"Amongst so many deaths, which the character of the persecutors and the courage of the martyrs rendered nearly similar, that of the catechist Uyen, sixty years of age, and a professed religious of the order of St. Dominick, exhibits this peculiar feature, that his judges were his executioners. He had already endured with unshaken fortitude every species of torture, when the firmness of his answers and the inutility of the punishment inflicted upon him, irritated the mandarins to such a degree, that they shook the canga of the generous catechist with such violence as to inflict deep wounds upon his neck. On the same day, the 3d of July, 1838, he expired under the united sufferings of his imprisonment and wounds. The arrest of Father Joseph Nien, secular priest of this mission, exhibits also an odious character, and realizes the predictions of the Saviour to his apostles: And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren; for he was denounced to the mandarins by two members of his family. He died for the same cause and with the same sentiments of joy as the other confessors. mandarin gave the fatal signal. (1st of Au- every trial. This holy religious animated gust, 1838.) them by his example and exhortations, not only in the interior of their prison, but before their judges and in the presence of the mandarins. So much constancy induced the persecutors to pronounce the following sentence: Although the Christian doctrine has been frequently proscribed, European doctors continue to reside in this kingdom, and to infect it with their errors. The people, in their ignorance, allow themselves to be deceived by their artifices, adopt all their lies for so many truths, and become so strongly attached to them, that it is a miracle to see a Christian abandon his religion. The missionaries, too, are objects of the same attachment on the part of those whom they have led astray: persons are found to conceal them in despite of the law by which they are condemned. We have thought that severe punishment alone can apply a remedy to this disorder, and recall the Christians to a sense of their duty. For these reasons we condemn Van-Tu and Hoang Cânh to be strangled: Uy and Mâu, servants of Van-Tu, to receive a hundred lashes, and afterwards be banished a thousand leagues from their country, in the province of Bench Din, "The blood of one martyr had scarcely to be employed there on the public works. flowed, when our enemies hastened to seek out The same punishment is also pronounced fresh victims. On the 3d of June, Father against De, Vinh, and Moy, for their incorriFrancis Tu, a Tonkinese religious, of the or-gible attachment to the Christian religion.' der of Preachers, was arrested in the northern This sentence did not satisfy the hatred of the province. They by whom he was made pris-king. He dictated another, which ordered oner offered to restore him to liberty, on condition of receiving money. I have not got any,' said the father, and in the state in which I am, I do not feel disposed to look for any; and as God has permitted me to fall into your hands, I shall not allow this opportunity to pass of suffering for his glory.' About the same time his prison was opened to new confessors of the faith; Joseph Cânh, of the third order of St. Dominick, Francis Mâu, and Dominick Uy, catechist, Thomas Dê Stephen Vinh, and Augustin Moy, fervent Christians. Full of confidence in those words of the Saviour, • He who shall lose his life for the gospel shall find it,' they refused, with horror, to pro-strengthens them in this last struggle. fane the sacred sign of our redemption. In "Would that we could render the same tes. the person of Father Tu they had a model of timony of Vincent Sien, a secular priest, fortitude, which upheld their faith against eighty-seven years of age. To preserve a few 66 the mandarins to behead Van-Tu and Hoang Cânh without delay, and to keep the five in prison to be strangled later. On the 3d of September, when the royal sentence was known in the province, the two religious were brought out for execution. The crowd was struck with admiration on beholding the calm and serene air with which they went forward to death. Up to the last moment they were heard to recite aloud the litanies of the saints. The five other prisoners are still in prison, and have much to suffer; but the thought of the crown of martyrdom, which they are eve ry day expecting to receive, animates and days of life, he trampled upon the cross of his gan superstitions are gradually being abolished, Divine Master, and signed a written renuncia- the construction of idolatrous temples, the tion of the Christian faith. The faithful have study of the Tonkinese religious rites is imbeen thrown into consternation, and the priests posed upon all Catholics as well as pagans, have all blushed at his apostacy. He himself, and, what is still more deplorable, amongst when restored to liberty, felt all the enormity the masters charged with initiating them in of his crime, and wrote to me to make an this impious worship we found some Christhumble confession of it, and solicit penance ians. What shall I now say of the temporal and absolution. I offered him what consola- interest of this church? The