Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-04-06
SISTERS, BENEFIT.
Entertainment Last Night for the Benefi
of the sisters of Mercy.

ASsoclatlOn, an entertainment was given q
the Clunie Opera House last evening 70
] the benefit of the Sisters of Mercy. Jane
I Riley presided. The Opera House wa
filled above and below by an interested an,
well pleased audience. There were musi
cal exercises as follows:
Piano solo, Believe Me if All Thos
Endearing Young Charms" Miss Nelli
Sheehan; vocal solo, a. See Thee in Ever,
Flower" Mrs. J. H. Coppersmith; instrn
mental duet, Carnival of Venice" Reg
ina Hassett and Nellie Sheehan; tenor solo
Eleonora," r. 7. Cohn; vocal solo, ERR
Machree," Miss Hannah Shields: yoca
solo, The Warrior Bold" and "Skippel
and Boy" Patrick Farrell; quartet, medic,
of fairs. Mrs. ]. 81. Coppersmith and Mis-!
Nellie Sheehan, Messrs. r. T. Cohn and
Jos. Genshlea: vocal solo, "God Bless thu
Dear Ones at Home" Charles Euraw.
| Every number was encored and the per.
| formers responded. The musical bro.
gramme was very pleasing ard had the good
quality of being thoroughly understandable
| and of rendition with distinctness OF
| enunciation of the singers, and vigor and
precision by the players. Between the
| third and fifth numbers of the programme
Rev: J. B. McNally. of Oakland. delivered
| spirited lecture upon the subject Natural
| for America; so it is to be for Ireland, the
| Keystone of Independence" The speaker
was earnest, rather than brilliant; but his
vigor and enthusiasm. and the heart he
put into his subject, gave such
vitality to his eloquence that it made
itself so felt in the audience as
to rouse the people to a high pitch
of enthusiasm. 1t is creditable to the rev.
erend gentleman's warmth of heart, and his
patriotic devotion to the flag of his adoption
which he apostrophize ed SO eloquently-
and highly creditable to the sympathetic
quality of his nature, and the love
he bears the land of his birth, that
he dwelt as he did upon the woes of that
land, and the aspirations of its people for
political independence. But it is to be re-
gretted that the instant he reached Ireland
in his logical discourse upon the right of
self-government,a and the political equality
of men, he dropped logic and reasoning
and swan in the uttermost depths of en-
thusiastic Irish denunciation and lamenta-
ton. 1t was pardonable well enough, elo-
quent and moving, but it was at the ex-
pense OF previously pursued logical line
of reasoning. Many if not all of his hear
ers, would have been greatly edited to
have followed him down the line of reason
and analysis of the defense England
u.
and the original and maintained claim
of moral or legal right to dominate
the island. Such an analysis would
have completed and rounded out the
line of thought upon which Mr.. McNally
at first entered. and would have greatly in
structed many of his hearers, and probably
have cleared the way in the thought of
others. He began with the proposition
that natural justice is equity between men,
in their relations to each other, which
equity is written by the hand of the author
OF being, upon the charter of nature, to be
read by all men. God created and pro-
vided for the world by completely of act !;
by act of His omnipotence He created
by the act of His wisdom
He regulated and fashioned and
legislated for all things in creation so as to
move in harmony with His divine will.
This fashioning we call the order of God.
Order is heavens first law; in it is found
all beauty and harmony; outside of it is
rebellion, disorder and repulsiveness-oth-
erwise sin. God being the author of man
is hence also the author of all things es-
sential to man. Society is essential to man /;
he is born into it; as Cicero said, he is
born into it and there remains. Society,
therefore, is the ordination of God. So,
W. OClllS coSculidl u Ildn III
society, which is his natural sphere and for
which he was made, is ordained of God.
Government is power, with a will So
ciety could not exist without order and
order not without justice, and Justice not
without law. God is the pleni-
tude of all existence the author
of man and all essential to his being, and
therefore of order, justice and law, and
hence is the author of government itself.
He is the author of nature, the controlling
power in the universe, and hence the
source of all power, and of necessity the
power we call government. Government,
then, is from God to society. But men are
free agents by Gods will, and to them is
committed the uses of government. No
man can assume to himself, therefore, the
right to govern his fellows. But men in
society can confer upon a few the office of
authority, even to rule, and that becomes
an oligarchy. Or, they may will to
adopt representative forms and rule
themselves through agencies acting by
their will and as they direct, as with us
in America, and that is republi-
can form of government. So we are
ruled according to our mind and our con-
ception of natural justice, and that is the
keynote of American independence. Eng
land claimed the right to dictate to the
conception of natural justice the people re-
sisted that claim and declared themselves
absolved from all duty to recognize it.
They perceived the truth they saw clearly
the distinction between natural Justice and
unwarranted assumption of AUTHORITY.
They acted upon it and won their indie
pendence. This is what Ireland perceiyes.
and what she wants to do-this and moth
ing more. She claims in natural Justice
freedom to make of the will of her people
the form of government Gods laws sug-
gest to man, and which is in harmony with
the things essential to the best state of So
ciety. The American Colonies asserted the
right in natural justice to define their own
is of equal strength she lacks only the
physical ability. She never has yielded up
her right in natural justice to govern her
self. She never has yielded to any Govern
ment. No Roman tyrant ever ruled her !;
nor Norman hireling soldier ever trod her
soil in conquest. The Danes came and de-
clared the right of might to rule Ireland,
but they never got time 10 survey the
island, much less to divide it up among
them. When they were gone, or driven
into the waters, came the Norman French,
suave and polite, but they were absorbed
by the Irish and became more intensely
NSieAN thob tAO OiiShiiolo' lucy Cdm6 W
change the people of Ireland, but were
themselves changed. About the Twelfth
Century the foot of the Saxons polluted the
soil of Erin "but did they change the Irish
people?" Right here the lecturer quit"
to use vulgarism, and from this on he
ceased to speak of the Rule of Ireland, the
claim of England, the resistance of it in
reason; the position or views of the
two sides of the question; the res
ponse of the Irish party to the
English, etc. From this out the lecture
was an appeal to the sympatbies
and an iteration that cruelties
had been practiced by England upon the
Irish people of such nature as to make
all true hearts bleed. 1t was a touching
and often eloquent recital of patriotic de.
votion by the Irish, with bursts of passion.
| ate vituperation against England, and again
fearful lamentation over the heroic men
and women of Ireland who refused bread
| rendered with the proviso that they re-
nounee their religion and their patriotism.
| He read from Lester, the Protestant histo-
rian, a passage declaring the injustice of
| England to surpass that of any recorded in
history. He asked if it is under the law of
God that England becomes a care aker
for Ireland? Is is by law spring
| ing out of natural justice that she
rules? Is it by commission from
| God that she governs?" He paid
"a brief but warm tribute to Gladstone and
Parnell, and declared that some of the best