Page:A Memorial of John Boyle O'Reilly from the City of Boston.djvu/26

20 manner. He was true and loyal, tried and true always, and people learned to love him,—not only a class, but all classes. The rough and the polished, the poor and the rich, the Irishman and the American, all warmed to Boyle O'Reilly, and their hearts cling to him. It may be said that here, in free America, he founded an empire of love, an empire where no taxes were levied, where no offices were distributed, where no honors were scattered.

Among those who have lived for humanity, who have lived for their country, who have lived for their people, who have lived for their religious creed and their friendships, whose broad humane hearts have been able to tolerate distinctions and difference of politics and creed, so long as they were honest and not offensive, the personality of John Boyle O'Reilly will stand prominent from generation to generation; and, as time passes away, the same halo, the same reverence which is accorded to our revolutionary sires, who threw off the yoke, will be given to the name of John Boyle O'Reilly. God grant that it may be mentioned beneath the free flag of Ireland, by the free voices of her native citizens. I came here to-night to preside at your meeting, not to address you; there are those who know him more intimately, who have been thrown, perhaps, more intimately with him than I have, who can speak to you of him in closer and warmer and dearer terms, though I yield to none of them in my friendship for the deceased.