HIS LAST MOMENTS. 339 during his residence in Queenstown, was quickly at his bedside, and afforded him the consolations of religion. Thus fortified, he lay tranquilly and in peace, without pain, but with an expression of great sadness upon his countenance. As the members of his family came about him, he could only smile and press the hand of each with feeble grasp. He at first made efforts to speak to them; but the voice which had moved the hearts and awakened the consciences of so many, which had comforted so many a bruised and broken spirit, which had soothed so many death-beds, was never more to be heard by mortal ear. He intimated, with sufficient significance, his wish that anyone who desired to see him should be admitted to his room; and even those who had come to take the pledge, before the news of his severe attack had spread abroad, were brought to his bedside. By that dying couch they knelt; and they themselves repeated the well-known formula, after which he contrived to make the sign of the Cross on their foreheads with his palsied hand. And this was the last act in the life of Theobald Mathew, who, if he were the Apostle, was also the Martyr of Temperance. For several days he continued free from physical suffering, as far as could be judged. He observed everything that occurred in the room, and looked his thanks for any little friendly office, in a way that was deeply affecting. The Sisters of the Queenstown Convent watched and prayed constantly by his bedside. Theobald, would you wish to be buried with Frank and Tom?' his brother Charles enquired of him, as the last hours were approaching. The dying man signified a negative. 'Is it in the cemetery?' 'Yes,' was plainly indicated. ' Is it under the Cross?' A sweet but faint smile, and fainter pressure of the almost lifeless hand, was the only reply. This was the spot which he had many years before marked out as his resting-place. There was no violent convulsion, no mortal agony, no awful struggle of nature, in his last moments. Death stole upon him as gently as sleep upon a wearied man. He died in peace, without the slightest movement. But it would seem as if, in some inexplicable way, an expression of pain moulded itself upon his features. It was like the lingering shadow of the sorrow which had long brooded over his spirit, and which, for some years past, had been so rarely and so briefly dispelled. Ah, surely, somebody is vexing him,' said an old and loving follower, when admitted to the bedroom. And yet if one may predicate such of mortal, he must have been then, after a life of fever, toil, and pain, experiencing that happiness which is promised to those who on this earth walk in the light, and imitate the life of the Lord. Thus passed away, in the 66th year of his age, and in the 42nd of his ministry, Theobald Mathew, the Apostle of Temperance. The 8th of December 1856, belongs to history as the date of that event. 340 CHAPTER XLV. Feeling caused by his Death-Expressions of Opinion respecting his THE knowledge that Father Mathew had been for some years declining in health, and that the event of his death could not possibly be far off did much to prepare the public for its announcement. Had he been struck down in the vigour and activity of his life, the effect upon the mind of the country would have been for a time overpowering, so much was he loved by all classes of the people of Ireland; but, ever as it was, and prepared as the public were to receive at any momen the sad tidings of his death, the announcement that he was no more was received with a feeling of genuine and universal sorrow. That sorrow was, however, mitigated by the consciousness of his having been released from a state of pain and misery, and that his weary spirit was at rest. Though the people of his own city mourned for him as for a father whom they had lost, they derived a holy consolation from the conviction that he was then ' a saint in heaven.' The tidings of Father Mathew's death elicited a strong and general expression of public opinion in his favour. From every quarter came earnest and eloquent testimonies to his character, his services, his motives; and the public press of the British Empire faithfully reflected the feeling entertained towards the illustrious dead by every class o his fellow-subjects. No harsh word was uttered against one whose happy fortune it had been to disarm hostile criticism, and conver: enemies into friends. The few shades in his character were absorbed in its brightness; and none now thought, but with tenderness, of the self-will which had evinced itself at times, or of the jealousy which had been rarely displayed; these too were easily accounted for by the earnestness and ardour of his nature, and his long habit of authority and leadership. It was of his large heart, his great soul, his tender and compassionate nature, his intense love of his fellow-creatures, his generosity, his self-sacrifice, his nobleness of spirit, his devotion to the poor, his long life of toil and labour spent in the service of God-it was of these men thought, and not upon the specks upon the sun. 'I never saw a man,' said a Protestant gentleman, the venerable Thomas George French, of Marino, 'so untainted by the world as Father Mathew. He was the model of what a Christian clergyman ought to be. I never heard a word from him that ought not to emanate from a man of good heart and pure mind. If one were likely to be influenced by a clergyman of another persuasion to change re ange PUBLIC OPINION RESPECTING HIS CHARACTER. 341 creed, tit would be by such a man as Father Mathew-not because of any peculiar talent he possessed, but from his manner and the example of his own life.' 