“Take care what you say, my man; the law does not suffer any person to disparage the Bible so,” said the squire, threateningly.

“I am not afraid, sir, to speak my mind, whatever you, as the representative of the law, may threaten.  ’Tis really amazing that ye should be so busy and troubled about Catholics, take such pains in kidnapping Catholic children, and forcing Catholic servants to go to listen to your disgusting prayers and bellowing preachers, when your own children are beyond your control; go to bed like cattle, without ever bending a knee in prayer; and if they go to ‘meeting,’ as it is properly called, it is only to mock the ‘old fool’ who holds forth to them.”

“There is some truth in what he says,” added the sheriff, looking at the squire.

“Agree among yourselves first,” said the Irish peasant, “before you commence to convert Catholics.  Convert the rowdies that crowd your village and city tavern bar rooms before you extend your zeal to those who are in no need of it, or on whom it will be all spent in vain.  Agree about the meaning of one single text in your Bible before you hand it to us for our study.”

“We all agree it’s the word of God.”

“Well, the word of God cannot contradict itself, and yet the religious system of each of you contradicts that of his neighbor.  One man says Christ is God; another denies this; and both quote Scripture in proof.  This man says bishops are necessary and divinely appointed; the next man denies this totally.  The Quaker denies what the disciple of Calvin or Knox believes, while the Universalist ignores what the latter professes; and now the Mormons, spiritual rappers, and Transcendentalists explode the Bible altogether.  The Catholic church, with those countless millions of her children that constitute her body, has been reading the Bible and studying it these nineteen hundred years, and never yet, with all her learning, could find two opposite meanings to one single text; never once contradicted herself.”

“You don’t say the Catholics are allowed the use of the Bible, do you? or that there was any Bible in the world but the one Luther found in the monastery hid, in the year 1517?” said the elder, who did not well hear, as he was somewhat deaf.

“Do you seriously believe that we Catholics have not leave to use the Bible?  I tell you we have, and always had, the unquestioned right to its proper use.  Even before the art of printing was discovered by a Catholic, and when books were scarce, a Bible, in large, plain writing, was chained to a stand or desk in each parish church in most countries, so that all who wished could read.  I saw one of these stands, which turned on a pivot, in an old Catholic church in Yorkshire, England, where it remains to this day.  And as regards the absurdity that Luther found the only copy of the Bible extant in a monastery or university, that story is refuted by the fact that there were millions of Bibles, and countless editions of it, printed before Luther was born.  Indeed, I have just read in this Protestant paper, here, that there is a Bible in Cincinnati, printed in 1470; that is, nearly fifty years before Luther began to revolt.”