The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1922-03-16
Saint Patrick, Hero of the Irish Race

never been extinguished. Like Caesar
of old he could say Il came. 1 saw.
l conquered" More favored than Cae-
sar the fruit of ST Patrick's work
still remains. There is no one now to
reverence Caesars name. while mil
lions of st. Patrick's spiritual children
rise up today and call him blessed.
Like Israels children, exiled from
their native home, Jerusalem, as they
sat by the Babylonian rivers and went
when they remembered Zion. so do
Erins children today revisit in spirit
the land of their childhood. They
wander again through the native fields
of daisies; tread perhaps with reverent
footsteps the venerated graveyard:
they stand beside the cross which
marks the last earthly resting place
OF mother or dad, while they shed tears
of gratitude to their memory and offer
a prayer for their immortal spirits
Doubtless, too. they behold once more
the lasting replicas all about the land
Of Innisfael that bespeak mutely the
faith of Erin that st. Patrick charged
them with. whose sheaves in success
sive harvests are being gathered into
the granaries of Heaven. To them it
spells the light in the darkness that
to the Irish people is no less wonder
full than that which sprang into exist
ence when the voice of God first broke
the silence of eternity They know
full we'll that without it would go the
foundation of hope and the motive of
charity. Man would then find himself
here not knowing whence or why he
came, or whittier the fleeting years
were bearing him away In the midst
of such darkness as it's absence would
mean he would find within himself
the aspirings of a rational soul clash
ing with the instincts of the beast,
and he would discern in his inmost
being the elements of a strife which
could have for him no meaning. Rea-
son would find the limit of its sway
would guess that there was in the out
er darkness a something that baffled
all it's power, and the guess would be
new trouble. Conscience would claim
4 mastery over action, but would be
lble to produce no warrant of its claim.
save that it would seem to speak as
having power. The human intellect
would be keen enough to discover that
here was presented to it a problem,
which yet it was not keen enough to
olve. Life would be a mystery, death
horror; the world would be one vast
'rison- house. and the human heart,
filed with desires to which it could
i've no voice, would dash itself in vain
gainst the bars.
If Christian faith then be so great a
hing as this, what honor does he not
eserve at our hands who brought it
D our fathers? Should not his sainted
anne be forever on our lips. and make
weet music to our Irish ears-should
OF his memory be cherished in our
carts and his virtues extolled as the
tandard and model of our lives? The
hurch fabric he constructed was the
-uit of an intellect lowered with a
rofound intuition of Irish character.
nd the spirit of fidelity toward the
rinciples of Christianity which he
IMPLANTED in the Irish mind were per-
APPS as much the resultant of his
yet captivating personal
V as the receptive mood of the race.
t. Patrick did a giants work and a
'ateful people made him a great
uled return of thanks by centuries of
iparalleled loyalty to the faith and
nth he brought them.