CHAPTER XXIII. METHODISM IN IRELAND. MELANCHOLY and anomalous as the civil history of Ireland is, its religious history is equally mournful, and not less strange. Even at the time when it was called the Island of Saints, and men went forth from its monasteries to be the missionaries, not of monachism alone but of literature and civilization, the mass of the people continued savage, and was something worse than heathen. They accommodated their new religion to their own propensities, with a perverted ingenuity, at once humorous and detestable, and altogether peculiar to themselves. Thus, when a child was immersed at baptism, it was customary not to dip the right arm, to the intent that he might strike a more deadly and ungracious blow therewith; and under an opinion, no doubt, that the rest of the body would not be responsible at the resurrection, for any thing which had been committed by the unbaptized hand. Thus, too, at the baptism, the father took the wolves for his gossips; and thought that, by this profanation, he was forming an alliance, both for himself and the boy, with the fiercest beasts of the woods. The son of a chief was baptized in milk; water was not thought good enough, and whiskey had not then been invented. They used to rob in the beginning of the year as a point of devotion, for the purpose of laying up a good stock of plunder against Easter; and he whose spoils enabled him to furnish the best entertainment at that time, was looked upon as the best Christian,—so they robbed in emulation of each other and reconciling their habits to their conscience with a hardihood beyond that of the boldest casuists, they persuaded themselves that, if robbery, murder, and rape had been sins, Providence would never put such temptations in their way; nay, that the sin would be, if they were so ungrateful as not to take advantage of a good opportunity when it was offered them. : These things would appear incredible, if they were not conformable to the spirit of Irish history, fabulous and authentic. Yet were the Irish, beyond all other people, passionately attached to the religion wherein they were so miserably ill instructed. Whether they were distinguished by this peculiar attachment to their church, when the supremacy of the Pope was acknowledged throughout Europe, cannot be known, and may, with much probability, be doubted; this is evident, that it must have acquired strength and inveteracy when it became a principle of opposition to their rulers, and was blended with their hatred of the English, who so little understood their duty and their policy as conquerors, that they neither made themselves loved, nor feared, nor respected. Ireland is the only country in which the Reformation produced nothing but evil. Protestant Europe has been richly repaid for the long calamities of that great revolution, by the permanent blessings which it left behind; and even among those nations where the papal superstition maintained its dominion by fire and sword, an important change was effected in the lives and conduct of the Romish clergy. Ireland alone was so circumstanced as to be incapable of deri ving any advantage, while it was exposed to all the evils of the change. The work of sacrilege and plunder went on there as it did in England and Scotland; but the language of the people and their savage state, precluded all possibility of religious improvement. It was not till nearly the middle of the seventeenth century, that the Bible was translated into Irish, by means of Bishop Bedell, a man worthy to have Sir Henry Wotton for his patron, and Father Paolo Sarpi for his friend. The church property had been so scandalously plundered, that few parishes* could afford even a bare subsistence to a Protestant minister, and therefore few ministers were to be found. Meantime the Romish Clergy were on the alert, and they were powerfully aided by a continued supply of fellow labourers from the seminaries established in the Spanish dominions; men who, by their temper and education, were fitted for any work in which policy might think proper to employ fanaticism. The Franciscans have made it their boast, that, at the time of the Irish massaere, there appeared among the rebels more than six hundred Friars Minorite, who had been instigating them to that accursed rebellion while living among them in disguise. Charles II. restored to the Irish church all the impropriations and portions of tithes which had been vested in the crown; removing, by this wise and meritorious measure, one cause of its inefficiency. When, in the succeeding reign, the civil liberties of England were preserved by the Church of England, the burden of the Revolution again fell upon Ireland. That unhappy country became the seat of war, and, from that time, the Irish Catholics stood, as a political party, in the same relation to the French as they had done during Elizabeth's reign to the Spaniards. The history of Ireland is little else but a history of crimes and of misgovernment. A system of half persecution was pursued, at once odious for its injustice, and contemptible for its inefficacy. Good principles, and generous feelings, were thereby provoked into an alliance with superstition and priestcraft; and the priests, whom the law recognised only for the purpose of punishing them if they discharged the forms of their office, established a more absolute dominion over the minds of the Irish people, than was possessed by the clergy in any other part of the world. Half a century of peace and comparative tranquillity, during which great advances were made in trade, produced little or no melioration in the religious state of the country. Sectarians of every kind, descript