warmth of their cradle has not yet cooled down; and, if it would be indeed ridiculous to represent the English of the nineteenth century as the pious subjects of Alfred or Edward, it would be equally foolish to depict the Irish of to-day as the worldlings and godless of France, Italy, or Spain. The Irish patriot could not be like them, without deserting his standard and the colors for which his race has fought. The nation to which he has the honor of belonging is still Christian to the core; and, if some few have really repudiated the love of the religion they took in at their mother's knee, the only means left them of remaining Irishmen, at least in appearance, is not to parade their total lack of this, the chief characteristic of their race.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Irish Race in the Past and the Present