there is no law, supernatural or natural, forbidding us (who, if we have not many of the crosses, neither have we many of the pleasures of this life) from meeting sometimes, and carrying out st. paul's prescriptions in the matter of hospitality. i believe, indeed, his words—and he was a wise, kind saint—apply principally to bishops; but why should not we imitate our superiors afar off, and practise the kindly virtue? it is good to meet sometimes and exchange opinions; it softens the asperities of daily life, makes the young think reverently of the old, and the old charitably of the young. at least, these are my views, and acting upon them there is always an open door and a cead milé failté for a brother; and a few times in the year i try to gather around me my dear friends, and thus to cement those bonds of friendship that make life a little more pleasant, and, perhaps, may keep our memories green. sometimes, indeed, my dear old friends object to face a drive of eight or ten miles on a cold night in winter; but the young fellows always come. nothing but extreme urgency would keep them away from an evening with daddy dan. now, we have no nonsense,—no soups, nor entrées, which some of my more fashionable confrères are at present affecting, if you please; but a plain turkey and ham, and a roast leg of mutton, and a few little trimmings to fill up vacant spaces. there is an old tradition, too, in ireland, which i keep to pretty closely,—never to invite more than the muses, nor less than the graces; but on this occasion—it was during the octave of the epiphany—i departed from the custom, and, owing to a few disappointments, the ominous number of thirteen sat down to dinner. i must say, however, it had not a paralyzing effect on the appetites of my guests, nor did they appear to have any apprehensions of a sudden call to the places where turkeys and good mutton are not appreciated. there were a few jokes about the intolerable longevity of certain parish priests; and when my curate, who occupied the vice-chair with infinite grace and dignity, remarked in his own grand style that "really da vinci's 'last supper' was responsible for that unhallowed superstition, and there really was nothing in it," some few wags professed themselves greatly relieved, and showed it by new-born zeal in the avocations of the evening. my duties as host engrossed all my attention, until the table was cleared for action; and the call for coffee from eight out of thirteen guests recalled me to my favorite meditation on the mighty yet silent revolution that is progressing in the irish church.

i have been now in touch with three generations of irish priests, each as distinct from the other, and marked by as distinctive characteristics, as those which differentiate an anglican parson from a mediæval monk. my early education was colored by contact with the polished, studious, timid priests, who, educated in continental seminaries, introduced into ireland all the grace and dignity and holiness, and all the dread of secular authority with the slight tendency to compromise, that seemed to have marked the french clergy, at least in the years immediately succeeding the revolutions and the napoleonic wars. these were the good men who fraternized with landlords, and lent their congregations to a neighboring parson on the occasion of some governmental visitation; who were slightly tinged with gallican ideas, and hated progress and the troubles that always accompany it. they were holy, good, kindly men, but they could hardly be called officers of the church militant. then came maynooth, which, founded on governmental subsidies, poured from its gates the strongest, fiercest, most fearless army of priests that ever fought for the spiritual and temporal interests of the people,—men of large physique and iron constitutions, who spent ten hours a day on horseback, despised french claret, loved their people and chastised them like fathers, but were prepared to defend them with their lives and the outpouring of their blood against their hereditary enemies. intense in their faith, of stainless lives and spotless reputations, their words cut like razors, and their hands smote like lightning; but they had the hearts of mothers for the little ones of their flocks. they had the classics at their fingers' ends, could roll out lines from virgil or horace at an after-dinner speech, and had a profound contempt for english literature. in theology they were rigorists, too much disposed to defer absolution and to give long penances. they had a cordial dislike for new devotions, believing that christmas and easter communion was quite enough for ordinary sancity. later on they became more generous, but they clung with tenacity to the brown scapular and the first sunday of the month. i am quite sure they have turned somersaults in their graves since the introduction of the myriad devotions that are now distracting and edifying the faithful. but they could make, and, alas! too often perhaps for christian modesty, they did make, the proud boast that they kept alive the people's faith, imbued them with a sense of the loftiest morality, and instilled a sense of intense horror for such violations of church precepts as a communicatio cum hereticis in divinis, or the touching of flesh meat on a day of abstinence. i believe i belong to that school, though my sympathies are wide enough for all. and as in theology, i am quite prepared to embrace thomists, and scotists, and molinists, nominalists and realists in fraternal charity, so, too, am i prepared to recognize and appreciate the traits and characteristics of the different generations of clerics in the irish church. sometimes, perhaps, through the vanity that clings to us all to the end, i play the part of "laudator temporis acti," and then the young fellows shout:—

