9 2 2 1 r -yrm 1 $/** -» **r y\icA >u>e M £aft*£ -<4* i LEO XIII. fl^rogreee of tbe Catholic Cburcb IN AMERICA AND THE GREAT Columbian Catholic Congress of 1893-, A MAGNIFICENT WORK OF TWO VOLUMES IN ONE BOOK An Encyclopedia of the growth of the Church from the Landing of Columbus to the present time, EMBRACING Official Proceedings of all the Chicago Catholic Congresses, giving in full the Addressee delivered by Monsignor Satolli; His Eminence, Cardinal Gibbons; Arch- bishop Ireland; Archbishop Corrigan; Archbishop Redwood of New Zealand; Eishop Keane; Monsignor Nugent of Liverpool; Rev. P. J. Muldoon, Honorable C. C. Bonney of Chicago. EMBELLISHED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS. Published with the approbation of His Grace The Most Reverend Archbishop of Chicago. Preface by Maurice Francis Egan, LL.D. SIXTH EDITION. CHICAGO : J. S. Hyland & Company. IMPRIMATUR : * Ifatrmb JL Ffiehaa, Copyright, iSgy.by J. S. HYLAND & CO. w air** ?i ^m £4r m ■ < *-, -a £■ w* 0* p KEFA6E. HE honest American citizen possesses two things which he may leave to his children, — and these two things are more precious than gold, they are love of God and love of country. The child that learns from his father or mother that he, being a catholic, can be no alien on American soil, is rich — for he has the best of all knowledge in his possession, and knowledge makes him the equal of any other man. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is strength. Knowledge is the key opening all doors ; and in this book lies that knowledge which causes our children to know and love their freedom, and which will give them the weapons necessary to defend their right to enjoy all the blessings of a lana iQ which their ancestors in the faith of the Catholic Church discovered, and in 2 which other ancestors of theirs in the Catholic faith proclaimed freedom or conscience for the first time. 5 " Your father was a foreigner," the descendant of the Mayflower pilgrims 5 may say, "therefore I am more of an American than you." "You are a 5 M m foreigner,' that living libel on American institutions, the modern Know-nothinq may sneer, "You are a Catholic; this is a Protestant country." z Without a knowledge of the truth, your child may blush and hang his head and be ashamed of his father. Without a knowledge of the truth, you may be unable to meet the sneers of your neighbor, though your heart may be bitter within you, and you may desire with all your might to assert ! 09 your right to the country in which you live. But how powerless will you and your child to be without the knowledge that this book contains. In truth, it holds your title-deeds to your land. Moreover, it is an education in itself; and, though you may not be able to send your son to college, here he will gain the substance of the lectures of many professors. And, if your children are too small to read, you or their mother may be their instructor in their rights and liberties. No man with a sensitive heart and high aspirations can fail to find himself thrilled and elevated by the recital of the deeds of his spir- itual ancestors. And Columbus, the Christ-bearer, and Las Casas, the saintly priest, and Father Marquette, and Father Jogues, and Charles Carroll, and Roger Taney, and a hundred other illustrious men who helped to create and to preserve American liberties were nurtured in that faith which is our most precious treasure. The Catholic Church produced them; the Catholic Church nourished them — for that Church in all ages has taught that the sweetest of all things is freedom. Had the Catholic barons of England, with a Catholic bishop at their head, never wrested the Magna Charta from their tyrant king, George Washington could never have learned that freedom was his right. Had the Fran- ciscan and Dominican friars not thirsted with Columbus for the salvation of souls in the Indies, the Santa Maria and the Pinta would never have sailed from Palos. And of the discoverers of America, spoken of by tradition before Columbus, one was St. Brendan, a Catnolic Irishman ; the other, a Catnolic Norseman. The first book printed in all America was the work of Catholics ; and so was the first college. The bravest of all the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll, was a Catholic. His brother, the Archbishop, helped, too, to lay the foundation of our present freedom. The French soldiers who came to the assistance of George Washington when all was darkest, were sent by a devoutly Catholic king and queen, Louis XVI ana Marie Antoinette. And the bravest among them were of that Irish Brigade whose only regret was that they were debarred from fighting for the liberties of their own land ; — still, there are those who have the effrontery to call us strangers in a country which owes everything to Columbus, who, in a manner, brought it out of chaos and illumined its darkness by the light of the cross. " I should have sunk back many a time," said the late General Sherman, " if it were not for the encouragement of my wife." That noble wife was a Catholic. General Sheridan took every occasion to show how grateful he* was to that devout Catholic mother who gladly gave him to his country. And shall we forget Thomas Francis Meagher and General Shields and Col- onel Mulligan, and hosts of others ? But how shall we remember our claims to citizenship in this glorious country, if we do not realize them, — if we do not know them ? It is not necessary that we should have a great library in order to know them, and to make our children proud of their birthright. Here they are in the pages before you. Here they are told by some of the most eloquent and wisest and most earnest writers of our time. Here you will find the red in Columbia's flag is the red of Catholic blood, the white the purity of Catholic zeal, and the blue the color of the Immaculate Patroness whom Columbus and Balboa, De Smet and Charles Carroll and Cardinal Cheverus and Roger Taney and Orestes Brownson loved ana trusted as we do. Compared with our part in the history of America, the coming of the Mayflower is but an episode. And now when the world rings with the fame of Columbus, shall we not learn to claim our own ? Open this book, ana a new and splendid world of knowledge spreads before us. We find our own again, and we claim it. Insolence and bigotry can no longer make us angry and silent. Mass was said on this soil before the spire of a meeting-house rose in Virginia, or among the New England hills. After this, who shall dare in our presence to call America a Protestant country ? We have only to open this book to bepold splendid scenes of history, bloody scenes of martyrdom, tranquil scenes of peace in which the actors are of that faith which is the breath of our nostrils, the core of our hearts, and which discovered and preserved America! MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, LLD. Washington University. t THE following is a list of the Catholic Hierarchy who have approved of or in whose libraries " The World's Columbian Catholic Congresses" can be found. His Eminence Cardinal James Gibbons, Most Reverend John Joseph Kain, Most Reverend P. A. Feehan, . Most Reverend M. A. Corrigan, Most Reverend P.J. Ryan, . . Most Reverend John Ireland, Most Reverend J.J. Williams, Most Reverend P. W. Riordan, Most Reverend W. H. Elder, . Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Righ Reverend John L. Spalding, . Reverend Lawrence McMahon Reverend John S. Foley, . . Reverend James E. Quigley, . Reverend James Ryan, . . . Reverend Joseph Dwenger, . Reverend F. S. Chatard, . . Reverend T. McGovern, . . Reverend W. G. McCloskey, Reverend Henry Cosgrove, . Reverend John J. Hennessy, Reverend Bernard J. McQuaid, Reverend Francis McNeirnny, Reverend J. J. Kain, Reverend William O'Hara, . . Reverend James A. Healy, . . Reverend James A. McFaul, . . Reverend W. M. Wigger, . . . Reverend J.J. Keane, . . Archbishop of Baltimore. Archbishop of St. Louis. Archbishop of Chicago. Archbishop of New York. Archbishop of Philadelphia. Archbishop of St. Paul. Archbishop of Boston. Archbishop of San Francisco. Archbishop of Cincinnati. Bishop of Peoria, 111. Bishop of Hartford. Bishop of Detroit. Bishop of Buffalo. Bishop of Alton, 111. Bishop of Fort Wayne, Ind. Bishop of Indianapolis, Ind» Bishop of Harrisburg, Pa. Bishop of Louisville, Ky. Bishop of Davenport, Iowa. Bishop of Wichita, Kansas. Bishop of Rochester, N. Y. Bishop of Albany, N. Y. Bishop of Wheeling, W. Va. Bishop of Scranton, Pa. Bishop of Portland, Me. Bishop of Trenton, N.J. Bishop of Newark, N.J. Rome, Italy. CARDINAL'S RESIDENCE, Baltimore, Md. J. S. HTLAND & CO. Dear Sirs: A second and more careful perusal of what may be called your Memorial volumes — "Progress of the Church ' — has increased my apprecia- tion of the work. The copy which you kindly sent me, and for which I return you my sincere thanks, is indeed handsomely bound and illustrated, and will prove an orna?nent to any library. But more note-worthy still is the great a?nount of solid historical matter which you have put in the two volumes. I find there embodied all the most salient points of American Catholic history for the last four hundred years ; and you have presented them in very readable form and very entertaining style. These facts which our people should know intimately and perfectly are thus made very accessible to all. The work will be a valuable hand-book of ready reference, which should be foimd on the desk of every student and on the tables of every family / so that its contents may become familiar to everyone. We have done so much in the discovery, exploration, and development f this country • the heroic labors of Catholic missionaries and saintly and learned bishops and priests have penetrated into so many corners of the land, that it were ungrateful ?wt to make their names household words among all who bear the glorious title of Catholic. I feel that "Progress of the Churchy* which you so opportunely placed before the American public, is destined to bring them i?ito greater protninence and shed brilliant lustre on the Church of Christ, which begot the?n and sent them forth on their mis- sion of love and benevolence. I take special pleasure in referring to the admirable preface from the gifted pen of Mr. Maurice F. Egan, in which are so beautifully expressed the keynote, spirit, and scope of your efforts. The "IMPRIMATUR" of the Most Rev. Metropolitan of Chicago is at once an evidence of the book's value, and an assurance of success. I bespeak for it a deep appreciation and an extended circulation. Relieve me to be, Faithfully and sincerely yours in Xto, A re hb is hop of Baltimore. FROM HIS GRACE Francis Archbishop Satolli, Messrs. J. S. Hyland & Co. k DEAR SIRS: Allow me to express my thanks for the copy of the " Progress of the Catholic Church in America" you so kindly sent me. As you have received so many other congratulatory letters from so many distin- guished Prelates, I can do nothing better than adopt their sentiments, and, in conclusion, express my deep appreciation for your work, and my sincere hope for its deserving success. Believe me, Yours truly, "This volume will supply a need, hence we most affectionately wish it a godspeed on its apostolate, for if God blesses good books, how fruitful must be the benediction bestowed upon a work avowedly Catholic." — Chan- cellor Muldoon . COM T£NT5 •**!»£■ VOLUME I. CHAPTER I. Voyage of an Apostle. Father Andrew White, S.J. — -Sailing of the Ark and Dove. — First Bap- tism in the Potomac. — Motives of the Jesuit Fathers l CHAPTER II. The Land of the Sanctuary. Selecting Land for St. Mary's. — Conversions Among Protestants. — A Queen and Her Subjects Baptized. — Father White's Exile and Death. 15 CHAPTER III. On Liberty's Altar. The Dawn of the Revolution.— Ireland's Wrongs Remembered. — Washington Seeks Catholic Allies. — England's Protestant Mer- cenaries 37 CHAPTER IV. Our First Shepherd. Joins the Society of Jesus. — Created a Perfect Apostolic. — Crossing the Atlantic for Consecration. — Passed Away at Four-Score Years. . 57 CHAPTER V. Saintly Mother Seton. A Protestant Physician's Daughter. — Abroad Among Catholic Strangers. — A Busy and Holy Life. — A Saint's Death 79 CHAPTER VI. Metropolitans and Councils. Archbishop Neale at Rest. — A Series of Provincial Councils. — Arch- bishops Kenrick, Spalding, and Bayley. — The Great Vatican Coun- cil. — The Present Illustrious Primate "13 12 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. The Old Dominion. Reminiscences of the Missions. — Banishment of Irish Emigrants. — Exorcism and Conversions. — Guarding the Sanctity of Confession. . 138 CHAPTER VIII. In the Keystone State. Those Maryland Jesuits Again. — An Irishwoman's House the First Catholic Chapel. — Days of the Revolution. — Sister Allen's Con- version 154 CHAPTER IX. The Reign of Bigotry. Dawn of Free Worship. — Slanders Against the Nuns. — Burning Churches and Rectories. — The Mendacious Knownothings . . . 168 CHAPTER X. Crossing the Alleghenies. Fate of the Reform Franciscans. — Conversion of a Good Mother. — Bishop Carroll's Good Influence. — The Prince Becomes Priest. . .185 CHAPTER XI. On Manhattan Island. Priests Who Called at Manhattan. — A Reign of Terror. — New York During the Reign of Bigotry. — Dawn of Catholic Literature. . .201 CHAPTER XII. Lions of the Fold. A Bright Pulpit Orator. — The Public School Question. — Catholics Act on the Defensive. — Our First Cardinal. 222 CHAPTER XTII. The Land of the Puritans. Welcome for All but Catholics. — Burned for Praying in Irish. — Boston Almost Made Catholic 252 CHAPTER XIV. The Light of the Hierarchy. Catholics Long Tabooed. — Father O'Gallagher the First Priest. — Inces- sant Preaching, Teaching, and Traveling. — Adventures on the Mis- sion 276 CHAPTER XV. A Prince in a Republic. Rt. Rev. James Gibbons Made Vicar Apostolic. — Sent to Ireland for Education. — Called to the Primacy of Baltimore. — Raised to the Cardinalate 298 CHAPTER XVI. The Ohio Valley. Catholic Marylanders First to Enter. — Missionaries Traveling Afoot. — Archbishop Elder 309 CONTENTS. 13 CHAPTER XVII. The Cross in Indiana. Father Brute Made Bishop of Vincennes. — Career of a Bright Scholastic. — Notre Dame and St. Mary's of the Wood 328 CHAPTER XVIII. The City of Jubilee. Chicago's First House and Church. — Fire and Cholera. — A Zealous and Self-denying Prelate. — The Present Beloved Archbishop. . . . 34.5 CHAPTER XIX. The Great Northwest. Burning of the First Church. — Murder of the First Pastor. — A Great Archbishop 376 CHAPTER XX. On the Plains. Injustice to Catholic Tribes. — Churches, Convents, and Schools Follow Fast. — Bishop Marty, Father of the Indians 397 CHAPTER XXI. Over the Border. Catholicity Not Petted in Canada. — Robbery of Jesuit Endowments. — Lord Castle Reagh's Singular Message. — A Scotch Catholic Settle- ment 408 CHAPTER XXII. Catholics in the Civil War. Knew No North, No South. — Sisters of Mercy and Charity. — Men Who Never Shrank from Duty. — Bravery of Catholic Soldiers. — The Irish Catholic Everywhere. — Meagher, Sheridan, Shields, Mul- ligan, and Sherman 422 CHAPTER XXIII. A Typical Foundation. Father Sorin's Purchase from the Indians. — The Notre Dame of To- day. — A Museum of Catholic History. — Life of the Venerable Founder 44^ CHAPTER XXIV. Catholic Chaplain of the Maine. His Birthplace and Early Training. — Loved and Trusted by His Shipmates. — Stood Nobly by Them in Their Hour of Need. — Forty Per Cent of the Men Are Catholics 468 VOLUME II. The World's Columbian Catholic Congresses. FIRST DAY'S PROCEEDINGS. Opening of the Congress. Rev. P. J. Muldoon's Welcome. Archbishop Feehan's Welcome. Hon. C. C. Bonney's Address. Address by Cardinal Gibbons. Greeting from Pope Leo. Chairman O'Brien's Address. Archbishop Redwood's Address. (New Zealand). Message from Cardinal Vaughan. Paper by Dr. R. A. Clark, LL. D. Paper by Miss Mary J Onahan. Paper by Mr. E. H. Gans. Archbishop Ryan's Address. 41 SECOND DAY. List of Delegates. Bishop Watterson's Address. Monsignor Satolli's Address. Paper by E. O. Brown, Chicago. Paper by John Gibbons, LL. D. George Parson Lathrop's Address. 66 THIRD DAY. Archbishop Corrigan's Address. Woman's Good Work. Archbishop Ireland's Address. Rev. Patrick Cronin's Address. Paper by Rev. James M. Cleary. 78 FOURTH DAY. Bishop Burke's Address. Paper by Eliza Allen Starr. Paper by Eleanor C. Donnelly. Work of St. Vincent De Paul. Bishop McGoldrick's Address. C. Y. M. U. Resolutions. 94 FIFTH DAY. Bishop Keane's Address. Paper by Brother Ambrose. Paper by H. L. Spaunhorst. Paper by Dr. M. F. Egan. Paper by Katherine E. Conway. Address by Rev. J. T. Murphy, S. J. Paper by W. E. Mosher. Paper by Rev. F. J. Maguire. Brother Azarias' Paper. Future of the Negro Race (C. H. Butler) Paper by William F. Markoe. Paper by Richard R. Elliott. Paper by Thomas Dwight, M. D. Pope Leo on Labor (H. C. Semple). Paper by Dr. A. Kaiser. Rev. M. Callaghan's Address. Paper by Martin F. Morris. Trade Combinations and Strikes (R. M Douglas). Paper by Rev. J. R. Slattery. " Prayer for America " (Rev. F. G. Lentz). Paper by Frank J. Sheridan. Paper by Anna T. Sadlier. Paper by J. P. Lauth. Paper by E. M. Sharon. Essay by Rev. J. L. Andreis. "Pauperism, Cause and Remedy' (M.J. Elder). Paper by Elizabeth A. Cronyn. Address by W. G. Smith. " Duties of Capital " (Rev. Dr. Barry, Eng- land). Paper by Dr. C. A. Wingerter. Paper by Thomas F. Ring. 198 SIXTH DAY. Resolutions of the Congress. The Cardinal's Closing Addrese. Peace Memorial to All Nations. 202 (&UnpUv I. V0yAG6 OF AN APOSTkG. The English Colonies All Non-Catholic. — Lord Baltimore and His Designs. — An Expedition For Maryland. — Father Andrew White, S. J. — Early Years and Education. — Sailing of the Ark and Dove. — Perils From Turks and Pirates. — Days of Storm and Sunshine. — Wonders of -khe Deep Sea. — In the Isles of the Carribean.— Grief Over the Missing Dove. — Strange Plants and Animals. — A Mountain of Sulphur. — The Land of Liberty.— Hospitality In Virginia. — Up the Chesapeake —First Baptism of the Potomac. — St. Clement's Isle. — Pleasant Intercourse With Natives. — What the King of the Patuxents Said. — Character of the Cavalier Settlers. — Fitness of Governor Calvert.— Motives of the Jesuit Fathers. HE English colonies in America were all settled after the unity of the faith in Europe had been broken by the vagaries of Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII, and other innovators. Protestants, though professing to advocate private judgment, never permitted it; and many of the settlements in this country were founded by Protest- ants and others who sought to escape from Protestant persecution. Virginia, settled in 1609, maintained the Church of England. English separatists, who had first emigrated to Holland, founded Plymouth Colony in 1 62 1 ; and Puritans in 1630 began the colony of Massachusetts Bay. Rhode Island was founded soon after by the zealot Roger Williams, who had been driven from Massachusetts; and Connecticut was an offshoot of Massachu- setts, settled by men of the strictest Puritan ideas. All these colonies were intensely Protestant, and no Catholics entered them except when sent over as bondsmen. Dutch Calvinists settled on the Hudson, Swedish Lutherans on the Delaware, each as much opposed to Catholics as their English neighbors. From all this part the true Church seemed to be excluded forever, and in vain THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. do we seek in it for the same spirit of faith and charity, the same desire of extending to the natives the benefits of Christianity which had characterized the settlements made by Catholic powers. The one glorious exception was to be a settlement by members of the true Church of God. Sir George Calvert, who became the first Lord Baltimore, returning to the faith of his ancestors, resolved to found a Catholic colony in America. The Catholics of the British Isles clung almost as tenaciously to their native land as they did to their religion. Still, unable openly to profess the faith of Bede, of Alfred, of Edward, of Becket, and of Anselm, of thirty generations of their ancestors, a few resolved to emigrate, and occupy the terri- tory of which Lord Baltimore had secured a grant. Mindful of his duty as a Christian, the Catholic peer resolved to send clergymen to his colony, and applied to the superior of the Jesuits in England for fathers of his society " to attend the Catholic plant- ers and settlers, and convert the native Indians." The conversion of the heathen could not be a matter of indifference to the Society of Jesus, and least of all that of the natives of a region already watered with their blood. They did not refuse the call. Father Andrew White, a man .who had already suffered imprisonment and exile for the faith, was chosen to found the new mis- sion. His associates were Father John Altham and the lay -brothers John Knowles and Thomas Gervase. Meanwhile Lord Baltimore died while on the point of carrying out his design of founding the colony. His eldest son, Cecilius, the second Lord Baltimore, a good Catholic, took immediate steps to carry out the plans of his illustrious fathe'r. He appointed his brother Leonard governor, with full powers to establish the new colony. The account of the expedition which ensued will prove more vivid and picturesque as associated with the priestly labors of Father Andrew White, S. J., whose early career no less deserves a grateful mention. This famous missionary priest was born at London in 1579. The gifted youth was forced to seek the fount of knowledge in a foreign land. It was a shameful period. Catholic schools were closed in Great Britain and Ireland, WWff : / ' CECIL, LORD BALTIMORE. MOST REV. SEBASTIANO MARTINELLI, APOSTOLIC DELEGATE. VOYAGE OF AN APOSTLE. 3 and all Catholics were forbidden to teach. A reward of fifty dollars was offered for the discovery of each Catholic school-master. But by the zeal of the learned Catholic professors who had been banished from Oxford — and especially of the famous Cardinal Allen — an English col- lege was established in 1568, at Douay, in France. For nearly two centuries and a half the Catholic students of the British Isles directed their steps to this renowned institution. There the flame of faith was nourished and the light of knowledge kept burning when all was bigotry and religious darkness in the once Catholic land of England. There were trained those bands of devoted priests who laid down their lives in laboring to restore the true faith among their unhappy countrymen. There our Catholic Bible was translated into English. There the pious and learned Alban Butler, author of the " Lives of the Saints," received his education. And there likewise the future apostle of Maryland earnestly labored and studied to prepare himself for his high and holy calling. Father White was elevated to the sacred dignity of the priesthood about the year 1605, and was at once sent to labor on the London mission. But as the penal laws were rigidly enforced, he had to temper his zeal with the greatest prudence. Nor did this suffice. In spite of all precautions he was discovered. Rewards, varying according to the rank of the victim, were offered for the discovery of Catholic ecclesiastics. At one period the same price was offered for the head of a priest and that of a wolf. Even Jews came from Portugal to hunt down Catholic priests in the British Isles, and found it a profitable business. Bribes were offered to all who would betray Catholics. "They bribed the flock, they bribed the son, To sell the priest and rob the sire; Their dogs were taught alike to run Upon the scent of wolf and friar." In short, the fierce Mohawk, ranging the ancient forests of New York, was not more eager and skillful on the trail of an enemy than was the fanat- ical and barbarous government of England in its search after Catholic priests. And the humanity of the American Indian compares quite favorably with that of the Protestant Briton. The very year that Father White returned to England, the saintly poet and Jesuit, Southwell, was brutally tortured on the rack, ten different times, and finally executed with the most revolting cruelties, all because — he was a Catholic priest! We find the name of Father White in a list of forty-seven priests, who. 4 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. from different prisons, in 1606, were sentenced to perpetual banishment. He reached the continent; he had hitherto been a secular priest, but now sought admission into the Society of Jesus, and after passing his novitiate of two years at Louvain,he obtained permission to return to his native land — although he was well aware that for the banished Catholic priest who returned to Eng- land the punishment was death. It was a perilous mission, and the brave Jesuit was soon recalled and appointed professor in a college of the society at Seville. Father White was a ripe and finished scholar, and at various periods filled the chairs of Holy Scripture, Hebrew, and Theology in Spain and Belgium. But he was now to pass from the halls of science to the wild woods of the New World. Two small vessels named the Ark and the Dove were fitted out for the Maryland expedition ; and about two hundred emigrants, nearly all of whom were Catholics and gentlemen of fortune and respectability, prepared to cross the Atlantic, desiring to fly from the black spirit of intolerance which per- vaded England, and to rear up their altars in freedom in the wilderness. To Leonard Calvert, as governor, was given command of the expedition. "It was a mighty undertaking," says McSherry, " standing out in history as an era in the progress of mankind." Fortunately, the interesting narrative of the voyage was told by Father White himself; and the graphic picture has not been lost to history and liter- ature. "On the 22d of November," he writes, "in the year 1633, being St. Cecilia's day, we set sail from Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, with a gentle east wind blowing. After committing the principal parts of the ship to the protection of God especially, and of His Most Holy Mother, and St. Ignatius, and all the guardian angels of Maryland, we sailed on a little way between the two shores, and the wind failing us, we stopped opposite Yarmouth castle. Here we were received with a cheerful salute of artillery. "On the 23d of November," he continues, "we sailed past a number of rocks near the end of the Isle of Wight, which, from their shape, are called the Needles. These are a terror to sailors, on account of the double tide of the sea, which whirls away the ships, dashing them against the rocks on the one side, or the neighboring shore on the other. "Early the next day (Monday), about nine o'clock, we left behind us the western promontory of England and the Scilly Isles, and sailing easily on, we directed our course more towards the west, passing over the British Channel. Yet we did not hasten as much as we could have done, fearing if VOYAGE OF AN APOSTLE. 5 we left the pinnace too far behind us, that it would become the prey of the Turks and pirates who generally infest that sea. " It came to pass, that a fine merchant ship of six hundred tons, named the Dragon, while on her way to Angola, from London, overtook us about three o'clock in the afternoon. And as we now had time to enjoy a little pleasure, after getting out of danger, it was delightful to see these two ships, with fair weather and a favorable wind, and a great noise of trumpets, trying for a whole hour to outstrip each other. Our ship would have beaten the Dragon, though we did not use our top-sail, if we had not been obliged to stop ®n account of the pinnace, which was slower; and so we yielded the palm to the merchant ship, and she sailed by us before evening, and passed out of sight. ' On Sunday, the 24th, and Monday, the 25th of November, we had fair sailing all the time until evening. But presently, the wind getting round to the north, such a terrible storm arose, that the merchant ship I spoke of, from London, being driven back on her course, returned to England. Those on board our pinnace, since she was only a vessel of forty tons, began to lose confidence in her strength, and sailing near, they warned us, that if they apprehended shipwreck they would notify us by hanging out lights from the mast-head. We meanwhile sailed on in our strong ship of four hundred tons. A better could not be built of wood and iron. " We had a very skillful captain, and so he was given his choice,whether he would return to England, or keep on struggling with the winds. If he yielded to these, the Irish shore close by awaited us. It is noted for its hid- den rocks and many shipwrecks. But our captain's bold spirit, and his desire to test the strength of the new ship, which he managed for the first time, triumphed. He resolved to try the sea, though he confessed that it was the more dangerous on account of its being so narrow. " The danger was near at hand. The winds increased, the sea grew more boisterous, and we could see the pinnace in the distance, showing two lights at her mast-head. Then, indeed, we thought it was all over with her, and that she was swallowed up in the deep whirlpools. In a moment she passed out of sight. No news of her reached us for months afterwards. Accordingly, we were all of us certain the pinnace was lost; yet God had better things in store for us, for the fact was, that finding herself no match for the violence of the sea, she had avoided the Virginian Ocean — with which we were already contending — and returned to England. Making a fresh 6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. start thence, she overtook us at a large harbor in the Antilles. And thus God, who oversees the smallest things, guided, protected, and took care of the little vessel! " We being ignorant, however, of her safety, were distressed with grief and anxiety, which the gloomy night, filled with manifold terrors, increased. When day dawned, although the wind was against us, being from the south- west, yet, as it did not blow very hard, we sailed on gradually by making frequent tacks; so Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday passed with variable winds, and we made small progress. On Friday a southeast wind prevailed, and drove before it thick and dark clouds. Towards evening a dreadful tempest broke forth ; and it seemed every minute as if we would be swal- lowed up by the waves. " Nor was the weather more promising on the next day, which was the festival of St. Andrew, the apostle. The clouds, accumulating in a frightful manner, were fearful to behold ; and excited the belief that all the malicious spirits of the storm and all the evil genii of Maryland had come forth to battle against us. Towards evening the captain saw a sunfish swimming, with great efforts, against the course of the sun, which is a very sure sign of a terrible storm. Nor did the omen prove false. " About ten o'clock at night, a dark cloud poured forth a violent shower. Such a furious hurricane followed close upon it, that it was necessary to run with all speed to take in sail; and this could not be done quickly enough to prevent the main-sail — the only one we were carrying — from being torn in the middle from top to bottom. A part of it was blown over into the sea, and was recovered with difficulty. " At this critical moment, the minds of the bravest among us were struck with terror. The sailors acknowledged that they had seen other ships wrecked in a less severe storm ; but this hurricane called forth the prayers and vows of the Catholics in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her Immaculate Conception; of St. Ignatius, the patron saint of Maryland; St. Michael, and all the guardian angels of the same country. Each one hastened to purge his soul by the sacrament of penance. All control over the rudder being lost, the ship now drifted about like a fish in the water, at the mercy of the winds and waves, until God showed us a way of safety. " At first, I confess, I had been engrossed with the apprehension of the ship's being lost, and of losing my own life; but after I had spent some time in praying more fervently than was my usual custom, and had set forth to VOYAGE OF AN APOSTLE. 7 Christ the Lord, to the Blessed Virgin, St. Ignatius, and the angels of Mary- land, that the purpose of this journey was to glorify the Blood of our Redeemer in the salvation of barbarians, and also to raise up a kingdom for our Lord — if He would condescend to prosper our poor efforts — to consecrate another gift to the Immaculate Virgin, His Mother, and many things to the same effect, great comfort shone in upon my soul, and at the same time so firm a conviction that we should be delivered, not only from this storm, but from every other during that voyage, that with me there could be no room left for doubt. I had betaken myself to prayer when the sea was raging at its worst; and — may this be to the gloryof God — I had scarcely finished when they observed that the storm was abating. That, in truth, brought me to a new frame of mind, and filled me, at the same time, with great joy and admiration, since I understood much more clearly the greatness of God's love towards the people of Maryland. Eternal praises to the most sweet gracious- ness of the Redeemer! " After this sudden abatement of the storm, we had delightful weather for three months. The captain and his men declared that they had never seen it calmer or more pleasant, for not even for a single hour did we suffer any inconvenience. When I speak of three months, however, I do not mean to say that we were that long at sea; but in this I include the whole voyage, and also the time we stopped at the Antilles. The actual voyage occupied only seven weeks and two days; and that is considered a quick passage." Want of space forbids us to follow the venerable writer in his minute and always interesting details of the voyage. We can only quote a passage here and there. Safe from the wrath of the elements, the Catholic Pilgrim fathers of Maryland did not feel entirely out of danger. The Turk at that time was a bold fellow, who did not believe in being cooped up in the south- east of Europe. " We feared," writes Father White, " that we might meet with the Turks, yet we fell in with none of them. They had gone home, perhaps, to celebrate a solemn fast which took place at that season of the year." Sailing past the Straits of Gibraltar and the Madeiras, the Ark stood towards the west. The appearance of three suspicious-looking ships, how- ever, caused some uneasiness; for at that time the ocean was infested with pirates and freebooters. But, adds the narrator, they " either could not over- rate us, or did not wish to give chase." Such incidents kept the voyage free from monotony. 8 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. "And here I cannot pass on," continues the apostle of Maryland, " with- out praising the Divine goodness, which brings it to pass that all things work together for good to them that love God. For, if meeting with no delay, we had been allowed to sail at the time we had appointed, namely, on the 20th of August, the sun being on this side of the equator, and striking down ver- tically, the intense heat would not only have ruined our provisions, but would have brought disease and death upon almost all of us. We were saved by delay, and escaped misfortune by embarking in the winter time. If you except the usual sea-sickness, no one was attacked by any disease until Christ- mas. In order that that festival might be better kept, wine was given out; and those who drank it too freely were seized the next day with a fever. About twelve died, among whom were two Catholics." Father White was a keen observer, and, it appears, nothing escaped his trained eye. "While continuing our voyage," he writes, "we met with many curious things. I may mention flying fish, which sometimes swim in the sea, and sometimes fly up in the air. They are about the size of flounders, or the larger gilt-heads, and very much resemble these in their delicious flavor. A hundred of them rise up into the air at once, when flying from the dolphins which pursue them. Some of them fell into our ship, their wings failing them. In one flight they do not fly over a greater space than two or three acres; and then, because their fins become dried in the air, they plunge into the water again and venture a second time into the air." The voyagers touched the island of Barbadoes, in the West Indies, on the 3d of January, 1634. Here they met with a cold reception. " When we reached this island," observes Father White, " we had hope of securing many articles of trade from the English inhabitants, and from the governor, who was our fellow-countryman; but, forming a combination, they determined not to sell us any wheat for less than five times the usual rates. They had no beef or mutton at any price." The Almighty, it seems, delivered them from another and a greater danger. " The servants over all the island," continued the good Jesuit, " had conspired to kill their masters. On gaining liberty it was their intention to seize the first ship which should touch there, and venture to sea. A con- spirator, frightened by the atrocious cruelty of the plot, disclosed it; and the punishment of one of the leaders was sufficient for the security of the island and our own safety. For our ship, as being the first to touch there, had been marked for their prey; and on the very day we landed we found eight VOYAGE OF AN APOSTLE. 9 hundred men in arms to oppose this wicked design,which had just transpired." Of the inhabitants of the Barbadoes and the natural products of the islands, Father White remarks: "In winter the inhabitants wear linen clothes and bathe frequently. . . . The coarse cloth that serves them for a bed, is skillfully woven out of cotton. When it is bed-time, they hang this from two posts — one at each end — and sleep in it; and in the day-time they carry it again wherever they choose. " There is a wonderful kind of cabbage, which has a stalk that grows one hundred and eighty feet high. It is eaten either raw or boiled. The stalk itself, for a cubit's length below the fruit, is considered a delicacy. When eaten raw, with pepper, it excels the Spanish thistle (artichoke). And, indeed, it is much like a walnut tree that has been stripped of its boughs. The immense stalk equals the size of a very large tree. It bears only one cabbage. " There is also to be seen there a pretty tall tree which they call the soap tree. The grains (or seeds) of soap are no larger than hazel nuts, and they have a thick membrane. Though injurious to fine linen, they are said to purify and cleanse like soap. I carried some of these seeds with me to Mary- land, and planted them, hoping for trees in the future. "The pine-apple excels all the other fruits that I have tasted anywhere else in the world. It is of a golden color, is excellent when mixed with wine, and is as large as three or four of the European nuts of the same name. It may, undoubtedly, be called the queen of fruits. It has a spicy taste, which, as nearly as I can guess, is like that of strawberries mixed with wine and sugar. It is of great service in preserving health, agreeing so nicely with the human constitution, that, although it corrodes iron, it strengthens man more, perhaps, than anything else. Nor do you find it on a high tree. It is a single fruit, coming out in each root like the artichoke. I wish I could send your paternity a specimen with this letter. For nothing but itself can describe it according to its excellence." The cloud of sorrow which the supposed loss of the Dove and her crew had cast over the expedition, vanished at Barbadoes. Imagine the joy of those on the Ark, as the little vessel bore in sight, and joined company again after a separation of six weeks. On the night of the terrific storm which parted them, the Dove, after having shown her signalj no longer able to breast the storm, had changed her course, and taken refuge in the Scilly Islands, whence, the ship Dragon, bearing her company as far as the Bay of Biscay, she sailed in pursuit of the Ark, and had now overtaken her. IO THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. " On the 24th of January," continues the Relation, "we weighed anchor, and reached Matalina towards evening on the following day. At this place two canoes full of naked men appeared. They kept at a distance, seeming to fear our huge ship, held up pumpkins and parrots, and offered to exchange them. These people were a race of savages, fat, shining with red paint, who knew not God, and devoured human beings. Some time before they had made away with several English interpreters. The country they inhabit is very fertile, but is entirely covered with woods, having no open plains. . . . Some one, I hope, will have compassion on this forsaken people. "A rumor spread among the sailors — started by certain shipwrecked Frenchmen — that an animal is found on this island, in the forehead of which is a stone of extraordinary luster, like a live coal or burning candle. This animal they name carbunca. Let the author of the story answer for its truth." Of the island of Montserrat, Father White says: " The inhabitants are Irishmen who were banished by the English of Virginia, on account of their professing the Catholic Faith." St. Christopher's was the last of the West India Islands at which the Pilgrim's touched. Here they remained ten days. "We stayed ten days," writes the venerable Jesuit, " having received a friendly invitation from the English governor, and two captains who were Catholics. The president of the French colony in the same island received me with marked courtesy. "All the rare things that are to be seen at Barbadoes, I found in this place, too; and, besides these, a sulphurous mountain, not far from the gov- ernor's residence. And what you would admire more, the virgin plant, so called because, at the least touch of the finger, it immediately shrinks and falls in; though, if you give it time, it revives and rises up again. I was especially pleased with the locust tree, which is supposed to have afforded sustenance to St. John the Baptist. It equals the elm in size, and is such a favorite with the bees, that they very gladly build their cells in it. The honey, if you forget that it is wild, does not differ in color or flavor from the purest honey I have tasted. The fruit — also known as locust — consists of six beans in a pretty hard shell, like a pod, and contains a meat which is soft but glutinous, tasting like flour mixed with honey. It bears four or five tolerably large seeds of a chestnut color. I carried some of these with me to plant." Father White and his companions now approached the termination of VOYAGE OF AN APOSTLE. 1 1 their historic voyage. On the 24th of February, the Ark and the Dove neared Point Comfort, Virginia. The joyful sight of land, however, was somewhat clouded by the fear of hostility on the part of the Virginians, who were reso- lutely opposed to Lord Baltimore's undertaking ; but the royal letters borne by the newcomers secured them a favorable reception from the governor. Yet, in this gentleman's hospitality, it seems, there was a little selfishness. He "hoped," says the Relation, "that by this kindness towards us, he would the more easily recover from the royal treasury a large sum of money which was due him." "After being kindly treated for eight or nine days," continues the Rela- tion, "we set sail on the 3d of March, and entering the Chesapeake Bay, we turned our course to the north to reach the Potomac River. The Chesa- peake Bay, ten leagues wide, flows gently between its shores. It is four, five and six fathoms deep, and abounds in fish when the season is favorable. You could scarcely find a more beautiful body of water. Yet it vields the palm to the Potomac River, which we named after St. Gregory. ... A larger or more beautiful river I have never beheld. Tl Thames seems a mere rivulet in comparison with it. It is disfigured by no swamps, but has firm land on each side. Fine groves of trees appear, not choked with briers or bushes, and undergrowth, but growing at regular distances, as if planted by the hand of man. You could drive a four-horse carriage wherever you might choose through the midst of the trees. "Just at the mouth of the river, we observed the natives in arms. Dur- ing the night fires blazed through the whole country. As they had never seen such a large ship, messengers were sent in all directions to report that a canoe like an island had come on, with as many men as there were trees in the woods! We pushed on, however, to Herons' Island, so called from the immense number of these birds. The first island we came to we named St. Clement's. As it has a sloping shore, there is no way of getting to it except by wading. Here the women who had left the ship to do the washing, upset the boat and tame near being drowned. They also lost a large portion of my linen — no small loss in this part of the world. " On the 25th of March, the day of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Virgin, in the year 1634, we offered in this island the sacrifice of the Mass for the first time ; for in this region of the globe it had never been celebrated before. [This was an error; but Father White was not aware that nine I2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Spanish Jesuits had consecrated that territory with their blood, as may be seen in the chapter on " Early Spanish Missions," over half a century before his arrival.] " The sacrifice being ended, we took upon our shoulders the great cross which we had hewn from a tree, and going to the place that had been desig- nated — the governor, commissioners, and other Catholics participating in the ceremony — we erected it as a trophy to Christ, the Savior, while the Litany of the Holy Cross was chanted humbly, on our bended knees, with great emo- tion of soul." Here was a real "cross in the wilderness!" Indeed, there is something so touching and beautiful in this simple narrative, that, in our age of unbelief and materialism, we pause and almost wonder if we are reading a dream or a re.dity. But it is no dream. It is the true history of how the Catholic Pil- grim fathers of Maryland first took possession of our shores. They were men proud of their grand and ancient Faith, and nobly preferred an altar in the desert to a coronet at the court of apostate England. And yet, exiles as they were for conscience' sake, they bore no revengeful feeling to the Angli- can Church, which persecuted as it had robbed them; nonj to the Calvin- istic party, which sought to exterminate them. They came, and as they came let the broad Atlantic wash out the memory of their wrongs; they came to found the first state where men could freely practice the religion of their choice. The colonists were delighted with their chosen home in the wilderness. Although so early in the season, the woods were vocal with the songs of many birds, the air mild and balmy as June, and the earth covered with every variety of rich and brilliant wild flowers. They were grateful to God for the beautiful land which he had given them. The ships which brought these Catholic pilgrims to Maryland were very appropriately named the Dove and the Ark — for they came bearing the olive- branch rather than the sword — seeking to conciliate the Indians by kindness, not to exterminate them by war. Protestant historians are obliged to acknowl- edge that the intercourse of the Catholics of Maryland with the natives was far more blameless than that of the Protestants of New England and Vir- ginia. Maryland was the only state which was not stained with the blood of the Indian. These Catholic colonists purchased the land which they required; they did not obtain it by fraud and murder. The Maryland pilgrims were fortunate in having such a leader as Leonard VOYAGE OF AN APOSTLE. •3 Calvert, a man who united in a remarkable degree the wisdom, prudence, and discretion of age with the enterprise, courage, and daring of youth. The friendship and confidence of the Indians, which he soon won by his kindness, he retained by a strict fidelity to his contracts, and a faithful adherence to his promises. We have a remarkable instance of the early confidence and friend- ship of the Indians. A few days after the landing of the colonists, Governor Calvert gave an entertainment to several of the native chiefs. Governor Harvey, of Virginia, was also present. At the feast, the king of the Pat- uxents, as a special honor, was placed between the governor of Maryland and the governor of Virginia. Before this chieftain returned home, he made a speech to the Indians, in which he urged them to be faithful to their engagements with the English; and, in conclusion, used this extraordinary language: " I love the English so well that, if they should go about to kill me, if I had so much breath as to speak, I would command the people not to revenge my death; for I know they would do no such thing, except it were through my own fault." Of all that brave band of Catholic gentlemen and Catholic yeomen who abandoned their ancient homes in England to establish in America the glori- ous principles of civil and religious liberty, none are more worthy of our admiration than the two Jesuit fathers, White and Altham,who accompanied the expedition at the request of Lord Baltimore, "to attend the Catholic planters and settlers, and convert the native Indians." The colonists came to rear for themselves and for their children homes in a new and most delightful land. They came, like the children of promise, to a land flowing with milk and honey. Nature surrounded their path with fruits and flowers. The Indians received them as beings of a superior order, and invited them to share their homes and their lands. Their present was bright, and the future promising. Those good fathers came, induced by no such considerations. They neither sought nor desired an earthly reward. Burning with a divine enthu- siasm, they left their sweet and quiet cloisters, to labor, and suffer, and die, it might be, for the salvation of poor, ignorant and unknown savages, living in another hemisphere, thousands of miles away. Chateaubriand, with a magnificent burst of admiration, thus speaks of the Catholic mission: " Here is another of those grand and original ideas which belong exclu- sively to the Christian religion. The ancient philosophers never quitted the enchanting walks of academics and the pleasures of Athens to go, under the 1 4 THE COL UMBIAN J UBILEE. guidance of a sublime impulse, to civilize the savage, to instruct the ignorant, to cure the sick, to clothe the poor, to sow the seeds of peace and harmony among hostile nations; but this is what Christians have done and are doing every day. Neither oceans nor tempests, neither the ices of the pole nor the heat of the tropics, can dampen their zeal. They live with the Esquimaux in his seal-skin cabin ; they subsist on train-oil with the Greenlander ; they traverse the solitude with the Tartar or the Iroquois; they mount the drome- dary of the Arab, or accompany the wandering Kaffir in his burning deserts ; the Chinese, the Japanese, the Indians, have become their converts. Not an island, not a rock in the ocean, has escaped their zeal ; and as, of old, the kingdoms of the earth were inadequate to the ambition of Alexander, so the globe itself is too contracted for their charity." ©Txaptcv II. TH6 fcAND OF THE SANCTUARy. Indian Tribes of Maryland. — The King of the Pascataways— Selecting Land for St. Mary's. — A Fair Bargain With the Natives. — Father White's Pen-pictures. — The First Maryland Chapel. — Hospitality of the Savages. — Strange Ceremonies and Superstitions. — "Yaho! Yaho!" — Natural Features and Resources. — Labors of the Missionaries. — Arrival of the Infamous Claiborne. — Exciting Native Passions. — Con- versions Among Protestants. — Strange Cure of a Snakebite. — Toiling AT KlTTAMAQUINDI. — An APOSTATE CHIEF. — TAYAC AND HlS DREAMS. — A Zealous Native Convert. — Sermon by the Missionary. — A Queen and Her Subjects Baptized. — Famine in the Land. — Seized by a Shark. — Father White's Sickness. — Voyages and Dangers. — An Indian War. — Days of Persecution. — Hospitality to Vipers. — Father White's Exile and Death. — Desecration of Maryland.— Penal Laws Replace Tolera- tion. HE conversion of the natives was the first thought of the devoted English missionaries. The Maryland tribes consisted of several branches of the great Huron-Iroquois family, and, doubtless, of some Algonquins, although it is not easy in all cases to decide to which class a tribe is to be referred. The Susquehannas, or Conestogues, were the dominant tribe ; the Algonquins their allies, the other tribes their enemies or victims. The chief of the Pascataway Indians was the most powerful ruler near St. Clement's, and had many sachems and tribes subject to him. Leonard Calvert, the governor, deter- mined to visit this lordly savage, and secure his friendship. Taking with him the Dove, he set out with a portion of his men, accompanied by Father Alt- ham, leaving the ship at anchor at St. Clement's. As they advanced up the river, the dusky inhabitants fled towards the interior. At length the priest and the governor reached a village on the Virginia side, named Potomac — *5 I0 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. after the river — and governed by Archihu, uncle of the king, who was yet a youth, Father Altham preached to the people and their chiefs. They listened with attention, and replied to him through his interpreter. The good father told them that the pale faces had neither come to make war upon them nor to do them any wrong; but to instruct them in Christianity, to make them acquainted with the arts of civilized life, and to live with them like brothers. " You are welcome," replied the chief. Father Altham then informed him that, as he had not time to make a longer discourse, he would return to visit him again. " It is good," said the dusky ruler, "we will use one table. My people shall hunt for my brother, and all things shall be in common between us." From this place, Father Altham and Governor Calvert went to Pascata- way, "where," says the Relation, "all the inhabitants flew to arms. About five hundred, equipped with bows, had stationed themselves on the shore with their king. But after signals of peace were made, the king, putting aside all apprehension, came on board the pinnace; and when he heard of our friendly disposition towards the Indians, he gave us permission to dwell wherever we pleased in his dominions. " In the meantime, while Governor Calvert was on this voyage with the king, the savages at St. Clement's began to grow bolder, and mingled more freely with our sentinels. For we kept watch by day and night to guard from sudden attacks our men who were cutting wood, as well as the vessel which we were building, having brought with us the separate planks and ribs. " It is pleasant to hear these natives admiring everything, especially wonder- ing where in the world a tree had grown large enough to be carved into a ship of such a huge size; for they supposed it had been cut from a single trunk of a tree, like an Indian canoe. Our cannon filled them all with astonishment, as, indeed, they were not a little louder than their own twanging bows, and sounded like thunder." The idea of securing a fitting spot to begin the foundation of his colony now occupied the mind of Governor Calvert. Such a place was soon found. " It is," wrote the apostle of Maryland, " a spot so charming in its situation that Europe itself can scarcely show one to surpass it. Going about twenty- seven miles from St. Clement's, we sailed into the mouth of a river on the north side of the Potomac, which we named after St. George. This river — or rather arm of the sea — runs from south to north about twenty miles before you come to fresh water. At its mouth are two harbors capable of containing THE LAND OF THE SANCTUARY. ^ three hundred ships of the largest size. One of these we consecrated to St. George; the other, which is more inland, to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. " The left side of the river was the abode of Chief Yaocomico. We landed on the right-hand side, and going in about a mile from the shore, we laid out the plan of a city, naming it St. Mary's. And, in order to avoid every appearance of injustice, and afford no opportunity of hostility, we bought from the king thirty miles of that land, delivering in exchange, axes, hatchets, rakes, and several yards of cloth. " The natives," continues the keen and over-observant Father White, "are very tall and well proportioned. Their skin is naturally rather dark, and they make it uglier by staining it. This they generally do with red paint mixed with oil, to keep off mosquitoes, thinking more of their own com- fort than of appearances. They also disfigure their countenances with colors, painting them in many and truly hideous and frightful ways; either a dark blue above the nose, and red below, or the reverse. And as they live almost to extreme old age without having beards, they counterfeit them with paint, by drawing lines of various colors from the extremities of the lips to the ears. They commonly have black hair, which they carry bound in a knot to the left ear, and fasten with a band, adding some ornament which is in estimation among them. On their foreheads some of them wear the figure of a fish made of copper. They adorn their necks with glass beads, strung on thread like necklaces; though these beads are getting to be less valued among them, and less useful for trade. " For the most part they are clothed in deerskins, or some similar kind of covering, which hangs down behind like a cloak. They wear aprons around the middle, and leave the rest of the body naked. The boys and girls go about with nothing on them. The soles of their feet are as hard as horn, and they tread on thorns and briars without being hurt. " The weapons of the Indians are bows and arrows three feet long, tipped with stag's horn, or a white Mint sharpened at the end. They shoot these with such skill that they can stand off and hit a sparrow in the middle; and, in order to become expert by practice, they throw a spear in the air, and then send an arrow from the bow-string and drive it into the spear before it falls. But since they do not string the bow very tight, they cannot hit a mark at a great distance. By means of these weapons they live, and go out everv day through the fields and woods to hunt squirrels, partridges, turkeys, 3 18 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. and wild animals. There is an abundance of all these, though we ourselves do not yet venture to procure food by hunting for fear of ambushes. " The Indians live in houses built in an oblong oval shape. Light is admitted into these through the roof, by a window a foot and a half long; this also serves to carry off the smoke, for they kindle the fire in the middle of the floor and sleep around it. Their kings, however, and chief men have private apartments, as it were, of their own and beds, made by driving four posts into the ground, and arranging poles above them horizontally. " One of these cabins has fallen to me and my associates, in which we are accommodated well enough for the time, until larger dwellings are pro- vided. You may call this the first chapel in Maryland, though it is fitted up much more decently than when the Indians lived in it. " This people are of a frank and cheerful disposition ; and understand any matter correctly when it is stated to them. They have a keen sense of taste and smell, and in sight, too, they surpass the Europeans. For the most part, they live on a kind of paste, which they name Pone, and Omini y both of which are made of Indian corn. Sometimes they add fish, or what they have procured by hunting and fowling. They are especially careful to refrain from wine and warm drinks, and are not easily persuaded to taste them, if we except some whom the English have corrupted with their own vices. " With respect to purity, I confess that I have not yet observed, in man or woman, any act which even savored of levity; yet they are daily with us and among us, and take pleasure in our society. They run to us of their own accord with a cheerful expression on their faces, and offer us what they have taken in hunting or fishing. Sometimes they also bring us food, and oysters boiled and roasted; and this they do when invited in a few words of their own language, which we have contrived to learn by means of signs. They marry several wives, yet they keep inviolate their conjugal faith. The women present a sober, modest appearance. " These Indians cherish generous feelings towards all, and make a return for whatever kindness you may have shown them. They resolve upon noth- ing rashly or while influenced by a sudden impulse of the mind, but act with deliberation. When, at any time, anything of importance is proposed, they think over it awhile in silence; then they speak briefly for or against it. Of their purpose they are very tenacious. Surely these men, if once imbued with Christian precepts — and there seems to be nothing opposes this except our ignorance of the language spoken in these parts — will become eminent THE LAND OF THE SANCTUARY. i 9 observers of virtue and humanity. They are possessed with a wonderful longing for civilized intercourse with us, and for European garments. And they would long ago have worn clothing if they had not been prevented by the avarice of the merchants, who do not exchange their cloth for anything except beavers. But everyone can not get a beaver by hunting. God forbid that we should imitate the avarice of these men! " On account of our ignorance of their language, it does not yet appear what ideas the Indians have about religion. We do not put much confidence in the Protestant interpreters; and have rather hastily learned the following: " They acknowledge one God of heaven, yet they pay him no outward worship. But in every way they strive to please a certain imaginary spirit which they call ochre, that he may not hurt them. Corn and fire, I learn, they worship as gods that are very bountiful to the human race. " Some of our party report that they saw the following ceremony in the temple at Barchuxem: On a day appointed, all the men and women of every age from several districts gathered together around a large fire. The younger ones stood nearest the fire; and behind them stood those who were older. Then they threw deer's fat on the fire, and lifting up their hands towards heaven, and raising their voices, they cried out: ' Yaho! ' ' Yaho! ' " Room being made, some one then brings forward quite a large bag. In it are a pipe and a powder called 'potu.' The pipe is such a one as is used among us for smoking tobacco, but much larger. Around the fire the bag is carried, the boys and girls following it, and singing alternately, with quite pleasant voices, 'Yaho!' 'Yaho!' Having completed the circuit, the pipe is taken out of the bag, and the powder called ' potu ' is distributed to all as they stand near. This is then lighted in the pipe and each one drawing smoke blows it over the various members of his or her body and thus conse- crates them. My informants were not allowed to learn anything more, except that the Indians seem to have some knowledge of the deluge by which the world was destroyed on account of the wickedness of mankind. " We have been here only one month, and so the remaining particulars must be kept for the next voyage. But this I may add: The land seems to be remarkably fertile. In passing through the very thick woods we tread at every step on strawberries, vines, sassafras, acorns, and walnuts. The soil is dark and not hard, to the depth of a foot, and overlays a rich red clay. Every- where there are lofty trees, except where the land has been cultivated by a few persons. 20 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. u Numerous springs furnish a supply of water. No animals are seen except deer, beavers, and squirrels. The squirrels are as large as the hares of Europe. There is an infinite number of birds of various colors, such as eagles, cranes, geese, ducks, and partridges. From these facts it is inferred that the country is not without such things as contribute to the prosperity or pleasure of those who inhabit it." We must now turn our attention to the missions, and glance at the holy and heroic labors of the apostle of Maryland and his companions. Father White was fifty-five years of age when he began the gigantic task of toiling for the conversion of the red-man. But nothing daunted that brave soul. With all the ardor of youth he at once applied himself to the study of the Indian languages, in which he found the difficulties much increased by the number of dialects used among the various tribes. Nearly every village and its surrounding district had a peculiar dialect. Of the tribes then inhabiting Maryland, the most powerful were the Susquehannas, who were subdivided into several smaller tribes. Among the latter the most prominent were the Pascataways and the Patuxents. The gentle dispositions of the Indians in the immediate vicinity of St. Mary's, encouraged the Jesuit fathers to entertain hopes of the conversion of many of the natives to Christianit)-. But, in the second year of the colony, obstacles to their pious design were thrown in the way, which prevented them from extending their visits beyond the limits of the settlement. It was in the early part of the year 1635 — scarcely twelve months after the arrival of the missionaries — that the infamous Captain Claiborne succeeded in exciting the suspicions of the Indians against the Maryland colonists gener- ally, and prejudices against their religion in particular. Apprehensive of hostilities from the natives, the colonists, lay and clerical, prudently confined themselves to St. Mary's until the good-will of the Indians was restored. In 1635, a third priest arrived from Europe. "On account of the very many difficulties," wrote one of the fathers, during this year, " that present themselves in this mission, which has been lately started, there has been thus far but little fruit from it, especially among the savages, whose language is slowly acquired by our countrymen, and can hardly be written at all. Employed here are five associates, three priests, and two assistants, who, in hope of future results, endure their present toils with great cheerfulness." In 1636, another priest was added to the small band of apostolic laborers. THE LAND OF THE SANCTUARY. 21 Among the acts of the general assembly held at St. Mary's in January, 1637, is the following, which is given after a long list of names: "After, were summoned to appeare — by virtue of writts to them directed — Mr. Thomas Copley, Mr. Andrew White, Mr. John Altham of St. Mary's hundred. Robert Clarke, gent., appeared for them, and excused their absence by reason of sickness." The reader will doubtless be surprised to see the apostle of Maryland simply styled " Mr. Andrew White." But he must remember that the fore- going was written in the seventeenth century. Then, it would have been very far from safe openly to recognize a Catholic priest by the title of " Reverend " ; and in the Maryland state records we find a prudent caution in this respect, to avoid any public or apparent disregard of the vile code then in force in the mother country against Catholic priests, and particularly the fathers of the Society of Jesus. Dividing his time between the settlers and the Indians, Father White continued his unceasing toils. He not only mastered the Indian language, but composed a grammar, dictionary, and catechism in it. God blessed his labors and those of his colleagues. Of the Protestants in the colony, we learn that many returned to the Faith of their fathers. "Among the Protestants," writes one of the missionaries in a letter, "nearly all who have come from England, in this year 163S, and many others, have been converted to the Faith, together with four servants, whom we purchased in Virginia, and five mechanics whom we hired for a month, and have in the meantime won to God. Not long afterwards, one of these, after being duly prepared for death, by receiving the sacraments, departed this life. "A certain man," continues the same writer, "entirely unknown to us, but a zealous disciple of the Protestant religion, was staying with a friend who was still more zealous; and having been bitten by one of the snakes which abound in these parts, was expecting immediate death. One of our fathers, finding this out, took with him a surgeon and hurried to the sick man — who, it was reported, had already lost his senses — with the intention of ministering to his soul in any way that he could. But the host, divining his intention, tried to thwart his pious efforts. The priest, however, as he could find no other opportunity, determined to stay all night with the sick man. But this the host also prevented, and lest the father should be admitted at night, he appointed a guard to sleep on a bed laid across the door of the chamber 2 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. occupied by his sick friend. Nevertheless, the priest kept on the watch for evei-y opportunity of approach. Going at midnight — when he supposed the guard would be especially overcome by sleep — he contrived, without disturb- ing him, to pass in to the sick man, and at the desire of the latter he was received into the Catholic Church. Although, under the circumstances, it was impossible that the sick man should be taught much, or be firmly established in his belief, yet, when — contrary to all expectation — he had been cured by our surgeon, the grace of God prevailed with him. He chose rather to be put out of his friend's house than to retract what he had done; indeed, he even came to us of his own accord, and happily completed the work he had begun. "Another man, who was of noble birth, had been reduced to such pov- erty by his own unrestrained licentiousness, that he sold himself into this col- ony. Here, when he had been recalled by one of us to the right faith and the fruit of good living, he always anxiously doubted whether he had entered on the safe road. On one occasion, when he had intrusted himself to the sea in a small skiff, and a frightful storm arose, such as he had never seen — though he had often met with storms at sea — and certain shipwreek stared him in the face, he earnestly prayed to God that in confirmation of the faith he had lately received — if it were really true — He would ward off the impending danger. The Almighty heard his prayer. The storm turned in another direction, and unshaken conviction stilled his wavering mind. " Not long afterwards this man was brought to the last extremity by a severe disease. He received all the sacraments about an hour before his death and asked his Catholic attendant to pray for him. . . . Since his burial a very bright light has often been seen at night around his tomb, even by Protestants." It appears the spiritual state of the Maryland colony at this period was admirable. "As for the Catholics," observes the foregoing writer, "the attend- ance on the sacraments here is so large, that it is not greater among the Euro- peans in proportion to the number of Catholics. The more ignorant have been catechised, and catechetical lectures have been delivered for the more advanced every Sunday. On feast-days sermons have rarely been neglected. The sick and dying, who have been very numerous this year, and who dwelt far apart, we have assisted in every way, so that not even a single one has died without the sacraments. Very many we have buried, and we have bap- tized various persons. And, although there are not wanting frequent causes THE LAND OF THE SANCTUARY. 23 of dissension, yet none of any importance has arisen here in the last nine months which we have not immediately allayed. By the blessing of God we have this consolation — that no vices spring up among the new Catholics, although settlements of this kind are not usually supplied from the best class of men. " In Virginia we bought off two Catholics, who had sold themselves into bondage; nor was the money ill-spent, for both showed themselves good Christians. One, indeed, surpasses the ordinary standard. Some others have performed the same duty of charity, buying thence Catholic servants, who are very numerous in that country. There, every year, very many sell them- selves into bondage; and living among men of the worst example, and being destitute of all spiritual aid, they commonly make shipwreck of their souls." In the year 1639, we find Father White cheerfully toiling away at Kit- tamaquindi, an Indian town distant one hundred and twenty miles from St. Mary's. " There are," wrote one of the Jesuit fathers in that year, " in this mission four priests and one coadjutor. All are in places far distant — thus doubtless as they expect to obtain an earlier acquaintance with the savage language, and propagate more widely the sacred faith of the gospel. Father John Brock, the superior, with a coadjutor brother, remains on the plantation. Metepawien — which was given us by Maquacomen, the chief of Patuxent — is a certain storehouse of this mission, whence most of our bodily supplies are obtained. Father Philip Fisher lives in the principal town of the colony, to which the name of St. Mary is given. Father John Gravener lives on Kent Island, sixty miles distant. Father Andrew White is still further dis- tant — one hundred and twenty miles — at Kittamaquindi, the capital of Pascatoway. Since June, 1639, he has resided in the wigwam of the king himself. He is called Tayac." Why the venerable Father White went to Kittamaquindi is thus explained, at length, in the letter just quoted: " He had bestowed much time and labor for the conversion of the king of Patuxent, which, indeed, was expected by us all, both on account of the recollection of kindness received — for, as we have stated, he gave a farm to the society — and because he was said to be very powerful among the barbarians, on account of his reputation for wisdom and influence. Some of the people of this king had connected themselves with the fold of Christ ; and he himself appeared abundantly instructed in the first principles of the faith, when lo! unhappy man, he first procrastinates, then by degrees began to grow indifferent, and lastly, in an 24 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. open manner, to break off altogether from the design he had commenced. Nor was this all. He gave indications — too clear to be misunderstood — that his mind was entirely alienated from the whole colony. Then Governor Calvert, after prudently sounding the matter, determined, by the advice of his friends, that the father should be recalled from the hospitality of the king, lest unexpectedly the barbarian should give some example of his perfidy and cruelty against an innocent man; or, indeed, lest this hostage, as it were, being left with the king, he himself might be hindered from being able to revenge injuries, if at any time the Patuxent ruler should discover himself an enemy. " When rulers and kings are spoken of, let no one form in his mind an august idea of men, such as of the different princes in Europe. These Indian kings, though they have the most absolute power of life and death over their people, and in certain prerogatives of honor and wealth excel others, never- theless, in personal appearances they are scarcely anything removed from the multitude. The only peculiarity by which you can distinguish a chief from the common people, is some badge. Sometimes it is a collar made of a rude jewel, or a belt, or oftener a cloak ornamented with shells in circular rows. The dominions of these are commonly circumscribed by the narrow confines of a single village and the surrounding country. Tayac, however, rules over a much more extensive region, stretching about one hundred and thirty miles. Other inferior chieftains are also subject to him. " To Tayac, Father White betook himself, and being treated very kindly at the first interview, so attached the king to him, that he was afterwards held by him in the greatest love and veneration. With the father he shared the hospitality of his own residence. Nor was the queen inferior to her husband in benevolence to their guest. With no less care than labor, she prepared the meals with her own hands. " The cause of this remarkable affection for the father, is to be referred to two dreams — unless you deem it proper to honor them witn another name — which he had some time previously. One of the dreams appeared to the mind of Uwanno, Tayac's brother, who reigned before him, and whom he slew. In his sleep he seemed to see Father White and Father Gravener before him, and moreover to hear a voice saying: ' These are the men who from their souls love thee and all thy tribe. With them they bring those blessings by which, if thou desirest, thou canst be happy!' "Hence so lively an impression of these unknown men remained in his mind that even at the first sight he recognized them when coming to him, THE LAND OF THE SANCTUARY, 25 and afterwards embraced them with remarkable affection. He was also accustomed to call Father White his parent; and was very desirous to com- mit the care and instruction of his sons to him for seven years. The Indians are exceedingly fond of their children, and seldom let them go from their embraces. "The other dream, which he is often accustomed to relate, occurred to Tayac in his sleep. He dreamed that his deceased father appeared before him, accompanied by a god of a black color, whom he worshiped. This god besought Tayac not to desert him. At a short distance there appeared a very hideous demon, with a certain man named Snow, a most obstinate heretic from England — and, at length, in another direction appeared Governor Cal- vert and Father White, the latter accompanied by a god of indescribable beauty, who excelled the unstained snow in whiteness, and seemed gently to beckon the king to approach him. From that time Tayac treated both the governor and Father White with the greatest affection." Soon after another event happened which hastened the conversion of the chief. He was seized with a dangerous illness. In vain did forty medicine men exhaust their ingenuity, their charms, and their incantations upon the prostrated Tayac. Ordering them from his presence, he implored Father White to aid him. The venerable Jesuit's knowledge of medicine served him well. He bled the dusky chieftain, administered what he considered proper, and soon the patient arose from his sick hammock. He asked to be baptized. The missionary kindly told him that it was necessary to be well instructed first. The eagerness of this lordly son of the forest to master the truths of Christianity was indeed truly admirable. Himself, his wife, and his family daily listened to the instructions of the aged minister. Besides he no longer clothed himself in skins, but assumed the dress of the whites. "The king," observes the letter of 1639, " nas exchanged the skins with which he was heretofore clothed for garments made in our fashion. He also makes a little endeavor to learn our language. . . . He abstains from meat on the days which it is forbidden by the Christian laws; and men that are heretics and do otherwise, he thinks ought to be called bad Christians. He is greatly delighted with spiritual conversation, and, indeed, seems to esteem earthly wealth as nothing in comparison with the treasures of heaven, as he told Governor Calvert. The latter was explaining to him what great advan- tages could be enjoyed from the English by a mutual exchange of wares, when the chief remarked — ' In truth, I consider these trifling, when com- 26 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. pared with this one advantage, that through these missionaries I have arrived at the knowledge of the one true God. To me there is nothing among you greater than this; nor ought there to be anything greater.'" Tayac's anxiety for the conversion of his whole tribe was only equaled by his desire to be received into the Church. Convinced himself, he wished to make the truth known to others. The red ruler assembled his chiefs and people, and in an eloquent appeal told them that childish superstition had reigned too long in the wigwams of the Pascatoways. There was but one God, and He alone was worthy of the homage of brave men. He was the creator of all things. He was the Great Spirit worshiped by the black gowns. The stones and the objects adored by the Indians were but the humble works of His hands. And to show his contempt for their former idols, Tayac took one and tossed it with his foot. The warriors applauded the language and bold action of their chief, and henceforth Chris- tianity made a rapid conquest of this tribe. Thus did the holy words of Father White fall upon good ground, and bring forth a hundred-fold. About this time Tayac ac- cepted Father White's invitation to visit the town of St. Mary's, and was delighted with the scenes of peace, prosperity, and happi- ness which there met his eyes. This lord of the forest now eagerly begged to be baptized, and at length a day was fixed. The ceremony took place on the 5th of July, 1604, at his rude THE PASCATOWAY CHIEF capitol, Kittamaquindi, in a chapel built of bark for the occasion. '.'The governor," says the letter of 1640, " was present at the ceremony, together with his secretary and many others; nor was anything wanting in display which our means could supply." The venerable White, the friend and instructor of the red king officiated. Tayac, his queen, their little son, and several of the chief men of the tribe, THE LAND OF THE SANCTUARY. 27 were solemnly admitted into the Catholic Church by the regenerating waters of baptism. The converted chief assumed the name of Charles, in honor of the English sovereign. His wife took the name of Mary. The other con- verts also received Christian names. " In the afternoon," says the letter just quoted, "the king and queen were united in matrimony in the Christian manner; then the great holy cross was erected, in carrying which to its destined place the king, governor, secre- tary, and others, lent their hands and shoulders. Two of us, walking before them, at the same time chanted the Litany of the Blessed Virgin." What beauty and virtue and religion mingle in this happy scene, described by a venerable hand over two hundred years ago ! In which of the other English colonies of America can we find anything similar? Among them all, Catholic Maryland alone can present such a shining spectacle, such an historical thing of beauty lighting up the gloom of the past! Shortly after the foregoing event, Father White was prostrated by a severe illness. The great old priest in performing the ceremonies of the sacred rite of baptism — which were somewhat long — contracted a fever, and again suffered a relapse. Many months passed away before he was restored to good health. He was not idle, however, but revised and compiled the grammar, dictionary, and catechism in the language of his dusky flock, in order to aid his successor in the mission. In the winter of 1640-41, the charity of the Jesuit fathers and the Catholic colonists was doubly taxed. Gaunt famine stalked the forests of Maryland, for a great drought had marked the past summer. The body of the poor Indian was now as sadly in need of nourishment as his soul. Wails came from the wigwams, where formerly echoed naught save the sounds of joy and laughter. " That we might not appear to neglect their (the Indians') bodies," writes one of the missionaries, " for the care of whose souls we had made so great a voyage, though corn was sold at a very high price, nevertheless, we considered it necessary to relieve their want of bread by assisting them. Amid these cares .... we passed the greater part of the winter." " The Catholics who live in the colony," continues the same writer, "are not inferior in piety to those who live in other countries; but in urbanity of manners, according to the judgment of those who have visited the other colo- nies, are considered far superior to them. Everywhere the hope of harvest has dawned ; and while each one of us is anxious even unto death to help in the good work, various things happen worthv of recital. Two of the most 2K 28 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. prominent shall be stated here, in one of which the Divine mercy was mani- fest, in the other the Divine justice. "On the day upon which a certain man was about to abjure heresy, and to expiate the sins of his past life by confession, a fire arose in the interior of his house, and the flame, running up the door-post, burst out at the top. When he perceived the danger, for he was not far distant, he suddenly called to a neighbor, but could get no assistance whatever. He then ran to another but could find only two who would go with him. And all this time the fire was burning a house of dry logs. It was put out, however, before any serious injury had happened. Some feared lest, by this unexpected occurrence, the man might be deterred from conversion. But it happened far otherwise* From the slight damage done to his house he drew the conclusion that God was kind to him, and approved his design by a manifest token. Wherefore, uniting a great reformation in morals with the faith he professed, he now sheds abroad the sweet odor of a good example upon all who are acquainted with him. "A certain one, wnen he had felt some internal drawings of the faith of God, had desired prayer-beads for himself, but afterwards, having changed his mind, he was accustomed to smoke them in his pipe with tobacco, after they„ had been ground to powder, often boasting that he had eaten up YnsAve Marias for so he called the beads by the telling of which the angelical salutation \% recited. But the Divine vengeance did not let the wicked crime go unpun- ished, for scarcely a year having passed, on the returning eve of the day on which he had abandoned his purpose of embracing the Catholic Faith, a more sacrilegious playfulness possessed him. This was even noticed by his com. panions. In the afternoon, when he had betaken himself to the river for th& purpose of swimming, scarcely had he touched the water, when a huge fish having seized the wicked man, before he could retreat to the bank, tore away at a bite a large portion of his thigh, by the pain of which most-merited lacer- ation the unhappy wretch was hurried away from the living — the Divine jus- tice bringing it about that he, who a little while before boasted that he had eaten up his Ave Maria beads, should see his own flesh devoured even while he was yet living." In 1642, we find Father White again laboring among the Pascatoway Indians. Like Moses of old, it appears, age had neither dimmed his sight nor diminished his vigor. But he was not without his troubles; and, of course, we must be pardoned if we introduce a rather quaint and curious quotation THE LAND OF THE SANCTUARY 29 from the annual letter of 1642: "Father White," says the writer, "suffered no little inconvenience from a hard-hearted and troublesome captain of New England, whom he had engaged for the purpose of taking him and his effects, and from whom he was in fear a little while after, not without cause, that he would be cast either into the sea, or be carried with his property to New England, which is full of Puritan Calvinists — that is, of all Calvinist heresy. But silently committing the thing to God, at length in safety he reached Potomac, in which harbor, when they had cast anchor, the ship stuck so fast, bound by a great quantity of ice, that for the space of seventeen days it could not be moved. Walking on the ice, as if on the land, the father departed for the town. When the ice was broken up, the ship, driven and jammed by the force and violence of the ice, sunk, the cargo being in a great measure recovered. "By this misfortune Father White was detained longer on his visit, namely, seven weeks; for he found it necessary to bring another ship from St. Mary's. But the spiritual advantage of souls readily compensated for that delay; for during that time was added to the church the ruler of that little village, with the other principal men of its inhabitants, who received the faith of Christ and baptism. Besides these, also another, together with many of his friends; a third likewise, with his wife, his son, and a friend; a fourth, in like manner, with another of no ignoble standing among his tribe. By their example, the people are prepared to receive the Faith, whenever we will have leisure to instruct them by catechism." " Not long after," continues the same letter, " the young princess — as they call her at Pascatoway — was baptized in the town of St. Mary's, and is being educated there. She is now a proficient in the English language." At this time an Indian war broke out, and the Susquehannas and other tribes poured down on Maryland and its allies. The hostile savages attacked a settlement, massacred the people, and carried off the spoil. Pascatoway was also in peril, as it was constantly exposed to attacks from the enemy. The mission was removed to Potopaco, where nearly the whole tribe embraced the Faith. At this time Father White and the other missionaries made several excursions up the Patuxent River, and in various parts, this being the safest and best means, on account of the war. Those missionary journeys are thus described by one of themselves: "We sail in an open boat — the father, an interpreter, and servant. In a calm or adverse wind, two row and the third steers the boat. We carry a 3° THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. basket of bread, cheese, butter, dried roasted ears of corn, beans and some meal, and a chest containing the sacerdotal vestments, the slab or altar for Mass, the wine used in the holy sacrifice, and blessed baptismal water. In another chest we carry knives, hoes, little bells, fishing-hooks, needles, thread, and other trifles, for presents to the Indians. We take two mats — a small one to shelter us from the sun, and a larger one to protect us from the rain. The servant carries implements for hunting, and cooking utensils. We endeavor to reach some Indian village or English plantation at night-fall. If we do not succeed, then the father secures our boat to the bank, collects wood and makes a fire, while the other two go out to hunt; and after cook- ing our game, we take some refreshments, and then lie down to sleep around the fire. When threatened with rain, we erect a tent, covering it with our large mat. And thanks be to God, we enjoy our scanty fare and hard beds, as much as if we were accommodated with the luxuries of Europe. The consolation we find in the promises of the Almighty to those who labor faith- fully in His service, and the watchful care He seems to have of us, gives us strength to bear up against difficulties, so much so, that it is surprising that we are able to accomplish what we do." This kind of life was not by any means free from danger, but to Fatner White and his colleagues life was less dear than duty. Several thrilling adventures and miraculous cures also marked this period. On one occasion an Anacostan Indian, a Christian, in making his way through a wood,, dropped a little behind his companions, when some hostile Susquehannas suddenly fell upon him. In their fury the savages pierced him with a light, strong spear of locust-wood — from which they made their arrows — tipped with a sharp iron point. The deadly weapon passed through the unhappy man from side to side, about the width of a hand below the arm-pit, and quite near the heart. The wound was described as " two fingers broad at each side." Thinking they had killed the Anacostan, the Susquehannas fled. His companions, however, who had gone on before, were recalled by the sudden noise of the brief struggle. They carried the wounded man from the land to the boat which was near — and thence to his home at Pascatoway. Here they left him speechless and out of his senses. The accident was reported to the venerable White, who was always at hand, or going about doing good. He hastened to the wigwam the follow- ing morning, and found the unhappy Indian before the door, lying on a mat near the fire, and enclosed by a circle of his tribe. He was not, as the day THE LAND OF THE SANCTUARY. 3 1 previously, speechless or out of his senses; but he expected death every moment. The poor Anacostan joined his mournful voice with the song of his friends, who stood around, as was the custom when the more distinguished men of the tribe were about to die. But some of his friends were Christians, and they sang with musical sweetness: " May he live, O God! if it so please Thee." Again and again, they repeated the sweet and plaintive air, until Father White began to speak to the dying man, who knew the aged Jesuit, and showed him his wounds. The man of God saw the danger at a glance, and briefly running over the chief articles of Faith, heard the Indian's con- fession, and gave him absolution. Then elevating his soul with hope and confidence in God, he recited the Gospel which is to be read for the sick, and the Litany of the Most Blessed Virgin, and told the dying warrior to commend himself to her most holy intercession, and to call unceasingly on the blessed name of Jesus. Father White then applied the sacred relic of the Most Holy Cross — which he carried in a casket hung about his neck — to the wound on each side. The missionary was now obliged to leave. At some distance away, an aged Indian was near death, and he wished to be baptized. As Father White departed from the wigwam, he directed the bystanders to carry the Anacostan, when he breathed his last, to the chapel for the purpose of burial. It was noon when the apostle of Maryland finally directed his steps towards the point where the aged Indian expected his ministrations. The * following day, at the same hour, as he sailed along in his boat, he saw two Indians paddling towards him. When they came alongside one of them put his foot into the father's boat. "While the priest," says the annual letter of 1642, "gazed on the man with fixed eyes, being in doubt, for in a measure he recognized him by his features, who he was, but in part recollecting in what state he had left him the day before, when the Indian on a sudden threw open his cloak and disclosed the cicatrices of the wounds, or rather a red spot on each side, as a trace of the wound, at once removed all doubt from him. Moreover, in language full of joy, he exclaimed that he was entirely well, nor from the hour at which the father had left yesterday had he ceased to invoke the most holy name of Jesus, to whom he attributed his recovered health ! All who were in the boat with Father White, after they investigated the thing, both by the senses of seeing and hearing, breaking forth into praise of God and thanksgiving, were greatly rejoiced and confirmed in the Faith at this miracle." 3 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. The gigantic labors of Father White in Maryland were now approach- ing their termination. By himself and his companions in ten years the Gospel had been preached with success to the Indians at St. Mary's; at Kent Island, in the Chesapeake Bay; at Pascatoway and Port Tobacco, on the Maryland side of the Potomac; at Patowmeck town, on the Virginia side of the same river; at Mattapany and Pawtuxent town, on the Patuxent River; and at many other places which were visited by the missionaries in their aquatic expeditions. But misfortune now frowned on Maryland, its people, and its beautiful scenes of missionary toil. A party of Puritans were expelled from Virginia in 1642, and seeking refuge in Maryland, were received with open arms. The new-comers, however, soon began to manifest a spirit of insurrection. In Clayborne, a bold and lawless man, who was plotting to overthrow the government of Lord Baltimore, they found a worthy leader; and, with the basest ingratitude, those vile men raised their hands against the kind friends who had sheltered and succored them in the hour of need. Turning about like vipers, they bit the very benefactors who had warmed them into life. Clavborne and his Protestant mob triumphed in 1644. Governor Calvert was obliged to fly, and with him departed peace, justice, and religion. Many of the Maryland Catholics were banished, and robbed of their possessions. Lawlessness and intolerance ravaged the country. The altars of religion were overthrown, and even the venerable apostle of Maryland and the other Jesuit fathers were seized, put in irons, and like criminals shipped to England, and there cast into loathsome dungeons. Father Andrew White, despite his earnest desire, had not the happiness of returning to America. After many years' confinement he was banished from England, but by his superior's orders at once returned again, braving the rigor of the penal laws against missionaries. He devoted the closing years of his life to the same ministry in which he had spent his youth, and the apostle of Maryland died at London, in 1657, one of the holiest members of an order which has produced so many saints. Meanwhile his fellow religious maintained their ground in America, amid the constant disorders in which the colony languished, and for more than a century the English Jesuits, in uninterrupted succession, kept alive the faith of the settlers amid the persecutions of which they were the victims, and of which we cannot omit some account. The Catholics had already been persecuted, but they did not learn to THE LAND OF THE SANCTUARY. 33 pei «cute. Composing a majority in the assembly of 1649, tnev P ass ed the famous "act concerning religion," which provided that "no person whatso- ever, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall be molested for or in respect of his or her religion, or the free exercise thereof." This " toleration act " was the first ordinance of its kind known in North America. The noble founder of the colony had even drafted oaths, binding his deputies and their council not to interfere with any man's conscience. Thus the Episcopalian, excluded from New England, had a home in Maryland and a seat in its assembly; the Puritan, driven from Virginia, sat at the same council board with the Episcopalian. Yet the conduct of these Catholic Marylanders was ungratefully scorned, their example of liberality was nowhere followed. In 1654 the provincial assembly deprived Catholics of their civil rights and decreed that liberty of conscience should not extend to " popery, prelacy, or licentiousness cf opinion," an act which has drawn from the historian Ban- croft this reflection: "The Puritans had neither the gratitude to respect the rights of the government, by which they had been received and fostered, nor magnanimity to continue the toleration to which alone they were indebted for their residence in the colony." In 1692 the assemby established the Anglican Church throughout the colony of Maryland, dividing the counties into parishes, and imposing a tax on citizens of every denomination for the support of the Protestant clergy. While the Catholics were masters of the government, they made no such exaction for the support of their missionaries. The Jesuits received conces- sions of land on the same terms as other colonists, but all was voluntary in the offerings of the faithful; and now Catholics were compelled to pay for the support of a creed which persecuted them ! In 1704 a new law, entitled "An act to prevent the increase of popery in the province," prohibited all bishops and priests from saying Mass, exercising the spiritual functions of their ministry, or endeavoring to gain converts; it also forbid Catholics to teach, and enabled a Catholic child, by becoming a Protestant, to exact from its Catholic parents its proportion of his property, as though they were dead. Catholics were, however, permitted to hear Mass in their own families and on their own grounds, and only by this exception could the Catholic worship be practiced in Maryland for seventy years. The property of the Jesuits rested on the compact between Lord Balti- more and the colonists, entitled "Conditions of Plantations," by which every colonist settling with five able-bodied laborers, was entitled to two thousand 4 oa THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. acres of land at a moderate rate. Moreover, the Indian kings whom they had converted, had made gratuitous concessions of land to the Church. According to the law, the Jesuits could exercise the ministry only in their own house and for their own servants; and the size of the chapels corre- sponded to this ostensible design, and they were always connected with the house. Of course, however, the Catholics eluded the letter of the law, and these houses became the sole refuge of religion in Maryland. In 1706 an act authorized the meetings of the Quakers, so that in a colony founded by Catholics, Catholics were the only victims of the intoler- ance of the dominant party. During the following years successive laws deprived them of the elective franchise, unless they took the test oath and renounced their faith. The executive power, too, often arbitrarily issued proclamations by its own authority, "to take children from the pernicious influence of Catholic parents," and the assembly voted that Papists should pay double the tax levied on Protestants. The animosity against Catholics at last became such that they were forbidden to appear in certain parts of the towns, and they were in a manner shut up in a sort of Ghetto. Many of the Catholics now sought to escape this oppression, and Daniel Carroll, father of the future bishop of Baltimore, sailed to France in 1752 to negotiate for the emigration of all the Maryland Catholics to Louisiana. For this purpose he had several interviews with the ministry of Louis XV, in order to convince them of the immense resources of the valley of the Mis- sissippi; but the government which abandoned Canada to England, and sold Louisiana to Spain, was not able to appreciate the forecast of Carroll, and his offers were rejected. During all this period of oppression the Catholics of Maryland, with rare exceptions, remained faithful to the Church, and as their missionaries afforded them means of Catholic education, many of the younger members, to pursue more extensive studies, crossed the ocean. Many of both sexes in France and Belgium entered religious orders ; some returning as Jesuit fathers to repay the care bestowed on themselves; others, by their prayers in silent cloisters, obtaining graces and spiritual blessings for their distant Maryland. Of the Jesuits who labored in Maryland prior to the Revolution, a great many were natives of the province, and we find others on the mission in England. The penal laws prevented any emigration of Catholics to Maryland, and, indeed, the only accession to their numbers which the faithful in Maryland received from abroad, was a number of Acadians, who, after beholding the THE LAND OF THE SANCTUARY. 35 devastation of their happy homes on the Bay of Fundy, were torn from their native shores in 1755, and thrown destitute on the coast of the various colonies. Those who were set ashore in Maryland seem to have been more happy than most of their suffering countrymen. For a considerable period they enjoyed the presence of a priest — the Rev. Mr. Leclerc — and raised a church on a hill outside of Baltimore. On the departure of this excellent man, who left them vestments and altar plate, these Acadians had to rely on the occasional visits of the Jesuit fathers. Meanwhile the Anglican clergy in Maryland, fattening on their tithes, lived in plenty and disorder amid their slaves, without in the least troubling their minds about preaching to their flocks. So notorious is this disorderly conduct of the colonial clergy, that the Protestant bishop of Maryland a few years since exclaimed: "Often as I hear and read authentic evidence of the character of a large proportion of the clergy in the province of Maryland two generations since, I am struck with wonder that God spared a church so universally corrupt, and did not utterly remove its candlestick out of its place." As a contrast we give the following address of the legislature to the gov- ernor of Maryland, on the 16th of March, 1697: " On the complaint of a minister of the Church of England, that the popish priests in Charles county do, of their own accord, in this violent and raging mortality in that county, make it their business to go up and down the county to persons' houses when dying and frantic, and endeavor to seduce and make proselytes of them, and in such condition boldly presume to administer the sacraments to them ; we humbly entreat your excellency to issue your proclamation to restrain and prohibit such their extravagant and presumptuous behavior." Thus the wide difference between a ministry of truth and a ministry of error appeared in Maryland as elsewhere, the former devoting life in the service of their neighbor, the latter only thinking of the enjoyments of life. This degradation of the Anglican clergy at last sapped all their authority, and the feelings of the Protestants towards their Catholic countrymen began gradually to change. When discontent with the mother country awakened ideas of an insurrection throughout the colonies, it became important to con- ciliate the Catholics; and both parties, Whigs and Tories, vied with each other in emancipating them. The convention in 1774 made the following appeal to the people: " As our opposition to the settled plan of the British administration to 36 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. enslave America will be strengthened by a union of all ranks of men within this province, we do most earnestly recommend that all former differences about religion or politics, and all private animosities and quarrels of every kind, from henceforth cease, and be forever buried in oblivion; and we entreat, we conjure every man by his duty to God, his country, and his pos- terity, cordially to unite in defense of our common rights and liberties." The act emancipating the Catholics of Maryland followed close on this appeal ; but, as we have seen, it was wrested from the party in power by the critical position of affairs, and did not spring from any noble motive. This should never be forgotten when Protestants boast of the toleration which they allow the Church in the United States. MlmpUx III. ON bllJERTy'S AfcTAR. Thk Dawn of the Revolution. — Position of the Catholic Minority. — Their Nucleus in Maryland. — The Scattered Acadians.— Worshipers in the West. — Sympathy with Colonial Aspirations. — Ireland's Wrongs Remem- bered. —English Tyranny in Canada. — The Famous Quebec Act. — Cry of "No Popery." — Bigoted John Jay. — Flight of the Scotch Catholics. — The Retort Courteous. — Outspoken Patriots in Maryland. — Carroll, of Carrollton. — Catholics Filling the Army. — How Canada Was Lost to the Cause. — The Mission of Franklin and Carroll. — Washington Seeks Catholic Allies. — The Brave Chief Orono. — Father Gibault Serves the Cause. — An Unredeemed Debt. — Volunteers from Catholic France. — Relics of the Irish Brigade. — Lafayette, Pulaski. — Loyal Governor Lee. — The French Alliance. — Washington's Gratitude. — Spanish Aid from the South. — England's Protestant Mercenaries. — Washington's Plea for Good Feeling. — Some Hero Sketches. HE moment of England's triumph in the last century was the dawn of American independence. When England, aided by her colonies, had at last wrested Canada from France, and, forcing that weakened power to relinquish Louisiana to Spain, had restored Havana to the Catholic sovereign only at the price of Florida, her swav seemed secure over all North America from the icy ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, from the shores of the Atlantic to the Mississippi. But her very success had aroused questions and created wants which were not to be answered and solved until her mighty American power was shattered. While Spain and France kept colonies in leading-strings, England allowed her American provinces to thrive by her utter neglect of them. Monarchs granted charters liberally, and with that their interest seemed to vanish, until it was discovered that offices could be found there for court favorites. But the people had virtually constituted governments of their own ; 37 j 38 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. had their own treasury, made their own laws, waged their wars with the Indians, carried on trade, unaided and almost unrecognized by the mother country. The final struggle with France had at last awakened England to the importance, wealth, and strength of the American colonies. It appeared to embarrassed English statesmen that the depleted coffers of the national treas- ury might be greatly aided by taxing these prosperous communities. The Americans, paying readily taxes where they could control their disbursement, refused to accept new burdens and to pay the mother country for the honor of being governed. The relation of colonies to the mother country ; the question of right in the latter to tax the former; the bounds and just limits on either side, involved new and undiscussed points. They now became the subject of debate in parliament, in colonial assemblies, in every town gather- ing, and at every fireside in the American colonies. The people were all British subjects, proud of England and her past; a large majority were devoted to the Protestant religion and the house of Hanover, and sought to remain in adherence to both while retaining all the rights they claimed as Englishmen. A small body of Catholics existed in the country. What their position was on the great questions at issue can be briefly told. They were of many races and nationalities. No other church then or now could show such varieties, blended together by a common faith. Mary- land, settled by a Catholic proprietor, with colonists largely Catholic, and for a time predominantly so, contained some thousands of native-born Catholics of English, and to some extent of Irish origin, proud of their early Maryland record, of the noble character of the charter, and of the nobly tolerant charac- ter of the early laws and practice of the land of Mary. * In Pennsylvania a smaller Catholic body existed, more scattered, by no means so compact or so influential as their Maryland brethren — settlers coming singly during the eight- eenth century mainly, or descendants of such emigrants, some of whom had been sent across the Atlantic as bondsmen by England, others coming as redemp- tioners, others again as colonists of means and position. They were not only of English, Irish, and Scotch origin, but also of the German race, with a few from France and other Catholic states. New Jersey and New York had still fewer Catholics than Pennsylvania. In the other colonies, from New Hampshire to Georgia, they existed only as individuals lost in the general body of the people. But all along the coast were scattered by the cruel hand ON LIBERTY'S ALTAR. 39 of English domination the unfortunate Acadians, who had been ruthlessly torn from their Nova Scotian villages and farms, deprived of all they had on earth — home and property and kindred. With naught left them but their Faith, these Acadians formed little groups of dejected Catholics in many a part, not even their noble courage amid unmerited suffering exciting sympathy or kindly encouragement from the colonists. Florida had a remnant of its old Spanish population, with no hopes for the future from the Protestant power to which the fortunes of war and the vicissitudes of affairs had made them subjects. There were besides in that old Catholic colony some Italians and Minorcans, brought over with Greeks under TurnbulPs project of coloniza- tion. Maine had her Indians, of old steady foes of New England, now at peace, submitting to the new order of things, thoroughly Catholic from the teaching of their early missionaries. New York had Catholic Indians on her northern frontier. The Catholic Wyandots clustered around the pure streams and springs of Sandusky. Further west, from Detroit to the mouth of the Ohio, from Vincennes to Lake Superior, were little communities of Canadian French, all Catholics, with priests and churches, surrounded by Indian tribes among all which missionaries had labored, and not in vain. Some tribes were completely Catholic; others could show some, and most of them many, who had risen from the paganism of the red-men to the Faith of Christ. Such was the Catholic body — colonists who could date back their origin to the foundation of Maryland or Acadia, Florida or Canada. Indians of various tribes, new-comers from England, Germany, or Ireland. There were, too, though few, converts, who, belonging to the Protestant emigration, had been led by God's grace to see the truth, and who resolutely shared the odium and bondage of an oppressed and unpopular Church. The questions at issue between the colonists and the mother country were readily answered by the Catholics of every class. Catholic theologians nowhere but in the Gallican circles of France had learned to talk of the divine right of kings. The truest, plainest doctrines of the rights of the people found their exposition in the works of Catholic divines. By a natural instinct they sided with those who claimed for these new communities in the western world the right of self-government. Catholics, of whatever race or origin, were on this point unanimous. Evidence meets us on every side. Duche, an episcopal clergyman, will mention Father Harding, the pastor of the Catholics in Philadelphia, for "his known attachment to British liberty" — they had not yet begun to talk of American liberty. Indian, French, and . THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Acadian, bound by no tie to England, could brook no subjection to a distant and oppressive power. t The Irish and Scotch Catholics, with old wrongs and a lingering Jacobite dislike to the house of Hanover, required no labored arguments to draw them to the side of the popular movement. All these elements excited distrust in England. Even a hundred years before in the councils of Britain fears had been expressed that the Maryland Catholics, if they gained strength, would one day attempt to set up their independence; and the event justified the fear. If they did not originate the movement, they went heartily into it. The English government had begun in Canada its usual course of harass- ing and grinding down its Catholic subjects, putting the thousands of Cana- dians completely at the mercy of the few English adventurers or office- holders who entered the province, giving three hundred and sixty Protestant sutlers and camp-followers the rights of citizenship and all the offices in Canada, while disfranchising the real people of the province, the one hundred and fifty thousand Canadian Catholics. How such a system works we have seen, unhappily, in our own day and country. But with the growing discon- tent in her old colonies, caused by the attempts of parliament to tax the set- tlers indirectly, where they dared not openly, England saw that she must take some decisive steps to make the Canadians contented subjects, or be pre pared to lose her dear-bought conquest as soon as any war should break our in which she herself might be involved. Instead of keeping the treaty of Paris as she had kept that of Limerick, England for once resolved to be honest and fulfill her agreement. It was a moment when the thinking men among the American leaders should have won the Canadians as allies to their hopes and cause; but they took counsel of bigotry, allowed England to retrace her false steps, and by tardy justice secure the support of the Canadians. The Quebec act of 1774 organized Canada, including in its extent the French communities in the west. Learning a lesson from Lord Baltimore and Catholic Maryland, " the nation which would not so much as legally recognize the existence of a Catholic in Ireland now from political considera- tions recognized on the St. Lawrence the free exercise of the religion of the Church of Rome, and confirmed to the clergy of that Church their rights and dues." Just and reasonable as the act was, solid in policy, and, by introducing the English criminal law and forms of government, gradually preparing tht ON LIBERTY'S ALTAR. 4 : people for an assimilation in form to the other British colonies, this Quebec act, from the simple fact that it tolerated Catholics, excited stiong denunciation on both sides of the Atlantic. The city of London addressed the king before he signed the bill, petitioning that he should refrain from doing so. " The Roman Catholic religion, which is known to be idolatrous and bloody, is established by this bill," say these wiseacres, imploring George III, as the guardian of the laws, liberty, and religion of his people, and as the great bul- wark of the Protestant faith, not to give his royal assent. In America, when the news came of its passage, the debates as to their wrongs, as to the right of parliament to pass stamp acts or levy duties on imports, to maintain an army or quarter soldiers on the colonists, seemed to be forgotton in their horror of this act of toleration. In New York the flag with the union and stripes was run up, bearing bold and clear on a white stripe the words, " No Popery." The congress of 1774, though it numbered some of the clearest heads in the colonies, completely lost sighl of the vital importance of Canada territorially, and of the advantage of secur- ing as friends a community of 150,000 whose military ability had been shown on a hundred battle-fields. Addressing the people of Great Britain, this con- gress says: " By another act the Dominion of Canada is to be so extended, modeled, and governed as that, by being disunited from us, detached from our interests by civil as well as religious prejudices; that by their numbers swelling with Catholic emigrants from Europe, and by their devotion to administration so friendly to their religion, they might become formidable to us, and on occasion be fit instruments in the hands of power to reduce the ancient free Protestant colonies to the same slavery with themselves." "Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British parliament should ever con- sent to establish in that country a religion that has deluged your island in blood, and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion through every part of the world." This address, the work of the intense bigot John Jay, and of the furious storm of bigotry evoked in New England and New York, was most disas- trous in its results to the American cause. Canada was not so delighted with her past experience of English rule or so confident of the future as to accept unhesitatingly the favors accorded by the Quebec act. She had from the first sought to ally herself with the neighboring English colonies, and to avoid European complications. When she proposed the alliance, they declined. She would now have met their proposal warmly; but when this address was a 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. circulated in Canada, it defeated the later and wiser effort of congress to win that province through Franklin, Chase, and the Carrolls. It made the expe- ditions against the British forces there, at first so certain of success by Can- adian aid, result in defeat and disgrace. In New York a little colony of Scotch Catholics who would gladly have paid off the score of Culloden, took alarm at the hatred shown their faith, and fled with their clergymen to Canada to give strength to our foe, when they wished to be of us and with us. In the west it enabled British officers to make Detroit a center from which they exerted an influence over the western tribes that lasted down into the present century, and which Jay's treaty — a tardy endeavor to undo his mischief of 1774 — did not succeed in checking. Pamphlets, attacking or defending the Quebec act, appeared on both sides of the Atlantic. In the English interest it was shown that the treaty of Paris already guaranteed their religion to the Canadians, and that the rights of their clergy were included in this. It was shown that to insist on Eng- land's establishing the state church in Canada would justify her in doing the same in New England. "An Englishman's answer" to the address of con- gress rather maliciously turned Jay's bombast on men like himself by saying : " If the actions of the different sects in religion are inquired into, we shall find, by turning over the sad historic page, that it was the sect (I forget what they call them; I mean the sect which is still most numerous in New Eng- land, and not the sect which they so much despise) that in the last century deluged our island in blood; that even shed the blood of the sovereign, and dis- persed impiety, bigotry, superstition, hypocrisy, persecution, murder and rebellion through every part of the empire." One who later in life became a Catholic, speaking of the effect of this bill in New England, says: " We were all ready to swear that this same George, by granting the Quebec bill, had thereby become a traitor, had broken his coronation oath, was secretly a papist," etc. " The real fears of popery in New England had its influence." " The common word then was: * No king, no popery.' " But tehough Canada was thus alienated, and some Catholics at the north frightened away, in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the French west the fanati- cism was justly regarded as a mere temporary affair, the last outburst of a bigotry that could not live and thrive on the soil. Providence was shaping all things wisely ; but we cannot be surprised at the wonder some soon felt. Now, what must appear very singular," says the writer above quoted, " is ON LIBERTY'S ALTAR. 43 that the two parties naturally so opposite to each other should become, even at the outset, united in opposing the efforts of the mother country. And now we find the New England people and the Catholics of the southern states fighting side by side, though stimulated by extremely different motives; the one acting through fear lest the king of England should succeed in establish- ing among us the Catholic religion; the other equally fearful lest his bitter- ness against the Catholic faith should increase till they were either destroyed or driven to the mountains and waste places of the wilderness." Such was the position of the Catholics as the rapid tide of events was bearing all on to a crisis. The Catholics in Maryland and Pennsylvania were outspoken in their devotion to the cause of the colonies. In Mary- land, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, trained abroad in the schools of France and the law-courts of England, with all the learning of the English barrister widened and deepened by a knowledge of the civil law of the continent, grappled in controversy the veteran Dulany of Maryland. In vain the Tory advocate attempted, by sneers and jibes at the prfrscribed position of the foreign-trained Catholic, to evade the logic of his arguments. The eloquence and learning of Carroll triumphed, and he stood before his countrymen dis- enthralled, There, at least, it was decided by the public mind that Catholics were to enjoy all the rights of their fellow-citizens, and that citizens like Car- roll were worthy of their highest honors. " The benign aurora of the com- ing Republic," says Bancroft, " lighted the Catholic to the recovery of his rightful political equality in the land which a Catholic proprietary had set apart for religious freedom." In 1775, Charles Carroll was a member of the first committee of observation and a delegate to the provincial convention of Maryland, the first Catholic in any public office since the days of James II. " Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the great representative of his fellow- believers, and already an acknowledged leader of the patriots, sat in the Maryland convention as the delegate of a Protestant constituency, and bore an honorable share in its proceedings." When the news of Lexington rang through the land, borne from town to town by couriers on panting steeds, regiments were organized in all the colonies. Catholics stepped forward to shoulder their rifles and firelocks. Few aspired to commissions, from which they had hitherto been excluded in the militia and troops raised for actual service, but the rank and file showed Catholics, many of them men of intelligence and fair education, eager to meet all perils and to prove on the field of battle that thev were worth v of aa THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. citizenship in all its privileges. Ere long, however, Catholics by ability and talent won rank in the army and navy of the young Republic. We Catholics have been so neglectful of our history that no steps were ever taken to form a complete roll of those glorious heroes of the faith who took part in the revolutionary struggle. The few great names survive — Moylan, Burke, Barry, Vigo, Orono, Louis, Landais; here and there the journal of a Catholic soldier like McCurtin has been printed; but in our shameful neglect of the past we have done nothing to compile a roll that we can point to with pride. When hostilities began, it became evident that Canada must be gained. Expeditions were fitted out to reduce the British posts. The Canadians evinced a friendly disposition, giving ready assistance by men, carriages, and provisions to an extent that surprised the Americans. Whole parishes even offered to join in reducing Quebec and lowering the hated flag of England from the castle of St. Louis, where the lilies had floated for nearly two cen- turies. But the bigotry that inspired some of our leaders was too strong in many of the subordinates to permit them to reason. They treated these Catholic Canadians as enemies, ill-used and dragooned them so that almost the whole country was ready to unite in repulsing them. Then came Mont- gomery's disaster, and the friends of America in Canada dwindled to a few priests; La Valiniere, Carpentier, the ex-Jesuits Huguet and Floquet, and the Canadians who enlisted in Livingston's, Hazen's, and Duggan's corps, under Guillot, Loseau, Aller, Basad<§, Menard, and other Catholic officers. Then congress awoke to its error. As that strategic province was slip- ping from the hands of the confederated colonies, as Hazen's letters came urging common sense, congress appointed a commission with an address to the Canadian people to endeavor even then to win them. Benjamin Franklin was selected with two gentlemen from Catholic Maryland — Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll. To increase their influence, congress requested the Rev. John Carroll to accompany them, hoping that the presence of a Catholic priest and a Catholic layman, both educated in France and acquainted with the French character, would effect more than any argument that could be brought to bear on the Canadians. They hastened to do their utmost, but eloquence and zeal failed. The Canadians distrusted the new order of things in America; the hostility shown in the first address of congress seemed too well supported by the acts of Americans in Canada. They turned a deaf ear to the words of the Carrolls, and adhered to England. ON LIBERTY'S ALTAR. 45 Canada was thus lost to us. Taking our stand among the nations of the earth, we could not hope to include that province, but must ever have it on our flank in the hands of England. This fault was beyond redemption. But the recent war with Pontiac was now recalled. Men remembered how the Indian tribes of the west, organized by the mastermind of that chief, had swept away almost in an instant every fort and military post from the Mississippi to the Alleghanies, and marked out the frontier by a line of blaz- ing houses and villages from Lake Erie to Florida. What might these same western hordes do in the hands of England, directed, supplied, and organized for their fell work by British officers! The Mohawks and other Iroquois of New York had retired to the English lines, and people shuddered at what was to come upon them there. The Catholic Indians in Maine had been won to our side by a wise policy. Washington wrote to the tribe in 1745, and deputies from all the tribes from the Penobscot to Gaspe met in the Massa- chusetts Council at Watertown. Ambrose Var, the chief of the St. John's Indians, Orono of Penobscot, came with words that showed the reverent Christian. Of old they had been enemies; they were glad to become friends: they would stand beside the colonists. Eminently Catholic, every tribe asked for a priest ; and Massachusetts promised to do her best to obtain French priests for her Catholic allies. Throughout the war these Catholic Indians served us well, and Orono, who bore a continential commission, lived to see priests restored to his village and religion flourishing. Brave and consistent, he never entered the churches of the Protestant denominations, though often urged to do so. He practiced his duties faithfully as a Catholic, and replied: " We know our religion and love it; we know nothing of yours." Maine acknowledges his worth by naming a town after this grand old Catholic. But the west! Men shuddered to think of it. The conquest of Canada by a course of toleration and eqality to Catholics would have made all the Indian trihes ours. The Abnakis had been won by a promise to them as Catholics; the Protestant and heathen Mohawks were on the side of England, though the Catholics of the same race in Canada were friendly. If the Indians in the west could be won to neutrality even, no sacrifice would be too great. \ Little as American statesmen knew it, they had friends there. And if the United States at the peace secured the northwest and extended her bounds to the Mississippi, it was due to the Very Rev. Peter Gibault, the Catholic 46 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. priest of Vincennes and Kaskaskia, and to his sturdy adherent, the Italian Col. Vigo. Entirely ignorant of what the feeling there might be, Col. George Rogers Clark submitted to the legislature of Virginia, whose back- woods settlement, Kentucky, was immediately menaced, a plan for reducing the English posts in the northwest. Jefferson warmly encouraged the danger- ous project, on which so much depended. Clark, with his handful of men, struck through the wilderness for the old French post of Kaskaskia. He appeared before it on the 4th of July, 1778. But the people were not enemies. Their pastor had studied the questions at issue, and, as Clark tells us, " was rather prejudiced in favor of us." ] The people told the American com- mander they were convinced that the cause was one which they ought ! to espouse, and that they should be J happy to convince him of their zeal. When Father Gibault asked whether I he was at liberty to perform his I duty in his church, Clark told him that he had nothing to do with I churches, except to defend them from insult; that, by the laws of the I state, his religion had as great privi- leges as any other. The first Fourth of July celebration at Kaskaskia was a hearty one. The streets were strewn with flowers and hung with flags, and all gave themselves up to joy. But Clark's work was not done. The English lay in force at Vincennes. Father Gibault and Col. Vigo, who had been in the Spanish service, but came over to throw in his fortunes with us, urged Clark to move at once on Vincennes. It seemed to him rash, but Father Gibault showed how it could be taken. He went on himself with Dr. Lefont, won every French hamlet to the cause, and concili- ated the Indians wherever he could reach them. Vigo, on a similar excursion, was captured by British Indians and carried a prisoner to Hamilton, the English commander at Vincennes, but that officer felt that he could not detain a Spanish subject, and was compelled by the French to release him. When Clark, in February, appeared with his half-starved men, including Capt. FATHER GIBAULT TREATING WITH THE INDIANS. 0A T LIBERTY'S ALTAR. 47 Charlevoix's company of Kaskaskia Catholics, before Vincennes, and demanded its surrender with as bold a front as though he had ten thousand men at his back, the English wavered, and one resolute attack compelled them to surrender at discretion. What is now Indiana and Illinois, Wiscon- sin and Upper Michigan, was won to the United States. To hold it and sup- ply the Indians required means. Clark issued paper money in the name of Virginia, and the patriotic Col. Vigo and Father Gibault exhausted all their resources to redeem this paper and maintain its credit, although the hope of their ever being repaid for their sacrifice was slight, and, slight as it might have been, was never realized. Their generous sacrifice enabled Clark to retain his conquest, as the spontaneous adhesion of his allies to the cause had enabled him to effect it. The securing of the old French posts, Vincennes, Fort Chartres, and others in the west which the English had occupied, together with the friendship of the French population, secured all the Indians in that part, and relieved the frontiers of half their danger. Well does Judge Law remark : « Next to Clark and Vigo, the United States are more indebted to Father Gibault for the accession of the States comprised in what was the original Northwestern Territory than to any other man." Those Western Catholics did good service in many an expedition, and in 1780 La Balm, with a force raised in the Illinois settlements and Vincennes undertook to capture Detroit, the headquarters of the English atrocities. He perished with nearly all his little Catholic force where Fort Wayne stands, leaving many a family in mourning. The first bugle-blast of America for battle in the name of freedom seemed to wake a response in many Catholic hearts in Europe. Officers came over from France to offer their swords, the experience they had acquired and the training they had developed in the campaigns of the great com- manders of the time. Among the names are several that have the ring of the old Irish brigade. Dugan, Arundel, De Saint Aulaire, Vibert, Col. Dubois, De Kermorvan, Lieut.. Col. De Franchessen, St. Martin, Vermonet, Dorre, Pelissier, Malmady, Mauduit, Rochefermoy, De la Neuville, Armand, Fleury, Conway, Lafayette, Du Portail, Gouvion, Du Coudray, Pulaski, Roger, Dorset, Gimat, Brice, and others, rendered signal service, especially as engineers and chiefs of staff, where skill and military knowledge were most required. Around Lafayette popular enthusiasm gathered, but he was not alone. Numbers of these Catholic officers served gallantly at various points 4 8 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. during the war, aiding materially in laying out works and planning opera- tions, as well as by gallantly doing their duty in the field, sharing gayly the sufferings and privations of the men of '76. Some who came to serve in the ranks or as officers rendered other service to the country. yEdanus Burke, of Galway, a pupil of St. Omer's, like the Carrolls, came out to serve as a soldier, represented South Carolina in the Continental Congress, and was for some time chief-justice of his adopted State. P. S. Duponceau, who came over as aide to Baron Steuben in 1777, became the founder of American ethnology and linguistics. His labors in law, science, and American history will not soon be forgotten. Meanwhile, Catholics were swelling the ranks, and, like Moylan, rising to fame and position. The American navy had her first commodore in the Catholic Barry, who had kept the flag waving undimmed on the seas from 1776, and in 1781 engaged and took the two English vessels, Atlanta and Trepassay, and on other occasions handled his majesty's vessels so roughly that General Howe endeavored to win him by offers of money and high naval rank to desert the cause. Besides Catholics born, who served in army or navy, in legislative or executive, there were also men who took in the great struggle whose closing years found them humble and devoted adherents of the Catholic church. Prominent among these was Thomas Sims Lee, governor of Maryland from 1779 to the close of the war. He did much to contribute to the glorious result, represented his state in the latter continental congress and in the constitutional convention, as Daniel Carroll, brother of the archbishop, also did. Governor Lee, after becoming a Catholic, was re-elected governor, and lived to an honored old age. Daniel Barber, who bore his musket in the Connecticut line, became a Catholic, and his son, daughter-in-law, and their children all devoted themselves to a religious life, a family of predilection. In Europe the Catholic states, France and Spain, watched the progress of American affairs with deepest interest. At the very outset Vergennes, the able minister of France, sent an agent to study the people and report the state of affairs. The clear-headed statesman saw that America would become independent. In May, 1776, Louis XVI announced to the Catholic monarch that he intended to send indirectly two hundred thousand dollars. The king of Spain sent a similar sum to Paris. This solid aid, the first sinews of war from these two Catholic sovereigns, was but an earnest of good-will. In France the sentiment in favor of the American cause overbore the cautious ON LIBERTY'S ALTAR. 49 policy of the king, the amiable Louis XVI. He granted the aid already mentioned, and induced the king of Spain to join in the act ; he permitted officers to leave France in order to join the American armies; he encouraged commerce with the revolting colonies by exempting from duties the ships which bore across the ocean the various goods needed by the army and the people. The enthusiasm excited by Lafayette, who first heard of the Ameri- can cause from the lips of an Eng- lish prince, soon broke down all the walls of caution. An arrangement was made by which material of war from the government armories and arsenals was sent out, nominally from a mercantile house. A year after the Declaration of Independence, France, which had opened her ports to American priva- teers and courteously avoided all English complaints, resolved to take a decisive step — not only to acknowl- edge the independence of the United States, but to support it. Marie Antoinette sympathized deeply with this country, and won the king to give his full support to our cause. On the 6th of February, 1778, Catholic France signed the treaty with the United States, and thus a great power in Europe set the example to others in recognizing us as one of the nations of the earth. America had a Catholic godmother. Amid the miseries of Vallev Forge, Washington issued a general order: " It having pleased the Almighty Ruler of the universe to defend the cause of the United American States, and finally to raise us up a powerful friend among the princes of the earth, to establish our liberty and independence upon a lasting foundation, it becomes us to set apart a day for gratefully acknowledging the divine goodness and celebrating the important event, which we owe to His divine interposition." France now openly took part in the war, and in July, 1778,8 French fleet under d'Estaing appeared on our coasts, neutralizing the advantage which England had over us by her naval superiority. The ocean was no longer hers to send her army from point to point on the coast. This fleet engaged 5 LAFAYETTE. 5° THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Lord Howe near Newport, and co-operated with Sullivan in operations against the English in Rhode Island. After cruising in the West Indies it again reappeared on our coast to join Lincoln in a brave but unsuccessful attack on Savannah, in which fell the gallant Pulaski, who some years before had asked the blessing of the pope's nun- cio on himself and his gallant force in the sanctuary of Our Lady of Czenstochowa, before his long defense of that convent fortress against overwhelming Russian forces. In July, 1780, another fleet, commanded by the Chevaliei de Ternay, entered the harboi of Newport, bringing a French army commanded by an exper- ienced general, John Baptiste de Vimeur, Count de Rocham- PULASKI. beau. An army of Catholics, with Catholic chaplains, observing the glorious ritual of the Church with all solemnity, was hailed with joy in New England. The discipline of that army, the courteous manners of officers and privates, won all hearts. What that army effected is too well known to be chronicled here in detail. When Lafayette had cornered Cornwallis in Yorktown, Washington and Rocham- beau marched down, the fleet of the Count de Grasse defeated Admiral Graves off the capes of Virginia, and, transporting the allied armies down, joined with them in compelling Cornwallis to surrender his whole force; and old St. Joseph's church, in Philadelphia, soon rang with the grand Te Deum chanted in thanksgiving at a Mass offered up in presence of the victorious generals. None question the aid given us by Catholic France. Several who came as volunteers, or in the army or fleet, remained in the United States. One officer who had served nobly in the field, laid aside his sword and returned to labor during the rest of his life for the well-being of America as a devoted Catholic priest. But France was not the only Catholic friend of our cause. Spain had, ON LIBERTY'S ALTAR. 5 1 as we have seen, at an early period in the war sent a liberal gift of money. She opened her ports to our privateers, and refused to give up Captain Lee, of Marblehead, whom England demanded. She went further; for when intelligence came of the Declaration of Independence, she gave him supplies and repaired his ship. She subsequently sent cargoes of supplies to us from Bilbao, and put at the disposal of the United States ammunition and supplies at New Orleans. When an American envoy reached Madrid, she sent blankets for ten regiments and made a gift of $150,000 through our repre- sentative. When the gallant young Count Bernardo de Galvez, whose name is commemorated in Galveston, was made governor of Louisiana, he at once tendered his services to us; he forwarded promptly the clothing and military stores in New Orleans; and when the English seized an American schooner on the Louisiana lakes, he confiscated all English vessels in reprisal. Spain had not formally recognized the United States. She offered her mediation to George III, and on its refusal by that monarch, for that and other causes she declared war against England. Galvez moved at once. He besieged the English at Baton Rouge, and, after a long and stubborn resist- ance, compelled it to surrender in September, 1780; he swept the waters of English vessels, and then, with the co-operation of a Spanish fleet under Admiral Solano and De Monteil, laid siege to the ancient town of Pensacola. The forts were held by garrisons of English troops, Hessians, and northern tories, well supplied and ready to meet the arms of the Catholic king. The resistance of the British governor, Campbell, was stout and brave; but Pen- sacola fell, and British power on our southern frontier was crushed and neu- tralized. Spain gave one of the greatest blows to England in the war, next in importance to the overthrow of Burgoyne and Corwallis. On the northwest, too, where English influence over the Indians was so detrimental, Spain checked it by the reduction of English posts that had been the center of the operations of the savage foe. America was not slow in showing her sense of gratitude to Catholic Spain. Robert Morris wrote to Galvez: " I am directed by the United States to express to your excellency the grateful sense they entertain of your early efforts in their favor. Those generous efforts gave them so favorable an impression of your character and that of your nation that they have not ceased to wish for a more intimate con- nection with your country." Galvez made the connection more intimate by marrying a lady of New Orleans, who in time presided in Mexico as wife of the viceroy of New Spain. c 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE But it was not only by the operations on land, that tht eountij A Isabella the Catholic aided our cause Before she declared war against England, her navy had been increased and equipped, so that her fleets co-op- erated ably with those of France in checking English power and lowering English supremacy on the ocean. Yet a greater service than that of brave men on land or sea was rendered by her diplomacy. Russia had been almost won by England ; her fleet was expected to give its aid to the British navy in reasserting her old position; but Spain, while still neutral, proposed an armed neutrality, and urged it with such skill and address, that she detached Russia from England, and arrayed her virtually as an opponent where she had been counted upon with all certainly as an ally. Spain really thus banded all Continental Europe against England, and then, by declaring war herself, led Holland to join us openly. Nor were France and Spain our only Catholic friends. The Abb£ Niccoli, minister of Tuscany at the court of France, was a zealous abettor of the cause of America. In Germany the Hessians, sent over here to do the work of English oppression, were all raised in Protestant states, while history records the fact that the Catholic princes of the empire discouraged the dis- graceful raising of German troops to be used in crushing a free people; and this remonstrance and opposition of the Catholic princes put a stop to the German aid which had been rendered to our opponent. Never was there such harmonious Catholic action as that in favor of American independence. The Catholics in the country were all Whigs; the Catholics of Canada were favorable, ready to become our fellow-citizens; France and Spain aided our cause with money and supplies, by taking part in the war, and by making a continental combination against England ; Catholic Italy and Catholic Germany exerted themselves in our favor. Catholics did their duty in the legislature and in the council-hall, in the army and in the navy; Catholics held for us our northeastern frontier, and gave us the north- west; Catholic officers helped to raise our armies to the grade of European science; a Catholic commander made our navy triumph on the sea. Catholic France helped to weaken the English at Newport, Savannah, and Charleston; crippled England's naval power in the West Indies, and off the capes of Virginia utterly defeated them; then with her army aided Washington to strike the crowning blow at Cornwallis in Yorktown. Catholic Spain aided us on the western frontier by capturing British posts, and under Galvez ON LIBERTY'S ALTAR. 53 reduced the British and Tories at Baton Rouge and Pensacola. And, on the other hand, there is no Catholic's name in all the lists of Tories. Washington uttered no words of flattery, no mere commonplaces of courtesy, but what he felt and knew to be the truth, when, in reply to the Catholic address, he said: "I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution and the establishment of their government, or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic Faith is professed." A couple of brief sketches are added as illustrating the quality of fighters that Catholicity gave to the cause of American freedom. John Barry was a sturdy Irishman, born in the County Wexford in 1745. The boy was brought up in virtue and simplicity, and the purest principles of the Catholic religion were impressed on his mind and heart. As his keen eye daily swept the boundless waters, the foaming billows came to have the charm of an attrac- tion, and he conceived a great fondness for the ocean. His father, a man of good sense, noticing the direction of his son's inclinations, placed him on board of a merchantman; and, at about fourteen years of age, John Barry begin to sail regularly between Philadelphia and the British ports. By self-culture and fidelity to duty, he rose rapidly in his chosen pro- fession. At the age of twenty-five, he was captain of the Black Prince, one of the best packet vessels of that day. The owner of this ship was Meredith, of Philadelphia, at whose house Washington was an occasional visitor. Here he first met the young sailor, " and marked the future commodore." Captain Barry was already an American citizen. When the Revolutionary war began, he espoused the cause of the oppressed colonies with great enthu- siasm, and embarked his all in the struggles of his adopted country. He gave up, to use his own language, "the finest ship and the first employ in America, and entered into the service of his country." Congress, towards the close of 1776, purchased several merchant vessels with the view of having them hastily fitted out as ships of war. To Captain Barry was committed the superintendence of the equipment of this first American fleet. When all was finished, he was appointed to the command of the Lexington. This was the first ship to hoist the stars and stripes. Captain Barry without delay proceeded to sea in search of the enemy's cruisers. In the midst of a superior hostile force, he had a wide and dangerous field for the display of his genius and patriotism. Under the very eyes of an English 54 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. squadron, he made short work of several of the enemy's small cruisers, and on the 17th of April, 1776, fell in with the armed tender, Edwards, which, after a spirited contest, he captured. This affair is worthy of note as the first capture of any vessel of war by a regular American cruiser in battle. Captain Barry was next appointed to the Effingham, but as the rigorous winter prevented the ship from proceeding to sea, he joined the army, and by his dashing bravery and cool judg- ment, won the admiration of all. I After the British army under 1 Lord Howe had obtained posses- I sion of Philadelphia, Captain J Barry continued in command. of the Effingham, which was still ice-bound in the Delaware, a few miles from the city, and in a posi- tion which the English general saw could be rendered of great service to the British, if the vessel and her commander could be gained over to the royalist cause. Lord Howe accordingly made an offer of fifteen thousand guineas — equal to about one hundred commodore john barry. thousand dollars— and the com- mand of a British ship of the line to Captain Barry, if he would deliver up his vessel to the English. With a noble indignation, this heroic Catholic replied that " he had devoted himself to the cause of his country, and not the value or command of the whole British fleet could seduce him from it." While the English held the Delaware, he gave them constant annoyance by boat expeditions, cutting off their supplies and smaller craft. On one occasion, with only twenty-eight men in four small boats, Captain Barry captured two British ships and a schooner. " The courage that inspired this small and heroic band," says the National Portrait Gallery, "is not alone suffi- cient to account for his wonderful success, but it must be ascribed to a combi- nation of daring bravery and consummate skill by which the diminutive power under his command was directed with unerring rapidity and irresisti- ble force." ON LIBERTY'S ALTAR, 55 " I congratulate you," wrote Washington to Barry, " on the success which has crowned your gallantry and address in the late attack upon the enemy's ships. Although circumstances have prevented you from reaping the full benefits of your conquest, yet there is ample consolation in the degree of glory which you have acquired. You will be pleased to accept of my thanks for the good things which you were so polite as to send me, with my own wishes that a suitable recompense may always attend your bravery." Getting at last to sea, in command of the Raleigh of thirty-two guns, Captain Barry kept three British ships at bay, and after disabling one he suc- ceeded in running his ship ashore, and saving most of his men. He received the title of Commodore, being the second American officer upon whom it was conferred. In the famous frigate Alliance he made many captures, and after a terrible engagement, in which he was severely wounded, took the English sloop of war Atlanta and her consort, the brig Trepassy. In the spring of 1782 he performed a most brilliant action. Returning from Havana with a large amount of specie and supplies, he encountered a British squadron, in the very sight of which he attacked and disabled the sloop Sibyl. When hailed by the squadron as to the name of the ship, the captain, etc., the commodore gave this spirited reply: "The United States ship Alliance, saucy Jack Barry, half-Irishman, half-Yankee — who are you?" After the Revolution, Commodore Barry, as the senior officer, continued at the head of the navy till the day of his death. During the misunderstand- ing with the French government in 179S, which occasioned a brief naval war, he rendered eminent service in protecting our commerce, and inflicting severe punishment on the French. He died at Philadelphia on the 13th of Septem- ber, 1803, and was interred in St. Mary's burying-ground, where his monu- ment may be seen. The commodore died without children, and left as his chief legatee the Catholic Orphan Asylum of Philadelphia. In person Commodore Barry was tall, graceful, and commanding. His manners were simple and courteous, but very dignified. His fine, manly countenance showed the kindness of his heart no less than the firmness of his character. Through life he was a sincere, practical Catholic, remarkable for his strict and noble observance of the duties of religion. He was unsur- passed in all qualities which constitute a great naval commander. "There are gallant hearts whose glory Columbia loves to name, Whose deeds shall live in story And everlasting fame. 56 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. But never yet one braver, Our starry banner bore, Than saucy old Jack Barry, The Irish Commodore." Stephen Moylan was born about the middle of the last century, at Cork, Ireland. He was a brother of the Right Rev. Dr. Moylan, Catholic bishop of his native city. Coming to America, he threw himself, heart and soul, into the struggle for independence. His bravery and excellent judgment soon secured the confidence of Washington, by whom he was made aide- de-camp and commissary -general. He was finally transferred to the command of a division of cavalry; and in many a hard-contested action of the war, we meet with the dashing Moylan's dragoons. " Moylan, the Murat of the revolutionary army," says a recent writer, " served in every battle in which Washington was engaged, from Boston to Virginia. He was colonel of a troop of horse in the Irish brigade, or 'Penn- sylvania liners,' and on many an occasion, by a dashing and desperate charge, plucked victory from the flag of the Briton, and hurled upon his ranks disaster and defeat. He was never captured, though leader of a hundred raids and forays, and participator in a score of pitched battles. He lived to see the flag of his adopted country wave in triumph over the enemies of h>° race." At the close of the war he ranked a full brigadier-general, and in sub- sequent years of his life he was always called General Moylan. One of the founders of the Society of the Cincinnati, he was also the first and last pres- ident of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, Philadelphia. Besides the bishop of Cork, General Moylan had three other brothers, all of whom took an active part in establishing the independence of this Republic. The general died at Philadelphia, on the nth of April, 1811, and was interred in the burial- ground of St. Mary's church. As a man, a patriot, a soldier, and a Catholic, General Moylan was equally worthy of our admiration. To Poland and to Ireland the American revolution was indebted for its two most brilliant cavalry commanders. The memories of the gallant Pulaski and the brave Moylan will be kept green as long as the thrilling story of the Revolution forms a chapter in the world's history. "In the land they loved they have sunk to rest, And their fame burns bright in each freeman's breast." ®Uupt£V XWi. OUR FIRST SH6PHER0. Scion of a Good Stock. — Came Over With the Cavaliers. — Under Mary- land Penal Laws. — Education and Ordination Abroad. — Joins the Society of Jesus. — Chaplain to a British Nobleman. — Return to Mary- land. — A Friend of the Revolution. — Mission to the Canadians. — Nurs- ing Old Ben. Franklin. — Father Carroll as a Controversialist. — Cre- ated a Prefect Apostolic. — A Te Deum for Independence. — Appointed Bishop of Baltimore. — Crossing the Atlantic for Consecration. — The Infant American Church. — Contending With Bigotry. — Foundation of Georgetown College. — Exiled French Priests. — Bringing Over the Carmelites. — Poor Clares and Visitation Nuns. — Miss Alice Lalor. — The Sisters of Charity. — Jerome Bonaparte's Marriage. — Baltimore Erected an Archbishopric. — Sorrows of Pius VII. — Growth of the Church. — Passed Away at Four Score Years.— A Patriarch's Character. HE name of Archbishop Carroll sparkles like a gem of purest ray on the most brilliant pages of American biography. He was iden- tified with the stirring events of the Revolution, and was the friend of Washington, Franklin and other illustrious men whose services gave the rich inheritance of freedom to our country, and the brightest examples of patriotism to the world. Selected by God to be the first bishop of His Holy Church in this republic, he proved how good and happy was the choice by the wisdom of his acts, the purity of his life, and the unsullied splendor of his reputation. John Carroll, the third son of Daniel Carroll and Eleanor Darnall, was born at Upper Marlboro, Maryland, on January 8, 1735. His father was a native of Ireland, and belonged to a Catholic family that nobly preferred the loss of their property to the abandonment of their faith. In company with his parents he came to Maryland while yet a youth. 57 58 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. It happened thus. The archbishop's grandfather was secretary to Lord Powis, a leading minister in the cabinet of the unfortunate James II. It is related that Mr. Carroll remarked one day to his lordship that he was happy to find that public affairs and his majesty's service were progressing so prosperously. "You are quite wrong," replied Lord Powis; "affairs are going on very badly; the king is very ill-advised." And after pausing a few moments, he thus addressed his secretary : " Young man, I have a regard for you, and would be glad to do you a service. Take my advice — great changes are at hand — go out to Maryland. I will speak to Lord Baltimore in youv favor." Mr. Carroll followed the advice of his noble friend. He obtained gov- ernment employment in Maryland, with liberal grants of land. He also engaged in commercial pursuits at Upper Marlboro, and died in 1765, leaving his family quite independent. Eleanor Darnall, the mother of the archbishop, was a native of Maryland, and daughter of a wealthy Catholic gentleman. She was educated with much care in a select school at Paris, and was greatly admired for her piety, amiability, mental culture, and varied accomplishments. The graces and virtues of the mother did not fail to impress the character of her son. The penal laws were then in full force. Catholics were prohibited from teaching, and Catholic youth were deprived not only of that wise education which unites religious with literary and scientific knowledge, but were also exposed to the danger and mortification of seeking learning in schools where their faith was misrepresented, the very name of their religion scorned, and they themselves treated as a degraded portion of the community. The zeal, however, of the Maryland Jesuits had managed to counteract, to some small extent, the brutal intolerance of the English code, by estab- lishing a boarding-school in a secluded spot on the eastern shore of Maryland, upon an estate belonging to themselves. It was known as Bohemia Manor. Here the good fathers conducted an institution which was intended to pre- pare Catholic youth for the colleges of Europe. It was about the year 1747 that John Carroll was placed at Bohemia. One of his companions was his cousin, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton. Here the young Carrolls spent a year in assiduous study. John Carroll, in company with his cousin Charles, was sent to the Jesuit College at St. Omers, in French Flanders. During the six years that he OUR FIRST SHEPHERD. 59 passed in this institution he was distinguished for his piety, good example, close application to study, ready and brilliant talents, and for his gentle and amiable deportment. The happy influences of the home of his childhood, the exalted examples of the Jesuit fathers, and the pure and peaceful aspirations of his own soul, led him at an early date to dedicate his life to God. It was this inspiring thought which cast a glow of holiness around young John Carroll during these years of hard, earnest study. In 1753 he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus, and two years later he was removed to Liege, to make his course HOME OF OUR FIRST archbishop. of philosophy and theology. He exhibited more than his usual zeal and application in preparing for the sacred ministry. In 1759, being then in his twenty-fifth year, after having spent eleven years in storing his mind with learning, he was raised to the holy dignity of the priesthood. Following the suggestions of the gospel, Father Carroll cheerfully gave up his patrimony and all his worldly possessions to his brother and sisters in America, and took poverty and the cross as his companions on the way of life. After serving as professor at St. Omers and at Li£ge, where he filled the chair of philosophy, he was received in 177 1 as a professed father in the Society of Jesus. Father Carroll was fulfilling the duties of prefect at Bruges, when the great Society of Jesus, of which he was so devoted a member, was sup- pressed by the brief of Pope Clement XIV, dated July 21, 1773. It was a severe blow. In a letter to his brother Daniel, Father Carroll terms the society " the first of all ecclesiastical bodies," but exclaims, with pious and generous heroism: "God's holy will be done, and may His holy name be blessed forever and ever!" The institutions of the Jesuit fathers were given up by the most of the governments of Europe to plunder, desecration, and every kind of vandalism. 60 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Bruges was pillaged by the Austrian government. Liege was deprived of its income, and its inmates were expelled from the home which they had made the seat of learning and religion. The English-speaking Jesuits of Flanders returned to England, whither Father Carroll accompanied them, acted as the secretary in their meetings, and, in fact, conducted the important correspondence of the French govern- ment in relation to the property of the suppressed society in France. While thus engaged in England, he received the appointment of chaplain to Lord Arundel, and took up his residence at Wardour Castle. But the charms of this splendid abode did not withdraw the attention of the devoted priest from the grand and self-sacrificing duties of his sacred calling, which he continued zealously to perform, whenever an opportunity for doing good was within his reach. He had, however, for some time cherished the inten- tion of returning to Maryland ; and circumstances of an exciting and important nature now hastened its execution. The warm controversy between England and her American colonies was daily hastening to a crisis. Father Carroll, though surrounded by English society and its influences, at once espoused the cause of his own country ; and bidding adieu to his beloved companions of the late Society of Jesus, and to his noble and generous friends at Wardour Castle, he sailed from England,, and reached his native land in the summer of 1774. The patriotic priest soon enjoyed the happiness of again beholding his venerable mother, his dear sisters, and many of the friends of his youthful days — "The shining days when life was new, And all was bright as morning dew." He had left home a bright boy of fourteen, and returned a care-worn, man of forty, destitute of fortune, and disappointed in the hopes he had formed for the triumphs of religion, to be achieved by the illustrious society to which he had pledged his faith forever. Its banner had, indeed, been struck down; but the glorious motto, Ad majorem Dei gloriam, was inscribed upon his heart. He had left Maryland in a state of vassalage to Great Britain; but he returned to find her preparing to assert her independence of tyranny and royal authority. In the days of his youth Catholics were a proscribed class,, ground down by penal laws in the very land which they had colonized; but he now found his countrymen engaged in discussing great questions of civil liberty, and he looked forward, with a clear vision, to emancipation from all OUR FIRST SHEPHERD. 61 the bondage of liberty, as a consequence of their successful battles for free- dom. The future archbishop took up his residence with his mother at Rock Creek. Here, at first, a room in the family dwelling, and subsequently, a wooden chapel, were the scenes of the holy priest's ministerial offices. The wooden chapel has since been superseded by a neat brick church, which is now well known under the revered name of " Carroll's Chapel." At the time of Father Carroll's arrival in America there was not one Catholic Church open in Maryland. Under the family roof only could the holy sacrifice be offered up to the Almighty. This explains why the old Catholic chapels of Maryland contain large hearths and fire-places within them, and massive brick chimneys projecting through the roofs. In the once beautifully-named "Land of the Sanctuary," there were then only ninete^r Catholic clergymen — all ex-Jesuits. Father Carroll continued to reside at Rock Creek. He did not wish to leave his aged mother, to whose declining years he was anxious to minister. His missionary labors were chiefly performed in the neigh- boring country. He always traveled on horseback, making long and frequent jour- neys to distant Catholic families and settle- J^ ments, riding frequently thirty miles or more to sick calls, and paying monthly visits to a „_ji „~„~-.-~. n 4.:~*, „( /--> 4-U^T • C t £C J CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON. small congregation or Catholics in Stafford County, Virginia, which was distant fifty or sixty miles from his home. After about eighteen months thus spent in the active duties of the holy ministry, the call of his country summoned Father Carroll to her service. Open war raged between England and the thirteen colonies. The hopes of a settlement had vanished, and for the first time was heard the magic sound of the word Independence. To gain the active assistance of the Canadians, or at least to secure their neutrality, was a matter of the highest importance. Congress appointed three commissioners to repair to Canada. They were Dr. Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and by a special resolution the last-named gentleman was desired " to prevail on Mr. John Carroll to accompany the committee to Canada to assist them in such matters as they shall think useful." 62 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Father Carroll acceded to the request of congress. After four weeks of toil, exposure, and unusual difficulties, which, however, did not dampen the cheerful spirits of the patriotic travelers, nor check the ever-ready and enter- taining wit of Dr. Franklin, they reached Montreal on the night of the 29th of April, 1776. While the commissioners were negotiating with the authorities, regulat- ing the affairs of the American forces then in Canada, and carrying out the instructions of congress, Father Carroll was visiting the Canadian clergy, explaining the nature and principles of the revolutionary struggle, pointing out the identity of destiny and interest which ought to unite Canada to the English colonies, and in answering objections, removing prejudices of race, and appealing to their love of liberty. He was treated with respect and listened to with polite attention. But both the commissioners and Father Carroll received the same answer from the Canadians — that for themselves they had no cause of complaint against the home government of Great Britain, which had guaranteed to them the free and full exercise of their religion, liberty, and property, and that in return the duty of allegiance and fidelity was due from the Canadians to the government. The mission was fruitless. Charles Carroll of Carrollton and Samuel Chase remained in Canada to attend to the affairs of the army. But Dr. Franklin's health became so poor that he was forced to leave the country without delay, and Father* Carroll became his companion on the homeward journey. The priest and the philosopher contracted a sincere friendship, as we learn from the grateful letters of Franklin. On reaching New York he wrote: "As to myself, I grow daily more feeble, and I should hardly have got along so far but for Mr. Carroll's friendly assistance and tender care of me." On his return home to Rock Creek, Father Carroll resumed the duties of the sacred ministry, which he continued to perform without interruption during the whole Revolutionary War. Throughout the long and great struggle he ardently sympathized in the cause of Independence. In his correspondence with his late brethren in England he explained and defended its principles, and offered up constant and fervent prayers for its success. And no citizen of the Republic saw with greater joy the consummation of the glorious result of the contest, enhanced as this patriotic joy was by the cessation of strife and carnage, and the blessed return of peace and happiness. OUR FIEST SHEPHERD. 63 Father Carroll's powers as a controversialist were summoned into service in 1784. The Rev. Mr. Wharton, his former friend and fellow-member of the Society of Jesus, had apostatized from the Catholic faith, and written a public letter attacking its principles. The reply is worthy of our first arch- bishop, and is noted for its strength, elegance, and triumphant logic. Wharton, among other charges, had asserted that " neither transubstan. tiation nor the infallibility of the Roman Church are taught more explicitly as articles of faith than the impossibility of being saved out of the communion of this Church." Father Carroll replies thus to this point: " I begin by observing that to be in the communion of the Catholic Church, and to be a member of the Catholic Church are two very distinct things. They are in the coimnunion of the Church, who are united in the profession of her faith, and participa- tion of her sacraments, through the ministry and government of her lawful pastors. But the members of the Catholic Church are all those who, with a sincere heart, seek true religion, and are in an unfeigned disposition to embrace the truth whenever they find it. " Now, it never was our doctrine that salvation can be obtained only by the former, and this would have manifestly appeared, if the chaplain, instead of citing Pope Pius' creed from his memory or some unfair copy, had taken the pains to examine a faithful transcript of it. These are the words of the obnoxious creed, and not those wrongfully quoted by him, which are not to be found in it. After enumerating the several articles of our belief, it goes on thus: ' This true Catholic Faith, without which no one can be saved, I do at this present firmly profess and sincerely hold.' "Here is nothing of the necessity of communion with our Church for salvation; and nothing, I presume, but what is taught in every Christian society on earth, viz. : that Catholic faith is necessary to salvation. The dis- tinction between being a member of the Catholic Church, and of the com- munion of the Church, is no modern distinction, but a doctrine uniformly taught by ancient as well as later divines. 'What is said,' says Bellarmiue, 'of none being saved out of the Church, must be understood of those who belong not to it either in fact or desire.' " Father Carroll, after dwelling at considerable length on the charity and kindness of the Catholic Church, refers again to the question of exclusive salvation, deeming it, as he says, "of the utmost importance to charity and mutual forbearance to render our doctrine on this head as perspicuous as I am able." 64 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. "First, then," he continues, "it has been always and uniformly asserted by our divines, that baptism, actual baptism, is essentially requisite to initiate us into the communion of the Church; this notwithstanding, their doctrine is not less uniform, and the Council of Trent (Sess. 6, chap. 4) has expressly established it, that salvation may be obtained without actual baptism. Thus, then, it appears that we not only may, but are obliged to believe that out of our co?nmunion salvation may be obtained. " Secondly, with the same unanimity, our divines define heresy to be, not merely a mistaken opinion in matters of faith, but an obstinate adherence to that opinion; not barely an error of judgment, but an error arising from a perverse affection of the will. Hence they infer that he is no heretic who, though he hold false opinions in matters of faith, yet remains in a habitual disposition to renounce those opinions whenever he discovers them to be con- trary to the doctrines of Jesus Christ." Before the war of the Revolution, the Catholic clergy of Maryland and Pennsylvania were subject to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the vicar-apos- tohc or bishop of London, England, who was represented in these provinces by his vicar-general, the Rev. Father Lewis, superior of the Society of Jesus here, at the date of its suppression. Soon after the termination of the war, however, the clergy of Maryland and Pennsylvania, being sensible that, to derive all advantage from the new state of things in America, it would be proper to have an ecclesiastical superior in the country itself; and knowing the jealousy prevailing in the American governments against the right of jurisdiction being vested in a person residing in Great Britain, addressed themselves to the Holy See, praying that a superior might be allowed, and that he might be chosen by the clergy, subject to the approbation and confirmation of his holiness. The American clergy believed the time and the circumstances of the new nation as premature for the presence of a bishop. They simply desired a superior with some of the episcopal powers. The Holy See, in its wisdom, came to the same conclusion, and resolved to give Maryland a provisional ecclesiastical organization. The learned and patriotic Rev. Li . Cr.*" r oll received the appointment. He was empowered, among other things, to bless the holy oils, and to administer the sacrament of confirmation. This holy sacrament, which strengthens faith in man, had never yet been conferred in the United States. But we must not omit to mention a fact as interesting as it is singular. OUR FIRST SHEPHERD. 65 The venerable statesman and philosopher, Dr. Franklin — then the American minister at Paris — had an honorable share in the nomination of the future patriarch of the Catholic Church in the United States. "When the nuncio at Paris," writes Father Thorpe, in a letter to Rev. Dr. Carroll, from Rome, dated June 9, 1784, "applied to Mr. Franklin, the old gentleman remem- bered you; he had his memory refreshed before, though you had modestly put your own name in the last place in the list." Franklin's diary records this memorable event thus: ^"1774, July 1st. — The pope's nuncio called and acquainted me that the pope had, on my recommendation, appointed Mr. John Carroll superior of the Catholic clergy in America, with many of the powers of a bishop, and that, probably, he would be made a bishop in -partibus before the end of the year." In consulting Dr. Franklin, the Holy See simply wished to pay an act of courtesy to the young Republic. The constitution of the United States, which places religion beyond the sphere of the civil power, was not yet drafted. And it need excite no astonishment that even educated Europe was not familiar with the principles which underlie the American government. The Very Rev. Dr. Carroll, as prefect-apostolic, at once began his visits. His long journeys were chiefly through Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York. The first, as the seat of the old Catholic colony, had still a respectable number of Catholics; and in Pennsylvania, Dr. Carroll found a population of about seven thousand faithful. Some time before the arrival of the prefect-apostolic, Philadelphia was the scene of a notable religious ceremony. At the close of the Revolutionary War a solemn Te Dcum was chanted in St. Joseph's church, at the request of the Marquis De la Luzerne, the French embassador. He invited the mem- bers of the United States congress, as well as the principle generals and distin- guished citizens to attend. Washington and Lafayette were present. The Abbe Bandale delivered a most eloquent discourse. "Who but He," ex- claimed the eloquent priest, "He in whose hands are the hearts of men, could inspire the allied troops with the friendship, the confidence, the tenderness of brothers? Ah! the combination of so many fortunate circumstances is an emanation of the all-perfect mind. That courage, that skill, that activity bear the sacred impression of Him who is divine. . . . Let us with one voice pour forth to the Lord that hymn of praise by which Christians cele- brate their gratitude and His glory — Te Deu?n LaudcunusP 6 66 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. For five years, Very Rev. Dr. Carroll, as prefect-apostolic, toiled ot» with the amiability and zeal of an apostle, daily encountering obstacles from the nature of his duties, from insubordinate priests and laity, that would have discouraged any but the bravest spirit. " Every day," he writes, " furnishes me with new reflections, and almost every day produces new events to alarm my conscience, and excite fresh solicitude at the prospect before me. You cannot conceive the trouble I suffer already, and still greater which I foresee, from the medley of clerical charac- ters coming from different quarters and various educations, and seeking employment here. I cannot avoid employing some of them, and they begin soon to create disturbances." This state of things was almost to be expected, on account of the heterogeneous character of both people and clergy. As many of the clergy were entirely ignorant of the English language, and others in no very good repute at home, it was soon found that ampler powers than those possessed by the prefect-apostolic were needed to hold the tangled reins of authority with proper firmness The principal members of the American clergy who had the good of religion at heart assembled, and petitioned Rome for a bishop. The request was granted, with the privilege of selecting the candidate and of locating the new see. They fixed upon Baltimore, " this being," writes Dr. Carroll to a clerical friend in Europe, " the principal town in Maryland, and that state being the oldest, and still the most numerous residence of true religion in America. So far all was right. We then proceeded to the election, the event of which was such as deprives me of all expectation of rest or pleasure henceforward, and fills me with terror with respect to eternity. I am so stunned with the issue of this business, that I truly hate the hearing or the mention of it; and, therefore, will say only, that since my brethren — whom in this case I consider as the interpreters of the Divine will — say I must obey, I will do it; but by obeying shall sacrifice henceforward every moment of peace and satisfaction." One of Dr. Carroll's conspicuous qualities, a quality that shed a luster over his whole character, was his modest humility — " Humility, that low sweet root From which all heavenly virtues shoot!" By the Holy See he was nominated first bishop of Baltimore. On the reception of official documents the new prelate at once proceeded to England for consecration. The solemn ceremony took place in Lulworth Castle, the OUR FIRST SHEPHERD. 6>j lordly residence of the pious Thomas Weld, on Sunday, August 15, 1790. The consecrator was Rt. Rev. Dr. Walmsley, senior Catholic bishop of Great Britain. Late in the same year Bishop Carroll reached the shores of America, was joyfully welcomed by his people, and installed in his episcopal see. On the Sunday of installation he addressed them a discourse which shall ever remain a masterpiece of sacred eloquence. " This day, my dear brethren," began the venerable man, " impresses deeply on my mind a lively sense of the new relation in which I stand before you. The shade of retirement and solitude must no longer be my hope and prospect of consolation. Often have I flattered myself that my declining years would be indulged in such a state of rest from labor and solicitude for others, as would leave me the best opportunity of attending to the great con- cern of my own salvation, and of confining myself to remember my past years in the bitterness of compunction. But it has pleased God to order otherwise; and though my duty commands submission, it cannot allay my fears — those fears which I feel for you and myself In God alone can I find any consolation. He knows by what steps I have been con- ducted to this important station, and how much I have always dreaded it. He will not abandon me unless I first draw down His malediction by my unfaithfulness to my charge. Pray, dear brethren, pray incessantly that I may not incur so dreadful a punishment. Alas! the punishment would fall on you as well as myself — my unfaithfulness would redound on you, and deprive you of some of the means of salvation." What modest grandeur and simple sublimity mark these first utterances of the patriarch of the American Church! At this point it may be proper to examine into the number of Bishop Carroll's spiritual children in 1790. Religious statistics in our country have been at all times in a misty, unsatisfactory condition. This early date was no exception. All figures, therefore, in that connection, are to be received as approximations — guesses at truth. The first national census was taken in 1790, and gave us a total white population of nearly 3,200,000. Of these about 30,000 were Catholics. According to this estimate one in every one hundred and ten of the white population was a Catholic. Bishop Carroll's diocese was the United States. His priests were between thirty and forty in number; while his small but wide-spread flocks were distributed somewhat as follows: 16,000 in Maryland; 7,000 in Pennsylvania; 3,000 at Detroit and 68 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Vincennes; 2,500 in Illinois, and in all the other states together there were not perhaps more than 1,500 — in all about 30,000. Such was the American Church at the date the holy father firmly planted the corner-stone by erecting the first episcopal see of Baltimore. As an organized body the Catholic Church of America now fairly began its heavenly mission. The field was vast, the laborers few. If the dark times had passed, and the beautiful star of hope shone brightly, still obstacles, almost numberless, appeared on every side. The majority of the Catholics were poor. Most of them were faithful Irish who had fled from English tyranny and spoliation; numbers of them were exiled French and Germans, who had gladly escaped from the ruin and desolation that threatened European society. In many States the very name of Catholic was held in contempt. The battle-ground was changed. It was no longer a struggle for existence with odious penal enactments, but a ceaseless conflict with ignorance and fanaticism, remains of an unhappy past. At all hazards, however, the faith was to be preserved and extended. To many Catholics the very sight of a priest was something dimly remembered. They had not beheld one for years! The practice of their religion was like a happy dream of youthful days — almost forgotten, yet the sweet memory of which lingered in the mind. The Sunday of first Com- munion, with its celestial peace of soul — who can forget it? In the life of the true Catholic, it is that bright day — that day of beauty which is a joy forever! Bishop Carroll, arming himself with zeal, courage, and patience, calmly surveyed the immense field; and like an able commander, laid down his plans, and at once began operations. With Baltimore as a base and center of action, he soon made his power felt and respected even to the extremities of Georgia, Maine, and Michigan. A spiritual Hannibal, the wise prelate skillfully maneuvered his small band of a few dozen priests. He gave each pastor his benediction, cheered him on in his difficulties, reminding him of his high mission as a member of the vanguard for the conquest of souls. Weak points were strengthened; enemies awed into neutrals or changed into fast friends; and the outposts of the faith gradually extended. This is no imaginary picture. The prudence and lofty zeal of Dr. Carroll challenge unqualified admiration. While yet prefect-apostolic, Dr. Carroll had begun the foundation of OUR FIRST SHEPHERD. 