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

unCOnQuerdDle QeVOt1On 10 1dltn anu
country as the Irish nation.
The Irish conception of the chief
duty of life is exalted beyond any
ideal of other nations. The national
will, the national intellect, the nation
al imagination of the Irish people,
through the vicissitudes of fate,
through ages of suffering and defeat,
through the devastation of war and
the degradation of poverty, through
the determination of famines and the
bitterness of exile-have chung with
ineradicable hope to the dream of ma
tionality and the altar of religion.
This is Ireland's gift to civilized man
kind-this unparalleled example OF
the superiority of the spiritual over
the material.
The deathless quality of the finer
things of the Irish mind and the fleet.
ing nature of other gross national
ambitions are, slowly but surely, re-
ceiving recognition from governments
systems of living.
The chief object in life is the at
tainment of right system of living.
The Irish system is today, in its es-
sentials, what it was even in the days
of the Druids. The instinct that they
were right was of SO inexpungable
character that the. Irish were accused
of cutting themselves off from Euro
they wished to become a hermit ma
ton and dwell apart from the rest of
the world
Yet all history proves concluslvely
that the Irish were right IN holding
fast to their own studies and tradl-
tons. They had history in writing
extending back for 1000 years before
Christ Remains of a civilization
antedating the coming Of St. Patrick
are recorded in chronicles which de-
scribe social system of high order
"a system which encouraged the full
and free exercise of literature, guard
ed the physical and moral progress of
the people and guaranteed an oppor-
tunitv to every individual to earn
livelihood.
Their philosophers were early
acknowledged to be the most pro-
found in Europe, and they refused to
accept the subtleties Of the Greek
teachers in the Irish schools of Ar
magh and Clonmacnoise, Bangor and
Clonfert. The scholars of the most
especially the Anglo-Saxons, paid
high tribute to the superior excellence
of the Irish educational methods, and
this tribute was visible in the. crowds
Of pupils which came from foreign
countries. The Irish became a nation
of schoolmasters.
In becoming the university of Eur
ope, the Irish were serving the cause
~hn1 nr
ceived an education which they car
RED back to the heather tribes on
the banks of the Seine, the Loire, the
Rhine and the Thames. The Irish
scholars carried on their missions OF
RELIGION and education, and it may
we'll be questioned whether the faith
of Rome would have prevailed against
the idolatry of the Huns and Vandals
had not the Irish missionaries con-
tributed SO powerfully to the intel
lectual conflict.
In throwing back the conquering
military power of pagan Rome, the
Irish were right. They thus preserved
their primitive system of society and
philosophy pure. In defying their
invaders, which would have imposed
the war-spirit and the commercial
spirit on Ireland, the leaders of the
church and the people performed
service for Christianity not equalled
by the sacrifice of any other nation.
Irish religious apostles kept the
faith amid every temptation and peril
Their St. Columkill christianized Scot
land, their St. Columbanus christian
led the country of the Alps. Irish
professors were accorded dominant
positions at the courts of Charlie