The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1915-09-01

century that the habit OF wandering
has become second nature to these
Irish scholars" In the biography of
St. Germanus, Hieric exclaims:
Need l remind Ireland that she sent
troops of philosophers over land and
sea to our distant shores that her
most learned sons offered their gifts
of WISDOM, of their own free will in
our service
The Irish were right in declining to
accept the feudal system. The Anglo
Normans imposed it upon the nation
after centuries of fearful bloodshed,
only to witness the thin wedge of
land reform inserted in the feudal
fabric in our own time.
The Irish were right in refusing to
become converts to the new religion
of Luther. The old religion had given
full expression to all the aspirations
of the nation, and the new religion
seeds of decay. The Irish had seen
how their own apostles had been in
structors in theology and learning to
all Europe, imparting a higher cul-
ture than was then existing in the
world, and they knew that this culture
had endured from early ages, been re-
fined by Christianity, and that it rested
upon the noblest and WiseSt knOWl-
edge of our common human nature.
They knew, from their own annals,
that the time must come when other
peoples would return to the faith
preached by St. Patrick and St. Co.
lumkill
For the preservation of our religion
we became a nation of soldiers and
martyrs. How many scores of thou
sands of our race have died on the
scaffold or the field, in massacre and
famine, will, perhaps, forever remain
uncounted. We have but the fame of
our great captains O'Don-
nell, O'Moore, Sarsfeld, O'Connell,
Emmett and TOne-aS proof OF our
dauntless patriotism. We have but
the tales of the sacrifices of Arch
bishop Plunkett Bishop Heber Mac
Mahon, Father Sheehy and host of
other martyrs to prove our cOnstancy
unto death. We know that these men
have not died in vain. We know that
some transcendant principle, fixed
deep in the human heart, must have
impelled them to give all that man
can give for their country and their
faith. We know that they understood
the real grandeur of life-and that
they refused to surrender the dignity
and rights of life because their knowl-
edge was deeper than the wisdom of
their oppressors.
The problem of holding fast to
what is finest in our nature, while still
receiving our share of the profits of
labor, our share of material things,
and our share of the sum of physical
human happiness, is better understood
by the Irish race than by any other
race. We have proved our case.
This is what our race has taught
the world We have for ages in
sisted that mankind are not mere ami
mails. We have insisted that there is
something God-like. in man-some-
thing to live for besides money. We
are sure that our way is the right
way. We know that our conception
of the family relation is sound. We
know that humor, and art, song and
poetry, are as necessary to life as the
things which feed the body.
patriotism is the belief that our is
land home can work out this problem
only in an Irish manner, with Irish
hearts, Irish brains, and. Irish hands.
We have not done things hitherto in
the German way, the English way, or
the French way. We must have free
dom-political freedom-to do things
in an Irish way. We know that, once
we begin to build our own kind of
civilization-our real Irish civilization
that the thinking men of the world
will acknowledge some of our con-
tentions We know that the charac-
ter of nations seldom changes, and
that what we did in the age when
our country was called "The Isle of
Saints and Scholars we can do again.
1t may be asked why has not Ire
land and the Irish people done in a
modified form what it proposes to do