dwellings of tion and encouragement I could, with a view the missionaries are destroyed; two colleges, to assist him in rising from his fall. But the twenty-two female convents of the third orscandal he gave required reparation, and onder of St. Dominick, the convents of the that account I have suspended him from the Daughters of the Cross have shared the same celebration of the holy mysteries, and the ad- { sate. If any thing could console us in the ministration of the sacraments. I must say, midst of so much desolation, it would be to to his praise, that he submitted to his punish-see those holy females faithful during the ment with the most edifying humility. storm to all those virtues they practised in happier days. Concealed in some poor huts, they continue to lead a life of community, "So many Christians put to death served as so many steps to enable the late governor to regain the lost favor of the king. In consid-notwithstanding all the privations they are eration of the evil he inflicted upon us, he was deemed worthy of being restored to the post of great mandarin. His province, which is not only one of the most important of the kingdom, but the centre of Christianity in Tong-King, has thus once more fallen underries, and books of piety, almost all have dis condemned to experience. The property of the churches, that of the poor, and whatever belonged to the vicar apostolic, have become the prey of the pagans and some bad Christians. Chalices, missals, vestments, brevia appeared. But when it is question only of such losses, we joyfully say with Job, 'the Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' "When tranquillity is restored, my first care shall be to re-establish the two colleges, that the youth may not be deprived of the his tyrannical yoke. Who can tell what his hatred reserves for us? In many places the simple faithful have been required to trample upon the cross, and to sign a written promise not to follow the Christian religion for the future. A great many have refused, or have bribed their persecutors not to molest them. The faith of others has been put to severe tri-benefit of a religious education. I look upon als, who have the glory to confess Jesus Christ in chains and tortures. But how many tears to be shed over that multitude of Christians who have had the weakness to subscribe to the will of the prince, and trample under foot the sacred symbol of their salvation! Nor is this all the privileges by which our brethren were exempted from participating in the pa this point as of the utmost importance for the interests of the mission. Up to the present, all our priests, but especially Europeans, are obliged to continue concealed in the most secret places; our catechists and students, dispersed by the persecution, cannot assemble any where without provoking fresh acts of rigor." VOL. I.-No. 1. H From the Annales de Philos. Chretienne. CELTIC TRADITIONS OF WESTERN EUROPE. No. 1. HE celebrated author of the Irish Melodies, dence and immorality; the false position of nations that can no submit to ruling power, nor resist it by a lawful and dignified expostulation; the insignificant interests that are made to assume a stand among the great social questions, while the most serious and important matters are brought down to the blind consideration of the ignorant; where could we find, amidst this confusion of intrigue and this conflict of passions, any thing illustrated his name, has won for himself still higher honors by his later literary productions. The Travels of an Irish gentleman in search of) religion affords abundant evidence of the truth, that a most brilliant imagination and poetical talents of a superior order, are by no means incompatible with the graver sciences, with the profound learning, exact reasoning and deep conviction of the philosopher and theo-that can bear a comparison with the movelogian. Having offered a first tribute to re- ments of the Irish people, that neglected race ligion, as is the duty of every Christian, and, (which Providence has stationed at a distance, we venture to say, of every rational man, Mr. and apart from other nations, to preserve it Moore has with affectionate loyalty paid a sec-free from the contagion of impure doctrines, ond homage to his country, by presenting to the public a history of that ancient and cherished land, which is so justly styled by the bards of Erin, the emerald isle. By this mode of proceeding, by giving to religion the first place in his intellectual researches, he has manifested a wisdom and a sense of propriety that are rarely to be met with in our days; he has deserved to be ranked, in this as in many other respects, with the loftiest spirits of the middle ages, and has realized the noble axiom of that chivalrous period, God and my right; a saying so full of beautiful and Christian sentiment, before it was wrested from its original signification. and to show an unbelieving world how much can be accomplished by the faith and energy of a Christian people? We believe that the whole range of history could furnish but few examples of a heroism like that of Ireland's sons. Few, if any, instances could be found of a people that, like them, have arisen to struggle for the conquest