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Article THURLOGH, THE MILESIAN. ← Page 4 of 17 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Thurlogh, The Milesian.
scene while in the act of presenting him with a son and heir . The child almost instantly followed the mother's course , and thus did the same hour deprive O'Sullivan , at once , of wife and offspring . Had his greatest enemies seen the anguish that now lacerated his breast , under the galling pressure of this distressing catastrophe , they must have commiserated the reverses of human fate , and transferred their bitterness into condolence . No roofed abode , made hy man ' s frail hands , received the compass of his lamentations—to the vaulted heavens alone did he pour forth his grief , to be re-echoed by the caves , or the refluence of the roaring
ocean . To a mind thus softened by the chastenings of Providence , there is no comfort so sweet as that of religion . It came doubly recommended in the present case , not only because of its consolitary tendency under all circumstances of sorrow , but also from the fact that O'Sullivan had the advantage of an early initiation in its culture , and of a sustaining confidence , —notwithstanding the aberration to which he for once gave way , —in the inner
tranquillity which it afforded . The return , therefore , to his original habits was the inevitable result of his thought , with a settled resolution to carry this decision—now that life ' s attractions had lost their dazzling hue—to a preparation for holy orders . France was at that time the theatre of civil and religious freedom . Under this abused name , I do not mean to palliate the lasciviousness of excess
into which it has often degenerated in that region of volatility . I merely mention the circumstance , without averring an opinion , one way or the other ; yet can I not avoid contrasting with it the impolicy of our own enactments , of the same date , which would repress every form of religion and adoration that did not accord in manner and in name with our own . How , however ,
did the system work ? The Catholics of Ireland , unable to prosecute their studies , with a view to the priesthood , in their oivn country , betook themselves to the Continent as a more congenial seminary ; there , in endowments established by the bounty of some of their countrymen , who had but shortly before , themselves , been exiled from home , kindred , and connections , owing to their adhesion to the unfortunate James , they not only acquired instruction in all the fashionable branches of literature , but additionally graduated
in the several faculties of law , medicine , and divinity , —the latter department having been the primary object of the benevolent founders . Here it was that the restrictive character of the penal code , which originated these resources , met its most signal and retributory defeat . For the students who had been brought up in those foreign institutions , breathing the atmosphere of liberty , and impregnated in some degree with the spirit of latitudinarianism that surrounded them , returned home very
polished gentlemen , it is admitted ; but then , with an inbred dislike , and a superinduced aversion , to the existing order of things , which they took every opportunity to propagate . Could Tventure to express myself more fully as to the development of their feelings , I would say that to their innate resentment of personal or ancestral deprivations , they superadded tbe hos-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Thurlogh, The Milesian.
scene while in the act of presenting him with a son and heir . The child almost instantly followed the mother's course , and thus did the same hour deprive O'Sullivan , at once , of wife and offspring . Had his greatest enemies seen the anguish that now lacerated his breast , under the galling pressure of this distressing catastrophe , they must have commiserated the reverses of human fate , and transferred their bitterness into condolence . No roofed abode , made hy man ' s frail hands , received the compass of his lamentations—to the vaulted heavens alone did he pour forth his grief , to be re-echoed by the caves , or the refluence of the roaring
ocean . To a mind thus softened by the chastenings of Providence , there is no comfort so sweet as that of religion . It came doubly recommended in the present case , not only because of its consolitary tendency under all circumstances of sorrow , but also from the fact that O'Sullivan had the advantage of an early initiation in its culture , and of a sustaining confidence , —notwithstanding the aberration to which he for once gave way , —in the inner
tranquillity which it afforded . The return , therefore , to his original habits was the inevitable result of his thought , with a settled resolution to carry this decision—now that life ' s attractions had lost their dazzling hue—to a preparation for holy orders . France was at that time the theatre of civil and religious freedom . Under this abused name , I do not mean to palliate the lasciviousness of excess
into which it has often degenerated in that region of volatility . I merely mention the circumstance , without averring an opinion , one way or the other ; yet can I not avoid contrasting with it the impolicy of our own enactments , of the same date , which would repress every form of religion and adoration that did not accord in manner and in name with our own . How , however ,
did the system work ? The Catholics of Ireland , unable to prosecute their studies , with a view to the priesthood , in their oivn country , betook themselves to the Continent as a more congenial seminary ; there , in endowments established by the bounty of some of their countrymen , who had but shortly before , themselves , been exiled from home , kindred , and connections , owing to their adhesion to the unfortunate James , they not only acquired instruction in all the fashionable branches of literature , but additionally graduated
in the several faculties of law , medicine , and divinity , —the latter department having been the primary object of the benevolent founders . Here it was that the restrictive character of the penal code , which originated these resources , met its most signal and retributory defeat . For the students who had been brought up in those foreign institutions , breathing the atmosphere of liberty , and impregnated in some degree with the spirit of latitudinarianism that surrounded them , returned home very
polished gentlemen , it is admitted ; but then , with an inbred dislike , and a superinduced aversion , to the existing order of things , which they took every opportunity to propagate . Could Tventure to express myself more fully as to the development of their feelings , I would say that to their innate resentment of personal or ancestral deprivations , they superadded tbe hos-