We are gratified, in looking over our files of leading English journals, to find that they all with one voice, a few old and obscure tory papers excepted, support the liberal party in its leading measure, and are waging war with their trenchant pens against the effete anti-Catholic party in the Commons. We hope, also, to see our brothers of the American press, secular and religious, who so generally advocate the support of churches by voluntary contributions, giving a word of encouragement to their cousins across the Atlantic.
Granting that the passage and proper execution of the present act will be a most important step in the right direction, it still seems to us unfortunate that it was not taken years ago. With a fatality that so generally attends English political and religious concessions, it has been so long delayed that it now appears to be more the offspring of fear and intimidation than the result of wise and mature conviction. If British statesmen will yield only to force what they refuse to sound argument and the logic of facts, they must expect the same motive power to be again applied when demands neither so reasonable nor so well founded are to be put forward. In common with our brethren in every part of the world, we view with great satisfaction this awakening sense of public justice in the English mind; but let it not falter now, as if exhausted by one solitary effort. Let a good landlord and tenant act be passed without unnecessary delay, and some comprehensive measures be adopted for the development of the industrial resources of the nation, and then, indeed, that chronic state of disaffection which has afflicted every generation in Ireland since the invasion may be radically cured.
My Mother's Only Son.
The rain is falling heavily, to-night. It has a dull, desolate, lonely sound, as if it were bent upon reminding me of another night more desolate, dull, and lonely even than the present. What right have I, who have so much happiness about me now, to be searching the dark annals of past sorrow, or to unearth a hidden misery, that will come like a blighting shadow between me and all the pleasures that might be mine? Yet that rainy, dismal night does come back to me with a force and terror I would rather not remember.
I would rather not remember it, because my son, just budding into manhood, has left me to-night, for the first time, and gone to take his place in an old firm in a neighboring city. The world and its allurements are temptingly laid out before him. He is a noble, handsome boy, so bright and promising. They tell me he will always have friends, plenty of friends; that he has all the elements of popularity, and is destined to become a general favorite. Dangerous attractions these; they have made wiser heads than yours, my darling, very giddy and very light; hearts, too, have been brought to mourning, while the admiring friends of yesterday could cast only a look of pity on their lost friends as they passed by.
My own brother was all this; gifted in an eminent degree with energy and manly courage to sustain him in any generous undertaking. We had everything to hope from him; he had everything to hope from himself. With prospects fair and bright, an old banker, a friend of my father's, gave him an eligible situation. It was an office of trust; he was proud of the confidence placed in him, and left home with the full resolve of filling it with honor to himself and credit to the good man who had placed him there. His letters were pleasant and joyous, full of the new pleasures he had never dreamed of in our quiet life at home. His graceful manners and natural gentleness soon established him as a favorite in society; his social pleasures were daily increasing, and his attention to business was both active and energetic.
My mother had a slight misgiving. It was only the shadow of a thought, she said—that Arthur, in the new pleasures that surrounded him, might become weaned from us or might learn to be happy without us. In her deep love for her gifted boy she had never thought such an event possible, and instantly reproached herself for the thought.
In going from home, my brother had left a great waste, an empty place behind him, and his letters were our only comfort.