History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, Vol. II

and then to a long detailed legal persecution¹ which was designed to make them abandon their faith. All the paths of honor and wealth were monopolized by Protestants, while shackles of every description hampered the Catholics in all the relations of life. Yet these only clung the closer to their faith on account of the storms that assailed it. That very acute observer, Arthur Young, declared at the close of the penal laws A series of laws passed in Ireland from the late 17th century to disenfranchise Catholics., that the relative proportion of Catholics to Protestants had not been at all reduced—if anything rather the reverse—and that those who denied this admitted that, at the past rate of conversions, 4,000 years would be required to make Ireland Protestant. In the Irish Parliament it was stated that 71 years of the penal system had only produced 4,055 converts.

This statement may at first sight appear to furnish an extremely strong argument, but it completely omits the most important element of Irish ecclesiastical history. In Ireland the old faith marked the division between two races, it was the symbol of the national spirit, it was upheld by all the passions of a great patriotic struggle, and its continuance simply attests the vitality of a political sentiment. When every other northern nation abandoned Catholicism, the Irish still retained it out of antipathy to their oppressors, and in every great insurrection the actuating spirit was mainly political. Of all the out-

¹ For their details see Parnell, Penal Laws. In common parlance, the 'penal laws' date from the treaty of Limerick A treaty ending the Williamite War in Ireland in 1691, the breaking of which led to the penal laws., but the legislative assaults on Irish Catholicism began with Elizabeth.