What he called the "souping" system of the Protestant clergyman stank in his nostrils--that system by which, as he stated, the most ignorant of men were to be induced to leave their faith by the hope of soup, or other food.

He was as firmly convinced of the inward, heart-destroying iniquity of the parson as the parson was of that of the priest.

And so these two men had learned to hate each other.

And yet neither of them were bad men.
I do not wish it to be understood that this sort of feeling always prevailed in Irish parishes between the priest and the parson even before the days of the famine.

I myself have met a priest at a parson's table, and have known more than one parish in which the Protestant and Roman Catholic clergymen lived together on amicable terms.