Page:A Memorial of John Boyle O'Reilly from the City of Boston.djvu/53

Rh said, he saw that here Ireland might receive its emancipation, but because he saw in our institutions the type and the possibility of the realization of the great truth that God has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth.

He was more than a patriot, because wherever he saw humanity oppressed he saw a brother in woe, and determined to give voice to the wrong. Nay, he could rise not only above the prejudices of his race and the traditions of his nation, but above even the scruples of his religion, and that is the hardest thing for man to accomplish in this world.

This man, a Roman Catholic, on New England soil, in daily association with the sons of Puritans,—the sons of men who hated the Papacy as the instrument of Satan, and whose descendants have not entirely got beyond the narrowness of their forefathers,—could yet describe in fitting terms, and show the appreciation of his mind and soul for the achievements of the founders of New England.

So that it is not only Ireland and America that may mourn his death, it is humanity, civilization, our common Christianity.

What honor shall we pay to such a man? It will be honor enough, I doubt not, if we can take all the virtues and all the achievements of his life into our own souls.