Dominick’s conduct in the matter of the priest’s money was also a happy illustration of that mixture of simplicity and shrewdness with which an Irishman can frequently make points meet, which superstition, alone, without such ingenuity, would keep separate for ever.  Many another man might have refused the money from an ignorant dread of its proving unlucky; but his mode of reasoning on the subject was satisfactory to himself, and certainly the most ingenious which, according to his belief, he could have adopted—­that of foisting it upon a heretic.

The eloquence of a country priest, though rude, and by no means elevated, is sometimes well adapted to the end in view, to the feelings of his auditory, and to the nature of the subject on which he speaks.  Pathos and humor are the two levers by which the Irish character is raised or depressed; and these are blended, in a manner too anomalous to be ever properly described.  Whoever could be present at a sermon on the Sunday when a Purgatorian Society is to be established, would hear pathos and see grief of the first water.  It is then he would get a “nate” and glowing description of Purgatory, and see the broad, humorous, Milesian faces, of three or four thousand persons, of both sexes, shaped into an expression of the most grotesque and clamorous grief.  The priest, however, on particular occasions of this nature, very shrewdly gives notice of the sermon, and of the purpose for which it is to be preached:—­if it be grave, the people are prepared to cry; but if it be for a political, or any other purpose not decidedly religious, there will be abundance of that rough, blunt satire and mirth, so keenly relished by the peasantry, illustrated, too, by the most comical and ridiculous allusions.  That priest, indeed, who is the best master of this latter faculty, is uniformly the greatest favorite.  It is no unfrequent thing to see the majority of an Irish congregation drowned in sorrow and tears, even when they are utterly ignorant of the language spoken; particularly in those districts where the Irish is still the vernacular tongue.  This is what renders notice of the sermon and its purport necessary; otherwise the honest people might be seriously at a loss whether to laugh or cry.

“Elliih avourneen, gho dhe dirsha?”—­“Ellish, my dear, what is he saying?”

“Och, musha niel eshighum, ahagur—­ta sha er Purgathor, ta barlhum.”—­“Och, I dunna that, jewel; I believe he’s on Purgatory.”

“Och, och, oh—­och, och, oh—­oh, i, oh, i, oh!”

And on understanding that Purgatory is the subject, they commence their grief with a rocking motion, wringing their hands, and unconsciously passing their beads through their fingers, whilst their bodies are bent forward towards the earth.

On the contrary, when the priest gets jocular—­which I should have premised, he never does in what is announced as a solemn sermon—­you might observe several faces charged with mirth and laughter, turned, even while beaming with this expression, to those who kneel beside them, inquiring: