over the case-over the manner in which a religious persecution question-a question of suffering for conscience sake-has been gotten up (in a very bungling, and very stupid manner, I must be allowed to suggest) by the pious Jesuit of St. Mary's. It cannot be forgotten that we had proved by the testimony of the respected principal of the Eliot School-Mr. Mason; by the young lady assistant in his room-Miss Marsh, whose intelligence and candor spoke in every line of her fair face-that the father of the boy, when he had been dismissed, the Monday previous to the day of the rebellion, had brought him back, and heard from Mr. Mason a full explanation of the rules of the school, and of the precise differences between the Catholic version of the Ten Commandments and that which was printed in the boy's books. It was proved that he ordered his boy to say them, and directed his teacher to punish him severely if he did not obey; that he took pains to say that the boy was not to be sent home, that he was not be expelled from school, but was to be made to say the Commandments, and to be punished severely if he did not. I am quite sure that no one who heard these witnesses, no one who heard the very long and elaborate, and very skilful cross-examination to which they were subjected, could doubt for one moment their entire truth. It was with a good deal of suprise, I think, that your Honor heard the boy and his father called to contradict this clear and positive evidence. And yet they had the folly to come upon the stand and wilfully and audaciously to deny it altogether. I believe that no one who heard them, no one who witnessed that scene when, more plainly than I ever before saw it in a court of justice, deliberate perjury was proved out of their own mouths; when the boy, conscious of his falsehood, stood mute, but confessing his crime by his silence, with the fraud and the crime so obvious, so awful, that in those moments of suspense you could hear the very silence in the crowded court room-no one who heard the boy that day, would say that it is unnecessary or would be useless to repeat weekly or daily to that son of that father the awful command, "Thou shalt not bear false witness."

I have read some pathetic histories of persecution for conscience sake; I have read of martyrs whose meek and saintly

demeanor drew from their enemies tears of rapturous admiration-martyrs who died in sublime self-oblivion, died in fiery coronation robes, when the rolling smoke, crimson-tinged, floated far up the sky, vanishing in heaven as the pang and the horror vanished also in the victory that swallows up all strife.

I fear that I am so much of a heretic that I cannot persuade myself that this boy is a martyr, and I do not think he looked like a martyr or a saint when he was so plainly exposed in his falsehood.

I am afraid that I do not appreciate with a sufficiently keen sensibility the religious side of this present persecution for conscience sake. I am afraid that I am liable to a conviction for holding the very heretical and abominable doctrine, that this very interesting Wall and his very interesting boy, are terribly given to "drawing the long bow," and that their pretended tenderness of conscience is mere moonshine on the water..

This question whether Wall and his son are false or not, is very vital to this cause, as I will presently show; and I therefore ask the Court to remember the father's evidence now as well as the boy's. The Court will remember that it was proved that this boy, and the other Catholic boys, had been in the habit for years of repeating the Ten Commandments without objection—a very material fact bearing upon the same vital question, to which I am presently to ask your Honor's attention. I have not only proved that this boy had done so, but that in particular, since September last up to the week of the rebellion, he had done it constantly; and yet in the face of this proof, the boy dared to stand up here and swear boldly under "medal," or other influences, that he had never once repeated them. His father dared to swear to the same thing, and he swore that for the last six years, ever since his boy was four years old, he had forbidden him to say the Protestant Commandments. I was satisfied that Wall was telling a deliberate falsehood and I desired to make it apparent. I therefore in the cross-examination put the questions which I think your Honor will very well remember.

"Had he really been obliged to tell his son so?"

"Sure he had, and he and the priest both had forbidden his boy to say them, a thousand times.”

"What, a thousand times?"

"Yes, faith, and more than that, five thousand times over, he forbid him and me both."

"Let me remind you that you are on oath, Mr. Wall, before you repeat that."

"Faith and it was over five thousand times."

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What, you yourself have been forbidden five thousand times by your priest, to say the Ten Commandments?"

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Yes, and indeed I have, and more too."

"Well now, Mr. Wall, please to remember that you are upon oath, and tell the Court of even one time when any body asked you to say the Ten Commandments, and when it was necessary even once for the priest to forbid you?

Wall was in difficulty. "Oh! that's no matter," said he.

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'Pray tell me, Mr. Wall; name one time out of the five thousand."