and non-descript, had been introduced in Cromwell's time; and what proselytes they obtained were won from the Established Church, not from the Catholics, whom both the Dissenters and the clergy seem to have considered as inconvertible. In truth, the higher orders were armed against all conviction by family pride, and old resentment, and the sense of their wrongs; while the great body of the native Irish were effectually secured by their language and their ignorance, even if the priests had been less vigilant in their duty, and the Protestants more active in theirs. Bishop Berkeley (one of the best, wisest, and greatest men whom Ireland, with *The best living in Connaught was not worth more than forty shillings a year; and some were as Tow as sixteen all its fertility of genius, has produced) saw the evil, and perceived what ought to be the remedy. In that admirable little book, the Querist, from which, even at this day, men of all ranks, from the manufacturer to the statesman, may derive instruction, it is asked by this sagacious writer, "Whether there be an instance of a people's being converted, in a Christian sense, otherwise than by preaching to them, and instructing them in their own language? Whether catechists, in the Irish tongue, may not easily be procured and subsisted? and whether this would not be the most practicable means for converting the natives? Whether it be not of great advantage to the Church of Rome, that she hath clergy suited to all ranks of men, in gradual subordination from cardinals down to mendicants? Whether her numerous poor clergy are not very useful in missions, and of much influence with the people? Whether, in defect of able missionaries, persons conversant in low life, and speaking the Irish tongue, if well instructed in the first principles of religion, and in the Popish controversy, though, for the rest, on a level with the parish clerks, or the schoolmasters of charity-schools, may not be fit to mix with, and bring over our poor illiterate natives to the Established Church? Whether it is not to be wished that some parts of our liturgy and homilies were publicly read in the Irish language? and whether, in these views, it may not be right to breed up some of the better sort of children in the charity-schools, and qualify them for missionaries, catechists, and readers?" What Berkeley desired to see, Methodism would exactly have supplied, could it have been taken into the service of the church; and this might have been done in Ireland, had it not been for the follies and extravagancies by which it had rendered itself obnoxious in England at its commence ment. Twelve years after the publication of the Querist, John Wesley landed in Dublin, where one of his preachers, by name Williams, had formed a small society. The curate of St. Mary's lent him his pulpit, and his first essay was not very promising; for he preached from it, he says, to as gay and senseless a congregation as he had ever seen. The clergyman who gave this proof of his good-will disapproved, however, of his employing lay preachers, and of his preaching any where but in a church; and told him, that the Archbishop of Dublin was resolved to suffer no such irregularities in his diocess. Wesley, therefore, called on the archbishop, and says, that, in the course of a long conversation, he answered abundance of objections; some, perhaps, he removed; and, if he did not succeed in persuading the prelate of the utility of Methodism, he must certainly have satisfied him that he was not to be prevented from pursuing his own course. Wesley's first impressions of the Irish were very favourable; a people so generally civil he had never seen, either in Europe or America. Even when he failed to impress them, they listened respectfully." Mockery," said he, "is not the custom here: all attend to what is spoken in the name of God. They do not understand the making sport with sacred things; so that whether they approve or not, they behave with seriousness." He even thought that, if he or his brother could have remained a few months at Dub lin, they might have formed a larger society than in London, the people in general being of a more teachable spirit than in most parts of England; but, on that very account, he observed, they must be watched over, with the more care, being equally susceptible of good or ill impressions. "What a nation," he says, "is this! every man, woman, and child, except a few of the great vulgar, not only patiently, but gladly suffer the work of exhortation!"-And he called them an immeasurably loving people. There was, indeed, no cause to complain of insensibility in his hearers, as in Scotland. He excited as much curiosity and attention as he could desire; but, if Methodism had been opposed by popular outcry, and by mobs in England, it was not to be expected that it could proceed without molestation in Ireland. In Wesley's own words, "The roaring lion began to shake himself here also.' The Romish priests were the first persons to take the alarm. One of them would sometimes come, when a Methodist was preaching, and drive away his hearers like a flock of sheep. A Catholic mob broke into their room at Dublin, and destroyed every thing: several of the rioters were apprehended, but the grand jury threw out the bills against them; for there were but too many of the Protestants who thought the Methodists fair game. It happened that Cennick, preaching on Christmas-day, took for his text these words from St. Luke's Gospel : "And this shall be a sign unto you: ye shall find the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."