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.
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