at Ireland's liberator should ever see
Rome. His illness continued to increase. No sooner had he reached the
shores of Italy than the strength of his once powerful frame declined
rapidly, and he was unable to proceed. Arrived at Genoa, O'Connell
understood that his last hour on earth was near at hand. He now expressed
the wish that his heart should rest in the Holy City. Thither,
accordingly, it was borne by friendly hands to commingle with the
consecrated dust of heroes, saints and martyrs. To Rome it was a relic of
incomparable price. Although cold and inanimate, it was still eloquent in
death, and grandly emblematic of all that he had been to whom it was the
centre of life, and to whose generous impulses it had so long and so
faithfully beat responsive.

That son of O'Connell who bore his name, together with the Rev. Dr. Miley,
of Dublin, who had accompanied him to Genoa and ministered to him in his
last hours, now proceeded to Rome and sought the presence of the Holy
Father. On their arrival at the Quirinal, the halls and ante-chambers were
already filled with groups of personages in every style of costume, from
the glittering uniform to the cowl. The travellers, therefore, must wait
till all these have had an audience. But no. The name of O'Connell, as if
possessed of talismanic power, caused them to be at once admitted to the
presence of the Holy Father. The reception was most cordial. "Since the
happiness I had so much longed for," said the Pontiff, "was not reserved
for me, to behold and embrace the hero of Christianity, let me, at least,
have the consolation to embrace his son." "As he spoke," writes Dr. Miley,
"he drew the son of O'Connell to his bosom and embraced him, not unmoved,
with the tenderness of a father and a friend. Then, with an emotion which
stirred our hearts within us, this great Father of the faithful poured out
his benign and loving soul in words of comfort, which proved that it was
not new to him to pour the balm of heaven into broken and wounded hearts."
"His death," said the Pontiff, "was blessed. I have read the letter in
which his last moments were described with the greatest consolation." The
Pope then proceeded to eulogize the liberator, as the great champion of
religion and the Church, as the father of his people and the glory of the
whole Christian world. "How else," observed Monsignore Cullen, late
Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin, who was present, "could the Pope have
spoken of him tha