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Show Ulan ' ! ,God in Donegal I r ' ' Life of the Irish Priest Portrayed by Seumas MacMamis Most Important Man in the Neighborhood. - , i (Copyright, 1900, by Seumas McManus.) The clergyman is here interpreted Roman Cathoiic priest, for clergymen of other denominations (of whom I shall deal further down) are very rare in our Mountains, and their flocks exceedingly ex-ceedingly small. The priest is by far the most important impor-tant man in our neighborhood. The autocrat of all the Russias is far from being vouchsafed the dutiful obedi-erj obedi-erj e paid the priest, and no prince or potentate ever got a tithe of the whole souled love that is lavished on the darling priest, or, as we call him. the sagart arun. Some years ago, in the throes eif the land war, the constitutional authorities were shocked when" the world famous Father MaeFadden of Gweedore announced an-nounced for their edification at a public pub-lic demonstration: "I am the law in Gweedore." Yet, though they harried him and prosecuted him and imprisoned impris-oned him, they. to. their bitterness, learnt at a sore price that he had only given utterance to a cold fact. The lorees of the crown when they came to arrest him were held at bay for long weeks by his poor, unarmed Hock, till, when blood had been spilt, he disbanded dis-banded the standing army that his followers had constituted for his defense de-fense and voluntarily gave himself up. So, in every mountain parish, the priest's word is more truly the law than the enactments of the British parliament. par-liament. And because of th's sneorers who know not the conditions of things, and know not. the sentiments and feelings feel-ings and the proper relations of priest and people, fay that we are priest ridden. They say so because they know not, and do not seek to know, that the extraordinary . obedience and respect paid to the priest's word is founded not in the remotest minnoi upon servility or fear (for our people-never people-never have been servile or afraid), but upon fond, filial love and implicit faith which ' our mountain priests, by their priestly and fatherly dualities, have worthily engendered in the hearts of those who have never in vain looked to them for sympathy, for help, tor guidance and for protection. For the true sagart, when he takes charge of a mountain parish, takes upon his shoulders and upon his heart a great load. The sickness, the troubles, trou-bles, the sorrows and griefs of everv household, of every child, in his domain do-main are his personal sorrows, and their little joys are his joys. Not merely mere-ly for the souls, but for the bodies of every one in his parish, responsibility weighs him down. He can not, could not, shirk his traditional duty, which is truly to father his flock in all things to brave any tyrant who would oppress op-press them or unjust one who would wrong them, to fight for them, to suffer suf-fer for them, to lay down his life for thorn, if need be. Banin, in his lovely ballad, "Sagart Arun," .(sawgarth aroon) gives a touching picture of the true feeling of the peasant for his priest: Loyal and brave to you, Sagart arun. Yet be no slave to you, Sagart arun. Nor out of fear to you Stand up so near to you, Sagart arun.! Who, in the winter's night, Sagart arun When the cold blast did bite, , Sagart arun Come to my cabin door. And on the earthen floor Knelt by me, sick and' poor, ,f Satjart arun?. Who, on the marriage day, Sagart arun. Made my poor cabin gay, Sagart arun? Who did both laugh and sing, .Making our glad hearts ring, At the poor christening, Sagart arun? ' Och' you and only you, Sagart arun! For this 1 was true to you, Sagart arun: In love they'll never r hake Who for ou'd Ireland's sake A true stand and part did .take, . Sagart arun! ' The Roman Catholic clergy nowadays receive their education at Maynooth college., near Dublin.' It was established estab-lished K:0 years ago. and before that time the boy who felt a priestly voca- tion went to France, Belgium or Spain ' for his education. In the penal days, when educating his son for a priest, would mean 'confiscation of a father's property, the bold, young fellow, alter getting a smattering of Latin at home by stealth from the outlawed hedge-schoolmaster, hedge-schoolmaster, was carried aboard a smuggling smack, which rode in some forgotten bay, at dead, of night, and thus borne to the continent. In a smuggler, also, and under cover of night, like a thief, he stole into Ireland again, when he had been ordained, and. disguised as a layman, tried to minister minis-ter in private to an awed and hungering hunger-ing flock. ." Except in the case of our mountain priests, the Maynooth man of today is not the same type of homely sagart that his continental schooled predecessor predeces-sor was. Our parishes perhaps average ten miles square, and contain, say. 6,000 souls: for whom there are two chapels and three priests. Some parishes are twenty miles long and even longer; and, as every one appreciates the duty of regular attendance at mass, six, seven and eight miles of m.oor mountain moun-tain and road is a common distance for men and women of 70 to walk to chapel on Sunday, in sun and in storm, rain, hail or snow. Topcoats are almost al-most unknown with us, and the women who carry umbrellas are rare. But our people give little concern to a drenching and little care to a cough. In one case with which I was quite familiar these poor people, after tramping weary miles' to mass and arriving ar-riving drenched with rain or snow or reeking with perspiration, knelt down upon the grass field, bareheaded under a scorching sun or"i pitiless storm and heard mass read by the priest under the protection of a thatched and open shed. This kind of mass shed is known as a scanlan, and is the last link that binds us to the days when no chapel was allowed in the land, and the priest gathered the flock- in a hollow of the hills, with his altar a rock, -and his roof the dome of heaven. In the case