Part 2 (1/2)
”Let the remembrance of Thy death, O Lord Jesu, ht in Thy gracious presence”
”O most sweet Jesu Christ, I, unworthy sinner, yet redeemed by Thy precious blood Thine I am and will be, in life and in death”
”O Jesu, beloved, fairer than the sons of men, draw me after Thee with the cords of Thy love”
”Blessed are Thou, O most merciful God, who didst vouchsafe to espouse room in the waters of baptisift of espousal and the meet consummation of Thy love”
”O most sweet Lord Jesu, transfix the affections of my inmost soul with that most joyous and most healthful wound of Thy love, with true, serene, uish andfor Thee Let it desire Thee and faint for Thy courts; long to be dissolved and be with Thee”
”Oh, that I could eels”
”Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth; for Thy love is better than wine Draw ht me into his chambers Let my soul, O Lord, feel the sweetness of Thy presence May it taste hoeet Thou art May the sweet and burning power of Thy love, I beseech Thee, absorb erm of passion, and the line of its developht into the world, and the surrounding influences of education I had but two ideals intendrils of passion; they were e, but I as as they were in this life-story, and not give mere conventionalisms, and so it was I had e, for I have since heard that e for me, but declined them on account of my youth and my childishness--friends hom I liked to talk, because they knew more than I did; but they had no place in my day-dreams These were more and more filled with the one Ideal Man, and my hopes turned towards the life of the Sister of Mercy, who ever worshi+ps the Christ, and devotes her life to the service of His poor I knew ainst this idea, but it nestled war from the humdrum of ordinary life by so fascination
Now one unlucky result of this view of religion is the idealisation of the clergyer and chosen servant of the Lord
Far more lofty than any title bestowed by earthly ht froive to theof the authority of the immortal, and to crown the head of the priest with the diades and priests unto God” Viewed in this way, the position of the priest's wife seems second only to that of the nun, and has, therefore, a wonderful attractiveness, an attractiveness in which the particular clergyman affected plays a very subordinate part; it is the ”sacred office,” the nearness to ”holy things,” the consecration which seelamour over the clerical life which attracts most those who are ination And the saddest pity of all this is that the glamour is most over those whose brains are quick, whose hearts are pure, who are responsive to all forestions of personal self-sacrifice; if such in later life rise to the higher eher self-sacrifice whose whispers reached them in their early youth, then the false prophet's veil is raised, the poverty of the conception seen, and the life is either wrecked, or through stor billoith loss of mast and sail, is steered by firm hand into the port of a nobler faith
That suy, our knowledge of each other being an alether for a week, the only two young ones in a small party of holiday-makers, and in our walks, rides, and drives ere naturally companions; an hour or two before he left he asked ranted as I had allowed him such full coirls accustomed to look on all arded hts were in quite other directions Startled, and my sensitive pride touched by what seemed to , I hesitated, did not follow e in silence; my suitor had to catch his train, and bound me over to silence till he could hi authoritatively that it would be dishonourable of me to break his confidence, and left me--the most upset and distressed little person on the Sussex coast The fortnight that folloas the first unhappy one of my life, for I had a secret froed to tell her, but dared not speak at the risk of doing a dishonourable thing Onmy suitor on our return to town I positively refused to keep silence any longer, and then out of sheer weakness and fear of inflicting pain I drifted into an engagement with a ht word, for two or three round that I was so much of a child, before ee faded before the idea of beco ever in the Church and a desire for usefulness in ious enthusias; all that was deepest and truest in ed for work, yearned to devote itself, as I had read women saints had done, to the service of the Church and of the poor, to the battling against sin and misery--what empty names sin and misery then were to ood as a clergyed on my reluctance
In the autumn I was definitely betrothed, and I married fourteen age the subject to my mother, all her pride rose up in revolt
Would I, her daughter, break ed myself to marry? She could be stern where honour was involved, that sweet mother of mine, and I yielded to her wish as I had been ever wont to do, for a look or a word froion was concerned So I e relation than if I had been four years old instead of twenty My dreae of evil had been allowed to penetrate, in which I had been guarded from all pain, shi+elded from all anxiety, kept, innocent on all questions of sex, was no preparation for married existence, and leftback on it all, I deliberately say that no irl to wonorance of all life's duties and burdens, and then to let her face them for the first time away froe on the mother's breast
