a military committee selected from the conquering army, tried without regard to any system of law, and executed without respect for any principle of justice.

When, then, Heber MacDermott and his fellow prisoner were led into a cattle shed in the farmyard of Duneevin Castle to confront a tribunal of Parliamentarian officers, to hear themselves charged with offences which were criminal only because committed against their accusers, and then to receive a sentence of death from which there was no appeal, they could hardly complain that their case was exceptionally hard. It was a fate to which many of those who before them had defended the same cause, had heroically submitted, and, though they knew it not, it was a fate that awaited many of the gallant leaders who commanded the forces then marshalled under the "Red Hand."

Major Ormsby stood in the centre of a group of officers, leaning on his sword. He took no notice of the prisoners when they were brought into the presence of the tribunal over which he presided. He continued to converse carelessly with the officers near him. The insulting manner in which he was received roused MacDermott, and a flush of anger burned in his face as he stood with his guard, in silence, near the door. On his fellow-prisoner no such impression was produced. He preserved even here his self-possessed and jocular air, surveyed the interior of the shed with a careless glance, and then confidently informed his guard, and any others who cared to hear him, that he thought the court eminently worthy of the judges.

"I am surprised that Hamilton has not returned," remarked Major Ormsby. "He could not have possibly got himself into the clutches of the Irish. Can it be that he has lost his way? We must send out parties to look for him. But first, I believe, there is some business to be despatched here. Major Storey, thou hast, an I err not, drawn up in due form the offences with which these rebels stand charged. Let them be read over that we may adjudge upon them."

Major Storey prided himself no less upon his accomplishments as a legal scribe than on his gifts as a preacher. The solemnity of the phraseology of law had for him the same charm as the sonorous phrases of puritanical cant, and he addressed himself to the framing of a legal document with the same satisfaction with which he vented his zeal in a spiritual outpouring. It is hardly a matter of surprise that his legal diction should have been largely tinged with the peculiarities of style which marked his devout discourses.

From the bulky paper which the major produced at the command of his superior, it appeared that the culprits arraigned before the military court had been taken in open war against the sacred authority of the Parliament of England. They had been guilty of the damnable crime of resisting them who had come to take possession of the land in the name and by the authority of the Most High. The unbelievers had come up against the chosen people even as the Amorrhite, the Pherezite, the Hethite, and those who dwelt over against the south side of Ceneroth had come up against Israel, and they should perish even as perished the allies of Canaan. To his favoured soldiers the

Lord had addressed the order. "You shall pursue after your enemies and kill all the hindermost of them as they flee." But on that day one from amongst their captains had been unfaithful to the divine command, and had spared the idolators who had been delivered into his hand. It was for them to cut off the Amalekites whom they held captive, as Saul, upon his repentance, did unto Agay in Galgal. He, the major, was no Samuel, yet he would not hesitate to rebuke them in the words of the prophet-"The Lord sent thee on the way and said: Go kill the sinners of Amalec and thou shalt fight against them until thou hast utterly destroyed them. Why then didst thou not hearken to the voice of the Lord ?"

"We have sinned," said the major, in conclusion, "by transgressing the commandment of the Lord; let us turn unto Him again by repentance and fit atonement. Let His enemies die the death.”

His colleagues heard the major's indictment with unmoved countenances. They were accustomed to his manner of speech, the grotesqueness of his scriptural jargon could not provoke them to smile. MacDermott listened to the plea for his murder in silence, nor did he offer any comment upon it when it was finished. A smile of contempt curled his lip and concealed, as he wished it, the tokens of acute suffering which his features must otherwise have betrayed. When the president of the tribunal demanded if the prisoners had anything to urge in extenuation of their offences, anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon them, he replied with haughty scorn:

Nothing! A gentleman and a soldier is no adviser for a gang of assassins."