of their most sacred rights, and for this purpose have resorted only to legitimate expedients, abstaining equally from violence and weakness, placing themselves under the guidance of only one Catholic chief, O'Connell, the hero, the prophet, the liberator, an unexampled model of integrity and moral power, whose voice they obey with the precision of a well-disciplined army, while he makes use of his wonderful influ voted servant of his brethren, leading them on unwaveringly to what has formed the constant and sole object of his ambition during life, with unbending steps prosecuting his noble design, consecrating all his energies to the liberation of his country, and trusting for success, not in violence or deeds of blood, but solely in the justice of his cause. That a history of Ireland from the pen of Mr. Thomas Moore must possess an extraordinary interest, no one will pretend to deny :ence for no other end than to be the most dewe would observe, however, that the reputation of the author was by no means requisite to attract public attention to a people, which at this moment exhibits so wondrous a spectacle to the gaze of Europe, and, upon the whole, is the most noble object that could be displayed to our contemplation. Let us consider the events that are transpiring around us, the political aspect of the times in which we live, the progress of those governments that seem to be struggling against improvi Irish history of course presents a vast and beautiful study to the human mind, though we are allowed only to glance at it in the follow ing observations. The emerald isle was for-guage of the country, its numerous monumerly the principal theatre of the Druidicalments, the still surviving remnants of that anworship in the west. Ireland having been cient superstition which the Asiatic tribes esoriginally peopled by the Phenicians, who tablished in every part of Europe to which brought with them their religion, their divini- they migrated, throw sufficient light upon the ties, their traditions, seems, although lying at origin of its population. However obscure one extremity of the west, to be the point of may be the history of the people that followed comparison from which we are to gather the in the train of the first oriental emigrants, main features of resemblance between the an- and whatever variety of opinion may exist cient religions of Europe and Asia. Hereupon the question, whether they were of the are we enabled to study the doctrines of our Celtic and Gallic ancestors, and of all that Japhetic race that came from middle Asia, and passing by the islands of the nations, as the Scriptures term them, established itself in Eu-language of this most ancient people, the rope, and planted there the worship which it had learned in Persia, Assyria and Phenicia. same race with those who preceded them or of a different stock, it appears at least incontestable that the Celts were the first settlers of the western parts of Europe, and that, of the purest dialect now existing is the Irish. But another question here arises, which, from its bearing upon the subsequent history of Ireland and upon the relations that have always existed between its inhabitants and those of Great Britain, is not less important than the one we have just considered. From what source did Ireland receive its original As Mr. Moore, in his remarks on the origin and primitive religion of the Irish, has collected with great judgment and erudition all that has been written upon the subject, we can do nothing better than to lay before the reader such extracts from his work as will suit our purpose. They will furnish many striking evi-colonists? Did they come from Britain, as it dences of the fact, that the human race has sprung from one and the same parent stock. ORIGIN OF THE IRISH PEOPLE. would be natural to suppose from the proximity of the two countries, or were they emigrants from some other region? According to the opinion of Mr. T. Moore, which is founded upon very grave authority, the Celts who colonized Ireland did not embark from England, but from the north western coast of Spain. The system of Whitaker and others, who from the proximity of the two islands, assume that the population of Ireland must have been all derived from Britain, is wholly at variance, not merely with probability, but with actual evidence. That in the general and compulsory movement of the Celtic tribes towards the west, an island like Ireland, within easy reach both of Spain and Gaul, should have been left unoccupied during the long interval it must have required to stock England with inhabitants, seems in the highest degree improbable. But there exists independently of this consideration, strong evi The history of Ireland may be divided into three grand epochs; 1. the period from its colonization to the introduction of Christianity; 2. that of the diffusion and prosperity of the Christian religion; 3. that of the Danish and English invasions. The first epoch might be called idolatrous or the age of barbarism; the second, the period of religion and of glory; the third, the political age or that of servitude. We have every reason to hope that this last period will soon be brought to a close, by the revival, which is