IN MEMORY OF O'CONNELL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXV, Issue 11, 16 July 1897, Page 4

IN MEMORY OF O'CONNELL.

DISCOURSE IN ROME BY ARCIIB SHOP KEVNE. The fiftieth annivir.sury of the death of Daniel O'Connell was celebrated by a special Jtt'/'t'rw Mass on Saturday, May 1."), in the church of the Irish Collide. Koire. where the he;irt of the Irish leader and patiiot is preserved. M<rr. Donnelly, Bishop Coidjutor of Dublin, was the celebrant. There were pre<ent Cardinals Vaughan and Satolli. Mgri. Keane, Stonor, O'Call.ighan, Bishop of Cork, Mgr. Giles. Rector of the English College in Rome and Mgr. Algernon Stanley, Lady Herbert and the Dow.iger Counters of Denbigh, the Rev. Mr. Muturin, and the pupils of the Irish, Scotch, English, North American and Canadian Colleges in R une. Cardinal Vaughan gave the absolutions. After the Mas**. Mgr. Koune delivered a funeral oration, reviewing 1 O'Connell's work for the emancipation of English and Irish Catholics, and for the abjlition of the penal laws. Mgr. Keane took as his text : — '" Come, and I will send thee to Pharaoh, that thou mayst deliver My people . . . and I will be with thee " (Exodus iii , 10, 12). Fifty years ago to-day Daniel O'Connell died, leaving his body to Ireland, his heart to Rome aud his eoul to God. All Christendom cried out in sorrow at the news. The Eternal City received his heart as a priceless heritage, and more thankingly paid honour to his memory. Paris vied with Rome in the expression of her admiration and her grief. The two most eloquent and learned preachers in the world declared his character and his achievements without a parallel in the history of great men, and proved that all the nations of the earth were his debtors. Heartbroken Erin covered her face in unutterble, incomparable grief, giving 1 thanks to God that she was the mother of such a son, yet feeling her bereavement, her utter desolation, great indeed and bitter and almost hopeless, now that he was gone. The events of the half century that has since elapsed serve as a background to set forth in clearer light the features of that wonderful man, the Providential meaning and purpose of that phenomenal life. Nothing is plainer in history than that ages and nations have had their Providential men, men who not only towered above their generation by their superior qualities, but on whom there was manifest the impress of a Divine purpose and plan, of a mission

from on high. Such men not only mark an epoch and give a key to its meaning, they teach a lesson, or rather the God of history teaches a lesson through them, a le^on not only "for their time and their country, but which it behoves all times and all countries to study and heed. THE IMtOVIOEXTI VI, M V\ I'OR IRELAND The student of history has no difficulty in recognising that O'Connell was the Providential man of Ireland. But he was far more than that. The Count de Montalembert. addressing- him in Is 17 in the name of all lovers of liberty in Fr.mce, declared that they saluted him not only as the Liberator of all Ireland, not only as the Man of thu Irish People, but as the Man of Christendom, the M.m of the Age. Yes, in stu lying O'Connell, it i.s a mighty lesson of God's Providence to our age th.it we have to stuiy. Let us study it reverently. And that we m.iy not mar it by any theorising of our own we sh ill simply let that wonderful life speak for itself ; we shall ix.ua upon those tnajc stie outlines which the hand of God has. traced, praying tor wisdom to appreciate it as we ought. The formative period in e\eiy gre it man's 1 i ft* is a time of intensest interest. Then you cm -i\' the liand ot Cod moulding like soft clay thy young mind and h -s.it and character into their Providential shape and into fitness tor their Providential purpose. O Connell has himself told us most sweetly of the mould m which his life as a boy was cast, lie tell.s ib tint the imprisons which earliest and mo-t powerfully a^ted on him weiv tho-e of the Alpine scenery of his native Kerry. 11 I.s TRAINING. Thus was Providence moulding that young heart to sympathy with natire and -with all things, moulding it in the true Celtic mould of poetry and tendering and de< p intensity of feeling, moulding it in exquisite sensitiveness to ev< ry touch of sweetness and beauty, of joy and sadness, of ever} mood of feeling: that sweeps over the hoirts of men. And in so doang Providence was not only developing the poetry of his own nature, making it sympathetic with every human c mdition. fitting it into exquisite compassion for the sorrow, the sufferings, the need-> of all the children of Erin ; but it was also making him acquainted with all the powers of emotion thut lie dormant in the hearts of others, teaching- him howto touch and roiisn them, how t > play with a master hand on all the emotions of the human heart. God destined him to enter into the

