The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-11-21
suppl R n I n I.
NEW ORLEANS BULLETIN
NEW ORLEANS. NOVEMBER 81. 1874.
FATHER RYAN'S LECTURE.

by the Catholic poet-priest Rev. A. J. Ryan,
missed a rare intellectual and oratorical treat.
Father Ryan," as be is affectionately
called, is known throughout the country as a
poet whose genius has shed glory upon the
Confederate arms and made the name of Lee
immortal. But he is more than poet, more
than pries. he is a patriot whose dauntless
heart throbs responsive to all noble and pure
aspirations.
He believes that man should fear no power
save Omniscience, and that be who
"Bends the pregnant hinges Of the knee
That thrift may follow fawnipg,"
is q thing beneath the contempt of honorable
and brave men.
He is at once born poet, an able and
devout priest and a fearless patriot; and while
his poetry has aroused in sluggish hearts an
admira. ton for the beautiful and the true,
while in the church he has wrought incalculable
good, he has also by his bold and manly ut
terances in the forum done much to cheer and
encourage the faint-hearted, and to keep alive
the sacred fires of liberty in the breasts of his
oppressed countrymen of the South.
In his discourse last evening, which was
studded with poetic gems and replete with
grand and lofty sentiments, he enunciated a
sublime truth when he declared that "policy
was an idol, but principle god" That was
grand truth, nobly uttered-a truth which
we, as people, are in q position to thoroughly
appreciate, for no people in the world have
suffered more than we of New Orleans and
Louisiana through following leaders who en-
ticed us with false promises along the fair
seeming and howery paths of policy to des-
truction.
Thank God, this is all passed now, and the
blow struck on the 14th Of September was a
manifcent manifestation Of the fact that we
have determined to follow blind guides no
longer, but to strike manfully and gloriously
hereafter for the right. 1t was solemn pro-
test az sinst wrong aud oppression and an un-
mistakable evidence that the people long
sufferin, and patient hopeful people had
borne all that they could bear consistently
with manhood and meant to submit no longer,
even though they should be compelled to offer
the lives of their bravest and best at the
shrine of liberty.
The subject selected by the distinguished
orator for his lecture. excited some surprise
on the part of those who are unacquainted
with the man, and who have an idea that a
priest should never turn aside from spiritual
matters to enter the arena Of politics, but we
fancy there was not one who sat under the
sound of the ringing voice of Father Ryan
last night, but became convinced that, not
only was the subject well chosen, but that its
treatment was in perfect accord with the high
and holy calling Of the orator. So felicitous
were his remarks, and so unanswerable his
arguments in support of the theory Of the
natural supremacy Of the white race, that we
cannot refrain from reproducing them in
part.
They think it very strange that /, as a priest,
should have anything to say upon matters
which more or less pertain to the political Or
der of society. I, as priest in my duties, do
not lose my rights of citizenship. My cradle
was rocked in tie South my grave shall be
dug in the South. And while in the moral
order the nations are but one in the Chris. Of
all, in the political order of nations, if there
ever comes up question in the world as be-
tween race and race, and the interests Of one
rice against the interests Of another, common
human interest moves me, and assreligion does
not prohibit me, l stand by the white race,
and not simply from natural reasons. Zap
plause. 1t has built up the civilization of
the world, in the material as well as in the
moral order
Who penned the immortal PHILOSOPHERS of
Greece? Who wrote the eternal poetry of
Rome? Who built up our modern civiiiza-
ton? It was the ,ohae race. Therefore it is,
that it is not matter OF accident; it is not
merely local isolated matter, but it must be
the law of Divine Providence, of history, as it
is manifestation of Divine Providence that
wherever the ,ohitc race has been; wherever
the white Land of the ,chite man has been
raised, monuments of intellectual labor,
moral as well as material, have appeared
in the world, manifesting It's power
and showing that if history be al
manifestation of Divine Providence, it
is the divine mission Of the uhite race to
march in the van Of civilization, to lead the
entire world.
From the days of the history of Leoni-
DIS, who stood in the rugged pass of Their
mopyle against Xerxes, to the days when
Gen. Lee stood at Appomattox Court House
and yielded up the most spotless sword that
ever was yielded [applause], the chite man
has given to the world the grandest manifesto
tions of human bravery. And from the time
of Socrates down to our own time, it was the
pale white brow that gave to the world its
philosophy, out Of which the world deduces
its own intellectual lite.
It was for these reasons, said the lecturer,
that he priest had been induced to occupy
SO delicate position, and there are not many
but will think them sufficient The following
was one Of the happiest hits in his brilliant
discourse
Now, according to American principles,
this is no government at all, and when make
my argument come to the conclusion that
the government is no government at all and
that in any State there exists the grand right
of revolution. (Cheers.] Of course this is q
wonderful government; it is the best govern
men the world ever had the pleasure or priv |
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