CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 207, 23 March 1877, Page 7

CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND.

Ihi following eloquent sentences are from a sermon preached recently by the Key. James M'Laughliu, P.P., Lavey, County Derry, at the dedication of the new Catholic church at Killyclogher, Oruagh : Standing on an Irish altar, and addressing an audience of Irishmen, on the occasion of a solemn dedication of a, new church, be unmindful of my duty, and ungrateful too, were I not \""*> make at least a few allusions to the history of our o-wn dear isle, and the efforts her people havfl always made in erecting churches. What history does not mention the long roll of holy prelates and learned men whom Ireland has produced ? What a brilliant galaxy of illustrious names! From Patrick to Brigid, from Brigid to Columba, from Columba to Malachy, and even to our own times, our fathers had a lively perception of the sublime and the beautiful ; they knew well those causes which operate on the human heart and appeal to the religious sensibilities of the people. Some of the old churches were built on the rocky mountains ; some in the quiet sequestered glen, apart from the thronged haunts of men and the bustle of the city ; some stood by the little streamlet that threads itg way through the rich pasture lands and fields of yellow waving corn. In the history of the Church a century is not a lengthened period ; still, during that time the Catholic church has passed through many phases, and nowhere is the change for the better more remarkable than in our own diocese, and in the neighboring diocese of Down and Connor. We had at first the little altar in the glen or mountain side ; it has disappeared, never, I hope to return. We had next the plain, unpretending, barn-like structure — it, also, has disappeared in most places. No ivy clad walls, no mouldering ruins remain to testify the spot where the old Cathedral of St. Eugene, at Ardstraw, once stood ; but now again, after the lapse of so many centuries, another cathedral, superior to any edifice that ever existed in the diocese of Derry, has been built on the banks of the Foyle, and overlooks the grand old city hallowed by the memories and residence of the great St. Columba. It is a noble undertaking to rebuild the fallen temple, to restore the ruined cloister, and renew the rifled shrine ; but it is an arduous undertaking. It requires sacrifices of time and of money, and involves much mental anxiety. Before the work is completed, the priest may succumb, the victim of his zeal. If he survive the labor, he will often receive little gratitude and less reward from the public he has served. He will excite jealousies, because small minds will depreciate the merit they caanot imitate, and ridicule the zeal and success which they envy. But the faithful priest labors for a higher motive, regardless of the jealousies of men or rewards in this life. When the Angelus bell will be heard from hill and valley, as in the days of faith ; when new cathedrals ■will ring with the peals of powerful organs ; when learned professors will teach sciences as yet undiscovered, in the spacious halls of new colleges j when our spirits shall have passed to the God that made them, and our bones shall commingle with the bones of our fathers, our children's children shall chant a paean, and pray a prayer — the paean shall be in our praise, and the prayer shall he for those who restored the temples and the shrines of our fathers.