The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1905-04-01
DARK RosALEEN.
Eloquent Address by the Rev. Charles
O'connor at Rock Springs, Wyo.

O'Connor at Rock Springs, Wyo.
The feature of the very successful st.
Patricks day celebration i'll Rock
Springs was the oration of Father
Charles O'Connor the highly-esteemed
and universally beloved pastor at that
place. The address was repletee with
eloquence and pathos, and was received
with lively demonstrations of enthuSi-
asm BY the audience. After depicting
in glowing and realistic language the
horrors of the persecution meted out
to the people of Ireland in an effort to
compel them to renounce their faith,
Father O'Connor continuing, spoke as
follows:
"Irishmen have grown to love Rosa
leen weeping. Our literature has been
written in sorrow. Our national music
the piercing shrill of agony, are the
outpourings of a broken heart. Our
glory is in ruins, for the ruins of Ire
land bespeak the history of her glory.
They are the voice of the glorious past,
re-echoing in the hour of sadness ray
of Erin's greatness lighting up the dis
NAL scene of her woes.
Men from Ireland here tonight, who
amongst you has not tasted the bitter
cup of Irelands hardships? Who has
not felt the iron hand of the stranger,
"
blast of the victory of wrong.
THE tyrant yet has mis- hand upon
Eileen's throat. but Eileen's sorrow is
also Eileen's glory. Her wounds were
reaped in battle. and, oh God, how fierce
a battle for freedom and truth. Men
of Ireland, that is your country'S glory,
the glory of resistance and effort, to
shake from her limbs the iron chains
of slavery Men of Ireland do you not
experience tonight the beauty of Amer
lean citizenship? Are you not over
whelmed by. the gorgeousness of the
temple of Americas freedom? -Ameri-
can freedom, how glorious. Because
bought at the high price of Americas S
best blood. American freedom, how
glorious! Because when she tore the
fair goddess of liberty from the blood
stained hands of the stranger, she soon
after shook the fetters of bondage from
the limbs of her own subjects. Ameri
can freedom, how glorious, God bless
American liberty. She has received
with open arms and welcomed to her
bosom the exile slaves of Erin. But let
us pass to the pleasant subject of Ire
lands glories. 1 said but a few mo-
ments ago that the Irish people pos
sess a native love for their religiouslY
sublime.
"The greatest triumph of the Christ
lies in the fact that civilization, its pur-
est and best, is moulding itself upon the
principles of his wonderful teachings.
The burden of the Christian message is |
love, and that message received the seal /
of absolute genuineness, authoritative
ness and universally compulsory ac-
ceptability. when the author of the new
doctrine and the new command gave
his life Upon the tree of infamy for
,f h.. ~ ha
teaching are steep and rugged The |
highest pinnacle, to return. good for |
evil: and the prosecuted Catholics of |
Erin. Mother of saints, achieved the |
sumnum of Christian perfection when, |
starving and dying, they gathered to-
gether i'm 1866, and-sent to the famine |
people of burnt London $4,000 |
fat cattle, notwithstanding that during |
that same year 100000 Irishmen had !
been sent as slaves to the Barbados. !
I'm 1889 there happened to be a Cath |
olic king in England whom the Irish |
people called Shemus a Jhaka. He de- !
posed the Irish lord chancellor and two |
judges because they were Protestants. |
but the pope-of Rome and the Catholic !
bishop of Armagh reproached James |
for his unjust partiality TO Catholics.
"The Catholic bishop of Meath must !
have had this example in view when. /
a few weeks ago, he appointed to a
Catholic hospital d non-Catholic voting |
lady in preference to various Catholic |
applicants simply to give Protestants
a fair show,
LAS it failed to root out their faith,
failed as we'll to dull the
intellect and to quench the soul of beau-
ty in the Irish people. Born in an age
hat has been spared the crash of many
a storm. as we look back over the rag
ing roaring sea of Irish history, we !
marvel at the survival of the race and
the races genius. But greater still is
the phenomenon of the prehaturely
forcible perfected manifestation of
hat genius.
Music is the language of feeling.
rhe sweetest note that ever fell upon
human ear is the rolling laughter of
, buoyant spirit and sweeter far than
abored composition in the depth of its
,alm sadness as the subdued sadness of
4 fond mother who recalls the last mo-
nents of her child that is no more.
Sadder far and sweeter far than the
ynawing sigh of Sarah Curran, moisten-
ng with tears the lovely shamrock upon
he grave of her lover, Ireland's youth
ul patriot The depth Of sentimentality
by any people is the full
measure of the beauty of a nations
music. No people. whose heart strings
ire more. easily touched than the Irish.
No people better understand the fanci-
ul play Of human emotion.
''On hearing a popular Irish air. Mo-
sart once observed that he would will
ngly renounce his musical fame only
o be the author of that single air.
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