[Born at Thomastown, in Ireland, 1790. Still living.]
A modern crusader, who has drawn his spiritual sword against one of the
deadliest foes to religion, civilisation, and human happiness. An
apostle who carries glad tidings to every hearth, irrespectively of the
altar raised there for divine worship. A proselytiser who converts
Romanist and Protestant, with equal advantage and safety to both. He was
educated at Maynooth; is a Romish priest; and his whole life has been
spent in an anxious and a humane endeavour to release mankind from the
self-imposed yoke of Drunkenness. He is the founder of the “total
abstinence” principle, in virtue of which self-denying ordinance
“pledged” men abstain from any use whatever of intoxicating liquors. The
success of the good and courageous man has been equal to his deserts:
both are inestimable. Under his teaching the most hardened drunkards
have become abstemious, and the most reckless and improvident have been
won to self-respect and virtuous conduct. No preacher in the olden or
the modern time has surpassed his earnestness or his labour. Hundreds of
thousands have taken the pledge from his hands in Ireland, in this
country, and in the United States. If some of the number have been
unfaithful to their plighted word, the weakness of humanity will explain
the defection. That thousands are the better, the wiser, the happier,
and the purer for his labours, is beyond all doubt. A few patriots like
Father Mathew, would have changed the face of nature in Ireland years
ago. His work, now, is productive of hourly good. The man who only
checks the growth of Drunkenness is a benefactor of his kind. He who
extinguishes the vice in a hundred thousand beasts, is one of the
mightiest of human conquerors.
[By Christopher Moore, 1845.]