now so powerfully and so successfully agitated, of that true religious spirit that once characterized this land of saints. The first question that presents itself to the historian is that which regards the origin of the Irish population, and which has acquired an additional interest from the learned re-dence of an early intercourse between Spain search that has been bestowed upon it by Mr. Thomas Moore. There can be no doubt that the first inhabitants of Ireland were descendants of the same Celtic race that formerly peopled Gaul, Britain and Spain. The lan and Ireland, in the historical traditions of the two countries, in the names of the different Spanish tribes assigned to the latter by Ptolemy, and still more in the sort of notoriety which Ireland early, as we shall see, acquired, and which could only have arisen out of her connexion with those Phenician colonies, through whom alone a secluded island of the Atlantic could have become so well known to the world."* We may infer from the researches of Mr. Moore, that the Phenicians, and subsequently the Greeks, had, if not an earlier, at least a better knowledge of Ireland than of Britain. "But another evidence of the intimate relations which the Phenicians of Spain) formerly maintained with Ireland, is to be found in the Geography of Ptolemy; who wrote in the beginning of the second century, and who, it is well known, derived his information relative to the countries of which we are speaking, principally from Phenician authorities. In the description which he has left us of the different parts of Britain and particularly of the northern districts, he has committed the most egregious mistakes, placing, for instance, the Mull of Gallaway to the north, and Cape Oreas or Dunsby-Head in the east. On the contrary, in speaking of Ireland, whose territory at that time was beyond, and whose existence was scarcely known within the limits of the Roman empire, he is remarkably accurate, not only when he designates the shores and promontories of the island, but also in most of the details which he furnishes, regarding the interior of the country, its various towns and tribes, its lakes, rivers and boundaries. It is worthy of remark too, that while of the towns and places of Britain he has in general given but the new Roman names, those of Ireland still retain on his map their old Celtic titles. The city Hibernis still tells a tale of far distant times, and the Sacred Promontory, now known as Carnsore Point, transports our imagination back to the old Phenician days. When it is considered that Ptolemy, or rather Marinus of Tyre, the writer whose steps he implicitly followed, is believed to have founded his geographical descriptions and maps on an ancient Tyrian atlas, this want of aboriginal names for the cities and places of Britain, and their predominance in the map of Ireland, prove how much more anciently and intimately the latter island must have been known to the geographers of Tyre than the former.* But even this proof of her earlier intercourse with that people and their colonies, and her proportionate advance in the career of civilization, is hardly more strong than the remarkable testimony to the same effect, of Tacitus, by whom it is declared that, at the time when he wrote, "the waters and harbors of Ireland were better known, through the resort of commerce and navigators, than those of Britain." From this it appears that, though scarcely heard of, till within a short period, by the Romans, and almost as strange to the Greeks, this sequestered island was yet in possession of channels of intercourse distinct from either; and that while the Britons, shut out from the continent by their Roman masters, saw themselves deprived of all that profitable intercourse which they had long maintained with the Veneti and other people of Gaul, Ireland still continued to cultivate her old relations with Spain, and saw her barks venturing on their accustomed course, between the Celtic Cape and the Sacred Promontory, as they had done for centuries before."t From these evidences and many others by O'Connor. Letter 3. Moore's History of Ireland, Philadelphia Brewer, a writer quoted by Heeren, shews, edition, page 11. "that Ptolemy's work itself, as well as the ac"Ireland plainly preserves, in her topogra-companying charts usually attributed to a certain phy, a much greater proportion of Celtic names) Agathodaemon, who lived at Alexandria in the than the map of any other country." Chalmer's fifth century, was in reality derived from PheniCaledonia, vol. 1, b. 1. ch. 1. "In the remote ages of Phenician commerce, all the western and south western promontories of Europe were consecrated by the erection of) pillars or temples, and by religious names of Celtic and primeval antiquity: this is expressly stated by Strabo. These sacred head-lands multiplied in proportion as new discoveries were cian or Tyrian sources; in other words, that Ptolemy, or more properly speaking, Marinus of Tyre, who lived but a short time before him and whose work he only corrected, must have founded his geographical descriptions and maps on an ancient Tyrian atlas." See Heeren's Historical Researches, vol. 3, Append. c. + Moore's History of Ireland, p. 19, &c. |