CARDINAL MERCIER AND IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 8 July 1915, Page 15

CARDINAL MERCIER AND IRELAND

The Archbishop of Dublin, Most Rev. Dr. Walsh, has received from Cardinal Mercier a very touching letter in acknowledgment of the contributions, amounting to <£6405, of the bishops, clergy, and the laity of *®ho four dioceses of the Dublin Ecclesiastical Province, at the church door collections in aid of the sufferin')people of Belgium. In the course of it Cardinal Mercier says:

It is with feelings too deep to find an utterance that I received the expressions of brotherly love and kindness of the bishops and faithful of Ireland and the news of your munificent charity to us in our distress. If the widow’s mite and a word of friendship would have sufficed to touch our hearts, what shall I say now of our wonder and gratitude on hearing of your highsouled and princely generosity? Our indebtedness to your noble and loving nation was already considerable. When your missionaries spread the faith broadcast to the neighboring peoples, we were among the first to reap the benefits of their work, and our Catholic population still venerates the memory of St. Remold, St. Foillan, St. Lilian, St. Monon, and St. Etton, to whom, among others, they owe the light of the Gospel. Some centuries later, during the sombre days of your history, it was lor us a joy to open our doors and welcome your .sons to the schools of our alma mater. I myself look back with pleasure on the time when a daily intercourse with them at Louvain taught me to highly appreciate many an Irish fellow-student or pupil. And now, it is pleasurable, indeed, to unite them all in one and the same thought of sympathy. As a tree may be judged by its fruits, so a nation by its sons. And through and by them we had learned Ireland’s bravery and hospitality: her staunch adherence to her faith and patriotic traditions: and these qualities, which make great nations, together with the faith we shared, made her all the more lovable to us. Yet, with all this before us, never would we have dared to hope for such signal liberality as that which your Grace and your venerable colleagues of the Irish Episcopate announced to me, and several instalments of which have since then reached me through Monseigneur De Wachter, my coadjutor. And that which makes your beautiful charity a priceless one to our hearts is the knowledge that in the present hard .limes it is not ' of their abundance, but of their need,’ that your flock must have given.

Ah, indeed, the Isle of Saints keeps unsullied the standard of its glorious heritage, and continues to live up to the ‘ principles which give to man the strength of angels,’ to quote the words written by Montalembert, Ireland’s illustrious friend, at a dark hour of her history. And even as she has shown valiance unto martyrdom, so her charity attains to magnanimity. The memory of your brotherly help will live on in Belgium. And when one day, as 1 hope and desire, Belgium raises a testimonial in bronze or stone to her benefactors the names of. Dublin, Kildare, Lcighlin, Ossory, etc., will be given a prominent place. May God bless Ireland, so generous and fervent! May He save her from the calamities which have been visited upon us, and grant her long years of peace and welfare! Those arc our grateful and heartfelt prayers on her behalf. Last January, when first I heard of the wonderful help extended to us, I wrote at once to your Grace, despatching the letter through my coadjutor, Mgr. De Wachter, who is residing with Mgr. Amigo in Southwark. It is only quite lately that I have heard that this letter never got through, and must have been lost stopped on the way. I grieve over this; and hope your Grace will explain to all who have helped us why our thanks have been so long delayed.