Page:Life of John Boyle O'Reilly.djvu/406

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CHAPTER XX.


The City of Boston Honors his Memory—Great Citizens' Meeting in Tremont Temple—Liberal Subscriptions to a Public Monument—Memorial Meetings in New York and Elsewhere—The "Month's Mind"—Eloquent Sermon of Bishop Healy—The Poet's Grave in Holyhood.


THE City of Boston took official action on the death of John Boyle O'Reilly by holding a citizens' meeting at Tremont Temple on the evening of September 2, Mayor Hart presiding. The platform was filled with representative citizens of every ancestry and creed. A fine crayon portrait of the dead poet, flanked by the Stars and Stripes and the Irish flag, was placed on the wall of the platform.

Mayor Hart delivered a graceful address, and then introduced the chairman of the evening, Hon. Charles Levi Woodbury.

"Had he been George Washington, Sam Adams, or John Hancock," said Judge Woodbury," he could not have loved more the institutions of America than these great statesmen loved that which they had created and which they saw around them. We feel so much for him as a citizen that we almost forget he was born in another clime. He assimilated himself so perfectly among us that I we hardly turned to remember that he came to us an exile, a fugitive, a man whom the oppressors of Great Britain had tried to brand as a felon, and to put the mark of ignominy upon him, because he was a patriot and loved his people."

Judge Woodbury was followed by the Very Rev. William Byrne, D.D., Vicar-General of Boston, a native of O'Reilly's County of Meath, and a warm personal friend of the poet. He could speak from his own experience of the