An Edifying Spectacle

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 19, 19 July 1906, Page 3

An Edifying Spectacle

Archbishop Seton, in his recent lecture, ' The Irish in America,' delivered at the Irish College, Rome, Italy, related the following story of Irish faith and devotion :— ' Omo beautiful moonlight night in the year 1796 Mrs. Sctcn, his grandmother, saw from the window of her residence on the seacoast a crowd of people disembark from a sailing \essel which had just arrived. They made up 237 men, won. en, and children, all Irish, who, as it afterward transpired, had sailed lour and a half months previously from Drogheda. No socn *r luul they touched land than they all formed a circle about a \ enerable-looking old man, whose white hair fill down his back, and, falling upon their knees on the sands, they "thanked God long and earnestly for their deliverance Then, d"awing strings of beads from their pcokeU, they prayed first in a tongue she had never h-ard before, afterward in the English language. The sight of that poor band ne\-er left Mrs. Seton 's mind, and she shortly afterward became a Catholic'