jected to a vassalage so low that he was commanded to attend swine in the north of Ireland. We all say how unprofitable, how unhappy, how unfortunate! Yes, that is our logic; but let us look at the logic of the skies, and we shall see how fortunate, how happy, how glorious, how consoling to Patrick himself and all his friends, and to the entire Christian world. The logic of God is very different from the logic of men. - When the people of old, about the year 1800 of the world, that is about 2200 years before the birth of our Saviour, went to build the Tower of Babel, and built it very high, as a place of a refuge in order to protect their kings and themselves in case of another universal deluge, there was man's logic. God saw them building it; the men went to their work, and he confounded all their languages. The mason called for mortar, the hodman brought up stone; called for brick, the hodman brought up wood; and they were so confounded they had to give up the work. You say, How trifling that is. Could He not have shaken it down by an earthquake? Could He not strike it with lightning? Could He not send His spirits and scatter it to the winds? Yes, He could; but He has a particular way of His own. Twenty-two hundred years after that, St. Peter preached his first sermon in the streets of Jerusalem, a poor fisherman, an humble man, illiterate; and everybody said, "What, this is the poor fisherman speaking all our languages from the Black Sea, from Byzantium, from Mesopotamia, and all the neighboring countries. Here is this poor fisherman speaking all our languages," - and three thousand men became converted in a day. Now, if God had not confounded their languages, they would all have spoken one language, and Peter could not have performed that miracle; and, therefore, the thing that we regard so foolish in the year 1800 of the world, turned out to be the most glorious fact after the death of our Lord, and after the sermon of Peter. Hence, the thing that looked so foolish in the eyes of man was glorious in the eyes of God, a fact which ought not to be forgotten. So the little incident of St. Patrick being captured and brought into Ireland, in place of being unfortunate, is the most glorious fact related in the entire history of the Christian world. In our logic, we lay our premises in the morning and draw our conclusions in the evening. We lay down our premises, for example, at twelve o'clock, and draw our conclusions at two or three, but God often lays down His premises thousands of years back, and He will draw His conclusions twenty centuries afterwards; slow, but certain, like all great works; and as invincible, and as imperturbable, and certain as His own exist ence. After having remained in the country seven years, by the same miraculous guidance by which he was brought into Ireland, Patrick escaped; but having escaped, and recollecting the condition of the Irish, he was so moved that he determined to devote himself to the Church; and he spent about twenty-two years preparing himself for the priesthood by study; and after twenty-two years, a long time preparing for the priesthood, and preparing for the bishopric, he presented himself to one of our greatest Popes, Pope Celestine, who gave him authority to go to Ireland. Accompanied by twenty fellow-laborers he landed in Ireland with the Cross about the end of the fourth century. Some say it was about the middle, but all admit that it was the middle or the end of the fourth century, about 372. Thus, from the simple incident of being captured and carried to Ireland, came his idea of becoming a priest and bishop, and afterward the great Apostle for the conversion of our country. St. Patrick, therefore, carried out his labor like a true Apostle, and there is no instance related in history of such success and such extents of territory traversed. The number of bishops he ordained is miraculous; the number of churches -- religious houses he established is wonderful. After converting the whole country, and after making it into a garden of Christianity, he died, full of years, one of the most remarkable men of whom any account is given on the page of ecclesiastical history. He died about the year 441, near the middle of the fifth century. Ireland, after its conversion, became the seminary of Europe. The arts and sciences were taught there. The churches that were built and the colleges that were constructed, and the entire number of schools and seminaries, rendered Ireland, beyond dispute, the unrivalled seminary of Europe; and we were so happy. There was never so happy a nation as Ireland at that time. Ireland was then engaged in trade with all the countries around the Mediterranean. We traded with Egypt, with old Pagan Carthage, and with Spain. I assure you that, while some writers represent us as very ignorant from the h ་་་་ the invasion by the Danes, yet the Irish were as civilized, independent of religion, as perhaps any northern nation of Europe; and some go so far as to state that the best of our poetry, and the highest of our musical compositions, are borrowed from that time. Other musicians dispute that, but do not deny that Ireland was very high in the arts and sciences, as well as being unrivalled in her religious profession, from the middle of the fifth to the end of the eighth century. But, oh' the baneful effects of national divisions! As your historian and fellow-countryman, delivering a lecture for you, I can conceal nothing from you. I may say something that will hurt myself; but, beyond all dispute, it is an unfortunate national character, from that period to this, that Ireland has had multiplied divisions. We have had five kings in those days, all rivals, ---- kings envy kings, kings envy kings, — kings quarreling about their territory, and in various disputes, which tarnished very much, indeed, the reign of religion. These five kings made five divisions, which, I firmly believe, laid the foundation of our national disputes. We are all cousins of a king. There being five kings, and there being a very limited territory for each, each Irishman was a cousin of the king, or the king's wife. We are a royal race, and will not admit that anybody in the world has better blood in his veins than ours. Along with the divisions created by a hostile country, I say positively that these five kings laid that deep foundation of national discontent which has been the greatest misfortune of our race. This chronic dissension is not in the nature of the people; it is in the soil; the people are good, are very good; but to be born in Ireland is to be an agitator. "I knew," said a certain person, "of a man's going to where two factions were going to fight. What brings you here?' said the parish priest; 'you don't belong to the Gowans or the Murphys.' 