inmost lives of all the millions of Erin, to mould their minds in his own thought*, to move their hearts with his own great emotions to rouse their wills to the level of his own great purpose, and hurl their united energies in one irresistible assault against | the citadel of wrong. Only a nature of marvellous depth and tenderness and sympathy and power could be a fit instrument in the hand of Providence for such a work ; and it was to this that God was silently, hiddenly moulding his whole being in this first stage of his Providential preparation. Then Providence led his young mind to a higher level. One of his favourite haunts was the old ruined Abbey of Darrynane. The quaint old architecture, so different from that of the houses around, charmed bis fancy and made him wonder who they were that had reared those walls anl dwelt within them long ago His father answered his eager questionings, and told him of the generations after generations of holy and learned monks who had lived there centuries before — told him of the similar generations of saint-, and sines who had made glorious the names of Ardfert. Aghudoe. Innislallen and Muckrossin his own lo\ed Kerry, besides hundred- of abbeys like them all over Ireland. These hints of a better and brighter age long g ne by fired the heart of young O'Connell with eagerm ss in know all about fiose vanished glories. He gathered every accessible detail from masters and from books. And then, he tells us, that (J.'lden Age of Erin was the favourite theme of his boyish mt dilations, lie paused not to dwell on the devastation of Danish and Norman and Saxon invasions which had quenched that wondrous radiance. He passed beyond the storm-clouds and basked in the radiance that once illumined all the land. In later years his soul was to burn with indignation against the tyrant oppressors who had quenched this matchless radiance and robbed his country of her ancient glories. But now it sufficed him to revel in the memories that were his rightful inheritance and to drink his soul full of their inspiration. It was to be the inspiration of his life, as it had been during all these centuries the inspiration of his Erin. IjOVE or KKMGioN and liuekty. Faith, religion, love of God and Christ and Mother Church became the mainspring of all his energies, the motive power of his whole life. Every great life must be possessed by some lofty ideal, must be lifted up and broadened and ennobled by some mighty motive, must be upheld and impelled by some transcendent purpose. All this the soul of that boy was drinking in, almost unconsciously, from his charmed musings on the Christian glories of Erin's past. And while the simple, vigorous lire he h\ed was building up in him that stalwart physical strength that he would need for the herculean labours of his future career, he was growing at 'he same time into the lite-purpose which was to give that career its direction and its greatness. He longed to drink deep of learning. Hut poor devastated Erin had no schools in which he could find it. The hand of the spoiler had swept them all away. He was too young to grasp the full meaning of the English Penal Code that ground down his country ; but he had a glimpse of it when he was compelled, in order to get an education, to seek it in foreign climes. During the four years that he spent in the colleges of Liege. Louvain, St Omer, and Douay, while plodding faithfully in the ordinary curriculum, his mind and heart were e\er intent on the thoughts of his early boyhood. He loved history, because it pictured to his youthful imagination the life-long struggle of humanity for right against might, for justice against wrong, tor liberty to live, as (lod meant that mankind should live, in peace <uid weltare ; tor liberty to grow. as God meant that mankind should grow, unto the full stature of manly self-control and responsibility. Thus side by side with his early love of religion there grew up in his soul a mighty love of justice, of liberty, and a great wrath against tyranny in any shape or in any part of the world, that would rob men of their rights. that would Torce on them th rule ot wrong, th.it would shackle or restrain them from legitimate uijo\inent of justice and liberty. HOKKOIi 01' THE I 'HEM. II KL\ (HA 1 l(>\. While he was working all this out for himself in the quiet seclusion of his classes, in iuriatul multitudes were working n out in bloody shape at the barricades of Paris and on the battle-fields of France. At first his soul sympathised with them because they battled against manifest wrong, b cause they marched under the banners of justice and liberty. But ere long he saw that they had lost the great ideas which constitute justice and liberty, thai Voltairean sophistry had robbel them of the principles which underlie all human welfare ; that m their mad rush tor liberty they were desecrating all th" sanctuaries ot liberty and breaking down all its safeguards : that thus they were driving on to wild extremes, and extremes must meet : that Mirabeau was preparing the way for Danton. Robespierre and Marat, as these would logically lead on to the iron despotism ot" Napoleon. When he left Uouay for his home, in 1793, at the age of eighteen, those convictions were already clear and strong in his mind. He felt sure his life would be spent in a struggle for his country's rights, in the mighty endeavour to wrest from English tyranny justice and liberty tor Ireland. God was already whimpering m his ear . ' Come, and I will send i hoe that thou mayest deliver My people , and I will be with thee But he saw clearly thit the stnte in which he was to be a leader must be totally differeut from the awful and bloody and godless struggle ot the French Revolution. From that conviction and that resolution he never swerved for an instant. mokalj l'uwmt his chosen wuvpon. His conclusion was drawn. p(jsiti\ely and irrevocably . not by physical force was the victory to be gained, but by moral power. His plan was formed, definitely and unchangt ably ; he would unite nto one vast army every man and woman in Ireland ; he would arm them with weapons against which guns and bayonets woulc be powerless ; he would till them with clear-sighted conviction o: wheir rights and with unflinching determination that those right must be granted ; he would teach them to declare their griev «nces, to protest and petition and agitate tor justice, till the whol

