Part 33 (2/2)

”Yas, of course we did,” slowly answered by so fellon about Washi+ngton so long, that I didn't know but what you had forgot us poor fellon in the Pennyrile”

assuring hiot my old friends, I inquired, ”John, where is your brother Bill?”

”He's here,” was the instant reply ”Me and Bill started before daylight to get to this barbecue in tio forty in'”_

xxxII A TRIBUTE TO IRELAND

[Footnote: Speech delivered by Mr Stevenson at a banquet of the United Irish Societies of Chicago, September, 1900]

THE WRITER'S VISIT TO NOTABLE PLACES IN IRELAND--HIS TRIBUTE OF PRAISE TO HER GREAT MEN--AMERICA'S OBLIGATION TO IRISH SOLDIERS AND STATESMEN

I accepted with pleasure the invitation to enerously extended rateful

Within late years it has been e to visit Ireland; and I can truly say that no country in Europe possessed for me a deeper interest than the little island about whose name clusters so much of romance and of enchantlory and in its desolation I stood upon the Giant's Causeway, one of the grand hty; I visited the historic parks and deserted legislative halls of venerated Dublin; threaded the streets and byways of the quaint old city of Cork; listened the bells of Shandon; sailed over the beautiful lakes of Killarney, and gazed upon the old castles of Muckross and of Blarney, whose ivy-covered ruins tell of the far-away centuries

What a wonderful island! The birthplace of wits, of warriors, of statesmen, of poets, and of orators Of its people it has been truly said: ”They have fought successfully the battles of every country but their own”

Upon occasion such as this, the Irishman--to whatever spot in this orld he may have wandered--lives in the shadow of the past

In iination he is once ain a thing of reality Again he wears the shas of his native land, while his heart is stirred by lory

What a splendid contribution Ireland has reat men! In the realm of poetry, Goldsmith and Tom Moore; of oratory, Sheridan, Emmett, Grattan, O'Connell, Burke, and in later years Charles Stewart Parnell, whose thrilling words I heard a third of a century ago, pleading the cause of his oppressed countryation of A her battles and fra her laws cannot be measured by words In the British possessions to the northward, in the old city of Quebec, there is one spot dear to the A the battles of his adopted country What schoolboy is not faallant Phil Sheridan and ”Winchester twenty et shi+elds, the hero of tars, the senator fro State rote of our fallen soldiers words that will live while we have a country and a language:

”The muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more of life's parade shall meet That brave and fallen few”

The achieve every pathway of useful and honorable endeavor are a part of our own history

We honor to-day the far-away island, the deeds and sacrifices of whose sons have added so brilliant a chapter to A of the First Continental Congress to the present hour, in every legislative hall the Irishman has been a factor

His bones have whitened every Aulars to the closing hour of our struggle with Spain

The love of liberty is deeply ingrained into the very life of the Irishallant people struggling for a larger e is the record of his countrymen, who upon the battlefield and upon the scaffold have sealed their devotion to liberty with their blood With suchfaith that--

”Whether on the scaffold high Or in the battle's van The fittest place for man to die Is where he dies forinto the far past, every page of which tells of the struggle for liberty, it is not strange that the sympathies of the Irishman are with the oppressed everywhere on God's footstool Irish reat European power to establish monarchy upon the ruins of republics

May we not confidently abide in the hope that brighter days are in waiting for the beautiful island and her gallant people? I close with the words: ”God bless old Ireland!”

xxxIII THE BLIND CHAPLAIN

DR MILBURN'S SOLEMNITY IN PRAYER--HIS VENERABLE APPEARANCE--HIS CONVERSATIONAL POWERS--HIS CUSTOM OF PRAYING FOR SICK MEMBERS

No Senator who ever sat under the ministrations of Dr Milburn, the blind chaplain, can ever forget his earnest and solemn invocation