The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1901-12-07

it's wInlings through the beautiful
golden vale. lie deeply loved those
glorious scenes, and his heart was sad
when he WAS forced to leave them, in
his eleventh year, for the Jesuit Col
leg" of Clongowcs Wood, kildare.
Before leaving home he witnessed
the departure OF an cmigrant ship
from the Quay of Waterford and the
memory of the narrowing scene never
aftcrwnrd left his mind
Here is how lie described it, more
than thirty years later. while deliver
ing an address in Minnesota before
the Irish immigration Society Of st.
Paul:
Ladies' ana Gentlcmrn: There ia
one scene ! witnessed in the morning
of my boyhood which left upon my
memory an impression that can never
be cffaccd. That scene was the de-
pmrturc of an cmigrant ship from the
Quay of my native city of Waterford.
1t was Il tranquil evening in the month
of June. The broad River SUR flowed
past the aged city with Il gentle gram
deur, and in the soft light OF the de-
cining day seemed as if it throbbed
heavily in sympathy with the sorrows,
the memories, ana the hopes, 1t was
about to bear away upon it's bosom to
Il distant shore.
con the deck of the ship were hud-
died hundreds Of men, women, and
chldrell-tllc sons and daughters Of
Innisfnil-sorrow- stricken. and yet
hopeful and heroic fugitivcs from the
land that gave them birth. Sorrow
stricken because an ineXOrable decree
OF poverty and injustice forced them
to surrender the land Of their love ana
pride.
Hopeful, though sorrow-stricken,
because the summer sun, burning III
its varied splcndOr on the western
horizon, had often told them that the
glory. departing from them, was light
ing up, away beyond those wastes of
intervening ocean, Il land of promise,
in which, under the government Of
free and all-lowcrful people, their
broken fortunes would be repaired,
| ana the happiness and honor, the pro-
lection, encouragement, and liberty
denied them at home, would, to the
| n, III I.,i, nd, .frv 1nh
secured them for life.
Young as was, deeply shared in
the mournfulness of the scene, for l
had heard enough of the crlicltics that
her people were leaving her, not from
had been done to Ireland to know that
choice, but from compuIsion; that it
was not the stcrility OF the soil but
the malignant hostility of laws and
practices, devised and enforced for the
political subjugntion of tile country,
which compelled them to leave"
| Many of our readers can recall such
scenes, when the shrill Shrek of the
locomotive parted forever the loving
hearts of parents and childrcll-when
the old folk went back in binding sor-
row to their dcsolate homes to spend
their unhappy lives in the vain long
ing of seeing their dear ones once
more.
| Had their hearts been torn, bleed
ing, from their bodies, they could have
| suffered no mOrr'
Thus early had Mcaglcr learned to
synpathize with the suffcrings of his
people, and thus early did he COM
mchcc to treasure up in his heart the
memory of their wrongs.
Meaghcr spent six years in Clon.
gowes Wood College. While there John
Savage, his cOmpatriot and friend.
tells us that his frank and hapDy nn-
tllrc cm'cnred him to his associates.
ana that he was distinguished for the
heartincss with which he Joined in nil
the freaks Of student life and the sud-
deh Impulses Of study that enabled
him at bound to carry off the honors
from those who spent months in lol,o.
rious study.
Mengher loved the old college. and
his teachers, and even the surround.