69 Georgetown College. His plan embraced a theological seminary to conduct the studies of candidates for the priesthood, and an academy for the education of youth. The site selected by its venerable founder for this first and oldest of our colleges could not have been more judiciously chosen, either for health, advantages of location, or beauty and grandeur of scenery. In November, 1791, the bishop convened his first synod in Baltimore. It numbered twenty-two clergymen. The salutary measures adopted by that body remain to this day a monument of its wisdom. About this time Dr. Carroll paid his first episcopal visit to the capital of New England. "It is wonderful," he writes, "to tell what great civilities have been done to me in Boston, where a few years ago a ' popish ' priest was thought to be the greatest monster in creation. Many here, even of their principal people, have acknowledged to me that they would have crossed to the opposite side of the street rather than meet a Roman Catholic some time ago. The horror which was associated with the idea of a ' papist ' is incred- ible; and the scandalous misrepresentation by their ministers increased the horror every Sunday." On the other side of the Atlantic, affairs had reached a terrible crisis. While Divine Providence was preparing on the Western Continent a new and grateful field for the seed of truth, it was disposing events in Europe and other countries for supplying that field with zealous and active laborers who would bring forth fruit in good season. The French Revolution, with all its irreligious horrors, burst upon the world, deluging unhappy France in the blood of her best and bravest sons. It was a fearful upheaval of society — a social volcano. But what was a misfortune for the land of St. Louis, proved a blessing to the United States. Between 1791 and 1799, twenty-three French priests sought a refuge on our shores. In learning, virtue, and polished manners, they were worthy representatives of their divine master. Each one was a valuable acquisition for our young and struggling church. Each was a host in himself. Six of them, Flaget, Cheverus, Dubois, David, Dubourg, and Marshal, afterwards became bishops. The names of Matignon, Badin, Richards, Ciquard, Nagot, Nerinckx, and others, will be held in benediction to the latest ages. The arrival of these soldiers of the cross enabled Bishop Carroll to extend and partly consolidate his vast diocese. " The Catholic Church of the United States," says Archbishop Spalding, " is deeply indebted to the zeal of the jo THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. exiled French clergy. No portion of the American Church owes more to them than that of Kentucky. They supplied our infant missions with most of their earlier and most zealous laborers, and they likewise gave to us our first bishops. There is something in the elasticity and buoyancy of the char- acter of the French which adapts them in a peculiar manner to foreign mis- sions. They have always been the best missionaries among the North Amer- ican Indians, they can mold their character to suit every circumstance and emergency; they can be at home and cheerful everywhere. The French clergy who landed on our shores, though many of them had been trained up amid all the refinements of polished France, could yet submit without a mur- mur to all the hardships and privations of a mission on the frontiers of civiliza- tion, or in the very heart of the wilderness. They could adapt themselves to the climate, mold themselves to the feelings and habits of a people opposite to them in temperament and character." Scarcely had the nineteenth' century dawned, when the great tide of immigration began to set in for the shores of the New World. If the French Revolution caused many distinguished men, both clerical and lay, to cast their lot in our land, the Irish Rebellion of 179S, and its fatal termination, likewise forced thousands of " Exiles of Erin " to seek their fortunes in some clime more favored than their own unhappy isle. For them the United States had a mysterious attraction, and the star of destiny guided their course westward. After having provided, by the foundation of a college and seminary, for the education of youth and the recruiting of the priesthood, the bishop of Baltimore's next care was to introduce into Maryland religious communities of women, to instruct the young of their own sex, nurse the sick, and adopt the orphan. These good works have ever been the heritage of the Church, and ephemeral indeed must be the branch which has not yet laid the founda- tion of convents for prayer or charity. Till 1790 the United States did not know what a female religious was. It was only then that Father Charles Neale, brother of the future coadjutor of Baltimore, brought with him from Belgium to America four Carmelites of St. Theresa's reform, three of whom were Americans, the fourth an English lady ; and thus one of the most aus- tere orders in the Church was the first to naturalize itself in the United ►States. Father Charles Neale had a cousin, Mother Brent, superior of the Carmelite convent at Antwerp, a house founded only thirty-seven years after St. Theresa's death. At the request of this lady, Father Neale in 17S0 assumed the spiritual direction of the convent, and he, by his correspondence OUR FIRST SHEPHERD. 71 with his friends in America, excited a desire to have a branch of the Carmel- ites at Port Tobacco, where the Neale family resided. Father Carroll wrote to the bishop of Antwerp, and on the 19th of April, 1790, four Carmelites embarked at Antwerp with Father Neale for Maryland. On the 15th of October the Carmelites took possession of their house, which Father Neale had built at his own expense; and there they practised their rule in all iis severity, fasting eight months in the year, wearing woolen, sleeping on straw, and offering their prayers and mortifications for the salvation of souls. In 1S00 they lost their superior, who was succeeded by Mother Dickinson. In 1S23 Father Charles Neale, their venerable founder, died, after having directed them by his counsels for thirty-three years. In 1840 Mother Dickinson fol- lowed him to the grave. Born in London and educated in France, she had been a religious for fifty-eight years, and was revered as a saint by her spir- itual daughters. At this epoch the Carmelites suffered the greatest financial embarrassments, so as actually to experience all the privations of want, in consequence of the mismanagement of the farm from which they derived their support. Archbishoj Whitfield, touched by their painful position, advised them to leave Port ^obacco and remove to Baltimore, where they might create resources by opening a boarding-school. The Holy See per- mitted this modification of their rule, and on the 13th of September, 1831, the Carmelites, to the number of twenty-four, bade a last farewell to the convent where most of them had devoted themselves to the austerities of a religious life. On the next day they reached Baltimore, and after offering a short prayer at the Cathedral, hastened to inclose themselves in their new cloister. The Carmelites had for several years, as one of their chaplains, the Abbe^ Herard, a French priest of the Holy Ghost, who had left France for Guiana in 1784, and withdrew to the United States during the Revolution. He was long their most active benefactor, gave them a considerable sum towards building their chapel, and left them a legacy, the income of which still sup- ports their chaplain. About 1792 some Poor Clares, driven from France by the horrors of the Revolution, sought a refuge in Maryland. Their names were Marie de la Marche, abbess of the Order of St. Clare, Celeste de la Rochefoucault, and Madame de St. Luc, and they were assisted by a lay-brother named Alexis. They had a house also at Frederick, as we learn from the will of the venera- ble abbess, dated in 1S01, and made in favor of Sister de la Rochefoucault y 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. It is preserved at the Visitation convent, Georgetown, and begins in these words: " I, Mary de la Marche, abbess of tbe Order of St. Clare, formerly of the village of Sours in France, and now of Frederick in Maryland." In i Sot they purchased a lot on Lafayette street, in Georgetown. The good sisters had the consolation to be near the college, which secured them religious aid. They endeavored to support themselves at Georgetown by opening a school, but they had constantly to struggle with poverty ; and on the death of the abbess in 1805, Madame de la Rochefoucault, who succeeded her, sold the convent to Bishop Neale by deed of June 29, 1805, and returned to Europe with her companion. As we saw in the last chapter, the four brothers Neale, who entered the Society of Jesus, had a sister, a Poor Clare, in Artois; and it would seem natural that, when the convents in France were suppressed, she and her companions should take refuge in Maryland; but there is nothing to show that she ever returned to America. It doubtless did not enter the designs of Providence that the Order of St. Clare should take root in the United States, reserving all its benedictions for tl a Order of the Visitation. Miss Alice Lalor, who was the foundress of the Visitation Nuns in America, was born about 1766 in Queen's county, Ireland, of pious and worthy parents. She was brought up at Kilkenny, whither her family removed when young Alice was still a child. Alice thus lived some years in the world, till Bishop Lanigan, wishing to form a religious community at Kilkenny, invited her to join it. She accepted with joy, but was opposed in her vocation by the will of her parents, who had then made up their minds to emigrate to America, and who would not consent to part with their daughter. She accordingly came out with them in 1797, after having promised the prelate to return to Ireland in two years, to embrace the religious state. Such was not, however, the design of the Almighty on his faithful handmaid. She settled at Philadelphia with her family, and here confided her project to Father Leonard Neale, whom she took as her director. He had long wished to found a religious community at Philadelphia, although he was yet undecided what order would best suit the country. He showed Miss Lalor that America needed her devotedness far more than Ireland did; and being, as her confessor, invested with the neces- sary powers, he released her from her promise. Obedient to his counsels, Alice joined two other young women of Philadelphia, animated by a similar vocation to the religious state. She left her family to begin under Father OUR FIRST SHEPHERD. 73 Neale's direction a house for the education of girls. But the new institution had scarcely begun when the yellow-fever opened its fearful ravages in Phila- delphia. Many of the people fled from the scourge, and among them the parents of Miss Lalor. They used the most touching appeals to induce her to accompany them, but she remained unshaken at her post, and beheld her two companions carried off by the pestilence, without being discouraged in her resolution of devoting herself to God. In 1799 Father Neale having been appointed president of Georgetown College, persuaded Miss Lalor to retire to the Clarist convent in that city, so as not to be exposed to the world which she had renounced. She left Phila- delphia with a pious lady, and both rendered all the service they could to the Poor Clares as teachers. Their director soon advised them to open a school by themselves, which they did; and their rising institute received an accession in another Philadelphia lady, who brought a small fortune. It was employed partly in acquiring a wooden house, the site of which is still embraced in the convent grounds. Father Neale, on becoming coadjutor, continued to reside at Georgetown, where he had bestowed on his spiritual daughters the most active solicitude. The holy prelate incessantly offered his prayers to God to know to what rule it was most suitable to bind the new society. He had a great predilection for the Visitation, founded by St. Francis of Sales, and a circumstance convinced both him and Miss Lalor that in this he followed the designs of God. Among some old books belonging to the Poor Clares, they found the complete text of the rules and constitution of the Visitation, although the poor sisters were wholly unaware that they had ever possessed the volume. Bishop Neale failed, however, in his endeavors to obtain the aid of some nuns from Europe in order to form his American novices to the rule of St. Frances de Chantal. Many Catholics blamed the project of establishing a new religious community in the United States, fear- ing to excite the fanaticism of the Protestants. Bishop Carroll advised Miss Lalor and her companions to join the Carmelites at Port Tobacco. On the other hand, a wealthy lady offered to go to Ireland at her own expense, and bring out nuns, if Bishop Neale would decide in favor of the Ursulines. The zealous coadjutor, however, refused these offers, believing that the insti- tute of the Visitation was best adapted to the wants of the Catholics in the United States. We have stated that Bishop Neale had bought the Clarist convent on their departure for Europe in 1805. He immediately installed the " Pious 7 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Ladies " there (for by that name the future Visitation Nuns were known in Georgetown), and by deed of June 9, 1808, confirmed June 9, 18 12, trans- ferred the property to Alice Lalor, Maria McDermott, and Mary Neale. In 1 8 14 the sisters numbered thirteen, and their fervor induced their holy director to permit them to take simple vows to be renewed every year. Up to this time Bishop Neale had been the only superior of the commu- nity, but he deemed it proper to invest one of the sisters with authority over her companions, and Miss Lalor was called to the important post. Such was the origin of the Visitation Nuns in the United States; nor is it without striking points of resemblance to its foundation in Europe. The energy and perseverance of Bishop Neale recall the pious efforts of St. Francis of Sales, for the same holy enterprise. In both cases a bishop gave the first impulse; in both hemispheres an isolated lady lays the first founda- tion, undeterred by any obstacle; and if in Europe the Visitation soon opened its convents in twenty different spots in France, so in America the mother house at Georgetown has now branches of the order at Baltimore, Mobile, St. Louis, Washington, Brooklyn, and Wheeling; and, in these various con- vents, now numbers over three hundred nuns. But it was not without new and severe trials that Alice Lalor's house acquired this remarkable develop- ment, as we shall see in the sequel. The many convents which now exist in the United States, all, or nearly all, filiations of the Georgetown convent, have boarding-schools or day schools for girls of the higher as well as of the poorer class. The education received in their schools is remarkably good, and the work of Miss Alice Lalor is an immense benefit to America. The same is true of that to which Mrs. Seton, foundress of the Sisters of Charity in the United States, devoted herself, but of this admirable lady we shall furnish a separate biography. The bisnop of Baltimore seconded with all his efforts the foundation of these pious communities, and frequently visited Emmitsburg on important solemnities, the taking of the habit, renewal of vows, or consecration of chapels. In his life we will not omit one fact which has long since led to much discussion. In 1803, Jerome Bonaparte, a brother of Napoleon, came to the United States in a French frigate, and spent some time here. Meeting Miss Patterson, a Protestant lady, in Baltimore, he became greatly attached to her, and asked her hand in marriage. A day was fixed, but it was deemed OUR FIRST SHEPHERD. 75 prudent to delay it for two months, and then Bishop Carroll himself per- formed the ceremony. Oil Jerome's return to France, the wrath of the emperor burst upon him and his wife, and the latter was compelled to return to Maryland. A son was the issue of this marriage, and is really the lawful heir of Jerome. Napoleon saw this and sought to annul the marriage. He accordingly applied to Pope Pius VII on the 24th of May, 1805. "By our laws," says he, "the marriage is null. A Spanish priest so far forgot his duties as to pronounce the benediction. I desire from your holiness a bull annulling the marriage. It is important for France that there should not be a Protestant young woman so near my person." Several of these statements were untrue, but the pontiff was so gracious as to make a reply in which he examines and discusses, each in its turn, the several causes for nullity put forward by the emperor. He refutes them all, and declares that none of them can invalidate the marriage, and concludes: "We may not depart from the laws of the Church by pronouncing the invalidity of a marriage which, according to the declaration of God, no human power can dissolve. Were we to usurp an authority which is not ours, we should render ourselves guilty of a most abominable abuse of our sacred ministry before the tribunal of God and the whole Church." In spite of this decided answer, Napoleon returned to the point, and plied entreaties, menaces, and commands, but all in vain; and if the marriage was ever declared null, or another performed, it was, by the pontiff's decision, all illegal. Bishop Carroll had, moreover, the consolation of seeing the number of Catholics increased considerably by immigration from Europe, and also by conversions. Every priest to whom he could assign a post, immediately beheld a Catholic population spring up around him, which would have con- tinued to live aloof from the practice of religious duties as long as it had no priest near to bring them to mind. In 1806 the prelate laid the corner-stone of three churches in Baltimore alone. In 1808 he counted in his diocese sixty-eight priests and eighty churches, and the progress of religion made him urgently request at Rome the division of the United States into several bishoprics. Pope Pius VII yielded to the desires of the venerable founder of the American hierarchy, and by a brief of April 8, 1808, Baltimore was raised to the rank of a Metropolitan See, and four suffragan bishoprics were erected at New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Bardstown. On the recom- 76 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. mendation of Bishop Carroll, the Abbd Cheverus was named to the see of Boston, and the Abbe" Flaget to that of Bardstown. The Rev. Michael Egan, of the Order of St. Francis, was appointed to the see of Philadelphia, and Father Luke Concanen, of the Order of St. Dominic, to that of New York. The latter resided at Rome, and held the posts of Prior of St. Clement's and Librarian of the Minerva. He took a lively interest in the American missions, and it was at his suggestion that a Dominican convent was founded in Kentucky in 1805. He had already refused a miter in Ireland, but he could not resist the orders of the sovereign pontiff, who sent him as a missionary to the New World ; and he accordingly received episcopal consecration at Rome on the 24th of April, 1S0S, at the hands of Cardinal Antonelli, prefect of the Propaganda. The new bishop traveled at once to Leghorn, and subsequently to Naples,, where he hoped to find a vessel bound to the United States. He bore the pallium for Archbishop Carroll, and the bulls of institution for the three new bishops. The French authorities, then in possession of Naples, opposed his departure, and detained him as a prisoner, although he had paid his passage. The pretext of these vexations was that Bishop Concanen was a British sub- ject. The prelate could not escape the rigors of the police, and died suddenly in July, 1 8 10, poisoned, it would seem, by persons who wished to get pos- session of his effects and the sacred vessels which it was known he had with him. This premature death was a severe blow to the Church in America, and caused the utmost grief, as new evils menaced the Vicar of Christ himself. When Pius VII decreed the creation of the archbishopric of Baltimore, a French army occupied Rome ; not, as later, to befriend and protect, but to seize the papal states and extort from the supreme pontiff concessions incompatible with the existence of the Church. In spite of the difficulties of the times, the holy father was organizing the episcopate in America at the very moment when the troops of General Miollis menaced him in his palace. But when the new bishop of New York died at Naples, Pius VII was no longer at Rome to provide for the vacancy, or see that the bulls of the other bishops reached their destination. He himself had been dragged off from the Quirinal on the night of the 6th of July, 1809, by General Radet's gendarmes, and carried as a prisoner first to Grenoble and Avignon, then to Savona. Arch- bishop Carroll and his clergy immediately consulted as to means of com- munication with the persecuted pontiff, and the steps to be taken to avoid OUR FIRST SHEPHERD. 77 being deceived by any pretended letters. Owing to these delays, the bulls of April 8, 1808, reached Baltimore only in September, 18 10, and then by the way of Lisbon. They were immediately put in execution. Bishop Egan, first bishop of Philadelphia, was consecrated on the 28th of Octo- ber ; Bishop Cheverus, first bishop of Boston, on the 1st of Novem- ber; and finally, Bishop Flaget received episcopal consecration on the 4th of November, 18 10. At this last ceremony Bishop Chev- erus delivered the sermon, and eloquently addressed Archbishop Carroll as the Elias of the New Law, the father of the clergy, the guide of the chariot of Israel in the New World : " Pater »u\ Pater mi, currus Israel et auriga ejus" He extolled the merits of the Society of St. Sulpice, to which Bishop Flaget belonged, citing the various testimonies given in its honor at different times by the assemblies of the clergy of France, and the phrase which fell from the lips of Fenelon on his death-bed, "at that moment when man no longer flatters ;" "I know nothing more venerable or more apostolical than the Congregation of St. Sulpice." The archbishop of Baltimore might now repose in his glorious age, and await with security the moment when God should call him to the reward of his labors. He had commenced the ministry in America when Catholicity 'was persecuted there, and a few poor missionaries alone shared the toils and perils of the apostleship. He now beheld the United States an ecclesiastical province, and in his own diocese he had established a seminary, colleges, and convents; had created religious vocation, and founded a national clergy. Louisiana, with its episcopal see, its convent and clergy, had also been added to the United States, and was now confided to one of his clergy as its prelate. Yet the trials of the Church in Europe, the prolonged imprisonment of RT. REV. JOHN CHEVERUS, FIRST BISHOP OF BOSTON. 78 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Pius VII, filled with bitterness the last years of the holy and aged prelate. Archbishop Carroll lived long enough to see peace restored to the Church ; and one of the first acts of the holy father, on returning to Rome in 1814, was to name to the see of New York, vacant since the death of Bishop Concanen, Father John Connelly, of the Order of St. Dominic, prior of St. Clement's. His promotion completed the hierarchy of the United States. Soon after, the patriarch of that Church, humbly begging to be laid on the ground to die, expired on the 3d of December, 1815, at the age of eighty, and his death was lamented, not only by Catholics, but also by the Protestants, who respected and admired the archbishop, and mourned his death as a public loss. In person, Archbishop Carroll was commanding and dignified. His voice was feeble, and he was accordingly less fitted for the pulpit ; but his discourses are models of unction and classical taste. He was a profound theologian and scholar, and in conversation possessed unusual charm and elegance. As a prelate he was eminent for learning, mildness, yet a strict exactness in the rubrics and usages of the Church. His style, terse and elegant, was generally admired ; but of his works, we have only his contro- versy with Wharton, his journal, and some sermons and pastoral letters. Wrote the brilliant Thomas D'Arcy McGee of this first American prelate: " In the character of the first archbishop and the first president we find many points of personal resemblance, which we cannot think either trivial or fanciful. Born about the same period in adjoining States, of parents who ranked among the aristocracy of the provinces, each endowed with decided talents for governing himself and others, both were called to high but dissimilar authority at the first commencement of a new state of society. In the wise forethought, the disinterested demeanor, the grave courtesy, and the ardent patriotism of Archbishop Carroll and General Washington there is a striking similarity. To American Catholics, the character of their first chief pastor can never become old, nor tiresome, nor unlovely, any more than the character of Washington can to citizens of all denominations." ©taptcv V. SAINTby /V10TH6R S6T0N. A Protestant Physician's Daughter.— Early Marriage and Widowhood.— Good Italian Friends. — Abroad Among Catholic Strangers. — Advice to " Pray and Inquire." — Those Charitable Romans. — Emotions on Hearing Mass. — Studying Doctrines and Difficulties. — Beseeching the Holy Virgin. — People who were Religious Every Day. — Starting for Home. — Yearnings of a Tender Soul. — Prayers for Light. — A Dying Sister. — Struggles of the Preacher-Friend. — Between Two Fires. — Help From Bishop Cheverus. — "To the Catholics I Will Go." — Reception Into the Fold. — Trials of Blood and Friendship. — Wrestling with Poverty. — Influence on Near Relatives. — Persecution. — Providing for the Children. — Founding a House of Charity. — Generous Catholic Friends. — Plans of an Institution. — The Sisters of Charity. — A Busy and Holy Life. — The Growth of the Mustard Seed. — A Saint's Death. / LIZABETH ANN BAYLEY, the foundress of the Sisterhood of Charity in the United States, was born in the city of New York, on the 2Sth of August, 1774. Her father, Dr. Richard Bayley, was a physician of good family and distinguished position, a member of the Church of England, and a man of many natural virtues; but he cared very little about religion, and wherever his daughter may have got the pious inclinations which distinguished her in girl- hood, she certainly did not get them from him. Her mother, whose maiden name was Charlton, died while Elizabeth was a child. Under the care of her father, however, Miss Bayley was well educated and trained in domestic duties. At the age of nineteen she married Mr. William McGee Seton, eldest son of a prosperous New York merchant, and descendant of an ancient Scot- tish patrician family, whose head is the Earl of Winton. Their married life was eminently happy, and for six or seven years fortune smiled upon them. 79 8o THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Commercial disasters at last swept away their property. Dr. Bayley died suddenly of a malignant fever contracted in the discharge of his duty as health officer of the port; Mr. Seton's health failed, and in 1803 the husband and wife determined to make a voyage to Italy. They suffered a long and painful quarantine at Leghorn, and a week after their release Mr. Seton died, leavino- his wife in a strange land with her eldest child, a girl of nine years. Mrs. Seton was not, however, without comfort and protection. Two estimable Italian gentlemen, Philip and Anthony Filicchi, personal friends and business correspondents of the Setons, took her to their home and treated her with most brotherly kindness. Everything was done by these generous friends to divert and restore Mrs. Seton's suffering spirit, and a visit was made to Florence, that she might have an opportunity of seeing some of the charms of Italy before returning to her family in America. The churches and the sacred paintings seem alone to have impressed her during this visit. Of the picture of the descent from the cross in the Pitti Palace, she says, " It engaged my whole soul ; Mary at the foot of it expressed well that the iron had entered into hers ; and the shades of death over her agonized countenance so strongly contrasted with the heavenly peace of the dear Redeemer, that it seemed as if his pains had fallen on her." It will be easily conceived, from the character of Mrs. Seton's friends, and from her own lively and impressionable mind, that some pains were taken during her short stay amongst them to enlighten her on the subject of the Catholic faith. Mr. Filicchi once remarking that there was but one true religion, and without a right faith no one could be acceptable to God, Mrs. Seton replied, "Oh, sir! if there is but one faith and nobody pleases God without it, where are all the good people who die out of it?" " I don't know," answered her friend ; " that depends on what light of faith they have received ; but I know where people go who can know the right faith if they pray and inquire for it, and yet do neither?"* " That is to say, sir, you want me to pray and inquire, and be of your faith," said Mrs. Seton, laugh- ing. " Pray and inquire," he added, "that is all I ask of you." They also put books in her hands, and introduced to her a learned priest. For awhile Mrs. Seton had no misgivings respecting the soundness of the Protestant faith and writes as follows to a friend at home: "I am hard pushed by these charitable Romans, who wish that so much goodness should be improved by a conversion, which to effect, they have now taken the SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. 8 1 trouble to bring me their best informed priest, Abbe Plunkett, who is an Irishman; but they find me so willing to hear their enlightened conversation, that consequently, as learned people like to hear themselves best, I have but little to say, and as yet keep friends with all, as the best comment on my profession." But it was impossible that, with such edifying examples before her eyes, and such able arguments addressed to her understanding, she should not at last begin to doubt her perfect security ; and with the first misgiving arose a fervent prayer to God that, if not yet in the right way, she might be gra- ciously led into it. This became her daily petition; nor need it be told how surely, in answer to this heartfelt and humble prayer, she was gradually impressed by the truths of Catholicity, and yielded up her soul to this divine influence long before she was conscious that she had swerved from Protestant belief. Having once accompanied her friends to hear Mass in the church of Montenero, a young Englishman who was present observed to her at the very moment of the elevation, "This is what they call their Real Presence!" "My very heart," says Mrs. Seton, "trembled with pain and sorrow for his unfeeling interruption of their sacred adoration; for all around was dead silence, and many were prostrated. Involuntarily I bent from him to the pavement, and thought secretly on the words of St. Paul with starting tears, 'They discern not the Lord's Body;' and the next thought was, how should they eat and drink their own damnation for not discerning It, if, indeed, It is not there?" Mrs. Seton, however, was not yet convinced of the claims of the Catholic Church upon her obedience, and on the 3d of February, 1804, she re-em- barked with her daughter Anna for their native country; but a storm driving back the vessel, and the child being suddenly attacked by scarlet fever, they were once more welcomed to the hospitable house of Mr. Anthony Filicchi, and pressed to remain there until they should again be able to take their departure. After Anna had recovered, her mother was siezed by the same illness; and during all this time the most affectionate care was lavished upon them by their Italian friends. "Oh! the patience," exclaims Mrs. Seton, "and more than human kindness of these dear Filicchi's for us! You would say it was our Savior Himself they received in His poor and sick strangers." Thus brought again within the influence of Catholic piety and charity, Mrs. Seton availed herself of every opportunity of becoming better acquainted 82 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. with the doctrines of that faith which brought forth such pleasant fruits; and every day felt herself more powerfully drawn towards it. " How happy we should be," she writes to a friend, "if we believed what these dear souls believe — that they possess God in the sacrament, and that He remains in theit churches, and is carried to them when they are sick! When they carry tne Blessed Sacrament under my window, while I feel the full loneliness and sadness of my case, I cannot stop my tears at the thought. My God, how happy I should be, now so far away from all so dear, if I could find You in the Church as they do (for there is a chapel in the very house of Mr. Filicchi). How many things I would say to You of the sorrows of my heart and the sins of my life! The other day, in a moment of excessive distress, I fell on my knees, without thinking, when the Blessed Sacrament passed by, and cried in an agony to God to bless me, if He was there; that my whole soul desired only Him." At another time, writing to the same relation, she thus shows the gradual advance of her mind to a knowledge of the truth: "This evening, standing by the window, the moon shining full on Filicchi's countenance, he raised his eyes to heaven, and showed me how to make the sign of the cross. Dearest Rebecca, I was cold with the awful impression the first making of it gave me. The sign of the cross of Christ on me! Deeper thoughts came with it of I know not what earnest desires to be closely united with Him who died on it — of that last day when He is to bear it in triumph. " All the Catholic religion is full of these meanings, which interest me so. Why, Rebecca, they believe all we do and suffer, if we offer it for our sins, serves to expiate them. You may remember, when I asked Mr. Hobart what was meant by fasting in our prayer-book, as I found myself on Ash- Wednesday morning saying so foolishly to God, ' I turn to you in fasting, weeping, and mourning,' and I had come to church with a hearty breakfast of buckwheat cakes and coffee, and full of life and spirits, with little thought of my sins; you may remember what he said about its being old customs, etc. Well, the dear Mrs. Filicchi I am with never eats, this season of Lent, till after the clock strikes three. Then the family assemble, and she says she offers her weakness and pain of fasting for her sins, united with her Savior's sufferings. I like that very much ; but what I like better, dearest Rebecca — only think what a comfort — they go to Mass here every morning. "Ah! .how often you and I used to give the sigh, and you would press your arm in mine of a Sunday morning, and say, 'No more until next Sun- SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. 83 day,' as we turned from the church-door, which closed upon us (unless a prayer-day was given out in the week). Well, here they go to church at four every morning if they please. And you know how we were laughed at for running from one church to another on Sacrament Sundays, that we might receive as often as we could; well, here people that love God, and lead a regular life, can go (though many do not do it, yet they can go) every day. Oh, I don't know how any one can have any trouble in this world, who believes all these dear souls believe. If I don't believe it, it shall not be for want of praying. Why, they must be as happy as angels, almost." Such was the lofty and just appreciation which Mrs. Seton formed of Catholic truth; and would that all Catholics set so high a value upon these blessed privileges of their inheritance as did this good soul, to whom as yet they had not been given! During the latter part of her stay in Leghorn, Mrs. Seton frequently visited the sacred places, and, joining with devotion in the services of the Church, would pour forth her soul in prayer. Indeed, had not her return to America been hastened as much as possible through her anxiety to rejoin her bereaved family at home, she would probably have renounced Protest- antism before leaving Italy. However, the delay, although it entailed severe mental conflict and suffering for nearly a year afterwards, served only to prove still more triumphantly the power of the faith she had received, and her own fidelity to the graces bestowed. Leaving with tears the grave of her beloved husband, Mrs. Seton set forth, at length, on the 8th of April, with a heart yearning with desire after her children at home. Mr. Anthony Filicchi, who had long been wishing for matters of business to visit America, was decided by her lonely situation to accompany her on the voyage. This was the greatest comfort to her; for the friendship between them was of no common order. " The 8th of April," she writes in her journal, "at half-past four in the morning, my dearest brother came to my room to awaken my soul to all its dearest hopes and expectations. The heaven was bright with stars, the wind fair, and the Pianingo's signal expected to call us on board; meanwhile the tolling of the bell called us to Mass, and in a few minutes we were prostrate in the presence of God. Oh, my soul, how solemn was that offering — for a blessing on our voyage — for my dear ones, my sisters, and all so dear to me — and more than all, for the souls of my dear husband and father; earnestly our desires ascended with the blessed sacrifice, that they might find acceptance 84 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE through Him who gave Himself for us; earnestly we desired to be united with Him, and would gladly encounter all the sorrows before us to be partakers of that blessed body and blood! Oh, my God, pity and spare me! . . . " Filicchi's last blessing to me was as his whole conduct had been — that of the truest friend. Oh, Filicchi, you shall not witness against me. May God bless you forever; and may you shine as the 'stars in glory' for what you have done for me. . . . Most dear Seton, where are you now? I lose sight of the shore that contains your dear ashes, and your soul is in that region of immensity where I cannot find you. My Father and my God! And yet I must always love to retrospect Thy wonderful dispensations; to be sent so many thousand miles on so hopeless an errand; to be constantly supported and accompanied by Thy consoling mercy through scenes of trial which nature alone must have sunk under; to be brought to the light of Thy truth, notwithstanding every affection of my heart and power of my will was opposed to it; to be succored and cherished by the tenderest friendship, while separated and far from those that I loved. My Father and my God, while I live let me praise, while I have my being let me serve and adore Thee." During the voyage, which lasted fifty six days, Mrs. Seton employed her time in uniting as far as possible with Mr. A. Filicchi in the observances of the Church, in reading the lives of the saints, and in acquainting herself still further with Catholic doctrine by frequent conversation with her friend. She had need of strength for the storm of opposition that awaited her; and her heart sunk, even in the midst of its joyful anticipations at returning home, at the separation that her religious convictions would bring about between her and her hitherto deeply reverenced pastor, the Rev. J. H. Hobart. She says in her journal, looking forward to this, " Still if you will not be my brother, if your dear friendship and esteem must be the price of my fidelity to what I believe to be the truth, I cannot doubt the mercy of God, who, by depriving me of my dearest tie on earth, will certainly draw me nearer to Him; and this I feel confidently from the experience of the past, and the truth of His promise, which can never fail." Mrs. Seton had the happiness of finding all her little ones in perfect health; but a severe trial awaited her in the death of Miss Rebecca Seton, her sister-in-law and most dear companion and friend, who only survived a few weeks after their reunion. Mrs. Seton being thus fully engaged with her dying sister immediately on her return from Italy, could not help contrasting painfully the difference SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. 85 between the death-bed of a Protestant and one who is fortified by all the sacraments of the Church. Yet, after the trial was over, her mind became unutterably harassed by doubts and temptations respecting her future religious profession. On leaving Leghorn she had been furnished by Mr. Filicchi with a letter of introduction to the Right Rev. Dr. Carroll, bishop of Balti- more; but, unfortunately, this letter was not at once delivered; and, following tbe well-meant advice of Mr. Filicchi, to acquaint her pastor and friends with her change of principles, such a storm of opposition came down upon her that for a long time her mind was divided and bewildered, and tempted to stray back altogether from the newly-found path of truth. Mr. Hobart, in particular, whose talents and religious zeal were very great, and for whom her own great partiality pleaded strongly, left no argu- ment untried that could be brought to bear upon the subject. And though constant personal communication with Mr. Anthony Filicchi, at New York, and epistolary correspondence with his brother at Leghorn, kept up the war- fare on the other side, yet for many months she could not see her way clearly to renounce forever the creed in which she had been brought up. But accustomed as she was almost incessantly to lay every trouble before God and implore His divine guidance, the germ of faith could not be stifled within her; and perhaps it became only more firmly rooted during this time of suffering. The brothers Filicchi were unwearied in teaching, counseling, and confirm- ing her wavering mind. The letters of Philip, in particular, are models of wisdom, piety, and charity; and as the letters of a layman engaged in active mercantile pursuits, they bear the marks of no common attainments. He much regretted that Mrs. Seton had not entered the Catholic Church whilst in Italy, and under the full force of convictions. Though unable to act decidedly, Mrs. Seton's mind seemed still more unable to let go the truths it had already embraced. She thus describes her own singular state: " On arriving at home (from Italy) I was assailed on the subject of religion by the clergy, who talked of Anti-Christ, idolatry, and urged objections in torrents; which, though not capable of changing the opinions I had adopted, have terrified me enough to keep me in a state of hesitation; and I am thus in the hands of God, praying night and day for His divine light, which can alone direct me aright. I instruct my children in the Catholic religion, without taking any decided step; my heart is in that faith, and it is my greatest comfort to station myself in imagination in a Catholic Church.*' 86 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. The coldness of many, indeed most of her Protestant friends, who were scandalized at her venturing to entertain any doubts on the subject of religion, was a great trial to her warm and still bleeding heart; but perhaps a still o-reater temptation for her lay in the affectionate appeals continually made to her by Mr. Hobart. The very fact of being in a state of doubt, of course, made Mrs. Seton a sort of common prey for proselytizers of all denominations, which she her- self describes in a lively manner. " I had," she says, "a most affectionate note from Mr. Hobart to-day, asking me how I could ever think of leaving the church in which I was baptized. But, though whatever he says has the weight of my partiality for him, as well as the respect it seems to me I could scarcely have for any one else, yet that question made me smile; for it is like saying that wherever a child is born, and wherever its parents place it, there it will find the truth ; and he does not hear the droll invitations made me every day since I am in my little new home, and old friends come to see me; for it has already happened that one of the most excellent women I ever knew, who is of the Church of Scotland, finding me unsettled about the great object of a true faith, said to me: 'Oh, do, dear soul, come and hear our J. Mason, and I am sure you will join us.' "A little after came one whom I loved for the purest and most innocent manners, of the Society of Quakers (to which I have always been attached); she coaxed me too with artless persuasion: ' Betsy, I tell thee, thee had better come with us.' And my faithful old friend of the Anabaptist meeting, Mrs. T , says, with tears in her eyes, 'Oh, could you be regenerated; could you know our experiences, and enjoy with us our heavenly banquet.' And my good old Mary, the Methodist, groans and contemplates, as she calls it, over my soul, so misled because I have got no convictions. But oh, my Father and my God! all that will not do for me. Your word is truth, and without contradiction, wherever it is; one faith, one hope, one baptism, I look for wherever it is, and I often think my sins, my miseries, hide the light; yet I will cling and hold to my God to the last gasp, begging for that light, and never change until I find it." Again she thus writes to Mrs. A. Filicchi, in September: " Your Antonio would not even have been well pleased to see me in St. Paul's (Protestant Episcopal) Church to-day ; but peace and persuasion about proprieties, etc., over prevailed; yet I got in a side pew, which turned my face towards the Catholic Church in the next street, and found myself twenty times speaking SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. 87 to the Blessed Sacrament there, instead of looking at the naked altar where I was, or minding the routine of prayers. Tears plenty, and sighs as silent and deep as when I first entered your blessed Church of the Annunciation in Florence — all turning to the one only desire, to see the way most pleasing to my God, whichever that way is. . . . " I can only say, I do long and desire to worship our God in truth ; and if I had never met you Catholics, and yet should have read the books Mr. Hobart has brought me, they would have in themselves brought a thousand uncertainties and doubts to my mind; and these soften my heart so much before God, in the certainty how much He must pity me, knowing as He does the whole and sole bent of my soul is to please Him only, and get close to Him in this life and in the next, that in the midnight hour, believe me, I often look up at the walls through the tears and distress that overpower me, expecting rather to see His finger writing on the wall for my relief, than that He will forsake or abandon so poor a creature." Mrs. Seton made one final effort to find comfort in that form of worship where she had been so long accustomed to seek it. " Would you believe it, Amabilia, in a desperation of heart I went last Sunday to St. George's (Protestant Episcopal) Church; the wants and necessities of my soul were so pressing that I looked straight up to God, and I told Him, since I cannot see the way to please You, whom alone I wish to please, everything is indifferent to me; and until You do show me the way You mean me to walk in, I will trudge on in the path You suffered me to be born in, and go even to the very sacrament where I once used to find You. " So away I went, my old Mary happy to take care of the children for me once more until I came back ; but if I left the house a Protestant, I returned to it a Catholic, I think; since I determined to go no more to the Protestants, being much more troubled than ever I thought I could be whilst I remembered God is my God. But so it was, that in the bowing of my heart before the bishop to receive his absolution, which is given publicly and universally to all in the Church, I had not the least faith in his prayers, and looked for an apostolic loosing from my sins, which, by the books Mr. Hobart had given me to read, I find they do not claim or admit; thus trembling I went to Communion, half dead with the inward struggle; when they said ' the body and blood of Christ,' — oh, Amabilia, no words can express my trial. " I took the Daily Exercise of good Abbe Plunkett, to read the prayers 88 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. after Communion; but finding every word addressed to our dear Savior as really present, I became half crazy, and for the first time could not bear the sweet caresses of the darlings, nor bless their little dinner. Oh, my God, that day! but it finished calmly at last, abandoning all to God, and a renewed con- fidence in the Blessed Virgin ; whose mild and peaceful look reproached my bold excesses, and reminded me to fix my heart above with better hopes." So tortured was the mind of Mrs. Seton at this time, that she had even thought in despair of embracing no particular form of Christianity until the hour of death ; but taking up a sermon of Bourdaloue on the Feast of the Epiphany, and meeting with the following observations, in allusion to the inquiry, " Where is He who is born King of the Jews?" that when we no longer discern the star of faith, we must seek it where alone it is to be found, among the depositories of the divine word, the pastors of the Church, she was, by the blessing of God, so deeply impressed by the suggestion that she immediately turned again to the Catholic books which had originally so forci- bly attracted her; and being unable to obtain an interview with the priest in her own neighborhood, wrote at once to solicit directions from the Rev. John Louis de Cheverus, of Boston. In vain did her Protestant friends use all the common arguments to deter her. Worldly considerations were nothing to her where her soul was con- cerned. " The Catholics of New York were represented to me," she tells a friend at this time, " as the offscourings of the people," and the congregation as " a public nuisance ; but," she adds, " that troubles not me. The congrega- tions of a city may be very shabby, yet very pleasing to God ; or very bad people among them, yet that cannot hurt the faith, as I take it. And should the priest himself deserve no more respect than is here allowed him, his min- istry of the sacraments would be the same to me, if I ever shall receive them. I seek but God and His Church; and expect to find my peace in them, not in the people." Mrs. Seton then put herself in correspondence with Father Cheverus; and this step was of the greatest service to her. His timely counsels and the wise advice of Bishop Carroll, at length, under God, dispelled the clouds from her soul, and determined her to delay no longer seeking admission to the Catholic Church. These are her own words on making this important decision, and are the last extract we shall make from her pen as a Protestant: " Now, they tell me, take care, I am a mother, and my children I must answer for in judgment, whatever faith I lead them to. That being so, and SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. 89 I so unconscious, for I little thought, till told by Mr. Hobart, that their faith could be so full of consequence to them and me, I will go peacefully and firmly to the Catholic Church; for if faith is so important to our salvation, I will seek it where true faith first began ; seek it amongst those who received it from God Himself." On Ash- Wednesday then, March 14, 1805, Mrs. Seton presented herself for acceptance in old St. Peter's Church, New York City. " How the heart," she says, " died away, as it were, in silence, before the little tabernacle and the large crucifixion over it! Ah, my God, here let me rest; and down the head on the bosom, and the knees on the bench." After Mass she was received into the Church by a venerable Irish priest, the Rev. Matthew O'Brien, in the presence of her most true friend, Mr. Anthony Filicchi. What his feelings must have been, at this happy termination to all his anxie- ties on her account, can be well imagined. Less easily hers as she returned home, " light at heart, and cool of head, the first time these many long months; but not without begging our Lord to wrap my heart deep in that open side, so well described in the beautiful crucifixion; or lock it up in His little taber- nacle, where I shall now rest forever. Oh, the endearments of this day with the children, and the play of the heart with God, while keeping up their little farces with them." What a contrast to the torturing anxieties of the last twelve months, and, in particular, to the trouble and disappointment she experienced in partaking of the Lord's Supper, in the Protestant Church, when, " for the first time in her life, she could not bear the sweet caresses of her darling children, nor bless their dinner!" The following extracts from her journal of this time all breathe the same happy spirit of peace and contentment: " So delighted now to prepare for this good confession, which, bad as I am, I would be ready to make on the house-top, to insure the good absolution I hope for after it, and then to set out a new life, a new existence itself; no great difficulty for me to be ready for it; for truly my life has been well culled over in bitterness of soul, three months of sorrow past." " It is done easy enough. The kindest confessor is this Mr. O'Brien, with the compassion and yet firmness in this work of mercy which I would have expected from my Lord Himself. Our Lord Himself I saw alone in him, both in his and my part in this venerable sacra- ment; for, oh! how awful those words of unloosing after a thirty years' bond- age. I felt as if my chains fell, as those of St. Peter, at the touch of the: Divine messenger." o THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. " My God! what new scenes for my soul! Annunciation Day I shall be made one with Him who said, ' Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you can have no part with Me.' I count the days and hours; yet a few more of hope and expectation, and then — how bright the sun, these morning walks of preparation! Deep snow or smooth ice, all to me the same — I see nothing but the little bright cross on St. Peter's steeple." " 25M March. — At last, God is mine, and I am His. Now let all go its round. I have received Him. The awful impressions of the evening before, Jesus, of not having done all to prepare ; and yet even the transports of con- fidence and hope in His goodness. My God! to the last breath of life will I not remember this night of watching for morning dawn, the fearful beating heart, so pressing to be gone; the long walk to town, but every step counted nearer that street; then nearer that tabernacle; then nearer the moment He would enter the poor, poor little dwelling so all His own. And when He did, the first thought I remember was, ' Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered;' for it seemed to me my King had come to take His throne; and instead of the humble, tender welcome I had expected to give Him, it was but a triumph of joy and gladness, that the deliverer was come, and my defense, and shield, and strength, and salvation made mine for this world and the next. Now, then, all the recesses of my heart found their fling, and it danced with more fervor — no, I must not say that — but perhaps almost with as much as the royal psalmist before his ark ; for I was far richer than he, and more honored than he ever could be. Now the point is for the fruits. So far, truly, I feel all the powers of my soul held fast by Him, who came with so much majesty to take possession of His little poor kingdom." Behold Mrs. Seton, then, at length safely housed within the ark towards which her soul had for so long unconsciously yearned. After all the diffi- culties and doubts she had been passing through, she was well prepared to rejoice in the possession of peace on which she had now entered ; not peace undisturbed, but still peace that could not be removed. She was now, as she herself hastened to inform Father De Cheverus, whose advice had so materi- ally aided her conversion, " a poor burdened creature, weighed down with sins and sorrows, receiving an immediate transition to life, liberty, and rest." At that time it was considered a degradation to embrace the Catholic faith, and the estrangement of her family on this account left Mrs. Seton to meet almost alone the exigencies in which the embarrassed state of her husband's affairs at the time of his death had involved her. Had she remained a SAIN TL Y MO THER SE TON. 9 1 Protestant, all due assistance would have been given, and a large fortune might have been hers; but now, except for the munificent aid of Mr. Filicchi, she was left dependent on her own exertions. Nothing that the most generous friendship could prompt was wanting on the part of this noble man. He would gladly have provided a house for her in Italy; and his agents in New York were constantly directed to supply her with whatever money she might call on them for; and her two sons, one nine and the other seven years old, were placed by him for education in Georgetown College. " To relieve her wants," he told her, "was the pride of his soul, and his best passport for his last journey." Mrs. Seton, however, was very properly anxious to exert herself for the benefit of her young family, and she therefore opened a boarding-house for some of the boys who attended a school in the city. Even in this change she found the highest consolation, knowing that it was brought about by her obedience to the will of God; and, after attending Mass, she went through her round of daily duties with the greatest cheerfulness and satisfaction. She still kept up the practice of committing to paper the secrets of her heart; and it is difficult to select from this treasury of devotion one passage more worthy than another of shadowing forth this pure, and humble, and loving heart. Her constant prayer at this time is, that the love of God mav be supreme within her. On the 26th of May, 1806, Mrs. Seton was confirmed by Bishop Car- roll in St. Peter's Church, New York; and soon after this event she was called upon to part from her invaluable friend, Mr. A. Filicchi, who was returning to his native country. No words can express all that Mrs. Seton owed to this gentleman, who had left his own family to accompany her home in her bereavement; who had placed at her disposal his means, his time, and his unfailing sympathy; who had labored unceasingly to bring her within the fold of the true Church, and under the bright example of whose Christian piety and charity she had first learned to seek after this saving refuge. Mrs. Seton always calls him brotlicr ; and no brother could have been nearer and dearer to a sister's heart than he was to hers. Nok was it without deep feeling that he, too, could bid farewell to one to whom he had been so eminently useful. We read that he considered " the interest which he had taken in the welfare of her and her family as the secret of the many favors he had received from Heaven." When on his way home, being providentially rescued from very imminent danger " on the 4% o 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. dreadful summit of Mount Cenis," ne thus writes to Mrs. Seton. " It was on Monday night, the 8th of December, the day of the festival of our Blessed Lady's Conception. Early in that morning, they (the other passengers in the Diligence) had all laughed at my going to Mass, but fear drew afterwards from their lips, against their will, the awful acknowledgment of their for- saken principles of religion. "I looked immediately to you as my principal intercessor; and you must have had certainly a great share in my deliverance. What wonder, then, in my readiness to be serviceable to you? Through your good example they find me now a better Christian than I was, and through you my mercantile concerns are blessed by God with an uninterrupted success. I shall not, therefore, be so foolish as to desert your cause. Pray only our Divine Redeemer to extend His mercy towards me for the most important welfare in our next life. If I have been happy enough to be the instrument of intro- ducing you to the gates of the true Church of Christ here below, keep me fast by you when called upstairs; we must enter together into heaven. Amen." There was one amongst Mrs. Seton's near connections who by no means shared in the general feeling of hostility with which she was now regarded. This was Miss Cecilia Seton, her youngest sister-in-law. Under fourteen years of age, beautiful, devout, and most warmly attached to her proscribed relative, Mrs. Seton cherished the earnest hope that this sister might one day be partaker of the true faith, and availed herself of the frequent opportunities afforded by a severe illness to bring the subject before her young patient. When raised from her sick bed Cecilia devoted herself unhesitatingly to find out the truth, and finally resolved, in spite of the most furious opposition, on becoming a Catholic. It was in vain that every means were employed that bigotry and misguided zeal could suggest. She was threatened with all sorts of possible and impossible evils, and even kept in close confinement for several days; but the grace of God carried her unwavering through every opposition, and she was received into the Church, June 20, 1806. The immediate consequences of this step were the young lady's dismis- sal from home without the least provision, and a positive prohibition to enter the houses of any of her relations, or to associate with their families. The youngest and hitherto the favorite at home, this was a severe trial to the youthful novice; but she was welcomed as a gift from God by Mrs. Seton, who gladly offered her a home. This, however, was the occasion of renewed persecutions towards Mrs. SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. 93 Seton ; and many who had hitherto kept up some outward resemblance of courtesy, now forbade their children to hold the slightest intercourse with her. Even the Protestant Bishop Moore and Mr. Hobart, her former friends and pastors, took the same hostile part, and warned all who had hitherto aided her in her establishment to avoid having anything to do with so dangerous a person. In consequence of this state of things, her circumstances in a worldly point of view became most seriously compromised; yet still her soul retained its peace, and her mind dwelt rather on the consolations received from Catholic friends than the injuries inflicted by others. Living under the same roof with her exemplary sister-in-law, Miss •Cecilia Seton followed closely in her footsteps, and became day by day a brighter and purer witness of the beauty of that Faith she had embraced. So remarkably was this the case, that she soon won back the affection of some who had turned from her in such blind prejudice. For, meeting with some of her relations at the death-bed of a mutual friend, they were so deeply touched by the sweetness and piety of the young convert, that they invited her to return amongst them. Mrs. Seton, however — certainly from no deficiency on her own part, but perhaps as being considered a more dangerous character — was not permitted to regain the favor she had lost. But, except so far as worldly circumstances were concerned — which in themselves affected her not — this was of little moment to her; for she was now increasingly occupied with her children, who had been, of course, received with her into the Church; and we are told, "nothing can surpass the admirable tact with which Mrs. Seton conciliated their warm affection, and directed her influence over them to the glory of God and their personal sanctification." Besides placing her two sons in Georgetown College with the hope of their going ultimately to that of Montreal, Mr. Anthony Filicchi had encouraged Mrs. Seton to hope that she and her daughters might be admitted to a convent in the same place, where her children would be trained carefully in the principles of the faith, and she herself employ her talents as a teacher. This was a prospect, on the thoughts of which Mrs. Seton loved to indulge; but it was brought about much sooner than she expected, by her introduction to the Rev. William V. Dubourg, president and founder of St. Mary's Col- lege in Baltimore. Even before he became acquainted with Mrs. Seton, he was struck by her unusual fervor of devotion during an accidental visit to New York, where g4 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. he celebrated Mass; and afterwards, learning her wish to enter some con- ventual establishment with her children, he endeavored to turn her thoughts from Canada and induce her to remain in the United States with the same intention. "Come to us, Mrs. Seton," were his words; " we will assist you in forming a plan of life which, while it will forward your views of contrib- uting to the support of your children, will shelter them from the dangers to which they are exposed among their Protestant connections, and also afford you much more consolation in the exercise of your faith than you have yet enjoyed. We also wish to form a small school, for the promotion of relig- ious instruction, for those children whose parents are interested in that point." " You may be sure," says Mrs. Seton, " I objected only to want of tal- ents ; to which he replied, ' We want example more than talents.' " Father Dubouro- who was a man of singular enterprise and penetration, had imme- diately seen that Mrs. Seton was capable of serving the cause of religion in no ordinary degree; and though her own humble estimate of herself made her wonder at the prospect opening before her, yet it was so congenial to her highest wishes, and offered so many advantages for her beloved children (for Father Dubourg had proposed receiving her two sons, free of expense within St. Mary's College), that she did not hesitate to lay the matter at once before Bishop Carroll, Dr. Matignon, and Father Cheverus, as friends and counselors, without whose advice she dared not act. They were unani- mously in favor of the scheme, and Dr. Matignon said, almost in the spirit of prophecy, when alluding to her former idea of going to Canada, " Tou are destined, I think, for some great good in the United States, and here you should remain in preference to any other location." Other circumstances at this time contributed to determine Mrs. Seton to enter upon this new sphere of action ; she could not realize enough for the maintenance of her family from the boarding-house she had undertaken, nor was the society of the boys at all beneficial to her own children. Her Protestant friends also highly approved of the Baltimore scheme, observing that it was an excellent project, because " her principles excluded her from the confidence of the inhabitants of New York." Mrs. Seton therefore resolved on leaving her native city; and her sister-in-law, Miss C. Seton, determined on accompanying her. Father Dubourg's plan was that they should take a small house, where, with her own family and a few boarders, she might begin the work of general education " in subservience to pious instruction;" with the hope that in time, SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. 95 if it was God's will to prosper the undertaking and give her and her com- panion " a relish for their functions," it might be gradually consolidated into a permanent institution. On the 9th of June, 180S, Mrs. Seton embarked with her three daughters for Baltimore; and her two sons being brought from Georgetown, to be under Father Dubourg's care at St. Mary's College, she had once more all her children under her own immediate superintendence. This was no slight alleviation to the feelings that must have been awakened in her heart by finding herself thrust out, as it were, and unregretted, from her native city, and the companionship of her own family and all the friends of her early life. She was going to a new scene and sphere of action, amongst strangers; and that society of which she had been for so long the cherished ornament, now triumphed over her departure. Yet the only reflections which her unfailing confidence in God inspired, on the eve of her arrival at Baltimore, were expressed in the following words: " To-morrow do I go among strangers? No. Has an anxious thought or fear passed my mind? No. Can I be disappointed? No. Our sweet sacrifice will re-unite my soul with all who offer it. Doubt and fear will fly from the breast inhabited by Him. There can be no disappointment, where the soul's only desire and expectation is to meet His adored will and fulfill it." Mrs. Seton reached Baltimore on the Feast of Corpus Christi ; and in the services of that day, and the affectionate greeting which followed, from a large circle of new friends already prepared to love her, she lost at once all sense of loneliness. It is scarcely necessary to say that Mrs. Seton had not left New York without informing the Messrs. Filicchi of her intended plans. And as soon as she was settled in her new home, and the design which Father Dubourg had in proposing her removal was a little matured, she wrote again, frankly asking what amount of aid she might hope to receive from them, in the event of its being advisable to provide by building, etc., for a permanent institution. Her generous friend, Antonio, who was at this time contributing largely to her own support, responded gladly to this new appeal, bidding her draw at once on his agents for one thousand dollars or more if needful; adding, "your prayers had so much bettered our mercantile importance here below, that in spite of all the embargoes, political and commercial troubles, which have caused and will cause the utter ruin of many, we possess greater means ~6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. now than before, thanks to God, with the same unalterable good will." This plan, however, was not destined to be carried out ; at least, not in the way which was then contemplated. Mrs. Seton's view was to begin by opening a boarding-school for young ladies, leaving to time and the will of God that which she had already very earnestly at heart, the formation of a society specially consecrated to religion. She had no difficulty in obtaining the required number of pupils; and as they lived literally beneath the shadow of the Church, and she enjoyed at this time singular religious privileges, and the frequent society of many dis- tinguished clergymen, particularly of Bishop Carroll, she writes in a transport of joy at the blessing of her lot: ' : Every morning at Communion, living in the very wounds of our dearest Lord, seeing only his representatives, and receiving their benedictions continually." It was her only wish that her young sister-in-law, Miss Cecilia Seton, would join her. But it had been thought advisable that this lady should remain for the present in New York, with a brother upon whom she was entirely dependent. Left in the midst of those who had been so hostile to her change of religion, she had many trials to endure; but by unflinching firmness, and the strictest perseverance in attending all her religious duties she became daily a more fervent Catholic, and cherished the hope of one day devoting herself in a special manner to the service of God. Another sister, Harriet, who was also warmly attached to Mrs. Seton, had inexpressible longings to fly to that happy retirement which she so elo- quently painted in her letters from Baltimore. This lady was the " belle of New York," living in the midst of fashionable society, engaged to a step- brother of Mrs. Seton's (of course a Protestant), and, on account of some preference she had already shown for the Catholic faith, was closely watched by her family. Presently we shall have to return to these ladies; but first it is necessary that we should relate the circumstances which led to the removal of Mrs. Seton from Baltimore after a sojourn of only a few months, and brought about the fulfillment of her pious intentions in a manner she herself had never ventured to hope for. In the autumn of 1808, a young lady, seeking retirement from the world, had made up her mind for this purpose to go to some foreign conventual establishment; but hearing of Mrs. Seton's plans and wishes, came gladly to Baltimore, and was there offered by her father " as a child whom he SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. 97 consecrated to God." She became for the present an assistant in the school; but on the arrival of this first companion, Father Babade, then her spiritual director, encouraged Mrs. Seton to discern the " announcement of an under- taking which would gradually collect round her a numerous band of spiritual daughters." The time for this was indeed already come. One morning, after Holy Comunion, she felt an extraordinary impulse to devote herself to the care of poor female children, and to found for their benefit some abiding institution. Going at once to Father Dubourg, she said, "This morning in my dear Communion, I thought, dearest Savior, if You would but give me the care of poor little children, no matter how poor; and Mr. Cooper being directly before me at his thanksgiving, I thought, he has money; if he would but give it for the bringing up of poor little children, to know and love You." Mr. Cooper was a convert, a student at St. Mary's for the priesthood, and anxious to devote his property to the service of God. On hearing Mrs. Seton's words, Father Dubourg seemed lost in astonishment, and told her that Mr. Cooper had spoken to him that very morning of his thoughts being all for poor children's instruction, and that if he could find somebody to do it, he would give his money for that purpose; and he wondered if Mrs. Seton would be willing to undertake it. Struck with the wonderful coincidence, the priest advised each to reflect for a month on the subject, and acquaint him with the result. During this time there was no communication between the parties; nevertheless, they returned at the appointed time, offering, the one his means, and the other her services, for the relief of Christ's poor. The clergy consulted on the occasion could not but approve of an inten- tion so plainly in the ordering of God, and the site of Emmitsburg, Maryland, was fixed upon as affording "moral and physical advantages for a religious community, being far from the city and in the midst of wild mountain scenery." 4 The prospect now opening before Mrs. Seton was hailed with delight by all who knew her remarkable fitness for the work. Amongst others, her esteemed friend, Father John Louis de Cheverus, writes, almost in the lan- guage of prophecy: "How admirable is Divine Providence! I see already numerous choirs of virgins following you to the altar. I see your holy order diffusing itself in the different parts of the United States, spreading every- where the good odor of Jesus Christ, and teaching by their angelical lives and pious instructions how to serve God in purity and holiness. I have no oS THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. doubt, my beloved and venerable sister, that He who has begun this work will bring it to perfection." The title of mother was already gladly given everywhere to Mrs. Seton; and one lady after another came gathering around her, in fervor and humility, offering themselves as candidates for the new sisterhood. A conventual habit was adopted (which was afterwards changed to that worn by the Sisters of Charity), and under the title of "Sisters of St. Joseph," a little band was organized under temporary rules. The humble soul of Mother Seton, as she must now be called, was filled with such an overwhelming sense of the responsibility committed to her, that on the evening of the day she received it as a charge from her spiritual directors, she sunk, weeping bitterly, upon her knees; and after giving way to her emotions for some time, she confessed aloud before the sisters who were present the most frail and humiliating actions of her life, from her childhood upwards, and then exclaimed from the depths of her heart, "My gracious God! You know my unfitness for this task; I, who by my sins have so often crucified You ; I blush with shame and confusion ! How can I teach others, who know so little myself, and am so miserable and imperfect?" Mrs. Seton bound herself privately at this time, in the presence of the ven- erable Bishop Carroll, by the usual vows, for a year; and soon afterwards she was joined by one who had long waited patiently until the will of God should permit her to follow where her heart had already gone before. Miss Cecilia Seton, falling dangerously ill, was advised by her physician to try a sea voy- age as a last remedy, and thankfully determined to visit Mother Seton. She was accompanied by her sister Harriet, two brothers, and a servant. Con- trary to all expectations, her health gradually began to improve, and on reaching Baltimore her attendants left her, with the exception of her sister Harriet, who stayed to take care of her. This illness again proving serious, change of air was once more advised, and Mother Seton then removed with the invalid to the site of her intended residence at Emmitsburg. Miss Harriet Seton, of course, accompanied them, with some of the community and Mother Seton's children. As no habitation was yet ready for the sisterhood, they were allowed by the Rev. Mr. Dubois, president of Mount St. Mary's College (to which Mrs. Seton's sons had already been removed from Baltimore), to occupy a small log-house on the mountain. Here Cecilia soon recovered some degree of health, and here her sister was strengthened to say, spite of all the persecution which she well Brother Maurelian, on behalf of all Catholic Educators, greeting Monsignor Satolli, special delegate to represent Pope Leo XIII, at the opening of the World's Columbian Exposition. MONSIGNOR O'CONNELL. BROTHER MAURELIAN. ARCHBISHOP SATOLLI. SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. 99 knew such a step would entail from her own family, and although she was uncertain what effect it might have upon him to whom she was engaged, "It is done, my sister, I am a Catholic. The cross of our dearest Lord is the desire of my soul ; I will never rest till He is mine." At the end of July, Mother Seton and the whole of her community, now ten in number, besides her three daughters and her sister-in-law, removed to the little farm-house on their own land in St. Joseph's Valley, which was to be their present home. It was much too small to be considered anything but a temporary refuge, containing only three or four rooms, and " a little closet just wide enough to hold an altar," where the presence of the Blessed Sacra- ment made up for every privation; and a more commodious and ample build- ing was being prepared at once, as rapidly as circumstances would admit. Meanwhile, in accordance with the institute of the Sisters of Charity, with which this was intended to conform, instruction of youth and care of the sick occupied the greater part of the sisters' time; and as it happened that a fever was just now breaking out in the neighborhood, they received many petitions to come and tend those who were attacked by it. Full of zeal and piety, they cheerfully lent themselves to this good work, and gave the greatest edification wherever they went. They were very poor, circumstances not yet allowing them to open a school ; but all were so anxious to devote themselves to a life of mortification that Mother Seton says, " carrot coffee, salt pork, and buttermilk, seemed too good a living." The expenses of building reduced them to a still more desti- tute condition; their bread was of the coarsest rye, and for many months they " did not know where the next meal would come from." On Christmas Day they rejoiced to have " some smoked herrings for dinner, and a spoonful of molasses for each." Yet the most perfect cheerfulness and harmony pre- vailed*; they were literally all of one mind. About the end of September Miss Harriet Seton was received into the Church. As was expected, a torrent of reproaches from home followed this announcement; but nothing could now prevent the holy fervor of this young convert; and rejoicing to suffer the loss of all things, even, if need were, the love of him to whom her hand was promised, she still pleaded for an exten- sion of her stay in St. Joseph's Valley. Here, while nursing her sick sister, she was herself seized with a violent fever; and within three months of her conversion her remains were carried to a spot she had once playfully chosen as a last resting-place in the silent woods, and laid beneath the tree she had IOO THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. pointed out. Thus, although the last called, she became " the first-fruits of those who sleep in St. Joseph's Valley." The death-bed of this pious and beautiful young lady was never forgotten by those who had the happiness to assist at it. Amidst the most intense suf- ferings the names of God, heaven, or eternity instantly fixed her attention, insensible to every other address. Her devotion to the Blessed Sacrament had been remarkable, and even in delirium the same divine object absorbed all her mind; her last sign of life was an effort to join the hymn at Benediction. It was impossible for her best friends not to rejoice that she was thus spared the sufferings and temptations that would have assailed her had she lived to return to New York. Far different, however, was the effect of her death upon her relations there; and when, after four months more, her sister Cecilia was also laid in that same little inclosure, planted with wild flowers, their indignation against this " pest of society " knew no bounds, even in its public expression. But all this, as Mother Seton herself observed, was music to the spirit hoping only to be conformed to Him who was despised and rejected by men. Two months before Cecilia's death the community were established in their new dwelling, a large log house two stories high, with a sanctuary, sacristy, and an apartment where strangers could assist at Mass, facing one end of the sanctuary. The choir where the community heard Mass, etc., *vas hi front of the altar. So poor was the altar that its chief ornaments were a framed portrait of our dear Redeemer, which Mother Seton had brought with her from New York, her own little silver candlesticks, some wild laurel, paper flowers, etc. After placing themselves solemnly under the patronage of St. Joseph, the sisterhood commenced their labors on a much more extensive scale. They now opened a day and boarding school, and in May, 1810, Mother Seton thus alludes to the condition of the house: "You know the enemy of all good- will of course makes his endeavors to destroy it; but it seems our Adored is determined on its full success, by the excellent subjects He has placed in it. We are now twelve and as many again are waiting for admis- sion. I have a very, very large school to superintend every day, and the entire charge of the religious instruction of all the country round. All apply to the Sisters of Charity, who are night and day devoted to the sick and the ignorant. Our blessed bishop intends removing a detachment of us to Balti- more, to perform the same duties there. We have a very good house, SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. 101 though a log building; and it will be the mother-house and retreat in all cases; as a portion of the sisterhood will always remain in it, to keep the spinning, weaving, knitting, and school for country people, regularly progressing." The income derived from the school and donations from friends now kept the house free from embarrassment, and in any case of emergency the generosity of the brothers Filicchi was unfailing. The following extract from a letter of Mother Seton's on an occasion of this kind, and the answer she received, will show the spirit of frankness and Christian confidence which prevailed between them: "Does it hurt you that I press so hard on you, and make no further application to my friends in New York? Con- sider, how can I apply to them for means which would go to the support only of a religion and institution they abhor; while what is taken from you is promoting your greatest happiness in this world, and bringing you nearer and nearer to the Adored in the next. But again let me repeat, if I have gone too far, stop me short forever, if you find it necessary, without fear of the least wound to the soul you love; which receives all from your hands as from that of our Lord, and whenever they may be closed, will know that it is He who shuts them, who uses all for His own glory as He pleases." l ' Chase your diffidence away," replies Mr. A. Filicchi; "speak to your brother the wants of a sister, and trust in Him who knows how to clothe and feed the birds of the air, and clothes the grass of the earth with brightness." In 1811, measures were taken for procuring from France a copy of the regulations in use amongst the " Daughters of Charity,'' founded by St. Vin- cent of Paul, as it was intended that Mother Seton's community should model itself upon the same basis. It became necessary, however, to introduce some modification of the rules, as it was thought expedient that, at least for the present, the sisters should be occupied in the instruction of the young; and moreover, it was feared that Mother Seton's peculiar position as the sole guardian of five young children, might prove a hindrance to her being bound permanently as the superior of a religious community. She herself, indeed, considered that her duties as a mother were para- mount to every other, especially since her children's Protestant relations were numerous and wealthy. Writing to a friend on this subject, she says: " By the law of the Church I so much love, I could never take an obligation which interfered with my duties to the children, except I had an independent pro- vision and guardian for them, which the whole world could not supply to my io2 . THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. judgment of a mother's duty." This and every other difficulty in the adop- tion of the rules was, however, at length arranged by the wisdom of Arch- bishop Carroll, who had recently been elevated to the archiepiscopal dignity, and in January, 1S12, the constitutions of the community were confirmed by the archbishop and the superior of St. Mary's College in Baltimore, and sent for observance to the sisters. A year was allowed to all already in the sisterhood to try their vocation, at the end of which time they might either leave the institution or bind them- selves by vows. Mother Seton was authorized, even after she had taken the vows, to watch over her children's welfare ; and a conditional provision was made for securing to the community her permanent superintendence. The general rules and object of the Sisters of Charity are so well known that little need be said on that subject. The society was to be composed of unmarried women and widows, sound of mind and body, and between sixteen and twenty-eight years of age at their entrance. It was also expected that they should desire to devote their whole lives to the service of God in His poor, and in the instruction of children ; though the vows were only taken for a single year, and renewed annually. During the year of probation ten more ladies were added to the com- munity, which now consisted of thirty sisters; and by the adoption of a set- tled rule of life, Mother Seton had the happiness of seeing them make daily progress both in fervor towards God and usefulness to their neighbors. There was one amongst them who was a source of far deeper joy and grati- tude than the rest. This was her own eldest daughter, Anna or Annina. From early childhood she had been remarkable for her virtue and piety; and now, being both good, clever, and beautiful, she was the delight of all who knew her. When only fifteen, her hand had been sought in marriage by a young gentleman of great wealth and talent ; and, with the approbation of all his friends, he journeyed to his distant home to make the necessary prep- aration. There, however, he found his only parent, a mother, so strongly opposed to it, that he was prevailed upon to break his faith with Miss Seton. Happily, with the true spirit of a Christian, the young lady regarded the whole matter as ordered by God for her greater good, and devoted herself more assiduously than before to all the religious practices of the community in St. Joseph's Valley. Although still only amongst the pupils, she strictly observed the rules of the novitiate, rising at four both in winter and summer, that she might spend an hour in prayer and meditation before Mass in the SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. 103 chapel. She performed in secret many heroic acts of mortification, and had so little taste for the world that, when visiting a very excellent family in Baltimore, she implored her* mother to recall her to St. Joseph's Valley, because " her soul wearied of the distractions of a secular life." Her example animated the pupils to an extraordinary devotion, and some of the elder girls formed themselves into a band under her direction, governed by special rules, and habitually seeking to mortify themselves by acts of penance. At the same time she both watched tenderly over the younger pupils — especially those preparing for their first Communion — and also main- tained a correspondence with those young ladies who had left the school, seeking to keep alive in their hearts the good principles they had learned amongst the sisters. Anxious to consecrate herself more perfectly to God, she applied, as soon as her age permitted, for admission to the sisterhood, and was gladly received; but towards the end of September, 181 1, taking a violent cold, she soon became so ill, that all hope of seeing her continue to edify the community by her' exemplary piety was sorrowfully abandoned. As for herself, she only rejoiced to believe that she was near her end ; and she continued to the last both to practice perfect humility and patience in her- self, and to encourage it in others. When Mother Seton haif reproached her for her little care of her health, "rising at the first bell, and even being on the watch to ring it the moment the clock struck; washing at the pump in the severest weather, often eating in the refectory what sickened her stomach, etc. — 'Ah, dear mother,' she replied, coloring deeply, as if she was wounding humility, 'if our dear Lord called me up to meditate, was I wrong to go? If I washed at the pump, did not others more delicate do it? If I ate what I did not like, was it not proper, since it is but a common Christian act to control my appetite? Besides, what would my example have been to my class, if I had done otherwise in any of these cases? Indeed, I have given too much bad example without this. Dearest Lord, pardon me.' " Night and day did Mother Seton watch over her suffering child; and it is said that " it would be difficult to decide which was the more worthy of admiration, the daughter pressing forward with eagerness to her heavenly home, or the mother generously offering the sacrifice of her first-born child." On the 30th of January, she received with great fervor the last sacra- ments ; but her death was yet delayed for some weeks. Her mother at this time writes to a friend : " The dear, lovely and excellent child of my heart I0 4 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. is on the point of departure. During the whole of the last week she has been every moment on the watch, expecting every coughing-fit would be the last; but with a peace, resignation, and contentment of soul truly consoling, not suf- fering a tear to be shed around her, she has something comforting to say to all." On the Sunday before her death, Annina begged that the young ladies from the school might come in, to learn a lesson of human frailty from her wasted form. Being fifty in number, they were admitted, a few at a time, and she addressed them in her dying voice with the most impressive words. Allowing them to see the mortification which had already begun in her neck, she said, " See the body which I used to dress and lace up so well, what is it now? Look at these hands! the worms will have poor banquets here! What is beauty? what is life? Nothing, nothing. Oh, love and serve God faith- fully, and prepare for eternity. Some of you, dear girls, may be soon as I am now; be good, and pray for me." Annina prayed very earnestly to die a professed Sister of Charity ; and though the time had not yet arrived for any to bind themselves by the usual vows, she was permitted to do so on the day before her death, thus becoming the first professed member of the sisterhood. The following act of consecration was written by her the morning before her death, kneeling at the foot of a crucifix: " Amiable and adorable Savior! at the foot of Your cross I come to con- secrate myself to You forever. It has pleased You in Your infinite mercy and goodness, to unite and fasten me to it with You. O dear Jesus, I offer You all my sufferings, little as they are, and will accept with resignation (oh, by Your grace, let me say, love), whatever You will please to send in future. I offer, in union with Your blessed merits, all the sufferings I ever had ; those which I endured at a time when I did not learn to unite them to Yours. Those I have experienced during this last sickness I offer more particularly to Your glory, and in expiation of the offenses and grevious sins committed during my life. Oh, my Jesus, pardon the impatience, ill-humor, and num- berless other faults I now commit; I beseech Thee to forgive. I offer Thee my sufferings, in union with Your merits, in expiation of my many and daily offenses." On the following morning she requested her two young sisters to kneel by her bed and sing: "Though all the pains of hell surround, No evil will I fear: For while my Jesus is my friend, No danger can come near." SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. They tried to compose their voices, broken by sobs, that they might please their dying sister, whom their mother, sitting at her pillow, was sup- porting in her arms. But their voices refused to sing at such a moment; and soon the struggles of the departing soul became so severe, that Mother Seton was obliged to retire from her now insensible child to the chapel, where she remained before the Blessed Sacrament till all was over. On the following day the body was committed to the ground, and Mother Seton, more like a statue than a living being, followed her sweet child to the grave. But one tear was seen upon her cheek as she returned; and raising her eyes to heaven, she uttered slow- ly, as if yielding to the full force of the sublime sentiment: "Father, Thy will be done!" Thus died Sister Annina, on March 12, 1S12, in the seventeenth year of her age. In September, 1812, the Rev. Simon Gabriel Brute, afterwards first bishop of Vincennes, In- diana, was appointed to assist the Rev. Mr. Du- bois; and his friendship and services were of the greatest possible value to Mother Seton and the community, for whom he now celebrated Mass four times a week. Father Brute was a man of rare gifts, rare learning, and great physical activity singularly blessed with energy and power of expression; and from the first he and Mother Seton heartily sympathized. In the following July, the community, now eighteen in number, bound RT. REV. SIMON GABRIEL BRUTE, FIRST BISHOP OF VINCENNES. io 6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. themselves by the vows of poverty, charity, and obedience, ten young ladies being at the same time admitted into the novitiate. The war with Great Britian at this time made many things so expensive, that a more rigid economy was necessary, to which, however, the sisters cheerfully lent themselves. Sugar was dispensed with, and coarser clothing introduced. In 1S14, a detachment of sisters were sent to Philadelphia to take charge of the children whose parents had died of the yellow-fever; and in 1817 a colony was established in New York City from the mother-house at Emmits- burg. The instructions and affectionate exhortations given by Mother Seton to those sisters who were leaving her for another mission, were beautifully characteristic of her idea of what the life of a Christian, and, above all, a Sister of Charity should be. Twice a week she gave familiar instructions to the elder pupils, in which she displayed her singular aptitude for education. Yet her manner was rather that of the intelligent and affectionate parent, than of the pedantic teacher; and her sweetness won so readily the confidence of her pupils, that they opened their hearts to her as their dearest friend. "Your little mother, my darlings," she would say, "does not come to teach you to be good nuns or Sisters of Charity; but rather I would wish to fit you for that world in which you were destined to live; to teach you how to be good mistresses and mothers of families. Yet, if the dear Master selects one among you to be closer to Him, happy are you; He will teach you Himself." In 1 8 14 Mrs. Seton's eldest son completed his eighteenth year. He was anxious to enter the navy, whilst his mother wished him to go into some mercantile house; but this was rendered somewhat difficult, in consequence of the disturbed state of commercial affairs during the war. However, the Rev. Mr. Brute being anxious to visit Europe, she resolved to send her son under his guardianship to the Messrs. Filicchi, at least for a time. Two years later her second son was placed in the house of a merchant in Baltimore, and went afterwards to Leghorn, when his brother left to carry out his own purpose of entering the navy. About this time Mr. Philip Filicchi died; and deeply was his loss deplored, not only by Mother Seton and his most immediate friends, but by all. His death was said to be almost a public calamity, sorrowed over by "hundreds of poor fed at his hands, orphans depending on his support, and prisoners relieved by his charity." SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. i y Two months after this time Mother Seton was called upon to render back to God another of her children, her youngest daughter, whose intelligent and amiable disposition had endeared her to all who knew her. She had been ailing now since 1812, when she was injured by a fall on the ice; and that she might have the best medical advice, she was removed for some time to Baltimore. Whilst there, her mother used the most affectionate endeavors, by frequent little notes, to turn the mind of her suffering child to the end for which she was afflicted. The following is one of them: "My Soul's Little Darling. — Mother's eyes fill with tears ever when she thinks of you; but loving tears of joy, that my dear one may suffer and bear pain, and resign herself to the will of our Dearest, and be the child of His cross. You know, mother has often told you that the one who suffers most is the dearest to me; and so our Dearest loves the child He afflicts with a double love. Remember, my dear one, what mother told you about love and obedience to our so kind and tender friend (the lady with whom she was staying); and our Dearest, not to forget Him for a moment. You know He never forgets you ; and do not mind kneeling, but speak your heart to Him anywhere. May His dear, dearest blessing be on you. . . . Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, bless and love you!" By the pious example of this amiable child, many practices of devotion were introduced amongst the boarders ; and as she was a general favorite at St. Joseph's, her influence had the happiest effect. The orphans educated there had been formed into a class distinct from the boarders, and were dis- posed to resent this separation as a humiliating position; Miss Rebecca Seton, however, voluntarily ranked herself amongst them, and immediately all bitterness of feeling was changed into grateful affection. Though only thirteen years of age, she was devout and fervent in approaching the sacra- ments; and, indeed, she needed all the strength and consolation which these alone can bestow; for during the last six months of her life she was scarce! y ever free from the most excruciating pain. Nevertheless, she was always patient, resigned, and even cheerful in manner, fulfilling the anxious wishes of her mother, that she might look on her sufferings only as a transitory means to a glorious and eternal end. "Death, death, my mother," she would say in her agony; "it seems so strange that I shall do no more here. You will come back (from the grave- yard), dearest mother, alone. No little Rebecca behind the curtain. But that is onlv one side; when I look at the other, I forget all — you will be io 8 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. comforted. If Dr. C. were to say now, Rebecca, you will get well, I could not wish it — no, my dearest Savior! I am convinced of the happiness of an early death. And to sin no more — that is the point, my mother;" throw- ing her arms around her, and repeating "to sin no more." A few extracts from the journal of her dear child's last days, made by Mother Seton for Father Brute, who was still absent in Europe, will describe more touchingly than any words of our own the admirable fortitude with which the little sufferer "endured to the end." "'It seemed to me this morning,' said she, 'that I could not bear it; but one look at our Savior changed it all. What were the dislocations of his bones, my mother! Oh, how can I mind mine!' Not a change now from continued sitting, but to kneel a little on one knee ; obliged to give up her bed entirely. We tried to-day. 'I know,' said she, 'I cannot; but we must take it quietly, my dear mother, and offer up the pains' — trying to get in and out of bed — 'and let it take its way.' Finding it impossible, she said, ' I must lie down no more until — but never mind, mother, come sit by me.' Softly now she sings the little words, after resting on one knee awhile, for our evening prayer: "Now another day is gone, So much pain and sorrow o'er, So much nearer our dear home ; There we'll praise Him, There we'll bless Him evermore." Then leans so peaceably her dear head on my lap, and offers up, as she says,, 'the poor mass of corruption, covered with the blood of our Jesus.' "The little beloved now sits up in a chair night and day, leaning on my arm, the bones so rubbed she cannot rest on one knee as before; but says so- cheerfully, 'Our Lord makes me pay for past misdemeanors.' "What a morning with our little one ! her perspective ! Straining for- ward, with rolling, rapid tears, she said, putting her arms around me, ' Mother, the worst is, I shall have to give an account of all the Masses I have heard so carelessly; O my carelessness!' the tears redoubled. 'My first Communion! yet surely I tried not to make it badly; and if, dearest mother, I shall have the blessings of the last sacraments,' — then she looked so earn- estly at the crucifix, and wiped her eyes. Again spoke of Extreme Unction, after all the comfort of another burst of tears. 'Yet the last struggles, mother! —there is something in death — I cannot tell. How lazy I am, my mother; and how sweet and bright is Nina's carpet! [Her sister Annina's carpet, the SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. [09 blue sky, seen from the window.] Oh, how I will beg our Lord to let me come to you, when you will be here so lonely! You know, mother, I never enjoyed any little pleasure in this world, unless you shared it, or I told you of it. How I will beg of Him to let me come and comfort you! You know, too, I could guess your pains, even when you did not speak.' But oh, the thousand little endearments of her manner, while saying these words, so dear to a mother's heart! Every waking through the night speaking of what they were doing in heaven! Her poor leg burst — pain in the side excessive — but the little cheerful laugh and pain go together. ' How good it is, oh, how good! since it shows our Lord will not let it last long.' " ' Last night,' said she, ' in the midst of my misery, I seemed somewhere gone out of my body, and summoning all the saints and angels to pray for me; but the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, and my guardian angel, St. Augus- tine, and St. Xavier, whom I love so much (St. Augustine's burning heart for our Lord, you know, mother), these I claimed and insisted on defending me in judgment — oh, my mother! that judgment;' then again her eyes fastened on the crucifix as long as pain would permit. ' O mother, how I suffer, every bone, every joint, every limb; do, mother, pray for my faith. You see, dearest, every day something of warning is added that I soon must go; yet I remember only twice to have thought my sufferings too hard since I was hurt — so our dear Lord pity me, and give me a short purgatory ; yet in this His will be done ; at least, then I shall be safe and sin no more.' " Always wishing to be employed, she cut some leaves of artificial flowers, and seemed very earnestly employed in sewing on a small garment for a poor child, with trembling hands and panting breath, two days before her agony. " The superior came," Rev. Mr. Dubois, " and seeing the pitiful state of the poor darling, kindly offered to remain with her. Her gratitude was in- expressible. The presence of a priest seemed to arm her against every power of the enemy. He told her, about midnight, that as she had not slept nor ate anything for the last twenty -four hours, it would be well to take a little paregoric. ' Well,' said she very gently to him, ' if I go to sleep I shall not come back; so good-by to you all. Do give my love to everybody; good-by, dear Kit (her sister Josephine, kissing her most tenderly), and you, my dearest mother.' But her little heart failed her, and she hid herself in my bosom. Again, trying to compose herself, she said, < I will give your love to everybody I meet with on the way.' But no sleep or rest for her." So 1 10 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. dawned for child and mother All Souls' Day. " It passed as yesterday; only increased pains. Our God, our God ! to wait one hour for an object every moment expected! but poor Bee's hours and agonies are known to You alone! ■ — her meek, submissive looks, artless appeals of sorrow, and unutterable distress. " The hundred little acts of piety that All Souls' Day, so sad and sor- rowful; the fears of the poor mother's heart; her bleeding heart for patience and perseverance in so weak a child, the silent long looks at each other; fears of interfering in any way with the designs of infinite love! Oh, that day and night and following day! The Rev. superior told her he would not wish her sufferings shortened. She quietly gave up, felt her pulse no more, inquired no more about going, or what time it was; but with her heart of sorrow pictured on her countenance, looking now at the crucifix, again at mother, seemed to mind nothing else. Once she said, ' My love is so weak — so im- perfect — my mother ; I have been so unfaithful, I have proved so little my love.' Her poor little heart seemed sinking, yet eyes steadfastly fixed on the crucifix. 'My mother; kiss that blessed side for me.' Her small crucifix round her neck was often pressed to her lips — those cold, dying lips ; and then she would press it to her heart. ' Hangs my helpless soul on Thee,' she would say. Night came again. She often bowed her head, in which all her pain seemed centered, to the holy water presented by the Rev. superior. We said some short prayers, and she repeated, ' In the hour of death defend me; call me to come to Thee; receive me.' Near four in the morning, she said, 'Let me sit once more on the bed; it will be the last struggle.' Cecilia's arms and mother's supporting her, she sank between us; the darling head fell on the well-known heart it loved so well, and all was over. My God! my God! That morning she had said,' Be not sorrowful, my mother! I shall not go far from you; I am sure our dear Lord will let me come and console you.' Josephine's tears hurt her. ' I do not look,' she said, ' to being left in the grave, and you all turning home without me; I look high up.' " During the years we have so rapidly passed over many sisters were sum- moned from the little community to their eternal home. And if it were pos- sible to relate of their pious souls the different acts of humility, charity, and devotion by which they edified all who knew them, and embalmed their names in the memory of the sisterhood, some idea might be formed of the holy, happy retreat over which Mother Seton presided in St. Joseph's Valley. Many were converts. Amongst others we are told of one who had been . a Methodist, but was ever seeking after the true Church until she found it. SAINTLY MOTHER SETON. 1 1 1 " Luther is Luther," she used to say to those on whom she urged her anxiety before her conversion. "Calvin is Calvin, Wesley is Wesley; but where is the Church of the Apostles?" By God's good grace she was guided at last to St. Joseph's Valley, where she happily found what she sought. It has been already mentioned more than once that Mother Seton's health had become very feeble ; and in 1820 her lungs were so seriously affected that her medical attendants gave no hope of her ultimate recovery. For her this world had long ceased to be anything but " a dark passage leading to eternity. I see nothing," she says, " but the blue sky and our altars ; all the rest is so plainly as not to be looked at. We talk now all day of my death, and how it will be, just like the rest of the housework. What is it else? What are we come into the world for? Why is it so long, but this last, great, eternal end? It seems to me so simple when I look up to the crucifix." Twelve years she had now spent in her retirement. During the last f our months she was confined to her room, and her sufferings at times were verv great; but only under obedience to her director would she submit to any effort for their alleviation. Not a complaint was to be heard; and if through extreme pain there escaped her an involuntary sign of impatience, she was uneasy until she had received absolution. Her humility was as great as her resignation. One of the sisters saying something which implied a hope of going to heaven immediately after death, Mother Seton exclaimed fervently, " My blessed God ! how far from that thought am I, of going straight to heaven! such a miserable creature as I am!" Father Brute" was constantly with her, and his ministry was a source of the most abundant graces to her soul. Being about to receive the last sacraments, she begged that all her spir- itual daughters might assemble in her room, where they were addressed in her name by the Rev. Mr. Dubois as follows: "Mother Seton being too weak, charges me to recommend to you at this sacred moment, in her place; first, to be united together as true Sisters of Charity ; secondly, to stand most faith- fully by your rules; thirdly, that I ask pardon for all the scandals she may have given you, that is, for indulgences prescribed during sickness by me or the physicians." Mother Seton's voice added, " I am thankful, sisters, for your kindness in being present at this trial. Be children of the Church, be children of the Church." When the last awful moment was at hand, the sisters pressed in anguish around the bed of their cherished and saintly mother. Her only daughter 1 1 2 THE COL UMBIAN JUBILEE. was fainting beside her from intense emotion; but on Mother Seton's coun- tenance was no shadow of grief, or doubt, or disturbance — all was peace there. She rested immovably in the hands of God, repeating, " May the most just, the most high, and the most holy will of God be accomplished forever!" A sister whom she requested to repeat her favorite prayer ; " Soul of Jesus, sanctify me; Blood of Jesus, wash me," etc., being unable through her sobs to proceed, the dying lady finished it herself. "Jesus, Mary, Joseph," were her last words. And thus passed away from this world, in faith and hope and love, Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton, on the 4th of January, 182 1, in the forty-seventh year of her age. Amidst the tears and lamentations of the whole community, her remains were carried to their last resting-place on the following day. A cross and a rose-tree were planted on her grave, and from innumerable grateful hearts went up to heaven with the Adorable sacrifice the most pure and fervent prayers that her soul may rest in peace. Since that time a marble monument has been raised over her remains, on the four sides of which are inscribed : " To the memory of E. A. Seton, Foundress." "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." " The just shall live in everlasting remembrance." " The just shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." And on the wall of the humble chamber in which she breathed her last may be read the following inscription: " Here near this door, by this fire-place, on a poor, lowly couch, died our cherished and saintly Mother Seton, on the 4th of January, 1821. She died in poverty, but rich in faith and good works; may we, her children, walk in her footsteps, and share one day in her happiness. Amen." Chapter 9&\. JVieTROPOfclTANS AND COUNCILS. A Glorious Old Age. — Bishop Cheverus Declines the Burden. — Archbishop Neale at Rest. — The Coadjutor Becomes Primate. — A Lawyer Becomes Priest. — Abundant Trials.— Establishment of Mt. St. Mary's. — The Log College at the Mountain. — Labors of Dr. Dubois. — Baltimore Diocese Divided. — Death of a Christian Prelate.— Archbishop Whitefield Con- secrated. — The First Provincial Council. — Selection From Decrees. — Archbishop Eccleston. — A Series of Provincial Councils. — Constant Demand for New Dioceses. — Catholic Army Chaplains. — Service in the Mexican War. — Archbishops Kenrick, Spalding, and Bayley. — National and Plenary Councils. — Sympathy With Pio Nono. — The Great Vatican Council. — The Present Illustrious Primate. N the death of the first archbishop of Baltimore in 1815, the United States contained only eighty-five priests, and of this num- ber forty -six were in the metropolitan diocese. Archbishop Leonard Neale was almost seventy years old when he was left alone, burdened with the episcopacy, and painful infirmities deprived him of the strength which he would have needed for his high functions. We have recounted the apostolic labors of the missionary and coadjutor. After braving the climate of Guiana and the yellow-fever of Philadelphia, Bishop Neale was to bear in his glorious old age the marks of his toil, and he sought repose for his last days near the monastery of the Visitation, which he had founded at Georgetown. Yet when his health per- mitted, and on solemn occasions, he appeared at Baltimore, and devoted him- self with constant care to the administration of his vast diocese. Foreseeing his approaching end, the holy prelate had in 1815 petitioned the sovereign pontiff, to associate to him in the administration of his diocese, "3 U4 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Bishop Cheverus, of Boston, with a right of succession to the see of Balti- more. Pius VII consented, but wished first to know how he was to replace Bishop Cheverus at Boston. Archbishop Neale invited the latter to Balti- more to confer with him on the intentions of the holy father, but Bishop Cheverus no sooner discovered the motive than he begged to be left at Bos- ton. He strongly urged the archbishop to take in preference a coadjutor, and named several Jesuits and Mr. Marechal, a priest of St. Sulpice. He also wrote on the subject to the congregation "de propaganda fide" Archbishop Neale at last yielded to his friend's wishes, and on the refusal of several Jesuits, he asked the Holy See to appoint Mr. Mare'chal as his coadjutor. As soon as Bishop Cheverus knew this decision he wrote to Rome, asking to remain at Boston. "I shall rejoice to see Mr. Marechal per- forming the episcopal functions at Baltimore, where he and his brethren of St. Sulpice have been the masters and models of the clergy, and have con- ciliated universal regard." Pius VII approved the new arrangement, and by a brief of July 24, 1817, he appointed Father Ambrose Marechal coadjutor to the archbishop of Baltimore, with the title of Bishop of Stauropolis. But before the date even of the brief , Archbishop Neale had sunk under his infirmities. He died at Georgetown, on the 15th of June, 1S17, and his mortal remains were laid in the convent chapel of the Visitation, where they still remain. " Thus," says his biographer, "thus in death was he placed where his affections were strongest in life; and thus, in the last honors to his mortal remains, was preserved a parallel to the last sad tribute to St. Francis of Sales. The body of Archbishop Neale sleeps under the chapel of the convent founded by him in America; that of St. Francis under the church of the con- vent which he founded in Europe. Annecy has her saint; so may we hope that Georgetown has hers." The bulls appointing Archbishop Marechal did not reach Baltimore till the 10th of November, 1817, five months after the death of his venerable predecessor, and he was consecrated on the 14th of December following r by Bishop Cheverus, of Boston. Ambrose Marechal, thus raised to the primacy of the American Church, was born at Ingre, near Orleans, in 1768. When he had completed his classical course, he felt a vocation for the ecclesiastical state, but his family opposed his designs so warmly that he at first yielded to their desires, and began the study of law, intending to practice at the bar. The young advocate soon found, however, that he was called to a far METROPOLITANS AND COUNCILS. nc different life, and after having shown all due deference to his family's wishes, at last entered the Sulpitian Seminary at Orleans. The persecutions of revolu- tionary France did not shake his resolution, but he resolved to depart from a land that martyred its faithful clergy, and he embarked at Bordeaux for the United States, with the Abbes Matignon, Richard, and Ciquard. It was on the very eve of his embarkation that Abbe" Marexhal was privately ordained, and such were the horrors of those unhappy times, that he was even prevented from saying Mass. He celebrated the Holy Sacrifice for the first time at Baltimore, where he arrived on June 24, 1792. Later he became professor at St. Mary's Seminary, and was for a time president of the college. This life of study, so akin to his taste, was not, however, to last; and in 1816 he was informed of his nomination by the sovereign pontiff to the see of Phila- delphia. In vain did he endeavor to escape these honors; it was only to have far greater imposed upon him by pontifical authority. He alleged the import- ance of leaving him at his studies, at least till the completion of a theological work adapted to the religious condition of the United States. But the Church chose to employ his merit in more eminent functions, and Mr. Marechal con- sented to become archbishop of Baltimore. The earlier days of his administration were thick sown with trials of the most painful character. The Catholics in the United States, living amid a Protestant population, and influenced by the surrounding ideas of independ- ence, have not always shown the subordination ever to be desired towards pastors. The temporal administration of the churches is the source of con- stant collisions; and the laity, seeing the manner in which the Protestant churches are managed, too frequently usurp powers not their own. Archbishop Marechal had thus to struggle with a spirit of insubordination and faction, which threatened to result in an open schism. In this difficult position, the prelate displayed that zeal, that prudence, that devotion to his flock, that firm adherence to true principles, which have ever characterized great bishops, and which eventually checked the progress of the disorder, under which the cause of religion threatened to sink. His pastoral in 1819 showed the extent of the evil and the wisdom of the remedy. It laid down with preciseness the reciprocal rights and duties of the clergy and laity; it shows the entire inaptitude of the latter to interfere in the spiritual government of the Church, and points out to the priests the calamities which would afflict religion, if they neglected the obligations of their sacredotal character. It maintains the exclusive right for the episcopal authority, of appointing priests to parishes „6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. and for other duties, and concludes in these words: "In the midst of the troubles and persecutions to which you are now, or may hereafter be exposed, be careful, after the example of the saints, dearest brethren daily to entreat with fervor your heavenly Father, to take under his special protection your- selves, your families, your friends, your pastors, and all the Catholics of the United States. The Church of Christ in this country is now in affliction. Dissensions and scandals threaten to destroy her peace and happiness. As for you, dear brethren, strive to console her by every possible mark of respect, attachment, obedience, and love; for though surrounded with difficulties, though even attacked by some unnatural children, still she is your mother, your protectress, your guide on earth, and the organ by which Divine mercy communicates to you the treasure of His grace, and all the means of salvation." Other obstacles, of a more personal character, added to the burdens of the episcopate, in the case of Archbishop Marshal. Yet, his administration was not without its consolations, not the least of which was the continued success and permanent establishment of Mount St. Mary's Seminary and College. Of this hive of the American clergy — for it has given the Church many archbishops and bishops, and a large proportion of our most zealous and useful priests — we must now treat. The Rev. John Dubois, of whom we shall hereafter speak more at length, was stationed, in 1808, at Frederick, and once a month celebrated the Holy Sacrifice in the private chapel of Aloysius Elder, Esq., as his predecessors had done for many years. The better days, however, now justified the erection of a church, and the zealous priest began to erect near Emmitsburg, a church, on a rising ground, which he named Mount St. Mary's. A church did not satisfy his zeal ; he sought also to found a school, which should furnish candi- dates for holy orders; and, in all humility, began his labors to carry out the idea which he had conceived. Purchasing a log hut near the Church, he opened his school in 1808, and having in the following year joined the Sulpitians, he received the pupils of their establishment at Pigeon Hill. His little log hut and a small brick house in the neighborhood, no longer sufficed, so that he purchased the present site of the college, and, erecting suitable buildings, resigned his log-cabin to Mother Seton, who made it the cradle of her order. The first college at the mountain was but a row of log-cabins, themselves the work of several years' toil, for the founder had but little means. Yet all joined in his labors, and, by their united efforts, grounds were cleared, gardens METROPOLITANS AND COUNCILS. Iiy and orchards planted, and roads cut. In spite, however, of these disadvantages, the well-known ability of Mr. Dubois drew pupils to his rural school, though the payment in kind often corresponded to the style rather than to the wants of the establishment. And the school, though' strictly Catholic, increased, so that its ever cheerful and laborious president could not, in 1812, have had less than sixty pupils under his care. Of his associates in the foundation, none deserves a higher praise than one whom Catholics have learned to style the sainted Brute, whose name is no less indissolubly united to Mount St. Mary's than to Vincennes, of which he died bishop. Removed, for a time, to St. Mary's Seminary, in Baltimore, Mr. Brute returned to the mountain in 181S, and, opening the class of theology, made the establishment a seminary as well as a college, thus giving it the present form and its present stability. By this time, too, pupils had become teachers, and the Rev. Roger Smith, Nicholas Kerney, Alexius Elder, George Elder, founder of St. Joseph's at Bardstown, and William Byrne, founder of St. Mary's, in the same State; Charles Constantine Pise, John B. Purcell, now archbishop of Cincinnati, John Hughes, now archbishop of New York, with his former coadjutor, the bishop of Albany, all, with many another priest and prelate, taught, in their younger days, the classes at the mountain. Mr. Brute's talents, during the next sixteen years which he spent here, availed the institution not only as a professor — as a treasurer, his method and system extricated it from many pecuniary embarrassments, and placed matters in a secure shape. So complete had been the success, and so promising were now their hopes, that Dr. Dubois, soon, after the separation from the Sulpitians, in 18 19, resolved to erect a stone edifice for the accommodation of his pupils. This work Archbishop Mardchal approved and encouraged. Accordingly, in the spring of 1824, a handsome building of three stories high, and ninety-five feet by forty in extent, was raised on the mountain; but just as all were pre- paring at Whitsuntide to enter, to their grief and regret it was fired by accident or design, and in a few hours nothing remained but a mass of smoking ruins. Undaunted by this disaster, which Doctor Pise has embalmed in our memories in classic verse, Dr. Dubois at once began the erection of a new and grander college. Great were the trials it imposed upon him and the companions of his labors, but aided by the generous contributions of the neighbors, and of Catholics in various parts, the great work was completed just as the illustrious founder was called to occupy the see of New York, in 1826. :iS THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. While the illustrious Dubois was consolidating a work so important to his diocese, Archbishop Mar^chal was still more consoled by the increase of Catholics, and by the numbers whom the clergy found in sections where they least expected to meet any. It will not be useless to define here in what this increase of the Catholic population consists, of which we must render an account periodically in each diocese, and which has made it necessary to multiply the bishops from one to forty in the space of sixty years. The immigration, chiefly from Ireland, scattering over the country, presented on all sides little congregations ready for a pastor. When he came, Catholics, or the children of Catholics, who had almost lost the faith in the absence of religious teachers, gathered around and converts came silently dropping in, chiefly, -however, from the more enlightened classes. The vast extent of the diocese of Baltimore now called for a division, and in 1S1S the Rev. Robert Browne, an Irish Augustinian who had been for many years a missionary at Augusta, in the state of Georgia, proceeded to Rome, bearing a petition from the Catholics soliciting the erection of a new diocese, to comprise the states of North and South Carolina and Georgia; for though few and scattered the Catholics were so remote from the episco- pal see that their interests were unavoidably neglected. The Holy See examined the question with its usual maturity, and resolved to erect Virginia into a diocese of which Richmond should be the episcopal see, and the two Carolinas and Georgia into another, the bishop of which should reside at Charleston. To the latter see the holy father appointed the Rev. John England, pastor of Brandon, in the diocese of Cork, who was already favorably known in the United States. The diocese of Richmond, thus erected in 1821, continued to be adminis- tered by the archbishops of Baltimore for twenty years, nor did any bishop sit in Richmond till 1S41, when the first bishop of Wheeling was appointed to the see. While the extensive diocese of BaLtimore was thus subdivided, Bishop Flaget, of Bardstown, was also soliciting at Rome the division of his; and thus, at the commencement of 1822, the United States were divided into nine dioceses, viz. : 1. Baltimore, comprising Maryland and the District of Columbia. 2. Boston, comprising the six New England states. 3. New York, comprising the state of New York and half of New Jersey. METROPOLITANS AND COUNCILS. 119 4. Philadelphia, comprising Pennsylvania, Delaware, and half of New Jersey. 5. Bardstown, comprising Kentucky and Tennessee. 6. Charleston, comprising the two Carolinas and Georgia. 7. Richmond, comprising the state of Virginia, and administered by the archbishop of Baltimore. 8. Cincinnati, comprising Ohio, Michigan, and Northwest Territory. 9. New Orleans, comprising Louisiana, Mississippi, and Missouri. Archbishop Marechal had the consolation of opening for divine worship the Cathedral of Baltimore, which had been begun by Archbishop Carroll eighteen years before. On the 31st of May, 182 1, this beautiful Church was solemnly dedicated, and its Byzantine architecture, though not a model of taste, is not destitute of grandeur in its proportion. Its situation of the sum- mit of a pyramidal hill, on which the houses of the city are built, gives to Baltimore the aspect of an entirely Catholic city, where the Cathedral towers above all the other monuments, as in our European cities. The archbishop obtained in France numerous presents, a painting and vestments, with which he adorned the temple that he had raised. Archbishop Marshal could here display all the pomp of our worship, being aided by the Sulpitians of the seminary, who had preserved all the traditions of the ceremonial. Nothing is more desirable than thus to surround religion with the dignity which is its noblest appanage. The poverty of the sanctuary, or their narrow precincts, too often deprives the faithful in the United States of the most imposing solemnities. The absence of ceremonies likens our churches to the coldness of sectarian halls, but the pomp of worship, while it revives the faith of Catholics, produces a salutary impression on such of our separated brethren as witness it. Nothing is, then, more desirable than to see large churches multiplied in the United States, and Archbishop Marshal was one of the first to appreciate the advantage which religion might derive from them. Archbishop Marechal went to Rome in the latter part of 182 1, to lay the state of his diocese before the sovereign pontiff. In 1826 he visited Canada, whither the interests of religion led him, for he shrank from no fatigue at the call of duty. But the cruel pangs of a dropsy in the chest soon condemned him to absolute repose. He bore the pains of a long illness with Christian courage, and died on the 29th of January, 1S28, in the expectation of a blessed immortality. As soon as Archbishop Marechal felt the first symptoms of the disease I2 o THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. that was to carry him off, he applied to the Holy See for a coadjutor to suc- ceed him in his important post. The name of Dr. James Whitfield was the first on the list of persons which he submitted to the choice of the holy father, and by a brief of the 8th of January, 1828, Leo XII, acceding to the arch- bishop's request, appointed Dr. Whitfield coadjutor. The brief did not arrive until after Archbishop Mardchal had expired, and Dr. Whitfield was consecrated archbishop of Baltimore on Whitsunday, the 25th of May, 1828. James Whitfield was born at Liverpool, England, on the 3d of Novem- ber, 1770, and belonged to a very respectable mercantile family, who gave him all the advantages of a sound education. At the age of seventeen he lost his father and became the sole protector of his mother. In order to dissipate her melancholy he took her to Italy, and after spend- ing some vears there in commercial affairs, young Whitfield went to France, in order to pass over to England. It was just at this moment that Napoleon decreed that every Englishman discovered on French soil should be retained a prisoner. James Whitfield spent most of the period of his exile at Lyons, and there formed the acquaintance with the Abbe' Mar^chal, the future archbishop of Baltimore, then Professor of Divinity in the seminary of St. Irenaeus, at Lyons. The young man's piety soon disposed him to embrace the ecclesiastical state. He entered the seminary under the direc- tion of his learned frierld, and was soon distinguished for his ardor as a student and for his solidity of judgment. He was ordained at Lyons in 1809, and on his mother's death returned to England, where he was for some time appointed to the parish of Crosby. When the Abb£ Mare'chal was raised to the dignity of archbishop of Baltimore, he wrote to his friend, begging him to come and share the cares of a diocese whose wants were so great. Mr. Whitfield yielded to the desire of his old tutor, and he landed in the United States on the 8th of September, 1817. He was at first stationed at St. Peter's Church, Baltimore, and then became one of the vicars-general of the diocese. In 1825, by a special indult of the court of Rome, the archbishop solemnly con- ferred on Mr. Whitfield and two other eminent clergymen of Baltimore the grade of Doctor of Divinity; and the ceremony, full of interest for Catholics, was hailed by them with joy as the commencement of a faculty of theology in America. One of the first acts of Archbishop Whitfield's administration was the visitation of his diocese, which, in 1828, comprised fifty-two priests and from sixty thousand to eighty thousand Catholics. This visitation showed METROPOLITANS AND COUNCILS. 121 him the crying wants of the vast district committed to his care, and the feeble resources which he could control for the advancement of religion. His private fortune was considerable, and he now devoted his whole income to building churches and establishing useful institutions. Like his venerable predecessor, he invariably appealed for aid to the Association for the Propa- gation of the Faith, and by the returns of that body from 1825 to 1834, the archbishop of Baltimore received thirty-two thousand francs. There was, moreover, a certain sum allotted for Mount St. Mary's, and Louis XVIII and Charles X also sent, on several occasions, offerings to their grand almoner for the diocese of Baltimore. Still the Association for the Propagation of the Faith showed itself, at first, especially liberal to the dioceses of New Orleans and Bardstown. There all was to be created, while Maryland offered some resources to her clergy. The Catholic bishops in the United States had long desired to assemble in council, in order to adopt regulations as to ecclesiastical discipline and the administration of the sacraments. Obstacles, however, of various kinds prevented their meeting. Archbishop Whitfield undertook to remove all these difficulties, and with the approbation of the Holy See, had the satisfaction of convoking his colleagues in a provincial council, the opening of which took place on Sunday, the 4th of October, in the Cathedral of Baltimore. The prelates who met at the call of their metropolitan were: Rt. Rev. Benedict Joseph Flaget, bishop of Bardstown. Rt. Rev. John England, bishop of Charleston and vicar-general of Florida East. Rt. Rev. Edward Fenwick, bishop of Cincinnati. Rt. Rev. Joseph Rosati, bishop of St. Louis and administrator of New Orleans. Rt. Rev. Benedict Fenwick, bishop of Boston. Four prelates were unable to come, from sickness or other imperative reasons. Archbishop Whitfield celebrated a solemn Mass, and having fixed that day for the reception of his pallium, it was imposed upon him by Bishop Flaget, the senior prelate. The decrees of this council, having been duly submitted at Rome, were approved and printed in 183 1. Following is a summary of the more im- portant: I. The bishops have the right of sending to any part of their diocese, or recalling any priest ordained or incorporated within it. This does not extend I22 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. to the see of New Orleans, which is alone regarded as having the rank and privileges of benefices in the United States. II. Priests ordained in a diocese or incorporated into it are not to leave without license of the bishop. III. Bishops are exhorted not to grant faculties to strange priests, unless they bring testimonials from their own bishops. This provision, how- ever, does not apply to apostolical missionaries. V. As lay trustees have often abused the powers conferred upon them by the civil law, the council expresses the desire that bishops should not con- sent to the erection or consecration of a church, unless a deed of the prop- erty be duly executed to them. VI. Some laymen, and especially trustees, having assumed a right of patronage, and even of institution, in some churches, the council declares these pretensions unfounded, and forbids their exercise on any grounds what- ever. IX. The council exhorts the bishops to dissuade their flocks from reading Protestant translations of the bible, and recommend the use of the Douay version. X. It is forbidden to admit as sponsors, heretics, scandalous sinners, infamous men ; lastly, those who are ignorant of the rudiments of faith. XVI. A question having grown up from the difficulty of the times, of conferring baptism in private houses, the council does not wish to suppress it absolutely, but nevertheless exhorts priests to administer the sacrament in the Church as much as possible. XXVI. The pastors of souls are warned that it behooves them to pre- pare the faithful well for the sacrament of matrimony; and that they should not consider themselves exempt from sin, if they have the temerity to admin- ister the sacrament to persons manifestly unworthy. XXXIV. As many young Catholics, especially those born of poor parents, are exposed to the danger of losing faith and morality, from the want of teachers to whom their education may be safely confided, the coun- cil expresses the wish that schools should be established, where youth may imbibe principles of faith and morality along with human knowledge. XXXVI. According to the wise counsel of Pope Leo XII, addressed to the archbishop of Baltimore, a society shall be established for the diffusion of good books. To meet the views of the holy father, the bishops formed an association METROPOLITANS AND COUNCILS, 123 to publish elementary books suited to Catholic schools, and free from all that can give the young false ideas as to religion. This metropolitan press continued its issues for several years, till the spirit of enterprise among Cath- olic booksellers led them to publish devotional and other works so cheap that the object of the bishops was attained. The prelates also favored the establishment of Catholic journals, and the Catholics in the United States soon counted five weekly organs — the "Metropolitan" at Baltimore, the "Jesuit " at Boston, the " Catholic" at Hartford, the " Miscellany " at Charles- ton, and the « Truth Teller." The years which followed the meeting of the first provincial council of Baltimore brought various changes in the episcopate of the United States. Bishop Dubourg of New Orleans had left Louisiana in June, 1826, to assume the direction of the diocese of Montauban in France, and New Orleans had for several years been administered by the bishop of St. Louis. The vacancy of the see was filled by the pontifical rescript of August 4, 1829, appointing the Rev. Mr. Leo De Neckere, a Belgian priest of the congregation of the missions, bishop of New Orleans. He was consecrated by Bishop Rosati on the 24th of June, 1830, and began his episcopate. At Cincinnati, Bishop Edward Fenwick, having fallen a victim to the cholera in 1832, had been replaced by Rt. Rev. John B. Purcell, consecrated on the 13th of October, 1833. At Philadelphia, the Rev. William Mathews, appointed administrator of the diocese by a pontifical brief dated February 26, 1828, having refused the post of coadjutor, the Rev. Francis Patrick Kenrick was appointed bishop of Arath and coadjutor of Philadelphia, and was consecrated on the 6th of June, 1830. Lastly, the Holy See had formed a special diocese of Michigan and Northwest Territory, which comprised what is now Wisconsin and Iowa, and named the Rev. Frederick Rese' bishop of Detroit. The prelates who corresponded to the call of Archbishop Whitfield, and convened with their metropolitan on the 20th of October, 1833, were: Rt. Rev. John B. David, bishop of Mauricastro and coadjutor of Bardstown. Rt. Rev. John England, bishop of Charleston. Rt. Rev. Joseph Rosati, bishop of St. Louis. Rt. Rev. Benedict Fenwick, bishop of Boston. Rt. Rev. John Dubois, bishop of New York. Rt. Rev. Michael Portier, bishop of Mobile. Rt. Rev. Francis P. Kenrick, bishop of Arath, coadjutor and adminis trator of Philadelphia. l2 . THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Rt. Rev. Frederick R£sd, bishop of Detroit. Rt. Rev. John B. Purcell, bishop of Cincinnati. The two last named prelates had received episcopal consecration only a few days before the opening of the council. Bishop Flaget of Bardstown, had been prevented by age from coming to Baltimore, and Bishop De Neck- ere, of New Orleans, had died the preceding month. By its fourth decree, the council submits to the Holy See the following mode of electing the bishops: "When a see falls vacant, the suffrages of the other bishops in the province are to be taken, in order to determine the priests who shall be pro- posed to the sovereign pontiff for that see. If a provincial council is to meet within three months after the prelate's death, the bishops are to wait till then to select the persons to be proposed. Bishops desiring a coadjutor shall also submit to the votes of their colleagues in council assembled, the names of the clergymen proposed for the post of coadjutor. "As the holding of a provincial council may be remote, every bishop shall keep two sealed packages, containing the names of at least three priests who seem to him worthy to succeed him. On the death of the prelate, the vicar, general shall transmit one of these to the archbishop, the other to the nearest bishop. The latter, after taking note of the names given by the late prelate, shall transmit it with his observations to the archbishop. The metropolitan then writes to all his suffragans, submitting to their examination the three names o-iven by the late prelate, or three others, if he finds serious objections to the former; and then every bishop writes individually to the propaganda, giving his observations on the three or on the six proposed. On the death of the metropolitan, the dean of the suffragans shall discharge the duties which, in other circumstances, devolve on the archbishop. If the deceased prelate leave among his papers no nomination of a successor, the nearest bishop suggests three names to the archbishop, and the latter submits them to his suffragans, with three other names, if the former do not meet his confidence. " The two councils over which Archbishop Whitfield had the glory of presiding, and which illustrate the period of his short episcopacy, displayed the dignity and conciliating spirit of the venerable metropolitan. The sessions were conducted with an order and unanimity which gave general satisfaction. Before these august assemblies the prelates of the United States had only a very imperfect knowledge of each other; they were united only by the com- mon sentiment of respect which the episcopal character inspired; but after METROPOLITANS AND COUNCILS. I2 5 deliberating together on the gravest interests of the Church, after learning to esteem and love each other, while exchanging opinions often different, but always based on the desire of the general good, the bishops separated to bear to their several dioceses sentiments of sincerest friendship and esteem for each other. The deliberations of the councils were very important in the eyes of the Catholic population; they contrasted with the tumultuous assemblies of Protestantism, and such was the veneration which they inspired, that three celebrated jurists, of whom one was the late Chief-Justice Tany 5 admitted once before the bishops to give an opinion on some points relating to the civil law of the land, left the council full of respect and wonder. " We have," they said, "appeared before solemn tribunals of justice, but have never had less assurance, or felt less confidence in ourselves, than when we entered that august assembly." Before sickness had seriously enfeebled Archbishop Whitfield, that pre- late and his suffragans had been engaged in proposing to the Holy See an ecclesiastic whose zeal and piety fitted him to govern a diocese so important as that of Baltimore ; and such a person they had found in the Rev. Samuel Eccleston, president of St. Mary's College. The propaganda approved this choice, and in the summer of 1834 Archbishop Whitfield received letters apostolic, nominating Father Eccleston bishop in partibus, and coadjutor of the archbishop of Baltimore, with the right of succession. The prelate elect was consecrated in the Cathedral of Baltimore on the 14th of September in the same year, Archbishop Whitfield performing the ceremony. But that worthy dignitary soon sunk under the weight of his infirmities, and at his death, which occurred on the 19th of October, 1834, Dr. Eccleston became archbishop of Baltimore. In the following year he received the pallium, the complement of his metropolitan dignity; and he was at the same time, as his two predecessors had been, invested with the administration of the see of Richmond, for which the Holy See appointed no bishop till 1841. Samuel Eccleston was born on the 27th of June, 1801, in Kent county, on the eastern shore of Maryland. His grandfather, Sir John Eccleston, had emigrated thither from England some years before the Revolutionary War. His parents occupied an honorable position in society, and belonged to the Protestant Episcopal Church, in which, too, young Samuel was educated. But while still young his mother became a widow, and married a worthy Catholic, and this event opened to him a horizon of light and grace, consider- ably developed in the sequel by his education. The young man was placed 126 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. at St. Mary's College, Baltimore, and distinguished himself in all branches of study, at the same time that he learned to know religion. He there embraced the Catholic faith while still at college, and was so deeply impressed at the death of one of his venerable professors that he resolved to devote himself to the ecclesiastical state. He entered the seminary attached to the college on the 23d of May, 18 19, but was scarcely inclosed in this retreat of his choice when he was beset with pressing solicitations from his kin- dred and friends to abandon a career in their eyes contemptible, and to return to the world, of which they displayed the attractions. No con- sideration could alter Eccleston's step; on the contrary, temptations confirmed him in his pious design, and he received the tonsure in the course of the year 1820. While pursuing his theological studies he rendered useful service in the college as professor. Deacon's orders were conferred on him in 1823, and on the 24th of April, 1825, he was raised to ecclesiastical dignity. Five months after his ordination the Rev. Mr. Eccleston repaired to France, and spent almost two years in the Sulpitian solitude at Issy. Returning home in 1827, after visiting Ireland and England, he brought back an immense fund of acquired knowledge and ardent zeal for the cause of religion. Appointed vice-president of St. Mary's College, then president of that institution, he dis- charged with remarkable success these important functions, when the confi- dence of the Holy See selected him for the episcopate. On his succession, Archbishop Eccleston found religion flourishing in the diocese of Baltimore. Ecclesiastical seminaries, religious institutions, several houses for the education of youth of both sexes, and a numerous clergy for the exercise of the ministry — these resources showed themselves only in Maryland; Catholicity is better spread there than in most of the States of the MOST REV. SAMUEL ECCLESTON, FIFTH ARCHBISHOP OF BALTIMORE. METROPOLITANS AND COUNCILS. 1 27 Union. The archbishop felt, however, that the growing wants of the faith- ful required renewed efforts; and he took to heart to increase the facilities for religious instruction. During his administration, the Sisters of the Visitation at Georgetown opened three new schools — at Baltimore, Frederick, and Washington. The brothers of the Christian schools, invited to Baltimore, opened a novitiate at Calvert Hall; and before the prelate's death, these four schools were frequented by eleven hundred scholars, while the pious teachers of youth gave at the same time their care to an orphan asylum containing sixty-four children. During the term of his episcopate, Archbishop Eccleston was called upon to preside over five of the provincial councils of Baltimore, and he discharged his important duties with equal wisdom and dignity, exercising the most cor- dial hospitality towards his brother prelates. His suffragans accordingly resolved to show their gratitude by offering the archbishop of Baltimore, in their collective name, the rich vestments and plate of an episcopal chapel. The third provincial council met at Baltimore, on the 16th of April, 1837, and eight bishops convened. The fathers of the council proposed to the Holy See the erection of new dioceses — at Nashville for the state of Tennessee, at Natchez for the state of Mississippi, at Dubuque for the terri- tory of Wisconsin, and at Pittsburg for the western part of the state of Penn- sylvania. The congregation of the propaganda, by letter of September 2, 1837, transmitted the pontifical briefs, of the date of July 28th, founding three new dioceses, and appointing their bishops. The division of the diocese of Philadelphia, by the erection of a see at Pittsburg, was deferred, and a coad- jutor was given to Bishop Dubois of New York, in the person of Rev. John Hughes, then pastor of St. Mary's Church, Philadelphia. On the 17th of May, 1840, the fourth provincial council opened at Balti- more. Thirteen bishops were present, and among them the pious bishop of Nancy, Monseigneur de Forbin-Janson. At a preparatory meeting, held on the 14th of May, the American prelates had unanimously resolved to invite their French brother to assist at their sessions with a deliberative and decisive vote, and thus acknowledged the services rendered to religion in the United States by the ardent zeal of Bishop Forbin-Janson. The missions which he gave in various dioceses produced the most abundant fruits. His eloquence and liberality founded a French Church in New York, and Canada still remembers the wonders of his evangelical charity, and the touching ceremony of planting a cross a hundred feet high on the mountain of Beloeil, whence 128 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. the august sign of salvation casts its protecting shadow over the surrounding fields and villages. America is also indebted to him for the organization of ecclesiastical retreats, and never indeed will the name of the holy prelate cease to be mentioned with reverence. The fathers of this council, by their fifth decree, very earnestly recom- mended the formation of temperance societies among the Catholics; and in fact, abstinence from spirituous liquors is the only means of preserving the people from the dangers of intoxication, by sheltering them from the misery and vice which are the consequences of this degrading vice. It is the beset- ting sin of the Irish laborer, and it is only when his conscience is bouijd by an oath of honor, and he belongs to an association consecrated by religion, that he has power to resist the poisonous attractions of liquor. The celebrated Father Theobald Mathew did not confine his labors to Ireland. In 1S49 he came to America, and spent two years and a half constantly preaching tem- perance and enrolling thousands of the faithful under the banner of sobriety. The fifth council of Baltimore met on the 14th of May, 1843. Sixteen bishops took part in the deliberations, and one of the most important decrees is that which pronounces the penalty of excommunication ipso facto against those who, after obtaining a civil divorce, pretend to contract a second mar- riage. The council of Baltimore, accordingly, have not failed to disapprove decidedly mixed marriages, and to dissuade Catholics from them, while decrees endeavor to protect the faith of the Catholic and that of all the future children. The happy progress of religion, ascertained by the fathers of the fifth council, induced them to ask a new subdivision of dioceses; and in consequence the bishops renewed the proposition for the erection of an episcopal see at Pittsburg for Western Pennsylvania, at the same time that they solicited the foundation of other sees — at Chicago for the state of Illinois, at Milwaukee for the state of Wisconsin, at Little Rock for the state of Arkansas, and at Hartford for Connecticut and Rhode Island. The sixth council of Baltimore assembled on the 10th of May, 1846. Twenty-three bishops took part in its deliberations, and the first decree was to choose the " Blessed Virgin conceived without sin" as the Patroness of the United States. The fathers of the council thus honored the Immaculate Conception with an ardent and unanimous voice. And this solemn declara- tion might even then convince the holy fathers of the aspirations of the METROPOLITANS AND COUNCILS. 1 29 Church for the dogmatic definition of the glorious privilege of the Mother of God. This council also asked of the Holy See the division of the vast diocese of New York, and the formation of the diocese of Buffalo with the western counties of the State, and that of Albany with the northern counties. At the same time, it was proposed to detach from the see of Cincinnati the northern portion of the state of Ohio, where the see of Cleveland was to be erected. While the bishops were assembled in council, they had the consolation of seeing two Catholic chaplains appointed by the government of the United States to join the army then invading Mexico. The recruits of the American forces are generally Irish, and the first regiments assembled on the Mexican frontier were at first greatly harassed in their religious faith. The commander endeavored to enforce their attendance on the Protestant worship in the camp; some who refused were even flogged, and numerous desertions, then and later, were the results of this deplorable intolerance. The Catholic soldiers in Taylor's army were not silent under their wrongs. Their remonstrances reached Washington; the religious press took up their cause warmly, and public opinion pronounced in their favor. Presi- dent Polk asked the bishops assembled in council to name two chaplains for the troops. The prelates advised the government to apply to the Society of Jesus, a provincial of which resided at Georgetown, at the very doors of the capitol. The provincial chose for this post of honor two of the most eminent fathers of the society — Father John McElroy and Father Anthony Rey. Although policy had a considerable share in this act of justice, President Polk is entitled to the gratitude of Catholics for affording the troops the con- solations of their religion amid the peril of war; and the fact of these disciples of St. Ignatius being appointed chaplains in the army of Protestant republi- cans, is one of those providential and extraordinary events of which the history of the Society of Jesus numbers so many in its pages. Father Anthony Rey set out for the army in May, 1846, and joined the corps of Gen. Taylor, where he immediately won the esteem and friendship of that old warrior. He fulfilled his duties to the soldiers with admirable zeal, which, not satisfied with assisting them in the hospital and on the field of battle, induced him to learn Spanish, in order to evangelize the poor Mexican frontier-men, scattered over a territory incessantly ravaged by the hordes of savage Apaches, and destitute of all religious succor. It was 10 i3° THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. especially, however, at the siege of Monterey that Father Rey displayed the courage of a Christian hero. The combat was deadly, and continued from street to street, from house to house. The Jesuit accompanied the soldiers in all their movements, raising the wounded, administering the sacraments to the dying, praying for the dead, so that a Protestant account speaks of him in these terms: " The bulletins of your generals, and the glowing eulogiums of letter- writers on particular deeds of daring, present no examples of heroism supe- rior to this. That Jesuit priest, thus coolly, bravely, and all unarmed, walk- ing among bursting shells, over the slippery streets of Monterey, and the iron storm and battle steel that beat the stoutest, bravest soldier down, pre- senting no instrument of carnal warfare, and holding aloft, instead of true and trusty steel, that flashed the gleam of battle back, a simple miniature cross; and thus armed and equipped, defying danger, presents to my mind the most sublime instance of the triumph of the moral over the physical man, and is an exhibition of courage of the highest character. It is equal to, if not beyond, any witnessed during that terrible siege." After the fall of Monterey, Father Rey remained in the city to take care of the wounded, and also gave missions in the neighboring country. In one of his apostolic excursions he drew on himself the hatred of some wretches for inveighing severely against the depravity of a village which he had visited. Attacked by them, he was assassinated, together with the domestic who attended him, stripped of his clothing, and the body of this generous hero of faith, martyr to his apostolic zeal, was found by the people of Ceralvo, to whom he had preached the day before. His soldiers wept his loss, and interred him far from his native land, far from the land of his adoption, amid the tears of the Mexicans. The fathers of the sixth council of Baltimore had scarcely had time to return to their dioceses, when news arrived of the death of Pope Gregory XVI, followed almost immediately by the election of his holiness Pius IX. The Catholics of the United States testified sincere regret for a pontiff who had done much for religion in their country, and who had founded half the episcopal sees then existing. The holy organizer of so many rising churches was deplored in the uttermost parts of the New World; the Catholic papers put on mourning, and in almost every diocese a solemn funeral service was celebrated for the repose of the soul of the father of the faithful. The tribulations and exile of his well-beloved successor, Pius IX, during METROPOLITANS AND COUNCILS. *3 l 1848, aroused a fervid loyalty among all Catholics, and the faithful in the United States flattered themselves that the pope would come to seek a generous hospitality from the great republic of the New World. The arch- bishop of Baltimore was the organ of this unanimous voice, and on the 18th of January, 1S49, Feast of the Exaltation of the Chair of St. Peter, Arch- bishop Eccleston wrote to the sovereign pontiff to beg him to honor Mary- land with his sacred presence: " Our seventh council of Baltimore is to be held on the 6th of JVIay next. We are perhaps too bold, holy father, in asking and hoping that, if possible, the shadow of Peter may even transiently gladden us, and give us new strength and courage. How great an honor and support to our rising Church! What joy and fervor, what fruits and pledges of communion thoughout our whole republic, if your holiness, yielding to our unanimous wishes, would but stand amid the prelates assembled from the most remote shores of North America, and deign to console and honor us and our flocks with your apostolic advice and paternal blessing! The council might easily, if your holiness so direct, be deferred to a more convenient time, and so far as our poverty permits, nothing shall be wanting to make everything a comfort and joy to our most holy father." Deprived of the happiness of being presided over by the successor of the prince of the apostles, the fathers of the seventh council of Baltimore wished to show their lively sympathy, by ordering a collection to be made in their dioceses, in the nature of Peter's pence. This spontaneous tribute produced about twenty-six thousand dollars, which was transmitted to the pope's nuncio, at Paris, by the archbishop of Baltimore. The council met on the 6th of May, 1849; twenty-five bishops were present; and by the first and second decrees, the fathers proclaimed that the devotion of the clergy and faithful of the United States to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was universal; and declared that the prelates would regard with lively satisfaction the doctrinal definition of that mystery by the sovereign pontiff, if, in the judgment of his wisdom, he deemed the definition seasonable. The council also proposed the erection of many new sees. Among numerous good works Archbishop Eccleston also distinguished his episcopate by his labors for the completion of his Cathedral. Although apparently in good health, his constitution was very delicate, and God called the archbishop to Himself, at an age when he might still hope to render long I3 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. service to the Church. The archbishop visited Georgetown early in April, 1 85 1, intending to make only a short stay there, but sickness detained him, and he expired piously on the 22d of April. The calmness, patience, amenity, and piety which he displayed during his last days were truly edifying, and one of the religious who attended the venerable sufferer, wrote to her com- panions some hours before the fatal moment: "Could you have been at our father's side since the beginning of his illness, what angelic virtue would you not have witnessed! Such perfect meekness, humility, patience and resigna- tion! Not a murmur, not a complaint has escaped his lips. Truly has he most beautifully exemplified in himself those lessons which, in health he preached to others. In losing him, we lose indeed a devoted father, a vigi- lent superior, a sincere and most disinterested friend." To take the mortal remains of the worthy prelate to his metropolitan see, the funeral had to cross Washington, the capital of the union; the pro- cession, which was nearly a mile long, slowly wended its way through the principal street, chanting, amid the tolling of the bells, the psalms of the ritual^ the clergy were arrayed in their proper vestments, and among the dis- tinguished persons who followed the corpse were seen the president of the United States, his cabinet, and the members of the diplomatic corps. While the executive power thus honored the Catholic religion in its pastors, in the face of heaven and earth, at that very time the queen of England, who has nine millions of Catholic subjects in Europe, allowed her ministry to insult them and provoke a fanatical agitation, on no better pretext than the re-estab- lishment of the episcopal hierarchy. On the death of Archbishop Eccleston, the see of Baltimore did not long remain vacant, and by letters apostolic of August 3, 1851, the Rt. Rev. Francis P. Kenrick was transferred from the see of Philadelphia to the archbishopric of Baltimore. By a brief of the 19th of August in the same year, the sovereign pontiff appointed Archbishop Kenrick apostolic dele- gate, to preside at the National Council of the entire episcopate of the United States. This council met on the 9th of May, 1852; six archbishops and twenty-six bishops took part in its deliberations, and the most important measure which they proposed to the Holy See, was to create new dioceses, in order to multiply on the immense surface of the American continent the centers of action and vigilance, and in order that, in no point, the faithful be out of the reach of visits from their first pastors. If there were questions of dignities, rendered attractive by the honors, power, or riches of earth, we METROPOLITANS AND COUNCILS. 133 might see in this development of the episcopate, human reasons and motives of ambition. But in the United States, the miter is only a fearful burden, with none of the consolations which lighten it elsewhere; and the prelates are but venerable mendicants, ever extending the hand for daily bread, for means to raise the humble shrines that form their cathedrals and churches. Imagine one of these missionaries, on whom the Holy See imposes the bur- den of a diocese, and imprints the apostolic character. The new bishop has everything to create; he finds only a few priests scattered here and there, entirely insufficient for a country where immigration periodically brings crowds of Irish and German Catholics, who are to be preserved and still more whose children are to be preserved from the allurements of error. He must build a church and a dwelling, found a seminary and schools, elicit vocations by his influence, and confirm the faithful in the truth; gather around him brothers and communities of sisters, provide by unceasing toil for the subsistence of these fellow-laborers, travel constantly on horseback or on foot, in snow or rain, preach at all hours, hear confessions without respite, visit the sick, and watch everywhere to preserve intact the sacred deposit of faith and morality. Such is the life of an American pre- late appointed to found a new diocese — a life of bodily fatigue, like that of the humblest missionary, but with all the responsibility of a bishop. Most frequently such duties are accepted through obedience by him whom the Holy See deems courageous enough to fulfill them; and the new diocese soon sees churches and convents arise, the clergy multiply, and the priest stand beside the pioneer in the latest clearings. Such is the history of religion in America since the commencement of this century, and the future promises that in spite of the trials of the last few years, this development will not cease. Archbishop Kenrick convened a synod of his diocese in 1853, and pro. mulgated statutes based on the decrees of the council and the special wants of his flock. In the following year he proceeded to Rome to attend the solemn definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, in which he was deeply interested as a profound theologian and a most devout servant of Mary. On his return from the center of unity he convened a provincial council, and his pastoral, issued at its close, shows how unanimously and heartily the pastors and the flocks rejoiced in the definition. His visitations of his diocese were always productive of great good; being punctual and accurate, a close observer of the laws of the Church, he sought to have his clergy follow the same path. Quickened zeal is always J 34 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. seen where the laws and spirit of ecclesiastical discipline are most exactly observed ; and Archbishop Kenrick beheld the wants of the people supplied by new or enlarged institutions, such as the asylum for infants, and for aged women, St. Agnes' Asylum, an extension of Mount Hope, a convent of Sisters of Mercy. His leisure hours were always given to study, so that his friends com- plained that he allowed few opportunities for them to enjoy his presence among them. While archbishop of Baltimore he completed the revision of the current Catholic version of the Bible, with notes of great learning and value, especially to students. He also brought out a new edition of the New Testament. An edition of the Bible, with notes, adapted for general circula- tion, was also completed, but he was not spared to publish it. Ever anxious for the full discharge of his duties as archbishop he con- vened another synod in 1857, anc ^ a council of the province in the following year. His labor in these solemn gatherings of the clergy and episcopate, as' shown in the acts of the councils, from the time when he first attended one as a theologian, show his influence in their truly Catholic spirit, as well as in the elegance of the language in which he so often embodied the will of the assem- bled bishops. He extended as much as possible the forty hours' devotion; and one of his last labors was to take steps to establish a suitable retreat for clergymen who, amid the labors of the mission, had lost their health, or were incapaci- tated by the infirmity of age. He took an active interest in the establish- ment of an American college at Rome, seeing no greater bond of unity than to have learned priests throughout the country who had drawn their inspira- tion from*- an education within the shadow of St. Peter's. His health gradually failed; and the disasters of the country, in which his own diocese became a scene of warlike activity, preyed upon him ; anxiety was felt for him, but no immediate danger was feared. On the evening of July 5, 1863, his old friend, Bishop O'Connor, of Pittsburg, was with him, and left him apparently no worse than he had been ; that night, however, he gently passed away; to his flock, indeed, suddenly, but so far as he was con- cerned not unprepared. Archbishop Kenrick, by his theological and scriptural works, by polemics in which his gentleness and mildness are equaled only by his learning, by his " Primacy of the Apostolic See," as well as by his administration of the dioceses of Philadelphia and Baltimore, will always stand in our history as METROPOLITANS AND COUNCILS. 135 one of the greatest of our bishops. His epitaph says, with justice — " He adorned the archiepiscopal chair with the greatest piety and learning, as well as with equal modesty and poverty." The choice of a successor to Archbishop Ke.nrick fell on one already conspicuous in the Church. The Right Rev. Martin John Spalding, whose defense of his theses when he concluded his divinity course at Rome had attracted the wondering attendance of able theologians, and been described in letters to all parts of the world as one of the most brilliant exhibitions ever seen, even in Rome, had more than justified the hopes formed for the young Levite. As coadjutor to the holy Bishop Flaget, and as bishop of Louisville, he had displayed the greatest learning, the simplest piety, singular power of government, and skill in presenting to the American public the genuine principles of Catholics, and the solid grounds on which they rest. Of an old Maryland family, in which the traditional teaching of the early Jesuit fathers had maintained the most thorough and staunch loyalty to the Holy See, Bishop Spalding was alike thoroughly American and thorougoly Roman. His words, written or spoken, had a robust, healthy energy and character that carried conviction and inspired respect. When the see of Baltimore became vacant by the death of Archbishop Kenrick, all eyes were turned to Louisville, and his promotion by the Holy See was hailed with joy by all, and by none more than by the faithful of the diocese of Baltimore. In his new field of labor he began by establishing a convent of the Good Shepherd, as, later, he did a Boys' Protectory, and by completing the decoration of the Cathedral. In May, 1S65, he convened the sixth diocesan synod of Baltimore; and at its close addressed his clergy and people in a pas- toral, to which he annexed the famous Encyclical of Pope Pius IX, with the Syllabus of Errors condemned from time to time. He laid it correctly before all men, and showed how, properly understood, no decision of the Holy See, briefly summarized in the syllabus, was at variance with any sound principle dear to the American people. At the close of the Civil War he used his great influence to excite sym- pathy and procure aid for the suffering dioceses in the Southern States. On the 7th of October, 1866, as apostolic delegate, he convened the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, which he had long and earnestly urged. On that day seven archbishops, thirty-eight bishops, three mitered abbots, and more than one hundred and twenty theologians met in session — a larger I3 6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. synodical body than had been seen anywhere in the world since the Council of Trent. The sessions of the council were marked by great unanimity. The matters to be discussed had all been carefully prepared, so that any points to be elucidated were at once seen. After passing all the decrees which the times seemed to require, the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore closed with ceremonies as imposing as those which opened it. Among the persons of distinction who witnessed it, was the president of the United States. The decrees, after examination and approval at Rome, were published, and attracted general admiration. "I have been able to consult it frequently," wrote Cardinal Cullen, "and I find that it is a mine of every sort of knowledge necessary for an ecclesiastic." At the council of the Vatican it was in the hands of many of the fathers, and referred to with special commendation as having thoroughly seized the character of the age in which we live. Archbishop Spalding encouraged the evangelization of the freedmen of the South, and aided materially the labors of the priest of St. Joseph's Society for Foreign Missions, to whom his holiness commended this interest- ing field of mission labor. The centenary of St. Peter's martyrdom called Archbishop Spalding and many other members of the American hierarchy to Rome; but that, and all similar gatherings of the episcopate, were eclipsed by the opening of the General Councd of the Vatican, on the 8th of December, 1869. It was the first council held since that of Trent, and while there the English-speaking portion of the Church was represented by only two prelates, in that of the Vatican nearly one-fifth of the venerable fathers were from countries where our language is spoken, and prominent among all were Archbishop Spalding and several American bishops, whose voice in the deliberations was always heard with interest. No greater evidence of the growth of Catholicity in America could be seen than that afforded by their presence in a general council. When the sittings of the council were suspended, Archbishop Spalding returned to his diocese and actively resumed the duties of his exalted position ; but his health declined rapidly, and he died February 7, 1872. To fill the chair of Carroll, Pius IX selected the Rt. Rev. James Roose- velt Bailey, bishop of Newark. As nephew of the illustrious Mrs. Seton, he was already known and esteemed in the diocese of Baltimore. His life had been given to the service of the Church, as a priest on the mission, pro- fessor at St. John's College, secretary of the diocese of New York, and as METROPOLITANS AND COUNCILS. 137 bishop of Newark. A constitution naturally robust had gradually given way before the insidious assaults of disease, yet, on assuming his new position, he entered at once on its duties with all the hearty earnestness of his nature. He made several visitations of his dioceses and took especial interest in the colored portion of his flock. In 1877 he went to Europe in hopes of obtain- ing some relief from the use of the waters of Vichy, but it was evident that his disease was beyond control, and he returned to the United States and was conveyed to his old home in Newark, where he died, October 3, 1S77. When he found that his health was unfitting him for episcopal duties, he solicited the Holy See to appoint him a coadjutor, and the Rt. Rev. James Gibbons, who had already, as vicar-apostolic of North Carolina and bisnop of Richmond, rendered great service to the cause of religion, was, on the 29th of May, 1877, translated to that position, and, on the death of Arch- bishop Bayley, became the ninth archbishop of Baltimore, and later a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, some details of his brilliant career being sup- plied in another chapter. GMmpUx lim. TH6 OfeO DOMINION. Virginia's Renown. — The Chieftain of Axacan. — Ancient Problems in Geog- raphy. — Reminiscences of the Missions. — Father Segura's Expedition.— The Log Chapel on the Rappahannock. — A Solitary Outpost of the Faith. — Death and Desolation.— Raleigh's Expedition. — How Anglican- ism Was Planted.— Banishment of Irish Emigrants. — Sad Fate of the Redemptioners. — Virginian Laws Against Popery. — Surreptitious Mis- sion Work. — Father Carroll Among the Faithful. — Father Dubois says Mass in the Capitol.— The Livingston's Queer Visitors. — Exor- cism and Conversions. — Dr. Carroll's Zealous Efforts. — A Bishop Teaching School. — Success of Bishop Whelan. -A Martyr of Charity. — Guarding the Sanctity of Confession. — A Case in Court. — Evils of Civil War. — Bishop Gibbons in Charge. — The Gifted Bishop Kain. jIRGINIA is proud of her antiquity. She assumes the title of Old Dominion; she was long styled the Mother of Presidents. But really her antiquity is greater than many know. Before the Eng- lish settlers landed on the shores of the James, Spanish navigators had entered the waters of the Chesapeake and consecrated that noble sheet of water to the Virgin daughter of David's line, as the Bay of St. Mary, or the Bay of the Mother of God. The soldier of the cross followed hard on the steps of the explorer. As early as in 1536, St. Mary's Bay is laid down on Spanish maps. Oviedo mentions it in 1537, and from that time pilots ranged the coast, David Glavid, an Irishman, being recorded as one who knew it best. All agree as to its latitude, its two capes, the direction of the bay, and the rivers entering into it, identifying beyond all peradventure our modern Chesapeake with the St. Mary's Bay of the early Spanish explorers. Though his attention was called to it, the latest historian of Virginia, misled by a somewhat careless guide, 138 THE OLD DOMINION. 139 robs his state of the glory which we claim for her. The sons of St. Dominic first planted the cross on the shores of the Chesapeake, and bore away to civilized shores the brother of the chief of Axacan, a district not far from the Potomac. Reaching Mexico, this chief attracted the notice of Don Luis de Velasco, the just, upright, disinterested viceroy of New Spain — one of those model rulers who, amid a population spurred on by a fierce craving for wealth, never bent the knee to Mammon, but lived so poor that he died actually in debt. This good man had the Virginian chief instructed in the Christian faith, and, when his dispositions seemed to justify the belief in his sincerity and faith, the chieftain of the Rappahannock was baptized, amid all the pomp and splendor of Mexico, in the Cathedral of that city, the viceroy being his god-father, and bestowing upon him his own name, Don Luis de Velasco, by which the Virginia chief is always styled in Spanish annals. Meanwhile, Coligny's French Huguenots attempted to settle Florida, but their colony, which was doomed to early extinction from its very material and utter want of religious organization or any tie but a mere spirit of adven- ture, was crushed with ruthless cruelty by Pedro Melendez, a brave but stern Spanish navigator and warrior, in whose eyes every Frenchman on the sea was a pirate. Soon after accomplishing his bloody work, whicii left Spain in full possession of the southern Atlantic coast, Melendez, who had sent out vessels to explore the coast, began his preparations for occupying St. Mary's Bay. The form of the northern continent was not then known ; much, indeed, of the eastern coast had been explored, but so little was the line of the western coast understood that on maps and globes the Pacific was shown as running nearly into the Atlantic coast, as may be seen in a curious copper globe pos- sessed by the New York Historical Society, but which once belonged to Pope Marcellus II. Believing that the Chesapeake, by the rivers running into it, would easily lead to the western ocean, Melendez spent the winter of 1565 studying out the subject with the aid of Don Luis de Velasco and Father Urdaneta, a missionary just arrived from China by the overland route across Mexico. Combining all the information, he was led to believe that, by ascending for eighty leagues a river flowing into the bay, it was necessary only to cross a mountain range to find two arms of the sea, one leading to the French at Newfoundland, the other to the Pacific. To many this will seem wild; but it is evident that Don Luis referred to the great trail leading from the Huron country through the territory of the Five Nations to the land of the Andastes on the Susquehanna, by which the last- 14 o THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. named tribe sold furs on the upper lakes, which went down to the French at Brest on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, while the upper lakes were the arm of the sea stretching westward, as was supposed, to China. An adventurous Frenchman, Stephen Brule, some few years later followed this trail from the St. Lawrence to the Susquehanna. Melendez, however, misinterpreted it. To his mind the upper waters of the Chesapeake, the Potomac and Susque- hanna, then known as the Espiritu Santo and Salado, were to be the great carrying place of eastern trade. Anxious to secure for his own country so important a pass, Melendez, in 1566, despatched to St. Mary's Bay a vessel bearing thirty soldiers and two- Dominican fathers to begin a station in Axacan or Jacan, near the Chesa- peake. These pioneers of the faith were escorted or guided by Don Luis de Velasco. Of these missionaries we seek in vain the names. Perhaps their fellow-religious now laboring on the banks of the Potomac will be stimulated to trace up these early labors of the sons of St. Dominic; though we must admit that Spanish chronicles do not speak of them with praise. In fact, they assert that these missionaries, corrupted by an easy life in Peru, had no taste for a laborious mission in Virginia, though perhaps they learned the real state of affairs in that land, and, taught by Father Cancer's fate, felt that the attempt would be fatal to all. Certain it is that the whole party took alarm. They forced the captain to weigh anchor, and, leaving the capes on either hand,, steer straight to Spain. The Dominican missions in Spanish Florida, which began with the glorious epic of Father Cancer's devoted heroism, closed with this feeble effort to plant the gospel on the shores of the Chesapeake; yet they, too, like the earlier discoverers, undoubtedly consecrated to Mary and the Rosary the land which in its names, Virginia and Maryland, yet recalls, the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom the bay was first consecrated. Four years later saw Melendez himself in Spain, full of his projects, and bent on carrying them out. The sons of St. Ignatius Loyola, full of the early vigor of their institute, were in Florida. The new mission, begun in 1566,. had already a martyr in Father Peter Martinez, of Celda, in the diocese of Saragossa, who was shipwrecked on the coast, and put to death by the Indians not far from St. Augustine. It had its devoted laborers, who sought to win to Christ the Indians near St. Augustine and Port Royal, and who had estab- lished an Indian school at Havana to help the great work, Brother Baez being the first to compile a grammar. To extend these missions as far as the Chesapeake was a subject which Melendez laid before St. Francis Borgia v THE OLD DOMINION. 