neral desire for harmony. One of my
colleagues said that he did not know what to make of a political
assembly where everyone applauded when you got up, and applauded when
you sat down, and never interrupted you. Another said that the
Convention was the only society in Ireland from which one always came
away cheered up: and this was so generally felt that an Ulster speaker
reminded us that the atmosphere of our proceedings was pleasant but
exceptional. He warned us to remember that, even if we agreed, either
side might be repudiated. Yet there was a marked feeling that the
Convention, and the tone which prevailed in the Convention, had done
good in the country. This was admitted by the Grand Master of the Orange
Order, Colonel Wallace, in a speech which led to an important
illustration of the mutual process of education, for it raised with
great frankness the issue of religious differences and alluded specially
to the recent Papal decrees over which so much controversy had raged.
The Bishop of Raphoe rose to reply and expounded, as an ex-professor of
Canon Law, the true bearing of these documents. His speech was a
masterpiece; its candour and its lucidity commended itself to all
hearers, but most of all to the Ulstermen, who applauded at once Lord
Oranmore's comment that the _odium theologicum_ had been replaced by
_divina caritas_; and at a very late stage in our proceedings, Mr.
Barrie referred back to this speech of the Bishop's as one of the
things which they would never forget.

The Primate, who in this month of September was one of the hopeful
hearts ("My confidence has grown daily," he said), used words which met
with widespread response: "We can never leave this hall and speak of men
whom we have met here as we have spoken of them in the past." There was
good will in the air--good will to each other and to the enterprise. At
the close of the proceedings in Cork the Lord Mayor of Belfast moved a
vote of thanks to the citizens through their Lord Mayor, and he closed
on a note of hope--anticipating "something in store for Ireland."

Yet already these anticipations were overcast. During this week, while
all seemed going so well, one of the endless unhappy and preventible
things happened. It was from Redmond that I first heard the news. One of
the Sinn Fein leaders who had been rearrested on suspicion after the
amnesty took part in a hunger-strike as a protest against being
subjected to the conditions imposed on a co