The Irish standard., 1897-02-27
LYING ABOUT THE IRISH.
At One Time the English Charged
the Celts with Being
Ignorant.
And this After they Had Vainly
Attempted to Darken
Their rlinds.
England at all Times Absorbs Irish
Brains and Calls Them
Her Own.

brains ana AallS hem
Her Own.
Oh! lying brood of high-born idlers,
Of the Celtic race you're dubbed the IL
! belers;
That Pats unlettered you boldly insin-
! uate,
But the true cause you don't care to
state. ~,rg.
| In the generations Immediately fol-
lowing the Protestant Reformation, So
called, a hostile and malicious cry went
! UP from Anglican aristocratic throats
| that the Celtic Irish were a nation Of
: illiterates, writes VIM. Ellison in the
: Union and Times. This sweeping and
vindictive charge made against a people
who were the true heirs at law and right
| full lineal descendants of race endowed
! by intellectual gifts and qualities far
above any other in Europe. Of course
! the inimical aspersion proceeded from
| an alien and utterly unreliable source,
and was conceived in wickedness and
| hatred with the malignant intention
of injuring and degrading the Catholic
| people who, at the call of conscience re-
| fused to accept the new man-made
| form of religion as designated by Henry
VIII, Elizabeth and their sovereign
successors, aided by a seryile parlia-
| ment. 1t was one Of the vile and mon
strous weapons by which the infuriated
Protestant perverts in England sought
to damage the race they were inhu-
manly prosecuting; nor did the Sec
| tartan truthslayers deign to tell the out
| side world what was the cause of this
! pretended lapse in the intellect of the
| Gaelic stock. These English perverts
| in religion and falsifers of the truth
and history were careful not to put it on
| record that the British Government had
put scholastic training among the Cath
| olic people in ireland under cruel, CO.
ercive ban, and SO Vigorously was this
| inhuman edict enforced that a Catholic
| father had to send his SONS abroad If he
| desired. to have them properly educated.
| This was the condition under which
| Catholic intellect had to develop in those
! dark ages of Lutheran and English Pro-
| testantism. And, had the protecting
power of God not preserved the faithful
Celts in their bright intellectual faculties
as we'll as in their faith, the consequent
ces might have been disastrous. But
these two sacred attributes in the life
of a true Catholic Christian can never
j be separated because both are emana-
tions and gifts from God, and neither
can be extinguished as long as their pos
SCISSOR is faithful to his religious and mo-
raj duties, no matter how humble may be
| his social position or how unlettered he
| may happen to be. The world knows
| that in those penal law times to which
we are referring, the strong and cruel
| hand of England had barred the educa-
| tional and religious doors against the
! Irish Catholic people. The schoolmas-
ter as we'll as the priest were put under
the death-dealing law, and while the
teacher would not be SO likely to lose his
| head. both were banned. In this rebel
lious attempt of perverted human power
| against the sovereign law Of God, reas-
on and justice, England sought to biot
out from the Irish heart and mind all
! idea of pure reasoning power and intelll-
gence, and vainly thinking that this
| could be accomplished by the stern exer-
!, else of penal enactments and sheer brute
force, she then hoped to palm on the new
/ religious code of Henry's and Elizabeth 9
make up upon the darkened and degrad-
ed slaves. AS far as mere human 1udg-
| ment could see, the thing seemed feas-
! ible enough at first, for the slaughtered
and conquered people were at the rect
Of England's power, and she could I'M
nose whatever laws she liked as she had
already prescribed how and when ana
where the unwilling Celts should wor-
shin God in accordance with the Parlla-
mentary statute. But, how shortsighted
and impotent are all human laws ana
efforts when they run counter to the
DEGREES of the Supreme Sovereign OF the
world! England's wisest statesmen de-
yised, plotted and planned to frame laws
! that would satisfy the Irish Catholic
Celts that they were justified in giving
up their educational and religious rights
| in exchange for the newly-invented code
that could be changed at will to suit
! their tastes, interests and convenlences.
All these privileges and many others
were freely offered to the humblest Celts
If they would agree to barter the Ia faitn t.
81 Christ and the Pope for that Ct Luth- tn
er and Henry VIII. sss
The Celts did not take time even TO 1
consider the compromise ssas the inward y g
lrrnosli consci engtiy