Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1917. THE RIGHT SPIRIT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1763, 13 December 1917, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1917. THE RIGHT SPIRIT.

<r WHAT light ye for?” said the Rev. Monsignor .1. E. Cassidy, in an address to an Irish battalion of the U.S.A., which was leaving for France. “You shall say for Freedom, Liberty, and .Righteousness. Out of (he loins of a Fenian, arrested in arms against England, I came. I was nursed at the breast of as true an Irishwoman as ever came out of Ireland. Incidentally and accidentally we may be fighting for England. Wo are fighting for ourselves. And God forbid that there should be any so base and low and blinded as to wish to strike at the heart, of England through the soul of dicir own country, God forbid that there should be any who would rejoice at the losses of of our Allies, when they know that such losses mean only greater losses and multiplied deaths amongst us. Let this insanity pass for ever from us. As you leave this holy plage, some, perchance, never to return, I would .stamp, upon your soldier souls the most heroic figure of all these terrible times, Cardinal Merrier. Wan of countenance, and worn of body, yet with spirit unbroken and undimmed, be stands amidst the ruins of his devastated and desolate country, his sons murdered, his daughters violated, his children carried into captivity, his home laid waste, - every lash that falls upon his conquered people cutting thrice deep into his yery soul, yet he faces his oppressors and says to them: ‘After three years of coercion we are still as proud of pur fidelity a.S when we first declared ‘Thou shall not pass.’ ;;