-A Catholic who was present, and to whom the language of Scripture was a novelty, thought this so ludicrous, that he called the preacher a Swaddler, in derision; and this unmeaning word became the nickname of the Methodists, and had all the effect of the most opprobrious appellation. At length, when Charles Wesley was at Cork, a mob was raised against him and his followers in that city, under the guidance of one Nicholas Butler, who went about the streets dressed in a clergyman's gown and band, with a Bible in one hand, and a bunIdle of ballads for sale in the other. Strange as it may appear, this blackguard relied upon the approbation and encouragement of the mayor; and when that magistrate was asked whether he gave Butler leave to beset the houses of the Methodists with a mob, and was required to put a stop to the riots, he replied, that he neither gave him leave nor hindered him: and when, with much importunity, a man, whose house was attacked, prevailed upon him to repair to the spot, and, as he supposed, afford him some protection, the mayor said aloud, in the midst of the rabble," It is your own fault for entertaining these preachers. If you will turn them out of your house, I will engage there shall be no more harm done; but if you will not turn them out, you must take what you will get.' Upon this the mob set up a huzza, and threw stones faster than before. The poor man exclaimed, "This is fine usage under a Protestant government ! If I had a priest saying mass in every room of it, my house would not be touched" to which the mayor made answer, that "the priests were tolerated, but he was not." These riots continued many days. The mob paraded the streets, armed with swords, staves, and pistols, crying out, "Five pounds for a Swaddler's head!" Many persons, women as well as men, were bruised and wounded, to the imminent danger of their lives. Depositions of these outrages were taken and laid before the grand jury; but they threw out all the bills, and, instead of affording relief or justice to the injured persons, preferred bills against Charles Wesley, and nine of the Methodists, as persons of ill fame, vagabonds, and common disturbers of His Majesty's peace, praying that they might be transported. Butler was now in high glory, and declared that he had full liberty to do whatever he would, even to murder, if Le pleased. The prejudice against the Methodists must have been very general, as well as strong, before a Protestant magistrate, and a Protestant grand jury in Ireland, would thus abet a Catholic rabble in their excesses; especially when the Romans, as they called themselves, designated the Methodists as often by the title of heretic dogs, as by any less comprehensive appellation. The cause must be found partly in the doctrines of the Methodists, and partly in their conduct. Their notions of perfection and assurance might well seem fanatical, in the highest degree, if brought forward, as they mostly were, by ignorant and ardent men, who were not, like the Wesleys, careful to explain and qualify the rash and indefensible expressions. The watch-nights gave reasonable ground for scandal ; and the zeal of the preachers was not tempered with discretion, or softened by humanity. One of them asked a young woman, whether she had a mind to go to hell with her father; and Mr. Wesley himself, in a letter upon the proceedings at Cork, justified this* brutality so far as to declare, that, unless he knew the circumstances of the ease, he could not say whether it was right or wrong! Several of the persons, whom the grand jury had presented as vagabonds, appeared at the next assizes. Butler was the first witness against them. Upon being asked what his calling might be, he replied, "I sing ballads." Upon which the judge lifted up his hands, and said, "Here are six gentlemen indicted as vagabonds, and the first accuser is a vagabond by profession!" The next witness, in reply to the same question, replied, "I am an Anti-swaddler, my lord ;" and the examination ended in his being ordered out of court for contempt. The judge delivered such an opinion as became him upon the encouragement which had been given to the rioters. In the ensuing year Wesley himself visited Cork, and preached in a * This person, whose name was Jonathan Reeves, only acted upon a principle which had been established at the third Conference. The following part of the minutes upon that subject is characteristic: Q. 1. Can an unbeliever (whatever he be in other respects) challenge any thing of God's justice? 1 A. Absolutely nothing but hell. And this is a point which we cannot too much insist on. Q. 2. Do we empty men of their own righteousness, as we did at first? Do we sufficiently labour, when they begin to be convinced of sin, to take away all they lean upon? Should we not then endea vour, with all our might, to overturn their false foundations? 4. This was at first one of our principal points; and it ought to be so still; for, till all other foundations are overturned, they cannot build upon Christ. Q. 3. Did we not then purposely throw them into convictions; into strong sorrow and fear? Nay, did we not strive to make them inconsolable; refusing to be comforted? A. We did; and so we should do still; for, the stronger the conviction, the speedier is the deliverance and none so soon receive the peace of God as those who steadily refuse all other comfort. Q. 4. Let us consider a particular case. Were you, Jonathan Reeves, before you received the peace of God, convinced that, notwithstanding all you did, or could do, you were in a state of damnation? J. R. I was convinced of it as fully as that I am now alive.. 5. Are you sure that conviction was from God? 6. What do you mean by a state of damnation? 3. 5. was perisheth for ever. |