Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/203

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FAMINE IN IRELAND
197

The remembrance of Ballina is "sweet and pleasant to the soul." That "Codnach of gentle flood," the sweet river Moyne, that flows quietly and richly through the green meadows there, must leave pleasant associations in the minds of all lovers of nature who have wandered upon its banks. Though it was in the dark days of the famine, in the dreary month of February, that I entered Ballina, yet everything looked as if men and women of good taste and good feeling dwelt there. It was here that the indefatigable Kincaid labored and died, in the year 1847. His simple tablet hangs in the church where he preached; but he needed no marble monument, for his name will be held in everlasting remembrance. "He was eyes to the blind, and the cause he knew not he sought out." Free from sectarianism, he relieved all in his power, and spoke kindly to the bowed down; he wiped the tear from the eye of the widow and fatherless, and brought joy and gladness into the abodes of those who were "forgotten by their neighbors." He had a co-worker in his labors of love, who died a little before the famine, in the person of Captain Short. He had been a naval officer; but by the grace of God had become a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus, and devoted his time, talents, and wealth, to the cause of God and his fellow-creatures. In their lives, these two, like Jonathan and David, were united; and in their deaths they were not long divided. Mr. Kincaid, who was but thirty-five, left a widow, and son and daughter. The widow is worthy to bear his name. She too, like him, is found