The achievements of representatives of this race along 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 American history. From the assembling of the First Continental Congress to the present hour, in every legislative hall the Irishman has been a factor. His bones have whitened every American battlefield from the first conflict with British regulars to the closing hour of our struggle with Spain. The love of liberty is deeply ingrained into the very life of the Irishman. The history of his country is that of a gallant people struggling for a larger measure of freedom. His most precious heritage is the record of his countrymen, who upon the battlefield and upon the scaffold have sealed their devotion to liberty with their blood. With such men it was a living faith that-- "Whether on the scaffold high Or in the battle's van The fittest place for man to die Is where he dies for man." With a history reaching into 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. Irishmen, in common with liberty-loving men everywhere, looked with abhorrence upon the attempt of a great 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. When rolling from his tongue, each word of the Lord's Prayer seemed to weigh a pound. His venerable appearance and sightless eyes gave a tinge of pathetic emphasis to his every utterance. He was a man of rare gifts; in early life, before the entire failure of his sight, he had known much of active service in his sacred calling upon the Western circuits. He had been the fellow-laborer of Cartwright, Bascom, and other eminent Methodist ministers of the early times. Dr. Milburn was the Chaplain of the House during the Mexican War, and often a guest at the Executive Mansion when Mr. Polk was President. He knew well many of the leading statesmen of that period. He possessed rare conversational powers; and notwithstanding his blindness, poverty, and utter loneliness, he remained the pleasing, entertaining gentleman to the last.