As soon as Father Mathew had partly recovered from his illness he longed to do something for his people across the sea. In the year 1849 he sailed for New York. The mayor of that city made him an address of welcome; and at Washington he was honored by being admitted to the floor of both houses of Congress. In spite of his broken health, he visited twenty-five states, spoke in over three hundred towns and cities, and gave the pledge to five hundred thousand people. He returned home thoroughly exhausted, and soon had another stroke of paralysis. But loving friends cared for him; people still came for his blessing, or to take the pledge in his presence. He died in 1856, and all the people of Cork followed him to his burial.
It is said that seven million people took the pledge of total abstinence at Father Mathew's hands; and it is thought that hundreds of thousands never broke it. There is now a new feeling about temperance in the English-speaking world. Drunkenness is now looked upon as a disgrace; total abstinence is becoming the habit of increasing numbers of people from year to year; and in the production of this changed feeling, this simple-hearted, earnest Irish priest did more than any other man.
[Footnote: See "Father Mathew, his Life and Times," by F. J. Mathew
(Cassell & Co., 1880), and "Biography of Father Mathew," by J. F.
Maguire, M. P. (London, 1863).]
XXXII.
PATRIOTISM.
MEMORY GEMS.
The noblest motive is the public good.—Virgil
The one best omen is to fight for fatherland.—Homer
Patriotism is a principle fraught with high impulses and noble
thoughts.—Smiles
The revolutionist has seldom any other object but to sacrifice his
country to himself.—Alison