His fellow-prisoner bore not so calmly the ordeal of mock justice to which he was subjected. He commented freely on the major's bill of indictment while the document was being read. His observations would have been amusing, had there been any place for mirth. The major's quotation of the order to "kill the hindermost of them as they flee," drew from him the assurance that the major himself would never fall amongst the champions thus slain. The name of the King of Amalec suggested to him a fervent prayer that the devil would gag all ranting Sassenachs, "or," as he expressed it, "to give the devil his due, Sassenachs of every profession." To the question why sentence of death should not be passed upon him, he had a word to say; and, in spite of the remonstrating glances of his fellow-captive, he said:

"I am no gentleman," he began, "and if being a gentleman would force me to be silent now, I am glad that I am not. My breast-plate is iron, my head-piece the same, I cannot therefore know what it is that makes the gentleman; in proof of my ignorance, I always imagined that the cowardly cutting of undefended throats was not a practice of the class. Do not think that I wish to shame you into sparing my life. I defy and scorn you as heartily as my commander. I am an Irishman and a Catholic; I can expect no mercy and I do not ask for any. But for the sake of the country that some of you belong to, and for the sake of the profession that most of you

disgrace, do not murder the officer at my side. He is a stranger amongst us; he has not dabbled in the blood that has been shed in holes and corners throughout the land during the last five years. If he has done you wrong, it has been in fair and open war. Since he has fallen into your hands, let him have the treatment of an honourable soldier, if you have any idea what that may mean. This much I ask you for the sake of the nation you belong to and the profession you follow. For myself I ask nothing. Do your worst; I despise, but I do not fear you."

These bold words brought a scowl to every bronzed face in the group before him, and to some a flush of something resembling shame. In appealing to their professional pride, O'Duigenan had touched a chord that had remained sensitive when every finer sense of their nature had been blunted by the brutalising occupations of their daily life.

"You speak insolently, rebel," said Ormsby, " and deserve to have your offensive jabbering cut short with a sword-thrust. But work of that kind we leave to the pistols of our troopers. Do all concur in the sentence Major Storey asks us to pronounce ?" he inquired, looking round the faces of his colleagues.

Contrary to his expectations, they were not unanimous. O'Duigenan's taunting language had roused within some of those ruthless breasts scruples which had long been strangers there; and some there were who essayed to moderate Storey's half-fanatic, half-revengeful eagerness for the blood of the prisoners. This unexpected opposition only served to rouse fully the religious energies of the major. With a headlong torrent of his choicest eloquence he rebuked the contumacious among his associates and denounced their backsliding, at the same time that he pointed out the inconvenience of charging themselves with a wounded man at a moment when they would require all the speed of movement they could command to escape from O'Neill. His exhortations and his arguments at last prevailed; the repugnance of his comrades to the deed of blood he advocated slowly gave way before his enthusiasm and his reasonings.

"Speak," he cried, with exultation, observing that he was winning the day, "ye who ride on fair horses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk in the way, shall the sword we have girded to our thigh remain rusting in the scabbard whilst the necks of the enemies of the Covenant are bared before us? Chiefs of the army of Israel, go and set your feet upon the necks of them lying under ye, and when ye have put your feet upon them, strike and slay, and let them be hanged upon gibbets until the evening."

The Parliamentarian officers conferred for a few moments together. When their deliberations were at an end, Ormsby addressed the pri

soners.

"In the opinion of this court you are adjudged worthy of death. It is our award that you be now led from this spot, and that, one hour hence, you be shot dead on the space in front of this cabin. Let the prisoners be removed."

MacDermott deigned no reply to the brutal sentence.

"And if," added the devout Storey, "the ministrations of so humble a vessel as myself be acceptable, I will, for the coming hour, wrestle with them in prayer, that they may be delivered at the last from the power of the evil one."

MacDermott replied to the suggestion by a look of cold disdain, and leaning on the arm of his fellow-prisoner turned to go. The indignity contained in the major's proposal was, however, too much for O'Duigenan to bear in silence.

"Keep your prayers for yourself, canting blood-sucker," he cried, looking back over his shoulder, "and take a parting advice from me. In the wrestling match look well to your points; the devil will trip you up before many rounds are over."