"Oh! I didn't mind when it was," said he.

"Can't you tell once out of all the five thousand?"

A light of inspiration suddenly flashed upon him, and then with a cool impudence, and a ready lie-which he enjoyed as much as any one-which no one could hear without a smile:

"Faith, it was in the ould counthry they did it," said he. He evidently thought he could get out of the way of crossexamination, if he could but take refuge in his native bogs. But it was all in vain.

"So it was in old Ireland that you were told five thousand times by your priest that you must not say the Ten Commandments, was it?

"To be sure it was, your Honor; who ever supposed it was any where else?"

"But who asked you to say the Protestant Commandments there?"

"No body asked me to say them; we weren't bothered with thim things there."

"But the priest told you five thousand times to be sure and never repeat the Protestant Commandments?"

"To be sure he did; ain't I telling you so?"

"But why should he tell you not to, if nobody asked you to say them?"

He was evidently stuck in his own native bog. But it was only for a moment. With the same gusto, with the same enjoyment of the lie that helped him, as he thought, out of his difficulty, he said: "Wasn't it thim botherin' tractmin, to be sure?" "Oh! the tractmen wished you to say the Protestant Commandments, did they?"

"To be sure they did."

"What, nothing else but the Commandments?"

"To be sure not."

"And did they really ask you five thousand times to repeat them?"

"And more, too, for the matther of that."

"And the priest forbid you all of five thousand times to repeat them?"

"That he did, to be sure."

Poor Wall, no wonder he emigrated, with five thousand Protestant tractmen at one ear shouting the "Ten Commandments," and five thousand priests, shaven and shorn, at the other, shouting to him: "Be kilt for your religion, man." No wonder he was obliged to emigrate. That is a specimen of his evidence, and I am forced to say that may be Catholic honesty, but it is what we should call very like downright Protestant lying.

But it was a darker, sadder scene than that, when in narrating what was told him by his boy, he stated what we all knew to be false, deliberately, wickedly false. The boy was called to the stand immediately-and there they stood, father and son, convicted of falsehood, convicted of crime-without escape-without excuse without any possibility of evasion, even through the readiness of Irish wit. I am sure that no one who witnessed that scene will ever forget it. It was a dark and fearful commentary on this fetch and pretence of a tender conscience which would be violated by the Lord's Prayer, which would be sullied and stained by God's holy Commandments.

I turn from that dark scene to ask several questions which, as I said, will throw a flood of light upon the darkness of the Why was it that on the Sunday before the boy first. refused to say the Commandments, a few parents and only a few boys were gathered in a basement room in that Jesuit.

case.

Church in Endicott Street? Why was it that this boy alone on the next day refused to repeat the Commandments which he for months and years had repeated without a murmur? Was it in order that he might be whipped? Was it in order that the Jesuits might raise the cry of religious persecution ?—might under that cry arouse public feeling, and drive the Bible from the schools?

If so, they were disappointed. The boy was not whipped; he was simply told that he must obey the general regulation, or he must bring his father there and have the matter explained. He was sent home. That was on Monday. He did not return, as his father swears, until Wednesday. Why was that delay? Was there any consultation with the priest going on? What followed is very strange. The boy is brought back. The teacher is told with great care-and the injunction is repeatedthat the boy must say those very Commandments. He is told that the father wants the boy kept at school, and not dismissed if he refuses to respect the commands; but that he must be punished, and punished severely, if he refuses. How did the father know beforehand that the boy would refuse? Why did he wish him punished severely if he did? No one can fail to see through all this. We see that this was no accidental whim of one parent or one child-it was a deliberate, a concerted plan, in which all were to join, and this strange conduct of the boy and the priest and his father show that their object was to catch the teachers in their snare and compel him to whip the boy.

Do not forget upon this very point the significant evidence that the boys said they intended to refuse to repeat the Commandments, and that they expected to be whipped and expelled from the school. The rest of the story is soon told. On the following Sabbath, the same priest instigated nine hundred pupils to break into open rebellion. The boys go to school, they stamp on the floor and make a disturbance by whistling, loud mutterings, and scraping their feet while the Lord's Prayer is repeated. This Wall boy makes himself the most forward, he is the ringleader to whom all the other boys turn. He cannot be sent away, for his father earnestly requested that he should be kept in school and punished severely.