Part 34

Very soon every one in Cork had heard of what Father Mathew had done. He began at once to preach that men ought not to be drunkards, and that they ought not to use what would make drunkards. The people of Cork had always thought what Father Mathew did was right; and they thought so now. In three months twenty-five thousand persons had taken the pledge.

The story of the new movement spread quickly over Ireland, and Father Mathew was wanted everywhere. Wherever he went the people crowded to hear him. There were many pathetic scenes at his meetings; for women came dragging their drunken husbands with them, and almost forcing them to take the pledge. Men knelt in great companies and repeated the words of the pledge together. In Limerick the crowds were so dense that it was impossible to enroll all the names. More than a hundred thousand were thought to have taken the pledge in four days.

As a result of his work the saloons were closed in many villages and towns; and, within five years, half the people in Ireland had taken the pledge. The quantity of liquor used fell off more than half, and there was a similar decrease in all kinds of crime.

Then came the terrible years of the Irish famine. By the failure of the potato crop, hundreds of thousands died of starvation or of fever. Multitudes had to leave their homes to get government work; and hunger and despair brought a new temptation to drink. Father Mathew's heart was well-nigh broken with seeing the misery of his countrymen. The food was taken from his own table to feed the hungry. Every room in his house would sometimes be filled with poor people clamoring for bread; and, largely as a result of this terrible strain, he was stricken with paralysis.

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.

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

It is impossible that a man who is false to his friends should be true to his country.--Bishop Berkeley

Patriotism is defined by Noah Webster as "the passion which aims to serve one's country." As it is natural to love our home, it is natural to love our country also. As the poorest homes are sometimes most tenderly loved, so the poorest and barest country is sometimes held in most affection. There is, perhaps, not a country in the world the inhabitants of which have not, at some time or other, been willing to suffer and die for it.

But as we think of our land, we quickly perceive that no body of young people ever had a more valuable inheritance than that which we have received; and we are under the greatest obligations to protect and preserve this land, and transmit it, full of the grandest achievements and most glorious recollections, to posterity.

This affection is natural, because the town and the nation in which one has lived, is, like the home, bound up with all the experiences of one's life. The games of childhood, the affection of parents, the love of friends, all the joys, the sorrows, the activities of life, are bound up in the thought of one's native land.

It is not merely natural to be patriotic, but it is also reasonable and right. Nearly all that makes life pleasant and desirable, comes to us through the town or the nation to which we belong. Think how many thousands in our country have toiled for us! They have made roads, and they have built churches and schoolhouses. They have established malls and post offices. They have cultivated farms to provide for our needs, and have built ships that cross the ocean to bring to us the good things which we could not produce at home. They have provided protection against wrongdoers; so that if we sleep in peace, and work and study and play in safety, we are indebted for all this to the town and nation.

When the bells are ringing, and the cannons are firing, on the Fourth of July, we must not think merely of the noise and fun. We must remember those who on that day agreed that they would risk their lives and everything that was dear to them, that their country might be free. We must also think of those who in times of peril have given themselves for their nation's good; of those who found the land a wilderness, and suffered pain and privation while they made the beginning of a nation. We must think of those who, ever since that time, when ever the liberty or the unity of the nation has been in peril, have sprung to its defense.

At the end of the war of the revolution, Washington was at the head of a mighty army, and was the object of the enthusiastic love of the whole people. He might easily have made himself a king or an emperor. It was a marvel to the civilized world when he quietly laid down all his power. He suffered himself to be twice chosen president; and then he became simply a private citizen. This seems to us now the most natural thing in the world; but really it was something very rare, and gave him a fame such as few heroes of the world enjoy.

There have been heroes in peace as well as in war, men who have conquered the wilderness, who have upheld justice, and have helped on whatever was good and noble. And there are also many persons among us who are unworthy to live in our country, because they are not willing to suffer the least inconvenience on its account.

Then there are many men who are even so unpatriotic as to sell their votes. Think of all the cost of money and of noble lives at which our liberty has been won. Think how, in many parts of the world, men are looking with longing at the liberty which we enjoy; yet there are those to whom this hard-won freedom means so little that they do not strive to further the country's interests in any way.

We must never forget, as we think or speak of patriotism, that such private virtues as honesty and industry, are its best helps. Whatever tends to make men wiser and better is a service to the nation. The country will one day be in the hands of those who are now boys and girls; and to you, we say, serve it, guard it, and do all that you can to promote its good.

There is a fine field for the exercise of patriotism in trying to improve the condition of affairs in the towns and cities in which we live. We find ourselves in the midst of a conflict between the criminal classes on the one hand, and the people on the other,--a conflict as stern as was ever endured upon the battlefield, amid the glitter of cold steel and the rattle of musketry.

The man or woman of the school committee, working conscientiously that the boys and girls shall have the best education to fit them for future life, is a patriot. The teacher who patiently works on with that great end in view, is the same. If greed or bigotry claims from town, city, or country, that which will debase her people, every boy and girl, every man and woman, should instantly frown it down. This is true patriotism, and the influence of every person is needed for the right.

Every good man in politics wields a power for good. Every good man not in politics is to blame for political corruption, because by neglecting his plain duty he adds to the strength of the enemy. Let it be known that, with you, principle amounts to something; that character counts; that questionable party service cannot count upon your suffrage.

JOHN ADAMS.

But little has been written of the child-life of John Adams, the second president of the United States; a man of unflinching honesty, and a patriot of the noblest order.