141 then recently made general of the order, after having acted as commissary of the Spanish missions. A letter of St. Pius V encouraged Melendez, and with the co-operation of these two saints the projected mission to the Chesa- peake took form at last. Perhaps some of the clergy in Maryland and Virginia remember the personal interest of these saints in the field where they are now laboring; but we fear that the fact has been forgotten. Let us trust that more than one Church of St. Pius V will be monuments of his interest in the land where the next pope that bore his name established the first episcopal see on the coast — that of Baltimore — and religion has taken such gigantic steps under the fostering care of popes Pius VII and Pius IX. When the founder of Florida was thus earnestly engaged in Spain in promoting the spiritual welfare of the colony, Don Luis de Velasco, the Virginian chief, was still beyond the Atlantic, a grave, intelligent man of fifty, well versed in Spanish affairs, to all appearance a sincere and correct Christian and a friend of the Spaniards. With every mark of joy he offered to return to his native land of Axacan, and there do all in his power to further the labors of the missionaries who should be sent to instruct his brother's tribe. So powerful a coadjutor was welcomed by all, and ere long Don Luis stood on the deck of a staunch Spanish ship, with a band of Jesuits destined to reinforce those already laboring on the Florida mission. This pious party consisted of Father Luis de Quiros, a native of Xerez, in Andalu- sia, with Brothers Gabriel Gomez and Sancho de Zevellos, all selected for the great work by St. Francis Borgia himself. In November the vessel anchored before the Spanish fort Santa Elena, which stood on the island of South Carolina's famous Port Royal, that still bears the name of the sainted mother of Constantine. The Jesuit mission of Florida had been erected into a vice-province under Father John Baptist Segura. This estimable religious was a native of Toledo, who had, while pursuing his theological course of study, entered the Society of Jesus at Alcala on the 9th of April, 1566. St. Francis, who knew him well, entertained the highest esteem for Segura's virtues and personal merit, and took him from the rectorship of the college of Vallisoleta in 1568 to assume the direction of the vice-province of Florida. For two years had he labored with sad discouragement in the forbidding field among the Floridian tribes, cheered by letters of his superiors rather than by any hope of success that as yet seemed to dawn on his exertions. He was at Santa Elena when Father Quiros arrived, bearing the 142 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. instructions for the establishment of the new mission on the shores of the Chesapeake. That missionary had become discouraged and disheartened. All his labors and those of his associate missionaries among the Calos Indians, on the southern coast of Florida, had proved utterly unavailing. No impression could be made on the flinty hearts of those treacherous and cruel tribes, which, indeed, to the end resisted the calls of divine grace. The labors of the Jesuit missionaries on the coast of South Carolina were scarcely more encouraging. The attempts to civilize and convert found hearers only as long as food and presents were given. Father Segura resolved for a time to abandon the unpromising field, and turn all their energies to an Indian school at Havana, where children from the Florida tribes could be carefully instructed, so as to form a nucleus for future Christian bands in their native tribes. But the voice of St. Francis recalled him to sterner labors, and he resolved to go in person to the new field open to them in Axacan, where the influence of Don Luis and the character of the tribes seemed to promise more consoling results. He accord- ingly selected eight associates for his new mission, with four Indian boys from their school at Havana, and regarded as novices, trained already to mission work as catechists. Such was the missionary party that was to plant the cross in Axacan and open the way for Christianity to China by a new route. With the influence and support of Don Luis they would need no Spanish aid ; and as experience had shown them that soldiers were sometimes a detri- ment to the mission they were intended to protect, these devoted mission- aries determined to trust themselves entirely alone and unprotected, in the hands of the Indians. On his side Don Luis made every promise as to the security of the per- sons of the missionaries confided to his care by the adelantado of Florida. " They shall lack nothing," he declared, " I will always be at hand to aid them." On the 5th of August, 1570, this little mission colony sailed from St. Helena, its sufferings and terrible fate having been recounted in our chapter on the Florida missions. They are only reverted to here to make note of what has been claimed as the first Christian temple in the Old Dominion — the log chapel then erected on the Rappahannock. The hamlet first reached by the missionaries was a wretched one, ten- anted only by gaunt and naked savages, who bore the famine imprinted on THE OLD DOMINION. 1+3 their whole forms. Here, amid the tent-like lodges of the Indians, made of poles bound together and covered with mats and bark, Father Segura and his companions erected a rude house of logs, the first white habitation in that part of America — first church of the living God, first dwelling place of civil- ized men ; for one end was devoted to their chapel, while the other was their simple dwelling. Here, doubtless, before the close of September, 1570, the little community recited their office together, and under the tuition of Don Luis began to study the language. Here, at this modest altar, the Holy Sac- rifice was for the first time offered by the two priests. Nowhere on the con- tinent to the northward were the sacred rites then heard, unless, indeed, at Brest, in Canada. Greenland, with its bishop and clergy and convents, was a thing of the past; Cartier's colony, on the St. Lawrence, had been abandoned. The chapel of the Mother of God, at Axacan, was the Church of the frontier, the outpost of the faith. In 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh sent out from England, at his own expense, an expedition which took nominal possession of certain parts of the Amer- ican coast; and on the return of the vessels, Queen Elizabeth, herself, gave her new possessions the name of Virginia, in honor of her title of Virgin Queen, which it is certain she claimed, but not certain that she deserved. It was not, however, till 1606 that a colonization society was formed to settle Virginia, and Capt. John Smith, with a royal charter from James I, landed with one hundred and fifty colonists in May, 1607. Anglicanism thus planted itself on that shore, and every newcomer who refused to take the oath of royal supremacy was expelled, while most severe laws threatened with death the priest, and especially the Jesuit, hardy enough to appear in Virginia. The hour for bearing the cross thither had not struck, and the first mis- sionaries who appeared were the prisoners of Protestantism. In 1614 two French Jesuits, Father Peter Biard and Father Ennemond Masse, having founded St. Savior's mission on the northern coast, in what is now the State of Maine, Captain Argal, of Virginia, destroyed it out of mere hatred of Catholicity. A Jesuit brother was killed, and the two fathers were taken to Virginia, where the governor, Sir Thomas Dale, for some time deliberated on the propriety of consigning them to the executioner to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Irish emigrants who subsequently arrived were forced to leave, and settled at Montserrat in the West Indies, long known as an Irish colony. Sir George I44 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Calvert even was excluded from Virginia on account of his faith, and for that reason founded his colony of Maryland. When the Protestants whom he had admitted rose in 1645 against their Catholic fellow-settlers, they seized all the priests and dragged them in chains to Virginia, where one of them expired the following year. Such were the first relations of Virginia with Catholicity and its missionaries ; but amid their persecutions, the pious fathers doubtless sought to extend around them the succors of religion, for some Catholics were even then to be found in Vir- ginia, chiefly as slaves or indented apprentices — Irish men and women, torn from their native land and sold into foreign bondage. After the Irish struggle of 1641, and the Protestant triumph which ensued, the Irish Catholics were relentlessly banished, and the state documents of Cromwell's time enable us to reckon from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand forcibly transported to America. The majority were given to the settlers in Barbadoes and Jamaica, but a great number of women and children were also sold in Virginia, the men having been pressed into the Protector's navy. In 1653 the commissaries of the commonwealth ordered "Irish women to be sold to merchants and shipped to Virginia," and these unfortunate females reduced to the same condition of slavery as African negroes, sank in great numbers under the labors imposed upon them by their masters. At a later date another class of Irish increased the laboring population in Virginia — voluntary emigrants, driven from home by poverty, and too poor to pay their passage. These bound themselves by contract, to service for a term of years, in order to pay the vessel. They were called Redemptioners. The laws of the colony oppressed them sorely, and doubtless compelled many to leave as soon as they were free. Thus in January, 1641, it was enacted that no popish recusant should, under a penalty of a thousand pounds of tobacco, presume to hold any office. In the following year the same statute was re-enacted, and a clause added requiring priests to leave the colony on five days' notice. After this the penal spirit seemed lulled till the restoration of Charles; then, in 1661, all who did not attend the Protestant Church were made subject to a fine of £20. The fall of James II again called up intol- erance in all its rancor. In 1699 Virginia decreed that no popish recusant should be allowed to vote, and six years later re-enacted the law, making five hundred pounds of tobacco the penalty for offending against it. Even this, however, did not satiate the spirit of hatred with which the minds of men Were imbued. They had oppressed the Catholics; this was not enough. They THE OLD DOMINION. 145 sought means to degrade and insult them, and devised a plan which rated them socially with their negro slaves. By an act, unparalleled in legislation, Virginia in 1705 declared Catholics incompetent as wi^iesses — their testimony could not be taken in court. It may be supposed that this was the act of a moment of frenzy ; this can hardly be, for nearly half a century later it was re-enacted, and to prevent any doubt, the words " in any case whatever" were added. Thus, men who signed the Declaration of Independence actually voted for the most proscriptive of laws. The year 1756, just twenty years before the close of British rule, marks the last of the penal acts, and it is by far the most comprehensive. By its terms the oath was to be tendered to Papists; they were not to keep arms under a penalty of three months' imprisonment, the forfeiture of the arms, and thrice their value. The informer was to have as his reward the value of the arms; and any Virginian high-minded enough not to inform against his Catholic neighbor, incurred the same penalties as the latter. By the same law no Catholic was permitted to own a horse worth over £5; and if he did, and kept it concealed, he was liable to three months' imprisonment and a fine of thrice its value. Thus, in colonial times, a Catholic, in the native State of Washington, could not hold any office, nor vote, nor keep arms, nor own a horse, nor even be a witness in any cause, civil or criminal. Priests were subjected to the penalties of the English law. For more than a century the Catholics thus scattered among the Virginia plantations were deprived of religious succor, and faith died out among them, or at least disappeared after the first generation. Meanwhile the Jesuit fathers of Maryland visited with great zeal the parts of Virginia least remote from their province, and one of the most ardent in this laborious mission was Father John Carroll, the illustrious founder of the episcopal hierarchy in the United States. When he resided at Rock Creek in Maryland, in 1774, he visited once a month the little congregation of Aquia Creek, in Virginia, sixty miles from his residence. His two eldest sisters had settled at Aquia, having married two Catholics named Brent, who had maintained their faith amid every peril, and drawn other Catholics around them. This was probably the first organized parish in Virginia, and the name of Carroll, so eminent in the history of the Church in Maryland, has thus a new title to the veneration of the faithful. About the same time Father George Hunter, an Englishman, left his residence of St. Thomas Manor, to cross the Potomac, and secretly in disguise 11 i 4 6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. celebrate the holy mysteries in some Virginian cabin. Father James Fram- bach was appointed to take charge of the Catholics around Harper's Ferry; and one day the missionary having been discovered by some Protestants, owed his life only to the fleetness of his horse, which swam the Potomac amid a shower of balls, which the fanatical Virginians discharged on the fugitive Jesuit. Soon after, however, the Rev. John Dubois, afterwards bishop of New York, landed at Norfolk in July, 1791, with letters of recommendation from Lafayette to the Randolphs, Lees, and Beverlys, to James Monroe and Patrick Henry. Thus introduced to the leading men of Virginia, he pro- ceeded to Richmond, and for want of a chapel, said Mass for the few Catho- lics of the place in the capitol, which was kindly placed at his disposal. Teaching for his support, Mr. Dubois labored here for several years, and effected the conversion of Governor Lee. Even after his removal to Frederick, he extended his regular missionary visits to Martinsburg, Win- chester, and indeed to all Western Virginia. The Rev. Dennis Cahill also about this time labored in the neighborhood of Martinsburg, and was the instrument of receiving into the Church a family who were brought to the knowledge of the true faith in a mode so extraor- dir lry that we cannot avoid some account of it. About 1779 a Lutheran of German origin, Livingston by name, removed with his family to a place in Jefferson county, about fifteen miles from Mid- dleway, still called Wizard's Clip. Soon after this his house was haunted by a strange visitant, that burnt his barns, killed his cattle, broke his furniture, and cut his clothing all to pieces in a most curious and remarkable manner. He naturally sought means to rid himself of this annoyance, and not a few vol- unteered to deliver the house. The first who came, however, were soon put to flight by the conduct of a stone, which danced out from the hearth and whirled around for some time, to their great dismay. A book of common- prayer, used by another party in conjuring it, was unceremoniously thrust into a place of contempt. Others tried with as little success ; but at last Liv- ingston had a dream, in which he saw a Catholic Church, and heard a voice telling him that the priest was the man who would relieve him. His wife then persuaded him to send for the Rev. Mr. Cahill, who seemed rather unwilling to go, but at last yielded, and sprinkled the house with holy water, upon which the noise and annoyance ceased. Livingston soon after visited a Catholic Church at Shepherdstown, and THE OLD DOMINION. 147 recognizing in the officiating priest the person whom he saw in his dream, believed and resolved to become a Catholic. The Rev. Mr. Cahill subse- quently said Mass at his house, but Mr. Livingston and his family were instructed by a voice which explained at length the sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist, prayed with them, and frequently exhorted them to prayer and penitential works. These facts were notorious, and the family were known to be almost ignorant of English and without Catholic books. The Rev. Mr. Cahill, Prince Gallitzin, and his tutor, the Rev. Mr. Brozius, Father Pellentz, and Bishop Carroll all investigated these occurrences, which were renewed during seventeen years, accompanied even by apparitions, and all considered them really supernatural, generally ascribing them to a suffer- ing soul in purgatory. So completely did Mr. Livingston disregard the loss of his temporal goods in consideration of the precious boon in faith which had been bestowed upon him, that like the merchant who, seeking good pearls and finding one precious one, sold all he possessed to acquire it, he would have given all to obtain it; and to show his gratitude to Almighty God, gave a lot of ground for the benefit of the Church. The conversions did not cease with his own family ; many of the neigh- bors were also brought to a knowledge of the true faith, and in one winter no less than fourteen were converted. The Catholics were by the same means maintained in a more strict observance of the duties which religion enjoins, and warned of the least neglect. Strange as these incidents may seem to many, no facts are better substan- tiated,and a full account was drawn up by the Rev. Demetrius A. Gallitzin, who in 1797 went from Conewago to Livingston's, and spent three months in examining into the circumstances. " My view in coming' to Virginia," says he, " and remaining there three months, was to investigate those extra- ordinary facts of which I had heard so much, and which I could not prevail upon myself to believe; but I was soon converted to the full belief of them. No lawyer in a court of justice ever did examine or cross-examine witnesses more strictly than I did all the witnesses I could procure. I spent several days in penning down the whole account." The very name of Cliptown, pre- served to this day, is a proof of the facts which gave rise to the name. Bishop Carroll was always alive to the wants of this early field of his labors, and as religion began to be free in Virginia, employed one or two priests "delusively on the mission in that state; but they often met severe 148 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. trials, and in 1S16, Rev. James Lucas, a French ecclesiastic, was sent to Nor- folk to restore the peace of the Church, troubled by the revolt of the trustees, who, having the Church property in their hands, had called in a bad priest to officiate. Mr. Lucas hired a room, which he transformed into a chapel. By his prudent firmness he soon drew around him the Catholics, who left the interdicted church; and the trustees, left to themselves, at last returned to the path of duty. When the sovereign pontiff erected the see of Charleston, in 1820, for South Carolina, he at the same time founded that of Richmond for Virginia, and the Rt. Rev. Patrick Kelly was appointed; but this prelate never went to Richmond, where he would not have found means of subsistance, so few and so poor were the Catholics then. Bishop Kelly remained at Norfolk, and had to open a school to support himself. A year after, he was trans- ferred to the see of Waterford, in Ireland, and the administration of the diocese of Richmond was confided to the archbishop of Baltimore. In 1829, Archbishop Whitfield visited Richmond and Norfolk, and in a letter, dated January 28, 1830, gives an account of his journey through Virginia. Only four priests then resided in that state, which was unable to support more. At Richmond, amid the wealth and luxury of the city, the Catholics had only an humble wooden chapel. At Norfolk, where the Church was more decent, the prelate confirmed one hundred and thirty-eight persons, and learned that the faithful numbered over six hundred. In his letter of September 16, 1S32, Archbishop Whitfield announced that he had sent to Virginia a zealous missionary. "This priest has traversed the state; he has everywhere found the Protestants ready to hear him; they offered him their churches, town- halls, and other public buildings, inviting him to preach there, and this is not surprising. The mass of the people, divided into almost countless sects, now knows not what to believe; and by dint of wishing to judge for themselves, end by no longer having any idea what to believe of the contradictory doc- trines taught them; the rich become athiests, deists, philosophers. How unhappy it is to be unable to send missionaries into this state, which is as large as England! There is no doubt that if we had laborers and means, prodigies would be effected in that vast and uncultivated field." This progress, though slow, was real; and in 1838 Archbishop Eccles- ton was able to announce that there were nine thousand Catholics in the state, and that they possessed eight churches. It was still a very feeble religious establishment; but no more is needed in America to begin a diocese, and in THE OLD DOMINION. 149 consequence of the bulls of the holy father, the Rt. Rev. Richard Vincent Whelan, born at Baltimore on the 28th of January, 1809, was consecrated in his native city bishop of Richmond on the 21st of March, 1841. The new prelate made great sacrifices to open a diocesan seminary; and the commence- ment seemed to justify his hopes. On the 1st of January, 1S42, he conferred minor orders at Richmond, and the following year six pious young men received the tonsure at his hands. But in spite of the services rendered to the diocese by this seminary, the expense was too great for the prelate's feeble resources, and in 1846 Bishop Whelan resolved to close it, and send the young levites, destined to the priesthood, to Ireland or Baltimore. Before his consecration the bishop of Richmond had installed three Sisters of Charity, from Emmitsburg, in his parish of Martinsburg. He soon confided to them an orphan asylum at Richmond and a school at Norfolk ; this last city especially consoled him, and he several times visited it to confirm new converts to the faith. Richmond did not, however, offer the same resources, and in 1846 Bishop Whelan resolved to fix his residence at Wheel- ing, where the Catholic population was becoming more important. The great distance of the two cities from each other made it, however, desirable that Richmond should not be deprived of the presence of a bishop. The fathers of the seventh council of Baltimore accordingly, in 1S49, asked that Virginia should be divided into two dioceses. The Holy See consented, and by a bull of July 23, 1850, transferred Bishop Whelan to the see of Wheeling, as he had wished, and called the Rev. John McGill to the see of Richmond, which now comprised all the eastern portion of the state. This prelate is a native of Philadelphia, and acquired a reputation for science and eloquence at Louisville, where he was long pastor, and where he published several controversial and theological works. At the present time (1855) the diocese of Richmond contains eleven churches, ten ecclesiastics, and a popu- lation of about nine thousand Catholics. Wheeling was so called after a Catholic priest of the name of Whelan, who, at the beginning of the century, officiated in Western Pennsylvania and Virginia, and who having by baptism relieved a child whom all regarded as possessed, the father of the child gave the name of Whelan to the town. But we cannot close this brief notice of Catholicity in the diocese of Richmond without alluding to the labors and services of some of the more eminent clergymen who have toiled in extending Catholicity in the old dominion, and whom we have not yet had occasion to name. From 1839 to ^o THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. 1836, though the cholera twice ravaged his extended parish and thrice prostrated him, the Rev. John B. Gildea labored with the most commendable zeal and beneficial results in Martinsburg, Harper's Ferry, and other places, completing two churches and erecting one other. Zealous, especially for the diffusion of a knowledge of our doctrines, he did all in his power to dissemi- nate short popular explanations, and subsequently was one of the founders of the Catholic Tract Society. But the most illustrious of the Virginian clergy was the Rev. Francis Devlin, a martyr of charity during the yellow fever which made Norfolk and Portsmouth a desert in 1S55. Mr. Devlin had just been assailed by a slanderer in the public papers, and Catholicity, in the persons of the Sisters of Charity, had been assailed by a romantic girl and her crafty advisers. An example was needed of what Catholicity was in the hour of trial. Mr. Devlin refuted the slanders of the enemies of truth by his faithful discharge of the duties of a good shepherd, who, when the hireling flieth because he is a hireling, remains and lays down his life for his flock. From the first moment of the appearance of the epidemic, he was unwearied in his exertions, bearing alike temporal and spiritual succor to the poor. By his appeals he stimulated the charity of Catholics in other parts, and drew several Jesuit fathers from Georgetown to aid him. Night and day he was beside the sick, especially the poorest and most deserted. When no other was there to relieve them, he performed all the duties of a nurse, arranging their beds, bringing from his dwelling soups and drinks which he had made. At length he was himself stricken down, but though timely aid broke the fever, he could not bear to lie on his couch while others were dying; before he had recovered he was again by the bedside of the sick, and laid down his life on the 9th of October, in the fortieth year of his age. In the same month the rights of the confessional were brought before the tribunals of Virginia, as they had nearly fifty years previously before those of New York, and with a like result. A man named John Cronin, impelled by jealousy, gave his wife a deadly wound. The Very Rev. John Teeling, a Catholic clergyman of Richmond, who attended her on her death- bed was called as a witness on the trial before the Superior Court, and asked the substance of her sacramental confession to him. This he modestly but firmly declined. "Any statement made in her sacramental confession, whether inculpatory or exculpatory of the prisoner, I am not at liberty to reveal." The question was again and again put in various forms, but the THE OLD DOMINION. , ^ , Rev. Mr. Teeling refused as before, and at last in a short address explained to the Court his motives and the obligation of secrecy which the Church imposes on confessors. His statement was listened to with the utmost atten- tion, and made an evident impression on all present. The question then came up whether a proper foundation had been laid for the introduction of the woman's declaration in confession as a dying declaration. Judge John A. Meredith, who presided, decided in the negative; but as the question had been raised, gave his opinion on the admissibility of the confession, and decided against it. " I regard," says the judge, « any infringement upon the tenets of any denomination as a violation of the fundamental law, which guarantees perfect freedom to all classes in the exercise of their religion. To encroach upon the confessional, which is well understood to be regarded as a funda- mental tenet in the Catholic Church, would be to ignore the Bill of Rights, so far as it is applicable to that Church. In view of these circumstances, as well as of other considerations connected with the subject, I feel no hesitation in ruling that a priest enjoys a privilege of exemption from revealing what is communicated to him in the confessional." Under the care of the learned Bishop McGill religion progressed, though surrounded by difficulties. The ancient Order of St. Benedict entered the diocese and began to assume the care of the German congregations; new churches were erected in Richmond, Fredericksburg, Fairfax Station, Mar- tinsburg, and Norfolk, and others began at Old Point Comfort and Staunton, and in the early part of 1861 there were twelve priests and fifteen churches, with two academies, as many asylums, an hospital, an infirmary, and several parochial schools. In 1855 he assembled in his Cathedral, which he had just enlarged and beautified, the first diocesan synod ever held in Virginia. It met on the 13th of October, and included ten priests. About the same time the bishop carried on an able controversy with the editor of the Richmond Whig, and soon after published "Our Faith, the Victory," a treatise on the Catholic faith. The terrible Civil War which Providence permitted to scourge the country made the diocese of Richmond a battle-field, and more Catholics died on its soil than had ever previously lived within its limits. When peace at last came all was desolation; churches had been destroyed or were racked and shattered ; the Catholics were scattered and impoverished. At Bath and Winchester, the little flock could not hope to rebuild their !^ 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. ruined churches; but the bishop went to work full of hope; a theological seminary, academies, and schools were opened; Catholics began to settle in Virginia, and new churches were erected or begun. In 1S66 a community of Visitation Nuns was established in the Ellet mansion, Church Hill, Rich- mond, purchased for them by Bishop McGill, and their academy has been of the highest character. When Bishop McGill died, January 14, 1872, a happier future seemed in store for his diocese. On the 30th of July the Holy See translated to Richmond the Rt. Rev. James Gibbons, bishop of Adramyttum, who, as vicar-apostolic of North Carolina, had given the Church a new life in that State. A fresh impulse was given to the Church; Harrisonburg, Lexington, Liberty Falls Church, were soon possessed of suitable edifices for worship; Buckner's Station, Pawpaw, and Culpepper hastened to follow the example. Parochial schools sprang up in all parts of the diocese; the Little Sisters of the Poor opened an asylum for the aged in a house given by a generous Catholic, W. S. Caldwell. The cathedral school, a fine building, was erected at the cost of $21,000 in 1872, and a fine new orphan asylum at Richmond in 1874. But the diocese did not long enjoy the presence of Bishop Gibbons, who was called to Baltimore in 1877. The Holy See then raised to the position the Rev. John J. Keane, of Baltimore, who was consecrated bishop of Rich- mond, but in 1888 was translated to become rector of the Catholic University at Washington, D. C. The diocese of Wheeling, including the rest of Virginia, had its progress. In 1848 eight Sisters of the Visitation proceeded from Maryland to Wheeling, and opened an academy in that city; and in 1S53 an hospital was established under the Sisters of St. Joseph. The high standard of the academy was a point dear to the bishop, and it soon attained the most flattering reputation as a seat of learning. In 1861 the diocese contained thirteen priests, who ministered to twenty churches and forty stations, two academies, and six parochial schools. In the Civil War this diocese suffered less than that of Richmond ; it had not to deplore the ruin of sanctuaries; on the contrary, the influx of a new population seemed to give strength to the Church, for, after three years of war, we find, in 1864, more priests, more churches, and others begun. The progress was not illusory ; year by year the Catholic body increased, a college was opened in Wheeling in 1866; a classical academy for boys and THE OLD DOMINION. 153 a visitation academy for girls were begun at Parkersburg, and the parish schools contained more than a thousand pupils. In 1871 the number of priests had risen to twenty-six, the churches had more than doubled in a decade, and now numbered forty-two, while the Catholics of West Virginia had greatly increased. Bishop Whelan saw still greater increase before his death, which occurred July 7, 1874, after having, as bishop of Richmond and Wheeling, for thirty- three years given an example of piety, zeal and energy. The diocese, during the vacancy, was administered by the Very Rev. H. F. Parke, of Parkers- burg, until May 23, 1875, when the Rt. Rev. John Joseph Kain, who had been appointed to the see, was consecrated. Known as a priest of learning, decision, and ability, he was welcomed by the diocese. In 1868 the diocese of Wilmington was formed, comprising Delaware, with Maryland and Virginia east of Chesapeake Bay. The Right Rev. Thomas A. Becker, D.D., was consecrated bishop of Wilmington, August 16, 1S68. The new diocese contained fourteen churches and thirteen priests. Bishop Becker introduced the Visitation Nuns, the Benedictine Fathers, with nuns of the same order, and Sisters of St. Francis directing schools. mtcivux mix. IN THE KEySTONE STATE. Those Maryland Jesuits Again. — William Penn and His Colony. — Toleration by the Quakers.— An Irishwoman's House the First Catholic Chapel. — How Mr. Doyle Introduced a Missionary. — Old St. Joseph's at Philadel- phia.— Famous Father Farmer. — The Mission of Goshenhoppen. — The Friendly Mennonites. — Days of the Revolution. — Liberality Becomes Expedient. — Father Fleming's Witty Controversy.— Priests During an Old Epidemic— Philadelphia Receives a Bishop. — Troubles of Trusteeism. — The Virus of Bigotry. — Expedients of the Sects. — Rampant Nativism. — Riots and Destruction. — Hatred of the Cross. — A Protestant Denun- ciation. — Bishop Kenrick's Success. — Rev. Daniel Barber. — Sister Allen's Conversion. — Scholarship of the Pastors. — Under Late Arch- bishops. HE English Jesuits ia Maryland did not limit their care to the mis- sions regularly assigned to them. We have seen them, in the ardor of their zeal, brave persecution and death in the neighboring colony of Virginia, seeking the few Catholics scattered over its vast surface. The same apostolic spirit led to Pennsylvania the missionaries of the Society of Jesus. They extended their sphere of action to the north as well as to the south of their residences; hence, after sketching the history of the Church in the diocese of Baltimore, we naturally pass to the relation of the commencement of the faith in the province which formed the diocese of Philadelphia. The peaceful sect of Friends reveres as its founder the shoemaker, George Fox, who began his preaching at Nottingham in 1649. Persecuted by the partisans of Anglicanism, the Quakers resolved to seek a refuge in America, as the Puritans had resolved to do in 1620; and in 1675 a company of Friends purchased of Lord Berkeley the western part of New Jersey, lying on the 154 IN THE KEYSTONE STATE. 1 55 Delaware River. In 1680 William Penn obtained a grant of the right bank of the same river, and King Charles II, in his charter, gave the new colon y the name of Pennsylvania. Notwithstanding his distinguished birth and vast fortune, Penn, who had been educated at the Calvinist College at Saumur in France, was seduced by the philanthropical ideas of the innovators. A son of the brave Admiral Penn who had wrested Jamaica from the Spaniards, he had inherited, as part of his patrimony, a large claim against the crown. Charles II, who spent his money in other pursuits than the payment of his debts or those of the nation, discharged this by giving William Penn a colony, and the latter, wishing to take possession, landed in America in October, 16S2. The new proprietor explored the country on the Delaware, in order to select a spot suitable for the establishment of the new colony, and in the month of January, 16S3, he laid out the plan of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. The preceding month, the principal settlers had met in con- vention at Chester, and under the guidcuice of Penn, had enacted as the law of Pennsylvania, that as God is the only judge of man's conscience, everv Christian, without distinction of sect, should be eligible to public employments. The only restriction on individual liberty established by the rigid Quakers was the prohibition of all balls, theaters, masquerades, cock and bull fights; and we cannot blame them for endeavoring to banish these occasions of vice and disorder. The toleration of William Penn, an imitation of Lord Balti- more's, is a striking contrast to the Protestant fanaticism which then obtained in New England and Virginia. The colony increased rapidly, and the immi- gration was not confined to the natives of England and Germany, where the doctrines of Quakerism had made progress. Irish Catholics hoped to find liberty of worship in Pennsylvania, nor were they deceived by the intentions of the honored founder of that colony. It is stated that in 1729 a Catholic chapel existed at a short distance from Philadelphia, on the road from Nicetown to Frankford, and that it was built by Miss Elizabeth McGawley,a young Irish lady, who had settled in that part with a number of her tenants. It is probable that this chapel was considered as forming part of Miss McGawley's house, which enabled the Catholics to meet there under the protection of a private house. Watson remarks that 111 a field near the site of this ancient chapel, a marble tombstone bears a cross, with the inscription — "John Michael Brown ob. 15 Dec. A. D. 1790. R. I. P." This gentleman perhaps married Miss McGawley, and his tomb I $6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. did not escape the fury of the fanatics who, in 1844, set fire to two of the Catholic churches in Philadelphia. The gravestone was broken by these mis- creants, who sought to glut on the memory of the dead their hatred of the living. In the year 1730, Father Josiah Greaton, a Jesuit, was sent from Mary- land to Philadelphia, and according to a tradition preserved by Archbishop Neale, he entered on his duties in the following interesting way: Father Greaton knew a Catholic at Lancaster, named Doyle, and applied to him for the names of some of the faithful in Philadelphia. Doyle named a wealthy old lady, remarkable for her attachment to the faith, and the missionary soon called upon the lady, attired in the grave, staid dress of a Quaker. After various questions as to the number of Christian sects in the city, Father Greaton made himself known, to the lady's great joy. She immediately informed her Catholic neighbors that she had a priest in the house. He first exercised his ministry in the humble chapel at the corner of Front and Wal- nut streets, and in 1733, aided by the liberality of his hostess, he bought a lot in Fourth street, and erected the little chapel of St. Joseph, where he minis- tered until about the year 1750. He was succeeded in turn by Fathers Harding and Farmer, S. J., and in 1 77 1, Father Robert Molyneux, also of the Society of Jesus, was attached to St Joseph's Church, and directed it till 1787, when he was recalled to Mary- land. Father Farmer and he contracted a most intimate friendship, and they used this harmony for the good of religion. Both learned, pious, untiring, they shared the labors of the ministry; and although Father Farmer was eighteen years older than his friend, he always undertook the distant missions as Father Molyneux's corpulance rendered traveling very difficult for him, while the former, by his sermons, produced a great effect among the Ger- mans and Irish. While the Jesuits of Maryland thus zealously occupied the capital of Pennsylvania, they did not neglect the country parts; and in 1741, two Ger- man fathers were sent there to instruct and convert the numerous immigrants who arrived from all parts of Germany. In that year, Father Theodore Schneider, a native of Bavaria, founded the mission of Goshenhoppen, forty- five miles from Philadelphia. He lived there in the utmost poverty for more than twenty years; he built a church there in 1745, and ministered to a very extensive district, going once a month to Philadelphia to hear the confessions of the Germans, till Father Farmer was stationed in the residence in that city. So respected was Father Schneider among the Germans, even the Protestant IN THE KEYSTONE STATE. *57 part, that the Mennonites and Hernhutters generously aided him to build his church at Goshenhoppen. His apostolic journeys led him to the interior of New Jersey, where fanaticism at first sought his life. He was several times shot at; but these attempts to shorten his days diminished nothing of his zeal, and he at last made his visits objects of desire, even to Protestants, towards whom, with infinite charity, he fulfilled the functions of bodily physician, when he could not become the physi- cian of their souls. A relic of this venerable missionary is preserved, which attests alike his poverty and his industry. It is a complete copy of the Roman Missal, in his hand- writing, stoutly bound ; and the holy Jesuit must have been destitute of everything to copy so patiently a quarto volume of seven hundred pages of print. Father Schneider died at the age of sixty-four, on the- ioth of July, 1764, having been visi- ted in his illness the previous month by Father Farmer. Shortly after this time a mission was established at Conewago, and in 1784 the French troops landed at Boston, and amid the ridicule of the English party the selectmen of the capital of New England followed a crucifix through the streets! "A French fleet enters Narragansett Bay, and a law excluding Catholics from civil rights is repealed ! French troops are at Philadelphia, and Congress goes to Mass! Necessity compelled this adapta- tion of the outer appearance and, perhaps, to some extent calmed the rampant prejudice of former days. With a Catholic ally the government could not denounce Catholicity. In the constitution adopted it washed its hands of the matter, and Congress refused to assume, as one of its powers, a right to enter the sphere of religion. It was left to the several states to have any religion or none; but the general government, the only medium of commu- nication with foreign states, could always profess its tolerance, even though twelve of the thirteen should proscribe the faith of Columbus." THE MISSIONARY AS A PHYSICIAN. 5S THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. In 1784 at the time of Father John Carroll's visit to Philadelphia, Penn- sylvania probably numbered seven thousand Catholics, and this is the esti- mate given by the superior to Cardinal Antonelli in the following year. In a letter dated July 22, 17SS, and addressed to some citizens of Philadelphia, Father Carroll expressed his opinion that an episcopal see would soon be required for the United States, and that Philadelphia would be the favored city: " I have every reason to believe that a bishop will be granted to us in a few months, and it is more than probable that Philadelphia will be the epis- copal see." This conjecture was probably based on the fact that Congress then held its sessions in that city, and that Philadelphia was considered as the capital of the United States; but, as we have elsewhere seen, the clergy sum- moned to deliberate on the choice of the episcopal city, gave the preference to Baltimore. Himself created bishop in 1790, Dr. Carroll governed Phila- delphia by a vicar-general, Father Francis Anthony Fleming, an able contro- vertist who was succeeded in his important post by Father Leonard Neale. Father Fleming was one of the first of the Catholic clergy to defend the Catholic cause when assailed. In 1782 Mr. Miers Fisher, a mem- ber of the assembly, having remarked in a discussion that lotteries were like the pope's indulgences, " forgiving and permitting sins to raise money," Mr. Fleming called attention to it as unworthy of a man of standing; and the member, with a degree of courtesy rare in our days, apologized for any unin- tentional offense which he might have given the Catholic body; but a new assailant having come forward with the oft-repeated tale of the pope's chan- cery, Father Fleming replied by citing an equally authentic Pi'otestant tariff, in which the crime of " inventing any lies, however abominable or atrocious, to blacken the Papists," is forgiven for the moderate sum of one penny ; and " setting fire to a popish church," two pence ; which has since proved a higher rate than the witty father set down. The anonymous assailant renewed the attack, and unable to produce any evidence in favor of the pretended list, attempted to raise new issues, charging Catholics with idolatry, persecution, etc.; but Father Fleming held him to his assertion, and after refuting that disposed of his other charges, completely silencing the accuser. To remove prejudice still more, he published the letters in book form, for wider and permanent circulation. In reply to the charge of persecution and intolerance, he cited the penal laws of England, Ireland, and Scotland, and adds: "But the greatest wonder of all remains to be mentioned. Tell it not in Gath — publish it not in the streets of Askalon — lest the bigots rejoice and the IN THE KEYSTONE STATE. 59 daughters of popery triumph. At the close of the eighteenth century, among the enlightened, talented, and liberal Protestants of America, at the very instant when the American soil was drinking up the best blood of Catholics, shed in defense of her freedom; when the Gallic flag was flying in her ports and the Gallic soldiers fighting her battles, then were constitutions framed in several states degrading those very Catholics, and excluding them from cer- tain offices. O shame, where is thy blush! O gratitude! if thou hast a tear, let it fall to deplore this indelible stigma!" Father Fleming and Father Gressel, his companion, gave a still better proof of the claims of Catholicity in the yellow fever which desolated Phila- delphia in 1793. While that epidemic was making its fearful ravages in that city, these two Catholic priests, as usual, braved the disease, and devoted themselves to the care and consolation of the sick and dying, and both laid down their lives in the discharge of their duties — true martyrs of charity. The Rt. Rev. Michael Egan, an Irish Franciscan, was consecrated bishop of Philadelphia on October 2S, 1810, in St. Peter's Cathedral, Baltimore. The new prelate had been recommended for this see to the Congregation of the Propaganda, and was selected by Archbishop Carroll "as a truly pious and learned religious, remarkable for his great humility, but deficient, per- haps, in firmness, and without great experience in the direction of affairs.'' For these reasons the name of Father Egan was only second on the list sent to Rome, although at the close of the letter, the prelate declared that he pre- ferred him to the others. And Archbishop Carroll expressed himself still more categorically in a letter of June 17, 1S07, where he said of Father Egan: " He is a man of about fifty, who seems endowed with all the quali- ties to discharge with perfection the functions of the episcopacy except that he lacks robust health, greater experience and a greater degree of firmness in his disposition. He is a learned, modest, humble priest, who maintains the spirit of his order in his whole conduct." Bishop Egan governed his diocese with zeal and piety; but, according to the prognostic of Archbishop Carroll, he was deficient in necessary firm- ness, as he showed in a very serious controversy with the trustees of St. Mary's Church, his cathedral. These trustees thus preluded the deplorable schism which, at a later date, was to desolate the diocese. This began in 1S21, under Bishop Con well, his successor, and was only satisfactorily terminated on the appointment to the diocese, in 1S29, of the Rt. Rev. Francis Patrick Kenrick, as coadjutor bishop. The great prudence jgo THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. and the firm yet paternal determination of Bishop Kenrick, restored peace to St. Mary's. Difficulties again arose in 183: , and this is no wonder, for the very vice of American legislation is by the trustee system forced into the affairs of the Church. They say in France, that the republican form of gov- ernment would be a very good one for angels. We may say the same of trusteeism: as it exists in the United States, it would be the best temporal administration for saints. Unfortunately, however, all the laity are not saints as we see in the many schisms the system has caused, and especially that of St. Mary's, the most celebrated and scandalous of all. The Right Rev. Henry Conwell lived in retirement at Philadelphia till April 21, 1842, when he expired, at the age of ninety-four. Overwhelmed with infirmities and struck with blindness, the prelate supported with courageous resignation the fearful burden of a long old age, in the midst of the difficulties which have assailed him. Bishop England says: "The bishop has been the great- est sufferer in his feelings, in his income, and under God, he may thank his virtue alone that he has not been in his character. That, however, has been but burnished in the collision: were he a hypocrite, the thin washing would have long since been rubbed away, for, indeed, the applications have been roughly used. What do the Catholics of Philadelphia desire, better than a bishop whose character will outlive the test of four years' assailing such as he has met with, and whose firmness for the preservation of principle has been tested as his has been? These are qualities not to be every day or easily found." By the death of Bishop Conwell the Rt. Rev. Dr. Kenrick became titu- lar bishop of the diocese of which he had been for upwards of twelve years the administrator. Bishop Kenrick's episcopate was not distinguished only by the admirable development given in his diocese in Catholic institutions, by the construction of numerous churches, and the remarkable increase of the clergy; the cele- brated prelate had also to exercise his zeal in rebuilding the shrines which a misled people ftiid in ashes, and in preaching patience and religion to his flock, while he endeavored to protect them against the fanaticism of the vile multitude. The anti-Catholic agitation breaks out periodically in the United States, and the symptoms of the malady are the same from the colonial times down to our own. It is a sort of intermittent fever, which has its deep-seated principle in the hereditary hatred transmitted for three centuries to Protestant IN THE KEYSTONE STATE. I(Jv generations, and inoculated by the incendiary writings of the first reformers. At certain intervals, political quackery succeeds in temporarily breaking the fever, and the good disposition given by Providence to nations helps these intervals of passing calm. Man cannot be kept in a state of constant fury against his fellow-man, especially when the latter is inoffensive and innocent, and when the passions are no longer excited by the leaders of the movement, natural benevolence resumes its course. There are moments when apostles of error stop from weariness, and others, when political reasons make it prudent to wheedle Catholics by presenting toleration as a real reality and not a sham. And lastly, God wishes to give his Church some days of repose amid the trials of the crucible, in which the faithful are purified. The ministers of the popular sects of Protestantism — the Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists — cannot bear to see their flocks ravaged by infidelity. Interest and self-love induce them to make every effort to retain around their pulpits the thousands in whom unbridled examination and unguided judg- ment have destroyed faith, and as the exposition of doctrine has no longer any attraction for their heresy, they hope to keep them Protestants by filling them with a hatred of Catholicity. The false pastors then put their imagina- tion on the rack to vary their calumnies against our dogmas, and season them to the public taste. The public mind must be always kept in suspense by dangling in its eyes the bugbear of Romanism, ready to glut itself with the blood of honest Protestants. When a fact cannot be travestied or success- fully represented, they invent without the slightest scruple or fear of public exposure, a fact which in itself is a strange commentary on a public com- munity. This deplorable system can be compared only to the maneuvers of a Merry Andrew, announcing that he will exhibit in his tent a series of pro- digies outdoing each other in the maiwelous; or else to the course of famous novelists, stimulating the curiosity of their readers by complications of intrigue and crime, on which they then weave the web of mystery. The period from 1834 to J ^44 De lield this anti-Catholic agitation extend through several dioceses, in a most frightful manner, and at last result in Philadelphia in civil war. The incidents of that frightful time, however, are reserved for a general chapter on the subject. Suffice it here to state that they were thus grouped and stigmatized by Rev. Mr. Goodman, a Protestant minister of Philadelphia in those days: "Nativism has existed for a period hardly reaching five months, and in that time of its being, what has been seen? Two Catholic churches burned, one twice fired and desecrated, a 12 1 62 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Catholic seminary and retreat consumed by the torches of an incendiary mob, two rectories and a most valuable library destroyed, forty dwellings in ruins, about forty human lives sacrificed, and sixty of our fellow-citizens wounded; riot, and rebellion, and treason rampant on two occasions in our midst; the laws boldly set at defiance, and peace and order prostrated by ruffian violence! These are the horrid events which have taken place among us since the organization ; and they are mentioned for no other purpose, than that reflec- tion be entered upon by the community, which has been so immeasurably disgraced by these terrible acts." The two churches here referred to were St. Augustine's and St. Michael's. After the conflagration of St. Augustine's, the congregation of that church were hospitably received by old St. Joseph's, where they had Mass and Vespers at special hours, so as not to interfere with the usual services of that parish. In? 1845 the Hermits of St. Augustine built a school-house on the site of their old rectory, and used it as a temporary chapel till the county allowed them damages for their loss, so as to enable them to rebufld their church. The amount claimed was one hundred thousand dollars, and for three years the county officers kept the affair before the courts and exhausted every sub- terfuge to escape payment. Among the objections put forward by the counsel was one which should be given as a proof of the intense stupidity, ignorance, or bad faith of the Pennsylvania bar. In order to envelop the missionaries in the prejudice against the negroes, and so array the jury against them, it was stated that the Augustinians had been founded by an African negro ! In spite of all, however, forty-five thousand dollars were allowed, and in 1847 the new Church of St. Augustine was opened for service. At St. Michael's a shed was raised among the ruins, and served as a tem- porary chapel for some years, till they obtained of the county the indemnity which the law imposed, and applied it to build the church. Thus, loth indeed and reluctantly, Pennsylvania repaired, at least in part, the material losses caused by the riots of 1844, while Massachusetts, with all her boasted superi- ority, has constantly refused from 1834 to the present moment to indemnify the bishop of Boston for the frightful destruction of the Ursuline convent of Mt. St. Benedict. As the number of the faithful increased in Philadelphia, the extent of the State rendered the episcopal charge too heavy for one prelate. The third and fifth councils of Baltimore had asked the division of the IN THE KEYSTONE STATE. 163 diocese, and the sovereign pontiff effected it in 1S43 by electing the Rt. Rev. Michael O'Connor to the see of Pittsburg. This new diocese comprised under its jurisdiction the western part of Pennsylvania, and we shall speak of it in the ensuing chapter. The diocese of Philadelphia retained the eastern part of Pennsylvania, the state of Delaware, and Western New Jersey. The last portion was detached from it in 1853, and the whole state of New Jersey was formed into the diocese of Newark ; and at a later date Delaware was taken to form part of the new diocese of Wilmington. Under the able and vigilant administration of Bishop Kenrick, the relig- ious estalishments extended rapidly in other parts of the diocese. In 1838 the Seminary of St. Charles Borromeo at Philadelphia was incorporated by the legislature of Pennsylvania, and from 1841 to 1853 it was directed by Lazarists, who were succeeded by secular priests, on the transfer of Bishop Kenrick to the metropolitan see of Baltimore. In 1842 the Hermits of St. Augustine opened a college at Villanova, but the destruction of their church and library at Philadelphia exhausted their resources and deranged all their plans; still, they successfully resumed the college exercises in 1846, and the Augustinians now also possess at Villanova a beautiful monastery and novitiate. In 1 85 1 the Jesuits founded St. Joseph's College in Philadelphia, which was removed to a more spacious building four years later; and in 1852 the Rev. J. Vincent O'Reilly opened in Susquehanna county another college under the name of St. Joseph. With most admirable zeal, also, Bishop Kenrick labored to afford his diocese the benefits of numerous religious com- munities; and the venerable prelate was not less successful in increasing the number of his parochial clergy. When he became coadjutor of Philadelphia in 1830, the diocese contained only thirty priests. When the confidence of the Holy See called him, in 1 851, to the archbishopric of Baltimore, he left to his successor ninety-four churches and eight chapels, with one hundred and one priests in the diocese, besides forty-six seminaries, although half of Penn- sylvania had been erected into the new diocese of Pittsburg. But we owe a special mention to a holy religious, who exercised the ministry in Pennsylvania for several years — in 1836 at Conewago, and in 1834 at Philadelphia. In 1807, the Rev. Daniel Barber, Congregationalist minister in New England, had baptised in his sect Miss Allen, daughter of the celebrated American general, Ethan Allen, so renowned in Vermont, his native state. The young lady was then twenty-one years of age; she soon after proceeded to Montreal, where, entering the academy of the Sisters of 164 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. the Congregation of Notre Dame, she became a Catholic, and devoting her- self to God, joined the community of hospital nuns at the Hotel Dieu, where she died piously in 18 19, having induced the Protestant physician who attended her to embrace Catholicity by the mere spectacle of her last moments. The conversion of Sister Allen produced other fruits of grace on her co-religionists, and her former pastor, the Rev. Mr. Barber, after becom- ing a member of the Protestant Episcopal sect, halted not in the way of truth, but abjured the errors of the pretended Reformation, in 1S16. The son of this clergyman, the Rev. Virgil Barber, born on the 9th of May, 1782, was also a minister. He, too, had been convinced of the necessity of joining the Church of Rome, and entered it with his father. Mrs. Virgil Barber followed their example, and she and her husband resolved to abandon all and separate from each other, for God's service. Mr. Virgil Barber, in consequence, went to Rome in 1S17, and obtained of the sovereign pontiff the authority necessary for the step. He entered the ecclesiastical state, was ordained in that city, and after spending two years there, returned from Europe, bringing his wife authorization to embrace the religious state. She had entered the Visitation Nuns at Georgetown, and for two years followed the novitiate. Mr. and Mrs. Barber had five children, four daughters and one son. The last was placed at the Jesuit College at Georgetown, while the daughters were at the Academy of the Visitation, yet without knowing that their mother was a novice in the house. The time of her probation having expired, the five children were brought to the chapel to witness their mother's profession, and at the same time, on the steps of the altar, their father devoted himself to God as a member of the Society of Jesus! At this touching and unexpected sight, the poor children burst into sobs, believ- ing themselves forsaken on earth. But their Father who is in heaven watched over them ; he inspired the four daughters with the desire of embracing the religious state, and three of them entered the Ursulines: one at Quebec, one at Boston, and one at Three Rivers. The fourth made her profession among the Visitandines of Georgetown; their brother Samuel was received into the Society of Jesus. Father Virgil Barber, after filling with general edification several posts in Pennsylvania and Maryland, became professor of Hebrew in Georgetown College, and died there March 27, 1S47, at the age of sixty-five. Sister Barber long resided at Kaskaskia, Illinois, where she founded a Monastery of the Visitation. The grace of conversion extended also to other members IN THE KEYSTONE STATE. ^5 of the family, and a nephew and pupil of Father Virgil Barber, William Tyler, born in Protestantism at Derby, Vermont, in 1S04, became in 1844 first Catholic bishop of Hartford, and died in his diocese in 1849. This is not the only example which the United States presents of married persons, who, on embracing Catholicity, have carried the sacrifice to its utmost limits, and asked as a signal favor to devote themselves to the religious state. Father John Austin Hall, a Dominican and apostle of Ohio from 1822 to 1828, was an English officer of many years' standing, who, touched by the spectacle offered by religion in Italy and France, adjured heresy and converted his family and his sister. The latter and his wife entered a community of English Augustinian nuns in Belgium, while Father Hall assumed the habit of St. Dominic; and this zealous missionary, dying at Canton, Ohio, in 1828, left to the United States the reputation of the most eminent virtues. The vigilant bishop of Philadelphia, whose numerous labors we have mentioned, found, moreover, time to write and publish several works which enjoy a merited reputation wherever the English language is spoken. His Dogmatic and Moral Theology, in seven volumes, is a complete treatise on the sacred science, adapted to the general wants of the country. "The appearance of so large a work written in good Latin, and intended really for use, was a source of wonder to -the Protestant public and clergy, few of whom could even read it without some difficulty, and none, perhaps, with ease. Considered in a literary point of view, it marks the classic char- acter of our writers, a familiarity with Roman literature, which is unequaled in the country. The canons and decrees of the councils held at Baltimore, which England's first Orientalist, Cardinal Wiseman, ranks with those of Milan, display an equally correct taste. Even in the back woods, with rough work and rough men, Badin, the first priest ordained in our land, sings in Latin verse the praises of the Trinity." The Church, by preserving Latin as the liturgical language, saved that noble language from oblivion, and through it saved the Greek ; and Protest- antism, with its love for the vernacular, devoted the highest classes of society to ignorance of the authors of ancient Rome. A few years since, the United States regarded as a wonder a Latin life of Washington, and vaunted it beyond all conception by the thousand-tongued press. There is not a Catholic country curate that could not have done as much, and yet public opinion in America will long preserve the prejudice that ignorance is the necessary condition of Catholics. In the United States, an author need only be !66 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. suspected of not being a Protestant, for his work to be prejudged and precon- demned; and it is the same in England. Yet Americans should remember that the Catholic clergy of Canada taught the children of the Mohawks to read and write, within twenty miles of Albany, at a time when there was not a Latin school in the whole colony of New York. Quebec had a college before New England could boast of one; and so completely was the idea of Catholicity then blended with that of classical studies, that in 1685, when a Latin school was opened at New York, the master was ipso facto suspected of being a Jesuit. On the death of the Most Rev. Samuel Eccleston, fifth archbishop of Baltimore, the distinguished merit of Bishop Kenrick marked him as the fittest to occupy the metropolitan see, and he was in fact called to that dig- nity by bull of August 3, 1S51. His successor at Philadelphia was the Right Rev. John Nepomucen Neumann, of the Order of the Most Holy Redeemer, a native of the Austrian States. At the time of his election, the new prelate was rector of the Redemptorist house at Baltimore; he was consecrated on the 28th of March, 1S52. Bishop Neumann devoted himself especially to the development of Catholic schools and, instead of the two parochial schools he found, left at his death nearly one hundred in Philadelphia alone. In 1854 ne repaired to Rome on the occasion of the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and while in Europe visited his native place, Srachatic, in Bohemia, where he was received in triumph. On his return he devoted himself entirely to the good of his people. In his eight years' episcopate he increased his priests from one hundred to one hundred and fifty-two; encouraged the erection of new churches, advanced the cathedral, erected a temporary chapel to be used afterwards as a school, and increased all the literary and benevolent institutions of his diocese. This most learned, humble, and pious bishop died suddenly January 5, i860, in the street, while returning from some diocesan business. Feeling the stroke of death he sat down on the steps of a house, and immediately fell over and expired. He was born in Bohemia, March 20, 181 1; and left his seminary to come to New York, where he was ordained by Bishop Dubois, in 1836. After being on the mission in Western New York, he joined the Redemptorists, and had been a most successful missionary. Some years before his death Bishop Neumann felt the need of assistance, and the Holy See gave him as coadjutor the Right Rev. James Frederick IN THE KEYSTONE STATE. 167 Wood, a native of Philadelphia, who, while holding a high financial position, received the gift of faith, and renounced worldly position and all its associations to devote his life to the ministry in the Church of God. He was consecrated bishop of Antigonia April 26, 1S57, and became bishop of Philadelphia on the death of Dr. Neumann. In 1862 he obtained special indulgences for St. Patrick's day, to induce the faithful to sanctify the feast of that great apostle, by approaching the sacraments, and avoiding the dissipation so prevalent on that occasion. In 1 868 the Holy See divided the diocese of Philadelphia, establishing a new see at Scranton and another at Harrisburg; and, on the 12th of February, 1 S75, erected Philadelphia into an archiepiscopal see. Philadelphia thus became the metropolitan of a province, having as suffragans the bishops of Allegheny, Erie, Har- risburg, Pittsburg, and Scranton. When the diocese of Scranton was established, March 3, 1868, the miter w r as conferred on the Right Rev. William O'Hara, who was consecrated July 12, 186S. He devoted himself zealously to increase the facilities and exter- nal means of grace for his scattered flock, his diocese containing no large cities, but mainly a rural and mining population. Secret socie- ties .were the great bane, and led many into disobedience to the rules of the Church, and the consequent ... MOST REV. P. J. RYAN, ARCHBISHOP OF neglect of their Christian duties, Philadelphia. until they became a scourge of the commonwealth. Never, perhaps, has there been a clearer proof of the wisdom of the Church, or more convincing evidence that her rules lead to the well-being of a country. The death of Archbishop Wood took place in 1S83, when he was suc- ceeded by Most Rev. Patrick John Ryan, who as bishop of Tricomia had been coadjutor to the archbishop of St. Louis for several years. t&lmptzx Xg. TH6 R6IGN OF lJIGOTRy. Epidemics of Hate. — Evidence of Slavishness and Ignorance. — Dawn of Free Worship. — Views of the Constitution. — The Ursulines at Charlestown. — Slanders Against the Nuns. — Plots of the Bigots. — Scenes of Fury and Destruction.— The Ruin on Mt. St. Benedict. — Cowardly Nun-Haters. — Damages Never Paid. — An Infamous Book. — More Lies and Obscenity. — Publishers Who Hid Their Names. — The Friends of Maria Monk. — Politicians Working the Sentiment. — The Philadelphia Riots. — Burn- ing Churches and Rectories. — Connivance of Civil Authority. — New York Takes the Fever. — The Mendacious Know-Nothings. — Riots in Providence and Brooklyn.— Terrorism Throughout the Country.— A Venerable Priest Assaulted.— In the Halls of Congress. — Disbanding Irish Regiments. — Speculations on the Epidemic. — Clouds Still on thf Horizon. 'IKE commercial panics, periodical outbursts of irreligious fanati- cism seem to have become regular incidents in the history of the United States — occurrences to be looked for with as much cer- tainty as if they were the natural outgrowth of our civilization and the peculiarly-constituted condition of American society. Though springing from widely different causes, these intermittent spasms have a marked resemblance in their deleterious effects on our individual wel- fare and national reputation. Both are demoralizing and degrading in their tendencies, and each, in its degree, finally results in the temporary gain of a few to the lasting injury and debasement of the multitude. In other respects they differ materially. Great mercantile reverses and isolated acts of pecula- tion, unfortunately, are not limited to one community or to the growth of any particular system of polity, but are as common and as frequent in despotic Asia and monarchical Europe as in republican America. 1 68 THE REIGN OF BIGOTRY. 169 Popular ebullitions of bigotry, on the contrary, are, or, more correctly, ought to be confined to those countries where ignorance and intolerance usurp the place of enlightened philanthropy and wise government. They are foreign to the spirit of American institutions, hostile to the best interests of society, and a curse to those who tolerate or encourage them. The brightest glory of the fathers of the republic springs, not so much from the fact that they separated the colonies from the mother country and founded a new nation — for that is nothing strange or unheard-of in the world's history — but that they made its three millions of inhabitants free as well as independent: free not only from unjust taxation and arbitrary laws, but forever free to wor- ship their Creator according to the dictates of their conscience, unawed by. petty authority and unaffected by the shifting counsels of subsequent legislators. From this point of view the revolution appears as one of the grandest moral events in the records of human progress; and when we reflect on the numerous pains, penalties, and restrictions prescribed by the charters and by- laws of the colonies from whence our Union has sprung, it challenges our most profound admiration and gratitude. This complete religious equality, guaranteed by our fundamental law, has ever been the boast of every true American citizen, at home and abroad. From the halls of congress to the far western stump-meeting we hear it again and again enunciated ; it is repeated by a thousand eloquent tongues on each recurring anniversary of our independence, and is daily and weekly trumpeted throughout the length and breadth of the land by the myriad-winged Mercuries of the press. This freedom of worship, freedom of conscience, and legal equality, as declared and confirmed by our forefathers, has become, in fact, not only the written but also the common law of the land — the birthright of every native-born American, the acquired, but no less sacred, privilege of every citizen by adoption. Whoever now attempts to disturb or question it, by word or act, disgraces his country in the eyes of all mankind, and defiles the memory of our greatest and truest heroes and statesmen. So powerful, indeed, were the example and teachings of those wise men who laid broad and deep the foundations of our happy country that, during the first half century of our national existence, scarcely a voice was raised in opposition or protest against the principle of religious liberty as emphatically expressed in the first amendment to the constitution. A whole generation had to pass away ere fanaticism dared to raise its crest, until the solemn 170 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. guarantees of our federal compact were assailed by incendiary mobs and scouted by so-called courts of justice. The first flagrant instance of this fell spirit of bigotry happened in Massachusetts, and naturally was directed against an institution of Catholic learning. In 1820 four Ursuline nuns arrived in Boston and established there a house of their order. Six years later they removed to the neighboring village of Charlestown, where they purchased a piece of ground, and, calling it Mt. St. Benedict, erected a suitable building and reduced the hitherto barren hill- side to a state of beautiful cultivation. In 1834 the community had increased to ten, all ladies of thorough education and refinement. From the very beginning their success as teachers was acknowledged and applauded, and their average attendance of pupils was computed at from fifty to sixty. Of these, at least four-fifths were Protestants, the daughters of the best American families, not only of New England, but of the Middle and Southern States. Though it was well known that the nuns had ever been most scrupulously careful not to meddle with the religious opinions of their scholars, and that not one conversion to the Church could be ascribed to their influence, the fact that a school conducted by Catholic religious should have acquired so brilliant a reputation, and that its patrons were principally Protestants of high social and political standing, was considered sufficient in the eyes of the Puritan fanatics to condemn it. Its destruction was therefore resolved on; and an incident, unimportant in itself, occurred in the summer of 1834 which was eagerly seized upon by the clerical adventurers who then, as now, disgraced so many sectarian pulpits. It appears that an inmate of the convent, a Miss Harrison, had, from exces- sive application to music, become partially demented, and during one of her moments of hallucination left the house and sought refuge with some friends. Her brother, a Protestant, having heard of her flight, accompanied by Bishop Fenwick, brought her back to the nunnery, to her own great satisfaction and the delight of the sisterhood. This trifling domestic affair was eagerly taken up by the leaders of the anti-Catholic faction and magnified into monstrous proportions. The nuns, it was said, had not only driven an American lady to madness, but had immured her in a dungeon, and, upon her attempting to escape, had, with the connivance of the bishop and priests, actually tortured her to death. Falsehoods even more diabolical were invented and circulated throughout Boston. The following Sunday the Methodist and Congrega- tional churches rang again with denunciations against popery and nunneries, THE REIGN OF BIGOTRY. I 7 1 while one self-styled divine, a Dr. Beecher, the father of a numerous progeny of male and female evangelists, some of whom have since become famous in more senses than one, preached no less than three sermons in as many different churches on the abominations of Rome. All the bigotry of Boston and the adjacent towns was aroused to the highest pitch of frenzy, and threats against the convent were heard on every side. To pacify the public mind the selectmen of Charlestown, on the follow- ing day, the memorable nth of August, appointed a committee to examine into the truth of the charges. They waited on the nuns, and were received by Miss Harrison, who was alleged to have been foully murdered. Under her personal guidance they searched every part of the convent and its appur- tenances, till, becoming thoroughly satisfied with the falsity of the reports, they retired to draw up a statement to that effect for publication in the news- papers. This was what the rabble dreaded, and, as soon as the intention of the committee became known, the leaders resolved to forestall public senti- ment by acting at once. Accordingly, about nine o'clock in the evening, a mob began t(5 collect in the neighborhood of Mt, St. Benedict. Bonfires were lit and exciting harangues were made, but still there were many persons reluctant to believe that the rioters were in earnest. They would not admit that any great number of Americans could be found base and brutal enough to attack a house filled with defenseless and delicate women and children. They were mistaken, however; they had yet to learn to what lengths fanaticism can be carried when once the evil passions of corrupt human nature are aroused. Towards midnight a general alarm was rung, calling out the engine com- panies of Boston, not to quell any fire or disturbance, but, as was proved by their conduct, to reinforce the rioters, if necessary. The first demonstration was made by firing shot and stones against the windows and doors of the main building, to ascertain if there were any defenders inside; but, upon becoming satisfied that there were none, the cowardly mob burst open the gates and doors, and rushed wildly through the passages and rooms, swearing vengeance against the nuns. Trusting to the protection of the authorities, the gentle sisters were taken by surprise. The shots of their assailants, however, awakened them to a sense of danger. Hastening from their beds, they rushed to the dormitories, aroused the sleeping children, and had barely time to a,wa the fury of the mob by escaping through a back entrance in their night-clothes. Everything 172 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. portable, including money and jewelry belonging to the pupils, was laid hold of by the intruders, the furniture and valuable musical instruments were hacked in pieces, and then the convent was given to the flames amid tne frantic cheers of assembled thousands. " Not content with all this," savs the report of Mr. Loring's committee, "they burst open the tomb of the establishment, rifled it of the sacred vessels there deposited, wrested the plates from the coffins, and exposed to view the mouldering remains of their tenants. Nor is it the least humiliating feature, in this scene of cowardly and audacious violation of all that man ought to hold sacred, that it was perpetrated in the presence of men vested with authority and of multitudes of our fellow- citizens, while not one arm was lifted in the defense of helpless women and children, or in vindication of the violated laws of God and man. The spirit of violence, sacrilege, and plunder reigned triumphant." The morning of the 12th of August saw what for years had been the quiet retreat of Christian learning and feminine holiness a mass of blackened ruins; but the character of Massachusetts had received even a darker stain, a foul blot not yet wiped from her escutcheon. It was felt by the most respect- able portion of the citizens that some step should be taken to vindicate the reputation of the State, and to place the odium of the outrage on those who alone were guilty. Accordingly, a committee of thirty-eight leading Protest- ant gentlemen, with Charles G. Loring as chairman, was appointed to inves- tigate and report on the origin and results of the disgraceful proceeding. It met in Faneuil Hall from day to day, examined a great number of witnesses. and made the most minute inquiries from all sources. Its final report was long, eloquent, and convincing. After the most thorough examination, it was found, those Protestant gentlemen said, that all the wild and malicious assertions put forth in the sectarian pulpits and repeated in the newspapers, regarding the Ursulines, were without a shadow of truth or probability ; they eulogized in the most glowing language the conduct of the nuns, their quali fications as teachers, their Christian piety and meekness, and their careful regard for the morals as well as for the religious scruples of their pupils. They also attributed the wanton attack upon the nunnery to the fell spirit of bigotry evoked by the false reports of the New England press and the unmit- igated slanders of the anti-Catholic preachers, and called upon the legislative authorities to indemnify, in the most ample manner, the victims of mob law and official connivance. But the most significant fact brought to light by this committee was that THE REIGN OF BIGOTRY. r 73 the fanatics, in their attack on Mt. St. Benedict, were not a mere heteroge- neous crowd of ignorant men acting upon momentary impulse, but a regular band of lawless miscreants directed and aided by persons of influence and standing in society. " There is no doubt," says the report, " that a conspiracy had been formed, extending into many of the neighboring towns; but the committee are of opinion that it embraced very few of respectable character in society, though some such may, perhaps, be actually guilty of an offense no less heinous, morally considered, in having excited the feelings which led to the design, or countenanced and instigated those engaged in its execution." Here we find laid down, on the most unquestionable authority, the origin and birth-place of all subsequent native American movements against Catholicity. But the sequel to the destruction of the Charlestown convent was even more shameful than the crime itself. Thirteen men had been arrested, eight of whom were charged with arson. The first tried was the ringleader, an ex-convict, named Buzzell. The scenes which were enacted on that occasion are without a parallel in the annals of our jurisprudence. The mother-superior, sev- eral of the sisters, and Bishop Fenwick, nec- essary witnesses for the prosecution, were received in court with half -suppressed jibes and sneers, subjected to every species of in- sult by the lawyers for the defense, and were frowned upon even by the judge who presided. Though the evidence against the prisoner was conclusive, the jury, without shame or hesitation, acquitted him, and he walked out of court amid the wildest cheers of the bystanders. Similar demonstrations of popular sympathy attended the trials of the other rioters, who were all, with the exception of a young boy, permitted to escape the penalty of their gross crimes. Even the state legislature, though urged to do so by many of the lead- ing public men of the commonwealth, refused to vote anything like an ade- quate sum to indemnify the nuns and pupils for .their losses, amounting to RUINS OF CHARLESTOWN CONVENT. ^4 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. over a hundred thousand dollars. The pitiful sum of ten thousand dollars was offered, and of course rejected ; and to this day the ruins of the convent stand as an eloquent monument of Protestant perfidy and puritanical meanness and injustice. The impunity thus legally and officially guaranteed to mohs and sacri- legious plunderers soon bore fruit in other acts of lawlessness in various parts of Massachusetts. A Catholic graveyard in Lowell was shortly after entered and desecrated by an armed rabble, and a house in Wareham, in which Mass was being celebrated, was set upon by a gang of ruffians known as the "Con- vent Boys." A couple of years later the Montgomery Guards, a regular militia company, composed principally of Catholic free-holders of Boston, were openly insulted by their comrades on parade, and actually stoned through the streets by a mob of over three thousand persons. As there were no more convents to be plundered and burned in the strong- hold of Puritanism, the war on those glories of religion was kept up in a differ- ent manner, but with no less rancor and audacity. Taking advantage of the excitement created by such men as Lyman Beecher and Buzzell, a mercenary publisher issued a book entitled, " Six Months in a Convent," which was put together by some contemptible preacher in the name of an illiterate girl named Reed, who, the better to mislead the public, assumed the title of " Sister Mary Agnes." " We earnestly hope and believe," said the preface to this embodiment of falsehood, "that this little work, if universally diffused, will do more, by its unaffected simplicity, in deterring Protestant parents from educating their daughters in Catholic nunneries than could the most labored and learned discourses on the dangers of popery." Though the book was replete with stupid fabrications and silly blunders, so grossly had the popular taste been perverted that fifty thousand copies were sold within a year after its publication. The demand was still increas- ing, when another contribution to Protestant literature appeared, before the broad, disgusting, and obscene fabrications of which the mendacity of "Sis- ter Mary Agnes" paled its ineffectual fires. This latter candidate for popu- lar favor, though it bore the name, destined for an immortality of infamy, of Maria Monk — a notoriously dissolute woman — was actually compiled by a few needy and unscrupulous adventurers, reverend and irreverend, who found a distinguished Methodist publishing house, not quite so needy, though still more unscrupulous, to publish the work for them, though very shame com- pelled even them to withhold their names from the publication. And it was THE RE ION OF BIGOTRY. xy 5 only owing to a legal suit arising from this infamous transaction many years after that the fact was revealed that the publishers of this vilest of assaults on one of the holiest institutions of the Catholic Church was the firm of Harper Brothers. True to their character, they saw that the times were favorable for an assault on Catholicity, even so vile as this one ; and true to their nature again, they refused to their wretched accomplice her adequate share in the wages of sin. Though bearing on its face all the evidences of diabolical malice and falsehood, condemned by the better portion of the press and by all reputable Protestants, the work had an unparalleled sale for some time. The demand might have continued to go on increasing indefinitely, but, in an evil hour for the speculators, its authors, under the impression that the prurient taste of the public was not sufficiently satiated with imaginary hor- rors, issued a continuation under the title of "Additional Awful Disclosures." This composition proved an efficient antidote to the malignant poison of the first. Its impurity and falsehoods were so palpable that its originators were glad to slink into obscurity and their patrons into silence, followed by the contempt of all honest men. Just ten years after the Charlestown outrage the spirit of Protestant persecution began to revive. Premonitory symptoms of political proscrip- tion appeared in 1842, in the constitutional conventions of Rhode Island and Louisiana, and in the local legislatures of other states ; but it was not till the early part of 1844 that it became evident that secret measures were being taken to arouse the dormant feeling of antipathy to the rights of Catholics, so rife in the hearts of the ignorant Protestant masses. New York, at first, was the principal seat of the disorder. Most of the newspapers of that period teemed with eulogistic reviews of books written against the faith, cheap periodicals, such as the Rev. Mr. Sparry 's "American Anti-papist," were thrust into the hands of all who would read them by the agents of the bible and proselytizing societies; and a cohort of what were called anti-papal lec- turers, of which a reverend individual named Cheever was the leader, was employed to attack the Catholic Church with ev Q ry conceivable weapon that the arsenal of Protestantism afforded. The popular mind being thus prepared for a change, the various elements of political and social life opposed to Catholicity were crystallized into the "American Republican" party, better known as the Native Americans. On the 19th of March, 1844, the new faction nominated James Harper for mayor of the city of New York, and about the same time William Rockwell was 1^6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. named for a similar office in Brooklyn. The platform upon which these gentlemen stood was simple but comprehensive: the retention of the Pro- testant bible and Protestant books in the public schools; the exclusion of Catholics of all nationalities from office; and the amendment of the naturali- zation laws so as to extend the probationary term of citizenship to twenty- one years. The canvass in New York was conducted with some regard to decency; but in the sister city the Nativists threw off all respect for law, their processions invaded the districts inhabited mainly by adopted citizens, assailed all who did not sympathize with them, and riot and bloodshed were the consequence. In Brooklyn the Nativist candidate was defeated, but Har- per was elected triumphantly by about twenty-four thousand votes. The ballots that placed such a man at the head of the municipality of the Ameri- can metropolis were deposited by both Whigs and Democrats, though each party had a candidate in the field. The former contributed upwards of four- teen thousand, or three-fourths of their strength; their opponents somewhat less than ten thousand. But the action of the city politicians was quickly repudiated and con- demned throughout the state. On the 13th of April, the Whigs assembled in Albany and passed a series of resolutions denouncing in unequivocal terms the tenets of the Native Americans; and in two days after, at the same place, and in, if possible, a more forcible manner, the Democracy entered their protest against the heresies and evil tendencies of the persecuting faction. Still, the " American Republicans" showed such signs of popular strength in various municipal elections that year, that the lower classes of politicians, of all shades of opinion, who dared not openly support them, were suspected of secretly courting their friendship. The nomination of Frelinghuysen with Henry Clay at the Whig presidential convention of May 1, 1844, was well under- stood at the time to be a bid for Nativist support, and eventually defeated the distinguished Kentucky orator. It is difficult to imagine how far the madness of the hour might have carried ambitious political leaders and timid conventions, had not the scenes of sacrilege and murder which soon after disgraced the city of Philadelphia, and stained the streets with innocent blood, sent a thrill of horror throughout the entire country. Philadelphia had followed, if not anticipated, the example of New York in sowing broadcast the seeds of civil strife. Early in the year secret Nativ- ist societies were formed; sensational preachers like Tyng, in and out of THE REIGN OF BIGOTRY. 177 place, harangued congregations and meetings; cheap newspapers were started for the sole purpose of viiifying Catholics, and working upon the baser passions of the sectarian population of the country. The motives of those engineers of discord were the same as those of their New York breth- ren, and their method of attack equally treacherous and cowardly. One of the principal charges against their Catholic fellow-citizens was that they were hostile to free schools and education generally. To this unjust aspersion Bishop Kenrick, on the 12th of March, publicly replied in a short but lucid letter, in which he said: " Catholics have not asked that the bible be excluded from the public schools. They have merely desired for their children the liberty of using the Catholic version, in case the reading of the bible be prescribed by the con- trollers or directors of the schools. They only desire to enjoy the benefit of the constitution of the state of Pennsylvania, which guarantees the rights of conscience and precludes any preference of sectarian modes of worship. They ask that the school laws be faithfully executed, and that the religious predi- lections of the parents be respected . . . They desire that the public schools be preserved from all sectarian influence, and that education be con- ducted in a way that may enable all citizens equally to share its benefits, with- out any violence being offered to their conscientious convictions." So deliberate and emphatic a denial had no effect on the wretched men who tyrannized over the second city in the union, except that it was resolved to substitute brute force for reason, and to precipitate a collision with their comparatively weak victims. Accordingly, on the 5th of May, a Nativist meeting was held in Kensington. The design of the managers of the meet- ing was evidently to provoke an attack; for, finding the place first selected for the gathering unmolested, they deliberately moved to the market-house, in the actual presence of several adopted citizens. This trick and the insult- ing speeches that followed had the desired effect. A riot took place, several shots were fired on both sides, and four or five persons were more or less seri- ously wounded. The Nativists retreated and made an unsuccessful attempt to burn a nunnery. The most exaggerated reports of this affair were immediately circulated through Philadelphia. The next day, the Nativists, fully armed, assembled and passed a series of resolutions of the most violent character. Preceded by an American flag, which bore an inscription as malicious as it was untrue, they attacked the Hibernian Hose company, destroyed the apparatus, and 13 17& THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. broke the fire-bell in pieces Twenty-nine dwellings were burned to the ground, their hapless occupants, mostly women and children, fleeing in all directions amid the insults and shots of their savage assailants. The citizens were now thoroughly aroused, the military, under Gen. Cadwalader, was called out, and Bishop Kenrick addressed a public admonition to his flock to preserve peace, and, notwithstanding the provocation, to exercise forbearance. But the demon of fanaticism, once let loose, could not be easily laid. Riot- ing continued throughout the day and far into the night. Early on Wednes- day morning, St. Michael's Church, the female seminary attached to it, and a number of private houses in the neighborhood were ruthlessly plundered and destroyed. "During the burning of the Church," said one of the Phila- delphia papers, "the mob continued to shout; and when the cross at the peak of the roof fell, they gave three cheers and a drum and fife played the 'Boyne Water.'" The burning of St. Augustine's Church took place on the evening of the same day. This building, one of the finest in the city, was peculiarly endeared to the Catholic inhabitants as having been one of their oldest churches in Philadelphia. Many of the contributors to its building fund were men of historic fame, such as Washington, Montgomery, Barry, Meade, Carey, and Girard. It had adjoining it extensive school-houses and a commodious par- sonage, and the clock in its tower was the one which had struck the first tones of new-born American liberty. But the sacred character of the build- ing itself, and the patriotic memories which surrounded it, could not save it from the torch of the Philadelphia mob. "The clock struck ten," wrote an eye-witness, " while the fire was raging with the greatest fury. At twenty minutes past ten the cross which surmounted the steeple, and which remained unhurt, fell with a loud crash, amid the plaudits of a large portion of the spec- tators. A very valuable library and several splendid paintings shared the fate of the Church." But bad as was the conduct of the rioters, that of the authorities was even worse. The militia, when ordered out, did not muster for several hours after the time appointed, and when they did arrive they were only passive, if not gratified, spectators of the lawless scenes before them. When St. Michael's was threatened, the pastor, Rev. Mr. Donohue, placed it under the charge of Capt. Fairlamb, giving him the keys; yet the mob was allowed to wreak its vengeance on it undisturbed. The basement of St. Augustine's was occupied by some armed men who had resolved to defend it at all hazards ; but on the THE REIGN OF BIGOTRY. 179 assurance of Mayor Scott and the sheriff that they had troops and police enough to protect it, it was agreed, in the interest of peace, to evacuate it. This had scarcely been done when the militia and civic guard fell back before a thousand or more armed ruffians and left the Church to its fate. For nearly sixty hours the rioters were left in undisputed possession of the city; every- thing the Catholics held sacred was violated ; men were dragged out of their homes, half hanged and brutally maltreated, when not murdered outright; the houses of adopted citizens were everywhere plundered, an immense amount of property was destroyed, and over two hundred families left desolate and homeless, without the slightest attempt being made to enforce the law. How many fell victims to Nativists' hate and rage on this occasion has never been known, but the killed and wounded were counted by scores. An attempt to outrival Philadelphia in atrocity was made in New York a few days after, but the precautionary steps of the authorities, the firm atti- tude assumed by the late Archbishop Hughes, and the resolute stand taken by the Catholic population, headed by Eugene Casserly — who was at that time editor of the Freeman's Journal — together with some young Irish-Ameri- can Catholic gentlemen, so impressed the leaders of the Nativists that all attempts of an incendiary nature and all public efforts to sympathize with the Philadelphia mob, were abandoned. Nativism staggered under the blow given it by its adherents in Philadelphia, and soon sank into utter insignifi- cance as a political power. Another decade, however, passed, and we find it again rejuvenated. This time it assumed the name of the Know-nothing party, and extended its ramifications through every state in the union. Its declaration of principles contained sixteen clauses, as laid down by its organs, of which the following were regarded as the most vital: 1st. The repeal of all naturalization laws. 2d. None but native Americans for office. 3d. A Protestant common-school system. 4th. Perpetual war on " Romanism." 5th. Opposition to the forma- tion of military companies composed of " foreigners." 6th. Stringent laws against immigration. 7th. Ample protection to Protestant interests. Though partly directed, apparently, against all persons of foreign birth, this new secret society was actually only opposed to Catholics; for many of the prominent members in its lodges were Irish Orangemen and Welsh, Scotch, and English unnaturalized adventurers who professed no form of belief. Like their predecessors of 1844, tne Know-nothings employed a host of mendacious ministers and subsidized a number of obscure newspapers to xSo THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. circulate their slanders against Catholics, native as well as adopted citizens; but they also added a new feature to the crusade against morality and civil rights. This was street-preaching — a device for creating riots and bloodshed, for provoking quarrels and setting neighbor against neighbor, worthy the fiend of darkness himself. Wretched creatures, drawn from the very dregs of society, were hired to travel from town to town, to post themselves at conspicuous street-corners, if possible before Catholic Churches, and to pour forth, in ribald and blasphemous language,the most unheard-of slanders against the Church. As those outcasts generally attracted a crowd of idle persons, and were usually sustained by the presence of the members of the local lodge, the merest interruption of their foul diatribes was the signal for a riot, ending not unfrequently in loss of life or limb. The first outrage that marked the career of the Know-nothings of 1854 was the attack on the Convent of Mercy, Providence, R.I., in April of that year. Instigated by the newspaper attacks of a notorious criminal, who then figured as a Nativist leader, the rowdy elements of that usually quiet city surrounded the convent, pelted the doors and windows with stones, to the great alarm of the ladies and pupils within, and would doubtless have pro- ceeded to extremities were it not that the Catholics, fearing a repetition of the Charlestown affair, rallied for its protection and repeatedly drove them off. In June. Brooklyn was the scene of some street-preaching riots, but in the following August St. Louis, founded by Catholics and up to that time enjoying an enviable reputation for refinement and love of order, acquired a pre-eminence in the southwest for ferocious bigotry. For two days,* August 7th and 8th, riot reigned supreme in that city; ten persons were shot down in the streets, many more were seriously wounded, and a number of houses of Catholics were wrecked. On the 3d of September of the same year the American Protestant Association of New York, an auxiliary of the Know-nothings, composed of Orangemen, went to Newark, N.J., to join with similar lodges of New Jersey in some celebration. In marching through the streets of that city they hap- pened to pass the German Catholic Church, and, being in a sportive mood, they did not hesitate to attack it. A melee occurred, during which, one man, a Catholic, was killed and several were seriously injured. The evidence taken by the coroner's jury showed that the admirers of King William were well armed, generally intoxicated, and that the assault and partial destruction of the Church were altogether wanton and unprovoked. Early in the same THE REIGN OF BIGOTRY. l8i month news was received of a succession of riots in New Orleans, the victims, as usual, being Catholics. But the spirit of terrorism was not confined to one section or particulav state. The virus of bigotry had inoculated the whole body politic. In October people of all shades of religious opinion were astounded to hear from Maine that the Rev. John Bapst, S.J., a clergyman of exemplary piety and mildness, had actually been dragged forcibly from the house of a friend by a drunken Ellsworth mob, ridden on a rail, stripped naked, tarred and feathered, and left for dead. His money and watch were likewise stolen by the mis- creants. Father Bapst's crime was that, when a resident of Ellsworth some time previously, he had entered into a controversy about public schools. Yet, in the face of all these lawless proceedings, the Know-nothing party increased with amazing rapidity. " Without presses, without electioneering," said the New York Times, " with no prestige or power, it has completely overthrown and swamped the two old historic parties of the country." This was certainly true of New England, and notably so of Massachusetts, where, in the autumn of 1854, the Know-nothings elected their candidate for gov- ernor and nearly every member of the legislature. In the state of New York Ullman, the standard-bearer of the new army of persecution, received over 122,000 votes, and, though defeated in the city, it was more than suspected that the democrat who was chosen as mayor had been a member of the organization. In many other states and cities the power of the sworn secret combination was felt and acknowledged. Its influence and unseen grasp on the passions and prejudices of the lower classes of Protestants were plainly perceptible in the halls of congress and in the executive cabinet. In the senate William H. Seward was the first and foremost to denounce the so-called American party. As early as July, 1854, in a speech on the Homestead Bill, he took occasion to remark: " It is sufficient for me to say that, in my judgment, everything is un-American which makes a distinction, of whatever kind, in this country between the native-born American and him whose lot is directed to be cast here by an overruling Providence, and who renounces his allegiance to a foreign land and swears fealty to the country which adopts him." The example of the great statesman was followed by such men as Douglas, Cass, Keitt, Chandler, and Seymour, while Senators Dayton and Houston, Wilson, the late vice-president, N. P. Banks, and a number of other politicians championed the cause of intolerance as has since been confessed, M2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. for their own selfish aggrandizement as much as from inherent littleness of soul. Meanwhile, Massachusetts was completely controlled by the Know- nothings. Their governor, Gardner, had not been well in the chair of state when he disbanded all the Irish military companies within his jurisdiction. These were the Columbian, Webster, Shields, and Sarsfield Guards of Boston, the Jackson Musketeers of Lowell, the Union Guard of Lawrence, and the Jackson Guard of Worcester. The General Court, too, not to be outdone in bigotry by the executive, passed a law for the inspection of nunneries, convents, and schools, and appointed a committee to carry out its provisions. The first — and last — domiciliary visit of this body was made to the school of the sisters of Notre Dame in Roxbury. It is thus graphically described by the Boston Advertiser, an eminently Protestant authority: "The gentlemen — we presume we must call members of the legislature by this name — roamed over the whole house from attic to cellar. No chamber, no passage, no closet, no cupboard, escaped their vigilant search. No part of the house was enough protected by respect for the common courtesies of civilized life to be spared in the examination. The ladies 1 dresses hanging in their wardrobes were tossed over. The party invaded the chapel and showed their respect — as Protestants, we presume — for the One God whom all Christians worship, by talking loudly with their hats on; while the ladies shrank in terror at the desecration of a spot which they hallowed." Still, the work of proscription and outrage went on in other directions. Fifteen school-teachers had been dismissed in Philadelphia because they were Catholics; the Rev. F. Nachon, of Mobile, was assaulted and nearly killed while pursuing his sacred avocations; a military company in Cincinnati, and another in Milwaukee, composed of adopted citizens, were disbanded, and on the 6th and 7th of August, 1855, the streets of Louisville ran red with the blood of adopted citizens. In this last and culminating Know-nothing outrage eleven hundred voters were driven from the polls, numbers of men, and even women, were shot down in the public thoroughfares, houses were sacked and burned, and at least five persons are known to have been literally roasted alive. A reaction, however, had already set in. Men of moderate views and unbiased judgments began to tire of the scenes of strife, murder, and rapine that accompanied the victories of the Know-nothings. The first to deal it a deadly blow, as a political party, was Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, in his noble canvass of that state against the combined Whig and THE REIGN OF BIGOTRY. 183 Nativist elements in 1855; and to the late archbishop of New York, in his utter discomfiture of State Senator Brooks, is justly due the merit of having first convinced the American people that the so-called American party was actually the most dangerous enemy of American laws and institutions, the advocate of spoliation and persecution under the guise of patriotism and reform. The decline of Nativism, though not so rapid as its growth, was equally significant, and its history as instructive. In 1856 a national convention was called by the wreck of the party to nominate Fillmore for the presidency, after overtures had been made in vain to the Republicans and Democrats. Fillmore was so badly defeated that he retired into private life and lost what- ever little fame he had acquired in national affairs as Taylor's successor. Four years later Bell and Everett appeared on the Know-nothing ticket, but so far behind were they in the race with their presidential competitors that very few persons cared to remember the paucity of their votes. Gradually, silently, but steadily, like vermin from a sinking ship, the leaders slunk away from the already doomed faction, and, by a hypocritical display of zeal, endeavored to obtain recognition in one or other of the great parties, but generally without success. Disappointed ambition, impotent rage, and, let us hope, remorse of conscience occasionally seized upon them, and the charity of silence became to them the most desired of blessings. Perhaps, if the late Civil War had not occurred, to swallow in the immensity of its operations all minor interests, we might have beheld in 1864 the specter of Nativism arising from its uneasy slumber, to be again subjected to its periodical blights and curses. From present appearances many far-seeing persons apprehend the recu:" rence of the wild exhibitions of anti-Catholic and anti-American fanaticism which have so often blotted and blurred the otherwise stainless pages of our short history. But if such is to be the case; if we Catholics are doomed once more to be subjected to the abuse of the vile, the slander of the hireling, and the violence of an armed mob, the sooner we are prepared the better. If the scenes which have indelibly disgraced Boston and Philadelphia, Ellsworth and Louisville, are to be again rehearsed by the half-dozen sworn secret societies, whose cabalistic letters disfigure the columns of so many of our newspapers, we must be prepared to meet the danger with firmness and composure. As Catholics, demanding nothing but what is justly our due under the laws, our position will ever be one of forbearance, charity, 184 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. and conciliation; but as American citizens, proud of our country and zealous for the maintenance of her institutions, our place shall be beside the executors of those grand enactments which have made this republic the paragon and exemplar of all civil and natural virtues, no matter how imminent the dan- ger or how great the sacrifice. In lands less favored Catholic rights may be violated by prince or mob with impunity, but we would be unworthy of our country and its founders, were we to shrink for a moment from the perform- ance of our trust as the custodians of the fundamental ordinance which guar- antees full and absolute religious liberty to all citizens of the republic. f&UnpUv ££. CROSSING THE AfcbEGHANIES. Lonely Father Brauers. — A Curious Will Contest. — Old Fort Duquesne. — Fate of the Reform Franciscans.— Retirement of Priestly Help. — Advent of Rev. Mr. Smith. — A Born Russian Prince. — Disappointing a Father's Ambition. — A Youth Amid Unbelief.— Conversion of a Good Mother. — A Son Rescued for God. — Retired From the Army. — An American Trip. — Saved From a Watery Grave.— Bishop Carroll's Good Influence. — The Prince Becomes Priest. — The Diabolism at Living- ston's. — Some Ignorant Catholics.— Brave Captain McGuire. — A Lodge- ment in the Mountains. — Planting a Church and Village. — Rebuke of an Irreverent Visitor. — A Long and Holy Pastorate. — Arrival of an Assistant. — A True Child of Mary. — Giving Alms to God. — A Saint's Death. — The Church at Pittsburg. 'N the year 1798, the Rev. Theodore Brauers, a Dutch Franciscan, settled at Youngstown, Pa., where he bought a farm and built a chapel. This village is not far from Pittsburg, and it was then the only spot where the Holy Sacrifice was offered for the salva- tion of men in the vast territory which was erected in 1843 into the diocese of Pittsburg. From Lake Erie to Conewago, from the hills of the Alleghany to the Ohio, there existed no church, no priest, except the humble oratory of Father Brauers. It appears, indeed, that the first Catholics in that part of Pennsylvania came from Goshenhoppen, and that the missionary who served that parish promised that they should be visited in the new settlement by another priest. It was in fulfillment of this promise that Father Brauers settled at Youngs- town. His death gave rise to a curious lawsuit, in which the Pennsylvania judges showed themselves the enlightened protectors of the rights of the Church; and such a spirit of justice is more deserving of mention, as it is not i«5 l56 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. always found in the law courts of the United States. By his will, dated at Greensburg, Westmoreland county, October 24, 1789, Father Theodore Brauers had left his property to his successor, on condition of his saying Masses for the repose of his soul. A wandering priest named Francis Fromm, took possession of the parsonage and church; and as he said the Masses claimed the property against the lawful priest sent by his bishop. Father Brauers' executors had recourse to law, and the judge decided that a Catholic priest must be sent by his bishop, although he expressed his astonishment that a man of Father Brauers' good sense should order Masses to be said for the repose of his soul ! The first talent in Pennsylvania was employed in the suit, in which Judges Baldwin and Breckenridge both spoke. The Rev. Mr. Fromm proved that he was a regular priest, and exhibited the certificate of the bishop of Mentz, as well as the consent of Father Brauers' congregation. These considerations might have influenced the judges; but their decision upheld the bishop, and this case has been repeatedly cited as an authority in eases of a similar nature. Father Brauers was not the first priest, nor even the first Franciscan, who offered the Sacred Victim in the soil of Western Pennsylvania; and as early as 1755, that is, just a century since, we find French Recollects attached as chaplains to the French forts in the valley of the Ohio. That part of Penn- sylvania was then claimed by France, and in fact the whole valley of the Ohio is comprised in the letters patent of Louisiana, in 1712. The actual taking of possession is not more undoubted than the discovery, and the Canadians had launched their canoes on the beautiful river years before the Pennsyl- vania settlers knew of its existence. To unite the establishments on the St. Lawrence with those on the Mississippi, France first reared a line of defenses along the lakes, the Wabash and Illinois ; but the Ohio valley had been left exposed to the enterprise of the English colonies. To close it, the governors of Canada, in 1753 and 1754, built between Lake Erie on the Ohio, Fort Pres- qu'ile, now the city of Erie, Fort Leboeuf, or " de la Riviere aux Bceufs," at Waterf ord, the post of Venango, Fort Machault, and where Pittsburg now stands, the celebrated Fort Duquesne. For four years the French valiantly defended these posts against far superior forces, and Washington made his first campaign near Fort Duquesne against his future allies. At the close of 1758, however, the garrison fired the fort and retired, and in the following year the other forts were similarly abandoned. Although these forts had trifling garrisons, not exceeding, in general, two hundred men, they had a CROSSING THE ALLEQHANIES. 187 regular chaplain, a proof how important a place religion held in the ancient organization of France. By this we learn that Father Denis Baron, Recollect, was at that time chaplain at Fort Duquesne; and on the 30th of July, 1755, an entry of a burial is signed by Father Luke Collet, chaplain of the king. This Francis- can was merely on a visit at Fort Duquesne, as he officiated in the presence of the regular chaplain, Father Baron. The latter was probably a deacon at the time, for the register of ordinations at Quebec mentions him as ordained priest there on the 23d of September, 1741. Father Denis Baron was sent successively to Three Rivers, Montreal, Niagara, Cape Breton, and to Acadia. Father Luke Collet, a Canadian by birth, was ordained at Quebec in 1 753' an d after remaining in his convent till 1754 was sent to the forts in the valley of the Ohio. These fathers belonged to the reform of the Franciscan order called Recollects, the first of whom arrived in Canada in 1615, with Samuel Champlain. Sent back to France in 1629 on the capture of Quebec by the English, they returned only in 1670, and from that time never left Canada; but as the English government seized their property and prevented their receiving novices, their order is now extinct in that province, the last survivor, a lay brother, having died a few years ago. It may easily be imagined that amid the privations of a frontier post, and the vicissitudes of war, the Recollects of Fort Duquesne and Fort Machault could make no effort to preach the gospel to the Indians by whom they were surrounded: Delawares, among whom the Moravians were beginning to toil; Senecas, whom the Jesuits had so long taught; if they ministered to any it was to the wandering Catholic Huron from Sandusky, or Miami from St. Joseph's, the men whom Beaujeu led to victory over the disciplined troops of Braddock. Their functions were those of military chaplains; and when they disappeared with the regiments of France, thirty years rolled by without the cross reappearing in Western Pennsylvania; but in 1799 a young priest took up his abode among the most rugged summits of the Alleghanies; there he built churches, founded villages, attracted a Catholic population by advanta- geous grants of land, and the superior spiritual advantages enjoyed at Loretto; and after an apostolic career of forty-one years, after expending $150,000 of his fortune in this admirable work, he died, leaving ten thousand Catholics in the mountains, where he had found only twelve families. This holy priest, who in his humility called himself the Rev. Mr. Smith, deserves to be known by his true name, and to have his history recorded for more lasting edification. jg§ THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Demetrius Gallitzin was born on the 22d of December, 1770, at the Hao-ue, his father, Prince Gallitzin, being, at the time, ambassador to Hol- land from the court.of Russia. In the history of Russia there are few names more illustrious than that of Gallitzin. The gifted mother of the prince-priest belonged to a noble German family. She was the daughter of Field-Marshal Count de Schmettau, one of the favorite generals of Frederick the Great. By his worldly and ambitious father, the young Demetrius was destined for the profession of arms. His whole education was therefore of the most complete military cast. He scarcely ever heard of religion. In his boyhood, he was, in truth, more familiar with the names of Voltaire and Diderot than with the sacred names of Jesus and Mary. His father was an unbeliever; and an infidel education had darkened, if not destroyed, the faith that lighted up his mother's early years. The Princess Gallitzin was, in the highest sense, a lady of rare gifts, one whose personal attractions were only surpassed by her beauties of mind and heart; and the Almighty in his own good time mercifully led her back to his Holy Church. In 1786, after a severe sickness, and years of study and examination, a light broke in upon her troubled soul — she again became a Catholic. As this good and noble mother became more religious, her deep anxiety for the welfare of her only son increased. His lot was cast in wild times. Men laughed at religion. Infidelity was daily growing in boldness, and the rumble of the French Revolution began to be heard over Europe. On the fourteenth birthday of Demetrius, December 22, 1784, she wrote to her child: "At times, during the last months I have been filled with better hopes, and these, I freely admit, have not now altogether deserted me, only they are depressed and clouded by the worse times of late, and by the ever- recurring signs of the slavish submission, with which you again give your- self up to your frightful laziness and inactivity. "Beloved Mitri, oh! would to God that to-day, being your birthday, reading this letter, you would begin anew with this — that, feeling for your slavish, effeminate, and indolent inertness, the disgust which it merits, because of its ruin of your happiness, you might be filled with dread in reviewing the past, and fall on your knees to invoke Him for the coming time, with the con- sciousness that you have now at least resolved with your whole soul to act in future as a free being, who knows that though no man sees him, God sees him, and calls him to an eternal destiny. CROSSING THE ALLEGHANIES. 189 " O my Mitri, in this expectation, dearest child, I throw myself with you at the feet of our Father — kneeling I write it — and cry from the depths of my heart, Have mercy on him and me!" The grace of God and the labors of an able, pious, and earnest mother, soon brought about the desired result. Three years after the foregoing letter was penned young Demetrius Gallitzin entered the Church of ages. The princess was more than happy. He took the name of Augustine in confirma- tion, to please his mother, who was especially devoted to that great doctor of the Church, because of the similarity of the maternal love with which she wept and prayed for her son to that of St. Monica, of which her friends delighted to remind her. Referring to his own conversion, Father Gallitzin afterwards wrote: "I lived during fifteen years in a Catholic country, under a Catholic government. . . . During a great part of this time I was not a member of the Catholic Church. An intimacy which existed between our family and a cer- tain celebrated French philosopher had produced a contempt for religion. Raised in prejudice against revelation, I felt every disposition to ridicule those very principles and practices which I have since adopted. " During these unfortunate years of my infidelity, particular care was taken not to permit any clergymen to come near me. Thanks to the God of infinite mercy, the clouds of infidelity were dispersed, and revelation adopted in our family. I soon felt convinced of the necessity of investigating the dif- ferent religious systems, in order to find the true one. Although I was born a member of the Greek Church, and although all my male relatives, without any exception, were either Greeks or Protestants, yet did I resolve to embrace that religion only which upon impartial inquiry should appear to me to be the pure religion of Jesus Christ. My choice fell upon the Catholic Church, and at the age of about seventeen I became a member of that Church." The sudden death of the Emperor Leopold, and the assassination of the king of Sweden — acts considered as the infamous work of the Jacobins — induced Austria and Prussia to dismiss all the foreigners from their armies. The young Prince Gallitzin was thus suddenly deprived of his military posi- tion; and his father and mother advised him to travel in order to finish his education. It was decided that he should visit America, study its institutions^ and make the personal acquaintance of Washington, Jefferson, and other famous men of that day. , 90 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. A guide for the noble young traveler was found in the person of Rev. Felix Brosius, a young priest and professor of mathematics, who had formed the resolution of going to the United States, for which purpose he had spent two years studying English. He was to act the part of a friendly tutor. It was the wish of the princess that Demetrius should continue his study of the sciences, and make use of them in his observations in the New World. Letters of introduction to Washington and Bishop Carroll were at once procured. It was decided that the prince should travel as a simple gentleman — in fact, under the name of Mr. Augustine Schmet. Before sailing a grand ball was given, and the young traveler it is told " danced from dark till day- light." It was his last dance. The hour came to say adieu, and his boyish heart fluttered. As he stood on the edge of the pier, a misstep sent him plunging into the briny deep, in his mother's presence. But he was a good swimmer and was soon picked up by the boat which carried him to the vessel — a sailing-vessel. Old ocean began to develop unknown powers in the soul of Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, even as he gazed on the fading shores of Europe, in August, 1792. Two months and a half after bidding adieu to his mother on the piers of Rotterdam, young Prince Gallitzin was in Baltimore. In company with the Rev. Mr. Brosius, he presented his letters of introduction to Bishop Carroll. The prelate received him with every mark of kindness, and procured him cordial welcome in many of the most charming Baltimore homes. The kind-hearted bishop also offered the young traveler letters to families in Philadelphia and other cities. Demetrius remained a little while looking about Baltimore, "having," as he said himself, "nothing in view but to pursue his journey through the States, and to qualify himself for his original voca- tion." He met with nothing but kindness. He saw an active, energetic people full of frankness. Nor did he fail to appreciate the American charac- ter, and the circumstances of the new country. He beheld a land of peace and plenty — with a vast spiritual field, and few laborers. A new light shed its rays on his mind. It was from heaven. He no longer thought of his traveling tour. The work of his life took form in his manly soul, and he offered his services to Bishop Carroll. Without delay, the young prince began his theological studies in the but recently founded seminary of St. Sulpice, at Baltimore; and after nearly three years of diligent study and the most exemplary conduct, the great day came around. It was the 18th of March, 1795. The candidate was in his CROSSING THE ALLEGHANIES. 191 twenty-fifth year. Bishop Carroll, with inexpressible emotion, raised him to that holy dignity in which he was to be a priest forever and forever. The young priest desired to remain in the quiet, happy seclusion of the seminary, and, at his own earnest request, obtained admission as a member of the priests of St. Sulpice. Bishop Carroll, however, could not dispense with his services. After laboring in Baltimore and various country places in Mary- land, Father Gallitzin, in the summer of 1797, was sent on a singular mission to Virginia. Reports of mysterious events occurring there, had spread over the country, and he was deputed to hold an investigation as to their truth. He spent from September to Christmas in making a rigid examination. "No lawyer in a court of justice," he wrote to a friend, "did ever examine and cross-examine witnesses more than I did." At first, the young prince-priest placed no faith in the reports ; but the more he investigated, the more he soon came to a full belief in the truth of what he saw and heard. These singular events at the home of the Livingstones' have been detailed in another place. Having concluded his Virginia investigations, the youthful Father Gal- litzin once more began his zealous labors in the missions of Maryland and Pennsylvania. Full of zeal, and intensely Catholic in heart and soul, the prince-priest was shocked at the un-Catholic spirit that reigned among his congregations. If these people believed in the doctrines of the Church, they would gladly have her authority reduced to zero — if not further! A vulgar arrogance, based on ignorance, had possession of not a few minds. Almost too presumptuous to receive instruction, and too ignorant to be humble, they had lost that grand and simple Faith which enables man to yield a noble obedience to God and religion. What they lacked in solid knowledge, how- ever, was abundantly supplied by loose fancies and religious whims, derived from their heretical neighbors. For them liberty meant license, and all law was oppression. The continual interference of such men, and their dic- tation in Church matters, were an abomination to the apostolic Gallitzin. But not one of these mental curiosities and moral dwarfs was the brave Captain McGuire, a good Irish Catholic, and a distinguished officer of the Revolution. After the war of Independence, he resided in Maryland; and being a great hunter, he often penetrated into the primeval forests of Western Pennsylvania. The sound of his rifle was frequently echoed by the most distant of the Alleghanies. On the very summit of this lofty range, in what is now Cambria county, he bought a large tract of land, and went there with j ^ 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. his family to reside, in 1788. The pious captain lost no time in providing for the Church for which his wonderful faith alone could have given him hopes — and generously made over four hundred acres of land to Bishop Carroll, who had just then returned to the United States, after his consecra- tion. Here a Catholic settlement soon began to form, and its members became urgent in their requests for a resident priest. Marvelous are the ways of Almighty God! Father Gallitzin had long cherished the idea of founding a community of Catholic settlers in some remote spot, far removed from the busy haunts of men and the contagion of warring sects; where they could live in primitive peace and simplicity; where the stream of knowledge would not be infected by the putrid waters of vice; and where religion could reign as queen! He had once visited McGuire's settlement on a mission of charity. The thought struck him that this would be the place to carry out his admirable design; and when the good people petitioned Bishop Carroll for a priest, they sent the letter through Father Gallitzin, begging for him to use his influence in getting them one — if possible, to come himself among them. He made their petition his own. "Your request," writes Bishop Carroll to him, "is granted. I readily consent to your proposal to take charge of the con- gregations detailed in your letter; and hope that you will have a house built on the land granted by Mr. McGuire, and already settled; or if more con- venient, on your own, if you intend to keep it." In the wishes of these devoted people, and the sanction of his venerable bishop, Father Gallitzin recognized the call of God. He resolved, in the midst of this Catholic nucleus, to establish a permanent colony, which he des- tined in his mind as the center of his missions. Several poor Maryland families, whose affections he had won, determined to follow him ; and, in the summer of 1799, he took up his line of march. From Maryland they traveled with their faces turned to the ranges of the Alleghany Mountains. It was a rough and trying journey. The patient travelers hewed their way through the primitive forests, burdened at the same time with all their worldly goods. As soon as the small caravan had reached its new home, Gallitzin took possession of this, as it were, conquered land. Without loss of time all the settlers addressed themselves to the work before them, and toiled so zealously that before the end of the year they had a little church erected. Out of the clearings of these untrodden forests rose up two buildings, constructed out of the trunks of roughly-hewn trees; of these one was CROSSING THE ALLEGHANIES. *93 intended for a church — the other a presbytery for their pastor. On Christmas eve of the year of 1799, there was not a winking eye in the little colony. And well there might not be! The new church, decked with pine, and laurel, and ivy leaves, and blazing with such lights as the scant means of the faithful could afford, was awaiting its consecration to the worship of God! There Gallitzin offered up the first Mass, to the great edification of his flock, that, although made up of Catholics, had never witnessed such a solem- nity; and to the great astonishment of a few Indians, who had never in their lives dreamed of such a wonderful ceremony. Thus it was, that on a spot in which, scarcely a year previous, silence had reigned over vast solitudes, a prince, thenceforward cut off from every other country, had opened a new one to pilgrims from all nations, and that from the wastes which echoed no sounds but the howlings of the wild beasts, there went up the divine song, Gloria in Excelsis Deo. Thus began that glorious Catholic settlement in Western Pennsylvania, which was destined to grow and flourish like a beautiful mount- ain-flower in the midst of the wilderness! In the spring of 1800, Father Gallitzin's congregation consisted of about forty families, and the number was rapidly increasing. " I have now, thanks be to God," he said, "a little home of my own, for the first time since I came to this country, and God grant that I may be able to keep it." The whole cost of his colonization — spiritual and material — was borne by the princely pastor. He lived on the farm which the generous Captain McGuire had given for the service of the Church. But in order to attract immigration around him he bought vast tracts of land, which he sold in farms at a low rate, or even gave to the poor, relying on his patrimony to meet his engagements. The wilderness soon put on a new aspect. The settlers fol- lowed the impulses of the great missionary, who kept steadfastly in view the improvement of his work. His first care was to get up a grist-mill; then arose numerous out-buildings; additional property was purchased, and in a short time the colony grew in extent and prosperity. A large part of his own land he laid out for a town, and named it Loretto; the remainder he cleared for the use of the Church, the priests who should succeed him, and such institutions as should in time arise. In carrying out his work, the prince-priest received material assistance from Europe. At first, sums of money were regularly remitted to him by his mother. With her he kept up a fond correspondence, which his great 14 I9 , THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. love for her rendered one of the consolations of his life. But he lost this good and tender parent in 1806. The emperor of Russia could not pardon the son of a Russian prince for becoming a Catholic priest, and in 180S the noble misssionary received from a friend in Europe a letter, saying: " The question of your rights, and those of the princess, your sister, as to your father's property in Russia, has been examined by the senate of St. Petersburg, and it has decided that by reason of your Catholic faith, and your ecclesiastical profession, you cannot be admitted to a share of your late father's property. Your sister is consequently sole heiress of the property, and is soon to be put in possession of it. The Council of State has confirmed the decision of the senate, and the emperor by his sanction has given it the force of law." Writing to her brother, the Princess Maria said: "You maybe perfectly easy. I shall divide with you faithfully, as I am certain you would with me. Such was the will of our deceased father, and of our dearest mother; and such also will be the desire of my affectionate love and devotedness towards you, my dearest brother." When the princess married the insolvent prince of Salm, she said no more about remittances. Father Gallitzin, however, cared not for wealth, save to aid the poor, the unfortunate, or the Church. " If he had possessed a heart of gold," said one who knew him well, " he would have given it to the unfortunate." He was up before the sun. Fasting, he rode along the wild pathways of the forest, that were oftener pressed by the wolf and the bear than by the steps of any human being. The wrath of the storm often broke over his devoted head. Then, when he reached some out-of-the-way church, came the same round of duties as before — confession, Mass, baptisms, marriages, funerals, exhortations, and, last of all, another long journey. In his church at Loretto everything moved with the nicest exactness. He was a lover of order. At his Sunday Mass he preached two sermons — one in English, another in German. French, however, was his mother- tongue. He was a master of English, but he did not speak German very well. His sermons were simplicity itself, ever suited to the times, circum- stances, and needs of his people. In a letter dated 1806, Father Gallitzin states that, " the greatest part of the congregation" was Irish. He was very severe on anything that savored of irreverence in church. CROSSING THE ALLEGHANIES. 195 It was the house of God, and it must be respected. Once a Protestant stood in the crowded edifice, gazed around, and seemingly viewed the prayerful congregation with disgust. A hand gently touched his shoulder and he heard the words: "Every one kneels here." He knelt instantly, for it was the pastor of Loretto that spoke. On one occasion, however, he did not meet with such ready obedience. A member of his congregation had married a Protestant lady. She accom- panied her husband to church, but did not kneel. She stood, and her large figure was conspicuous. Mass went on. Many good people trembled, for they felt that a rebuke, swift and terrible, was coming. Father Gallitzin was silent until he turned around to give Holy Communion. "Kneel down, woman — kneel down!" he said in a low voice. But she did not kneel. An instant passed; the prince's black eyes seemed to flash fire, and in a voice of thunder he exclaimed : " Woman, kneel down ! " The words shook the very church, and it need hardly be added that the lady dropped on her knees. Six months rolled by. One day a lady appeared at the doer of Father Gallitzin's house. He received her kindly, and she told him she was the per- son he had once commanded to kneel. He smiled. They conversed for awhile. " I have come to be received into the Church," she observed after a pause. " I have told nobody. I believed the Catholic religion to be the true religion, from the moment you told me to kneel that day in church." She became a good Catholic. We have a graphic picture of the venerable missionary's appearance on one of his forest journeys, when he had reached his sixty-fourth year. For it we are indebted to the pen of Rev. Father Lemcke, O.S.B., afterwards his successor. In the summer of 1S34, the good father was sent from Philadel- phia to the assistance of the aged prince-priest. After several days of rough travel he reached Munster, a village some miles from Loretto. Here Father Lemcke procured an Irish lad to pilot him on his way. " As we had gone," he says, " a couple of miles through the woods, I caught sight of a sled drawn by a pair of vigorous horses, and in the sled a half-recumbent traveler, in every lineament of whose face could be read a character of distinction. He was outwardly dressed in a thread-bare over- coat, and on his head a peasant's hat, so worn and dilapidated that no one would have rescued it from the garbage of the streets. It occurred to me that some accident had happened to the old gentleman, and that he was com- pelled to resort to this singular mode of conveyance. While I was taking 196 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. my brain for a satisfactory solution of this problem, Tom, my guide, who was trotting ahead, turned round, and pointing to the old man, said: « Here comes the priest.' "I immediately coaxed up my nag to the sled. 'Are you really the pastor of Loretto?' said I. 'I am, sir.' 'Prince Gallitzin?' 'At your FATHER LEMCKE MEETS FATHER GALLITZIN. service, sir,' he said, with a hearty laugh. ' You are probably astonished,' he continued, after I handed him a letter from the bishop of Philadelphia, ' at the strangeness of my equipage. But there's no help for it. You have no doubt already found out that in these countries you need not dream of a carriage road. You could not drive ten yards without danger of an overturn. I am prevented, since a^fall which I have had, from riding on horseback, and it would be impossible for me now to travel on foot. Besides, I carry along everything required for the celebration of Holy Mass. I am now going to a spot where I have a mission, and where the Holy Sacrifice has been announced for to-day. Go to Loretto, and make yourself at home till my return to-night; unless, indeed, you should prefer to accompany me.'" Father Lemcke was only too happy to bear him company. For forty-one years this humble man, this truly great and good priest, led upon the mountains of Pennsylvania a most perfect Christian life. When CROSSING THE ALLEGHANIES. 197 warned to take more care of himself, he would answer, in his own energetic style: " As the days have gone by when by martyrdom it was possible for us to testify to God's glory upon earth, it becomes our duty, like the toil-worn ox, to remain hitched to the plow in the field of the Lord." On Easter Sunday, 1840, Father Gallitzin, being seventy years of age, had, early in the morning, taken his seat in the confessional. After discharging these duties, he bravely braced up his remaining strength to ascend the altar for the celebration of Mass. When it was over he took to his bed — the bed from which he was destined never to. rise. On the 6th of May, his pure and princely spirit passed to the bosom of God. The revered Father Gallitzin's best eulogy is his work. He erected the first chapel in what now comprises the three dioceses of Pittsburg, Alleghany City, and Erie. His cherished Loretto is the most Catholic village in the United States. Not till the traveler has pressed the soil of Cambria county does he feel that he is in a truly Christian land, as he catches sight of the ten Catholic churches and three monasteries — all of which cropped out of Loretto, under the creative and fostering hands of this apostolic and wonder- ful man. What share he had in its material prosperity may be judged from the fact that he spent over $150,000 in its improvement. Though for many years vicar-general of the bishop of Philadelphia, he firmly refused all offers of being raised to the episcopal dignity. Having renounced the dignities of the world, he did not aspire to those of the Church. Long before his death, however, he was held in universal respect. The name Gallitzin has since been given to a fine village. His love of books was remarkable. He had collected a large number, and truthfully inscribed on these dear companions of his solitude the words: " Gallitzin and his friends." On one occasion he had given a liberal alms to a poor traveler, who afterwards squandered the money at a tavern. When informed of the decep- tion, the good and noble donor replied, " I gave it not to him, but to God." In an age of pride and pretension, the humility of this great man is truly touching. For many years he suppressed the illustrious name of Gallitzin, and was known simply as the Rev. Mr. Smith. It will be remembered that he set out on his travels as Augustine Schmet, or, in English, Smith. At the seminary, when pursuing his studies, he was known by that name. He was naturalized as Augustine Smith, and it was only many years after, that, for good reasons, he resumed his family name. When told of the fame of his I9 S THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. writings, he said that "he was glad that the same God who had enabled an ass to speak — who had enabled the unlettered to convert the universe, had also enabled his ignorance to say something in favor of the Catholic Church." Over thirteen years after the death of Father Gallitzin, his loved Loretto was visited by the apostolic nuncio, Mgr. Bedini. He was delighted. " This village," he writes, " sanctified by the apostleship of Prince Demetrius Gallitzin, is situated upon the highest mountains of Pennsylvania, and is inhab- ited by Germans — all Catholics without exception. My carriage was pre- ceded by about five hundred persons on horseback — men and women — and followed by fifty vehicles. This peaceful cortege, defiling joyously around the vast mountains, under a most brilliant sun, was to us as solemn as it was touching." " As he had taken for his models," says Very Rev. Thomas Heyden, the dear friend and biographer who received the prince-priest's last breath, " the lives of the saints, the Francis of Saleses, the Charles Borromeos, the Vin- cents of Paul, so, like them, he was distinguished for his tender and lively devotion to the Blessed Virgin. He lost no opportunity of extolling the vir- tues of Mary. He endeavored to be an imitator of her, as she was of Christ. He recited the Rosary every evening among his household; and inculcated constantly on his people this admirable devotion, and all the other pious exer- cises in honor of Mary. " The Church in which he said daily Mass, he had dedicated under the invocation of this ever-glorious Virgin, whom all nations were to call blessed. It was in honor of Mary, and to place his people under her peculiar patronage, that he gave the name of Loretto to the town he founded here, after the far- famed Loretto, which, towering above the blue wave of the Adriatic, on the Italian coast, exhibits to the Christian pilgrim the hallowed and magnificent temple which contains the sainted shrine of Mary's humble house in which she at Nazareth heard announced the mystery of the Incarnation, and which the mariners, as they pass to encounter the perils of the deep, or return in safety from them, salute, chanting the .joyous hymn, Ave Alan's Stella. Foi, like St. John, he recognized in her a mother recommended to him by the words of the dying Jesus: ' He said to the disciple, behold thy mother!' And so, when his frame was worn out in her service, and her Son's, he went up to see her face on high." The father of our holy missionary died at Brunswick in 1803, st ^l unreconciled to the idea of having his son a priest, and his wife a pious CROSSING THE ALLEGHANIES. i 99 Catholic, while he was a disciple of Diderot. He embittered the last days of the princess by reproaching her with causing her son's conversion. She bore all with Christian patience, and expired in 1806, fortified with all the consolations of the dying. Her example, and that of her son, doubtless, exercised a salutary influence on the family. One of their nephews, the young Prince Alexander Gallitzin, openly became a Catholic at St. Peters- burg, in 18 '4, at the age of fifteen. He was then a pupil of the Jesuits, and this conversion excited so much attention in Russia, and so irritated his uncle, then minister of worship to the emperor, that the Society of Jesus was immediately banished from Russia. Another aunt of young Alexander became a Catholic in Russia under Father Ronsin, and her daughter, Princess Elizabeth Gallitzin, having herself abjured the Greek schism, entered the community of the Sacred Heart, at Paris. After a stay at Rome, she was sent to the United States in 1S40, where she founded four houses of her order, and died of the yellow fever in Louisiana, at the age of forty-seven, on the 8th of December, 1S43. Meanwhile Pittsburg had grown strong in the faith. In the first years of this century, the Rev. F. X. O'Brien had a mission at Brownsville, forty miles south of Pittsburg, which latter city he visited every month, to say Mass for the few Catholics who gathered around him in a private room. About 1807, however, he made Pittsburg his residence, and in the following year erected St. Patrick's Church, so apparently large for the wants of the faithful, that he was long annoyed with reproaches of extravagance. Father O'Brien was succeeded at Pittsburg by Father Charles B. Maguire, an Irish Franciscan, who had studied at St. Isidore's Convent, Rome. He was even a professor there, when the French invasion compelled him to retire to Germany, where he received from the royal family of Bourbon, then exiled from France, many favors and marks of respect. He came to the United States about 181 2, and the mission of Westmoreland county, com- prising Latrobe and Youngstown, was first assigned to him. There Father Brauers had taken up his abode in 1789; and this cradle of Catholicity in the diocese of Pittsburg has become, since 1846, the cradle of the Benedictine Order in the United States. Bishop Kenrick, in 1S34, noted the existence of a large German popula- tion at Pittsburg. To take care of the Catholics of that nation, some Redemptorist fathers arrived at Pittsburg in 1839, an< ^ immediately began the erection of the church of St. Philomena. Two years previous, four 200 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Sisters of Charity from Emmitsburg opened a school at Pittsburg, and soon took charge of an orphan asylum. But it is chiefly since 1843, when Dr. O'Connor, instead of being pastor, became bishop of Pittsburg, that, under the influence of his zeal, the new diocese saw churches, convents, and monas- teries rise on all sides, so that it is now one of the best endowed in the United States in the resources of its clergy and the number of its religious communities. (&Unptcv <&i. ON /MANHATTAN ISLAND. In the Steps of a Historian. — Priests Who Called at Manhattan. —Ungrate- ful Dutch Protestants. — Toleration a Myth. — The Catholic Governor Dongan— Ground For a Jesuit College. — A Reign of Terror. — Blank Pages of History. — The Negro Plot. — Hanging a Priest. — A Warm Place For Catholics. — The Indomitable Jesuits. — Freedom For All But Papists. — The Traitor Arnold.— Times of Toleration.— Purchase of a Church Site.— Debilitated Catholicity. — Old St. Peter's. — Rioters March on St. Patrick's. — Frightened Away by Defenders. — New York During the Reign of Bigotry. — Converts on Manhattan Island. — The Shepherdless Flock. — A Confessor Before the Courts. — Dawn of Catholic Literature. — The Trustee Plague. — First Bishop. — Epidemics of Controversy. — Good Works of the Prelate.— His Renowned Suc- cessor. ^HE seed-time of the Faith on Manhattan Island — now occupied by the huge Empire city — was lovingly and competently sketched by the late Most Rev. Dr. Bayley, of Baltimore, while he was yet a simple priest and secretary to the illustrious Archbishop Hughes. Following an appreciative review of that work, which is recognized as standard authority, we are enabled to set forth here the more important and striking facts. The early history of the Catholic Church on the island of New York is indeed an attractive and interesting theme. It opens with the romantic story of the early Jesuit missions; for of the visits of the Catholic navigators, Verrazani and Sebastian Gomez, we have too little detail to know whether a priest actually said Mass on the island. The first priest who is known to have set his foot on the island of Man- hattan was an illustrious missionary, who, while on his way from Quebec to his mission ground on the upper lakes, was in 1643 taken by the Mohawks, 203 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. tortured almost beyond the power of human endurance, spared to become the slave of savages, bearing their burdens in their winter hunts, in their fishing trips to Saratoga Lake and the Hudson, on their trading visits to the Dutch Fort Orange, where Albany now stands, bearing all, enduring all, with a soul ever wrapped in prayer and union with God, till at last the Dutch overcame his reluctance and saved him from the hands of his savage captors, as they were about to put him to death. Covered with wounds and bruises, mutilated, extenuated, scarce human in dress or outward form, such was Isaac Jogues, the first Catholic priest to enter the great city, then in its infancy, to meet with respect and kindness from the Dutch, with the reverence due to a martyr from the two Catholics, sole children of the ancient Faith then in New Amsterdam. The stay of this illustrious missionary was brief, and his ministry was limited to the confessional, his chapel and vestments having fallen into the hands of the Indians, and been greedily seized as trophies. Governor Kieft displayed great humanity in his care of the missionary, and seized the first opportunity to enable him to return to Europe. Panting for martyrdom, Father Jogues remained in his native land only to obtain needed dispensations and permission to return to his labors. On reaching Canada, he found peace almost made with the Mohawks, and, proceeding as envoy to their territory, concluded a treaty. He was invited to plant a mis- sion among them, as his associates had done among their kindred, the Hurons. But when he returned to do so, prejudices had sprung up, a hatred of Chris- tianity as something baneful had seized them, the missionary was arrested, treated as a prisoner, and in a few days put to death on the banks of Caugh- nawaga Creek, on the iSth of October, 1646. The next priest known to have visited New York was the Italian Father Bressani, who underwent a similar course of suffering, was captured, tortured, enslaved, and ransomed by the kindly Dutch ; and by them sent to France. Although he subsequently published a short account of the Huron missions, he is entirely silent as to New Amsterdam, and we know nothing in regard to any exercise of the ministry during his stay on the island. The first priest who came to extend his ministry to any Catholics in the place was the Jesuit Father Simon Le Moyne, the discoverer of the salt springs at Syracuse, and the successful founder of the Mohawk and Onondaga missions. His visit was repeated, and there would seem to be a probability that he may have atually offered the Holy Sacrifice. The real field of his labors, and those of his associates, was, however, ON MANHATTAN ISLAND. 203 the castles of the Five Nations of Iroquois, in which, for many years, regular Catholic chapels subsisted, winning many to the faith, and sav- ing many by baptism in infancy or in fatal illness. The converts at last began to emigrate to Canada, where three villages of Catholic Iroquois still attest the power of the gospel as preached by the early missionaries. Polit- ical jealousies, infused by the English, gradually intensified the innate dislike of the pagans to Catholicity, and prejudice, debauchery, and penal laws at last drove the Catholic missionaries from a field in which they had labored with such courageous and unremitting zeal. For years the only Catholic missionary in their territory was Father Milet, held at Oneida as a prisoner. Flying visits alone after this kept up the faith, and in 1709, Father Peter Mareuil, on the outbreak of war retired to Albany, and the mission in the Iroquois country virtually closed. The later and tardy Protestant efforts were in a measure built on these early Cath- olic labors, and from Dellius to Zeisberger they gladly availed themselves of the pupils of the Jesuits to form their own instructions. This Iroquois church has its martyr missionary Jogues, its martyred neo- phytes, who died at the hands of their countrymen rather than renounce Jesus to bow the knee to Aireskoi; and its holy virgin in Catherine Tehgahkwita, the Genevieve of New France. Then came the growth of mustard-seed in the Dutch colony. We hear of the freedom of worship achieved and estab- lished by the founders of the Dutch republic. It is indeed a favorite theme. Catholic and Protestant alike battled with Spain, and the blood of both won the liberty of the Seven United Provinces. Then as now Catholics formed nearly half the population of Holland. But as soon as freedom was obtained, the Protestants turned on the Catholics, who had fought by their sides, deprived them of civil rights, put their religion under a ban, expelled them from their ancient churches. In fact, they halted in their course of tyranny and oppression only when fear dictated a little prudence. The very church given to the English Puritans under Robinson, by the Dutch authorities, was the church of the Catholic Beguines, whose residen- ces encircled the chapel of which Dutch laws deprived them, in order to give it to foreigners who reviled the creed that erected it and the worship of the Most High so long offered within its walls. When New Netherland was colonized, this fierce intolerance of the dominant party in Holland excluded Catholics from the new settlement as rigorously as Puritan fanaticism banished them from the shores of New 204 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. England. The Catholic Hollander could not emigrate to the new land. No worship was permitted but that of the Protestant Church of Holland. It is well to talk of Dutch toleration, but it is the veriest myth ever concocted; and in New Netherland, though men were received who had denied Christ and been pirates or Salee rovers, Catholicity was excluded. Gradually a few Catholics did creep into the colony. Father Jogues on his visit in 1643 found an Irishman and a Portuguese woman, forerunners of the four hundred thousand now on Manhattan Island. Le Moyne, as we have stated, subsequently visited the island, and a Dutch domine avers that he did so in order to give the consolations of religion to some Catholic sailors and residents; but the fanaticism of Holland was here, and as an •illustration of the freedom of worship supposed to exist, we find that in 1658 a Catholic in Brooklyn was punished for objecting to support a reformed minister. By the reduction of New York, in 1664, to the English sway, restric- tions were really if not explicitly removed. James, duke of York, was a Catholic, and his province of New York was for a time governed by Colonel Thomas Dongan, also a Catholic. Under his administration Catholic priests for the first time took up their residence on the island. Unfortunately, we have little more than the names of three clergymen and some indication of the period of their stay; though hostile notices tell us of one terrible crime they perpetrated — they actually did erect a "Jesuit college," and taught boys Latin. The king's farm was assigned as the place for this institution of learn- ing; but before Catholicity could take an enduring form, James II was hurled from his throne for trying to make the Anglican bishops speak a little tole- ration. As has often happened, intolerance, with the banner-cry of "liberty," became the order of the day. New York soon enjoyed the benefit of a gov- ernor of a true bigot stamp, grandson of one of the bloodiest butchers in the blood-stained annals of Ireland, Coote, earl of Bellomont. He disgraced the colonial legislation with penal laws against Catholics, and characteristically lied in the preamble of his act. But he was a stanch Protestant, and had some curious dealings with Captain Kidd. The result of this change in New York affairs was that the king's farm slipped into the hands of the Episco- palians, and they built Trinity Church on it. Under the harrying that began with Leisler's usurpation of authority in the province on the fall of James, and his mad brain full of plots and "dia- bolical designs of the wicked and cruel papists," such Catholics as had settled ON MANHATTAN ISLAND. 205 in New York seem gradually to have moved elsewhere; or, if they remained, reared families who were strangers to the Faith. Thus far Catholicity in New York had a strange history. Is it a dream? Fact first: Enlightened Dutch Protestants, champions of liberty of con- science, exclude Catholics, and when they creep in, tax them to support a church against the dictates of their conscience. Fact second: Enlightened English Protestants, after a great and glorious revolution, and of course full of toleration, passed penal laws subjecting Catholic priests to imprisonment for life with murderers and criminals. Fact third: Catholics during the brief period of their influence gave the colony a legislature, a bill of rights, freedom of worship to all Christians, and a college, and first attempted to ele- vate and Christianize the negro slave. Dr. Bayley thus narrates one of these glorious works: "The first act of the first assembly of New York convened by Col. Dongan was the 'Charter of Liberty,' passed October 30, 1683, which, among other things, declares that 'no person or persons which profess faith in God by Jesus Christ, shall, at any time, be any ways molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question for any differ- ence of opinion, or matter of religious concernment, who do not actually disturb the civil peace of the province; but that all and every such person or persons may, from time to time and at all times, freely have, and fully enjoy, his or their judgments or consciences in matters of religion, throughout all the province — they behaving them- selves peaceably and quietly, and not using this liberty to licentiousness, nor to the civil injury or outward disturbance of others.' By another enactment, all denomina- tions then in the province were secured in their liberty and discipline, and the like privilege was granted to others who might come into it." For fifty years the history of Catholicity on New York island is a blank. A priest was occasionally brought in as a prisoner on some Spanish ship taken by a privateer; that is all. Catholics are scarcely alluded to. But an awak- ening came in 1741 in one of the wildest excitements in our annals. Cathol- ics had, indeed, nothing to do with it, and for a long time no breath implicated the few Catholics with the supposed dangers, till a silly letter of General Oglethorpe put the idea into the heads of the New York authorities. Then the negro question and the Catholic question, which have so long alternately afforded a topic for sensation, and have at times been so oddly combined, met for the first time in New York annals. Dr. Bayley thus describes the negro plot: "The year 1741 was made memorable by one of those popular excitements which shows that whole communities as well as individuals are sometimes liable to lose their wits. Upon a rumor of a plot made by the negroes to burn the city and massacre the inhabitants, the whole body of the people were carried away by a sudden excitement. The lieutenant-governor offered a reward of one hundred pounds and full pardon to any free white person who would make known the author or authors of certain 20 6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. attempts to set fire to houses in various parts of the city. A servant-girl, named Mary Burton, living with a man named Hughson, who had been previously condemned for receiving stolen goods, came forward to claim the reward, declaring that certain negroes who frequented her master's house (he kept a small tavern) had made a plot; one of the accused, named Cuffee, she declared had said that 'a great many people had too much, and others too little,' and that such an unequal state of things should not continue long. The pretended disclosures increased the excitement, and the lawyers of the city, to the number of seven, with the attorney-general, were called together to take council in regard to the matter. They certainly manifested very little coolness or judgment, and may be said to have led on the unfair and unjust trials which followed. The accused had no counsel allowed them; the attorney-general and the whole bar were on the side of the prosecution; the evidence was loose and inconclusive, and came without exception from the mouths of interested persons of bad character. Yet, upon such evidence as this, four white persons were hanged, eleven negroes were burned at the stake, eighteen hanged, and fifty were transported and sold, principally in the West Indies — the city of New York at this time containing about 12,000 inhab- itants, of which one-sixth, in all probability, were negro slaves. Among those hung was the unfortunate Mr. John Ury. Whether he was really a Catholic priest or not, he was certainly condemned and hung as such. The most conclusive fact in favor of his being a priest is founded upon the circumstance that, when arraigned as a priest, tried as a priest, and condemned as a priest, he never formally denied it, nor exhibited any evi- dence of his being ordained in the Church of England. " The persons most to blame were the judges and lawyers. The speech of the attorney-general on the trial of Ury, the sentence given by Horsmanden upon certain of the negroes, and that by the chief-justice on others, are so harsh, cruel, and abusive, that we could hardly believe it possible that they had uttered them, if they were not published with the authority of Horsmanden himself. It is evident, however, that their ' holy horror of popery ' had as much to do with the whole matter as their fear of insurrection among the blacks." Of course after this attack of insanity New York was scarcely a place for a Catholic to reside. There must have been a few; but evidently they avoided attracting attention. The next Catholic sensation was that of a poor creature whose life had been a sad defiance of all religion and morality, but who, at her death, sent some money to the Rev. Mr. Inglis, rector of Trinity Church, with a request that she should be buried in the church. She was indeed interred there, till a clamor rose fierce and loud. She was not only a public sinner but a Catholic; the latter too terrible a sin to forgive, so 6he was taken up; but Mr. Inglis never recovered from the stigma. Not long before the Revolution, the few Catholics in New York were again the object of the zeal of the Jesuit fathers, with whom so much of our history is connected. The mission of the sons of St. Ignatius, which in Mary- land was coeval with the settlement of that colony, gradually extended to Pennsylvania and New Jersey, aided chiefly by the bequest of Sir John James. The mission was one involving some danger, and hence required great caution ; but finally a Catholic priest stood in New York to begin to gather ON MANHATTAN ISLAND. 207 the faithful, and administer the sacraments of which they had been so long deprived. The priest who formed this first congregation, the nucleus of St. Peter's, and thus of all the Catholic institutions on the Island of Manhattan, was a German Jesuit, Father Ferdinand Steinmeyr, known on the American mission as Father Farmer. A man of extensive learning, not only in the theological studies of his Church, but in the natural sciences, the Royal Society of London had been glad to add his name to their list of members. Here he would have been a fit associate for Colden, Franklin, and Barton, but the gratification of this taste would have made him too conspicuous in a prejudiced and hostile community ; and the man of science submitted to be passed by without notice, anxious only to do his duty as a missionary, and gather the lost sheep of Israel. The reticence required unfortunately leaves us without any direct information as to his visits, and we do not positively know when or where this man, whose learning would have adorned the colony of New York, first offered the Holy Sacrifice for the pioneer congregation of Catholics in this city. Dr. Bayley has collected the various early notes and hints on this interesting point, but it is after all involved in great obscurity. Father Farmer came undoubtedly with the address of some German Catholic, and his visit would thus be less likely to attract attention, as German clergymen of various denominations often passed through the city. Mr. Idley, a German of the early day, claimed that Mass was first said in his house in Wall street, and the claim may not be unfounded. Father Farmer continued these occasional visits until the breaking out of hostilities with England. The defeat of Washington on Long Island threw New York into the hands of the English, and for the next seven years his pastoral visits became impossible. So long as the colonial dependence prevailed, the British government stimulated anti-Catholic fanaticism, because while this spirit was fanned the colonies readily gave men and money to aid in the reduction of Canada. That French colony, after many fruitless attempts, at last fell, under the combined efforts of the mother country and the colonies; but Canada, once reduced, became the object of sounder and more dispassionate statesmanship. By the surrender, the Canadians were guaranteed certain rights, as f he Irish were by the treaty of Limerick. Protestant governments have never been over- scrupulous on such points, and it was as easy to break faith with the Cana- dians as with the Irish, but this time England was honest. The Catholic 3q8 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Church was left almost intact in Canada; nay, its clergy continued under British rule to gather tithes and receive certain traditional honors. This was too much for the people of the older colonies to brook. Thev had not lavished blood and treasure for this. The very bigotry nurtured by English rule now turned against it. And what wonder, then, that the first standard of revolt reared in New York expressed this long-cherished feeling, this hatred of Catholics so long encouraged by government, what wonder that the flag of American freedom that first floated to the breeze in New York bore the motto, " No Popery"! How little we can fathom the designs of the Almighty! Who look- ing on that flag could see in it the germ of a freedom of the Church which she then nowhere out of the patrimony of St. Peter really possessed ? Yet it was there. Down to the French alliance, this anti-Catholic feel- ing nerved the Whigs and discouraged the friends of British rule. Then it changed, and the Tory papers caught up every occasion to show how zealously Protestant the British party was. While the select men of Bos- ton followed a Catholic procession through the streets, and congress went to Mass, the British authorities in New York are pointed out by a pam- phleteer of the day as beyond reproach. They showed their anti-Catholic zeal in this way : " In 1778, in the month of February, a large French ship was taken by the British, near the Chesapeake, and sent for condemnation into New York, at that time still in possession of the English. Among her officers was a priest, of the name of De la Motte, of the order of St. Augustine, who was chaplain of the vessel. Being permitted to go at large in the city, he was solicited by his countrymen, and by those of his own faith, to celebrate Mass. Being advised of the existence of the prohibitory law, he applied to the commanding officer for permission, which was refused; but M. de la Motte, not knowing the language very well, mistook what was intended for a refusal as a permission, and accordingly celebrated Mass. For this he was arrested, and kept in close confinement until exchanged. This was under Governor Tryon's administration." Benedict Arnold — for even this precid"us worthy may come in as an illus- tration — when he sat down in New York in his uniform of a British brigadier, ro write his address to his countrymen justifying the step which he had taken, and which we are accustomed to characterize by the ugly name of treason, made his strong anti-Catholic feeling justify his course. He had entered the movement as a thorough Protestant ; but when congress began to favor popery, he foresaw the ruin of his country, and as a true Protestant made nis peace with England. Strong as the anti-Catholic feeling had been in the nearts of the colonists, we do not find that this appeal of Arnold to then- prejudices induced a single man to desert the American ranks; it is far more ON MANHATTAN ISLAND. 209 likely that it may have sent some Irish soldiers from the British ranks to swell Washington's regiments. We are apt to associate our republic with the idea of unbounded religious toleration. As we have shown, hostility to Catholics was a potent element in arousing the people to declare against Great Britain, and the state govern- ments as originally framed bear deeply impressed the traces of that common feeling which once, in Lyons, proclaimed in one line free toleration in matters of religion, and in the next prohibited the Mass under terrible penalties. If freedom was dreamed of, it was to be one which we were not to enjoy. The anti-Catholic feeling that characterized the first national movement was displayed in the convention which in 1777 formed a constitution for the state of New York. There no less a personage than John Jay, subsequently minister to England and chief justice of the supreme court of the United States, was the ardent, fiery advocate of intolerance. Catholics of New York owe a debt of gratitude to Gouverneur Morris and Philip Livingston for the manliness with which in that convention they fought the battle of human freedom and sought to check the onslaught of intolerance. But they failed. Under that constitution no Catholic could be naturalized, and the liberty of worship granted was couched in such terms as to justify the legislature at any time in crushing Catholicity, and in point of fact they at once adopted an iron-clad oath that effectually prevented any Catholic from holding office. Dr. Bayley gives the debates on the interesting questions before the con- vention; and he notes how, in that curious system of language so common with our public speakers and writers, this constitution found an advocate in the late polished Benjamin F. Butler, of New York, who praised it in an address before the New York Historical Society for its liberality in containing no provision repugnant to civil and religious toleration, as though laws excluding Catholics from citizenship and office were not slightly repugnant. In point of fact, however, the hostile feeling of the earlier days was soon neutralized, and at the close of the war New York was virtually free to receive a Catholic Church. How, then, Catholicity took root and grew under the protecting work of men who " Builded better than they knew," how it has spread and done its work of struggle and triumph under the federal government we shall now see. The peace opened New York to Catholic immigration, and the influence 15 2IO THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. of the French officers, of both army and navy, had done much to dispel prejudice. The church to which Rochambeau, Lafayette, De Kalb, Pulaski, De Grasse, Vandreuil belonged was socially and politically respectable — nay, it was not antagonistic to American freedom. The founder of the Catholic congregation had looked anxiously forward to this moment. The venerable Father Farmer came on to resume his labors and gather such Catholics as the Seven Years' War had left or gathered. His visits and pastoral care, then resumed, were continued till the arrival of the Rev. Charles Whelan, an Irish Franciscan, who had been chaplain on one of the vessels belonging to the fleet of the Count De Grasse. He was the first regularly settled priest in the city of New York. Catholicity thus had a priest, but as yet no church. Mass was said near Mr. Stoughton's house, on Water Street; in the house of Don Diego de Gardoqui, the Spanish ambas- sador; in a building in Vauxhall Garden, between Chambers and Warren streets; and in a loft over a carpenter shop on Barclay street. An Italian nobleman, Count Castiglioni, mentions his attending Mass in a room anything but becoming so solemn an act of religious worship. The use of a court- room in the Exchange was solicited from the city authorities, but refused. Then the little band of Catholics took heart and resolved to rear an edifice that would lift its cross-crowned spire in the land. It is a sign of the good feeling that had to some extent obtained, that Trinity Church sold the Catho- lic body the five lots of ground they desired for the erection of their Church. Here, at the corner of Barclay and Church streets, the corner-stone of St. Peter's Church was laid November 4, 17S6, by Don Diego de Gardoqui, as representative of Charles III, king of Spain, whose aid to the work entitles him to be regarded as its chief benefactor. This pioneer Catholic Church was a modest structure forty-eight feet in front by eighty-one in depth. Its progress was slow; and divine worship was performed in it for some years before the vestry, portico, pews, gallery, and steeple were at last completed, in 1792. The congregation, living so long amid a Protestant population whose system Halleck describes so truly, "They reverence their priest; but disagreeing In price or creed, dismiss him without fear," had adopted some of their ideas, and forgetting that the Mass was a sacrifice, and the peculiar and only worship of God, thought that an eloquent sermon was everything. A vehement and impassioned preacher it was their great ON MAN HA TTAN ISLAND. 2 1 1 ambition to secure, and as the trustees controlled matters almost absolutely, the earlier priests had to endure much humiliation and actual suffering. A pastor was at last found who filled the difficult position. This was the Rev. William O'Brien, assisted after a time by Dr. Matthew O'Brien, whose reputation as a preacher was such that a volume of his sermons had been printed in Ireland. Under their care the difficulties began to diminish; the congregation took a regular form, and the young were trained to their Christian duties; and the devotion of the Catholic clergy during the visits of that dreadful scourge, the yellow fever, gave them an additional claim to the reverence and respect of their flock. Beside the church so ( on sprang up the school. The Catholics of New York signalized the opening of the nineteenth century by establishing a free school at St. Peter's, which before many years could report an average attend- ance of five hundred pupils. This progress of Catholicity naturally aroused some of the old bitterness of prejudice. The sermons of the Protestant pulpits at this period exulting over the captivity and death of Pius VI, produced their natural result in awakening the evil passions of the low and ignorant. The old prejudices revived against Catholics with all their wonted hostility. The first anti-Catholic riot occurred in 1S06, as a result. On Christmas eve, some ruffians attempted to force their way into St. Peter's Church during the midnight Mass, in order to see the Infant rocked in the cradle which they were taught to believe Catholics then worshiped. From that time anti-Catholic excitements have been pretty regular in their appearance; for a time, indeed, eleven years was as sui*e to bring one, under some new name, as fourteen years did the pestilent locusts. Yet mob violence has beendess frequently and less terribly shown in New York than in some other cities with higher claims to order and dignity. Once, it is stated how a mob, flushed with the sacking of a Protestant church where a negro and a white had been married, resolved to close their useful labors by demolishing St. Patrick's Cathedral. They marched valor - ously almost to the junction of the Bowery and Prince street, but halted on the suggestion of a tradesman there, that a reconnaissance would be a wise movement. A few were detached to examine the road. The look up Prince street was not encouraging. The paving-stones had actually been carried up in baskets to the upper stories of the houses, ready to hurl on the assailants; 2I2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. and the wall around the churchyard was pierced for musketry. The mob retreated with creditable celerity; but all that night a feverish anxiety pre- vailed around St. Patrick's Cathedral; men stood ready to meet any new advance, and the mayor, suddenly riding up, was in some danger, but was fortunately recognized. What might have been the scenes in New York in 1844, wnen murder ran riot in Philadelphia! The Natives had just elected a mayor; the city would in a few days be in their hands; a public meeting was called in the park, and all seemed to promise a repetition of the scenes in the sister city. A bold, stern extra issued from the office of The Freeman's Journal, it was that actually sent terror into the hearts of the would-be rioters. It was known at once that the Catholics would defend their churches to the last gasp. The firm character of the archbishop was well known, and with that to animate the people the struggle would not be a trifling one. The call for the meeting was countermanded and New York was saved; few knew from what. To return to the earlier days of the century. If attacks were made, inquiry was stimulated. Conversions to the truth were neither few nor unimportant. Dr. Bayley mentions briefly the reception into the Church of one nearly related to himself, Mrs. Eliza Ann Seton, widow of William Seton, a distinguished New York merchant. Born on Staten Island, and long resi- dent in New York, gracing a high social position by her charming and noble character, she made her first Communion in St. Peter's Church on the 25th of March, 1805, and in a few years, giving herself up wholly to God, became, under him, the foundress in the United States of the Sisters of Char- ity, whose quiet labors of love, and charity, and devotedness in the cause of humanity and education in every city in the land seek no herald here below, but are written deep in the hearts of grateful millions. Several Protestant clergymen in those days returned to the bosom of unity, such as the Rev. Mr. Kewley, of St. George's Church, New York; Rev. Calvin White, ancestor of the Shakespeare scholar, Richard Grant White; and Mr. Ironsides. Strange, too, was the conversion of the Rev. Mr. Richards, sent from New York as a Methodist preacher to Western New York and Canada. We follow him, by his diary, through the sparse settlements which then dotted that region, whence he extended his labors to Montreal. There, good man, in the zeal of his heart he thought to conquer Canadian Catholicity by storming the Sulpitian seminary at Montreal, ON MANHATTAN ISLAND. 213 converting all there, and so triumphantly closing the campaign. His diary of travel goes no further. Mr. Richards died a few years since, a zealous and devoted Sulpitian priest of the seminary at Montreal. New York was too far from Baltimore to be easily superintended by the bishop of that see. His vast diocese was now to be divided, and this city was erected into an episcopal see in 1S08, by Pope Pius VII. The choice for the bishop who was to give form to the new diocese, fell upon the Rev. Luke Concanen, a learned and zealous Dominican, long con- nected with the affairs of his order at Rome. Dr. Bayley gives a characteristic letter of his. He had persistently declined a see in Ire- land with its comparative comforts and consolations among a zealous people; but the call to a position of toil, the establishment of a new diocese in a new land, where all was to be created, was not an ap- peal that he could disregard. He submitted to the charge imposed upon him, and after receiving epis- copal consecration at Rome, prepared to reach his see, wholly ignorant of what he should find on his arrival in New York. It was, however, no easy matter then to secure passage. Failing to find a ship at Leghorn, he proceeded to Naples; but the French, who had overrun Italy, detained him as a British subject, and while thus thwarted and harassed, he suddenly fell sick and died. Thus New York never beheld its first bishop. Then followed a long vacancy, highly prejudicial to the progress of the Church, but a vacancy that European affairs caused. The successor of St. Peter was torn from Rome, and held a prisoner in France. The Catholic world knew not under what influence acts might be issued as his, that were really the inventions of his enemies. The bishops in Ireland addressed a let- ter to the bishops of the United States to propose some settled line of action in all cases where there was not evidence that the pope was a free agent. Meanwhile, the archbishop of Baltimore extended his care to the diocese RT. REV. LUKE CONCANF.X. THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. of New York. When Father O'Brien at last sank under his increasing years, New York would have seen its Catholic population in a manner desti- tute had not the Jesuit fathers of Maryland come to their assistance. Rev. Anthony Kohlmann, a man of sound theological learning and great zeal, who died many years after at Rome, honored by the sovereign pontiffs, was the administrator of the diocese. With him were Rev. Benedict Fenwick, subsequently bishop of Boston, and Rev. Peter Malou, whose romantic life would form an interesting volume; for few who recollect this venerable priest, in his day such a favorite with the young, knew that he had figured in great political events, and in the struggle of Belgium for freedom had led her armies. Under the impulse of these fathers a collegiate institution was opened, and continued for some years on the spot where the new magnificent Cathe- dral has arisen; and old New York Catholics smiled when a recent scribbler asserted that the site of that noble edifice was a gift from the city. Trinity, the old brick church, and some other churches we could name were built on land given by the ruling powers, but no Catholic Church figures in the list. The college was finally closed, from the fact that difficulties in Maryland prevented the order from supplying necessary professors to maintain its high position. To secure to young ladies similar advantages for superior education, some Ursuline nuns were induced to cross the Atlantic. They were hailed with joy, and their academy was wonderfully successful. The superior was a lady whose appearance was remarkably striking, and whose cultivation and ability impressed all. Unfortunately they came under restrictions which soon deprived New York of them. Unless novices joined them within a certain number of years, they were to return to Ireland. In a new country vocations could be only a matter of time, and as the Ursuline order required a dowry, the vocations of all but wealthy young ladies were excluded, and even of these when subject to a guardian. As the Catholic body had increased, a new church was begun in a spot then far out of the city, described as between the Broadway and the Bowery road. This was old St. Patrick's, of which the corner-stone was laid June 8, 1809; this was to be the Cathedral of the future bishop; and the orphan asylum, now thriving under the care of an incorporated society, was ere long to be placed near the new church. During this period a strange case occurred in a New York court that ON MANHATTAN ISLAND. 