Page:Irish In America.djvu/338

316 mittances were earned, or how the one strong affection, the one surviving sense of duty, was sufficient, though unhappily but for a moment, to redeem a reckless but not altogether degraded nature. There was indeed something of the angel left in that victim of the most fatal enemy to the Irish in the New World.

With all banks and offices through which money is sent to Ireland the months of December and March are the busiest portions of the year. The largest amount is then sent; then the offices are full of bustling, eager, indeed clamorous applicants, and then are the clerks hard set in their attempts to satisfy the demands of the impatient senders, who are mostly females, and chiefly girls in place. The great festivals of Christmas and Easter are specially dear to the Irish heart, being associated with the most sacred mysteries of the Christian religion, and likewise with those modest enjoyments with which the family, however humble or poor, seek to celebrate a season of spiritual rejoicing. Then there is joy in the Church, which typifies in the decorations of her altars as in the robes of her ministers the gladness which should dwell in the heart of the Christian. Thus misery, and sorrow, and want, are not in accordance with the spirit of these solemn festivals, nor with the feelings which ought to prevail with those who believe in their teaching. Therefore, to enable the friends at home the loved ones never forgotten by the Irish exile to keep the Christmas or the Easter in a fitting manner in reality, to afford them some little comforts at those grateful seasons of the Christian year remittances are specially sent; and coming from the source which they do, these comforts, too often sadly needed, are the more prized by those to whom the means for procuring them are forwarded with touching remembrances, and fond prayers and blessings, grateful alike to piety and affection. There is something beautiful in these timely memorials of una-