"ah, but, father dan, they were giants in those days."

and the tags and shreds of poor human nature wave in the wind of flattery; and i feel grateful for the modest appreciation of a generation that has no sympathy with our own.

then, down there, below the water-line of gray heads is the coming generation of irish priests, who, like the λαμπαδηφοροι of old in the athenian games, will take the torch of faith from our hands and carry it to the acropolis of heaven,—clean-cut, small of stature, keen-faced, bicycle-riding, coffee-drinking, encyclopædic young fellows, who will give a good account of themselves, i think, in the battles of the near future. it is highly amusing to a disinterested spectator, like myself, to watch the tolerant contempt with which the older generation regards the younger. they have as much contempt for coffee as for ceremonies, and i think their mistakes in the latter would form a handsome volume of errata, or add another appendix to our valuable compendiums. to ask one of these old men to pass a cup of coffee is equivalent to asking a hebrew of the strict observance to carve a ham, or a hindoo to eat from the same dish with a christian. and many other objects that the passing generation held in high esteem are "gods of the gentiles" to the younger. they laugh profanely at that aureole of distinction that used hang around the heads of successful students, declaring that a man's education only commences when he leaves college, and that his academical training was but the sword exercise of the gymnasium; and they speak dreadful things about evolution and modern interpretation, and the new methods of hermeneutics, and polychrome bibles; and they laugh at the idea of the world's creation in six days; and altogether, they disturb and disquiet the dreams of the staid and stately veterans of the famine years, and make them forecast a dismal future for ireland when german metaphysics and coffee will first impair, and then destroy, the sacred traditions of irish faith. and yet, these young priests inherit the best elements of the grand inheritance that has come down to them. their passionate devotion to their faith is only rivalled by their passionate devotion to the motherland. every one of them belongs to that great world-wide organization of priests adorers, which, cradled in the dying years of our century, will grow to a gigantic stature in the next; for at last it has dawned upon the world that around this sacred doctrine and devotion, as around an oriflamme, the great battles of the twentieth century will rage. and they have as tender and passionate a love for the solitary isle in the wintry western seas as ever brought a film to the eyes of exile, or lighted the battle fires in the hearts of her heroes and kings. and with all my ancient prejudices in favor of my own caste, i see clearly that the equipments of the new generation are best suited to modern needs. the bugle-call of the future will sound the retreat for the ancient cavalry and the old guard, and sing out, forward the light brigade!

this evening, as usual, the conversation was discursive. it ranged over the whole area of human knowledge and experience, from the price of a horse to lehmkuhl's latinity, and from the last political speech to the everlasting question, ever discussed and never decided, what is meant by the month's residence as a condition for the acquisition of a domicile? that horrible drug was irritating the nerves of the younger men, until i heard, as in a dream, a babel of voices:—"the two ballerini,"—"they'll never arrest him,"—"he'll certainly fire on the people,"—"daniel never wrote that book, i tell you,"—"'t is only a ringbone,"—"fifty times worse than a sprain,"—"he got it in the gregorian university,"—"paddy murray, george crolly,"—"i admire balfour for his profound knowledge of metaphysics,"—"did you see the article in the record about the spanish dispensation?"—"he's got a first-class mission in ballarat,"—"no, the lessons were from the scripture occurring,"—"i don't think we're bound to these masses,"—"'twas a fine sermon, but too flowery for my tastes,"—"yes, we expect a good shrove this year,"—"his data of ethics won't stand examination,"—"our fellows will lick yours well next time,"—"picking the grapes and lemons at tivoli,"—"poor old kirby, what an age he is,"—"'twilight and evening bell, and after that the dark, and may there be no sadness of farewell, when i embark,' that's the way it runs,"—"he cut in his physic year, and is running a paper in boston,"—"it is up now to thirty-five shillings a ton, and will go higher," etc., etc. the older men, under the more kindly influence, were calm as sophomores. amidst the whirlpool of words, they clung to two sheet-anchors,—o'connell in politics, and st. alphonsus in theology.

