the seven millions of poor, famished Catholics, harassed by starvation, rack-rent, tithe, poverty, and misery who clung so doggedly to the faith of Patrick, to the rock of Peter.

The rumour and reports of the stampede of the Irish into the fold of Luther reached Rome; and Rome wondered and tried to learn the truth. Five Bishops were sent in commission to examine closely into the facts. They sat for days, took evidence in several places, and found (1) gross exaggeration of numbers, (2) that many so-called converts were reared in heresy, (3) that the converts generally were weeds, strollers, and tramps, and that (4) bribery and corruption were widespread and wholesale. Thus, Catherine Fitzpatrick swore that she was offered £10 to become a Protestant; Bryan Smith was offered a teachership in a Bible school; W. Reilly, of Killincere, was offered a cottage and garden free if he became a pervert.

The priests were put upon their mettle, and the parish priest of Arva was astounded to learn that over fifty of his flock had been drawn into heresy. He nailed the lie by advertising that he would give £10 to anyone who would show up an adult pervert who had been six months resident in his parish, and he deposited the money with Mr. George Millar. The money was unclaimed, and he won a fine victory over the Soupers, who met in this incident the beginning of their local rout. The pastor of Downpatrick, Father Clinton, watched the arrival of the ranters and their bribes and Bibles. Speaking with that discipline-of-thesecret spirit which we use in Ulster, he said at the Sunday Mass: The devil has come to Downpatrick! Put him out put him out, put him out.' His sheep heard and learned and Downpatrick became a desert, a Sahara for th Biblicals.1

Unconverted ballad-singers reading that in Arva 34, i Bailieboro' 10, in Belturbet 1, in Ballyneaching 25, in Bally duff 11, in Cavan 52, and in Cootehill 2 persons joined th

1 Life of Dr. Crolly, Archbishop of Armagh, p. 82.

Souper army, wrote and sang the name and fame of the

converts ':

Darby Keelan kept a school

And was a lettered man,

He having learnt Kildare Street rule,
When Bible work began.
Surely no differ Darby made
"Twixt Chapel or the Church;
He carried on a flogging trade
And gloried in the birch.

Old Blakely was a policeman,
But he was no newcomer.

In '98 he first began

To be a Cavan drummer.

Many a happy day he saw,

When flogging was in fashion;
And ne'er he thinks of martial law,
But he gets in a passion.

But we have converts more than these,
Who have the Pope forsaken,

Whom we supply with bread and cheese,
With stirabout and bacon.

Lord Farnham says to John the Cart:
'Harness up, and from my heart
Tell every papist thou shalt meet,
Tell every whiskey drinker,
And all that travel in bare feet,

Of Peg and Matt, the tinker.'

E. J. QUIGLEY.

1 Vide Farnham Hall, by Madden, etc.; Dublin, Haydock, 1827.

THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY AND
THE ALLEGED DEBT OF SIN

BY REV. F. O'NEILL

THE

I

HE vast majority of medieval and modern divines hold that the Blessed Virgin contracted a debt of sin.1 In other words, she ought to have been conceived with the original stain, only she was prevented by grace; and then she could have existed in the state of sin. At first sight this view seems correct, and the only one tenable. But we shall see that it is, happily, far from the truth; and if someone ask, do I mean that the Virgin could be Immaculate without grace? I answer, No; but the Virginthat is, the only woman foretold in Scripture-could not have existed but for grace, in the actual economy that God was to be born of a sinless mother, and AS SUCH she ought not to contract the original stain, and could not exist in the state of sin.'

The question, then, with which I propose to deal is no academic one; and when those who have neither the time nor the taste for problems involving subtle distinctions, come to see the practical bearing of this alleged debitum on the solemn definition, and on the physical part of Mary's personality, they will naturally rub their eyes in mute wonderment, if only they follow to their logical conclusions some of the statements made by medieval and modern divines.

