The Irish Race
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i:iiiii!iii;;;!K;^;;»;i:i;i;»aija[Hffl.^:::TO;:^i;.:i:ni;aiiro!i!ti jH^gitimi»!iinRn~tti.t''v dt^YvperUYU^s^ drwfcifv* the Irish Race. BY ARCHBISHOP IRELAND. NOTE.—This powerful and brilliant address was delivered at the request of a Committee of representative citizens of the City of Cork on the night of July 20, 1899, in the Opera House. The name and fame of the orator drew a very large and most representative audience. The masterly affirmation of principles, as well as the courageous statement of the terrible ravages of the drink-plague among the people, clothe this address with something of the na ture of a message to the Irish race the world over. MR. CHAIRMAN, MY LORD, RP:V. FATHERS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I thank 5'ou for this very cordial welcome—(Voices : " You're worthy of it ")—a welcome which goes to my heart, for it comes, I know, from your hearts (hear, hear). I have travelled during the past six months over many lands, and stood before many audi ences, but nowhere did the welcome I liave received please me as the welcome I have received on the soil of Ireland (applause). It is now twelve years since I had the pleasure of passing through your city and of speaking to the citizens of Cork from this plat form. I have often since recalled with deepest satisfaction my visit to your city, and it is with renewed joy that I find myself to-night again among you. I have come back to Cork, the city where Father Mathew began his labors (applause) ; I have come back to pay reverence to the shrines where ministered the Apostle of Total Abstinence (applause). I have stood to-day with reverence and devotion near his statue on Patrick Street (applause). Owing no doubt, as I am willing to believe, to the works now put on your streets for the laying of modern improvements the immediate spot around the statue of Father Mathew was not wonderfully re markable for neatness (hear, hear), and the basins through which MONTHLY. AUGUST7I899. \ No. 43. TEMPERANCE PUBLICATION BUREAU, 415 WE8T 59TH ST., NEW YORK. NEW SEfflES. S3 CTS. A YEAR. Entered at Post-Office o/ New York as Second-Class Mail Matter. it was intended the purest and healthiest water would flow were filled with what might be the liquid of your historic Blackpool. I am sure the condition of the statue of Father Mathew, towards which the yearnings of hundreds of thousands of people from all parts of the world frequently turn, is no indication of the condition among you of the great cause for which Father Mathew labored (hear, hear). I am certain his memory lives not only in word but in sentiment. I am convinced you are ready to repeat every day the words inscribed on his statue, "From a grateful people" (hear, hear). Father Mathew has honored Cork ; he has honored Ireland ; he has honored the Irish race throughout the world ; he has honored the Church of which he was a child and a priest (hear, liear, and applause). Father Mathew was indeed one of the greatest benefactors of the Irish race (heai, hear, and ap plause). All that is needed to place the Irish race upon the high pedestal of prosperity, honor, and glory is that they carry out loyally and continuously, the injunctions of Father Mathew (hear, hear, and lotid applause). We are living in an age of social popular reform. It is the age of democracy, the age of the people, when the hearts of all Christians and of all true citizens of the country go out with greater earnestness and greater warmth towards the social betterment of man than per haps at any other previous period of history (applause). Every where the talk is the people, the multitude, the masses. The ques tion is constantly asked, What can we do for the People? What can we do to bring them greater intelligence, stronger moral forces, and put them on the road to social welfare ? And this is true Christianit}^ (hear, hear). Christ, the Saviour of mankind, spoke on a memorable occasion, and said : "I have pity on the multi tude " ; and these words of Christ have been throughout two thousand years re-echoed by the lovers of the Saviour, by the lovers of man ; and onward has gone the great Church of Christ, constantly reaching out the hand towards the multitude, and bring ing that multitude towards its own warm heart in order to purify it and elevate it. Attention to the people is true Christianity (kpplause). Church and State demand that we do all we can for the people. The interests of the state demand it. There was a time when a few sufficed that the ship of state might sail tri- —-'•'"•'"-atinnBUBiMiiatumimn^'ii^''-'"" 3 umphantly over billows, even if the multitude of men were not capable of putting their hand to the helm. To-day the reign of the few—the reign of the classes—has passed away, and the people are the kings (loud applause and cheering). To-day power goes up from the multitude. Woe to the country to-day where the people, the masses, are not intelligent—are not worthy of their high estate ! So, too, the interests of the Church in the most em phatic wa)' demand that we give every attention to the multitude (applause). No doubt the Church primarily looks for souls, and to her the soul of the poorest is as precious as the soul of the richest, the soul of the weakest is as precious as the soul of the strongest. In this age, however, of philanthropy, in this age of great social and moral reform, the Church, in order to prove her self before men as the messenger of the Living God, must work most efficiently among the people for their temporal good and temporal advancement (hear, hear). Let her show that she is indeed as Christ made her, the mother of the people; let her show the truth of the maxim of St. Paul, " That Piety is good for all Things." Having the promises of the life that is to come, let her show to men that she is also interested iu everything that concerns man, and that obedience to her means social improvement and social felicity, and they will love her for the things she does for them on earth, even if at first they were not willing to love her for the promises of the life to come ; and loving her for what she does on earth, they will love her and value her for what she promises in another world (hear, hear). And iu her very ambition for the salvation of souls she must reach out now, even as never before, towards the multitude in their temporal and social interests. What use is there in speaking to men against sin when their surroundings of poverty and misery drag them down into crime ? What use is there of speaking of the life to come when in the midst of their sufferings they are made, as it were, incapable of hearkening to higher influences? First civilize them—I would say, humanize them; first give them opportunities to improve their intellect and remove from them the terrible degradations of social vice and social misery, and then they are capable of hearing the high-born promises of the Gospel (hear, hear). Now there is no one word that sums up the prerequisites to all lywiamwwwtMfflWMaaiiatag I • 4 i i the social reforms that are needed, all the legitimate aspirations ii of the masses. I could tell of different things towards which you I could lend a helping hand, and different changes and reforms to I which the masses are entitled, and which they must get before we I can say that we enjoy fully all the blessings and liberty of modern i civilization. But there is the word that tells emphatically the I vital condition which must attend all other efforts towards social I elevation ; there is the word which tells what must be done if you I would succeed in any measure for the betterment of the people, I and the w^ord—oh ! I pronounce it with love and reverence—O fi God ! grant that we all hail it with the devotion it deserves— i The Word is Sobriety. i The gospel, then, that I preach this evening is the gospel of so- i briety ; the gospel which I would fain hear re-echoed throttgh i every vale and ever}' mountain-top of holy Ireland (applause). I A great patriot—A. M. Sullivan (applause)—said a few years I ago, "Ireland sober is Ireland free" (applause). Ireland I .sober is Ireland happ}' and contented; Ireland sober is Ire- I land so strong that no power of oppression can keep her down, I or prevent her people from leading in all the works of I civilization, intelligence, and social advancement (applause). I I may claim, I think, some right to speak of the Irish I people (hear, hear). The Irish people are not only in Ireland— i they are throughout the whole English-speaking world, and they I are in millions beneath the Stars and Stripes (applause). For I nearly forty 3'ears I have worked among and for them, as priest i and bishop. I know their virtues and I know their faults, and I because I love them with every fibre of my heart I am prepared to speak to them wherever they are—in Ireland or in America— with absolute frankness.