I conclude with the eloquent apostrophe of the Bishop of Orleans to the Belgians, which came from his mouth like the electric flash, amid thunders of applause, at the Congress of Malines in 1867, where I had the privilege of being present. “Vous avez une patrie, sachez la garder!”—“You have a country, know how to keep it!”
When we look abroad and see the dark, threatening clouds overhanging older nations, threatening new tempests to follow those which have lately burst upon them, and then look at home on the peace and liberty we enjoy; our church and religion free, priests, bishops, and the Holy Father from his prison in the Vatican, exercising their lawful jurisdiction without hindrance, we can esteem at their proper worth the blessings we enjoy. We learn how to value order, good government, and civilization founded on religious ideas, as the most precious of all earthly possessions after the faith and the means of eternal salvation. These advantages we possess in the [pg 735] laws and institutions which are summed up in the one word our country—our native land, or the land of our refuge and our children's nativity. Let us all, therefore, prize, cherish, guard, and loyally serve it during life; prepared and resolved, if necessary, to give our blood and our lives in its defence, in emulation of the patriotic bravery of our noble brothers and ancestors from whom we have received this fair inheritance.
The Widow Of Nain.
“The only son of his mother, and she was a widow.”
I.
The dust on their sandals lay heavy and white,
Their garments were damp with the tears of the night,
Their hot feet aweary, and throbbing with pain,
As they entered the gates of the city of Nain.