Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/32

26 From June 1844 to December 1846, though I could say with the disciples returning from Emmaus, that "my heart burned within me," yet with them I must add, my "eyes were holden," that I had not yet seen the ultimate object, nor had the slightest curiosity been awakened as to the result of the researches which had been made, who would understand or misunderstand, who would approve or condemn. Ireland's pride and Ireland's humility, her wealth and her poverty, her beauty and deformity, had all been tested in a degree, and the causes of her poverty stood out in such bold relief, that no special revelation, either human or divine, was requisite to give a solution.

"Will not God be avenged on such a nation as this?" was the constant question urging me, and the echo is still sounding as the mighty wave is now rolling over the proud ones who have "held the poor in derision," and the only answer is, " What will ye do in the end thereof?" What avails the multiplicity of prayers while the poor are oppressed? The surplice, the gown, or the robe will not hide the stain; the "leprosy lies deep within." "For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still."

Too long have ye "dwelt in your ceiled houses," while the poor, who have "reaped down your fields for naught," have been sitting in their floorless, smoky cabins, on the scanty patch where they have been allowed to crouch, till your authority should bid them depart, to eat their potato on some bog or ditch