215 settled for that state, at least, a question of importance to Catholics. It settled as a principle of law that the confession of a Catholic to a priest was a priv- ileged communication, which the priest could not be called upon or permitted to reveal. •'Restitution had been made to a man named James Keating, through the Rev. Father Kohlmann. of certain goods which had been stolen from him. Keating had previously made a complaint against one Philips and his wife, as having received the goods thus stolen, and they were indicted for a misdemeanor before the justices of the peace. Keating having afterward stated that the goods had been restored to him through the instrumentality of Father Kohlmann, the latter was cited before the court, and required to give evidence in regard to the person or persons from whom he had received them. This he refused to do, on the ground that no court could require a priest to give evidence in regard to matters known to him only under the seal of con- fession. Upon the case being sent to the grand jury, Father Kohlmann was subpoenaed to attend before them, and appeared in obedience to the process, but in respectful terms again declined answering. On the trial which ensued, Father Kohlmann was again cited to appear as a witness in the case. Having been asked certain questions, he entreated that he might be excused, and offered his reasons to the court. With consent of coun- sel, the question was put off for some time, and finally brought on for argument on Tuesday, the 8th of June, 1813, before a court composed of the Hon. De Witt Clin- ton, mayor of the city; the Hon. Josiah Ogden Hoffman, recorder; and Isaac S. Doug- lass, and Richard Cunningham, Esqs., sitting aldermen. The Hon. Richard Riker, afterward for so many years recorder of the city, and Counsellor Sampson, volunteered their services in behalf of Father Kohlmann. " The decision was given by De Witt Clinton at some length. Having shown that, according to the doctrine and practice of the Catholic Church, a priest who should reveal what he had heard in the confessional would become infamous and degraded in the eyes of Catholics, and as no one could be called upon to give evidence which would expose him to infamy, he declared that the only way was to excuse a priest from answering in such cases." This decision, by the influence of De Witt Clinton, when governor of the state, was incorporated into the Revised Statutes as part of the lex scriptr of the state. With this period, too, began the publication of Catholic works in New York, which has since attained such a wonderful development. Bernard Dor- nin stands as the patriarch of the Catholic book trade of New York. When Pope Pius VII was restored to Rome, another son of St. Dominic was chosen; and the Rev. John Connolly was consecrated the second bishop of New York. After making such arrangements as he could in Ireland for the good of his diocese, he set sail from Dublin, but experienced a long and dangerous passage. From the absence of all notice of any kind, except the mere fact of his name among the passengers, his reception was apparently a most private one. He was utterly a stranger in a strange land, called from the studies of the cloister to form and rule a diocese of considerable extent, 2l6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. without any previous knowledge of the wants of his flock, and utterly with- out resources. His diocese, which embraced the state of New York and part of New Jersey, contained but four priests, three belonging to the Jesuits in Maryland, and liable to be called away at any moment, as two were almost immediately after his arrival. The college and convent had disappeared, and the Church seemed to have lost in all but numbers. Thirteen thousand Catholics were to be supplied with pastors, and yet the trustee system stood a fearful barrier in his way. As the chronicler well observes: "The trustee system had not been behind its early promise, and trustees of churches had become so accustomed to have everything their own way that they were not disposed to allow even the interference of a bishop. "In such a state of things he was obliged to assume the office of a missionary priest, rather than a bishop; and many still living remember the humility and earnest zeal with which he discharged the laborious duties of the confessional, and traversed the city on foot to attend upon the poor and sick. "Bishop Connolly was not lacking in firmness, but the great wants of his new diocese made it necessary for him to fall in, to a certain extent, with the established order of things, and this exposed him afterward to much difficulty and many humiliations." Yet he secured some good priests and ecclesiastical students from Kil- kenny College, whom he gradually raised to the priesthood, his first ordina- tion and the first conferring of the sacrament of holy orders in the city being that of the Rev. Michael O'Gorman in 1815. Under the care of Bishop Connolly the Sisters of Charity began their labors in the city so long the home of Mother Seton; and, so far as his means permitted him to yield to his zeal, he increased the number of churches and congregations in his diocese. After an episcopate of nearly ten years the bishop was taken ill on his return from the funeral of his first ordained priest, and soon followed him to the grave. He died at No. 512 Broadway, on the 5th of February, 1825, and was buried under the Cathedral, after having been exposed for two days in St. Peter's Church. The ceremonial was imposing and attracted general attention, and the remarks of the papers of the day show the respect enter- tained for him by all classes of citizens. The next bishop of New York was one well known in the country by his labors, especially by his successful exertions in giving the Church in our republic a college and theological seminary suited to its wants — Mount St. Mary's College at Emmitsburg, Maryland. The life of the Rev. John Du Bois had been varied. Born in Paris, he was in college a fellow student of ON MANHA TTAN ISLAND. 2 1 7 Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins; but actuated by far different thoughts from those which filled the brains of such men, he devoted himself to the ser- vice of God. The revolution found him a laborious priest at Paris. Escap- ing in disguise from France during the Reign of Terror, through the con- nivance of his old fellow-collegian, Robespierre, he came to America, bearing letters of introduction from Lafayette to eminent personages in the United States. "Having received faculties from Bishop Carroll, he exercised the holy ministry in various parts of Virginia and Maryland. He lived for some time with Mr. Monroe, after- ward president of the United States, and in the family of Gov. Lee, of Maryland. After the death of Father Frambach he took charge of the mission of Frederick in Maryland, of which mission he may be said in reality to have been the founder. When he arrived there he celebrated Mass in a large room which served as a chapel, and afterward built the first church. But though Frederick was his headquarters he did not confine him- self to it, but made stations throughout all the surrounding country, at Montgomery, Winchester, Hagerstown, and Emmitsburg, everywhere manifesting the same earnest zeal and indomitable perseverance. Bishop Brute relates, as an instance of his activity and zeal, that once, after hearing confessions on Saturday evening, he rode during the night to near Montgomery, a distance of thirty-five to forty miles, to administer the last sacraments to a dying woman, and was back hearing confessions in the morning at the mountain, singing High Mass and preaching, without scarcely any one knowing that he had been absent at all. "In 1808 the Rev. Mr. Du Bois, having previously become a member of the Society of St. Sulpice, in Baltimore, went to reside at Emmitsburg, and laid the foun- dation of Mount St. Mary's College, which was afterwards destined to be the means of so much usefulness to the Catholic Church in America. From this point now sur- rounded by so many hallowed associations in the minds of American Catholics, by the sound religious education imparted to so many young men from various parts of the United States, 'by the many fervent and holy priests, trained under his direction,' and by the prudent care with which he cherished the rising institute of the Sisters of Charity at St. Joseph's, he became the benefactor, not of any particular locality, but of the whole Catholic body throughout the United States." On coming to his diocese after his consecration in Baltimore in October, 1826, he found three churches and four or six priests in New York City; a church and one priest at Brooklyn, Albany, and a few stations elsewhere. But the trustee system fettered the progress of Catholicity. Long devoted to the cause of education for secular life or the service of the altar, Bishop Du Bois' fondest desire was to endow his diocese with another Mount St. Mary's, but all his efforts failed. A hospital was also one of his early projects; but these and other good works could spring up only when the way had been prepared by his trials, struggles, and sufferings. During his administration the number of Catholics increased greatly, and new churches sprang up in the city and other parts of the diocese. Of these various foundations are St. Mary's Christ Church, Transfiguration, St.- 2 j § THE COL UMBIAN J UB1LEE. Joseph's, St. Nicholas', St. Paul's at Harlem. The services of the Very Rev. Dr. Power, the Rev. Felix Varela, of Rev. Messrs. Levins and Schuel- ler, and other clergymen of that day are not yet forgotten. The excitement caused by the act of Catholic Emancipation in England had its counterpart here, stimulated, too, by jealousyat the influx of foreign labor. The Church had had her day of penal laws and wild excitement; now war was to be made through the press. About 1835 it began in New York. The use of falsehood against Catholicity seems to be considered by some one of the higher virtues. Certainly there is a strange perversion of conscience on the point. The anti-Catholic literature of that period is a curiosity that must cause some cheeks to tingle if there is any manhood left. They took up Fulkes' Confutation of the Rhemish Testament, reprinted the text from it, and affixed to it a certificate of several clergymen that it was a reprint from the original published at Rheims. It was not. They caught up a poor creature from a Magdalen asylum in Montreal, and concocted a book, laying the scene in the Hotel Dieu, commonly called the Convent of the Black Nuns, at Montreal. The book was so infamous that the Harpers issued it under the name of Howe & Bates. It was published daily in The Sun newspaper, and had an immense circulation. Colonel William L. Stone, a zealous Protestant, went to the spot, and there convinced of the fraud, pub- lished an exposure of the vile slanders. He was assailed in a satire called The Vision of Rubeta, and the pious Protestant community swallowed the filthy details. At last there arose a quarrel over the spoils. A triangular lawsuit between the Harpers, the Rev. Mr. Slocum, and Maria Monk in the court of chancery gave some strange disclosures, more startling than the fictitious ones of the book. Vice-Chancellor McCoun in disgust turned them out of his court, and told them to go before a jui'y ; but none of them dared to face twelve honest men. A paper called The Downfall of Babylon flourished for a time on this anti-Catholic feeling, reeking with lewdness and impurity. At last their heroine and tool, Maria Monk, cast off and scouted, ended her days on Blackwell's Island. Among the curiosities of this period was a work of S. F. B. Morse, entitled Brutus, or a Foreign Conspiracy against the Liberties of the United States. The queen of France had given the bishop of St. Louis some altar paintings, and herein was the conspiracy. The controversies of that period now sound oddly enough. They were the topic of the day, and led ON MANHATTAN ISLAND. 219 to many curious scenes. Among the Catholic controvertists, the Rev. Mr. Levins was particularly incisive and effective; Rev. Mr. Varela dealt gentler but heavy blows, being keen in argument and sound in learning. A tract on the five different bibles of the American Bible Society was one of those occasions where, departing from the defensive, the Catholic apologist assumed the offensive. And this time it was highly offensive. At that time the Bible Society published a Spanish bible, and testaments in French, Spanish, and Portuguese, all Catholic versions, merely omitting the notes of the Catholic translators. Appleton's Cyclopedia asserts that "the American Bible Society, made up of materials more thoroughly Puritanic, and less Lutheran and continental, .... has never published any other than the canonical (Protestant) books;" but this is not so. The Spanish bible of 1824 contains the very books which in other editions they reject absolutely. It is true that in the edition of 1825 they left them out of the body of the book, but kept them in the list of books. After that they disappeared, while the title page still falsely professed to give the bible trans- lated by Bishop Scio de San Miguel, without the slightest intimation that part of Bishop Scio's work was omitted. Mr. Varela exposed the inconsistency of their publishing in one lan- guage as inspired what they rejected in another ; of translating a passage in one sense in one volume, and in another in a bible standing beside it. The subject caused a sensation. After deliberating on the matter, it was deter- mined to suppress all these Catholic versions; they were accordingly with- drawn. The stereotype plates were melted up; and the printed copies were committed to the flames, although it took sometime to effect this greatest bible-burning ever witnessed in New York. Meanwhile New \ :>rk was not without its organs of Catholic sentiment. The Truth Teller was for many years the vehicle of information and defense. The Catholic Diary, and The Green Banner, and The Freeman's Journal followed. While the controversy fever lasted, some curious scenes took place. Catholics, especially poor servant girls, were annoyed at all times and in all places, in the street, at the pump — for those were not days of Croton water — and even in their kitchens. One Protestant clergyman of New York had quite a reputation for the gross indecency that characterized his valorous attacks of this kind. The servant of a lady in Beekman street — people in good circumstances lived there then — was a constant object of his zeal. One day, 220 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. report said, after dining with the lady, he descended to the kitchen, and began twitting the girl about the confessional, and coupling this with the grossest charges against the Catholic clergy. The girl bore it for a time, and when ordering him out of her realm failed, she seized a poker and dealt her indecent assailant a blow on the head that sent him staggering to the stairs. While he groped his way bewildered to the parlor, the girl hastened to her room, bundled up her clothes and left the house. The clergyman was long laid up from the consequence of his folly, and every attempt made to hush the matter up; but an eccentric Catholic of that day, Joseph Trench, got up a large caricature representing the scene, which went like wild-fire, attack being always popular, and an attack on the Protestant clergy being quite a novelty. Trivial as the whole affair was, it proved more effective than the soundest theological arguments, and Mary Ann Wiggins with her poker really closed the great controversial period. It had its good effects, nevertheless, in making Catholics earnest in their faith. Their numbers were rapidly increasing, and with them churches and institutions. Besides the orphan asylum, an institution for those who had lost only one parent, the half-orphan asylum, was commenced and long sustained, mainly by the zeal and means of Mr. Glover, a convert whose name should stand high in the memory of New York Catholics. This institution, now merged in the general orphan asylum, had in its separate existence a long career of usefulness under the care of the Sisters of Charity. Bishop Dubois was unremitting in his efforts to increase the number of his clergy and the institutions of his diocese. The progress was marked. Besides clergymen from abroad, he ordained, or had ordained, twenty-one who had been trained under his own supervision, and who completed their divinity studies chiefly at the honored institution which he had founded in Maryland; among these was Gregory B. Pardow, who was, if we mistake not, the first native of the city elevated to the priesthood. Five of these priests have since been promoted to the episcopacy, as well as two others ordained in his time by his coadjutor. In manners, Bishop Dubois was the polished French gentleman of the old regime; as a clergyman, learned and strict in his ideas, his administrative powers were always deemed great, but in their exercise in his diocese they were constantly thwarted by the trustee system. But he was not one easily intimidated; and when the trustees of the Cathedral, in order to force him to act contrary to the dictates of his own better judgment, if not his conscience, ON MANHATTAN ISLAND. 221 threatened to deprive him of his salary, he made them a reply that is his- torical, " Well, gentlemen, you may vote the salary or not, just as seems good to you. I do not need much; I can live in the basement or in the garret; but whether I come up from the basement, or down from the garret, I will still be your bishop." He had passed the vigor of manhood when he was appointed to the see of New York, and the constant struggle aged him prematurely. It became necessary for him to call for a younger hand to assist. The position was one that required a singularly gifted priest. The future of Catholicity in New York depended on the selection of one who, combining the learning and zeal of the missionary priest with that donum famce which gives a man influence over his fellow-men, and that skill in firm but almost imperceptible government which is the characteristic of a great ruler, could place Catholicity in New York on a firm, harmonious basis, instinct with the true spirit of life, that would insure its future success. Providence guided the choice. Surely no man more confessedly endowed with all these qualities could have been selected than the Rev. John Hughes, in tracing whose noble career we shall follow out the history of Catholicity in New York. Chapter £11. fclONS OF THE FOfcD. The Man for The Occasion. — Youth and Education. — Raised to the Priest- hood. — A Bright Pulpit Orator. — The Breckenridge Controversy. — A Cardinal's Error. — The Young Coadjutor. — Stormy Times in New York. — That Trustee System Again. — A Visit to Europe. — Help for Catholic Education. — The Public School Question. — A Shepherd's Ap- peal. — Abuse and Bigotry. — The Nativist Riots. — Catholics Act on the Defensive. — The Bishop and the Mayor. — A Tumult Prevented. — Public Letter and Challenge. — Editors Called to a Reckoning. — Ecclesiastical Labors and Successes. — Raised to the Arch i episcopacy. — The New Gothic Cathedral. — Closing Days. — A Saint in the Interior. — Two Other Great Bishops. — Our First Cardinal. HE mysterious hand which governs the universe," says Balmes, "seems to hold an extraordinary man in reserve for every great crisis of society." It is in this light that we view Archbishop Hughes of New York and his illustrious career. John Hughes was born at Annaloghan, near the market-town of Augher, County Tyrone, Ireland, on the 24th of June, 1797. His parents, Patrick Hughes and Margaret McKenna, were in comfortable circumstances, but especially respected for their virtue and intelligence. His father was better educated than most men of his class; while his mother was remarkable for a refinement of character far beyond her position and oppor- tunities. John was early sent to school, near his native place, with a view to his entering the priesthood. Here he was well grounded in the English branches, but had not the advantage of the ancient classics. A reverse of fortune compelled his father, reluctantly, to withdraw the youth from school, and set him to work with his brothers on one of the farms, of which he conducted two. In the midst of his labors, John fondly and 222 LIONS OF THE FOLD. 223 earnestly thought of his true vocation. "Many a time," he afterwards told a friend, "have I thrown down my rake in the meadow, and kneeling behind a hayrick, begged of God and the Blessed Virgin to let me become a priest." He increased his opportunities for study by reviewing at night all that he had learned at school. The persecutions which Catholics then suffered in Ireland were keenly felt by Mr. Hughes and his family, and by none more than by the ardent John, who was open in his expressions of disgust and indig- nation. He warmly seconded his father's inclination to emigrate to America. In 18 1 6, Mr. Hughes, senior, landed in America, and settled at Chambers- burg, Pa., and there John, then in his twentieth year, soon joined him, and the rest of the family followed the year after. The future archbishop first found employment with a gardener and nurseryman on the eastern shore of Maryland, and afterwards worked success- ively at Chambersburg and Emmitsburg, turning his hand to any honest labor that presented itself. At one time, he toiled as a day-laborer on a little stone bridge over a small stream on the road that leads from Emmitsburg to Taneytown. But he never lost sight of his vocation for the priesthood, and his object in going to Emmitsburg was to be on the watch for an opportunity to enter the college of Mount St. Mary, then little more than a rude academy, under the charge of Rev. Fathers Dubois and Brut£, afterwards bishops of New York and Vincennes. Several refusals and disappointments but strengthened the young man's admirable resolution. At length, in the fall of 1819, he was taken into the college, on condition of superintending the garden in return for his board, lodging, and private instruction. While his garden duties were faithfully discharged, he employed his hours of study to the best advantage. In 1S20, being in his twenty-third year, Mr. Hughes was received as a regular student of the college. He was untiring in his application. With great success he passed through the routine of teacher, at the same time that he rapidly acquired Latin, Greek and mathematics. Though he became pro- ficient in these, they were never his favorite studies — he viewed them simply as the means to an end. It was in the congenial realms of theology, philos- ophy, logic, and history, that his soul seemed to expand. He also occasion- ally preached, and wrote poetry. It is said, however, that his first sermon gave much brighter promise of a future divine, than his maiden verses gave of a future poet. Under the learned and saintly Brute, who continued his 224 ' THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. affectionate counsellor throughout life, Mr. Hughes made rapid progress in learning and solid virtue. In the fall of 1826, he was elevated to the priesthood by Bishop Con- well, in St. Joseph's Church, Philadelphia. For several years he labored zealously on various missions, chiefly in the country. His great prudence enabled him to avoid getting mixed up with the lamentable difficulties of the times. He soon learned the evil effects of lay trusteeism, and the lessons thus early impressed on his mind, gave him that knowledge and experience which afterwards led him to purge the system in the diocese of New York. Father Hughes soon became eminent as a pulpit orator. There was a something — a magnetism about the noble-looking young priest, and his soul- stirring discourses that attracted crowds to hear him. Bishop Con well was delighted with him. The aged prelate would frequently say: "We'll make him a bishop some day." He was also noted as a controversialist. In 1829, he founded St. John's Orphan Asylum, and about this time he seems to have been unofficially proposed at Rome as bishop of Philadelphia; but the choice fell on Dr. Kenrick. The emancipation of the Catholics of Ireland, in 1829, was hailed with joy by thousands in America, but by none more than by the Rev. Mr. Hughes. Through life he was devotedly attached to his native isle, whose wrongs he saw and deeply felt in his youth. He was an enthusiastic admirer of Daniel O'Connell. The following extract from a private letter gives us an insight into one of the secrets of that success which appeared to follow the archbishop of New York, like his shadow. It was addressed to the newly-appointed Bishop Kenrick, by his pupil, young M. J. Spalding, then on his way to the propaganda, and is dated May, 1830: "I have had the good fortune to meet with Rev. Mr. Hughes. I handed him your letter, to which I am indebted for the kind manner in which he received me. He is a gentleman of the most polite and engaging manners, blending the amiable modesty and reserve of the priest with the easy deportment of the man of the world. He has, I think, a bright future before him." In 1832, the celebrated Hughes and Breckenridge controversy occurred. The Rev. John Breckenridge was a Presbyterian minister, and the ablest champion of his sect in this country. Through the columns of The Christian Advocate, he made a series of bold attacks on the Catholic Church, and even challenged priests or bishops to meet him " on the whole field of controversy between Roman Catholics and Protestants." For a time no attention was LIONS OF THE FOLD. 225 paid to Mr. Breckenridge's taunting challenge; but, on a certain pressing occa- sion, one of Father Hughes' own flock pledged himself that his pastor would meet the great champion of the Reformation. The gentleman informed the zealous young priest of his promise. " Since you rely upon me," was the reply, " I will not fail you." And he did not fail. Minister Breckenridge, we believe, never challenged another Catholic priest. The event gave Father Hughes an enviable fame. It at once placed him in the front rank, as a man of bold, sharp, and powerful intellect, and unsurpassed skill in debate. In every subsequent effort of his life, he sustained his pre-eminent repu- tation. But in this — as, indeed, in all his other controversies — he was acting on the defensive, and was drawn into these contests by the unprovoked attacks which it was too much the custom of the anti-Catholic bigots of that day to make against the Church. When once embarked in the discussion, however, he did not remain on the defensive; but, like an able general, he availed himself of every point of weakness in his adversaries, and of every advantage which he gained over them, to carry war into the enemy's country. That these malignant and unchristian assaults upon the Catholic religion have, in a great measure, ceased in our day, is chiefly owing to the bold resistance, and the triumphant logic, learning, and eloquence of those two heroic men and illustrious defenders of the faith — John England and John Hughes. It was likewise at this period that Father Hughes established, and for a time edited the Catholic Herald, and built St. John's Church, then the favorite, and by far the most elegant Catholic place of worship in the city of Philadelphia. • Father Hughes was suggested for the vacant bishopric of Cincinnati, in 1S33, and it was only by a curious misunderstanding at Rome that he was not appointed. As suitable candidates for this see, the Rev. Messrs. Hughes and Purcell were nominated on the same list. So equal were their claims, that the authorities at Rome were at a loss to decide as to which should be appointed. The celebrated Bishop England was there then. The cardinal prefect of the propaganda, meeting him one day, asked him if he could mention some particular, however trifling, to turn the scales in favor of one or the other nominee. After a moment's thought, Dr. England replied: "There's one point, vour eminence. Mr. Hughes is emphatically a self-made man, and, 16 22 g THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. perhaps, on that account, more acceptable to the people of a western diocese than Mr. Purcell." " Ah!" said the cardinal, " I think that will do." Meeting Dr. England the next day, he said: " Well, bishop, the question is settled. As soon as I told the cardinals what you said about Mr. Purcell's being a self-made man, they unanimously agreed upon him, and the nomina- tion will at once be presented to his holiness for approval." " I was about to explain the mistake," said Bishop England afterwards to a friend, " but I reflected that it was no doubt the work of the spirit of God, and was silent." Another field was thus reserved for Father Hughes — a field in every way more suited to his ability and character. With long experience, vast zeal, and in the full vigor of manhood, Father Hughes was well prepared for the work of his life, and a wide field was ready for the dauntless toiler. In January, 1S3S, he was consecrated coadju- tor to his old master, Bishop Dubois, of New York. The ceremony took place in St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City; and the impressive scene is thus described by illustrious lips: — "I remember," said Cardinal McCloskey, "how all eyes were fixed, how all eyes were strained to get a glimpse at the newly-consecrated bishop; and as they saw that dignified and manly countenance, as they beheld those feat- ures beaming with the light of intellect, bearing upon them the impress of that force of character, which peculiarly marked him throughout his life, that firmness of resolution, that unalterable and unbending will, and yet blending at the same time that great benignity and suavity of expression — when they marked the quiet composure and self-possession of every look and every ges- ture of his whole gait and demeanor — all hearts were drawn and warmed towards him. Every pulse within that vast assembly, both of clergy and laity, was quickened with a higher sense of courage and of hope. Every breast was filled with joy, and, as it were, with a new and younger might." About two weeks after the consecration of Dr. Hughes, the good old Bishop Dubois was stricken with paralysis, and though he partially recovered, he never afterwards took a very active part in the affairs of the diocese. The burden thus fell upon younger shoulders. The times were stormy. Catholics were sorely in need of a leading mind — a man to battle for their rights. Such a man was Bishop Hughes. He was doubtless an instrument of heaven, raised up for the good of the Church in America. He grappled at once with the evils which beset his LIONS OF THE FOLD. 227 diocese. With a giant grasp he modified the lay-trustee system; other obstacles and abuses faded away at his touch, or withered at his frown. To his people he was a tower of strength; and for the first time, the Catholic Church in New York soon assumed an imposing aspect. We can merely glance at his herculean labors. We have little space for detail. And yet here we cannot pass without a word in regard to lay-trus- teeism in its legal aspect. The pernicious system had grown up under the law of 1S13, which authorized the male members of full age, in any congregation, other than Episcopal and Reformed Protestant Dutch congregations, to elect from three to nine trustees, to hold the title, and manage the Church property. This law did not prohibitecclesiastics own- ing, as individuals, property used for divine service. During the wild ascendancy, however, of Knownothingism,a law was passed through the legislature of New York, by which it was pro- vided that all property held by any person in any ecclesiastical office or orders should, on his death, become vested in the occupants or congrega- tion using it, if they were incorpora- ted, or would incorporate, and in default, in the people of the state; and no deed of proj)erty to be used fo* divine worship was allowed to have any legal force or validity, unless made to a corporation. The Catholics of New York are chiefly indebted to Dr. Hughes, and to his Eminence, the late Cardinal McCloskey — then bishop of Albany — for the more just and reasonable provisions of the present law, which, in providing for the incorporation of Catholic churches, constitutes the bishop, vicar- general, pastor, and two laymen selected by them, as the trustees of the Church property. In the fall of 1839 Dr. Hughes sailed to Europe for the purpose of MOST REV. JOHN HUGHES, ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK. 22 g THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. obtaining the necessary means to enable him to carry out his plans for the good of religion and education. It was his first visit to the Old World. He was received by pope, and king, and people, in the various countries through which he passed, with every mark of respect and kindness. He was delighted with Rome, where he spent three months, and received valuable presents from the sovereign pontiff. At Vienna he obtained a lib- eral donation from the Leopoldine Society in aid of his proposed college and seminary. While at Paris he secured the services of a number of Ladies of the Sacred Heart to found a school in New YorkCity. He also visited Ire- land, made the personal acquaintance of Daniel O'Connell, and with warm, sympathetic heart he beheld the struggle of his countrymen for their rights and liberties. After an absence of nine months, he reached his episcopal city in the summer of 1S40. As the good, untiring friend of Catholic education, one of Bishop Hughes' first steps, after his return from Europe, was the establishment of St. John's College, at Fordham, for which object he purchased the beautiful Rose Hill estate. The estate cost $30,000, and the expense of fitting up the buildings for the reception of students was $10,000. The institution, thus founded by an illustrious hand, grew and flourished, and has since become the honored Alma Mater of hundreds of Catholics, lay and clerical. The year 1841 was made famous in the history of the Catholic Church in New York by the agitation of the " School Question," as it was called. The agitation grew fierce, and attracted the attention of the country at large. The system of education against which the Catholics protested was more than insidiously dangerous — it was actively aggressive; and not merely were the books replete with sneer and libel against that Church which all sects usually delight in assailing, but the teachers, by their explanations, imparted new force to the lie, and additional authority to the calumny. Respectful remonstrances were met either with calm disregard or insolent rebuff. Politicians were so confident of having the Irish vote, no matter how they themselves acted, that they supposed they might continue with impun- ity to go in the very teeth of their supporters, and systematically resist their just claims for redress. But Bishop Hughes read them a salutary lesson, the moral of which it was difficult to forget. With matchless ability he fought the Catholic side in the common council against all comers, representing every hostile interest; and when justice was denied there and in the legisla- ture, he resorted to a course of policy which greatly disturbed the minds of LIONS OF THE FOLD. 229 the timid, and the sticklers for peace at any price, but which was followed by instantaneous success. Holding his flock well in hand, addressing them constantly in language that, while it convinced their judgment, roused their religious enthusiasm, he advised them to disregard all political ties, and vote only for those who were the friends of the new school system — which, it may be remarked, was pagan at best — and the opponents of the old system, which, as we have said, was actively aggressive. The bishop thus put the case to his flock: " The question to be decided is not the strength of party, or the emolu- ment and patronage of office, but a question between the helpless and ill-used children, and the public school society An issue is made up between you and a large portion of the community on the one side, and the monopoly which instills the dangerous principles to which I have before alluded, on the other. The question lies between the two parties, and you are the judges; if you desert the cause, what can you expect from strangers? . . . I have been given to understand that three out of four candidates presented to your suffrages are pledged to oppose your claims. They may, perhaps, triumph; but all I ask is, that they shall not triumph by the sinful aid of any individual who cherishes a feeling in common with those children. I wish you, therefore, to look well to your candidates; and if they are disposed to make Infidels or Protestants of your children, let them receive no vote of yours." The advice thus given to them by their bishop was as consistent with common sense as with decent pride. But something more was required to be done, and that was done. With a few exceptions, the candidates of all parties in the field were pledged to oppose the claims of the Catholics. An independent ticket for members of the senate and assembly was therefore suggested and proposed, and this was adopted at a meeting in Carroll Hall, with an enthusiasm which was owing even more to the pluck than to the appeals of the bishop. Having, by a speech of singular power, put the whole case before his immense audience, he worked them up to a state of extraordinary excitement, with the true Demosthenic art, putting to them a series of stinging queries, touching, as it were, the very life of their honor. " Will you stand by the rights of your offspring, who have so long suffered under the operation of this injurious system?" "Will you adhere to the nominations made?" "Will you be united? " "Will none of you shrink?" 3 3c THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. And he concluded: " I ask, then, once for all, will this meeting pledge its honor, as the representative of that oppressed portion of the community for whom I have so often pleaded, here as elsewhere — will it pledge its honor, that it will stand by these candidates, whose names have been read, and that no man composing this vast audience will ever vote for any one pledged to oppose our just claims, and incontrovertible rights?" The promise, made with a display of feeling almost amounting to frenzy, was fully redeemed ; and 2,200 votes recorded for the candidates nominated only four days before, convinced the politicians, whose promises hitherto had been, as the bishop said, as large " as their performances had been lean," that there was danger in the Catholics — that, in fact, they were no longer to be played with or despised. Notwithstanding the pledges to the contrary, the new system — that of the common schools — was carried in the assembly by a majority of sixty-five to sixteen; and the senate, apprehending that a similar attempt would be made at an approaching election for the mayoralty, as that which had been made in the elections of candidates for the senate and the assembly, passed the measure. Fiercely assailed by his opponents, bitterly denounced by alarmed and indignant politicians, reviled in every imaginable manner by controversialists of the pulpit and the press, even turned upon by the faint-hearted of his own communion — that decorous and cringing class, to whom anything like vigor, or a departure from rigid rule, is sure to cause a shudder of the nerves — the bishop of New York became, at once, one of the best-abused, as well as one of the most popular men of the day. His influence over the Irish portion of his flock was unbounded. This flock was rapidly increasing through immigration, which was setting strongly in from the old country, then, for its size, one of the most populous countries of Europe. Bishop Hughes was just the man to acquire influence over an Irish congregation. That he himself was an Irishman, was, of course, no little in his favor. But he was eminently qualified to gratify the pride of a people who found in him a fearless, a powerful, and a successful champion — one who was afraid of no man, and who was ready, at any moment, not only to grapple with and overthrow the most formidable opponent, but to en- counter any odds, and fight under evei'y disadvantage. In his speeches and letters the reader will behold abundant evidence of his boldness in attack, his skill in defense, and his severity in dealing with an enemy, especially one to whom no quarter should be given. LIONS OF THE FOLD. 231 When the heroic bishop struck, it was with no gentle or faltering hand, nor was his weapon a lath or a blunted sword. He struck with the strength of a giant, and the weapon he wielded was bright and trenchant, and never failed to pierce the armor of his closest-mailed foe. With the ablest and most practiced writers of the public press, the most accomplished advocates of the bar, the subtlest controversialists, Bishop Hughes had many a fair tilt in the face of an appreciative public; and none of those with whom he was compelled to come into conflict, whether with tongue or pen, speech or letter, that did not acknowledge, or was not obliged to admit, the power of his mind, the force of his reasoning, his happiness of illustration, and his thorough mastery of the English language. The anti-Catholic spirit which agitated the country from 1S34 to 1844, culminated in making Philadelphia the disgraceful scene of riot, mob-rule, and church-burning. Hounded on by the pulpit yellings of fanatical minis- ters, an army of ruffians did the work of destruction, while the city authorities looked on, and like Pontius Pilate, quietly washed their hands of the whole affair! At two o'clock p. m. on the Sth of May, 1844, St. Michael's Church was in flames! At four o'clock the house of the Sisters of Charity was con- sumed! At six the same evening, St. Augustine's Church was fired, and along with the rectory, burned ! The precious library of the Augustinians was plundered, and the books piled up, and committed to the flames! All this in one afternoon! Flushed with their unholy triumphs of church-burning, convent-wreck- ing, and house-pillaging, a chosen band of Philadelphia rioters were to be welcomed with a public procession by their sympathizers of New York ; but the stern attitude of the Catholics, obedient to the voice, amenable to the authority of their great bishop, dismayed the cowardly portion of their ene- mies, and taught even the boldest that discretion was the better part of valor. It was not the first time that the Catholics of New York had taken a firm stand against the frenzy of the "No-Popery" faction. Shortly after the burning of the convent at Boston, there was an attempt made to destroy St. Patrick's Cathedral. But the church was put in a state of defense; the streets leading to it were torn up, and every window was to be a point whence missiles could be thrown on the advancing horde of sacrilegious wretches; while the wall of the churchyard, rudely constructed, bristled with the muskets of those ready for the last struggle for the altar of their God and the graves of those they loved. So fearful a preparation, unknown to 2 , 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. the enemies of religion, came upon them like a thunder-clap, when their van had nearly reached the street leading to the cathedral; they fled in all direc- tions in dismay. A meeting of the " Native Americans" of New York was called in the city hall park, to give a suitable reception to their brethren from Philadel- phia. The time for action had thus arrived. Bishop Hughes had made it known through the columns of the Freeman's Journal, then under his entire control, that the scenes of Philadelphia should not be renewed with impunity in New York; and he was known to have said — in reply to a priest who, having escaped from Philadelphia, advised him to publish an address, urging the Catholics to keep the peace — " If a single Catholic Church were burned in New York, the city would become a second Moscow." There was no mistaking his spirit, and that of his flock — excepting, of course, the " good, cautious souls who," as the bishop wrote, " believe in steal- ing through the world more submissively than suits a freeman." The churches were guarded by a sufficient force of men, resolved to die in their defense, but also resolved to make their assailants feel the weight of their vengeance. By an extra issue of the Freeman's Journal the bishop warned the Irish to keep away from all public meetings, especially that to be held in the park. He then called upon the mayor, and advised him to prevent the proposed demonstration. " Are you afraid," asked the mayor, " that some of your churches will be burned ?" " No, sir; but I am afraid that some of yours will be burned. We can protect our own. I come to warn you for your own good." " Do you think, bishop, that your people would attack the procession ?" " I do not, but the native Americans want to provoke a Catholic riot, and if they can do it in no other way, I believe they would not scruple to attack the procession themselves, for the sake of making it appear that the Catholics had assailed them." " What, then, would you have me do? " " I did not come to tell you what to do. I am a churchman, not the mayor of New York; but if I were the mayor, I would examine the laws of the state and see if there were not attached to the police force a battery of artillery, and a company or so of infantry, and a squadron of horses; and I think I should find that there were; and if so, I should call them out. More- over, I should send to Mr. Harper, the mayor-elect, who has been chosen by LIONS OF THE FOLD. 2 33 the votes of this party. I should remind him that these men are his support- ers; I should warn him that if they carry out their design there will be a riot; and I should urge him to use his influence in preventing this public reception of the delegates." There was no demonstration. And every right-minded man, every lover of peace in the city, must have applauded the course taken by Dr. Hughes, to whose prudent firmness was mainly attributable the fact that New York was saved from riot, bloodshed, murder, and sacrilege, and, above all, from that dreadful feeling of unchristian hate between man and man, citizen and citizen, neighbor and neighbor, which such collisions are certain for years after to leave rankling in the breast of a community. We cannot pass further, however, without saying a word in relation to the manly and noble, yet temperate and dignified letter of Dr. Hughes to Mayor Harper. Seldom has there appeared in the republic a document more timely, more eloquent, more triumphant, or more happy in its effects on the public mind. It was written under a threat of assassination, immediately after the fearful May riots of Philadelphia, and at a moment when there was every reason to apprehend similar or worse outbreaks in New York City. The bishop just took the stand which the emergency required. He assumed that bold and fearless tone which best suits the American character, and his winged words had an almost magical effect on the popular mind. Never was a document more eagerly sought, or more greedily perused. It is estimated that in New York City alone 150,000 persons read it within forty- eight hours after its first publication. The effect was truly wonderful. The excitement, which before had reached a maddening height, all at once sub- sided, and New York was saved from the outrages which had just disgraced a sister city. In this memorable letter Dr. Hughes triumphantly vindicates himself from the vile charges made against him by an unprincipled press. He boldly challenges James Gordon Bennett, editor of the New York Herald, William L. Stone, editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser, and others, to establish the contrary of the following propositions: " 1. — I have never in my life done one action, or uttered a sentiment tending to abridge any human being of all or any of the rights of conscience which I claim to enjoy myself under the American constitution. " 2. — I have never asked or wished that any denomination should be deprived of the bible, or such version of the bible as that denommation con- scientiously approved, in our common or public schools. 2 34 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. <■<■ ?. I have never entered into intrigue or collusion with any political party or individual, and no political party or individual ever approached me with so insulting a proposition. ''4. I have never requested or authorized, the 'blackening of the public school' books in the city of New York. "5. — In all my public life in New York, I have done no action, uttered no sentiment unworthy of a Christian bishop, and an American citizen." Then, after putting the same or similar propositions in an affirmative form, and stating them as well-known public facts, which he held himself prepared to prove, he thus boldly addresses his malignant revilers: " Now, therefore, James Gordon Bennett, William L. Stone, and ye other deceivers of the public, stand forth, and meet Bishop Hughes. But then, come forth in no quibbling capacity; come forth as honest men, as true American citizens, with truth in your hearts, and candor on your lips. I know you can write well, and can multiply words and misrepresent truth ; this is not the thing that will serve you. Come forth with your facts. Bishop Hughes places himself in the simple panoply of an honest man, before the American people. He asks no favor, but he simply asks whether the opinion of Bishop White is true, that with the American people no man can be put down by calumny." James Gordon Bennett and William L. Stone did attempt "to stand forth ;" but we think all will allow that they proved no match for the gifted bishop. They dealt in naught but personal abuse and idle declamation — in "woi'ds, words, words." Dr. Hughes, however, called for and dealt in hard facts, those "stubborn things" that are the great annoyance of liars and scoundrels. The result of the discussion was most happy. It contributed in a great measure to clear away the dark clouds of calumny which had been for yeai^s gathering about the Empire city. In short, it left the Catholics in a proud position. It is this famous letter which contains the touching and beautiful allu- sion to the American flag. " I can even now remember," writes the bishop, "my reflections on first beholding the American flag. It never crossed my mind that a time might come when that flag, the emblem of the freedom just alluded to, should be divided by apportioning its stars to the citizens of native birth, and its stripes only as the portion of the foreigner. I was, of course, but young and inexperienced; and yet even recent events have not diminished my confidence in that ensign of civil and religious liberty. It is possible I was mistaken, but I still cling to the delusion, if it be one, and as I LIONS OF THE FOLD. 235 .trusted to that flag on a nation's faith, I think it more likely that its stripes will disappear altogether; and that before it shall be employed as an instru- ment of bad faith towards the foreigners of every land, the white portions will blush into crimson, and then the glorious stars alone will remain." The reader must not imagine that battling with unruly trustees, unprin- cipled journalists, and "Native American" ruffianism, occupied more than a 3mall portion of Bishop Hughes' time. No duty was neglected. His vast energy, and a kind of magical activity, made him equal to everything. One of the greatest difficulties which he had to encounter was the immense debt that hung over the churches of New York City. It retarded the progress of the Church. It was a source of deep anxiety, and never- ceasing annoyance. The increase in the number of Catholics was so great, and, at the same time, they were so poor, that in order to provide them with places in which to worship God, it was necessary to borrow large sums of money, at a ruinous interest. The evil was increased by the mismanagement of the lay-trustees, so that at the time Dr. Hughes began to manage the affairs of the diocese, it was found that every church edifice in the city was mort- gaged, or encumbered with debt, to its full value. It took many a long year of toil, struggle, and skillful management on the part of the bishop to get things on anything like a safe financial basis. In February, 1844, the Rev. Dr. McCloskey — afterwards the able car- dinal — was consecrated coadjutor to Bishop Hughes; and in 1S45 the latter visited Europe in the interests of his diocese. He was especially desirous to obtain suitable teachers for his Catholic schools. He returned in April, 1846, and in May of the same year attended the sixth council of Baltimore, whose deliberations resulted, and were subse- quently confirmed by the Holy See, in dividing the diocese of New York by the establishment of the new sees of Buffalo and Albany. Dr. Timon was appointed to Buffalo, and Dr. McCloskey was translated to Albany. While attending the council, Bishop Hughes was summoned to Wash- ington by Mr. Buchanan, at that time secretary of state under President Polk, to confer with the administration in reference to the appointment of Catholic chaplains in the army, then on the way to invade Mexico. The result was that Father John McElroy, S. J., and Father Anthony Rey, S. J., received the appointment. In 1846 and 1847, the Sisters of Charity in the diocese of New York were organized into a separate society, thus severing all connection with the 236 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. parent house at Emmitsburg. In 1S17, Bishop Connolly, of New York, applied to the superior-general of the Sisters of Charity, at Emmitsburg, for some sisters to take charge of an orphan asylum in his episcopal city. The new mission was confided to the pious and zealous Sister Rose White, and two companions. On the 13th of September, they took charge of St. Patrick's asylum, corner of Prince and Mott streets. This was the humble beginning of that flourishing community, whose establishments of mercy, charity, and education now cover the Empire state, and in which alone the rule and dress of Mother Seton are preserved unaltered. Some time after his accession to the see of New York, Dr. Hughes wished to establish a male orphan asylum. This, with other wants in view, induced the zealous prelate to make a formal petition to Emmitsburg for a large colony of sisters. The council of the mother-house notified him that his request could not be granted, and, moreover, that the sisters would no longer be allowed to take charge of male orphans. The bishop then corresponded with the superior-general, representing the ugent necessities of his diocese; and the result was the establishment of a separate mother-house at New York, of which Dr. Hughes may be con- sidered the founder. The members who did not desire to remain under the new order of things, were left at perfect liberty to go to Emmitsburg. Of the fifty sisters at that time in the diocese, thirty-one remained; and, on the 8th of December, 1S46, the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin, Dr. Hughes constituted the Sisters of Charity in his diocese a separate community, under the title of the "Sisters of Charity of St- Vincent de Paul." Pius IX, by a brief of June, 1S47, approved the new organization, and conferred upon it all the rights and privileges granted to the Sisters of Charity in France or America. The New York sisters now represent the society as founded by the saintly Mother Seton. " He went about doing good." These words might justly be applied to the whole life of Dr. Hughes. In 1847 he received an invitation from John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, and other distinguished men, to preach before congress in the capitol at Washington. He took as his subject, " Christianity the only source of moral, social, and political regeneration." It is a splendid discourse. Nor, with pen and tongue thus eloquently laboring in the cause of truth, did he ever for a moment forget the important interests of Catholic education. At this period we find that, through his efforts, the Jesuit Fathers, Ladies of LIONS OF THE FOLD. 2 ~» the Sacred Heart, Christian Brothers, Sisters of Charity, and Sisters of Mercy were settled down to the almost divine work of teaching the young " the way in which they should go." Though one of the most devoted citizens of the United States, Bishop Hughes never forgot his native land. He loved it with his last breath. In 1847, when the famine was raging in Ireland, he sent the collections just taken up for his theological seminary, amounting to $14,000, to relieve his unhappy countrymen. He was a noble patriot, and was greatly mortified by the failure of the '48 movement. The brief of our late illustrious holy father, Pope Pius IX, erecting New York into an archiepiscopal see, with the sees of Boston, Hartford, Albany, and Buffalo, as suffragan sees, was received by Dr. Hughes in the fall of 1850. He sailed for Europe, and had the honor of receiving the pal- lium from the hands of the sovereign pontiff himself. This was a distinc- tion which the archbishop always alluded to with pleasure and gratitude. In 1854 Archbishop Hughes was one of» the American prelates who accepted the invitation of Pius IX to attend the assembly of bishops from the whole Catholic world, gathered together to take part in the ceremonies attendant upon the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. He was a member of that august assembly, and as a devout child of the Most Holy Virgin he was greatly attached to the dogma. On his return to New York he recounted the grandeur of the proceed- ings at which he had the pleasure of assisting. He also immediately began the erection of a church in honor of the Immaculate Conception, which he solemnly consecrated on the 15th of May, 1858. This was the ninety-ninth church erected and dedicated under his personal supervision. Everything human is limited. Everything human, unhappily, is subject to change. Such had been the active and laborious life of Archbishop Hughes, and such the exciting scenes and contests through which he had passed, that his health, naturally robust, began to fail him in 1848, when he was about fifty years of age. Many of his great labors and most brilliant efforts were performed in the midst of intense suffering. His natural vigor and marvelous activity of character, it is true, resisted for a time the encroachment of disease ; but after the year 1855 he made but few efforts such as those that marked the first part of his episcopal career. But though the energy of life was on the decline, Dr. Hughes began one 23 3 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. of the greatest of his many great works — the erection of the new and magnifi- cent Cathedral of St. Patrick. The corner-stone of this grand structure was laid on August 15, 1858, in the presence of seven bishops, one hundred and; thirty priests, and at least 100,000 people. No accident occurred. Every- thing passed off in the most perfect order. This is the largest, most costly, and most beautiful structure of the kind in this Republic. The style of architecture is the decorated Gothic which prevailed in Europe about the fourteenth century. The foundation is of immense blocks of granite, and all above the base course consists of fine white marble. The extreme length is 332 feet; extreme breath, 174 feet. To the height of 330 feet the two mas- sive towers each point heavenward. Beauty and majesty mark the interior. Some idea of the archbishop's still wonderful energy, and of his influence with his flock, may be formed from the single fact that he paid visits to the most wealthy Catholics to solicit contributions to the new Cathedral ; and in one hundred of these visits, which did not occupy over twenty-four hours, hi found one hundred persons who gave him $1,000 each. Before his death the walls of this noble structure reached the height of twelve or fourteen feet. In 1859 ne -took an active part in showing his sympathy for the gloriout Pius IX, when the star of evil destiny shone on the Eternal city. Dr. Hughes issued an inspiring pastoral on the subject, which was so gratefully received by the holy father, that he ordered it to be printed at the propa- ganda in English and Italian — a distinction never before conferred on awy other pastoral at Rome. He also raised a collection of $53,000, in aid of the holy father's depleted treasury. On receiving this present and the letter of sympathy which accompanied it, Pius IX was moved to tears; and as a mark of his grate- ful appreciation he sent to the archbishop a first-class medal for his religious zeal, and singular and devoted attachment to the chair of Peter. At the beginning of the late Civil War Archbishop Hughes was fre- quently consulted by Secretary Seward and President Lincoln. In 1861, he was sent by the Government on a special mission to Europe. Of the object of this journey he wrote to Cardinal Barnabo: " My mission is a mission of peace between France and England on the one side, and the United States on the other. I made known to the president that if I should come to Europe it would not be as a partisan of the North more than of the South; that I should represent the interests of the South as well as of the North; in short, the interests of the United States, just the same as if they had LIONS OF THE FOLD. 2 39 never been distracted by the present Civil War. The people of the South know that I am not opposed to their interests. They have even published that in their papers, and some say that my coming to Europe is with a view to bring about a reconciliation between the two sections of the country. But, in fact, no one but myself, either North or South, knows the entire object of my visit to Europe." He visited Rome, Ireland, and Paris, and had long and important inter- views with the French emperor and empress. After his return in 1862, an official intimation was conveyed to the Holy See that the president of the United States would be greatly pleased to see Archbishop Hughes made a cardinal ; but it seems that Providence reserved this dignity for his vener- able successor. The last institution established by him was St. Joseph's Theological Seminary, at Troy. He delivered his last sermon in June, 1863, at the dedication of a church; and his last attempt at public speaking was during the draft riot in New York City, in July, 1863, when he made a discourse to the people at the request of Governor Seymour, to dissuade them from violence. He spoke from the balcony of his residence in Madison avenue, and was obliged to remain seated, in consequence of the extremely feeble state of his health. Years of unceasing toil had shattered that once active and powerful frame. He had spent himself for God, and truth, and religion. He had borne the heat and burden of the day. He had fought the good fight, and now he was about to receive the reward of the faithful servant. And surrounded by loved and venerated friends, the great prelate departed from the scenes of his earthly toils, and trials, and triumphs, on January 3, 1S64. The legislature and the common council passed resolutions of condolence, and testimonials of respect were offered from every quarter. Dr. Hughes was a most heroic, venerable, and illustrious man. Whether we contemplate the noble boy kneeling by the hay-rick, or the famous arch- bishop building up the Catholic Church in the Empire state, l'eflecting honor on his faith and his countrymen by the luster of his name, or counselling rulers and presidents, speaking words of warning and wisdom to kings and emperors, or carrying in his hand the destiny of nations, there is still to be seen the same bright life, the same grandeur of soul. It is the sun rising in the east, moving on its silent course, brilliantly shining in the west, and, finally, sinking amid the sad and solemn splendor of its evening rays. The 240 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. career of such an extraordinary man is a light for after-ages. He is one of the glories of the Catholic Church in America. In our sketch of the great archbishop we have noticed that in 1847 the Holy See, to the great joy of the prelate, divided his extensive diocese, and committed the see of Albany to his able coadjutor, Bishop McCloskey, anc. appointed to the new see of Buffalo the Rev. John Timon, of the Congrega- tion of the Missions. In a short time a new division was proposed, to lighten still more the burden attached to the see of New York. Part of New Jersey depended on it and part on the see of Philadelphia. The Holy See deemed it now for the interest of religion to unite the whole state of New Jersey under a bishop whose see was fixed at Newark, and appointed as the first bishop, the Rev. James Roosevelt Bayley, then secretary of the archbishop. The city of Brooklyn, which had become one of the largest in America, was also made a see, and conferred on the Very Rev. John Loughlin, vicar-general of the diocese. An account of some of these holy prelates, one of whom has but recently died, will fitly complete this notice of Catholicity in the Empire state. John Timon, who became bishop of Buffalo, was of American birth but Irish parentage. His father, James, emigrated from the county Cavan in the latter part of 1796 or the beginning of 1797, and settled at Conewago, in Adams county, Pennsylvania, where, in a rude log house, John was born on the 1 2th of February, 1797, the second of a family of ten children. The father and mother seem to have been remarkably devout people, and from an anecdote related of them we can fancy that the lavish beneficence which char- acterized the bishop was an hereditary virtue in the family. Mr. James Timon called, one day, upon a priest whom he had known in Ireland, and, taking it for granted that the reverend gentleman must be in want of money, he slipped into his hand at parting a $100 bill, and hurried away. The priest, supposing Mr. Timon had made a mistake, ran after him, and overtook him in the street. " My dear friend," said the generous Irishman, " it was no mistake. I intended it for you." " But," said the clergyman, " I assure you I am not in want; I do not need it." " Never mind; there are many who do. If you have no use for the money yourself give it to the poor." The Timon family removed to Baltimore in 1802, and there John received his school education, such as it was. As soon as he was old enough, he became a clerk in a dry-goods shop kept by his father. From Baltimore the family removed, in 1S1S, to Louisville, and thence in the following spring to St. Louis. Here prosperity at last rewarded Mr. Timon's industry, and he LIONS OF THE FOLD. 241 accumulated a considerable fortune, only to lose it, however, in the commer. cial crisis of 1S23. In the midst of these pecuniary misfortunes, John Timon suffered a still heavier loss in the death of a young lady to whom he was engaged to be married. But we may well look upon it as a manifestation of the kindness of Divine Providence, which called the young man to a higher and more useful life, and designed first to break off his attachment to all the things of this world. He heard and obeyed the call, and, in the month of April, 1823, became a student of the Lazarists at their preparatory seminary of St. Mary's of the Barrens, in Perry county, Missouri, about eighty miles below St. Louis. The Lazarists, or Priests of the Mission, had been introduced into the United States only six years before, and their institutions, founded with great difficulty in the midst of a poor and scattered population, were still struggling with debt and discouragement. The little establishment at the Barrens was for many years in a pitiable condition of destitution. When Mr. Timon entered as a candidate not only for the priesthood, but for admission to the congregation, it was governed by the Rev. Joseph Rosati, who became, a year later, the first bishop of St. Louis. The buildings consisted of a few log houses. The largest of them, a one-story cabin, contained in one corner the theological department, in another the schools of philosophy and general literature, in a third the tailor's shop, and in the fourth the shoemaker's. The refectory was a detached log-house ; and in very bad weather the seminarians often went to bed supperless rather than make the journey thither in search of their very scanty fare. It was no uncommon thing for them, of a winter's morning, to rise from their mattresses, spread upon the floor, and find over their blankets a covering of snow, which had drifted through the crevices of the logs. The system upon which the seminary was supported was the same that prevails at Mount St. Mary's. For three hours in the day the students of divinity were expected to teach in the secular college connected with the sem- inary, and for out-of-door exercise they cut fuel and worked on the farm. Mr. Timon, in spite of these labors, made such rapid progress in his studies that in 1824 he was ordained sub-deacon, and began to accompany his super- iors occasionally in their missionary excursions. They lived in the midst of spiritual destitution. The French pioneers of the Western country had planted the Faith at St. Louis and some other prom- inent points, but they had left few or no traces in the vast tracts of territory 17 242 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. surrounding the earlier settlements, and to most of the country people the Roman Catholic Church was no better than a sort of aggravated pagan imposture. Protestant preachers used to show themselves at the very doors of the churches and challenge the priests to come out and be confuted. Wherever the Lazarists traveled they were looked at with the most intense curiosity. Very few of the settlers had ever seen a priest before. The Catholics, scattered here and there, had generally been deprived, for years, of Mass and the sacraments, and their children were growing up utterly ignorant of religion. Mr. Timon was accustomed to make a regular missionary circuit of fifteen or twenty miles around the Barrens in company with Father Odin, afterwards archbishop of New Orleans. The duty of the sub-deacon was to preach, catechise, and instruct. Sometimes they had no other shelter than the woods, and no other food than wild berries. At a settlement called Apple Creek, they made a chapel out of a large pig-pen, cleaning it out with then- own hands, building an altar, and so decorating the poor little place with fresh boughs that it became the wonder of the neighborhood. In 1824 Messrs. Odin and Timon made a long missionary tour on horse- back, going as far as New Madrid, in Missouri, and Arkansas Post, in the state of Arkansas. Along the route they traveled — where they had to swim rivers, flounder through morasses, and sleep in the swamps — no priest had been seen for more than thirty-five years. Their zeal, intelligence, graceful and impassioned speech, and modest manners, seem to have made a great impression on the settlers. They had the satisfaction of disarming much prejudice, receiving some converts, and administering the sacraments; and, after an interesting visit to an Indian tribe on the Arkansas River, they returned to the Barrens. About this time (in 1S25), Mr. Timon was promoted to the priesthood and appointed a professor at the seminary. His missionary labors were now greatly increased. Some interesting anecdotes are related of his tours, which curiously illustrate the state of religion at that time in the West. One day, Father Timon was summoned to Jackson, Missouri, to visit a murderer under sentence of death. With some difficulty he got admission to the jail, but a crowd of men led by a Baptist minister named Green, who was also editor of the village newspaper, entered with him. The prisoner was found lying on a heap of straw and chained to a post. The hostile mob refused to leave the priest alone with him ; but, in spite of their interference, Father Timon suc- ceeded in touching the man's heart and preparing him for the sacraments. LIONS OF THE FOLD. 2 43 While they were repeating the Apostles' Creed together, the minister pushed forward and exclaimed, "do not make the poor man lose his soul by teach- ing him the commandments of men!" And this interruption was followed by a violent invective against Romish corruptions. "Mr. Green," said the priest, "not long ago, I refuted all these charges before a public meeting in the court-house of this village, and challenged any- body who could answer me to stand forth and do so. You were present, but you made no answer. Surely this is no time for you to interfere — when I am preparing a man for death!" Mr. Green's only reply was a challenge to a public controversy next day, which Father Timon immediately accepted. The minister then insisted upon making a rancorous polemical prayer, in the course of which he said: " O God of mercy ! save this man from the fangs of Antichrist, who now seeks to teach him idolatry and the vain traditions of men." "Gentlemen," exclaimed the priest to the crowd which now filled the dungeon, " is it right that, in a prayer to the God of charity and truth, this man should introduce a calumny against the majority of Christians?" How far the extraordinary discussion might have gone it would be hard to guess, had not the sheriff turned everybody out and locked the jail for the night. The next morning, the debate took place according to agreement, the district judge being appointed moderator. After about three or four hours' speaking, Mr. Green gave up the battle and withdrew. Father Timon kept on for an hour and a half longer, and the result is said to have been a great Catholic revival in the community. The prisoner, who had steadily refused to accept the ministrations of any but a Catholic clergyman, was baptized immediately after the debate. On another occasion, Father Timon carried on a debate with a Protest- ant clergyman — apparently a Methodist — in the court-house at Perry ville. The Methodist was easily worsted, but there was soon to be a conference meeting some eighteen miles off, and there he felt sure the priest would meet his match. "Do you mean this as a challenge? " "No; I don't invite you. I only say you can go if you choose." Father Timon refused to go under these circumstances; but, learning afterwards that a rumor was in circulation that he had pledged himself to be on the ground, he changed his mind, and reached the scene of the meeting — which was in the open air — just after one of the preachers had finished a discourse on Transubstantiation and the Real Presence. 244 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. "There is a Romish priest present," this orator had said, "and if he dares to come forward, the error of his ways will be pointed out to him." So Father Timon mounted a stump, and announced that in a quarter of an hour he would begin a discourse on the Real Presence. This was more than the ministers had bargained for. They had been confident he would not attend. They surrounded him in considerable excite- ment, and declared that he should not preach. Father Timon appealed to the people, and they decided that he should be heard. He borrowed a bible from one of his adversaries, and with the aid of numerous texts explained and supported the Catholic doctrine. The discussion was long and earnest. The preachers at last were silenced, and Father Timon continued for some time to exhort the crowd and urge them to return to the true Church. Which was, to say the least, a curious termination for a Methodist conference meeting. One of the most serious difficulties which the pioneer missionaries had to encounter was the want of opportunities of private converse with people whose hearts had been stirred by the first motions of divine grace. The log- dwellings of the settlers rarely contained more than one room, and that often held a pretty large family. Many anecdotes are told of confessions made among the corn-stalks in the garden, or under the shadow of the forest, or on horseback in the lonely roads. On one occasion Father Timon had been summoned a long distance to visit a dying man. The cabin consisted of a single room. When all was over, the wife of the dead man knelt beside the body and made her confes- sion, the rest of the family and the neighbors, meanwhile, standing out- doors in the rain. Then the widow was baptized into the Church, and, as the storm was violent and the hour past midnight, Father Timon slept on the bed with the corpse, while the rest of the company disposed themselves on the floor. Ten years had been passed in labors of this kind, when, in 1835, letters arrived from Paris, erecting the American mission of the Lazaristsinto a pro- vince, and appointing Father Timon visitor. He accepted the charge with great reluctance and only after long hesitation. It was indeed a heavy bur- den. The affairs of the congregation were far from prosperous. The institution at the Barrens was deeply in debt. The revenues were uncertain. The relations between the seminary and the bishop were not entirely har- monious. Several priests had left the community, and were serving parishes LIONS OF THE FOLD. 245 without the permission of their superiors. To restore discipline would be an invidious task on many accounts. But, having undertaken the office, Father Timon did not shrink. He saved the college and seminary from threatened extinction; he brought back his truant brethren; he revived the spirit of zeal and self-sacrifice; he restored harmony, he greatly improved the finances. In a short time, he made a visit to France, and returned with a small sup- ply of money and a company of priests. On Christmas eve, in 1S38, he sailed for Galveston, in order to make a report to the Holy See upon the con- dition of religion in the republic of Texas. He found the country in a sad state of spiritual destitution. The only priests were two Mexicans at San Antonio. There were no churches. There were no sacraments. Even marriage was a rite about which the settlers were not over-par- ticular. Father Timon did what little he could, on a hurried tour, to remedy these evils ; but a year or two later he came back as prefect-apostolic, accompanied by Father Odin, and now he was able to introduce great reforms. Congregations were collected, churches begun in all the largest settlements, and the scandals at San Antonio abated. Firm in correction, but gracious in manner, untiring in labors, insensible to fear, making long jour- neys with a single companion through dangerous Indian countries, struggling through swamps, swimming broad rivers — the prefect and his assistant, Father Odin, traveled, footsore, hungry, and in rags, through this rude wil- derness, and wherever they passed they planted the good seed and made ready the soil for the husbandmen who were to come after them. In the principal towns and settlements they were invariably received with honor. The court-houses or other public rooms were placed at their disposal for religious services, and the educated Protestant inhabitants took pains to meet them socially and learn from them something about the faith. We find in the account of these tours no trace of the acrimonious polemical discus- sions which used to enliven the labors of the missionaries at the Barrens. There was little or no controversy, and the priests were invited to explain religious truth rather over the dinner-table than on the rostrum. At the request of Mr. Timon, Father Odin was soon afterward appointed vicar-apostolic of Texas, and sent to continue the work thus happily begun. It was in 1847 triat Mr. Timon was removed from the western field and consecrated first bishop of Buffalo. When he had disposed all his affairs and made ready for his departure, his worldly goods consisted of a small trunk 24 6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. about half-full of scanty clothing. He had to borrow money enough to pay his way to New York. But meanwhile some friends, having heard of his poverty, replenished his wardrobe, and made up a purse of $400 for his immediate needs. He was consecrated in the Cathedral of New York by Bishops Hughes, Walsh, and McCloskey, on the 17th of October, and reached Buffalo five days afterward. It was evening when he arrived. An immense crowd of people — it is said as many as 10,000 — were in waiting for him at the railway station. There were bands of music, banners and flam- beaux, a four-horse carriage for the bishop, and a long torchlight proces- sion to escort him home. It is reported that, after the cortege had gone some distance, the humble bishop was discovered, valise in hand, trudging afoot through the rain and mud, behind the coach in which he was supposed to be riding. In after- times he must have sadly compared the cordial greeting of his flock on this night with the trials, the insults, the persecutions, which he had to bear from some of the very same people during almost the whole of his episcopate. We shall not enlarge upon the history of these sad years. Scandals which arose from the fac- tious and schismatical spirit of the trustees of the Church of St. Louis in Buffalo began while Bishop Timon was still a humble missionary in Mis- souri. They had been quelled by the firmness of Bishop Hughes, but they broke out again very soon after the creation ot the new diocese, and Bishop Timon suffered from them to the end of his life. Having no cathedral and no house, he lodged when he first arrived with the pastor of St. Louis', but he had been there only a few weeks when the trustees, in their mad jealousy of possible invasion of their imaginary rights, requested him to find a home somewhere else. This brutal behavior was the beginning of a long warfare, FATHER HENNEPIN AT NIAGARA FALLS. / LIONS OF THE FOLD. 247 but we prefer to devote our space to a description of some of the charming traits of character of the holy man who crowned a life of incessant labor with an old age of suffering. From the moment of his elevation to the episcopal dignity, the sacred simplicity of his disposition seems to have daily increased. If the anecdote of his behavior at the torchlight procession is not true, it is at any rate consistent with his character. Bishop Hughes declared that the bishop of Buffalo was the humblest man he had ever known. Though he was very neat and precise in everything relating to the service of the sanctuary, rags of any kind seemed to him " good enough for the old bishop," and it was only by stealth, so to speak, that his friends could keep his wardrobe tolerably well supplied. In his visits to the seminary it was his delight to talk familiarly with the young men. At the orphan asylum the children used to ride on his back. Visit- ing strange churches, he would kneel in the confessional like any other peni- tent. In his private and official intercourse with his clergy, it was not unusual for him to beg pardon with the utmost humility for fancied acts of injustice. On one occasion he had slightly rebuked a priest for some irregularity. Sat- isfied afterward that the rebuke had not been deserved, he invited the priest to dinner, placed him at the head of the table, treated him with marked dis- tinction, and afterward, taking him to his own room, in the presence of another bishop, threw himself upon his knees and begged to be forgiven. In the course of a visitation to a disturbed parish, a member of the con- gregation he was addressing publicly spat in the bishop's face. He took no notice of the occurrence, but went on with his remarks. " Never shall I for- get," wrote the late distinguished Jesuit, Father Smarms, " the days of the missions for the laity and of the retreats for the clergy, which I had the pleasure to conduct in the Cathedral at Buffalo during the three or four years previous to his holy demise. The first to rise in the morning and to ring the bell for meditation and for prayer, he would totter from door to door along the corridors of the episcopal residence, with a lighted candle in his hand, to see whether all had responded to the call of the bell and betaken themselves to the spot marked out for the performance of that sacred and wholesome duty. . . . And then, that more than fatherly heart, that forgiving kindness to repentant sinners, even to such as had again and again deservedly incurred his displeasure and the penalties of ecclesiastical censures or excommuni- cations. ' Father,' he would say, ' I leave this case in your hands. I give you all power, only save his soul.' And then, that simple, child-like humility, 24 3 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. which seemed wounded by even the performance of acts which the excel- lence and dignity of the episcopacy naturally force from its subjects and infe- riors. How often have I seen him fall on his aged knees, face to face with one or other of my clerical brethren, who had fallen on theirs to receive his saintly blessing. " He took great pains to cultivate the virtue of humility in his clergy. A proud priest he had little hope for. To those who complained of the hard- ships of the mission, he would answer, " Why did you become a priest? It was to suffer, to be persecuted, according to the example laid down by our Lord Jesus Christ." In the strictness with which he tried to watch over the spiritual welfare of his clergy, and changed their positions when he thought the good of their souls required it, his rule was like that of the superior of a monastery rather than the head of a diocese. He was filled to a remarkable degree with the spirit of prayer. He began no labor, decided no question, without long and fervent supplication for the divine assistance. On occasions of festivity or ceremony, he loved to steal away to the quiet of the sanctuary, and under the shadow of a column in the Cathedral to pass long hours in meditation. In traveling he was often seen kneeling in his seat in the cars. His household was always ordered like a religious community. The day be^an and ended with prayer and meditation in common. The bishop rose at five, and in the evening retired early to his room — not to sleep, but to pass most of the night in devotion, study, and writing. Up to the very close of his life he used to set out in the depth of winter to visit distant parishes unannounced, starting from the house before any one else was awake, and trudging painfully through the snow with his bag in his hand. Religious communities, when they assembled for morning devotions, were often sur- prised to find the bishop on his knees waiting for them. By these sudden visits he was sometimes enabled to correct irregularities, which he never suffered to pass unrebuked ; but he used to say that in dealing with others he would be rather too lax than too severe, as he hoped to be judged mercifully by Almighty God. The sweetness of Bishop Timon's disposition was in correspondence with the tenderness of his heart. The patience with which he bore the sorrows of his episcopate was equaled by the keenness with which he felt them. Toward the close of his life several anonymous communications, accusing him of cruelty, avarice, injustice, and many other faults — of cruelty, this man whose heart was as soft as a woman's — of avarice, this charitable LIONS OF THE FOLD. 249 soul, who gave away everything he had, and left himself at times not even a ehange of linen of injustice, this bishop who pardoned every one but him- self — were sent him in the form of printed circulars. So deeply was he wounded that his biographer is assured that the incident hastened his death; he never was the same man afterward. At the end of the next diocesan synod he knelt before his priests, and, in a voice broken by tears, asked pardon of every one present whom he might have in any manner treated unjustly. He died on the 16th of April, 1867, after a rapid but gradual decay whose termination he himself was the first to foresee, and his last hours were as beautiful and inspiring as his years of holy labor. Right Rev. Dr. Loughlin was born in the North of Ireland; came to America at an early age; made his theological studies at Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, and was ordained by Bishop Hughes in the fall of 1840. He at once began the exercise of the holy ministry in New York, and for years proved his devotedness in that most trying of all missions — an extensive parish in a crowded city. He was soon raised to the responsible position of vicar-general; and in the fall of 1853, was consecrated first bishop of Brooklyn, by Archbishop Bedini. His diocese was Long Island, named by the early Catholic navigators, Isle of the Apostles. Bishop Loughlin's long episcopate has been marked by the rapid and continued progress of the faith. In Brooklyn alone he has dedicated about fifty churches. Catholic institutions of charity or education, crown nearly every elevation in the " City of Churches." He introduced the Visitation Nuns, the Sisters of St. Joseph, Franciscan Brothers, Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of the Good Shepherd, Little Sisters of the Poor, and several other religious orders. In June, 1S68, he laid the corner-stone of the Cathe- dral of the Immaculate Conception in the presence of five bishops and about forty thousand people. Many years will still be required to complete this great structure. Its dimensions are — length, 354 feet jbreadth, 180; height of towers, 350. The style of architecture is the French Gothic of the thirteenth century. Under the rule of Bishop Loughlin, the diocese of Brooklyn became one of the most important in this republic. He died in 1891. John McCloskey, second archbishop of New York and first American cardinal, was born in Brooklyn, L. I., on the 10th of March, 1810. ' His excellent parents were both natives of the County Derry, Ireland. At the date of his birth Brooklyn was a little town of about 4,500 inhabitants. There were few Catholics in it, and no church. As a boy at school, we are told 2 r Q THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. that he was a gentle, delicate lad, who avoided rough play and studied hard, always retiring and modest, ever in good humor, and, whatever his class, pretty sure to be at the head of it. In his twelfth year, two years after his father's death, he was sent to Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg. Here he first became acquainted with John Hughes, afterwards the famous arch- bishop, who was pursuing his studies at the same institution. John McCloskey went through the full seven years' curriculum, graduating with the highest honors, in 1S28. He returned to his mother, then living in West- chester County, New York. As yet he had come to no decision regarding his vocation; but after careful thought and recommending the matter to God, he chose the sacred ministry. He once more sought the halls of his Alma Mater , completed his theological studies, and was ordained by Bishop Dubois in 1834. Father McCloskey proceeded to Rome in 1S35, and for two years attended the lectures at the Gregorian University. He returned to New York, a pro- found theologian, a ripe and finished scholar, but above all, a model young priest. Appointed pastor of St. Joseph's, and soon after president of St. John's College, Fordham, he was finally consecrated coadjutor bishop of New York in the spring of 1844. Thus the ecclesiastical chief of New York and his assistant were John Hughes, once the sturdy young farmer, who, brush- ing difficulties aside, manfully pushed his way through college; and John McCloskey, once the gentle boy who in company with his dear Irish mother often crossed Fulton Ferry to hear Mass in old St. Peter's; and whose youth- ful battles were only with books! On the day of consecration Rev. Dr. Power was the preacher. " I have known him from boyhood," said the eloquent priest, " I have seen the youthful bud of genius unfold itself, and I have seen it also in full expansion, and I thank God I have been spared to behold it now blessing the House of the Lord." Bishop McCloskey's duties required him to travel through the greater part of New York state. To-day, in many a secluded mission in the western portion of it, where there are large churches and larger congregations, old men still tell of the well-remembered visits of the young, smooth-cheeked bishop, so kind in manner, so earnest, so eloquent, who, a half century ago, came to them, reviving their faith, re-kindling their fervor, and infusing into their hearts something of his own hopefulness and energy, and doing a work the effects of which still endure. In 1847 the diocese of New York was divided, and Dr. McCloskey LIONS OF THE FOLD. 25 1 nominated to the see of Albany. To the task of building up that diocese he devoted himself for seventeen years. The magnificent Cathedral of Albany, with many flourishing schools and academies, are but a few of the monu- ments he left behind when he was elevated to the metropolitan see of New York in 1864. Rome considered him as the most worthy to grasp the pas- toral staff, and to wear the miter of the great Hughes. Grand was the ovation Dr. McCloskey received on his return to the Empire City. There he was no stranger among strangers. He had been baptized in old St. Peter's, and in it he had received his first Communion at the hands of the venerable Peter Malou. He had been confirmed by Bishop Connolly; he had been ordained by Bishop Dubois, and he had been conse- crated by Archbishop Hughes. In this exalted position Archbishop McCloskey did not spare himself. Two undertakings especially stand out in bold relief — the fine Catholic Pro- tectory at Westchester, N. Y., and the completion of the massively grand St. Patrick's Cathedral, which was dedicated by him in May, 1879, assisted by forty-two archbishops and bishops. In the spring of 1S75 the crowning honor was bestowed on this most worthy prelate. He was created cardinal. In this event Catholicity in America was honored; and the faith received an impulse which was felt throughout this great republic. Full of years and . saintliness, the cardinal expired on October 10, 18S5, and was succeeded by his coadjutor, Most Rev. M. A. Corrigan. tifttapte* gill. THE fcAND OF THE PURITANS. Welcome for All But Catholics. — Prisons and Banishment. — Burned for Praying in Irish. — Washington Suppresses Guy Fawkes. — Days of Kind- lier Feeling. — Father Thayer, the Convert. — Story of a Changing Heart. — Help from Troubled France. — Three Zealous Priests. — Arrival of Father Cheverus. — Building a Poor Cathedral. — Father Matignon's Epitaph. — Bringing Over the Good Sisters. — Tom Paine Sends for a Priest. — The Infidel Dies Impenitent. — Bishop Fenwick's Toils and Trials. — A Holy Death. — Bishop Fitzpatrick. — A Learned and Laborious Prelate.— Father William Becomes Coadjutor. — A Death and a Conse- C RATION. — BOST ON ALMOST MADE CATHOLIC. — A J UBILEE OF HONOR AND S UCCESS. EFORE the Revolution, we need scarcely look for a single repre- sentative of Catholicity in all New England, Virginia, the Carol- i==^ inas, and Georgia. There, intolerance held undisputed sway. A The penal code reigned supreme. The follower of the ancient Faith was denied freedom even where the wolf and the bear roamed at liberty. Like his Divine Master, he had scarcely " where to lay his head" in safety. In New England the peaceful Quaker and the unoffending Catholic were treated with about equal cruelty. The legislature of Massachusetts in 1647, enacted, that Jesuits entering the colony should be expelled, and, if they returned, hanged. As years passed on, each new enactment surpassed the other in positive ferocity. In 1657, the foregoing Puritan body passed a law against the entrance of Quakers, which is its own best commentary. For daring to come among the Christian (?) Pilgrim Fathers of New England, " every male Quaker shall, for the first offense, have one of his ears cut off, and be kept at work in the house of correction till he can be sent away at his own charge; and for the second offense, shall have the other ear cut off, 252 THE LAND OF THE PURITANS. 353 and be kept at the house of correction as aforesaid. And every woman Quaker that shall presume to come into this jurisdiction, shall be severely whipt, and kept at the house of correction till she be sent away at her own charge. And for every Quaker (man or woman) that shall a third time herein offend, they shall have their tongues bored through with a red hot iron, and kept at the house of correction till they be sent away at their own charge." " It were hard to say," writes John Francis Maguire, " whether the Puritan was more ferociously in earnest in his persecution of Quakers and Catholics, or in his extermination of witches — for a profound belief in witch- craft was one of the most striking evidences of his enlightenment and good sense In Catholic Maryland there had been no ear-cropping, no boring of tongues with hot pokers — such exhibitions of brotherly love and mercy were reserved for the Plymouth Fathers." In 1692, when the two Massachusetts colonies were erected into a single royal province, under a new charter from William and Mary, liberty of conscience was assured to all but Catholics. The Episcopal form of worship was placed upon the same footing as the Congregational, and church mem- bership was no longer to be a qualification for citizenship. Still, the preju- dice against Catholics remained as strong as ever, and the Mother Church had no recognition. The witchcraft mania which raged before and about this time was made a source of persecution to anybody suspected of "Papist" tendencies. One of its earliest victims was a woman known as Goody Glover, and supposed to be a Catholic from Ireland. Father Fitton, in his valuable " Sketches of the Establishment of the Church in New England," gives the following interesting account of this woman: " Mrs. Glover, for such was her name, was probably one of the unfortu- nate women whom English barbarity tore from their homes in Ireland to sell as slaves in America. English she could scarcely speak; and, on being accused as a witch, by a certain Miss Goodwin, for whom her daughter worked, she was arrested and put to the usual tests, one of which was the repetition of the Lord's Prayer; she repeated it in Irish, but as it was not understood, they required more. She repeated it next in Latin, but not quite correctly; in English she could not, as she had never learned it. This, however, corroborated the testimony of the girl, her accuser, and the poor Irish woman was hanged, because she could not pray in a language to her foreign and unknown, and, strangely enough, for not praying in pure Latin!" 2 54 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Notwithstanding all the restrictions and persecutions, a few Catholics from time to time found their way to Boston, and quietly lived there without any profession of faith. Soon after its settlement, Boston became the most important seaport of the colonies and it carried on a flourishing trade with England, West Indies, and other ports in America. From a volume of the "Boston Town Records," under date of September 22, 1746, the following has been copied: " Whereas it is suggested that there are several persons Roman Catholicks that now dwell and reside in this Town and it may be very Dangerous to permit such persons to Reside here in Case we should be attack'd by an Enemy, Therefore Voted that Mr. Jeremiah Allen Mr. Nathaniel Gardner and Mr. Joseph Bradford be and hereby are appointed a Committee to take Care and prevent any Danger the Town may be in from Roman Catholicks residing here by making Strict Search and enquiry after all such and pursue such methods relating to em as the Law directs." On the 25th of September, the " Town mett according to Adjournment" and "The Committee appointed the 22d instant to take Care and prevent any Danger the Town may be in by Roman Catholicks residing here, Reported that they had found the Laws now in force relating to such persons to be insufficient To Enable them to Effect the same and therefore could do noth- ing hereon altho they suspected a considerable number of Roman Catholicks to be now in Town Whereupon it was moved & Voted that the Rep- resentatives of this Town be and hereby are desired to Endeavour at the next Session of the General Court to get a Law pass'd that shall be effectual to Secure the Town from any Danger they may be in, by Roman Catholicks Dwelling here." While the Catholic religion was barred out of Massachusetts in colonial days, it -was steadily spreading in other parts of the New World. In the north under the protection of the French flag, the heroic Jesuit missionaries were converting the Indians in the forests of Maine, along the banks of the St. Lawrence, and on the shores of the Great Lakes. In the south, the zeal- ous English Jesuit Fathers, White and Altham, who landed with the Catholic Pilgrims on the shores of Maryland in 1634, labored successfully among the Indians and colonists; and the enterprising Franciscan and Dominican fathers carried the blessings of Christian civilization farther south, from Florida to the shores of the Pacific. To Massachusetts must be accorded the discredit of resisting the establishment of the Catholic Church long after it had gained a foothold in almost every other place in America. THE LAND OF THE PURITANS. 255 As early as 1650, only twenty years after the settlement of Boston, the Rev. Gabriel Druillettes, the Jesuit apostle of Maine, visited the Puritan town, on the invitation and under the protection of the authorities. He came as a plenipotentiary to confer with Governor Dudley and other commissioners about joining an alliance with the Abnaki Indians in Maine. He reached Boston on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, 1650, and was graciously received by the officials. " The principal men of Charlestown," writes Father Fitton, "immediately waited on him, and Major-General Gibbons, being informed of the character in which he came, invited him to his house." In his own narrative, the good Jesuit father says: "He [Gibbons] gave the key of a room where I might in all liberty, pray and perform the other exercises of my religion ; and he besought me to take no other lodging while I was in Boston." Father Druillettes does not state that he carried his missionary chalice with him ; " but," Father Fitton says, " as this is by no means improbable, we may infer that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered in Boston, in December, 1650." In 1700, a new act was passed by Massachusetts, condemning Catholic missionaries to imprisonment and death if captured on her soil, charging them with all sorts of crimes. Under laws of this nature, the Catholic mission- aries were forced to confine themselves to other parts of America. It was not until the colonies threw off the yoke of England and declared themselves free and independent, that Catholic priests were tolerated in Boston. To the illustrious Washington are Catholics indebted for the first favor- able recognition. When he assumed command of the army around Boston in 1 775, he was astonished to find that preparations were in progress to cele- brate " Gun Powder Plot," by the usual custom of burning the pope in effigy. He determined to stop the bigoted practice, so far as the camp was concerned, and issued the following order: "November 5th. As the Commander-in-chief has been apprised of a design formed for the observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the effigy of the pope, he cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be officers and soldiers in this army so void of common sense, as not to see the impropriety of such a step. . . . It is so monstrous as not to be suffered or excused ; indeed, instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to our (Catholic) brethren, as to them we are indebted for every late success over the common enemy in Canada." 2 ^6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. The presence of the French fleet and armies in Boston Harbor, in 1778, under the command of the distinguished Count D'Estaing, was the occasion of the first public demonstration of Catholicity in the city of the Puritans. From the 25th of August till November the fleet remained in the harbor, and the officers, most of whom were Catholics, were hospitably entertained by the citizens. Divine service was regularly performed on the vessels, and witnessed by many of the inhabitants who were deeply impressed with the piety and respect of the crews. One of the French officers having died, the body was buried with all the impressive ceremonies of the Church. The funeral was preceded by a large crucifix, and the members of the Town Council marched in the funeral procession through the streets of the city. What a gratifying sight this must have been for the few despised Catholics who had, at this time, made Boston their home! Abb6 Robin, who visited Boston as a chaplain in Count Rochambeau's fleet, wrote an interesting and intelligent description of Boston in 1781, in a series of letters to a friend. He gave the Bostonians the credit of observing the Sunday with " the utmost strictness, the most innocent recreations and pleasures being prohibited." In noticing the Protestant places of worship, he speaks approvingly of the order and respect observed by the congrega- tions, but evidently was not pleased with the interior of the buildings. " All these churches are destitute of ornament," he said; "no addresses are made to the heart and the imagination ; there is no visible object to suggest to the mind for what purpose a man comes into these places, who is he, and what he shortly will be The pomp of the ceremony is here wanting to shadow out the greatness of the Being he goes to worship ; there are no processions to testify the homage to Him, the Great Spirit of the Universe." The abb£ no doubt missed the grand churches and ceremonies of hi* native France, and found nothing in Boston to satisfy his Catholic heart. He makes no mention of meeting any Catholics here, nor exercising any religious functions. The first Catholic clergyman stationed in Boston was Abb^ Claude de la Poterie, a Frenchman, who had been a chaplain in the French fleet. Men- tion is made of the abbe" coming to Boston in 17S4, but there is no account of his being authorized to perform the sacred functions till late in the yeai 1788. His first Mass was celebrated in the house of a Mr. Baury, on Green street, according to Rev. A. Sherwood Healy's interesting sketch of the THE LAND OF THE PURITANS. 257 Cathedral of Boston; but the old Huguenot church on School street, having been secured by the few French, Spanish and Irish Catholics here, the first public Mass was celebrated therein on Sunday, November 2, 1788. This building was named the "Church of the Holy Cross" by the abbd, a title of singular appropriateness, in view of the fact that Columbus styled the New World the " Land of the Holy Cross." Little did sturdy John Endicott think, when he cut the cross out of the English flag because it was an emblem of " Popery," that the Holy Cross would be thus honored and per- petuated after that flag had been driven from the colonies. A memorandum of the Protestant minister, Dr. Belknap, under date of November, 1788, says: "The first Sabbath in this month, a Popish Chape'! was opened in this town; the old French Protestant meeting-house in School street. A clergyman who was dismissed from the French fleet in disgrace officiates." Dr. Carroll, of Baltimore, who was then prefect-apostolic of the Catholic Church in the United States, and who gave Abbe" Poterie authority to officiate in Boston, evidently was not acquainted with the real character and standing of the abb£, for in a few months afterwards, when information was received from France, the abb^ was summarily suspended, Rev. William O'Brien being sent from New York for that purpose. As soon as the church was opened, the French members of the little congrega- tion sent an appeal to the archbishop of Paris for " the necessary vestments and plate for the altar," which His Grace sent, with a portrait of himself, and a letter telling them to beware of a certain Abbe" Poterie who was some- where in America. The abbe" acknowledged that he was the person referred to, and left Boston when suspended by order of Dr. Carroll. The altar plate is still used in the Cathedral, and the picture of Mgr. de Juignez, the archbishop, is now in the parlor of the episcopal residence. With the abbe\ it seems, was associated Rev. L. Rousselet. Both clergy- men were succeeded by Rev. John Thayer, who was regularly appointed by Dr. Carroll to take charge of the New England mission. Perhaps the estab- lishment of the Catholic Church in Boston should date from the appointment of Father Thayer, who began his pastorate on the 10th of June, 1790. He certainly appears to have been providentially prepared for this work. He was born in Boston, of a family in good circumstances, and brought up as a strict Protestant. He was educated for the ministry and performed its func- tions for two years in Boston. These facts and the following account of his conversion to the Catholic faith are taken from a book entitled "The 18 3 rg THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Conversion of the Reverend John Thayer of Boston," written by himself, and published in Paris, in 1 7S8. Feeling a secret inclination to travel and learn the European languages, and acquire a knowledge of the customs, laws and governments of the prin- :ipal nations, he started for France. " Such were my human views," he says, "without the least suspicion of the secret design of Providence, which tvas preparing me for more precious advantages." He arrived in France at the end of the year 1781, and remained there ten months, studying the language and instructing himself in the principles of government. He was taken ill, and as he feared his sickness would be attended with serious consequences, his first concern was to forbid that any Catholic priest should come near him. After his recovery he spent three months in England, observing the manners and customs of the country. He returned to France, with the intention of passing to Rome. In his passage from Marseilles to Rome, the vessel was becalmed and was obliged to stop several days at a little port called Port Ercole. He was entertained there by the Marquis D'Elmoro, the leading official of the place and a Catholic, "without any recommendations, with the kindness and affection of a father. Such goodness and cordiality to a stranger, to an avowed Protestant, touched and surprised me," says he. " This religion is not, then, so unsociable, and does not, as I have been told, inspire sentiments of aversion and intolerance to those^of a different persuasion." When he reached Rome his first concern was to visit the most celebrated masterpieces and monuments of antiquity. While visiting the Pantheon, which formerly was a pagan temple, but now dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, he was led to respect the Church through whose power the cross of Jesus Christ was raised on wrecks of the idols. He soon acquired a knowledge of the Italian language, and was able to read its best authors. Being desirous of instructing himself thoroughly in the Catholic religion, for the same reason that he should have wished to know the religion of Mohammed if at Con- stantinople, he became desirous of knowing the doctrine of Catholics from their own lips. " After having sought for an opportunity of conversing with some per- son well informed, both able and willing to instruct me thoroughly in the Catholic doctrines," says he, " I met with two ecclesiastics in a place which I was accustomed to frequent. I entered into conversation with them, and declared who I was and what I wanted. At that time I thought with respect THE LAND OF THE PURITANS. 259 to the Jesuits as all other Protestants do; but yet, I told them I should be glad to form an acquaintance with some of them. I know, said I, that they are cunning, designing men, but they are celebrated for their learning; and while I profit by their lights, I will carefully guard myself against their subtlety." The two persons with whom he was then conversing told him they were members of the Society of Jesus, and although they would not undertake to give him the instructions he desired, they said they would refer him to an able man, who could satisfy his inquiries. They introduced him to one of their brethren, who was distinguished for his learning and piety. Mr. Thayer told this good father that possibly he might have conceived some false notions of the Catholic religion, as all the knowledge he had of it was taken from the report of its enemies. And if this was the case he wished to be undeceived. " For," said he, " I would not entertain a prejudice against any person, not even against the devil. Yet, do not think of converting me, for certainly you will not succeed." The father received him with gentleness and affability, and consented to have some conferences on religion with him. These were continued at inter- vals for about three months. Mr. Thayer listened each time without inter- rupting his instructor, but on his return home never failed to set down in writing the difficulties and arguments which seemed to combat each one of the dogmas and articles. Although net convinced, he noticed the wonderful harmony through the whole system of the Catholic religion, and the wis- dom which seemed to have something divine. As this learned father could give only a few leisure hours at intervals, Mr. Thayer had recourse to another Jesuit, who surprised Mr. Thayer by telling him to go and say the Lord's Prayer thrice, and return to him on a certain day. Mr. Thayer complied, and met the Jesuit on the day appointed. He proposed his difficulties under several heads, and the good father pointed out to him where these questions were treated, and procured him books on those subjects. Mr. Thayer also consulted an Augustinian friar, who took particular pains to show him the difference between articles of faith and simply opinions which the Church permits to be treated, without either adopting or rejecting them. This dis- tinction threw a new light on the subject, and contributed greatly to clear up his ideas. His researches carried him further than he had designed, as he had at first intended only to form an exact knowledge of the Catholic doctrine. But 3 6o THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. he was brought to such a state that he discovered nothing in it but what was reasonable. Still the prejudices in which he had been educated had too much influence over his mind, and his heart was not yet disposed to make the sacrifice which a profession of faith required. He was resolved, no matter what proof he received, not to change his religion while at Rome, for fear of taking a precipitate step. "But Providence," he says, " ever watchful over me, did not suffer these delays, which might have been fatal, but ordered various events which hastened my conversion." A work on the Guardian Angel, which he read at this time, made a great impression on him. He reproached himself for having too often failed in the respect which he owed to his Guardian Angel, and formed a resolution to be careful in future to avoid everything which could displease him. "This attention to preserve myself from sin," writes Mr. Thayer, "undoubtedly contributed to my con- version; at least, it removed an obstacle to the grace which God was about to bestow." Such was his situation when the death of venerable Labre and the mir- acles which were performed through his intercession began to make a noise at Rome and to become the subject of every conversation. Notwithstanding the instructions which Mr. Thayer had received and the lights which he had acquired, he was nowise disposed to credit the public reports concerning this truly extraordinary person. Of all his prejudices against Catholics, the deep- est rooted was a formal disbelief of miracles. Not content with denying those which were published at that time, he made them the subject of his raillery, and in the coffee-houses, passed some very unbecoming jests on the servant of God. However, the number and weight of the evidences increas- ing daily, he thought it was his duty to examine the matter himself. He frequently conversed with the confessor of the deceased, from whom he learned a part of blessed Labre's life. He visited four persons who were said to have been miraculously cured ; he was convinced by his own eyes of the state in which they then were; he questioned them concerning the state in which they had been; he informed himself of the nature and continuance of the ill- ness with which they had been attacked, and the circumstances of their cures which had been operated in an instant. After collecting full information he was convinced of the reality of each one of these miracles. Truth appeared to him on every side, but it was combated by all the prejudices which he had imbibed from his infancy. He felt all the force of the arguments which Catholics oppose to the Protestant doctrine, but he had not the courage to THE LAND OF THE PURITANS. 261 yield. He clearly saw that he would be obliged to abjure the errors in which he had been brought up and which he had preached to others, and that he would be forced to renounce his ministry and his fortune. He was tenderly attached to his family, and he must incur their indignation. All these inter- ests kept him back. "In a word," he says, "my understanding was convinced but my heart was not changed." He was in this fluctuating and undetermined state of mind when a little Italian book giving an account of the conversion of a Protestant cavalier was put into his hands. When he received this book he had a secret presenti- ment that it would give him the finishing stroke, and it was with extreme difficulty that he could bring himself to read it. His soul was, as it were, rent by two contrary emotions, but at length the interests of eternal salvation prevailed. He threw himself on his knees and said a prayer, invoking the light of the Holy Ghost with the greatest possible sincerity. He then began to read and before he entirely finished the account, he exclaimed, " My God, I promise to become a Catholic!" On the 25th of May, 1783, Mr. Thayer publicly abjured Protestantism before a large assembly of former friends whom he had invited to the solemn ceremony. Having decided to embrace the ecclesiastical state for the greater glory of God and the salvation of his own soul, as well as of those of his countrymen, he returned to France and entered the seminary of St. Sulpice. After due preparation, he was ordained to the priesthood and returned to his native land. Father Thayer reached Boston early in January, 1790, and was received with marked respect by his relatives and old friends. In a letter to a friend the following July he wrote: "On the first Sunday after my arrival I announced the word of God and all flocked in crowds to hear me. . . About one hundred Catholics, consisting of French, Irishmen, and Americans, are what constitute at present our church. About a dozen of them can attend Mass daily." From this it appears that Father Thayer officiated with Abbe Poterie for a few months before the latter was suspended. An interesting account of the first public Mass celebrated by Father Thayer in Boston, is given by Mr. Samuel Breck, who became acquainted with Mr. Thayer in Paris, and, in fulfillment of a promise, assisted him in fitting up the chapel in Boston. " We fitted up a dilapidated and deserted meeting-house in School Street, that was built in 17 16, by some French Huguenots and now converted by us into a popish chapel. 2 62 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Money was raised by subscription, with which the sacristy and vestry room was put in order ; a pulpit was erected ; the altar furnished ; a few benches purchased for seats ; and the little temple, which had served as a stable to the British in 1775, was once more consecrated to the uses of religion. The plate for the altar was borrowed of my father, and everything being made decent the first public Mass ever said in Boston was solemnized amid a large concourse of people of all persuasions. And this in a town where only thirteen years before the Pope and the Devil, were according to annual custom promenaded through the streets, on the 5th of November, in commemoration of the famous gun-powder plot; and, after serving as a spectacle of ridicule and scorn, were burnt together, leaving it doubtful in those days which of the two were the most hateful. I attended the Mass, of course, and carried around the charity box as Queteur." Mr. Breck wrote this some thirty years after the occurrence related, and probably had forgotten that other priests had preceded Father Thayer. The letter is published in " The American Catholic Historical Researches," of January, 1 889. The statements in regard to the altar are also open to doubt. After fighting for the Faith single-handed for about two years, the heart of our valiant American convert was made glad by the arrival of an assistant in the person of the Rev. Francis Matignon, Regius Professor of Divinity in the College of Navarre, who with other priests was exiled from then- native France by the Revolution. Dr. Matignon was sent to Boston by Bishop Carroll, and he entered on the duties of his ministry on the 20th of August, 1793. He was received by Father Thayer "in his humble mansion as an angel from heaven sent expressly to promote the great cause of the Redeemer by extending His Church in this section." And a truly successful angel Dr. Matignon proved to be. He was 39 years of age, and 14 years a priest, talented and pious, with a rich, vigorous imagination, a sound understanding, and a critical, profound learning. Born and educated in the center of refinement, he was an accomplished gentleman, with a kindness of heart and delicacy of feeling which made him study the wants and anticipate the wishes of all he knew. JHe soon became aware of the bitter prejudices which existed in Boston against the Catholick Church, and of the foolish suspicions which the people entertained in regard to the designs of the pope in sending such a highly cultured French clergyman to America. He found that the controversial discourses of Father Thayer had stirred up a strong feeling of opposition, and at first he was at a loss to know THE LAND OF THE PURITANS. 263 how to meet it. But he soon took in the situation and determined to master it. " With meekness and humility," says Father Fitton, " he disarmed the proud; with prudence, learning and ability he met the captious and slanderous; and so gentle and just was his course, that even the censorious forgot to watch him, and the malicious were too cunning to attack one armed so strong in his poverty." When Dr. Matignon was fairly settled in Boston, Father Thayer felt at liberty to extend his visits to other parts of New England. He made various excursions, and was able to remain for a time in places where his services were required. " In this way," says Father Fitton, " he continued to labor announcing the Gospel in every large town and village, and gaining many souls to God, by reclaiming them from heresy." In 1799, Bishop Carroll, anxious to provide for the spiritual necessities of all confided to his pastoral care, withdrew Father Thayer from the New England mission, and sent him to labor in the state of Kentucky. While working on that mission, he conceived the design of establishing in his native city a convent school for young Catholic females. With the approbation of the bishop, he left Kentucky, and went to Europe, with the view of raising funds for his cherished object. After collecting between eight and ten thousand dollars, Almighty God called the good priest from his earthly labors. He died in Limerick, Ireland, leaving his funds in trust to Dr. Matignon, for the purpose for which they were raised. Before Father Thayer was transferred from the Boston mission, another able assistant arrived to take part in the good work. This was the learned and pious Rev. John Louis de Cheverus, a native of Mayenne, France. He was an exile in England, teaching school, when Dr. Matignon, who knew him in Paris, urgently invited him to come to Boston, holding out all the inducements which this field offered for the salvation of souls. After inform- ing his ordinary, the bishop of Mans, of his intention of crossing the Atlantic, he received an affectionate letter from the aged prelate, who was also an exile, praising his zeal yet urging him to wait for better days. But his determina- tion was fixed, and receiving permission, he took passage in a vessel bound for Boston, arriving here on the 3d of October, 1796. Rev. J.L. de Cheverus was every way a suitable associate for Dr. Matig- non. Born the 28th of January, 1768, he was only about 28 years of age, but of ripe judgment and full of zeal for missionary work. He was ordained priest in December, 1790, at the last public ordination in Paris before the Revolu- 264 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. tion. He was parish priest of his native parish when the bloody persecution of the clergy began, and having refused to take the impious oath proposed by the Revolutionists, he was forced to flee. After a short confinement in prison, he repaired to Paris, where he lay concealed during the terrible mas- sacre of the clergy. He left Paris disguised in a military dress, and having procured a passport bearing the name of his brother, he escaped to England. With such an experience as this, Father de Cheverus was ready for any hardships in the New World. Immediately upon his arrival in Boston, he wrote to Bishop Carroll, and was appointed to the Indian mission of Maine. He accepted it cheerfully. " Send me where you think I am most needed," he wrote, " without making yourself anxious about the means of supporting me. I am willing to work with my hands, if need be, and I believe I have strength enough for it." He reached Point Pleasant, Passamaquoddy Bay, on the 30th of July, 1797, and immediately took up his abode in a house erected for him. " My house," he wrote, " is about ten feet square and eight feet high, and the church as large again, but not a great deal higher. In both no other material than bark, and a few logs of wood and sticks set up crossways to support the bark; no windows, of course — the only opening is a door. The only piece of furniture is a large table made of two rough boards. The altar piece is made of two pieces of broadcloth — the one of scarlet and the other of dark blue." Father Cheverus continued bib missionary labors in Maine for about two years, visiting the Indian settlements on the Kennebec, Penobscot, and Passa- maquoddy Bay, till he was relieved by Rev. James Romagne, a townsman of his own, who was sent here by Bishop Carroll for that special work. This zealous clergyman was joyfully welcomed by both Fathers Matignon and Cheverus, and immediately proceeded to his apostolic mission. He took up the work of his predecessor, and, as Father Fitton says, " he restored piety and religion, corrected abuses, encouraged industry, and trained all to God during the eighteen years he remained." Owing to failing health he returned to France in 1818, where he performed spiritual duties till his death in 1836. With Dr. Matignon, Father Cheverus was now enabled to devote his whole time to the Boston mission, which included the various towns in Massa- chusetts, and the rapid progress of the Church under their ministrations shows how successfully they worked. " Their tasks, their pursuits, their disposi- tions, were kindred, and they became inseparable," writes Father Fitton, " and their many virtues and social qualities were the admiration even of their THE LAND OF THE PURITANS. 265 adversaries." Another writer says: — "The Bostonians were charmed. In the persons of her ministers, Catholicity became respected and honored, where before it had only been a reproach. Never did virtue and learning gain a more decided victory over prejudice and intolerance." The parochial resi- dence was a house on School street, two doors from the church. The preach- ing of these two learned priests attracted many Protestants as well as Cath- olics to the little church on School street, and the regular congregation stead- ily increased. It soon became evident that a larger place of worship was needed, and the lease of the little building having nearly expired, the mem- bers determined to purchase a lot and build a suitable church. Ground was broken on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1800, and the work of building progressed slowly for three years, the good priests not being desirous of pushing the work faster than the money to pay for it was received. The church measured eighty feet in length and sixty in width, and was con- sidered a noble structure for that time. It was tha- largest and principal Catholic Church in New England for many years afterwards. The base- ment was built of stone and the main structure of brick. The entire cost of the building was twenty thousand dollars. Among the items of expense entered by Dr. Matignon is one which shows the custom of the times. Under date of August 8, 1802, appears the sum of $2.40 for "rum and gin to the people who helped the landing of the timber." How anxiously the few Catholics of Boston nearly one hundred years ago must have watched the progress of the future Cathedral, and how great must have been their joy when they saw the church completed and ready for divine service. The day fixed for the dedication was the 29th of Sep- tember, 1803, a day of marked significance for the Catholics in New Eng- land. Everything was done in due form. At a little before 10 o'clock, a procession issued from the house of the Spanish consul Don Juan Stoughton, on Franklin place nearly opposite the new church. Following the cross- bearer were Bishop Carroll, Dr. Matignon, Rev. John L. Cheverus and two other clergymen, with a few altar boys. At the church the ceremony of dedication was performed with great solemnity by the bishop and his assist- ant priests, under the name of the "Church of the Holy Cross." After the dedication, Pontifical High Mass was celebrated by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Car- roll, and a sermon preached by Father Cheverus. The collection amounted to $286. The building was crowded to its utmost capacity. About a dozen singers, male and female, formed the choir, and sang the Mass in Gregorian 266 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. chant known as Missa Regia. The music, being the first of the kind ever heai-d in Boston, was highly praised. The grand altar-piece representing the Crucifixion, which became so familiar to succeeding congregations, was painted by Mr. Lawrence Sargent of Boston, for which he received $200. It was worth a much larger sum, but at the suggestion of members of the congregation, he presented the balance to the Church. The bell, which for half a century rang out its solemn and joyous notes from the tower of the Cathedral, was a present from Gen. Elias Hasket Derby, grandfather of Dr. Hasket Derby, a celebrated oculist, who for sev- eral years past has given his services to the Carney Hospital. Dr. Derby, who is a convert, and now a member of the Cathedral congregation, takes great pride in the spirit shown by his grandfather. It seems that there is a little romance attached to this affair. Gen. Derby, when a young man, visited his future wife at her father's residence, on Franklin street. Sitting with her one Sunday at the window, after the new church was opened, he noticed the people going to worship. But the belfry of the new church was silent, and he learned that it was because the congregation was too poor to buy a bell. As he was a prosperous merchant with his father, and had ships trad- ing with Europe, he conceived the idea of sending abroad for a bell and pre- senting it to the church. It is supposed that the young lady encouraged him in his generous proposition, for it was not long before the bell was brought from Europe in one of his own vessels and presented to the church. Dr. Matignon and Bishop Cheverus afterwards became quite intimate with the family, and were visitors at his residence. The bell was obtained in Italy or Spain, but nobody knows from whom. It bears an inscription which shows that a certain Leopold de Nicolini, and his wife, Theresa, caused the bell to be- made in 1798,111 honor of God and our Lady of the Rosary. After having done good service in the Cathedral tower, it now welcomes the funeral processions in Holyrood Cemetery. In their new church, Dr. Matignon and his reverend colleague worked with greater zeal than ever and their congregation steadily increased. They opened a day school for boys in the tower of the church, in a room immedi- ately under the bell deck. This was the first Catholic school in Bo?ton, where, Father Fitton tells us, he "was initiated in the elements of a spelling book." Five years later, in 1808, Boston was made an episcopal see by Pope Pius VII, but, in consequence of the troubles in Euiope at that period, the THE LAND OF THE PURITANS. 267 bulls did not reach America until 1S10, when it was learned that his holiness had appointed Rev. John L. de Cheverus first bishop of Boston. This appointment had been effected at the solicitation of Rev. Mr. Matignon, with the concurrence and approbation of Rt. Rev. Dr. Carroll. Shortly after the arrival of the credentials from Rome, Dr. De Cheverus was consecrated bishop by the Most Rev. Dr. Carroll, in the church of St. Peter, Baltimore, on the feast of All Saints, November 1, 18 10. Bishop Cheverus soon returned to Boston, and continued to occupy his humble dwelling in the rear of the church with his esteemed friend Dr. Matignon, sharing in the minutest duties of the ministry. His first care was to visit his new diocese which comprised all New England, and during his first visitation he confirmed three hundred and forty-eight persons. The good bishop continued to visit his scattered flock year after year, and had the great satisfaction of seeing new churches and congregations springing up in various parts of his diocese. Among the first priests ordained by Bishop Cheverus for the Boston diocese, were Rev. Denis Ryan and Rev. Patrick Byrne. Dr. Matignon, after twenty-six years of constant ministerial labors, as pastor of the Holy Cross in Boston, was called to his reward. He died on the 19th of September, 1818, deeply regretted by his loving congregation and the whole diocese. He was u a faithful servant of God, an exemplary pastor, a sincere friend, and a true pattern of a good Christian." The following stands on the record of his interment, in the handwriting of Bishop De Cheverus: — "Sept. 2 1 st. . . . Francis Anthony Matignon, D. D., and for twenty-six years pastor of this congregation — Holy Cross. On Saturday the 19th he died as he lived — a saint. . . . ALt. 65." The death of Dr. Matignon was a great loss to Boston and the diocese. Bishop Cheverus felt it most severely, and to him it was irreparable. Owing to the small number of priests, the good bishop was called upon to perform incessant missionary duties, traveling unaccompanied from town to town by the poor conveyances of those days, and it soon became evident that his strength could not stand the strain. His friends in France, hearing of his condition, became anxious about him, and induced Louis XVIII to nominate him to the bishopric of Matauban, in an ordinance dated January 15, 1823. He at first was disposed to decline the appointment, as he did not want to leave his people in Boston, but physicians declared that he could not endure 2 68 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. another winter in this climate. He finally yielded to what he accepted as- the will of Providence, and prepared to leave for France. Before his departure Bishop Cheverus formally transferred his church property and episcopal residence to the diocese. The Ursuline convent, which he had established a few years before, adjoining the church, with the funds raised by Father Thayer, was included in the transfer. His library, which contained many valuable works, was left for the benefit of his succes- sors. The remainder of his possessions was distributed " among his ecclesias- tics, his friends, and the poor," says Father Fitton, " and as he had come to Boston a poor man, he chose to depart poor, with no other wealth than the same trunk which, twenty-seven years before, he had brought with him." On the day of his departure from Boston he was escorted from his residence by a large concourse of citizens, and three hundred vehicles accompanied him many miles on the road to New York. On the ist of October, 1823, the good bishop embarked at New York for France, and on his arrival there he repaired to his diocese. After a few years he was translated to the archiepiscopal see of Bordeaux, and subse- quently, in recognition of his great services and many virtues, he was raised to the dignity of a prince of the Church, as cardinal archbishop of Bordeaux. He died on the 19th of July, 1836. His name is held in deep veneration by the people of France and America. The following account of the opening of the first Catholic school for young ladies in Boston, under the direction of the Ursuline nuns is taken from Rev. Arthur T. Connolly's historical sketch in the Pilot of March 14, 1891:— ' " While the Protestant community was still agitated over the last inroad that Catholicity had made in its ranks, two young ladies arrived in Boston from the city of Limerick, Ireland. They were sisters, and the daughters of Mr. James Ryan, a respectable gentleman of Limerick, with whom the Rev. John Thayer had taken up his abode on his arrival in Ireland. " Mary and Catherine Ryan had been educated in the Ursuline convent at Thurles, and when Father Thayer had spoken about his desire of estab- lishing an institution for the education of Catholic young ladies at Boston, they entered warmly into his plans and offered to go to America and begin the work. " When Father Thayer wrote to Bishop Cheverus and made known their desire, the good bishop immediately accepted their offer, and after making THE LAND OF THE PURITANS. 269 arrangements with the Ursuline sisters of Three Rivers, Canada, with regard to their novitiate in that community, invited them to come to America with- out delay. "The death of Father Thayer, on February 5, 1S15, delayed their depart- ure, however, for some time; but true to their vocation, they set sail from Limerick on May 4, 1817, and not long afterwards presented themselves before Bishop Cheverus. Rejoicing at the thought that he might now undertake the accomplishment of a long-cherished design, he sent them, under the care of Dr. Matignon, to the Ursuline convent at Three Rivers. " By a will made by Father Thayer previous to his death, he bequeathed quite a sum of money to Dr. Matignon, to be held in trust by him until such time as an academy might be built or purchased. " With this fund Bishop Cheverus now secured the house and land next to the church of the Holy Cross on Franklin place, and there the Misses Ryan, after their solemn profession in the Ursuline convent at Three Rivers, opened the first Catholic school for young ladies in Boston. The affairs of the Boston diocese were administered for about two years by the Very Rev. William Taylor, who was made vicar-general by Bishop Cheverus. In 1825, his holiness, Pope Leo XII, was pleased to fill the vacancy in the Boston see by the appointment of Rev. Benedict Joseph Fenwick, a distinguished member of the Society of Jesus. Benedict J. Fen- wick was born in Maryland in 17S2. He belonged to an old and honored Maryland Catholic family, the founder of which came from England as a member of the original band of pilgrims sent out by Lord Baltimore. With his oldest brother, Enoch, he entered Georgetown College in the spring of 1792. One of his fellow-students was the good and gifted Judge Gaston, of North Carolina. Among his companions young Fenwick was distinguished for quickness of intellect and rare talents. In 1S05, he began his theological studies in the seminary of St. Sulpice, Baltimore, and the following year entered the Society of Jesus. He was ordained in 1808, and some time after sent on the New York missions in company with Father Anthony Kohlmann, S. J. They took charge of St. Peter's, then the only church in the city, and labored zealously for the cause of religion and education. One of the most interesting events in Father Fenwick's life was his visit to Tom Paine, the infidel philosopher. Father Kohlmann accompanied him. " A short time before Paine died," wrote the young Jesuit to his brother, " I was sent for by him. He was prompted to this by a poor Catholic 270 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. woman who went to see him in his sickness, and who told him, among other things, that in his wretched condition, if anybody could do him good it would be a Roman Catholic priest." The two Jesuits went to Paine's resi- dence, and were met at the door by the housekeeper, who informed them that he was asleep, and expressed a wish that he might not be disturbed. " He is always in bad humor," she added, " when roused out of his sleep — 'tis better to wait a little till he be awake." They quietly sat down and resolved to wait. Trie woman at some length described the miseries of the famous infidel. When alone he would cry: "O Lord, help me." Or again, "God help me." Then shortly after: "But there is no God." And again, a little after: " Yet if there should be, what will become of me hereafter?" In his agony and terror he would cry for some one to come near him. " Send even a child," he would say, " to stay with me, for it is a hell to be alone!" When Paine awoke, the priests were shown into his room. " A more wretched being in appearance," writes Father Fenwick, '< I never before beheld." Father Kohlmann, as the older and more experienced, opened the conver- sation. He had not proceeded far when Paine said : " I wish to hear no more from you, sir. I look upon the whole of the Christian scheme to be a tissue of absurdities and lies, and J. C. to be nothing more than a cunning knave and impostor." Father Kohlmann attempted to speak again, but Paine sternly interrupted him. Then Father Fenwick in a mild tone commenced to reason with him. Paine now got enraged. " Begone," said he, " and trouble me no more." His mouth frothed, and he shook the bed with rage and madness. They were unable to make any impression on him, and after some moments withdrew. " I never before or since," says Father Fenwick, " beheld a more hardened wretch." A short time after Paine expired in the anguish of despair. Some time after the death of Bishop Concanen, Father Fenwick was appointed administrator of the diocese of New York. His zeal, mildness, and ripe scholarship made him a great favorite with all classes. A Quaker lady, in the well-meant charity of her heart, undertook the task of reclaiming so good and learned a man from what she supposed to be the " errors of Popery." The courteous Jesuit received her with every sign of gentleness, patience, and respect. She became a Catholic. Hundreds of conversions were likewise wrought through his ministry. Among other distinguished converts may be mentioned the learned episcopal ministers, Rev. Mr. Kewley, Rev. Virgil Horace Barber, and Rev. Mr. Ironside. Father Fenwick THE LAND OF THE PURITANS. 271 commenced the erection of St. Patrick's old cathedral on Mulberry street from designs and plans of his own. In 18 1 7, Father Fen wick was recalled by his superiors and appointed president of Georgetown College. The following year he was sent as vicar- general to Charlestown, S. C, to make peace between the French and English Catholic parties. His great prudence and good humor smoothed all difficul- ties. He was here on the arrival of Bishop England, and did not return to Georgetown College until May, 1822. Two years later he was again appointed president of the college; and in the fall of 1825 was consecrated bishop of Boston. Dr. Fenwick bade adieu to his Alma Mater^ and accompanied by Bishop England and Rev. Virgil Horace Barber, departed for Boston. A few facts of his episcopate may be noted. The hill on which the Ursuline convent afterwards destroyed was built, was named " Mount St. Benedict," in honor of the prelate. He purchased the property, erected the establishment, and the grateful nuns did not forget his generosity. For many years his own house was his seminary, of which he himself was the faculty. The lessons in theology were received from his own learned lips. When the wretches who burned the convent were acquitted, Bishop Fenwick wrote in his diary of June 9, 1S35: " Great rejoicings in Charlestown on Saturday among the mob in consequence of their acquittal. Fifty guns were fired on the occasion. Thus iniquity has prevailed at last." He died as he had lived, respected by men, blessed by God, on August 1 1, 1846. He was buried at the noble institution of which he was the founder — his cherished college of the Holy Cross. The labors of this apostolic bishop may be judged from the fact, that while he found but four churches and three priests in New England, he left fifty churches, as many clergymen, and one of the most flourishing dioceses in the United States. The Rt. Rev. John Bernard Fitzpatrick was the third bishop of Boston. He was consecrated coadjutor to Bishop Fenwick in 1844, and administered under the authority of his superior until the latter's death in 1846. Bishop Fitzpatrick was born in Boston, November, 18 12. His par- ents were natives of Tullamore, Kings County, Ireland, and emigrated to this country in 1805. They were steadfast adherents to the ancient faith, and the father was one of the leading Catholics under Dr. Matignon and Bishop Cheverus, both of whom honored his house on the evening of his son's baptism. 2 y 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. John Bernard received his early education at the public schools. He passed through the primary and grammar, in the Adams and Boylston, and bore off two Franklin medals, of which he felt justly proud. He excelled in every branch of study, more especially in mathematics, declamation, and rhetoric. In 1826, when 14 years of age, he entered the Boston Latin School. After graduating from the Latin school at 17 years of age, he was sent to the Montreal Seminary, it being the design of his parents and his bishop, as well as his own inclination, that he should be educated for the priesthood, He remained in Montreal eight years, and passed through Boston, on his way to Paris, where he entered the grand seminary of St. Sulpice in 1837. He completed there his course of theological studies with distinction, and was ordained priest on the eve of Trinity Sunday, December, 1840. Father Fitzpatrick spent nearly a year abroad, and returned to his native city to begin his ministerial work. After a year of pastoral duties at the Cathedral, and as associate pastor at St. Mary's, North End, he was appointed pastor of East Cambridge, where he built the church of St. John, from which he was called to be coadjutor to Bishop Fenwick. When Bishop Fitzpatrick took charge of the see of Boston his diocese comprised Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont ; Rhode Island and Connecticut having been cut off and erected into the see of Hartford in 1844, under the government of Rt. Rev. William Tyler. Being full of vigor and zeal, Bishop Fitzpatrick carried the burden of administer- ing the diocese alone for ten years, not having a secretary till 1855, when Rev. James A. Healy (now bishop of Portland), was selected for that office. Bishop Healy was the first and only secretary of Bishop Fitzpatrick, and he continued the trusted assistant of his superior until the latter's eyes were closed in death. No vicar-general was assigned until 1857, when the present archbishop was appointed. In these early years the good bishop overtaxed his strength, and his painful illness later was probably the result of this overwork. The fruits of the bishop's labors were soon seen on every hand. New religious orders and communities were introduced. Religious and charitable societies were organized. New schools and academies were opened. The magnificent orphan asylum was completed. Boston College and the church of the Immaculate Conception, in charge of the Jesuit fathers, were built, and new churches and institutions multiplied in all parts of his diocese. It has been truly remarked, that during Bishop Fitzpatrick's administration, the THE LAND OF THE PURITANS. 273 tone of public opinion concerning Catholicity had experienced a complete change, and that Protestant Boston had become one of the strongest Catho- lic cities in the Union. The old cathedral building on Franklin street became too small and inconvenient for the wants of the congregation, and as its timbers showed signs of decay, it had to be abandoned. In the autumn of 1862, the church on the corner of Washington and Castle streets was purchased from the Unitarians, and the cathedral parish was transferred from the center of the city to the south end. The first services in this Pro-Cathe- dral were held on the 10th of December, 1S62, and the episco- pal residence was removed to the house on the corner of the lot on Washington street, bought f or the new cathedral. Bishop Fitz- patrick's health continued to fail, and he went abroad for a time in hopes of a restoration. But he returned very little improved, and after long and patient suffering, " his pure spirit returned to God who gave it. He died as he had lived, like a bishop." A few weeks before his death, the ven- erated bishop had the satisfaction of knowing that his beloved flock would be well cared for by his able coadjutor, Dr. Williams. Bishop Fitzpatrick died on the 13th of February, 1866. His remains are deposited in the crypt under the sanctuary of the new cathedral. John J. Williams was born in Boston, April 27, 1822. When a mere child, he began his studies at a primary school on Hamilton street. He was next placed, for about five years, under the careful tuition of Rev. James Fitton, later the revered pastor of the church of the Most Holy Redeemer, East Boston. 19 r^s^t A ti I^^H \ w % '. _ »B^hNE^MHI MOST REV. J. J. WILLIAMS, ARCHBISHOP OF BOSTON. 274 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. While Father Fitton's pupil, John gave evidence of a well balanced character, and although, seemingly, not quite so quick of perception as some of his young companions, his slow and sure method of thoroughly compre- hending his studies, gave him an early reputation for unusual reliability. All regarded him as a quiet, thoughtful boy, and he won the esteem of his pre- ceptor, who saw in him the marks of bright promise. In 1S33, being then in his eleventh year, the future archbishop was sent to the seminary of St. Sulpice, Montreal, Canada. While in that institution his early qualities gradually developed, and on this solid foundation, which seemed to grow broader and deeper as years passed on, the grand edifice of true manhood quietly, but surely, assumed symmetrical proportions. After eight years spent at Montreal, Mr. Williams embarked for Paris in 1841. There he entered the grand seminary of St. Sulpice, a celebrated institution, and for four years earnestly and successfully pursued the higher ecclesiastical studies. He was ordained priest in 1845. Returning to Boston, Father Williams officiated for many years at the old Cathedral of Holy Cross, on Franklin street, and was greatly beloved by his people. With the children, especially, he was a great favorite. In 1855 he was appointed rector of the Cathedral, and two years subsequently was made vicar-general. He administered the diocese during the last years of Bishop Fitzpatrick's episcopate. On the 9th of January, 1866, Dr. Williams was consecrated bishop of Tripoli in fiartibus, and coadjutor of the bishop of Boston, with the right of succession. But one month later Dr. Fitzpatrick died, and on the iith of March Bishop Williams succeeded him in the see of Boston. He assisted at the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, and at the ecumenical council of the Vatican. When Dr. Williams became bishop of Boston, the diocese included about 1 16 churches and 120 priests. At his own express desire it was divided, and the new sees of Springfield (1870) and Providence (1872) established. He is a man of eminent administrative ability. The costly and magnifi- cent houses of worship erected since he began to govern prove this. He has also introduced and established the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, the Redemptorist Fathers, the Oblate Fathers, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. These and other undertakings force all to recognize in Dr. William's srlent and unobtrusive administration the greatest measure of success. Thus far, however, the great achievement of this energetic prelate's life THE LAND OF THE PURITANS. 275 is the erection of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, one of the very largest and most beautiful edifices in this republic. No sooner was he elevated to the episcopal dignity than he began this great work. The first sod on the Cathe- dral lot was turned on April 27, 1866, Dr. William's forty-fourth birthday; and the corner-stone was laid on the 15th of September, 1867, the imposing- ceremony calling together one of the largest gatherings ever seen in "the Athens of America." In 1875 Boston was elevated to the rank of a metropolitan see, and Most Rev. Dr. Williams became its first archbishop. On May 2, 1875, he received the pallium from the hands of Cardinal McCloskey. It was the grandest ceremony ever seen in the capital of New England. On the same day and occasion the first high Mass was celebrated in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, by the first American cardinal. " Your venerable archbishop," said Dr. De Goesbriand in the sermon delivered on that memorable day, " is one of your own, born in your city, brought up amongst you. He knows you and you know him. You love him as your father. His new glory is your joy." The new Cathedral of the Holy Cross was solemnly dedicated by Arch- bishop Williams, on December S, 1875, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. In the whole history of the Catholic Church in New England no event has attracted more attention among the clergy and laity than the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the consecration of the Most Rev. John J. Williams, archbishop of Boston. The services in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Thursday, March 12, 1891, were of the grandest and most impressive character, and were attended by the largest concourse of people ever assembled in that vast edifice. The day was one of the most beautiful of the season, and Catholics came from far and near to be present at the Jubilee Mass of their beloved archbishop. WUKpttv gW. THE kIGHT OF THE HIERARCHY In the Palmetto State. — Catholics Long Tabooed. — Father O'Gallagher the First Priest. — The Holy See Grants a Bishop. — A Young Corkonian. — "The Little Papist." — Becomes a Priest and Editor.— Fined for Bold Speech. — In Bigoted Bandon Town. — Created an American Bishop. — Vol- unteers for the Mission — A Diocese of Only Two Churches — Incessant Preaching, Teaching and Traveling. — Scattered Children of the Faith. — Talking to Cherokee Chiefs. — Lectures and Conversions. — At Home in a Protestant Church. — Establishing a Magazine. — Adventures on the Mission. — Father O'Neill's Flute. — "Give Us a Sermon, Mr. Bishop." — Politeness to " Paul." — Many Great and Good Achievements. — A Holy Death. — Bishop England's Successors. S English colonization advanced southward, Catholics had no part in the settlement of Carolina and Georgia, and were expressly excluded by the charter of the latter colony. For this reason the Acadian Catholics, when sent there in 1 755? were sent back in the following spring, and Carolina gave her exiled guests every facility for departing. In 1775, two men, discovered to be Irishmen and Catholics, were tarred and feathered, and then banished ; but the Revolution, though anti-Catholic in its origin, opened the South to Catholicity. As the war went on some Catholics came in, among others the learned yEdanus Burke. In 17S6, a priest arrived in Charleston, in a vessel bound to South America, and, during the stay of the vessel in the port, ministered to the Catholics, saying Mass for them. The Rev. Mr. Ryan was sent there by Bishop Carroll, in 1788, and remained for two years, till his health compelled him to retire, early in 1790. The Rev. Dr. Keating, sent by Bishop Carroll, organized the little flock; a piece of ground on Hafel street, near the city, 276 THE LIGHT OF THE HIERARCHY. 277 with a ruinous Methodist church on it, was purchased, and fitted up for wor- ship as St. Mary's Church, apparently aided by the generosity of the king of Spain. The Roman Catholic Church of Charleston was incorporated in 1791 by the legislature, which had the year previous removed all disability from the faithful. From 1793, for several years, the Rev. S. F. O'Gallagher, a priest of great learning and eloquence, ministered to the flock, supporting himself by acting as professor in Charleston College. When the French Rev- olution and the troubles in St. Domingo sent many Catholics to Charleston, a new brick church, sixty feet by forty, was erected in place of the old tottering structure. The progress of the Church was checked by dissensions and troubles, which gave great uneasiness to Archbishop Carroll. The Rev. Mr. Le Mercier and the Rev. Mr. de Cloriviere were here for some years ; and, in 1817, the Rev. B. J. Fenwick was sent with the Rev. Mr, Wallace. The Catholics in the South- ern states solicited the appoint- ment of a bishop, and the Holy See, on the nth of July, 1820, erected the see of Charleston, and aj^pointed as its first bishop the Rev. John England, of Bandon, Ireland. The life of this noble prelate, being closely identified with the growth of Catholicity in the South will reasonably demand our attention. Bishop England, indeed, has been called "the light of the American hierarchy." Had he lived in the early days of Chris- tianity, or in the ages of Faith, or in the times of the so-called Reformation, the world would have ranked him among the foremost men and heroes of heroic times. John England was born in Cork, Ireland, on September 23, 1786. His RT. REV. JOHN ENGLAND, BISHOP OF CHARLESTON, S. C 278 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. boyhood was in the days of his country's trial and persecution. The wrongs he saw and suffered made a lasting impression on his gifted mind and char- acter. Indeed, the enthusiastic love of his faith and his native isle were ever the cherished affections which dwelt down deepest in his great heart. His first instruction was received in a Protestant school, as there was no other to which he could go. Here the soul of the brave boy was daily pained by insult. Often to expose him to the contempt of the class, the bigoted teacher would sneeringly call him " the little Papist." Young England began his career in life by the study of law. Two years spent in the office of an eminent barrister had, no doubt, a beneficial effect in developing his precise and practical mind. His own pious inclina- tions, and the designs of Providence, however, led him to enter the Church — to give himself to God. His excellent parents encouraged his noble reso- lution, and he began his theological studies in Carlow College. Here his splendid talents were brought out in all their shining greatness. Before he was ordained, Dr. Moylan, the venerable bishop of Cork, recalled him to his own diocese, and appointed the student of theology president of the Dio- cesan Seminary at Cork. He was ordained in October, 1S08, Dr. Moylan having obtained a dispensation, as Mr. England had not reached the canon- ical age of twenty-five. His career as a fearless priest and patriot now made him a man of mark — revered and loved by the Irish people — feared and hated by the govern- ment. As the editor and proprietor of the Cork Chronicle, he hurled forth articles that fell like thunderbolts among his political and religious enemies. On one occasion he was even fined the round sum of five hundred pounds for his freedom of speech. But though rich in truth, he was poor in money ; and while he continued to give out the former with a lavish hand, he took good care not to pay cash that he did not owe. Father England was on intimate terms with the illustrious O'Connell ; and by his powerful pen he did much to hasten Catholic emancipation in Ireland. In 18 17 Rev. Mr. England was appointed parish priest of Bandon, a place of such bitter bigotry that over the entrance was placed the famous inscription which warmly welcomed "the Turk, the Atheist, and the Jew," but severely warned "the Papist" to keep away. The fearless priest, how- ever, entered on his duties, undeterred even by this inscription. On several occasions his hair-breadth escapes from murder are thrilling enough to have occurred in border Indian life. But even in these dangerous adventures, THE LIGHT OF THE HIERARCHY. 279 God had His designs on the future American prelate. Such training admira- bly fitted him for the toilsome and thorny road which he was to travel in our own republic. During the first three years of his episcopate, Bishop England kept a diary ; and from it we make some selections. It opens thus: " On Monday, the 10th of July, 1820, I received in Bandon a letter from the Rev. Henry Hughes, dated June 17, 1820, at Rome, informing me that on the preceding Monday I had been appointed bishop of Charleston, in South Carolina, and requesting of me, for various reasons therein alleged, to accept of this appointment. "September 21st. — I received the grace of episcopal consecration in the Catholic Church of St. Finbar, in the city of Cork, from the Rt. Rev. Dr. Murphy, bishop of the diocese, assisted by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Maram, bishop of Ossory, and Kelly, first bishop of Richmond (Va.), whose appointment was subsequent to mine, but whose consecration took place at Kilkenny, on the 24th of August. There were present the Most Rev. Dr. Everard, archbishop of Mytelene, coadjutor of the Most Rev. Dr. Bray, archbishop of Cashel, and the Rt. Rev. Drs. Coppinger, of Cloyne and Ross, Sughrue, of Ardfert and Aghadoc (Kerry), and Tuohy, of Limerick. "October nth. — Having many applications from priests and candidates for places on the American mission, I appointed my brother, the Rev. Thomas R. England and the Rev. Thomas O'Keefe, my vicars-general, for the pur- pose principally of selecting such of those as I may afterwards want, and if necessary, having them ordained. " This day was the anniversary — twelve years — of my ordination to the priesthood. On this day I parted from my family, to go whither I thought God had called me, but whither I had no other desire to go. Should this be read by a stranger, let him pardon that weakness of our common nature which then affected me, and does now, after the lapse of three months. "December 26th. — Found soundings in thirty-five fathoms water, and on the next day saw the Hunting Islands, on the coast of South Carolina, after a very tedious and unpleasant passage. On the evening of the 27th, came to anchor off Charleston, and on the 2Sth crossed it, and worked up the channel, and came to anchor in the evening. " December 30th. — Came on shore in Charleston; saw the Rev. Benedict Fenwick, S. J., who was vicar-general of the archbishop of Baltimore, who exhibited to me his papers. I gave him my bulls and certificates, received the 2 8o THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. resignation of his authority, and renewed his faculties of vicar-general for mv diocese, as bishop of Charleston, which he accepted. "December 31st. — Being Sunday, I had the happiness of celebrating Mass, took possession of the church, had my bulls published, and preached." It may be said that Bishop England began his labors in America on New Years' day, 1 82 1. His newly-erected diocese embraced three states — North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The Catholic Church had barely an existence in this region. The people were extremely bigoted. The difficulties of Dr. England, therefore, can be imagined, rather than por- trayed ; but his master-spirit pointed out the line of duty, and the success of his toils was one of the noblest triumphs of the Faith in this republic. On making a rapid survey of the situation, he found but two churches open in his large diocese; and his clergy were as numerous as the houses of worship! The annointed herald of the cross, however, came bravely up to his work. Around him churches began to rise. He traveled, preached, taught, and confirmed. Wherever he found a few scattered Catholic families in hamlet, town, or city, he assembled them, formed an organization, and encouraged them to hold together until he could send them a pastor. As for himself, he performed all the labors and endured all the hardships of a missionary priest. He traveled hundreds of miles. His noble spirit of poverty and self-sacrifice reminds us of the illustrious De Br^beuf. Such, indeed, was this great bishop's personal poverty that he often walked the burning sands and pavements of Charleston with his bare feet on the ground The soles of his shoes had been worn away, and the upper leather only remained decent! The first thing Dr. England did after his arrival, was to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the condition of his poor but widely-spread diocese. He found upon inquiry, that there was a congregation at Savannah, but that it had been deserted. He therefore determined, without delay, to visit Savannah, Augusta, Columbia, and other towns within his jurisdiction. Appointing Father Benedict J. Fenwick, S. J., his vicar-general, with full powers, until his return to Charleston, and requesting him to purchase ground for a second church in that city, and if possible procure a good site for a cathedral, the apostolic bishop boarded the sloop Delight, and sailed for Savannah on the 15th of January, 1821. He found that there had been no priest in that city since the previous October; and to repair the evil caused by the want of a clergyman tor so THE LIGHT OF THE HIERARCHY. 28 1 long a time, he commenced a vigorous course of instruction, followed by the administration of the holy sacraments. The following entry in his diary affords an idea of Dr. England's energy, and of the attention which, in a few days, he had excited among non-Catholics. "January 21st. — Heard confessions, celebrated the Holy Mass and administered the Holy Communion to twenty-seven persons. Gave confir- mation to fifteen persons. At half-past ten o'clock, I spoke on the erection of the see, on my own authority, and publicly committed the flock of Savannah to the care of the Rev. Robert Browne until I should think proper to remove him; and after Mass I preached to a large congregation, amongst whom were the principal lawyers of Savannah, and many other strangers. In the evening I had vespers, and gave an exhortation and benediction — church crowded and surrounded." The next entry records the same round of duty with this added : " Was asked by the mayor and others to preach in the Protestant Episcopal Church, which I declined for the present." Appointing "John Dillon to read prayers for Mass on Sunday," until the return of Rev. Father Browne, whom he took with him on his visitation. Dr. England proceeded to Augusta, which he reached only after two days of hard traveling. After some brief but energetic work in this city, where he administered confirmation " to John McCormack, Esq., and forty-eight others," he set out for Locust Grove, whose Catholic congregation had not seen a priest for several years. " Arrived there at nightfall," continues the diary, " and was most kindly received by old and young Mrs. Thompson, to the former of whom great merit is due before God, for preserving the Faith in this country. This was the first Catholic congregation in Georgia; it was formed in 1794 or 1795, by the settlement of Mrs. Thompson's family and a few others from Maryland. Bishop Carroll, of Baltimore, sent the Rev. Mr. Le Mercier to attend them. After eighteen months he went to Savannah; and Rev. Mr. Sajet then remained seventeen months, and returned to France. There was no clergy- man there until November, 1S10, when the Rev. Robert Browne came to take charge of Augusta and its vicinity, and remained until 18 15. This place was occasionally visited by Rev. Mr. Egan and Rev. Mr. Cooper." It was at Locust Grove that Bishop England preached his first open-air sermon. " The church being too small," he writes, " and several persons having collected from various parts of the neighborhood, I preached from an elevation outside to about four hundred persons." Of Warrington he says :" I met three Cherokee Indians, viz., Colonel 282 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Dick, who speaks a ljttle English, John Thompson, and Sampson, to whom I gave their breakfast. I showed the colonel my r#lg and cross, of which he took particular notice, and I told him I intended visiting his nation ; he said he would know me." On reaching Columbia, Dr. England found a flock consisting " of about two hundred and fifty persons, principally Irish laborers employed in making the canal." There was no church, and the bishop " therefore preached in the court-house that night to a very numerous congregation," mostly Protestants. He made strenuous efforts to begin a church; and on his committee of collec- tion we see such genuine Irish Catholic names as Peter McGuire and John Heffernan. Bishop England now returned to Charleston, and addressed himself to the great labor of his life. He began a course of lectures, which laid the foundation of a fame that ere long spread through every state in the Union. During the Lent he discussed the principal truths of religion in a way which did not fail to attract the attention of the most thoughtful and intellectual. Nor was this labor without its reward. In his diary we find the names of several converts recorded, including that of " a lawyer of eminence." In the last week of Lent, we find this sleepless toiler in God's vineyard issuing his first book. It was a catechism, which, he says, " I had much labor in compiling from various others, and adding several parts which I considered necessary to be explicitly dwelt upon under the peculiar circumstances of my diocese." In the spring of 1821 he established the "Book Society," and had the necessary measures taken to form a general committee, and to have the society extended throughout the whole diocese. The following quotation from Dr. England's diary is sadly suggestive in relation to the state of the Catholics at the South. It was written of Wilming- ton, but might be truthfully applied to many other places: "May 1 6th (1S21). — Celebrated Mass at my lodgings, and gave an ex- hortation to those who attended. After breakfast met the Catholics, about twenty men — not a woman or child of the Catholic faith. No priest had ever been fixed here, nor in the neighborhood. A Rev. Mr. Burke had spent a fortnight here, about twenty-five years before, and a Jesuit, going to some Spanish settlement, spent two or three days in the town, about the year 1815, and baptized the children of Mr. ; but their mother being a Method- ist, they were not educated in the Faith. " The Catholics who live here, and they who occasionally come here, THE LIGHT OF THE HIERARCHY. 283 were in the habit of going to other places of worship — Episcopal, Protestant, Methodist, and Presbyterian — and had nearly lost all idea of Catholicity. I spoke on the necessity of their assembling together on Sundays for prayer and instruction, and of their forming a branch of the Book Society, to both of which they readily agreed, and then recommended their entering into a subscription to procure a lot for a church, and to commence building, as I would take care they should be occasionally visited by a priest. I also exhorted them to prepare for the sacraments. " I received an invitation from the pastor and trustees of the Presbyterian Church to use their building (the best in the town), which, upon considera- tion, I accepted. I was waited upon by the Protestant minister, who offered me his church also, which, of course, I declined, as having accepted of the other. In the evening I preached to a very large congregation, on the nature of the Catholic religion." As years went on so did the fame of Bishop England increase, until the time came when, from one end of the republic to the other, his bright name became a household word with Catholics of every nationality, who recog- nized in him a heroic champion, fully equipped, and equal to the good fight. The feelings of his own countrymen towards him cannot be described, so intense was their pride in his great qualities — his matchless power of tongue and pen, his resistless force as a controversialist, his wonderful capacity for public affairs — the nobleness and grandeur of his nature, which all men respected, and which made for him the fastest friends, even among those who were not of the Catholic Church. There were, it is true, other great and good bishops who, by their holy lives and lofty characters, commanded a respectful toleration for their faith; but Dr. England extorted respect for his religion by the magic power with which he unfolded its principles to those who crowded around him wherever he went, and refuted the calumnies and misrepresentations that had been the stock-in-trade of the enemies of the ancient Faith for centuries. Like all Catholic Irishmen of that day, as also of the present, the great prelate became an American citizen as soon as the law would permit; nor did he ever cease to identify himself thoroughly with his adopted country, proud of her great- ness, jealous of her honor, loving her beyond all others, save that dear old land whose recollections lay fondly cherished down deep in his heart. The great aim of Bishop England's life in this country seems to have been to present the Catholic Church, her doctrines and practices, in all their truth and beauty and grandeur before the American people. In his efforts to do this, his labors, perhaps, have never been equalled by any other man. 2 g 4 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. It was with this object he established the United States Catholic Miscellany, in 1822. On his arrival in America he found the Catholic Church compara- tively defenseless; but he soon rendered it a dangerous task to attack or vilify the Faith of ages. Many who ventured on this mode of warfare were glad to retreat from the field before the crushing weapons of logic, erudition, and eloquence with which he battled for his Church, his creed, and his people. He was the real founder of Catholic journalism in this republic. He saw that our religion was regarded with contempt; and to him fell the splen- did work of changing the current of public opinion, of giving the Catholic Church a certain respectability — a status in this republic. A prelate endowed with such grasp of mind at once perceived the value of the press. For twenty years the product of Dr. England's magic pen appeared in the col- umns of the Catholic Miscellany. His accomplished young sister was for a time his second self in the management of the paper; and it is said she often toned down the fierce logic of his bold and pointed articles, while by her own contributions the pages of the journal were frequently graced and enriched. But God called away this gifted and beautiful girl, and the illustrious bishop shed many a tear on her untimely grave. Under such noble auspices began our first American Catholic newspaper. Bishop England's diocese, as we have already remarked, embraced three large states, with a poor and scattered population. It was a vast territory, and everything was to create. But the energy and zeal of this extraordinary man were equal to the difficulties of his mission. He toiled and traveled in this manner. He possessed a little carriage and two strong ponies, which he managed to purchase, with the aid of a few moneyed friends, and, accompanied by a negro boy as driver, he would push on from place to place, preaching, instructing, and administering the sacraments; and on his return — it might be in three, six, or even nine months — he would readily and even profitably dis- pose of his cattle, then more valuable than at the beginning of the journey, owing to the training to which they had been subjected. Many a strange incident, and even startling adventure, occurred to the apostolic traveler during his long journeys, at a time when the roads were lit- tle better than mere tracks. The population was thinly scattered, and even the rudest sort of accommodation was not always to be had. Often the shelter of the forest was all that could be obtained for the traveler. Once in a town or city, he was sure of being well received. Prejudice,,. THE LIGHT OF THE HIERARCHY. 285 it is true, kept some aloof from the " popish bishop," but American curiosity and the irrepressible desire to listen to sermons, discourses, and lectures of any description, impelled numbers to hear a man who was famous for his eloquence. Halls, court-houses, concert-rooms, churches and chapels, would, be freely placed at his disposal ; and, indeed, the probability is that he rarely suffered from lack of hospitality under such circumstances. There were occasions, however, when the bishop found it difficult enough to make out a dinner, or secure the shelter of a roof against the night. Even in the Southern states, which are proverbial for the unaffected hospi- tality of their people, churls were to be met with — at least, in Dr. England's time. One evening, as the bishop of Charleston was traveling along, accom- panied by Father O'Neill, one of his few priests, he drew up at a house of rather moderate dimensions. The master proved to be a mixture of surliness and bad nature. Dinner was called, and given, and an exorbitant price charged. But there was to be no further accommodation. "You cannot stop to-night, no how," exclaimed the agreeable owner of the mansion; and his ugly features seemed to be as emphatic as his language. After dinner, Dr. England took a chair on the piazza, and read his office. Father O'Neill, having no desire to enjoy the company of his unwilling enter- tainer, sauntered towards the carriage, a little distance off, where the boy was feeding the horses; and taking his flute from the portmanteau, he sat on a log, and began his favorite air, " The Last Rose of Summer." The toil-worn Irish priest seemed to breathe the very soul of tenderness into this exquisite melody. From one beautiful air the player wandered to another, while the negro boy grinned with delight, and even the horses seemed to enjoy their food with a keener relish. Here, indeed, was exemplified the saying that — "Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast." As the sweet notes stole along on the soft air of a southern night, and reached the inhospitable residence, a head was eagerly thrust forth, and the projecting ears thereof appeared eagerly to drink in the flood of melody. It seemed celestial. Another lovely air began — one of those which bring pearly tear-drops to the eye, and fill the heart with the balm of happiness — and was playing with lingering sweetness, when a voice, husky with suppressed emo- tion, was heard uttering these words: "Strangers! don't go! — stay all night. We'll fix you somehow." It was the voice of the surly but now charmed host! That evening the 2 86 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. two guests enjoyed the best seats around the hearth, Father O'Neill playing till a late hour for the family. Next morning the master of the house would not accept of the least compensation. "No, no, bishop! No, no, Mr. O'Neill! — not a cent! you're heartily welcome to it. Come as often as you please, and stay as long as you wish; we'll be always glad to see you; but — " as he directed his words to Father O'Neill — "be sure and don't forget the flute!" The eager desire to hear Bishop England was not confined to any par- ticular class. It was common to all. A somewhat curious instance, illustra- tive of his popularity as a preacher, occurred during one of his journeys. Arriving at a kind of wayside inn, or what may be described as a carman's stage, Dr. England found himself in the midst of a large convoy of cotton- wagons, drawn by mules and horses, with a number of drivers and attendants, both white and colored. The prelate's ponies had been fed, and he was just about to resume his journey, when a grave, elderly man, who seemed to be in command, approached him, with every mark of respect, and said: "Stranger, are you Bishop England? " The bishop answered, "Yes." "Well, Mr. Bishop," continued the grave personage, "we've heard tell of you much. The folks around say you are the most all-fired powerful preacher in this country. I had to leave Washington before you got there; and I can't get to Milledgeville till you're gone. Would you, Mr. Bishop, mind giving us a bit of a sermon right here? It'll obleege me and my friends much — do, Mr. Bishop." "Do, Mr. Bishop!" was taken up in full chorus, by the rest. The appeal so urged was irresistible, and the zealous missionary yielded a ready assent. The bishop took his stand on the stump of a tree which had been cut down to widen the road. The branches of a huge elm flung their welcome shadow over the preacher and the attentive group that clustered around in mute expectation. It was a scene for a painter — the dense, overhanging forest, the rude, weather-stained log-house, the open clearing, lit up by a glowing southern sun, the large, rough wagons, with their horses and mules, the hardy, bronzed countenances of the whites, and the great rolling eyes and gleaming teeth of negroes of every hue and tint. But the chief figure of all was not THE LIGHT OF THE HIERARCHY. 