TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW. 179 it can ask no sympathy or assistance either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him; and like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master; it betrays his discretion; it breaks down his courage; it conquers his prudence. When suspicions, from without, begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed, it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confession but in suicide, and suicide is confession. 84. TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW. H IGH hopes, that burned like stars sublime, And true hearts perish in the time We bitterliest need 'em! There's nothing left but sorrow: Our birds. of song are silent now; And Freedom's spring is coming; 180 TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW. And Freedom's tide comes up alway, Through all the long, long night of years And earth is wet with blood and tears: But our meek sufferance endeth! The few shall not forever sway, The many moil in sorrow; The powers of hell are strong to-day, Though hearts brood o'er the past, our eyes For lo! our day bursts up the skies O youth flame-earnest, still aspire Our yearning opes a portal ; Build up heroic lives, and all CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. Ready to flash out at God's call Triumph and toil are twins; and aye 85. CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. 181 E shall WE we must succeed. If there be an overruling Providence in heaven, if there be justice or wisdom on earth, we ought to expect success. Our liberties were not lost in any disastrous battle. Our rights were not won from us in any field of fight. No; our ancestors surrendered upon capitulation. A large army, many fortresses, a country devoted to them, foreign assistance at hand, - all these our ancestors surrendered on the faith of a solemn treaty, which stipulated in return for Ireland "liberty of conscience." The treaty was ratified; it passed the great seal of England; it was observed yes, it was observed by English fidelity-just seven weeks! Our claim of contract has not been worn out by time. The obligation on England is not barred by a century of injustice and oppression. And while our oppression originated in injustice, it has not been justified by any subsequent crime or delinquency on our part. For a century and a half of sufferings, we have exhibited a fidelity unaltered and unalterable. Our allegiance to the state has been equalled only by 182 CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. our attachment to the faith of our fathers. But we now present the extraordinary spectacle of men, at one and the same time, the reproach of the justice, and the refuge and succor in danger, of the British empire. Thus do the Catholics urge their claims. They complain of original injustice; they insist on present merits; they require the aid of, and they place their emancipation on, the great principle of the universal right of liberty of conscience. They call upon England to behold a priesthood having no other motives but the sense of religion; seeking no other reward but the approbation of their own consciences; learned, pious, and humble; always active in the discharge of their duties; comforting the old, instructing the ignorant, restraining the vicious, encouraging the good, discountenancing and terrifying the criminal, visiting the hovel of poverty, soothing the pangs of sickness and of sorrow, showing the path to heaven and themselves leading the way. They call upon England to behold a people faithful even under persecution, grateful for a pittance of justice, cheerful under oppressive taxation, foremost in every battle, and giving an earnest of their allegiance and attachment to a government which they could love, by their attachment to the religion which they revere; proving by their exclusion and sufferings their practical reverence for the obligation of an oath; and by their anxiety to be admitted into the full enjoyment of the constitution, how powerfully they appreciate the enjoyment of civil liberty. Such a people as this, distinguishing at one and the same time spiritual authority, which is not of this world, from temporal KING HAROLD'S SPEECH. 183 power, which belongs to it -- giving to God the things which are God's, but preserving to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's such a nation as this, prelates, priests, and people, demand with manly firmness, but with decent respect, their birthright— LIBERTY, their honest earning; that which they maintain with their money, and sustain with their blood- the CONSTI TUTION. Such are the persons who require emancipation; such is the nature of their claim. Shall I be told, then, by interested bigotry, that the people of England cannot, in conscience, grant our demands? Conscience, indeed! O, let the English conscience consult justice, and we shall soon be free. We do not ask we would not take-peculiar privileges or individual advantages; we ask that religion should be left between man and his Creator, and that conscience should be free. 86. KING HAROLD'S SPEECH BEFORE THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. THIS HIS day, O friends and Englishmen, sons of our common land, this day ye fight for liberty. The Count of the Normans hath, I know, a mighty army; I disguise not its strength. That army he hath collected together by promising to each man a share in the spoils of England. Already, in his court and his camp, he hath parcelled out the lands of this kingdom; and fierce are the robbers that fight for the hope of plunder! But he cannot offer to his greatest chief boons nobler than those I offer to my meanest |