For if this view, favoured even by the majority of theologians writing since 1854, were true, then the battle of the Immaculate Conception is not yet fought to a finish; and

1 Father M'Guinness, C.M., De Deo Creatore, n. 60. Dr. Pohle,

Mariology, p. 40.

it would make very difficult the proposed definition of the corporal assumption : 1st. Because, as a result of this teaching, a theological basis for the future dogma could not be established, save and except by that of a slender tradition, as Hurter says,' and backed up by a few suasory proofs. 2nd. No matter what Suarez holds about the alleged debt of sin, it detracts from the dignity of the Deipara, and pares away her privileges, especially her corporal integrity. 3rd. It does not harmonize with the wording of the solemn Definition of the Immaculate Conception, which establishes beyond yea or nay the truth of the corporal Assumption.

Baius was condemned by different Popes, not only for saying the Blessed Virgin was conceived in original sin but also for maintaining that her death and suffering were the effects or penalties of that sin.'

93

The latter statement is evidently a hardy annual, able to alter its hues, and deceive 'even the elect.' For Suarez, to whom the Blessed Virgin sent a personal word of thanks, is quoted approvingly in Father Harper's work, lately republished, for stating that she contracted death and other penalties from Adam.' We shall see, later on, that Suarez never retracted this opinion; so that one may charitably suppose he was not aware of the fact that Baius was condemned in his own day. For the very year before he died, this glorious champion of Mary's singular privilege put the same statement with all the power of expression worthy of a better cause: 'Death and passibility in the Virgin were not merely the effect and property of nature, but were really the effect of Adam's sin.' 'Mors et passibilitas corporis in Virgine non fuit solum effectus et proprietas naturae sed revera fuit effectus peccati Adami.'*

And even Bellarmine went so far as to say, that whilst the soul of the Virgin was preserved from the stain of

1 Mariol., n. 618.

2 St. Pius V, Gregory XIII, Urban VIII.

Nemo praeter Christum est absque peccato originali hinc B. Virgo mortua est propter peccatum ex Adam contractam omnesque ejus afflictiones ... fuerunt ultiones peccata actualis vel originalis.'

De vitiis et pecc., disp. 9, sec. 4, No. 32.

sin, her body was not redeemed until after death it arose glorious by a singular grace of God.' The result of this doleful teaching is that, at best, Mary at the moment of her stainless conception was only half-redeemed and semiimmaculate, and remained so during her singular passible career! If this were so, it would not harmonize with the wording of the solemn Definition. For one and the same person would be at one and the same time the subject and conqueror of Satan; and the argument for the Immaculate Conception would then be gainsaid.

But it is well seen that the Holy Spirit was guiding Pius IX, especially when urged to follow well-meant advices. Cardinal Cagiano requested the Pope to declare that the soul of the Virgin was free from the original stain. If Pio Nono had literally followed this suggestion, then Suarez, Bellarmine, Petavius, and modern lights, like Pesch and Palmieri, might have been justified; but the question of the Immaculate Conception would have reverted to what it was in the days of Scotus. For if only the soul of the Virgin was preserved, what about those penalties of sin from which they held she was not free? And, then, what particular stains did she contract, and what did she not contract? And, again, take her virginal body could it not also contract a stain? For a macula or stain is a privation of grace,' and immortality and corporal integrity were supernatural gifts immediately affecting the body, and bestowed on Adam; and of these gifts he was deprived by hi sin.

The solemn Definition put an end to all those subtle questions; for it did not merely state that the soul of the Virgin was free, but the most blessed Virgin Mary

1 De amissione gratiae, lib. iv. ch. 21: 'Sed jam dicimus B. Virginis animam a peccati maculâ praeservatam non autem carnem fuisse redemptam nisi post mortem singulari Dei gratia gloriosa surrexit.' According to Bellarmine, the Blessed Virgin had no right, by virtue of her original innocence, to be assumed after death, as Adam had by his; a further singular grace was needed by her who was declared by the angel to be full of grace!

2 Gousset, L'Immac. Concept., p. 578.

3 Summa, i. 2, 109, 7.