was valuable or could be turned into money. The elegant and accomplished
young female, hitherto accustomed to all the comforts and luxuries of
life, was now to be taught a lesson of suffering and endurance as severe
as it was unexpected. Many--many such lessons were taught, and we may
add--well and nobly, and with true Christian fortitude, were they borne.
We have already said that Purcel had the collection of tithe for four
Parishes, and now that the distress among the clergy and their families
had assumed such a dreadful and appalling aspect, he had an opportunity
of ascertaining the extraordinary respect and affection for them which
existed after all in the minds of the people. His own house and premises
were now so strongly secured, and his apprehension of nocturnal attacks
so strongly justified by the threats he had already received, and the
disorganized state of the country around him, that he was forced to
decline receiving the tithe at unseasonable hours; it being impossible
for him to know whether the offer of payment might not have been a plan
of the people to get into his dwelling, and wreak their vengeance
upon him and his sons. Under these circumstances, his advice to them,
communicated with due regard to his own safety, was to pay the money
directly to the clergyman himself, or at least to some of his family;
and this, indeed, when they lived near the clergyman, they always
preferred doing. To be sure, the step was a hazardous one, but, as
they say, where there is a will there is a way; and so it was in many
instances on this occasion. The dead hour of the night was necessarily
selected for the performance of this kind office, and in this way
many an unexpected act of relief was experienced by the starving and
destitute clergy, at the hands of the very persons who were sworn to
abolish tithes, and to refuse paying them in any shape.

Sometimes, to be sure, when Purcel or his sons happened to be abroad
on business, attended as they now generally were by policemen for their