at last, the conversation simmered down into an academic debate, whether the centripetal system, which concentrates all irish students in maynooth, or the centrifugal, which sends them scampering over the continent to the ancient universities, was the better. this was a calm, judicious tournament, except now and again, when i had to touch the gong, and say:—

"gentlemen, only three at a time, if you please."

it was a curious thing to notice that those who had studied in maynooth were very much in favor of a continental education; and those who had been in foreign universities were rather inclined to give the verdict for maynooth.

"you see," said one, "it is an education in itself to go abroad. it means expansion, and expansion is education. then you have the immense advantage of being able to learn and master the foreign languages and literature, and nowadays a man that can't speak french at least is a very helpless creature."

"you take it for granted," replied another, "that residence abroad insures a knowledge of french. i spent six years in the seminary at n——, and except cela va sans dire, tant pis, and a few other colloquialisms, which you will find on the last page of an english dictionary, i might as well have been in timbuctoo."

"well," said my curate,—and though he is not very popular, somehow or other his words appear to carry great weight,—"i must confess that the regret of my life is that i had not an opportunity of studying in rome, just as the hope of my life is that i shall see rome before i die. i consider that the greatest irish college in the world, in numbers and in the influence that arises from intellectual superiority, should be somewhere within the shadows of the seven hills."

"why not transfer the dunboyne, with all its endowments and emoluments, to rome?" asked a young, eager fellow, who says he can read the office, going ten miles an hour on the bicycle.

"'t wouldn't ever do," said a roman student; "you must be brought up in rome to understand its spirit. transplanted shoots never thrive there."

"psha!" said an old maynooth man, who had been listening impatiently to these suggestions; "we forgot more theology in maynooth than you ever learned."

"i don't want to disparage your knowledge of theology, father," said my curate, sweetly, "but you know there are other elements in priestly education besides the mere propositions, and the solvuntur objecta of theology. and it is in rome these subtle and almost intangible accomplishments are acquired."

now, this was getting a little warm; so i winked at a young fellow down along the table, and he took the hint promptly, and cried out: "look here, father dan, this is tiresome. tell us how you managed the irish brigade in france in the fifties. weren't they going to throw marseilles into the sea?"

"now, now," said i, "that won't do. i'm not going to be trotting out that old chestnut at every dinner party. let us have a song!"

and we had, and a good many of them,—dear, old irish melodies that would melt an icicle and put blood into a marble statue. no nonsense at my table, i assure you. no operatic rubbish, but genuine irish music, with the right lilt and the right sentiment. i did let a young fellow once sing, "i dreamt that i dwelt in marble halls"; but i told him never to repeat it. but it was worth while going miles to hear my curate singing, in his own fine voice, that superb ballad of that true and gentle patriot, thomas davis, "the mess-tent is full, and the glasses are set."

dear me! what a mercurial race we are; and how the mercury runs up and down in the barometer of our human hearts! i could see the young priests' faces whitening at the words:

"god prosper old ireland! you'd think them afraid,

so pale grew the chiefs of the irish brigade!"

and softening out in lines of tenderness when the end came:

"for, on far foreign fields, from dunkirk to belgrade,

lie the soldiers and chiefs of the irish brigade."

then we had "the west's awake," and "dear land," and then we all arose and sang together, "god bless the pope, the great, the good." i was going to say "sang in unison," but i am afraid i should be trespassing on the sacred precincts of truth; yet if that grand old man in rome, that electric spark in the vase of alabaster, sitting in that lonely chamber, behind the long, empty, gas-lit state apartments, could hear those voices there above the western seas, he would surely realize more keenly what he understands already, that he can always call upon his irish reserves to ring, as with a fence of steel, the chair and the prerogatives of peter.

then came the "good nights." i pulled aside an old friend, a great theologian, who has all kinds of musty, dusty, leather-bound, water-stained volumes on his shelves.

