The morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1899-1930, 1908-03-17

and when he subsequently completed
a theological training, he returned to
ireland as a Christian missionary and
in few years left behind him name
over which historians have marvelled
and scholars have speculated and
: statesmen have pondered and thcol.
ogians have meditated and to which
the whole world will for ages yet to
come look up with reverential awe.
Now what was the secret of this
wonderful achievement 1t was no,
because he had built up great
dynasty. Not because he had great
military genius. Not because he had
built up great government on the
ruins of the poor mans liberty.
Charles the Great and his dynasty
are forgotten. Who ever hears of
the military exploits of Verress Who
reveres the memory of Louis XIVi
Yet these men, in temporal majesty,
lowered above this simple ecclesiastic
as St. Helens towers above your CO.
lumbia bar.
These men were creatures of pomp
an power and remorseless greed who
believed in the theory of might over
right and looked upon the poor and
the unfortunate as so many beasts
OF burden to be worked to death so
that they might revel in luxury and
power. These men believed in keep
ing humanity in ignorance so that
they could claim divine right to rule
and impose this impious superstition
upon the people they enslaved. They
fomented racial hatred, so as to fur
nish an excuse for the butchery OF
war; they kept up an incessant war
to furnish an excuse for standing
armies; they maintained their armies
to furnish an excuse for taxation and
they employed taxation to enrich
their treasury, by the plumber the peo-
pie and cover the whole world with
misery, ignorance, poverty, despond-
ency and human degradation. They
left behind them castles and forts and
monuments and they made of the
world an unholy sepulchre for the
burial of liberty and human love. In
the worlds chronology of moral de-
formity they furnished the apothesis
of governmental corruption and re-
veal to the whole world the character
istic and fundamental weakness of
graft and tyranny among the social
institutions of civilized man.
On the other hand, St. Patrick en-
couraged the people in learning. He
taught them to look upon ignorance
as mortal sin and as a civil crime.
He converted then into the belief that
happiness consisted in so using your
own so as not to injure another in
the exercise of his rights. He taught
them that the liberty of the poor was
better than the license OF the great.
That there was perfect equality in
his scheme of human liberty and that
everybody was equal before the law
at the throne of impartial justice. He
taught them that human government
was instituted among men to restrain
the criminal and protect the honest
and the weak from the rescality of de-
signing power; thar public office
was only public trust and that an
honest official was the noblest repre-
sentative of God In word he taught
simple lesson of civic virture and
erected in the hearts of man gov
ernment of moral principles that is
as vital today as it was when Ireland
became the moral and intellectual
mistress of the world. This was
ST. Patrick's great work. And this it
is which keeps alive his memory and