That ”perfect innocence” may be very beautiful, but it is a perilous possession, and Eve should have the knowledge of good and evil ere she wanders forth froe dates froirl's sensitive modesty and pride, her helpless bewildere education, or the knowledge that co in the outside world, may find it hard to realise the possibility of such infantile ignorance in norance is a fact in the case of sohter, blindfold, slip her neck under the irlhood to set sail on the troublous sea of life, there is an occurrence of which Iof interest in the outer world of political struggle In the autu with some dear friends of ours, the Robertses, at Pendleton, near Manchester Mr Roberts was ”the poor man's lawyer,” in the affectionate phrase used of him by many a hundred men He was a close friend of Ernest Jones, and was always ready to fight a poor itation which saved wo in the , naked to the waist, with short petticoats barely reaching to their knees, rough, foul-tongued, brutalised out of all worace; and how he had seen little children working there too, babies of three and four set to watch a door, and falling asleep at their work to be roused by curse and kick to the unfair toil The old in to flash and his voice to rise as he told of these horrors, and then his face would soften as he added that, after it was all over and the slavery was put an end to, as he went through a coal district the wo at their doors would lift up their children to see ”Lawyer Roberts” go by, and would bid ”God bless him” for what he had done This dear old man was my first tutor in Radicalism, and I was an apt pupil I had taken no interest in politics, but had unconsciously reflected isarded ”the poor” as folk to be educated, looked after, charitably dealt with, and always treated withdue from me, as a lady, to all equally, whether they were rich or poor But to Mr
Roberts ”the poor” were the working-bees, the wealth producers, with a right to self-rule not to looking after, with a right to justice, not to charity, and he preached his doctrines to me in season and out of season I was a pet of his, and used often to drive hia horse through the crowded Manchester streets During these drives, and on all other available occasions, Mr Roberts would preach to ht?” he de at ht of hih sort of ht so!” he thundered at me fiercely ”That's just what I say I believe soo to heaven if you had to rub shoulders with John Bright, the noblest ave to the cause of the poor”
This was the hot-teue,” as he was called, e were staying when Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasy, two Fenian leaders, were arrested in Manchester and put on their trial The whole Irish population beca with excite them to Salford Gaol was stopped at the Bellevue Railway Arch by the sudden fall of one of the horses, shot from the side of the road In aat the van door It resisted; a body of police was rapidly approaching, and if the rescue was to be effective the door must be opened The rescuers shouted to Brett, the constable inside, to pass out his keys; he refused, and some one exclaimed, ”Blow off the lock!” In a ainst the lock, and it was blown off; but Brett, stooping down to look through the keyhole, received the bullet in his head, and fell dying as the door flew open
Another moment, and Allen, a lad of seventeen, had wrenched open the doors of the coed them out, and while two or three hurried them off to a place of safety, the others threw theitives and the police, and with levelled revolvers guarded their flight The Fenian leaders once safe, they scattered, and young Willia them safe, fired his revolver in the air, for he would not shed blood in his own defence Disarmed by his own act, he was set on by the police, brutally struck down, kicked and stoned, and was dragged off to gaol, faint and bleeding, to ht as himself Then Manchester went mad, and race-passions flared up into flalishman safe in the Irish quarter The friends of the prisoners besieged ”Lawyer Roberts's” house, praying his aid, and he threw his whole fiery soul into their defence The man who had fired the accidentally fatal shot was safely out of the way, and none of the others had hurt a hu A Special Commission was issued, with Mr Justice Blackburn at its head--”the hanging judge,”
groaned Mr Roberts--and it was soon in Manchester, for all Mr