world would ring with their complaint and all mankind agree that their complaint was just ; he would fling- the indignant public opinion of his whole country and of the whole world like an irresistible phalanx against the British Parliament and force it to surrender, force it to do justice, force it to emancipate enslaved Erin. To prepare himself for that task was now the one study of his life. Partial relaxation of the Penal Laws now made it possible for him to study law and be admitted to the Bar. He unhesitatingly cho.-e this career b cause it would give him standing and influence ; because it would make him a master ir all legal procedure ; becanse it would give him opportunities to right injustice ; because it would train him in perfect power of speech, the magic power by which he was to win and direct the energies of all his people and to battle down the opposition of all their foes. Erelong the stalwart, handsome, eloquent, hard* orking young lawyer attracted general attention, and won general esteem in the courts. Wider and wider spread hia fame, and when, on the eve of the abolition of the Irish Parliament, this young barrister of twenty-five arose in mass meeting and thnndend against tie proposed iniquity, against this outrageous injustice to Ireland, the whole people felt that a great power had risen among them, a man in whose heart there was an echo to all the patriotism that had ever armed her sons for her defence, a man of wisdom and power and nobleness of soul whom they could trust, whom they could folio .v and obey in the mighty struggle to which his finger was already pointing them. THi; DirilCUl/TY OF WIXMNU CONFIDENCE. On and on he pushed in his splendid career, winning fame and fortune for himself, but winning also what he prized far more the confidence of the Irish people. It was no easy task. They had grown so used not only to tyranny but to betrayal, that it was no wonder that they had grown diffident, suspicious of every would-be leader. Especially was this true of the clergy and the bishops. They had so often seen their poor flocks roused to frensy and led out to certain slaughter by well-meaning but imprudent demagogues, that they were not to be blamed for long mistrusting this new arch-agitator, who spoke in such thunder-tones against long-rooted injustice, and was beginning to stir so profoundly the hearts of the entire nation by his demand of justice for Ireland. No wonder that neirly all who were engaged in trade or who possessed vested interests feared that this agitation would disturb economic adjustments and entail pecuniary loss on themselves, and that, therefore, they should deprecate it with all their might. And no wonder, too, that many a hot-headed, enthusiastic patriot, whose blood was boiling with anger against British tyranny, who had lost all hope, if he ever hud any. in British justice, who was full of the spirit which in "!)S had risen half-armed and rushed to death for Ireland, should now scoff at this lawyer patriot, scoff at his denunciation of physical force, scoff at his peaceful agitation, at his law and order campaign, scuff at his hope and his promise that through mere moral power the Irish people would wring from England what they had failed to win w ith guns and pikes. All this O'Connell had to overcome ere his people could be one with him ; and he overcame it all. It took him ten years and more to conquer all mistrust, to answer all objections, to remove honest prejudices, to expo-e and defeat self-interested opposition, to pour his own strong convictions and his own lofty purpose into every Irish heart. At last every mmd in Irelmd saw the truth and every heart was with him. and from end to end of the land he was acclaimed the Man of the People. Then began the long campaign of assault upon the toe. Kcuuiots \m> civil uiu:nrY his, object. Two great rights O Council was determined to wrest from British tyranny : religious liberty and civil liberty. He put religions liberty first, be. nu-r it is the more sacred of the two, because the mm who h;i- not liberty of conscience has no rights that are worth hawnu. And s,, ihrou-hout the land the cry went up for Catholic i;.nauupiUon. Mating:, were held in every town and on every hill-side, to heai O'Connell tell them of their country's rights and their count r.yV w rrmgs. Thousands and tens of thousands hung upon his words, exulting and weeping by turns, as he pictured to them Krm's Catholic -lories in the ble^-d days of yore and Erin's piteous desolation now. as she sat wan and wasted in her ruined home, wailing over the myriads of her m.ih that had been slain for loving her. weeping o\er the down-trodden multitudes, of her children that were tre.ite 1 as Helots in their own land, despised by the Sassenach hoause. like their mother, they loved the religion of Jesus crucified, and