She kept him safe from his enemies, and gave him a strong
conflict that he might overcome; and in bondage she left him not till
she brought him the sceptre of the kingdom, and power against those
that oppressed him, and gave him everlasting glory."--Wisdom x. [1] ]
[Footnote 1: From the funeral oration preached at Glassaevin Cemetery,
in May, 1869, on the occasion of the removal of the remains of the
Liberator to their final resting place.]
Nor was Ireland forgotten in the designs of God. Centuries of patient
endurance brought at length the dawn of a better day. God's hour came,
and it brought with it Ireland's greatest son, Daniel O'Connell. We
surround his grave to-day to pay him a last tribute of love, to speak
words of praise, of suffrage, and prayer. For two and twenty years has
he silently slept in the midst of us. His generation is passing away,
and the light of history already dawns upon his grave, and she speaks
his name with cold, unimpassioned voice. In this age of ours a few
years are as a century of times gone by. Great changes and startling
events follow each other in such quick succession that the greatest
names are forgotten almost as soon as those who bore them disappear,
and the world itself is surprised to find how short-lived is the fame
which promised to be immortal.
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