Roberts's efforts to get the venue of the trial changed were futile, though of fair trial then in Manchester there was no chance On October 25th the prisoners were actually brought up before the istrates in irons, and Mr Ernest Jones, their counsel, failing in his protest against this outrage, thren his brief and left the court So great was the haste hich the trial was hurried on that on the 29th Allen, Larkin, Gould (O'Brien), Maguire, and Condon were standing in the dock before the Coed with ry croas on that day as we drove to the court; the streets were barricaded, the soldiers were under ars At last our carriage was stopped as ere passing at a foot's pace through an Irish section of the crowd, and various veheh the ith hearty curses at the ”d----d English ere going to see the boys murdered” The situation was critical, for ere toht ently touched the nearest fist: ”Friends, these are Mr Roberts' wife and daughters” ”Roberts! Lawyer Roberts! God bless Roberts! Let his carriage through” And all the scowling faces becaed to cheers, as a road to the court steps was cleared for us
Alas! if there was passion on behalf of the prisoners outside, there was passion against the of the trial showed the spirit that aniby Seymour, QC, and Ernest Jones, were briefed for the defence, and Mr
Roberts did not think that they exercised sufficiently their right of challenge; he knew, as we all did, that many on the panel had loudly proclaimed their hostility to the Irish, and Mr Roberts persisted in challenging thee Blackburn threatened to commit the rebellious solicitor: ”These nant plea ”Ree, but as the officers of the court came forward very slowly--for all poor ed his mind and let him stay Despite all his efforts, the jury contained a man who had declared that he ”didn't care what the evidence was, he would hang every d----d Irishman of the lot” And the result showed that he was not alone in his view, for evidence of the most disreputable kind was admitted; women of the lowest type were put into the box as witnesses, and their word taken as unchallengeable; thus was destroyed an _alibi_ for Maguire, afterwards accepted by the Crown, a free pardon being issued on the strength of it Nothing could save the doomed men from the deter into a little roo the black caps before the verdict had been delivered
The foregone ”Guilty” was duly repeated as verdict on each of the five cases, and the prisoners asked if they had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed on them Allen, boy as he was, made a very brave and manly speech; he had not fired, save in the air--if he had done so he ht have escaped; he had helped to free Kelly and Deasy, and did not regret it; he illing to die for Ireland
Maguire and Condon (he also was reprieved) declared they were not present, but, like Allen, were ready to die for their country Sentence of death was passed, and, as echo to the sardonic ”The Lord haveback from the dock in five clear voices, with never a quiver of fear in them, ”God save Ireland!” and the ht of my tear-dimmed eyes
It was a sorrowful tiirl as Allen's sweetheart, and who cried to us on her knees, ”Savewe or any one could do availed to avert the dooed outside Salford Gaol Had they striven for freedoland would have honoured them; here she buried them as common murderers in quicklime in the prison yard
I have found, with a keen sense of pleasure, that Mr Bradlaugh and h we knew not of each other's existence, and although he was doing ht, as only just awakening to the duty of political work I read in the _National Refor week he was pleading on Clerkenwell Green for theseto the evidence at the trial, Deasy and Kelly were illegally arrested
They had been arrested for vagrancy of which no evidence was given, and apparently remanded for felony without a shadow of justification He had yet to learn that in England the sas existed as in Ireland; he had yet to learn that an illegal arrest was sufficient ground to detain any of the citizens of any country in the prisons of this one If he were illegally held, he was justified in using enough force to procure his release Wearing a policeave no authority when the officer exceeded his jurisdiction He had argued this before Lord Chief Justice Erie in the Court of Coe did not venture to contradict the argument which he submitted There was another reason why they should spare these h he hardly expected the Government to listen, because the Governes as predetermined to convict the prisoners; it was that the offence was purely a political one The death of Brett was a sad ard the killing of Brett as an intentional ally, it was murder; morally, it was homicide in the rescue of a political captive If it were a question of the rescue of the political captives of Varignano, or of political captives in Bourbon, in Naples, or in Poland, or in Paris, even earls ue Wherein is our sister Ireland less than these? In executing these auntlet for terrible reprisals It was a grave and solemn question It had been said by a previous speaker that they were prepared to go to any lengths to save these Irishmen They were not He wished they were If they were, if the land, from one end to the other, were prepared to say, 'These men shall not be executed,'