Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 786 pages of information about Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent.

Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 786 pages of information about Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent.

“Nailed snugly to the pillory!  I never felt myself so much degraded as by this conversation with you.”

“Sir, the Catholic priesthood have always been at their duty at the bed of sickness, and sorrow, and death, among the poor and afflicted; where you, who live by their hard and slavish labor, have never been known to show your red nose.”

“Red nose—­ha—­ha—­dear me, how well bred, how admirably accomplished, and how finely polished.  Red nose!”

“Faith, you did well to correct me, it is only a mulberry.  Wasn’t your Irish Establishment in a blessed torpor—­dying like a plethoric parson after his venison or turtle, until ould Jack Wesley roused it?  Then, indeed, when you saw your flocks running to barns and hedges after the black caps, and the high-cheeked disciples of sanctity and strong dinners—­you yawned, rubbed your eyes, stroked your dewlaps, and waddled off to fight in your own defence against the long-winded invaders of your rounds and sirloins.  Where was your love of education before that shock, my worthy Bible man?  Faith, I’m peppering you!”

“Sir, if I could have anticipated such very vulgar insolence, I would have taken some other way.  Why obtrude yourself thus upon me?  I trust you have no notion of personal Violence?”

“Wesley nudged you.”

“Nudged us!  I do not understand your slang at all, my good sir.  Those who are taken from the ditch to the college, and sent back from the college with the crust of their original prejudices hardened upon them, are not those from whom educated men are to expect refinement or good manners.”

“From the ditch!  We are taken from humble life, proud parson, to the college; and it is better to enter college from the simplicity of humble life, than to enter the church with the rank savor of fashionable profligacy strong upon us.  Not a bad preparation for a carnal establishment, where every temptation is presented to glut every passion.”

“You forget, sir, what a system of abomination your church was before the light of the Reformation came upon her; and what a mockery of religion she is to this day.”

“Whatever I may forget, I cannot but remember the mockery of religion presented by your proud and bloated Bishops who roll in wealth, indolence, and sensuality; robbing the poor, whilst they themselves go to h—­l worth hundreds of thousands.  I cannot forget that your church is a market for venal and titled slaves, who are bought by the minister of the day to uphold his party—­that it is a carcass thrown to the wolfish, sons and brothers of the English and Irish aristocracy—­and that its bishops and dignitaries exceed in pride, violence of temper, and insolence of deportment, any other class of persons in society.  Sure they have their chaplains to pray for them—­but my soul to glory—­those that pray by proxy will go to heaven by proxy—­and so they ought.  Eh—­faith I’m peppering you.”

De te fabula narratur.  Don’t you live by praying for others?  What are your masses?”

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Project Gutenberg
Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.