"did you ever hear," i whispered, "of a mysterious thing, called the kampaner thal?"

"never," he said, emphatically.

"you couldn't conjecture what it is?"

"no," he said, with deliberation; "but i can aver it is neither greek, latin, nor irish."

"would you mind looking up your cyclopædias," i pleaded, "and letting me know immediately that you find it?"

"of course," he replied. then, jerking his thumb over his shoulder: "i suppose it is this chap?"

"it is," i said. "he reads a good deal—"

"look here, father dan, i don't know what we're coming to. did you ever see such a sight as that table to-night?"

"never," i replied, resignedly.

"would any one believe, when we came on the mission, that we'd live to see such things? why, these fellows talk up to us as if we were their equals. don't you remember when a curate daren't open his mouth at table?"

"of course," i replied, demurely.

"and it is only now i am beginning to discover the vagaries of this chap of mine. do you know what he wants? a shrine, if you please,—some kind of picture, with candles lighting before it all day. 'can't you say your rosary,' i said, 'like your betters?' no, he should have the shrine. and now he wants to force on benediction every sunday,—not every first sunday of the month, but every sunday, if you please. and he has a big red lamp, burning in what he calls his oratory. you can see it miles away. i say to the boys, 'don't be afraid to put to sea at night now, boys. begor, ye 've got a lighthouse at last.' well, good by! what's this thing you want?"

and he jotted down the name, i presume phonetically, in his note-book. now, mind, that man has not had a scandal in his parish for fourteen years; and he is up to his neck in securities for half the farmers of the district.

all this time, shrinking into an obscure corner of the hall, was my curé d'ars, as i call him. he now came forward to say good night, his thin face wreathed in smiles, and his two hands stretched out in thankfulness.

"good night, father dan, and a thousand thanks. i never spent a pleasanter evening. what fine young fellows! so clever, so jolly, and so edifying! won't it be a satisfaction for us when we are going to leave behind us such splendid safeguards of the faith?"

his curate was waiting respectfully. he now got the little man into his great-coat, and buttoned it from collar to boot, the latter murmuring his thanks all the time:—

"dear me! dear me! what a trouble i am! many thanks! many thanks! there, now i am all right!"

then his muffler was wrapped carefully around his neck by this big grenadier, and his gloves were drawn over his hands.

"dear me! dear me! how good! how kind! i'm a regular mummy! a real egyptian mummy, father dan! good night! good night! dear me, what a pleasant gathering!"

and the stalwart curate lifted him on his car, as if he were an infant.

a few days later we had a long chat over many things, i and my curate.

when he was going he said:—

"that was a real jolly evening, father dan! i never enjoyed anything so much!"

"yes," i said, "and you had a splendid audience for that noble song!"

"yes, indeed; they were very kind."

"oh, i don't mean in foro interno," i said, "but in foro externo. there was a good crowd outside the window!"

"my god!" he cried, quite shocked. "what a scandal!"

"not a bit of it," i said; "you've gone up a hundred per cent in the estimation of the villagers. there was a real fight for the window-sill. but your friend, jem deady, captured it."

he looked dreadfully annoyed.

"jem says that he kept awake all night trying to remember the notes; and if you'd give him the words of the song and whistle it—"

"what!" said father letheby, like a pistol-shot.

"and if you'd give him two or three audiences—i suppose he means rehearsals on the piano—he is quite sure—"

dear me! how some people despise popularity!