things,
have been won by the Irish faith, of which that cathedral, shining so
gloriously in the sun this afternoon, is both a result and a symbol."

"I believe you will die with that conviction," Ledwith said in wonder.

"I wish you could die with the same, Owen," replied Monsignor tenderly.

They fell silent for a little under the stress of sudden feeling.

"How do men reason themselves into such absurdities?" Owen asked
himself.

"You ought to know. You have done it often enough," said the priest
tartly.

Then both laughed together, as they always did when the argument became
personal.

"Do you know what Livingstone and Bradford and the people whom they
represent think of that temple?" said Monsignor impressively.

"Oh, their opinions!" Owen snorted.

"They are significant," replied the priest. "These two leaders would
give the price of the building to have kept down or destroyed the spirit
which undertook and carried out the scheme. They have said to themselves
many times in the last twenty years, while that temple rose slowly but
gloriously into being, what sort of a race is this, so despised and
ill-treated, so poor and ignorant, that in a brief time on our shores
can build the finest temple to God which this country has yet seen? What
will the people, to whom we have described this race as sunk in
papistical stupidity, debased, unenterprising, think, when they gaze on
this absolute proof of our mendacity?"

Ledwith, in silence, took a second look at the shining walls and towers.

"Owen, your generous but short-sighted crowd have fought England briefly
and unsuccessfully a few times on the soil of Ireland ... but the
children of the faith have fought her with church, and school, and
catechism around the globe. Their banner, around which they fought, was
not the banner of the Fenians but the banner of Christ. What did you do
for the scattered children of the household? Nothing, but collect their
moneys. While the great Church followed them everywhere with her
priests, centered them about the temple, and made them the bulwark of
the faith, the advance-guard, in many lands. Here in America, and in all
the colonies of England, in Scotland, even in England itself, wherever
the Irish settled, the faith took root and flourished; the faith which
means death to the English heresy, and to English power as far as it
rests upon the heresy."

"The faith kept the people together, scattered all over the world. It