Four Lectures on the Massacres of the Christians in Syria/Lecture II

by William Gifford Palgrave

 

LECTURE II.

DELIVERED TO THE ST. MUNCHIN'S YOUNG MEN'S SOCIETY, LIMERICK.

(From the Munster News.)

On rising to commence his address, F. Palgrave said that, before all things, he ought, in a manner, to apologise to that honourable assembly for having taken them at so short a notice, or, as he might say, unawares. It was not his intention to have given them the trouble, so to speak, of meeting together so unexpectedly. However, he hoped that their generosity and their kindly feeling would pardon that inconvenience, which was entirely unintended on his part. The reason was, the short time he had to remain in Ireland; but it was quite impossible for him to go through the city of Limerick without taking the occasion of addressing a few words to its respected population. For many reasons, of which he would now give them one,—he wished to address the citizens of Limerick, and that one was, on account of its being the first city in Ireland to manifest the sympathy of its inhabitants with the unhappy Christians of Syria, who had been so inhumanly murdered. On that account, he could not pass through their city without making its inhabitants acquainted with the real state of facts which had occurred in that country. Again, passing through a city which had given birth to such a body as the Young Mens' Society, it could not be permitted to him to leave them without affording them, as far as he could, that amount of instruction and information which Providence had enabled him to lay at their disposal.

It is a matter of very great importance, in all public affairs, he continued, that people should be always rightly informed of what is going on about them, because, from wrong information, wrong feelings and wrong judgments are formed; and those who desire to arrive at right conclusions should take care to be rightly informed on the questions upon which they are to come to a conclusion. The subject which we are met to consider this evening is a public one, and not only that, but one of intense interest to every Catholic mind. Because Syria happened to be in the east, and at the other side of the Mediterranean, do not suppose that this meeting has nothing in common with your own affairs. I will leave out of the question all political considerations. If reasons were wanting why this meeting should take an interest in it, one would be sufficient—and that was, that you are Christians—that you are Catholics, and, as such, you are one body in our holy religion. If one member of a body suffered, our Saviour Himself has told us that all the members must suffer. Therefore do not think of the Christians of Syria as if they were dwelling at the other end of the world, but regard them as if they were your own countrymen—born in the one country of our holy faith—nourished at the same breast of our holy mother the Church, and therefore, we should all take a common interest in one another. This might be said before any meeting, in any country, and in any place; but it should be especially said here in Limerick, because Limerick is a place to which Catholic Ireland would look up for an example, and would wish to know what was said there, and what was done there; and, again, it is most consistent with the aim of the honourable society which I have the pleasure of addressing, that this should take place amongst them, for the objects of the Young Mens' Society are the promotion of instruction and of religion—of gaining ground daily in information, enlightenment, and knowledge, and edifying and strengthening yourselves in the doctrines and practices of your holy faith. In the first place, you may acquire knowledge—knowledge of lands, the people of which you are accustomed to regard as strangers; and what can be more calculated to strengthen you in your faith, and confirm you in the performance of your duty, than the example of those noble men who have laid down their lives for their faith, and to glorify God by their willing martyrdom? This I wished to relate in a country and a land, and among a people that can well sympathise with such. You (the Irish people) have yourselves gone through sufferings and persecutions on account of religion, and therefore you are the better able to appreciate the sufferings of others. Such was your lot in other times, and therefore you cannot but look upon what is happening in Syria as something like what happened in Ireland some hundred years ago. Every one is more or less acquainted in general with what has happened there, by letters, and the reports in the newspapers and otherwise. I had the honour of addressing a meeting in Dublin this week, and I imagine some of you may have become acquainted with what I stated on that occasion. However it will not be wrong in me to go over the subject again, not confining myself to the same details but entering on other matters in the broad and general subject. With the means of information you have in your hands, much has been so changed, and much has been so falsified—perhaps for some reasons, and perhaps for no reasons, or unintentionally, it will be my duty to state to you some facts with respect to the massacre in Syria. Many views of the question have been published, and these are put forward not by such a one, and such a one individually, but they have been countenanced and as it were confirmed in high places.

