"A violent tempest surrounds me on all sides; but I fear nothing, because I stand on an immovable rock. The fury of the waves cannot sink the vessel of Jesus Christ. Death cannot terrify me; it would rather be a gain to me. Do I fear exile? All the earth is the Lord's. Do I fear the loss of goods? Naked I was born into the world, and naked I shall return. I despise the scorn and the flattery of the world. I have no desire to live but for your welfare."
The people remained with him eight days to defend him, and the holy pastor, in order to prevent an insurrection, escaped by a secret door, and delivered himself up to his enemies. The Empress Eudoxia, however, was soon obliged to recall him. "We shall lose the empire," said she, "unless John is recalled."
Then, again, O'Connell, that orator who acquired so wide an influence, how popular he was! But I shall let M. de Cormenin describe him:—
"Look at O'Connell with his people—for they are truly his people. He lives of their life, he smiles with their joys, he bleeds with their wounds, he groans with their pains. He transports them at his will from fear to hope, from slavery to liberty, from the fact to the right, from the right to duty, from supplication to invective, and from anger to mercy and pity. He directs the people to kneel on the ground and pray, and they all kneel and pray; to raise their faces to the skies, and they raise them; to curse their tyrants, and they curse them; to sing hymns to liberty, and they sing them; to bare their heads and swear on the holy Gospels, and they uncover, raise the hand, and swear; to sign petitions for the reform of abuses, to unite their forces, to pardon their enemies, and they sign, they forget, they embrace, they forgive.
"That which makes him incomparable among all the orators of this or any other country, is that, without any premeditation, and by impulse alone, by the sole force of his powerful and triumphant nature, he enters wholly into his subject, and appears to be more possessed by it than of himself. His heart overflows; it goes by bounds, by transports, bringing into play all its pulsations. Like a high-bred charger, suddenly pulled back on its nervous and quivering haunches, even so can O'Connell arrest himself in the unbridled course of his harangues, turn short and resume them—such versatility, spring, and vigor is there in his eloquence. You imagine at first that he is staggering, and about to succumb under the weight of the divinity which inwardly agitates him; but he rises again with a halo on his brow, an eye full of flame, and his voice, unlike that of a mortal, begins to resound in the air, and to fill all space.
"He is lyrical as a poet, and familiar even to playfulness. He draws his audience to him, and then transfers them to the floor of the theatre; or descends himself and mixes with the spectators. He never allows the stage to be without speech or action for a single moment. He distributes the parts to each. He himself sits as judge: he arraigns and he condemns; the people ratify, upraise the hand, and seem to believe that they are joining in a verdict. Some times O'Connell adapts the interior drama of a family to the external drama of political affairs. He calls up his aged father, his ancestors and the ancestors of the people. … He disposes and extemporizes narratives, monologues, dialogues, propoeia, interludes, and peripatetics. Knowing that the Irish are both light-hearted and melancholy, that they are fond of metaphor, flourish, and sarcasm, he stifles laughter with tears, the grandiose by the grotesque. He attacks the House of Lords, and, chasing them from their aristocratic lairs, tracks them one by one like wild beasts. He is always popular, be his speech grave, sublime, or jocular:—
"'Ireland! oh, how that name alone sticks in the Saxon throat. My friends, my heart and my mind are known to you, and I wish you to understand this, that I have power enough to prevent either Peel or Wellington from treading on the liberties of Ireland. I have only to say this to them: We will entrench ourselves behind the law and the constitution; but do not attempt to put our patience to the test beyond bounds, for if there is danger in exasperating cowards, there is a thousand times more danger in exasperating those who are not.' (Applause.) 'I told you at the outset that I did not feel disposed to speak: this is not a speech, it is history which I am making at this moment. The people have placed unlimited confidence in me. I might, perhaps, say with affected modesty that I do not deserve it. I will be more frank. I believe that I do deserve it.' (Applause: yes! yes!) 'Mine is a strange fortune. I believe I am the only man, living or dead, who has enjoyed uninterrupted confidence and popularity for forty years.
"A voice.—May you enjoy them twice as long!
"O'C.—'That is impossible. Long before then, I shall be summoned before my Maker to give an account of all the actions of my public and private life.'