A GOOD EXAMPLE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 174, 28 July 1876, Page 11

A GOOD EXAMPLE.

When, some thirty years ago, the people of Ireland began to emigrate to America in considerable numbers, and it was found that, according as they went out and got settled in their new homes, they sent back to those whom they had left behind means of following them, so that yearly the stream flowed wider and faster, it might well have seemed that, soon, not alone would the Irish race become extinct in their own land, but that also, by adopting strange customs in a foreign country and forming there new ties and new associations, they would totally lose their nationality and become American citizens, and American citizens only. But experience has amply shown how false would have been any such expectations. It is quite true that the Irish immigrant has cast in his lot with the great nation that befriended him iv the hour of his adversity, and identified his hopes and prospects with those that lie open before it ; but still he retains, in all its freshness, his affection for the land of his birth, and has so impressed the hearts and minds of his children with love for this, that America appears to present the strange spectacle of a country containing within her a people possessed of a double nationality ; and Ireland, instead of being stripped of her children andjleft desolate, finds herself the mother, not only of those born upon her soil, but likewise of a newly-arisen nation that grows mightier every day. On all sides the signs of this are evident. The details of Irish life "are reported at the other side of the Atlantic even more fully than they are in the ■country where they occur ; the history of the venerable land is there repeated over and over again, and her natural features are minutely described, so that even the very wild flowers that carpet her hills and dales find a tongue to sound their praises. And it is well that it is so, for these recollections appeal to the highest natures of the men who cherish them.

Although, perhaps, it may be slightly at variance with the spirit of the age, we cannot but think that it is of no little advantage for individuals or societies to have noble ai^cedents on which to look back, and for nations in like manner to retain memories of times gone by of which they may justly be proud. It seems to us that such recollections must in some sort avail as safeguards against temptation and as further incentives to worthy courses ; and, where there are so many attractions of an opposite lendency as there are to be encountered daily, surely all such, be they never so trifling, are still of some value. "We hail it, then, as a featuie of much importance in the character of the Irish-American that he looks back with love and reverence upon the country of his fathers, for, in doing so, the purest feelings of his nature |find healthy exercise in embracing a worthy object, and thus become strengthened and intensified. Nor does this in any way interfere with his loyalty to the great nation of which he is a member actually, his interest in its welfare is not lessened, nor are his actions towards its advancement hampered ; on the contrary, he is the better qualified to work for its good, inasmuch as he is a better man than he otherwise would have •been.

We should, therefore, gladly see like sentiments of veneration towards their far-off home fostered in. the hearts of their children by all Irishmen in these Colonies. In this they may well imitate their brethren in America, assured that they are doing a good work, and one that will alike be profitable to those immediately concerned and to the community in general. Moreover they would thus aid in forming a tie of brotherhood, of Those universality some vainly dream and bombastically declaim, but which would become widespread in hereafter uniting together at least large sections of nations otherwise distinct.