much asunder, or when we met exhibited us to each other in our darkest
and most offensive aspects.

Dominick's conduct in the matter of the priest's money was also a happy
illustration of that mixture of simplicity and shrewdness with which
an Irishman can frequently make points meet, which superstition, alone,
without such ingenuity, would keep separate for ever. Many another
man might have refused the money from an ignorant dread of its proving
unlucky; but his mode of reasoning on the subject was satisfactory
to himself, and certainly the most ingenious which, according to his
belief, he could have adopted--that of foisting it upon a heretic.

The eloquence of a country priest, though rude, and by no means
elevated, is sometimes well adapted to the end in view, to the feelings
of his auditory, and to the nature of the subject on which he speaks.
Pathos and humor are the two levers by which the Irish character is
raised or depressed; and these are blended, in a manner too anomalous to
be ever properly described. Whoever could be present at a sermon on
the Sunday when a Purgatorian Society is to be established, would hear
pathos and see grief of the first water. It is then he would get
a "nate" and glowing description of Purgatory, and see the broad,
humorous, Milesian faces, of three or four thousand persons, of both
sexes, shaped into an expression of the most grotesque and clamorous
grief. The priest, however, on particular occasions of this nature, very
shrewdly gives notice of the sermon, and of the purpose for which it is
to be preached:--if it be grave, the people are prepared to cry; but
if it be for a political, or any other purpose not decidedly religious,
there will be abundance of that rough, blunt satire and mirth, so keenly
relished by the peasantry, illustrated, too, by the most comical and
ridiculous allusions. That priest, indeed, who is the best master
of this latter faculty, is uniformly the greatest favorite. It is no
unfrequent thing to see the majority of an Irish congregation drowned
in sorrow and tears, even when they are utterly ignorant of the language
spoken; particularly in those districts where the Irish is still the
vernacular tongue. This is what renders notice of the sermon and its
purport necessary; otherwise the honest people might be seriously at a
loss whether to laugh or cry.

"_Elliih avourneen, gho dhe dirsha?_"--"Ellish, my dear, what is he
saying?"

"_Och, musha niel eshig