The Irish standard., 1897-12-25
SIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY ON THE
GREAT DOMINICAN.
WHO SILERcED The HISTORIAN FRoUOE
INTERESTING "REMINISCENCES OF
THE PULPIT ORATOR.
HIS GUIDE IN The ETERNAL CITY
RARE ENJOYMENT TO HAVE HIM AS
A CHARMING COMPANION.

Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, in his re
miniscences' in the Contemporary Re-
view, writes Interestingly of trip
| from Australia t, Europe made at The
time of the Fenian rising of &C. He
went to the continent and there fell in
with the famous Father Tom Burke
| When the fog and the east wind be-
came intolcrablc we turned our faces to
| the south. Paris, Florence. Rome, of
what IL dazzling journey they are The
| etapes, Tut a prudent man remembers
that it is Il Journey which the Whole CIV.
| lllzcd world has made, and that there Is
nothing more to be said on that topic
| The morning after our arrival in Rome
a visitor came to u.s. who proved to be
the most gracious of friends and the
most skillful of guides to the Immortal
| City. Father Tom Burke, the Irish
| Dominican orator, had arisen to cmi-
Renee during my absence In Australia,
hut l knew him and he knew me by
! reputc, and we speedily became friends,
| l necessarily recognized Immediately
what kecnness of intellect, natural hui
NOR and knowledge of character Father
Burke possessed, but his pulpit oratury,
when | came to hear nlm. was u pro-
found surprise. lic was preaching IL
the time in one of the churches in the
Piazza del Popolo. where sermons are
| delivered weekly for the English, Irish
! and American visitors of various creeds
who winter at Rome, and In a letter
to his bioglapher l afterwards stated the
impression he made upon me:
| II had heard oil the contemporary
preachers of note, in the Catholic
church at least, and all the parliamcnt-
I ary orators of the day, but l was moved
and impressed by that sermon beyond
any human utterancc to which | had
ever listened. ] despair OF conveying the
sort of impression it made upon me,
but | think pcrsuasivcncss was its most
striking characteristic lie marched
| straight to Il fixed end. and all the road
he passed seemed like Il track of in
tellectual light. You were gradually
drawn to adopt the preachers views as
the only ones compatible with truth and
good sense. His accent was Irish, but
his discourse bore no other resemblance
to any Irish utterancc with which | was
| familiar. We have tho school OF Grat-
| tan, and the school of OConnnll, the
artificial and the spontaneous, into
which most Irish oratory may be dis
tributcd; but Father lurkcs belonged
as little to one as to the other Tho
lucid narrative which, without argu-
ing, was the best of arguments; the
apt illustration, which summed up his
case in a happy phrase, might have 20
called Plunkett, but in truth, like most
| original men, he rcscmbcIcd no one
but himself"
1t was a rare enjoyment to visit the
| monuments and historic sites of such
a city with such a guide If Il holiday
| maker has seen tho birthplace or Il
| grave of the local artist or preacher,
the poet or patriot, when chance con-
ducts his steps, he counts his days we'll
spent. But when the painter is Raphael
or Claude, the poet Tasso, tho patriot,
Rienzi, and the preacher, Saul of Tarsus,
or st. Matthew the evangelist, written
words are but a pale shadow of the feel
ings they evoke. TO visit for the first
time the noble halls and galleries, cab
| inets and courts Of the Vatican which
vie in beauty with the treasures they
contain, and make all other museums
! mean and dingy, is an education in art;
and what an historical study is the
Collegio Romano, where one might see
the identical rooms occupied by emf
nent missionaries and saints Of the So
| cicty of Jesus two centuries ago, still
containing the books and furniture they
used when they were students or pro-
fcssors, and it's noble library, where it
was Il pleasant surprise to find the
works of SavonarOla on It's shelves and
! the portrait Of Calico in its observa-
; tory? And where can the early history
of Chrstendom be better studied than
in the catacombs, the hiding place Of
early popes and saints, and richer than
the Colosseum itself in the blood of
| Christian martyrs? OF the early history
of Ireland, how much we find In San
Pietro in MontiriO, where our martyrs
lie buried. But nothing in the capital
Of the Christian world, not St. Peters
or the Sovereign Pontiff, was a sight
fit to match in interest to Irishmen the
exhibition of the Academia Polyglotta,
where students from Asia, Africa Aus
tralia and America spoke, each Of them,
the language or chantcd the music Of
his birthplace, and from three conti-
nents and their outlying islands the
students bore names that marked them
of our own indestructible people. The
| ronota hirtorx Of Lnrnne when tho