were like to Him in
many ways; they were poor, they were despised, they had not whereon to
lay their head; they were long-suffering, too; in the deepest pangs
which they had suffered from hunger and burning thirst (the last and
most terrible effect of hunger), they cursed not, they reviled not; they
only yearned for the consolations of their holy religion, and looked
hopefully to Him for a better world. It is one of the sweetest
consolations taught us by holy Faith that the bones now withered and
nameless in those famine pits, where they were laid in their shroudless
misery, shall one day, touched by His Almighty power, be reunited to
those happy souls, in a union that can know no end, and can feel no
sorrow.

FOOTNOTES:

[174] "It cannot be too strongly lamented, the opportunity which has
been lost for the present, of adopting reproductive employment; but it
is not now a question of productive or non-productive employment, it is
a question of life or death to those famishing and destitute, anxiously
waiting for the means of procuring food.... A general and well-digested
Drainage Bill, applicable to Ireland, cannot be hastily prepared; if so
it may be again a nugatory one, and it is _some great_ measure, and
_great_ expenditure for some years to come, under a Drainage and
reclaiming of waste lands Bill, that is to be of permanent and effectual
relief to this impoverished country."--_Mr. Lambert of Brookhill's
letter to the Lord Lieutenant, October 4th_.

[175] Irish Crisis, p. 68.

[176] If the word of a Scotch farmer may be accepted, this seems a great
exaggeration. Mr. Hope, of Fentonbarn, at the monthly meeting of the
Haddington Farmers' Club, said, lately: "It was only _after_ the great
disaster of 1845 that potatoes began to be grown to any extent in
Scotland."--_Irish Farmers' Gazette for 16th Nov., 1872, p. 399_. But
Lord John was only too glad to praise the Scotch at our expense.

[177] Some time ago, an English gentleman, who is an Irish landlord, and
one in no bad repute either, was told that, for reasons detailed to him,
he ought not to continue a certain agent in his employment: he
answered--"I do not care for all that--he gets me my rent."

[178] See Inquest on Jeremiah Hegarty, p. 263.

[179] This view differs considerably from that put forward in the
Memorial of the 25th of the previous month, in which the Society tells
his Excellency, "that, from their experience as the Royal Agricultural
Improv