2S7 unworthy of its prominence — a man in the prime of life, of well-knit and powerful frame. His face was strong, massive, dark, and full of power and passion. His eye gleamed with the fire that glowed within, and his look seemed to search the very depths of the soul. This was Dr. England, as he stood upon that stump by the wayside. Soon the willing audience was bound by the spell of his eloquence, as he unfolded before them the solemn truths of religion, and explained to them their duties to God and to their fellow-men. He had been about twenty minutes addressing the crowd, when the leader stepped forward, and, raising his hand, said: "That will do, Mr. Bishop, that will do. We're much obleeged to you, Mr. Bishop. Its all just as the folks say — you're an all-fired powerful preacher. We'd like to hear you always, but we mustn't stop you now. Thank you, Mr. Bishop — thank you, Mr. Bishop." " Thank you, Mr. Bishop," cried the rest in chorus. And amid a wild cheer that would have tried the nerves of horses less trained than his, Bishop England continued his journey. The illustrious bishop's tact and fund of wit were equal to his eloquence, and more than once he had occasion to summon them into service. We have but room for an instance. He was traveling, on one occasion, in the same stage with a conceited young preacher. The young man would break a lance with the great " popish bishop ;" and, perhaps, the happy result might become known even in the halls of the Vatican. Dr. England was engaged in earnest conversation with some fellow-passengers; but that did not prevent the preacher from asking questions about the " scarlet woman," " anti-Christ," the " pope," etc. Paul was continually quoted. It was nothing but Paui here, and Paul there, and how could the " Romanists" answer Paul? At first the bishop paid no attention. But as the ill-bred preacher stuck to his points with the pertinacity of a gad-fly, the nuisance became intolerable. Confronting the uncourteous vender of texts, Dr. England directed the blaze of his great eyes, which gleamed with fun and fire, upon him, and gave utter- ance to this strange rebuke: "Young man! if you have not faith and piety sufficient to induce you to call the apostle, < Saint Paul,' at least have the gooa manners to call him 'Mister Paul;' and do not be perpetually calling him ' Paul,' ' Paul,' as if you considered him no better than a negro." The words, assisted by the comical gravity with which they were uttered, and enforced by the roar of laughter with which they were received by the delighted passengers, extinguished the poor preacher, who rapidly hid 2^8 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. himself in the town at which the stage arrived. Nor did the affair end here. The story got abroad, and the next Sunday, while the preacher was enlight- ening an audience, some irreverent wag interrupted him by repeating, " Mister Paul — Mister Paul." The absurdity of the affair even obliged him \o leave for parts unknown ! Bishop England was the reviver of classical learning in South Carolina. With the object of providing a clergy of his own for the diocese, several candidates having applied to him, he opened at Charleston a classical school, in which these aspirants to the holy ministry were made teachers, while they pursued their theological studies under Dr. England himself. This school received numerous scholars from the best families of the city, and yielded a sufficient income to support the theological students while preparing for the priesthood. The exercises of the school, and its public exhibitions, gave boundless satisfaction to its patrons and friends. The scholars increased to about one hundred and thirty, and the bishop, encouraged by the bright prospects before him, incurred a heavy liability in securing the services of additional teachers of the highest capacity. But, unhappily, at this juncture the pent-up bigotry of the opposing sects burst forth into a storm of opposition against the school, and, in general, against " the errors and deformities of popery." The press and the pulpit rang loudly with the denunciations of fanaticism. Bigotry grew loud-mouthed. Protestants were told that they were taxing themselves to set up the " Romish" Church, and to educate a " Romish" clergy. The public assurances of Dr. England, that his school was exclusively classical, and that no religious exercises or instructions were used, had no effect. Protestantism was alarmed. The Protestant schools were re-opened, The College of Charleston — which had been suspended for some time — was revived, and a new impetus given to sectarianism. The bishop's school and seminary, though enfeebled, was not annihilated. It continued to bestow a thorough classical and mathematical education upon the students who resorted to it, and supported the ecclesiastical seminary* This seminary, under Dr. England's care, trained up an able, educated clergy for the diocese of Charleston, and prepared for the ministry some of the most honored clergymen of other dioceses. Thus the great Catholic bishop found time amidst his pressing avoca- tions to promote the spread of literary and scientific knowledge in the city of Charleston; and as a minister of peace, he fulfilled his vocation by the THE LIGHT OF THE HIERARCHY. 289 formation of an Anti-Dueling Association, of which General Pinckney, of Revolutionary fame, was the president. Dr. England's address before this association, against the wildly stupid practice called dueling, is one of the most forcible and masterly productions ever penned in any language. At the suggestion of some of the southern members of congress, the bishop was invited to preach in the hall of the House of Representatives, at Washington. He accepted the invitation, and was the first Catholic clergy- man ever occupying that place. His discourse was a noble production, full of charity, kindness, and winning grandeur. There was no portion of the American Church in which Dr. England's influence was not felt. He was constantly consulled by bishops, priests, and laymen from every part of the country. At Rome his influence in Church matters in this country was very great. The cardinals called him the *' Steam Bishop" of America. Wherever the Church was afflicted or wounded, he left no remedy unap- plied. His gifted mind and sound judgment brought all their forces to bear on such troubles. His efforts to heal the schism in the Church at Philadel- phia were untiring and generous; and although his endeavors, like so many others, proved unavailing, no one could have struggled more than he did to achieve success. Thus we see that his zeal was not confined to his own diocese. In com- pliance with the invitations of the bishops and priests of other states, this extraordinary man often went to herald the truths of the Catholic Church, or to appeal in behalf of the poor and afflicted, in his own matchless style. We learn that in the summer of 1830 he lectured in Cincinnati; and, as a writer of the time says, " a new impulse was given to the enquiry for religious truth by a course of lectures preached in the Cincinnati Cathedral by the illustrious John England, bishop of Charleston." During one of his visitations, Dr. England had been obliged with the loan of a Protestant church for the purpose of delivering a course of lectures on the Catholic religion. On Saturday evening the regular pastor came to him to " ask a favor." " I am sure," said the bishop, " you would not ask what I would not readily grant." " Occupy my pulpit, then, to-morrow!" continued the minister. "I have been so much engrossed by your lectures through the week that I have utterly forgotten my own pastoral charge, and I am unprepared with a sermon." 20 2go THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. " I should be most happy to oblige you," returned the prelate ; "but are you aware that we can have no partnerships?" "I have thought of all that," replied the minister. "Regulate everything as you think proper." " At least, I can promise you," said Dr. England, " that nothing shall be said or done which you or any of your congregation will disapprove." On the morrow the novel spectacle was seen of a Catholic bishop, arrayed in his ordinary episcopal vesture, advancing to the pulpit of this Protestant congregation. He invited them to sing some hymns he had pre- viously selected from those they were accustomed to use. He then read to them from the Douay translation of the bible, recited appropriate prayers — such as all could freely join in — from a Catholic prayer-book, preached them a sound, sensible discourse, and dismissed them with a blessing. And that congregation went away, wondering if such could be the doctrine and the worship which they had so often heard denounced as " the doctrine of devils." It was the custom of Bishop England to wear his ordinary episcopal robes — soutane, rochet, and short, purple cape — whenever he was preaching, whether in a public court-house or in a Protestant church. Many of these latter buildings being in his time rather primitive structures, and affording little accommodation for robing, he was frequently compelled to perform his ecclesiastical toilet behind the pulpit. This happened on one occasion, when his fame was at its height, and people of every creed, as well as class and condition, rushed to hear the famous preacher. One of the robes worn by a bishop, the rochet, is a kind of surplice, usually made of muslin or fine linen, and trimmed with lace. Dr. England remained some time hidden from the view of the audience, probably engaged in prayer ; and the expec- tation was somewhat increased in consequence. At length, one, more impatient or more curious than the rest, ventured on a peep, and saw the bishop in his rochet, and before he had time to put on his cape ; and, rather forgetting the character of the place, and the nature of the occasion, he cried out, in a voice that rang throughout the building — "Boys ! the bishop's stripped to his shirt! — he's in earnest, I tell you ; and darn me, if he ain't going to give us hell this time." The bishop, who, Irish- man-like, dearly loved a joke, and who frequently told the story, ever with unabated relish, mounted the steps of the pulpit, and looked upon his audi- ence as calmly and with as grave a countenance as if these strange words had never reached his ears. THE LIGHT OF THE HIERARCHY. 291 Dr. England's generous heart found in the colored population of his diocese objects of his most paternal care and tenderest solicitude. To instruct them, chiefly in relation to their moral and religious duties and obligations, was a favorite work of his zeal and charity. His own Mass on Sundays at the Cathedral was offered up for them, and the house of God, on such occa- sions, was reserved for their exclusive accommodation. He instructed them himself at Mass from the same pulpit which was made famous by his eloquence. He also had a vesper service for their ben- efit. So wonderful, in truth, were the good effects of his ministry amongst them, especially in promoting their conscientious regard for duty and fidelity in their peculiar positions, that many Protestant planters declared their wil- lingness to give him every facility in ministering in person, or by his clergy, on their plantations, to the exclusion of all other ministers. It was, however, when Charleston was scourged by disease that the charity and heroism of the bishop were put to the test. " When that fright- ful scourge," writes W. G. Read, "the yellow fever, desolated Charleston, he was ever at his post." This is nothing new or strange to those who know the Catholic priesthood. But when the Protestants of Charleston saw this apostolic man hurrying under the fiery noons of August and September, or the deadly midnight dew, to assist and console the victim of the plague, usually of the humblest and the poorest, they could not but exclaim, in the sincerity of their wonder and admiration: " This is Christian charity!" "A near relative of mine, speaking of him to me, said: 'I met him one forenoon, while the fever was at its highest, brushing along through, perhaps, the hottest street in the city. When I tell you he was blazing, I no not exaggerate — he was literally blazing! The fire sparkled from his cheeks, and flashed from his eyes! I shook hands with him, and as we parted, I thought to myself, my dear fellow, you will soon have enough of this! ' " But his work was not yet done. No! Season after season, amid vice, squalidity, and wretchedness, where intemperance, perhaps, kept maudlin watch by the dying and the dead ; while the sob of sorrow was broken by the shriek of destitution and despair — there still stood Bishop England, the priest, the father, and the friend — to assure the penitent — to alarm the sinner — to pity and to succor — baptized again and again — unto his holy function, in that frightful black vomit — the direct symptom of the malady!" Too soon, alas! was the life of the great heroic bishop to come to a close. Returning from Europe in a ship amongst whose steerage 2 q 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. passengers malignant dysentery broke out, this noble Christian minister labored incessantly in the service of the sick. He was at once priest, doctor, and nurse, and during the voyage he scarcely ever slept in his cabin; an occa- sional doze on a sofa was all that his zeal and humanity would allow him to enjoy. Exhausted in mind and body, and with the seeds of the fatal disease in his constitution, Dr. England landed in Philadelphia; but instead of betak- ing himself to his bed, and placing himself under the care of a physician, he preached, and lectured, and transacted an amount of business suited only to the most robust health. In Baltimore he stayed four days, and preached five times. "When he arrived here," says Mr. Read, "his throat was raw with con- tinued exertion. I discovered the insidious disease that was sapping his strength. I saw his constitution breaking up. He was warned, with the solicitude of the tenderest affection, against continuing these destructive efforts. The weather was dreadful. But he felt it his duty to go on. He said only, ' I hope I shall not drop at the altar — if I do, bring me home.' He wished to do the work he was sent to perform. " Exhausted by fatigue, overwhelmed with visitors, he was yet ready at the last moment to give an audience to a stranger who begged admission for the solution of a single doubt; and never did I listen to so precise, so clear, so convincing an exposition of the transubstantiated presence of our Redeemer in the Holy Eucharist. His auditor was a person of intelligence and candor, and the bishop exhausted, for his instruction, the resources of philosophical objection to the sacred tenet; to show how futile are the cavils of man in opposition to the explicit declaration of God. His death was worthy of his grand life. Nothing could be more in keeping with the character of the Christian bishop. The dying words of this great prelate of the American Church, addressed to his clergy, who were kneeling round his bed, were noble and impressive, full of paternal sol- icitude for his flock, and the most complete resignation to the will of his Divine Master. He humbly solicited the forgiveness of his clergy, for what- ever might at the time have seemed harsh or oppressive in his conduct ; but he truly declared, that he had acted from a sense of duty, and in the manner best adapted to the end he had in view — their good. "I confess," said the dying prelate, "it has likewise happened, owing partly to the perplexities of my position, and chiefly to my own impetuosity, THE LIGHT OF THE HIERARCHY. 293 that my demeanor has not always been as meek and courteous as it ever should have been; and that you have experienced rebuffs, when you might have anticipated kindness. Forgive me! Tell my people that I love them — tell them how much I regret that circumstances have kept us at a distance from each other. My duties and my difficulties have prevented me from cultivating and strengthening those private ties which ought to bind us together; your functions require a closer and constant intercourse with them. Be with them — be of them — win them to God. Guide, govern, and instruct them, that you may do it with joy, and not with grief." In this, his last address, he did not forget his infant institutions, which were never so dear to his paternal heart as at that moment, when he appealed to his weeping clergy in their behalf; and to the sisters, who afterwards knelt by his bedside, he bequeathed lessons of wisdom and courage. Almost his last words were: "I had hoped to rise — but I bow to the will of God, and accept what He appoints." He calmly expired on the nth of April, 1S42. Bishop England was a fearless man. He quailed neither before deadly pestilence, the bloody hand of the assassin, or the blind passions of the rabble. When the anti-Catholic spirit seized on the mob of Charleston, and they threatened to burn the convent, a gallant band of Irishmen rallied to its defense; and Dr. England himself coolly and carefully examined the flints of their rifles, to be satisfied that there would be no missing fire — no failure of swift and summary justice. But the preparation was enough. It was a les- son the ruffians never forgot. He has been justly styled "the author of our provincial councils." His far-reaching intellect saw the imperfect organization of the American Church — its bishops far apart, and battling with poverty and countless difficulties. He wrote to his brother prelates, urging upon them the necessity of assem- bling and taking counsel for united action. He lived to see this cherished desire of his heart accomplished, and his solid and brilliant mind shed its rays of light and wisdom on the first councils of Baltimore. As a bishop of vast mental capacity, as a profound scholar, eloquent preacher, and powerful writer, the Catholic Church of America has not seen the superior of Dr. England. His influence, when he could gain a candid hearing, was simply irresistible, and many who heard the surpassing thrill of his eloquence came at once to profess the ancient Faith. His controversial writings and sermons are masterpieces. Their style has been likened, by one who often heard them, "to a straight bar of polished steel, connecting his 2 94 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. conclusions with his premises, with the light of heaven Mazing and flashing about it." On the death of the illustrious Dr. England, the Very Rev. Richard S. Baker became administrator, till March 19, 1844, when the Rt. Rev. Ignatius Aloysius Reynolds, D.D., was consecrated. He found his large dio- cese, with its scattered flock, burthened with debt, which he set to work to meet, and eventually discharged almost entirely. The cathedral, seminary, and bishop's house were in a ruinous condition. After satisfying himself of the wants of his flock, he went to Europe to obtain aid, and on his return made a thorough visitation of his diocese, held a synod, and promulgated the decrees of the Baltimore councils. Convinced that religion would gain by a division of the diocese, he solicited the erection of a see at Savannah; and, in 1850, Georgia, with East Florida, was formed into a separate diocese. This left to Charleston the two Carolinas, with only about 5,000 Catholics, attended by sixteen priests. The Ursuline community had meanwhile removed to Ohio. He proceeded to collect means for the erection of a Cathedral, and in May, 1S50, began that edifice, and had the consolation of seeing it consecrated, April 6, 1854. It was a Gothic Cathedral of brown stone, 150 feet in length, with a spire 200 feet high. Another great work was the foundation of St. Mary's College, at Columbia. Bishop Reynolds was eloquent, learned, chari- table, and zealous. He gave himself entirely to his duties, laboring for the good of his people. To his predecessor he erected a lasting monument by collecting and publishing his works in five large volumes. After a long illness, he died on the 9th of March, 1855, and the Very Rev. P. N. Lynch, D.D., became administrator; and, having been appointed bishop, was consecrated March 14, 1858. He presided over the see for more than twenty years. The Church gained slowly; the Ursulines restored their convent near Columbia, and the Catholics of South Carolina had eleven churches in various parts of the state when the sound of cannon on Charleston harbor proclaimed the opening of the great Civil War. To the diocese of Charleston it was espe- cially disastrous. During the bombardment of the city, the Cathedral and the convent of the Sisters of Mercy were laid in ashes. The churches at Sumter and Beaufort were ruined; at Columbia, church, convent, and college disappeared. With the state in the hands of the negroes and unprincipled whites, nothing could be done to repair these disasters. Oppressive taxes and THE LIGHT OF THE HIERARCHY. 295 imposts made it almost impossible to retrieve the losses, or save what was left, and the Catholic flock was scattered to the winds. In time, however, improve- ment came; a new emigration began to enter the state; the Church was free to offer the negro the blessings of Christianity ; St. Paul's Church, for the Germans, at Charleston, and St. Peter's for colored Catholics, mark the new era. The Cathedral chapel of St. John the Baptist replaces St. Finnbar's. The Ursulines are still at Columbia; the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy at Charleston and Columbia. As we have seen, Catholicity was excluded by law from the soil of Georgia. When the Revolution had opened the state, some Catholics, about 1793, removing from Maryland to Georgia, began a settlement near Augusta, called after their old state. Bishop Carroll was unable to give them then a pastor, but in a few years a French priest, the Abbe" Le Moine was sent, and a church was soon built. This clergyman, visiting Savannah and Augusta, ministered to the little congregations of Irish Catholics there. The city of Savannah gave the Catholics a lot, on which they erected the neat little church of St. John the Baptist. The Abbe" Le Moine died in 1 796, just before the arrival of the Rev. Mr. Le Mercier. The people of Savannah regarded him with the greatest respect and consideration, and his funeral was attended by the officers and crews of a French and of a Spanish privateer then in the harbor. The Rev. Mr. Mercier arrived soon after, and was distinguished for his zeal and his charity for the poor. He died at sea, and was succeeded by the Rev. Anthony Carles, who arrived from St. Domingo in 1803. After the establishment of the see of Charleston, Bishop England gave new life to the Catholic body in Georgia, where he found but one priest, the convert, Rev. S. S. Cooper, at Augusta. By the visitations of the bishop and the efforts of the clergyman stationed by him, many were recalled to their duties who had almost lost the faith. The growth was slow, however. In 1832, Bishop England estimated the Catholic congregation of Savannah at only five hundred. That at Locust Grove, swelled by Irish settlers, had replaced the log chapel by a neat wooden church. Nearly twenty years later. in 1S50, St. Patrick's Church at Washington, the church of the Assumption at Macon, and that of the Immaculate Conception, served from it, were the only marks of increase; but Savannah had its convent of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, and the zealous Rev. John Barry had an orphan asylum and a day school at Augusta. 2 9 6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Such was Catholicity in Georgia when Savannah was made a see, and the Rt. Rev. Francis X. Gartland consecrated bishop September 10, 1850. In his diocese, which embraced also East Florida, there were, he estimated, about five thousand five hundred Catholics. He visited Europe to solicit aid, and on his return enlarged the Cathedral, established an orphan asylum at Savannah, a convent of Mercy at Augusta, and free schools in various places. All these were required to meet the steady increase of the faithful. In 1854 the yellow fever visited Savannah. Bishop Gartland labored incessantly, visiting the sick, aided by the Rt. Rev. D. Barron, who had been a missionary bishop in Africa. Both were stricken down, and, as they lay hovering between life and death, a tornado struck the house, and injured it so that they had to be removed to die — Bishop Barron, September 12th, * and Bishop Gartland, September 20th; two heroic Sisters of Mercy also laid down their lives as martyrs of charity. The Very Rev. John Barry, of Augusta, who had long been identified with the progress of Catholicity in Georgia, and who had gone through all the perils of the cholera and yellow fever, became administrator, and on the 2d of August, 1857, was consecrated bishop. Florida was at this time made a vicariate, and the diocese of Savannah embraced only Georgia. He labored as earnestly and zealously in his capacity of bishop as he had in that of priest, but his health was broken. Going to Europe to recruit it, he was prostrated at Paris, and died there, November 19, 1859, aged fifty. The Rt. Rev. Augustine Verot, D. D., a French priest of known learn- ing and zeal, was made bishop of Savannah, July 14, 1861, having been for three years vicar-apostolic of Florida. The Civil War had already begun, and Catholicity in Georgia suffered in the general desolation of the South. The new church at Augusta was completed amid all the din of war, and dedicated April 12, 1863; but the church at Atlanta was saved with great difficulty; St. Mary's in Camden County was destroyed; the elegant church at Dalton perished. When the war ended the bishop went zealously to work to meet the new condition of affairs; churches were restored and a new one erected at Albany; new schools were established, and an impulse given by the devoted relig-. ious, by tne Ur6ulines at Macon, and by the Sisters of Mercy of the Irish Rule, who, during the war, began their holy work at Columbus. The Sis- ters of St. Joseph also began their labors among the negro population. THE LIGHT OF THE HIERARCHY. 297 The Rev. Ignatius Persico, who had been a missionary bishop in India,, zealously performed the duties of a missionary in this diocese, and when, in 1870, St. Augustine was made a bishop's see, Dr. Verot returned to Florida, and Dr. Persico was made bishop of Savannah on the nth of March, 1870. Bishop Persico's health did not permit him long to give his energies to the vast work of building up the Church in Georgia. He resigned in 1S72, and the Rt. Rev. William H. Gross, of the congregation of the Most Holy Redee-mer, was consecrated bishop in 1873. His diocese containing 20,000 Catholics had but twelve priests. He undertook with energy to meet the great wants of his flock. At his invitation the fathers of the Soci- ety of Jesus began a house of their order at Augusta, where they established the church of the Sacred Heart, and opened a school for boys under the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, and a school for girls. The fathers of the ancient order of St. Benedict began at Savannah a mission to the colored people, which was subsequently removed to the Isle of Hope, and continued till the zealous Dom Gabriel Bergier died of yellow fever, November 4, 1875. It seemed for a time to be abandoned, but Father Oswald Moosmuller revived it, established a monastery, and labored earnestly to make it a cen- ter of religion to the colored race. WlmpUv £% A PRINC6 IN A RGPUlJblC. Carolina Late in the Fold. — The Darkness Dispelled.— Rt. Rev. James Gib- bons Made Vicar-Apostolic. — A Boy From Maryland. — Sent to Ireland for Education.— Noticed by "John of Tuam." — A Brilliant Priesthood.— His Zeal as a Prelate. — Publishes "The Faith of Our Fathers." — Knots of Southern Converts. — Called to the Primacy of Baltimore. — A Ven- erable Mother Rejoices. — Raised to the Cardinalate. — The Prince's Attitude in the Republic. — All Just Governments Alike to the Church. —How the Cardinal Thanked the Pontiff. — Americans of All Creeds Delighted. — Grave Reflections on Church and State. — Relations of Catholicity to Civil Rulers. *N North Carolina, down to the Revolution, there was neither priest nor altar of the Catholic Church. The Rev. Mr. Cleary, canon of the church of Funchal, was the first to officiate in the state. He came over in 1784 to settle the estate of a relative at New Berne, and ministered to the Catholics there till his death. He said Mass in the house of Mrs. Gaston. In 181 2 the Rev. Mr. Cloriviere, on his way to Charleston, said Mass for about twenty Catholics at Fayetteville. The Rev. Mr. Kearney, of Norfolk, visited New Berne in 1819. The Laity's Directory for 1822 said: "In North Carolina there is no Catholic Church;" but when Dr. England visited North Carolina he found many descendants of Irish Catholics utterly lost to the faith; many ready to join the Church if they had a church and a priest. The neat church of St. John the Evangelist, at Washington, in Beaufort County, was soon built; a church and ground were given in Fayetteville, but St. Patrick's was destroyed in a general conflagration. Steps were taken to rebuild it, and to erect a church on a fine Bite at New Berne, but this took many years, and only in 1S40 did St. Paul's 298 A PRINCE IN A REPUBLIC. 299 begin to arise. Small as the Catholic body in the state was it numbered among its members the famous lawyer and judge, William H. Gaston. In 1839 Raleigh, the capital of the state, saw its first Catholic Church; New Berne Catholics greeted St. Patrick's in 1844; and a church, dedicated to St. Mary and St. Joseph, arose in Lincoln County, the first fruits of Bishop Reynold's episcopate; Wilmington boasted of a neat Gothic church, dedicated to St. Thomas, in 1847; St. Peter's in Charlotte, and St. Joseph's in Gaston County, were the next light-houses of Christianity in a state steeped in Calvinism. War desolated the state, but it broke up the old chill of death. Catho- licity became known. Churches at Halifax, Tarboro, and Edenton appear. When the Holy See believed that a bishop on the spot might give the Church some conquests in the most un-Catholic of all states in the Union, a bull of his holiness, the revered Pius IX, dated March 3, 1S6S, erected North Caro- lina into a vicariate-apostolic, the first to assume its duties being the Rt. Rev. James Gibbons. James Gibbons was born in Baltimore on July 23, 1834, but was taken to Ireland, the land of his forefathers, at the age of ten years. While making his juvenile studies there, he was brought under the notice of Archbishop McHale of Tuam, who was much interested by his fervor and diligence. Returning to his native country, he entered the preparatory seminary, St. Charles' College, and after his course there entered St. Mary's College, Bal- timore. He was ordained on June 30, 1861, and assigned to St. Patrick's Church, but in a few months received charge of St. Bridget's Church, Canton, with the care of St. Lawrence's at Locust Point, as well as of the Catholic soldiers at Fort McHenry. The zeal of the young priest in this laborious duty showed his merit, and Archbishop Spalding made him his secretary and assistant in the Cathedral. The peculiar charm of his manner, the influence his piety exercised, made him a marked man, and at the Second Plenary Council of Baltimoi-e he was selected as the priest best fitted to organize the new vicariate-apostolic in North Carolina, a state where Catholicity had made least impression. He did not shrink from the difficult task. Everything was to be created; the scattered Catholics were fewer in the whole state than would be found in a Maryland parish. He was consecrated bishop of Adramyttum in the Cathedral of Baltimore, August 16, 1S68, and proceeded to Wilmington, North Carolina, making St. Thomas' Church his residence. He found one or two priests in the state, and seven hundred Catholics 3oo THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. scattered in a population of a million. He drew devoted priests to him, and labored in person with the gentle zeal of a St. Francis of Sales, winning a way to hearts that the profoundest erudition or the highest eloquence failed to reach. He visited every part of the state, preaching and lecturing in court-houses, meeting-houses, any hall that could be had, and everywhere pre- senting the unknown truth with irresistible power. His method can be best understood by his wonderful little book, "The Faith of our Fathers," a work that has been more effective than any other since Milner published his " End of Controversy." Little communities of converts began to form, and the ministers of God began to feel courage. Churches sprang up in the larger cities, the Sisters of Mercy came to open an academy, and the ancient order of St. Benedict prepared to found a monastery. On the death of Bishop McGill, Doctor Gibbons was transferred to the see of Richmond, July 30, 1872, retaining, however, the charge of his vicariate. His labors in the larger field were even more fruitful, and the influence was gradually extending, when Archbishop Bayley, finding his health precarious, asked that he should be appointed coadjutor of Baltimore. On the 29th of May, 1877, he was made bishop of Janopolis and proceeded to Maryland. He left with reluctance the flocks in Virginia and North Carolina to assume the charge of the ancient diocese of Baltimore, of which he became archbishop on the death of Arch- bishop Bayley in the following October. The pallium was conferred upon him on the 10th of February, 1878. His venerable mother, who had lived to see her son enthroned in the Cathedral where he had been baptized, died soon after at the age of eighty. Raised thus to the highest position in the American hierarchy, he enjoys the respect of all, and was chosen by Pope Leo XIII to preside in the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in November, 1884, having been invited to Rome with other archbishops and bishops in the previous year in order to deliberate on the most urgent matters to be con- sidered in that assembly. In the Consistory held by Pope Leo XIII in June, 1886, the archbishop of Baltimore was created a cardinal priest, and the insignia of his new dignity were soon after borne to him across the Atlantic. The career of this prince of the Church, has since then been written in the hearts of American Catho- lics. It were vain to attempt a recital of all he has accomplished for the growth and glory of the Faith. Here we shall confine ourselves to noting his attitude toward the American Republic, as the subject has been reviewed by the late Very Rev. I. T. Hecker, the founder of the Paulist Fathers and A PRINCE IN A REPUBLIC. 301 long the editor of our ablest and most popular magazine, 7Vie Catholic World. Father Hecker writes: The following was the address of Cardinal Gibbons as published in the daily papers, on his taking possession of his titular church in Rome, March 25, 1887: " The assignment to me by the holy father of this beautiful basilica as my titular church fills me with feelings of joy and gratitude which any words of mine are wholly inadequate to express. For as here in Rome I stand within the first temple raised in honor of the ever-blessed Virgin Mary, so in my far-off home my own cathedral Church, the oldest in the United States, is also dedicated to the Mother of God. " That never-ceasing solicitude which the sovereign pontiffs have exhi- bited in erecting those material temples which are the glory of this city, they have also manifested on a larger scale in rearing spiritual walls to Sion throughout Christendom in every age. Scarcely were the United States of America formed into an independent government when Pope Pius VII established therein a Catholic hierarchy and appointed the illustrious John Carroll the first bishop of Baltimore. Our Catholic community in those days numbered only a few thousand souls, and they were scattered chiefly through the states of New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. They were served by the merest handful of priests. But now, thanks to the fructifying grace of God, the grain of mustard-seed then planted has grown a large tree, spreading its branches through the length and breadth of our fair land. Where only one bishop was found in the beginning of this century there are now seventy-five exercising spiritual jurisdiction. For this great progress we are indebted, under God and the fostering care of the Holy See, to the civil liberty we enjoy in our enlightened republic. "Our holy father, Leo XIII, in his luminous encyclical on the consti- tution of Christian states, declares that the Church is not committed to any particular form of civil government. She adapts herself to all. She leavens all with the sacred leaven of the Gospel. She has lived under absolute empires, under constitutional monarchies, and in free republics, and every- where she grows and expands. She has often, indeed, been hampered in her divine mission. She has often been forced to struggle for existence wherever despotism has cast its dark shadow, like a plant shut out from the blessed sun- light of heaven. But in the genial atmosphere of liberty she blossoms like the rose. " For myself, as a citizen of the United States, and without closing my eyes to our shortcomings as a nation, I say with a deep sense of pride and gratitude that I belong to a country where the civil government holds over us the aegis of its protection without interfering with us in the legitimate exercise of our sublime mission as ministers of the gospel of Christ. Our country has liberty without license, and authority without despotism. She rears no wall to exclude the stranger from coming among us. She has few frowning fortifications to repel the invader, for she is at peace with all the world. She rests secure in the consciousness of her strength, and her good will toward all. Her harbors are open to welcome the honest immigrant, who comes to advance his temporal interests and find a peaceful home. But while we are acknowledged to have a free government, perhaps we do not receive the credit that belongs to us for having also a strong government. Yes, our 30 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. nation is strong and her strength lies, under the overruling guidance of Provi- dence, in the majesty and supremacy of the law, in the loyalty of her citi- zens, and in the affection of her people for her free institutions. "There are, indeed, grave social problems now engaging the earnest attention of the citizens of the United States; but I have no doubt that, with God's blessing, these problems will be solved by the calm judgment and sound sense of the American people without violence or revolution or any injury to individual right. " As an evidence of his good-will for the great republic in the West, and as a mark of his appreciation of the venerable hierarchy of the United States, and as an expression of his kind consideration for the ancient see of Balti- more, our holy father has been graciously pleased to elevate its present incumbent, in my humble person, to the dignity of the purple. For this mark of his exalted favor I beg to tender the holy father my profound thanks in my own name and in the name of the clergy and the faithful. I venture to thank him, also, in the name of my venerable colleagues the bishops, as well as the clergy and the Catholic laity of the United States. I presume to also thank him in the name of our separated brethren in America, who, though not sharing our faith, have shown that they are not insensible — indeed, that they are deeply sensible — of the honor conferred upon our common country, and have again and again expressed their warm admiration for the enlightened statesmanship and apostolic virtues and benevolent character of the illustrious pontiff who now sits in the chair of St. Peter." Cardinal Gibbons' office is one that outranks all others in the Church in America, and his interpretation of our American institutions is worthy of his position. The convictions he has expressed have doubtless animated his whole life as a Catholic and a citizen, and all his countrymen will rejoice that he has uttered them with so much emphasis and bravery, and that he has done it in the center of Christendom. Americans will thank him for it, and accept him as their representative there, for he is fitted by his thorough-going American spirit to interpret us to the peoples and powers of the Old World. Americans do not want the pope at the head of the most august assembly in the world, representing the whole Christian Church, to speak in favor of empires, monarchies, or republics; that we do not want. What we want is the American cardinal to do what he has done; to have the courage of his convictions there and everywhere else, as becomes our cardinal, so far as he represents the American republic. It reminds one of Benjamin Franklin championing our cause in Europe before and during the Revolutionary era. What Franklin maintained was that we w r ere not in rebellion; the American colonies were not guilty of that kind of revolution which is a crime. They were fighting for principles which had always been an Englishman's birthright, and, I may add, part of the inheritance of all Catholic peoples. Franklin held that the rebels and A PRINCE IN A BE PUBLIC. 303 revolutionists were the members of the British government. And the fact was that that was an intense personal conviction with him added immensely to his force as our ambassador. The Americans never intended to be rebels; they were not rebels. Nowhere in their fundamental law will you find rebel- lion erected into a principle. So, like Benjamin Franklin, the American car- dinal holds, if not officially yet morally, a like place as representing America to those monarchists of Europe who are suspicious of us and who do not appreciate our institutions. The cardinal will be accepted as an American representative, locate him where you please — Rome, Paris, Madrid, Berlin, or London. His office constitutes him our high commissioner, and his utter- ances are in the serene atmosphere of the Roman Curia, itself not unknow- ing of liberty and equality in their true sense. St. Augustine's words have ever described the Church's view of human authority, civil or ecclesiastical: Christians in office "rule not from a love of power, but from a sense of the duty they owe to others; not because they are proud of authority, but because they love mercy. This is prescribed by the order of nature; it is thus God created man. For 'let them,' he says, 'have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.' He did not intend that his rational creature, who was made in his image, should have dominion over anything but the irrational creation — not man over man, but man over the beasts. And hence the righteous men in primitive times were made shepherds of cattle rather than kings of men, God intending thus to teach us what the relative position of the creatures is, and what the desert of sin; for it is with justice, we believe, that the condition of slavery is the result of sin." (City of God, book xix. chap. 14-15.) And how often soever the Holy See may have counseled men to respect legitimate authority, her great battles have ever been with those who have abused authority. The Catholic Church has flourished under all forms of government. Her divine Founder has given her an organism capable of adjustment to every legitimate human institution. She tends to make the people loyal to the reasonable authority of the state, and her influence will strengthen them in the virtues necessary for the public welfare; she has always done so. But the form of government of the United States is preferable to Catholics above other forms. It is more favorable than others to the practice of those virtues which are the necessary conditions of the development of the religious life of man. This government leaves men a larger margin for liberty of action, and hence for co-operation with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, than any other government under the sun. Speaking of the affirmation of human o a THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. rights set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the present writer has said that — " They are divine inasmuch as they declare the rights of the Creator in his creature; they are fundamental, for without the enjoyment of the natural rights which they proclaim man is not a man, but a slave or a chattel ; they are practical, for man is, or ought to be, under his Creator, the master of his own destiny and free from any dominion not founded in divine right. The Creator invested man with these rights in order that he might fulfill the duties inseparably attached to them. For these rights put man in possession of himself, and leave him free to reach the end for which his Creator called him into existence. He, therefore, who denies or violates these rights offends God, acts the tyrant, and is an enemy of mankind. And if there be any superior merit in the republican polity of the United States it consists chiefly in this: that while it adds nothing, and can add nothing, to man's natural rights, it expresses more clearly, guards more securely, and protects more effectually these rights; so that man under its popular institutions enjoys greater liberty in working out his true destiny." (" The Catholic Church in the United States," the Catholic World, July, 1879.) The Catholic Church will, therefore, flourish all the more in this repub- lican country in proportion as Catholics in their civil life keep to the lines of their republicanism. This proposition will still be true even should the New England mind become the prevailing type among us. In the light of these principles it is an error, radical and gross, to say that the basis of the American character is the spirit of political and religious rebellion. The character that is formed by the institutions of our country and the Catholic character are not antagonistic. American institutions tend to develop independence, personal independence and love of liberty. Christianity rightly understood is seen to foster these qualities. For what other object did the martyrs die than to establish their personal convictions against the decrees of emperors? "You keep the laws of your sovereign," said the martyr St. Lucy to the Roman official ; " I keep the laws of my God. You fear Caesar; I fear the one true God, whom I serve. You are desirous of pleasing men; I desire to please Jesus Christ alone. Do you pretend to deprive me of the right of acting according to the dictates of my reason and conscience?" Said Sts. Perpetua and Felicitas, as they entered the amphi- theater to be martyred : " We have willingly come hither, that our freedom might suffer no interference. We gladly lay down our lives to avoid doing •anything contrary to our holy religion." And in like manner the peaceful triumphs of Catholic virtue have had no other motive than a heroic purpose to serve God alone in true liberty of spirit, whether as hermits in the wilder- ness, or Benedictines in the abbeys that were the centers of religious and civil A PRINCE IN A REPUBLIC. 3°5 life in the destruction of the Roman Empire and the rushing down of the barbarians, or in the various orders and societies, founded since then, in which the Church has ever offered a method for souls to combine together for free- dom and peace, for their own and their neighbor's sanctification. What we need to-day is men' whose spirit is that of the early martyrs. We shall get them in proportion as Catholics cultivate a spirit of independence and personal conviction. The highest development of religion in the soul is when it is assisted by free contemplation of the ultimate causes of things. Intelligence and liberty are the human environments most favorable to the deepening of personal conviction of religious truth and obedience to the interior movements of an enlightened conscience. Mr. Lilly, in one of his brilliant essays, affirms that the question of the hour is the existence of the supernatural. This is well said for agnostics; but for a well-ordered mind I should say that the question of the hour is how the soul which aspires to the supernatural life shall utilize the advantages of human liberty and intelligence. We do not need the imperial or kingly ideas of the Old World as aids to our spiritual life as Catholics, any more than we want its anarchical ideas as helps to civil freedom as citizens. Neither do we wish to plant our American ideas in the soil of other nations. The mission of the American Catholic is not to propagate his form of government in any other country. But there is one wish he cherishes in respect to his fellow-Catholics abroad: he wants to be rightly understood, and that is a wish not easily granted. You, reader, if you had been brought up in a monarchy and sympathized with its institutions, as you naturally would have done, would not easily understand other forms of government. In such things most men are what their surroundings make them — you might say all men are, if by the word surroundings you take in the sum of influences, external and internal, to which they are subject. Where will you find a man whose most potent teachers have not been his race and country ? Honest men in Europe feel about democracy as we feel about monarchy. And how do you feel about monarchy? Your truest answer must be, " I don't understand it." And, unless you made your home there, you might live in a monarchy for years and not understand it, and you would not wish to understand it. It does not belong to you. The place is not your home; your home is far away and far different, and you expect sooner or later to go back there. Therefore you are not to be blamed for not understanding them, nor are they to be blamed for not understanding us. Whftn we are abroad, unless called upon to speak, as the cardinal was, it is 21 306 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. better for us to keep our mouths shut. So should foreigners act when in this country. I do not blame Europeans for not understanding us. I only wish to call attention to the many difficulties in the way of getting into the minds of Europeans true views of American affairs. These difficulties Cardinal Gib- bons has known how to cope with. He has been able to express the Ameri- can idea in such terms as not to be misunderstood. And this was not the triumph of diplomatic cunning, but rather that of sincerity and frankness — the true cunning of honest souls. He has carried his point by the simplicity of his thought and the earnestness of its utterance. There is often more in the courage of saying the thing than there is in the thing itself: there is both in Cardinal Gibbons' address. For what is a commonplace in this country is strik- ing and singular elsewhere, especially in a state of society so differently organ- ized. It took courage to say what he did. It was needed to be said long ago, but others did not say it. Was it lack of courage on their part, or indif- ference to the providential lessons of the times? In such cases courage is genius, and we now rejoice in its triumph. It was fitting that the best expression of the good of civil freedom as a favorable human environment for the development of the religious character should be left to be made by an American cardinal in the center of Christendom. And if I were asked in what the American system of government contributed most to this development, I should say that it is by declaring itself incompetent in spirituals. That is what Europeans, especially men in high station, can not or will not understand. " Philip II of Spain," says Baron Hubner in his Memoir of Sixtus V, vol. ii. chap, ii., " looked upon himself as a civil vicar of Christ. Whenever, in the fulfillment of this imaginary mission, he met with a doubt, he some- times laid it before his ministers, but he preferred to submit it to his confessor, or to theologians, or to committees specially appointed to examine it, or to con- gregations composed of doctors of theology. He believed he had two mis- sions to fulfill. He was king and also a little of a pontiff; just as the pope is first a pontiff, then king. In this groove ran all his ideas. Sixtus V indig- nantly rejected such pretensions. . . . The deeply-rooted conviction that he was the civil vicar of Christ on earth can be frequently traced in Philip's letters and is reproduced in the language of his agents." Potentates wished, and still wish, to be pontiffs. When dynasties giv« place to oligarchies, aristocrats wish to be on a par with cardinals. When the tide of atheistic revolution has swept them all away, and blasphemers of A PRINCE IN A REPUBLIC. 307 the prime verities of reason and revelation are floated into power, they in turn feel under obligation as civil rulers to care for the supreme interests of religion. King Philip and Gambetta, Louis Quatorze, the two Napoleons, and Bismarck and Paul Bert, must nominate bishops; each must play censor deputatus for catechisms and theologies; monarchy, aristocracy, bureaucracy, anarchical and atheistic democracy, each inherits from its predecessor the craving for ecclesiastical authority. The throne of the fisherman has not had authority enough to publish in Catholic countries its own apostolic decrees without an incessant diplomatic war over the state's placet. In Joseph IPs case this meddling of the state with spirituals was carried into the very sacristy. Without wishing to go too far the other way, I affirm that this interference by government can never be imposed on the American people. We are glad to see the American cardinal of the same mind. When church and state were brought into contact in Philip's reign he posed as the Constantine of Christendom, and Louis Quatorze did worse. Here in America, when church and state come together, the state says, I am not competent in ecclesiastical affairs; I leave religion in its full liberty. That is what is meant hereby sepa- ration of church and state, and that is precisely what Europeans cannot or will not understand. They want to make out that the American state claims to be indifferent to religion. They accuse us of having a theory of govern- ment which ignores the moral precepts of the natural law and of the Gospel. Such is not the case, and never has been from the beginning. That is a false interpretation of the American state. By ecclesiastical affairs we mean that organic embodiment of Christianity which the Church is in her creeds, her hierarchy, and her polity. The American state says in reference to all this, I have no manner of right to meddle with you; I have no jurisdiction. By morals, on the other hand, we mean those influences of natural and revealed religion whose sway is general among the vast popular electorate of our country, uniform and definite enough to be a quickening influence upon our public life. To disregard this has ever been deemed a crime against good government among us, and punished accordingly. The cardinal's address, taken in connection with other events in Pope Leo's pontificate, marks an epoch in the world's history. If, as many think, democracy will soon assume control of public affairs, the question is, what kind of a democracy will it be; what influence will be powerful enough to guide it morally aright? No sectarian form of Christianity can be the guide of mighty human forces. So far as men are sectarians, so far do they deviate 308 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. from the universal truth; and only the universal principles of reason and rev- elation grasped and wielded by such an organic world-power as the Catholic Church can guide aright the tumultuous masses of mankind when the transi- tion from one phase of civilization to another has begun. The power that could tame the barbarian ancestors of the civilized world exhibits in such men and such utterances as have been herein considered a force competent to guide to its proper destiny the baptized democracy of our day. And we may say in passing that it is difficult to exaggerate the majesty and power a body of men representing the whole Catholic Church, as the Council of Trent intended the cardinals to do, would possess and exert the world over ; the decision of such a body, with the pope at its head, could not fail to be final. MmpUv gm. THE OHIO VAbfcEy. The Old Diocese of Bardstown. — Catholic Marylanders First to Enter- Father Whelan's Fruitless Mission. — A French Seminarian in the Revolution. — The Weak-kneed Bishop of Orleans. — Father Badin our First Ordained Priest. — Off to Kentucky. — Missionaries Traveling Afoot. — The Journey Finished in a Flatboat. — First Mass at MacCarthy's. — A Clapboard Hut for a Church. — Judge Twyman Rebukes Bigotry. — Antechrist Gramatically Settled. — Appointment of Bishop Flaget. — Death of Our Protopriest. — The Apostolic Father Nerinckx. — Another Exile of the Revolution. — A Heroic Missionary Career. — Sketch of a " Son of Benediction." — An Episcopal Palace Sixteen Feet Square. — Monuments of Piety. — Cincinnati a Bishopric. — Career of Bishops Fen- wick AND PURCELL. — ARCHBISHOP ELDER. HE diocese of Bardstown, Kentucky, is a part of that vast extent of country known in our ancient geographies by the name of Louisiana. It is situated in the center of the United States, and is bounded on the north by the Ohio, on the west by the Mississippi, on the south by the state of Tennessee, and on the east by Virginia. When, in 1792, Kentucky was admitted into the Union as a state, its population was about seventy thousand. About twenty poor Cath- olic families from Maryland, descendants of the English colonists, came here to reside in 1785, as then good land could be procured almost for nothing. Their number rapidly increased, and in the year 1788 Father Charles Whe- lan, an Irish Franciscan, was sent to them. As they were then at war with the natives, and as this was continued until 1795, this missionary, two of his suc- cessors, and the colonists were compelled to cross the hostile country to arrive at the misson, even on reaching which their lives were sometimes exposed to 3°9 3 ! THE COL U MB I AN J UBILEE. imminent dangers. Besides being at a distance from a priest, they had also to struggle against poverty, heresy, and vulgar prejudices with regard to the pretended idolatry of Catholics, etc. Finally Father Whelan, at the expira- tion of two years and a half, abandoned a post so difficult to hold, without even the satisfaction of seeing a single chapel built. It was then impossible to find another missionary to succeed him, and the faithful "were afflicted because they had no shepherd." Among the good and gifted men that the French Revolution cast upon our shores was Stephen Theodore Badin. He was born at Orleans, France, on the 17th of July, 1768. He received a finished classical education at the College Montagu, Paris; and pursued his theological studies in the seminary of his native city. The bishop of Orleans, however, had taken the odious constitutional oath. Young Badin decided not to receive ordination at the hands of such a man, and as the rumble of the terrible Revolution became every day more distinct, he sailed for the United States, arriving at Philadel- phia in March, 1792. Bishop Carroll received him with great kindness. Father Badin was raised to the sacred dignity of the priesthood on the 25th of May, 1793 — being the first priest ordained in this republic. Prince Gallitzin, as we have already learned, was the second. The Catholics of Kentucky had no priest. Bishop Carroll hinted to Father Badin his intention of sending him to that distant mission. It is not surprising to learn, however, that the inexperienced young priest, with a slight knowledge of English, exhibited some reluctance about plunging into the wilderness. The bishop listened to his reasons. It was proposed to commend the matter to God by making a novena. After nine days they met again. " Well," said Bishop Carroll, " I have prayed and am still of the same mind." " I have also prayed," replied Father Badin, smiling, "and I am likewise of the same mind. Of what use then has been our prayer for nine days?" Bishop Carroll smiled, too, and after a pause, said, with great sweetness and dignity: " I lay no command; but I think it is the will of God that you should go." Father Badin, without a moment's hesitation, answered with great earnestness — "I will go, then." It seems there were no large trunks to be packed, and the energetic young missionary was soon ready for the journey. He was assigned, as companion, a more aged clergyman, Father Barrieres, who was made vicar- THE OHIO VALLEY. 3II general. Leaving Baltimore with staves in their hands, on the 6th of Sep- tember, 1793, the two priests, on foot, pushed along the muddy roads to Pittsburg, where they embarked in a flat-boat with a company of emigrants for Kentucky. Their passage was full of adventure. On landing at Mays- ville, they again started on foot for Lexington, a distance of sixty-five miles. This journey could not be accomplished in one day. Night came on. It was passed in an open mill, lodging on the mill-bags without the slighest covering, during a cold period toward the close of November. On reaching their destination, the priests commenced their labors. Father Badin said his first Mass, in that region, at the house of Denis MacCarthy, an Irish Catho- lic. After four months, however, he found himself alone, as his colleague was glad to leave Kentucky. Nothing daunted, the youthful apostle fixed his residence near the little chapel, and began his career of toil. Referring to this temple of worship in the wilderness Dr. Spalding says, "it was a temporary hut, covered with clap- boards, and was unprovided with glass in the windows. A slab of wood, roughly hewed, served for an altar. Such was the first Catholic Church in Kentucky." No pen can picture the hardships, anxieties, and privations which fell to the lot of Father Badin in the vast field committed to his care. During all seasons — and often at night — he had to travel through unbroken forests, cross flooded rivers, expose his life to the tomahawk of the Indian, and contend, single-handed, with the ignorance, prejudices, and bitter hostility of sectarians He was alone for nearly three years; and at one period he was twenty-one months without an opportunity of going to confession. He found about three hundred Catholic families scattered all over the state; and during his missionary career in Kentucky he must have ridden on horseback at least one hundred thousand miles. He often rode from fifty to eighty miles on a sick call. "After one of these long rides," writes Dr. Spalding, "he found the sick man sitting on a stool eating hard-boiled eggs to cure the pleurisy!" The ignorant bigotry of the times called, once in a while, for relig- ious controversy; and skill and learning never failed Father Badin on such occasions. Some of his flock were also excellent controversialists. One of these was Judge Twyman, who, while attending the court in Mason County, happened to be taking his dinner at a hotel where religious discus- sion was brought to the front. Catholics were loudly abused and laughed at 312 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. as a lot of fools. "They adore images, and worship the Virgin," remarked one of the wiseacres. The judge listened in silence. When the conversa- tion had ceased, he arose, and said, with great slowness and deliberation: "Look at me! Do you think I am a fool? I am a Catholic. I was brought up a Protestant, but embraced the Catholic religion after a long and careful examination." This little speech created quite a sensation, and not a word more was said against Catholics. A minister once remarked to a lady member of Father Badin's flock, that he was " surprised to see a person of her good sense a follower of the pope who was certainly Antichrist, and .-- " the beast of the Revelations." The lady continued her knitting until he was through; and then raising her eyes, she quietly asked the infallible Bibleman: "Do you know grammar, sir?" He said, "Yes." "Well," resumed the lady, " is Antichrist singular or plural?" "Singular," he answered, feeling rather uncomfortable. "Are two hundred and fifty-six popes singular or plural?" she said. He was obliged to say, " Plural. " "Therefore, the pope is not Antichrist," she remarked with emphasis; and the preacher took his way in sadness from that house. After some years, two fellow- laborers came to the indefatigable Father Badin's assistance. One of them, Rev. Mr. Salmon, died from the effects of an unhappy accident — a fall from his horse. " The accident," writes Father Badin, " happened about noon, at a little distance from a residence. A servant, who found him half dead in the woods, went to solicit aid, which was denied him by an impious and cruel farmer, simply because the unfortunate man was a priest. It was only towards night that a good Catholic of the neighborhood was informed of the fact." \ RT. REV. BISHOP WATTERSON, D.D., COLUMBUS, OHIO. THE OHIO VALLEY. 3^ One by one, other priests came, and at length, in 1808, Bardstown, Ky., became an episcopal see; and three years later, Bishop Flaget was welcomed to Father Badin's sixteen-feet-square log cabin. The growth of the Church was remarkable in "the dark and bloody ground." Father Badin paid a visit to his native land, and after his return, continued his missionary labors in Kentucky, Illinois, and Ohio. A vigorous constitu- tion and active habits enabled him to get through an immense amount of work. To preach and sing Mass was his delight. His mind was highly cultivated. Roaming the woods of Kentucky did not make him forget his Homer and Virgil. He was an excellent Latin scholar, and his Latin poem in praise of Perry's victory over the English on Lake Erie was much admired. His "Principles of Catholics," printed at Bardstown in 1807, was the first Catholic work published in the West. This apostolic man died at Cincinnati on the 15th of April, 1S53, at the advanced age of eighty-five years. And thus rested from his labors, after nearly sixty- years' toil in the holy ministry, the first priest ordained in the United States. Among the priests last referred to as having joined Father Badin was the holy and renowned Father Charles Nerinckx. This famous missionary was born in the province of Brabant, Belgium, on October 2, 1761. His par- ents were distinguished for their virtues and their strong attachment to relig- ion. His father was a physician of some eminence, and his mother seems to have been a most estimable woman. Having a pronounced vocation for the holy ministry Charles pursued the necessary studies and was in due time regularly ordained, his first priestly labors being at the period when the French Revolution was convulsing society and menacing the very existence of religion. In time like numbers of his brethren, he could only escape persecution by living in a state of concealment. Seeing the fierce storm that swept over Europe, and his own inability to do all the good he desired, Father Nerinckx turned his eyes towards the West. There, indeed, " the harvest was great and the laborers few." With some difficulty he escaped from his hiding-place, reached Amsterdam, and sailed for the United States on August 14, 1804. After a long and dangerous pas- sage of ninety days, he reached Baltimore, and at once offered his services to Bishop Carroll. Father Nerinckx, with his accustomed energy, began to prepare himself for his new sphere of activity. To study English — with which he was 3I4 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. wholly unacquainted— he retired to Georgetown College. Though in his forty-fifth year, he worked at our language with all the ardor of youth. In the spring of 1S05, he was sent among the wilds of Kentucky, which, after a painful journey, he reached only on the 5th of July. At this time the only priest in the state was Rev. Father Badin, with whom, for the first seven years, he resided. The apostolic Nerinckx, with his whole soul and strength, now devoted himself to the sublime work of saving souls. He seemed to court labors. To him toil and suffering were luxury. Of powerful frame and herculean constitution, he did not know what it was to spare himself. His rest was brief. He generally rose several hours before day. For God and his neigh- bor only did he appear to live. The performance of his duty was his daily bread. In short, his missionary labors were incredible; for he became "ail to all that he might gain all to Christ." Father Nerinckx was a man of unsurpassed courage. He feared no dif- ficulties, nor could any dangers appall him. He penetrated the wilderness, • swam rivers, slept in the woods among the wild beasts; and while under- going all this, he was in the habit of fasting and mortifying himself in many ways. On one occasion he narrowly escaped drowning. In crossing a flood he was swept from his horse, which lost its footing and was carried away by the current. The rider barely saved himself. He reached the other shore by clinging firmly to the horse's tail. On another occasion he was placed at the mercy of a pack of hungry wolves. Passing through a gloomy forest on horseback, the good priest lost his way. It was in mid-winter. Night came on.. The famished brutes sur- rounded him, and made the forest resound with their unearthly howlings. He sat on his horse, made the sign of the cross, and prepared himself for death. A mvsterious Providence, however, watched over him. He remained on his horse the whole night, with hundreds of glaring eyes fixed on him. The wolves disappeared with dawn, and Father Nerinckx calmly continued his journey. In the course of his laborious life, Father Nerinckx often manifested his great bodily strength. He erected no less than ten churches in Kentucky. Nor was he content with directing the labors of others. With his own vigorous arms, he cut logs, and generally worked bare-headed under the broil- ing sun. In removing heavy timber, he usually lifted against two or three men. He built his residence chiefly with his own hands; and he was wont to say cheerfully, "that his palace had cost him just $6.50 in cash." THE OHIO VALLEY. 315 An anecdote, too good to be omitted, is related of this heroic priest. He was rigid in enforcing order in his churches during divine service. More than once curiosity-seekers, who forgot to be courteous in the house of God, received severe and merited rebukes from Father Nerinckx. He was little swayed by human respect, and was rather plain and frank. On one occasion a young man by the name of Hardin, of powerful frame and somewhat of a bully, took mortal offense at something said by the zealous priest. He openly declared that he would be avenged. An opportunity soon occurred. Father Nerinckx was going through the forest to St. Charles' church, when Hardin waylaid him. Springing from his hiding-place the young bully seized the reins of the priest's horse and ordered him to stop, "for that he intended to give him a sound drubbing." Cutting off one of the stirrups he commanded the priest to dismount. Father Nerinckx promptly complied; reasoned with the young man; told him that he had never meant to offend or injure him, and that his profession wholly forbade him to fight or wrangle. Hardin, however, persisted, and was in the act of striking the priest, when the latter took hold of him and quietly laid him on the ground as if he were a mere child. "I will neither strike nor injure you," smiled Father Nerinckx; "but I feel authorized in keeping you from injuring me." The young bully promised to be " a good boy," and the priest put him on his feet again. Quietly remounting his horse, the missionary proceeded on his journey. Hardin as quietly moved off in another direction. When Father Nerinckx arrived at the church, a friend inquired how the stirrup-leather had been cut. In a few words the priest related his adventure, adding with a smile, " that these young buckskins could not handle a Dutchman." After this he was never heard to speak of the affair. Hardin, however, more than once said that "he often thought he could handle men, but that he really never had hold of one before he met Priest Nerinckx, who, he really believed, had something supernatural about him." He had charge of six large congregations, besides many stations scattered over the whole extent of Kentucky. To visit all his flock required at least six weeks. He was unceasing in his labor to make his people devout to the most Blessed Virgin, and to her he dedicated his first church. He seldom made a missionary tour without receiving some one into the true fold. In one of these excursions, he made no fewer than thirteen converts. When Father Nerinckx learned that Bishop Carroll had recommended him for the see of New Orleans, and that the pope had confirmed the 3I 6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. nomination, his humility was alarmed. He quietly, but firmly, refused the dignity. The masterwork of Father Nerinckx's apostolic life was the establish- ment of a new religious society — "The Sisters of Loretto." For over half a century those pious and cultured ladies have been an inestimable blessing to Kentucky and to other states, and to-day, in this jubilee year, they continue their glorious work. Worn out by the labors and trials of the mission, Father Nerinckx went to receive the reward of the faithful servant on the 12th of August, 1824, being in his sixty-third year. Behind him he has left the memory of shining deeds and a spotless and venerable name. His remains, deposited in a suitable monument, rest in the center of the conventual cemetery of the mother- house of his society at Loretto, in that old Kentucky, which, for nearly a quarter of a century, was blessed by his presence. As his worthy spiritual daughters daily and reverently gaze on his honored tomb, they recall to mind the sublime maxim which he was wont to repeat: "Do not forsake Provi- dence, and He will never forsake you." We have indicated, in these sketches, the condition of the Catholic Church in Kentucky when the see of Bar-dstown was established, and the Rt. Rev. Dr. Flaget appointed bishop. Dr. Flaget was one of the great bishops of our early Church. He was born in France in 1763. At his birth he was named Benedict, because some one exclaimed that "he was a son of benediction." Young Flaget made his course of philosophy in the University of Clermont, after which he entered the congregation of St. Sulpice, and was ordained priest. For several years after his ordination, he filled the chair of theology in the seminary of Nantes. The terrors of the French Revolution led him to direct his eyes towards America. After making a spiritual retreat and consulting his superior, he sailed from Bordeaux in January, 1792? m com- pany with Rev. Messrs. David and Badin. Bishop Carroll received him with joy, and appointed him to the distant mission of Vincennes, Indiana. Bear- ing letters of introduction from the bishop to General Anthony Wayne, he was received and entertained by that gallant soldier with the greatest friend- ship and consideration. He departed from Pittsburg in a flat-boat, stopped at Cincinnati, then only a fort, and pushed on to Louisville, which, at that time, contained only three or four small cabins. In December, 1792, he reached Vincennes. Here he found both church and people in a most neglectful and unhappy condition. Religion had almost died out at this old French; THE OHIO VALLEY. 317 settlement. The whites were little removed in barbarism from the wandering Indian. On the Christmas following his arrival there were only twelve com- municants. It would be impossible to detail in brief space the hardships and dangers encountered by this holy missionary. However, after two years and a half of zealous labor, he was recalled by his superiors. Upon his arrival in Maryland, he was appointed professor in Georgetown College. While in this position he formed the acquaintance of Gen. Washington, then president of the United States. The Abbe" Flaget was an ardent admirer of the illus- trious patriot, and fifty years after Washington's death he used to refer to him in language of unbounded praise. In 1 80 1, he took up his residence at St. Mary's College, Baltimore, and for the eight following years his life passed quietly away in that institution. At the suggestion of Rev. Mr. Badin, Bishop Carroll recommended the Abbe Flaget as a suitable candidate for the new see of Bardstown, Ky. The good priest's humility was alarmed, but he finally allowed himself to be con- secrated in 18 10. Such was Bishop Flaget's apostolic poverty that he had not the means necessary to convey him to his diocese. Yet he utterly refused any assistance from his poor flock, declaring that he would rather walk on foot to Ken- tucky than commence his career by thus taxing his people. Some generous friends in Baltimore defrayed his expenses. He arrived at Louisville in June, 181 1, and his welcome by the warm-hearted Catholics was truly mag- nificent. His diocese counted seven priests — Fathers Nerinckx, Badin, and O'Flynn, and four Dominicans at the convent of St. Rose. On the Christ- mas following, the bishop raised the Rev. Mr. Chabrat to the priesthood. He was the first priest ordained in the West. At this time Kentucky had about six thousand Catholics, comprising thirty congregations, with only ten churches. The bishop took up his abode with Father Badin, at Loretto, his episcopal residence being a log cabin sixteen feet square. With a somewhat sad and heavy heart he surveyed the vast field of his labors — the Mississippi Valley. But his zeal and activity knew no bounds. He visited all the congregations of Kentucky twice before the year 1S15. During one missionary trip he confirmed nearly one thousand three hundred persons. Not even the most remote French and Indian missions escaped his watchful care. One of his journeys extended over a distance of 2,000 miles. "Wherever Bishop Flaget pitched his tent," says a writer, "he laid the foun- dations of a new church, and each of his principal halts was destined to 3 1 8 THE COL UMBIAN JUBILEE. become a bishopric. There is Vincennes, in Indiana; Detroit, in Michigan; Cincinnati, the principal city of Ohio; Erie and Buffalo, on the borders of the lakes; and Pittsburg, which he evangelized in returning to Louisville, after thirteen months absence — after having given missions wherever on his route there was a colony of whites, a plantation of slaves, or a • village of Indians." The vast extent of his jurisdiction gave him great influence as a member of the American hierarchy. When attending the council of Baltimore in 1829, on being introduced for the first time to the illustrious Dr. England, Bishop Flaget exclaimed: " Allow me to kiss the hand that has written so many fine things!" Dr. England promptly replied: " Permit me to kiss the hands which have done so much good ! " During his protracted episcopate, Bishop Flaget consecrated Bishops David, Fenwick, Brute\ Kenrick, Chabrat, Spalding, and Purcell, long the venerable metropolitan of Cincinnati. The saintly and heroic prelate died in 1850, in the eighty-seventh year of his age, during fifty-seven of which he had labored in America. The Missis- sippi Valley is covered with monuments of piety that mutely proclaim his praise. He left behind him a diocese so flourishing that it was once called " The Garden of the American Church." Where, in the beginning, he could not find a priest without undertaking a week's journey, he lived to see two archbishops and eight bishops presiding over a numerous clergy and an innumerable laity. Bishop Flaget's exertions, and the influence of his holy life, were of incalculable service to Kentucky and the other parts of his charge. He was the first Catholic bishop ever seen in the West. On his first visitation he trav- eled nearly a thousand miles, and, crossing the Mississippi, ministered to the priestless Catholics of St. Louis. He was so constantly engaged that he solicited a coadjutor; and in 1817 his old friend and associate, the Rev. J. B. M. David, was appointed coadjutor of Bardstown. Two years later his Cathedral was completed, a fine edifice in the Roman Corinthian style, and was consecrated on the 9th of August, 18 19. He was relieved of part of his heavy burthen in 1821, when the see of Cincinnati was erected, with jurisdiction over Ohio, Michigan Territory, and the Northwest. The Sisters of St. Dominic were established in 1821, adding to the institu- tions of the diocese. The diocese in 1824 lost the venerable Mr. Nerinckx; but a few years THE OHIO VALLEY. 3*9 later a number of Jesuit fathers arrived from France and assumed direction of St. Mary's College. Indiana was next formed into a diocese, and in 1837 the see of Nashville was established. The Rev. G. Chabrat was consecrated as coadjutor in 1S34, in place of Bishop David, who had resigned ; but, after Bishop Flaget's visit to Europe, his second coadjutor also resigned, and the Rev. Martin J. Spald- ing was consecrated on the 10th day of September, 1848. Bishop Spalding, who succeeded, was a native of Kentucky, educated at Rome, where he had sustained his theses in a manner to excite general admira- tion. He had been pastor of the Cathedral, president of St. Joseph's College, and vicar-general. When he became bishop the diocese had a Catholic popu- lation of about thirty thousand, served by forty priests, who attended forty- three churches and ten chapels. Bishop Spalding's first efforts were devoted to a visitation of his diocese, to the establishment of orphan asylums, and the erection of a suitable Cathe- dral, which was solemnly consecrated October 3, 1852, in the presence of two archbishops, eight bishops, a mitered abbot and a host of priests. He next introduced the Xaverian Brothers and Brothers of Christian Instruction, to conduct parochial schools for boys. With Bishop Lefebvre he was one of the founders of the American Col- lege, at Louvain, to increase the number of priests for the mission in this country. His diocese embraced the state of Kentucky; but, in 1853, the see of Covington was erected, the diocese embracing the eastern part of the state. During the Know-nothing excitement of 1855 the mob made an attack on the Catholics, killing many in the streets or burning them alive in their houses. The churches were threatened, but none destroyed, on a day still remembered in Louisville as Bloody Monday. The Civil War made Kentucky a scene of warlike preparation and of frequent bloody engagements; colleges became hospitals; and sisters, leaving their quiet schools, became hospital nurses, dying in their charitable work. In the violence of the times a law was passed imposing an oath on any clergy man celebrating marriage; against this the bishop protested, on the ground that the state could not impose conditions on a priest in a purely spiritual act. In the three provincial councils of Cincinnati, 1855, 1858, and 1861, Dr. Spalding bore a leading part. As a distinguished reviewer, author, contro- versialist, and champion of the Faith, he acquired great reputation. To his priests he was exceedingly kind — a father. In his own diocese, he introduced 32o THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. a system of church government, intended to secure the rights of the inferior clergy and to preserve them from arbitrary rule. On the death of Archbishop Kenrick, of Baltimore, Dr. Spalding was chosen his successor, and in June, 1864, was installed as seventh archbishop of Baltimore, in the presence of forty thousand spectators. In this new and exalted office he labored arduously. He never spared himself. He gave all he had to his church, his schools, and his charitable institutions. One of his first cares was to found an industrial school for boys. It was intrusted to the care of the Xaverian Brothers, and opened in 1866. In the same year, as apostolic delegate, Dr. Spalding convened the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore. He had the principal part in preparing the measures submitted to that august body, and in drawing up the acts of the council so as to render the work a standard manual of American canon law. Dr. Spalding attended the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican at Rome, where he was distinguished by his labors and his zeal. On his return he was hailed with acclamation by his people, and received public honors both at Bal- timore and Washington. His last years were as active and laborious as those of his early priesthood. For his flock he truly spent himself. After a long and painful illness he went to receive the reward of a virtuous life, on Feb- ruary 7, 1872. If the United States ever produced a man who was great and good, learned and amiable, that man was Archbishop Spalding. In his character, he united the simplicity of the child with all the vigor of manhood. His affection for his people, his love of children, his devotion to his faith, to his duties, and to his country, endeared him to all. His holy and beautiful memory is one of those bright lights which illuminates the history of the Catholic Church in America. In 1810, the Dominicans of Kentucky had borne the cross into Ohio. Father Edward Fenwick, a native of Maryland, who won his way among men of all creeds and none, pushed his way through the rising state in all directions. Near the center of Ohio, not far from Somerset, he found three Catholic families, who had not seen a priest for ten years; after ministering to them he found others; and, as twice a year he continued his missionary excursions, the number of his scattered flock increased till he, to his joy, found seven families in Cincinnati, the venerable Michael Scott being one of these pioneers of the faith. Bishop Flaget visited Ohio in October, 18 12, and said Mass at the house THE OHIO VALLEY. 321 of the Dittoes, near Somerset, who were already projecting a church, and for which Peter Dittoe gave three hundred and twenty acres of ground. Here the log chapel of St. Joseph, for a congregation of ten families, was blessed, December 6, 1818, by Father Fen wick and Father N. D. Young, who, outliving all his contemporary priests, died in the autumn of 1878. A stone addition was soon needed, and, in a short time, a brick church. Pope Pius VII on the 19th of June, 1821, at the advice of Bishop Flaget, erected the see of Cincinnati, appointing as first bishop Father Edward Fen- wick, who was consecrated in St. Rose's, Kentucky, January 13, 1822, by Bishop Flaget. Besides the state of Ohio, Michigan Territory, including what is now Wisconsin, was placed under his administration. He took possession of his see, hired a house, and sent out for his first meal. He then began to see the extent of the calls upon him. He bought a lot, and erected a wooden chapel, thirty feet by fifty-five, for his Cathedral. The next year he set out for Rome to lay before the holy father the wants of his diocese. From his personal examination, he estimated the Catholics of Ohio at eight thousand, and two thousand Indians on Seneca River; in Michigan he estimated the Catholics at ten or twelve thousand. Already Ohio had four or five wooden churches built, and as many more in progress; converts were coming in, but he had no priests, no seminai-y, no means. His appeal in Europe was successful — he returned with substantial aid, vestments, a rich tabernacle given by Pope Leo XII, paintings. He then began the erection of a Cathedral, which was dedicated the first Sunday of Advent, 1826. After this he made a visitation of his diocese, preceded by some priests, who gave a kind of mission in preparation ; the result was nearlv a thousand communions, the reclaiming of many sinners, and the conversion of many to the faith. Sectarians took alarm. They cried out that the three Catholic families in Ohio in 18 10, had increased to 14,000 souls in 1830. Bishop Fenwick extended his visitation to Michigan; then attended the pro- vincial council at Baltimore, returning to resume his visitations. These he continued without relaxation. In the dangerous season of 1832 he was attacked by cholera, at Sault St. Mary's, and recovering kept on his duties till he was again stricken down in the stage-coach going to Wooster, where he died September 26th. Living only for his flock, and laboring for them, he had called in to aid him the Sisters of St. Dominic, Sisters of Charity, and the Poor Clares. He 22 2 22 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. founded at Cincinnati the Athenaeum, now St.Xavier's College; and, in 1831, established the " Catholic Telegraph," now the oldest of our Catholic papers. Dr. Fenwick was succeeded by the Rt. Rev. John B. Purcell, who was consecrated October 13, 1833, and occupied the see for more than forty- five years, living to behold two other sees erected in the state, and to be him- self invested with the pallium as archbishop; attend numerous provincial and plenary councils at Baltimore; hold provincial councils in his own city, and attend a general council of the Church. John Baptist Purcell was born in the little town of Mallow, County Cork, Ireland, on the 26th of February, 1800, of a poor, but most pious and faithful Catholic family. Having completed his humanities at his birthplace, he came to America in his eighteenth year, and made his course of philoso- phy, and began that of theology in the seminary of Mount St. Mary's, Emmitsburg. He finally went to Paris, and terminated his ecclesiastical studies in the seminary of St. Sulpice. On June 4, 1826, he was ordained by Mgr. de Quelen, archbishop of Paris. Father Purcell then traveled through England and Ireland, and, on concluding a retreat at the Sulpitian Solitude at Jos, he returned to the United States in 1827. He was professor of phil- osophy and afterward of theology, in Mount St. Mary's College, Emmits- burg. He also had charge of the church attached to the college. These duties he performed for seven years. In 1836 Bishop Purcell had a second Catholic Church in Cincinnati, while others arose in other parts of the diocese; the next year he could count thirty-two churches and stations, twenty-one priests, a seminary, a college, a female academy and an asylum. Protestants took alarm at the progress of Catholicity in the West. Beecher had issued his "Plea for the West;" Morse, who was to be decorated with an order by a pope, issued his " Brutus;" and a Rev. Mr. Campbell began a controversy with Bishop Purcell. It was the occasion of a new triumph for Catholic truth; and, in the general interest the controversy caused, a society for the diffusion of religious knowledge was established. The Dominicans began to erect a fine Gothic church at St. Joseph's; the Jesuits, in November, 1840, opened St. Xavier's College; temper- ance societies were organized under the guidance of the Church. Then the bisters of Notre Dame, from Namur, came to open academies and schools. In 1844, the diocese received some fathers of the congregation of the Most Precious Blood, founded by the Ven.Gaspar di Bufalo, led by the Rev. Francis de Sales Brunner, who have now for more than thirty years labored THE OHIO VALLEY. 3 2 3 in the West. Thus increased, the diocese could, in 1846, boast seventy churches, seventy-three priests, and 70,000 people. The Ursuline nuns had also come and founded, in Brown County, a convent and academy, which to this day have been the greatest benefit. It was deemed advisable at this period to divide the diocese, and erect a new see at Cleveland, with jurisdiction over that part of the state north of 40 degrees 41 seconds. The cities of Covington and Newport, in Kentucky, which had grown up opposite Cincinnati, and immediately under the eye of the bishop of that city, were placed under his care. The diocese, as thus reduced, was estimated to contain abovit fifty churches and priests, and as many thousand Catholics. The progress of the diocese, in which great numbers of Catholic Germans had settled, was very rapid; and the increase of population was attended by a development of schools as well as of churches. The Brothers of Mary, a community founded by the Rev. William Joseph Cheminade, canon of Bordeaux, and approved in 1839, were introduced to direct German parochial schools, and have rendered essential service. In 1850 the province of Baltimore was divided, and Cincinnati was raised to an archiepiscopal see, with the bishops of Cleveland, Detroit, Louisville, and Vincennes, as suf- fragans, the number having been since doubled by the division of dioceses. In the following year, to the consolation of the archbishop, he opened the ecclesiastical seminary of Mount St. Mary's of the West, which he had founded in 1848. Its organization was committed to the Rev. Michael Halli- nan as president, a learned priest educated at St. Sulpice, Paris. The institu- tion has fully justified the hopes of the venerable founder, and in its faculty, its thorough course, its extended library, ranks among the greatest theolog- ical seminaries of the country. The Ursulines about this time founded a convent at Cincinnati, and when the Sisters of Charity, in 1852, affiliated themselves to the order of Fiance, those in the diocese of Cincinnati clung to the dress and rule of Mother Seton, and remained as a distinct community under the archbishop. They are now in a flourishing state, with 250 members, in several dioceses^ directing schools and charitable institutions. A pastoral letter on marriage was issued in December, 1853, laying down clearly the rules of the Church, and the duties and obligations of Catholics who receive that sacrament. On the 13th of May, 1855, tne Fnst Provincial Council of Cincinnati 324 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. convened in the Cathedral, the Most Rev. archbishop presiding; the Rt. Rev. Dr. Lefevere, administrator of Detroit; Rt. Rev. A. Rappe, bishop of Cleveland; Rt. Rev. M. J. Spalding, bishop of Louisville; Rt. Rev. G. A. Carrell, bishop of Covington; Rt. Rev. Frederick Baraga, bishop of Amyzonia and vicar-ajDostolic of Upper Michigan, taking part in the work of the council, Bishop de St. Palais alone being absent of all the suf- fragans. Besides the bishops, there were present the provincials of the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits, the superior of the priests of the Holy Cross, and the vicar of the superior of the priests Pretiosissimi Sanguinis. The pastoral letter issued after the close of the council dwelt especially upon Catholic schools, declaring their erection, in many respects, as important an object as the building of new churches. Temperance, zeal for the house of God, patience in persecution, and piety, were inculcated. In the pastoral on the decrees of the council praise is given to the excellence of the German schools, which are cited as models. It also alluded to a recent iniquitous law, leading the way to the confiscation of Catholic Church property, which had, however, been repealed. On the 13th of October, 1858, the Most Rev. archbishop celebrated the Silver Jubilee of his elevation to the see of Cincinnati. Addresses were made by the clergy and faithful, the venerable Very Rev. J. Ferneding lead- ing in this, as he had done in so many good works of the diocese. The bishops of the province joined in their congratulations to their metropolitan. About the year i860, the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor, the Sisters of Mercy, and Sisters of the Good Shepherd began their labors in this diocese. By this time there were in Cincinnati, besides the Cathedral, more than twenty churches, and in the diocese there were a hundred and forty-eight, with one hundred and twenty-three priests, and the Catholics in the diocese were estimated at 160,000; several of the larger cities, as Chillicothe, Colum- bus, Dayton, Fayetteville, Hamilton, Piqua, Portsmouth, and Zanesville had each two churches. On the Feast of the Annunciation, in the year 1862, the Rev. Sylvester H. Rosecrans, an American who had, as priest and professor in the seminary, been laboring in the diocese since his ordination, was consecrated bishop of Pompeiopolis, and bishop auxiliar of Cincinnati. With the aid thus given to the venerable archbishop, religion continued to progress, although six years later his auxiliary was removed and made bishop of Columbus. On the 23d of May, 1876, the Golden Jubilee of the archbishop was THE OHIO VALLEY. 325 celebrated by his flock with solemn services in the Cathedral, attended by- societies in. processions, and crowds of priests and laymen, Catholic and Protestant, who came to offer their congratulations. It was the bright and brilliant prelude of a sad and terrible affliction. Early in 1879 financial affairs which had been managed by the Very Rev. Edward Purcell ended in bankruptcy. How it all came about must ever remain a mystery. The venerable archbishop, as ignorant as a child of the system and its extent, at once came forward and assumed the whole responsibility of his brother's operations. This only complicated matters and raised a host of legal questions as to his ability, in character of trustee for the Catholic Church in his diocese, to assume an individual indebtedness con- tracted by another; and if he could, it became necessary to decide what prop- erty became liable for it, that owned by the diocese or the property of everv Catholic Church and institution in the diocese. If the debt became a just charge on the whole diocese and all its churches and institutions, it was a debt on every Catholic, which he was bound in conscience to pay. This extreme view no theologian or canonist was found to take. The debts were at first supposed not to exceed a quarter of a million of dol- lars, and attempts were made to meet or reduce it materially by subscriptions; but when it was found that the indebtedness reached nearly four millions of dollars the attempt was abandoned as hopeless. The Very Rev. Edward Pur- cell died broken-hearted. The archbishop made an assignment of all prop- erty in his name, and long litigations began. The court ultimately decided that the individual congregations were not liable except for moneys actually advanced to them. The venerable archbishop asked to be permitted to resign the see which he had so long occupied, but when this was refused he obtained the appoint- ment of a coadjutor. The choice fell upon the Rt. Rev. William H. Elder, then bishop of Natchez, who in May, 1880, assumed the administration of the diocese. Archbishop Purcell then retired to a house near the Ursuline convent in Brown County. Here early in 1881 he was struck with paralysis and lingered till July 4, 1883, when he expired calmly and full of hope. His career had been humble, zealous, and active. In the great trial of his life all acknowledged that no money had been spent for his own purposes or extrav- agantly. He had been a prelate of great influence, forming many of the best bishops and clergy in the country, consecrating in his long administration 326 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. eighteen bishops and ordaining hundreds of priests. His successor, in 1880, was the Most Rev. William Henry Elder, former bishop of Natchez. A few words may here be added about the important diocese of Cleve- land, cut off from Cincinnati in 1847, an d of which the first shep- herd was Rt. Rev. Amadeus Rappe. Bishop Rappe devoted himself to develop the resources of his diocese to meet the wants of an increasing flock. He estab- lished St. Mary's Ecclesiastical Seminary, and St. John's College at Cleveland, and introduced the Ursuline Nuns, who founded an academy in the same city; the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary took charge of the orphan asylum ; and Augustinian Sisters of a charity hospital, which is to this day the greatest and almost the only institution of the kind in the city. The bishop was a man of sin- gular eloquence, speaking several languages with fluency; but he devoted himself especially to the poor, and to the education of MOST REV. W. H. ELDER, ARCHBISHOP OF ^ Cincinnati. children. Many of the churches in Northern Ohio had already been erected by his exertions. At Cleveland he found only one church, St. Mary's of the Flats. He soon commenced the erection of a suitable cathedral, and gave an impulse to the building of a church and school wherever, stimulated by his zeal and eloquence, the people could maintain them. He visited every church and station in his diocese at least once a year, and was assiduous in the confes- sional; and, in preaching, generally delivering two sermons every Sunday. Under such a bishop religion could not but prosper. After an adminis- tration of twenty-three years he saw 100,000 Catholics under his care; he had a hundred and sixty churches, and a hundred and seven priests; a school THE OHIO VALLEY. 327 I wherever there was a resident pastor, with an average attendance ranging from fifty to a thousand pupils. Religious orders, the Sons of St. Francis and St. Ignatius, Brothers of Mary, Gray Nuns, Sisters of the Humility of Mary, Franciscan Sisters, Hospital Sisters of the Third Order, Sisters of the Good Shepherd, and Little Sisters of the Poor, were all pursuing their especial work for the glory of God. Yet trouble arose: malice did not spare even so excellent a bishop; and Dr. Rappe, finding that his presence might prejudice instead of benefiting the cause of religion, resigned his see, August 2, 1870, with no repining and no rancor. He retired to the diocese of his old friend and fellow-laborer in Ohio, Bishop De Geosbriand, of Burlington, where he labored as a zealous mission- ary and apostle of temperance, till his death, September 8, 1877. The Rt. Rev. Richard Gilmour, already known as an active and zeal- ous priest, devoted to the cause of education, was consecrated as bishop of Cleveland, April 14, 1872. In his struggle to save Catholic youth, and in establishing a Catholic paper — The Universe — to maintain Catholic interests, Bishop Gilmour aroused some of the dormant fanaticism to lay aside its ordinary mask of hypocrisy; but the progress of the faith was all the more solid. The -old church of St. Mary's on the Flats, has twenty other churches besides it in the city of Cleveland; and the diocese, in 1878, had no less than two hundred and three churches, a hundred and fifty-eight priests, seven asy- lums with nearly five hundred orphans rescued from ruin, a hundred and ten parish schools, with twenty-two thousand pupils, out of a Catholic population of 150,000. Bishop Gilmour likewise aided the cause of education by the preparation of an excellent series of school books. To the great grief of his flock, he died in 1 891, and has been followed in the charge by Rt. Rev. Dr. Horstmann, late an eminent priest of the diocese of Philadelphia. mmptcx ^Wilt TH6 CROSS IN INDIANA. Establishment of Fort Vincennes. — Father Peter Gibault. —Bishop of Bards- town Rules in Indiana. — Father Brute Made Bishop of Vincennes. — A Scion of Good French Stock. — Good Teachers and Pious Practices. — Career of a Bright Scholastic. — Studying Medicine in Paris. — Forsakes All for the Church. — Joins the Holy Sulpitians. — Teaching at Mount St. Mary's. — Acquaintance With Mother Seton. — Saintly Days and Duties. — Poverty on Becoming Bishop. — Salary Paid In Corn. — Giving All to the Poor. — Still Laboring Though Dying. — "Going Home." — Bishop Hallan- diere. — Notre Dame and St. Mary's of the Wood. — A Fruitful Pastorate. — Other Bishops. — Fort Wayne and Terre Haute. BOUT the year 1730, a French post was established on the Wabash by Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes, which, after his death in the Chickasaw War, assumed his name and has since retained it. Here, in 1749, Father Sebastian Louis Meurin, of the Society of Jesus, founded the church and mission of St. Francis Xavier, reviving, as some suppose, a temporary mission of Father Mermet about 17 10. Father Meurin was succeeded by others of his holy order, who continued to minister to the French and Indians there till the fall of Canada, and the almost simultaneous suppression of the Jesuits. At Fort Ouiatenon, near the present Lafayette, was, it is inferred, another Jesuit mission under Father Pierre du Jaunay. This shared the fate of that of Vincennes, which was without a priest for six years till, in 1769, the Rev. Peter Gibault, sent by the bishop of Quebec to look after that remote part of his flock, wintered there, and commenced his arduous labors in the West, extending his visits beyond the Mississippi. When the colonies declared their independence, Father Gibault induced the French in the West to join General Clark, and thus secured that part of the country to the United States. He resided sometimes at Vincennes and occasionally at other 328 THE CROSS IN INDIANA. 3 2 9 m;s?ions. He was assisted for a time by a Father Paget, and finally withdrew on Jhe nth of October, i 7S9. The famous Father Flaget was sent to revive the faith of these scattered Catholics in 1792. This first mission of the future bishop of Bardstown extended to April, 1795. The Rev. Mr. Rivet then ministered to the French and Indians and occasional Irish Catholics, till his death in 1S04, and in 1799 opened the first school. His services in restraining the Indians were highly esteemed by the government and the people. The Rev. Mr. Oliver, then stationed near the Mississippi, visited Vincennes occasionally. Indiana had meanwhile fallen under the jurisdiction of Bishop Flaget, and in 1S12, his old flock earnestly implored him to give them a resident priest. He visited them in 18 14, and remained several weeks, instructing, hearing confessions, baptizing, marrying, and on the 5th of June for the first time administered the sacrament of confirmation. He made a second visit on his way back from the Mississippi, for the benefit of the hundred and twenty Catholic families there. Visits were now frequently made to Vincennes by priests from Ohio and Kentucky; but on the 6th day of May, 1834, Pope Gregory XVI erected Vin- cennes into an episcopal see, and the Rev. Simon Gabriel Brute was appointed bishop. He was consecrated at Bardstown, October 26, 1S34. The diocese embraced the state of Indiana and Western Illinois, and as its first prelate was one of the most remarkable men in the history of the American Church we deem well to notice his career at some length. Just one hundred and thirty-five years after the illustrious Father Jogues, S. J., had visited Rennes — the capital of the ancient province of Brittany — bearing on his person cruel marks of Mohawk barbarity, there was born in the same city a child who was destined one day to make his name forever famous in the annals of the Catholic Church in the United States. It was Simon Gabriel Brute\ His birthday was the 20th of March, 1779. He belonged to an ancient and very respectable family. His father, Simon Gabriel Brute, was superintendent of the royal domains in Brittany ; and there is every evidence that his mother was a lady of great piety, intelligence, and force of character. Simon Gabriel was but seven years of age when his father died, leaving his business affairs in an embarrassed condition. It was a great misfortune. The family prospects were blasted, and a hard, weighty responsibility fell on Madame Brute\ But she was not unequal to the burden. She seems to have 33 o THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE, been a wise woman, whose tact and common sense made her equal to the duties of this world, without ever leading her to forget the things of heaven. Such was the good educator who had the first hand in molding the tender character of the future bishop. Nor was he less^ortunate in his first confessor. " My first confessor," he wrote, many years after, " was Father Carron, vicar of the parish of St. Germain, then a very young priest, but already so remarkable for his exem- plary life and most fervent piety, that he was called the 'Abbe" Te>ese,' in allusion to St. Teresa. " This was soon after the death of my father, when I was about eight years old. I remember well that the first time I went to confession to him, he gave me — as I left his confessional, which stood in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin — a little book in French entitled ' The Death of Abel.' As I was retiring, he came out of the confessional and gave me the book. I remember his face as it appeared at that moment, with such an expression of amiability and piety upon it. " I was his penitent for several years, until 1791, the last year of the free exercise of religion in France, during which year I had the happiness of making my first Communion. I went regular to confession, but up to that time, thanks be to God, my excellent mother, and I must add excellent teachers, I had little to confess. Although I had attended the public schools for four or five years, I was an entire stranger to all improper notions ; and my chief matter of reproach, at the time of making my general confession for first Communion, was the having taken an apple from the stand of an old fruit woman. " During the same interval, I learned my catechism at school, though at times I attended the public catechism at the parish church, to recite portions of the Holy Scripture, which we learned by heart. I remember that on one occasion, having repeated the history of the sacrifice of Abraham, I obtained, as a reward, quite a large print of the Annunciation, pasted on a board with a margin of gilt paper around it. It hung for long years by the side of my bed, and I can still call to mind the strange, vivid association of the Blessed Virgin, and good Father Carron, in my childish impressions of piety and holiness of life. "My first prayer-book also made a great impression on my mind. It was a Paroissien, bound in green morocco, with gilt edges, and was given to me on the very day of my father's funeral, February 28, 1786. I had THE CROSS IN INDIANA. . 33 x long desired to have one, and I presume there was not a little vanity mixed up with the devotion with which I followed the Mass and office in my beau- tiful prayer-book, at the college and the parish church. I had it in my possession twenty years afterwards, with its broken covers, defaced binding and some torn leaves; but I lost it somehow or other in my many journeyings. " I made my first Communion, as I have said, in 1 79 1 . There were about 200 of us of the first or second Communion — for it was the excellent custom of those times to make the second Communion with the same preparation as the first, after a short spiritual retreat. I thank Thee, O my God ! for the state of innocence and piety I was in the day I performed this most import- ant act." Young Brute" was a hard, earnest student. His ways were kind and winning. An astonishing memory and a lively imagination made him appear unusually bright. He pursued his studies under private teachers when the troubles and terrors of the Revolution closed the college of Rennes. " He acquired in boyhood and youth," says the venerable Dr. McCaffrey, " habits of study, of close and patient mental application, which he retained through life. In spite of that modesty which prevented him from ever speak- ing in his own praise, I could learn from a long and intimate acquaintance with him, and from the testimony of others, that, in the public schools of his native city, he was distinguished, and eminently successful. " His after life proved it. His mind was too rich in treasures of classic lore, too amply furnished from the armories of science, for him to have been a dull or careless student. Whether he conversed with a friend, or lectured to a class, or heralded the message of salvation from a pulpit, the evidences of profound knowledge, as well as of remarkable genius, incessantly flashed before you. " Whatever he once read or studied he remembered. Even in the last years of his life, when his attention seemed to be absorbed in theology, and other branches of ecclesiastical learning, he recited with ease all the fables of La Fontaine, entire scenes of Racine, Corneille, and the finest passages of the other French writers, or of the Latin poets. Though less familiar with the Greek classics, he had read them with advantage as well as pleasure, and turned to good account his knowledge of the language, in the study of the Greek Fathers of the Church. " At one time he had in view to enter the French Polytechnic School, and for this reason he pursued a very extensive course of mathematical ~ 3 . THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. science. Subsequently he had the best opportunities, in the medical schools of Paris, of penetrating deeply into the mysteries of chemistry and natural philosophy. He improved them with his usual diligence. " While he devoted himself to severer studies, he gave some share of attention to music and drawing; and in the latter of these accomplishments he attained a proficiency which in after years was a source of pleasure and advantage to himself and a means which he often happily employed for the purpose of interesting and instructing others. " His studies were interrupted by the Revolutionary troubles, and he spent about two years in his mother's printing establishment, during which he learned and practiced the business of a compositor. It would appear that he was led to this much less by inclination than by the reverses which his family had sustained, and the dangers of the times." In the spring of 1796, the young student, at the age of seventeen, began the study of medicine under Duval, an eminent surgeon of Rennes. Two years later we find him at Paris, attending the schools of medicine, and listen- ing to the lectures of Pinel, Bichat and other distinguished professors. It was, however, a dangerous period. Infidelity ran wild. Religion was held in scorn and contempt; but the firm, pious, well-balanced mind of Mr. Brute received no injury. He kept the precious pearl of faith unharmed. He even did his best to stem the savage tide of infidelity. In 1803 he graduated doctor in medicine with the highest honors. Eleven hundred students were following the course; and of these one hundred and twenty of the best were chosen to compete for the first prize. It was gained by Dr. Brute, after a severe examination. The young physician was offered a good position in the capital of France; but the times had changed, and he decided to dedicate his brilliant talents to the Church. It was not, however, from any feelings of dislike that he abandoned the profession of medicine. No. " He always honored it," says the Rev. Dr. McCaffrey, "as one of the noblest to which a highlv gifted and philanthropic man can devote himself. Delightful as his conversa- tion was to all, and to men of science in particular, it was peculiarly so to the student, or to the practitioner and professor of medicine. "They often expressed their astonishment that, after a lapse of twenty or thirty years, engrossed by pursuits of a very different order, he retained so- perfect and minute a knowledge of all that he had studied in his youth, under the great masters of the French capital." The only occasion, however, on THE CROSS IN INDIANA. 333 which we have heard of his attempting the practice was at Mount St. Mary's College, when one of the students broke his arm, and the regular physician could not be had at once. Father Brute set the arm so skillfully as to leave nothing for the doctor to do when he came. The horrors of the French Revolution had now passed, and Christianity once more took possession of her profaned and ruined temples. Zealous laborers were needed for the divine work of reconstruction. This determined young Dr. Brute to enter the seminary of St. Sulpice, Paris. He began his new labors in 1803. With eagerness, his orderly, well-trained mind pursued the study of theology, canon law, church history, and the other sacred sciences. He was a model to all in the seminary. It need hardly be said that he was a ripe scholar and finished theologian when he' was raised to the sacred dignity of the priesthood, at the age of twenty-nine, in the year 1808. Father Brut£ was offered a canonicate in the Cathedral of Rennes, and the bishop of Nantes pressed him to become assistant chaplain to the Emperor Napoleon. But he refused both positions, and became a member of the priests of St. Sulpice. He was appointed professor of theology in the seminary of his native city, and was thus devoting his time and talents when the venerable Bishop Flaget, of Kentucky, visited France. This suggested a fresh train of reflections — the New World, with its vast spiritual wants and few laborers. The apostolic Brute decided to go to America. He bade a tender adieu to his good mother, his family friends, and his library, and sailed from Bordeaux in the summer of 18 10. Father Brut£, in company with Bishop Flaget, landed at Baltimore on the 1 8th of August, 18 10. For nearly two years after his arrival he filled the chair of philosophy at the seminary of St. Sulpice. He was then appointed to aid Father Dubois in the management of Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Maryland. It was during the vacation of 181 2, while spending his time in hard mis- sionary labors, that Father Brute dropped a note to Bishop Flaget. Arch- bishop Bayley considered it " one of his first attempts to write in English." " I am trying," he says, " to learn practically my English. I have said Mass and preached — bad preaching as it may be — in six different places. This must force this dreadful English into my backward head, or I must renounce forever to know it." For some years Mount St. Mary's now became the chief theater of his zeal, learning and holy influence. He taught in the college, and he was the 334 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. spiritual director of the saintly Mother Seton and her Sisters of Charity at St. Joseph's. Mother Seton derived the greatest benefit from his excellent counsels. She and Father Brute" were such congenial spirits that their minds would seem to have been cast in the same mold. A vivid fancy and ardent temper- ament, with an entire yielding of himself to the impulses of faith, caused this apostolic priest to feel most powerfully the truths of religion, and with a cor- responding fervor to announce them in word or writing. His ideas flowed so rapidly that at times he would not stop to give them full expression in language ; but he poured forth his subjects, as it were, in flashes of word and sentiment, leaving much to be supplied and felt by those to whom he addressed himself. He found in Mother Seton a soul who could follow him in his lofty and beautiful flights on the wings of faith, who could catch the fire of his thoughts and commune with him in the enjoyment of that elevating power. From him, in a great measure, did this gifted lady learn the secret of how to pre- serve her soul in peace amid the trials of her position, and, abandoning her- self to the will of God in all things, to look forward in hope and joy to the term of all earthly sorrow and suffering. In 1818 Father Brute" made a visit to France for the purpose of bringing over his library and interesting the French clergy in the American missions. On his arrival at Baltimore he was appointed president of St. Mary's College, where he remained until 1818, when he again returned to Emmitsburg. Mount St. Mary's College was now placed on a good footing. A theo- logical school was opened, and Father Brute" became professor of theology and superior of the school. Here, for many years he molded the future priests, bishops, and archbishops, of the country, and proved his greatness as a learned and saintly teacher. " His duties," says Rev. Dr. McCaffrey, " were multiplied and various, and required to discharge them no ordinary share of zeal, industry, and ver- satility of powers. He was confessor to the Sisters of Charity, and for many years pastor of the congregation at Emmitsburg, while he frequently exer- cised in this congregation some of the most arduous functions of the holy ministry. " In the ecclesiastical seminary he lectured on sacred scripture, and was professor of theology and moral philosophy. In the college he taught at different times natural philosophy and various other branches. True greatness THE CROSS IN INDIANA. 335 dignifies whatever sphere it moves in. His genius and learning were conspicuous, when they expatiated through the palace-halls of the queen of sciences, Divinity ; they were not less admirable when they descended to the humble task of teaching youth geography, or explaining the little catechism to children. " His cheerful piety, amiable manners, and lively interest in the welfare of his pupils, were sure to win their hearts; and his eminent holiness of life secured not only respect but veneration. His exhortations to virtue and piety could scarcely fail of effect, because he recommended only what he practiced himself. No standard of Christian or priestly excellence to which he pointed could appear too high — since he was himself a living instance of its attain- ment. If forgetful of this earth, he always pointed and allured to heaven, he also led the way "His hours of sleep were few, and long before the morning's dawn he arose to converse with God, and to give Him the first fruits of the day. Dur- ing these early meditations his soul, absorbed in heavenly contemplation and intimate union with its Creator, was largely visited with the refreshing dews of divine grace, and when he approached the altar and offered up the Holy Sacrifice, his heart, already full to overflowing, was always overpowered by mingled emotions of reverential awe and gratitude and love, and often found relief in copious tears. "He descended to the discharge of his ordinary duties; but, like Moses, he bore the marks of converse with his God, and, as words of heavenly wisdom fell from his tongue, you could readily fancy that his lips, like those of Isaias, had been touched by the seraph with living coals of fire from the altar. " His time was all divided between prayer and labor. He loved so well the beauty of the house of the Lord, and the place where his glory dwells, that he spent whole hours kneeling before the Blessed Sacra- ment; and eventually he made it a rule whenever it was practicable, to recite the divine office in His holy presence. Thither he would repair on returning from a long journey during the rigors of winter, and, until he had satisfied his devotions, no persuasions could induce him to attend to his personal comfort. " At other times, unless he was engaged in active duties, you would find him in the midst of his splendid library, surrounded by the writings of the fathers and doctors of the Church, and whatever besides is most rare and valuable in science and literature, pursuing his devoted studies with „ 6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. intense application and wonderful activity of mind, or committing to paper, for the benefit of others, the results of his profound investigations. " His recreation was but variety of labor. When his weaned mind demanded its turn of relaxation, the most arduous bodily toil succeeded, and this round of exertions, mental and corporeal, was kept up with an elasticity of spirits and activity of mind truly surprising. After a journey of fifty miles, performed on foot, in a single day, book in hand, praying and reading by turns, and scarcely stopping to take the simple refection that nature required, he would meet his friends in the evening with a freshness of spirits and. gayety of conversation that could not be surpassed. "As professor of theology he chiefly excelled in two things — avast erudition, which left nothing unexplored, and a singular power of generaliz- ing, which enabled him to grasp his whole subject and handle it with ease, by bringing all its details under a few general principles. In exhibiting and supporting these principles he put forth all his strength. After adducing all the evidence which his extensive reading readily furnished, elucidating it by his luminous explanations, and applying the logical tests with cautious judg- ment and impartial rigor, his excursive mind brought in a rich and almost gorgeous profusion of analogies and illustrations from every part of the wide domain of human knowledge." Among Father Brute's students at this time might be seen a bright, noble-looking young fellow, who had manfully brushed a host of difficulties aside, and pushed his way into the class-rooms of Mount St. Mary's College. Many a day he listened to his illustrious teacher, storing up the treasures of knowledge that flowed from his lips. At length he was raised to the priest- hood in 1826. It was John Hughes, afterwards archbishop of New York. Young Father Hughes began his labors in a new and thorny field ; but the kind master did not forget his promising pupil. " My deaf brother," writes Rev. Professor Brut£, " may God bless such wise and prudent begin- nings of your holy ministry amidst such difficult and perplexing circumstances as it has pleased Him to try them by. May He bless such worthy sentiments as expressed in your letter." In all his perplexities the future archbishop had recourse to Father Brute\ He asks his opinion, now upon a point of theology, again upon some anti- quarian subject; now he applies to him to find a passage in one of the fathers; now consults him upon a question of philosophy, or asks from him a summary of the principles of canon law, which bear upon the existing Church THE CROSS IN INDIANA. 337 difficulties at Philadelphia. Upon all points this extraordinary man was ready to satisfy him. When Father Hughes erected St. John's Church at Philadelphia, and was about to have it dedicated in 1832, he wrote to his dear old professor: " Could you not be here on that day ? It would add to the solemnity of the occasion and be a subject of joy to all your friends — who are all that know or ever heard of you." " I have heard," replies Father Brut£, " from all quarters of the great success that God grants to your noble undertaking. The details you give me are of the most pleasing nature. The invitation you add for the day of con- secration I acknowledge with all my heart; but, be sure that my good obscure corner here is my true place, and a couple of miles of radius, just to St. Joseph's, the true space of my usefulness; for the rest, nesciri et pro nihilo reputari" One day in the month of May, 1834, while Father Brut£ was giving a retreat to the Sisters of Charity, he was handed some documents which had come all the way from Rome. He went into the chapel, and on his knees opened them — the bulls appointing him bishop of the newly erected see of Vincennes, Indiana. His humility was alarmed. He made a retreat to know the will of Heaven, and only after long and careful reflection would he accept the great responsi- bility. " I have been unusually engaged since I received the news of your elevation to the episcopacy," wrote his old pupil, Father John Hughes, in August, 1834. "My congratulations are on this account later, but not less sincere. The place which you have hitherto occupied seemed to me so important for the Church, that I confess it is with regret I see it vacant. But when I think of the ways by which Almighty God accomplishes His designs, especially in reference to the Church, I have no doubt but it will be found according to His will." The new prelate was consecrated in the fall of the same year, and at once set out for Vincennes. He arrived there in company with Bishop Flaget and Bishop Purcell, on the 5th of November. " Some miles before reaching the city," writes Bishop Brutd, " we were met by a number of citizens, Catholics and Protestants, on horseback, who had accompanied the pastor, Rev. Mr. Lalumiere, a native of the state, and the first priest ordained for Vincennes. He was, of course, filled with joy in seeing a bishop granted to his Indiana, and all the inhabitants seemed to share in it. 23 338 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. " The ceremony of installation took place the same evening. Bishop Flaget, who forty-three years before had been the missionary priest here when it was a simple trading and military post, in the midst of the surrounding wilderness, proceeded to address the people with his usual fervor. Venerated and beloved by all, himself in the seventy-fourth year of his age, he intro- duced to them their new bishop, no longer young, being in his fifty-fourth year, and urged them to make good use of the privileges which God in His mercy had bestowed upon them. Other instructions were given during those days. On Sunday I officiated pontifically, and on Monday my venerable col- leagues took their leave, amid the blessings of the whole population, to return to their respective dioceses. " They literally left me alone. Father Petit was obliged soon to return to his college in Kentucky. Mr. Lalumiere took charge of the missions in the vicinity of Vincennes, but still twenty-five or thirty miles distant, and in the whole diocese there were but two other priests, one Mr. Ferneding, in charge of the German missions, 150 miles distant, and Mr. St. Cyr, whom Bishop Rosati had permitted to assist me for one year, and who was stationed at Chicago — 225 miles off. "The cathedral Church is a plain brick building, 115 feet long, and 60 feet broad, consisting of the four walls and the roof, unplastered, and not even white-washed — no sanctuary — not even a place for preserving the vestments and sacred vessels. It has only a simple altar of wood, with a neatly gilded tabernacle, and a cross and six beautiful candlesticks — agift from France — which were much in contrast with the poverty and utter destitution of the place. The house built for the missionary — and now the episcopal residence — consists of a small comfortable room and closet, 25 feet by 12, without, however, a cellar under, or a garret above; a small plot in a garden lies between it and the church, on the other side of which is the Catholic cemetery. Some years since, the town had a common burying ground prepared, beyond its limits, and insisted for a while that the Catholics should bury their dead in it like the rest, but they resisted so resolutely that they were at last permitted to bury in their own cemetery. An old wooden building, a short distance from the palace, is occupied by the servant, and near it is a stable ready for the bishop's horse — when he is able to get one. "The people are mostly of French descent, poor, illiterate, but of that open, lively disposition which bespeaks their origin. They retain their Faith, love their priest, but are negligent in attending to their religious duties. They THE CROSS IN INDIANA. 339 are very remiss also in teaching their children their prayers and the catechism, and this causes them to forget it themselves. Many also are in the habit of using profane language. It is true, and should be mentioned, that of late years they have been much neglected, and much of their former piety seems now to be rekindling in their hearts. " The kind reception I met with on my arrival was followed up by generous gifts of provisions and other necessary things. Of money they have little, and consequently can give but little. A subscription list which was handed around some months after I came, with the intention of providing a yearly income for my support, did not reach two hundred dollars, and most of this was to be paid in grain, if they had not money at the time." It will thus be seen that when Bishop Brute began his labors at Vin- cennes, nearly everything was to create — a seminary, schools, churches, and all these with an income of less than $20 a month. He was both bishop and parish priest, and his round of toil was ceaseless. Every Sunday he gave two instructions — one in French, another in English. He left no corner of his wild and widely scattered diocese unvisited. He wrote continually for the Catholic press. His food and clothing were of the very plainest. As to money, if he had any, he knew only how to give it away. " If he had five dollars," said one of his priests, "it went to the first person that asked him for money." He often gave away his garments, and he was known to bestow his linen and underclothes to poor negroes whom he visited and solaced. The first church he blessed was placed under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin, and called St. Mary's, an event which, he says, gave him* " great happiness." Of his first visit to Chicago, he writes : " I gave only a few confirmations, and three instructions, one on Saturday, and two on Sun- day, to encourage the rising Catholic congregation of that most important point. It is now composed of about 400 souls of all countries, French, Can- adians, Americans, Irish, and a good number of Germans." When he visited the Indians and their good missionary, Father De Seille, he was received with delight. One of the chiefs made the bishop a present of 320 acres of land, saying that "God, when He would return from heaven to visit our earth, would see that ground which the Indian.-; gave, and that it would prove to Him their sincere devotion to His holy religion and the mes- sengers He had sent to secure its blessings to them." He confirmed sixteen Indians on this occasion. " One was an old chief," writes the bishop, " who since his baptism had led such an innocent life that he had not been observed 3 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. to commit any fault, or give way to impatience, or any other imper- fection." As he passed by the pretty, peaceful site now adorned by the university of Notre Dame, the keen eye of the apostolic man noted its advantages, and he remarked that it was " a most desirable spot, and one soon I hope to be occupied by some prosperous institution." But we have not room to follow Dr. Brute in his tireless labors as a missionary bishop. Several times he crossed the ocean at the call of duty ; and it was while on his way to attend the council of Baltimore, in 1837, that he caught a severe cold, which finally grew into consumption. His health declined, but not his activity. To the last he was up and doing. On one occasion he began a journey of four hundred miles in a state of such bodily suffering that he could not sit upright on his horse, but he manfully pushed along. Only six hours before his death he wrote with his own hand, and not without much pain and difficulty, several moving letters to persons who had unfortunately abandoned the practice of their faith, and to whom he wished to make this dying appeal in behalf of their souls, while the portals of eternity were closing upon him. " I am going home," said this simple, saintly and heroic man, this varied and profound scholar, as he calmly and sweetly surrendered his soul to God on the 26th of June, 1839. At the end of his five short years of administration, Bishop Brute" left to "the Church of Indiana, twenty-four priests, twenty-three churches, besides six church buildings and twenty-eight stations occasionally visited; two religious communities, one theological seminary, one college for young men, one female academy, and two free schools. With such achievements the reader will be surprised to learn that he was opposed to going in debt, and would never sign a mortgage on church property." His vicar-general, Celestine de la Hailandiere, selected by the pope to succeed him, was consecrated at Paris, August 18, 1839, by Dr. Forbin Jan- son, bishop of Nancy. The new bishop endowed the diocese with two important communities. One was the Fathers of the Holy Cross, with the Brothers of St. Joseph, to whom he confided Ste. Marie des Lacs, a log chapel erected by Rev S. T. Badin, on property purchased by him, and where the Rev. Messrs. Deseille and Petit labored among the Indians. The Rev. E. Sorin had, in 1S41, brought over from Mans some brothers, and founded St. Peter's, an establishment near Vincennes. He proceeded to Ste. Marie in November, 1842, and there founded Notre Dame, on the right bank of the THE CROSS IN INDIANA. 34 x St. Joseph's River, the history and wonderful increase of this establishment being noted in a separate chapter. The other community was that of the Sisters of Providence, who, in 1S40, founded a convent at St. Mary's in the Woods, near Terre Haute, and which has also had a glorious fruition. The year 1844 was a sad one. Catholicity had to endure a new and ter- rible trial. In the east the mob, led by designing men, had destroved Catho- st. mart's in the woods, 1S40. lie churches and institutions openly; and misguided individuals had by stealth applied the incendiary torch, almost unrebuked bv popular judgment; and nowhere had the voice of the Protestant ministry been raised to impress on their ignorant followers that such acts of violence against their fellow-citizens were grievous sins. In the west the persecution took a new form. An exemplary priest, Romain Weinzaspnein, of Evansville, Indiana, was arrested and tried for an outrage on a married woman named Schmoll. The state- ments of the complainant were unsupported and self-contradictorv ; but the judge and jury, if thev did not investigate the whole charge, went into the case with the clear intent of convicting the priest, and they did convict him. He was sentenced to the penitentiary for five years. Before many months proof accumulated that the accuser was a woman notorious for her infamous life; some of those foremost in compassing the wicked verdict were filled with compunction, and united in petitioning the governor to release, in the 342 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE only way he could — by pardon — the victim of their bigotry. Thoroughly convinced of his innocence the governor opened his prison doors. The diocese, in 1844, was restricted to the state of Indiana, the Illinois portion being assigned to the new see of Chicago. Bishop de le Hailandiere resigned his see in 1847, having nearly doubled the number of his priests and churches. At the request of the fathers of the Sixth Provincial Council of Balti- more, the Rev. John S. Bazin was then appointed, and consecrated at Vin- cennes, October 24, 1847. As a missionary priest, at Mobile, he had evinced most remarkable qualities, and great hopes were entertained of his success in his new position; but he died after a few days' illness, April 23, 1848. The diocese was then administered by the Very Rev. James Mary Mau- rice de Saint Palais, who was consecrated bishop on the 14th of January, 1849. He was born near Tours, in 181 1, and had been educated at St. Sulpice, Paris, but, after his ordination, came to Vincennes to labor in the American mission. He was fully acquainted with the diocese and its wants, and exerted himself to do all in his power for his flock. The Benedictine fathers, from Einsiedeln, encouraged by him, founded their monastery at St. Meinrad's, which has now grown to be one of our great abbeys. He also introduced the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, and the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, who established a convent at Oldenburg. The increase of the faithful was such that, in 1856, he solicited a division of the diocese, and a new see was erected at Fort Wayne, in January of the follow- ing year. The diocese of Vincennes has since included the part of Indiana lying south of Fountain, Montgomery, Boone, Hamilton, Madison, Delaware, Randolph, and Warren counties. It contained an ecclesiastical seminary, a Benedictine monastery, a community of Brothers, a convent of Sisters of Providence, directing eleven academies and schools; Tertiary Sisters of St. Francis, with a convent at Oldenburg, and three dependent schools, seventy- eight churches, and forty-two priests. He lived to see great progress. The Franciscan fathers founded thriving convents at' Oldenburg and Indianapolis; the Capuchins opened a lyceum at Terre Haute; the Brothers of the Sacred Heart began to direct schools for boys, establishing a novitiate to provide for future wants; the Sisters of Providence and of St. Francis extended their fields of labor; Benedictine and Ursuline nuns came to direct academies and free schools; the Sisters of the Good Shepherd and Little Sisters of the Poor, at Indianapolis, pursued their wonderful works of mercy; Evansville had a THE CROSS IN INDIANA. 343 hospital under the Sisters of Charity ; and the priests and churches had more than doubled in number, when the good bishop, while at St. Mary's in the Woods, June 28, 1S77, was suddenly stricken down by disease, and died among the priests and religious who, like him, had labored for the glory of God. The Very Rev. Auguste Bessonies became administrator of the diocese. The holy father Pope Leo XIII appointed, as fifth bishop of Vincennes, Dr. Francis Silas Chatard, a native of Baltimore, who had for several years been rector of the American College at Rome. He was consecrated May 12, 1878, and, on proceeding to his diocese, took up his residence at Indian- apolis, the capital of the state, where there were already five churches and as many chapels. When the see of Fort Wayne was erected, the Rev. John Henry Luers was appointed the first bishop. He was born at Minister, Germany, Sep- tember 29, 1 819, and came to this country in his fourteenth year. He was educated by the Lazarists, and ordained November 11, 1846. From that time he had been a laborious missionary in the diocese of Cincinnati till his promotion. He was consecrated January 10, 1858. Fort Wayne had, in the last century, under the name of Kiskakon, been a French post at the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's rivers. A priest was there in 1749, and the very names of the streams indicate an earlier presence. Bishop Luers found on the spot a small frame church in poor condition, with a suitable residence; but in the whole diocese there were only twenty churches, most of them very poor, eleven secular priests, and three Fathers of the Holy Cross. To begin a cathedral, to stimulate his flock to erect suitable churches, to obtain more priests, were the great tasks before him. In 1859 the corner-stone of a fine Gothic cathedral was laid by Arch- bishop Purcell, and, by the energy of the bishop, the building was completed before the close of the year. This aroused the zeal of Catholics in other parts, who at once began to erect churches worthy of them. The bishop was unwearied in his visitations, convened his clergy biennially, and was ever ready to encourage them. In 1864 he visited Rome, and was commissioned by the Holy See to draw up a constitution and rules for the Sisters of the Holy Cross, who were detached from the order in France. The Fathers of the Hc'y Cross meanwhile increased in number; the Sisters of Providence opened a house at Fort Wayne; the Sisters of Precious Blood in Jay County. Bishop Luers was untiring in his exertions for the good of his diocese; and, overcome by his apostolic labors, he died June 28, 344 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. 1 87 1, from a stroke received while in the street, after having conferred holy orders in the morning. The Rt. Rev. Joseph Dwenger, appointed by Pope Pius IX to the see of Fort Wayne, was consecrated April 14, 1872, and has since governed the diocese. The growth of Catholicity has been remarkable. The diocese contains now about 80,000 Catholics, with a hundred and eight churches, exclusive of those still in course of erection; there are sixty-six secular priests, thirty-one regulars; a university which has already celebrated its Sil- ver Jubilee, seventeen academies, fifty-three parish schools, with hospitals, orphan asylums, and retreats for the aged. ©tapte* £TOI. THE CITV OF JUlJIkEE. Reminiscences of Marquette. — Chicago's First House and Church. — Father. St. Cyr's Mission. — A Prophecy by Bishop Rosati. — Bishop Brute Visits the Mission. —Increase of the Flock. — Four Priests Sent To Help. — The City Erected to a Bishopric. — Born in Kings County, Ireland. — A. Pious Mother. — - Vocation Irresistible. — Successful Studies. — A Destiny Changed. — "The Little Bishop." — Bound for America. — A Mother's Blessing. — Enters Mount St. Mary's. — Favored by Bishop Dubois.— Called to the Priesthood. — Service in New York City. — Fire and Cholera. — Consecrated for Chicago. — A Zealous and Self-Denying Pre- late. — Success and a Saintly Death. — His Successors. — Chicago Becomes Center of a Province. — Sketch of the Beloved First Archbishop. »F the sainted Jesuit missionary, Father Marquette, during his enforced stay on a bed of sickness in a log cabin at the mouth of the estuary now known as the Chicago River, had a vision of the triumphant pageants of the Church he loved so dearly and served so faithfully, that took place on that very site two centuries after, his anxieties and pains must have been assuaged and heavenly joy filled his soul. At that time — the winter of 1674-75 — there was nothing inviting in the surroundings to offer him any kind of relief in those days of hard trial. To the north there was an unbroken, impenetrable forest; to the west, vast, bleak, prairie lands; to the south, low marsh and sickness-breed- ing swamps, shunned by the red man in the summer,* and absolutely desolate and forbidding in the winter months of the year. When the season was well advanced in 1674, Father Marquette had left St. Mary's mission, at Sault Ste. Marie, accompanied by his two Indian guides., and set out for the country of the Illinois, bringing with him a supply of church articles necessary for a mission establishment. Changing the route, 345 34 g THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. he boldly crossed Lake Michigan from the Straits of Mackinaw, and sailed down the western shore to the inlet that served as an output for the overflow of the waters of the Desplaines valley, in certain seasons of the year. The journey came near ending in a calamity. Father Marquette had not completely recovered from the hardships and exposures encountered on his previous voyages, and during this trip he met with so many difficulties that he fell an easy prey to exhaustion, so that when the little party arrived at the mouth of the "Chicagou," he was carried to the adjacent land in such a complete state of prostration that his faithful companions thought that his death would soon follow. They hurriedly built a log cabin, arranged the interior with articles brought from their canoe, then one of them set out with all haste to convey the sad intelligence to the expectant tribes of the Illinois valley. As soon as his returning strength permitted, the Illini carried their beloved black-gown over to the Desplaines, and sailing southward to the Illinois, they soon reached their villages, where Father Marquette was enthu- siastically welcomed and treated with tender care. One hundred and fifty years elapse before the "Chicagou" and its sur- roundings come again under the Catholic historian's notice. First it is known as a trader's point, afterwards a government reservation and frontier outpost, where a fort was built — Fort Dearborn — and an agency for the supply of goods and payments of money to the Indians who had surrendered to the government their rights to the lands of the Illinois. Jesuit missionaries visited the trading settlement from time to time, coming from Michilimack- inac. Father Badin and priests from Bardstown, Ky., and Vincennes, Ind., made periodical trips to the frontier outpost, for the purpose, especially, of hearing the confessions of the Catholic soldiers and baptizing the few Catho- lic traders' children. April 17, 1833, Father St. Cyr was sent by Bishop Rosati, of St. Louis, to the mission of Chicago, 111. In conferring the appointment Bishop Rosati acted with the permission and under the authority of the bishop of Bardstown, under whose jurisdiction the territory of the Illinois was included. John Mary Irenaeus St. Cyr was born January 2, 1804, near Lyons, France. Called to a holy vocation, he studied for the priesthood. On December 18, 1830, he received minor orders, and, hearing that missionaries were needed in Western America, he volunteered, and set out for the vicariate of St. Louis, where he was gladly received by the Rt. Rev. Joseph Rosati. He was ordained in the Cathedral of St. Louis, April 6, 1833. After a tedious journey THE CITY OF JUBILEE, 347 of two weeks, Father St. Cyr arrived in Chicago in the first week of May, 1S33. He found the Catholic population numbered about 200 souls, consist- ing chiefly of French-Canadians, a few Americans, one German, and several Irish families. Land had been donated for a church, situated on the corner of Lake and State streets. Father St. Cyr immediately commenced the erecton of a church — a frame building, which was dedicated the following September under the title of " St. Mary of the Lake." His labors were not confined alone to the mission of Chicago, but embraced a large portion of the state, hence he was kept busy during the years he remained in charge — 1833- 1837. It is a curious fact, and wonderfully prophetic, that Father St. Cyr, in the letter of appointment, is enjoined to give an account of his administra- tion to the bishop of Chicago " as soon as Chicago should have a bishop of its own, and then return to St. Louis." Bishop Brutd, the first bishop of the diocese of Vincennes, in a letter to the Leopoldine Association of Vienna, gives an interesting account of his first and only visitation to the mission of Chicago, which took place at this time. An extract is inserted here among the interesting contributions to the early history of the Church in Chicago. "After Easter, in company with an honest and pious man of Vincennes, I went through Illinois, visiting again Edgar County for the Paschal duty, and then proceeding north as far as Chicago on Lake Michigan. Mr. St. Cyr had arrived there from St. Louis and enabled the Catholics to make their Easter Communions, so I gave only a few confirmations and three instructions, one on Saturday and two on Sunday, to encourage the rising Catholic congregation of that most important point. It is now composed of about 400 souls of all countries — French, Canadians, Americans, Irish, and a good number of Germans. The garrison of the fort, the commandant, and part of the staff and band of musicians attended. In general, it may be said that the military are always friendly to the Catholics and their services, which they are free to attend if they choose. From Chicago we went round the end of Lake Michigan to the river St. Joseph and the mission of the Rev. Mr. De Seille, at the Indian village of Pokegan, situated just outside our diocese and in that of Detroit." In 1835 a bill that had "been pending in the state legislature became a law, and appropriations were made for the digging from Chicago of a channel to be called the Illinois and Michigan Canal. This vast improvement was undertaken for the purpose of connecting Lake Michigan with the Illinois 12'/ 34 g THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. River, as a waterway to the south by the Mississippi, and to open up the resources of the Garden State. The contractors, who had the work in hand, sent circulars to all the seaports of the United States and the Canadas, which were distributed among the emigrants, who at this time were coming in mul- titudes to America. Thousands started westward to find ready work, and, it is a noticeable fact, that the majority were from Ireland, as the tide of emi- gration from the Green Isle to America set in at this time. The state legis- lature, also, by offering lands at a nominal value, which had its effects in a healthy speculation of land in and adjacent to the young city, brought purchasers from the East, with an abundance of capital, men of enterprise, who came determined to make this part of the West their future home — pioneers armed with the arms of peace and prepared to subjugate the great western wilderness. The rush of people to Chicago was amazing; they sailed the lakes, they came by land, they traveled by the rivers from the south, and the western village became a scene of wonderful activity, while the hundred miles from Chicago to LaSalle, along the great highway in course of construction, were dotted with the camps of laborers, and the lands westward to the Mississippi were taken up by pushing sons of toil. Before the march of thousands of immigrants the Indian retired toward the setting sun, the great forests were laid low, and the prairies were quickly turned into harvest fields. As a very large number of the laborers on the canal were Catholics, Father St. Cyr found he could not possibly attend to the spiritual needs of his increased flock, and he wrote to Bishop Rosati urging him to send more priests, who referred the matter to the bishop of Vincennes, beseeching him to see to the growing necessities of the Church in the northern part of Illinois. On his return from Europe, Bishop Brut£ brought twenty priests and seminarians with him; the pressing needs of the Chicago mission were represented to him and he immediately sent four priests to take charge. They were Rev. Maurice de St. Palais, Fathers Fischer, Schaefer, and Dupontavice. The latter was assigned to Joliet. In 1837, at the earnest request of Bishop Rosati, Father Timon, superior of the congregation of the Missions, sent two priests to take charge of the LaSalle missions. Sickness, arising from the undrained condition of the city, and all along the route of the canal, was extremely prevalent among the thousands of laborers; then the cholera scourge, known as that of 1837, visited the entire locality, increasing the labors and exposing to greater dangers the already overworked priests. They would have to start on sick calls, twenty- THE CITY OF JUBILEE. 349 five, fifty, sometimes one hundred miles distant, regardless of the inclemency of the weather that added to their hardships, often losing their way on the prairies and compelled to pass the night sleeping on the ground without shel- ter of any kind, in order to give a laborer on the canal or a settler every spiritual help. They would stop at the different camps, say Mass, hear con- fessions, attend the sick, partake of the humble fare offered them, and sleep in the stone huts or log cabins, among the sick and dying. Once the tide of emigration was started, it continued with increasing vigor, and the* Garden City received additions to its number of inhabitants every year. The national financial crash of 1S37 was a heavy blow to the young city, but the persistency with which the canal project was sustained, kept the laboring population at work, though canal scrip, the money they received in payment, was poor remuneration, and the Church's progress suffered correspondingly. The names of the priests on record, who labored during that period for the spiritual welfare of these people — besides the above mentioned — were: Fathers Plunkett, O'Meara, John Gueguen, and Father Badin. In 1S44 the population of the city was swelled to 12,000 souls, small towns had sprung up in the vicinity, and the Galena lead mines attracted a large number of laborers. Two years before this, work had been stopped on the canal; it was then that the canal laborers scattered over the state, and, taking up lands, engaged in farming. The splendid realities as well as pos- sibilities of the Church not only in Chicago but the whole of Illinois, had made themselves so apparent that the fathers assembled in the plenary councd in Baltimore, in May, 1S43, passed a decree recommending the formation of the new see of Chicago, which was acted upon without delay by the Holy See. In 1844 the Rev. William Quarter, pastor of St. Mary's Church, New York, was appointed bishop, and shortly after the apostolic letters for his consecration arrived. William Quarter, first bishop of Chicago, was born in Kings County. Ireland, on the 21st of January, 1806. Mrs. Quarter, his mother, looking upon the pledges that God had given as merely entrusted to her guardianship upon earth, and to be required from her hereafter, devoted herself to their early training in the path in which they should walk, so that " in age they might not depart from it." As soon as they could enunciate properly, they were taught their morning and evening prayers; and that good custom ot gathering the little flock to the morning and evening devotions was never •omitted in her house; nor did the family ever retire at night without having 35 o THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. first said the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. From this practice sprung that devotion to the Mother of God, which so remarkably distinguished the bishop through life. The example thus set him by his mother; her earnest efforts to instill into his young heart the love of virtue and the horror of sin, made a deep impression upon his pliant mind. In after life he would often say: " I never saw but one, and that one was Bishop Brute, who exhibited so tender a piety as my mother;" and the recollections of the scenes of his childhood's years, wnen he knelt beside that mother's knee while she placed her hand upon his little head and taught him to lisp his prayers, could never be blotted from his memory. Immediately after having made his first Communion he left home for Tul- iamore, where he commenced his classical and mathematical studies and com- pleted his course of study preparatory to entering the college of Maynooth. With this purpose, in his sixteenth year he stood and passed in a most satis- factory manner his public examination. But Providence had marked out for him another destiny. During the years that he thus spent preparing himself for his collegiate course, he was distinguished for the same tender and exemplary piety that char- acterized him when under the watchful care of his good mother; and so remarkable was his demeanor that his companions styled him the " little bishop." Little thought they that the day would come when the title of his bovhood would be the distinction of his manhood. The qualities of his heart so endeared him to all his schoolmates that his power of doing good among them was almost unbounded, and he used it to the utmost, exhorting to virtue and reproving vice. His charity, even thus early in life, was ever in search of objects, and whenever his parents furnished him with pocket money, it was not hoarded up, nor spent in youthful indulgences, but distrib- uted to the last farthing among the suffering and the needy poor. He realized often how sweet it is to give alms' for God's sake. About the time that his preparations to enter the college of Maynooth were completed, the Rev. Mr. McAuley, brother of Count McAuley, of Frankford, Kings County, returned to Ireland from the United States. This gentleman spent much of his time at the house of the father of young Quarter; and often, as he spoke of the condition of the Catholic missions in America — of the thousands of Catholic children that were growing up far away from the teachers of their holy faith, and in a land where Mammon was the THE CITY OF JUBILEE. 35* worshiped deity — of the wandering away from the one sheepfold of so many that were sealed at the baptismal font as members of the one holy Church, and who were thus lost for want of instructors and example — of the extent of the harvest and the scarcity of the gleaners ; as he spoke of all these, the young aspirant to the ministry would listen to him till the tears trembled on his eye- lids, and with the hope that God would call him to so important a field. And to it He did call him. So great became his desire to forsake all things for Christ, that the aban- donment of home and friends, even of his dearly -loved mother, of the sham- rock-dotted hills and green fields of his native island, and the thousand mem- ories that so strongly influence the heart of youth, ere the stern realities of life have petrified it, seemed as nothing to him, in comparison with the hap- piness of having saved one soul from eternal perdition. Influenced by the zeal that burned in his bosom, he went to the Rt. Rev. Dr. Doyle, his bishop, and requested his exeat that he might go whither the voice of his Father in heaven called him ; and he did this, even before he had communicated to his parents his purpose. The good Bishop Doyle w r as sorry to part with one whom he looked upon as peculiarly his own, and likely soon to be a very valuable laborer in his vineyard, an ornament to his diocese ; still he could not but admire the courage of the youth and his truly Christian spirit, and he gave him his exeat and his blessing. What were the feelings of the family of young Quarter, when he announced to them that he was about to start immediately for America, is more easily imagined than described. And it is only he who has knelt to his parents and received their parting blessing, ere he has bidden adieu to the land of his birth, about to go forth into the land of the stranger for a home and a grave, that can tell what must have been the thoughts of the young exile. Still the remonstrances of friends and relatives, and the strong ties of filial affection, knocking at the chambers of his heart, received no response: he had formed his resolution. His parents felt that they had no right to stand between him and the service of his divine Master; and when he knelt by his mother's knee, where he had first learned to lisp his infant prayers, to receive her parting blessing, she kissed his fair young brow as she said to him : " My son, I have given you to God; go whithersoever He calls you, and may His and your mother's benediction ever attend you!" — O how often, amid the checkered scenes of his life, did the remembrance of his mother's voice and blessing, as she bade him go; of her kindness and her care, rise before and ,c 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. hover around him, even as guardian angels, to shield and to comfort him in the hours of trial and of tribulation! On the lothday of April, 1822, in the sixteenth year of his age, William Quarter left his native land for North America. It is a singular coincidence, that, on the very same day of the same month, twenty-six years later, the period of his earthly exile terminated. The vessel in which he sailed Landed at Quebec. He presented himself to the bishop of that city, and asked to be received as an ecclesiastical student; but his youth was urged as an objection, and this objection he could not remove. He applied next to the bishop of Montreal, where the same objec- tion as to his youth was urged against him. He then went to Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Md., where he applied to Rev. Mr. Dubois, the presi- dent of the college, afterwards the bishop of New York. Here the reason that had caused his rejection in Canada operated in his favor, and with Rev. Mr. Dubois his youth was his first and best recommendation. That good clergyman, an exile himself, received young Quarter even as a father would a son; and ever afterwards through life there existed between them the recip- rocal tenderness and regard of a father for a son, and of a son for a father. Rev. Mr. Dubois examined his young pupil in the studies which he had been pursuing, and finding that he was master of them, placed him at once in the seminary, which he entered on the 8th day of September. He chose this day as the one on which to commence his preparation for the ecclesiastical state, because it was a festival of her whom in his childhood he had chosen as his patroness. So thorough had been his course of mathematical and classical studies, and so completely was he master of these branches, that he was at once placed in charge of the classes of Greek and Latin and algebra; and in the second year of his residence at Mount St. Mary's he was appointed professor of the Greek and Latin languages. On the 29th day of October, in the year 1826, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Dubois was consecrated bishop of New York. At his departure from the institution which he had founded, he took with him the exeat and other papers com- mitted to his keeping by Mr. Quarter when he was received into the seminary. It was the intention of Bishop Dubois to call him to his own diocese as soon as the termination of his course of theological studies had been reached. He did call him; and though the then archbishop of Baltimore exerted himself to detain him, and though the faculty of the college made him splendid offers in THE CITY OF JUBILEE. 353 order to prevent his departure, and to secure the continuance of his services to that institution, he felt himself bound by the ties of a stronger gratitude to his first friend, and he cheerfully resigned the honors that awaited his college life for the labors and privations of a mission under his benefactor. Father Quarter, in 1829, was appointed the assistant pastor of St. Peter's, New York, receiving his clerical jurisdiction from the Very Rev. Dr. Power. On Wednesday, the 9th day of November, 183 1, the church of St. Mary, in Sheriff street, was burned to the ground. The loss was a heavy one, " but steps were immediately taken (under the direction of Rev. Luke Berry, the pastor of old St. Mary's), by some active members of the congregation, to secure a handsome site for a new church." The lots selected and purchased are those on the corner of Grand and Ridge streets, upon which the present church of St. Mary's stands. The congregation had many and (to a less devoted and enterprising people) almost insurmountable difficulties to overcome, before they could again assemble under the roof of a church they might call their own. In one month and five days (Dec. 14th) after the conflagration of St. Mary's, and before they had recovered from that shock, a new calamity befell the congregation in the death of their beloved pastor. Thus the church and the pastor, in the space of a few short weeks, existed only in remembrance. Still, though the shepherd was smitten, the sheep were not scattered. They labored earnestly in the erection of their new church, and successfully, until that terrible scourge, the cholera, broke out amongst them ; entering their habitations, their store-houses and their workshops — striking them down in the thronged marts of business, or upon the highway — passing onward with its car of destruction, and crushing beneath its wheels the rich and the poor, the just and the unjust — desolating cities, and making charnel houses of the populous habitations of men. The building advanced slowly during these days of affliction, of woe, of misery, and of death; for as the city was com- paratively desolated, no means could be collected. At length, however, a brighter day dawned; the dark cloud that hovered so long over the devoted city was disj^elled, and the energies of the congregration were again aroused to complete the work. During this period of time when the cholera was in New York, Rev. William Quarter was still assistant pastor of St. Peter's, and here it was that the generous self-devotion of this truly Christian missionary shone conspic- uous, and left for him a name and a fame that will not be forgotten in that 24 354 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. city while the visitation of the cholera is remembered. From the time of its commencement until its termination he was always at his post. Day and night he labored constantly and unceasingly, well satisfied if he could snatch but three hours' repose from the twenty-four. If you sought for him, you would find him now in the humble habitation of poverty, again in the man- sions of wealth every place where duty called him. Yes, there he was, amid pestilence and death, hold- ing the cup of refreshment to the parched lips of the sufferer, when the nearest and the dearest had forsaken him ; "wiping away the clammy sweat from his sunken brow, fixing the dimmed eye on the sign of salvation, and turning its expiring glance to heaven;" or fortifying the departing spirit for its gloomy passage through the gates of death, with the last sacraments of tbat Church whose faith fortified his heart and strengthened him, encouraging him onward in the path of his hard duty, inspiring him with a bravery far greater than was ever exhibited by warrior on any battle-field. The storm that had paralyzed the energies of the congregation of St. Mary's had passed by, and their church was completed. It was dedicated on the 9th of June, in the year 1S33, by the Rt. Rev. Dubois. At the close of the service, the bishop announced to the people that Rev. William Quarter was appointed by him pastor of the new church of St. Mary's, a post at which he continued until his consecration to the see of Chicago. This event took place on March 10, 1844, in the Cathedral of New York City, and hard must have been the struggle to the sensitive Bishop Quarter, when obliged to tear himself away from his faithful flock of St. Mary's, who had woven themselves around his heart, by whom he was so tenderly beloved, and among whom he had labored so long and so successfully. Though his MOST REV. P. W. RIORDAN, SAN FRANCISCO. THE CITY OF JUBILEE. 355 good father, Bishop Dubois, was gone to the bosom of his God, yet from his successor in the episcopal chair of New York, Rt. Rev. Dr. Hughes (a scion from that noble tree that Bishop Dubois planted at the foot of the Blue Ridge) — it cost his heart a pang to separate. Still duty, and the honor and glory of God, bade him forsake all things for Christ's sake, and go again among the strangers for his resting-place. Hs was anxious to enter without delay upon the field of his labors, where the harvest was fast ripening, and lest one ear might drop, or be lost from neglect. Accordingly, on the 18th of April, accompanied by his brother, Very Rev. Walter J. Quarter, he departed from New York for Chicago, where he arrived on Sunday morning, May the 5th. Though fatigued and weary from his long and very tedious journey, like a general on the field of battle, he was at once at his post, and no personal considerations could induce this faithful servant of God to neglect for a moment his duty. On the day of his arrival, he said Mass in the old church and preached in the new one. On reaching Chicago he found one church — a long, low frame build- ing — with a modest steeple and bell; a new brick church, unplastered, with a temporary altar, rough board doors, and a debt of five thousand dollars. With his own and his brother's means the debt was paid off, and steps taken to arouse the zeal of the faithful to complete the church. He at once pro- jected the opening of a college and seminary; but he was met by a terrible want of priests. Prior to his arrival twenty-three priests had been laboring in Illinois; eight of these belonging to the diocese of Vincennes were at once recalled, and the new bishop in vain appealed for their continuance until he could find substitutes. The convents had removed from Illinois, and the condition of the diocese was sad indeed. He obtained from the legislature a charter for the university of St. Mary's of the Lake; and one enabling the bishop of Chicago and his suc- cessors to hold property in trust for the Catholic Church. He soon after visited New York to collect means and secure priests. He completed his Cathedral, established his college and seminary, and, on the 10th of March, 1846, erected St. Patrick's Church, Chicago; two German churches, St. Peter's and St. Joseph's, were also added. In Sep- tember, 1846, he received a colony of Sisters of Mercy, whom he installed in the house which he had till then occupied. Here they remained till he com- pleted an edifice suitable for an academy. The increase of emigration required every exertion, and Bishop Quarter erected thirty schools, ten of 356 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. them substantial structures of brick or stone. Anxious to supply priests to the destitute flocks, he obtained many from various parts, and ordained twenty-nine. But his episcopate was short; in the midst of his labois for his diocese he died, almost suddenly, April 10, 1S48. His successor, the Rt. Rev. James Oliver Vandevelde, was a father of the Society of Jesus, who reluctantly accepted the miter, and was conse- crated February 11, 1S49, in the church of St. Francis Xavier, St. Louis. He was a native of Belgium, and one of the band of young men whom the Rev. Mr. Nerinckx had brought over, and who ultimately became the nucleus of the Missouri vice-province of the Society of Jesus. He had been eminent as a missionary, as a professor, and as president of the university of St. Louis. The diocese of Chicago had not yet taken a form and life of its own. The clergy had been hastily gathered, and Bishop Vandevelde soon found that his endeavors in the cause of religion would be thwarted by a want of harmony. His health failed, and he earnestly besought the Holy See to allow him to return to the order in which he had spent so many years. His request was not immediately granted, and he continued active visitations of his diocese, in which, during the four years of his stay in Illinois, he saw many churches begun, with other institutions greatly needed by the faithful. In 1852, the plenary council of Baltimore recommended the erection of a new see at Quincy ; but when his holiness Pope Pius IX established the see, the Very Rev. Joseph Melcher, appointed as bishop, declined to accept it, with the administration of Chicago. Bishop Vandevelde accordingly con- tinued his labors till his appointment to the see at Natchez, in 1853. Not- withstanding all contrarieties, Bishop Vandevelde left, in the diocese of Chi- cago, seventy churches built or in progress, forty-four priests, two convents and academies of the Sisters of Mercy, one college, one hospital, three asylums, several free schools; and, in the diocese of Quincy, fifty-one churches, twenty-four priests, a convent at Cahokia, the Sisters of St. Joseph having, at his entreaty, returned. The whole Catholic population of the state was estimated at about 92,000. During the vacancy of the sees the Rt. Rev. Dr. Henni, of Milwaukee, was administrator of Chicago, and the Most Rev. Archbishop Kenrick, of St. Louis, administrator of Quincy. The Very Rev. Anthony O'Regan, superior of the seminary at Carondelet, Missouri, was appointed bishop of Chicago, and consecrated THE CITY OF JUBILEE. 357 July 25* I ^54? the diocese of Quincy being confided to him as administrator till the installation of a bishop into that see. Bishop O'Regan began by appointing new pastors to nearly all the city churches in Chicago, and placing an entirely new faculty in the university of Our Lady of the Lake, which was soon after confided to the priests of the Holy Cross, while the brothers and sisters of the same rule took charge of parochial schools. The fathers of the Society of Jesus, led by Rev. Arnold Damen, also came to Chicago to give a mission at St. Mary's, and announced their inten- tion of settling in a deserted, scarcely respectable wild on the skirts of the city. A small building was secured; a magnificent church of the Holy Family followed. The Ladies of the Sacred Heart opened an academy not far off and these institutions were soon the center of well built-houses. The Sisters of Mercy had, meanwhile, opened the Chicago Mercy Hos- pital ; and, though the Sisters of St. Joseph had again forsaken Cahokia, Sis- ters of Charity began an establishment in the diocese of Quincy. Bishop O'Regan, however, found his position one of difficulty, and soon after resigned the see and was transferred to Dora. In 1857, the Rt. Rev. Clement Smyth, then coadjutor of Dubuque, was appointed administrator of the diocese of Chicago, which was now somewhat reduced in extent, the see of Quincy having been transferred to Alton and the diocese enlarged, so that the diocese of Chicago embraced only the portion of the state lying north of Adams, Brown, Cass, Menard, Sangamon, Macon, Moultrie, Coles, and Edgar counties. Soon after this the Rt. Rev. James Duggan, D. D., who had, in May, 1857, been consecrated bishop of Antigone, in partibus injideliiim, and coad- jutor to the archbishop of St. Louis, was appointed administrator, and, under his care, the affairs of this sorely-tried diocese began to wear a more hopeful aspect. When, on the 21st of January, 1859, Bishop Duggan was transferred to the see of Chicago, the great work to be done for the already large Catho- lic population seemed about to be inaugurated by a bishop, supported in all good works by a zealous body of priests. By the year 1870, the Catholics subject to the bishop of Chicago were estimated at 400,000. The diocese contained one hundred and forty-two priests, thirty of whom belonged to religious orders. Besides the Cathedral of the Holy Name, the city of Chicago contained twenty-five churches; the church of the Holy Family, a fine edifice, attended by a number of fathers 2 r8 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. of the Society of Jesus; St Michael's for the Germans, directed by the Redemptorist Fathers; St. Joseph's by the Benedictine Monks; the churches in the country parts numbered one hundred and seventy-five; some of the larger towns, like Joliet and Peoria, having three, and many others two Catholic churches. The Jesuits were about to open a college in Chicago; the Fathers of St. Viateur already had one in operation at Bourbonnais Grove ; the Brothers of the Christian Schools, not inaptly, had made La Salle the seat of their La Salle academy, with an academy also at Chicago. The Alexian Brothers, a community devoted to the care of the sick and the Christian burial of the dead, had established a fine hospital in Chicago. The teaching communities in the diocese had received able auxiliaries in the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, who had now a flourishing seminary in the city ; by the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, from the Ven. Margaret Bourgeois' community at Montreal, who had a thriving academy at Bourbonnais Grove; and by the Sisters of Loretto, Sisters of St. Dominic, Sisters of St. Francis, and Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The parochial schools had attained an extraordinary development, more than fifty being in operation, all largely attended, and well conducted. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd had opened a Magdalen Asylum ; the Sisters of Mercy had just completed a new hospital at Chicago, at a cost of seventy thousand dollars; the Sisters of Charity had a hospital also; and there were besides orphan asylums, and an industrial and reform school. Bishop Duggan was compelled to retire on account of infirm health, and the Rt. Rev. Thomas Foley, a clergyman of Baltimore, was appointed Bishop of Pergamus, in ■partibus infidelium, and coadjutor to the bishop of Chicago. He was consecrated February 27, 1870. The great fire of October 9, 1871, belongs to history, and the facts and incidents accompanying it are recorded on many pages. Suffice it to say that on October 10th the human race never witnessed so stupendous a spectacle of commercial, social, and architectural chaos. The situation was appalling, as the heart of the city was burned up — 194 acres on the West Side a blackened waste, the entire South Side business district a lava-bed, and the whole North Side like a Michigan pinery that has been swept by the flames. The destruc- tion of the Catholic Church property was enormous. Churches, convents, asylums, and schools — the labor of years — were devoured by the fire monster in a few hours. On the West Side, St. Paul's Church, parsonage, and school were the first church property burned; then, THE CITY OF JUBILEE. 359 on the South Side, St. Louis, Church and priests' residence, on Sherman street; the Christian Brothers' Academy, on Van Buren street; the convent and schools of the Sisters of Mercy, on Wabash avenue, followed by St. Mary's Cathedral, with the old frame church in the rear of it, which had so far withstood the hand of time. The flames soon reached the bish- op's house, which was quickly burned with its precious contents. Bishop Foley was absent, engaged in administering the sacrament of Confirmation in Champaign, 111. Early on the morning of the ioth the Holy Name caught fire, the House of Providence, the Academy of the Sisters of Char- ity, St. Joseph's Orphan Asylum, formerly the university of St. Mary of the Lake, the Christian Brothers' Parochial School, the convent and schools of St. Bene- dict, on the northwest corner of Chicago avenue and Cass street, St. Joseph's magnificent church and the Benedictine Fathers' mon- astery. Thence northward the relentless flames advanced, hunting before them the stricken thousands of homeless people, sparing nothing or nobody, for to stand still was to die a horrible death. Then the Magdalen Asylum, the church of the Immacu- late Conception, St. Michael's Church, with the convents and schools attached to these churches, and by six o'clock on Monday evening there was a bleak, blackened waste, where not many hours before a God-worshiping people were in peace and at rest. The total estimated loss of the Church was about $ i ,000,000. Bishop Foley met the disaster with indomitable courage, immediately addressing himself to the task of restoration. He erected a temporary structure, to be used as a church until he could rebuild, and the splendid edifice now occupying the site of the first frame church of the Holy Name is a monument RT. REV. JOHN J. KEANK. 3 g THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. of his zeal and glory. He made it his Cathedral, as St. Mary's was among the churches burned. The corner-stone was laid July 19, 1S74, and the preacher on the occasion was the eloquent Jesuit, Rev. Arnold Damen. Bishop Foley dedicated his Cathedral on All Saints' day of the following year, 1875, and the sermon was delivered by Rt. Rev. Patrick Ryan, now the metropolitan of Philadelphia, but then coadjutor bishop of St. Louis. The site of the new church is the same as that on which the first wooden Holy Name was built in 1849, anc * stan ds on the corner of North State and Superior streets, is of solid stone, cruciform in shape, Gothic in style, and is surmounted by one of the highest spires to be seen in the city. He purchased a diocesan orphan asylum at a cost of $40,000, he erected buildings for the Sisters and Magdalens of the House of the Good Shepherd, and eagerly assisted the priests and religious societies in the reconstruction of their churches, institu- tions, and schools. He was a warm admirer of the religious orders and encouraged their coming to his diocese. During his administration he intro- duced the Franciscans, the Servites, Lazarists, and Fathers of St. Viateur, the Resurrectionists (Polish), and the various religious, educational, and chari- table institutions multiplied with wonderful rapidity. In 1S72, Bishop Foley, finding that his diocese was constantly increasing, and that he could not attend to its vast interests alone, applied to his metro- politan and the bishops of the province for a division of the diocese of Chicago to be erected into a new see. The bishops recommended his request, which was granted by the Holy See, and the diocese of Peoria created and the Rt. Rev. J. L. Spalding was appointed bishop of the new see. The great fire was considered calamitous to the interests of the young city, but it brought about the most stupendous achievements in the history of the human family. Forty thousand people left Chicago after the fire, but scarcely a year had passed before 100,000 workmen came, obtained employ- ment, and helped to bring Chicago forth from its ashes. During this time Bishop Foley lived in a rented house, putting off the building of a residence until all the others had been provided for, and, as he said, "I will live with my priests until I am able to build." He did so, and when not engaged in his visitations through the diocese it can be truly said that he lived with his priests. At a meeting of the priests, after the diocesan retreat at Bourbonnais Grove in 1877, Bishop Foley, after making a well remembered, soul-stirring address to his clergy, gave out the announcement of his future regulations in THE CITY OF JUBILEE. 