His Controversy With An Infidel
Some time in the year 1775, a book was published, the title of which
was--Thoughts on Nature and Religion, which contained much gross
blasphemy. Its author, a Scottish physician of the name of Blair,
residing in Cork, undertook to be the champion of free-thinking in
religion; and, under the plausible pretext of vindicating the conduct of
Servetus in his controversy with Calvin, this writer boldly attacked
some of the m
The work attracted some share of public attention. A poetical effusion
in verse was addressed to Blair in reply by a minister of the Protestant
Church; and an Anabaptist minister also entered the lists with a
pamphlet nearly as sceptical as the one he professed to answer.
Father O'Leary's friends thought his style of controversy better suited
to silence the Doctor than that of either of the tried opponents, and
persuaded him to enter the lists. They were not disappointed. His reply
crushed Blair; while his wit and logic and grand toleration raised him
to the esteem and gratitude of his fellow-men. His first letter opens
with this beautiful introduction:
Sir--Your long expected performance has at length made its appearance.
If the work tended to promote the happiness of society, to animate our
hopes, to subdue our passions, to instruct man in the happy science of
purifying the polluted recesses of a vitiated heart, to confirm him in
his exalted notion of the dignity of his nature, and thereby to inspire
him with sentiments averse to whatever may debase the excellence of his
origin, the public would be indebted to you; your name would be recorded
amongst the assertors of morality and religion; and I myself, though
brought up in a different persuasion from yours, would be the first to
offer my incense at the shrine of merit. But the tendency of your
performance is to deny the divinity of Christ and the immortality of the
soul. In denying the first, you sap the foundations of religion; you cut
off at one blow the merit of our faith, the comfort of our hope, and the
motives of our charity. In denying the immortality of the soul, you
degrade human nature, and confound man with the vile and perishable
insect. In denying both, you overturn the whole system of religion,
whether natural or revealed; and in denying religion, you deprive the
poor of the only comfort which supports them under their distresses and
afflictions; you wrest from the hands of the powerful and rich the only
bridle to their injustices and passions, and pluck from the hearts of
the guilty the greatest check to their crimes--I mean this remorse of
conscience which can never be the result of a handful of organized
matter; this interior monitor, which makes us blush in the morning at
the disorders of the foregoing night; which erects in the breast of the
tyrant a tribunal superior to his power; and whose importunate voice
upbraids a Cain in the wilderness with the murder of his brother, and a
Nero in his palace with that of his mother.
Deploring the folly of him who thinks his soul is no more than a
subtile vapor, which in death is to be breathed out in the air, he
holds that such a person should conceal his horrid belief with more
secrecy than the Druids concealed their mysteries. * * In doing
otherwise, the infidel only brings disgrace on himself; for the notion
of religion is so deeply impressed on our minds, that the bold champions
who would fain destroy it, are considered by the generality of mankind
as public pests, spreading disorder and mortality wherever they appear;
and in our feelings we discover the delusions of cheating philosophy,
which can never introduce a religion more pure than that of the
Christian, nor confer a more glorious privilege on man than that of an
immortal soul.
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Swift says, in a letter to Mr. Pulteney: I will do an unmannerly thing, which is to bequeath you an epitaph for forty years hence, in two words, ultimus Britannorum. You never forsook your party. You might often have been as great as the court can m... O'connell And A Bilking Client
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Mr. Goulburn, while Secretary for Ireland, visited Killarney, when O'Connell (then on circuit) happened to be there. Both stopped at Finn's Hotel, and chanced to get bedrooms opening off the same corridor. The early habits of O'Connell made him be u... O'leary And Captain Rock
In Tom Moore's Memoirs of Captain Rock, the outlaw gives the following humorous sketch:-- The appearance of Father Arthur at our little chapel was quite unexpected. We had heard, indeed, that he was proceeding through distant parts of the country... O'leary And John O'keefe
In the Recollections of John O'Keefe, the following anecdote is related:-- In 1775 I was in company with Father O'Leary, at the house of Flynn, the printer in Cork. O'Leary had a fine smooth brogue; his learning was extensive, and his wit brillia... O'leary And The Irish Parliament
On the 26th February, 1782, the following interesting debate took place, the subject under consideration being a clause in the Catholic Bill directed against the friars:-- Sir Lucius O'Brien said, he did not approve of the regulars, though his ca... O'leary And The Quakers
In his Plea for Liberty of Conscience, Father O'Leary pays the following high tribute to that sect:-- The Quakers, said he, to their eternal credit, and to the honor of humanity, are the only persons who have exhibited a meekness and forbearance,... O'leary And The Rector
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In the Reminiscences of the celebrated singer and composer, Michael Kelly, the following interesting anecdotes are given: I had the pleasure to be introduced to my worthy countryman, the Rev. Father O'Leary, the well-known Roman Catholic priest; he ... On Stephen Duck The Thresher And Favorite Poet
The thresher Duck could o'er the Queen prevail, The proverb says, no fence against a flail. From threshing corn he turns to thresh his brains, For which her Majesty allows him gains. Though 'tis confest, that those who ever saw ... On The Same Upright Chief Justice Whitshed
In church your grandsire cut his throat: To do the job too long he tarried, He should have had my hearty vote, To cut his throat before he married. ...