, in the pursuit
of a glorious ideal, which Tone taught and adhered to throughout his
adventurous and brilliant career. The well-ordered procession,
the ready obedience to the commands of the marshals, the intense
earnestness of the multitude, and the display made by the youths--the
national boy scouts--their military bearing, and the bands and banners
which interspersed the procession as it marched from Sallins to
Bodenstown was a spectacle which pleased the eye and stirred the
emotions. Everything in connection with the pilgrimage was carried out
with a close attention to detail, and military-like precision which
must have been very acceptable to the great patriot in whose honour
it was organised, were he but permitted to gaze from the great Unknown
upon this practical demonstration of the perpetuation of the spirit
which animated him and his time, in the struggle against English
misrule, and the love and veneration in which he is still held, after
the lapse of the century and more that has passed since he made the
final sacrifice of his life in the cause of freedom. Tone done to
death did not die in vain. The truth of this was evident in the
character of the pilgrimage on Sunday last, when all that is best and
purest in patriotism in the land assembled at his graveside, to renew
fealty to the aims and ideals for which he suffered and died, and to
hear the gospel of Irish nationality preached and expounded as he knew
and inculcated it in his day. A fusion of forces, and the cultivation
of a spirit and bond of brotherhood and friendship amongst Irishmen
in the common cause, were his methods to attain the great ideal of
a separate and distinct nationality, for then, as to-day, the chief
obstacle to freedom and nationhood was not so much English domination
in itself, as want of cohesion, faction, and the disruption caused
by alien traditions and teachings. This was the prevailing spirit of
Sunday's commemoration, and as the great mass of people filed past in
orderly array and knelt, prayed, and laid wreaths on the lonely grave,
the solemnity and impressiveness of the occasion was intensified.
In the suppressed murmurs, and silent gaze on the tomb of the mighty
dead, one could recognise the eagerness and the hope for another Tone
to arise to complete the work which he promoted, and vindicate the
purity of the motives which moved men like the leaders of '98 to do
and dare for all, and to "substitute the common name of Irish