'Father Mathew was always engaged in good and charitable works, and in trying to serve and benefit his fellow-creatures. I never knew a more benevolent man or a more perfect gentleman,' said the late John Cotter, of Cork, a man of patriarchal age, and whose own benevolence had become a proverb-' as charitable as John Cotter.' This is the manner in which he was spoken of by Protestants who had known him intimately, and years before he became connected with the temperance movement. For myself (wrote Smith O'Brien at a later period), whether he be or be not canonised as a saint by the Church of Rome, I am disposed to regard him as an Apostle who was specially deputed on a Divine mission by the Almighty, and invested with power almost miraculous. To none of the ordinary operations of human agency can I ascribe the success which attended his efforts to repress one of the besetting sins of the Irish nation. If I had read in history that such success had attended the labours of an unpretending priest, whose chief characteristic was modest simplicity of demeanour, I own that I should have distrusted the narrative as an exaggeration; but we have been all of us witnesses to the fact that myriads simultaneously obeyed his advice, and, at his bidding, abandoned a favourite indulgence. Long before the time of his death, even the most sceptical had admitted that the Apostle of Temperance had no selfish object in the promotion of a movement to which his own family were among the first victims; and the fact that he died in poverty-that, save his watch and altar plate and sacred vestments which belonged to him as a priest, he had nothing to give or bequeath-dispelled the last lingering suspicion, which had its origin in ignorance and misconcepsion. His death paid the debts for which he had heavily insured his life; and, with the exception of members of his own family who had more than once generously made large sacrifices to assist him in his pressing difficulties, there were none whom the insurance did not satisfy. The Corporation of his adopted city only expressed the public feeling when they resolved on honouring the memory of their illustrious fellow-citizen by a public funeral. The body was brought up on Thursday from Queenstown by a number of his oldest and most attached followers and placed in the Church of the Holy Trinity, which was a monument of his priestly zeal for the glory of God's House. Thousands crowded the sacred building as long as an opportunity was afforded to the public of taking a last look at those beloved features, which were exposed to view for some time before the funeral. With timid step and bowed head the poor entered the church, which was shrouded in sombre drapery, and approached the coffin in which razed as and lay all that was mortal of their friend and benefactor. As they with tearful eyes on that face, so calm, and pale, and rigid, chiselled out of marble, sobs broke from their labouring breasts, they gave way to passionate bursts of sorrow. Noble and beautiful was that countenance in the stillness of death; and though the tr aces of suffering and care were discernible in its worn and wasted liaments, there was still, as strikingly visible as in life, the same expression of benevolence, which was the most marked and unchanging characteristic of his nature. On Friday, the 12th of December 1856, Cork poured out its population in the streets to pay the last tribute of respect to the memory of its great citizen; and through a living mass the funeral cortége-extending nearly two miles in length-wound its slow and solemn way. Every class, every rank, every party, every creed, had its full representation in that sad procession, which was closed bythe truest mourners of all-the poor. Never before were there so many persons assembled in the cemetery to which its founder was now borne. It was computed that more than 50,000 mourners-for all that day were mourners-crowded the adjoining roads, filed every avenue and walk, and covered every available part of that beautiful burial-place, as the Catholic bishop and the attendant clergy-more than seventy in number-received the body at the entrance. The impressive solemnity of the sublime service for the dead hushed for a time the convulsive sobs that broke from that vast assemblage; but as the precious remains were deposited in the tomb prepared for their reception, the great sorrow burst forth again, telling how deep and strong was the feeling which the people bore to one whom they had so much reason to honour and to love. Amidst the tears and prayers of his fellow-citizens who that day represented a mourning nation, the body of Theobald Mathew was consigned to the grave for which his spirit had long yearned; and there, in that chosen spot beneath the Cross which his own hands had reared many years before, his ashes now repose. In a few weeks after the grave closed over the mortal remains of the Apostle of Temperance, the citizens of Cork assembled in the public Court-house, to consider the most appropriate means of paying a tribute of respect to his memory. That meeting was of itself a tribute to his memory, no less than an evidence of his teaching,—it was a happy fusion of class, of party, and of creed; and in a spirit of harmonious concord, inspired as it were by the lessons of the sainted dead, all united for the performance of a duty which was at once an honour and an obligation. The Protestant and the Dissenter vied y with the Catholic in the eloquent expression of affection for the man, d. and veneration for his character-of sorrow for his loss, and of pride sts, in his citizenship. Never was feeling more harmonious, never was eau testimony more unanimous. In obedience to the almost universal e tr wish, it was resolved that a statue of Father Mathew, in some way d li typical of his temperance mission, should be erected in one of the pres public thoroughfares of the city-thereby affording the most gratifying char consolation to the people whom he loved as a father, and amongst whom he had lived for more than forty years. An unavoidable delay, out occasioned by the death of Mr. Hogan, the eminent sculptor to whom to the task of executing the statue was originally confided, prevented the fur committee from carrying out their delegated trust as soon as could low have been desired. But having been fortunate enough to secure the ed, services of Mr. Foley,* an artist whose works have made his name by famous in the world of art, the committee were at length enabled to so satisfy the longing expectation of their fellow-citizens; and on the 10th of October 1864-specially selected as being the anniversary of the birthday of the Apostle of Temperance-a statue, replete with that charm of life and grace which genius alone can impart to marble or to bronze, was unveiled (and by the hand of his biographer) to the delighted gaze of fully one hundred thousand people, amidst a display of pomp and rejoicing such as had never been witnessed before in Cork. And while this statue will faithfully represent those beautiful and long familiar features, and recall that mission to which he devoted many of the best years of his life, and to which he sacrificed 1 happiness and his health, it will visibly associate the memory G most famous and illustrious citizen with the city of his adoption scene of his holy labours as a minister of religion, and the birth of that great moral reformation which has conferred, and whi long continue to confer, countless blessings on mankind. Mr. Foley's beautiful statue was most successfully cast in bronze by Mr. at his works in Union Street, Southwark. By |