way of God. I've baptised them when their eyes first looked out on
this wurrld of sorrows. I've given them in marriage, closed their
eyes in death, and read the last message to Him for their souls. And
there are thousands more like me, giving their lives to their little
missions, trying to kape the people's hearts clean and honest, so
that their souls may go to Him when their journey is ended."

Father Cahill took a deep breath as he finished. He had indeed
summed up his life's work. He had given it freely to his poor little
flock. His only happiness had been in ministering to their needs.
And now to have one to whom he had taught his first prayer, heard
his first confession and given him his first Holy Communion speak
scoffingly of the priest, hurt him as nothing else could hurt and
bruise him.

The appeal was not lost on O'Connell. In his heart he loved Father
Cahill for the Christ-like life of self-denial he had passed in this
little place. But in his brain O'Connell pitied the old man for his
wasted years in the darkness of ignorance in which so many of the
villages of Ireland seemed to be buried.

O'Connell belonged to the "Young Ireland" movement. They wanted to
bring the searchlight of knowledge into the abodes of darkness in
which the poor of Ireland were submerged. To the younger men it
seemed the priests were keeping the people from enlightenment. And
until the fierce blaze of criticism could be turned on to the
government of cruelty and oppression there was small hope of freeing
the people who had suffered so long in silence. O'Connell was in the
front band of men striving to arouse the sleeping nation to a sense
of its own power. And nothing was going to stop the onward movement.