od or the persecution of man. Be faithful to the principles
of our holy religion--be faithful to truth--to moral virtue--be faithful
to God, before whose awful tribunal we must all appear, and render an
account of our lives. It would be mere wantonness to throw yourselves
into the hands of our persecutors. Reserve yourselves; for the
continuance and the sustainment of our blessed religion; but if you
should happen to fall, by the snares and devices of the enemy, into the
power of those who are striving to work our extermination, and if
they should press you to renounce your faith, upon the alternative of
banishment or death, then, I say, banishment, or death itself, sooner
than become apostates to your religion. I shall retire to a neighborhood
only a few miles distant from this, where the poor Catholic population
are without spiritual aid or consolation. I have been there before, and
I know their wants, and were it not that I was hunted and pursued with
a view to my death--to my murder, I should rather say--I would have
remained with them still. But that I considered it a duty to that
portion of the Church over which God called upon me to preside and
watch, I would not have avoided those inhuman traffickers in the blood
of God's people. Yet I am bound to say that, from the clergymen of
the Established Church, and from many Protestant magistrates, we have
received kindness, sympathy, and shelter. Their doors, their hearths,
and their hearts have been open to us, and that, too, in a truly
Christian spirit. Let us, then, render them good for good; let us pray
for their conversion, and that they may return to the right path."

"They have acted generously and nobly," added Reilly, "and in a truly
Christian spirit. Were it not for the shelter and protection which I
myself received from one of them, my mangled body would probably be
huddled down into some obscure grave, as a felon, and my property--which
is mine only by a necessary fiction and evasion of the law--have passed
into the hands of Sir Robert Whitecraft. I am wrong, however, in saying
that it could. Mr. Hastings, a generous and liberal Protestant, took it
in his own name for my father, but gave me a deed of assignment, placing
it as securely in my hands, and in my power, as if I were Sir Robert
Whitecraft himself; and I must add--which I do with pleasure--that the
deed in question is now in the possession of the Rev. Mr. Brown, the
amiable rector of the parish."