SERIOUS ILLNESS 19 



already trod the sacred country, and those who have 

 still unsatisfied the longing to see with their own eyes 

 the birthplace of the Christian religion. As he writes, 

 we "feel that to him, at least, the hero of the world's 

 greatest tragedy is still a living presence. In imagina- 

 tion the centuries roll back, and the deserted places 

 are peopled with the human life of old, and amid the 

 ruins that looked upon his Redeemer, he seems to 

 hear the hosannas still floating through the air. No 

 trip he ever made gave him more pleasure, and I some- 

 times think that his broken health and consciousness 

 that few years might be left to him, gave a solemn 

 interest beyond that accorded to the most earnest 

 observer. 



I do not propose in this brief summary of the salient 

 features of Brooke's life to do more than allude to the 

 political warfare that raged in Ireland over the question 

 of Home Rule. The subject has been ventilated in 

 every form, and there are few to whom the details are 

 not more or less familiar. To him, as to every one in 

 Ireland who had a stake in the country, it was a vital 

 question, and from the first he set himself with the other 

 leaders of public opinion in Ulster to endeavour to 

 defeat the crude schemes for Irish Government that 

 distracted the country, and, as he said in one of his 

 speeches, " fostered animosity between class and class." 

 At the meetings of the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union, 

 and on various platforms in the North, he expressed in 

 graphic language and far-reaching words the intense 

 conviction he shared with so many, that Home Rule 

 meant ruin to the tenant as well as the landlord, to 

 the smallest merchant as well as the largest dealer 

 in commerce, and worst of all, would leave a legacy of 

 hate that no time would heal. At the first meeting of 

 the Landlords' Convention held in Dublin he was the 



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