 | Father Tom and the pope, or, A night in the Vatican |  |
PREFACE.
THERE are several questions which at this present
time remainn unsettled. One of them is, “who
invented gunpowder?” Another is, “which of them
was it, Faust or Guttemberg, that invented print
ing?” Another is, “whether the Deity created
nature, or nature created itself?” That is a poser.
Another is, “whether the original egg was the parent
of the chicken, or the egg was the original ancestor of
that celebrated feathered fowl?” “De novum ovum,”
et credentia, in meo judicio, quam supra
calcis phosphas, qui est, in the bones of the chicken.”
In other words, and to make it plain to the reader,
he, Xinctillios, cannot understand how it is possible
for human comprehension to see a new laid egg,
without permitting in his judgment the idea of
phosphate of lime existing in the osseous structure
of the bones of the original hen. St. Bardolphus
entertains a contrary opinion, “Anam, aname,
mona mike,” says he, “Barcelona bona strike,” says
he, “harum scarum, wy frone whack!” (I give
you the original Coptic) “harrico barrico, we won
frac!”
Between these two contending opinions I have
nothing to say. The dogmas of the Roman Catholic
Church, and the folatreries of the philosophers
of the high school of nature, differ so widely, that
it is impossible for common sense to adopt either
the one or the other—and the Greek Church on
these points has given no decided opinion!
Such a dilemma presents itself when we come to
consider the contents of this volume. Who wrote
it to the Duke of Wellington, who understood
the Irish vernacular to a dot. I have a shrewd
suspicion that Maginn, a high tory, although a good
Roman Catholic, and one of the prominent contributors
to Blackwood, lent his helping hand to it,
if he were not the real author of it all. “Howandiver,”
to use a phrase of the author, let us look
into the history of it.
Father Tom Maguire, a prominent Roman Catholic
priest in Killeshandra, Ireland, of the parish of
Innismagrath, was one of the most celebrated men
of his time. He was a splendid orator, trained at
Maynooth; he was a high liver—everything consisting
of meat and drink on his table was of the
best; his wines were excellent; and he kept the
best stable and the finest greyhounds in Ireland.
He was a bold fox-hunter; rode over ditch, hedge
and five-barred gate; and when his good Bishop
interdicted these sports of the Irish clergy, says
he, “I will give up my hunting,” says he; “but if
I must give up my greyhounds, there is a little
Protestant parish church hard by waiting for me.”
known. It is said that he adjured his church and
died a heretic. How much of this we can believe
depends altogether upon the amount of our credulity.
It may be true, and, alas! it may not!
Father Tom, as the great Roman Catholic controversalist,
was challenged to decide by argument
the superiority of the Romish Church over that of
the Established Church of England, by the Rev.
Richard T. P. Pope, a clergyman of the latter persuasion.
The controversy took place in the Rotunda,
at Dublin, about forty years ago.[1] Crowds
of spectators assembled to witness the religious
contest. Of course the ladies, who always take a
great interest in religious disputations, were present
in great numbers. The beauty and the fashion,
the graceful, the wise and the witty of Dublin
assembled to hear these knotty points discussed.
The Rev. Mr. Pope, who was a very learned scholar,
but unfortunately a timid man, based his great
argument upon the Bible itself. So long as he
stood upon this ground his arguments were unassailable.
twists so well known in polemics, managed
to get Pope to shift his ground from the Bible to
the Fathers. The dispute, which had occupied
several days, up to this time had been in favor of
Pope, but when Father Maguire got him entangled
in the Fathers, and hurled at him quotation after
quotation from St. Austin, St. Chrysostom, and
others—poor Pope, who knew very little of the
Fathers, became so dumb-foundered that he was
incapable of making a reply, and the victory rested
with Father Tom. But after the controversy was
over the Rev. Mr. Pope took up the Fathers, and to
his surprise could not find any of the quotations that
Father Tom had cited! Like a true scholar, he
published a book, exposing the fallacies of his antagonist.
But the time had gone by. Few people
cared to read it, fewer still had patience to wade
through laborious denials of the smart sayings of
Father Tom in the Rotunda; the sparkle was off—
the champagne had ceased to effervesce—and Mr.
Pope never recovered the ground he had lost.
Some years elapsed, and the Rev. Tresham D.
polemical cudgels to demolish the redoubtable
champion of the Romish Church. He was just
such a man as his antagonist, vehement, loud-voiced
—of the ad captandum, knock-down-and-drag-out
school. Although not acknowledged by the Church
of England as the Goliath of its faith, yet there is
no doubt of the secret exultation of its clergy at
his success. The challenge was accepted, and for a
fortnight the Rotunda of Dublin rang with the
verbal blows of these doughty combatants. Victory
poised her scales; the contest hung in the
balance. At last, one afternoon, after the battle of
the day was over, Gregg raised his mighty arm
high in the air, and said “that on the next day, the
secrets of the confessional would be the subject of
the discourse,” and warned the ladies, “that no
modest woman would appear, or could appear,
while he revealed the secrets of that powerful instrument
of the Romish Church.”
The consequences may be imagined. The hall
was packed to overflowing by the gentler sex.
Ladies of the Catholic persuasion, conscious of the
flocked to hear his discomfiture. Those of the
other persuasion were induced to come from a laudable
curiosity. The argument, if argument it
might be called, consisted on Gregg's part of that
style which Poe has properly denominated “the
awkward left arm of satire—invective.” He had
caught Father Tom at single-stick and paid him off
in his own way. There was of course no little allusion
to indelicate matters. After the argument
the Rev. Mr. Gregg had to be escorted to his
lodgings by a troop of dragoons. At the close of
the debate he announced, that on the morrow the
subject would be continued; but on the following
day Father Tom did not appear. The victorious
Gregg was cock of the walk; the judgment went
by default.
Whether any one among the speakers or listeners
became better Christians after the controversy, is a
question. It is doubtful whether Gregg or Father
Tom made or lost a single convert to either faith.
“Father Tom and the Pope” first saw the light
in Blackwood, ten years after these controversies.
good Catholic, but it may truly be said of him, that
although he “loved the Church much, he loved fun
more.” As a work of mere wit it must take its
place with some of the brightest efforts of Rabelais,
of Montaigue, or of Pascal.
The ingenuity with which the conversation between
the Pope and Father Tom is developed to
the reader, forms no little part of its felicitousness.
A hedge priest, one Michael Heffernan, of the National
School of Ballymacktaggart, is the interlocutor.
This keeper of a ragged school, under the
shadow of an Irish hedge, is the exponent of theological
controversies that have shaken the world!
Happy satire! which like summer lightning, clears
up the atmosphere, and makes even the skies bright,
blue, beautiful and buoyant. To us! poor mortals!
to whom a touch of nature shakes the laughter
out of us, or brings the tears into our eyes, such
books are the treasures of our language.
If out of the sorrow and misery of this world,
wit has managed to alleviate one shade of human
suffering; if it has lifted up its hand against
lessened the ridiculous power of a so-called
chivalry, or in the satires of Swift destroyed the
prestige of hereditary birth; if it has done any
good in this world, let so much good be accounted
to it.
| Father Tom and the pope, or, A night in the Vatican | |