Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/71

 afterwards a professor of Belles-Lettres at Maynooth, and Father Dorrian, in later times Bishop of the diocese. The former, like his distinguished relation, was a Whig, and the latter a steadfast Nationalist. These were young men little beyond my own age, but during my residence in Ulster I was fortunate enough to make two friends among my seniors who never withdrew their confidence from me during a tempestuous and changeful career. One was Father Mathew. He was at that time in the first flood-tide of success in his teetotal movement, and his sympathisers in Belfast invited him to visit the northern capital and administer the pledge. The unassuming missionary made it a rule not to visit any diocese without an invitation from the bishop of his church, and for some reason which I have forgotten the Bishop of Down and Connor would not give such an invitation. Dr. Denvir was a friend of mine, and to a Catholic journalist the bishop of the diocese is an important factor, but I was greatly moved by the career of the illustrious friar, and I determined to take his side unequivocally. I organised a deputation of Belfast Catholics to meet him at the town closest to the frontier of our diocese and give him a cordial welcome! to the North. I afterwards attended a banquet to him in Newry, the second town in Ulster, and on that occasion broke new ground, on which I must pause for a moment, as it was practically the key-note of my whole after life. I insisted that what the Irish people wanted most was education, and that the benefactor who was giving them temperate habits might give them, and was especially bound to give them, this kindred blessing.

"When total abstinence ends," I said, "in redeeming a man from the vice of intoxication it stops far short of the point which it is capable of reaching. We have not only appetites to restrain, but^great faculties, to cultivate, and the latter is not the least important portion of our duties; for the man whose heart and imagination are not opened and exalted by education is no more the creature God intended him to be than if eyes and hands were wanting in his physical organisation.

"You, Father Mathew, have taken from the people a