The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1890-07-12

Rentl0loSS; sweetness anu StugAoAoSo VI
heart and purpose" Here you see the
artless quality We wish to outline and
you see it in one, who owed to it more
than to anything else the immense
| power he welded for good. sOthers
were as clever as Newman; some were
more eloquent, yet none welded his
influence. Singleness Of heart and
purpose excludes duplicity and deceit.
1t requires that the word of the mouth
shall be the echo of the word OF the
heart, that the end Of the work and the
worker shall be the same, that we cher
ish the colors under which we sail, that
both words and gestures be considered as
inventions, not to conceal our thoughts,
bat to convey them. Now that we
have mentioned the great English Car
dinal we may further illustrate our
meaning by ray from his luminous
career. Suppose for an instant that Che
incentive of his work had mot been
truth and it's development but self and
it's aggrandiziment would he have been
able to achieve what he did? Or rather
would he not have stopped short in his
work, big with the most pretentious
events, when it became plain that such
covert designs would be foiled? Single
ness of heart and purpose Was the attri-
butte OF his soul which carried HIM
through that dread ordeal when life
long friends forsook him. when cher
ished tenets of Faitn crumbled away,
when the past seemed nightmare and
the future blank, when from his an
guished spirit arose the prayer:
"Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom
Lead thou me on
Ger moon and fen, DER torrent, till
The night is gone.
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which hare loved long and lost awhile
Brief success may be attained by de-
ceit, criticism may be disarmed for a
while by plausible representatives, but
the false soul, no matter how deep it is
hidden will eventually rise to the sur
face like dead body and become loath-
some object to all. The second natural
virtue I would recommend is steadfast-
ness to your friends. In college where
there are Superlors full of solicltude for
YOU you need no friends. But when YOU
will have come to mans estate and will
feel the magnitude of the work before
you, of fulfilling your mission here be.
low and of attaining your final destiny
above, the need of true and staunch
friends will become manifest. Now
true friendship is founded precisely
on these two things, duty here and God
hereafter. And sensual friendship that
is founded not on these but on personal
appearance, on feminine features. and
countenance, on jovialltY of disposition
alone is false and misleading and you
should get rid of it as soon as you can.
But true friendship which converts and
stays you from sin, which encourages
you to take up, your work, which
stretches out to you a helping hand is
one of Gods greatest gifts to man.
Montaigne says it would be a great
thing if the world produced one true
friend every three hundred years. This
is not 80. Around us there are hund-
reds who feel the same aching void, the
8 anne need for announcement that we
do and who will be only too glad TO re-
ciprocally give and take assistance.
This is the altruism to which we must
be faithful at any cost. For the world
from the days of Judas up has never
forgiven the betrayal of friendship.
Garfield lost the beautiful name OF the
martyred president when it was shown
that he had BETRAYED his friends. Not
withstanding that he was the wlsest.
Bacon was called t'the meanest OF man
kind" because he was unfaithful to him
who had befrIended him. Undylng ex-
ecrations will follow Benedict Arnold
for his frustrated attempt to betray his
comrades in arms. In word While
many will forgive any sort Of open ag-
gression 40 one will pardon no matter
what the provocatlon stab ia the back
and such is the wound that friendship
receives from false friend. Be stead
fast therefore and true. n
''Those friends thou hast and their adoption tried
GrappIe them to thy soul with hoops of steel. =
Steadfastness will beget stead fastness
and you Will not be without assistance
in doing your God-given work.
The laet quality Of soul I would
recommend to you regards the
work you have to do and tits ambition to
accomplish 1t thor oughlY. st. Paul says
somalumini charismata melora. Now
| If there can be a heavenly ambition to
alta in the gifts Of grace, a certain kind
Of ambition must be allowable for the
attainment Of natural gifts. If grace
but perfects nature it will be lawful Tor
nature to initiate the order Of grace.
In fact no truer words could be uttered
than those Of Sterne ambition ruled By
reason and religion is = virtue; un-
sh ~ ii