Sunday Conner.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXV, Issue 17, 3 September 1897, Page 20

Sunday Conner.

BETTEE THAN GOLD. Better than grandeur, better than gold, Than rank and titles a thousand fold, Is a healthy body, a mind at ease, And simple pleasures that always please. A h> art that can feel for another's woe, When the true heart's crushed by a deadly blow, With sympathies large enough to enfold All men as brothers, is better than gold. Better than gold is a conscience clear, Though toiling for bread in an humble sphere. Doubly blest with content and health Untried by tho lust and cares of wealth. Lowly living and lofty thought Adorn and ennoble a poor man's cot ; For mind and morals in nature's plan Are the genuine test of a gentleman. Better than gold is the sweet repose Of the sons of toil when their labours close ; Better than gold is the poor man's sleep, And the balm that drops on his slumbers deep. Bring sleeping draughts to the downy bed, Where luxury pillows its aching head ; The toiler simple opiate deems A shorter route to the land of dreams. Better than gold is a peaceful home, Where all the fireside characters come. The shrine of love, the heaven of life, Hallowed by mother or sister or wife. However humble the home may be. Or tried with sorrow by Heaven's decree. The blessings that never were bought or sold, And centre there, are better than gold. —By Father A. J. Ryan. SAINT PATRICK'S VISION. There is a legend of olden times which telh of a vision seen by the Apo«t'e of Ireland a short while before his death. In that vision he is shown the future of tlic island tor whose good he had dared and done so much. Tho sight, tull'oi' sorrow, of trial, of suffering, of anguish, wrung the Apostle's heart, and he cried aloud inthedarkne-s : '" Will Gol thus cast o!V Unpeople lor ever /" and then a voice bade him look into the distant future ; for beyond the gloom there was light, and beyond the sorrow there was hope. Yes ; there was light far away in the west — out in the great ocean — far down below the sunset's farthest verge — from westernmost hilltop the New World lay waiting for the light. It came borne by the hands of Ireland's starving children. The old man tottered with the precious burden from the fever-stricken ship ; the young child carried the light in feeble hands to the shore ; the strong man bore it to the western prairies and into the vales of the snowy Sierras thejjmaiden brought it into the homestead to be the dower to lur husband and a lesjacy to her children; and lo ! ere famine's ni^kt had passed from Ireland, the Church of Patrick arose o'er all the va-t New World of America, from where the Saint Lawrence pours its crystal tide i'lto the daybreak of the Atlantic, to whero California flings wiJe her Golden Gate to the sunset of the Pacific. Nearly one thousand four hundred years have passed away, new faiths have arisen, new languages ha\c sprung up, new worlds have been born to man : but those fourteen centuries have only fed the fire of that faith which he taught the men of Erin and have spread into a wider horizon the light to he kindled. And if there be in the great life beyond the grave a morning trumpet-note to sound the reveille of the army of the dead glorious indeed must be the muster answering from the tombs of iourteen centuries the summons of the Apostle of the Gaels. Nor scarce less glorious can be his triumph when the edge of sunrise rolling around the living earth, reveals on nli the ocean isles and distant continents the myriad scattered children of fie apostle whose voices, answering that sunrise roll-call, re-echo in endless accents along the vaults of Heaven. — Irish Catholic.