Note 287 — Chapter LVI · THE THREE IRISH CHURCHES

Mason’s Hist. of St. Patrick’s, p. 193. ‘The numerous companies of priests and friars amongst them take care they shall know nothing of religion, but what they design for them; they use all means to keep them to the use of the Irish tongue, lest if they learn English they might be supplied with persons fitter to instruct them; the people are taught to make that also their excuse for not coming to our churches, to hear our services, or converse with us in religious intercourses, because they understand us not, and they will not understand us, neither will they learn that they may understand and live.’—Taylor’s Dissuasive from Popery, preface, Works, x. 124. Bedell said ‘Those people had souls which ought not to be neglected till they would learn English’—Two Lives, p. 41.