reprehensible than its negative influence in the same direction under
the Stars and Stripes; so that Ireland, suffering at their hands
alike, might with every degree of justice place them in the same
category.

After all, it is the masses that free a nation, and thank God for it.
A leader may in vain look for a host to follow him, but a host never
in vain for a leader, and hence the defection of a few prominent men
from the great, Irish national idea which now so moves this
continent, and commands the attention of the world, amounts to but
little save sorrow at the stigma it casts upon our race. The rank and
file of our people are true to the spirit that fired the O'Neill's
and the Geraldines of old; and this being the case, the freedom of
Ireland is secured beyond any possible contingency--England is
brought to bay at home and abroad. The mighty embodiments of Irish
power and patriotism, yclept Fenianism, stalks forth through the
empire with an uplifted glaive in its hand, and no one can say how
soon or where the swift stroke of destruction shall fall. Its
presence fills with gloomy alarm every nook and corner of the land,
and paralyzes all the energies of the oppressor. Through its
overwhelming influence, the most cherished institutions of the
usurper are being overthrown, and the crown and mace all but
converted into baubles. It has destroyed the power and prestige of a
hereditary aristocracy, and thrown, in a measure, the whole
government of the land into the hands of Commoners. The privileged
classes, no longer oracular, recede before it, and a great democratic
idea occupies the ground upon which they stood--in short, illuminated
and impelled by the glorious spirit and impulses which moved the
immortal founders of this grand Republic of the West, it has gone
forth to avenge and to conquer, and to build up upon the shores of