"
"You see," explained my friend, "he was very old, it was not likely that
any more could be got out of him even if he got time, for he was past
his labor. Besides there was a man beside him who held a large farm, and
he wanted this old man's little holding to square off his farm, so the
old man had to go to the wall, but I was sorry for him."
There is a good deal of this unproductive sorrow scattered over Ireland
among the comfortable classes. There are a good many also who feel like
that motherly Christian lady in Clones who said to me, "When they have
to go into the poor-house at the last, and they know it will come to
that, why not go in at once?"
I am convinced more and more every day of the widespread need there is
that some evangelistic effort should be made to bring a practical Gospel
to bear on the dominant classes in Ireland.
My friend and I walked up to the church to search for some graves in the
churchyard that lies around it. He drew my attention to the socket where
a monument had been erected but which was gone, and mentioned the
circumstances under which it had disappeared. A gentleman of the
country, an Episcopalian, had fallen in love with and married a Catholic
lady.
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