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annihilated--a labor-saving machine of political economy, introduced
into the world by the robbers of the reformation, in order to get rid of
surplus population, and in order that the Lazaruses of society might not
disturb the false repose of their hypocrisy, by begging the crums that
fall from their plunder-burdened tables!

The American poorhouse, however, is of quite a different description,
and the promptitude and unanimity of the public mind regarding the
necessity of a law to provide for the support of the poor are among the
most laudable traits in the American character. In America, the
patrimony of the poor was never wrested from the church, to which God
committed their care; the charities and bequests of ages were not
plundered and squandered by the vilest of the human race, as in Britain;
hospitals, churches, abbeys, monasteries, convents, and other endowed
provisions for the poor, were not robbed and confiscated by the
sectarians of the new world, (probably because they did not exist
there;) and hence the essential difference between the English and
American poorhouse. There is no part of the Scripture the reformation
people so rigidly adhered to, or now pretend to adhere to, as the
advice of Judas, "Let this be sold and given to the poor." They made the
sale, but the poor they left unprovided for, till their numbers
increased so as to threaten the ill-gotten goods of the plunderers, who
at length passed laws compelling the poor to support the poor. And this
was the origin of poorhouses--a true Protestant creation.

CHAPTER V.

THE O'CLERYS.

The O'Clery family was an ancient and honored one in Ireland. Princes,
chieftains, and warriors of the name were renowned before Charlemagne or
Alfred ascended the throne, or before any of the petty princes of the
heptarchy ruled over the barbarous Saxons. Like all the royal and noble
houses of Europe, the O'Clerys, after ages of glory and prosperity, had
their hour of decline and decay also. But it was a question whether the
virtues of this renowned house were more brilliant or conspicuous in the
zenith of its glory, or in its fallen or humbled state. The Irish church
founded by Saint Patrick never wanted an O'Clery to adorn her sanctuary
or to record her victories. The annals of the Four Masters will stand to
the end of the world as a proud monument of the services rendered to the
Irish church and to history by these illustrious annalists; and when the
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