Slow turning through the glimmering aisles to range, Amid the hum the loitering footsteps wrought I lost the questioning face, but not the thought Of that dim life, to which the night seemed strange Of Calvary’s God, to whom all life is owed— That clouded life wherein Faith’s pure sunshine Casts faintest gleam of its strong light divine That strengthens soul, makes fair the daily load. Far down the hall full notes of organ poured, And broke in song strong voices manifold; Glad alleluias all exultant rolled, As if proclaiming on each soaring chord: “Happy the people of this wealth possessed!” Nay, Happy they whom God the Lord hath blessed. ENGLISH RULE IN IRELAND. II. The present condition of a people is the latest phase of a life that has run through centuries, in all the events of which there may be traced the relation of cause and effect, and whose continuity has never been interrupted, though at times the current may seem to leave its channel, or even to disappear. The past never dies, but with each succeeding moment receives a fuller existence, survives as a curse or a blessing. The passion which urges the human mind back to ages more and more remote, until the gathering darkness shuts out even the faintest glimmer of light, is not mere curiosity, nor even the inborn craving for knowledge; rather is it the consciousness that those ancient times and far-off deeds still live in us, mould us, and shape our ends. We were with Adam when he plucked and ate the forbidden fruit, and that his act should work in us yet, like a taint in the blood, seems to be a postulate of reason not less than a truth of tradition or revelation. The cherishing of great names, the clinging to noble memories, the use of poetry, music, sculpture, painting, architecture, or any art, to give form and vividness to glories, heroisms, martyrdoms, are but the expression of this consciousness that the present is only the fuller and more living past. No vanity, much less scorn or hate, should prompt any one to lift into the light the glory or the shame of a people’s history. As we tread reverently on the ground where human passions have contended for the mastery, we should approach with religious awe the facts which have made the world what it is.