found their consolation with Mary and John at the foot of the Cross. Their blood boiled as he dwelt upon the crying injustice of refusing clvl i rights to Catholics, as such, in a land where, in spite of centuries of persecution, nine-tenths of the people were Catholics. Outbursts of hone-it indignation arose as. in strains of withering invectne. he repelled the lying assertion that Catholics, as such, were le^ fit to be loyal citizens of t he empire than their Protestant neighbours. And when, in tones of matchkss eloquence, he thundered forth the demand for Catholic Emancipation, those tens ot thousands sent forth a shout whose echoes came with startling force to the ear- of King and Parliament. On went the agitation, till e\ery man and woman in Ireland was in it. On it went, till it became m mitest to all observers that this was not a passing outburst ot enthusiasm, but the calm, strong utterance of a conviction and a purpose that hid "001110 to stay " and that must prove irresistible. 'I Hi: ( (IM)ITIUN Ol' I Ilk, LAND. He had left Ireland a mere boy, full of the sweet imaginings ol childhood, living m iancy with his here s in the bright glories ot the past He returned verging into manhood, his intellect developed and trained, able to look facts in the face, to estimate them rightly, and to draw practical inferences. He had read of the condition ot his country, w ntlnng under the heel of oppression ; but now he saw w ith his o,\ 11 eye-, w Il.lt Inland was, and the spectacle wrung his heart, nay. almost broke it. Everywhere he beheld the dire results of beven centuries of tyrannical oppression and thref

centuries of systematic extermination. With heart-sick avidity he studied every detail of that incomparable Penal Code, devised under Henry and Elizabeth for the extirpation of the Catholic religion, developed and perfected under Cromwell and the rest for the extirpation Catholic Irish people. He followed the ramification of the Code as it hounded Catholics through every department of civil life, shutting them out from every position of public trust or emolument, from taking any part in the political life of the country, from even teaching or being taught ; so that seven millions of Catholics had no legal right to exist, could breathe only by the tolerance of the 800,000 Protestants in Ireland, and of the British Government which acknowledged that little Protestant minority alone. He tracked it as it entered even into the sanctuary of domestic life, offering the children every inducement to denounce their Catholic father and renounce his faith. He studi< d it until he saw for himself how justly the great Edmund I'urko had written of it : "It was a complete system, full of coherence ;.nd consistency, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of men." He thanked God that while it had indeed succeeded in oppressing and impoverishing the Irish people and making them a race of hated aliens in their own country it had utterly failed to degrade or debase them. The record of those 300 years showed it amply ; but no thanks for that to the Penal Code or the British Government. He saw how, during the period that immediately preceded and followed his own birth, the Government had been forced by circumstances into some relaxation of the Penal Laws. Grudgingly, England yielded some concessions, and Irish Catholics could feel that, in the eye of the law. some little manhood was left in them, and some small modicum of human rights might be asserted. O'Connell saw that now was the opportune time for the delivery of his country from slavery. Clearer and clearer God was whispering in his heart : "Come, and I will send thee that thou mayst deliver My people."' Again and again, as he upon the odious and intolerable persecution and felt the galling fetters in his own life and in that of his family, his blood boiled with indignation like that which fired the heart of Moses when he rose and slew the slayer of his people. But his Celtic impetuosity was wonderfully balanced and controlled by clear-sighted prudence. History had shown him how every wrathful uprising of the harrassed and maddened Irish against the overwhelming odds of their armed and disciplined foes hail only ended in more cruel massacre and in a tightening of the fetters. Now, under his own eyes, the uprising of '!K, led by the heroic Wolfe Tone, Arthur O'Connor, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, had been stamped out in the blood of more than ."iO.OOO victims. In organisation is strength, and therefore in 1823 the mighty movement was organised into the Catholic Association. Its branches were in every town and hamlet ; every man and woman in Ireland swelled its membership ; even the poorest of the poor gloried in paying in their monthly Emancipa-tion-penny for carrying on the warfare. Thus O'Connell found himself at the head of a well-organised army of 7 .000,000, assuredly the strongest man in all the world. Never in all these centuries of misrule was England as apprehensive as now. Favourite oft-tried methods of bribery and cajolery were used to bring disunion into the IrishSranks but in vain. Meetings were proscribed, associations were outlawed ; but the fertile brain of O'Connell found legal means to evade each condemnation and roll the movement on under other forms. Sentences of imprisonment were passed on O'Connell and his