THE RELATIONS OF THE CHURCH TO SOCIETY. BY THE REV. EDMUND J. O'REILLY, S.J.

XXII.* THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE.

WHEN treating of the Definition of Papal Infallibility, and not long after entering on that subject, I alluded to the Councils of Pisa and Constance, "of which latter," I added, "I will say more hereafter." I have not yet fulfilled this promise. I was taken up first with the development of views concerning the Infallibility, then, following a natural connection, with "Obedience due to the Pope," out of which arose a statement on "Conscience," and out of this arose again another on "Liberty of Conscience." It is time I should say what I have to say about the Council of Constance. It will not, after all, be very much; for though a great deal has been written on the subject and a great deal consequently could be set down here regarding it, and though it could be treated at considerable length without ground being afforded for a charge of superfluousness, yet this would be out of proportion with the scale on which I am proceeding, and is besides not at all necessary for the solution of any difficulty which has arisen out of the decrees or action of the Council of Constance.

I might indeed spare myself the trouble of treating the question at all, and refer my readers to the able answers already given by Dr. Kavanagh and Canon Neville-by the former in "A Reply to Mr. Gladstone's Vaticanism;" by the latter in "Some Remarks on Vaticanism," subjoined to a second edition of "A few Comments on Mr. Gladstone's Expostulation." But, as I have promised, I must perform.

This is the true number of the present paper, counting all those that have preceded, though through mistake the numbers of some of them do not accord with it. + IRISH MONTHLY, Vol. II. p. 413.

Page 48 and following.

Page 11 and following (of third edition, which I have before me).

Mr. Gladstone has made great capital of the Council of Constance against the Pope's Infallibility, and his supreme authority over the Church collectively, and over a General Council. He does not argue so much from that Council taken by itself, with its confirmation by Martin V., as from the diametrical opposition he sees between it and the Vatican Council.

"It is not," he says, "my object to attempt a general appreciation of the Council of Constance. There is much against it to be said from many points of view, if there be more for it. But I point out that for the matter now in hand the questions of fact are clear, and that its decrees are in flat and diametrical contradiction to those of the Vatican. This of itself would not constitute any difficulty for Roman theology, and would give no proof of its breach with history. It is admitted on all or nearly all hands that a Council, however great its authority may be, is not of itself infallible. What really involves a fatal breach with history is when a body, which professes to appeal to it, having proclaimed a certain organ to be infallible, then proceeds to ascribe to it to-day an utterance contradictory to its utterance of yesterday; and thus depriving it not only of all certainty, but of all confidence, lays its honour prostrate in the dust. This can only be brought home to the Roman Church, if two of her Councils, contradicting one another in the subject matter of faith or morals, have each respectively been confirmed by the Pope, and have thus obtained, in Roman eyes, the stamp of infallibility. Now this is what I charge in the present instance."*

Mr. Gladstone then goes on to develop his arguments in an exulting and triumphant strain. His glee and buoyancy are quite soulstirring and almost cheering, antagonist though he be; and we can afford to enjoy the rushing of this torrent, which we know after all to be harmless. Everything depends on the view to be taken of the Council

by the Roman Pontiff; and the whole of this is a matter of old standing, often discussed and sufficiently settled long before the Vatican definition, and still more thoroughly settled since. No doubt the contrast and asserted mutual contradiction between the decisions of the two Councils is new-that is not of earlier date than 1870-but the character and sense and position of the decrees of the earlier Council, and their consequent bearing on the Pope's Infallibility and supreme authority, have been before the world in general, and the theological world in particular, for more than four centuries; they have not stood in the way of innumerable defenders of that doctrine which the later Council solemnly sanctioned five years ago, men who had the same ideas about General Councils that we have, and the same absolute belief of the infallibility of a General Council in conjunction with the

Pope that we

have, and had before the Vatican

Council was thought

of. They knew likewise as well, at least, as Mr. Gladstone, what was the state of facts as to the Council of Constance. No doubt there were others, in much smaller number, who impugned the Pope's pre

Vaticanism," pp. 57, 58.