First it has been said the Christians themselves in Syria are a people of very indifferent character—a mean, degenerate, and cowardly race. That to my own knowledge has found its way into many papers; and, worse, perhaps, there have not been wanting men who have dared, in the face of the most evident truth, to assert that the origin of the war was on the side of the Christians, and that they were guilty of having been the original offenders. Again, others have attempted to favour different nations who had attacked them, such as Druses and Mahomedans, and by exaggerating their good qualities to diminish the sympathies of Europe with the sufferings of the Christians in Syria. These speeches and statements have not been kept in a corner, but have been published, so to say, on the very roofs of the city. Now, you yourselves as Irishmen, cannot adopt such views, and yet there may remain on your minds something like an idea that there was a want in the information before you, something which was not fully cleared up. The first of these calumnies, I have heard it with my own ears and seen it uttered with my own eyes, was that the Catholics of Syria were little worthy of European sympathy because of their degraded and degenerate character. Well I might say the same language had been held of the Catholics of other countries, perhaps of a country very near us, but let that alone. I myself have lived among these Catholics of Syria for many years, perhaps that which would be called in ordinary phrase, the best part of a man's life, and therefore I am enabled to say, that on the whole surface of the globe, on the whole earth from the east to the west, there could not be found a race of human beings more worthy to bear the name of Christians than the Catholics of Syria—men more capable of sustaining the glorious title of Christians, than the Catholics of Syria, were nowhere to be found. We hear about Maronites, and we hear about the Greeks, and we hear about the Syrians.

Who were the Maronites, for instance? They are a nation who for twelve hundred years, under persecutions to which those of Ireland itself were but a shadow, have maintained their faith and their nationality, enduring and untainted to the present day. Are such a people unworthy of your sympathy? For what reason are they called Maronites? It is a national denomination of the particular district of the country to which they belong, in the same way as you would call a person a Connaught man, or a Limerick man; and a Connaught man, or a Limerick man may be as good a Catholic, and thank God they are, as any other Catholic in any country on the globe.

Again, take the Greek Catholics, and who are they?—a numerous body, nearly 60,000, who, having been engaged in the unhappy schism of the Greeks one hundred and fifty years since, have of late opened their eyes to Catholic truth, and returned to obedience and union with the Holy See. They met with persecution which attacked them in their employments, in their honour, and in combating with which many of them had willingly laid down their lives.

Again, take the Syrian Catholics, and who are they? They also, not long since, from having been blinded in the darkness of heresy and schism, have returned to the unity of holy faith, and have maintained the pure doctrines of Catholicity to the present day.

Now, to which does more honour belong, to those who have been faithful under difficulties and persecutions, or to those who have preserved their faith, and kept their religion without any obstacle or impediment being put in their way. The massacres in Syria have been carefully estimated, and may be very little more or less than 20,000 inhabitants of the country, not children nor women, but the fathers of families, and who have left about 80,000 Catholic and Christian inhabitants without houses or homes, without a field to till, without food to sustain life, without clothes, literally without anything. These unparalleled persecutions were brought about principally and entirely because of the spread of the Catholic religion and faith in Syria. Wherever God's Word went or spread, it is morally certain that there the devil will especially set himself to work to impede its progress, or overturn its effect in so far as his wicked agencies may be permitted to prevail. You have probably heard. more or less about the manner in which the bloody conspiracy against the Catholics of Syria was brought about. Some two years since, the principal chiefs of Mahomedanism, that is of the Turkish government, met together to devise the entire extirpation of Christianity in Syria. In every mosque of that blinded faith of Mahomedanism, that object was announced openly, and it was there publicly proclaimed that it was lawful for any "true believer" to murder and slay a Christian, by any means he could do so. This was proclaimed in broad day-light, and in the presence of the officials of the Turkish government, who, by every means in their power, encouraged its being carried into effect.

