The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1880-02-26

sand dollars to relieve the famine in
Ireland, and that great gift on the part
of our country was met by the ten mil
lion pounds, or fifty million dollars,
voted by the English Parliament for
the relief of the famine in Ireland.
Bene6cence in New York respond
ing to the ten thousand dollars
given by Queen Victoria out of her
own private purse, that the hunger
of Ireland might be fed. Persia, China,
Egypt, India joining Christian nations
in charitable crusade, yet hundreds of
thousands of people perishing, many of
them as heroic as the Irish woman who
said to her husband: "Come here let US
all die together rather than touch that
which belongs to another" A famine
so terrible that the remembrance of it in
nineteen years sent three million, Six
hundred and ffty-nine thousand of Irish
people to this country. And now the
famine of 1880. Iknew it would come.
I saw the, deluge in England, Ireland,
and Scotland last summer. l saw the
harvests that had been partially gather
ed float away on the floods. heard
prominent citizens in the streets Of Bel
fast, and Dublin, and Londonderry say ::
"We shall have famine; it is inevila-
ble." And it has come, but with this
alienation, that whereas in 1S47 it took
the news two weeks to come by steamer,
and then the reply two weeks to travel
back, now, thanks to the heroes of ocean
telegraphy, the cry comes in q flash, SO
that in the morning Ireland cries "hun-
cry p and the before nightfall America
responds, "the bread is on the way!
Obi my country, laden with three years
of magnificent harvests, on your railway
trains hasten down the breadstuffs for
dying Ireland. Oh merchants of New
York, standing in this new morning OF
national prosperity, keep the telegraphs
going while with your prompt benef-
cence you command the foreign grain
markets to come to the rescue. And
ye people of smaller means, before to-.
day you gather at your tables for noon
day repast, plan some way for the relief
of the starving people who come to ia
bles in Ireland where there is no food.
/ implead you in the name of Him who
said, ~ was a-hungered, and sc gave
me meat" Through a merciful God,
the most of US have been kept from
hearing in our household the unavail-
ing cry for bread. No parents heart
is Stout enough calmly to hear cry like
that. do not wonder that some OF
these people in famine get desperate. II
saw my family starving, and | could
get neither food nor work. while all
around there was plenty; If I saw my
children dying by inches, and there was
superHuity all about, and could nei-
ther purchase nor implore help for
them Rather than finish the sentence
I will say, "God keep me from the temp
tationw Oh hunger is an awful thing
when it comes down OH household
The work stops, laughter ceases, con-
varsation ceases, and there is a pinch
edness of the features, and there is a
suppressed ferocity, and there is look
\ ing out Of the window for that which
comes not. and there is insupportable
despair. The voracity of such was well
illustrated when the ships of relief
came to Leyden, and the bread was
thrown from the ships deck to the
wharf, and history says so great was the
voracity of those poor, starving creatures
that they picked up the bread and
choked themselves to death. All it is
an awful thing to starve, but that pro-
cess is going on now, and will continue
to 20 on unless the combined charity OF
the christian world speaks out. Do you
know that the famine in Ireland is
especially distressing because as nation
the Irish are particularly affectionate,
and it is a little harder for that nation
than almost any other nation to see their
families suffering and dying? Who
doubts this who has noticed that the
Irish serving maids of this country, at the
greatest sacrifice, have for the last
twenty or thirty years been sending back
all the money they could spare to Ire
land, to buy food and pay rent, and
finally to transport their loved ones to
this land? Many of them giving every
penny not absolutely necessary for their
existence, story of filial, and fraternal
and sisterly affection unsurpassed save
by the matchless love of God. Now,
say, it is among that class of people so
peculiarly strong in their affections, that
famine has come; and now, while /
speak, great populations are surging up
and down the Irish cities carrying the
black flag; and the way to put down
those riots is by giving them bread, not
bullets-bread, not policeman's club
bread, not armed soldiery.
I have to tell you, my friends, that
this famine in Ireland is especially dis
tressing because it is surrounded by such
brilliant scenery. DestitutioG never so
ghastly as when crouching at the foot of
such hills, and looking into the mirror
of such lakes, and begging at the gate of
such castles. 1 do not believe God has
crowded into so small space so much
beautiful landscape in all the earth as
there is to be found in that one small
island-an island about two hundred and
thirty miles long by one hundred and
ten miles wide-rhomboid in shape, its
rocks showing more of the skill of the
divine architect than any rocks on
earth. Witness the octagonal, and hex
agoual and the pentagonal of her gran
ite, and the forty thousand columns of
her Giants Causeway, some of them set
up like the dollars Of the king of musical
instruments, so that they are called the
organ, and, as / stood looking on them,
1 thought it would be fit to play upon
that organ the grand march of the last
judgment, Gods thunders trampling the
pedals. An island indented with ninety
two harbors, among them beautiful Gal
way, and Donegal, and Kingston, and
her coasts illuminated by night with
sixty-two light houses. More than two
hundred fairy islands sprinkling the
edges of Ireland with magical brightness.
Loughs Erne, Corrib, and Mask, and
that strip of landscape flung out of
heavens, the Killarneys. What sill
very glee of rivers Shannon, and Boyne.
and Foyle, and Bandon, and Rlackwater,
and other rivers rich with salmon and
pike and trout. What fora, strewing