  Sunday brought relief. That day there was no exercise; but when we were aroused we all went to Mass. The Protestant Chapel was used, for there was no room elsewhere for both prisons-full. Everybody went, whatever our creed, both for the comfort of one another, and for the joint comfort of worship. There I saw for the first time the Dublin men from the Crescent, many of them known to me, many of them wearing the uniform of the Republican Army, in some cases scarred by battle. It was a large concourse, and the body of song was a joy to hear after our enforced silence. The warders sat at regular intervals on seats above us, with their backs turned to the Altar and their faces toward us, like strange idols perched aloft. The priest, I learned, had told the first men on their arrival that he was there to fulfil his functions only, though he abhorred their actions and could have no dealings with them. This The following day I put myself down to see him, and during the course of the morning he visited me. “You wish to see me,” he said. He was exceedingly kind and courteous. “Yes,” I said; “I wish to congratulate you on the fact that you are not here in prison with us.” “I don’t understand you.” “For preaching sedition, or at least reading seditionary stuff. You recall the epistle you read yesterday? I think it was misapplied, mind you. You were exhorting us to do just what we had done, and had been thrown into prison for; but you read it all the same, and deserve congratulation. Do you remember: ‘Be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves, for if a man be a hearer of the Word, and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass. For he beheld himself, and went his way, and “That’s sound talk; every word of it applies; and we are blessed in the deed, though we are in prison all the same. In that connection you think over that phrase about the man who looked into a mirror, and presently forgot what manner of man he was, till he became a doer of the Word after having looked into the perfect law of liberty. I thank you for that epistle; and I congratulate you that you are not in prison.” Afterwards he moved among us intimately and always. He made it his business to know each man personally, and there was scarcely a man to whom he did not endear himself. In very literal truth he spent himself and his substance for us all. He got into touch with the men’s families at home, and reassured both man and family as to the state of the other. During those days, indeed, he lived his life with Some Sundays afterwards he had occasion to read the following epistle:— “Be you humbled under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in the time of visitation. Casting all your care upon Him, for He hath care of you. Be sober and watch; for your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion goeth about, seeking whom he may devour; whom resist ye, strong in faith....” As he did so, his eye travelled over to me; and the following day he came over to me. “I know what you are going to say. You make me watchful of my epistles,” he said. |
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