Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1917-03-17

we have been from time to time
obliged TO shed our blood in a
cause we had no sympathy with,
but Irishmen have never freely
drawn the sword except in the
sacred cause of God, of the altar
of God and of sacred liberty-the
best inheritance of man. Search the
annals of the military history OF
ireland. Did We fall back before
the Dane when for three centuries
three hundred years--he poured
In army upon army on Irish soil?
He endeavored to sweep away the
Christ and the name of Christ from
the Irish land. Did we ever give
up the contest, or sheath the sword.
or say the cause was lost? Neveri
England yielded, and admitted the
Dane as a ruler and king among
her people. But ireland never
never for an instant yielded; and
upon that magnificent Good Friday
morning at Clontarf she drew the
sword with united hand, swept the
Dane into his own sea and rid her
soil of him. forever. An, my friends,
freshmen, for three hundred years
werei fighting In the cause OF their
God, OF their religion and of their
national liberty. Then came the in
gasion of theN. English. For four
hundred years our people fought
an unsuccessful fight and divided
as they were. broken into thou
sand factions, how could they sue.
coed when success Is promised only
to union as preliminary and a
necessary condition? They failed IN
defending and asserting the nation
ality of Ireland. At the end of 400
years England declared that the
war was no longer against Ireland's
nationality. but against Ireland's
Catholic religion. Why? Because
Of their Catholic faith, taught them
by st. Patrick. which tells that 1t
IS never lawful 10 draw the sword
in an unjust cause, but that when
the cause is just--for religion, for
God. for freedom--he is the best
Christian who knows how to draw
the sword. wave II triumphantly
over the field, or let II fall in the
hand OF the man who Knows how
to die without dishonor.
The third light that shines upon
the bright side of the history, the
character and the genius of my
people, is the light of divine purity;
the purity that makes the Irish
maiden as chaste as the nun in her
cloister: the purity that makes the
Irish man as faithful to his wife as
the priest to the altar that he
serves; the purity that makes Nor
monism and defilement of every
kind utter strangers to our race and
to our people. ! say, the Irish
woman is the glory OF Ireland; she
is the beauty of her country. How
beautiful Is she in the integrity of
virginia. purity. She has been
taught it by St Patrick. who held
up the Mother OF God--the Virgin
Mother--as the very type of Ire
lands womanhood, and Ireland's
consecrated virgins, as illustrated in
the lives and in the characters of
our Irish virgin saints. The Irish
man knows that, whatever else he
may be false to, whatever obliga-
lions he may violate or break, there
is one bond, tied by the hand of
God Himself before the altar, sealed
with the sacramental seal of matri-
mony, signed with the sign OF the
cross-that no power upon earth,
or in hell, or in heaven, can ever
break, and that is the sacred bond
that binds him to the wife of his
bosom.
This lecture was delivered in
1872, the year Father Burke visited
Louisville.