Such grace may have been given, as many believe, in reward of the readiness and the fulness with which our ancestors first received the faith of the Gospel, and it is hoped that God will to the end grant the same grace of fidelity to their descendants. Our great Apostle is said to have asked this favour from God for the nation which so readily responded to his call. Let us unite our prayers with his, and, like Solomon, ask for our race not riches, nor power, but true wisdom, which is, above all and before all, allegiance to the true faith. This was the prayer, no doubt, which the millions of our martyred ancestors poured out. They themselves sacrificed property and liberty; they gave up everything that man could take away, that they might preserve this precious jewel. They believed that in doing this they were following the dictates of true wisdom, and, in their fondest love for their remotest posterity, they wished and prayed that similar wisdom might be displayed by them. May their prayer be heard to the end. This prayer has been heard, or at least this grace has been granted, up to the present. When the sons of Ireland on this day return in thought to the homes of their fathers, they may indeed look back upon a land inferior to many in the elements of material greatness. They may behold her castles and rich domains in the possession of the stranger. They may view the masses of their race with scarcely a foothold in the land of their fathers, liable to be ejected from the farm, and driven out on the public highways, and from the highways into the crowded town, and from the hovels of the crowded town into the poorhouse, and even at the poorhouse denied the right of admission. But amidst all the miseries of those who yet dwell in the old land—in spite of the wiles of unscrupulous governments, and heartless and tyrannical landlords, and hypocritical proselytizers—in spite of open violence and covert bribes, their undying attachment to the faith remains unaltered, unshaken—a monument of national virtue more honourable than any which wealth or power could erect, or flattery devise. But all this is a grace, a great grace of God. It reveals a purpose of Heaven more bountiful in regard to this people than if he had raised them to the highest place in material power amongst the nations of the Earth. Temporal prosperity, in its various forms, though a favour from God, is not his most precious blessing. He himself selected the way of the Cross. In abjection and suffering he came into the world; he lived in it despised and persecuted, he died amidst excruciating torments. To those whom he loved in a special manner, he says, “Can you drink the chalice which I am to drink, and be baptized with the baptism with which I shall be baptized?” and when they reply, they can, the promise that this shall be fulfilled, his leading them to follow him in the way of the Cross, his calling them to suffer for righteousness, is the best pledge of his greatest love.