361 the management of the diocese, prefacing it by saying that he appointed the Rev. Dr. McMullen as his vicar-general. When the bishop's words were heard, announcing the fact of Dr. McMullen's selection as vicar-general, they were welcomed by priests and people with undisguised satisfaction. Dr. McMullen assumed his new dignity with unfeigned calmness, giving as answer to the congratulations of his friends " I hope I will prove worthy of it." Bishop Foley also announced to his clergy that a diocesan synod would be held very soon, and that he contemplated a pilgrimage to Rome, his first, as bishop, to the Holy See. The synod was held, former statutes were con- firmed, rural deaneries created, the judges in ecclesiastical cases appointed, conferences proposed, and the good ship set sailing on placid waters, with its experienced navigator at the helm. Alas! the plans and hopes of bishop, priests, and laity for a prosperous career in years to come were completely destroyed. In the latter end of January, 1879, Bishop Foley was called to Baltimore by important family interests. During the winter days of December, 1S7S, he had contracted a severe cold. Since his residence was burned in the great fire, he lived in rented houses, letting his own comfort pass by until all others were provided for. While in his native city he had felt so unwell that he did not go outside his mother's residence but once, and then it was to attend a funeral at the old cemetery where his relatives had a family lot and his- father and others of his family were buried. That visit was fatal; his cold was increased by it, and sympt >ms of an approaching dangerous sickness became quite apparent. He was warned by his physician to guard against any exertion or unnecessary exposure, as serious consequences would ensue, and he was urged to seek instant remedies. The bishop had promised, before his departure for Baltimore, that he would return in time to assist at the dedi- cation of St. Anthony's Church, Chicago. He arrived back, therefore, on Saturday, February 8th, and, not having suffered seriously during the journey, stated to his chancellor, Rev. Daniel J. Riordan, that he would be ready *to go to St. Anthony's on the following morning. On attempting to arise Sunday morning he found himself so completely prostrated that he said to his atten- dant, " I can not go out to-day, or it will be my death." A physician was summoned without delay, who, after a careful examination, decided that the bishop was suffering from a severe cold, which was greatly increased bv his journey home. On a subsequent visit, the physician discovered symptoms of pneumonic inflammation, which, in a person of the bishop's age and tempera- 3 6 3 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. ment was necessarily a grave and serious complication. Additiemnl medica/ counsel was called in, when it was found that typhoid fever, which in the first days of the bishop's sickness had been held in check by the pneumonic inflammation, had declared itself, and the bishop's condition became most alarmino-. The Rev. Dr. Foley and Mr. Daniel Foley, of Baltimore, were then sent for, who remained at their brother's bedside almost constantly. On Monday, February 17th, the bishop realized his danger, and, know- ing the importance of a good preparation in time, sent for his vicar-general, Dr. McMullen, whom he requested to administer the last rites of the Church. He received the viaticum with a holy calmness, then the sacrament of Extreme Unction, and said, " The Lord's will be done." The only expression of regret he was heard to utter was in reference to his aged mother, to whom he felt his death would be a severe affliction. At three o'clock, on the morn- ing of the 19th day of February, 1879, tne **-*• ^ ev - Thomas Foley, D. D., peacefully slept in death, in the fifty-seventh year of his age and the ninth of his episcopate. Around his bedside at the time were the bishop's two brothers, Bishop Spalding, Very Rev. Dr. McMullen and Rev. D. J. Riordan. During the night, when his last moments were fast approaching, the bishop turned to Dr. McMullen and said, "Father, I appoint you as administrator of the diocese." This was the last official act of Bishop Foley ; in it he showed his confidence in his vicar-general and a friendship which was to continue to the hour of his death. Priests and people were fairly stunned at the unexpected news of Bishop Foley's demise. Like Bishop Quarter, he suddenly was stricken down in the prime of life, in the midst of usefulness, in a time when it did seem that he could not be spared. The diocese of Chicago sustained again a serious blow in the death of such a prelate of exalted virtue, of pure and noble character. From a recent work by Rev. J. J. McGovern, D. D., of Lockport, 111., we gleam the following particulars of the life of his successor, the present illustrious archbishop of Chicago: Patrick Augustine Feehan was born at Killinnall, Tipperary, Ireland, August 29, 1829, the year of the Catholic Emancipation. His father, Patrick Feehan, was a man who would be remarkable among a thousand, a man of distinguished bearing, noble appearance, classical features, with an education and address that would fit him to rank among the first in the land. His devotion to the old faith was as remarkable as his charity. An instance of the latter was often told by those who were eye-witnesses to this admirable THE CITY OF JUBILEE. 363 trait of character. When remonstrated with for giving to the poor more than seemed prudent, he said: " It is related in Scripture, ' If a man has two coats he should give one to him who has none.' " His adviser said, "You ought to be more prudent for your children's sake." The man full of faith answered, "Divine Providence will take care of them." Mr. Feehan was a man of liberal education, and was well versed in literature; he possessed a vast amount of information on all subjects, and spoke French fluently, although his youth was cast in the penal days. Mrs. Feehan was a singularly modest woman, gentle, mild and refined, qualities so noticeable in her distinguished son. Into such hands was the subject of this sketch committed by divine Providence, and in his early years trained in the way the child should go. It is not surprising then, that he was conspicuous in his early youth for endear- ing qualities of soul, sweetly blended with a gentleness of character, a humility and dignified repose that drew the attention and delighted every one who came in contact with him. Reared under holy influences, under the shadow of the rock of Cashel and amidst the inspiring scenes of the battle- fields where his forefathers fought and died in defense of their faith and their native land, he became imbued with a deep Catholic piety, and a deep-rooted devotion for his oppressed country. He inherited from his father a studious character and a great love for books. Thus he was irresistibly carried toward a life of retirement, even in his youthful years, and quickly showed every sign of a future vocation to the priesthood. His first lessons were received under his father's roof, which were followed by a solid training in the classics and sciences, in which he made such a remarkable progress that at the age of sixteen he was entered as an ecclesiastical student in the Castle Knock College. He remained in this institution two years, earning the highest honors for his scholarship and exalted virtues. It was then decided to send him to the great college of Maynooth, which he entered in his eighteenth year. He spent five years in this ecclesiastical seminary, studying under great masters of philosophy and theology, in which he gained such proficiency that he was appointed to the Dunboyne establishment. Archbishop Kenrick, ever alive to the interests and needs of the great archdiocese of St. Louis, sought to surround himself with a talented and zealous clergy, and he, therefore, made frequent applica- tions to the renowned seminaries of Ireland for distinguished ecclesiastical students who were willing to leave their native land for western America^ A bright galaxy of names, eminent in the hierarchy of the Church, testifies 3 6 4 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. to the wonderful foresight and good judgment of the worthy archbishop. When the proposition was made to the distinguished young ecclesiastic, P. A. Feehan, he accepted the call with unreserved joy. Some objection was made by his superiors in the college, who had singled him out for a professorship, but he overruled all, feeling a divine impulse to give himself to the life of a missionary in the far West. In 1852 he set sail for America, and on his arrival continued his journey to St. Louis, where he was sent to the ecclesias- tical seminary at Carondelet, to prepare for his ordination, being in the 23d year of his age. He was ordained priest November 1, 1852, and from that time until the following July he taught in the diocesan seminary. July, 1853, he was appointed assistant at St. John's Church, St. Louis. About this time a terrible cholera epidemic raged in the city, which called forth all the self-sacrifice of the devoted young priest. Days and nights were spent in administering the sacraments and consoling the poor sufferers ; some- times even preparing them for burial when kindred and friends deserted them. During young Father Feehan's sojourn at St. John's he was exceedingly beloved, and although his stay there was brief, deep regret was felt by the parishioners, to whom he had endeared himself. In the summer of 1854, Father Feehan was sent to the theological semi- nary in Carondelet to succeed Rev. Anthony O'Regan. He was president for three years. In the summer of 1S57 he was appointed pastor of St. Michael's, St. Louis. While in the seminary he taught in the most acceptable manner, and for about two years of that time preached once a month in the Cathedral, St. Louis. " He was then as now," says Bishop Hennessy, who was a professor in the seminary at the time, " kind, gentle, amiable, and a great favorite with students and professors. He was loved by all who knew him well enough to appreciate his rare qualities." He made a record for zeal and tireless labor; besides presiding over the seminary and professing, he attended to the convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph, situated near the college. To this day the sisters speak of " Father Feehan " with affectionate and grateful remembrance. In July, 1858, he was appointed pastor of St. Michael's Church, St. Louis. Here he entered zealously on his new duties, gaining at once the con- fidence and love of his congregation. The July following he was transferred to the pastoral charge of the church of the Immaculate Conception, situated at that time on Eighth and Chestnut streets. Ever devoted to duty, the poor were special objects of his tender care; THE CITY OF JUBILEE. 365 where sorrow and suffering prevailed his presence was near to lighten the gloom; the sick were comforted, and the last moments of the dying consoled with the promise that their children would be cared for, and well they knew that the faithful priest would keep his word. " How often," said one of his brother priests, " have I heard the expression : ' When I first spoke to him a heavy load was taken off my heart,' or ' his presence brings light and joy to my poor home.' " It was well known that his visits were mostly confined to the sick, the suffering, and the afflicted. He at once established the St. Vin- cent de Paul Society in the parish, and secured a room where stores were kept for the poor. Many are still living who were recipients of his kindness and fatherly care. His whole career was marked by a strict attention to duty. He was an indefatigable worker, and to the exclusion of every thought of self he con- tinued his arduous and holy life. During the Civil War a hospital for wounded soldiers was established in his parish; here many an hour was spent, day and night, comforting the poor sufferers. The inmates of the jail and city deten- tion house also claimed much of his time. It is such men, with the quiet-like grandeur of character, who possess the material which makes heroes. His sweetness of disposition and loftiness of soul inspired every one who knew him with the greatest love and admiration, and few ever left such affectionate memories as did the gentle, dignified priest. The see of Nashville having become vacant in 1864 by the resignation of Bishop Whelan, Father Feehan was nominated to fill the position. With characteristic humility, and impelled by duties of a filial nature, he hastened to decline the office, and his appointment was for a time held in abeyance. The elevation of Father Feehan to the exalted dignity of a bishop of holy Church was looked upon as a certainty and only a question of time, and no one was more fixed in the determination of bringing this about than his eccle- siastical superior, the Most Rev. Archbishop Kenrick. In July, 1865, his much loved mother died. She had been an invalid for years, and, except on Saturday evening, when he was detained in the confes- sional, he never failed to make her a visit. It was on her account that the appointment to the see of Nashville was at first declined. After her death the offer of the see was again made and accepted. The day for the consecra- tion was fixed for November 1, 1856, when it took place before a vast con- course in the Cathedral of St. Louis, Most Rev. Archbishop Kenrick impos- ing hands on his young friend. „ 66 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. On the evening of the 9th of November, Bishop Feehan arrived in Nashville, accompanied by Most Rev. P. R. Kenrick, of St. Louis; Bishop Duggan, of Chicago; Father Kelly, O. P., administrator of the diocese of Nashville and Rev. Fathers Riordan and Walsh, of St. Louis; the two latter comino- to the diocese with the new bishop and who died of yellow fever in 1878. Bishop Feehan's characteristic dislike for unnecessary display caused the withdrawal of any public demonstration of welcome. His entry, there- fore into his new see was not of a triumphal character; in fact, the elements seemed to have conspired in making everything disagreeable and disheart- ening. "It had been raining several days," wrote one of the clergymen who accompanied the bishop from St. Louis, " the fences around the old Cathe- dral were broken and dilapidated; everything looked gloomy — it was rain, rain, rain, for days. 'John,' said one of the prelates to the sexton on the morning of the 10th, 'does the sun ever shine here?' 'O yes, my Lord,' answered John, in dead earnest, ' it shines sometimes; it shines in summer, my Lord.' " The second day after Bishop Feehan's arrival in his diocese, Sunday, witnessed the grand reception in the Cathedral that would have taken place on the morning of the 10th had he not entered the city unexpectedly. At nine o'clock the societies in regalia were in their appointed place in the Cathe- dral — the St. Joseph's Total Abstinence Society, the St. Aloysius Young Men's Society, and the members of St. Mary's Orphan Association. All these societies made addresses in turn, to each of which the bishop responded in the kindest tones of appreciation. A melancholy scene was presented to Bishop Feehan on his arrival in Nashville, and it can be hardly overdrawn. His diocese had been the highway of both armies, and the theater of some of the bloodiest battles of the late war. Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, Fort Henry on the Ten- nessee, Shiloh, Franklin, Stone River, Lookout Mountain, Mission Ridge, Chattanooga, and Nashville, all historic ground — turning points in the destinies of the contending armies, who spread ruin and desolation through the whole state, which meant the diocese of Nashville. The war had just closed, the clouds of smoke, that denoted its presence as well as its violence, had scarcely cleared away before the sunshine of returning peace, and the diocese "unreconstructed," when the bishop arrived in Nashville. The city was in a most deplorable condition, morally and financially, and the Church's THE CITY OF JUBILEE. 367 interests had suffered from so many causes that their recovery demanded almost superhuman efforts. Every mission in the diocese had the same sad story and presented the same picture that Nashville did — debts and demoralization. The bishop set himself to the work with his resolute gentleness and patience to clear away the debris andj-ebuild more solidly on the old site. He threw himself into the work with a vigor that deserved the signal success with which it was crowned. There were only three secular priests in the whole state of Tennessee, and many students for the priesthood were received into the diocese, and soo 1 a large number of zealous young priests were earnest in the work of gaining and saving souls. No one heard Bishop Feehan complain or bemoan his appointment to a diocese that offered such an unfavorable field. He did what was possible for each mission, and was silent — he invited and attracted to the diocese a number of priests who were drawn thither by its wants and the personal character of its bishop. Not many months passed before it was observed that the bishop seemed to have stamped and sealed with his own character the priests of his jurisdiction. This was proven afterwards by the number who died of yellow fever in the plague times in Memphis and elsewhere in the diocese. By his untiring efforts and constant attendance to duty, he brought the people to the sacraments; he instructed and prepared the children for first Communion and confirmation, and by his business talent won the confidence of the community. He improved the Cathedral and the surroundings. He found St. Cecilia's heavily involved in debt, but so excellent was his management that he soon had it entirely free from financial embarrassment of any kind, with a magnificent addition erected side by side with the old building, and over- shadowing it in importance, with an excellent reputation established through- out the South, and with money in its coffers*, It was at this time that the Sisters of Mercy came to Nashville and opened St. Bernard's Academy. They first taught in the building opposite the Cathedral, now occupied by the Standard Club, but in 1869 purchased the spacious residence of ex-Governor Brown, fronting the Capitol. They have now here one of the finest educational establishments in the South, and from it many of the most talented and fairest women of the "Athens of the South " have graduated. 3 6*! THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Before the purchase of the present convent by the Sisters the palatial mansion was occupied by the governors of the state of Tennessee. In it Andrew Johnson lived in his halcyon days, and thousands of associations are around it. Yet, it is remarkable that it is now in the possession of the Cath- olic Church, while over the main entrance the word " Mercy," in golden letters, faces the figure of Justice that adorns the great doorway of the Capitol building opposite. St. Bernard's is a credit to the bishop's foresight. In August, 1866, the cholera made its appearance in Nashville. During the ravages of this epidemic, Bishop Feehan labored unceasingly to console the sick and the dying. The yellow fever visited the diocese three times in rapid succession, and spread death and desolation in every quarter along the Mississippi. The brave priests stood at their posts until stricken down. Their places were quickly taken by others equally as ready to sacrifice their lives. Thirty- three fell martyrs to their sacred calling during this terrible epidemic. The loss of so many noble sons was indeed a crushing blow to the good bishop, but with his usual fortitude and zeal he hastened to fill up the vacancies. The most notable services of Bishop Feehan in rebuilding was not con- fined to Nashville. What he did for this city is only an earnest of the work performed in every town in the state. He had arrived at the point where he could realize his office as bishop of Tennessee. He visited every point where Catholicism had found a foothold, or there might likely be a welcome accorded it, and he devoted his energies to counseling, encouraging and organizing the work. Chattanooga, Memphis, Knoxville bear testimony of his indefatigable labors for the congregations of those cities. " He carried to his labors," said one of his devoted priests, " not only an indefatigable ability to work, but a brilliancy of thought, a modesty of demeanor, a ripeness of experience, and an abounding piety that won him friends on every hand, and inspired all with whom he came in contact with a devotion and love for God, such as it is seldom given to earthly ministers to accomplish. And when he assumed his priestly robes and appeared before the congregation at the altar, he was so transfigured by his conscious- ness of the sacred office that they who saw could not help but worship. The effect of such a character was seen on every hand. A reviving and strengthening spirit pervaded the state, and it may be truly said of Bishop Feehan, he gave dignity and prestige to Catholicism in Tennessee." As an instance of his equanimity under all circumstances, the following fact is told THE CITY OF JUBILEE. 369 by the present vicar-general of the diocese of Nashville: "Years ago he accompanied me to the Bear Spring furnace settlement, in Stewart County. We left the train at Erin on the L. & N. R. R., and traveled in a buggy about eighteen miles to the furnace ground. Next morning the bishop, after heaving confessions, said Mass and gave confirmation. The house in which services were held was one of those box houses of one room and part of the upstairs ' boarded.' The other part had no flooring, so that the bishop's tall figure, as he extended his arms and moved about while preaching, sent the miter literally between the joists, putting it in anything but a dignified posi- tion on his head and adding to the growing wonder of the gaping natives, who felt puzzled to understand a priest's vestments, but a bishop with such a hat simply took their breath away. When everything was over, the bishop and myself went to get something to eat in the little alcove or elbow that held the stove. There was literally not even a morsel of bread on the table. The lady of the house looked puzzled and mortified. She was the non- Catholic wife of a good Irishman. On a later visit I learned the cause. The good lady was accustomed to get breakfast early for the furnace hands, so on this occasion she got everything ready and prepared enough for the bishop and me. That part of the crowd who could not get near enough to see the ceremonies did not feel like being idle, so it devoured all the eatables in the house. We rode back eighteen miles without a morsel, and reached the station about 6 p. m. There, as we alighted, the bishop was accosted in terms of friendly welcome by a Nashville politician who had been electioneer- ing among the people in that section of the state. To look on, you would imagine Bishop Feehan had just risen from dinner in spite of the hunger and heat of the day. % * Now, my young man,' he said, turning to me, as the gen- tleman went away, ' you see what that man will submit to in his efforts to gain votes that will insure him office, at most, but a few years; what a lesson for ourselves.' I was too hungry and weak to talk in ' moralizing ' just then, but I could not help being impressed by the bishop's undisturbed equanimity." The order of the Catholic Knights of America owe their origin to Bishop Feehan. Nashville Catholics asked the bishop's opinion about a society that many were proposing to organize in Nashville and other cities of the South, and the propriety of Catholics undertaking to form a society of the kind that was contemplated. The bishop, after looking over the consti- tution and by-laws of the proposed society, which was to be composed of Catholic laymen, said: "I most cordially approve your object. You have 25 37° THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. the material; go ahead, and I assure you that I will give you all my support." The bishop's encouragement, like seed cast into fertile ground, took root. The society was organized; it grew, it flourished, and now the Catholic Knights of America is one of the most successful organizations among the Catholic laity in the United States. In 1866 Bishop Feehan attended and participated in the proceedings of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, and he took an active part in the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. The diocese of Chicago by a decree of the Holy See, Sep- tember 10, 1SS0, was elevated to the rank of an archdiocese, and Bishop Feehan, of Nashville, was appointed the first archbishop. When the news reached Chicago, theiv. was a universal expression of satisfaction among the clergy and laity of the new metropoli- tan see, and though all mourned the death of Bishop Foley, they rejoiced at seeing one chosen to fill the vacancy who was no stranger to the clergy, many of whom knew him personally while he lived in St. Louis, and were filled with admiration at the successful administration of the diocese of Nashville. His deeds of heroism during the plague periods, and r/is eminent services in behalf of the orphans had caused his name to be known throughout the country, and earned for him the esteem of civilized nations. The Catholic people rejoiced at having Bishop Feehan come to govern them, as ha was an honor to the Church in America, and adorned the episcopacy by his learning, experience, piety and zeal. November 25th was the day designated for the arrival of the archbishop MOST REV. A. FEEHAN, CHICAGO'S FIRST ARCHBISHOP. THE CITY OF JUBILEE. 37, in Chicago, and it was the occasion of a grand outpouring of popular mani- festations of welcome to his Grace. Committees of the clergy and deputa- tions of the laity met him on the approach to his archiepiscopal see, and extended such cordial greetings that he was deeply touched by their evidences of loyalty and respect. Thousands of Catholics of the many nationalities that go to make the Church so cosmopolitan in Chicago, received him with tokens of delight, and lined the streets of the city, from the depot to his residence on the North Side — the same in which Bishop Foley lived and died. On Sunday, November 2Sth, Archbishop Feehan was installed in the Cathedral of the Holy Name, in the presence of an immense congregation, with elaborate and impressive ceremonies. At 10 o'clock a. m. the procession of the clergy of the new archdiocese, which had formed in the sacristy, passed out at the Superior street entrance, and was received at the main door of the Cathedral by the Very Rev. Dr. McMullen, who, as administrator since the death of Bishop Foley, delivered the Cathedral and the diocese to the arch- bishop. When the clergy had taken their places inside the sanctuary, the papal brief was read, appointing the Most Rev. P. A. Feehan archbishop of Chicago, after which the clergy approached and kissed the archiepiscopal ring in token of their allegiance, affection, and obedience to their new superior. Pontifical High Mass was then celebrated by the Rt. Rev. Bishop Dwenger, of the diocese of Fort Wayne. After the gospel Archbishop Feehan ascended the pulpit and read as his text the following versicles: Matthew xiii, 31, 32 — "Another parable he proposed unto them, saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which is the least indeed of all seeds; but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and dwell in the branches thereof." The discourse that followed was simple and earnest, full of deep convic- tion and characterized by a straightforwardness of faith that visibly impressed the large audience. Archbishop Feehan's first official acts were to appoint Very Rev. Dr. McMullen vicar-general of the archdiocese, and Father D. J. Riordan his chancellor and secretary. He found that although Bishop Foley had made herculean efforts to replace the loss to the Church in Chicago occa- sioned by the great fire of 1871, still there was much to be done, and the extraordinary growth of the city required additional church-room, charitable institutions, more schools and educational establishments of a higher order. He received the pallium, the insignia of his archiepiscopal office January, 1S81. THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. 37 2 Archbishop Feehan's great knowledge of church discipline, the details of its management and value, and easy command of ecclesiastical power were the means by which he commenced the administration of his new charge. He found that the archdiocese comprised eighteen counties in the northern part of the state, in which there were 194 churches, attended by 204 priests. To continue the good work was his aim, and his experienced hand was immediately felt in directing the several interests of the archdio- cese and priests and people were made to understand that his administration would be conservative, tempered with wisdom, charity, and the maintenance of the Church's discipline in all its vigor and entirety. In May, 18S1, Arch- bishop Feehan experienced the first parting of those faithful priests of the diocese of Chicago, who for many years rendered eminent services to the Church, and whose names are numbered among the pioneer priests of the Church in Chicago. On Sunday, May 8, 1881, the holy father, Leo XIII, ratified the creation of the new diocese of Davenport, Iowa, and confirmed the nomination of Very Rev. John McMullen, D. D., its first bishop. The ceremony of consecration took place in the Cathedral of the Holy Name, July 25th, his grace, Archbishop Feehan, being the celebrant of the Mass and consecrator. In 1881, Archbishop Feehan appointed the Rev. P.J. Conway vicar-general of the diocese, and rector of the Cathedral of the Holy Name. February 21, 1883, Father St. Cyr, who for many years had been chaplr.in of the Sisters of St. Joseph, Carondelet, passed away, crowned with merits. On September 16, 1883, Rev. Patrick W. Riordan was consecrated bishop coadjutor with the title of succession of the Most Rev. Archbishop Alle- many, of San Francisco. In 1S83 Archbishop Feehan was summoned to Rome with the other archbishops of the United States to formulate the scheme of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. Before his departure the priests of the archdiocese presented him with a purse of $10,000, and on his return to the city, Febru- ary, 1884, one of the greatest ovations ever offered to a devoted shepherd awaited him. Upon his arrival in Chicago, all the clergy of the archdiocese, the mayor and common council, the principal Catholic citizens, and over 30,000 men, forming a procession over five miles in length, met him on his entry into the city, and escorted him to his residence amid the cheers and blessings of 100,000 people who lined the streets along which the procession marched. The great financial interests of the archdiocese received Archbishop Feehan's indefatigable attention. All the eleemosy- THE CITY OF JUBILEE. 373 nary institutions have received his generous support and are still his most anxious care. Homes for the aged, hospitals for the sick, houses of providence for young women, orphan asylums and foundlings' homes attest this, and his wise transfer of the Catholic Industrial School for boys to a farm on the Desplaines River, twenty miles away from the city, has been universally commended. In 1864 Archbishop Feehan attended the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, accompanied by Very Rev. P. J. Conway, V. G., and Rev. John Waldron, pastor of St. John's Church. On July 1, 1887, another worthy priest, whose name for a quarter of a century had been a household word on account of his zeal and Christian charity among the Catholics of Chicago, Rev. John Waldron, passed to his reward. The first synod of the archdiocese of Chicago was held Tuesday, Decem- ber 13, 1887, in the Cathedral of the Holy Name, and was attended by all the pastors of the archdiocese. The chief purpose of the synod was the pro- mulgation of the decrees of the Third Plenary Council. In 1887 Archbishop Feehan purchased property for a Catholic ceme- tery for the Catholic parishes of the South Side, and dedicated it under the title of Mount Olivet Cemetery. , September 27, 1887, his eminence, Cardinal Gibbons, visited Chicago and received an enthusiastic welcome from Archbishop Feehan and his clergy. Octocer 28, 1887, he consecrated the Rt. Rev. Maurice Burke, of St. Mary's, Joliet, 111., bishop, who had been appointed to the new see of Chey- enne by the Holy See. July 1, 1888, Archbishop Feehan closed the eyes in death of his beloved and faithful vicar-general, Father Conway; and on September 25, 1889, Rev. Joseph P. Roles, pastor of St. Mary's Church, was called to his eter- nal account after twenty-five years of successful labors in the diocese of Chicago. In 1890 Archbishop Feehan appointed Rev. D. M. J. Dowling, pastor of St. Bridget's Church, vicar-general of the archdiocese. In November of the same year the Silver Jubilee of the archbishop was celebrated with much splendor and enthusiasm. The evidences of Archbishop Feehan's enthusiastic zeal in the cause of religious education are seen in the educational institutions established during his administration: St. Patrick's Academy, the Josephinum, the De La gjA THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Salle Institute; the large number of parochial schools in the city; St. Viateur's College, at Bourbonnais; the Loretto Academy, Joliet; St. Francis' Academy, Joliet, and numerous other institutions. Archbishop Feehan has been unceasing in his good work since his arrival in Chicago. In nine years, from January I, 1SS1, to December 31, 1S90, he has regularly visited his archdiocese, traveled by railroads and wagon- roads wherever his services were needed, and thus it was that at the close of a decade and the tenth anniversary of his arrival in Chicago, he had con- firmed over 100,000 persons; had ordained 175 priests, and had laid the cor- ner-stones of sixty churches, dedicated seventy-two, and invariably seconded the labors of his priests in all their undertakings. His prudent, conservative policy in the management of his diocese, his gentle but firm impress of character, his goodness of heart, endears him to his priests, and has gained for him the love of his people of the archdiocese, and the esteem of all good citizens. As metropolitan, Archbishop Feehan has the whole state of Illinois, with its million Catholics, under his supervision. Of this jurisdiction the diocese of Quincy was established in 1S52, and enlarged and the see transferred to Alton in 1857. Twenty years later was established the diocese of Peoria, in the central part of the state, its first bishop consecrated, and still happily ruling, being the Rt. Rev. John Lan- caster Spalding, D. D. John Lancaster Spalding was born at Lebanon, Ky., on the 2d of June, 1840, "coming," as Bishop Rosecrans well said on the day of his consecra- tion, " from a family of priests who have supported the fabric of our religion in this country, and will maintain its honor, not only among Catholics, but will defend it also among those who are not Catholics." After brilliant studies in America and Europe he was ordained by dispensation on the 19th of December, 1863, and was recognized as a priest of great intellectual ability and high culture, in general literature as well as in the lore of the theologian. Returning to his native state he was appointed one of the clergy of the Cathedral at Louisville, where he remained till 1870, when he took charge of St. Augustine's Church, which had been opened for colored Catholics. He also acted as secretary and chancellor of the diocese till 1873, when he removed to New York and became one of the priests laboring in the large and important parish of St. Michael. His eloquence and ability led to fre- quent applications for his services in the pulpit on important occasions, while THE CITY OF JUBILEE. 375 his zeal and prudence showed his fitness for more responsible duties than had hitherto been assigned to him. When the diocese of Peoria was formed in Illinois, in 1877, tne Rev. Dr. Spalding was selected for the new see, and was consecrated on the 1st of May, in the Cathedral of New York, by his eminence, Cardinal McCloskey, Bishop Rosecrans, of Columbus, preaching on the occasion. The diocese confided to his care comprised the central portion of the state of Illinois, between the dioceses of Chicago and Alton. There were already seventy-five churches, attended by fifty- one priests, and a Catholic population estimated at forty-five thousand. Fathers of the order of St. Francis, Ladies of the Sacred Heart, Sisters of St. Bene- dict, St. Dominic, and of St. Francis, were in charge of academies or chari- itable institutions. Bishop Spalding has co-opera- ted actively in the movement for Catholic colonization, and his own diocese, as well as others further West, show the benefit resulting from the effort to aid immigrants in taking up lands for their new homes where they can enjoy the consolations of their religion. The project of a great Catholic university in the United States is also one for which Bishop Spalding has labored assiduously, his project being encour- aged by the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, which adopted his plans in 1S84, a noble-hearted young Catholic lady, Miss Caldwell, having given $300,000 to begin the great undertaking. Bishop Spalding has also devoted himself, as president of the committee in charge, to the organization and fur- therance of the Catholic educational exhibit to be made at the World's Fair during this Columbian jubilee. RT. REV. J. L, SPALDING BISHOP OF PEORIA. ©tapto f their predecessors at Sault St. Mary's; the Rev. Ignatius Mrak had charge of the missions and churches at Lacroix, Middletown, Castor Island, and Manistee, and Rev. Mr. Visozsky, at Grand River Rapids, had a flock of many races and tongues. Bishop Lefebvre drew many of his faithful auxiliaries from Belgium ; and when Bishop Spalding, after visiting that eminently Catholic country, projected an American college there, Bishop Lefebvre entered warmly into the project, though no other bishop in the country joined them. The object of this institution was to gain, in a country where vocations were so numerous, zealous young men who would pursue their studies in the American college, and then give their talents to the mission in the United States. Bishop Spalding and Bishop Lefebvre conferred a lasting boon on the Church in this country. In sixteen years this college, with slender resources, unaided by any of our wealthy Catholics, had sent to the United States a hundred and fifty-four well-trained zealous priests. With singular forecast Bishop Lefebvre secured, in advance, sites for future churches, and carefully guarded the property owned by the diocese. Finding that increase of Catholics made the direct supervision of a bishop desirable in the Upper Peninsula and its Indian missions, he induced the erection of the see of Sault Ste. Marie in 1857. The Lower Peninsula, from that date, alone constituted the diocese of Detroit, and contained fifty-six churches, in which forty-three priests officiated. When he died, twelve years later, the churches had increased to seventy-five, and the priests had nearly doubled in number. The old Catholic city of Detroit could boast of a cathedral, seven other churches, a chapel for Hollanders and Flemings, and another chapel set apart for colored people; a Redemptorist convent, a com- munity of Ladies of the Sacred Heart directing select schools, free schools, and an orphan asylum ; Sisters of Charity had charge of an hospital, insane and orphan asylums, select and free schools. The whole number of the faith- ful in the diocese was estimated at 150,000. In his sixty-fifth year erysipelas set in at a spot injured in his mission labors years before. Bishop Lefebvre retired to an hospital founded for the poor, and died there March 4, 1869. The Very Rev. Peter Hennaert, V. G., was administrator of the diocese THE GREAT NORTHWEST. 3^3 until the Rt. Rev. Casper H. Borgess was consecrated bishop of Calydoa, April 24, 1870, and made coadjutor to the bishop of Detroit, and administrator of the diocese. He acted in this capacity till the death of Bishop Rese, December 27, 1 87 1. That prelate remained at Rome till the Revolution of 1848, when he returned to his native country — Hanover. Dr. Borgess, in December, 1871, became by succession second bishop of Detroit. Under his able management the Jesuit fathers established a college at Detroit, and the Fran- ciscans a central house and schol- asticate; the Little Sisters of the Poor and nuns of the Good Shep- herd arrived. Bishop Borgess had at the commencement of the year 1885, seventy-nine churches, one hundred and four priests, a college, three academies, forty-five paro- chial schools under Brothers of the Christian Schools, Franciscan Brothers, Sisters of the Immacu- late Heart of Mary, Sisters of Notre Dame, of St. Dominic, of Christian Charity, Sisters of Provi- dence, Sisters of St. Agnes, Polish Franciscan Sisters, Ladies of the Sacred Heart, with more than RT - REV - BISHOP FOLEY > Detroit, mich. 10,000 pupils, and a Catholic population of 102,655 — the annual baptisms being 5,346. He resigned the see in 1SS7 an ^ was succeeded the following year by Rt. Rev. John S. Foley, the present able and zealous shepherd. When, for a second time, it was found necessary tc divide the diocese of Detroit, the upper peninsula of Michigan, bathed by the waters of Lake Superior, rich in mineral wealth, was erected into a vicariate-apostolic, July 29, 1853, and the Rev. Frederick Baraga, a missionary who had labored on the Michigan mission for more than twenty years, was consecrated bishop of Amyzonia, in fiartibus, and appointed vicar-apostolic of Upper Michigan. The vicariate embraced the site of the first labors of Jogues and Raym- bault, of Menard and Marquette. ^5 4 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Bishop Flaget, while the western territory was under his control, had done all in his power to revive religion ; and Bishop Fenwick of Cincinnati was stricken down by cholera at Sault Ste. Marie. When Detroit received a bishop still greater efforts were made, especially for the Indians; and the Redemptorist fathers began their American labors in this field. But the real life of the Church in this century in Upper Michigan begins with the labors of the Rev. Frederick Baraga, a priest of Carniola, who came to this country in 1S31 to devote himself to the Indians. He set out from Detroit with Bishop Fenwick, and fixed his mission center at Arbre Croche. Studying their language until he became an authority in it, he revived religion among the Ottawas, printing catechisms, prayer and hymn books, in their own tongue. In 1835 he raised anew the cross of Father Allouez at Lapointe; and, in a short time, reared a conspicuous chapel. Aided by the Leopoldine Society he advanced to Fond du Lac. In 1843 he left Lapointe to the Rev. Otto Skolla, and began a new mission at the Ance, and in a few years all the Indians were converted. Soon after his settlement at the Ance the opening of the copper mines drew emigrants, many of whom were Catholics. To provide for these, as well as the Indians, Canadians, and half-breeds, was beyond the powers of a simple missionary. The council of Baltimore, in 1S52, requested the pope to erect Upper Michigan into a vicariate-apostolic; the reasons given were so convincing that the Rev. Mr. Baraga was appointed, and consecrated November 1st, 1853. The district assigned to him contained St. Mary's at the Sault, directed by the Jesuit fathers; St. Ann's at Mackinaw; and St. Ignatius at Point St. Ignace; St. Leopold's at Beaver Island; and St. Joseph's at Manistee. The bishop, who shrank from no hardship, traversed his diocese, seeking to gather all his flock. When, on the 9th of January, 1857, he was made bishop of Sault Ste. Marie's, he had established an Ursuline convent at the Sault, churches at Marquette, Eagle Harbor, Onton- agon Village, Minnesota and Norwich mines, priests visiting from these centers the scattered Catholics in the copper district. Societies revived the fervor of the people, and schools insured the proper training of the young. His laborious mission life continued, with hardships and a denial of all com- forts. In the winter of 1861 his health was materially injured by a journey in snow-shoes and open sleighs to reach a point from which he could set out to attend a provincial council. The see was removed to Marquette in 1865, but the old title was retained, though the little city that bore the name of the THE GREAT NORTHWEST. 38^ holy founder of the Mackinaw mission and discoverer of the Mississippi, became his residence. While attending the plenary council of Baltimore, in 1866, he was stricken down with apoplexy on the steps of Archbishop Spalding's resi- dence. He recovered sufficiently to be able to reach his own humble home where he died, January 6, 1868, after having, in the previous year, resigned his bishopric. The diocese, including part of Southern Michigan and Wisconsin placed under his jurisdiction, then contained thirty-two churches and sixteen priests, with convent schools at Marquette, Hancock, Sault Ste. Marie, and L'Ance. The number of the faithful had increased to twenty thousand. The Very Rev. Edward Jacker became the administrator of the diocese of Marquette proper till the Rt. Rev. Ignatius Mrak, who had for many years labored in the missions, was consecrated bishop of Marquette, February 7, 1869. In the diocese he had twenty-four churches, and twelve priests; but, from the depression in the mining business, the Catholic population fell off rather than gained, and, down to 1878, it did not exceed twenty thousand. Yet the bishop, by zealous and unremitting effort, erected three needed churches, and obtained the services of several more priests. The Catholic body, however, were unable to give the necessary patronage to the higher academies. The Ursulines retired from Marquette, where the Sisters of St. Joseph resumed their labors, but closed their school at L'Ance. The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, however, opened an academy and school at Sault St. Mary's, as the Sisters of St. Agnes did at Menomonee. In 1877 the bishop visited Point St. Ignace, where the Rev. Edward Jacker had just made a most consoling discovery. The ruins of the old chapel of Father Marquette, which had long been lost sight of, were dis- covered; and investigation led to the discovery of the vault where his remains had been deposited. They had evidently been rifled by some Indian medicine-man, as fragments of the bark box, and a few bones of the holv explorer alone remained. Ill health, about this time, made the Rt. Rev. Dr. Mrak anxious to retire, and, in the summer of 1878, he resigned the see, and his holiness, Pope Leo XIII, accepting his reasons, the Very Rev. Edward Jacker became again administrator of the diocese. In the following year the present illus- trious bishop, Rt. Rev. John Vertin, was consecrated to the see of Marquette and Sault Ste. Marie. 26 s86 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. In 1844 the Holy See made the adjoining territory of Wisconsin a dio- cese, fixing the see at Milwaukee. The Very Rev. John Martin Henni, vicar-general of Cincinnati, was appointed first bishop, and consecrated on the 19th of March, 1844 He was born in Germany, June 16, 1805, and arrived in this country at the age of twenty-four, after having pursued his studies at St. Gall and Luzerne. He was ordained priest by Bishop Fen- wick, and had exercised the ministry at Cincinnati and Canton. His energy had been shown in establishing the " Warheits Freund," a German Catholic newspaper, and in founding the St. Aloysius' Asylum. When he reached Milwaukee, May 3, 1844, St. Peter's Church, a small wooden structure on Martin street near Jackson, was the only house of worship for the two thousand Catholics in the village and its neighborhood. vSt. Gabriel's, a stone church, had been begun at Prairie du Chien ; all the other churches in the diocese were mere block-houses; and for the faithful, estimated at from ten to fifteen thousand, he had five priests. He at once made a visitation of his diocese to familiarize himself with the work before him, began academies at Milwaukee, and prepared to meet the immense wants. The next year he opened St. Francis de Sales' Theological Semi- nary, under the direction of the learned Rev. Michael Heiss; the Dominican Father Mazzuchelli began a convent of his order at Sinsinawa Mound; the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin opened an academy at Potosi, where the Rev. James Causse ministered in a log church; the Indian missions were developed; and the diocese, when but two years old, could show twenty-three churches built, eleven building, and eighteen priests. The next year Milwaukee could boast a second church, St. Mary's ; the Premonstratensian Father Inama prepared to establish a regular convent of his order in Dane County; the Sisters of Charity from Emmitsburg founded an academy, and having, in the fall of 1847, laid the corner-stone of an hos- pital, opened it in 1848. The great increase of the Catholics, and the prospect of a glorious future for religion in the state, induced the bishop to lay the corner-stone of a new cathedral in honor of St. John — a fine edifice of brick, trimmed with stone; but he suspended the work to establish an orphan asylum under the care of the Sisters of Charity. The Dominicans opened a college at Sinsinawa, which the legislature chartered March 11, 1848. A cemetery was laid out near Milwaukee, and a chapel erected for funeral services. The diocese soon received a most important accession in a colony of the THE GREAT NORTHWEST. 387 School Sisters of Notre Dame, an institute founded in France by the blessed Peter Fourrier, and introduced into the United States from Bavaria, in 1847. This community, from its special training, gave excellent teachers, and spread rapidly ; Brothers of the Third Order of St. Francis, and sisters of the same rule settled at Nojoshing; Sisters of St. Bridget at Kenosha; Dominican nuns at Benton; in 1850, Canons of the Holy Cross founded a house of their ancient rule in Brown County. The Catholic Menomonees suffered by removal from the Oconto River to the Wolf, and finally from the state, and the Chippewa missions were injured in the same way. Rapid as the growth of the Church has been in this country, there is scarcely a parallel to that in Wisconsin. At the end of the first decade of his administration, Bishop Henni found under his pastoral care a flock of a hundred thousand souls; and so well had his energy kept pace with the influx and growth, that he had a hundred and twenty-eight churches and chapels, thirty-three churches building, and seventy-three priests on the mission. The Capuchin Order, a branch of the great Franciscan family who had done missionary service in earlier days in Maine and Louisiana, was also established in the diocese by the Rev. Bonaventure Frey and the Rev. F. Haas. It not only rendered great service in Wisconsin, where, about 1864, they established the ecclesiastical seminary of St. Lawrence of Brundusium, but sent fathers eastward as far as New York, full of zeal and energy. The fathers of the Society of Jesus also revived their old mission in 1857. As soon as the pressing want of churches and stations was met, all energy was turned to the maintenance of Catholic schools. By the year 1868, before Bishop Henni celebrated his Silver Jubilee, the faithful in the state of Wisconsin numbered three hundred thousand, who could meet to take part in the awful Sacrifice offered on the altars by a hun- dred and seventy-seven priests. Pius IX, on the 3d of March, 1S6S, erected the diocese of Green Bay, embracing the state from Lake Michigan to the Wisconsin, and north of the Fox and Manitowoc rivers. The Rt. Rev. Joseph Melcher, D. D., was consecrated the first bishop. The district north and west of the Wisconsin River became the diocese of La Crosse, of which the Rt. Rev. Michael Heiss was consecrated bishop, September 6, 1868. Even as thus reduced the diocese of Milwaukee had two hundred and forty- three churches and chapels, and one hundred and fifty-three priests. Hitherto the diocese of Milwaukee, and those formed from it, constituted ^g 8 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. part of the ecclesiastical province of St. Louis, but, in 1875 the venerable pontiff Pope Pius IX made Milwaukee an archiepiscopal see, the suffragans being the bishops of Green Bay and La Crosse in Wisconsin, Marquette in Upper Michigan, and St. Paul in Minnesota, and the vicariate-apostolic of Northern Minnesota naturally connects itself with the province. On the 14th of March, 1880, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Heiss was made coad- jutor, and relieved Archbishop Henni of much of the care of the adminis- tration. The aged archbishop soon became too weak to perform any official act, though he retained all his faculties. He died on the 7th of September, 1881, having received the sacraments in full possession of his senses, and Dr. Heiss became second archbishop of the see. As theologian Dr. Heiss took an active part in the councils of St. Louis and the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore. He attended the Vatican Council in 1869-70, and was appointed by Pope Pius IX a member of one of the four great commissions, each being composed of twelve bishops representing all parts of the world. The pallium was conferred on Archbishop Heiss, in his Cathedral, on the 23d of April, 1883. He attended the Third Plenary Council of Balti- more in November, 1884. He died at St. Francis' Hospital, La Crosse, Wis., on the 26th day of May, 1890, after a long and active life devoted to the Church. He was suc- ceeded by the Rt. Rev. F. X. Katzer, D. D., previously of Green Bay. When the tide of emigration, filling up the territory to the banks of the Mississippi, began to ctoss it in the northwest, there were priests ever in advance to minister to the Catholics. Dubuque was begun in 1S33. The Catholics there were visited, in 1834, by the Rev. James McMahon, and, in 1835, by the Rev. P. Fitzmaurice. The white robe of St. Dominic has the MOST REV. ARCHBISHOP F. X. KATZER, MILWAUKEE, WIS. THE GREAT NORTHWEST. 389 glory of establishing the first churches in the state. In 1836, Father Samuel Mazzuchelli, of the Order of Preachers, commenced the erection of St. Raphael's Church, acting as missionary, architect, and collector, giving all his own means, and rejoicing when, in September, he had it covered in and ready for divine service ; the cost, when complete — some five thousand dol- lars — being all contributed in the immediate vicinity. When the Catholic, Anthony Leclaire, founded Davenport in 1836, the same missionary, aided by him, in April of the following year, laid the corner- stone of St. Anthony's Church, a modest structure, twenty-five feet by forty, built of the first bricks made in the place. The evidently rapid increase of the Catholic body made it more than the few priests at the command of the bishop of St. Louis could attend, and, in the council of Baltimore, May, 1837, he proposed the erection of a new see at Dubuque. The Rt. Rev. Matthew Loras, a native of Lyons, who had labored for years in the diocese of Mobile, was consecrated bishop, Decem- ber 10, 1837, ano -> appointing Father Mazzuchelli as his vicar-general, went to Europe to obtain aid. Thus, in four years from the erection of the first log hut in Iowa, it had two churches and a bishop. Bishop Loras took possession of his Cathedral April 21, 1839, attended by Father Mazzuchelli, and the Rev. Messrs. Pelamourgues and Cretin, who had accompanied him from France. Under the impulse given by the bishop, churches soon rose at Burlington, Makoqueta, Prairie du Chien, Fort Madi- son, Iowa City, and Bloomington; academies were opened ; the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin, founded in Philadelphia, removed to Dubuque, where a mother-house soon sent out colonies in all directions. In 1851 the Brothers of Christian Instruction established a house at Dubuque. With great foresight the bishop secured lands in various parts for the needed Catholic institutions. Keokuk soon had a church and a convent of Visitation nuns; and, in 1849, Bishop Loras gave several hundred acres of land to a community of Trappist monks who were seeking a spot to labor and pray. A new Mel- leray arose, with a church for the neighboring Catholics, and, ere long, a free school. The growth of his flock made the life of Bishop Loras one of active zeal. When the condition of affairs justified the step he began the erection of a new cathedral, Dubuque having already a second church. The corner- stone was laid November 14, 1848, and he lived to complete and dedicate it. 39 o THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. In 1856, his failing health warned him to seek a coadjutor, and the Very Rev. Clement Smyth, founder and prior of the Trappist Monastery, was appointed by the Holy See, and consecrated May 3, 1857, bishop of Thanasis, in partibus infidelium. The venerable bishop died of paralysis, February »8, 1858, mourned by his flock of fifty-five thousand Catholics, a hundred md seven priests in his diocese offering up the Holy Sacrifice. Bishop Smyth, called from the seclusion of the strictest Cistercian rule, labored earnestly to carry on the good work. His sole aim was to give all his flock pastors and churches, however humble, where they could hear Mass and approach the sacraments. He was zealous in his endeavors to relieve the poor, give shelter to the orphan, and provide schools for the young. When he died piously, on the 33d of September, 1865, he left seventy-nine churches, five built within a year, and twelve more in progress. Including the fathers at his old home, now become the abbey of Our Lady of La Trappe, with the Rt. Rev. Ephraim McDonnel as abbot, there were fifty-eight priests in the diocese ; there were fourteen communities of religious women, and a parochial school at almost every point where there was a resident pastor. The Rev. John Hennessy, who had evinced great merit as a priest of the diocese of St. Louis, was appointed to succeed Bishop Smyth, and wa^ consecrated September 30, 1866. A few years later the venerable priest, Very Rev. Terence James Donohoe, founder of the Sisters of Charity of the Ble'ssed Vh'gin, and for several years vicar-general of the diocese of Dubuque, died January 5, 1869, in his seventy-fifth year. The mother house, established at Dubuque in 1833, had given rise to two other houses in Dubuque, and to convents in Davenport, Iowa City, Des Moines, and Mus- catine, all directing well-attended academies and schools. John Hennessy was born in Ireland, but made this country his home, with the high ambition of laboring to keep fresh in all hearts the faith of his ancestors. He began his labors as a missionary priest in the diocese of St. Louis in 1850, as a pastor of the church of St. John the Baptist at New Madrid, Mo., and for a few years subsequently of St. Peter's at Gravois, in St. Louis County. While still retaining this charge the Rev. Mr. Hennessy was appointed professor of dogmatic theology and Holy Scripture in the theologi- cal seminary at Carondelet, and in .1857 became superior of that institution, his learning and experience fitting him for the position. He was subsequently attached to the Cathedral, and towards the close of the Civil War was pastor of St. Joseph's Church in the now episcopal city of St. Joseph. Having THE GREAT NORTHWEST. 3^ been elected bishop of Dubuque on the 24th of April, 1866, he was conse- crated on the 30th of September in that year. The important diocese confided to Bishop Hennessy conprised the whole state of Iowa, with a rapidly grow- ing Catholic population which already exceeded a hundred thousand souls, with about sixty priests and seventy-nine churches. Early in his administration Bishop Hennessy founded the Mercy Hospi- tal at Davenport on property secured by Rev. Mr. Pelamourgues. He endeavored to establish a college, but it was not till 1873 that St. Joseph's College was opened. It is now in a flourishing condition. The same year the fathers of the ancient order of St. Benedict, with Father Augustine Burns as superior, founded St. Malachy's Priory at Cres- ton, in Union County, the first English-speaking community of Benedictines in the United States. In 1SS1 the diocese, which had increased greatly, was divided, and a new see established at Davenport. The diocese of Dubuque thus reduced com- prised the portion of the state of Iowa lying north of the counties of Harrison, Shelby, Audubon, Guthrie, Dallas, Polk, Jasper, Peweshiek, Iowa, Johnson, Cedar, and Scott. By 1S84 the episcopal city of Dubuque had a fine cathe- dral, dedicated to St. Raphael, and twenty-six other churches; the Mercy Hospital and Marine Hospital, both under the care of the Sisters of Mercy; an asylum for orphans of German parentage; St. Joseph's College; convents of Visitation and Presentation nuns and of Franciscan sisters, with several academies and parochial schools. The total number of priests was one hun- dred and fifty, the churches nearly equaling that number, giving the sixty thousand Catholics of the diocese every advantage for hearing Mass and approaching the sacraments; while the care of the growing youth, on whose fidelity to the faith so much depended, was evinced by the fact that more than seven thousand six hundred attended Catholic schools. Bishop Hen- nessy was one of the fathers of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1S84, and, in 1891, happily celebrated the Silver Jubilee of his episcopate. The first edifice reared by whites in Minnesota was the log trading- house erected at the mouth of Pigeon River by the brave Catholic pioneer, Daniel du Luht, soon after he took possession of the country for France, in July, 1679. The next year the Recollect Father Louis Hennepin, carried up a prisoner by the Sioux, saw and named the Falls of St. Anthony. Some years after, in 1689, when possession was again formally taken, the Jesuit Father Marest accompanied the French, and, doubtless, said Mass in Fort Bon 392 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. Secours, on the shores of Lake Pepin. Father Guignas, a subsequent mis- sionary, who labored to convert the Sioux, fell into the hands of the Kicka- poos, and underwent a long captivity. No successful settlement was made during the French rule, nor for years after its transfer to the United States. Among the first settlers lower down, were Canadian Catholics, like J. B. Faribault. Gradually Catholics made their homes in various parts, but were without religious guidance till Bishop Loras and Rev. Mr. Pelamourgues, in 1839, visited Fort Snelling and Mendota or St. Peter's. At the latter place he found one hundred and eighty-five Catholics; it was the first visit of a priest to their settlement, and, in spite of long neglect, they showed an earnest desire to approach the sacraments — baptisms, marriages, confirmations followed. Arrangements were made for the erection of a church, and the next year the bishop sent the Rev. Lucian Galtier. He began his labors at a log house at Mendota given by Faribault. Two good settlers, Gervais and Guerin, gave ground on the opposite side for a church, which was erected in 1841, of logs, and dedicated in October to St. Paul the Apostle; it was poor indeed, but became the nucleus of the city of St. Paul. This pioneer priest was followed by the Rev. Augustine Ravoux, who visited many stations, giving instructions in English, French and Dakota. Somewhat later the Rev. George A. Bellecourt founded, at Pembina, near the British line, the church of the Assumption, for the Catholic half-breeds from Red River who had again gathered there. The Seventh Council of Baltimore, in 1849, recommended the erection of an episcopal see in Minnesota. The holy father established the see of St. Paul, and in 1850 appointed the Rt. Rev. Joseph Cretin as first bishop. He had been an energetic missionary in the neighboring diocese, and gave an impulse to the spread of Catholicity. He was consecrated in France, January 26, 1857, and in July took possession of his diocese. The original log church and log house were soon relinquished for a large building of brick and stone, eighty-four feet by forty-four, erected by the bishop in less than five months after his arrival. This served for a church, school, and resi. dence. There were three priests in his diocese, and he brought several from France. In 1856, Bishop Timon of Buffalo laid the corner-stone of a cathedral, commenced in 1854 and completed in 1857; and priests were stationed not only at St. Peter and Pembina, but also at the Falls of St. Anthony, Little Canada, Long Prairie, and among the Chippewas. A 6chool and even a theological seminary were at once commenced. Emigration THE GREAT NORTHWEST. 393 soon increased the Catholic body so that churches and schools were called for in all parts; but, almost from the origin, the unjust and un-Christian state system of schools was introduced, and Catholics found themselves taxed for schools where open war was made on their faith, and every effort made to root it out of the hearts of their children. Bishop Cretin appealed in vain to the legislature; but the wretched bigot, Neill, who wrote the history of Minnesota, exults in the defeat of his just claims, and only in this instance mentions the existence of the Church in his work. In 1853, the Sisters of St. Joseph came to aid in the cause of education, and soon had flourishing academies and schools; and an hospital erected by the bishop on Exchange street. The Winnebagoes who had received Bishop Cretin's care before their removal, were again cheered by the presence of a priest. Brothers of the Holy Family, at St. Paul, and Sisters of the Propagation of the Faith, at Pembina, were the next addition to his educational force. A most important accession to the diocese was that of the Benedictines who, in 1856, founded a house of their ancient order at St. Cloud. The priests of this venerable rule, as full of zeal as when they evangelized Germany a thousand years ago, ministered to the Catholics far and wide, establishing schools for both sexes, nuns of the same order coming to instruct the daughters of the pioneers. But religious orders and accession of priests could not keep pace with emigration. Bishop Cretin was struck down with apoplexy in the midst of his labors February 22, 1857. He was a native of Lyons, where he was born in 1800. He came over with Bishop Loras, and succeeded Rev. Mr. Petiot among the Winnebagoes, building a church and school; but our anti-Catholic govern- ment suppressed the school, and, in 1848, expelled him from the mission. At the time of his death there were about twenty churches, attended by nearly as many clergymen, seven academies, an hospital, and many free schools. The Very Rev. Augustine Ravoux, one of the pioneers of the faith in Minnesota, became administrator, and directed the diocese with ability till the arrival of the Rt. Rev. Thomas L. Grace, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and a friar of the Order of Preachers, who was consecrated bishop of St. Paul, July 24, 1859. ^ s a P r i est an d vicar-general of the diocese of Nashville, he had evinced qualities which led to his appointment by the Holy See. At the close of that year he could report thirty-one churches and chapels built, and seventeen in progress. Twenty-seven clergymen minis- tered to these and attended nearly a hundred stations. A Protestant writer 39 ^ THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. of St. Paul says of him : " He has had great success in his zealous labors in this city and state, increasing the Church greatly, procuring large additions to the clergy, opening schools, establishing charitable institutions, and multi- plying churches. He is warmly beloved by his large flock, and respected by other sects for his learning, piety, amiable character, and benevolence." There was, indeed, steady progress; in 1865, the diocese numbered thirty-seven priests and sixty-three churches; in 1875, eighty-eight priests and one hundred and sixty-five churches, an addition of more than one hundred churches in a decade. Under Bishop Grace the Oblates of Mary Immaculate took charge of the Pembina mission, and spread to other parts of the diocese; in 1865 the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Dominic opened Bethlehem convent and academy at Faribault; and the School Sisters of Notre Dame established themselves at Mankato; the Benedictines opened St. John's Col- lege about 1867; the next year the Sisters of the Good Shepherd founded a convent and reformatory in St. Paul. In 1872, the Brothers of the Christian Schools undertook the direction of schools for boys at St. Paul; and Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis began their labors at Belle Prairie. The next year the Daughters of St. Francis de Sales, the Visitation nuns, founded a monastery in St. Paul ; soon after Sisters of the Immaculate Conception were established at New Ulm and St. Anthony ; and Sisters of Charity, of Madame d'Youville's rule, planted at Fort Totten the first conventual estab- lishment in Dakota Territory. Meanwhile the modest Benedictine Priory of St. Cloud had became the abbey of St. Louis on the Lake, the Rt. Rev. Rupert Seidenbush being the mitered abbot. In 1875, the diocese, embracing the state of Minnesota and Dakota Ter- ritory, contained one hundred and sixty-five churches, attended by eighty- eight priests, and the Catholic population was estimated at 100,000; the bap- tisms in Minnesota being about 5,500, and in Dakota 200. The illustrious Pope Pius IX, by his brief of February 12, 1875, to relieve the bishop of St. Paul, formed the northern part of Minnesota into a vicariate-apostolic. In that same year the bishop obtained a coadjutor in the person of the Rt. Rev. John Ireland. Dakota, which had also been subject to Bishop Grace, was placed under the care of a vicar-apostolic in 1879. Five years afterwards the diocese of St. Paul, thus curtailed, contained one hundred and fifty-three priests and more than two hundred churches, with hospitals, asylums, protectories, academies, and schools. Mere statistics give little idea THE GREAT NORTHWEST. 395 of the real work of a bishop in looking after the neglected Catholics, exciting faith, guiding the clergy, stimulating them in their arduous labors, watching over the rising generation. In July, 18S4, Bishop Grace celebrated the Silver Jubilee of his episcopate, the city tendering him a most heartfelt ovation. Then, to the regret of all, he resigned the see of St. Paul and became titular bishop of Mennith. His successor as bishop of St. Paul, Rt. Rev. John Ireland, was born at Burnchurch, County Kilkenny, Ireland, on the nth of September, 183S, and came with his parents to America when he was eleven years old. After temporary residence at Burlington, Vermont, and Chicago, Illinois, his father, Richard Ireland, settled in St. Paul and became a builder. While a pupil in the cathedral-school young Ireland attracted the attention of Dr. Cretin, who discerned in the talented boy a vocation to the priest- hood. He was sent by the bishop to Meximeux, France, where he went through the Preparatory Semi- nary, and entered the Grand Semi- narv at Hyeres for his theological course. Returning to Minnesota in 1S61, he was ordained by Bishop Grace on the 21st of December. * The young priest was soon on his way to the front as chaplain of the Fifth Minnesota regiment, and for fifteen months he served, fearlessly H confronting all dangers, so as to MOST REV JOHX IRELANDi ARC hbishop of excite the admiration and reverence st. paul, minx. of those most prejudiced against his faith. When his health yielded to the constant and laborious duty on the field, he was recalled to St. Paul and became pastor of the Cathedral. Here his zeal, activity, and energy made him a marked man. The building up of the state by immigration, the study of its early history, the cause of temperance, all found in him an active advocate, while no one was more exact and devoted in his priestly duties ,o6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. On the 1 2th of February, 1875, he was appointed by the pope, bishop of Maronea and vicar-apostolic of Nebraska. To prevent his diocese from losing so able a man, Dr. Grace went to Rome and pleaded so successfully that the bishop-elect was made his coadjutor; as such he was consecrated on the anniversary of his ordination, December 21, 1875. His work as an advocate of temperance became more general. He entered warmly into projects for forming Catholic colonies in Minnesota, engaging capitalists in the East in the good work, and obtaining most consoling results, so that some districts are permanently Catholic, with schools under Catholic direc- tion. It is a sign of the general appreciation with which he is regarded that he has been for several years president of the State Historical Society of Minnesota. He attended the plenary council of Baltimore in 1884, and on his return to his diocese presided in New York at a meeting to organize a Catholic Historical Society for the United States. In the establishment of the Catholic University he has also been a most active worker. Soon after the laying of the corner-stone of that institution in Washington, the sovereign pontiff erected a new ecclesiastical province, with St. Paul as the metropolitan see. Dr. Ireland then became archbishop of St. Paul and received the pallium towards the close of the year 1888. <&Tmptcv gg. ON TH6 PfcMNS. Government and the Indians. — The Reservation and Agency Plan.— Injustice to Catholic Tribes. — The Mission on the Kansas.— Natives Surrender Their Lands. — The Loyal Pott aw atomies. — Kansas Rising into State- hood.— Churches, Convents and Schools Follow Fast. Bishop Fink's Pastoral Zeal. — Two More Dioceses. — A Prelate Dies Unconsecrated. Bishop J. J. Hennessy.— Career as a St. Louis Priest.— A Zealous and Holy Shepherd. — Religion in Nebraska. — College Founded at Omaha.^ In the Centennial State. — Denver Becomes a See.— Bishop Machebosuf. Wyoming Territory. — Pushing into Dakota. — A See at Sioux Falls. Bishop Marty, Father of the Indians. ,HE Indians of this continent have always been the object of the zeal of the Catholic Church. Her first glories in our history are her devoted sons, Cancer, Segura, White, Altham, Jogues, Menard, Marquette, Gravier, Margil, Poisson, Souel, men who gave not only talent and life, but life's blood, to save the Indians. The course of our government, unfortunately, has been fatal to the red man. One of the projects long persisted in was to transfer all of the Indians west of the Mississippi. Under this the Catholic Miamis, Winnebagoes, Quapaws, the Spanish Indians of Florida, Chippewas, who had been Catholics for a century, were huddled together, in land often unsusceptible of culture and cut off from all Catholic guidance and direction. The system was covered up with pretexts of national grounds ; but when, in spite of government attempts, it was found that the majority of really active missionaries among the tribes were Catholic, resort was had, in the administration of General Grant, to divide up the agencies among the various religious denominations, 397 39 S THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. few being assigned to Catholics ; and many, where Indians were entirely Catholic, being assigned to Protestant sects, who at once, with government aid, began to tamper with the faith of the Indians. As tribe after tribe was taken from dioceses and carried beyond the exist- ing jurisdictions, the Second Council of Baltimore, in 1833, asked that these tribes should be placed under the care of the Society of Jesus, and the Holy See, in the following year, so ordained. Father Van Quickenborne accord- ingly began a Kickapoo mission in 1836. The Pottawatomies of St. Joseph's River, Indiana, among whom Badin, in 1830, revived the old missions, and was succeeded by earnest priests like Deseille and Petit, who attended them till the tribe was carried off, in 1838, by United States troops, and placed at Council Bluffs. These formed a second mission, and a third of the same nation was formed at Sugar Creek. The Osages, on whom a Presbyterian mission had been forced, had long desired priests, especially after the visits of Rev. Mr. De la Croix and Father Van Quickenborne. At last, in 1846, Father Shoenmakers, S. J., began a mission among them. The Ladies of the Sacred Heart then came to establish schools for the Pottawatomies, and Sisters of Loretto for the Kansas. The Rev. Peter J. De Smet was made the procurator of the missions ; and, finding the Catho- lics of the United States generally indifferent to them, he appealed to Catholic France and Belgium, and, for many years, drew from Europe the resources that enabled the apostolic men to continue their work, besides enlisting zealous priests, and procuring church plate, vestments, and other necessaries for the mission. These missions were under the see of St. Louis until 1850, when the Holy See erected the vicariate-apostolic of the Indian Territory east of the Rocky Mountains. The Rev. Father John B. Miege of the society was con- secrated bishop and vicar-apostolic. From the mission on the Kansas, St. Joseph's chapel on Shunganon Creek, that of the Seven Dolors on Mission Creek, and that of the Sacred Heart at Soldier Creek, were regularly attended. While from the Osage mission the Peorias, the Miamis, Quapaws, the Cherokees, as well as scattered bands of the Osages, received visits of the zealous priests. The whole Catho- lic population was estimated at over five thousand. But the Indian lands were soon purchased, and settlers began to enter. ON THE PLAINS. 399 The future state of Kansas became a battle-ground between two contending parties. As both were from parts of the country where Catholicity had least influence — the fanatical New-Englander and the colonist from the slave states — the early population did not give a large proportion of Catholics. Yet, in 1855, the bishop had erected the church of the Immaculate Conception at Leavenworth, which has since been the episcopal residence. Then the Bene- dictine fathers from St. Vincent's Abbey in Pennsylvania founded a church at Doniphan, Lecompton had its priest, and Indianola its chapel. German and Irish settlements soon appeared to claim pastoral care; and, in 1858, the Benedictines were erecting a German church at Leavenworth City, their priory being removed from Doniphan to Atchison, where, in time, they founded a college. In a few years the Sisters of Charity were directing an academy at Leavenworth, and devoting themselves to works of mercy. The admission of Kansas as a state was soon followed by the Civil War, but emigration flowed in. In 1863 the churches had increased from sixteen to twenty-five in a period of three years. The next year the Carmelite fathers began their labors among the Germans of Leavenworth City, and a convent of Benedictine nuns appears at Atchison. In time the Pottawatomies were admitted to citizenship, and many took up farms, the rest of their lands being sold to settlers. This step, which was not generally adopted by the Osages, worked badly. The missions were thus broken up, although the manual labor schools were maintained. The Indians who preferred to maintain tribal relations were removed to Indian Territory, and many, even of those who had elected to become citizens, followed. In 1870, the Jesuit fathers began a college at St. Mary's mission, and a theological seminary was added to the institutions of the vicariate. Leaven- worth had an hospital and oi-phan asylum, and there were fourteen parochial schools in operation. Meanwhile, the Rt. Rev. bishop sought to return to the position of a missionary in his order, and on the nth of June, 1871, the Benedictine Dom Louis M. Fink, who had been appointed his coadjutor, was consecrated bishop in partibus. Four years after, the Rt. Rev. Bishop Miege resigned, leaving the state which he and the fathers of his order had found a wilderness, with only Indian inhabitants, a thriving member of the Union, with a Catholic population of forty thousand, fifty-nine priests, and seventy-eight churches and chapels. 4 oo THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. On the 22d of May, 1877, the Holy See erected the see of Leavenworth, and Bishop Fink was transferred to it. Michael Fink was born in Trifters- berg, Bavaria, on the 12th of June, 1834, and, after studying in the Latin school and gymnasium at Ratisbon, came to this country at the age of eighteen. Called to a religious life he sought admission among the Benedic- tines of St. Vincent's Abbey, in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. He was received by the founder, Abbot Wimmer, and made his profession on the 6th of January, 1854, taking the name of Louis Maria. After completing his theological studies he was ordained priest on the 28th of May, 1857, by Bishop Young, of Erie. The first missionary labors of the young Benedic- tine were at Bellefonte, Pa., and Newark, N. J. He was then made pastor of a congregation in Covington, Ky., where he completed a fine church. He introduced into the parish Benedictine nuns to direct a girls' school, which was one of his earliest cares. Appointed to St. Joseph's, Chicago, he aroused a spirit of faith in his flock at that place and gathered so many around the altar that a new church was required, which he erected at a cost of eighty thousand dollars, planting a large and well-arranged school-house beside it. As prior of the house of his order in Atchison, Kan., he showed the same zeal and ability; and when Bishop Miege wished to obtain a coadjutor to whom he could resign his charge, that prelate solicited the appointment of the prior of St. Benedict. The latter was consecrated at St. Joseph's, Chicago, by Bishop Foley of that see. The diocese of Leavenworth is a large and important one, and Bishop Fink in pastorals and otherwise shows his zeal for Catholic progress. His diocese is well provided with educational establishments for its 80,000 Catho- lics. St. Benedict's College is connected with the Benedictine Abbey at Atchison; the Jesuit fathers direct St. Mary's College at St. Mary's; there are besides three academies and forty-eight parochial schools, with 4,000 pupils, under Benedictine and Franciscan Sisters, Sisters of St. Joseph and of Charity, and of St. Agnes. The diocese also possesses orphan houses and hospitals under charge of the Sisters of Charity. The Catholic popula- tion is about 60,000. The diocese of Leavenworth had increased so much in population that in 1887 the sovereign pontiff, Leo XIII, erected two new episcopal sees in the state of Kansas, that of Concordia in the northwest, and Wichita in the south. The choice for the first bishop of the new see fell on the Rev. James O'Reilley, an active and energetic priest. He was born not far from Cavan, ON THE PLAINS. . Ql Ireland, where his parents were substantial farmers. Coming in boyhood to the United States, he evinced a vocation to the ecclesiastical state, and, perse- vering, pursued his course of theology in the Salesianum at Milwaukee. He was ordained priest by Bishop Fink, of Leavenworth, in 1874, and stationed at Irish Creek. The bishop, however, soon called him to Leavenworth, mak- ing him assistant at the Cathedral, and confiding to him the charge of Fort Leavenworth and Kickapoo. Never sparing himself, the Rev. Mr. O'Reilley labored with so much zeal and earnestness that his health failed, and he went to Europe in 1S81, visiting the Eternal City. Returning to the diocese, he took charge of the church of the Assumption at Topeka, in March, 1S82. Here he went to work with his wonted energy, acquired property for two new churches, of which he saw the necessity, and built a parochial residence. On the erection of the see of Wichita he was appointed the first bishop on the 6th of July, 1887, but before the bulls for his consecration arrived his health again gave way, and he expired on the 26th day in the same month in which he was appointed. On the demise of the Rt. Rev. James O'Rielley unconsecrated, it became necessary to appoint an administrator till a bishop was elected. The organization of the new diocese thus devolved on Very Rev. M.J. Casey, who was made administrator on the 15th of October. In the summer of 1888 his holiness, Leo XIII, elected to the see of Wichita the Rev. J. J. Hennessy, a priest of the diocese of St. Louis. He was born in Ireland, but came to this country with his parents at the a«-e of two years and lost his father in early life. He was educated in the college of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, St. Louis, and, after commencin°- his classical studies there, proceeded to Cape Girardeau, where he completed his course of philosophy and theology. He was ordained at St. John's Church, St. Louis. He soon after became pastor of the church of the Immaculate Conception, at Iron Mountain, where he remained until 1880, when he returned to St. Louis and became pastor of the Cathedral, a position which he retained till his elevation to the episcopate. He took an active part in schools, and was especially instrumental in establishing the Reform School at Glencoe, editing a little journal called "The Homeless Boy." The esteem in which he was held by his brother-priests was seen in his choice as treasurer of the Clerical Mutual Aid Society, and his appointment as secretary of the St. Louis Orphans' Board. Dr. Hennessy is a man of great and varied learn- ing, an able writer, and well fitted by his piety, urbanity, and skill in the 27 4 02 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. management of affairs to build up the new diocese, which is at present united in administration with that of Concordia. Nebraska formed at first part of the vicariate-apostolic of the Indian Territory east of the Rocky Mountains, and when, with the influx of emigra- tion, settlements were formed, a brick church sprang up at Omaha, in 1855, before any Protestant sect established a conventicle. Then Nebraska City and St. Patrick's settlement were visited. As there was every prospect of the rapid increase of population in Nebraska, the Holy See, on the 9th of January, 1857, made it a separate vicariate, including also the territories of Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. Bishop Miege governed it as administrator apostolic, ad interim, till the appointment of the Rt. Rev. James O'Gorman, D. D., who was consecrated bishop and vicar-apostolic, May 8, 1859. There were then about seven thousand Catholics in the territory, including the Black Feet Indians, among whom the Jesuits were conducting a mission. In 1863, we find the Benedictines at Nebraska City, with a school under their care, and a convent of Sisters of Mercy at Omaha. Three years later the bishop was struggling to replace the small church at Omaha by a larger and more fitting structure, but his flock was poor; there were but two brick churches in the vicariate, the rest being of frame or logs. In 1 868, Montana was erected into a separate vicariate, but no bishop was ever consecrated and the eastern part remained under the vicar-apostolic of Nebraska. Bishop O'Gorman died at Cincinnati, of cholera morbus, on the 4th of July, 1874. He was a native of Limerick, born in 1809, and renounced the world to embrace the Cistercian rule in the Trappist Order, at the age of nineteen. He was one of the first sent to America to found New Melleray, of which he became prior on the promotion of Rev. Clement Smyth to the episcopate. Catholicity had made but a feeble beginning in Nebraska when he left his monastery to direct it. At his death there were twenty priests and as many churches, fifty-six stations, three convents, an hospital, an orphan asylum, and twelve thousand Catholics. The Very Rev. William Byrne, as administrator, governed the vicariate till the consecration of the Rt. Rev. James O'Connor, in 1876. James O'Connor was born in Queenstown, Ireland, on the 10th of September, 1823, and, coming to this country in 1S38, finished his preparatory studies in the seminary of St. Charles Borromeo, Philadelphia, from which he was sent to the Urban College at Rome. Trained there to the soundest philosophy and ON THE PLAINS. 403 theology by the eminent professors of the college of the Propaganda, he was ordained in the Eternal City on the Feast of the Annunciation in the year ib'45. Cm n ' s return to this country he was for seven years engaged in mis- sionary duties in the diocese of Pittsburg. In 1857 he was appointed superior of St. Michael's Theological and Preparatory Seminary at Glenwood, near Pittsburg, and organized the different departments, directing the whole so ably that he was compelled to erect an additional wing in 1862 to accom- modate the increased number of students. Resigning his position in the following year, he was appointed director of the seminary of St. Charles Borromeo at Overbrook, near Philadelphia, filling also the chairs of philosophy, moral theology, and ecclesiastical history until the year 1862, when he visited Europe and on his return became pastor of St. Dominic's Church, Holmesburg. In 1876 he was elected vicar-apos- toiic of Nebraska, and was consecrated titular bishop of Dibona on the 20th of August. He founded Creighton College — through the liberality of a citizen of that name — in 1879 an ^ confided it to the fathers of the Society of Jesus, and introduced the Franciscan fathers who have two houses of their order. The vicariate, when Bishop O'Connor attended the plenary council of Balti- more in 1884, contained more than seventy-five priests, one hundred and fifty churches and six charitable institutions, six academies, and seventeen parochial schools. In 1885 the state of Nebraska was made the diocese of Omaha, and Bishop O'Connor was transferred to the new see. He was engaged in estab- lishing an order of nuns for work among the Indians when death closed his valuable career, May 27, 1890. He was succeeded, in January, 1891, by Rt. Rev. Richard Scannell who, for four years previously, had been bishop of Concordia, Kansas. When Catholicity had so spread through the state of Kansas in its days of peace as to the number two hundred and twenty-eight churches, attended by one hundred and thirty-seven priests, the sovereign pontiff, Leo XIII, determined to divide the diocese of Leavenworth. The counties in the northwestern part of the state, were formed into the new diocese of Concor- dia. As its bishop was selected a priest who had labored long in the hard missions of Tennessee, and who had displayed ability in many positions. The Rt. Rev. Richard Scannell was born in the parish of Cloyne, County Cork, Ireland, on the 12th of May, 1S45, of Patrick and Johanna Collins) Scannell. He attended the school in his native place till he was . . THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. fifteen, when he went to Middieton, the town in which Curran was educated. Here he pursued a classical course under Patrick Riordan, a graduate of Trinity College. He lost his mother when he was only eight years old, but the piety inherent in the family inspired him with the desire to become a priest, and he entered All Hallows' College, Dublin, in 1866, where he had as fellow-students Bishop Scanlan, of Utah, and Bishop O'Reilly, of Port Augustus. After passing through his course of philosophy and theology, he was ordained priest on the 26th of February, 1 871, by the Rt. Rev. John Francis Whelan, vicar- apostolic of Bombay. Having been accepted for the diocese of Nashville, the young priest came to this country and arrived in that city in 1871. He was assigned to duty in the Cathedral as assistant, and labored there till 1878, when he was appointed rector at St. Columba's Church in East Nashville, taking the place of the Rev. Michael Meagher, who died that year as a martyr of charity while attending the Catholics at Memphis who were dying of yellow fever. The next year he was recalled to Nashville to become rector of the Cathedral. When the Rt. Rev. Bishop Feehan was promoted to the see of Chicago, the Rev. Mr. Scannell was appointed administrator, sede vacante, and governed the diocese till the conse- cration of Bishop Rademacher, in June, 18S3. He then visited Europe to recruit his health, which was seriously impaired. In 1885 the bishop intrusted him with the organization of a new parish in West Nashville. Here the active priest soon reared a fine church dedicated to St. Joseph. In August, 1SS6, he became vicar-general of the diocese. This able, laborious, and experienced priest was elected in July, 1SS7, to the see of Concordia, and his bulls were issued on the 9th of August. He was consecrated in the church which he had erected, on the 30th of November, by his grace Arch- bishop Feehan, assisted by Bishop McCloskey, of Louisville, and Bishop Rademacher, of Nashville. The sermon was pronounced by his grace Arch- bishop Elder, of Cincinnati. The bishops of Fort Wayne, Covington, and Mobile were also present. The diocese which he proceeded to govern had a nucleus of about twenty priests and thirty churches. He was transferred to the diocese of Omaha in December, 1S90, leaving in his former diocese, twenty-two priests and ten ecclesiastical students, forty- eight churches and twenty-seven stations, ten parochial schools with 1,000 pupils^ and a Catholic population of 15,000; nor can it be doubted that a proportionate success will attend his zealous labors in Nebraska. Co'orado, east of the Rocky Mountains, and north of the Arkansas, is part ON THE PLAINS. 405 of the territory claimed by us as part of ancient Louisiana, and thus is within the limits of the original diocese of that name. In the Spanish part there were churches at Trinidad, La Costilla, and Los Conejos, with dependent chapels; but the discovery of rich mines in the more northerly portion drew numbers of miners, who soon founded Denver, Central City, and other towns. The clergy of the diocese of Santa -mm WmMW ~^ ^r'ii-.^'f- Fe at first extended their ministry to these new-comers, but, as the increase of population promised to be rapid, Colorado, which had been made into a state, received a bishop. The Rev. Joseph Projectus Mache- bceuf, for many years on the mission in New Mexico, was consecrated on the 1 6th of August, 186S, bishop and vicar-apostolic, his jurisdiction extending also over Utah. Joseph Projectus Machebceuf was born at Riom, in the diocese of Clermont, France, on the nth of August, 18 1 2, and was in childhood a pupil of the Brothers of the Chris- tian Schools; after being graduated in the college of his native city he entered the Sulpitian Seminary at Montf erran, where he mastered philo'sophy, theology, and other branches of ecclesiastical learning. After receiving ordination in the Advent of 1S36, he was employed in the ministry in France for three years, but, preferring to become a missionary, volunteered with Rev. Mr. Lamy, now archbishop of Santa Fe\ to accompany Bishop Purcell to his diocese. On the 1st of January, 1840, he was appointed pastor at Sandusky, Ohio, where French priests had reared a chapel in the last century. Here he remained eleven years, developing the church and institutions. Having been invited to New Mexico by Bishop Lamy, then vicar-apostolic of that territory, he reached it by a laborious route through New Orleans and Texas. As vicar-general he labored earnestly in that old Catholic field till i860, when Bishop Lamy sent him to Colorado, where a new population was gathering. Beginning as vicar-general for that territory, Rev. Mr. Machebceuf may be said to have created all that the Church has san miguel's, santa fe, n. m , oldest church in the country, 4o6 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. there to-day. He built the first church in Denver, and attended Catholics wherever they gathered, till other priests came to assume local direction of the churches that grew up. So rapidly did Catholicity develop in the terri- tory that in 1S6S there were seventeen churches or chapels. Denver had a convent of Sisters of Loretto, with an academy and a school for boys. Pope Pius IX in that year constituted the vicariate-apostolic of Colorado, extending over the territory of that name, and also over Utah. Rt. Rev. Dr. Mache- bceuf, having been appointed titular bishop of Epiphania, was consecrated August 1 6, 1868, in St. Peter's Cathedral. He lived to see Denver a city of seventy-five thousand inhabitants, with six Catholic churches, with convents, academy, hospital, asylum, House of the Good Shepherd, and several parochial schools. There are fifty-one priests in the vicariate, officiating in ninety-six churches and chapels, and the Catholic population in 1884 was nearly fifty thousand. He died July 9, 1889, and was succeeded by the Rt. Rev. Nicholas C. Matz. The constant and rapid growth of the contiguous Wyoming Territory saw Catholic churches springing up, and in 1887 the time had arrived when a bishop was needed to organize the work of Catholicity, and give that energy to the creation of public institutions which only the presence of a bishop can call forth. Pope Leo XIII, in the year of his sacerdotal jubilee, erected Wyoming Territory into a diocese on the 9th of August, 1887. The episcopal see was fixed at Cheyenne, in Laramie County, a growing city, already pos- sessing a fine church, an academy of Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, and a parochial school. To guide the new flock thus selected the sovereign pontiff elected the Rev. Maurice F. Burke, an active and ' energetic priest of the diocese of Chicago. He was born in Ireland, May 5, 1S45, but when a child was brought to this country by his parents, who fixed their home in Chicago. There young Maurice received his rudimentary education, and at the age of eighteen entered the university of St. Mary's of the Lake. He had chosen the House of the Lord for his inheritance, and having been accepted as a student, was sent to the American College at Rome, where, after a thorough course extending over nine years, he was ordained by Cardinal Patrizi on the 22d of May, 1875. On his return to his diocese he was assigned to duty in St. Mary's Church, Chicago, as assistant priest. On the 24th of July, 1S78, he was appointed to St. Mary's parish, Joliet, and by his energy and zeal erected a very fine church and parochial schools, confiding the care of the young to the ON THE PLAINS. 407 Sisters of Loretto. The evident ability of the devoted priest marked him as one to whom important duties would be confided. When the diocese of Cheyenne was erected the choice fell upon him, and he was consecrated bishop on the 28th of October, 18S7, at the Cathedral of the Holy Name, Chicago, by Arch- bishop Feehan, assisted by Bishops McCloskey, of Louisville, and Cosgrove, of Davenport. His diocese is one in which preparation is to be made for an incom- ing population ; it contains now about 4,500 white and 3,500 Indian Catholics. It remains but to notice briefly the illustrious bishop in Dakota who is now the chief apostle and defender of our Indians on the plains. Martin Marty was born at Schwyz, in Switzerland, on the 12th of January, 1834, and, entering in youth the great Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedlen, made his profession on the 20th of May, 1855. The young monk had already pursued his theological studies with such zeal and talent that the next year he was ordained, on the 14th of September. A colony of monks from Einsiedlen was sent to Indiana in 1854, and founded St. Meinrad's. Dom Marty arrived in i860 to share the labors of the sons of St. Benedict, and when the priory was established five years later he was made the first superior. The little community prospered, receiving postulants who persevered, and the mission work increasing. Pope Pius IX in 1870 erected St. Meinrad's into an abbey, constituting the fathers connected with it into the "Helveto-American Con- gregation," and Rt. Rev. Martin Marty was made mitered abbot. The corner- stone of a new monastery was laid May 22, 1872. Abbot Marty presided for several years, perfecting the institutions under his care, and extending the missions, erecting churches, and fostering education. But he had always desired to undertake missions among the Indians, and at last he went with some fathers to Dakota. The work there gave such promising hopes that he resigned his dignity of abbot to devote himself to it. In 1879 tne territory of Dakota was formed into a vicariate-apostolic and confided to the care of the zealous Benedictine, who was consecrated bishop of Tiberias on the 1st of February, 1SS0. When Bishop Marty attended the plenary council, four years later, there were nearly ninety churches and fifty priests in his vicariate with seven Indian missions attended by his clergy, Benedictine, Ursuline, and Presentation nuns, with Sisters of the Holy Cross and Youville Sisters of Charity aiding in the good work. The diocese of Sioux Falls, comprising the state of South Dakota, was established in 1889, and now contains about fifty churches attended by as many priests. Chapter $£I. 0V6R TH6 50R06R. Catholicity not Petted in Canada. — British Contempt for Solemn Treaties. — Robbery of Jesuit Endowments. — The Long Struggle for Toleration. — Trials of Bishop Plessis, — Lord Castlereagh's Singular Message.— The American Revolution as a Medicine. — No Catholic Hierarchy Permitted. — A Bishop's Triumph Before Death. — Growth of the Church and Her Institutions.- A Legion of Prelates and Priests. — Grand Work and a Glowing Futufe. — A Scotch Catholic Settlement. — Loyal men from the Highlands. — The Clan MacDonell and its Sufferings. — Emigration to the New World. — A Noble and Pious Soggarth. — Father Ian Becomes Bishop. — A Good Man's Rest. -The Highland Catholics of To-Day. grm O frequently do we hear of the undue favoritism to the Catholic- Church in Canada, many people have come to believe that there at least it is, and ever has been, the pampered child of a dotingly paternal government. They imagine that at the conquest the church of Quebec, the mother-church of Canada well nurtured bv France, passed under the civil jurisdiction of England rooustly developed and hedged about by invulnerable treaty stipulations, which have invariably been most liberally construed. Such, however, is not the case. Even under the French regime the Church was not altogether unttammeled The evil influence of Madame Pompadour was not confined to Fiance. W? read that the "system of vexatious trickery organized against the Church and the people of the country by some of the chief and subordinate officials sent out by the court of Louis XV," was such that Bishop Briand, the incumbent of the see of Quebec at the date of capitulation, did not weep over the result, as he, in the words of Mgr. Plessis, "perceived that religion herself wo-ud gain by the change of domination." But the effect of treaties, like that of statutes, depends very much on the 408 OVER THE BORDER. 409 interpretation; and the nature of the interpretation is contingent upon the predisposition of those in authority. The proximate consequences of the change scarcely justified Mgr. Briand's expectations, though the ultimate result, no doubt, has been in accord with his hope. The treaty of 1763 pro- vided for the free exercise of the Catholic religion in Canada in so far as it was compatible with the laws of Great Britain. That was not very far. The proviso gave a danger- ous latitude to those charged with the conduct of public affairs in the new colony ; and in the early days they were, as Governor Murray said, " a most immoral collection of men" — men who had come to lord it over the conquered, and who were not at all disposed to put a liberal construction upon the provisions of the treaty. The imperial act of 1774 subjected the Church in Canada to the royal supremacy and handed it over to the tender mercies of those men, whose great desire was to make the Church a creature of the state and the colony Protestant. The American Revolution cooled their ardor. During the war, and for some time after, the Catholic bishop and priests were allowed to exercise their functions in comparative peace. In 1799, however, renewed efforts were made by the colonial authorities to destroy the authority of the bishop, to control the appointment of parish priests, and to get the schools into their hands. From the time of the conquest the primary schools were mainly supported by the Jesuit endowments, but in 1S00 the government seized the property of the society, and thus closed the schools. Much of what was taken from the schools went, as Catholic ecclesiastical property had gone before, to the maintenance of Pro- testant worship. A great effort was made to get possession of the estates of the Society of St. Sulpice for the purpose of founding an educational institu- tion. Then, as now, it was clearly perceived that the most effectual way of MGR. F. f)E LAVAL, FIRST BISHOP OF QUEBEC. THE COL UMBIAN J UB1LEE. undermining the faith of the people was by controlling the schools. In 1801 a law for the encouragement of public instruction was promulgated with a flourish of trumpets and many protestations of a righteous desire to promote the welfare of the people by supplying more efficient schools than those the Church had established and the state had closed. By this law was created what might be called a board of education, consisting chiefly of Pro- testants, with the anglican bishop as president. The Protestants at that time were two and one-half per centum of the population. The following extract from a letter written by an official of the colonial government gives a good idea of the spirit which actuated the administration: "I have long since laid it down as a principle (which in my judgment no governor of this province ought to lose sight of for a moment), by every possible means which prudence can suggest, gradually to undermine the authority and influence of the Roman Catholic priests. This great, this highest object that a governor can have . . . may be accomplished before ten years shall have passed over. . . . The instructions of his majesty, by which it is ordered that no person in this province shall have the cure of souls but by virtue of a license under the governor's hand and seal, . . . once followed up, the king's supremacy would be established, the authority of the pope would be abolished, and the country would become Protestant. "We have been mad enough to allow a company of French rascals to deprive us for the moment of the means of accomplishing all this, but one prudent, decisive step might rectify this absurdity. In all events I would advise every governor of this pro- vince most scrupulously to follow the same line of conduct which has established so widely the authority of the pope of Rome, to avail themselves of every advantage that can possibly occur, and never to give up an inch but with the certainty of gaining an ell." This gentleman in his communication used the term " popish clergy," and, as an apology for the employment of the not very classical adjective, he wrote: "I call them popish to distinguish them from the clergy of the established Church, and to express my contempt and detestation of a religion which sinks and debases the human mind and which is a curse to every country where it prevails." At an anterior date the Anglican bishop, Dr. Mountain, who had been given the miter in England and despatched to Canada as bishop of Quebec, chagrined at the comparative failure of the efforts to annihilate the Church of the people, wrote thus to Lord Hobart, the colonial secretary, at London : " While the superintendent of the Roman Church assumes the title of bishop of Quebec, he, as well as his clergy, studiously denies that title to the Protestant bishop; he has the absolute disposal of all the preferments in the diocese; he erects parishes and grants dispensations for marrying at his dis- cretion, etc.; all of which functions are clearly contrary to the royal instruc- tions, and all of which are denied to the Protestant bishop." OVER THE BOEDER. ^n Such was the animus of the governing authorities when Mgr. Plessis became bishop of Quebec; and it would be impossible to give a better picture of the condition of the Church at that time than is conveyed in this extract from a letter addressed by the bishop to a friend in London in 1806: " Examine the map and you will perceive the impossibility of a single bishop extending his solicitude with any success from Lake Superior to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. That space contains more than 200,000 Catholics, and yet there are only 1S0 priests to supply all their wants. Add to that their numerous difficulties from their entanglement with a Protestant population, and the constant vigilance necessary to avoid being compromised with a gov- ernment which views things only through the medium of its own principles and is constantly making some new effort to establish the supremacy of the king." In 1807 the good bishop, weary with constant conflict and discouraged by what seemed insurmountable obstacles to the success of his work, acknowledged to a friend that human resources failed him, and that he scarcely hoped for any amelioration from appealing to the treaty stipula- tions. The colonial office in England was being urged to inaugurate a vig- orous anti-papal policy; and Dr. Mountain himself repaired to London, .and in many conferences with the ministers pressed that the grievances of which he complained in his letter to Lord Hobart might be retrieved, and that he might be made in Canada monarch, as to things ecclesiastical, of all he sur- veyed. Help came from a quarter whence it was least expected. Lord Castlereagh, in a memorandum on the situation in Canada, gave it as his opinion that the law secured to Canadian Catholics the free exercise of their religion, and to their clergy their accustomed dues and rights, subject to the royal supremacy ; that as the bishop of Quebec, who was not a foreigner, was the head of the Church in Canada, his jurisdiction was not opposed to the act of supremacy, and that it would be a very delicate undertaking to interfere with the Catholic religion in Canada. It need hardly be said that it was no sense of justice which impelled this noble lord not to apply his Irish formula in the New World. The storm brewing at Washington dictated his course. But even this did not effect a truce. The conflict continued. Governor Craig, who arrived in 1807, placed himself in the hands of his advisers — men who had come to Canada to make an Ireland of Quebec; and the opposition to the Church continued. Owing to the exigencies of the times, however, the plan of attack was somewhat modified, or, rather, a more insidious scheme was adopted. The government was prepared to fully recognize 4I2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. the episcopal authority of the Catholic bishop, to confirm him to his see by- commission from the king, and even to secure him a revenue, if the govern- ment were accorded the privilege of nominating the parish priests, which privilege, it was believed, "would insensibly operate in effectually undermin- ing the people's religious faith." Writing in 1811, Bishop Plessis gave the following account of a confer- ence had with Sir James Craig : " Yesterday I had a conversation with his excellency the governor, which lasted one hour and three-quarters, in which he exhausted himself, and me also, in speaking, without our being able to fall into accord upon the only point that was agitated, to-wit : the nomina- tion to cure's. He viewed it obstinately as a civil affair, and as a prerogative of the crown which it would never abandon." The war of 1812, like the war of Independence, acted as a sedative, of a mild and transient kind, to the anti-Catholicism of the colonial officials. After the Revolution Sir Guy Carleton declared that the Catholic priests pre- served the province of Quebec to the crown. In the interval of peace the clergy were attacked and their loyalty questioned. In 18 13 an official despatch was transmitted to the governor of Quebec, informing him that "his royal high- ness, the prince regent, in the name of his majesty," desired that one thousand pounds should thereafter be the allowance of the Catholic bishop of Quebec, "as a testimony rendered to the loyalty and good conduct of the gentleman ... as well as of the other members of the Catholic clergy of the province." Still there was a little lump of the old leaven left. It had been for many years the desire of the bishop of Quebec to have his vast diocese subdivided. The Church which in the earlier days could easily be ruled by one ordinary and a coadjutor, had grown with the country. One can now scarcely realize how Bishop Plessis, who had to be ever on the alert to defend his church from the premeditated assaults of the civil authori- ties, who was striving to develop two or three small seminaries for the train- ing of much-needed priests, and endeavoring to supply the wants of scattered and very differently circumstanced missions from the Atlantic to the Pacific^ and from the Great Lakes to the islands of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, could undertake a journey to distant Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton, and the Magdalens, visiting en route the scattered settlements of Acadians, and then making his way as best he could to the faithful who were grouped at different points in the virgin forest of Upper Canada. No wonder he sought relief. When the crozier was placed in his hand he braced OVER THE BORDER. 4 ! 3 himself for unremitting toil, for trials and tribulations. But the burden was more than one man could bear. The zealous pastor bent beneath it and cried for help. Rome was prepared, but another power had to be consulted. In those days it was absolutely necessary to obtain the consent of the civil authorities to the erection of new sees; and, although after years of useless struggling they were compelled by circumstances to recognize the ordinary of Quebec, they seemed determined to have no more Catholic bishops, at least with native titles, in the British half of the continent. In 1817 the bishop of Quebec was relieved of the charge of Nova Scotia, which was made an apostolic vicariate and confided to the care of the Rev. Edmund Burke, who had long labored there as a missionary. This, however, was scarce a perceptible lightening of Mgr. Plessis' charge. He wished to have Canada divided into five dioceses: two in Lower Canada, with their centers at Quebec and Montreal; another to comprise the Maritime Provinces, a fourth to include Upper Canada, and the fifth to extend over the Hudson's Bay country and away across the Rockies to where the waves of the Pacific lap our western shore. This plan was in part suggested, and in its entirety concurred in by the Propaganda; and, in order to secure the concurrence of the civil power, Bishop Plessis journeyed to England in 1819. Just after his departure bulls arrived from Rome elevating Quebec to the dignity of a metropolitan see, naming Mgr. Plessis its first archbishop, and giving him, in addition to the vicariate of Nova Scotia, two suffragan bishops, one for Upper Canada, the other for Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and the Magdalens. But, as Bishop Plessis feared, this had only the effect of strengthening the opposition to his plan. On no account would the govern- ment assent to his assuming the title of archbishop; nor would they agree to the creation of any new sees. After much negotiating he succeeded in obtaining the acquiescence of the powers that were in the establishment of apostolic vicariates and in the appointment of bishops in partibus infidel ium. It was explicitly stipulated, however, that these titular bishops were not to have independent jurisdiction, but were merely to be auxiliaries to the bishop of Quebec, who alone was to have a legal status. Vicariates were accord- ingly formed, and the men who had been fixed upon to rule over the desired dioceses were consecrated. The Rev. Jean Jacques Lartigue, a Sulpitian priest, was placed over the district of Montreal, which then contained 189,119 Catholics of, with few exceptions, French origin. 4 , 4 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. The presence of Irish Catholics was discovered only a short time previ. ously. A priest was summoned to attend a dying stranger, and fhe stranger was found to be an Irishman. The priest learned that there were com- patriots of the dying man in the neighborhood, and invited them to his church. On the following Sunday, in the sacristy of the old Bonsecours' Church, thirty Irish exiles met and had the gospel preached to them for the first time since they had crossed the sea. There were only a few Irish Catholics in Canada at that time, and they came then and afterwards, to different points, under circumstances which so militated against their success that their pros- perity cannot but be marveled at. The first Irish families who arrived at Quebec were so destitute that had it not been for the kind interposition of Bishop Plessis, who placed them with French farmers and well-to-do towns- people, they would have reached the land of promise only to find paupers' graves in its frozen ground. A sad story indeed is the story of Irish emigration. Over most of the country south of the Ottawa spread " the forest primeval" when the nineteenth century broke upon the world. What is now Ontario was then in the main a wilderness. Among the United Empire loyalists who migrated there when the thirteen colonies cut loose from Britain were some Scotch Catholics. These were augmented by a colony of a disbanded regiment of Highlanders, led in 1S03 from the old country by the Rev. Alexander Macdonell. Both contingents were given land, and grants were also made by the government for churches and schools in recog- nition of the loyalty of the colonists and their pastor, and with the object, no doubt, of strengthening that feeling, so that the crown might have devoted subjects on the border of the young Republic. The first Irish settlers arrived in Upper Canada in 1S23. They were not very hospitably received. Appli cation was even made for a military force to drive them out, or to guard the loyal inhabitants; and so exercised were the home authorities by the reports which the loyalists sent them concerning the "riotous and mutinous" Hiber- nians, that Father Macdonell, who was then in England, was requested to hasten back to Canada to do something with the wild Irish. He assured them there was no cause for fear, and offered to pledge his life for the good conduct of the abused refugees. "Put that in writing," said the under secretary for the colonies. And the bond was signed. When Father Macdonell, who was given charge of the vicariate of Upper Canada, came to the country there were only two or three small places of OVER THE BORDER. a\^ worship and a couple of priests — one a Frenchman, without any knowledge of English; the other an Irishman who left the country shortly afterwards. For years the apostolic Macdonell had no fellow-laborers, and had to travel in the exercise of his holy office, often with his vestments on his back, over seven hundred miles of a country without roads or bridges. In 1 82 1 the Rev. ./Eneas Bernard McEachern was consecrated, and to him was confided the care of the Church in the Maritime Provinces, the vicar- apostolic of Nova Scotia having died two years previously. A biography of this missionary prelate would make interesting and edifying reading. His life, however, like the lives of many of the pioneers of the Faith in our country, has yet to be written. But what at best can one write of a mission- ary priest but the mere outlines of his career ? Only he who has in perils on land, on river, and on sea, preached the Word and administered the sacra- ments can fill in between the lines the story of such a life. When Father McEachern arrived in Prince Edward Island in 1790 there were no churches, no schools, no material resources, few Catholics, poor and scattered, and diffi- culties innumerable. The other provinces over which he was afterwards called to exercise episcopal jurisdiction presented a somewhat similar spectacle. There were a few Scotch settlers, here and there a poor Irish emigrant, and along the shores hamlets of Acadians, who, "Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean," drifted back to their dear Acadia. But of all the ecclesiastical districts into which the old diocese of Quebec was then divided the most uninviting was that conterminous with the country extending from what was at that time called Canada to the Pacific, and from the northern boundary of the republic to the frozen islands of the Arctic. There roamed the red men, and with them some venturesome Canadians who traded with the Indians for furs. Many of these voyageurs married Indian women and settled along the Red River. Father Provencher, who, with Father Dumoulin, was sent to this mission in 1818, was selected for the charge of the vicariate. In 1824 Joseph Octave Plessis, the last bishop who alone ruled over the whole of Canada, passed to his reward. He lived in the seed-time, and labored faithfully and well. What a transformation has since taken place! " Lift up thine eyes round about and see." " The flowers have appeared in our land . . . the fig-tree hath put forth her green figs, the vines in 416 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. nower yield their sweet smell." With the development of the country and the growth of civil liberty, the Church expanded and threw off the incubus of state interference. Before a decade of years elapsed the titular bishops took native sees; and in 1S44 the ordinary of Quebec publicly assumed the title of archbishop. Now a cardinal sits in the chair of Laval, and with him six other archbishops, sixteen bishops, and two vicars-apostolic guard the spiritual inter- ests of over two millions of Catholics in this Dominion; and the sacrifice foretold by Malachi is offered by two thousand three hundred priests. An army of religious go about doing good. Cathedrals and churches, flanked by colleges and schools, dot the land ; and "The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers." The people, too, have prospered. There are no more contented and comfortable husbandmen than the descendants of the old colonists who till the soil. Many of the offspring of poor emigrants have in the different walks of life attained positions of wealth, influence, and eminence. Two gubernatorial chairs are filled by Catholics. Three provinces have Catholic prime minis- ters. In the parliaments of the nation Catholics occupy prominent places, and six out of the fourteen members of the Dominion cabinet are Catholics. A most marvelous example of rapid development is furnished by Quebec. A colony whose population at the date of the conquest is estimated to have been not more than sixty thousand, a colony of Frenchmen having to struggle for existence and for faith against powerful and alien rulers, and depending for* extension almost entirely on self-increase, has grown in Quebec alone to nearly a million and a half, besides extending its ramifications into Ontario and the New England states. Counting all, the posterity of the sixty thousand now outnumber two millions. A cardinal wearing the pallium occupies the primatial see. The little seminary of long ago has developed into a great university with branches in Montreal, where presides another archbishop. Six bishops and a vicar-apostolic watch over the flock in other parts of the province. Over fifteen hundred priests dispense the mysteries in one thousand temples, and teach in university, seminaries and colleges. Of the latter and last there are twenty-one, with over half a hundred commercial and classical academies, and two hundred and fifty convents, in connection with the great majority of which boarding and day schools are conducted. There are in addition to these, three thousand five hundred state-supported religious schools, thirty-seven hospitals, and seventeen asylums. Thirteen OVER THE BORDER. 417 communities of women and twelve of men devote themselves mainly to teach- ing and active charity. It is the fashion with some people to say that Quebec is priest-ridden and crushed by clerical imposts; and what has been written may seem to them but proof of what they assert. Mr. Edward Fairer, the present editor-in-chief of the Toronto Mail, an ultra-Protestant journal, effectually disposed of such nonsense in a paper contributed a few years ago to the Atlantic Monthly. He wrote: "The habitant is not crushed by clerical imposts. . . . As a class the Canadian priests are men of much merit. Their parishes in very many cases are as large as an English county, and their work, especially in the winter-time, involves not only arduous toil but no small peril. The history of the priesthood is the history of the country." In Ontario, where Bishop Macdonell in the first years of the century labored almost unaided, three archbishops, four bishops, and one vicar-apostolic, assisted by four hundred priests, watch over a flock numbering three hun- dred and seventy-five thousand. In the centers of population catheural crosses point aloft to heaven, and the province which boasts of its Protestant- ism is jeweled with more than five hundred Catholic fanes. There are a university, three colleges, thirty-seven academies, and two hundred and twenty-nine state-supported parochial schools. The sick are cared for in nine hospitals, and orphaned youth and destitute old age find refuge in seven- teen asylums. Different communities of religious teach and tend the poor and sick, while from more than one convent of cloistered nuns ascend per- petual prayer and praise. Less than one hundred years ago there were in the Maritime Provinces 28 -X> ; _^"> ' 40 ^ 4^-' ; A- r '"'■'-• MOST REV. ARCHBISHOP J. WALSH, TORONTO. 4I g THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. only a few humble chapels like that in the storied village of Grand-Pre", "bn the shores of the Basin of Minas;"now there are almost four hundred sanctu- aries, wherein every one that asks receives, and he who seeks finds. An archbishop, four bishops, and two hundred and forty priests have the cure of over three hundred thousand souls. For the education of boys there are four colleges, one conducted by the Fathers of the Holy Cross, and an academy directed by the Christian Brothers; and four different sisterhoods have charge of forty boarding-schools for girls. A non-religious school system is by law established in the Maritime Provinces, but, notwithstanding this, there are many Catholic schools, especially for girls, maintained without any assistance from the state, except in Halifax, where schools under the direction of religious are supported by the government as the result of a compromise. The Northwestern vicariate of former days is now an ecclesiastical pro- vince, embracing Manitoba, British Columbia, and the intervening territories. The Catholics of these regions are only about one-fifth of the population. They numbered in British Columbia, in 1881, 10,043, ano ^ * n Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, in 1885,23,952. These are ministered to by an archbishop, two bishops, two vicars-apostolic, and one hundred and fifty priests. The Jesuits conduct a theological seminary and college at Winnipeg, Manitoba; and in British Columbia there are two colleges directed by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Four sisterhoods manage a score of academies for girls, and there are several Indian industrial schools under the supervision of religious. There are five hospitals and seven asylums. In Manitoba and the territories the school system is denominational, and the different parishes have their schools. A similar system does not obtain in British Columbia; still a few Catholic schools are in operation in that province. Catholic progress in this country may not be as striking as that in the United States; yet in Canada the Catholic population has in this century been blessed with a tenfold increase, and the Church, like "a tree which is planted Aiear the running waters," has taken deep root, and its branches have spre.id wer all the land. Of the Scotch Catholic settlement referred to above, we are enabled to furnish an interesting account. " You will hear more Gaelic spoken in Canada in one week than you would hear during a month's sojourn in the Highlands!" Such was the astounding assertion made some time ago at a Montreal dinner-table by a Scottish laird, himself of Canadian birth, and an extensive land-owner in Ontario as well as in North Britain. And such is OVER THE BORDER. 419 indeed the case. Along the shore of Lake St. Francis, and beyond, where the broad blue ribbon of the St. Lawrence is dotted with tiny verdant islets, among which loyal Canadians peep shyly across to the state of New York, dwell a sturdy race of men as truly Highland in heart and speech as when they left their beloved hills a hundred years ago. A nature, if loyal to one attachment, will be loyal to all. These Highlanders in Canada have pre- served their faith and have adhered to their language and traditions. To visit the Gae^ in the home of his adoption, you leave Montreal, going by railroad westward for about two hours and a half, and arrive at Lancaster, the county town of Glengarry, the home of the Chlanadh nan Gael. Glen- garry is the most easterly county of Ontario, and is one of those into which the district of Lunenbourg was divided in 1792. It is bounded on the east by County Soulanges, on the north by Prescott, west by County Stor- mont — also largely peopled with Scotch settlers — and on the south by the St. Lawrence. The county comprises four townships: Charlottenburg, Lancaster, Lochiel, and Kenyon. These are again subdivided into " concessions," and the concessions into lots. Lancaster, the county town, is in the township of Charlottenburg and lies on the banks of the Riviere-aux-Raisins. It is the outlet for produce from the inland villages, and the place of starting for stage-coaches to different points. The roads here are atrocious, and the coaches " rattle your bones over the stones " while taking you through a country so magnificent that you wonder why the dwellers therein do not mend their ways. In Charlottenburg are also the parishes of St. Raphael's, Martintown and Williamstown. The township of Lancaster lies east of Charlottenburg, and was called the " sunken township " on account of the first French settlers having considered it too swampy for habitation. Lochiel lies to the north, and boasts of quite a rising town, Alexandra, conl 'ning seven hundred inhabitants, a high school, and a convent under the Sist s of the Holy Cross. Kenyon is north of Charlottenburg, and is, like the ot. ers, a country of magnificent agricultural development. The counties of Stormont and Dundas are, if we except a few Germans, entirely Scotch, but are not Catholic, as in Glengarry. The pioneer settlers were from the valley of the Mohawk, whither many had emigrated from Scotland and from Germany before the Revolution. When the proclama r tion of peace in 17S3 deprived the Scottish soldiers who formed the Royal New York regiment, under Sir John Johnson, of their occupation, nothing 420 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. was left for them but to accept the offer of the British government and settle on lands granted them in Canada west. Loyalty came more natural to their mountain instincts than policy, and they were in those days much more con- scientious than practical. Each soldier received a grant of a hundred acres fronting on the river, and two hundred within the county on which he settled. That these people were for the main part Protestant is easily seen by the names which they bestowed on their villages, such as Matilda, Williamstown, Charlotte, and Mariatown, which latter was, we are toid, " called after Cap- tain Duncan's daughter Maria." There were many Catholics also in Sir John Johnson's regiment, and they probably turned the first sod in what is now Glengarry; but the real influx of Catholic Highlanders did not take place until 17S6 and 1802. Throughout the last century religious persecution prevailed in the High- lands of Scotland, not in actual strife or bloodshed, but in the merciless bigotry and continued obstruction that comes so readily to those "children of this world, who are wiser in their generation than the children of light." The old chieftains who had clung to their God and their sovereign were attainted, incarcerated in Edinburg Castle or in the Tower of London, and their sons of tender age, removed from the influence of early associations, were the help- less pupils of the sanctimonious dominies, who banished from their young minds every ray of Catholic hope and joy, and sent them back to their country as strangers and sojourners — sometimes as fierce denouncers of the faith in which they were born. Strong in loyalty and conservative to the heart's core, for years the powerful clan of MacDonald escaped unscathed. Descended from the mighty Somerled, Thane of Argyle, by his marriage with the daughter of Olaf, surnamed the Red, the Norwegian king of the Isles, this branch of Siol Cuin (the race of Conn) had accepted the faith of St. Columba, the "royal O'Neil," and never wavered from his teachings. For centuries they had lived and died Catholics, and the bones of their chieftains had been " Carried to Colme's Kill, the Sacred store-house of their predecessors, And guardian of their bones." In rugged Inverness, where the mighty houses of Clanranald and Glen- garry, divided by Loch Nevish, held watch and ward over the heather-clad mountains and deep and dangerous arms of the sea; back through the braes of Lochaber to where the McDonells of Keppoch dwelt under the shadow of Ben Nevis; over the Sound of Sleat, by whose waters McDonald of that OVER THE BORDER. 421 ilk kept his enemies at bay, and westward to the wild rocks of the Hebrides, the clan Donald practiced their Faith. By dint of much caution, and with great labor, these faithful mountaineers were fed with the sacraments of their Church. Priests' heads were then as valuable as were those of wolves in the days^of Alfred, and if a saggarth was caught by "the reformed," woe to him! In spite of these dangers, young men escaped to the continent, and in the Scots' College, Rome, and at Valladolid, in Spain, studied for the priest- hood. After their ordination they would return to their beloved hills to brave death and save souls. Jesuit and Irish secular priests, outlawed, and with a price set upon them dead or alive, sought this remote field for their devoted labors. Across the rough, gray waters of the Gulf of Hebrides, in many a cave and sheltered nook of the island of South Uist, the clansmen, in their belted tartans, assisted at the Holy Sacrifice and received the Bread of Heaven. Like the Israelites, they " ate it with their loins girt, and standing," for the morn- ing mist rolling off Benbecula might disclose to them a watchful foe, and the waves of Minch, now trembling in the dawn of day, might, ere the sun climbed beyond the mountains' crest, bear on their bosom the boat of the Sassenach spy. If the spy were not well attended and strongly armed it would be worse for him, for meekness and gentleness were Christian char, acteristics not strongly marked in this race, and they acted literally on St. Paul's injunction to be "first pure and then peaceable." Their precept was, Luathic do liambh agus cruadhich do Chuille — "Quicken thy hand and harden thy blows." An amusing specimen of this spirit is handed down from the prayer of a clansman before the battle of Sheriff muir; "O Lord! be thou with us; but, if thou be not with us, be not against us, but leave it between the red-coats and us!" At last some among this chosen people of God fell, lured by the inducements of the supporters of the elector of Hanover, as they had persist- ently called his Britannic majesty. Not content with embracing Calvinism themselves, they endeavored to inoculate their people. One, indeed, tried an untoward application by means of severe blows from his bati-bui — or yellow walking-stick — with which he hoped to induce his tenantry to repair to the Protestant meeting-house. To this day Calvinism is spoken of by the descendants of those people as Credible a bhati-bui — the religion of the yel- low stick. The tyranny of these foes of their own household, combined with the . 22 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. poverty and wretchedness prevailing throughout the Highlands, caused many of the MacDonalds and their Catholic neighbors to turn their thoughts to America, whence came alluring stories of plenty and peace. At home the country had been drained to provide means for the insurrection which they hoped would put their exiled prince on the throne of the Stuarts. The rav- ages of war had laid their lands waste, the more progressive Lowlanders and the absentee nobles were turning the tenant-holdings into sheep-walks, inch by inch their birthright was leaving them, their dress was forbidden, their arms seized, their very language was made contraband ; so, facing the difficulty like brave men, they determined to emigrate. In the year 1786 two ships sailed from Scotland to Canada filled with emigrants. The first left early in the season, but sprang a leak and was obliged to put into Belfast for repairs; resuming her voyage, she reached the American coast too late to attempt making Quebec harbor, and therefore landed her passengers at Phil- adelphia. The emigrants were lodged in a barracks evacuated by the troops after the proclamation of peace, but in the course of the winter a third mis- fortune befell them: the barracks took fire and burned to the ground, consum- ing in the flames their worldly all. These poor pilgrims then went through to Lake Champlain in boats, and were met at Ile-aux-Noix by their friends who had already established themselves in Ontario. Who but Highland hearts would undertake such a journey for friends ? At a bad season of the year, over slushy roads, when time was precious and horse-flesh valuable, they started in capacious sleighs for their old friends and kindred, and drove them to the forest that was to be their home, housing and feeding them until their own log-houses were erected. The second band of emigrants before referred to had a much more pros- perous voyage. They were from Knoydart, and were under the leadership of the Rev. Alexander MacDonald, of the family of Scothouse, a cousin of the chief of Glengarry. He was a man of courage and strong will, and marshaled his flock with prudence and discretion. As the good ship MacDonald glided out of the harbor of Greenock the priest addressed his flock and put them under the protection of St. Raphael, the guide of the wanderer. A few moments later there was a wail of terror: the ship was aground. " Sios air er glunean, agus dianibh umeigJi''' — " Down on your knees and pray !" — thundered the priest; St. Raphael interceded, the ship slid off, and in the Quebec Gazette, 1786, is this entry: "Arrived, ship MacDonald, from Greenock, with emigrants, nearly the whole of a OVER THE BORDER. 423 parish in the north of Scotland, who emigrated with their priest and nineteen cabin passengers, together with five hundred and twenty steerage passengers, to better their case, up to Cataraqui." Cataraqui was the ancient name for Kingston; there, however, they did aot go, but to what is now known as St. Raphael's parish, some miles north of Lancaster. Here they fell to work, in spite of numerous hardships, to construct their houses, and also to build the pioneer church, called " Blue Chapel." Of course church and parish were dedicated to their archangel guardian. In the year 1802 another very large party of emigrants arrived from Glengarry, Inverness-shire, who, settling near the earlier comers, gave the name of their native glen to the whole district During the winter of 1803 the good priest of St. Raphael's fell ill far away from any comfort or from medical aid to soothe or assuage his malady; he was deprived, too, of the services of a brother priest to administer the consolations of religion. His people rallied round him, and the strongest men came forward; they con- structed a leabaith ghidain, and carried him upon it through the forest paths and over the snow mountains to Williamstown. Hence, when the ice broke up, he was taken in a canoe down Riviere-aux-Raisins to the mission at Lachine, where he died on the 19th of May, 1803. He was succeeded in St. Raphael's by a Father Fitzsimmons. The chronicle of the emigrants of 1802 introduces one of the grandest figures in Canadian history — the Rev. Alexander (Allastair) MacDonald, or MacDonell, later the first bishop of Upper Canada. He was of the house of Glengarry, a branch of clan Donald now generally recognized as inheriting the chieftainship of the whole clan. For services rendered to the royal house of Stuart they were rewarded by Charles II with a peerage under the title of Lord MacDonell and Arross. The Rev. Alexander MacDonald was born at Innishalaggan in 1760, and studied at Valladolid. About the year 1790 trade between the river Clyde and the North American colonies had been greatly injured by the proclamation of peace and the independence of those colonies, and the merchants of Glasgow and Greenock turned their attention to the importation and manufacture of cotton. This branch of industry grew rapidly, and in 1793 over eighty thousand peo- ple were employed in it. The great demand for labor drained the agricul- tural districts and sent up the price of all kinds of provisions. The lairds, finding they could obtain so ready a market, determined that it would be more to their advantage to turn their mountain estates into sheep-walks man 434 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. to allow them to be occupied by the numerous and poor clansmen, who were indifferent farmers and could scarcely obtain from the soil sufficient for their own maintenance. Accordingly the tenants were turned adrift; sometimes two hundred gave place to one south-country shepherd, or, as the local phraseology expressed it, " Two hundred smokes went through one chimney." These poor people were destitute and helpless; they had never been beyond the gray line of ocean that washes the rocks of the Hebrides and runs into the deep indentures of the Inverness-shire coast. The southern language was to them an unknown tongue; to make or to take care of money was beyond their ken. The means of emigration were denied them. British cruisers had orders from the admi- ralty to prevent the departure of emigrants from the Highlands of Scotland, and to press such able-bodied men as they found on board of emigrant-ships. It was when affairs were in this pitiable state that the Rev. Dr. Mac- Donald came to the rescue. Leaving the scene of his missionary labors on the borders of Perth, he repaired to Glasgow, where he obtained an intro- duction to the principal manufacturers. He proposed to them that they should give employment to his destitute countrymen. This they were willing enough to do, but reminded the priest of two obstacles: one, their ignorance of the English language; the other, their profession of the Catholic faith. At that time the prejudice against Catholics was so strong in Glasgow that they were always in danger of insult and abuse. It was hardly safe for a priest to reside among them; he would be subject to annoyance and assault, and, as the penal laws wei-e still in force, he would also be liable to be brought before a court of justice. Dr. MacDonald expressed his conviction that " although the letter of the law was in force, the spirit of it was greatly mitigated," and declared that if the manufacturers would take the Highlanders under their protection he would run his chances of safety and take up his residence among them as interpreter and clergyman. This was agreed to, and from 1792 to 1794 the plan worked admirably. Then came the war with France. The manufacturers received a sudden check; many failed, and others were almost at a stand. The poor High- landers were again out of employment and again destitute. Dr. MacDonald then conceived the plan of getting them embodied in a Highland corps under his kinsman called Allastair Ruagh (the red), the young chief of Glengarry. He assembled a meeting of Catholics at Fort Augustus in February, 1794, OVER THE BORDER. 4 2^ when an address was drawn up to the king, offering to raise a Catholic corps under the command of the young chieftain, who, with Fletcher, the laird of Dunens, proceeded to London to lay it before the king. It was most gra- ciously received; the manufacturers, of Glasgow warmly seconded it, furnish- ing cordial recommendations of the Highlanders, and in August letters of ser- vice were issued to Alexander MacDonell, of Glengarry, to raise the Glengarry Fencible Regiment as a Catholic corps, of which he was appointed colonel. The Rev. Dr. MacDonald was gazetted chaplain to this regiment, which did service in Guernsey and afterwards in Ireland. An anecdote is told of them at Waterford which shows the honest sim- plicity of their nature and their ignorance of worldly wisdom. When they entered the town billet-money was distributed among them. Before night the order was countermanded; they were ordered to New Ross. Being told of this, each honest Scot returned his billet-money! While they were quar- tered in Connemara two young men named Stewart were brought by the commanding officer before a drum-head court-martial, whereupon a private stepped out of the ranks, recovered his arms, saluted his colonel, and said: " Ma dhoirtear diar difhuil nan Stuibhartich an a sko a noc, bi stri s'anchuis" — " If there will be a drop of the Stewart blood spilt here to-night there will be trouble." " Go back to the ranks, you old rebel," was the answer; but the Stewarts escaped scot-free. The colonel at this time was not Glengarry, but his cousin Donald MacDonell, who was afterwards killed at Badajos at the head of the " forlorn hope." The regiment was disbanded in 1802, and the men were again as destitute as ever. Their chaplain then set out for London, and entered into a nego- tiation with the government in the hope of obtaining assistance to further their emigration to Upper Canada. This plan was opposed, and the govern- ment offered to settle them in Trinidad. Dr. MacDonald, however, perse- vered, and at length procured from Mr. Addington, the premier, an order to grant two hundred acres of land to every Highlander who should arrive in the province. After enduring extreme opposition from Highland landlords, governors, and members of parliament — even from the Prince of Wales, who offered them land in Cornwall— the devoted priest obtained the desire of his heart and saw his beloved people sail for Canada in 1S02. As has been before said, they named their new home after their native glen, and every head of a family called his plantation after the farm he had possessed among the grand, old hills of Inverness-shire. 26 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. It must not be thought that all the Catholic settlers were MacDonells (or MacDonalds). Among those of 1784 we find the name of Fraser, McLennan, Hay, Rose, Glasford, and others; among the bands of 1786 were Grants, Mc- Intoshes, McWilliamses, McDougalls, McPhees, McGillises, McGillivrays, McCuaigs, and Campbells. Those of 1802 were more than half MacDonalds. In 1S04 Dr. MacDonald followed his people to Canada. He proceeded first to visit the Rev. Roderick (Rory) MacDonald at the Indian mission of St. Regis, then went to Kingston. During this time the people of St. Raphael's had taken a dislike to Father Fitzsimmons and clamored to have him removed, probably because they saw a chance of having his place filled by their beloved pastor of old days. Father Roderick, from St. Regis, reasoned with them by letter, but in vain. At last a sturdy clansman, John MacDonald, surnamed « Bonaparte," pushed his way from St. Raphael's to Quebec in midwinter, 1805, and laid his petition before Bishop du Plessis, who came to Glengarry in the summer of the same year and appointed Dr. MacDonald parish priest of St. Raphael's. The people's joy was very great at having their beloved priest with them once more. They gathered from near and far to bid him welcome. The little "Blue Chapel" was filled to overflowing; devout worshipers knelt along the aisles, on the doorsteps, and out on the short, crisp grass of the woodland meadows. When the notes of the Tantum Ergo rose on the air they pictured the Benediction service in their former home, where they had knelt on the heather of the beloved glen, through whose mountains their clear, wild music had so often sounded that hymn of adoration, borne along the rippling waves of the Garry to float over the waters of dark Loch Ness and echo amid the wild hills of Glen More. The " Blue Chapel " was soon too small for the parishioners, and Dr. MacDonald went home to Scot- land in 18 19 to procure assistance toward the erection of a larger church. During his absence he was elected bishop of Upper Canada. He returned in 1820, bringing with him from Glasgow a stone-mason, who set about building the present parish church of St. Raphael's. The bishop was conse- crated in Montreal in 1820, and was received in Glengarry with a great dis- play of rejoicing. After remaining there for two years he removed to Kings- ton, which place became his home, 'the diocese having been divided and Bishop Power appointed bishop of Toronto. Bishop Gaulin, coadjutor to Bishop MacDonald, was assistant priest at St. Raphael's after 181 2, as the bishop was constantly traveling. OVER THE BORDER. 427 Bishop MacDonald organized his immense diocese, bought land, built convents and churches, also founded at St. Raphael's the college of Iona, a portion of which was built in 18 18 for a public school; the western part was added for ecclesiastics in 1S26. Here he taught himself, aided by professors whom he obtained from Montreal. Fourteen ecclesiastics were ordained from this primitive seat of learning. The bishop's house, built in 1808, is a spacious stone mansion capable of accommodating many persons, and fronting on a large garden laid out in 1826 by a gardener whom he brought out from Scotland. The bishop seems here to have found rest and solace among his flowers. He founded the Highland Society and encouraged among the people the preservation of their nationality. In a pastoral still extant he expresses him- self very strongly against "those radicals who aim at the destruction of our holy religion," and strives to inculcate on his people a spirit of moderation and gratitude to the government, who had certainly befriended them better than had their own natural chieftains at home. When he crossed the Atlantic in 18 19 the bishop endeavored to interest Cardinal Wilde in his Glengarry colony, and, it is said, wanted him to visit Upper Canada, his eminence being then not even a priest, simply a very wealthy widower. In 1840 the venerable prelate went home to Scotland for the last time, and visited an old friend, Father Gardiner, in Dumfries, in whose arms he died. Mortal illness seized him before he reached the end of his journey, and his first words of greeting were: "Dear old friend, I've come to die with you." His remains were brought to St. Raphael's, then removed to Kingston in i860. Thus passed away one of the grandest men whom God ever sent to hew for his people a path through the wilderness. Among those who came out in the ship MacDonald were one John MacDonald, of the MacDonalds of Loupe, and Anna McGillis, his wife, with three children. The three multiplied to nine before many years passed, and of these two sons entered the Church; the eldest, yEneas (Angus), joined the Sulpitians and passed forty years as a professor in the Montreal semi- nary. He then retired to Glengarry, where, at the age of eighty, he died universally beloved. Two brothers and two sisters died, aged respectively ninety-eight, eighty-two, seventy-three, and sixty-seven years; there are now living in Cornwall two brothers and one sister, aged eighty-eight, eighty-one, and seventy-eight years. The second son, John, studied for the priesthood, and soon after his ordination was an assistant at St. Raphael's; thence he was 42 8 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. removed to Perth, where he suffered many hardships for ten years. He was- vicar-general of Kingston and parish priest of St. Raphael's for many years, and died at Lancaster on the 16th of March, 1879, in the ninety-seventh year of his age. This latter was a man of very determined character and somewhat stern in his treatment of his flock, who one and all obeyed him as little children. It was no uncommon thing in those days to see a man with a sheep-skin on his head or a wooden gag in his mouth — a penance awarded by Father John. A pulpit was a conventionality that he scorned ; he always addressed his people while walking to and fro behind the Communion railing. If any luckless wight incurred his displeasure he was pitilessly and publicly rebuked, though sometimes the worm turned. For instance: "John Roy MacDonald, leave this church." Dead silence. "John Roy MacDonald, I say leave this church." John Roy MacDonald rises and goes slowly and solemnly out, stepping carefully over the far-apart logs that did duty for a floor. Father John proceeds with his sermon, when creak, creak, creak, back over the logs comes John Roy MacDonald and calmly resumes his seat. "John Roy MacDonald, did I not tell you to leave this church? " "Yes, Maister Ian, and I will be for to go out of the church for to pleass you, and now I wass come pack for to pleass myself ! " It was not the ancient Scotch custom to call priests father; hence Father John was always spoken to and of as Maister Ian. Through great and manifold hardships have these people worked their way to comfort and ease. Coming from a life of freedom, and in many instances careless idleness, in a sea-girt home where a wealth of fresh fish was always to be had for very slight exertion, agricultural labor was almost unknown to them. In Canada they found themselves obliged to work hard and in the face of disheartening obstacles. Their new home was in many parts either swamp-land or else sandy and full of stones; the stones had to be picked up and made into walls to divide the farms, and the swamp-land drained and reclaimed. Often they had to lay roads of logs across the marshes and jump from one log to another, carrying on their backs bags of grain to be ground at Williamstown, where Sir John Johnson had erected a mill. Williamstown is to-day a thriving place, with a fine convent and as pretty a church as there is to be found in Canada. All these obstacles they surmounted as became the hardy mountaineers they were, and from their OVER THE BORDER. 429 ?anks came some of the celebrated characters of Canadian history, such as the first speaker of the Upper Canadian Parliament, which met at Niagara, Sep- tember 17, 1792 — Col. John MacDonell, of Greenfield, for many years mem- ber for Glengarry and attorney-general. He was colonel of the Glengarry Fencibles, raised for the War of 181 2, and was killed while serving under Brock at Queenstown Heights. From St. Raphael's came the family of Sandfield MacDonald, of which the late Hon. John Sandfield MacDonald was the eldest son. He was one of the most brilliant politicians of his time, and premier of the Canadian govern- ment. His brother, the Hon. D. A. MacDonald, one of the crown ministers of the late Liberal or Grit government, was lieutenant-governor of Ontario for five years. Among the "places of interest" to a Catholic stranger in Canada west there is none more delightful than St. Raphael's, where so many historic memories meet and touch, and, interweaved with the faith that is in them, live on in the hearts of the people. It is difficult of access; so are most poetic places nowadays. You leave Lancaster in a " Black Maria " that groans and creaks and bounces over the road in a way that will test your nerves. Your driver is a yellow-haired Gael with a tendency to moralize on the evils of intemperance; but as he speaks the wind wafts over his shoulder his breath, tainted with an unmistakable odor of John Barleycorn. As you leave Lancaster a wayside workshop strikes your eye, neat, white, and dapper. From its eave depends a sign; you expect at the most an intimation that festive buggies and neat jaunting-sleighs are made within; but no: ''A large supply of elegant coffins always on hand!" This singular memento tnori sets you thinking until you come to the end of your seven-mile drive and dis- mount at " Sandfield's Corner," your oscillating conveyance going jolting on to Alexandria. You follow in the wake of a barefooted small boy whose merry black eyes proclaim him an interloper and a Frenchman. Along the side of the old "military road" you go under elm-trees of giant height until you reach the quaint old hamlet dedicated to "Raphael the healer, Raphael the guide." Village there is none; only a post-office and store, an inn, a school-house, two cottages, with the church, presbytery, and college. The former stands on the brow of a hill and is remarkably large and lofty for a country church. On a chiseled slab over the door you read: " Teag de (House of God) iiidccxxi." Entering you are struck by the bareness of the vast roof, unsupported by pillars or galleries. The sanctuary is formed by 4 o G THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. a rood-screen dividing it from the passage that connects the sanctuaries. Behind this screen is a white marble slab bearing the inscription : On the 18th of June, 1843, the Highland Society of Canada erected this tablet to the memory of the Honorable and Right Reverend Alexander MacDonell, Bishop of Kingston, Born 1760 — Died 1840. Though dead he still lives in the hearts of his countrymen. Under the floor at the gospel side of the sanctuary lie the mortal remains of the good and revered Father John. Upon the main altar a statue of the patron of the church, St. Raphael, the "human-hearted seraph" — imported from Munich by the present parish priest, Father Masterson — looks as full of beauty and compassion as even Faber has portrayed him. The side altars have also fine statues of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, and the church throughout gives evidence of tasteful care. In the graveyard there are many old tombs, of which the inscriptions are defaced by time. One of the oldest bears the date of 182S, and on it the passer-by is requested, "in the name of God," to pray for the soul of Mary Watson, spouse of Lieutenant Angus MacDonell, Glengarry Light Infantry. Near the church there was a building called a convent, but the bishop never suc- ceeded in obtaining nuns for the mission. The inclosure across the road is occupied by the presbytery and college, now used as a chapel in which Mass is said daily, and in which, when the writer first saw it, the descendants of the mountaineers were repeating the rosary on a golden May evening. The building is small, and has, of course, been greatly altered, all the partitions having been removed to render it fit for use as a chapel. The garden of the bishop is still a mass of bloom, and in its center walk stands a moss-grown sun-dial, whereon we trace: "R.J. McD. 1827" — a relic of Maister Ian. From the wall of one of the rooms in which he lived the grand old bishop's portrait looks down on his people. It shows a man of commanding figure and noble and benign aspect, withal bearing a striking resemblance to the pictures of Sir Walter Scott. The church, house, college, and garden have been much improved by Father Masterson, who succeeded Father John, after being his assistant for many years. The people of Glengarry seem to live on very good terms with their OVER THE BORDER. 431 Protestant neighbors, and tell with pleasure of Father John's custom of read- ing the Bible aloud to those of them who wished him to do so. The bishop was revered by all sects, and when he received visitors of state in Kingston the wife of the Protestant minister used to go over to do the honors of his house. All through the country the farms are equal, if not superior, to any others of the Dominion, and are graced by magnificent trees. The roads are bordered with beech, ash, birch, tamarack, maple, butternut, spruce, willow, and pine, while the elms in every direction offer studies for an artist in their rugged and graceful curves. These elms were the staple commodity for export, and the year in which the people found no market for their wood was one in which their sufferings were extreme; they still speak of it as " the year of elms." A small river called the Beaudette winds through the country. On each side of it are marsh-lands, covered in places with low- sized bushes; water scenery is certainly wanting in Glengarry. The Highlanders are grave and serious, clannish as of old, standing by each other "gnaillean ri gtiaillean^ (shoulder to shoulder) in all disputes. The old antipathy between the clans is still in some instances cherished. It is a well-known fact that a young lawyer of Glengarry, who is, in the opinion of many, heir to the title and chieftainship, actually refused, some time ago, to accept an invitation to dine with the Marquis of Lome, declaring that a MacDonell could not and would not be the guest of a Campbell of Argyle! The national dress is rare now and only comes out, like the bagpipes, on state occasions. The girls, in spite of Father John's penances, have cultivated their decided talent for dancing, but there is generally none of the gayety and careless amusement so common among the French-Canadians. Hospi- tality is a predominant characteristic of the Highlanders — a hospitality so generous, sincere, and hearty that, having experienced it, you will be ready to say with Burns: "When death's dark stream I ferry o'er — A time that surely shall come — In heaven itself I'll ask no more Than just a Highland welcome." Chapter ££U. CATHOMCS IN TH6 ClUIfc WAR. Attitude of the Church. — Neither Partisan nor Abettor. — Knew no North, no South. — Her Master the Prince of Peace. — His Work Her Only Con- cern. — Help for the Sick and Wounded. — Sisters of Mercy and Charity. — Their Gentle Ministrations. — Hated and Despised at First. — Grate- fully Loved When Known.— Conversions in Field and Hospital. — "What- ever Sister Believes, I Believe." — Catholic Army Chaplains. — Men Who Never Shrank From Duty. — Charity That Was Not Sectional. — Fathers cooney and corby, c. s. c. — the solemn absolution scene. — bravery of Catholic Soldiers. — The Irish Catholic Everywhere. — Testimony to His Gallantry.- — Officers no Less Brave. — Names not Necessary Where All Were Brave. — The Good Effects of Catholic Example. ^HE Catholic Church of America, regarding war as a great calamity, and civil war — of state against state, citizen against citizen, even brother against brother — as the direst of all evils,- scrupulously abstained from uttering one word that could have a tendency to inflame or exasperate the passions which others were doing their utmost to excite to uncontrollable fury. The mission of the Church was to proclaim glad tidings of peace to man, not to preach strife and hatred amongst brethren. Thus those who visited the Catholic churches of the United States from the spring of 1861 to the autumn of that year, would never have supposed, from anything heard within their walls, that the trumpet had sounded through the land; that armies were gathering, and camps were forming; that foundries were at full blast, making implements of death; that artificers were hard at work, fashioning the rifle and the revolver, sharpening the sword, and pointing the bayonet; that dockyards rang with the clang of hammers, and resounded with the cries of myriads of busy men — that America 43 2 THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. 433 was in the first throes of desperate strife. Nor, as the time went on, and all the pent-up passions of years were unloosed, and a deadly war progressed with varying fortunes, and fury possessed the heart of a mighty people, could the stranger who entered a Catholic temple scarcely believe in the existence of the storm that raged without; the only indications of the tremen- dous conflict being the many dark robes, the sad livery of woe, worn by women and children — the mothers, wives, or orphans of those who had fallen in battle; for, save in the greater solemnity of the priest, as he raised the hearts of his congregation to the throne of God, there to sue for grace and pardon, there was nothing to imply the existence of a struggle whose gigantic proportions filled the world with amazement. The Catholic Church was content to preach "Christ crucified" to its own followers, as to all who came to listen. It regarded its pulpit as a sacred chair, from which it was to teach the knowledge of the truth, how man could best fulfill his duties to his Crea- tor, his country, and his neighbor. It deemed — and the judgment of the wise and good will say it deemed rightly — that if the minister of religion became a firebrand, instead of a preacher of peace, he misunderstood his duty, and prostituted the sanctity of his office ; it held, that it was a gross desecration of a temple erected to the worship of the Deity, to suffer it to resound with the language of unholy strife — with eloquent incentives to massacre and desolation. Others might act as they pleased ; they might turn their churches into polit- ical assemblies, and their pulpits into party platforms — they might rage, and storm, and fulminate — they might invoke the fiercest passions of the human breast, and appeal to the lowest instincts of man's nature — they might stimu- late their hearers to a wider destruction of life and poverty, to sadder and more terrible havoc ; others might do this, as others did — but the Catholic Church of America was neither bewildered by the noise and smoke of battle, nor made savage by the scent of blood; she simply fulfilled her mission, the same as that of the Apostles — she preached the Word of God in loving- ness and peace. The startling contrast which the Catholic Church thus presented to most, indeed nearly all, of the other churches during this period of national tribulation, was not without its influence on the public mind of America. It made men think and reflect, and in numberless instances conviction came with thought and reflection. The fervid and furious " sermons " that were listened to with flashing eyes and quickened pulses by the majority of those to whom they were addressed, excited the sorrow or disgust of not a few. 29 434 CATHOLICS IN THE CIVIL WAR. A Protestant gentleman, speaking to a Catholic friend in New York, thus referred to the prevailing topics which inspired the eloquence of his Boanerges: " My wife urged me yesterday to accompany her to our church. I refused. She was rather angry. * Weil, my dear,' I said, 'you may go if you please; the pew is there for you — I pay for it.- But I shan't go. When- ever I have gone I have never heard but three sermons at the most — popery, slavery, and war — war, slavery, and popery! These may satisfy you — they don't me. When I go to church I wish to be made better, not worse. Now I think a little of the Gospel, that tells us something of peace and charity, would do me good — your war, and slavery, and popery don't. I repeat, my dear, you may go if you please; but I'm — blessed if I do.* " If the Catholic Church could do nothing to prevent war, she could at least do much to mitigate its horrors; and accordingly she commissioned her noblest representatives — her consecrated daughters — to minister in the public hospitals, in the camp, and in the prisons — wherever wretchedness, and misery, and suffering appealed most powerfully to their Christian duty and womanly compassion. The events of the war brought out in the most conspicuous manner the merits and usefulness of the religious orders, especially those of charity and mercy, and the holy cross, and, spite of prejudice and bigotry, made the name of " sister " honored throughout the land. Prejudice and bigotry are power- ful with individuals and communities, powerful, too, in proportion to the ignorance which shrouds the mind of man. Still, these are but relatively strong, and must yield before a force superior to their's — truth. And as month followed month, and year succeeded to year, the priceless value of services having their motive in religion and their reward in the consciousness of doing good, were more thoroughly appreciated by a generous people. At their presence in an hospital, whether long established or hastily improvised, order, good management, and economy took the place of confusion, lax administration, and reckless expenditure, if not worse. Obstacles, in many instances of a serious nature, were placed deliberately in their path; but. with tact, and temper, and firmness, these were encountered by women who had no vanity to wound, no malice to inflame, and whose only object was to relieve the sufferings of the sick and wounded in the most efficacious manner. It is therefore not to be wondered at that difficulties and obstacles, however apparently formidable at first, vanished before the resistless influence of their sincerity and their goodness, and the quite as conclusive evidence of their THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. 435 usefulness. But the greater their success, the greater the strain on the resources of the principal orders. Not only did death and sickness thin their ranks, but the war, by adding fearfully to the number of helpless orphans, added likewise to their cares and responsibilities. What with ceaseless duty in the hospitals, teaching in their schools, visiting the sick, providing for the fatherless whom every great battle flung upon their protection, administering the affairs of institutions periled by the universal disturbance, bringing relief and consolation to the prisoner in the crowded building or wretched camp to which the chance of war consigned the soldier on either side — the sisters were tried to the very uttermost. Nothing but the spirit of religion, together with their womanly compassion for the sick and the suffering and their interest in the brave fellows who, docile children in their hands, fol- lowed them with wistful eyes as, angels of light and mercy, they brought balm to the heart of the wounded — nothing short of the sublime motives by which these ladies were animated, could have sustained them throughout four long years of ceaseless toil and never-ending anxiety. At first, the soldiers did not know what to make of them, and could not comprehend who they were, or what was their object. And when the patient learned that the sister with the strange dress belonged to the Catholic Church — that church of which so many vile stories had been told him from child- hood — a look of dread, even horror, might be observed in his eyes as he instinctively recoiled from her proffered services. This aversion rarely con- tinued long; it melted away like ice before the sun; but, unlike the ice, which the winter again brings round, this feeling never returned to the heart of the brave man whom the fortune of war placed under the care of the sister. Once gone, it was gone forever. How the prejudice, deep-seated, and ingrained, yielded to the influence of the sisters, may be best exemplified by a few incidents, taken at random from a vast number of a similar nature gathered in many parts of the country. Seven Sisters of Mercy, belonging to the Houston Street Convent in New York, were sent to an hospital attached to a federal corps. When they first entered the wards, which were crowded with sick and wounded, the soldiers regarded them with amazement. One of the sisters, a genial Irish- woman, referring to this her first visit to the hospital, told with much humor how the bewildered patients took the sisters for seven widows, who were looking for the dead bodies of their husbands! Among the patients, there was one mere lad — indeed almost a child, 43 6 CATHOLICS IN THE CIVIL WAR. scarce fit to leave his mother's guardianship — and he lay with his face on the pillow, as an hospital attendant, not eminent for humanity, carelessly sponged a fearful wound in the back of the poor youth's neck. The hair had been matted with the clotted blood, and the rude touch of the heartless assistant was ao-ony to the miserable patient. "Let me do it," said the sister, taking the instrument of torture from the unsympathizing hand; and then, with tepid water and soft sponge, and woman's delicacy of touch, the hideous sore was tenderly cleansed. "Oh, who is that? — who are you — you must be an angel!" cried the relieved youth. The hair was gently separated from the angry flesh, so that the grateful patient could turn his head and glance at the "angel;" but no sooner did he cast one rapid look at the strange garb and the novel head-dress of the sister, than he shrieked with terror, and buried his face in the pillow. " Do not fear me," said a voice full of sympathy; "I am only anxious to relieve your sufferings." The work of mercy was proceeded with, to the ineffable comfort of the wounded boy, who murmured — " Well, no matter what you are, you're an angel anyhow." At times there were as many as eighty sisters in or near Richmond, in active attendance in the hospitals, giving their services alike to the wounded soldiers of both armies. In one of the Richmond hospitals the following took place: A sick man, looking steadily from his pillow at the sister, who was busy in her attentions to him, abruptly asked — " Who pays you? — what do you get a month? " "We are not paid; we do not receive salaries," replied the sister. " Then why do you work as you do? — you never cease working." " What we do, we do for the love of God — to Him only we look for our reward — we hope He will pay us hereafter." The wounded man seemed as if he could not entirely comprehend a devotion so repugnant to the spirit of the almighty dollar; but he made no further remark at the time. When he became more confidential with the sister, the following dialogue was held — Patient. Well, sister, there is only one class of people in this world that I hate. Sister. And who may those be? Patient. The Catholics. Sister. The Catholics! Why do you hate them? Patient. Well, they are a detestable people. THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. 437 Sister. Did you ever meet with a Catholic that you say that of them? Patient. No, never; I never came near one. Sister. Then how can you think so hardly of persons of whom you don't know anything? Patient. All my neighbors tell me they are a vile and wicked people. Sister. Now, what would you think and say of me, if I were one of those Catholics. Patient, (indignantly). Oh, sister! you! — you who are so good! Impossible! Sister. Then, indeed, I am a Catholic — a Roman Catholic. The poor fellow, whose nerves were not yet well strung, rose in his bed as with a bound, looked the picture of amazement and sorrow, and burst into tears. He had so lately written to his wife in his distant home, telling her of the unceasing kindness of the sister to him, and attributing his recovery to her care; and he was now to disclose the awful fact that the sister was, after all, one of those wicked people of whom he and she had heard such evil things. This was, at first, a great trouble to his mind ; but the trouble did not last long, for that man left the hospital a Catholic, of his own free choice, and could then understand, not only that his neighbors had been, like himself, the dupes of monstrous fables, but how the sister could work and toil for no earthly reward. A sister was passing through the streets of Boston with downcast eyes and noiseless step, reciting a prayer or thinking of the poor family she was about to visit. As she was passing on her errand of mercy, she was suddenly addressed in language that made her pale cheek flush, by a young man of remarkable appearance and free, swaggering gait. The sister, though griev- ously outraged, uttered no word, but raised her eyes, and looked at the offender with calm, steady gaze, in which volumes of rebuke were expressed. Time passed on; the war intervened; and when next they met it was in a ward of a military hospital in Missouri. The once powerful man was now feeble as an infant, and had not many days to live. The sister, seeing his condition, asked him if he belonged to any church; and on his replying in the negative, she asked if he would be a Catholic. " No — not a Catholic — I always hated Catholics," he replied. " At any rate, you should ask the par- don of God for your sins, and be sorry for whatever evil you have done in your life," urged the sister. " 1 have committed many sins in my life, sister, and I am sorry for them. 43 S CATHOLICS IN THE CIVIL WAR. and hope to be forgiven ; but there is one thing that weighs heavy on my mind at this moment — I once insulted a sister in Boston, and her glance haunted me ever after: it made me ashamed of myself. I knew nothing then of what sisters were, for I had not known you. But now that I know how good and disinterested you are, and how mean I was, I am disgusted with myself. Oh, if that sister were here, I could go down on my knees to her and ask her pardon!" " You have asked it, and received it," said the sister, looking full at him, but with a sweet expression of tenderness and compassion. " What! Are you the sister I met in Boston? Oh, yes! you are — I know you now. And how could you have attended on me with greater care than on any of the other patients? — I who insulted you so!" " I did it for our Lord's sake, because He loved His enemies and blessed those who persecuted Him. I knew you from the first moment you were brought into the hospital, and I have prayed unceasingly for your conversion," said the sister. " Send for the priest!" exclaimed the dying soldier; "the religion that teaches such charity must be from God." And he did die in the sister's faith, holding in his failing grasp the emblem of man's redemption, and murmuring prayers taught him by her whose glance of mild rebuke had long haunted him like a remorse through every scene of revelry or of peril. "Do you believe that, sister? If you believe it, I believe it, too." There was scarcely an hospital at either side of the line, North or South, of which the sisters had the care, in which these apparently strange but most signifi- cant words were not uttered by the sick and the dying. Many of the poor fellows had not the vaguest notion of religious teaching, never having troubled themselves with such matters in the days of their youth and health; and when the experienced eye of the sister discerned the approach of death, the patient would be asked if he wished to see a clergyman. Frequently the the answer would be that he did not belong to any religion. " Then will you become a Catholic," would follow as a fair question to one who proclaimed himself not to belong to any church, or to believe in any form of Christianity. From hundreds, nay thousands of sick beds, this reply was made to that question: "I don't know much about religion, but I wish to die in the religion of the sisters." When asked, for example, if he believed in the Trinity, the dying man would turn to the sister who stood by his bedside, THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. 439 and inquire — "Do you, sister?" and on the sister answering, "Yes, I do," he would say, " Then I do — whatever the sister believes in, I do." And thus he would make his confession of faith. A soldier from Georgia, who was tended by the sisters in an hospital in St. Louis, declared that " he had never heard of Jesus Christ, and knew nothing about him." He was asked if he would become a Catholic. " I have heard of them," he said; " I would not be one of them at all — they are wicked people. But I'll be the same as you, sister; whatever that is, it must be good." It really matters little, when referring to the services of the sisters dur- ing the war, which army, which state, or which hospital is mentioned as the scene of their labors. Their charity, like their order, was universal; and whether they ministered to the sick in a Union or Confederate army, or in a Northern or Southern state, it was the same in motive and in object. Next to the sick in the hospital, the prisoner was the dearest object of their solicitude. The sisters in Charleston did glorious service during the war — to the sick, the dying, the prisoner, and the needy. At certain times immense numbers of prisoners were camped outside the city. They were in a miser- able state. Charleston, partly consumed by the tremendous fire of i86i,by which an enormous amount of property was destroyed, and further assailed by a bombardment scarcely paralleled in modern history, could not afford much accommodation to the captured of the enemy. Penned up together, and scantily fed, the condition of the prisoner was far from enviable; it was indeed deplorable. To these poor fellows the sisters were in reality what they were styled — " angels of mercy." Presented with a universal pass by General Beauregard, the sisters went everywhere unquestioned, as if they were so many staff officers. The general had likewise presented them with an ambulance and a pair of splendid white horses, remarkable for their beauty, and, on account of their color, conspicu- ous at a considerable distance. Many a time has the sight of these horses brought gladness to the heart of the prisoner, as he beheld them turning the corner of the highway leading to the camp. When the white specks were seen some three-quarters of a mile on the road, the word was given, "The sisters are coming!" As that announcement was made, the drooping spirit revived, and the fainting heart was stirred with hope; for with the sisters came food, comforts, presents, perhaps a letter, or a least a message — and always sweet smiles, gentle words, sympathy and consolation. The ambu- lance, drawn by the gallant white steeds, was usually filled with hundreds of 44 o CATHOLICS IN THE CIVIL WAR. white loaves— in fact, with everything which active charity could procure or generosity contribute. The rations given to the prisoners were about as good as the Confederate soldiers had for themselves; but to the depressed, pent-up prisoner, these were coarse and scanty indeed. " Sister! Sister of Charity! Sister of Mercy! — put something in this hand!" "Sister, sister, don't forget me !"-_ "Sister, sister, for the love of God!" — "Oh, sister, for God's sake!" suc h were the cries that too often tortured the tender hearts of the sisters as they found their stock of provisions fast running out, and knew that hun- dreds of hungry applicants were still unsatisfied. Many a time did they turn away on their homeward journey with whitened lips and streaming eyes, as they beheld these outstretched hands, and heard those cries of gaunt and fam- ished men ringing in their ears. To the uttermost that they could do, the sisters did, and this the prisoners knew in their grateful hearts. These horses shed light in their path; the clatter of their feet was as music to the ear of the anxious listener; and the blessings of gallant suffering men followed that chariot of mercy wherever it was borne by its snowy steeds in those terrible days of trial. Such was the effect produced by the sisters on the minds of the patients in their charge, that when wounded or sick a second time, they would make every possible effort to go back to the same hospital in which they had been previously cared for, or, if that were not possible, to one under the manage- ment of these good women. Instances have been told of wounded men who traveled several hundred miles to come again under the charge of the sisters; and one, in particular, of two men from Kentucky, who had contrived to make their way to the large hospital at White Sulphur Springs in Virginia, a distance of 200 miles from where they had been wounded. They had been under the care of the sisters on a former occasion, and had then agreed that should they ever be wounded or fall sick again, they would return to the same hospital, and if they were to die that they should die in the faith of the sisters who had been so good to them. Both these men were American Protestants, and had never seen a Catholic priest before they beheld the clergyman who received them into the Church in the Virginian hospital. One of the two men was past cure, and was conscious of his approaching death. "Ben," said the dying man to his comrade, "all is right with me — I am happy ; but before I die, let me have the satisfaction of seeing you become a Catholic." Ben willingly consented to what he had before resolved on doing, and he was received into the Church in the presence of his dying friend, over whose features there stole a sweet smile, that did not depart even in death. THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. 