in Rome.

He was then not three months beyond thirty years of age. He ruled his diocese with the force of a commanding and controlling mind, but also with the heart of a gentle, charitable, hospitable Christian pastor. Without neglecting in the least degree the greatest of his sacerdotal toils, he entered with abundant zeal into the politics which vitally concerned his country and his creed. A public writer of such special political ability as J. K. L. had not appeared since the days of Junius. Dr. Doyle died on the 15th of June, in the forty-eighth year of his age. As in the case of many other eminent men, all sorts of absurd stories were circulated regarding the state of mind in which he died. His political and polemical opponents would not let even his remains be at peace. Some asserted that he died an infidel. Others, softening the fact, but not the scandal, reported that he refused the last rites of his Church. There were persons who sturdily maintained that he died a Protestant. Although there were more than a jury of eyewitnesses, male and female, lay and clerical, who knew the falsehood of these statements, and most solemnly denied their truth, zealots still continued to affirm them, and even to write bad and bulky pamphlets to prove them. But what will not zealots do for any creed or any cause? They are the blind, that will not see the light, shine it ever so clearly; they voluntarily make themselves blind, that they may not see the light; they are the deaf, that stuff their own ears to shut out hearing, and then insist that the sound of a trumpet is like the color of a rose. They have faith in nothing but their own illusions; they take their own narrow prejudices for universal and eternal facts; and when realities are asserted in contradiction to their prejudices, they hate the realities, and they hate those who assert them. They are in the universe, by their own passionate perverseness, infinite blunderers; as the ignorant confound the meanings of shall and will, zealots purposely reverse them, and, shouting defiance to everlasting truth, exclaim, "We will be drowned, and no veracity shall save us."

The matter of fact in the case before us is that the Rt. Rev. Dr. Doyle died simply as a Christian, and as a Roman Catholic bishop. He died in the creed in which he was educated, to which

he had devoted his life and labors; which he had preached so eloquently; which he had so ably defended: he died surrounded by its ministers; he died with such faith and hope in God, in Jesus, in immortality, as any Christian feels to be the blessedness of the death-bed. There was in the nature of Dr. Doyle a strange combination of the Stoic and the Christian. When very near to death, he was asked by his Vicar-General if he did not wish to live longer. "About my death or recovery," said he, "I feel perfectly indifferent. I came into the world without any exercise of my own will, and it is only fitting that I should leave it in the same manner. I never knew any one who wished to live longer in order to do a great deal of good, who did not do a great deal of harm. All my hopes are in the mercies of God. Am I not as near them now as if I were to remain forty years longer on earth?"

If we were to use only a single word to indicate the predominating element in the character of Bishop Doyle, that word would be strength. Strength was the ruling quality of his inward and his outward life, strength of motive, strength of principle, strength of purpose. He always seemed to have a powerful conception of the reason and the right of whatever he did or proposed to do; and having this conception, his persistence and perseverance in giving it reality, or in sustaining the reality which involved it, were heroic and invincible. Once that his end was determined, he shrank from no labor, no sacrifice, no pain, suffering, loss, or danger, to reach it; but yet to reach it by worthy means. The strength of Dr. Doyle's character appears from whatever direction we consider it. It appears in his private and public life; it appears in his conduct as child, relative, friend, opponent; as pupil, student, teacher; as priest and prelate; as speaker and writer; as patriot and politician; and this integrity of moral force gave a most compact unity to the whole man. But moral force corresponded with an equal degree of intellectual force; and in such correspondence was the completeness of its power. There are men whose conscience is beyond suspicion, one might almost say beyond temptation, who yet, from want of mental balance, fail in moral wisdom, and do not rise to the higher order of virtues. The very source of their excellence is also, in a certain

sense, the source of their weakness; so they become obstinate, or bigoted, or intolerant, or fanatical, or contentious, or meddlesome, or visionary; prostrated under a mistaken sense of obligation, or puffed up with an overbearing zeal, they often only irritate when they mean to improve, and, with the best intentions, are most mischievous in their actions. A man of weak understanding may be a good man; but his goodness should be active humbly within the sphere of his capacity, in mind as in means: to be a great man as well as a good man, there must be a strong understanding; and this Dr. Doyle possessed. This, indeed, was his most prominent mental faculty. Not deficient in imagination, in feeling, or in the sense of beauty, he was behind no man of his day in the vigor of his intellect. The force which this, united with conscience, gave to his character-if not modified by human sympathy and softened by Christian graces-might have become stern and unrelenting rigor. On occasions, Dr. Doyle approached the limit of a charitable severity.

nate.

