"I confess, that the history of religion in Ireland has always had peculiar charms for me; and although I have ever felt the deepest interest in the gallant, but gradually less and less successful, struggles for independence of my own race, I have dwelt with still deeper interest on the religious history of the same race, a history of progress and development alike in prosperity and in adversity, a history which links the past with the present and the future — a past to which we can revert with well-grounded pride, a present in which we recognize with gratitude the fruit of the struggles and sufferings of our forefathers, whose example we are called on to imitate, a future to which we may look for ward with humble but well-grounded hope."