44 r "Oh, my God! what's that! what's that!" shrieked a poor Southern boy, when he first saw a sister, as she leaned over his hospital pallet. His terror was equalled only by his genuine horror when he discovered she was a Catholic. Soon, however, his eyes would wander round the ward in search of the nurse with the sweet smile, the gentle voice, and the gentler word. Like many of his class he was utterly ignorant of religion of any description ; he disliked "Papists," and he thought that sufficed for every spiritual pur- pose. At length he wished to be baptized in the sister's faith, and his instruction was commenced. He was told he should forgive his enemies. "Am I to forgive the Yankees?" he asked, with indignant eagerness. "Cer- tainly," replied the sister, "you must forgive everybody." " Ma'am, no not the Yankees! — no, ma'am — not the Yankees! — I can't." "But you must forgive your enemies, or you can't be a Christian. God forgave those who put him to death," persisted the sister. " Well, Sister, as you ask me to do it, I will forgive the Yankees; but 'tis hard to do it though, I tell you." The doctors were not one whit behind the humblest soldiers in ignorant dislike of the sisters. A Federal doctor was at first inclined to be rude and uncivil to the sisters in the crowded Southern hospital, then in possession of the forces of the Union, and occasioned them no little anxiety by his manner, it was so full of evident dislike and suspicion. They wisely took no notice of it, but devoted themselves the more sedulously to their arduous duties. At the end of a few weeks, by which time his manner had become kind and respectful, the doctor candidly confessed to one of the Sisters what his feelings had been, and how completely they were changed. " I had such an aversion to Catholics," said he, "that I would not tolerate one of them in an hospital with me. I had heard of the sisters, but I was resolved not to have anything to do with them in any place in which I had control. I confess to you my mind is entirely changed ; and so far from not wishing to have sisters in an hospital where I am, I never want to be in an hospital where they are not." The officials were, if possible, still more suspicious, still more prejudiced. " I used to be up at night watching you, when I should have been in my bed. I wanted to see what mischief you were after, for I thought you had some bad motive or object, and I was determined to know what it was. I could find nothing wrong, but it was a long time before I could believe in you, my prejudice against you was so strong. Now I can laugh at my absurd suspicions, and I don't care telling you of my nonsense." This speech 44 2 CATHOLICS IN THE CIVIL WAR. was made by the steward of an hospital to sisters to whom he had given much trouble by his manner, which seemed to imply — " You are humbugs, and I'll find you out, my ladies! clever as you think you are." He was a good but prejudiced man; and once, that he was convinced how groundless were his suspicions, he not only treated the sisters with marked respect, but became one of their most strenuous and valuable supporters. A doctor of the Federal service, who was captured at the battle of Shiloh, said to a Catholic bishop — "bishop, I was a great bigot, and I hated the Catholics; but my opinions are changed since this war. I have seen no animosity, but fraternal love, in the conduct of the priests of both sides. I have seen the same kind offices rendered without distinction to Catholics soldiers of the North and South. The very opposite with Protestant chap- lains and soldiers." "What conclusion did you draw from this? — these Catholics are not Free- masons," said the bishop. "Well," replied the doctor, "I drew this from it — that there must be some wonderful unity in Catholicity which nothing can destroy, not even the pas- sions of war." "A very right inference," was the bishop's rejoinder. An officer who was brought in wounded to an hospital at Obanninville, near Pensacola, which was under the care of sisters, asked a friend in the same hospital what he would call "those women" — how address them ? "Call them 'Sisters,' replied his friend. "Sisters! They are no sisters of mine; I should be sorry they were." 'I tell you, you will find them as good as sisters in the hour of need." 'I don't believe it," muttered the surly patient. Owing, in a great measure, to the care of his good nurses, the officer was soon able to leave the hospital strong in body as well as improved in mind. Before he was well enough to leave, he said to his friend: — "Look here! I was always an enemy to the Catholic Church. I was led to believe by the preachers that these sisters — both nuns and priests — were all bad. But when I get out of this, I be gol-darned, if I don't knock the first man head over heels who dares say a word against the sisters in my presence!" He was rough, but thoroughly honest. During the war, a number of the sisters were on their way to an hospital, to the care of which they had been urgently called, and, as the train remained stationary at one of the stopping-places on the route, their dress excited the wonder and ridicule of some thoughtless idlers, who entered the car and THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. 443 seated themselves opposite to, but near, the objects of their curiosity, at whom they looked and spoke in a manner far from complimentary. The sisters bore the annoyance unflinchingly. But there was assistance nearer than they or their cowardly tormentors supposed. A stout man, bronzed and bearded, who had been sitting at one end of the car, quietly advanced, and placing himself in front of the ill-mannered offenders, said, "Look here, my lads! You don't know who these ladies are; I do. And if you had been, like me, lying sick and wounded on an hospital bed, and been tended night and day by those ladies, as I was, you'd then know them and respect them as well as I do. They are holy women. And now, if you don't, every one of you, at once quit this car, I'll call the conductor, and have you turned out; and if you say one word more, I'll whip you all when I have you outside." The young fellows shrank away abashed, as much perhaps at the justice of the rebuke as at the evident power by which, if necessary, it would have been rendered still more impressive. It was a touching sight to witness the manner in which soldiers who had experienced the devotedness of the sisters to the sad duties of the hospital, exhibited their veneration for these " holy women." Did the sisters happen to be in the same car with the gallant fellows, there was not one of them who did not proffer his place to the sister, and who did not feel honored by her acceptance of it. Maimed, lopped of limb, scarcely convalescent, still there was not a crippled brave of them who would not eagerly solicit the sister to occupy the place he so much required for himself. " Sister, do take my seat; it is the most comfortable." " Oh, Sister, take mine; do oblige me." "No, Sister! mine." Sweet was the sister's reward as, in their feeble but earnest tones of entreaty, and the smiles lighting up pale, wan faces, she read the deep gratitude of the men who had bled for what each deemed to be the sacred cause of country. Wherever the sister went, she brought with her an atmosphere of holiness. At the first sight of the little glazed cap, or the flapping cornet, or the dark robe, or at the whisper that the sister was com- ing or present, even the profane and the ribald were hushed into decent silence. A Baptist preacher was rather unexpectedly rebuked in the midst of his congregation by one of its members who had experience of the sisters in the hospital. Addressing his audience, he thought to enliven his discourse with the customary spice — vigorous abuse of the Catholic Church, and a lively description of the badness of nuns and priests; in fact, taking the Awful Dis- closures of Maria Monk as his text and inspiration. But just as the preacher, 444 CATHOLICS IN THE CIVIL WAR. warming with his own eloquence, was heightening his picture with colors borrowed from a rather prurient imagination, these strange words were thundered forth by a sturdy western farmer, who sprang to his legs in an impulse of uncontrollable indignation — "Sir, that's a damned lie!" The consternation of the audience was great, the excitement intense. The preacher solemnly reminded his erring brother that that was "the house of God." " Well, sir," replied the farmer, " as it is the house of God, it is a lie without the damned." Then, looking round boldly at the meeting, which contained many to whom he was well known, he thus continued: "I thought and believed the same as you thought and believed, because I was told so, as you were; but I have lived to learn the difference — to know that what we were told, Sunday after Sunday, is not true. I was in the prison at M'Dowall's College; I was there for six months; and I saw the sisters wait- ing on the prisoners, and nursing the sick — unpaid and disinterested. I saw them giving up their whole time to doing good, and doing it without fee or reward. I saw the priests, too, constant in their attendance — yes, shaming other ministers by the manner in which they did their duty. That six months cured me of my folly; and I tell you, you know me to be a man of truth,, that the Catholic Church is not the thing it is represented to be, and that sisters and priests are not what our minister says they are; and that I'll stand to." The sympathies of the audience went with the earnestness of the speaker,, whose manner carried conviction to their minds; and so strongly did the tide of feeling flow against the preacher, that he dexterously returned to what». in parliamentary phrase, may be described as "the previous question." Whether in the hospital and the prison, or on the field of battle, the Catholic chaplain won the respect of all classes and ranks of men. Soldiers of world-wide fame have spoken with enthusiasm of the gallantry and devo- tion of the Catholic military chaplains, who calmly performed their duty amidst the fury of conflict, and while bullets whistled by them, and shells shrieked as they passed over their heads. The idea of danger may cross the mind of the Catholic priest, but it never deters him from the discharge of his duty, which is performed as coolly on the battle-field as in the wards of an hospital. Soldier of the Cross, he encounters danger in every form and under every aspect. Without departing in the least from his ordinary course,. or making the slightest attempt at display, the Catholic priest — so long the object of the foulest calumny and the most disgusting ribaldry — found in the THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. 445 events of the war daily opportunities of exhibiting himself in his true light; and soon was suspicion changed into confidence, and prejudice into respect. Unswerving attention to duty is the grand characteristic of the Catholic priest; and when the non-Catholic officer or private found the priest always at his post, attending on the sick, raising the drooping spirits of the patient, preparing the dying for their last hour, he could not help contrasting the untiring devotion of the Catholic chaplain with the lax zeal — if zeal it could be called — of too many of those who assumed that office, or that distinctive title, during the war. Throughout the war the Catholic priest acted in the spirit of his Church. The Church was a peace-maker, not a partisan. So -were her ministers. It little mattered to the priest at which side the wounded soldier had fought, or in what cause the prisoner had been made captive; it was sufficient for him to , know that the sick and the imprisoned stood in need of his assistance, which he never failed to afford. The Church deplored the outbreak of war, mourned over its horrors, and prayed for its cessation. As with the Church, so with the priest. It is not in human nature to suppose that the Catholic priests did not feel a sympathy with one side or the other; but no weakness common to humanity could deaden the feeling of charity, which is the living principle of Catholicity ; and while the Federal chaplain ministered to the Confederate soldier or prisoner, the Confederate chaplain ministered with equal care and solicitude to the soldier who fought under the banner of the Union. This Catholic charity — this spiritual bridging over of the yawning gulf of raging passions — produced a deep impression on the minds of thoughtful men. Many instances might be told of the manner in which this feeling operated on the minds of individuals; one will suffice: A lawyer of Louisiana was practicing in Missouri at the opening of the war; and being known as a Confederate sympathizer, was arrested, and sent as a prisoner to Fort Warren, in Boston Harbor. He had studied law in Boston, where he imagined he had made several lasting friends of members of his profession. Taking means to communicate with some of those on whom he most relied for sympathy, if not for assistance, he informed them of his position, and besought their aid, in the name of friendship and the memory of the pleasant days of the past; but he appealed in vain— fear of being compromised by a suspected rebel, or the bitter prejudice born of the hour, was too strong to be overcome by a momentary impulse; and the prisoner languished in captivity. They — the friends of his youth — came . 6 CATHOLICS IN THE CIVIL WAR. not; but an Irish priest did. Attracted to the prisoner by feelings of com- passion, he comforted and consoled him, and assisted him to the utmost of his means and influence. That lawyer learned to love the Church of which that priest was a worthy minister; and his own words may throw light on his con- version, which took place soon after:— "Looking back upon the war, I see that the Protestants of the North were charitable to their own side, and that the Protestants of the South were very charitable to their side; but the Catholics are the only body of Christians who practiced charity for its own sake, irrespec- tive of politics, and who did so even when it was unpopular if not danger- ous, for them to do so." The recorded experience of some of these devoted chaplains gives a good idea of the merits of the Catholic soldier. There is a passage in a diary kept by Father Sheeran, which exemplifies the conduct of the Irish Catholic soldier better than any description could do. Father Sheeran was one day rebuking a simple Irishman, who with others had been taken prisoner by a surprise attack upon the federals, for having taken part, as he alleged he had, in the plunder and oppression of the South. The Irishman's reply, while bearing the impress of truth, represents accurately what was the feeling and conduct of his countrymen during the war. « Well, father," said he, " I know they done them things, but I never took part with them. Many a day I went hungry before I would take anything from the people. Even when we had to fall back from Lynchburg under Hunter thro' Western Virginia, and our men were dropping by the roadside with hunger, and some were eating the bark off the trees, I never took a meal of victuals without paying for it." The truth is, not only was the Catholic Irishman free from the angry passions by which others were animated, but he was constantly impressed by the strongest religious influence; and to this cause may be ascribed much of the chivalrous bearing which he displayed in the midst of the most trying temptation to license and excess. The war had in it nothing more remark- able than the religious devotion of the Irish soldier whenever he was within the reach of a chaplain. The practice of their faith, whether before battle or in retreat, in camp or in bivouac, exalted them into heroes. The regiment that in some hollow of the field, knelt down to receive, bare-headed, the bene- diction of their priest, next moment rushed into the fray with a wilder cheer and a more impetuous dash. That benediction nerved, not unmanned, those gallant men, as the enemy discovered to their cost. Even in the depth of THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. 447 winter, when the snow lay thick on the earth, the Irish Catholic — federal or confederate, it mattered not which — would hear Mass devoutly on the bleak plain or the wild hill-side, standing only when that posture was customary, and kneeling in the snow and slush during the greater portion of the time. The same Father Sheeran has told how he was impressed with the piety of his poor fellows on one desperate Christmas morning, when, so heavy was the snow-storm, that he quite lost his way, and did not for a considerable time reach the appointed place where he was to celebrate Mass. But there, when he arrived, was a great crowd of whitened figures clustered round the little tent, in which an altar had been erected by the soldiers — the only cleared place being the spot on which the tent was placed. And there, while the storm raged, and sky and earth were enveloped in the whirling snow, the gallant Irishmen prayed with a fervor that was proof against every discouragement. Before battle, it was not unusual for the Catholic soldiers to go to con- fession in great numbers, and prepare by a worthy Communion to meet what- ever fate God might send them in the coming tight. This practice excited the ridicule — the quiet ridicule — of some, but it also excited the respect of others. A distinguished colonel, of genuine American race, who bore on his body the marks of many wounds, life memorials of desperate fights, made warm reference to the gallantry of the Irish; and he thus wound up: " Their chaplain — a plucky fellow, sir, I can tell you — had extraordinary influence over them ; indeed he was better, sir, I do believe, than any provost- marshal. They would go to Mass regularly, and frequently to confession. 'Tis rather a curious thing I'm going to tell you ; but it's true, sir. When I saw those Irishmen going to confession, and knelling down to receive the priest's blessing, I used to laugh in my sleeve at the whole thing. The fact is — you will pardon me — I thought it all so much damned tomfoolery and humbug. That was at first, sir. But I found the most pious of them the very bravest — and that astonished me more than anything. Sir, I saw these men tried in every way that men could be tried, and I never saw anything superior to them. Why, sir, if I wanted to storm the gates of hell, I didn't want any finer or braver fellows than those Irishmen. I tell you, sir, I hated the blarney before the war; but now I feel like meeting a brother when I meet an Irish- man. I saw them in battle, sir; but I also saw them sick and dying in the hospital, and how their religion gave them courage to meet death with cheer- ful resignation. Well, sir," — and the great, grim, war-beaten soldier softly laughed as he added — " I am a Catholic now, and I no longer scoff at a 44 8 CATHOLICS IN THE CIVIL WAR. priest's blessing, or consider confession a humbug. I can understand the dif- ference now, I assure you." There were other converts of the battle-field and the hospital, besides the colonel — and of higher rank, too — who, like him, caught their first impression of the truth from the men whom religion made more daring in the fight, more resigned in sickness, more courageous in death. An Irish soldier, wounded badly, was lying on a hard-fought field in Upper Georgia, towards Chattanooga. He was found by a chaplain attached to his corps in a helpless condition, leaning against a tree. The priest seeing the case to be one of imminent danger proposed to hear his confession, but was surprised to hear him say — " Father, I'll wait a little. There's a man over there worse wounded than I am; he is a Protestant, and he's calling for the priest — go to him first." The priest found the wounded Protestant, received him into the Church, and remained with him till he expired; he then returned to hear the confession of the Irish Catholic, whose first words were — " Well, father, didn't I tell you true? I knew the poor fellow wanted you more than I did." The priest and the penitent survived long to tell the story. It is not within the purpose of this book, however, to supply anything like a history of the services of Catholic army chaplains. The general nature of these will be sufficiently understood from what has been already said and from the illustration we are permitted to print of Rev. Father Cooney, C.S.C., in his functions with the army of the Cumberland. We are also impelled to quote from a paper by Maj.-Gen. St. Clair Mulholland, the par- ticulars of a remarkable scene in which Very Rev. Father Corby, now pro- vincial of the same order of the Holy Cross, was the central and impressive figure. Gen. Mulholland has been depicting the fearful second day of Gettysburg. " When the third federal army corps is forced to retire before the con- federates, help is called for. General Hancock tells Caldwell to have his divi- sion ready. ' Fall in!' and the men run to their places. ' Take arms! ' and the four brigades of Cook, Cress, Brook and Kelly, are ready for the fray. There is yet a few minutes to spare before starting, and the time is occupied by one of the most impressive religious ceremonies I have ever witnessed. The Irish brigade, which had been commanded formerly by Gen. Thomas Francis Meagher, and whose green flag had been unfurled in every battle in which the Army of the Potomac had been engaged, from the first Bull Run to Appomattox, was now commanded by Col. Patrick Kelly, of the Eighty- eighth New York, and formed a part of this division. The brigade stood in columns of regiments closed in mass. As the large majority of its members were Catholics, the chaplain of the brigade, Rev. William Corby, C. S. C, proposed to give a general absolution to all the men before going into the THE COLUMBIAN JUBILEE. 449 fight. While this is customary in the armies of the Catholic countries of Europe, it was, perhaps, the first time it was ever witnessed on this continent, unless, indeed, the grim old warrior, Ponce de Leon, in search of the fountain of youth, as he tramped through the everglades of Florida, or DeSoto on his march to the Mississippi, indulged in this act of devotion. Father Corby stood upon a large rock in front of the brigade, addressing the men; he explained what he was about to do, saying that each one would receive the benefit of the absolution by making a sincere act of contrition, and firmly resolving to embrace the first opportunity of confessing his sins, urging them to do their duty well, and reminding them of the high and sacred nature of their trust as soldiers, and the noble object for which they fought. The brigade was standing at ' order arms,' and as he closed his address, every man fell on his knees, with head bowed down. Then, stretching his right hand towards the brigade, Father Corby pronounced the words of absolution. The scene was more than impressive, it was awe-inspiring. Near by stood Gen. Hancock, surrounded by a brilliant throng of officers, who had gathered by to witness this very unusual occurrence, and while there was profound silence in the ranks of the second corps, yet over to the left, out by the Peach Orchard and Little Round Top, where Weed, and Vincent, and Haslett were dying, the roar of the battle rose and swelled and re-echoed through the woods. The act seemed to be in harmony with all the surroundings. I do not think there was a man in the brigade who did not offer up a heart-felt prayer. For some it was their last; they knelt there in their grave-clothes — in less than half an hour many of them were numbered with the dead of July 2d." The picture which we present of this memorable scene is a copy of a painting by the lamented Paul Wood, a young student artist of Notre Dame University, and pupil of Gregori's, who wa6 accidentally killed in Chicago a few months ago. The gifted boy, though but seventeen years of age, had already enriched Prof. Edward's famous collection, in the Bishops' Memorial Hall, with several portraits and subjects of historic value. And now a few words about the actual combatants of Catholic faith. Catholics did not enter the army at either side as a matter of calculation and prudence, but as a matter of duty, and from an impulse of patriotism. Yet if they had acted on deliberation, they could not have done more wisely than they did. " Foreigners and aliens " they would mostly have proved them- selves to be, had they stood coldly aloof, or shown themselves insensible tc the cause which stirred the heart of the nation to its depths, and, as it were in a moment, made gallant soldiers of peaceful civilians. They vindicated their citizenship not alone by their services, but by their sympathies; and in their terrible sacrifices — on every bloody field and in every desperate assault — in every danger, toil, and suffering — they made manifest their value to the state, no less by their devotion than their valor. From every state; from every city, town and village; from the forest and the prairie, the hill and the plain; from the workshop, the factory, and Church. Not less are you concerned for the interests of our common country. Th* men of other lands are to-day, and to-morrow will be, looking to the results of this Catholic Congress in Chicago. The world is full of agitation. Men's minds are every- where active, and men in every civilized land to-day and to-morrow will be looking for- ward to know and to see what free men in a free land can feel and think about the great questions that are agitating our times, and that are everywhere pressing for a solu- tion. You have then at heart the honor and the dignity of the Church and of the whole Catholic Faith. You will watch over them carefully in your addresses and in your deliberations. We know and believe, all of us, earnestly and firmly, that no word will go out to the world from this Catholic Congress that will wound or offend in the slightest degree the Catholic conscience or Catholic feeling of our people throughout the United States. We know that all your deliberations will be guided by that Spirit under which you have sat to-day. Within an hour or so you have been in God's presence and in his temple, and you have asked the Spirit of God to come down to your souls and guide your deliberations. We all hope that the Spirit of God and the Spirit of light will bo with you, and that everything you say or do will be guided by that high, strong fidelity of Catholic eons to our Catholic Faith, and that everything you say or do will be distin- guished by the dignity and the harmony that wo have the right, as we have every reason, to expect from this great representative body of the Catholic Faith and the Catholic people. You will have the pleasure now of hearing from Mr. Bonney, the gentleman who has been the life and soul of all these organizations and congresses, except the Catholic Congress, connected with the great Exposition. Hon. Chas. C. Bonney, who is a non-Catholic lawyer, then delivered what may be termed the "official" welcome: PRESIDENT BONNET'S ADDRESS. Officers and Members of the Columbian Catholic Congress : In the name of the World's Congress Auxiliary, organized to conduct the moral and intellectual part of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893; and in the name of the Government of the United States, which invited all nations to participate in the congresses to be held under the auspices of the Auxiliary; and in the name of fifty millions of non-Catholics who love justice and believe in equal religious liberty for all men, I salute you and bid you welcome. This memorial building, and every facility which the World's Congress Auxiliary can command, is most cordially offered for the purpose of your Con- gress. That a great change has come in the relations of the Catholic Church and the Prot- estant churches with each other is known throughout the world. That this change has largely increased human happiness and has in many ways promoted the cause of peace and progress is also widely acknowledged. A brief reference to some of the lead- ing causes of this change seems, however, especially appropriate to this occasion, and may serve to strengthen the gracious bonds of charity and affection which are now gently drawing nearer and nearer to each other all the various branches of the great family of mankind. Of those causes the benign spirit of the new age should first be named. Descending from the sun of righteousness this spirit of progress is filling the whole earth with its splendor and beauty, its warmth and vivifying power, and making the old things of truth and justice new in meaning, strength, and energy to execute God's will for the welfare of man. Among the secondary causes of the change to which reference has been made there are several which it seems a duty as well as a pleasure to recall on this occasion. The noble and successful work of the Catholic Church, in the field of practical temperance reform, first attracted the attention and won the sympathy of the Protestant people of America. The new Catholic movement for the relief and elevation of the toiling masses, which culminated in the great Papal encyclical on the condition of labor, deepened the interest of the Protestant world in the work of the Catholic Church and excited the love and admiration of many non-Catholics^ The new Catholic activity in the extension of higher education is another cause of the better relations which have recently been established. For science and art and literature are of no sect or creed. They belong to m;m, whatever may be his political or religious views, and are bonds of fraternity every- where. Over the grave in which was buried the dead strife of former generations the WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 15 apostles of the new age have clasped hands in a new pledge of fidelity in the pursuit ot learning and virtue, and the life that is called charity. There is one important particular in which the ideas of Catholic educational lead- ers are in peculiar accord with the original American doctrine of popular education. The tliird article of the great ordinance of 1787, for the government of the territory of which Chicago is the metropolis, declared that "religion, morality, and Knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." Not knowledge only; not knowledge and morality merely, but religion, morality, and Knowledge, sacred trinity of the powers of human progress, are essential to the proper education of the people. The new apostles of Catholic progress have become especially endeared to enlight- ened Protestants. Henry Edward Manning, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, can hardly be more beloved nor his loss more sincerely mourned within the Catholic Church than without its fold. His gracious and earnest words on "Protestant Dissenters,'' " Disinherited Christians," " Blameless Ignorance," and "Unconscious Catholics " won for him and the Catholic Church hosts of friends outside of his own communion. In America the work of his brother cardinal, His Eminence James, Cardinal Gibbons, honorary President of this Congress, has been equally auspicious. His book on " Our Christian Heritage," in which he gladly holds out to Protestants the right hand of fellowship for union against the common foe, commends him eloquently to them as well as to his own brethren. The burning words of His Grace Archbishop Ireland in the advocacy of temper- ance, education, social purity, and every moral virtue have made his name and Church household words in many Protestant homes. When a Catholic bishop like Bishop Spalding of Peoria, speaking for Catholics, says, "We love liberty, we love knowledge, we love truth, we love opportunity; and for- getting nationality, forgetting sects, forgetting all save God's image in every human being, we would uplift men by uplifting humanity," millions of Protestant hearts respond, Amen! Amen! But a greater agency of union and progress still remains to be named— the illus- trious head of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIII., than whom no more able, enlight- ened, and benign pontiff has borne the name of Holy Father in a thousand years. Like the morning bell of a new age, his earnest words, in speaking of the American people, are: " I love them and I love their country. I have a great tenderness for those who live in that land, Protestants and all. Under the constitution, religion has perfect liberty, and is a growing power. Where the Church is free, it will increase; and I bless, I love Americans for their frank, open, unaffected character, and for the respect which they pay to Christianity and Christian morals. My only desire is to use my power for the good of the whole people — Protestants and Catholics alike. I want the Protestants as well as the Catholics to esteem me." Is it any wonder that Pope Leo XIII. is respected and beloved by the Protestants to whom these words were addressed? On the Protestant side similar causes have been at work, producing similar results. The time now at command will not permit a presentation of these results, but it may suffice to say that it has culminated in the arrangements for the World's Religious Congresses of 1893. Blind, indeed, must be the eyes that can not see, in these events, the quickened march of the ages of human progress toward the fulfillment of the divine prophecy of " one fold and one shepherd," when all forms of government shall be one in liberty and justice, and all forms of faith and worship one in charity and human service. With these sentiments I greet and welcome the Catholic Congress of 1893. The most generous applause, which only needs mention here, had accented the various addresses so far, being raised to the point of enthusiasm by the following beautiful ADDRESS OF H. E. CARDINAL GIBBONS. What an inspiring and consoling spectacle is this ! Whether I consider the magni- tude of your numbers or your representative character — for you represent almost every State and diocese and city of the Union— or whether I contemplate the intelligence that beams on your faces, I can not but exclaim: This is a sight well calculated to bring joy and gladness to the heart of American Catholics. During the past four months millions of visitors have come from all parts of the United States, nay, from every quarter of the globe, to contemplate on the Exposition 32 1 6 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. grounds the wonderful works of man. They knew not which to admire more— the colossal dimensions of the buildings, or their architectural beauty, or the treasures of art which they contained. The caskets and the gems were well worthy of the 19th centurv, worthy of the nations that brought them, worthy of the indomitable spirit of Chicago. Let us no longer call Chicago the windy city, but the city of lofty aspirations. Let me christen her with another name— let me call her Thaumatopolis, the city of wonders, the city of miracles. And the director-general, with his associates, deserves to be called the Thaumaturgus of the enterprise. But while other visitors have come to contemplate with admiration the wonderful works of man, with the image of man stamped upon them, you have come here to con- template man himself — the most wonderful work of God, with the image of God stamped upon him. Others are studying what man has accomplished in the material world. You are to consider what man can accomplish in the almost boundless possibilities of his spiritual and intellectual nature. You will take counsel together to consider the best means for promoting the religious and moral, the social and economic well-being of your fellow-citizens. It is true, indeed, that your deliberations will not be stamped with the authority of legislative enactments, like the proceedings of Congress and the decrees of a national council. Nevertheless they will go far toward enlightening public opinion and mold- ing and shaping public thought on the great religious, moral, and social questions of the day. When I look into your earnest and intelligent faces I am almost deterred from imparting to you my words of admonition. But you know well that we clergymen are in the habit of drifting unconsciously into the region of exhortation, just as financiers drift into the region of dollars and cents and figures. I may be pardoned, therefore, for giving you a word of advice. In all your discussions be ever mindful of the golden saying of St. Vincent Lerins: "In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas: Inessentials, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity." Happily for you, children of the Church, you have nothing to discuss in matters of faith, for your faith is fixed and determined by the divine Legislator, and we can not improve on the creed of Him who is " the way, the truth, and the life." But between the calm and luminous region of faith and the dark and chaotic region of error there lies a vast field for free discussion. I should be very sorry that any mem- ber of this Congress should attempt to circumscribe this free space by erecting his little fence of ipse dixits, and saying to all others : " I am Sir Oracle; thus far you shall come and no farther." Let all your proceedings be marked by courtesy and char- ity, and by a spirit of Christian forbearance toward each other. Never descend to per- sonalities. Many a delicious speech has lost its savor and been turned into gall, because a few drops of vituperation had been injected into it. The edifice of moral and social improvement which you aim to build, can never be erected on the ruins of charity. Perhaps the best model of courtly dignity and courtesy that I could set before you is W. E. Gladstone, the Grand Old Man. I happened to be in the House of Commons in 1880, when Mr. Gladstone was Prime Minister, as he is to-day. A very long debate was going on regarding taxation, The ministry were in favor of transferring a tax from the grain to the malt and of relieving the farmer at the expense of the brewer. It was a measure that would bring joy to the heart of the Archbishop of St. Paul. A young lord on the op^isition side was making a dreary speech to the effect that it was better to let well enough alone, and that the relations between the tax collector and the tax payer were of an amicable character and should not be disturbed. As soon as it was announced that Mr. Gladstone was going to speak, the house was suddenly aroused from its lethargy and was inflamed with enthusiasm. He was greeted with cheers. He had spoken but a few words when he was rudely interrupted by the young lord. Mr. Gladstone gracefully bowed to his opponent, receded a step, and sat down. When his lordship had finished he resumed his speech ; he dissected his opponent with his Damas- cus blade; his lordship cheerfully submitted, to the operation because the blade was pointed not with poison, but with honey. " I have studied the subject of finance," said Mr. Gladstone, "under Sir Robert Peel. I have sat at his feet like Saul at the feet of Gamaliel. I am an old man and have not the sanguine temperament of my honorable young friend. And as for me, I never expect to see the day when the tax collector and the tax payer will rush into one another's arms and embrace one another." God grant that our fondest anticipations of your labors may be realized, and that the invocation to-day of the divine blessing, which is so full of hope, may be crowned at the end of your sessions by a Te Deum full of joy and gratitude for the success of this „ WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. lj convention. As an earnest of this result I hold in my hand a letter which I had the honor to receive the other day from him who has been so beautifully and justly extolled by the preceding speakers. I hold in my hand a letter from His Holiness Leo XIII., and in this letter he pours out upon you all his apostolic paternal benediction/ Mat the blessing of the Holy Father, may the blessing of Almighty God— his God and our God, his Father and our Father— descend upon you all and upon your deliberations. May his blessing enlighten your minds and inflame your hearts and be a happy earnest of the harmony and union that will dominate all your proceedings. Following is the translation of the letter of the Holy Father referred to in His Eminence's address, and which was then read to the Congress by Hon W. J. Onahan: POPE LEO'S GREETING AND BLESSING. Leo XIII., Pope : To our Beloved Son James Gibbons by the Title of Santa Maria in Trastevere Cardinal Priest of the Holy Roman Church, Archbishop of Balti- more, Beloved Son: Health and apostolic benediction. It has afforded us much satisfaction to be informed by you that in the coming month of September a large as- sembly of Catholic gentlemen will meet at Chicago, there to discuss matters of great interest and importance. Furthermore, we have been specially gratified by your devotion and regard for us in desiring, as an auspicious beginning for such Congress, our blessing and bur prayers. This filial request we do indeed most readily grant, and beseech Almighty God that by his aid and the light of his wisdom he may graciously be pleased to assist and illume all who are about to assemble with you, and that He may enrich with the treasures of his choicest gifts your deliberations and conclusions. To you, therefore, our beloved son, and to all who take part in the Congress afore- said and to the clergy and faithful committed to your care, we lovingly in the Lord im- part our apostolic benediction. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, the 7th day of August, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and ninety-three and of our pontificate the sixteenth. Leo XIII., Pope. The temporary organization of the Congress was then announced by Mr. Onahan, as follows: Temporary chairman, Hon. Morgan J. O'Brien of New York. Secretaries, James C. Lawler, Prairie du Chien; Professor James F. Edwards, Uni- versity of Notre Dame, Indiana, and James F. O'Connor and John M. Duffy of Chicago. This was speedily followed by JUDGE O'BRIEN'S ADDRESS AS CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen : The official call issued by the committee on organization, which has been printed and is now in the possession of all the members present, relieves me from the necessity of stating the objects of this Congress. That call defines and limits its scope to the consideration of the social question, to which has been added that of Cath- olic education and the independence of the Holy See. As stated in that call, " perma- nent and effective results and enduring benefits are looked for at our hands as a fitting outcome of this memorable assemblage of Catholic intelligence and Catholic earnest- ness." No more fitting time or place could have been selected than the present to give expression to those sentiments which, as Catholics, we hold in common, and for the purpose of consulting upon those measures which are of most importance to our Church and country. This city has been selected by the Nation as the place to cele- brate by a Fair which, in its proportions and beauty, surpasses all that the creative genius of man has attempted or accomplished, and the event thus celebrated has been fraught with such momentous results and happiness to man as to make it the most memorable in the history of civilization. Naturally our minds go back to that event through the vista of years ; we see the march of progress, the development of material and mechanical triumphs, and above all the struggle for emancipation and freedom, which has finally culminated in the freest government the world has ever seen. When we remember how, over the trackless ocean, Columbus and his little band of followers came, soon to be succeeded by others who, penetrating impenetrable forests, removed the physical obstacles to development; how they established, through their religion, zeal, and courage, society and government and laws, and how they finally threw off a foreign yoke and established an independent. Government upoi a foundation which iS WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. guarantees the fullest and greatest freedom to the individual, and how to these were added commerce and art, poetry, eloquence, and song, it becomes a just subject for pride to all those who had any hand in producing such magnificent results. If any justification were needed for our assemblage here to-day it is furnished by the recollection that it was a Catholic monk who inspired Columbus with hope; it was Columbus and a Catholic crew that first crossed the trackless main; that it was a Catholic queen who rendered the expedition possible, and that it was a Catholic whose name has been given to the entire continent. Ay! more than this, the early history of our country is the history of its Catholicity. And the Catholic names given to the early discoveries in the four quarters of our country attest the fact that Catholics were the discoverers. And it is impossible to read the history of our country without recalling the exploits of Ponce de Leon, Cartier, Balboa, Marquette, De Soto, Melendez, La Salle, Champlain, and others whose names can never be obliterated, because molded in endur- ing brass upon the massive gates of the capitol at Washington; nay, more, the very soil on which this city stands was sanctified by the great missionary, Marquette, who was here in 1674 to 1675, and whose body even now rests on the opposite shores of Lake Michigan. How fruitful of good results his works were, may be known by recalling a single fact that to-day, in Chicago, the spires of more than a hundred Catholic churches glisten in the morning sun. We can, moreover, truthfully say that not a land was found, not a mountain crossed, not a valley entered, or a stream forded, but Catholic missionaries led the way. And wherever from the depths of primeval forests cities, towns, and States sprang up; where, instead of the savage, there appeared men longing for freedom, there will we find the mark of the missionary's footsteps. And from that time down to the present, whether groaning under the iron heel of despotic rulers, whether amidst the trials of our revolutionary struggle, whether amidst the wars that succeeded wherein the autonomy of our nation was threatened, there, sharing with their fellow-countrymen in the trials and tribulations and in the subsequent triumphs, were to be found the Catholics. Our country, therefore, is doubly dear to us. We were here at its first discovery, we participated in its struggle for civil and religious liberty, and in turn have participated in its glories and enjoyed peace, security, and happiness. It is more dear to us, because in this land above all others the old Faith has fair play. Its schools, its churches, and its cathedrals are not the result of the contributions of unstable governments, but are the gratuitous offerings of more than ten million of f reedmen. We fully realize, however, what has been said by a great writer, that a nation, like a man, may live to the fullness of its time or perish prematurely by violence or internal disorders. The world knows of but two principles of government. One, the power of the sword sustained by the hand that wields it; the other, the power of the law sustained by a virtuous people. Or, differently expressed, there is the principle of force and the principle of love. Our form of government being a republic is essentially founded upon the virtue of its citizens, and this foundation can neither be weakened nor destroyed without threatening the entire social structure. The early discoverers of America, as well as our revolutionary forefathers, were imbued with strong religious principles upon which alone virtue can be grounded, and this, added to their hardy and physical natures, laid the foundations and gave the impetus to that splendid civilization which is now the heritage of all. While, therefore, glorying in our triumphs and proud of our wonderful develop- ment, we could not, if we would, fail to discover those dark and ominous clouds which hover over our national firmament and which are the inevitable forerunners of a violent storm. The presence of these clouds is not difficult to account for. The hardy and rug- ged virtue of our forefathers no longer exists; for the history of our country will show that the moral decadence of our people has kept rapid pace with the augmentation of our material prosperity. That we have steadily advanced materially is unquestioned; our towns, cities, and States have multiplied, our citizens have amassed wealth running into the millions and hundreds of millions; our corporations are striding a continent; but under the shadow of this magnificent prosperity we find incipient pauperism and discontent; men, women, and children without the necessaries of life, deprived of relig- ion and education, and who are prevented from participating in those blessings which God seemingly intended for all. The thoughtful statesman of America, the hopeful patriot, and the virtuous citizen knows and feels that the evils that menace our national prosperity — that the apparent social inequalities and the rights of capital and labor — can be reconciled in some way consistent with the preservation of law and order; in some way consistent with the WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 19 preservation of the rights of all, so as to prevent the outbreak of a class of men who are prepared to seize upon any occasion, and are seemingly mad enough in their fury to tear down the very constitution upon which our peace, our happiness y and our security depend. We think the remedy is to be found alone in a return to those principles of virtue and religion with which our forefathers were imbued, and upon which our Government was founded, and which we think is alone needed to restore the original vigor of the nation. It must be remembered that materialism, infidelity, agnosticism, and other forms of irreligion have never been fruitful either in forming or perpetuating a state. Like all negative principles, there is included within them a principle of destruction; tbey are powerful in the direction of pulling down, but never of building up. And' against irreligion, the implacable foe to our present civilization— whatever form it may assume— all those, whether Protestant or Catholic, who believe in the vital force of religion have a common ground upon which they can stand. Not onlv in this have we a bond of union with our Protestant countrymen, when in good faith "these are engaged in disseminating virtue and religion, but also in general charities, which look to the amelioration of the condition of the poor, the sick, and the aged, as well as measures designed to suppress intemperance and gambling, and prevent the desecration of the Sunday. These are among the subjects which will receive consideration by this Con- gress, and it is in a spirit of generous rivalry — according to all the same religious free- dom which we claim for ourselves — that we endeavor to discharge that duty which we owe to our Church and to our country. As stated in our call: " All men feel and admit that the present relations of labor and capital are strained and unreasonable; that civil and social order are seriously menaced, trade and business hampered." Under such conditions, if but true to the principles which have animated our past and secured our present, we Catholics can render a signal service at this time to our country by suggesting the remedies for these evils which threaten our national exist- ence, and which can be applied in a way consistent with vested rights and prevent out- breaks which would menace those blessings of life, liberty, and property which our constitution guarantees; thus again emphasizing our loyalty and devotion to that coun- try whose interests are linked with every fiber of our hearts. The deliberations of this Congress, therefore, are pregnant with important conse- quences to our Church and our country, and our proceedings will be watched with interest by all. That the solution of the present social difficulties is to be found in the Catholic Church we know, for, as has been well said, " that Church is the friend of the poor, the champion of the oppressed and the downtrodden, the inflexible enemy to injustice of whatever kind wherever found, and is recognized as the synonym of authority, the foe to lawlessness, and the champion of law and order." Over the halls of this Congress, therefore, we will write the poet's words, so that all the ends we aim at shall be " our God's, our country's, and truth's." Opportunity was given at this point to hear some of the distinguished prel- ates from foreign lands, the first of these who spoke being the Most Rev. Archbishop Redwood of New Zealand. He said : A VOICE FROM NEW ZEALAND. I shall ever consider this day as one of the happiest and most privileged of my life. Some months ago while I was in my diocese in New Zealand, I learned through the newspapers and through the very modest advertisements from this great city of Chicago, of the wonderful Columbian Exposition about to be held. I said to myself it would be a great pleasure, a great intellectual enjoyment, to be present at that great event, to see the marvelous productions of the human mind, to see the variety that has come forth from the genius of man; but I further said to myself that I have seen the greatest expositions of Paris and of London, and other parts of Europe, and that while no doubt this might be on a grander scale, still after all it is chiefly a manifestation of man's progress in the material world. Looking upon it in that light I made up my mind not to come. But afterward I happened to hear that this Exposition was to be suddenly raised far above any other exposition ever known in the annals of mankind. I learned of the Auxiliary Congresses to be attached to this Exposition, and that other works of man were to be considered — that he was to be viewed in his mind, in his heart, in his soul ; that man was to be viewed as a social being ; and that in the Auxiliary Congresses all the most burning problems of the day were to be discussed by the most distinguished 2 o WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. members of the laity of the United States. They were to be brought together as one grand focus, whose light was to be turned upon the most burning and actual questions of the times. When I heard this I made up my mind that I should come. I said to myself that it was like going to school again. 1 told my people I was coming to Chicago to meet, as it were, the very elite of the human mind, in the very center of the most intellectual life of the great Republic, of the great Union of man, governed by a vast democracy that is now wielding, you may say, the scepter of progress and of the world. But I never thought I would have the honor and the privilege of ad Iressing this attendance. I intended to come as a listener. I wanted to hear what was said upon all the great questions of the day. I wanted to be abreast of the times, for 1 think every bishop and archbishop should be abreast of the times, or rather that he ou^ht to be before the times. Perhaps some of you may think New Zealand is still a land of cannibalism — a land in which you expect to rind in every house good provision of roast missionary. But we are a progressive people in that far-off land; there we venture on experiments and try issues very quickly. We are, in fact, the world's experimental country Some of those things which you are discussing here — for instance the eight hours' day — has been in existence in New Zealand for some years. I said to myself no doubt in that wonderful American country, where there is so much freedom and such determination for progress, where the characteristic of the people is a horror of routine I must naturally hear suggestions and see new lines of thought open before me— new solutions of grave questions, and therefore, if I have to keep myself abreast of the times and a fortiori, if I have to go before the times, there is no place I can visit so appropriate to obtain correct information on burning subjects of the hour as at the Columbian Expo- sition of Chicago and the World's Congress Auxiliary Then another thought struck me — that such a meeting of the elite of the Catholic intellect, both ecclesiastical and lay, must prove a great instrument for the progress of our holy religion which every missionary and every bishop has so deeply at hear'.,. I said what we want in the 19th century is to see the Catholic Church everywhere, to see her penetrate into all kinds of assemblies, to see her make herself known; for if she were only known the whole world would be at her feet — that is, the world worthy of our consideration. It is because she is not known that she is often maligned in good faith. Well, we have to make her known, and where is it more possible to make her known better, to bring her focus of light into the most progressive country in the world? Here we meet to discuss the different problems of the day. We will show her influence in the great questions of education and labor and finance. I say the Church should be heard in every kind of public assembly. When the shackles of prejudice are passed from the human mind she must stand forth in her innate beauty. I have come nine thousand miles to assist in this assembly, and it is one of the proudest privileges in my life to take part in it. Following this Archbishop from Britain's remotest colony came the words of him who is pastor in her mighty capital of London. Monsignor Nugent of Liverpool was present to act as spokesman for the Cardinal Arch- bishop of Westminster, and thus delivered the message entrusted to him: FROM THE SEE OF WESTMINSTER. My Lord Cardinal and Ladies and Gentlemen : I stand here as the messenger of congratulation and of the deepest interest of Cardinal Vaughan in the great Catholic work which will take place in this city during this week; but before I read his letter I wish to express how much I have felt those tender and affectionate references that have been made during the last two days to the illustrious and late lamented Cardinal Manning. When it was conceived of having a Congress of English-speaking people he was one of the first who was consulted upon the matter. The first proposition was that it should be held in London, but he, with his wonderful grasp of character, knew that with our crippled ideas and habits this was the true field for the expression of the Catholic mind upon all those great social questions which are the very root, not only of religion but of the stability of society. It has been my lot to have worked with Cardinal Manning, closely and intimately, and to have shared his confidence since the year 1853; and when I go back I shall be able, I trust, to place an immortelle upon his grave of the expression, the Catholic expression, aye, the universal expression, of honor for the deep interest which he took in the people, irrespective of creed or nationality. Cardinal Vaughan has been brought up, I may say, under his wing, and he has commissioned me thus to convey his sympathy. ARCHBISHOP FEEHAN, CHICAGO. ARCHBISHOP IRELAND, ST. PAUL. CARDINAL GIBBONS, BALTIMORE. ARCHBISHOP CORRIQAN NEW YORK. ARCHBISHOP RYAN, PHILADELPHIA. WORLDS C0LU2IBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 2l Mgr. Nugent then read the following letter: Archbishop's House, Westminster, S. W., Aug. 15, 1893. My Dear Mgr. Nugent:— As Mgr. Gadd is not going to the States, I shall be much obliged if you will kindly represent me at the Columbian Catholic Congress. Kindly express as publicly and as heartily as ycu can the deep interest with which I follow the life and conduct of the Catholic Church in the United States. The interest is quickened by the personal relations of friendship which I have long since been happy enough to establish for myself among many of the clergy and laity in America. I rejoice to witness the Catholic Church entering thus deeply into the foundation and structure of the great civilization, which is covering so vast an area of the world's surface. The great social problem, which is the problem of our day, can only be solved by the action of Christianity. The American Church knows this, and the efforts which its cardinals and archbishops and bishops are making in this direction are most instructive to us here in England, who pursue our way, perhaps, rather more slowly, though traversing the same path, amid similar difficulties. Pray, therefore, express my own admiration and appre- ciation of the noble Catholic efforts which are being made at the present moment in Chicago. The Church has only to be known in order to be esteemed. A great service to religion and to the American people and to the advance guard of modern civilization is rendered by the determination of the American hierarchy to present the Catholic Church as distinctively modern in character, as she is venerable and ancient — to pre- sent her to the people as " of yesterday, to-day, and forever." Believe me, dear Mgr. Nugent, your faithful and devoted servant, Herbert Cardinal, Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster. Continuing, Mgr. Nugent said: My Lord Cardinal, I have been asked to say a few words, but this is not the time, when that clock already tells me it is ten minutes after one; but if I might express my feelings briefly I would say: Gentlemen, you have come from the different parts of this country and have before you a high mission. All over the world the struggle at present is how to lift up our people and to make them take their social position, and, just as they rise in the social scale, to remember they have duties to perform. If we have to build up our people and to save them from the terrible dangers that surround them in modern life, it must be by successful laymen remembering their social duties, and that after success comes terrible responsibilities, and that the more we succeed in the world the heavier and deeper are those responsibilities. This ended the introductory exercises, when the following committee was appointed on organization: D. B. Bremner, 111.; William P. Breen, Ind.; Francis T. Purey, Pa.; Jeremiah Fennessy, Mass.; M. Smith Brennan, Del.; L. V. O'Donoghue, N. Y,; Michael Brennan, Mich. ; P. P. Connor, Mo., and John B. McGorick, N. Y. From the many able papers read in the Congress during this first day, the place is given to that of Dr. R. A. Clarke of New York, on COLUMBUS; HIS MISSION AND CHARACTER. Because of his exalted mission and character, America and the world honor Colum- bus. Not the least of these honors is this assembly of the second Catholic Congress of the United States at this fair city of Chicago. That Columbus had a high and mighty mission is proved by four grand and salient facts in his wonderful career. First, he foresaw and foretold his mission; secondly, he trained himself especially for it throughout his life; thirdly, he undertook it — the most startling of human enterprises; fourthly, he achieved it. The mission and character of Columbus are so thoroughly blended and interwoven, yet so admirably composed of varied and divergent forces, all united in a grand entirety, that it is impossible to view them separately— I shall treat them as an unique and majestic unit. They are one in origin, nature, kind, and caste, and mutually dependent in their harmonious action and great results. They are like a vast and graceful celestial rainbow, spanning the heavens, resting upon hemispheres, analyzing yet blending the beautiful rays of the sun, and sustained by the moisture from land and ocean. Such a phenomenon is not so beautiful in its parts, as grand and majestic in its whole. Such are the mission and character of Columbus, containing like the seven radiant prismatic colors, seven transcendent features: First, the inspiration; second, the preparation; 2 3 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. third, the faith; fourth, the apostolate or mission; fifth, religious zeal; sixth, the under- taking; seventh, the accomplishment. Systems of worlds and universes, moving and harmonizing in boundless space, are grand and majestic evidence of creative and almighty power and glory. But what is the physical universe, what are countless centers and systems of universes, to that incomparable creation, that moral and intellectual being, superior to all matter— man? What are they to man, the lord of planets, worlds, am 1 systems, and under whose domin- ion and for whose use they have been created by the Omnipotent? Regent of the King of Kings? Viceroy of the kingdom of heaven? Minister of the supernatural? United to the Godhead by a Savior becoming man; the price of a Savior's blood; himself both patriarch and prophet, priest and crusader! Human history shows how man's genius, courage, intellect, ambition, powers of conquest, have explored, discovered the earth, and adorned with every culture this planet-inheritance he received from his heavenly Father. But what would mankind have been without that heroic caste of character and achievement, which the leaders and heroes of the race have exerted to best and greatest results? What, without those venerable patriarchs of old who, standing midway between heaven and earth, have been the law-givers of the soul — a Noah, to rescue the race; a Moses, to lead it to the prom- ised land; a Solomon, to guide it by his wisdom; a David, to teach tho royal road of penance; a Peter, laying the foundation of the Papacy, a Paul, to convert the nations; a Thomas Aquinas, to expound the mysteries of Christian theology; a Patrick, to con- vert a nation of saints and scholars; a Thomas-a-Becket, to uphold the law and die for it; an Ignatius, to create the link between the old monasticism and the modern relig- ious; a Leo XIII., to expound the higher and the social law to men? And what with- out a Constantino, to see the cross and believe; an Alfred the Great, to found tho Christian commonwealth on the unwritten law; a St. Louis, to show how a ruler can be a saint; a Washington, to emancipate his country? The heroes of the race ennobled it by their works until a world seemed explored and conquered in its vast proportions. Mankind, in the midst of such achievements and conquests and in the fulness of time, produced a type of the race, a hero, a leader, a true Christian gentleman; a link between the middle ages and the new epoch which he himself inaugurated; the blended representative of ages mediaeval and modern; science and faith, united in him, harmonized; child of the Church; antagonist of every popular superstition; crusader, ambitious to redeem the holy sepulcher; a sailor who voyaged to every corner of the known earth and, with true geAus, declared that there was more to know and more to discover. So vast had been his travels and voyages that I might apply to him the verses of those English poets, Beaumont and Fletcher: There is a traveler, sir; knows men, Mariners, and has plowed the sea so far Till both the poles have knocked: he has seen the sun Take coach, and can distinguish the color Of his horses, and their kinds. He was a man almost without scholastic or scientific learning, grasping the pro- foundest knowledge and revealing the most hidden truths to the incredulous learned; a man who united in himself the prophet and the explorer; a man who bravely lived down an ocean of reproach, ridicule, denial, and calumny; a man, from his boyhood, with a marked mission, which he religiously embraced, with an inevitable destiny, for which he sedulously trained himself; a man who believed in his destiny, who announced his mis- sion and rested not, amid appalling obstacles, until he had fulfilled them both— Christo- pher Columbus! Had he a mission? Yes, a mission of unequaled grandeur and beneficence. Every fact I am about to mention has a direct bearing on the mission and character of Columbus. Was he not born and reared in poverty, obscurity, and labor? A sailor from boyhood, the child of the seas for over twenty years, tempest-tossed, battle-scarred, ship- wrecked, a voyager over the earth and encompassed by every temptation to crime— he emerged from such a life with his faith undimmed, his soul unsullied, his piety as ten- der as a mother's love, his filial affection and sense of duty unbroken, his whole charac- ter enriched with grace. Twenty-one years of utmost exposure to prevailing sin and profanity failed to tarnish the purity of his soul, and it was never known during his entire life that a profane or immodest word ever passed his lips. Father Arthur George Knight, the English Jesuit, said of him: " Few men indeed, perhaps only saints, have escaped like Columbus, with unwounded conscience from such turbulent scenes." When he arrived at Lisbon to commence his mission, a man of thirty years, his hair was gray with toil, hardship, danger, contact with peril and death, with sudden reverses and WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 23 personal escapes; but his heart was young and tender; his cheeks bore the blush of youth and modesty; his .voice and speech, eloquent and melodious; his carriage, manly and graceful; his eye, vivacious; his stature, robust; his manners, dignilied ; his presence, engaging; his conversation, grave yet attractive; his presence inspired interest, inquiry^ respect, sympathy, veneration, awe. Did he acquire these graces from a sailor's life on the Mediterranean in the 15th century, when a sailor's life was spent in strife with pirate, corsair, Mohammedan? This man of the sea, deprived of chapel, priest, sacra- ment at Lisbon, was early and late before the altar and the tabernacle; his form devoutly bent in prayer became familiar to the worshipers at the Lisbon Cathedral and the chapel of the Convent of All Saints. Was this the training he received amid the strug- gles and exposures of naval warfare and adventure on the seas? Did he arrive at Lis- bon, after twenty years of seafaring, laden with the booty of captured pirates or of the merchant marine? No, he was poor and friendless. He met at Lisbon not a friend or acquaintance, except his younger brother Bartholomew, who, poor and friendless as himself, like him gained a precarious livelihood by the art of drawing maps and charts. But there was something marvelous in Columbus, which proved his mission. This stranger, sailor, dreamer, without an introduction received a welcome into the good old social circles of the capital ; in centers of nautical and maritime experience, science and distinction, he was welcomed and listened to ; he became allied by marriage with three ancient and distinguished families — the Perestrellos, the Monizes, and the Aranas. But, stranger than all, this obscure mariner associated with the learned and the scientific men of his age, corresponded with scholars and scientists in different lands and harangued universities, prelates, ministers, and cabinets The palaces of capitals opened to him; he appeared at court and was the equal of kings and princes. He dictated terms to kings, and, with sybilline mysticism, repulses only enhanced the value of his secrets. Thece was a nobility, a royalty in his presence, in his associations, aspiration, and purposes of which history gives us no parallel in the lives of men. What is the mystery ? What the secret of this interesting and progressive stranger ? Everything about Columbus, his striking personal appearance, which was imposing; his poverty, which never detracted from his dignity; his acquired and practical learning, which never affected him with the pretentions of pedantry; his affability, which never im- paired a reserve that was ever remarkable and pleasing in his intercourse; his social quali- ties, which harmonized with his characteristic gravity; his thoughtfulness, which never disappeared in the busy intercourse of the world; his marked purpose, which gave to his movements the energy of immediate undertakings ; a physiognomy, which seemed to reveal and yet conceal the inner movements of an ever active yet meditative mind ; a profound and mediaeval cast of religious devotion and contemplativeness, which inspired veneration and won for him the friendship of pious laymen, of dignified prelates, of secluded monks, and of sovereign pontiffs. In him also, according to a tradition recorded by the Count de Lorgues, the five senses were trained to acuteness in a fine degree, as witnessed by the most acute hearing which enabled him to catch the first sounds of danger on the sea and of approaching storms. By the keenness of his sight, which enabled him to meet many a direful crisis on sea and land and to discern the minutest shades and differences and to measure distances in his pursuit of continents and worlds; by the refinement of his taste, which enabled him to study the qualities and properties of nature; by the delicacy of his sense of smell, which enabled him to scent in advance the odors of continents he was seeking, the perfume of their flowers, fruits, and forests, and the ozone of their atmos- phere; by the nicety of his touch, which aided his studies in physics, and at night in sleep protected him from sudden personal danger, and enabled him to know of perils at sea from every movement of his ship. Of him it has been said: "Columbus possessed visibly the three theological virtues; he practiced constantly the four cardinal virtues: the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost were apparent in his life, and we find God admirable in him as he is always in his eaints." Frugality, abstemiousness, neatness, purity of language, utter subjection of 1 temper naturally violent, charity in word and deed, and profound piety were among the qualities which marked him as a man with a high mission and which fitted him for its accomplishment. Such was his religious character and life that he spent much time in prayer, studied the Scriptures and the fathers with profound astuteness, observed the fasts and vigils of the Church, attended mass on shore every day, practiced vows, pilgrimages, and votive offerings, recited daily to the entire canonical office of the cloister, and wore, sometimes publicly and at others under the gaudy insignia of office, the coarse habit and girdle of St. Francis, and he was versed in theological, patristic, and ecclesiastical lore. He was subject to violent and excruciating attacks of illness, to a profound lethargy, and to visions occurring at periods and in 24 WORLD'SiCOLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. times of extraordinary disaster, misfortune, and illness — caused by excessive vigils, labors, and exhaustions of mind and body— occurring, as they did, in many of the most critical crises of his eventful life and career, and during these mental and physical prostrations, from his couch of illness and apparent death, he directed and navigated fleets in unknown seas, prosecuted voyages of momentous consequences, made and recorded observations anil thoughts on the most new and startling phenomena of nature, and conducted enterprises of the utmost importance to mankind. He arose from such crises of health and approaches of death with a marvelous recuperation, which he and some of his biographers have regarded as miraculous. The mission of Columbus was manifold, as is shown by his many transcendent achievements and services; by the services he rendered to religion, to science, and to humanity. His mission is proved by the absence of chance and by the manifest assump- tion by him of a great task; by his preparation and fitness for it; by its achievement. Strike from the history of mankind and from the present development of human affairs what Columbus undertook and achieved, the world will go back four hundred years; four hundred years of unprecedented progress in human culture, in civilization, in the humanities, in the arts and sciences, in the Christian missions and apostolate, in the practical application of the great principles of government and liberty, in commerce; in the arts of war and peace, in the efforts and approaches .to the benign substitution of peaceful arbitration for human warfare, of progress in testing the inherent power of re- ligion and of Christianity. As types only of all this, compare a caravan of camels loaded with Oriental products crossing the deserts for twelve months — compare it with the voyage of the modern steamship around the world, accomplished now in sixty-five days. Com- pare the slowly pacing camel itself with our modern steamship, now called the camel of the seas! Compare the first voyage of Columbus — three months and eight days in crossing the Atlantic — compare it with the same voyage accomplished now in five days, nineteen hours, and twenty -five minutes! From these pass to the comparison of higher and holier things; to the progress of mind, and soul, and humanity. It was Columbus who brought together those two great currents of human life which had run in different hemispheres, had never known each other, had never worshiped at the same altar. To achieve all this he had to discover a new world. Such was his mission. Such was his fulfillment. Not only had Columbus such a mission in the design of Providence, but he was him- self a firm and unswerving believer in that mission; that his mission came from God; that he was commissioned to do the work of heaven on earth. He announced his mis- sion to the world, and he offered himself an ardent missionary to the apostolate of Chris- tendom in bringing new and boundless realms, buried in ignorance of Christ and in heathenism, into the Christian fold. He announced a further, and what he esteemed a paramount purpose, of devoting his expected immense revenues from the Indies to the recovery of the Holy Sepulcher and the Holy Land and restoring them to the Christian world. These great objects he never lost sight of and he never ceased to aim at their accomplishment. In that solemn and characteristic act of his life, his last will, he com- mences with these self -dedicatory words: " In the name of the Most Holy Trinity, who inspired me with the idea and afterward made it perfectly clear to me that I should navigate and go to the Indies from Spain, by traversing the ocean westwardly." This avowal of his mission is repeated in many letters and writings of the illustrious admiral. The most solemn and sublime self-dedication to God and his work and to the Christian apostolate that a Christian layman could possibly make was that which Columbus prepared and addressed to the Spanish sovereigns before sailing on his fourth voyage, which was based upon a profound study of the Scriptures, and whose remark- able title was in itself a self-ordination: "Collection of Prophecies Concerning the Recovery of Jerusalem and the Discovery of the Indies." Therein he solemnly announced himself as one chosen of God from his earliest years for the discovery of the New World and the redemption of the Savior's tomb; that Providence had inspired him with study that educated himself for this work by leading him to embrace a sailor's life from the age of fourteen, to observe and ponder over the phenomena and secrets of nature and of the earth, and to study with eagerness the greatest work and chron- icles in geography, cosmography, navigation, astronomy, and philosophy. He said that by those studies God had opened his mind " as by a hand," an invisible hand, and that he was thus inspired and consumed with the idea of discovering the New World and of opening the way to all Christendom. He reminds Ferdinand and Isabella: " I spent ten years at your august court in discussions with persons of great merit and profound learning, who, after much argument, ended by declaring my projects to be chimerical. Your Majesties alone had faith and constancy. Who can doubt that it was the light WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 25 derived from the Sacred Scriptures that enlightened your minds with the same rays as mine ? " In this remarkable letter he extols the wondrous methods of the Holy Ghost, guiding the chosen instruments of Providence and educating them for their vocation and its accomplishment. He displays great learning in setting forth definite canons for scriptural interpretation, based upon St. Augustine, St. Thomas, St. Isidore, and Gerson. He claims that his mission to discover a new world and its fulfilment was predicted by the inspired prophets; quotes the prophecies themselves, and then follows them up with cogent arguments, interpretations, and citations from the Fathers of the Church. This " ambassador of God," as the Count de Lorgues calls Columbus, self-dedicated by the very prayer with which he commenced every act of his life, and every writing of bis pen, "Jesu cum Maria, sit nobis via," proves that he was always on the way, forever journeying toward a goal, an end, an achievement, perpetually laboring in his great mis- sion. He chose for the companions of his sublime mission the immaculate Mother and divine Son ; Jesu cum Maria ! Columbus, in the benign economies of Providence, and of Christian policy, and in the profound studies of philosophic history, has been lkened to the patriarchs and prophets of old and the founders of states and nations. It is thus that he has been compared with Moses and David and with other patriarchs. The extraordinary and symbolical names he received in baptism and significantly bore and cherished, were both emblematic of his mission and prophetic of his vocation. Columbo, which means a dove, indicated his mission of peace, good-will, and salvation between the old Christian world and the new heathen world, which he discovered and went to convert. And Christopher means Christ-Bearer — not the ordained eucharistic priest, but, in another and exceptional sense, one who carries the living and teaching Christ, the brother, Redeemer, and Savior of man in his human, divine, and missionary personality, across continents and over oceans to other continents and oceans to the utmost boundaries of the earth. There was an ancient legend in Christian hagiography which, whether a reality or an ideality, derives its chief significance and value from its being prophetic of Christopher Columbus —the legend of St. Christopher, the patronal saint of Columbus, whose pagan name was Opheus. Tradition, including Dr. Alban Butler's "Lives," makes St. Christopher a Syrian by nationality, a giant in stature, strength, and in prayer, miraculously converted from pag tnism and choosing the name of Christopher or Christ-Bearer, and after bearing Christ, symbolized in the Christian Faith, through Palestine, Asia Minor, and crossing oceans, with Christ upon his shoulders, he finally won the crown of martyrdom under the Emperor Decius. So truly prophetic was this legend of Columbus that after the latter had carried Christ across the Atlantic to unknown countries he had discovered, the legend seemed to loom up in sacred literature on account of the achievement of the great Christopher and then became merged in the reality. Even the image of the saint thenceforth bore the features of Christopher Columbus instead of the legendary saint, as was the case in the celebrated vignette in the map of Juan de la Cosa, in which also the literal name of Columbus was omitted, because it was rather represented by the image of the saint crossing the ocean with the Christ upon his shoulders, the features being those of Christopher Columbus, for it was he who carried the Redeemer's name across the ocean, as divinely expressed, " to them that have not heard of Me and not seen my glory." The parallel between Columbus and Moses is equally or more striking. Both were living patriarchs of living races of men believing in the true God. Fifteen hundred years before the coming of Christ, Moses delivered the law of God to his people; fifteen hundred years after the birth of Christ, Columbus delivered the law of Christ to other worlds and continents which he discovered. Moses and Columbus were each forty years of age when they began the active missions they received from the same God. Both Moses and Columbus left wife and family heroically to perform the will of God. While the sea opened a passage for Moses to pass over, the ocean of darkness and storms, the then dread Atlantic, gave Columbus a first, a safe and gentle passage over its bosom. Moses gave the law of the covenant; Columbus announced the law of the New Testament. Moses appealed prophetically to the cross in the Greek Tau on the gateposts of the chosen people; Columbus carried the cross of Christ with him, saluted it, and planted it in the virgin soil, the cross made of mighty trees cut from primeval forests. Moses received repulses and even violence from his own people; Columbus endured the mockery and ingratitude of those he served. Both died in poverty — outcasts. Both reached the promised land and saw it. Moses was never permitted to enter it; Columbus never reached and never saw or entered the Indies which he sought, but, unlike Moses, he raised up new kingdoms and empires to Christ, planted the seeds of Faith over conti- 26 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. aents, and in his tracks have followed knowledge, Faith, civilization, free republics, and human liberty. Unlike Moses, he entered the promised land. Columbus felt an inward resemblance to Moses and to David, for, after likening himself to Moses, he said: "Lei them give me what name they will, for, in fine, David, the wipe king, was a sheplnid, and he became king of Jerusalem, and I serve the same Lord who raised him to such high estate." He was compared to St. Thomas the Apostle, who carried the Faith of Christ to the same peoples of the East, whom Columbus sought to visit and evangelize, and whom he believed he had discovered. According to traditions, St. Thomas, under sacred Indian names, evangelized the Indian tribes of America. Scholars point to distinct traditions and fragmentary creeds of Christian origin, and the Spanish missionaries of the lGth and 17th centuries were amazed at finding among the Indians of North and South America the prevalence of crucicultus and the attribution of miraculous qualities to ancient crosses, preserved and venerated from remote antiquity by the American Indians. Christian scholars of four hundred years have found nine different passages in the Old Testament which they recognize as prophetic of Columbus, his mission, and his discovery. Some have traced in sacred verses descriptions of his ships, the very caravels he commanded and reproductions of which even here you have seen, and allusions to his armorial ensigns. Illustrious contemporaries of Columbus recognized his divine mission. The great Cardinal Ximenes and the learned Archbishop Diego de Deza of Seville, openly favored or advocated the project and mission of Columbus at the very tim9 he was claiming to be the chosen missionary of heaven. And the great scientist of Spain, Jayme Ferrer, said of Columbus to Isabella: " I believe that in its deep mysterious designs divine Providence selected him as its agent in this work, which I look upon as the introduction and preparation of things which the same divine Provi- dence has determined to make known to us for its own glory and the salvation and happiness of the world." And again: " I behold in this a great mystery." And addressing Columbus himself, he says: " In your mission, senor, you seem an apostle, a messenger of God, to spread his name in unknown lands." The Count de Lorgues, in presenting the cause of Columbus to Rome for canoniza- tion, exclaims: " Evidently God chose Christopher Columbus as a messenger of salva- tion." And while our own Washington Irving says that he was led to know how much of the world remained unknown and was led to meditate on the means of exploring it, says that " The enthusiastic nature of his conception gave an elevation to his spirit and a dignity and loftiness to his whole demeanor," and that " his views were princely and unbounded," I can not pass over the high tribute of the English Jesuit, Father Arthur George Knight, to his genius, his learning, and his zeal for the conversion of the heathen and for bringing " the nations in willing homage to the feet of Jesus Christ, reigning once more in the Jerusalem of the Christians." Typified by his symbolical names, foretold in ancient prophecy and sacred song, be- lieved in and announced by himself, the mission of Columbus was providential. Even from the standpoints of skepticism, of the utter denial of the supernatural, and of agnos- ticism, Columbus, in fact, by his aspirations, his self-preparation, and his very enterprise^ in the natural order, as a man, he made a mission for himself. His contemporaries also, men of learning, intellect, and religion, acknowledged his mighty vocation to great and stupendous achievements. Such men in every age, down to our own time and country, have paid homage to his recognized and acknowledged mission. There was something that marked Columbus out from other men — there was in him not only those traits of character which I have mentioned, that learning, that zeal, that courage, that faith, that unbounded zeal— but there was in his whole mental and moral structure, in his pro- found studies and deep reflection, his familiarity with sciences, and his quick seizure of the mysteries and secrets of nature, and of the physical world, in his very visions and dreams, his constant intercourse with the supernatural — such a combination of qualifi- cations as placed him on a higher plane than ordinary men. There is in revealed and supernatural religion a spirituality, a religious mysticism in which the saints alone seemed to move and soar. In this sense Columbus was a true mystic — one who saw in the fall of the sparrow, in the raiment of the lily and the rose, the mystic and ever-provident hand of God, anN in every turn in his own eventful and dramatic career he recognized his own immediate touch with the ever-present Deity. He was a pilgrim, staff in hand, of religion and science, recognizing perfect union and accord between them. He was a pilgrim in the flesh, staff in hand, wending his way to shrine and altar, to fulfill a vow made at sea c- to take a votive offering in return for many a deliverance from the perils of the sey WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 27 He was a crusader, and he bequeathed a crusader's injunction upon his heirs, never to rest until the Holy Sepulcher was redeemed and restored to Christendom. He was a rigid observer on land and sea of the fasts, vigils, and feasts of the Church. With all this, he was a man among men. Conceiving a high estimate of his services, insisting on providing title, offices, and estates for himself, and his posterity and successors; worthy of his position as the discoverer of the New World, he was a man in touch with earth and heaven. The part he took in that momentous act, when the Sovereign Pontiff in 1493, just after the discovery of America, was called upon to arbitrate, for the preservation of the peace of the world, between the two leading maritime powers of the world, Spain and Portugal, then struggling for the supremacy of the unknown half of the earth, was such participation in the crucial events in the history of mankind as no man was ever before or since called upon to perform, second only to his own discovery of the New World. Then there was but one known hemisphere, and even its hemispherical form was not then known, Columbus, Dr. Toscanelli, and, perhaps, a few other learned ones being the sole expounders of the sphericity of the earth. Portugal was claiming distant lands, discovered by a southern and eastern route, and Spain was claiming distant lands, discovered by Columbus by a western route. No line had been drawn to mark off the east or the west. The character of a crusade had been bestowed upon these explora- tions and discoveries by the bestowal of papal blessings and indulgences. The nations appealed to Pope Alexander VI. In the then confused condition of geographical knowl- edge, where and how could a line be drawn? It was Columbus that gave this mystic line that preserved the peace of nations. On his first voyage, on September 13th, just a month before land was discovered, Columbus, who had watched incessantly the magnetic needle and its variations in those unknown seas, and to whom the mysteries of heaven and earth then centered in that little magnet, observed that the needle ceased for a moment to vibrate, and pointed to the true north. This mysterious meridian was west of the Island of Flores. Immedi- ately the mystery was solved. The east and the west were separated by a mystic line. When the Sovereign Pontiff came to divide the unknown world between the maritime nations, after the return of Columbus to Europe in the following year, the critical embarrassment of the situation was relieved through the remarkable discovery by Columbus of the line of no variation of the needle, and this line, by a singular coinci- dence, passed from pole to pole without touching the land, and without dividing an island. From these facts resulted the celebrated bull of demarkation, issued by Pope Alexander VI., on May 3, 1493. Now for the first time an east and a west were recognized and demarkated. The line was accepted. Afterward diplomacy of jealous nations effected a change of the papal line farther to the west. Under this change Portugal acquired the immense empire of Brazil; but for this change Spain would have preserved her claim to the New World entire. The bull of demarkation served the great purpose of preserving peace. Neither the Pope nor Columbus would ever consent to change it. Columbus, on his death-bed, inserted a clause in his will repudiating the new line, which had cost Spain the loss of more territory than she now owns on the earth, and she then solemnly reaffirmed the original line of no variations of the magnetic needle as the true fine which God had established to separate the eastern and the western hemispheres. The mission and character of a man who achieved so much, relying solely on his genius and on heaven, are marked out and sustained by every word 1 have said of h is humble origin, his poverty, his maritime education, his studies, his correspondence with learned men, his personal bearing, appearance, and magnetism, his profound sense and practice of religion, the broaching of his new theory of the earth, his appeals to nations, his inflexible maintenance of it, his prophecy of the result, the prophecies of sacred Scripture, the apostolic character which he infused in the enterprise, his dedica- tion of all to the conversion of heathens, and the redemption of Jerusalem, his poverty in the midst of grandeur, his wrongs and his sorrows, the bestowal of another's name upon the world he had discovered, the ingratitude of his king, and now, the contrast, the reverse current of honor and praise, which the world unites in bestowing upon his memory. Columbus foresaw and predicted much; and much that he predicted was fulfilled. Errors, of detail in so vast a field of new ideas, undertakings, and results, in which he was the pioneer, enhance the grandeur of his real achievement. His promise to lead Christian Europe with its missionaries to the boundless empires of Oriental potentates, which would embrace the Faith, has been more than realized by the rise and growth of Christian empires and republics in the world which he discovered. His offer to carry mis- sionaries to the mythical Christian prince of the Orient, the Prester John, wio tradi- 2 8 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. tion said had sent ambassadors to Rome in the middle ages to ask Christian missionaries, has been realized in the many delegations of the red men sent to ask that Catholic priests be sent among them, and by the acceptance of the Faith of the black gowns, by the Indian tribes of North and South America. Let us recall the first visit of the Catholic missionary to the Indians of this Slate, in whose great and justly proud metropolis we are assembled this day to honor Colum- bus. It was the famous Jesuit black gown, Father Marquette. When he saluted the chief and his tribe they called out the word Illinois. The meaning of the Indian name Illinois is, "We are men." Well does this name describe the present men of Illinois, and of Chicago, our hosts, who have given us such a welcome to this Catholic Congress. When Father Marquette, with the mute but appealing symbol of the cross, announced his mission to the Illinois Indians, Hiawatha, in the language of our poet Longfellow, said: Beautiful is the sun, oh strangers. When you come so far to see us ; Never bloomed the earth so gayly. Never shone the sun so brightly As to-day they shine and blossom When you came so far to see us ! Then Father Marquette made answer to the chief: Peace be with you, Hiawatha, Peace be with you and your people. Peace of prayer, and peace of pardon, Peace of Christ and joy of Mary. So, too, was the prophecy of Columbus answered and fulfilled by the touching appeal, which, after the establishment of our independence as a nation, the Catholics of this country made to Rome for the appointment of a bishop and for missionaries to be sent to the infant Republic, and, by the action of Rome, in appointing to the exalted position of first bishop an American priest in the person of John Carroll, the patriarch of Catholicism in America, and by the growth of that august hierarchy which he founded, and which is now composed of seventeen archbishops, in one of whom we recognize with pride the worthy bearer of the princely honors of the Roman cardinalate, whose august body is completed by an eighteenth archbishop in the person of the dis- tinguished papal delegate; of seventy-five bishops, two archabbots, and ten abbots, and of nearly ten thousand priests, all carrying before them the very cross which Columbus vas the first to plant in American soil. He promised popes and kings that his dis- coveries would lead to the spread of the Catholic Faith among millions of human beings; look around you and see the fulfillment of this promise in nearly one hundred millions of Catholics in North and South America. If the southward flight of birds had not induced Columbus to change his course to the south, he would have landed, first of all, on the soil of our own Republic, where there now worship before the cross which he brought over the Atlantic fourteen millions of Catholics, true and loyal 6ons of the Church; yes, fourteen millions of Catholics, represented here and now in this hall by their appointed delegates, assembled in the second Catholic Congress of America, in honor of the name, the virtues, the achievements, in recognition of the exalted charac- ter and mission of Christopher Columbus. Asa fitting pendant to Dr. Clarke's beautiful paper, and also as being in line with the subject matter of " The Columbian Jubilee," may well appea/ here a paper by Miss Mary J. Onahan of Chicago, on "ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC." Ideals are the great exemplars of the world. Inasmuch as men and women have high ideals, inasmuch as they have lived up to them, insomuch have they been great, insomuch have they been good, insomuch have they been glorious. That the ideal of womanhood which called to Isabella in the 15th century was a great and a high one, and her life with but few, if any, missteps, gradually evolved toward it, this many biographers have shown, but it remains for the Catholic biographer ■>o prove that this ideal, inasmuch as it was great and good and glorious, was the logical outcome of the Catholic Faith, which was her heritage. If she w r as pure in an age of impurity, if she was brave in an age of cowardice and oppression, if she was womanly when the type of womanhood was Queen Elizabeth of England, she w-as all of these things because of the Faith that was in her, for by it she patterned her life, by it she must be judged now. The 19th century hugs to itself many delusions, none greater than the claim that it has discovered woman — woman that has come down to us from Adam all the way! WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 29 iEsop's fly, perched upon the axle of the chariot wheel, and exclaiming exultingly, " What a dust- 1 do raise!" is but the symbol of a universal weakness. The present age always seems the most glorious age, its progress the most wonderful progress, and its importance far greater than the importance of any that has preceded it. So in the glamor of this delusion we almost forget that woman was a power, morally, socially, and intellectually, in the 15th century as in the 19th; that the doors of universi- ties were open to her, that she not only studied but actually taught within their sacred precincts. In the University of Salamanca she had a place, and when Isabella, on ascending the throne, set about the acquisition of the Latin tongue it was to a woman that she turned to be her tutor. Nay, we can go further back than the 15th century, and to other parts of the world than Spain. In Italy, in the 13th century, a noble Flor- entine lady contended for and won the palm of oratory in a public contest in that city with learned doctors from all over the world. Further back still, in the 4th century, St. Catherine, of Alexandria, standing in the great hall of the royal palace, in the presence of the emperor and the assembled notables of his kingdom, converted by her learning and her wisdom the forty venerable philosophers arrayed against her. Plato and Socrates this modest Christian maiden could quote, and she knew by heart the books of the Sibyls. The age of woman dates not from the 19th century, but from the 1st; is due not to modern civilization, not to modern progress, but to something grander than either— the mainspring of both — the religion of Christ and of his Church. The greatness of Isabella need not, therefore, be looked upon as something extraor- dinary and unaccountable. She was merely the logical outcome of the country in which she was born and the religion in which she was bred — Catholic Spain of the 15th century. To understand the character of Isabella it is necessary to at least outline the political condition of the country in which she lived. Spain in the 15th century was not, as it afterward became, one of the greatest powers of Europe. It was divided into petty states, of which Navarre, Aragon, and Castile were the most important. Overrun by the Moors and tyrannized by numerous factions of the nobility, no wonder that Spain seemed to many a desolated country. And yet there was a spirit of freedom and of that modern shibboleth — democracy — among its people which no other country of Europe could match. " We, who are each of us as good as you," ran the oath of allegiance taken by the Spanish Cortes to a new king, " and who are all together more powerful than you, promise obedience to your government if you maintain our rights and liberties, but not otherwise." It was over this people that Isabella was to reign. The court of her brother, King Henry of Castile, was a debauched one, the king himself a coward and worse, who drained the already meager royal treasury by his luxury and extravagance. Fortun- ately for Isabella her youth was not destined to be spent amid the glitter and frivolity of the court. Like the great majority who in after life have attained distinction, her youth was almost a solitary one — for solitude vivifies the powers of the soul. Until the age of sixteen she lived in retirement in the little town of Arevalo, under the care of her mother. Here this young Castilian girl came to understand the great heritage of her Faith and the responsibilities which were involved in her future. The Church in the 15th century was indeed in the shadow of desolation, though here and there were wondrous bursts of light. The See of Rome was in continual turmoil, sometimes usurped by men whose lives only proved the gospel saying that the "gates of hell could not prevail against it." But however weak and unworthy her rulers, the Church of Christ was still there unfolding the wisdom of her Founder. Her great sacraments were being administered, sacraments which change the whole meaning of life. Isabella, too, received them; her young soul pondered over them; her young heart grew richer and sweeter in their graces. Baptism, marking with its chrism the child of a king and the child of a peasant as equal before God, inheritors of the Most High; penance, teaching that, no matter how great the sin, how despairing the sinner, the mercy of God is greater; confirmation, making of him a soldier valiant and true; the Holy Eucharist outrivaling in the estimate it puts upon man all the theories of the most ultra of optimists, outshining their wildest dreams. These and the other great sacraments of the Church were the heritage of this young Spanish princess in the 15th oentury, as they are the heritage of so many other young souls here and now in America, and all over the world in the 19th. Religion is the atmosphere of the soul. It vivifies, colors, gives strength and light and beauty. (The inner spirit of religion is more than an intellectual question — it is a question of conduct, of self-government.) This inner spirit of religion, of law, perme- ated the whole life and character of Isabella. The Faith that had been handed down 30 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. to her from ages, the faith for which saints had lived, and martyrs had died — it was her failh, too. It rilled her soul with radiance, it made life great, full of meaning, sublime. When the girl became a woman her hand was sought in marriage by numerous suitors. She was present with her brother at an interview with King Alphonso of Portugal, who sought her hand, but neither threats nor entreaties could induce her to accede to a union so unsuitable from the disparity of their years. The Marquis of Calatrava, a fierce and licentious nobleman, next pressed his claim, whereupon Isabella shut herself up in her room and, abstaining from food and sleep, implored heaven to save her from the dishonor of such a union. Among her other suitors were the Duke of Gloucester, infamous forever under the title of Richard III., and the Duke of Guienne, brother of Louis XI., of France. They were all of them unsuccessful. For once old heads and young hearts were in unison. Statecraft, as well as youthful preference, pointed to Fer- dinand of Aragon. The superior advantages of a connection, which should be the means of uniting the people of Aragon and Castile, were indeed manifest. Yet Isabella was too true a woman to be moved to so important a step by purely political reasons. She dispatched her chaplain to the courts of France and Aragon, and when he returned with the report that the Duke of Guienne was a feeble, effeminate, watery-eyed prince and that Ferdinand on the other hand was possessed of a comely figure, a graceful de- meanor, and a spirit that was up to everything, Isabella was not slow to decide. She resolved to give her hand where she felt that she could give her heart. Owing to the intrigues of King Henry and his persistent efforts to thwart the marriage, the lovers were obliged to resort to subterfuge. Disguised as a mule driver, Ferdinand set out at the dead of night from the court of Aragon accompanied by a half-dozen of his follow- ers, supposed to be merchants, while, to divert the attention of the Castilians, another cavalcade proceeded in a different direction with all the ostentation of a public embassy, from the court of Aragon to King Henry. Ferdinand waited on the table, took care of the mules, and in every way acted as servant to his companions. In this guise, with no oiher disaster save that of leaving at an inn the purse which contained the funds for the expedition, Ferdinand arrived late at night at one of Isabella's strong- holds, cold, faint, and exhausted. On knocking at the gates the travelers were saluted with a large stone rolled down from the battlements, which came within a few inches of Ferdinand's head, and would doubtless have put an end once and for all to his romantic enterprise. Expostulations were followed by explanations; when the voice of the prince was recognized by friends within great was the rejoicing, and trumpets proclaimed the arrival of the adventurous bridegroom. Arrangements were at once made for a meeting between the royal pair. Ferdinand, accompanied by only four of his attendants, was admitted to the neighbor- ing city of Valladolid, where he was received by the Archbishop of Toledo, and con- ducted to the apartment of his mistress. Courtly parasites had urged Isabella to require some act of homage from Ferdinand in token of the inferiority of the crown of Aragon to that of Castile, but with true womanly dignity she refused to do so. She never forgot that she was a woman even though a queen, and would not allow a sign of inferiority from one who was to be her husband. The interview lasted two hours. Fer- dinand was at this time eighteen years of age, Isabella a little older. His complexion was fair though bronzed by constant exposure to the sun; his eye quick and bright. He was active of frame, vigorous of muscle, invigorated by the toils of war and the exercises of chivalry, and one of the best horsemen in the kingdom. His voice was sharp and decisive, save when he wished to carry a point. Then his manners were cour- teous, even insinuating. Isabella was a little above the middle size, her blue eyes beamed with intelligence, her hair was light, inclining to red, her manners dignified and modest. When the preliminaries of the marriage were adjusted, so great was the poverty of the parties that they had to borrow money to defray the expenses of the ceremony. But in spite of all opposition, in spite of such humiliating obstacles, Ferdinand and Isabella were married on October 19, 1469, in the presence of the Archbishop of Toledo, the Admiral of Castile, and all of the nobility that espoused the cause of the youthful pair. The first few years of married life were uneventful, but on the death of the king, in 1474, and the accession of Ferdinand and Isabella, the country was plunged into the war of the succession. The royal pair had refused from the beginning to be put in lead- ing-strings by the Archbishop of Toledo, and the haughty prelate, disgusted with treat- ment to which he had not been accustumed, withdrew from their court and espoused the cause of the unfortunate Joanna, boasting that " he had raised Isabella from the distaff and he would send her back to it again." The death of the King of Aragon at this time called Ferdinand to the throne, thus uniting the two crowns. It would be WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 31 useless to dwell upon this long and stormy period. At one time, indeed, all parties were so worn out by the war that the King of Portugal, who had been affianced to Joanna, offered to resign all claims to the throne of Castile upon the cession of certain provinces. Ferdinand and his ministers were willing to accede to his proposal, but Isabella proudly replied that " she would not consent to the dismemberment of a single inch of Castile." After a struggle of nearly five years, a treaty was at last arranged, the King of Portugal resigned his pretentions to the throne, Joanna entered a convent, and Ferdinand and Isabella, relieved from the pretentions of ambitious rivals, were allowed to turn their attention to the internal welfare of their kingdom. One of their first acts was to reform the laws, to prohibit the adulteration of money, and to gradually lessen the overbearing power of the nobility by the elevation of the Cortes. On certain days of the week the king and queen presided personally at the court of justice, and so prompt and so just were their decisions, that it came to be said that it was more difficult and more costly to transact business with a stripling of a secretary than with the queen and all her ministers. There are many stories told of Isabella's promptness and heroism in the presence of danger. When news was brought to her of the revolt of the city of Segovia, she at once mounted her horse and, accompanied by a band of her followers, effected an entrance through one of the gates. Riding direct to the citadel, where the tumult was at its height, she demanded of the enraged populace the cause of the insurrection. " Tell me what are your grievances," said she, " and I will do all in my power to redress them, for I am sure what is for your interest must also be for mine and for that of the whole city." Such conduct won the respect, admiration, and love of her subjects. The insurrec- tion was put down and the mob dispersed, shouting " Long live the queen." One of the stumbling-blocks of the biographer in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella is the inquisition. Volumes have been written about it — they need scarcely be added to. Primarily a political rather than a religious institution, as Prescott, a Prot- estant authority, says, it had origin partly, it is true, in a misguided zeal, but far more largely in avarice and greed. It was aimed at the Jews, whose position in Spain had long been a humiliating one, the outcasts of society, but whose wealth excited the cupidity of the nobles. , To hold Isabella responsible for the injustices of the inquisition would be as absurd as to blame Washington for the evil of slavery, as absurd as to expect in the 15th century the enlightenment of the 19th. All history is a record of progress from ignorance to knowledge, from weakness to strength, from bondage to freedom. The history of the Moors in Spain, the recital of the splendors of their stately capital of Grenada and of its gradual overthrow, and of the subversion of the Arabian empire in Europe is a more alluring subject. Irving has dwelt upon it in his own picturesque and fascinating style. The Moors were as fierce and terrible in battle as they were luxurious and effeminate in peace. Cordova, with its narrow streets that seemed to whisper nightly of strange adventures, its lofty houses with turrets of curiously wrought larch or stone, its marble fountains and white columned mosques, its airy halls fragrant with the perfume of the orange, the olive, and the pomegranate — all this has a peculiar fascination for the student and the traveler. In these wars with the Moors, as in all other wars, Ferdinand assumed the com- mand of the army, while Isabella directed the internal arrangements of the kingdom, and supplied the sinews of battle. She held herself, indeed, ever in readiness to go to the front, and in some cases was called by her husband to do so when the spirits of the soldiers were flagging, and he wished to infuse new ardor into the struggle. She always responded with the greatest alacrity, and it was due to her wisdom that many reforms in camp life were instituted. She was the first to establish what were then known as " queen's hospitals"— tents for the sick and wounded. She was, in the words of Pres- cott, " the soul of this war," and her ever-present motive was zeal for religion. When the army lay encamped before Grenada, she appeared on the field superbly mounted and dressed in complete armor; she visited the different quarters and reviewed the troops. Everywhere she aided the king by her wise counsel, her consummate manage- ment, and her inalienable purpose. In 1492 Grenada fell, and with it the Moslem em- pire of Spain. The traveler can still see the rocky eminence in the Alpuxarras from which the Moor- ish king took his last farewell of the scenes of his departed greatness, as the gleaming turrets of Grenada, crowned with the victorious ensigns of Spain, faded in the distance. The spot is called to this day the " Last Sign of the Moor." 1492 brings us the most important event in the reign of Isabella, the discovery of America. How T Columbus had vainly importuned his native city of Genoa, had sought 33 3? WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. the aid of the King of Portugal, all the weary, fruitless years that passed waiting at the court of Spain, and how finally, in direst poverty and despair, he sought at the con- vent of La Rabida for food and drink for himself and his little son— all this there is no need to tell. The first astronomer who advanced the theory that the stars were worlds like our own was probably met with no more incredulity than the Genoese visionary, who, standing in the midst of the Spanish court, pleaded for this land of the Western His learning, we are told, took all by surprise, but it convinced few. Isabella alone, who from the first seems to have been favorable to him, was won by his enthusiasm, and when there was some question of the means necessary to equip the ships, royalty declared that she assumed the undertaking for her own crown of Castile, and was ready to pawn her jewels if the funds in the treasury were found inadequate. Thus did the belief of a Franciscan monk and the unfaltering enthusiasm of a woman prevail over the arguments of men of science and the incredulity of statesmen. No need to tell of that voyage, the three small ships setting out so dauntlessly, guided by one who had a dauntless heart — Over the wide unknown Far to the shores of Ind, On through the dark alone. Like a feather blown by the wind; Into the West away. Sped by the breath of God, Seeking the clearer day Where only his feet have trod. Beautiful as are those lines they scarce equal in grandeur and simplicity that sen- tence of Columbus, written in his log-book: " To-day we sailed westward, which was our course." Woman's faith, called, until proved, woman's credulity, once more rose triumphant, and Isabella has no fairer crown than that woven by her trusted and valiant admiral. " In the midst of the general incredulity," wrote Columbus, " the Almighty infused into the queen, my lady, the spirit of intelligence and energy, and whilst everyone else was expatiating only on the inconvenience and cost, her highness, on the contrary, 'approved it, and gave it all the support in her power." Religious zeal had dictated the war against the Moors; religious zeal urged Isabella to sanction the seemingly hopeless voyage of Columbus, and when these voyages were crowned with success her first solicitude was the welfare of the benighted and helpless natives. In view of Isabella's known principles and her many stringent measures, it is a little singular that her attitude on the subject of slavery of the Indians should ever be questioned. When the most pious churchmen and enlightened statesmen of her time could not determine whether it was or was not lawful and according to the Christian religion to enslave the Indians; when Columbus himself pressed the measure as apolitical necessity, and condemned to slavery those who offered the slightest opposi- tion to the Spanish Invaders, Isabella settled the matter according to the dictates of her own merciful and upright mind. She ordered that all the Indians should be con- veyed back to their respective homes, and forbade, absolutely, all harsh measures toward them on any pretense. Her treatment of Columbus was equally generous. When, owing to various mistakes and misunderstandings, the reaction set in against him, and he was sent to Spain in irons, Isabella indignantly ordered that he be set free at once, and herself sent him the money to come in state and honor to her court. He came accordingly, " not as one in disgrace, but richly dressed, and with all the marks of rank and distinction. Isabella received him in the Alhambra, and when he entered her apartment she was so overpowered that she burst into tears and could only extend her hand to him. Columbus himself, who had borne up firmly against the stern conflicts of the world and had endured the injuries and insults of ignoble men, when he beheld the queen's emotion could no longer suppress his own ; he threw himself at her feet and for some time was unable to utter a word for the violence of his tears and sobbings." It was under her special protection that he set sail on his fourth voyage, from which Isabella did not live to see him return. The uses of suffering! They have often been dwelt upon; possibly they can never be learned by hearsay. As a queen, Isabella attained the greatest glory; as a mother she was called upon to endure the deepest sorrow. The anguish of a father's or mother's heart at the loss, the ruin of a loved child — that, indeed, must be something that only they who have felt in all its anguish and all its bitterness can ever fathom. While her husband was engaged in his brilliant wars in Italy, and the great captian, Gonsalvo de Cordova, was daily adding new glories to the crown of Spaia; while the fame of that WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 33 great prince of the church, Cardinal Ximenes, was spreading throughout Europe, Isa- bella's life, clouded by domestic misfortune, began gradually to decline. One after another her children had been taken from her by death and by misfortune worse than death. Her only son, Don John, died three months after his marriage. Her favorite daughter and namesake lived but a year after her nuptials with the King of Portugal, and their infant son, on whom were founded all the hopes of the succession, survived her but a few months. Isabella's second daughter, Joanna, married to Philip, Prince of the Netherlands, became insane, and there can be no sadder history than that of her youngest child, Donna Catalina, memorable in history as Catherine of Aragon. These and other misfortunes clouded Isabella's years. When she felt the end to be not far distant she made deliberate and careful disposition of her affairs. Even on a bed of sickness she followed with interest the affairs of her kingdom, received dis- tinguished foreigners, and took part in the direction of affairs. " I have come to Castile," said Prosper Colonna on being presented to King Ferdi- nand. " to behold the woman who from her sick-bed rules the world." There was no interest in her kingdom, her colonies, or her household that she neglected. In her celebrated testament she provided munificently for charities, for marriage portions to poor girls, for the redemption of Christian captives in Barbary. Patriotism and humanity breathed in its very line— she warned her successor to treat with gentleness and consideration the natives of the New World added to Spain; warned them also never to surrender the fortress of Gibraltar. " By her dying words," says Prescott, " she displayed the same respect for the rights tind liberties of the nation that she had shown through life, striving to secure the bless- ings of her benign administration to the most distant and barbarous regions under her sway." The woman whom life had not daunted, death could not dismay. On the 26th of November, 1504, Isabella ihe Catholic breathed her last, in the fifty-fourth year of her age, and thirteenth of her reign. She had ordered that her funeral be of the simplest, and the sum saved by this economy be distributed in alms among the poor; that her remains be buried in the Franciscan Monastery in the Alhambra of Grenada, in a grave level with the ground and trodden down, and that her name be engraved on a flat tombstone. "But," she added, "should the king, my lord, prefer a sepulcher in some other place, then my will is that my body be transported and laid by his side, that the union we have enjoyed in this world, and through the mercy of God may hope again for our souls in heaven, may be represented by our bodies in the earth." True queen and true woman she had proved herself through life, true queen and true woman she proved herself in death. The Catholic Church is not ashamed of the ideal in womanhood that it presents — an ideal that it has upheld for centuries, an ideal that is still shining as a new-risen star serene and beautiful in the summer sky. The queenly scepter of Isabella was laid aside, the womanly frame had long since crumbled into dust, but the Church of which she was so valiant a daughter, the Church that crowns her with that fairest of 'her titles, is not dead. It lives. The light of the eternal is in its eyes, life-blood courses in its veins, its strong arm reaches out now as it did in old Castile to the peasant in his hut, to the queen upon her throne. It stands to-day as it stood nineteen hundred years ago — logical, strong, consistent, serene. It is all of these things and more. It is dowered with immortality. Therefore we hail not merely one of the many myrrad of its daughters, but we hail the religion that made Isabella possible — the religion of the future, the religion that was taught by Christ himself in the purple- crowned hills of Galilee. One more paper from the first day's proceedings is so important to the American Catholic as to demand admission to these pages. Its full title is: " The Relations of the Catholic Church to the Social, Civil, and Political life of the United States." It was furnished and read by a distinguished Mary- land lawyer and soldier, Mr. E. H. Gans of Baltimore. Let us condense the title into CATHOLICITY AND THE STARS AND STRIPES. In this Columbian year all Americans are meeting together to celebrate the glories of the Republic. Within a domain, continental in its vast expanse, has been worked out on a stupendous scale the experiment of popular government, and now, after a ee"tury of trial, we assemble together to show the world how successful that experiment has been. 34 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. The palpable evidences of our material prosperity lie all about us. Would you have a portrayal of our boundless wealth, our diversified and inexhaustible resources, the marvelous results of our inventive skill, our triumphs over matter, go to yonder White City. Within its walls will be received impressions more vivid than those which any tongue, however eloquent, can create. m Material prosperity, however, does not make a nation truly great, nor is it the true measure of its success. There are many things in a nation's life more important than its wealth and power. It is, therefore, meet and proper that the spiritual and moral forces which move and control this great confederation of States, should receive atten- tion, and of these forces none is more deserving of examination than the gentle, benign, all-prevailing influence of the Catholic Church. We Catholics, sons of the republic, come to her in her hour of triumph to say, All hail! to recall with pride the share which our forefathers had in establishing her insti- tutions, and the equally important share we have in maintaining them in their integrity, and making them permanent. Yet 'tis passing strange that though we yield to no set, or class of men in our loyalty to free government, there are those, and the number is not inconsiderable, who would fain make it appear that we are not true and loyal citi- zens; that there is something in our belief inimical to the spirit of American institu- tions; that we are a transplanted foreign growth not indigenous to the American soil. The Catholic Church, they say, is a powerful, compact organization, the most wonderful the world has ever seen, through which its absolute ruler, sitting upon his throne by the banks of the Tiber, exerts an influence, which, if unchecked, will change the ordin- ary channels of our national life and subvert our liberties. These false notions, often boldly proclaimed, but more frequently insidiously disseminated through the commun- ity, are gradually melting away under the sunlight of the truth. They broke out into overt acts of violence during the feverish malignity of knownothingism, and even at this time hold potent sway over a large number of our fellow-citizens. There is an abund- ance of arrogance in these pretensions. They are born and nourished by an ignorance of the nature of the Church, and by false conceptions of the true spirit of our American institutions. Their pet theories are, forsooth, the only American theories, and their methods the exclusive American methods. All who oppose them are un-American. America, how many crimes are committed in thy name! It is time to strip the mask from these pretenders, and here in the full brightness of this centennial celebration to show the true relations between the Catholic Church, and the political, civil, and social institutions of the United States. We come in no apologetic attitude. It was to the genius and bold intrepidity of a Catholic navigator that we owe the discovery of this continent. The bones of Catholic Americans whitened every battlefield of the Revolutionary War; Catholic Americans bore a prominent part in the establishment of our institutions, and the names of noble Catholics have from that time to the present been woven in our national traditions. We stand not upon the defensive. We claim that a man may not only be a Catholic and a true American citizen, but that if he is a good Catholic he is the best and most loyal of citizens. The Church has no direct relations with any special form of civil government. Forms of government are the creations of man. The organization of the Church comes from God himself. Her empire is over the soul and the conscience; her power a moral not a physical power. Her kingdom is a spiritual kingdom and not of this world. Her mission of saving souls is a mission to the whole of humanity, and wonderfully is her organization adapted to accomplish the purpose of her Divine Pounder. Being for the whole race, she is Catholic in space. She takes to her bosom the duskiest inhabitants of wildest Africa, the dwellers on Asiatic plains, the Siberian exile, the people of cultivated Europe, as well as the free American citizen. Under no form of government is she a stranger. The Church is the direct representative of God himself, and she is at home wherever she finds a beating human heart. Being for the whole race, she is Catholic in point of time. She has seen the begin- nings of all the modern civilized governments of the world, has witnessed their rise, their various mutations, and their development to the present time. She alone stands immutable, unchangeable. The empire of to-day may be the republic of to-morrow. The Church lives among them all, always the same and the same to all men. She speaks to prince, emperor, and king, as well as to the people, and with the same voice. Before her altars there is no recognition of nationalities. A man becomes subject to her min- istrations not as an Englishman, Russian, or American, but as a man, a member of the whole human race. Of other church organizations, some ally themselves to the State and become part and parcel of the civil power, as in England and Russia; others finding WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 35 their home among the people of certain countries. All, however, receive their special tendencies from their environment, are of necessity local and national, and change in character from time to time with the changes in their surroundings. The Catholic Church alone embraces the entire world and works out her mission irrespective of the special forms of civil government under which her members may live. Such being the nature and such being the mission of the Church, it is idle to talk of her being foreign, or un-American. These terms can be properly applied to those organizations which have for their subject a participation in the civil government of the world. What, then, are the relations of the Church to our free institutions? How does she exert her influence? In what way and by what means does she affect our national life? The fundamental idea of the American system of government is the sovereignty of the people. It is a government by the people and for the people. The halls of Congress and of the State legislatures are rilled, not with rulers, but with representatives of the people, elected to carry out their ideas. Many political problems are of necessity solved by the independent judgment of our legislators, but the voice of public opinion is very potent, and the decisions of all great questions are ultimately referred, by means of fre- quent elections, to the people themselves. They make and unmake administrations. Their policy ultimately becomes the policy of the Government. They are in reality the rulers; the true sovereigns. They govern themselves. This, however, is true of every democracy. There are found in the American sys- tem other principles almost as fundamental as the one we have been considering. We have a number of independent sovereign States and one sovereign nation. The powers which may be exercised by the States and those vested in the general Government of the United States are carefully defined by written constitutions. To each government the people have surrendered only so much of their sovereign power as in their judgment is necessary for the preservation of law and order, and the promotion of the general wel- fare; and against the abuse of power they have protected themselves by constitutional restrictions. No one can be deprived of life or liberty except by the judgment of his peers, nor can his property be taken from him except by due process of law. Freedom of speech and of the press, the right of peaceable assemblage to petition government for a redress of grievances are all fully secured. Above all, the Government can not pass any law respecting the establishment of religion, nor interfere, in any way, with the liberty of every man to worship God in such manner as his conscience may dictate. The powers of Government are divided. The legislative, executive, and judicial departments are made, as far as possible, inde- pendent of each other, and a number of other checks and balances are provided, to the end that power shall not be abused. Not only is provision made against the abuse of power on the part of the Government but the people are protected aginst them- selves. No sudden gusts of folly or passion, even on the part of the sovereign people can, except by revolution, make an absolute change in the Government. Under con- stitutional methods, such a change can only be worked out in such a length of time as will necessarily bring with it reflection, and the sober second-thought. The American people secure to themselves their rights of life, liberty, and the pur- suit of happiness by creating their own governments, managing them by their own representatives, and limiting their powers by fundamental constitutions. Their liber- ties are secured by law, the law is framed and executed by the Government, and the Government is controlled by the people. Each man is the equal of his fellows, and has an equal voice in the conduct of affairs. This is the American system. The relations of the Church are therefore discerned in her relations to the sovereign people; the influence she exerts is over their minds and hearts, and she affects our national life by fashioning and directing their lives and conduct. Instead of finding in the potent moral influence which the Church exerts over the people, anything hostile to American institutions, the candid inquirer will discover in her teaching and tendencies, the strongest safeguards for their permanence and stability. Government, according to the Catholic Church, is ordained by God. Man is by nature social and must live with his fellows. This is impossible without government, and, therefore, Government is a necessity found in the nature of man as created by God himself. We further believe that no man has any inherent right to rule over other men, but every nation, taken as a collective moral unit, is, by the very fact that it is a nation, sovereign. This sovereign nation has the right to establish any form of civil government 36 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. which in its judgment is best suited to its character, and the form of government it adopts is sacred by the ordinance of God. " Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for there is no power but from God, and the powers that be are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist purchase damnation to themselves." The Catholic is loyal to the American Government as the legitimately established Government of this country, not because it is stronger than he. His principle of sub- mission is not founded upon the idea of physical force, nor yet entirely upon his strong affection and patriotic predilection for its great principles. He is of necessity loyal because it is his conscientious duty. Patriotism is sublimated and becomes a religious obligation. Is there anything un-American in this? Does this teaching not tend to make good citizens? If. now, instead of viewing the citizen distributively as a subject of the Government, bound by the virtue of obedience, we examine his relations to the Government as one of the sovereign people, we will perceive the influence of the Church to be equally salutary. Among the many evils that afflict the body politic, none is more deplorable than the frequency with which the will of the people is frustrated by frauds in elections. This has been the theme of statesmen and political moralists for years. All recognize it as the cancer which has been insidiously attacking the very life of the nation, which must be eradicated and destroyed if we are to preserve our institutions in their integ- rity. Not only in the less important elections held in the various States has this malign influence been felt but upon the larger field of our national elections it succeeded, at one time, in placing the title of an American President in doubt, and in bringing the whole country to the verge of civil war. Here, again, the Church intervenes. According to the teachings of our learned doc- tors, the political sovereignty which is vested in a nation, under the ordinance of God, is vested so that it may be used for the public good. When the people exercise sovereign political power, they exercise a power given to them by the Great Sovereign, in trust, and they are bound, in conscience, to perform the trust honestly and with fidelity. Thus another fundamental political duty is transformed into a conscientious obli- gation. As no man can be disloyal to his Government and be a good Catholic, so no man can be a good Catholic and pollute the ballot-box, or in any other way fraudulently frustrate the electoral of the people. Is this teaching un-American? But our American liberty, our freedom, the theme of our song — My country, 'tfs of thee, Sweet land of liberty. Of thee I sing- How can an organization so despotic as the Church of Rome be anything but hostile to this, the very essence, and spirit of our institutions? To what lengths do not prejudice and ignorance go in binding the eyes of men! All the hostile criticism of the Church in this connection rests upon an ignorance of the real nature of liberty. To many unreflecting persons the word liberty conveys no meaning except the absence of restraint, the absence of any external power controll- ing the will. For them liberty means the right to follow their own wills and inclina- tions without let or hindrance. This, however, is the liberty of anarchy; it is not American liberty. We are free American citizens, but may we do as we like? May a man make a contract with me and break it with impunity? May he injure my prop- erty, infringe my rights or personal security, obstruct the conduct of my legitimate business, steal my goods, put a bullet through my brains, without becoming a subject for the coercive discipline of the law of the land? Men can not live together without government, and government implies the restrain- ing influence of law. These ideas are not only obvious but they are very American. We find them incorporated in the fundamental charters of our liberties. In the Declaration of Independence we read: "We hold these truths to be self- evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- ness. That to secure these rights governments are established among men." The Constitution of the United States declares in its preamble: " We, the people of the United States, in order to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Therefore, by the highest American authority, for the security of liberty, govern, ments are instituted and constitutions ordained and established. Liberty can not exist without the authority of government exercised under the forms of law. / WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 37 But in order that the citizen may possess true civil liberty it is not only necessary that he should be subject to government but that government itself be restrained within proper limits; it must be just, and its sole end must be the public good. Any other governmental control would be despotic and tyrannical. It was to secure this kind of government that all the efforts of our forefathers were directed. Therefore it was that they insisted upon a government by the people themselves through their own representatives; for this reason the government agencies which they created were lim- ited in their powers by written constitutions and fundamental rights reserved to the people; to secure this end the powers were divided into independent departments — the legislative, executive, and judicial. In a word, all the checks, balances, and guaran- tees devised by the framers of our Government were intended to secure to the people subjection to no laws except those which were necessary for the peace, good order, and prosperity of society. This is the true spirit of our American freedom, and by no one has it been more aptly and eloquently portrayed than by Daniel Webster, the great expounder of the constitution. "All governments of law," he says, "must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of authority, and give many positive and qualified rights. In other words, they must be subject to rule and regulation. This is the very essence of free political institutions. The spirit of liberty is indeed a bold and fearless spirit, but it is also a sharp-sighted spirit; it is a cautious, sagacious, discriminating intelligence. It is jealous of encroachment, jealous of power, jealous of man. It demands checks; it seeks for guards; it insists upon securities; it entrenches itself behind strong defenses and fortifies itself with all possible care against the assaults of ambition and passion. It does not trust the amiable weakness of human nature, * * * and therefore it will not permit power to overstep its prescribed limits. Neither does it satisfy itself with flashy, illegal resistance to illegal authority. Far otherwise. It seeks for duration and permanence. This is the nature of constitutional liberty, and this is our liberty if we will understand and preserve it.'" The Catholic Church welcomes this bright and beautiful spirit and takes it to her bosom, for she is its foster-mother. With tender devotion she nourished it through the ages. Time and again she has rescued it from the bold and impious hands of despots, whether they be kings, emperors, or a popular majority enthroned. With the Church God is the only true sovereign and the source of all power. The sovereignty of the people comes from him as a sacred trust, and they must use this trust for the common weal. The Government called into being by them, in framing and executing laws, is but echoing the voice of the King of Kings, and obedience to it is obedience to God himself. Here is the ultimate sanction for human liberty. Subjec- tion to no power except the power of the ruler of the universe — this is true liberty. Therefore, a government executing laws dictated by passion, personal ambition, greed of power, working injustice, is acting beyond the scope of its delegated power, and has not the sanction of God for its acts. It is tyrannical. And the Church condemns it and its authorized acts. Power without justice she will not recognize; and authority without right she deems usurpation. Our American institutions are justly deemed the masterpiece of human contrivance for securing government which will rule only for the general good. It is in accomplish- ing precisely this result that the Church uplifts and sustains the weak hands of men by her potent spiritual power. The Catholic Church has been the only consistent teacher and supporter of true liberty. In her spiritual empire over the souls of men, she is a government instituted and established not by the people, but by God himself. She administers laws; but they are divine, not human laws. Her children are protected from spiritual despotism, not by checks and balances of human contrivance, but by the sacred guarantee of the divini promise. "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The Catholic Church has been divinely commissioned to teach the truth; and in the possession of the truth her children alone have true liberty. " You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." With the Church spiritual freedom, as well as civil liberty, is possible only with law and government. Is there anything un-AmCrican in this? Is it un-American to say that there is a sovereignty higher than the sovereignty of the people? Is it un-American to acknowl- edge subjection to God and his government? The American people are not, we think, prepared to admit that atheism, infidelity, and irreligion are part and parcel of their institutions. 38 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. Would that our countrymen should cease to view the Church through the dark mists of prejudice. If they observed her in the bright sunlight of truth they would see her sitting at the very fountains of their liberties, as their guardian spirit, preserv- ing those bright and sparkling waters from pollution as they flow in copious and salu- tary streams over the green fields of our national life. But from whatever point of view we examine our American institutions, we find them supported and sustained by the Church. The Declaration of Independence declares that " All men are created equal," and we have endeavored to follow the spirit of this truth in the practical workings of our Government, by giving each man an equal voice in the conduct of affairs, by discouraging ranks and classes, and by insist- ing upon perfect equality before the laws of the land. But this democratic equality pales into insignificance before that taught and prac- ticed by the Church. In her eyes all men are equal because they are sons of the same father and joint heirs of the heavenly treasure. Before her altars there is no precedence. The laborer on our streets has for companion the financial magnate; the lowly negro, once a slave in our Southern clime, bows with reverential awe side by side with the refined chivalric scholar, once his master, and the magdalen mingles her penitential tears with the chaste aspirations of the white-souled nun. No such real democracy can be found outside the Catholic Church. And finally let us consider another striking characteristic of our American life. We boast with proper pride of the equal opportunity which every citizen has of rising, by his own merit, to the highest position of political honor. Any poor boy in the land has the right to aspire to a seat in Congress, to be vested with the judicial ermine, or, supreme honor, to occupy the chair once filled by Washington. There is nothing in the nature of our institutions which will make the fulfillment of his ambitious hopes impracticable. The brightest names in our history are the names of men who have sprung from an origin as lowly as his own. Do you find this characteristic in Holy Church? Listen to the language of an eloquent Spaniard, a priest, one who lived in a monarchy and whose only practical acquaintance with democracy was with the democracy of the Church. " In the Church, birth and riches are of no importance. If you are a man of high merit, untarnished by misconduct, and at the same time conspicuous by your abilities, your knowledge — that is enough — she will look upon you as a great man; will always show you extreme consideration, and treat you with respect, and listen to you with deference. And since your brow, though sprung from obscurity, is radiant with fame, it will be held worthy to bear the mitre, the cardinal's hat, or the tiara." The history of the Church justifies this beautiful tribute. Many of our most famous pontiffs have been taken from the lowly walks of life, whilst the college of car- dinals have received their honors, as a rule, solely as the award of merit and learning. Have we not in this beautiful land of ours a most notable illustration of this truth? An humble American citizen is an august prince of the Church. In him, we have a liv- ing proof of all the principles for which we have been contending. He is a prince of the Church; and yet, is he hostile to democracy? He is infused with the very quintessence of the Catholic spirit; and yet, is he not the very incarnation of true Americanism? He knows full well the plenitude of his spiritual power, its high dignity, its wonderful authority; and yet, is he an enemy of American liberty? The whole country knows and acknowledges, that within the entire confines of the Republic there is no more ardent patriot, no more enthusiastic supporter of our American institutions than the gentle, modest, illustrious James Gibbons, Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore. As the various special relations of the Church to the social institutions of the United States have been selected as the themes of other papers to be read at this Con- gress, I have deemed it best to make them the subject of no special comment. In her * relations to them the constant aim of the Church, in addition to the benevolent work of alleviating distress, is to constantly augment the virtue and intelligence of the f people. To this end she sanctifies the home, inculcates the principles of justice, and educates not only the intellectual but also the moral and religious faculties of the soul. An acute and profound critic of our American institutions has recently said: "It may be thought that a nation which uses freedom well can hardly have too much free- dom; yet even such a nation may be too much inclined to think freedom an absolute and all-sufficient good — to seek truth only in the voice of the majority, to mistake pros- perity for greatness. Such a nation, seeing nothing but its own triumphs, and hearing nothing but its own praises, seems to need a succession of men like the prophets of Israel to rouse the people out of their self-complacency, to refresh their moral ideas, to remind them that the life is much more than meat and the body more than raiment, and that to whom much is given, of them shall much also be required." WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 39 We have among us our prophets of Israel, divinely commissioned, as were the holy- men of old, to guide, instruct, ennoble, and elevate the nation; and the American people will have achieved their highest glory when they seek the words of wisdom and truth from their lips— when they voluntarily submit to the gentle ministrations of the priests and bishops of the Holy Catholic Church. The evening session of this opening day resolved itself into something like a grand jubilation, so eager were the faithful to honor and to listen informally to their illustrious Pastors. The occasion was marked by the following: ADDRESS BY ARCHBISHOP P. J. RYAN OF PHILADELPHIA. When -the secretary of the Columbian Congress informed me this morning that I was expected to speak to you this evening, I should not have dared to slight you by com- ing before you with a few thoughts jotted down, if he had not assured me that these addresses were to be informal — that they were not expected to be prepared like the papers of the morning; they were to be addresses encouraging you, doing all that would be in our power to explain to you, perhaps more in detail, the objects of this great Congress. Therefore I come this evening to speak to you in an informal manner, possi- bly in a very desultory manner, but I hope the words I have to say to you will not be antirely without fruit. I feel that I am in my place when speaking at this Columbian celebration, because I feel, as a Christian bishop, that the discovery of Columbus was a triumph of Christianity, because whoever will examine the philosophy of his life, his motives for action, will find that the inspiration to spread Christian truth and with it Christian civilization, the civilization of our day, the charity, the tenderness, the advances in every direction, on the civilization of the past— that all these came from the deep relig- ious principle within his nature; and as a Catholic I feel a just pride in thinking of the origin of this great country, which is to be in the future so marvelous in its effects upon human happiness, upon human progress, upon the intellect and the heart of man. And I remember that, warmed by Catholic feeling, illumined by Catholic faith, and clothed by Catholic love for our Lord, he came here to plant this civilization, and that he, the navigator of Genoa, came before the pilgrims from England, and the Santa Maria arrived long before the Mayflower. I speak not this in boasting. It would not be his spirit, and on a great occasion like this, when all party lines should disappear, when in that magnificent and uni- versal Christianity we meet to commemorate this great event, it is not a sectarian feeling, but it is in a Catholic and universal feeling in which I would find sympathy even in the non-Catholic descendants of these great pilgrim fathers. If we could imagine him as the patriarch Jacob when he fell asleep, and between earth and heaven there was the luminous avenue with angels ascending and descending: if Columbus, in his weary journeys looking for the means to prosecute his great dis- covery, should sleep and an angel of the Lord would point out to him the luminous pathway between the Old and the New World — point out the great future to him, the conversion to Christianity and civilization of the people of the New World; the cities that should rise in the future, the marvelous progress, the home for the exile and the persecuted — how his heart would throb with gratitude! Some of the things of which he may have dreamed were realized in his day. You remember that he returned to Spain, and when, with some of the docile Indians, he appeared at the court of Isa- bella the Catholic, and when he stooped — he, with the royalty of intellect before earthly royalty — with uplifted heart, and trusting not in the splendor of that intellect, but in Him, the "light of light" that had illumined it; when he spoke of the New World and its possibilities, physical and moral and his heart glowed and his eyes glistened as in inspiration, and the heart of Isabella the Catholic went out to the glorious navigator, and the assembled court heard the words from the distant land, they all prostrated themselves, and from the palace chapel came the song of the Te Deum, " We Give Thanks." As they praised God in that Te Deum, it rang upon the soul of the navigator with a deeper significance than even upon the soul of Ambrose and Augustine, when they sang it a thousand years before. Now they could sing: "Thee Father Everlasting all the earth doth worship, Thee the Holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge." This was the beginning of his consolation, and as he looks down from glory — for we believe, as Catholics, that the dead take cognizance of the things that occur upon the earth— he sees this country advancing year after year in physical advancement, intellectual advancement, religious advancement. And now, ladies and gentlemen, particularly you members of the Columbian Catholic Congress, the Congress called after him, you have to continue his work, and continue it in that high order that should most of all please his spirit. 4 o WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. Before his time there were two worlds — separated. Between them rolled the dark ocean, and storms, terrible storms, agitated its ways. Monsters of the deep were be- neath these waters. Columbus united these worlds. In this land, and for many years, there have been two moral worlds, separated by the ocean of prejudice, on which there have been storms of bigotry and hatred, and down among the coral rocks, down in the depths of the ocean, there have been deep animosities, wild spirits, that would separate these two worlds. There is the Catholic world and the non-Catholic world. Between them has rolled the ocean of prejudice — a dark ocean. Hearts that ought to have come nearer to each other, hearts that God made like each other, eyes that if they only looked into each other, He would have brought them together. It is the mission of the Catholic Congress to bring these two worlds nearer — to make men understand each other more fully, and this mission you have to act out, first of all by appreciating the great truth that the non-Catholic world is not opposed to the Catholic world at all, but to something which it thinks is the Catholic world. The very doctrines on which this animosity is formed are doctrines that we reject as emphatically, as constantly, as indignantly as the non-Catholic world could reject them. Therefore, we only ask to be known. The anti-Catholic people had a cry, and they have it yet, of "No Popery." We join - in it and say, " Know Popery," but we spell the word " k-n-o-w " popery. This morning, I confess, I was charmed and won over by the admirable address of Mr. Bonney. I know no interest he could have in flattering us; I know from his position and his evident honesty that he felt what he said. Seeing the initials of his Christian name, when I asked him, I had something like a premonition of what it might be, when he told me that his name was Charles Carroll, and that he was called after Charles Carroll of Carrollton. For over forty years I have associated with non-Catholics. I know them, and I know that many of those that are called bigots hate the Church simply because they hate tyranny, because they hate hypocrisy, because they hate a number of things which they imagine are in the Catholic Church, and if they could love such a church, with such a view of it, they never would be worthy of receiving the True Faith. About a year ago I was invited to attend the annual dinner of the descendants of the pilgrim fathers in Scranton, Pa. All there, except the gentleman who accompanied me, and myself, were non-Catholics. I was surprised at the invitation. I promised, however, as I had to be in the city for a ceremony the next day, to attend the banquet. I declined saying anything however, until one proposed my health, and when I rose to speak I assure you that not even the Columbian Congress received me as enthusiastically as these children of the pilgrim fathers. There is a world full of principle, full of honesty, full of progress, full of intelligence, as we look across the water, separated from us, and we should be united with it. And because the members of the Catholic Congress are almost all laymen, it is their place so to speak and act, to bring us into contact more perfectly with that world. They will hear a layman when they will not hear a priest. They have to meet the laymen in daily life, in business, on many occasions when it is impos- sible they should meet the clergy, and they will have less suspicion of the layman, whom they know to be thoroughly honest, open, and frank, than of the priest, of whom they know so very little. Therefore, gentlemen and ladies of this Congress, it is your great priv- ilege to do all that you can to explain to honest, open-hearted, fair-play-loving Prot- estant Americans that we do not believe but we anathematize and condemn many of the things that are laid to our charge, as articles of our Faith or as practices within the Church of God. And to do this effectually, through the action of the Congress, it must be clearly understood that the Catholic men of this Congress are left free by the clergy. There are articles of faith, there are essential practices of discipline, which can not be changed, but in the domain of free opinion, declared as such, no angel stands at the con- fines and says " thus far and no farther." This domain is immense, and to affect Ameri- can people the Catholic layman must be understood to speak, not as our mouthpieces, but as free, intelligent Catholic American laymen. It seems to me that the great unitive power to bring Catholics and non-Catholics together is that personal love for our Lord and charity toward his suffering children, on which both so perfectly agree. It is remarkable that when Christ sought a model of charity he selected not the orthodox Jew, but an heretical Samaritan, and made him the model for Jew and Christian for all time. Let us all meet in admiration and love for the great Founder of Christianity — the God of Columbus, and the inspirer and sustainer of our common Christian civilization. Let us bear in mind that our greatest enemies are sin, that corrupts the heart, and ignorance that obscures the intellect; and hence, WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 41 that only the church bell and the school bell can prolong the echoes of the" Liberty- Bell." United in love to Christ and to our suffering brethren for his sake, and zealous for the Christian civilization and true liberty which this zeal must produce, our perfect union is only a question of time. SECOND DAY. Tuesday's proceedings were of absorbing interest, and began by calling the roll of delegates to the Congress, their officers for the various dioceses report- ing as follows: LIST OF DELEGATES. Kansas City— Chairman, S. A. Hegg; Vice-President, Judge Philip J. Henn; Com- mitteeman, John H. Walsh. Cleveland— Chairman, W. A. Lynch; Vice-President, F. J. Giebel, Jr.; Committee- man, C. X. Schlaudecker. ■.«■■,,« Fort Wayne— Chairman, John T. Meig; Vice-President, James Murdock; Com- mitteeman, J. Ewing. . Vincennes— Chairman, John Breen; Vice-President, Charles A. Kolby; Committee- man, H. Canthorn. Alton— Chairman, J. J. Mclnerney; Vice-President, Anton Binkert; Committee- man, Charles F. Degenhardt. . Portland, Maine— Chairman, M. R. Harngan; Vice-President, D. J. Calahan; Com- mitteeman, T. F. Donahoe. Philadelphia— Vice-President, William F. Harrity; Committee on Resolutions, JYLar- tinMalony; Committee on Organization, Charles St Claire. New York— Chairman, John D. Crimmins; Vice-President, John B. Manning; Com- mitteeman, Victor B. Dowling. Wol ,, Ogdensburg— Chairman, John B. Riley; Vice-President, Very Rev. T. E. Walsh; Committeeman, E. Villers. . . Nashville— Chairman, William Hogan; Vice-President, Martin Kelly; Committee- man, Louis Kittman. ,-,•,!• /-I i-J- Denver— Chairman, E. L. Johnson; Vice-President, A. G. Gilhs; Committeeman, T\ ^ TVTorpison ' Mobile-Chairman, Daniel S. Troy; Vice-President, Felix McGill; Committeeman, am La Crosse— Chairman, J. J. Cavanaugh; Vice-President, Joseph Boshert; Com- mitteeman, Dr. Edward Evans. ttt tt ... Brooklyn— Chairman, John McCarty; Vice-President, W. Hynes; Committeeman, t> t VnrV ' Lincoln— Chairman, J. J. Butler; Vice-President, F. J. Redamacher; Committeeman, AUg Little n Rock— Chairman, Judge Murphy; Vice-President, John M. Gracie; Com- ^ tt S^flS^Ch2Sn f John Risse; Vice-President, Edward Carroll; Committee- maU U^Zfi-ChSvman, Peter A. Mahon; Vice-President, James Monaghan; Com- mit ^oVd^ffiSj. J-Phelan; Vice-President, P. Harvan; Committeeman, C. T ' ^afveston-Chairman, W. L. Foley; Vice-President, Joseph Engelke; Committee- ^^r^Cnairmln; Major J. B. Reid; Vice-President, James R. Burns; Committee- man Chic^go-Chairman, Charles Mair; Vice-President, General George Smith; Com- mlt D^t^Xwa- Chairman, Fred B. Sharon; Vice-President, J. M. Galvin; Com- ^ZqueiSman, P. H. Donlin; Vice-President, Thomas Connolly; Committee- "'VoncorS-Chalrman, W. R. Geis; Vice-President, Charles L. Schwartz; Commit- te ^lu^S B !owJl-Chairman > Luke G.Byrne; Vice-President, John A.Kuster; Com- mitteeman, John C. Finerman. 42 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. Salt Lake City— Dominick McGuire. Idaho— Chairman, Christopher Fahy; Vice-President, James F. Kane. Milwaukee— Chairman, John Black; Vice-President, P. V. Druster; Committeeman, Wheeling— Chairman, Thomas Killeen; Vice-President, Charles A. Wingerter; Com- mitteeman, W. S. Foose. Indian Territory— Rev. D. I. Lanslots. Arizona Chairman, D. J. Brannen; Committeeman. M. J. Riordan. Wilmington— Chairman, William Michael Byrne; Vice-President, J. Smith Brennan; Committeeman, Peter A. Harty. St. Joseph— Chairman, Francis Browne; Vice-President, Thomas F. Ryan; Com- mitteeman, James Hogan. . Syracuse— Chairman, Rev. Father Mullaney; Vice-President, Francis Baumer. San Antonio, Texas — Chairman, J. C. Diemlann; Vice-President, H. P. Drought; Committeeman, Edward Braden. St. Louis— Chairman, John J. Ganahl; Vice-President, Richard C. Kerns. Omaha— Chairman, Thomas H. Dailey; Vice-President, John McCreery; Commit- teeman, J. C. Kinster. Providence— Chairman, M. J. Harsen; Vice-President, M. Kelly, M.D.; Committee- man, T. E. Maloney. Cincinnati— Chairman, John Rull; Vice-President, J. H. Kohmescher; Committee- man, Joseph P. Kealy. Pittsburg— Chairman, C. F. McKenna; Vice-President, W. S. Head; Committeeman, T. J. Connor. Ways and Means Committee — D. F. Bremner, Chicago; John B. Manning, New York; James Murdock, Indiana; James Black, Wisconsin; Anthony Kelly, Minnesota; Thomas C. Lawler, Wisconsin; Martin Maloney, Philadelphia. Resolutions— T. A. Moran, Chicago; W. G. Smith, Philadelphia; O'Brien K- Atkinson, Michigan; Thomas J. Gargan, Boston; H. C. Semple, Alabama; Edgar H. Gans, Baltimore; C. A. Wingerter, Wheeling, W. Va.; Dr. J. A. Outherlong, Louisville; Victor J. Dowling, New York; Bishop Ryan, Buffalo, and Bishop Watterson of Columbus. BISHOP WATTERSON'S ADDRESS. It is not my purpose to do more this morning than to sound the keynote for the discussion of the social questions involved in the comprehensive programme of this Congress. That note is found in the encyclicals of our Holy Father, Leo XIII., and I am glad that his illustrious representative, the most reverend apostolic delegate, is here to bless and encourage the discussion by his distinguished presence. He is the precious hostage of the Sovereign Pontiff's love for America and the pledge of his fraternal solici- tude for our beloved country and its institutions. The Pope must teach the truth to the world, for the world has need of truth to live and prosper. The lives of Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, Gregory VII., Innocent III., Pius V., and Pius IX. illustrate the marvelous correspondence between the qualities of these men and the needs of their peculiar times. Our present great and glorious Pontiff, Leo XIII., continues this wonderful har- mony. He guards the truth, natural and revealed, in all its integrity, as did his glorious predecessors; and with exquisite tact and -providential kindness he draws from the treasury of truth the teachings suited to the present hour. In these times, when men are calling into question the very principles on which not only the Church but society itself — individuals, families, and states — depends, the special mission of Leo XIII. seems to be to strengthen the foundations of the whole social fabric. By his personal dignity and goodness, the practical wisdom of his teachings and the firmness of his acts, he is giving the world to understand that the Pope is a great thing in the world and for the world; and intellects heretofore rebellious are accustoming themselves to think that, if society is to be saved from a condition worse in some respects than that of pagan times, it is from the Vatican the savior is to come. Truth is the generous blood which, cours- ing through the social body, gives it light and energy, health and beauty, unto all the ends for which it was established by the providence of God. Wherever truth is aban- doned or disregarded, society must suffer, and society is suffering to-day because, to a large extent, it has practically rejected the great fundamental principles of Christianity, and substituted mere material and selfish interests as the moving force in the life of individuals and nations. Behold, then, why Leo XIII. is recalling to the minds of men those great bed-rock truths, on which the health and life of nations and society depend — those truths that T I 'ORLD'S CO L UMBIAN CA THOLIC CONGRESSES. 4 3 -made firui men of conviction and steadfast principles, and through principle and con- viction, men of strong and sturdy natural and Christian character. It is such men that are always needed; it is such men that are specially needed to-day. Vigorous in all the fullness of harmoniously developed powers, devoted to higher than mere natural ends, alive to their duties as well as their rights, and ennobled by the love and faithful prac- tice of those great principles of natural and Christian ethics which must underlie any safe system of social and political economy. Leo XIII., like many of his illustrious predecessors in similar conditions of society, is fulfilling his special mission by defending the cause of the people against the encroach- ments of avarice and injustice, espousing the interests of the masses against the ruthless Moloch of misused wealth and power, and showing the shallowness of the social theories and mere philosophisms of the day, while upholding at the same time the rights of legitimate authority. The rationalists, materialists, socialists, and other mere humani- tarians have been delivering natural reason itself to uncertainties the most poignant, the human heart to irregularities, and society to disorders, the inevitable consequence of a teaching without sound principles, and, therefore, without true morality. By awakening the love of strong and wholesome principles in the hearts of men capable of understand- ing, and inviting attention to the duties as well as the rights of men, in calling a return to those simple Christian truths on which society was reformed by our blessed Lord, Leo XIII. has been doing a grand work, not only for the present but for every future generation. There is not a question vital to modern society that he has not touched and solved in Jhis great encyclicals on human liberty, political power, the Christian constitu- tion of states, and the condition of labor. The whole world listens with respect to his grand words, which excite our appre- hension by revealing the mysteries of society and reassure us by pointing out their remedies. Brought into close and intimate relation with all conditions of mankind, he suggests the cure for the evils of our times and exhorts bishops, priests, and people, legislatures, and other departments of civil government to co-operate with him in the application of the remedies. He shows to-day what the history of the past can not but show to the sincere and candid student — that, as every single family, which is society in its germ, and every organized aggregate of families, called a state or nation, has its visible head for the preservation of union and the attainment of the ends of civil life, so, to promote order in society at large, the very unity of the human family supposes, under the providence of God, some visible and general authority superior to every other social power that will raise its voice, from pure and disinterested love of truth and justice, against the attacks of force and the encroachments of error and passion. He shows that the Papacy is this great necessity, this universal moral power in the world, the bond of union, and the principle of order in the human race, fixed by the hand of God in the midst of all society for the good of all society, revindicating, wherever its authority is recognized, the natural as well as the Christian dignity of man, and main- taining the rights and duties of individuals and nations in their integrity and just and -even balance Nor is the Catholic Church to be ignored in this great work. On the contrary, she is to be the most potent factor in reaching the consummation devoutly to be wished by all the lovers of their kind. And you, Catholic laymen and women, are to have an intelligent and active part in bringing about the improvement of the social system. You are to do it by your good example; you are to help it in various other ways. You are to spread the encyclicals of our Holy Father Leo XIII., not only among those of the household of Faith but also among your brethren outside the pale. You are to scatter them everywhere; you are to make them known to the people with whom you are brought into companionship in social and business life, and the seeds thus sown will bear speedy and happy fruitage. You are to organize Catholic workmen into associ- ations; and, whether it is better to band them into Catholic associations under Catholic direction, or to try to desecularize already existing associations and infuse into them more of the spirit of Christianity, is a question that I leave to the deliberations of this Congress. There is another thing that you all must take an active and interested part in. Intemperance is one of the great evils of society to-day. The annual drink bill of the United States is said to be $900,000,000, and it is incurred for the most part by the work- ing people. And let me say plainly here to-day that the very first encouragement of this work should be given by our bishops and our priests. For without their active interest and co-operation, nothing will be accomplished, even if you hold Catholic Congresses from now until the crack of doom. Modern philanthropists have been trying to work out a social combination by which 44 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. men are to league together everywhere and thus contribute to the general good of all humanity; but, well meaning as they may be, they must be blind not to recognize in the Catholic Church a society, ever ancient and ever new, independent and always devoted to the general good, true to the spirit of patriotism by which we love and serve our country, and show ourselves ready to devote our fortunes and our very lives to its defense, and answering in every point to the needs of universal peace and harmonious prosperity. While conceding to material progress an important share in the happiness of nations, she gives the world to understand that temporal prosperity is, after all, but a secondary element. She has developed the moral and religious nature in man by inspiring him with self-respect, charity for his brethren, reverence for the truth, love for the beautiful and the good, and a childlike submission to Almighty God and every authority that represents him here on earth. Such a doctrine does more for the solid happiness of society than all the efforts of mere political economists and humanitarian philosophers. Any plan that leaves out these things, be it otherwise ever so plausible for the improvement of society, will be but a temporary makeshift. Far from reaching the root of the evil, it will only postpone the social catastrophe that is threatening the world. In our own beloved country, one of the richest on the globe, evils are growing to an alarming extent. Class is arrayed against class, labor -gainst capital, and capital against labor. The spirit of uni-est and discontent is stirring the masses. There is a great and crying injustice somewhere. The true relation of rights and duties, extend- ing all through the complicated elements of society, is disregarded or not understood. The social machine has lost its equilibrium. How can it be restored? For my part knowing that whatever social improvement has taken place in the whole human race has been wrought out by the principles of true Christianity in its action on the human heart, I have little confidence in any other power. Civil legislation has done something, and it may do something yet, but only when in harmony with the Gospel of Christian love. Bring, then, from the religion of Christ, those saving lessons of divine wisdom and goodness with which it abounds. Infuse its spirit into the hearts of men until, by its sweet influence, it overmasters the avarice and selfishness that have made them obdu- rate and insensible. Teach the rich to love money less, and men more, individual em- ployers and corporations to look upon their employes not as soulless machines or mere material instruments of production and consumption, but to take reverend cognizance of their intellectual, moral, and religious natures; unite men into great trusts of mutual Christian love. Teach the poor that while inequalities of condition and class must exist, they are to be filled with the love of their fellowmen; they are to be sensible of their responsi- bilities, as well as their rights, and are not to regard wealth as a good in itself, but bear patiently the ills of life. And if all will learn the lesson in practice as well as in theory, Christianity shall again have occasion to exult in the triumph of her principles, and the world to exclaim, as in ancient days, " Behold how they love one another! " Evils will be remedied to a great extent, and society will bear again moral and religious fruits, and upon this triumph of the future, Leo XIII. will have his powerful influence. Just as Bishop Watterson had finished his noble address the Most Rev. Apostolic Delegate, Mgr. Satolli, entered the hall, accompanied by His Grace the Archbishop of St. Paul. He was received with vociferous and prolonged cheering, in response to which the eminent prelate addressed the Congress in the Italian tongue, his remarks being thus interpreted immediately follow- ing, by Archbishop Ireland : MGR. SATOLLl's ADDRESS. I beg leave to repeat, in unmusical tones, a few of the thoughts that his excellency, the Most Reverend Apostolic Delegate, has presented to you in his own beautiful and musical Italian language. The Delegate expresses his great delight to be, this morning, in the presence of the Catholic Columbian Congress. He begs leave to offer you the salutation of the great Pontiff, Leo XIII. In the name of Leo he salutes the spiritual children of the Church on this American Continent; in the name of Leo he salutes the great American Republic herself. It is, he says, a magnificent spectacle to see laymen, priests, and bishops assem- bled here together to discuss the vital social problems which the modern conditions of humanity bring up before us. The advocates of error have their congresses, why should ARCHBISHOP RIORDAN, SAN FRANCISCO. ARCHBISHOP KATZER, MILWAUKEE. ARCHBISHOP SATOLLI, WASHINGTON. ARCHBISHOP HENNESSY, DUBUQUE, ARCHBISHOP JANSSEN, NEW ORLEANS WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 45 not the friends and advocates of truth have their congresses? This Congress assembled here to-day will, no doubt, be productive of rich and magnificent results. You have met to show that the Church, while opening to men the treasures of heaven, offers also felicity on earth. As St. Paul has said: "She is made for earth and heaven; she is the promise of the future life and the life that is." All congresses are, so to speak, concen- trations of great forces. Your object is to consider the social forces that God has pro- vided, and to apply, as far as you can, to the special circumstances of your own time and country these great principles. The great social forces are thought, will, and action. In a congress you bring before you these three great forces. Thought finds its food in truth; so in all that you do, in all the practical conclusions that you formulate, you must bear in mind that they must all rest upon the eternal principles of truth. Will is the rectitude of the human heart, and until the human heart is voluntarily subjected to truth and virtue, all social reforms are impossible. Then comes action, which aims at the acquisition of the good needed for the satisfaction of mankind; and this again must be regulated by truth in thought and by virtue in the human will. The well-being of society consists in the perfect order of the different elements toward the great scope of society. Order is the system of the different relations of the different elements, one to the other, and these relations to which men are subject are summarized in three words — God, man, and nature. Man has first of all his great duties to God, which never must be forgotten. He then has his duties to himself and to his fellowmen; and, finally, he has relations with the great world of nature over which his action is exercised. From the several con- siderations of these different relations spring up the great problems which at all times have vexed man's mind — the great problems which to-day are before us in view of the different evolutions, social and otherwise, which mark our modern needs. Your Social Congress has convened to-day. Bear in mind that there was a first great Social Con- gress, which is to be the model of yours, which gave out the principles which must underlie your deliberations. The great Social Congress, the ideal and -model of all others, was held when Christ, surrounded by the thousands of the children of Israel, delivered his great discourse on the mountain. There the solution was given to human problems; there were laid down the vital principles. " Seek first the kingdom of God and its justice and all other things shall be added unto you," says the good book. " Seek first the kingdom of God." Look up to the divinity without which man is absolutely at sea. Fill out first your duties to God, without the observance of which other duties are a name. Seek God's justice in your relations one with another. Be guided by the eternal law of the Most High, and then all things shall be added unto you. Know God's truth and live by God's justice, and the peace and the felicity of earth shall be yours. The same great voice said, " Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are they who thirst after justice; blessed are the merciful." Men should not devote their whole being and all their energies to the seeking out of mere matter. " Blessed are the poor in spirit " — that is free and independent of the shackles of mere matter. " Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after justice "— justice first before self-satisfaction, before all attention to one's personal wants. And " blessed are the merciful." Blessed are they who know and feel that they don't live for themselves, whose hearts go out in sweetest mercy to all their fellows. History has proven that human reason alone does not solve the great social problems. These problems were spoken of in the pre-Christian times, and Aristotle and Plato discussed them. But pre-Christian times gave us a world of slavery when a multitude lived only for the benefit of the few. There is authority throughout the story of man of a divine providential design. Blind is he who sees it not, and he who studies it not courts disaster. It was when Christ brought down upon earth the great truths from the bosom of his Father, that humanity Was lifted up and entered upon a new road to happiness and felicity. Christ brought to nature the additional gift of the supernatural. Both are needed, and he who would have one without the other fails. The supernatural comes not to destroy or eliminate the natural, but to purify it, to elevate it, to build it up, and hence, since the coming of Christ, science, art, philosophy, social economy, all studies partake of the natural as well as the supernatural — the natural coming from man's own thoughts and man's own actions, and the supernatural pouring down upon those thoughts and actions direction, richness, and grace. To-day it is the duty of Catholics to bring into the world the fullness of super- natural truth and supernatural life. This is especially the duty of a Catholic 46 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. Congress. There are nations who are never separated from the Church, but which have neglected often to apply in full degree the lessons of the gospel. There are nation's who have gone out from the Church, bringing with them many of her treas- ures, and because of what they have brought yet show virgin light; but, cut from the source, unless that source is brought into close contact with them, there is danger for them. Bring them in contact with these divine forces by your action and your teachings. Bring your fellow-countrymen back; bring your country into immediate connection with the great source of truth and light, and the blessed influence of Christ and Christ's Church. And in this manner shall it come to pass that the words of the psalmist shall be fulfilled: " Mercy and justice have you one with another; justice and peace prevail." Let us restore among men justice and charity. Let us teach men to be prompt ever to make sacrifice of self for the common good. This is the foundation of all social elevating movements; it is the foundation of your own Congress. Now, all these great principles have been marked out in the most luminous lines in the encyclicals of the great Pontiff, Leo XIII. We then study those encyclicals; hold fast to them as the safest anchorage. The social questions are being studied the world over. It is well they should be studied in America, for here do we have more than elsewhere the keys to the future. Here in America you have a country blessed specially by Providence, in the fertility of its fields and the liberty of its institutions. Here you have a country which will pay back all efforts, not merely tenfold, but a hundredfold; and this no one understands better than the immortal Leo, and he charges his Delegate to speak out to America words of hope and blessing. Then, in conclusion, the Delegate begs of you American Catholics to be fully loyal to your great mission and the duties which your circumstances impose upon you. Here are golden words spoken by the Delegate in concluding his discourse: "Go forward! in one hand bearing the Book of Christian truth and in the other the Constitution of the. United States." Christian truth and American liberty will make you free, happy, and prosperous. They will put you on the road to progress. May your steps ever persevere on that road. Again he salutes you with all his heart. Again he expresses his delight to be with you, and again speaks forth to you in strongest and sweetest tones the love of your Holy Father, Leo XIII. A pleasing incident of this session was an invitation extended to the col- ored Catholics, who had begun holding their meetings in one of the lesser halls, to come in and participate in the general Congress. An original and philosophical presentation of the current topic was then made by Hon. E. O. Browne of Chicago, in the following terms: LABOR AND CAPITAL. In common speech, as in the scheme for this Congress, labor and capital are used as contra-distinguished terms — things set off against each other — the rights of the one and the duties of the other being the matters especially to be insisted on, and reconciled, if reconciliation may in any way be between things assumed thus to be so antagonistic and engaged in such an irreconcilable conflict. That there is such a conflict in appear- ance, is as evident as it is in appearance that the sun circles about the earth. But I hold it to be no more a real phenomenon of our social life and organization than the motion of the sun is of the natural world. It is because I utterly dispute the thesis that capital and labor are antagonistic, that they have separate interests, that there are duties incumbent upon one which are not duties of the other, or rights belonging to the one which are not equally the rights of the other, that I have accepted the compliment conveyed to me by the request that I should read a paper at this Congress, provided that I could take for its text but one member of the announced subject of discussion. "The Rights of Labor," simply, is my thesis, and I hold that this includes both the rights and duties of capital, for capital is but crystallized, accumulated labor, having no possible interests, economically speaking, diverse from those of labor. In one view it is but a subdivision of labor; in another, but a tool which labor has itself fashioned by its own hands, which is used solely in its own hands, and which is entitled, therefore, in and by itself, to that protection and considera- tion only which its creator, owner, and user demands for it, as one of its valuable adjuncts and belongings. Briefly, my argument is to be that capitalist and laborer, economically speaking, are the same, entitled to one transcendent, all-important right, the right to liberty, and WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 47 subject to one controlling obligation or duty, so to use that liberty as not to violate the freedom of any other. Carried to their only possible, rational, and logical conclusion, I shall contend that these propositions load to the demonstration that the present lamentable condition of labor, or more properly and accurately speaking, of the laborer, is due not to encroachments, invasions, or injustice by capital or the capitalists, but by their common antagonist, monopoly and the monopolists, against whom it is indeed most necessary and wholesome that the rights of the laborer should be most strenuously asserted and defended. Not too loudly can the note of alarm be struck, nor the call to arms sounded. To sustain my argument I need first to state clearly the sense in which I use, and as I submit accurately, use, the terms with which I am dealing. What is labor, what is capital, what is monopoly? To define labor in economics is easy. It is the employment of energy, physical or mental, toward the production of wealth in the largest sense — of goods, of those things, that is, which make for the health, comfort, instruction, and pleasure of men. But the words " production of wealth " are to be taken in no narrow sense. All will admit doubtless that wealth, for example, is as much produced by the excavation of a tunnel through the Alps, as in the rolling of the railroad iron which is laid through it after it is excavated, but the equally salient facts are not so well under- stood and plainly admitted, perhaps, that equally with him who fashions it, that man produces wealth who transports a thing from a place where it is not desired, or desired but slightly, to another where it is strongly desired, or who as a shopkeeper keeps it in store until the consumer at that point needs it. And it is even less apparent, perhaps, that the priest, the poet, or the minstrel, who by his exertion encourages and increases the potential energy of the manual laborer, is economically, under our description, a laborer, too. But these propositions are after all the commonplaces of political economy, and I must assume, not argue them, and ask you to think of labor in this large and comprehensive sense whenever I use the term in this paper. Of capital it is a less simple task to make a definition which may be denominated both accurate and economically orthodox. But this springs not from any inherent diffi- culty or vagueness in the conception, but solely from the loose, unprecise way in which writers on political economy, accounted orthodox, have used the word. But the general idea, which has always, although with more or less vagueness and want of precision, been attached to the word in economic discussion, and which may therefore be properly presumed to be the meaning which belongs to it in the scheme of subjects chosen for the consideration of this Congress, has been expressed by late economic writers with substantial accuracy as " Wealth in process of exchange." This, it will be seen, excludes what some political economists have inconsiderately included in the term capital — wealth reserved by its owner for consumption in his own physical and personal necessities — comforts and pleasures, and limits it to wealth used in the assistance of labor in the production of other wealth, in the course of which assistance to labor this wealth is changing form or use. For exchange in the sense in which it is here used does not mean the mere passing from hand to hand, but also such transmutations as occur when the reproductive forces of nature are utilized for the increase of wealth. It is not necessary to allude to the vulgar and absurd conception of capital as money, and of the capitalist as the man who has stores of currency, for there is no one here, I am sure, who does not realize that money itself is but a labor-saving tool of trade to facilitate exchange, useful in the highest degree, but not even indispensable to life, civilization, and forming in its aggregate amount but a very small and insignificant part of that stored-up result of labor properly called wealth. The capitalist is not the man who has money necessarily. He may have no considerable amount of it, and yet in other forms of wealth — useful in production — be rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Of course, under any usual or ordinary conditions, money being the commonest medium of exchange, this possession of exchangeable wealth will give him great power of obtain- ing quantities of money should he prefer, as he very seldom will do, to have his wealth in that p?