'No,' says he, 'I don't.' 'What brings you here?' 'I come here to fight on my own account.”” Another enemy of ours, to show that the quarrelsomeness of the Irish is due to the soil, says: "You may see in the Liverpool market the cattle of England together, the Berkshire, Devonshire, and all the shires; there they all are. They lay down with their legs like the four legs of a table; but bring in one Irish cow, and there's a battle for the whole of them." I have a problem in history to propose. You know I have been a long time a professor of history. What a pity it is that, when Julius Cæsar came to England, seventy-five years before the birth of our Lord, he didn't conquer Ireland as well as England, and teach us unity. If we had been conquered in those days we should have been united, we should have had the English principle in us, and we should have avoided the disaster of being chained for more than ten centuries. Another problem is, what is the reason that the Irish, who are so faithful to one religious principle all over the world, cannot be united in politics? I answer, because their religious leaders never betrayed them, and the others always did. It would have been, therefore, advantageous decidedly if that problem of history had been carried out, and if Rome, in the year 75 B. C., having conquered Great Britain, had also conquered Ireland, and taught us unity. That would have kept us together, instead of our being chained and persecuted by a foreign, hostile nation. I have other problems in history that I will leave you to answer yourselves; I will not answer them. Christianity was known in Rome early in the first century, where Paul preached it. It was known in France at the end of the first and the beginning of the second century. It was known in Ireland in the year 372 (St. Patrick); it was known in England 596 (Augustine); it was known in America 1492 (Columbus and his followers); it is not yet known in Tartary, and had it been, with the electric telegraph as we now have it, we would have heard of it in three weeks. God does everything by human means, guided supernaturally, of course. We have got the Gospel in our mouths, and we have to be the heralds, and not angels, for it is spread all over the world, and we have to carry the Cross, not upon the wings of the lightning, but upon our own shoulders. I will give you a fact: Christianity took fifteen centuries to travel here, and it is not yet known in Tartary, where it would have been known if there had been civilization the same as here, showing that civilization aids materially in the propagation of the Gospel, a point not to be forgotten. Now we have passed over, if I may so call it, the early history of Ireland. From the fifth to the eighth century we were very happy, with the exception of those divisions which invited the Danes to invade us. I begin at the foundation-stone of the history of Ireland, and I will bring my beloved countrymen, step by step, but briefly, from the foundation up to the present moment. Divided by our kings, we were invaded by the Danes, and were presecuted for over two centuries by them. Our churches and libraries were burned, and our best records destroyed. It was only in the eleventh century that they were finally conquered by Brian Boroimhe at Clontarf. During the invasion, religion, education, civilization, literature, and our history all suffered, and we were thrown into a state of barbarism from which we afterwards emerged with great difficulty. The Roman Empire fell in the fifth century. Its downfall commenced in the second century. The Romans left England in the year 441, about the time St. Patrick died; they were called home to defend Italy, under Valentine, their Emperor. They fell shortly after that about thirty years; that is, about the year 475. Spain, France, Barbary, in Africa, and Asia Minor, all formerly dependants, mere provinces of Rome, now assumed their independence. There was one universal war from about the year 475 up to the eleventh century; and all the dependent nations recovered their liberty from the great tyrannical power, which held sixty millions of slaves. "Will you say you are accurate?" I am. There were sixty millions of slaves in that one empire, comprising half of Asia, half of Africa, and almost the whole of Europe. These slaves were among the chief agents who afterward conquered that country. When Rome was overturned all the dependent countries went to war. What was the consequence? Ireland, being far from the seat of war, cultivated and taught the arts and sciences; and foreign nations sent their children to Ireland to be educated. France and Spain were at war defending their liberty, while we were undisturbed. We had, therefore, a large number of foreign children with us, cultivating the sciences. It was in the times of these disturbances among foreign nations that very many entered the monasteries. That was God's logic. He saw that all these countries would be deluged with blood, that carnage would deface the fields of Europe. He saw that, perhaps, religion might fall temporarily under these sad catastrophes of national disturbance, and therefore he inspired thousands of men to go into the monastery. They were freed from the services of war; and they preserved the light of literature and the blaze of religion that otherwise would have be come extinct. We preserved it in Ireland in the same way. The |