Connolly replied:

"I will."

His visitor continued:

"Will you say a prayer for the men who are shooting you?"

"I will," said Connolly, "and I will say a prayer for every good man in
the world who is doing his duty."

He was a steadfast man in all that he undertook. We may be sure he
steadfastly kept that promise. He would pray for others, who had not
time to pray for himself, as he had worked for others during the years
when he might have worked for himself.

CHAPTER XII.

THE IRISH QUESTIONS.

There is truly an Irish question. There are two Irish questions, and the
most important of them is not that which appears in our newspapers and
in our political propaganda.

The first is international, and can be stated shortly. It is the desire
of Ireland to assume control of her national life. With this desire the
English people have professed to be in accord, and it is at any rate so
thoroughly understood that nothing further need be made of it in these
pages.

The other Irish question is different, and less simply described. The
difficulty about it is that it cannot be approached until the question
of Ireland's freedom has by some means been settled, for this ideal of
freedom has captured the imagination of the race. It rides Ireland like
a nightmare, thwarting or preventing all civilising or cultural work in
this country, and it is not too much to say that Ireland cannot even
begin to live until that obsession and fever has come to an end, and her
imagination has been set free to do the work which imagination alone can
do--Imagination is intelligent kindness--we have sore need of it.

The second question might plausibly be called a religious one. It has
been so called, and, for it is less troublesome to accept an idea than
to question it, the statement has been accepted as truth--but it is
untrue, and it is deeply and villainously untrue. No lie in Irish life
has been so persistent and so mischievous as this one, and no political
lie has ever been so ingeniously, and malevolently exploited.

There is no religious intolerance in Ireland except that which is
political. I am not a member of the Catholic Church, and am not inclined
to be the advocate of a religious system which my mentality dislikes,
but I have never found real intolerance among my fellow-countrymen of
that religion. I have found it among Protestants. I will limit that
statement, too. I have found it among som