w which prohibited it, and another which enjoined
attendance at the Anglican worship, remained unrepealed, and might at
any time be revived; and the former was, in fact, enforced during the
Scotch rebellion of 1715. The parish priests, who alone were allowed to
officiate, were compelled to be registered, and were forbidden to keep
curates or to officiate anywhere except in their own parishes. The
chapels might not have bells or steeples. No crosses might be publicly
erected. Pilgrimages to the holy wells were forbidden. Not only all
monks and friars, but also all Catholic archbishops, bishops, deacons,
and other dignitaries, were ordered by a certain day to leave the
country; and if after that date they were found in Ireland they were
liable to be first imprisoned and then banished; and if after that
banishment they returned to discharge their duty in their dioceses, they
were liable to the punishment of death. To facilitate the discovery of
offences against the code, two justices of the peace might at any time
compel any Catholic of eighteen years of age to declare when and where
he last heard Mass, what persons were present, and who officiated; and
if he refused to give evidence they might imprison him for twelve
months, or until he paid a fine of twenty pounds. Any one who harboured
ecclesiastics from beyond the seas was subject to fines which for the
third offence amounted to confiscation of all his goods. A graduated
scale of rewards was offered for the discovery of Catholic bishops,
priests, and schoolmasters; and a resolution of the House of Commons
pronounced 'the prosecuting and informing against Papists' 'an
honourable service to the Government.'

"Such were the principal articles of this famous code--a code which
Burke truly described as 'well digested and well disposed in all its
parts; a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted
for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the
debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the
perverted ingenuity of man.'"[31]

The effects of these laws Mr. Lecky has described thus:

"The economical and moral effects of the penal laws were, however,
profoundly disastrous. The productive energies of the nation were
fatally diminished. Almost all Catholics of energy and talent who
refused to abandon their faith emigrated to foreign lands. The relation
of classes was permanently vitiated; for almost all the propr