St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-08-08
A Pathetic Eulogy.
CARDINAL MANNING AT THE FUNERAL
OF THE PRINCE IMPERIAL.

lfrom MS sermon at Chlselhurst, July IL.
-. And now, as in a strain of music,
the theme comes back again, and we
end with the first few notes with which
we began. So, if our thoughts have for
while run in another channel, they
fall back again to that great deep of
sweet SORROW and, will say, of holy
thanksgiving for that noble, princely
youth who has passed before our eyes
with the brightness of ray of light,
and from this world has disappeared for
ever. l said it was indeed a sorrow of
many nations. | doubt if purer sym
pathy, more generous, more disinter-
ested, more free from every taint of this
world, ever surrounded a tomb.
doubt if ever the nations of Europe
united in one more generous sense of
loving sorrow, OF sympathy with the
mother in her solitude, of veneration
for the son lying in grave of honor
and of glory wherever there is gen
erOus heart on earth it will sorrow {;
wherever there is Christian heart
there will be sorrow wherever there is
il human heart there will be SORROW
And know few things more beautiful
than the sorrow and veneratiOn of those
hard, strong English soldiers who bore
him to the grave, and of those rough,
tender-hearted English seamen who
stood high upon their masts with bare
heads generating him as he was borne
past them in his shrOud. This is noble
sorrow, and / will say it is an English
sorrow. France sorrows, and England
too. He was our guest. | will say
mOre-he is our own. We had received
him and made him ours by loving and
hOmely hospitality. He was numbered
among our princes and he will be re-
membered and sorrOwed for among
English princes. And yesterday the
princes of England stood round about
him, and England herself, represented
in her Queen, supported the weak ness
of that lonely mother in the solitude of
her home.
There is not a mother in England who
has not joined in this sorrow, and there
are many mothers in England who have
given their sons in this wild and dread
full warfare. And l know that the youth
of England, those that never saw him,
have been touched, and his bright ex-
ample has spoken to them; and COM
rades in arms, men who bore arms like
himself, have wondered at the purity,
the holiness and the dignity of that
youth. And, now, it is to me great
Joy and consolation to be permitted on
such day as this to add my own SYM
pathy. And do so with personal rec
ollections. | remember, and as long as
live shall never forget, the first time
and the last time that l saw that youth
full prince. The first time was when
one of my venerable priests had the
strange courage, / know not how, to in
vite him to come to the opening of new
school that he had built for poor little
children in London. With that humil-
ity which belongs to the highest dig
nifty, and with the sweetness of the true
humility of Catholic heart, he came
| remember how, in the midst of these
poor little ones, himself then youth
for it was years ago-with his bright
smile and his kind voice, he gave them
joy in the midst of that humble festi-
val. l never shall forget that night. 1t
was beautiful vision to be forever re-
membered. Such was the first time.
The last time was year ago. He
was standing in numerous assembly.
There were there the statesmen and
the warriors, and the great administra-
tors of the British empire. In war and
in peace there was the culture and the
manhood of Englishmen and he rose
up, and with an intellectual power and
a precision of language in our own
mother tongue, and with an eloquence
of speech he so arrested that multitude
before him that they hung upon his
lips. AS | listened l said to myself,
whatever may be before that youth,
there is the power that controls and
persuades men in him." 1t is now in
the heavenly kingdom. But these are
the things of the earth. He has himself
given us revelation of that which we
could never otherwise have known,
written in his own characters. How
shall describe it7 Was it prayer to
his heavenly Father? Was it an obla-
tiOn to his Divine Master Was it a
sacrifice of himself? have hardly in
my memory read anything more elevat-
ing or which showed more clearly the
spirit of God guiding and elevating the
soul man. 1t was full of self-sacrifice,
full of self-devotion, full of reparation,
full of offering himself as victim
"Smite me if any are to be smitten. II
Thou will make reprisals, here am
And, thinking over these words, have
said 10 myself, if there was ever a son
of France, it was he. France is that
| great people which has been created