aids, and, through sheer shame of their flagrant injustice, had to be cancelled. The eyes of the world were on the strife. CATHOLIC LMAXCII'ATIOV And the whole world bur&t forth in admiration and applause. The world declared O'Connell and Ireland were right, and that England must yield. From end to end of Christendom the cry was re-echoed: 'Religious liberty for Ireland 1 ' King and Parliament stormed and swore, and vowed that it should not bo. But King and Parliament were powerless against the verdict of the world. The oritical moment had come. The electors of Clare sent O'Connell to Parliament. They knew and he knew that, as a Catholic, he was ineligible. But they elected him all the samp. Such a revolution as England had never had to deal with was thundering at the very doors of Parliament, a revolution that meant no bloodshed, but that meant victory for justice, and must have it. Foaming with rage the Parliament surrendered : fuming and cursing, the King signed the Bill. Catholic Emancipation was won, and Ireland was free from the yoke of centuries. O'Connell must be admitted to Parliament, but they will make it as hard for him as they can. When he appears betore the House of Commons they offer him the old oath, which was equivalent to an abjuration ot the Catholic Faith. Slowly and deliberately he scans it from beginning to end. while all eyea are fixed upon him. Then, in majestic tones : " One halt of this oath I believe to be untrue, and the other half I know to be false," and he flings it from him. With ill-restrained rage he is . told that since he cannot take the oath which ,vas in force at the time of his election he must withdraw. A second time the men of Clare elect him. This time he enters triumphant, the oath of abjuration beinu; buried, and Parliament feels that it has received its master, A few English Catholic members had preceded him. through the doors of Emancipation which he had burst open. The era of religious liberty had been won, not for Ireland alone, but for every spot in the wide world where the flag of England floated, and all the millions of emancipated Catholics thoughout the English speaking world joined with Ireland in hailing O'Connell by the glorious title of Liberator. Never since the days of Constantino had the world beheld such an achievement or honoured such a hero. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE VETO. But there is a worse tyranny than that of coercion and persecution ; it is the tyranny of enslaving patronage. When the signs of the times began to indicate to England's tar-seeing statesmen that Catholic Emancipation would have to be granted at last, they

resolved that since the chains of iron that had so long galled the enslaved Church must be thrown off, they would try and replace them with manacles of gold. They offered to grant Catholic Emancipation on condition that the Government should have a veto in the appointment of the bishops ; and they further offered that the salaries of the priests should be paid by the State. The gilded bait was eagerly grasped at by thousands, and many on unsuspecting Catholic, and many a long-persecuted and impoverished priest, and many a bishop eager for peace to the Church at almost any cost, favoured the acceptance of the fair-seeming offer. Rome itself inclined to think it an advantage that ought not to be rejected. Two men, however, had the penetration to see the hook through the bait Bishop Milner and O'Connell raised their voices in solemn warning. At first their protest was most unwelcome to the almost deluded Catholics of both England and Ireland. But they were immovable, and pro\ ed with unanswerable eloquence that a salaried clergy would have to be obedient minions of the State ; that if England had the veto, then the men w ho ought to be bishops would never be appointed ; that, in fact, the whole offer was a deliberately concocted scheme for a worse enslavement of the Church than that from which they offered to emancipate her. Better a thousand times, they exclaimed, the Penal Laws and poverty and persecution, with honour and freedom, than the pampered and gilded slavery offered them instead. And the eyes of the people were opened, and they saw that it was true. Rome also saw through the cunning device and rejected it. Like one man the people cried out that from their poverty they would joyfully and amply provide for the loved xot/</art?i «n>,m. but he must be their father, their very own. and not the liveried servant of the Crown. And O'Connell and his mighty following spurned the offer of Emancipation at such a cost, and fought on the good fight till the boon was won without bargain and without compromise on the sole basis of man's inalienable rights. The British Parliament expected to find in O'Connell an uncouth " bog-trotter " and a wild demagogue. To their amazement, they found him the peer of the best of them in refinement and culture, and the master of them all in every power that makes the consummate orator. Wendell Phillips's Estimate of O'Connell. I once heard Wendell Phillips, the most polished of American orators, give his estimate of O'Connell. Lincoln Hall, in Washington, was crowded with the elitr of the capital to hear the great American agitator discourse on the world-renowned Irish Liberator. He told us how the first time he went to hear O'Connell he expected torrents of turbulent passion, of