The Cross and the Shamrock | Page 2

your Bloomer women, your
spiritual rappers, and other countless extravagances of a diseased public
mind, and between the abominable publications to which we allude.
3d. Our people are not generally great readers of the trashy newspapers
of the day; and in this respect they show their good sense, or at least
have happened on good luck: it is therefore our duty to supply them
with cheap and amusing literature, to entertain them during the few
hours they are disengaged from work. And what reading can afford the
Irish Catholic greater pleasure than any work, however imperfect,
having for its end the exaltation and defence of his glorious old faith,
and the vindication of his native land--his beloved "Erin-go-bragh"?
Impress on his susceptible mind the honor and advantage of defence
and fidelity to the CROSS and the SHAMROCK, and you give him
two ideas that will come to his aid in most of his actions through life.
We are ashamed here of the cross of Christ, when we see it continually
dishonored and trampled on by heretics and modern pagans, in their
scramble for money and pleasures. On the other hand, the poverty,
humiliation, and rags of old Erin, of the kings, saints, and martyrs,
scandalize us; and from these two false notions the degradation and
apostasy of many Irishmen commence. Hence they no sooner land on
the shores of America than they endeavor to clip the musical and rich
brogue of fatherland, to make room for the bastard barbarisms and
vulgar slang of Yankeedom. The remainder of the course of the
apostate is easily traced, till, ashamed of creed and country, he ends by
being ashamed of his Creator and Redeemer, and barters the inheritance
of heaven for the miserable and short enjoyments of this earth.
A fourth, and a leading motive in the publication of this work, is to
record the manly defences which the people among whom the author
lives have made of the creed of their fathers, and to enable them to
refute, in a simple, practical manner, for the edification of their
opponents, the many objections proposed to them about the faith. By

placing a copy of this work in the hands of every head of a family in
the congregation in which he presides, the author thinks he will have
done something towards the salvation of that parent and his house, by
showing him how he may educate his children, and save them from
those subtle snares laid to rob them and him of happiness here and
hereafter; for, without true religion and virtue, there is neither
enjoyment nor happiness even in this world.
But are the principles sound, and the estimate he has formed of
American character and the conduct and motives of the sectarian
parsons correct? There may be, and undoubtedly there is, great variety
in American character; and, so far, what may be true of the people of
one state or county, may not at all be applicable to those of the rest; but
as far as regards sectarianism and its slanders of the church, and the
low character, intellectually and morally, of the parsons, ministers,
dominies, and preachers, with few honorable exceptions, it may be said,
in the words of the poet,--
"Ex uno disce omnes."
"They are all chips of the same block;" and the description in the
following pages of their attempts to proselytize, seduce, and corrupt, is
not at all exaggerated, as thousands of candid American Protestants can
testify. Perhaps the sectarian dominies do not see the sad consequences
that are infallibly produced on the minds of their hearers, after they
come to detect the frauds and falsehoods which the parsons inculcate
on them when children; but they are in the cause, and morally
responsible for that doubt, irreligion, and downright infidelity which
are the well-known characteristics of the male and female youth of our
great country, and which threaten such disastrous consequences to
society.
Yes, dominies, you are responsible for all the extravagances of modern
times, for the irreparable loss to virtue and society of the noble youth of
your country. You hate the church of God because she is a witness
against you. The priest, the nun, and the recluse are objects of your
malice; for they are living examples of what you call impossible morals,
and refuters of the code of low virtue you practise and preach. The faith

of the Catholic laity, too, you endeavor to destroy, in order more
securely to deceive your hearers, and to secure your children, your
wives, and yourselves, that bread which you eat by the dissemination of
error, contradiction, and contention, and which you are too lazy to
"earn by the sweat of your brow."
_Finally._ This work is submitted to the reader by one who will be well
pleased