leaving all high hopes and aims to our rulers, whether they be
English or Irish? Every people get the kind of Government they
deserve. A nation can exhibit no greater political wisdom in the
mass than it generates in its units. It is the pregnant idealism
of the multitude which gives power to the makers of great nations,
otherwise the prophets of civilization are helpless as preachers
in the desert and solitary places. So I have always preached
self-help above all other kinds of help, knowing that if we strove
passionately after this righteousness all other kinds of help would
be at our service. So, too, I would brush aside the officious
interferer in co-operative affairs, who would offer on behalf of
the State to do for us what we should, and could, do far better
ourselves. We can build up a rural civilization in Ireland,
shaping it to our hearts' desires, warming it with life, but our
rulers and officials can never be warmer than a stepfather, and
have no "large, divine, and comfortable words" for us; they tinker
at the body when it is the soul which requires to be healed and
made whole. The soul of Ireland has to be kindled, and it can be
kindled only by the thought of great deeds and not by the hope of
petty parsimonies or petty gains.

Now, great deeds are never done vicariously. They are done directly
and personally. No country has grown to greatness mainly by the
acts of some great ruler, but by the aggregate activities of all
its people. Therefore, every Irish community should make its own
ideals and should work for them. As great work can be done in a
parish as in the legislative assemblies with a nation at gaze. Do
people say: "It is easier to work well with a nation at gaze?" I
answer that true greatness becomes the North Pole of humanity, and
when it appears all the needles of Being point to it. You of the