wild, uncultured rudeness. To his amazement, he found in him the most majestic and finished orator that he had ever heard or could imagine. Nearly fifty different times he managed to hear him speak, and every time his wonder crew at the marvellous powers oi the man and the equally marvellous art with which those powers had been trained and were used. He declared that in that one man he had found combined the argumentative persuasiveness of vEschines, the overwhelming force of Demosthenes, and the exquisite diction of Cicero. He was awful in attack, fearful in denunciation, sweet as a woman, and gentle as a child in winsome presentation of the just, the true, the pathetic, the good. THE AGITATION I'Oli REPEAL. All his great powers were consecrated to the one purpose of winning full justice for Ireland. He had won for her religious liberty, but the victory would be incomplete till he should also win for her civil liberty. God was still whispering in his ear, as in the ear of Moses : " I have sent thee that thou mayest deliver My people."' Moses demanded for his people not only religious liberty to worship Gcd according to the Divine behest, but also civil liberty in the Promised Land. To fulfil his mission O'Connell had to do as much. He was fifty-four years of age when Catholic Emancipation was won, and the thirty years of incomparable toil that it had cost him must have told severely even on his iron frame. But with all the energy of youth he now made for the second goal, which still lay far before him. All his, contention for civil liberty he summed up in one single demand, the demand for the repeal of the Act of Legislative Union by which, in the year 1800, the Irish Parliament had been abolished. He insisted, in the first place, that that Act was in its every feature a crime of unmitigated iniquity. He related to his unwilling hearers the shameful .scenes of those closing sessions, when, like a jury carefully " packed ' for conviction, the false representatives of Ireland decreed the civil death of the country, voting the extinction of her Parliament. He told of the bribe that was paid for the infamous act, the million and a-half of pounds which they were to receive, and which was to be wrung for them from the very vitals of poor Ireland. It was a crime, and" had no extenuation. He insisted, in the second place, that all the results of the Act had been unmitigated disaster to Ireland ; that it had paralysed and blasted all her hopes for industries, for commerce, for the development of her boundless natural resources, for her taking : her due place among the active peoples of Christendom ; that it had doomed her inevitably to inaction and poverty, to a poverty that was ever on the brink of starvation and might at any moment tumble over into the abyss. He insisted, in the third place, that the righting of the great wrong, the restoring to Ireland of a Parlianient that would have her interests at heart, while it would be of incalculable benefit to his country, would in no way injure the Empire, but the contrary. Again and a^ain he dwelt upon the manifest truth that injustice to Ireland is weakness to England; that justice to Ireland would bo strength to the whole Empire. DEMAND FOR SELI'-GOVERN'M ENT, NOT SEPARATION. He was seekieg not disunion and .strife, but union and peace. But peace can rest only on justice ; therefore he demanded justice, that there might be peace. But he was speaking to deaf ears. Again and again his Bill for the Repeal of the Union was rejected, as a measure which aimed at severing Ireland from the British Crown. This allegation O'Connell repelled indignantly. He fear-

leasly averred that if such were Ireland's contention it would be but a demand for fullest justice, since it would be the undoing of what she had always denounced as the traitorous act by which suborned chieftains had, in 1541, voted the Crown of Ireland to Henry VIII. But he proclaimed unceasingly, with unmistakable honesty and with the full endorsement of the Irish people, that Ireland no longer demanded this ; that she accepted loyally the fact of three centuries' standing which linked her fortunes with Great Britain ; that she professed heartily and loyally her allegiance to the Crown, only asking the common-sense right of self-government as to her own merely internal and domestic affairs, which English or Scotch legislators could hardly be expected to understand or to deal with sympathetically, ready in all matters of general interest to co-operate cheerfully and generously with her sister nations for the common welfare of the empire. English good sense and English love of fair play could not but see that he was right. But English prejudice and English obstinacy would not conBent to being coerced even into manifest justice by the despised and hated Irish. Then O'Connell determined that, while still carrying on the agitation in Parliament and wringing from it every possible measure of justice, the great contest for the repeal of the Union, like that of Catholic Emancipation, should be carried on in the vast arena of public opinion, on the plains of Ireland and throughout the entire world. For seventeen years the Titanic struggle went on. The Catholic Association having dissolved when its end was accomplished, the Repeal Association took its place. The Repeal-penny served, as the Emancipation-penny had served, to support the great agitation and to bring the cause home to the heart of every man, woman and child in Ireland. The •' monster meetings" of 300,000. 