One of the principal causes which excited such a deadly conspiracy was not merely the fact of increasing numbers or property of the Christians, though that assuredly was the case; neither was it the increased influence of Europeans, though that also was the case; but more than all these, it was beyond and above all, the increase of Catholicity and its spread in Syria and Greece, to an extent that is wonderful to contemplate. I myself, unworthy as I am of the employment and duties of a missionary Priest, had under my care at the moment of the outbreak sixteen schools for Catholic children, boys and girls, and these were extended up to the very limits of the desert. All of these schools had been founded within the last two years, others last year, and some of them only last winter. These facts were observed and known to everybody, and of course came within the cognizance of the Turkish Government authorities. In the same way I myself, in the course of the different missions I had to give through the country, had the unparalleled happiness of receiving into the bosom of the Catholic faith numbers of heretics and schismatics of these lands, and I often had to treat with whole villages on the subject of their return to Catholic unity, so much so that the matter was brought before the Mahomedan and Turkish governors of the country; and I know the Turkish governor to have given immense sums of money in the way of bribery to those who hindered the accession to Catholicity of those among the Mahomedan population who anxiously desired it, and in respect to whom I was engaged in missionary duties. If there was nothing else to create malignity in the mind of an evil spirit or fiend, it would be sufficient to see those whom he had expected to become his easy victims rescued from his grasp, and entered into the safe and sanctifying bosom of Catholicity. Mahomedanism is a system which is directly opposed to Christianity, not alone to Christianity in one form or another in particular, but to the whole of Christianity, or to whatever called itself Christian. Consequently, in Syria the Turkish government was always favourable to schismatics and to heretics, rather than to Catholics, being most opposed to what is most Christian. There is another reason for this. The Catholics of whatever race, or to whatever country they belonged, always turned their eyes to Rome as the seat and centre of Catholic unity, as having there a common centre, a common mother, aye, and a most loving one too; who, while she consoles and strengthens her children, cannot fail to render herself and them equally obnoxious to those who would fain destroy and exterminate her from off the face of the earth. For that reason have we often seen those who would desire to bind the Catholic mind under iron despotism, first attack the Holy See, and the Holy Father.

Again, while Christianity in general was gaining ground, a certain treachery was silently working against every man in that country who made the sign of the cross, and gaining strength among their enemies. I have heard a great many, even in Ireland itself, and among those who sincerely wished for the success of the right cause, say, at the same time, "After all, my dear friend, we must allow that the Druses knew how to fight better than the Christians; in all their attacks we have seen the Christians give in at once." But I would reply, "My dear sir, if it was your lot to be opposed by ten men, and supported by nobody, how would you be likely to fare in the conflict which you might endeavour to carry on single handed?" Every effort was made by the Turkish Government to assist those who would butcher, destroy, and extirpate, and every effort was used on the other hand, to weaken the Christians. About a week before the outbreak took place, I myself saw a hundred mules laden with powder, shot, and ammunition, leaving the palace of the Turkish governor of the city of Beyrout, and going towards Mount Lebanon. I approached one of the Turkish soldiers who was guarding them, and asked him where they were taking all these, and the man was simple enough to answer me, that they were taking it to such a place, the residence of one of the chiefs of the Druses. After this, and knowing that the Christians had no security for their defence, I saw them coming into the city to buy muskets and ammunition, and I saw the soldiers of the Turkish Government take them from them when they sought to bring them to their homes, under pretence that there was a general order to let no arms go out from the city. This was carried on for several months before the outbreak, until the Christians were obliged to have recourse to the most strange inventions, and I wll tell one, although the circumstances may seem rather ludicrous. On one occasion when I was in the city a number of Christians united together to furnish themselves with muskets. They came to the city and bought their weapons, but the difficulty was how to get them to the mountains. And accordingly they hit on a remarkable device, which, if it happened in Ireland itself, I think could not be more ingenious. They went to a carpenter, and ordered from him a coffin for a very corpulent man, a man of large dimensions, and having procured it they placed in it the arms which they had purchased. They then covered it with a large black cloth or pall surmounted with a cross, and then one of the clergymen, who was in the secret, took up the position of one who, as it were, conducted the funeral arrangements, provided them with lighted candles and censers; then came numbers of pretended mourners, with handkerchiefs to their eyes, and in this manner they moved on, and he conducted them out of the city, and when they were clear of the surveillance of the Turkish soldiery, they opened the coffin, and the dead man arose to life. Now I have recounted this circumstance not to create amusement, but for instruction, and to show what difficulties the Christians had to prepare themselves for the attack, which they had every reason to expect was intended to be made against them. It was by base treachery the Christians were trodden down. The calamities which happened to the Catholic population of Syria were connived at by the Turkish Government, although the population considered themselves to be under the especial protection of the Porte. Several days before the outbreak the Catholic population had received an assurance from the Turkish Governor that nothing should happen to them, and that they might go about their occupations in perfect safety as usual.