No individual character consists of a single and simple principle; but that we have stated the ruling one in the character of Dr. Doyle will, we think, be confirmed by such other qualities of his moral nature as our space will allow us to desigHe was of undaunted courage, physical as well as moral. We have already mentioned how manfully he shouldered his musket, under Wellington, when the French invaded Portugal. He, an ecclesiastical student, was ready for strife, when duty told him that the cause was just. Such examples as his are of great value. They clear the clerical profession from the accusation of having refuge in more than a womanly security from danger; and one of the noblest lessons which our own sad war has taught us is written on the bloody graves to which our brave clergymen, of all creeds, have been sent, in their noble zeal for the discharge of their obligations as citizens and as priests. This is as it should be. The men who would inspire faith in another world must show us that they are without fear in this world. We must revere those who would instruct us; and neither in respect to the present world nor the future can we listen with attention or edification to a How can we think that the man who trembles at the

craven.

sound of a pistol believes in immortality? How can we think that the man who quails before the danger of losing bodily life believes in the eternal reality of spiritual life? It is well, therefore, even for the sake of moral influence, that our clergy should give the world assurance that they are men. They have boldly given such assurance. We have ourselves never assented to the doctrines of the Peace Society; we have not scoffed or laughed at them; but, taking men as they are, and as they are likely to be, we had no faith in these doctrines. We have listened to preachers whose words were soft and sweet,were like to those of Christian girlhood, meek and lowly, -indeed, as opposite to war as milk and honey are to gunpowder and cannon-shot. We have lived to hear such voices shrill like the sounds of trumpets, and their exhortations as calls to battle; to see priestly boldness as that of mighty captains; priestly death as that of martyrs; and we have said to ourselves, "Well done, grand souls! the stuff of manly greatness was in you, and sainthood was but the sanctification of heroism." Dr. Doyle eloquently vindicated the profession of arms, and declared that, had he not been called to a higher, arms would have been his own profession. "From my earliest youth," he says, "fear has been a feeling utterly unknown to me. I know not what it is, and, unless from the knowledge one gathers from common report, I know not what it is like."

Perhaps this explains his power as a polemic. And yet he says, "I dislike controversy." This great courage of his was displayed on several momentous occasions; as, for instance, in his several examinations before the High Court of Parliament. To stand before the choice men of the British Lords and Commons requires not only no ordinary intelligence, but no ordinary firmness. Very powerful men have broken down in the trial, and utterly disappointed the statesmen who summoned them as witnesses. On the contrary, Dr. Doyle did not tremble before the elect wisdom of the British empire; he was calm and fearless in the midst of most formidable opponents,for a great number of his Parliamentary questioners took the position of antagonists. Dr. Doyle in very important instances stood against O'Connell. At what risk of popularity he did this, we learn from himself. Requested, in a special

case, to resist O'Connell, "If I should do so," he replied, "the people of my own household would desert me." Nor did he shun the bodily danger which, even among portions of his own people, at one time seemed to threaten the most sacred personages. When not only landlords, land-jobbers, magistrates, constables, informers, tithe-proctors, process-servers, sheriffs, attorneys, and all such, were murdered, but even when priests themselves were assassinated, Dr. Doyle ventured into the most disturbed districts, and spoke to assemblies of fierce and reckless men, with bold and indignant eloquence. This courageous spirit Dr. Doyle evinced in speaking of Ireland itself. There are two conditions in civilized society in which national criticism, from within or from without, will not be tolerated. One is, when the country is young, strong, prosperous, full of energy, full of hope. Its fortune is the future, its possession is the immeasurable. Ideas take the place of experience. National criticism, in any form, such as satire, ridicule, caricature, or indignant expostulation,- becomes a risk that the boldest will not undertake; or which, if ventured on, soon drives the critics to silence or despair. The individual must join the chorus of the country, or modestly hold his peace. The other is, when the country is old; when it has lost its independence, and when its glory is in the past. The national affection is then in its traditions, and patriotism is more a sentiment of memory than of aspiration. Such a country has been Ireland. It is very sensitive. It holds closely, like a miser, all its hoarded wealth of national and proud recollections. Because impoverished in the present, it is all the more jealous of the past. And this treasure of national emotion is kept with the most watchful care in every genuinely Irish heart, from that of the laborer to that of the lord. It is difficult, therefore, to touch this sensibility, however innocently, without giving mortal offence. In the degree that the Irish have suffered pain, poverty, and historical humiliation, they bitterly resent even kindly strictures on their character or annals. Yet Dr. Doyle, in writing to a friend, says of Ireland: "Our origin and early possession of letters, and consequently of a certain degree of civilization, are, I think, points settled; but I cannot hide from myself that,