Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/285

 spring is spontaneous, and the inevitable result of natural agencies.

Dr. Russell, the President, invited me to Maynooth, and promised to secure the attendance of some of the professors who were my old friends. I was touched by the fact that a day after his sister's funeral, and the day before the annual meeting of the bishops at the college, was devoted to this purpose. It was very pleasant to meet not only my host, for whom I had the same feeling that Dr. Newman had, but Mr. Crawley, my comrade in Belfast a quarter of a century earlier, and Dr. Murray, to whom I owed more for the defence of my character and liberty, when I was in Newgate, than to any man living, outside my counsel. At the same time Dr. Woodlock, the President of the Catholic University, invited me to meet the professors at dinner. They were old friends for the most part, but though I went I could not but fear that Dr. Cullen would not approve of such a compliment to such an offender. But I may have been unjust to him, for two or three men of note welcomed me cordially on behalf of a number of ecclesiastics, who habitually acted with Dr. Cullen.

After a little I was entertained at a public dinner, where all that remained of the National party of '48, and the Tenant Right Party of '52, was largely represented. John Dillon occupied the chair, and on his right sat George Henry Moore, and on his left Isaac Butt, the two most gifted orators in Ireland. Archbishops and bishops who rarely visit public assemblies sent letters of cordial sympathy, and popular leaders and popular priests came from every part of Ireland. Even Dr. M'Knight, though we had separated fiercely in the contest about Lucas, cheerfully recognised that I was still what he had believed me in our earliest friendship. I was rejoiced to tell my old friends that all that I asked for the Irish farmer had been attained for the Irish immigrant in Australia. All that I asked for the Irish nation—to rule and possess its own country without external interference, was also attained in Australia—a testimony surely that our claims in Ireland were not unjust or extravagant. The most significant fact of the evening, perhaps, was that Isaac Butt, who was supposed to have attended only as a private