On the eventful morning of the 7th of June, every labourer, every peasant of the town was at work in the fields; the shops were open, but few except old men, women, and children, remained in the town, and few of these men had arms. On a sudden, at a given signal, they were attacked by a body of about five thousand armed men. Not Druses only, for that name has so much prevailed that it has been forgotten that they did only about nine-tenths of the work of slaughter and devastation. When the attack commenced the Christians returned quickly to the town, seized their arms, sallied forth and drove off the assailants, whose numbers were five times as great as their own. They drove them at once out of the city, and maintained it safe for the whole of that day, but in the evening those ferocious villains sent forward messengers to gather help from every direction. They came together, and the next morning the town was surrounded by an assailing body of at least ten thousand armed men. Then the Christians, seeing themselves incapable of making an effective defence, deputed some of the principal inhabitants to wait on the Governor of the city, and claim the fulfilment of his promise, that they should receive protection. But, what had he been doing all this time? He and his soldiers remained within the palace and fortified barracks, and never moved hand or foot for the protection of the unhappy Christians. And what was his answer to the deputation? He swore upon his holy book, upon his life, upon God, and the prophet Mahomed, that they were in perfect safety, and that they had only to commit themselves to his care, and that he would not allow any one to attack them.—When they heard this answer, and saw that there would be no help for them unless they laid down their arms, they thought it better to surrender to him whom they deemed their natural protector, and who had, to their mind, confirmed his promises of protection with such solemn oaths. Then they laid down their arms, which were piled upon the barrack square. Well, before their eyes the Turkish soldiery took the arms that had been piled, and distributed them to the attacking soldiery at the gates of the town. Just before that, the Governor said to the Christians, "Enter into the barracks, and myself and my soldiers will protect you." They did come into the barracks, and in five minutes after the city was assailed, and what did the Governor do? He charged two cannons with powder only, and having fired them, that is, what was called blank cartridge, at the assailants, he discontinued even that, lest the smoke of it might impede their operations, and he sent word to the Christians that the cannon were unfit for any further use. The besiegers then rushed in through the gates, and the plunder of the city at once commenced. The Christians seeing the manner in which they were entrapped, then endeavoured to break open the gates of the barracks, and defend the persons of their wives and children, as best they might, or fall as became Christians and men in the almost hopeless endeavour; and some of them had almost made their way into the streets when they were fired upon by the Turkish soldiery at the gate, and laid in heaps of dead on the street, whilst those soldiers who had so inhumanly massacred them, called out to the remaining Christians within the barracks—"See the punishment of those who do not trust to the Turkish government." They then left them imprisoned within the fortress for four days, without food, without water—heaped, so to speak, one upon the other, in the interior of the Governor's palace, and it was not till after four days that the Druses and the Turks ventured to massacre those unarmed victims.

