een
suspended? Didn't I tell you that drink had taken that power over me
that, if roaring hell were open, and I sitting on the brink of it and a
table beside me with whisky on it, I should fill myself a glass?'

'And knowing you were going down to hell?'

'Yes, that night nothing would have stopped me. But, talking of hell, I
heard a good story yesterday. Pat Carabine was telling his flock last
Sunday of the tortures of the damned, and having said all he could about
devils and pitchforks and caldrons, he came to a sudden pause--a blank
look came into his face, and, looking round the church and seeing the
sunlight streaming through the door, his thoughts went off at a tangent.
"Now, boys," he said, "if this fine weather continues, I hope you'll be
all out in the bog next Tuesday bringing home my turf."'

Father Oliver laughed, but his laughter did not satisfy Father Moran,
and he told how on another occasion Father Pat had finished his sermon
on hell by telling his parishioners that the devil was the landlord of
hell. 'And I leave yourself to imagine the groaning that was heard in
the church that morning, for weren't they all small tenants? But I'm
afraid my visit has upset you, Gogarty.'

'How is that?'

'You don't seem to enjoy a laugh like you used to.'

'Well, I was thinking at that moment that I've heard you say that, even
though you gave way to drink, you never had any doubts about the reality
of the hell that awaited you for your sins.'

'That's the way it is, Gogarty, one believes, but one doesn't act up to
one's belief. Human nature is inconsistent. Nothing is queerer than
human nature, and will you be surprised if I tell you that I believe I
was a better priest when I was drinking than I am now that I'm sober? I
was saying that human nature is very queer; and it used to seem queer to
myself. I looked upon drink as a sort of blackmail I paid to the devil
so that he might let me be a good priest in everything else. That's the
way it was with me, and there was more sense in the idea than you'd be
thinking, for when the drunken fit was over I used to pray as I have
never prayed since. If there was not a bit of wickedness in the world,
there would be no goodness. And as for faith, drink never does any harm
to one's faith whatsoever; there's only one thing that takes a man's
faith from him, and that is woman. You remember the expulsions at
Maynooth, and you know what they were for. Well, that sin is a bad one,