George A. Birmingham

“ He's not going to die."
"I know that. But I have to enter his religion in the book. It's the rule that the religion of every inmate of the house or the hospital must be entered, and I'll get into trouble after if I don't do it."
"Well," said the doctor, "there's no use asking me about it. I can't talk to him any better than you can, and there isn't any way of telling by the feel of a man's leg whether he's a Catholic or a Protestant." ”

“ The doctor was gone. Mr. Jackson went back to his study and spent two hours wrestling with the contents of a lexicon. He arrived at the workhouse in the evening with a number of cryptic notes, the words lavishly accented, written down on small slips of paper.
Father Henaghan was the next person whom Dr. Whitty visited. At first he absolutely declined to help.
"The only language I could make any shift at speaking," he said, "is Latin. And that would be no use to you. There isn't one sailor out of every thousand, outside of the officers of the Royal Navy, that would know six words of Latin." ”

“ I fancy there is."
"Well, look here, come up and try the poor fellow with ancient Greek. I expect he'll understand it if you talk slowly. All we want to get out of him is whether he's a Protestant or a Catholic."
"If he's a Greek at all," said the rector, "he'll probably not be either the one or the other."
"He's got to be one or the other while he's here. He can choose whichever happens to be the nearest thing to his own religion, whatever that is. Does Mrs. Jackson know Italian or Spanish?" ”

“ I'll take you up with me to the workhouse hospital at six o'clock this evening. I want you to speak French to a man that's there, one of the sailors out of the ship that was wrecked."
"I mightn't be fit," said Lizzie doubtfully.
"Oh yes, you will. Just look up the French for religion before you start, and get off the names of the principal kinds of religion in that language. All you have to do is to ask the man, 'What is your religion?' and then understand whatever it is he says to you by way of an answer."
Dr. Whitty next called on Mr. Jackson and explained the situation to him. ”

“ Think of the poor fellow lying there and not being able to tell any of us what religion he belongs to."
"I'll tell you why I won't go," said the priest. "There was one time when I was a curate in Dublin I used to be attending one of the hospitals. People would be brought in suffering from accidents and dying, and you wouldn't know what they were, Catholic or Protestant. I got into the way of anointing them all while they were unconscious, feeling it could do them no harm, even if they were Protestants. Well, one day I anointed a poor fellow that they told me was dying. ”

“ Jackson is coming up, and he's prepared to ask the man what religion he is in ancient Greek—ancient Greek, mind you, no less. It wouldn't be a nice thing to have it said about the town that the Protestant minister could talk ancient Greek and that you weren't fit to say a few words in Latin. Come now, Father Henaghan, for the credit of the Church say you'll do it. ”

“ THE INTERPRETERS AT the end of January, after three weeks of violently stormy weather, the American bark Kentucky went ashore at Carrigwee, the headland which guards the northern end of Ballintra Bay. ”