Now, can it be said, after such an example as this, that the Christians were unequal in courage and manliness to their assailants. In the town of Zathlee, which contained about fourteen thousand Christian inhabitants, all making the sign of the cross—for that is not confined to Catholics alone; other schismatic Christians still preserve many Catholic observances, such as publicly making the sign of the cross, the invocation of saints, having holy images; these are all common in the East to Catholics as well as to schismatics. At this time, having been myself employed in that city as a priest for two years, I established an institution resembling in a great degree your own honourable association for young men, in which they should meet together from time to time, and have opportunities for the development of their intellect, the direction of their morals, and the strengthening of their faith. At the head of this society, in the town of Zathlee, was a young man of inestimable Christian character—one whose demeanour was singularly mild, affectionate, and unoffending, and whose character for peace and charity was such that I knew him to have surrendered a sum of money, which was claimed in the most wickedly wrongful manner as due of him, rather than go to law with the knave who made the unjust demand on him. There was scarcely a perfection of the Christian character but this young man was gifted with. A few days before the attack I said, rather jokingly, to this young man, "if the Druses attack the town we shall have your young men to defend it, and of course we shall see you at the head of them." He only smiled, and said, "When the time comes I shall know how to do my duty." Well, every day, for nine days, the circle of the assailants was narrowing around Zathlee. The whole of the great plains, known as the plains of Baalbec, were swarming with armed marauders and plunderers of every description. Two thousand horsemen, armed at every point, rode through the ripening harvest and destroyed it. First they could see the distant villages enveloped in lurid flames, and each day the burning and devastation approached them nearer and nearer. Then every other hour such of the wretched peasants as, by flight, from their burning homes, had escaped massacre sought refuge in the town, most of them naked, and many bleeding from head to foot from the cruel and barbarous wounds which they had received. They in the town still sheltered them, until they had, so to speak, in that besieged town, at least twenty thousand of these unhappy creatures, most of them women and children. Every day the men of Zathlee, and at the head of them the Young Men's Association, fought with the greatest bravery, at one time opposing two hundred horsemen to two thousand of their besiegers, and even in that unequal contest coming off successfully. At last, the circle closed about them, and there remained nothing but the very walls of the place to defend. That was the day the city was taken when this young man he had spoken of as so quiet and so meek, was the first armed man to defend the entrance of the city, and remained there fighting until he literally remained alone, and before he left he had laid dead eight armed Druses, who had come to attack him, thinking that, as he remained alone, they had nothing to do but to slay him, and after this scene he actually shouldered his gun and walked back into the town. It was ever so; the men who were most faithful to their God were always the most faithful to their country.

