I trembled to give the encouragement I longed to bestow. However, I distinctly intimated my detestation of idolatry, and confirmed his strong repudiation of it. He told me he would not go any more to chapel, but I told him, as well as I _could_, the almost certain consequences, and he then remembered that other boys had told him those who ate meat on Fridays would go to hell. He became greatly distressed as the next Sabbath approached, but contrary to all my expectations returned from mass in excellent spirits. Pat told me, laughing, that Jack was become so musical he insisted on going to sit by the organ, that he might feel the vibration; and when alone with me, Jack joyfully told me that he had run up the stairs from the outer door to the organ- loft, and so escaped even the necessity of bowing down to the cross. This plan he persisted in from that day. Some years afterwards I asked his brother if he had any suspicion at the time of the boy's object in so doing: he answered, None at all; and that if he had, he would have forced him into the body of the mass-house, and compelled him to prostrate himself.
Early in the summer of 1824, I received a summons to return to England. It was most unwelcome, for my heart was knit to Ireland, and to share the lot of her devoted people was its earnest desire. At home I had many old friends; but what were they to the beloved brethren and sisters in Christ, who had been my fellow-helpers for the last four years in the work of the Lord? All ties were weak to that, save one, the tie that bound me to my beloved brother. Him I had not seen for nine years: he had continued on the staff of the Portuguese army until the establishment of the Cortes, who dismissed all British officers; and then he settled in the interior of that country, cultivating some of the land which he had gallantly fought to rescue. It was a subject of continual sorrow to me that he was residing in the heart of an exclusively Popish country, far from every means of grace; not even a place of worship within many leagues, and wholly shut out from Christian intercourse. I knew that he had been equally dark with myself on the subject of religion; and truly can I say, that from the very hour of my being enabled to see the truth as it is in Jesus, my life had been a constant prayer for him, that God would make him a partaker in the like precious faith. There was now a prospect of his returning, and this added to the summons I have mentioned, made my way plain. The state of Jack's mind, too, on the subject of Popery, helped to reconcile me, since I had made up my mind to take him with me if his parents would agree to it. There was no difficulty in bringing them to do so; they gave a willing, a grateful consent. His mother's words, while tears rolled down her cheeks, were, "Take him; he is more your child than ours." His father remarked, "Why shouldn't we let him go with you, seeing he would grieve to death if you left him behind?" When I began to state that I could not promise he would not openly embrace my religion, they interrupted me, repeating that he was my child more than theirs, and could never come to any harm under my care. Coward as I was, I did not use the opportunity then given to set before them their own danger, and commend the pure faith that I knew their child held. I had occasionally talked in a general way, and once very strongly, when the mother told me of the dreadful penances she had done, walking on her bare knees over a road strewed with pebbles, glass, and quicklime, to make her sufferings greater, in order to obtain from God and the saints the restoration of the boy's hearing and speech. She was then pleading the power and holiness of her clergy, and their superiority to all the rest of the world. I looked from the window, and said, "See, there goes your bishop; now do you think this bright sun warms him more than it does any Protestant walking beside him?" "Troth, and I am sure it does," answered she. "What, do you think he has any particular advantage over other men in things that are common to all?" "That he has, being a holy bishop." "Well, now, if I call him up, and we all put our fingers together between these bars, do you think the fire would burn him less than us?" She hesitated; her husband burst into a laugh, and archly said, "I'll engage his reverence wouldn't try that same."
