O God! that bread should be so dear,
     And human flesh so cheap.

Although thus cast down by earthly feelings, divine Faith raises one up again.  Divine Faith! the noblest and brightest, and holiest gift of God to man; always teaching us to look heavenward—­Excelsior in its theme for ever.  And who can doubt but the God of all consolation and mercy received the souls of his famine-slain poor into that kingdom of glory where He dwells, and which He had purchased for them at so great a price.  Even in their imperfections and sins, they were like to Him in many ways; they were poor, they were despised, they had not whereon to lay their head; they were long-suffering, too; in the deepest pangs which they had suffered from hunger and burning thirst (the last and most terrible effect of hunger), they cursed not, they reviled not; they only yearned for the consolations of their holy religion, and looked hopefully to Him for a better world.  It is one of the sweetest consolations taught us by holy Faith that the bones now withered and nameless in those famine pits, where they were laid in their shroudless misery, shall one day, touched by His Almighty power, be reunited to those happy souls, in a union that can know no end, and can feel no sorrow.

FOOTNOTES: 

[174] “It cannot be too strongly lamented, the opportunity which has been lost for the present, of adopting reproductive employment; but it is not now a question of productive or non-productive employment, it is a question of life or death to those famishing and destitute, anxiously waiting for the means of procuring food....  A general and well-digested Drainage Bill, applicable to Ireland, cannot be hastily prepared; if so it may be again a nugatory one, and it is some great measure, and great expenditure for some years to come, under a Drainage and reclaiming of waste lands Bill, that is to be of permanent and effectual relief to this impoverished country.”—­Mr. Lambert of Brookhill’s letter to the Lord Lieutenant, October 4th.

[175] Irish Crisis, p. 68.

[176] If the word of a Scotch farmer may be accepted, this seems a great exaggeration.  Mr. Hope, of Fentonbarn, at the monthly meeting of the Haddington Farmers’ Club, said, lately:  “It was only after the great disaster of 1845 that potatoes began to be grown to any extent in Scotland.”—­Irish Farmers’ Gazette for 16th Nov., 1872, p. 399.  But Lord John was only too glad to praise the Scotch at our expense.

[177] Some time ago, an English gentleman, who is an Irish landlord, and one in no bad repute either, was told that, for reasons detailed to him, he ought not to continue a certain agent in his employment:  he answered—­“I do not care for all that—­he gets me my rent.”

[178] See Inquest on Jeremiah Hegarty, p. 263.