But there was another kind of courage displayed by those persecuted Christians, which deserves not less to be recorded and applauded, that is, the courage of those who suffered martyrdom for their holy faith; those who, having no means of defending their lives, laid them down at the foot of the cross—the Priests butchered in the very act of administering the sacraments. I can give you an example, with the particulars of which I was myself well acquainted, for it happened in my own convent, and among all the bitter feelings which I ever experienced through life, the bitterest to me was, that I had not the honour and privilege of being one of those whose lives were sacrificed in that residence by the infuriated fanatics who attacked them. However, God saw fit that it should be otherwise. Two days before that slaughter occurred, acting upon orders from my superiors, I was obliged to quit the place; perhaps it was the will of God that I should go, in order that I might be spared to make known the sad tale in other parts of the Christian world. However, there remained in the convent the superior of it, a venerable old priest, of truly sanctified life and most edifying holiness of character: two other priests, and three lay brethren of the order, men in every sense of the word most worthy of esteem and respect from friend or foe. When they knew the assault was inevitable, they planted on the roof of the convent a banner—it was the French national flag, signifying that they claimed to be under the protection of that Power. When the Druses broke into the town, the first place they directed themselves to was this very convent, and it was ascertained afterwards that they had secret orders from the Turkish authorities to do so, and were assisted by them, for after the attack was over, the bodies of no less than seven Turkish soldiers were found at the gate of the convent. When they entered the building the first thing that struck their eyes was the flag, which they instantly tore down and trampled underfoot, and then they immediately broke into the church, where many hundreds of Catholics were assembled, principally old men, women, and children, and among them twenty-five men who had chosen a religious life, and whose whole labours were devoted to the service of religion, and the education of poor children, and four of whom were ordained priests belonging to the Society of Jesus; the rest were schoolmasters, and those who visited the sick, all of whom had taken refuge in the temple of the Lord, with no power to make resistance to their enemies, and no object but to prepare to meet death there, and, by offering up their lives on behalf of their Holy Faith, to qualify themselves to receive the martyr's crown. Well, as I have said, no sooner had the sacrilegious assassins entered the convent, than the first part of it they broke into, with the fury of demons, was the church itself. Then, without deigning to fire a shot, or to draw a sabre on the congregated multitude, they rushed to the altar, tore down the cross, and destroyed the altar itself, and every symbol of religion that remained upon it. Behind the holy place were concealed twenty of the best of the children who frequented the schools. Could those Christian children, under the shelter of the altar, expect mercy from the infuriated mob? No, and they received none. They were inhumanly butchered, and their innocent blood flowed over the spot where they were accustomed to assist in the celebration of the most Holy Sacrifice. Then they turned on the lay brothers belonging to the convent, one of whom was a member of the highest Christian family in the town. He was standing nearly in the centre of the church, exhorting those about him to lay down their lives with confident assurance of the abounding mercy and love of their Divine Redeemer—to suffer martyrdom cheerfully in the service of Christ. Three of them presented their guns at him, and he opened his breast to receive their fire; when the bullets had entered it he fell on his knees, and, breathing a word of prayer, he yielded up his spirit. Then one of the assassins who had fired at him, went to the rope of the church bell, and ringing it violently, called out to all present, in the language of the country, "Be you aware that it was I shot that Christian priest." There was besides a young man, a schoolmaster, in whom I took a special interest. One of them came up to him, and raising a sabre over his uncovered head, he asked merely to be allowed to make the sign of the cross, but the words were scarcely uttered from his mouth when his head was cleft in pieces. They then rushed to the place where the superior and the priests had taken refuge, and just at the instant that he was pronouncing the words of absolution, and almost before the words of pardon had passed his lips, they placed him and his companions in a line, stripped them of their clothes, and hewed them to the ground, and left them stretched dead corpses on the roof. They then set fire to the convent beneath, and it was not until after all this hell work was done that they turned to distribute the plunder.