500,000, 700,000 eager patriots, hanging on the almost superhuman eloquence of O'Connell and thundering forth the demand for justice to Ireland, were a spectacle of amazement and admiration to the civilised world. And the one man who inspired all this, moved all this and absolutely controlled that tremendous power by a word or a gesture, stood forth unquestionably the most wonderful man of the age, and was well called Ireland's uncrowned monarch. Fortunately his appeals to the people to prove themselves worthy of freedom by self-control and blameless conduct were well heeded ; his warning that whoever committed a crime gave strength to the enemy was fully appreciated. Fortunately, too. he had with him the whole clergy of Ireland, and through them the spirit of the Prince of Peace held and controlled their flocks. FATHER MATHEWS HELI'. But, most fortunately of all, Father Mathew, the apostle of temperance, began just at the opportune time his wonderful crusade against the one great weakness, the one potent evil, which would especially cause daDger of excitement and violence. Soon the millions that marched under the banner of repeal were equally enrolled under the banner of temperance. Then O'Connell knew that the cause was safe. And when, in the monster temperance procession through Dublin. O'Connell, then Lord Mayor, walked side by 9ide with Father Mathew. and when, as they parted, the cheering and heart- touched multitudes saw the Liberator kneel in the street to ask the blessing of the apostle of temperance, then all Ireland took the lesson to heart and saw where safety and prosperity were to be found. But ever as the great agitation went on, the Government only grew more grimly obstinate. Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and petition, argument, remonstrance, the cry for ju-tice, only angered him more. The peacefulness. the strict legality of the agitation was above all intolerance. Those Irish multitudes must be goaded to violence. The Repeal Association was inte-dicted. and the Repeal-penny was made treason. O'Connell and the people instantly submitted ; b it the meetings went on under other names and the support came in in other ways. Police and soldiers were multiplied : but O'Connell and the people only laughed, and the " peelers " had nothing to do. The monster meetings must be stopped : the five hundred thousand assembled at Mullaghmant, the seven hundred and fifty thousand gathered on the Hill of Tara. gave assurance that O'Connell's call for a million of men at Clontarf would be more than responded to. Regiment after regiment of soldiery rolled in, and only the afternoon before the meeting was to be held it was interdicted. Bad faith was evident. The resolution to force a breach of the peace was manifest. But O'Connell and Ireland were equal to the emergency, and on the plain , of Clontarf not a man of the million appeared. O'CONNKLfi IN PRISON. Finally, O'Connell and his colleagues were tried, convicted, and dragged to jail as conspirators. Even in that awful hour the genius of O'Connell was able to hold the wrath of Ireland und.-r control. For one hundred days the venerable Liberator, then nearly seventy years of age, languished in prison. Day after day the bishops, the clergy, the people of Ireland, Protestants as well as Catholics, came in solemn embassies to his prison, to offer him their sympathy and to protest against this gigantic injustice. The House of Lords itself 'vas shamed into annulling the sentence against him, and it was with a popular triumph like that of Cffisar or Augustus that he was escorted from the gaol to his home. A BROKEN HEART. But the end had come. O'Connell's strength was exhausted by his unparalleled labours and by his cruel imprisonment. He could lead the Irish millions no longer in their peaceful warfare for justice. Then the popular indignation against this doggedness of tyranny began to manifest itself in acts of violen c, and the Young Ireland party broke the Liberator's heart by beginning their heroic, but ill-advised, agitation for armed resistance. Then the famine, like a horrible black pall, came down on all the land. O'Connell's warnings were realised ; misgovernment had forced poverty over the precipice into the abyss of starvation. Hundreds of thousands were dying of starvation in a country whose store-houses held grain

enough to feed twice the population, and the starving people saw it carted away guarded by bayonets, while they were told to eat rotten potatoes and grass. The inveterate spirit of religious bigotry seized its opportunity, and the "soupers" offered the starving wretches food for themselves and their children if they would renounce Popery ; and they smiled, and kissed the Cross, and died martyrs. O'Connell's heart broke utterly. One last eff n-t he made to reach Parliament, to rise and implore them, in trembling, tearful tones, to have pity on starving Ireland, to grant maasures of relief, or one-fourth of the population must die of hunger. Then, tottering, he bade good-bye for ever to Ireland and to Britain, and stirted to ask the blessing of the Vicar of Christ ere he should die. His faith had been the inspiration of his life. His religion had been his support under the