Adlai Stevenson

Again he wears the shamrock; again he hears the songs of his native land, while his heart is stirred by memories of her wrongs and of her glory.

In imagination he is once more under the ancestral roof; the vine-clad cottage is again a thing of reality.

Upon occasion such as this, the Irishman--to whatever spot in this wide world he may have wandered--lives in the shadow of the past.

Of its people it has been truly said: "They have fought successfully the battles of every country but their own.

I saw Ireland in its beauty and its gloom; in its glory and in its desolation.

Within late years it has been my privilege to visit Ireland; and I can truly say that no country in Europe possessed for me a deeper interest than the little island about whose name clusters so much of romance and of enchantment.

Bill 'lowed he'd ruther go forty miles on foot to hear you make a speech, than go to a hangin'.

Looking back through the long vista of years, it is my honest belief that such singing as his, at home or abroad, I have never heard.

Our faith should be even stronger than the faith of those who lived two thousand years ago, for we see our religion spreading and supplanting the philosophies and creeds of the Orient.

And, on the other hand, if the Christians of to-day had the faith of the martyrs, how long would it be before the fulfilment of the prophecy that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess?

What would have been the fate of the Church if the early Christians had had as little faith as many of our Christians now have?

It is said that those who went to mock at their sufferings returned asking themselves, 'What is it that can enter into the heart of man and make him die as these die?' They were greater conquerors in their death than they could have been…