ascendant when it was born. Like other births famous in history, the
child had to be hidden away for a time, and could not with pride be
shown to the people as royal children were wont to be shown. Its
enemies were unforgiving, and its friends were distracted with mighty
happenings in the world. Hardly did they know whether it would not be
deformed if it survived: whether this was the Promised, or another
child yet to be conceived in the womb of the Mother of Parliaments.
Battles were threatened between two hosts, secular champions of two
spiritual traditions, to decide its fate. That such a conflict
threatened showed indeed that there was something of iron fibre in the
infant, without which in their make-up individuals or nations do nothing
worthy of remembrance. Hercules wrestled with twin serpents in his
cradle, and there were twin serpents of sectarianism ready to strangle
this infant State of ours if its guardians were not watchful, or if the
infant was not itself strong enough to destroy them.

It is about the State of Ireland, its character and future, I have here
written some kind of imaginative meditation. The State is a physical
body prepared for the incarnation of the soul of a race. The body of the
national soul may be spiritual or secular, aristocratic or democratic,
civil or militarist predominantly. One or other will be most powerful,
and the body of the race will by reflex action affect its soul, even as
through heredity the inherited tendencies and passions of the flesh
affect the indwelling spirit. Our brooding over the infant State must
be dual, concerned not only with the body but the soul. When we essay
self-government in Ireland our first ideas will, in all probability, be
borrowed from the Mother of Parliaments, just as children before they
grow to have a character of their own repeat the sentiments of their
parents. After a time, if there is anything in the theory of Irish
nationality, we will apply original principles as they are from time to