Priests and people in Ireland . hese sulking peasants the highestideal of life known to them. For them there is practi-cally no such being as Christ; for them the words Loveyour enemies may as well never have been spoken ; forthem there is no such thing as serious Christian thoughtor reflection. There is only mummery and mystery;only unintelligible gibberish about saints and dead an-cestors existing in a spirit-world, which is not a whitmore useful to them than the meaningless, childish folk-lore which, so far as one can judge, constitutes that Gaelicliterature by which they are to be regenera
Priests and people in Ireland . hese sulking peasants the highestideal of life known to them. For them there is practi-cally no such being as Christ; for them the words Loveyour enemies may as well never have been spoken ; forthem there is no such thing as serious Christian thoughtor reflection. There is only mummery and mystery;only unintelligible gibberish about saints and dead an-cestors existing in a spirit-world, which is not a whitmore useful to them than the meaningless, childish folk-lore which, so far as one can judge, constitutes that Gaelicliterature by which they are to be regenerated. Therethey are, at a standstill, while the world revolves on itscourse and time steals their youth and strength fromthem, and hurries them to that bourne at the end oflife, at which they shall arrive in no better mental con-dition than the Drimin duhh dilis in the bog—thedear, black, white-backed cow of Ireland—about whichso many rhapsodies have been written. They have noheart to advance themselves in life. They have no. RELIGION AT FAULT 165 honourable ambition even to increase the number oftheir cows. Have they not heard of the Woman ofthe Three Cows? ORuark, Maguire, those souls of fire, whose names are shrined in story—Think how their high acliievements once made Erins greatest glory ;Yet now their bones lie mouldering under weeds and cypress boughs,And so, for all your pride, will yours, O Woman of the Three Cows. 1 As one looks at them standing aimlessly in their fieldsor close by their vermin-abodes, one can imagine themaddressing the cow close at hand :— O Drimin dubh dilis ! the landlord has come,Like a foul blast of death has he swept oer our home ;He has withered our roof-tree—beneath the cold sky,Poor, houseless, and homeless, to-night we must lie. I knelt down three times for to utter a prayer,But my heart it was seared and the words were not there ;Wild were the thoughts through my dizzy head came,Like the rushing of wind through a forest of flame. ^
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