In the city of Damascus, I can tell you something of what occurred. In that city there was a very ancient convent of the Franciscan fathers, and amongst them was one who was designated as Parish Priest of the European Catholics in Damascus. I had the honour of being his personal friend, and indeed I esteem it a great honour to have been the friend of a holy martyr. That massacre was carried out by the slaying of eighty thousand Christians, and two thousand young Christian women and girls were carried off as the slaves of the Pashas and Mahomedan chiefs; that massacre caused the river that flowed through the city to run with Christian blood from end to end of its course, and the sky to blaze with lurid flames for miles around that ancient and venerable convent of the Fanciscan fathers which for centuries has been respected by every enemy. Yet that was the first place in the city that on this occasion was entered by the assailants of the Christians. There were seven priests and two lay brothers in it at the time, and among them was the venerable Father Angelo, of whom I have just spoken. The leaders of the armed soldiery at once directed themselves to the well-known rooms of Father Angelo, hoping by an enforced apostacy, under the terror of a frightful death, to gain a triumph for their creed, or else to quench their hate in his blood. When they found the aged Priest, they dragged him to the centre of the square, and there they had the audacious insolence to offer him, a Catholic European Priest, to spare his life if he would renounce his faith and deny his God, and they threatened him with the most frightful tortures in case he refused to do so. I know no other God, said he, than Christ, no other intercessor but His Virgin Mother, and no other sign but the sign of the Cross. Thereupon they put him to torture with all the refinements of cruelty which their hellish imagination could devise; they literally flayed off his skin and burned many portions of his body while life yet lingered in it; they even did more that could not be related, and when at length his soul had departed from its earthly tenement, they dragged what remained of his mutilated body through the streets of Damascus in triumph. In the same convent was a Maronite, belonging to a high family of the city; he fled to the house of God for refuge; the same infamous proposals were made to him that were made to Father Angelo, and he was threatened with instant assassination if he refused to accept them: what was his reply—"Fear not those who have only the power to destroy the body, but fear Him who after He has destroyed the body can cast the soul into hell fire," and he had scarcely uttered the words when he received the crown of martyrdom. They then flung his lifeless remains from the roof of the convent, so that they were impaled on the bayonets of the soldiery beneath. Could any one afford to deny to those of such a race who still survived these frightful calamities their warmest sympathy, and as far as they could afford it their generous assistance? I can tell them that unless help of a substantial kind is speedily given to the Christian population of Syria, help by means of the bayonet and the sword, they will be utterly swept off the face of the land. But I have my trust, and you have also, in the mercies of God, and in the merits of Christ, for their protection. And they further trusted in the intercession of those martyrs themselves who had just gone from among them, for at least ten thousand had died as martyrs—equally martyrs of the faith, as those who sealed their devotion to it in the early ages of the church. They trusted that God would not suffer His holy faith, which had burned so long and so luminously in that hallowed land, to be quenched in the blood of its children.

But while they admired, and looked up to, and sympathised with these noble men and women—for I might also have spoken of women who gave up their lives in the spirit of martyrs of their holy faith—I might tell you of two nuns of the order of St. Basil, one of whom was burned in the flames of her cell, and the other flung off the roof, and both cheerfully met death to prove themselves worthy of their holy vows. But, while you give these all your sympathy, and your praise, and your prayers, do not forget the state in which the country at present remains—do not forget the widows and the orphans who cover the face of Syria at this moment. In that part of the country where I was located, I was acquainted with almost every acre of it. It was the richest and most beautiful district of Syria—full of Christian villages and Catholic Churches and schools,—the very garden of Syria—its population flourishing in happiness and comfort—its fields waving with the ripening corn—the vineyards drooping with luxuriant vines—its plains of olives laden with the richest fruit. Of that whole district of country there does not remain at present standing one town or one village—not one hamlet, not one house in which the sign of the Cross is made. The whole have been burned or razed to the ground;—not a field of corn or an olive plantation but is trampled down or torn up; nothing is left of which a Christian could be called the master. From that land, at the moment I am speaking, at least eighty thousand of its inhabitants have been driven away by a persecution and desolation unparalleled even in Ireland itself in the days of Cromwell. They are now wandering among the barren rocks of Mount Lebanon, which alone Turkish tyranny has left as a refuge to the Christians, no doubt with the intention of soon consummating their bloody deeds in the total destruction of the hated race, but this, I fully believe, God will not permit. There they now are, those whom I and my fellow labourers have so often endeavoured to feed; they are wandering about without food, without clothing, without shelter—without even a mat to cover their bodies by night while lying on the ground. But would to God that was all. The enemy of their holy faith desired the death of their souls even more than the death of their bodies, having established among them a system of purchasing souls of which, perhaps, you have heard some examples in other places. I do not fear for them to die, but I fear lest they should be doomed to die as dishonoured apostates.—Now, what I have endeavoured to explain is but a corner of a very large picture—a picture drawn from rivers of human blood, and lurid flames of burning human habitations. I know the response what I have stated will find in the minds of the people of Limerick, and in the minds of all who have Irish hearts within their bosoms, and that you will not deny to the Catholic people of Syria whatever your sympathy or whatever your generosity can afford. For it is not them alone you assist by doing so—you assist yourselves, and you assist the Saviour of mankind, who first hallowed and consecrated the Holy Land, from the day of His birth until the end of all time.