The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1893-04-01

Scotia major, sent linn to her western
shores. England glories in the name OF
King Alfred; Ireland educated him a. d
he didn't pay any tuition either. In fact
poor Ireland was SO busy looking after
the wild barbarians and sinners from the
rest of Europe that it became a proverb
to say Of any one who was absent from
his native land, shat he had gone to Ire
land to school"
During this period Ireland sent St.
Cataldus to Italy, St. Fridolind to Ger
many, st. Gall to Switzerland, st. Alden
to Northumberland in England, besides
hundreds of lesser reputation to every
part of Europe. To the credit of the
Irish race in large measure must be
placed the monastic system that dotted
all Europe during the middle ages with
the monasteries where entire livers were
devoted to the service of God.
What prouder title to glory can any
race demand? Has Providence intrusted
greater mission to any country than to
seek within her borders the asylum for
education and religion; to plant there
the beacon light of civilization and Chris
tianity, the wisdom Of the ages and the
faith of Christ that they might shine
again on every land. Even the fierce
wars with the Danes, that, beginning In
the year 1872, continued for three hundred
years, did not obliterate the zeal OF Irish
people in the cause Of education and re-
lglon. That lustrous flame shone on,
until the eleventh century, and Ireland
must be said to have reached the very
zenith of her glory and prosperity in the
reign of Brian Boru,
If we wish to realize the influence of
the Irish race on civilization during this
period from the time of st. Patrick till
the Danish invasion, let us picture in
imagination what might be the condition
LOT the world in this closing decade OF
the nineteenth century Il ireland, like
the rest of Europe, had been conquered
by barbarjaus. Suppose her m onasteries
had never risen to send out their mis-
sionaries to all Europe, or had been de-
stroyed; suppose the great schools OF
Armagh, Lismore, Clonfert and Ross
carberry, and the hundreds OF lesser edu-
cational centers, had not hourished III
the land; who would have civilized and
Christianized those savage nations that
drank vine from the skulls of their enc
mics? We pause for the answer. Who?
God knows. But there is something in
herent in the human constitution that
makes humanity advance, and therefore
these barbarous nations would have
grown intellectually and morally. But
without the Irish saints and scholars;
without their eloquence, poetry and
piety, they would have made but slow
and painful progress. I dare not specu-
late on what might have been the future
history Of mankind You will bear mo
out, however, when say, that civiliza-
ton would have been hurled back four
hundred years on her onward march,
aud now in 1893 the world might be just
breaking through the darkness of the
middle ages.
Perhaps the western continent would
still be waiting for Columbus, its Christ
bearer. Shakespeare mig BIT yet be in
the womb of futurity. Commerce might
be confined to the Mediterranean sea
and the coast line of Europe. The as
tonishing progress that has BEEN made
in reducing the elements to the obedi-
ence of man, would nearly awe the await
ing the magic touch of the inventor. In
word, all the wondrous development of
the human race, that has gone forward
in the last four centuries might be re-
served for the next four hundred years,
if the monasteries and universities of
Ireland had not implanted in every bar
barian race in Europe. the seeds Of faith,
of virtue and of intellectual culture, that
transmitted from father to son, from
genera ion to generation, have sprouted
now and then in the genius Of
Dante singing the sufferings of the
damned; a Columbus, like st. Bren-
dan of old, seeking strange lands; Cali
leo maintaining, in spite of opposition,
that the earth is round; a Shakespeare
and Milton shaping a language and
softening the sweetest music, the harsh
est tongue in Christendom.
If now I we're asked what Ireland had
done for civilization in the six hundred
years that preceded the act of union
with England which became law in
1901, and which I firmly believe will not
be law in 1901, would say that Ireland
during all these years presents the spec
tacle unparalleled in history of nation
fighting always for father-land and some
times for faith and father-land against
almost hopeless odds. She saw her
brightest and her bravest go down, but
the battle for civil and religious liberty
was carried on by her sons and daughters.
must not pass by this period without