awful burdens he had had to carry. He spoke and acted with superhuman power, because every morning he knelt with the adoring angels at the altar of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, drinking in the spirit and the power of his Saviour, and very often — it is even said, every day — receiving the Communion of the Bread of the Strong. His rosary was his inseparable companion, and from its joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries of the life of the sweet Jesus and His Blessed Mother he derived unfailing encouragement and inspiration in the God-given mission to which his life was consecrated. And now that his work was over and his life at its close, he wished to die under the shadow of St. Peter's, in the City of the Martyrs, at the feet of Christ's Vicar. Yes, O'Connell was dying 1 . Like Moses, he had led his people within sitghtof the Promised Land of civil as well as religious liberty. From the mountain-top of vision he saw that goodly land outsiretched before him. He knew now that he would nevrr enter it. but he was sure that his people would some day enter in and possess it. THE MISSION OF THE IRISH PEOPLE. And we may well believe that God gave him some perception of the Providential reason why the granting of full justice was delayed, some prevision of the marvellous mission which the exiled children of Erin were first to accomplish for God in all the wide world. Forth he saw them pouring in hundreds of thousands, and on and on and on, till seven millions of them had poured forth, to Great Britain, to America, to Canada, to Australia, to the ends of the earth. And in the distant perspective he saw them everywhere planting the Cross, everywhere building up the Church of Jesus Christ. Yea, and everywhere building up the Greater Ireland, too, leavening all the English-speaking populations of the earth with their faith, with their hatred of tyranny and wrong, with their determination that wrong must cease and justice must be done, in Ireland and everywhere. O'CONNELL'S LIFE WOBK. He foresaw all this, and he knew that his life had not been ia vain, that his mission had not been a failure. He had educated the people of Ireland for self-government. He had planted the seed of' civil liberty throughout the land ; and now the winter snows wer« on it, and had hidden it out of sight, in order that the harvest of freedom might, in God's time, be surer and richer. He died content. The world enshrined his name amongst the greatest men of all time. The nations of the earth have made O'Connell a symbol of purest patriotism, of heroic loyalty to the cause of religious and civil liberty. Our age, misguided by Voltairean sophistry, beholds in him a living demonstration that faith, religion, devotedness to the alt ir and the priesthood and Mother Church, are not only compatible with love of freedom, but are its loftiest inspiration and its surest safeguard. And now, most appropriately, the heart of Ireland's Liberator lies enshrined in this venerable church, erected, it is said, by Coiihtantine, the Liberator of Christendom, and under the custody of Erin's chosen levites. May they who are privileged to kneel so often close by this bravest and noblest of hearts be filled with its spirit for their own ennobling and for Ireland's good 1 What hand shall r<>ap the harvest of freedom which O'Connell planted I What hand shall wield the sword of moral power which O'Connell laid down bo gloriously ? Like the Heaven-bestowed sword of King Arthur, it can be wielded only by chivalrous faith, by chivalrous purity of life, by chivalrous unselfishness and disinterested patri ti<*m. It has not, like Arthur's sword, been flung hopelessly into the lake. It has been laid in Erin's hands, and she is waiting for him who will be worthy to wear and wield it in O'Connell's place. Meantime, Erin's face and heart are turned towards freedom, waiting for freedom, sure of freedom, because it is right and just, because only in freedom and justice can there be peace. 0 Erin, land of my fathers, land of my birth, the hand of O'Connell still holds high uplifted before thee and thy sons the standard of the Cross of Christ, the standard of Constantine, now made thine own, and his voice still cries to thee, as in the days gone by : "In this sign thou shalt conquer." TRIBUTE BY CARDINAL VAUGHAN. Subsequently, after the dinner at the Irish College, Cardinal Vaughan addressed Archbishop Keane, in these terms : My dear Monhignor, permit me to thank you for the noble words you have pronounced to-day in honour of O Connell, for we regard him not * only as the Liberator of the Irish but also as the Liberator of the English people. He is our Liberator also. And therefore in the name of the Catholics of England and of the Church in England I offer you our most heartfelt thanks. — London Tablet.

Bailie M'Screw (to Smith, who is on a short vist to the North) : An' what are ye daen to-morrow nicht, Mester Smith ? Smith : To-morrow ? Oh, nothing particular. I've no engagement. Bailie : An' the next nicht ? Smith : Ah ! On Friday I've promised to dine with the Browns. Bailie • Man, that's a pity. Aw was gaun to ausk ye to tak' dinner wi' us o' Friday. A man who had not shaved for three or four days took his little boy on his knee and kissed him. The little boy felt his father's chin, and said : Is that what you strike your matches on, dad 1