'Well,' said he, smiling, 'I understand Italian too;' and to my astonishment he addressed me in the best Irish I ever heard spoken.

'Now,' said he, still smiling, 'you perceive that I understand Italian nearly--I will not say so well--as you do.' Now, as I am a sinner, that, I say, was ungenerous treatment.
He was perfectly irreclaimable." This man was, like Mr.Maguire, what has been termed a hedge-priest--a character which, as we have already said, the poverty of the Catholic people, during the existence of the penal laws, and the consequent want of spiritual instruction, rendered necessary.

There were no Catholic colleges in the country, and the result was that the number of foreign priests--by which I mean Irish priests educated in foreign colleges--was utterly inadequate to meet the spiritual necessities of the Irish population.

Under those circumstances, men of good and virtuous character, who understood something of the Latin tongue, were ordained by their respective bishops, for the purpose which we have already mentioned.

But what a difference was there between those half-educated men and the class of educated clergymen who now adorn, not only their Church, but the literature of the country! "Well, my dear friend," said the bishop, "let us be thankful for the protection which, we have received at the hands of the Protestant clergy and of many of the Protestant laity also.