of this scalan, one of the last of its kind, each person, in wet and snowy weather, brought with him a little bunch of hay to lay under knees in the slushy, muddy ground, upon which they knelt. I thing God always heard the prayers of these people. peo-ple. About five years ago this scalan was superseded by a chapel, but by money sent home for that purpose from servant girls and laboring boys in America. After mass the congregation join the priest in praying in turn for each person per-son sick in the parish, and then for the repose of the souls who died during dur-ing the week, each being specially announced an-nounced and each getting a special prayer. Then follows the priest's discourse or exhortation, which, in our chapels, has a profoundly moving effect. The emotions emo-tions of the Celt are very responsive; it is a common Sunday experience to find a congregation of 2.000 convulsed with sobs; and I have innumerable times been thrilled to the soul by a chorus of wailing?." which, rising and falling in waves, filled the building. Approaching Easter, anil approaching Christmas, the priest begins "the stations" sta-tions" that is, holding a confessional in each district of the parish. He announces an-nounces from the altar on Sunday the name of each party in whose house he proposes holding a station on each clay of the week following. Every woman who is done the honor of "having a station called" in her house goes to much expense to have the house and its surroundings fitted in a manner that will reflect credit on her and force a word of praise from Father Dan and to have the best and most elaborate breakfast the county can afford. The men and women and children of the townland. dressed in their neatest, are collected at the station house when Father Dan arrives on his rickety iauntin-r car at 8 o'clock in the morning. The best room in the house has been prepared for him, and when, sitting here, he has lightened many oppressive burdens by his counsel, he says mass, administers holy communion commun-ion and delivers to the sobbing penitents peni-tents a gentle and touching homily. After breakfast, to which he sat down with the heads of the household and the schoolmaster, he collects his stipends, each father of a family of that townland coming forward with his dollar some farmer more comfortably circumstanced than usual paying (vol-'.ntarily (vol-'.ntarily )c. dollar and a half or 52. This at the Christmas stations for the payment is made but once a year. Other fees which Father Dan receives are half a dollar (or more) at each christening, and So at a marriage. According Ac-cording to the circumstances of a parish, par-ish, a priest receives from $300 to $750 a year. Formerly the priest went to the house to perform the baptismal and matrimonial matri-monial services, and remained to share in the. merriment. But now he is enjoined en-joined to perform both ceremonies in the chapel. The mosf trying duty of the priest is the sick call. He is never sure of a night's quiet. -At any moment he expects ex-pects a thundering at the door, which may order him off post haste, in rain, hail or storm, over half a dozen or half a score miles of moor that is not without its hazards at high noontide to visit some creature who Is hungering hunger-ing for his ministrations, before bidding bid-ding a final farewell to care and ache. But be the night never so bad, and bo the priest already wearied and worn, and be the way dark, and ugly, and far, a sigh is generally his most earnest earn-est protest. He arises", dresses hastily, takes his staff in hand, and, his summoned sum-moned leading the way with a torch, bends him to the mountain path. If at the wearied end of the journey he finds that the nervous old woman, who, In a scare, sent for him at dead of night, is already sitting in the chimney corner and treating herself to a rousing rous-ing bowl of tea. he is, perhaps, not to be too harshly judged if he do not give earnest of much joy at her sudden sud-den recovery. And such a case is far from being exceptional. Enisconalians and Methodists are onlv occasionally met with in our mountains, living in small communities, communi-ties, in a valley or on a hillside richer than the remainder of the country. The lands which they occupy wera given to their forefathers at a time when the Celts were hunted from their homes by the hounds of war. Out of a general sustentation fund their clergymen clergy-men are paid an income of about $7o0 a year. Into these funds the Methodist parishioners are expected to pay 2o cents every quarter year, each member of the family; and the head of each Episcopalian family to pay a yearly sum of about $4 but when their circumstances cir-cumstances are above the average they pav higher sums. By means of these general funds the larger and richer congregations in Ireland are made to aid the smaller. There is no baptismal fee in either church. The matrimonial fee is voluntary. Five dollars or more is usually paid. " Formerly the Episcopalian clergyman was a rich aristocrat, being paid tithes by Catholic as well as Protestant. But the Roman Catholics eventually made a .bold stand against the injustice. Regular battles were fought by the poor, unarmed people against the police po-lice and military forces who came to enforce the law, but resulted with little effect, for the justice of the cause triumphed over all the powers of the crown, and today -the Protestant clergyman cler-gyman in the Irish mountains is no better off than his Catholic brother. The minister collected his tithe in harvest: the oriest his stipend at Christmas. In those days there was a clever half wit in 'my parish, who, one day, meeting the priest and parson, was stopped by them, and, to afford them some fun, asked: "Now, Ned, we have been disputing whether, if you had a son, you would make a priest of him or a parson and we want you to decide." . "If I had a son," said Ned, "I'll tell ye what I'd have him. I'd hare him a 'narson in harvest, an' a priest at Christmas." SEUMAS M ACM ANUS. |