-ticular form. But it may be necessary to call particular attention to the fact that this definition of capital excludes many things which are carelessly and incorrectly called capital which are not wealth at all, for wealth consists economically only of goods, good things adapted by the energy, mental or physical, of man to the use of man. It is, therefore, the result of labor applied to natural opportunities, or, as we call them generically, land. Labor and land, therefore, are the primary and only essential factors of the production of wealth, but a portion of the stored up wealth which labor applied to land has produced assists and increases the power of labor under the name of capital. But it is evident that there are powers and privileges belonging to certain classes in every existing social organization, which, although not capital and not wealth in any 34 4 S WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. sense whatever, give the persons and classes enjoying them the advantages which belong to capital and to the possession of true wealth. I am not here denying the necessity, the iustice or the propriety of the arrangements which give those powers and privileges, but merely calling attention to their existence. The people with these privileges and nowers have the ability to control the labor of others, and to obtain the use ot others capital upon terms dictated not by free contract, but in a greater or less degree by their own choice If you can for a moment eliminate from it any opprobrious signification, it would be most convenient to call this class in economic organization monopolists, as distinguished from laborers and capitalists, and, abstractly to speak, of labor, capital, and monopoly as three contradistinguished things. But it is to be borne in mind that monopoly is not like capital, the product of labor, at all. Wealth, of which capital is a part is the natural product of the combination of labor and land, the natural result ot the one applied to the other. Monopoly is the result of artificial, man-made conven- tions agreements, institutions, and laws. To it belong all such things as franchises or right's so-called guaranteed to some people by some social convention or institution which others are not allowed to enjoy or compete for, all patent privileges, by which a portion of the labor of others goes to the original inventor or designer of some product of labor and, infinitely more important than anything else falling under this classifica- tion the o-uaranteed exclusive possession of purely natural opportunities, or land, in the economic sense, by which must be understood to be meant land in the narrower sense, without consideration of improvements— water powers, air, harbor facilities, and the use of natural bodies of water of whatever form or nature. For such guaranteed exclusive possession makes of the class of land-owners necessarily a class of monopolists. The land is not the result of their labor, or of any other human being's. It does not fall under the accurate definition of wealth, much less of capital. But the right to its exclusive possession gives, and gives with more certainty than any other thing, the advantages of the possession of wealth and the means of procuring it by the control and utilization for one's self of the labor of others. As the oriental aphorism well puts it, " To whomsoever the soil at any time belongs, to him belong the fruits of it." White parasols and elephants made with pride are the flowers of a grant of land, or, as Carlyle has it, " From a widow gathering nettles for her children's dinner, the perfumed land -holding seigneur can by a subtle alchemy extract every third nettle and call it rent." I am not intending by this assertion of its charac- ter as monopoly to attack land-ownership, even in its present form, or under its present unrestrained and unlimited conditions. I have an abiding conviction that that form and those conditions ought to be changed, an unwavering faith that they must and soon will be so changed, but even the suggestion of this obligation and necessity I leave for the conclusion of my paper, while that in a changed and modified form such ownership as is involved in the private individual, guaranteed continuous and permanent posses- sion of land, is right, proper, and necessary, I propose distinctly hereafter to point out. But I wish to insist here upon the essential nature of land-ownership. If it be a proper and necessary monopoly, it is none the less monopoly, as we have used that word in con- tradistinction from labor and capital. . When James I. granted to Buckingham the exclusive privilege of making gold and silver thread and prohibited under severe penalties all manufacture of it save under Buckingham's license or control, the income which flowed into the favorite's coffers was not a return to capital,— it was the profit of monopoly, taken as a toll or tax from the labor and capital of others, enslaving the first and confiscating the second. And when the iron mine operator pays to the holder of the title of the land on which that mine was found, but who has had nothing to do with its development or its working, a royalty on each ton of ore taken from it, that income of the mine owner is equally with Buck- ingham's, simply the profit of monopoly, a tax or toll upon the production of laborers therein employed and the capital by which that labor is assisted. The one may have been iniquitous and unnecessary, the other praiseworthy and necessary, monopoly. Be that as it may, they are both monopolies. And now that I have endeavored to make clear the distinction between labor, capital, and monopoly, I wish to postpone suggestion of the rights of labor as against monopoly and to address myself to the immediate question: What are the rights of labor as against capital? Is not the answer obvious from the statement of their nature which has been made? The rights of a laborer against a capitalist (labor against capital is but a vague way of expressing this concrete idea) are his rights as against another laborer, no more and no less. They do not belong to contradistinguished classes at all. At the very utmost, assuming the natural opportunity on which labor can act to be freely obtainable, the WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 49 capitalist can be but the assistant of the laborer, who is willing to use the tools and assistance he offers for a part of the product of the more efficient labor which can thus be performed. Nothing has been more successfully disproved than the proposition that it is capital which employs labor. It is labor which employs capital as its tool. But we must keep in mind ever in considering this statement the distinction that has been made between capital and monopoly. Capital does not only employ labor, it is labor that employs capital. But monopoly does employ both labor and capital and at its own terms — in other words, in a sense it enslaves them. To return. I have said that at the utmost the capitalists can be nothing but the assistants of laborers, but as a matter of fact they are very largely the laborers them- selves. Not only are they clearly distinguished and antagonistic classes, they are not even separate classes at all. Every street laborer with his own pickax is a capitalist as well as a laborer, he can only be a laborer without being a capitalist if he is utterly without tools and is furnished them by others. And even then he may not be, for the capital which is used by labor as an assistance in all great works is generally, through the agency of a complex system of credits, a part of the wealth which the banks and various financial institutions^ a country concentrate, manage, and control, but are far from owning. That wealth is very largely the property of laborers of all sorts and kinds. Every workman who has a savings deposit, or a share of building company stock, is furnishing capital to assist labor and of course is a laborer as well as a capitalist. And who should be the capitalist but the laborer? There were in any primitive state of society but two factors in production, the laborer and the natural opportunities he worked on. Assuming the natural opportunities for work to be free, the laborers must have had all the results of production which are their natural wages. Nor under such a condi- tion of freedom of natural opportunities could a class of capitalists distinct from labor- ers ever grow up even, for while undoubtedly in time some more provident than others would store up more of the products of labor to assist their own labor in future produc- tion and to the others it would be worth, and they would bid for it, a portion of the product of their labor, as thus assisted by it, yet the opportunity and ability to labor being always existent, capital would no more than in the beginning of the community life be indispensable to the life or production of the laborer, and it could and would demand and receive no more than its value as a tool increasing the efficiency of his labor. In such a state of freedom for labor, we may well be sure that no such idea as that of a wage fund would take root, nor capital become concentrated in the hands of a small class. But if, by some man-made law, some institution or convention of society, be it praiseworthy or blameworthy, such a position of advantage is granted or guaran- teed to either capitalist or laborer, as places the other in a position where his freedom in the contract is gone — for example, if the social organization is so arranged that the capitalist can, with much greater ease than the laborer, become the monopolist, and either pass from the class which loans to labor its efficient tools to the one which con- trols the only opportunities for the use of either labor or tools, or, as generally happens, conjoin in his own person the two characters, there arises naturally, and at once, an apparent contest between the capitalist and laborer, such as at present exists. But it is not between the capitalist and the laborer as capitalist and laborer. It is between the monopolist and the man seeking an opportunity to labor. On the one side, theoretically, are the persons holding the natural opportunities on which alone labor is of any utility or effect, and who demand for the use of them as rent — toll, the profits of monopoly — as large a portion of the product of such labor as they can get. On the other are ranged together both capitalists and laborers, demanding only the chance to labor in and on those natural opportunities, but willing to give up for the use of them only the smallest part of the product of their labor for which they can obtain it. Natural opportunities, immense in quantity and number as they are, are limited by definite and measurable bounds, unlike the amount of capital (for the possibilities of the production of wealth are practically illimitable). Here the pinch begins. Here the contest must rage. The laborer may make such terms, and come to such agreement with the capitalist, or the capitalist with the laborer, as they may choose. By themselves they will be futile, for labor, with or without the tool called capital, can find no employment except by application to monopoly. On the other hand, if monopoly gives its permission, labor can make its own way and sustain itself without the assistance of capital at all. It need never do so, however, for whenever the ability and opportunity for profitable work exist in the same control, capital flows and asks investment as naturally as water rolls down hill. The correlative rights and duties of the laborer, then. I repeat, as against the cap- 5o WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. italist, and of the capitalist against the laborer are the same. They are the rights and duties, too, of each laborer as against every other laborer, and of each capitalist as against every other capitalist. The right is the right to liberty; that is, the right to one's own self, and the product of one's own labor, which involves entire freedom of contract. The duty is the duty of so using and limiting that liberty as to preserve the equal freedom of all others. Viewed from such a standpoint, of course the wrong theoretically involved in the intimidation of men willing and anxious to work, which frequently accompanies labor agitations and strikes, and the interference which then frequently takes place with their freedom of contract, becomes clear, and so, it seems to me, does the similar wrong which interferes with the freedom of contract in relation to the interest which the capitalist may ask for the use of the tool which he proffers to the laborer. It is not due to anything in the inherent relations of capital and labor at all, that these views of rights and wrongs are not universally recognized under present con- ditions. It is because these relations are complicated by the antagonism that I have indicated heretofore. Capital and labor on the one side must meet monopoly on the other. And because of the great ease with which the capitalist can become the mo- nopolist, or, perhaps, more properly speaking, the certainty with which the monopolist becomes also to some extent the capitalist, a general looseness and vagueness of think- ing has placed on the words " capitalist " and " capital " an economical and social meaning which belongs not to them, but to " monopolist " and " monopoly " alone. In a scheme like that of this Congress I would have named as the subject of dis- cussion not " The Rights of Labor and the Duties of Capital," but " The Rights of Labor and Capital and the Duties of Monopoly." Capital, as I have shown, is, after all, but a subdivision of labor, and the terms might well be shortened to the contradis- tinguished ones, labor and monopoly. It is to the maladjustment between these two that I believe the economic misery of the world to-day is due, that misery for which the Holy Father so truly says some remedy must be quickly found. This it is that calls so loudly for the vindication of the rights of labor. For what is the result of the pres- ent conditions? Are not the material wants and desires of men everywhere those which the physical resources of this wonderful earth on which we have been put are able on the expenditure of labor to supply? Are not those physical resources lying in great proportion unworked and idle all over the globe? We have but scratched the surface of the earth, the treasures of its deeps have been but barely uncovered. On the other hand, are the skill and industry wanting in mankind to develop those resources? Look about you at the great exhibition and reply. But notwithstanding the co-exist- ence of the wants, the resources, and the skill and industry, millions of willing men stand unemployed, while coal mines are unworked, and wheat fields unfilled, and women and children in our great cities die of cold and starvation. It has become fashionable in our day to deny the existence of natural human rights, to declare that civilization knows no general law but that of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, to hold that there is no remedy for human wretchedness but to limit population, that nature is niggardly and the economic problem lies in produc- tion and not in distribution. This is atheism, not Christianity. As men and women who believe in our holy religion which teaches the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man we can have none of it. For us God is no niggard and no bungler. He has not brought into the world more men than the world can abundantly supply with the means of a healthy, natural, developing life, nor men without the ability to turn these means to account. It is not the problem of production that confronts us, it is the problem of distribution, and our errors and mistakes in its solution must result from ignorance or denial of the law, in accordance with which he would have us act. I say that maladjustments of the relations of monopoly and labor are the cause of the economic misery of men. Let me give you, as it W3re, a glimpse of what I mean by a concrete example. Such an illustration sometimes lights up an argument better than explanation can do. In the coal-mining region of Pennsylvania the coal miners suffer much discomfort from the heat in the summer time. Ice is a comfort or luxury which their wages do not permit them to purchase. In the winter there are frequently seasons of enforced idleness for them. During one of these seasons some years ago, it occurred to some of them to cut and store for future use and the increase of their comfort during the coming summer, ice that formed in the numerous sink holes on the mining corporation's land, and which in all previous years had melted unutilized in the spring. The ice-cutting commenced, the telegraph bore from the resident agent to the company's offices in Philadelphia the news of it, and bore back again the laconic mes- sage: " Permit no ice to be cut except on payment of rent." Then the ice-cutting ceased, and the ice as usual melted in natural course. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 5* Do not misunderstand me. I have not said — I am not now saying— that monopoly and privilege are in themselves wrong. I assert, indeed, the very reverse. Some monopolies are necessary and as natural in the order of things as is the sunshine. Others, though not necessary, are undoubtedly expedient. The guaranteed private possession of land is of the former kind; patent rights and franchises examples of the second. But undeniable monopolies though they be, it is no wrong in itself to society that patentees' rights should exist. The inventors that profit by them have given a return to society in the new and useful ideas they have furnished to mankind. Nor is a franchise, a law granting to one man or a collection of men, privileges or rights withheld from others, necessarily a wrong. It and all other monopolies, however, become so whenever their beneficiary fails in that return to society which is a full and fair equivalent for the right of monop- oly which has been conferred upon him. • And it is so with the greatest of all monopolies, the right of individuals to the exclusive and guaranteed possession of the earth's surface. The monopoly of individual possession of land is as necessary to the civilized life of man as the existence of the natural opportunities themselves; civilization of necessity evolves it. Without it no people can rise above the grade of a pastoral tribe. And as continuity and permanency of tenure is necessary, and as land differs in desirability and the difference is constantly varying in amount, the law of rent arises. As stated by all political economists worthy the name, it is that the rent of land is determined by the excess of its produce over that which the same application can secure from the least productive land in use, or, to put it in another form, less liable to the misapprehension that it applies to agricultural land alone, " the ownership, i. e., the exclusive possession and control of a natural agent of production will give the power of appropriating so much of the wealth produced by the exertion of labor and capital upon it as exceeds the return which the same application of labor and capital would secure in the least productive occupation in which they freely engage." This law of rent is as fixed a factor in economic science as is the law of gravitation in physics. The exclusive possession and control is necessary, the power ol appropria- tion goes with it. What is the duty of the holder of the monopoly to the society which invests him with it? This is the question which confronts us, and which must be answered if the rights of labor and capital are to be protected, and the duties of mo- nopoly enforced, for it is clear that what goes to monopoly and is not returned to society in some adequate form and amount, is so much taken from labor and capital of the product of their exertions. * Economically, I believe that liberty, the right of each man in himself to the whole product of his labor, is the ideal to be reached, and that when the product of labor con- stitutes the wages of labor, as Adam Smith a century ago declared was natural, and not until then, will the so-called labor problem be solved. Centuries ago, before the begin- ning of this marvelous era, with its prodigious increase in the effectiveness of labor by the mastery which man has obtained over the powers of nature, this question of the duty of the " lords of the land " was one with which the Church had often to deal. Every element of the feudal system not formed by was influenced and modified by the Church, and in the feudal system, peculiar obligations, strenuously maintained, were imposed in, return for the privilege of receiving rent. Among them were the support of the civil list, the public defense, the cost of public worship and instruction, and the care of the sick and destitute. What other are the purposes of taxation to-day? Against the protest of a priest who told them that they were remitting to the proprie- tors a tax which was one of the conditions on w'.auh they held their land, and reimpos- ing it on the labor of the nation, the French Constituent Assembly, in 1789, abolished tithes and turned over the support of the clergy to general taxation. The Long Parliament in the abolition ot military tenures took from monopoly the burden of the consideration on which it held the common property of the nation, and saddled it on the people at large in the taxation of all consumers. Both actions were hailed, and doubtless intended by lovers of freedom, as steps in advance, but to those who think with me they were the most disastrous of mistakes. We think that if these feudal dues of monopoly were now in force, changed only in form for adaptation to the changed times, and if monopoly and privilege paid to the community which guarantees them existence, the due pecuniary reward or compensation justly and properly charge- able to them, all other taxation could be abolished, and that all which makes law insti- tuted monopoly and privilege, the enemy of labor and capital, would be thereby de- stroyed. Of the products of labor and capital there would be two parts, one going to the individual producers according to the part each had taken in the work of produc- tion, the other to the community as a whole, to be distributed in public benefits to all its members. 52 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. It is no part of my purpose to attempt in this paper, at this time, to sustain this practical proposition for the improvement in present social conditions. I have tried only to point out that the antagonism is not between labor and capi- tal, that it is between labor and monopoly, that the right of labor is liberty to enjoy the fruits of its exertion, that the problem is not to define the duties of capital, but of monopoly and privilege. How well I have succeeded it is for you to judge, but this I know, that nowhere is a fitter place to discuss the social problem and to find its solu- tion than in the societies of the Holy Church; nowhere are men more clearly called to the work than are the clergy and laity of his Church, who summed up his teachings in social philosophy in the sublime utterance, " Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them." A justice of the supreme court of the United States, in a remarkably inapt phrase, as it seems to me, addressing students of a law school in one of the great universities, spoke recently of the age-long struggle between " private rights and public greed." In a more truthful, and I hope a more truth-loving spirit, I suggest to you that " the rights of labor, the duties of monopoly " are involved in the age-long struggle be- tween private greed and public rights. That in that great struggle the Catholic Church, which gave liberty to the slave, which emancipated woman, which has ever been the greatest of all bulwarks and de- fenders of human liberty, will give her countenance and aid to the oppressed and struggling masses, is certain. It is proven by her history. It is a part of her mission, To doubt it were impiety and heresy. A paper on the same theme, by another eminent member of the Chicago bar, John Gibbon, LL.D., was substantially as follows: THE LABOR PROBLEM. The unrest and discontent felt and heard in every line of social and industrial life are but the protests of a struggling humanity against hardships and oppressions which are the necessary outgrowth of the strained and abnormal conditions existing between labor and capital, — conditions which if not speedily remedied, may work the debase ment of the one, and the destruction of the other. The folly of labor is no more reprehensible for these conditions than the greed of capital. For years the tendency of the times has been toward the enslavement of the individual through the domina- tion of the masses on the one hand, and the monopoly of capital through trusts and combines on the other, and whoever imagines that there is in legislation or statecraft, a short cut by which the conditions wrought by both these causes may be reached, adjusted, harmonized, and remedied other than by mutual concessions based upon mutual interests is shortsighted, if not visionary. That legislation is beneficial, and sometimes necessary to compel the performance of duties which ought to be discharged voluntarily, I admit, but in respect to matters of a social and industrial nature, which are so largely dependent upon natural conditions, legislation may aid, but can not create them. That hardships and oppressions have existed for all time does not prove that they are a heritage of the human family. " And there shall be no poor nor beggar among you," is a divine command, while " the poor ye shall have always with you," is but the voice of prophecy. The former is the law proclaimed, the latter the result of its non- observance. Every man born into the world owes certain duties to society, and paramount to all others is the duty to support himself, and those naturally dependent upon him, and of equal importance in the scale of primary duties are obedience to law and respect for the rights of others. The performance of these primary obligations no man should be permitted to evade or ignore. In the proposals we advance, if we hope thereby to accomplish beneficial resuks, we must recognize the changes which are constantly occurring in natural conditions, for these changes necessarily affect the industrial life of the people. The conditions which existed fifty, or even twenty-five, years ago do not exist to-day. Fifty years ago the surplus labor of the country found employment in reclaiming and cultivating the waste lands of the fruitful West; but now nearly all the available lands have been appropriated, so that surplus labor no longer finds remunerative employment there, and the f^ream of immigration has ceased to flow toward the setting sun. Thirty years ago surplus labor found employment in the army, in the building of railways, in the improvement of rivers and harbors, and in many other enterprises which existed as a result of the war then being waged for national supremacy. These changes which are wrought by what may be termed natural causes only, serve to emphasize the ARCHBISHOP KAIN, ST. LOUIS. ARCHBISHOP WALSH, TORONTO. ARCHBISHOP ELDER, CINCINNATI. CARDINAL TASCHEREAU, QUEBEC. ARCHBISHOP WILLIAMS, BOSTON. ARCHBISHOP GROSS, OREGO . ARCHBISHOP KENDRICK, S" LOU'S. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 53 fact that in the field of labor, as in the whole domain of industry, supply and demand must ever be controlling factors, and the economist who ignores this fundamental truth in seeking a wise solution of the all-important problem now agitating the public is a dreamer or a demagogue. Whatever speculations or theories we may advance or proclaim it should be con- ceded that unless labor is reduced to a condition of servitude, the amount of wages to be paid and the amount of work to be done at a certain price must always remain the objects of free and open bargain. Under such circumstances, the connection between employer and employed has the advantage of a voluntary association, in which each party is conscious of benefit, and each feels that his own welfare depends, to a great extent, on the welfare of the other. But the instant wages ceases to be a bargain, the instant the laborer is paid— not according to his value, but to an established scale; both employer and employed are no longer free agents, and all the incentives to mutual advantages are taken away, and the kindness which naturally arises from a voluntary association, as well as the mutual benefits, is wanting. ' It must also be conceded that trades unions and associations of that nature, when properly conducted, are designed to do much good. They will prove beneficial in edu- cating the workmen, in inviting discussion respecting proposals advanced looking to the elevation of labor — beneficial in assisting members to obtain employment, beneficial in bringing before the public their wants and molding public opinion in favor of granting them — beneficial from a political point of view, because by united action they may obtain legislation which as individuals they could not secure. But when they go beyond these objects, as they sometimes do, the state, rather than the trades unions, is to blame in not making adequate provision for the adjustment of differences which inev- itably grow out of the relation of capital to labor. In every other department of life the differences which emanate from contractual relations are regulated by common or statute law, and why should the conflicts arising between labor and capital be left to the will or caprice of the haughty capitalist on the one hand, or the aggrieved laborer, on the other ? ' The right to enjoy life and to strive in the pursuit of happiness may be classed among the absolute rights $>f man. The right to sustain life in case of necessity — the right of a starving man to a portion of his neighbor's food — is paramount to all human enact- ments. But the right to live, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, does not mean merely the right to exist. The man who tills the soil, the man who forges the iron, the man who pushes the plane, ought to be afforded the opportunity of providing for himself food, raiment, and shelter. Moreover, as the family is ordained of God, and the basis of all human society, the head of the family is not only entitled to all these things for him- self but for his wife, children, and all those of his household. Hence when a powerful manufacturer draws around him a community of men, women and children, his duty toward them is not fully discharged by the mere payment of wages. The conditions which he has created impose upon him corresponding duties, and it is no answer to the neglect or refusal to perform them to say that they are not imposed by the law of the land, or that they do not grow out of any compact or agreement with the community thus organized. This moral duty has been given practical effect, with excellent results, at Essen and Altendorf, Germany. For example, the number of men employed by the Krupps is 25,200, who, with their families, amount to 87,900 people. The corporation builds and rents all dwellings for its workmen, provides co-operative stores, and boarding accommo- dations for unmarried men, and attends to the prevention of sickness by careful sanitary regulations. The death rate is smaller than any other community in Europe. The lives of the employes are required to be insured, and in addition Mr. Krupp provides pension and relief funds for the injured and bereaved. He also provides schools for the children of his employes, and churches for the religious training of all connected with his estab- lishment. The Krupps have been able, through their social work, to center so fully the interests of their employes in the neighborhood in which they live, and so to unite them with the interests of the firm, that their men have exhibited less desire to change employment and have been less affected by labor disturbances than in any other parts of the country. Co-operation and profit-sharing have been conducted with satisfactory results in many lines of industry both here and in Europe, and from the harmony existing in these com- munities between employer and the employed, it is safe to conclude that the vexed labor problem may be solved through mutual concessions based on mutual advantages.^ The idea of master and servant grows out of the domestic relations, and while it may be less culpable for a man to neglect providing for the support and comfort of his serv- 54 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. ants than it would his wife and children, still it is a crime against the natural and divine law for him to do so. Whoever neglects this moral duty in the one rase is amenable to the law of the land, and why not extend that law to include tln.se who dis- regard it in the other? My contention is that what has been accomplished by voluntary action, and as a moral obligation on the part of humane employers, might be enforced as a legal duty in respect to those who regard their workmen as merchantable commodities. In the abstract it is perceived that everyone has a natural right to use and enjoy his property in such manner as he pleases, and if an employer of labor it is his privilege to employ whom he will, at the best prices he may; but abstract principles and natural rights are subordinate to the laws of human necessities and the well-being of the people. The absolute right of man to the enjoyment of his own property exists only in a state of nature where no relative rights intervene and so long as he is able to defend his pos- session. But as soon as society is organized and the individual becomes dependent upon the community for all the rights and privileges which he enjoys, corresponding duties arise, which grow out of the compact and are binding upon him whether he wills it or not, and whether defined by law or stipulated by contract. Justice to labor does not imperil or impair capital. The stability and progress of a country must depend upon the character of the industrial classes, and whether the standing of the working population is to be debased or elevated must depend upon the relation they sustain to the common conditions of their country. Ownership of property is the true status of liberty, and as the idea of home is the initial point arountl which clusters every ennobling virtue, it should be the duty of corporations and individuals who establish industrial centers and manufacturing communities to provide homes for men and families engaged in their employment. All honor is due to the noble, chari- table, and humane men and women who devote their time and contribute their means for the care, nourishment, and comfort of children whose mothers are forced to toil for bread, but there should be no occasion for the infants' corral or the robust man's alms- house in well -governed communities. Their existence belies social progress and is repugnant to the plan of a wisely governed state. The highway of nations is strewn with the ruins of the democracies of the past. Their decline and fall can be truthfully ascribed to the defect in their policy, which, while recognizing and protecting political equality, failed to provide for an equality of conditions such as would have prevented the conflicts between the rich and the poor, conflicts which grow into the revolution that results in despotism. The struggle between the rich and the poor, between those who own property and those without property, is now more general, if net more alarming, than ever before in the history of the world. This struggle must increase in scope and intensity until in our political economy man is acknowledged to be superior to wealth, and, as a consequence, that the rights of the many are paramount to the privileges of the few. Then will follow the complete emancipation of labor from the practical ownership which now holds it in bondage, and unto it will be given an equitable portion of the wealth it produces in alliance with capital. So far as my observation goes, I am led to believe that the conflicts between employer and employed rind their origin in the false relations existing between the people and the land, and between labor and capital; and until we unite labor and capi- tal in a closer union based upon a more equitable division of profits, and effect a more general distribution of the land among the subordinate holders of power, these evils will be intensified even unto the utter destruction of our democracy. Next to the right of life and liberty there is nothing so sacred to an American as the right of property; and in our efforts to rectify the wrongs of labor and to bring about a more equitable division of the land among the people, they must be accom plished not by subversion of justice, not by invasion of right, not by destruction of tenures, not by forfeiture of titles, not by community of property, not by single tax upon land, not by shackling individual exertion, not by blasting personal ambition, not by turning the hands of progress back upon the dial of time, not by overthrowing estab- lished institutions which have been replenished, fostered, and fortified by the worth and wisdom of the best thinkers and purest men of all the ages that have gone before, but by marching onward and upward along the lines of duty and law, using the materials at our command to improve the condition of men as we find them. It may be that there shall come no time, indeed, when there will not be, in lament- able contrast, poverty and wealth, suffering and affluence, misery and luxury. It may be that there shall come no day which will not see one class of men with only the labor of their hands to sell and another whose business it is to buy this primal commodity; and that the one shall endeavor to market his only ware at the highest obtainable WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. , 55 price, and the instinct of greed compel the other to buy as cheaply as he can. But I believe that there shall be, in time to come, a vast improvement in the aggregate com- fort and independence of the laboring class, between the power of money in that coming day and its influence in the present. Another epoch, as I believe, will turn away in horror from the pestilential tenement houses and the hordes of hungry and homeless ones of the 19th century. The troubles and dangers that confront us as a nation must be met and conquered within our own borders. There is no other possible escape. Emigration has been the safety and salvation of Eastern lands. There can be no emigration from America. This is the Mecca of the human race, the final resting-place of restless humanity. Earth's imperial people have ever moved westward as if impelled by a resistless power divine, and parallel with their migrations civilization and sovereignty moved. The world's sceptre has made the circuit of the earth. First raised and wielded in Egypt, it passed to Greece, from Greece to Rome, from Rome to France, from France to England, and from England it is passing unto America, here to remain, for the Orient is just beyond us — the land where it first arose. By the logic of causes, that knows no change, the solution of the problem — mighty and grave — that confronts us as a peoplo must be reached through agencies of our own, and that solution not only involves the life of the nation, but comprehends the future of the world. An eloquent and instructive review was that of the Paulist Father, Rev. Walter Elliott, on the " Missionary Work of the Church in the United States." It ran as follows: FATHER ELLIOTT ON CATHOLIC MISSIONARY WORK. He stands erect and has a far outlook whose feet rest upon the mountain of the Lord. The ages move in review, the nations march past; his outlook is universal. The outlook in the United States is many millions of independent men and women whose characteristics are liberty and intelligence. Their eternal destiny and the means of arriving at it are eagerly discussed, but amid a bewildering conflict of opinions. This most modern of nations yet holds to a vague idea of Christ as the world's redeemer, of the Bible as God's book; for the rest, the only common creed is progress, human dignity, and the destiny of the great Republic. Any claimant for a hearing in religious matters must before all else be able to square his fundamental principles with these beliefs. Catholics are mingled among this people in the proportion of about one to six, and are the only perfectly organized body of Christians. These are also distinguished by liberty and intelligence, though fully half are new-comers or their children. They are endowed with an absolutely certain knowledge of man's eternal destiny as well as of all the means of arriving at it, and are masters of the most renowned of intellectual forces — the faith of the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church. The problem is how to place this virtue of Catholic faith in a missionary attitude and secure it a hearing; how to turn all the organic and personal force of Catholic faith into apostolic zeal for the eternal salvation of the entire nation. As a matter of fact, we are only beginning to act as if we felt that our fellow-citi- zens were our brethren in sore need of the truth of God. We have as yet failed, as a body, to take the entire American nation into account in a religious point of view, have not felt it a duty to proclaim to them that the certainty of Christ's truth is with us, that the pardon of sins is in the contrition, confession, and satisfaction of the sacrament of penance, that the union of their souls with God is in the communion of his Son's body and blood in the Eucharist — and the other necessary means of enlightenment and sanctitication. The problem is, how to induce Catholics to attempt the conversion of non -Catholics, and to realize that until they offer them the true religion there is a cloud upon their own title to it. God would have us missionaries to the American people. Does any Catholic dare to contradict that? If so, let us hear from him. Suppose that my neighbor's house and mine were separated by a dense wood, and that some morning I should wake to find a noble avenue cut through between us; what would such a miracle mean? That God willed me to make my neighbor my friend, to visit him familiarly, and to love him. God has done more than this with Catholics and non-Catholics in America, and by community of all that is good in civil and industrial life, by close social ties and personal friendships, has opened our hearts mutually to each other. Let us be friends in the truest sense of the term, the religious. The dense and tangled forest of prejudice has already been pierced. That vice of 56 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. honest minds is now chiefly to be found among the more ignorant. Few converts but will tell you that their first step was surprise that Catholics had been falsely accused. There are men and women all round us who have but to learn just what we are as a religious body, to be led on to conversion; they already know that we have been basely calumniated. In the better class of minds we shall have to contend mainly with such difficulties as lie in the way of all supernatural religion — timidity, dread of the mysteri- ous or a false view of reason's prerogatives, unwillingness to submit to the unchangeable truth. And in a multitude of other cases men and women fail to become Catholics only for the same reason that many of our own people refuse to be good Catholics — worldli- ness, sensuality, fastidious objection to our vulgar crowds, family pride, human respect. St. Paul's example shows how to deal with these: " And as he reasoned of temperance, and righteousness, and judgment to come, Felix trembled." If even that wretched bribe-taker trembled, our honest fellow-citizens will do more. Let us but manage to bring to bear a patient and intelligent exposition of what our religion actually does for us in our inner and outer life, and then a realization of the need of salvation, the short- ness of life, and the rigors of the judgment will do the rest. There can be but one excuse for a Catholic, especially one of intelligence, and above all a priest, not addressing our erring brethren: that they can not be induced to listen to him. And who has ever fairly sought a hearing and been denied it? How many instances are there where men of no peculiar gifts have filled their churches, and even public halls, with audiences full of Protestants, giving respectful attention to Catholic truth. The trouble is not want of audiences, but want of men and methods persistently to follow up the work. The collapse of dogmatic Protestantism is our opportunity. Denominations, and " creeds," and " schools," and " confessions " are going to pieces before our eyes. Great men built them, and little men can demolish them. This new nation can not but regard with disdain institutions hardly double its own short life, and yet utterly decrepit; can not but regard with awe an institution in whose life the great Republic could have gone through its career nearly a score of times. I tell you that the vigor of national youth must be amazed at the freshness of perennial religion, and must soon salute it as divine. The dogmas of older Protestantism are fading out of our people's minds, or are being thrust out. It is not against the religion of men's ancestors, but against each one's religion of yesterday, as unsteady in grasp as it is recent in acquisition, that we have to contend — we who speak for Him who is of yesterday, and to-day, and the same forever. Consider, then, how it is with our noble-hearted friends: in their case it is religion wandering here and there in search of a Church. How many earnest souls are about us, weary of doubtful teachings, glad to harken to, ay and to believe, anyone who promises them relief. See, too, and admire, how their religious instincts strive after organic life. As Calvinism dies, Christian Endeavor is born and counts a million members in a day — good works making little of faith, as at first faith made little of good works. See that while Methodism leaves the slums and is petrifying in lordly temples and in universities, the Salvation Army scours the gutters it has turned from with loathing. I tell you that the people around us are religious, that they long for God and are ready for those divine rules of the higher life called Catholicity. No form of belief faces civilized irreligion with half the courage of Catholicity. A vigorous man exults in the trial of his strength. It is incredible that an intelligent Catholic shall not command the attention of thoughtful minds on questions of such absorbing interest as — What becomes of our dead? — Can we communicate with them? —Can we get along without the Bible?— What think you of Christ, whose son is He? We have the truth on all such vital questions; Catholic truth is simple, accredits itself, and is in the highest degree commendatory of the Church as compared with the Prot- estant denominations Onlymake a parallel of Catholic principles and American fundamental ideas on human dignity, and you will perceive that we are up to the times and kindred to the nation. There can be little doubt that this Republic shall be made Catholic if we love its people as God would have us. We are right, and we can prove it. How very much that means. It is God's will with men that those who are right shall know how to prove it, and those who are wrong shall be brought to listen to them. If all that we had to give were a right scheme of social amelioration, we should win the people, because we should be right; or if it were a true discovery of how to fully develop electrical forces, we should win the world of science and industry. But oh! it is the true religion of God about which we are right WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 57 —every man's sorest need, every man's sweetest joy. That is in our case the tremendous meaning of the claim, We are right, and we can prove it. The cruel fact is that dreamers of social reform work harder and succeed better than we who are the children of light, and they whose only end is money are the best models in our day of devoted and well-directed endeavor. Why, when it was to fly in the face of high Rome, tp be burned to death, to be devoured by wild beasts, countless thousands yearly rushed into the Church. And now it is to float into the heaven of peace and joy, it is to taste the sweetness of the Lord Jesus Christ without any persecution, it is to embrace a religion whose dogma of human dignity and equality— listen to Leo XIII. as he expounds it!— adds to American greatness the placit of higher Rome. I do not want to believe those prophets of ill-omen who tell us that we are shortly to find ourselves in the midst of a nation which has lost the knowledge of Jesus Christ as its redeemer, which knows no heaven or hell but the sorrows and joys of this fleeting life; but there is much to confirm that gloomy view. And what voice shall call them back from so dark a doom but the trumpet note of Catholic truth? Who should be foremost in print and on platform and in the intercourse of private life, pleading for Christ and offering his promises of eternal joy, if not Catholic bishops, priests, and laity? The first element of hope in any enterprise is that the right sort of men and women are- undertaking it. The sanctified soul makes the best missionary. Good men and women are the power of God unto salvation. The Bible is the Word of God, and it enlightens me; but a zealous Christian is another Christ to me. The union of men with truth is not union with books, or even ideas, but with God, and with each other; and that immediately. The diffusion of Catholics among non-Catholics makes a personal and independent tone of Catholicity necessary in any case, but it also distributes missionaries every- where, independent religious characters who can maintain the truth with the least possible external help. It is God's way. One by one men are born, become conscious of responsibility, die, are judged. One by one, and by personal influence, non-Catholics are made aware that they are wrong ; and then one, and again another, of their Catholic friends personally influences them to understand that Catholicity is right. Combined action can do much, but the supreme combination is that of virtue, and sympathetic interest in a single person. Family, social, business relations are made by Providence for this end; that they may become channels of heavenly influence. Councils have done much for religion, but men and women have done more, for they made the councils. There were great councils during the two hundred years before Trent, and with them, and between them, matters grew worse. Why did Trent succeed? — held amid wars, interrupted, almost disjointed. Because the right sort of men at last had come: popes, bishops, theologians. It was not new enactments that saved us but new men — Ignatius and Philip Neri, Teresa and Francis de Sales, and Vincent de Paul, and their like. The real force of life is personal, is soul upon soul, and must be our real missionary force. Catholics are, therefore, to be made missionary by personal qualities which shall attract their non-Catholic acquaintances — the American virtue of self-control, independ- ence of character, love of liberty and of intelligence, these must shine out with a Catholic lustre. To them must be added other natural virtues dear to our countrymen, such as truthfulness, candor, temperance, industry, fair dealing; these must find heroes and exemplars plentifully among us. All this is necessary to introduce the super- natural life, divine faith, and hope, and love; Catholic unity; confession and communion. "First the natural man and then the spiritual man," says the apostle. Give us fer- vent Catholics who are typical Americans, and brotherly love will do the rest. If non-Catholics are felt to be brethren by nationality, soon St. John's test will claim its application: " We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren." Interest in the advancement of God's kingdom must become a note of personal Catholicity. We must open our hearts to non-Catholics as to brothers and sisters; each of them who reaches the circle of our influence must feel our kindly interest in his religious state, if it be no more than sympathy with bis sincere belief in what is common to all. The men and women who are right will persuade those who are wrong, if they want to. Truth is mighty; but that means truth thrilling upon the lips of men and women, gleaming in their eyes, beautiful in their lives. We need not pray for orators; he that 5S WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. speaks f;om the heart is eloquent enough. If a man loves American souls because Christ died for them, he will win his way to save them. The personal use we make of the truth of God is a good test of our valuation of it. It is this way in the gift of the truth: if it is not worth sharing it is not worth keeping. A people not eager to share Catholicity with kindly neighbors and fellow-citizens are not likely to live up to it themselves; certainly they are not worthy to enjoy it, much less to transmit it to their children. The biographer of St. Philip Neri, speaking of the singular power and warmth of the saint's heart-beat, says that "when he knew anyone to be tempted, especially with sensual temptations, he would draw him tenderly to his breast, and so dispel the tempta- tion at once, and fill his soul with a sweet serenity and heavenly peace." Take your doubting non-Catholic friend to your heart, at least figuratively, and your words by their very tones of sympathy will dispel his errors. The following lines from Cardinal Newman, entitled " The Religion of Cain," and headed by the text " Am I my brother's keeper? " are instructive: The time has been, it seemed a precept plain Of the true Faith, Christ's tokens to display; And in life's commerce still the thought retain. That men have souls and wait a judgment day; Kings used their gifts as ministers of heaven, Nor stripped their zeal for God of means which God had given. 'Tis altered now; for Adam's eldest born Has trained our practice in a selfish rule- Each stands alone, Christ's bonds asunder torn; Each has his private thought, selects his school. Conceals his creed and lives in closest tie Of fellowship with those who count it blasphemy. Brothers! spare reasoning; men have settled long i hat ye are out of date and they are wise; Use their own weapons; let your words be strong, Your cry be loud, till each sacred boaster flies. Thus the Apostles tamed the pagan breast. They argued not but preached; and conscience did the rest. Religion can not exist in the soul without a principle of fecundity by which it demands to be communicated. Selfishness, besides being a vice, is a malady. It was the primary evil of Protestantism, and it has proved its ruin. The Bible is the com- mon heritage of God's children; the Reformers made it each man's private property; hence disunion and then doubt. And any Catholic who fancies that he can use his Faith as if it were his own exclusive property is in error, and is in danger of being decatholicized. The missionary spirit is needed for our own inner life, in order that racial, local, family influences may be restricted to their subordinate spheres. These tend to sup- plant the universal. Nothing tends to make a man universal, catholic, better than the noble virtue of zeal for souls. " Blessed is the man who hath found a new friend " i& perfectly true in its converse: blessed is the man who is true friend to another. It is easy to see, therefore, that a spirit of defense is riot the missionary spirit, but one of aggressive charity. The dread of defection, and the tendency to mournful exer- cises of reparation, indicate a tone of mind quite unmissionary. Catholic Faith is too often and too closely identified with religious traditions and practices brought from the- Old World, producing a narrow and suspicious disposition. The sensation of exile is injurious to the missionary vocation. " To the Greek and to the barbarian, to the wise and to the unwise, I am a debtor." To my mind our very dissensions, whether on matters of principle or of policy, are reason for encouragement, for they have shown an independence of conviction which yields to no human tribunal, and in bowing to a divine tribunal does so frankly and without cringing. Turn this independence of thought into missionary channels, and the results will be equal to our deep personal sincerity multiplied by the incalculable power of our divine organization. How to go to work is an easy problem, since we have a perfect organization which can utilize the resources of modern civilization. Let us but have the determined pur- pose — the men of action bent upon success — and the ways and means are the divine methods of the Church and the modern opportunities of the press, the platform, and the incessant intercommunication of all classes in America. American bishops, priests, and laity working together in an apostolic spirit will missionize the entire land in half a decade of years. The immediate effect will be to throw every form of error upon the defensive, to set every religiously disposed person to- WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 59 sorting out and dividing calumny from fact, to start a small and perceptible stream of conversions in every locality. It seems like a dream, but it is really a vision of the future, and the not distant future either. Having done nothing, we have many thou- sands of converts. What may we not hope from a universal apostolate? If what I have been saying is true, the practical suggestion which follows is that every diocese should have at least one or two priests who shall be exclusively missionary — I mean, of course, secular priests, and missionaries to non-Catholics. As the bishop has one of his more experienced clergy to do bishop's work as Vicar- General, one of the younger priests to do bishop's work as secretary, an expert to do bishop's legal work as chancellor, so should there be ope or two priests to do bishop's work as missionary to his " other sheep not of this fold," wholly devoted to arousing the consciences of non-Catholics. If there is an administrative need of help, and an epis- tolary and a legal need of help, so is there a missionary one. And this is the answer to the difficulty. " The bishop hasn't got priests enough to take care of the parishes." If this were absolutely true he would dismiss his secretary to a parish, recall the professors in the seminary to parishes; if he can not take care of the necessary routine and educational work of the diocese without sharing it with the priests, neither can he the apostolic work without a missionary. Or is it not to be deemed a necessary work? Did the Holy Ghost say only that bishops were to rule the Church of God committed to them? Who was it that said, " Go forth into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature? " Have this and kindred texts no meaning for the Church in America? The diocesan missionary should be the bishop's right arm, as the Roman Propa- ganda is the Pope's. What can a priest do in his parish? He can give courses of doctrinal sermons, inviting the presence of all thinking men and women through the press — or he can get his neighbors to do this in his church for him. He can act and look and speak as belonging to this people and nation, deeply in the common welfare. He is the appointed champion of religion and morality in his parish, and he should act accordingly. He should be the public foe of all vice. In him gambling, and saloon-keeping and saloon- going, bribe-taking, and oath-breaking, should find their bitterest antagonist. He should be the known advocate of every good cause of whatever kind — well known as the friend of all good men. "I became all things to all men that I might gain some" — a saying often quoted, little understood, and less practiced. All this is parochial duty anyway; but it is pertinent to our subject that such con- duct builds the Catholic priest a pulpit in every household in his town, and enables him to introduce the Catholic religion to men's notice under the most favorable circum- stances. The parish priest should watch the local papers, and defend and advocate the truths of religion, natural and revealed. He should carefully provide that Catholic journals come to each family, and see to the distribution of the printed truth gener- ally. And this opens to view one of the mightiest of apostolates — the Apostolate of the Press. In most places the secular press carefully excludes everything hostile to Catholic- ity, and opens its columns to communications from respectable Catholics, especially the clergy. Oh! why is not this golden and universal opportunity better utilized? There are multitudes of converts who were first drawn to us by a paragraph in the daily paper. A small band of laymen in the city of St. Paul put their heads together and then their limited means, and the Catholic Truth Society of America is the result, beginning a glorious propaganda of the printed truth. One man in New Orleans, Judge Frank McGloin, has devoted the recent years of his life to the same work, and with marvelous success. Faithful souls are to be found in every parish who ask, " What can we do to save our neighbors and friends? " The answer is the Apostolate of the Press. The Catholic weekly and monthly press has a limitless missionary field, and is daily seeing its way better to cultivate it. What gives much promise is that the Apostolate of Prayer is spreading everywhere. Many if not all the contemplative communities are engaged in it, and most heartily so. Men and women everywhere are being stirred by a secret thought — Let us pray for conversions. Those actively engaged say — Will they accept a book, leaflet, a Catholic magazine? If so, I leave to God the rest. Give me a non-Catholic audience, says the apostolical priest, and I leave to God the rest; it is God's will that I should seek a hearing from them. Prayer will do the rest. As a result of this apostolate of prayer, 6o WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. men and women will everywhere arise among us gifted from on high with a life mi I to impart the truth to their fellow-countrymen. You see, then, how to go about it. Not alone by spasmodic efforts of zeal (th even these are useful), not only by starting societies (though there is a wide field for all such, new and old), but each Catholic must have a missionary element in his personal belief and practice of religion. And the Church is herself essentially a missionary soci- ety, not excepting her ordinary form of diocese and parish. Utilize this divine mission- ary society to its full capacity, but above all encourage personal zeal. Let every parish have its stated courses of lectures and sermons for non-Catholics, and public prayers for their conversion, just as regular as the yearly Forty Hours' Devotions and the Lenten and Advent courses. Let there be a class of converts in all the larger parishes. Let every Catholic periodical have its convert's department. Let every diocese have at least one diocesan missionary. Let every family have its little library of doctrinal and controversial books and pamphlets, its Catholic paper and magazine; every man and woman their little list of non-Catholic friends for whom they are ever praying and ever asking prayers, to whom they are ever talking and ever lending books. Let the entire American Church face onward and move on, working and praying, toward the greatest victory of the Holy Spirit this thousand years — the conversion of the great Republic. Of course objections are heard. For example: Keep to your place. I dread lest you will precipitate a public controversy in my parish. You are taking on yourself the work of the bishops. Why don't the bishops do it? Why don't the priests take up the work? Why don't the laity do their part? It's dangerous to make experiments. Where's your eloquence? Where's your learning? * Have you ever made a course of philosophy? Don't be a crank, don't attempt the impossible. Don't be deluded by your study of early days — the Church is not what it once was. (That is to confess that it is now racial and not universal, no longer youthful, but old and stiff-jointed. Our Holy Mother, the Church, has passed the age of child-bearing.) Be safe. There s a line in the way. Where's the money to come from? Are you the dynamite that's going to blow up the Presbyterian religion, the Episcopal, the Baptist, the Methodist — or the big religion which says mind your own business? John Hughes failed, John England and Martin Spalding failed — are you impertinent enough to think you can succeed? Or other objections: They don't want you — they have no use for Catholicity. Establish my little sodality — that's the best thing to do. They are a rotten race and totally depraved; let's huddle ourselves and our little ones away from them, or they will contaminate us. They are as bad as outright apostates, nearly all in bad faith. A race that once has renounced the truth has never been known to return to it, etc. Yes. Appeals to cowardice. Appeals to race hatred, to sloth, to despair. Such croakings once had weight, but that day is passed. We everywhere behold signs of the opposite spirit. The diocese of Covington is given a farm, and the bishop sets it apart to support missionaries to non-Catholics. Another bishop has engaged a missionary to assemble and address non-Catholic audiences in public halls in the smaller towns of his diocese; and several other bishops would be glad to make the same arrangement. A zealous parish priest is inspired to pray for conversions, and from looking about him for company he prints a little prayer, and in less than a year more than a hundred thousand copies of it are asked for and distributed. For the colored non-Catholics there is a young society, the Josephites, small in number but full of courage and hope, and equipped with a college and seminary for the training of missionaries. Associated with them is a body of apostolic women, the Mission Helpers. " The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole earth," and " his gifts and calling are without repentance, " Multitudes among the surging crowds about us are now subject to a mysterious yearning toward the ancient religion of God, the ever-youthful Bride of the Lamb. One word from your heart, one glimpse of your shining altar, and the riddle of life is solved. All about us are minds darkened by passion, enslaved by lust, blinded by pride of wealth, in despair from poverty, sickness, disgrace; you have the cure upon your tongue if you have the love in your heart. They need the grace of God a thousand times more than you do. Will you not strive to give it to them? They suffer from the deep wounds of adversity, and have no such balm of con- solation as your good confession and happy communion. The toys of prosperity mislead them, for they have no such appreciation of the transitoriness of this life as the WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 6"i Catholic religion imparts. They are just beginning life, and you offer them not the chart and comfort of heavenly truth — you who read the heavens and who know the paths of the great deep. They are dying on the burning desert, and you will not cry out to them, Ho ye that thirst! come to the waters. How many of them look into human life and behold only vice and its writhing victims, and beyond this life only the blank of agnosticism; and you can people the air about them with many thousands of the angels, and the spirits of the just made perfect. Young men are there, buffeting the flames of sensuality, and the sacrament of penance with its unearthing of the secret demon, and its finding of the true friend— which of you will not tell them of it? It saved you in youth, will not you offer it to them? How can we enjoy the grace of God, and be conscious that we have done positively nothing for those who are perishing for lack of it? Come, then, Bishops of the Church of God! .open wide your eyes, and from your mountain-tops see the States of America white for the harvest. " And Jesus when he came out saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things." {Matt. vi. 34.) Come, ye priests of God, and join your voice with him who said: " And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also must I bring, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd." Come, ye men and women of the faithful laity, and join the glorious work of con- verting America; for the spirit of God is waiting to choose you all to be his messengers. " Sing unto the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord all the earth. Sing unto the Lord, bless his name, declare well his salvation from day to day, declare his glory among the nations, among all people his wonderful things." (Ps. 96.)- We may find no more fitting place for an admirable paper by George Par- sons Lathrop, the distinguished New England convert, on the " Conse- quences and Results of the Discovery of the New World." It ran as follows: GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP'S ADDRESS. To trace the consequences to religion, brought about by the discovery of America, would indeed be a long and laborious task. Those consequences, as I understand the term, were immediate influences on the human mind, and on human action. Under this head must be ranged the prodigious stir caused in Europe by the finding of another continent; the quickening of thought, the wider views it produced, and the fresh openings it made for worldly ambition or energy, as well as for piety, charity, and zeal. The greed or enterprise of monarchs and merchants, of explorers, soldiers, advent- urers, formed a part of the consequences that worked their effort at least on the out- ward history of religion. But what is more important is that the voyage of Columbus, prompted by an over-ruling desire to serve the cause of Christ — and aided in the same spirit by the benignant will of Isabella the Catholic — opened the channel for a new, a deep, and steady outpour of that apostolic zeal always inherent in the Church. Nature abhors a vacuum; and so does religion, which always rushes in to fill the void of heathen ignorance or agnostic misbelief. The Church in the Old World, there- fore, was thrilled and aroused by a desire to occupy and illuminate the whole of Amer- ica with Christian life and knowledge. This was a consequence of farthest reach; and afterward it branched out in many other directions. The work and the triumph of Columbus gave a powerful stimulus to further voyages, and to commerce with distant places, in all quarters of the globe. We may say that the great Admiral's flag, as it fluttered over the Atlantic solitudes, became a signal which, in the next two centuries, was answered by hundreds of pennants hovering in remote seas, and marking the bil- lowy paths pursued by countless missionaries. It is impossible, in a short paper like this, to discuss the first part of the subject with anything like fullness; and the question of results is that which will need most attention. Consequences are the rush of the torrent of deeds, as it cleaves its way. Results msj" be likened to the fixed course of the stream, after it has found its bed; together with the new beauties it has unfolded, the ruin it may have caused at certain points, or 62 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. the benefit which it confers, and the sparkling gold it sometimes brings to light. Con- sequence is motion, following from a first motion, a current of actions or events. Result is the fact which is established by the flowing of that current. Briefly, lesults are the summing up of consequences. Hence, it is chiefly with results that we have now to deal. But, first, let no one rest content or indifferent with imagining that this subject is "un-practical." I know it is often said of congresses, schools, or lectures, that, if they do not incessantly treat the hard, gritty, grubby facts which confront us all individually, in our business or professional careers and daily problems, they are not " practical." I fully believe in the value and necessity of the immediate, every-day, direct view of things, and of instruction adapted to it. But that is simply the limited " practical." There is an unlimited practical, which is far more comprehensive and just as necessary. And nothing can be more unlimited and comprehensive in its practicality than the his- tory and science of results. In the vast field at which we are glancing, the first effect to be observed is the reflex action of the discovery of America upon Europe; and then Ave have to note the gradual shaping of results in America itself. Spain's foothold in the Western hemisphere added immensely to her power among the nations — a fact which had much to do with later complications, political and religious. The jealousy which other European countries felt toward the peninsular empire, on account of this increased importance and control, arrayed some of them against it and also intensified the fervor with which they espoused the heresies of the " Reformation," since these were unrelentingly combated by Philip II. of Spain. Mot- ley, who has celebrated the Rise of the Dutch Republic and the story of the United Netherlands as a grand campaign of Protestantism in conflict with Catholicity, says : " The object of the war between the Netherlands and Spain was not, therefore, primarily, a rebellion against established authority, for the maintenance of civil rights. To pre- serve these rights was secondary. The first cause was religion. The provinces had been fighting for years against the Inquisition. Had they not taken arms, the Inqui- sition would have been established iu the Netherlands, and very probably in England, and England might have become in its turn a province of the Spanish Empire." This, to Motley, is a thought quite unbearable; and it is upon his repugnance to it that he bases his whole treatment of the Netherlands matter. It seems to me that in so doing he reads and writes history backward, from the present into the past, instead of forward and straight forward from the past to the present. He injects into it the coloring of his own idea or prejudice as to what might have happened, and turns his narrative into a partisan justification. Thus he becomes one-sided and takes the tone of an advocate, instead of tracing events and results impartially. But the passage just quoted from him shows well enough how — a hundred years after the American discov- ery — Europeans mixed a good deal of religion with their warfare and put a good deal of war into their religion. That mingling of the two will explain why some of the consequences of the discovery were not immediately or wholly favorable to religion pure and simple. Motley also tells us of the counsel given by one Roger Williams, a Welshman — not the Welsh Roger Williams of Rhode Island, so conspicuous in the 17th century, but an earlier though equally pugnacious Roger, who served England and the States General as a soldier of fortune in 1584 and thereabouts. He advised a combined attack by sea on the colonies of Spain. Such an attack the English and Dutch afterward made successfully. Here we have the first momentous example of the manner in which the New World affected the civil and religious situation of the Old, and was in turn involved and affected by it. At the same time single-minded Faith — apart from worldly considerations — had turned .many hearts in Europe toward America and kindled the eyes of holy men with the light of a vision. For the first time the sun seemed to rise in the West. The land of the Occident was now the Morning Land to Christian hopes. The period of crusades to the Orient to rescue the sepulcher of Christ had gone by; but the new, more peaceful crusade of the 16th century had for its object the rescue of souls in America from the sepulchral darkness of heathenism. A great breeze of apostolic zeal streamed in that direction. Nevertheless the earliest consequences and even some of the later results appeared, or at least might be fancied, discouraging to the cause of religion or inade- quate to its high standard. The first gold taken by Columbus to Europe was made into a chalice, which is now preserved in the Cathedral of Seville; and it could well have been hoped that all the other first-fruits of the New World would be equally dedicated to the service of God. But the first settlements planted on Hispaniola became — notwithstanding the aspiration j WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 63 of their founder, and the religious devotion connected with them — a scene of strife, moral disorder, injustice, and cruelty. Columbus, himself in one way the chief sufferer from these evils, also inflicted a great evil upon the original inhabitants, by sending home cargoes of tbem to be sold as slaves. And yet from this enslavement of the natives, destructive though it afterward was to them, arose Isabella's noble indignation at the traffic, and the first protest against human slavery in America, uttered by Father Anthony de Montesinos, in 1511. The San Domingan cities of Columbus crumbled; his colonies faded away, and have been overgrown by something little better than the wild weed of civilization. Still, the country he first occupied has never again become un-Christianized. And, on the other hand, as an example of the complete triumph of gentle religion, we have the mis- sion of Las Casas, afterward Bishop of Chiapa, in Mexico, who throughout his life successfully defended the Indians through slavery and oppression. Near Guatemala there was a province, Tuzulutlan, which the Spanish had invaded three times, suffering each time a bloody repulse. They called it " The Land of War," and did not dare approach it again. Las Casas offered to subdue it, but on condition that only spiritual weapons should be used, and that no Spanish colonist or soldier should be allowed to enter the territory for five years. This being agreed to, he penetrated with other Dominican fathers among the hostile dwellers there. In a few years they tranquilized and made Christians of the natives; and, in consequence of this, what had been so long " The Land of War " received from Charles V. the name which it bears to-day — that is Vera Paz, or " Land of Peace." Soon afterward Las Casas received the brief of Pope Paul III., which pronounced excommunication against all who should enslave or rob the Indians. In the next century we find the great Franciscan, St. Francis de Solano, the apos- tle of Peru, overcoming alone and unarmed a furious multitude of savage warriors who were about to attack his native neophytes; and, eventually, spreading the gospel among those dusky swarms. When he died, a hundred tribes, throughout a tract of two thou- sand miles, burned lamps day and night in his honor, and besought him as their advocate in heaven. Although Urban VIII. forbade public devotion to Francis Solano until the claims of the saint should be further examined, the Indians — although faithful and docile in everything else — refused, for the space of twenty years, to cease from their open veneration. Then, realizing at last that they were doing their beloved apostle no honor by opposing the command of the Vicar of Christ, they brought in and surrendered all their lamps, and waited nineteen years longer for the decree of Beatification. Thus, as Las Casas had taught the Indians of Tuzulutlan the lesson of peace and had impressed its name upon their very country, so the natives of Peru learned, through St. Francis Solano, the lesson of true obedience. Marvelous were the achievements of these and other missionaries, and wonderful was the fabric of spiritual culture which they reared among the peoples of Southern and Central America and Mexico. Many suffered martyrdom, and all would gladly and gratefully have accepted it, had it come to them. The thought of violent death in such a cause had no power to alarm or deter them; but the violence and crueltv of some among their nominal followers, Spanish adventurers and soldiers of the baser 6ort, toward the natives, must have been hard to meet and endure. This was a consequence detrimental, indeed, to religion; and reference to it has often been made by men of later generations, to show that because the name of religion was sullied by these unworthy hangers-on. therefore religion itself must be false or unworthy. But do we not find records of similar cruelties in New England, toward both the red and the white man, and in the injustice perpetrated upon North American Indians in this great country of ours, not by arbitrary and lawless invaders or soldier governors, but by the lawful authorities of a constitutional government, which makes a special claim of loving justice and of maintaining the freedom and equality of all men? The truth is that every age and every race has exhibited the same conjunction of the sordid and sublime. Evil seems to delight in settling down as the next-door neighbor of good. But, by the very contrast which the misdeeds of some of the Spanish invaders offer, the pure, unselfish course and the holy labor of monks and missioners glow with a luster all the more clear and brilliant. They counteracted even this drawback, and overcame every other obstacle by a power more than human. Instead of allowing the native races to be swept away by fire and sword, they saved them body and soul, and drew them gently into the fold of the One Shepherd. And there those races remain to-day. Some small portion of them are still unconverted; but a modern French naturalist, Alcide d'Orbigny, who personally visited thirty-nine nations of pure Ameri- can race in South America, and gathered accurate statistics concerning them, > ~>unA 35 64. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. that among all these nations or tribes there were only 94,000 pagans, while in the same district the native Christians numbered 1,600,000. In his comprehensive and valuable report on Christian missions, T. W. M. Marshall says: " When nature divided the great American continent into two parts, she seems to have prepared by anticipation a separate theater for the events of which each was to be the scene, and for the actors who were destined to perform in either a part so widely dissimilar. The one was to be the exclusive domain of the Church, the other the battle- field of all the sects." We who do not measure progress by material things only, or by mere smartness and superficial popular education, can rejoice heartily in the noble Christianizing of South- ern America— which Mr. Marshall calls the Church's domain — and the thorough education, ingrained with religion, which the Church established there. In the later days of some of those Spanish-American countries, churches, convents, and colleges have been robbed or crippled by selfish, ambitious, and sometimes wholly irreligious men, who have masqueraded as republican leaders. But the damage appears to be on the surface only. The people are still Catholic. It is easier to rob churches than to steal souls. These disasters came late in Southern America. Turning to North America, " the battlefield of all the sects," we see that things there have gone just the other way; dis- aster, which for a time seemed overwhelming, came first, and now a prosperity of the Church has resulted, which even 100 years ago would have been regarded as impossible of realization. In the region which is now the United States, as Gilmary Shea well remarks, the Church did not wait for the formation of colonies. " Her priests," he said, " were among the explorers of the coast, were the pioneers of the vast interior; with Catholic settlers came the minister of God, and Mass was said, to hallow the land and draw down the blessing of heaven, before the first step was taken to rear a human habitation. The altar was older than the hearth." To this terse and striking statement we may fitly add the remainder that these first- comers sought to give the new country a kind of consecration, in the very names that they bestowed. Santo Domingo means " Holy Sunday." Another great island in the Spanish Main was called Trinidad, or " Trinity." Ponce de Leon in 1513 sighted the coast on Easter Sunday, which is known in Spanish as Pascua de Flores; and hence the present name of Florida commemorates the sacred season of Easter. Wherever Catholics went, throughout North America, this delicate yet pervasive aroma of beau- tiful religious names and associations went w T ith them and diffused itself like the per- fume of incense, which lingers in the air and the memory. The spot where Mass was first said at St. Augustine was marked for a long time, on Spanish maps, as Nombre de Dios: that is, " Name of God." San Francisco, in California, keeps before us, by its name at least, the recollection of St. Francis of Assisi. In the middle West there is a peak still known as the " Mountain of the Holy Cross," from the cruciform mark of snow in the deep ravines of its rocky height. Many of the old religious names of places have been changed and effaced. But Santa Fe — signifying " Holy Faith " — yet survives in New Mexico. Maryland was named for that pious Queen of England, Hen- rietta Maria, whose second name of Maria — or Mary — was chosen for the Catholic col- ony because it was the name of the Blessed Virgin. These may seem remote considerations. But there is a great significance in names and the way in which they are applied. Certainly it is interesting to observe that our country — which many persons are pleased to call, without authorization, a " Protestant country " — is so clearly marked in every direction with holy Catholic names, as well as with heroic Catholic traditions. The fact that these names have remained is emblem- atic of that other and deeper fact that the Faith itself has remained and increased, although at one time it seemed probable that nothing would be left of Catholicity here, except its names. Within a period of 250 years from the first Catholic foundations ia North America, nearly everything established by them had, to all appearance, been blasted. The settle- ments in Florida were devastated and burned by the Anglicans of South Carolina, and the territory itself was finally given up by Spain to England. Later on, Maryland — which, as a purely Catholic colony, offered peaceful life, liberty, and freedom of worship to people of every sect — had been treacherously undermined by Protestant immigrants, who overpowered the Catholics and condemned them to proscription. The great Cath- olic missionary organization in Canada had been destroyed. The Puritans hud set up, and were maintaining immovably, their absolute intolerance and oppression in New England. Everywhere east of the Mississippi, Catholics were weighed down by an WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 65 arbitrary power, which deprived them of civil rights and could at any moment seize their property and drive them into exile. Even in the West and Southwest, where Catholics were still free under Catholic governments, the suppression of the Jesuits had stripped many districts of their priests and had left the faithful exposed to the dangers of isolation and religious decay. This was the state of things in 1763, a dozen years before the American Eevolution. Then came the Revolutionary War; and suppressed Catholic Maryland was promptly liberated and Catholic citizens were restored to their rights, because the other colonists knew and admitted that — when the pinch came— these citizens were absolutely loyal to the country, notwithstanding the wrongs it had inflicted upon them, and were essen- tial to the success of its cause. From the time when Catholic emancipation was declared on our shores, and ratified by the Constitution of the United States, which guarantee to every one the religious freedom that Lord Baltimore inaugurated on this continent ; - from that time, the Cath- olic and Apostolic Church has flourished amazingly within our North American borders. It was a good thing that all the sects found outlet here, and were enabled to carry on their battle to the fullest extent. It was a good thing that the Puritans should enter freely and have their way, and fancy that they possessed the whole land. Spain, France, and England — these three powers vied with each other in colonizing and trying to pos- sess the New World, and especially this northern part of it. France and Spain were Catholic, and they rendered us the service of tingeing the country deeply with then- faith. England became anti-Catholic and did her best to expunge the Faith from this realm which came under her rule. Yet, as history has resulted, the Church at last found her surest foothold in this country under the anti-Catholic dominion of England, which had. tried so hard to suppress her; and the Church has since attained here, in a single century of freedom, a growth never paralleled in modern history. This, then, is one of the most important results to religion of the discovery of America. It was largely brought about, humanly speaking, as the Vicomte de Meaux tells us, in his recent book on " The Catholic Church and Liberty in the United States," by '• the advent of the Celts of Ireland, and the Teutons of Germany to the first rank of Catholic peoples," in the United States; which he declares, " is the most astonishing phenomenon that the New World, at the end of this century, can offer to the contem- plation of the Old World." In former times Frenchmen and Spaniards, both Catholic, strove against each other in North America; sometimes to the detriment of religious progress. Even the English James, Duke of York, also a Catholic, tried to oppose the French in Canada — for political and state reasons — by setting up in the province of New York an Iroquios village under charge of Jesuit priests, as a hostile offset to the French Indian villages supervised by Jesuits in Canada. To-day, certain rivalries between German and Celtic Catholics in the United States are not altogether unknown. Yet here we have this French Catholic of our time, the Vicomte de Meaux, honestly sinking all prejudices of the past or the present, and surrrendering himself completely to admiration of the way in which — by unforeseen means — the Irish and the Germans, oppressed at home, have become the central and immediate forces of Catholic advancement in America. Ought we not all to learn some pertinent and peaceful lesson from the struggles of the past, and this calm, impartial tribute of a modern Frenchman? True liberty is what the Church most inculcates, and what it most needs. It has found it at last in this country, where at first its prospect of doing so seemed most unlikely. It is by such paradoxes that the divine power works, regardless of the self- interest, or even the most unselfish foresight and planning, of men. The complete separation of Church from state, which exists here, has been an immense advantage to religion, and will continue to be so by assuring it of entire independence in the pursuit of its spiritual aims. But see: The development of this independence was opposed by nearly all the human forces which were in action during the period when it was maturing. The Puri- tans themselves, though rebels against Church authority, formed the closest kind of union between their own particular religious organization and their own form of civil government. When it became necessary to admit Catholics as political equals and fel- low-citizens, the Puritans, who were in terror of the " Romish " influence that might be exerted upon the state, were obliged to abandon their own system of controlling the state by religious authorities, and to join in forbidding all connection of Church with state; so that they might be sure of shutting out the ■'Romanists" from such control. And this separation of Church and state proved to be precisely the most beneficial thing that could have happened for the progress of Catholic Christianity. 66 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. If Catholics had been able to establish, when they first set out to do so, a series of flourishing colonies along the seaboard of North America, and to maintain them unop- posed, they would have built a rampart which the Pilgrims and later legions of Protestants would hardly have ventured to pass. As it was, the attempts of Sir Hum- phrey Gilbert and Weymouth to plant Catholic colonies in New England failed; and wherever Catholic settlements were made along their coasts, from Florida to the St. Lawrence, they were overturned, cut down, or rendered powerless. So it came to pass that other elements pressed in, which, under different circumstances, would scarcely have ventured to do so. They throve, and came to believe that this portion of the con- tinent was theirs. Their successors streamed in and believed the same. Circumstances led them — while they were opening the gates to every element of warring religious belief — to establish complete civil liberty and freedom of conscience; thereby opening the gates, also, to the one religion which does not mean endless division and war, but means peace. And everywhere they have gone, through all the great expanse of terri- tory, they have come upon the old monuments and tokens of this religion which had preceded them — in Florida, in Maryland, in New York, up and down the Mississippi, in Canada, in New England itself, and in far-off California, where the restless tide of pio- neer invasion ceased on the shores of the Pacific, at the feet of the old Catholic missions along that coast. The whole country is surrounded by the early outposts of the ancient Faith. Their garrisons may have seemed dead, but they were only sleeping. The saints and mission aries of the past have apparently come to life once more, in all those little strongholds which enring the land and seemed to be ruins, but suddenly prove to be in full vigor of existence again. And in the train of these reviving memories and associations, an immense army of Irish, German, Italian, French, Polish Catholics have come upon the field. Let them learn from the past, and avoid all strife, jealousy, or rivalry among races or families, which may retard religious and national progress. When we perceive and comprehend how the apparent failure of early Catholic institutions in North America was the essential factor in bringing multitudes of non- Catholics hither — where they have developed within a cordon of Catholic historic associations, and have become mingled with a great body of living Catholics — and when we realize how it has taken 400 years for this country to realize that the hero, Columbus, whom the entire nation unitedly celebrates in 1893, was the colossal Catholic pioneer, then we shall begin to have some conception of the immense scale on which God works, and the patience with which he works. When we realize, also, that the present condition of the true Faith in this country — with its millions of communicants, its thousands of church buildings and charitable institutions — has grown up against the opposition of those who attempted to mould the national life in a totally different direction, we can appreciate what St. Francis de Sales meant, when he said: "God makes people co-operate with him, when they are least aware of it." THIRD DAY. In its morning session of Wednesday the Congress was favored by the presence of the Most Rev. Archbishop of New York, who, on being intro- duced by the Chairman, was greeted with hearty applause, which he acknowledged in these gracious terms: ARCHBISHOP CORRIGAN'S ADDRESS. Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : I rise to thank you most sincerely for the very kind manner in which you, have seconded the suggestion just proposed, and I am indebted to the delegation of New York for the words of welcome given through their president. I especially prize the welcome given by the audience in general, to nearly all of whom I am a stranger, and therefore their action is one of pure veneration for the episcopal office. It is, I need not say, a heartfelt pleasure to attend a celebration which is so appropriate an incident of this great Columbian Exposition. Let us look back awhile. What were the motives of Columbus in undertaking his voyage of discovery? If we read his own letters, which are the authentic exposition of his reasons, we shall see that he was dominated by three great principles: First, the love of scientific knowledge; next, the love of his- adopted country, and lastly, but most of all, the love of Holy Faith. He was impelled to his journey of discovery by a love of scientific knowledge, because he had long held that the world was round, and he felt that by continually journeying westward across the ocean he would come to some undis- WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 67 i covered continent, and that scientific fact would be established for all time. Then to this love of science was added the debt of gratitude to Ferdinand and Isabella, particularly to that large-minded queen who was willing to pledge her jewels that the enterprise might be carried to a successful termination. Therefore in return for the assist- ance and encouragement of this noble-hearted queen he wished to add new jewels to the crown of Spain in the shape of lands not yet known to the civilized world. And far beyond this sentiment was the underlying love of the Faith, the love of converting souls and of bringing them into the light which shines from heaven. Now, what are your motives in coming to this Columbian Catholic Congress? Are they not the same as those which guided Columbus? You show a love of knowledge by meeting to discuss the great problems which now agitate the world; and just as Colum- bus had a safe guide in that mariner's compass which kept him in his western course, so have you, in the teachings of the Holy Father, an unfailing guide which will bring you also to the land of promise. Then as to the love of country; are we not, we who are Catholics, all animated by the same feeling? Do we not love our country as the best land on earth? Does not all the devotion of our hearts go out toward it? And if Columbus desired to show his affection and gratitude to Isabella and the land of his adoption, I am sure that each one of us feels his heart swell with similar emotion. We have great pride in loving our country, for we feel that just as the Lord in the miracu- lous multiplication of the wine at the wedding feast saved the best for the last, so in the order of Providence, the land last to be discovered was our own fair land and the best. Then, again, you have come together as Catholics through love for the Church, love for the truth, love for souls. All of us here, from every part of the United States, with our brethren from abroad, are animated with the one faith and the one feeling that guided Columbus — the one love for our Divine Master; this is the mainspring of all our deliberations, and we are assured in advance that that guiding star will lead us safely to the haven of rest. And now, Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen, I have no right to interfere with the order of the day's proceedings and divert your attention from important papers, prepared with great care by those who are to address you. Therefore, simply, let me say in conclusion, that I trust the success of your deliberations will be commensurate to the noble aim you have proposed yourself, worthy of the great occasion that has called you to this Columbian Congress, and worthy of the queenly city that gives us such a hospitable welcome. A still more fervent special ovation greeted the same distinguished Arch- bishop in the Thursday evening session, which was attended by many other illustrious prelates, following being the eloquent expression of ARCHBISHOP CORRIGAN'S THANKS. Most Reverend and Right Reverend Prelates, Ladies and Gentlemen : As an hon- est confession is said to be good for the soul, permit me, while gratefully acknowledging your most cordial welcome, to say how utterly abashed and overwhelmed I am at this immense outpouring and unexpected demonstration. When your Chairman kindly invited me to attend a reception to be offered by members of my own Diocese, I had no idea that this hall would be filled to overflowing; and I expected merely to say a few pleasant words and to pass the time in friendly conversation. Instead of this, an address is looked for from one who is almost totally unprepared to answer such expecta- tions. However, if a speech must be made, let me try to analyze the cause of this most generous welcome. In the first place, the poet says: "One touch of nature makes the whole world akin." If this be true, and we all feel the sympathetic thrill of our common humanity, much more does unity of faith bind together the children of God with the links of com- mon origin, of commmon aspirations and common destiny. It is hard for us to realize the fact now, but nevertheless it is quite true, that until the blessed day when the Ser- mon on the Mount was preached, men were strongly divided against each other, and the idea of a common brotherhood was unrecognized. The weaker class was driven to the wall, becoming the prey of its more powerful neighbors. In Imperial Rome itself, in the days of its highest material splendor, by far the largest part of its popula- tion were slaves, over whom their masters wielded the right of life and death, with a recklessness that can only be fitly characterized as brutal. In the eyes of the law, slaves were not regarded as men, but as chattels. Now the law gives a man the right to use his goods and chattels, his own property, as he pleases. As a sunbeam of light piercing a dark dungeon, as a strain of exquisite and heav- enly music wafted to captives languishing in exile, was the letter of St. Paul, the 6S WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. Apostle, to Philemon on behalf of a fugitive slave, a slave to be received by his Christian master, not now as a chattel, not even as a runaway to be punished for his transgres- sion, but, as the Apostle says, " as a most dear brother." This incident alone shows how the Church began to knit together the ties of our common humanity, from the beginning. Again, take the well-known story of Fabiola, with which you are all familiar, °a work of fiction, it is true, but one which faithfully portrays the state of Roman society in the 3d and 4th centuries. Probably you all remember the striking passage in which the writer describes the perplexity of Fabiola, on discovering by chance a passage of the Gospel in which the love of God for all His creatures is intimated, for " He makes His sun to shine on the good and the bad, and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust." Cardinal Wiseman, speaking of the embarrassment of Fabiola on reading such a declaration, compares it to the perplexity of an untutored mind in finding some shining stone by the wayside, unable to decide whether it be a precious gem or a worth- less pebble. Even so, the beautiful doctrines of Christianity, now univers- ally recognized, struck the Pagan mind, as late as the 4th century, as an enigma; for the Pagans doubted whether they were the revelation of a new and sublime philoso- phy, encircling all human- ity in the folds of divine love, or whether they were mere idle speculations, pleasant, indeed, but never to be realized. It is evi- dent that once the truth of our common origin, our common destiny, our re- demption by the out-pour- ing of the same Precious Blood, permeated man's intelligence, the value of the human soul would begin to be appreciated at the same time, and conse- quently man soon perceived the consoling truth {hat the children of men being creatures of the same Heavenly Father, consti- tute but one great family. From the same truth evi- dently flowed the burning zeal of the Catholic Church,' from the begin- ning, for the salvation of souls. Without glancing even for a moment at the mis- sionary spirit of the Catholic Church throughout the onward course of its existence, let us confine our attention to one or two instances that bear on the present celebration. It was this grand and inspiring motive of the value of the human soul that, more than anything else, impelled Columbus to tempt unknown seas in order to spread the Gospel of Christ. Discouraged and despondent by many rebuffs, Columbus turned his steps to the Convent of La Rabida. Father Juan Perez, the hospitable guardian, was interested, it is true, in scientific discoveries, but his sacerdotal heart was still more touched at the possibility of leading innumerable souls to heavenly light, and he determined that Columbus should obtain the aid necessary to promote his enterprise. King Ferdinand, cool and calculating MOST REV. ARCHBISHOP CORRIGAN. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 69 statesman that he was, could not be insensible to the manifold advantages that might accrue to Spam from the discovery of the new territories, yet he hesitated, wavered and delayed to act. Isabella listened to the selfsame story, and her instinct of pietv was aroused, and she resolved that as souls might thereby be gained to God she would give strong and efficacious help. Again, it is a striking fact, and one perhaps not generally known, that the flag of the Santa Maria in which the great admiral sailed was no other than the white and green banner of the holy office. What, was America discovered under the flag of the Inquisition ? Even so. And here, again, we find a luminous proof, not only that the Church did not retard the progress of science by forbidding, as has often been asserted, the belief that the earth was round but, further- more, that the most severe ecclesiastical tribunal on earth actually gave 'aid and encouragement to the discovery of this continent. Now, what was the reason of this encouragement, for reason there must have been ? Can you assign a stronger motive or a better reason, than the love of advancing the Christian religion, and of securing the salvation of souls — the spirit of faith? Passing by four centuries and coming to our own days, what was the character of the Columbian Celebration, in the city of New York on the 12th of last October, and a little later in the city of Chicago? I mention these two cities because I had the privilege of participating in both celebrations. Without wishing to give offense, I think we can modestly claim that these were both distinctively Catholic celebrations. As a friend from Boston said to me at the time, the public-school children properly appeared first, and gave us a standard by which we might form our judgments, and then the Catholic children of our free schools followed, and, according to the testimony of the secular press itself, by their neatness, their proficiency in drill, their manly appearance, they undoubtedly carried off the palm. A similar scene was displayed in the long line of our 30,000 young men attached to various religious or literary societies. I had the honor, that evening, of being seated near the Vice-President of the United States, as well as our own chief executive, His Excellency, Governor Flower. Both were most favorably impressed by the numerical strength and bearing of our soci- eties, and they added that young men so carefully nurtured by the conservative spirit of the Church could not fail to be patriotic and sterling citizens. Permit me to point out still another manifestation of the same spirit of faith in the Catholic Educational Exhibit in the World's Pair. I hope all here present have seen this exhibition, and more than this, that our fellow-citizens at large will carefully exam- ine the magnificent display made by our schools and academies. This exhibit speaks volumes for the self-devotion and enthusiastic service of our Catholic teachers, of our patient sisters and brothers, in the great cause of education. Without state aid, and contending with many obstacles, "they sow in tears," according to the Holy Scripture, " but they reap in joy." What is this, then, but a silent and yet most eloquent testi- mony of their faith? They recognize in the young child, humble and uncouth, if you will, a soul for whom the loving Saviour died, and of whom He said: "Forbid them not, but permit them, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." Says St. John Chrysostom: " Noble indeed is the profession of the painter and the sculptor, who make the canvas breathe and the marble glow with instinct of life, yet nobler far is the work of him who forms the soul and the character of youth, and who moulds and fashions them to the lin- eaments of Christian virtue." Such is the work accomplished quietly, patiently, perseveringly, in our Christian schools. Those who enjoy their benefits not only are devoted children of the Church but they will make the best citizens of the State. Among those educated in our schools you will find no anarchists or socialists, but thousands and thousands of brave men and true, who love their country, not only for its own sake but for conscience' sake; who willingly obey its laws, and who would shed their blood in its defense; men such as those of whom the poet sang in the person of Sir Galahad: His strength was as the strength of ten, Because his heart was pure. These few remarks sufficiently prove the strong links which bind us together, and shed a new light on the meaning of the old Pagan, who, observing the conduct of our forefathers in the faith 1,400 years ago, exclaimed, with as much sagacity as truth: " See how these Christians love one another!" Among the excellent papers of Wednesday's session a chief place must be given to that of F."M. Euselas on "Woman's Work in Religious Com- munities," or 7 o WORLD* S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. THE CATHOLIC SISTERHOODS. ' To compass within the prescribed limits an account of " Woman's Work in Religious Communities" is not less difficult than "to do" the Columbian Exposition in the few months allotted to its existence, remembering, as we are told, that allowing three minutes for each exhibit, one hundred years would hardly suffice for the task. In either case only a cursory view can be taken, leaving the rest to be inferred. Monachism, or the state of religious seclusion more or less complete, antedates Christianity be'ing found among the Jews in the time of Elias. It is also a prominent feature of Brahminism; even to-day the lamaseries of Thibet exceed in number the monasteries of Italy or Spain. China, too, has its cloisters of Buddhist nuns, Kuanyim, he goddess of mercy, being their patron saint. Its primitive form among Christians dates from the persecution under the Roman emperors, when converts took refuge in caves and deserts. Later on, preference for seclusion'continued what necessity commenced, developing the community life, at first purely contemplative, then combined with the active; within the last century, the hitter far outnumbered the spirit of the age, one of active zeal for human welfare, largely shaping vocations for such service; or, with fuller meaning, God thus guided means and instruments toward creation's destined end. Nature is indeed a great diversifler; she "never rhymes her children, or makes two alike," thus meeting the ever-varying, never-ending needs of humanity. Vocations for so many different orders and for the myriad duties of each show how Infinite Wisdom ever adapts the demand to the supply, constantly giving us new orders or modifications of the old, using the feeblest instruments for the greatest designs, the poor and insig- nificant of earth being founders of the most efficient orders. " The weak things of this world hath God chosen to confound the mighty." Our grand discoveries and inventions equally prove this fact, and we hold our breath in astonishment at the outcome. We say this or that man, almost by chance, perhaps, originated such an idea or wrought out a new principle in science. Galileo, grinding his lenses in a fortunate way, gave his magnifiers, then the telescope, our first refractor being from the brain and hands of the great Italian. The experiments of Galvani upon the nervous condition of cold-blooded animals revealed their electricity, which Volta's genius utilized as an agent of wondrous impor- tance. Later on still further developments were made by Franklin, Ampere, Davy, Fara- day, Bunsen, and others, down to our own Morse and Edison, who have caught and chained the lightning's bolt, making it the electric motor in our mechanic and other How wonderful, we say, these discoveries of man's skill and genius! And so it is, of material things we take only a material view, always on the same dead level. Thus is our material nature stamped and reflected in opinions uttered or unexpressed. But, look higher; give the spiritual forces a chance, awaken their latent powers, what a change! Before, we saw through a glass darkly, now face to face, revealing the Divine Master behind Galileo, Newton, Herschel, and their confreres, giving inspiration and guidance. He was compass, rudder, and barometer for Columbus and other early navi- gators, sending their rude barks over unknown seas to this " land of the free and the home of the brave." Alas, that we should lose sight of this fact in our mad rush for — we hardly know what. Weak man can originate and idea, when he can not even create a single grain of sand! Through these mistaken views of life and its bearings, through our false standards of right and wrong, the greater part of time is spent in making and unmaking our- selves, in unlearning the world's wisdom, " which is foolishness before God." Standing to-day proudest among earth's nations, since we welcome them all as friends and brothers to our shores, as they come laden with marvels of genius and industry never before dreamed by poet, painter, or prophet, we shall trace through all the great Master carrying out His designs. In God's creation each sentient being stands in an allotted niche, a spectacle to angels and men. Rightly measuring the scope of her being with the means at hand, she will work out that true mission. Animated by these ideas, we see that by no other means could the great work of the sisterhood be accomplished. How simple the origin, how grand the consummation! Prayer for the salvation of their own and others' souls initiated the plan, giving relief to the poor, sick, and outcasts opened a broader field for devoted charity, bodily wants supplied, ignorance must be enlightened and religious truths inculcated. Thus, educa- tion through the progressive spirit of the age, rounded up the religious life in its beauty and completeness. . WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. ji Viewed in this light sisters are before the world as representative women in its best sense, not as relics of a buried past, as fossils for spiritual geologists to examine, classify, and put behind glass doors to be labeled " Footprints of Creation," the first perhaps after the Azoic age. No, none of this; let them be the incarnate idea of the golden rule, the eleventh commandment clothed in flesh and blood, to whom its great author gives this consoling assurance: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me." The history of different religious orders and of the houses branching therefrom reads more like some legend of remote ages or a tale coined from the brain of a Jules Verne than a reality, so utterly opposed do methods and results appear. The laws of finance or the most ordinary business forms seem utterly ignored by sisters in general, the plans of architects and contractors set at naught to follow their own sweet will. Wading up to their eyes in seas of difficulty, personal, social, and financial, even in spite of these, by ways and means past finding out, save to the great-hearted and never-to-be- rebuffed nuns, they manage to come out of the fray with flying colors. Sacrifices that few would face count for nothing with them; to see a need is to meet it, urged on by that supreme motive, the salvation of souls at any cost. Unlimited confidence is the backbone of their success; call it presumption, a tempt- ing of God if you will, yet none the less effective is the result. Look at Mother Irene in charge of the largest foundling home in New York. In her simple faith she says: '• Father, please make a memento for my intention, I just want this piece of land adjoining our grounds." " That property, mother! Why, do you know its worth? A quarter of a million at least." " Yes, father, but I must have it as a playground for our poor little orphans." " Well, mother, how much money have you now? " " Not a cent yet, but never mind, prayer will win the day." And it did. Every religious house is more or less the fruit of earnest, confiding prayer. To- understand this the better, we must deepen and intensify the true conception of a sister's life and work by a fair and critical examination, making due allowance for the defects and defections that more or less mark every organization, perfection never being found this side of heaven. What then are the qualities insuring a sister's vocation? While the purest and holiest motives should be the animus of her work, a large fund of common sense a practical matter-of-fact shrewdness must supplement the higher instincts; for remem- ber your real Sister of Charity is not an angel plumed for her heavenly flight; she isn't expected to spend the day in perpetual adoration, while her orphans and pupils, the poor and the sick are — she doesn't know where. As the handmaid of our Lord. He wont do His work and hers too. She must be a minute-woman, ever on the alert, ready for the Master's call. She realizes that the highest aim and purpose, love being the exponent, are sent through her, the lowest organ. Herein lies her true sanctity, none other will pass current. Intense activity without the enthusiasm of impulse, constant devotion to present duty, with a sort of fiery patriotism, so loyal and unswerving as to care for naught save winning souls from their great enemy, mark the high and perfeot aim of her whole life. Do not mistake means for the end, the shadow for the substance; the whole is always greater than a part. It is not because of her high or low estate; it is not place, surroundings, or circumstances, prosperous or adverse, not her brilliant qualities, her this or that, which perfect a sister's life. It is herself — the great soul incarnate through and through — that does the work; it is the assurance of certain conviction and the eternal peace of an unskaken faith; it is her inner life, with its principles stable as a rock, pure as the diamond, that make her proof against any hindrance. No difficulty can be an obstacle to such a soul when that noble aim and high endeavor surcharge her whole being. Let duty call her to the battlefield or to the halls of science, to the leper's hut or the palace of princes, it is all one to her. A true religion still carries the selfsame purpose everywhere, God behind her, as His instrument, she is what she is, does what she does, and her end is gained. Hers is " the repose of a heart set deep in God." Let the world fully realize this, and, ceasing to criticise and cavil, it will admire and imitate. We live in an age of thought, deep, critical, far-reaching, and sisters are no small factors here. Everything is on the alert. What has been, is, and shall yet be. are questions forcing themselves upon us, not as mere isolated events, like separate blades of grass in a field, but as links in God's great chain, girdling humanity and reaching. from eternity to eternity. y 3 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. It is an every-day wonder, both to those within and without the Church, that persons of sense and judgment should leave the world and all it holds dear for a convent life, impelled, as cynics say, by an ascetic whim, a sentimental notion, proof of a soft, weak spot somewhere. Passing strange indeed would it be if this were all; and, belieye me, none would decry such a step more than the religions themselves. Let anyone thus impressed step into a Sister's shoes and look through her eyeglasses. A few whiffs of convent air would show her the mistake. A mere passing whim stand the test of a religious vocation! Why, the very assertion defeats itself, since the indispensables are wanting — intellectual power, moral force, and an intense sacred purpose that never counts the cost. Flesh and blood with sentimental notions are spurned beneath their feet as utterly unworthy of notice. Call the Sisters cranks and idiots, if you will, their work a sham, but remember soft- brained people are liable to dub as a sham whatever they can not grasp. Tell me, could the mind of a crank plan and perfect such enterprises as we daily see carried on, year in and year out, century after century, to the remotest corners of God's universe ? Their ideas mere pretension! Show me one solid, noble act ever built on a pretension, and it will be the first of its kind. Far easier to base the great pyramid of Ghizeh on a basket of eggs or a bag of feathers. Sham ideas never started the first steam engine, never stamped our alphabet in type metal, never laid between Washington and Baltimore the first electric wire that now in long-drawn threads and cables is our master of masters and servant of servants. Still less could pretension lay the foundation of schools and orphanages, asylums and hospi- tals. Look a little farther, dig a little deeper, before laying such a charge at the door of the sisterhood. Little wonder that Job's comforters, predicting a failure, soon with astonishment say: " How is this ? how do they manage it all ? " Though puzzled ignor- ance may still jeer and laugh, thank God the number of censors is rapidly diminishing; experience and sound judgment are fast grinding the yeas and nays of old-time preju- dice, giving a favorable verdict and above appeal. That which is seen with the eyes, heard with the ears, and which our hands have handled, is sufficient refutation. In letters of light, stamped by the Almighty, may be read their sacred purpose, noble work, and its marvelous results. The admission of non-Catholics, though tardy and almost perforce, only the more surely confirms this. " Don't know how it is," says one; " make up my mind a hundred times that I'll say ' no ' to the Sisters' appeals, but they always get the better of me, and I'm a V or an X poorer each time " — richer, would it not be better to say ? — " and now would you believe it, I actually stop them on the street." Motives, measures, actions; real character stamps one for better or for worse; there is your true gauge, my friend, for the worth of a religious; it must out; if valuable it will be valued, if estimable, esteemed. It is the whole court of heaven speaking through the heart of mankind and saying, " Well done, good and faithful servant." Nor is this so strange after all, for, taking an all-round view of woman, she seems possessed with an insatiable desire to have a finger in every benevolent pie, whether it's rubbing goose-oil on Mrs. Neighbor's croupy baby or working out some great plan for the world's reformation. This master passion of her nature defies all restraint; bluff it on one side, sniff it on the other, hydra-headed, it still crops out, and we who know its blessed effects thank God for it. The work of religious communities through all its ramifications represents the prac- tical wisdom, intensified by critical observation, varied experience, and well-tried sanctity of generations upon generations, whose traditions become in turn stepping- stones for their successors. What have they done? Far easier to tell what they have not done. Their ubiquity is proverbial. Put your finger upon any spot of the habitable globe, and there will they be found. " It is a corner of God's earth," they say, " His footprints are already there; since He leads the way shall we not follow? " The great success attending Sisters' work, with means so limited, is unquestionably due to the admirable system that marks the plan of each founder, as meeting the special ends in view. With wisely directed foresight the various rules and constitutions enter into minutest as well as most essential details. Each department has its special staff of officers and aids, directly responsible to the superior for efficiency. An inter- change of officers from time to time is of mutual advantage; latent talent thus brought »e name of the Catholic Church. In the same session Rev. Father Patrick Cronin of Buffalo, N. Y., spoke vigorously as follows, on " The Church and the Republic": This land, discovered by Catholic genius, explored by Catholic missionary zeal, bap- tized in the blood of the Catholic revolutionary heroes, and preserved in unified glory by the prowess of Catholic arms on many a gory field — is it any marvel that the Church should have phenomenally grown and flourished here? The same showering mercies of the skies which fructified the labors of the mis- sionaries were not and are not absent during our episcopal rule. When Bishop Carroll took possession of his see in Baltimore the Catholic population of the Republic was not more than 50,000. What is it to-day? Surely not less than 10,000,000! The Flagets, the Cheveruses, the Kenricks, the Timons, the Spaldings, are names not born to die; and their successors to-day are well worthy of their great prototypes. The American hierarchy stands peerless before the world. Yet among them there have been and there are giants. Three especially were sent by God, whose names were John, whose deeds will ever be golden urned in the heart of the American Church John England, John Hughes. John Ireland. The first, a marvel of eloquence, learning. and courage, could scarce find place to lay his weary head when first he bore the cross to the haughty South. On the day of his all-too-early death the whole city of Charles ton was in tears. The second, a man of metropolitan largeness, whose heart never quailed before a foe, stood at the chief gateway of our immigration, gathered his people around him with paternal solicitude, and, like another Jonathan, slew, with pen and tongue, the Know-nothing philistine who dared to trespass upon their rights: The third. What shall I say of him? Happily he still lives. You all know him as >bi; a* I. As yet iu the midsummer of his days, he has already written his rauic wi T6 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. characters of golden light upon the heart and brain of the American Church. To the eloquence, activity, and learning of John England, John Ireland adds the combative courage and progressive leadership of John Hughes. Loyal to the core to Rome and to its every teaching, he is intensely American, and cherishes as the apple of his eye the free institutions of this Republic. He has a hold upon the popular heart which, with the possible sole exception of the Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore, no other American prelate ever held. Such men are the Church's jewels, which she cherishes with more than a Cornelia's pride. I now come to the latest manifestation in the Church's development in the United States. Need I say that it is symbolized by the magic name Satolli! A name hailed and revered by the whole American people. Why? Because it means law, justice, liberty, and peace! Because it means progress and not reaction. Because it means home rule and not rule of 4,000 miles away, with all its chronic difficulties and proverbial tardiness. Because it means that henceforth the church is to be governed in the United States by her established canons, and not by the caprice of any individual, however learned or holy. Because it means that the Church, now grown to maturity, has burst her missionary swathing bands; that she stands foivth not only emancipated forevermore, but that " divinely tall and most divinely fair," she shall no longer be covered with the moth-eaten rags of a dead and buried past, but shall henceforth be clothed in the queenly splendor of her rightful inheritance. But Satollicism means even more than this. It is no longer a question whether America is hostile to the institutions of the Catholic Church. The burning question is, whether the Catholic Church is hostile to the free institutions of America. The coming of Satolli is a final and irrevocable answer to the latter, while the universal outburst of acclaim that signalized his advent shows the hearty friendship with which America hails the co-operation of the Church. I shall only add that Satolli's mission here is beyond recall. He is here with the per- manency of Rome's everlasting rock. All blessing and glory to that mission and to the person of America's first resident apostolic delegate, and fadeless laurels for the peerless Pontiff that sent him. A valuable and suggestive paper was read during this session, by its author, Rev. James M. Cleary of Minneapolis, on the subject of THE DRINK EVIL. No congress of earnest men in our time and country can justly consult the best interests of their fellowmen, and ignore a thoughtful consideration of the drink evil. Many honest and conservative men hesitate to enter upon a discussion of the evils of intemperance, and to openly ally themselves with temperance 'workers lest they be accused of fanaticism or misunderstood by those whose good opinion they highly esteem. Every great and noble work in the history of human progress has suffered from the intemperate zeal of its friends and from the hypocrisy of its avowed advo- cates. But the temperance cause has suffered more, I imagine, from the apathy of timid friends than it has from either hypocrisy or fanaticism. It is a cause that in a special manner needs the support of honest, conservative, and thoughtful men. Intemperance is a crying sin of our land, and with marvelous ingenuity has kept pace on its onward march with our unrivaled prosperity and progress. Something over nine times as much intoxicating drink is consumed in the United States to-day as there was forty years ago, and we have only about three times as many people as we had then within our borders. No evil existing among us menaces so boldly the peace, prosperity, happiness, and moral and religious welfare of our people as the evil Of excessive drinking. No other social evil disturbs the family relation and renders the domestic life of men, women, and children so inhuman and hopeless as the evil of excessive and habitual indulgence in strong drink. Intemperance unfits husband and wife for the duties of parentage, the most sacred and solemn in the entire catalogue of human obligations. It destroys the sense of decency and honor, silences conscience, mid deadens the best instincts of the human heart. There is no bright side to the picture of strong drink in the home. This hideous and brutalizing vice can not be condemned too severely, and those who have experienced much suffering from its influence may be pardoned if they are unsparing against every effort that tends to widen the way for the spread of habitual drinking among us. The Church, through the united voice of our bishops assembled in the Third Plen- ary Council of Baltimore, warns its members against the dangers of the drink habit and the temptations of the saloon. The same Council warns our Catholic people WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 77 against the business of saloon-keeping, as "An Unbecoming Way of Making a Living." A man can not be a good Catholic, a loyal follower of the teachings of the Church, and be a good friend of the saloon. We should at least have the courage to follow- where our chief pastors lead, and our Catholic loyalty is not above suspicion if we are not as ready to condemn the drink evil as our bishops, who have been placed over us to rule the Church of God. It is the crowning glory of the Catholic Church that, true to the spirit of her Divine Founder, she has never become the Church of any special class, as also she has not permitted herself to be narrowed down as the Church of any particular nation or generation of men. She is the Church of all times, all nations, and all classes and con- ditions of men. She is the living voice of God to cheer, instruct, and comfort all the people. But in this country, owing to the mighty wave of immigration from less fav- ored lands during the past half-century, bearing a noble army of toilers- to our hospit- able shores, the great body of the wage-earners, the masses of the people, crowd around our altars, and with loyal honest hearts appeal to our Church to devote her best efforts to their moral and spiritual welfare. The great army of labor, the sinew of the nation, acknowledges a loyal allegiance to the Catholic Church. The debasing, brutalizing influence of excessive drinking, and the saloon environments fall upon the laboring classes of our people with more disastrous effect than upon those better favored by fortune. The dreadful vice of intemperance has made frightful havoc among our hard- working Catholic people. What else but this spenthrift vice could afflict a large portion of our people with poverty so hopeless as to be like an incurable disease, a people to whom countless mil- lions are yearly paid? What else huddles so many of them into the swarming tenement houses? I make no odious comparison between the intemperance of the wealthy and the intemperance of the poor. The heathenish vice of drunkenness is an abomination wherever its foul presence is known. I only state a fact which can not be set aside; a fact which the philanthropist and the statesman can not ignore, namely, that the great- est curse blighting the lives and desecrating the homes of the poor in this country to- day is the curse of drink. That homes of comfort are, alas, too often blighted by" the presence of the demon of intemperance and drunkenness among the wealthier classes of the people is equally odious and even more disgraceful than among the poor. But the poor are greater sufferers, and hence enlist our deeper sympathy when intemper- ance blights their lifes, for in addition to the heartache and sorrow which the vice entails equally upon rich and poor, it adds the horrors of penury, beggary, and hopeless degradation to the lives of the children of toil. Great and long-standing evils are not remedied in an hour. When we have to deal with human passion and human weakness, when we must conquer bad habits anu diseased appetites, our progress will not be rapid, and discouragement and failure will often be our reward. Evil there will always be in the world, and human energy must not slumber because wickedness and sin remain. The people look with longing and hope to the Catholic Church to lead them away from the bondage of drink. The Church that civilized the savage and that preserved the civilization which it erected on the ruins of barbarism, is able to rescue the masses of the people in this country to-day from the cruel thralldom of drink. The drink-curse is intrenched in custom, hence we must follow it into society. At all social assemblages of Catholics let them deny themselves the indulgence in intoxicating liquors and thus publicly proclaim their recognition of the principles of self-denial. At the reunion of friends and family connections, whether occasions of joy or of sorrow, let Catholics show their horror of drunkenness by denying themselves the use of strong drink. There is no gratification worthy of a Christian that can not be enjoyed without the use of intoxicating liquors. As an act of reparation for what our religion has suffered from intemperance, let our Catholic people proscribe intoxicants at all their public gatherings. Let there be such an earnest and potent public sentiment among our Catholic people that no liquor-saloon can crowd itself right up to the doors of our churches and thus, by its foul presence, tempt weak and unwary men to wickedness under the very shadow of the cross. If our prelates, priests, and people join hands together to work in harmony and strength for the realization of the admonitions of our plenary councils, the awful curse of intemperance can be almost entirely eradicated from among us. We must encour- age, then, our total abstinence societies by every means at our command. We priests, mindful of Pope Leo's words, must "shine as models of abstinence." and by exhortation and preaching avert the many calamities with which the vice threatens Church and State. Let there be a general and generous distribution of temperance literature, tracts, 7 8 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. lectures, statistics, and good reading among our people. And this work and agitation in favor of sobriety and temperance must be constant and active. The allurements of drinks are ever thrusting themselves in the pathway of men. Near to the house of prayer the workingman finds the drinking-saloon, cheerful, enticing, and hospitable, as he goes to worship God on Sunday morning. Close to the gates of the factory or mill the agents of alcohol ply their trade and tempt the weary toiler to spend for a moment's gratification his hard-earned money that is much needed in his humble home. Sur- rounded thus by attractive temptations, men need constant warnings, repeated admoni- tions and such wholesome influences as will strengthen and safeguard them against the overpowering spell of drink. FOURTH DAY. Thursday, the fourth day of the Congress, might well be called Woman's Day, the claims and glories of the gentler sex being eloquently presented by some famous Catholic ladies. The first of these was intro- duced by Right Reverend Bishop Burke of St. Joseph, Mo., in the following terms: I came here to-day for the purpose of listening to a lady who deserves well of the Catholics throughout the United States, one whose name is a household word in every Catholic family throughout the land, who has written and lectured on the beauty, and culture, and refinement of the Christian art set forth by the Church in her galleries throughout Europe, the product of Christian artists, in a manner that is hers especially. She has had no equal among us in this respect. I came here to-day to listen to her, and to show my sympathy with the great work of this Catholic Con- gress, and not to address you. I will only say that it is an exceeding pleasure for me, and for every ecclesiastic who has witnessed this grand assembly, and listened to the elo- quent discourses; we have been in admiration with all the people of this great city at this outpouring, at this manifestation of Catholic doctrine and Catholic activity, and culture and refinement. It has been said by some of the public speakers who have given expression to their views during the past few days, that the United States is a country of great possibilities, a country where everything can be accomplished that is attempted by man; and it has been said, too, that all that the Catholic Church requires, is to be set forth before the eyes of our countrymen to be appreciated, loved, and respected throughout the land. I believe never before in the history of the American Church has this been done so eloquently, so magnificently as it has been by this grand Congress, or Congresses. In every part of this building there are persons setting forth the glory, and the power, and magnificence of the Church of one living God; and the newspapers of this great city are full of our doings. They are flashed to the ends of the country, and our name to-day is held in benediction because we have appeared to the people, I believe, as we have never appeared before. The great questions that have agitated the human mind throughout the world have been treated here in the most masterly manner, and thoughts and problems and solu- tions have been set forth, based on the solid foundation of Christian truth and conducted in the spirit of Christian charity, in a manner that is marvelous and that is appreciated by the whole community in which we live. I say to you, however, not to be content with what you see and hear from this platform, but when you go forth to the World's Exposition fail not to see the works of Catholic charity, of Catholic intellect, of Cath- olic culture, set forth for the admiration of the world as they have never been set forth before. See the works of the holy nuns who are hidden from our gaze in their cloisters, unknown to the world except through the little ones of Christ as they grow up before us, as Jesus Christ of Nazareth did, advancing in age and wisdom before God and man. See the works of education, the product of Christian education, refinement, and cul- ture, and you shall be astonished, and it shall not be necessary for ecclesiastics to set forth before you the necessity of Christian education, for there is an object-lesson that lights up the charity of Christ, to impress you with the work that is being done in this great country. There is this remarkable about the exhibit: It is an evidence of Cath- olic education that can not be witnessed in any other department of the great Exposition; it is one in which to the knowledge of natural things there is given a refinement, a cul- ture, and development of the moral nature in man. I am sure that the hearts of the ladies will rejoice to-day when the venerable form o. Miss Eliza Allen Starr shall be presented to you, and you shall hear from her lips WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 79 words of beauty and eloquence, describing the magnificence and the beauty of Christian art. Beauty, expressed under visible forms, may be called the soul of that art which under its almost infinite variety of mediums, marks the progress of the human ran one of the tests of the human race, is one of the tests applied to nations and to epochs. What share has woman had in this beginning — that is. from Eve to the women of our own generation? For we must go quite one side of the book of Genesis, and quite one side of all the traditions of art, not to recognize that Eve, '"the mother of all the liv ing, : ' contained in herself, as did Adam, the germs of those wonder-working periods in the liberal arts and sciences which have won our admiration. " A perfect woman, nobly planned," was Eve, and we, her daughters, look back over the world's five thousand and almost nine hundred years, to claim for her those endow- ments which grace the highest civilization of to-day. No mention is made of her actual occupation in Genesis, but the old rhyme of Adam delving and Eve spinning, which the artists laid hold of even on the walls of Campo Santo, Pisa, gives us the impression that the first exercise in decorative art for the human race might have come, very naturally, from the hand of Eve, while the woman who remembered the loveliness of Eden must have had images of beauty in her mind which found expression under her skillful fingers. Tubal Cain may have taken from his mother, Zillah, what gave grace of form, as well as sweetness of sound to the musical instruments of the antediluvian artificer in metals; and we are quite sure that Joseph's coat of many colors owed its beauty to feminine hands. No sooner, however, do we come to the Mosaic ritual than the skill, which monu- ments existing to-day prove to have belonged to the women of Assyria and Egypt, is found to have been practiced to a high degree by the Hebrew women under the shadow of Mount Sinai. The Greek scholar is never allowed to forget the web woven by the faithful Penelope, which not only gave evidence of her industry but of the imagination which endeavored to express, in the overshot figures of her tapestry, her admiration for her husband, Ulysses; while no barbarous tribe has yet come to light without giving numberless examples of the instinctive expression of beauty under visible forms at the hands of its women. This universality of endowment, and this universality of its exercise, giving the foundation for woman's work in art hitherto, will continue to be the foundation on which her achievements in art will be based, furnishing an argument for our educators which will be fruitful of results favorable to those virtues that show most fair in woman. Greece, pre-eminently the home of beauty, which gave heroes and poets to sing their praises, gave sculptors, also, to perpetuate their deeds in immortal marble; and to a daughter of Greece, Kora, who helped her father, Dibutades, in his modeling, we owe the reliefs which enabled the Attic sculptors to tell the stories of the gods on the pedi- ments of their temples; for rilievo must always be regarded as the sculptor's medium of narration. Of those who worked in color, we hear of Helena, belonging to the age of Alexander the Great, who painted for one of the Ptolemies the scene in which Alexander van- quishes Darius, a painting which is supposed to have been the original of a famous mosaic found at Pompeii; while an artist, Calypso, executed a picture which has been transferred from Pompeii to Naples under the title of "A Mother Superintending Her Daughter's Toilet." A Greek girl, Lala, a contemporary of Cleopatra, w 7 as so celebrated for her busts in ivory that the Romans erected a statue to her memory, and a Roman paintress, Lava, using her brush some seventy-nine years before the coming of our Lord, is the first person spoken of as painting miniature likenesses on ivory, which she exe- cuted with marvelous rapidity. According to Pliny, she ranked among the most famous artists of her time. We shall refer to this miniaturist again, but to preserve a chronological thread on which to string our facts, we will mention here that benefactress to all succeeding time, Galia Placidia, daughter of Theodosius the Great, who, in 440, or during the pontificate of that Leo, the first of all pontiffs to be called great, caused to be executed, under his approbation, that arch of triumph which glorifies even the new Basilica of St. Paul outside the walls; this mosaic being, as Cardinal Wiseman declares in his "Recollec- tions of the Last Four Popes," "the title-deed of the modern Church," to the veneration of Christendom. Not only this venerable monument, but very interesting mosaics were executed under her order at Ravenna, before which the traveler pauses under the spell of their Christian significance as well as beauty. k To return to our miniaturist, Laya, who may be said to lead one of the most beau- tiful processions in the story of art, for she was followed by legions of monastic workers 36 So WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. in the European cloisters, who, in the silence of monastic scriptoriums, adorned those choir books which are the ever increasing wonder of the lovers of art. Many of these monks are high on the roll of fame; but, working even more hiddenly than the monks of St. Columbkill's time, were legions of women, working so hiddenly, in truth, that it is only by the slip of a pen like Montalembert's that we are likely to hear of these nuns whose names were caught by the quick ear of Saint Bede the venerable; but the names of Saint Lioba, the cousin of Saint Boniface, of Saint Walburga, sister of Saint Wilibald, the nuns of Eiken and their two abbesses, Harlinda and Renilda, have come down to us by the fame of their pious labors over psalter and gospel; and all this in the 7th century, supplying links to the traditions of art which would prepare it for more favored periods. Agnes, Abbess of Quidlenberg. was celebrated as a miniature painter in the 12th century, and some of her works are still so well preserved as to excite admiration. We know that at this present time painting in miniature, on vellum or paper, is practiced to a marvelous degree of perfection in our convents; and I can not refrain from speaking of a volume of transcribed poetry from the convent of the Benedictine nuns in our own city, with charming marginal decorations in gold and color by a Benedictine nun; while in the Convent of the Holy Cross, St. Mary's, Ind., are designs on panel, silk, vellum, paper, which will compare with the celebrated works of the 13th and 14th centuries. In the 14th century, Sister Plautilla, a Dominican nun, won fame which compelled Vasari to name her pictures with praise; especially a Madonna bearing her Divine Child on her knees as he is adored by the magi, of which I have a photograph. Alongside the Van Eycks, Hubert and John, is found their sister, Margaret Van Eyck, who worked in miniature under the patronage of the court of Burgundy, her fame extending to the far South. Often she worked with her brothers on their pictures, much in the way that the Robbia family worked together on the same compositions, showing that her style or handling was not inferior to that of her renowned brothers. From these delicate and, as they are often called, feminine labors, we pass to the plastic art, in which Properzia di Rossi, of Bologna, so distinguished herself that Clem- ent VII., having gone to Bologna to crown the emperor, Charles V., inquired for her, greatl. ""esiring to see her; but, to his deep regret, was told that she had died but a few days before his arrival, not having completed her thirtieth year. Her works are still to be seen in the cathedral at Bologna. It was to Sabina, daughter of that Erwin von Steinback, whose monument is the Strasburg Cathedral, that tha ornamentation of this wonder of ages was in a great part committed. Not only did she complete the spire after her father's death, but designed and executed the sculptured groups of the portals, especially that of the southern isle. The name of De Pazzi, associated as it is with some of the choicest pages of saintly lore, is associated also with art. Caterina de Pazzi was born in 1566, of the old Florentine family, and retired, while still young, to a Carmelite convent, under the name of Maria Madclelina. There, under the protection and, we must believe, the encouragement of her superiors, she threw the energy of her ardent and noble soul into the works of her pencil and brush, which are still to be found in the cloisters of the Carmelites at Parma and in Santa Maria, in Rome. She was canonized by Clement IX. As was to be expected, the cold wave which passed over Europe under the name of the reformation, chilling so many poetic and artistic souls, affected, in a special manner, the sensitive imaginations of women. Hitherto their ideals had been formed by that Faith which had so generously nourished arts and letters as well as souls. With a recoil which kept the traces of inherent delicacy, the women of those ages turned to nature, studying flowers, fruits, and landscapes; practicing, also, artistic industries, such as engraving, etching, lithography, indeed, every art medium which united them to the world of letters. One of these lovers of nature was Maria Sybilla Merian, who devoted herself not only to the study and classification of plants and insects, but to their repre- sentation with her brush. Not contented with these artistic labors in her native Holland, she visited, in 1869, Dutch Guiana, especially Surinam, remaining two years in America. On her return to Holland the admiration excited by her work was so great that she was induced to publish her researches in books which enjoyed a sale of suc- cessive editions. The 18th century was beautified by a genius which has never lost its charm — Maria Anne Angelica Kaufman. Her mind turned instinctively to painting, which she enjoyed as other children enjoy play, and at a very early age she painted the Bishop of Como. In 1754 her father settled at Milan, when Angelica came directly under the influence of the works left by that master of Greece, Leonardo da Vinci, and of the more tender Luini. The decoration of a church in a secluded region was entrusted to WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 8 1 her father and herself, her own share winning the enthusiastic admiration of the Bishop of Constance. At Florence, and again at Rome, she enjoyed the society and instruction of the venerable Winckeimann. Goethe, with his aesthetically critical eye, was compelled to praise Angelica Kaufman. Art was to her the breath of life, and labor was her greatest delight. She died at Rome in November, 1807. All the members of the Academy of St. Luke assisted at her obsequies, and as with Raphael, her last picture was borne after her bier. The 19th century brought to us of America, a warm Dreath from the realms of imagination. One hardly knows how it found its way to the sparsely adorned Puritan homes, and to the secluded ways of the daughters and granddaughters of revolution- ary heroes. But the fact is all the same, and the growth of artistic ideas, moreover, seemed an indigenous one. Among the very first of our American women to give herself to art, was Sarah Freeman Clarke, the only daughter of a physician in JSewton, Mass. Very scanty instruction in drawing, of any sort, was given in those days; but she got a glimpse, in some way, of drawing from nature, and it was her delight to wander over the picturesque country around her and bring home sketches of hills, and valleys, and homesteads. One day as she was thus engaged, she heard some ore come up behind her, look over her shoulder, then turn away, saying: " Oh, I thought it was Mis' James! " Who could this Mis' James be who had the same tastes as herself? She determined to find out, but even the doctor, her father, failed to have any knowledge of Mis' James, when the washwoman was questioned as a last resort. "Mis' James! Don't you know who Mis' James is? The crazy woman what takes her knitting and sets on her husband's grave!" "And thus," Miss Clarke says, "my first artistic studies were coupled with insanity." Some years after a friend mentioned her case to Washington Allston, who invited her to bring her sketches to him, and he went so far as to paint a picture with her — his way of giving lessons. Thus Miss Clarke was Allston's first and only pupil. She visited Europe afterward with her mother and brother William, who is associated with the early days of Chicago. On their return, she accompanied him to our Lake City, and during her expeditions with him " the beauty," as she says, " of the prairie was made known to her." She was the first person to open a studio in Chicago, and her magnificent pictures of oak openings and prairie adorned the homes of such lovers of art as William B. Ogden and Mr. Newberry. All of these, however, were lost in the great fire of 1871. One of her most remarkable pictures is a fragment of the temple of Esnah, Egypt, painted for Mrs. Alexander Mitchell, of Milwaukee, for whom she made her remarkable collection of Dante sketches, being pen and ink drawings of the spots mentioned by Dante in his "Divina Commedia," and which made one of the treasures of the Centennial Exposition, in Philadelphia, in 1876. A duplicate of this collection was made for Lady Ashburton. Following closely after Miss Clarke was Caroline Negus, born among the hills of Petersham, Worcester County, Mass. Caroline's ambition was to be a miniature painter; to learn her art of those who knew Malbone, and to do this, she not only taught the small school in our neighborhood, to which I was sent as a child, but practiced every industry her facile fingers could lay hold upon. It was under her that my own young fingers found guidance, and I well remember her charge to my mother. " Never allow her to copy anything but nature." Her career was eminently successful, her pictures on ivory, of such men as Emerson, placing her in the highest rank of American portrait artists. The first sculptress to win recognition from Europe as well as America was the daughter of a physician near Boston, who gave her what he intended to be a training for health, but which developed in her the taste for plastic art. Every opportunity for a thorough course of sculpture which Boston possessed at that time was given to her. but as St. Louis gave more special advantages for anatomical studies she went to that city, and, in 1852, found in the sculptor Gibson, residing in Rome, what made her mistress of the technicalities of her art. Although her works are to be seen in Europe and America, for she has enjoyed a singularly wide distinction, perhaps her most charmingly characteristic creation is that of Puck, which is as Shakspearean as Shakespeare himself in its poesy and drollery, is an exquisite piece of modeling and finished with untold pains. But it is to her latest work, Isabella of Castile giving her jewels to Columbus to defray the expenses of his first voyage, resulting in the discovery of America, that Harriet G. Hosmer has intrusted her fame. This was modeled in Rome from studies, as to likeness and costume, made most carefully from authorized monuments during the winters of 1890, 1891, and 1892. Sz WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. The commission for this statue was given to Miss Hosmer by the Queen Isabella Association to be cast in bronze and of heroic size for "The World's Columbian Exposi- tion," as a tribute from American women to the co-discoverer of America. The full- sized model of this statue, on a pedestal, designed by the best architect in Rome, in a beautiful material fitted for indooi exhibition, stands in the Isabella pavilion, just out- side the walls of " the World's Coh mbian Exposition" grounds; but the statue which is now coming through the foundry ot Signor Nelli, Rome, to appear in all the glory of bronze, with that perfection of workmanship which belongs to the eternal city, will stand in some one of the beautiful parks of our City of the Lake as a proof, not only of the noble intention of the Queen Isabella Association to honor Isabella, the co-discoverer of America, thus winning for itself the administration and best wishes of the Holy Father, Leo XIII., but of the determination of the Catholics of America, above all, of the Catholics of Chicago, to do poetic as well as historical justice to this noblest of uncan- onized women and peerless Christian queen. The fame of a Rosa Bonheur as a painter, not merely of animals, but of animals under the influence of maternal affection or under the inspiration of the national shows, the fame, too, of an Elizabeth Thompson, who has brought to our eyes not only the horrors of war, but, with a most womanly instinct, its grandest pathos, show how wide the pendulum of a woman's genius may swing and how readily the technique of modern schools is appropriated by women. Who was it that lighted up, with a beauty all celestial, the gloomy depths of a cata- comb chamber in the cemetery of Santa Priscilla before the close of the 1st century of the Christian era — before St. Peter and St. Paul had won their crowns or their palms? Lighted it up, not merely by her own maternal loveliness, but by the divine charms of the infant nourished at her virgin breast, and before whom stands the prophet Isaiah, pointing to the star above her head as typifying the star which had arisen out of Jacob, according to the prediction? Who is it that is found again and again in the subterranean crypts not only of Santa Priscilla, but of Santa Domitilla and Santa Agnes, and of every catacomb lying under the smiling Campagna and vineyards of Rome, until we see her in the year 432, in all the beauty of imperishable mosaic, on the arch of triumph in Santa Maria Maggiore; thence onward, on the apses of Rome's loveliest basilicas, all through the hidden period of antiphonals and psalters, until art effloresced under Cimabue and Giotta and the holy breath of St. Francis and St. Dominic; onward still through the ages of Vienese and Florentine art, until Raphael, under what has always seemed a direct inspiration, gave to the world that hitherto unrivaled conception of Mary, the Mother of God, in what we know and reverence as the Madonna Sistina? There was not one great artist in all those ages, whether monk, or nun, or courtier, who did not invoke the patronage of Mary, nor is there a school or academy that can furnish ideals like those which Mary gives to the hearts of her faithful sons. Can she do less for her faithful daughters? Therefore I say to the women of my own nation— put not your trust in academies or in schools of technique; but whether in the cloister or in the world, make Mary your art mistress, your guide, your inspiration, and she will bring to your imaginations what you will seek for in vain elsewhere. She will speak, also through your pictures and your sculptures to your generation, until they demand, like those ages of which we read, the works of your brush and of your chisel to kindle their devotion and urge them onward in the heavenly way. Do not tell me that the atmosphere of your native land is chilling to devotion. Make your own atmosphere; make it by frequenting the sacra- ments, by lives of loving devotion to the saints, by a frequent observance of, and attendance upon, all festivals; and not only will your own atmosphere be one springing forth lilies and roses, but it will be caught by your countrywomen, so that you will be asked for in their homes, will be placed before their children, and — glory of glories to a true Christian painter or sculptor — you will live and speak to them from the altar- piece and altar-niche. Rouse then, oh my countrywomen, to the fullness of your vocation as artists! Use all the opportunities afforded you, not to win the poor fame awarded by gallery or salon, but aspire to that ideal which we have seen consistent with a life of a conse- crated nun and even that of the saint — the Christian work of a Christian woman in Christian art. In an essay entitled "Women and Mammon," Mrs. Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, daughter of America's famous novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, pict- ured in words of beauty the ideal woman, and then drew impressive contrasts and teachings. Among many bright passages were these: WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. S3 WOMAN AND MAMMON. The word man conveys to us the meaning at once only of courage, energy, construct- ive force. But when the word woman is presented to the mind, two diametrically opposed types are surely evoked — the woman who is pure and elevating and the woman who is at most pure in a limited sense, and who lives in an atmosphere of such attract- iveness as is not elevating. This is the sort of woman who would rather disenchant her husband with life than give up the approving glances of a half-dozen admirers. We will not describe her any more minutely, for it would be a picture of a frequent companion. A companion not all wicked, shining brightly in her beauty, seemingly sweeter than the women of true hearts, petted, clever, and gracious. But she worships mammon in that half-conscious way in which so many of us are guilty of evil. It is only righteousness which is always awake to its responsibilities, eager for its succeo= in meeting them, and quick to detect the ease and unkindness of low principles. Mrs. Lathrop described at length the influence upon the world of these two classes of women and concluded as follows: Can it be that woman is, in the majority, forever to serve mammon? Is she, who is the mother of all perfect impulses, to be represented anywhere forever as the adorer of vanity? Is she always anywhere to appear laden with jewels, like a jeweler's show- case, and with jewels that are very likely gathered upon her bosom at the expense of health, or even the honesty of her husband? Must woman, who stands for the highest note of human perfection, who should, above all created beings, worship God, erect, up- ward-looking, must she stoop to mammon in coquettish courtesy, anywhere in this world of God? Oh, woman, the hour has struck when you are to arise and defend your rights, your abilities for competition with men, intellect, and professional endurance. The hour when your are to prove that purity and generosity are for the nation as well as for the home. If it is well for you to imitate the prof mndest students, the keenest business minds, the sublimest patriots, is it not well for you to imitate the noblest and tenderest of your sex? A most instructive and eloquent paper by Miss Eleanor C. Donnelly of Philadelphia, Pa., was next read to the Congress on the subject of WOMAN IN LITERATURE. It was the genius of a woman, the generosity of a woman, that first made possible the discovery of America. But years before Isabella offered to sacrifice her jewels that Columbus might sail out of Palos, an Essex-born woman over in England, near St. Albans, had launched her little bark upon a sea almost as wide and trackless, almost as dim and perilous, as that through which the Santa Maria was later to plough its way. Dame Juliana Barnes, or Berners, a Catholic nun of Herefordshire, was the first person ,to write English verse. The father of Anglo-Saxon poesy was Caedmon, the monk of Whitby. The mother of English female authorship was Juliana, prioress of Sopewell Nunnery. Pood is here for much triumphant exultation in the glories of creed and sex. Our •osoms make haste to swell with honest pride, with womanly self-gratulation. But, my disters, festina lente! The iconoclasts, alas, are busy and almost cruel. Modern and most destructive biographers rudely dispel the flattering illusions that have long veiled the memory of our literary primogenitrix. Remorselessly they tell us that the venerable Dame Berners wrote verses on the most unfeminine, the most un-nunlike themes; that the " Book of St. Albans,'' published at Westminster in 14S6 from some old, discarded type of Caxton. contained her three rhyming treatises on — on — (stop your ears, oh, outraged shades of the mystic and aesthetic nine) — on "Hunting," "Hawking," and "Coat Armor." In the shock of this early English revelation, in the shame-faced effort to marry the mythical prioress to her verse, we remina ourselves that Dame Juliana was a lady of high degree, when the wine of youth ran red and hot in her veins, a 15th century Diana, in plumed hat and flying robes, following the chase with the gay knights ami ladies of the court, and we say to ourselves: before this valiant woman hid her noble presence and masterful mind behind the convent grille she posed on her palfry among the gallants of the greenwood, her soul straining at its social restraints, and Bounding the warning chime of its deliverance, even as the hooded falcon on her wrist strained at its silken jesses and jingled its silvern bells. If Bales describes the noble Juliana as "an ingenious virago," he frankly admits that s 4 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. her personal and mental endowments were of the highest character; and he goes on to explain, that, "among the many solaces of human life, 6he held the sports of the held in great estimation, and was desirous of conveying these arts, hy her writing* to the youth, as the first elements of nobility. In the three centuries following the prioress of Sopewell Nunnery, few of her own countrywomen ventured after her into the new world of letters. Germany had produced her sacred poet and dramatist, the Benedictine, Dame Hrosvitha, Italy her Catherine of Sienna, her Caterma Adorni, her Victoria Colonna. Spain had given birth tc the mystical Teresa Ahumada (better known as Saint Teresa of Jesus); and the eldest daughter of the Church rejoiced in the brilliant glory reflected on her by the works of Marie de France, Marie de Gourney, Madame Guyon, Madame de Sevigne, and Madame Deshonilliere. But, up to the middle of the 18th century the number of English women writers of any note could be reckoned on the fingers of one hand. To the originality and keen perceptions of one noble poetess, however (to Annie, Countess of Winchelsae, who wrote in the 17th century), Mr. Wadsworth pays this tribute: " It is remarka- ble that, excepting the " Nocturnal Reverie" by Lady Anne, and a passage or two in Pope's "Windsor Forest," the poetry of the period intervening between the publica- tion of " Paradise Lost " and the " Seasons," does not contain a single new image of exter- nal nature. "Literature," says Dr. Brownson, "can not come before its time. We can not obtain the oracle before the pythoness feels the God." And he further directs attention to the fact that " there is no literature, ancient or modern, which is not indebted for its existence to some social fermentation, or some social change or revolution. The intellectual life of the 18th century seems to have been fermented by the strongest leaven of "social change," even as its civil atmosphere was surcharged with the electric currents of widespread revolution. Amid the upheaval of nations and the dismemberment of kingdoms certain volcanic tremors foretold the coming emancipation of woman's intellect. Prior to the Augustian age of English literature there were few inducements, few opportunities for secular women to enter the arena of letters. Men barely tolerated their literary sisters, or cauterized them, if successful, with sneers and satires. The very soubriquet " Blue Stocking," originated in 1786, as a term of derision for literary ladies; and the measure of approval accorded, at that era, to the works of Hannah More was mainly due, we are told, to the egotistic patronage of Garrick and Dr. Johnson. Sara Coleridge, daughter of the poet, does not hesitate to say in one of her letters: "The great mogul of literature (Johnson) was gracious to a pretender, whose highest ambition was to follow him at a humble distance. He would have sneered to death a writer of far subtler intellect and more excursive imagination who dared to deviate from the track to which he pronounced it good sense to be confined. He even sneered a little at his dear pet, Fanny Burney. She had set up shop for herself, to use a vulgarism; she had ventured to be original." In truth, although Johnson protested to Mrs. Trale that " there were passages in Evelina which might do honor to Richardson," no one can read the " Diary and Letters of Fanny Burney" (Madame d'Arblay), gossipy and self -conceived as they are, without discerning the difficulties that handicapped the career of a lady of letters, even in the time of the third George. That boorish king rehearsing to one of his court ladies a certain interview with Dr. Burney reveals the latter's extraordinary terror at the dis- covery of his daughter's authorship. " Her father," said the king, " told me the whole history of her Evelina, and I shall never forget his face when he spoke of his feelings at first taking up the book; he looked quite frightened, just as if he were doing it at that moment. I can never forget hie face while I live." But, thank heaven, the day of class prejudice and narrow jealousies anent woman's work in literature has forever passed away. Through the widening of woman's sphere, through the opening of innumerable avenues to her higher education and intellectual advancement, the queen hath come at last to her own. The barefooted beggar maid before King Cophetua hath been lifted at last to her rightful throne at his side in the kingdom of letters. While we agree with Brownson that woman was made for man and " in herself is only an inchoate man" — from a literary standpoint we must be willing to admit with Tennyson that Woman is not undevelopt man, But diverse. Not lite to like, but like a difference BISHOP GABRIELS, OGDENSBUhG BISHOP MATZ, DENVER. BISHOP JENSEN, BELLVILLE. BISHOP SPALDING, PEORIA. BISHOP COSGROVE, DAVENPORT. BISHOP BRADLEY, MANCHESTER. BISHOP McCLOUSKY, LOUISVILLE. BISHOP RYAN, ALTON. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. S5 And be willing to accept from the same standpoint the dead Laureate's prophecy that In the long years liker must they gro .v; The man be more of woman, she of man. He gain in sweetness and in moral height. She, mental breadth, nor fail in childward care. " Till at length her work shall set itself to man's like perfect music into noble words." If she be the queen of beauty in the tournament of the world's thought, she must also be the queen of truth and purity. Like the woman of the gospel, she must hide her leaven in her three measures of meal; she must hide the truth of Christ, the purity of Christ, in poesy, fiction, and journalism, until the whole is leavened. As Cardinal Newman said of Philip Neri's work in Rome, she must make use, in a corrupt and faithless generation, of th..- great counter fascinations of purity and truth: she must direct the current which she can not stop; sweeten and sanctify what God has made good, but man has corrupted and profaned. Not mere elegance of diction, brilliancy of style, or perfection of technique, shall serve her ends. Her mission is a higher and holier one than the polishing of clevc verses, or the perfecting of " a filigree tale in a paper cover." Artificial flowers, fashioned by a Parisian hand, may be exquisite in form and color but they lack nature's fragrance and honey-dew. All the pressure in the world can not distil from them one drop of the attar of roses, such as is yielded by the smallest bud in the rose gardens of Ghazebor. An elaborate setting is employed to enhance an inferior gem; and the meretricious glitter of stage jewels often does duty for the pure radiance of diamonds of the first water. '• We are not," says Ruskin, "to set the meaner thing, in its narrow accomplish ment, above the nobler thing, in its mighty progress; not to esteem smooth minuteness above shattered majesty." Thought must be great enough, wise enough, strong enough to seize and shape its vehicle, making style ever secondary to sentiment. " Landscape Gardening " is Emerson's synonym for'an over-devotion to technique, and close and stifling is the confined atmosphere' of Boyle O'Reilly's carver of cherry- stones in the " Art Master." For such rude hands as dealt with wrongs and passions, And throbbing Uearts. he had a pitying smile. Serene his ways through surging years and fashions. While heaven gave him his cherry-stones and file! If, perforce, the queen must step down from her royal dais to champion the " rude hands " of social reformers, or to deal in her own realm with " wrongs and passions and throbbing hearts." she must not soil her white sandals or bedraggle the trailing splendor of her fair robes in the mire of the slums. It is proverbial that the worst corruption is of the best. Woman's influence in letters can never be an uncertain or negative one. If she does not elevate and strengthen she degrades and enervates. The day was. when the startling realism of the Bronte sisters (to put it mildly) met with the sternest censure and fiercest ostracism of right-thinking people.^ Dr. Brow- son goes the length of declaring that "there are passages in 'Jane Eyre' which show that women can enter into, and describe with minute accuracy, the grossest passions of man's nature, which men could not describe to their own Bex without a blush." And yet, in their biography of its author, Mrs. Gaskill would have us believe that when Charlotte Bronte violated convention (again, to put it mildly), she did so unwittingly; and that the daring utterances of the Yorkshire curate's daughters were simply the innocent expression of morbid temperaments acted on by exceptional environments. Apologists have also been found for the agnostic sophisms and psychological subtleties of Mrs. Humphrey Ward, on the grounds that they are not set forth in "Robert Els mere" and "David Grieve" with malice prepense and aforethought, for the destruction of believing souls, but that they are merely the grave, troubled exposition of the writer s private uncertainties in ethics, her own personal perplexities in dogma and doctrine. But, whether it be a question of murder or manslaughter, whether it be an indeliberate slaying of souls or a cold-blooded intent to kill, woe betide the woman who unsettles or confuses convictions of right and wrong in her readers' minds, or who leads them astrav in issues of the affections or of the marriage relations! Like the fisherman of I ie Arabian legend, she has let forth unto destruction an evil and powerful genii whom s. 10 will never again be able to imprison in the gloomy casket of her own fancy. It is in the field of fiction that the" woman writer of the 19th century has S6 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. attained her highest success, has won her most enduring fame. Yet, sorrowful to say, the crab-like tendency of some of our modern women novelists seems to lie to work backward to the contemplation and delineation of pagan models. They forgel that the passionate song of Sappho must give wa„ .o the chaste "Magnificat " of Mary. Their gross indelicacy is due either to greed for gain or itch for notoriety. It is even said that a young authoress once begged an editor to denounce her work as indecent, in the hope that the scathing review might do for her novel what barring the mails did for " Kreutzer Sonata" — sellhalf a million copies of it! Too often, however, the women who befoul their pens in the cesspools of lewd sensualism and erotic romance (like certain delineators of the nude in art), pander unblushingly to the pruriency of the fleshly. They, indeed, create " words that burn" — yea, that burn- with the lurid and unquenchable fires of hell, not with the pure and cleansing flame of Isaiah's celestial coal. Their muse, instead of swinging before the Most High a golden censer, sending forth delicious incense from consecrated resins, flourishes before the golden calf a brasier of dusky, smoldering charcoal, whence issue the deadly fumes of asphyxiation to all that is pure and noble in humanity. Such women are the " Dorothy Draggletails " of literature. They may have learned, in common parlance, "to call a spade a spade," but in so doing they have furnished themselves with a spade to dig the grave of their own womanly delicacy and self- respect. Ye nymphs, that reign o'er sewers and sinks, The river Rhine it is well known Doth wash your city of Cologne; But, tell me, nymphs, what power divine Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine. Commenting upon the assertion of Julian Hawthorne and others, that " literature in America is emasculated by convention," a reviewer not long since boldly declared in a leading Eastern magazine that " it is the fear of the young that emasculates it! " Surely, this out-Herods Herod. Accursed is the age, accursed the commonwealth, that ceases to respect, to rever- ence, the innocence of the young. Even the pagans wrote: "Maxima debetur puero reverentia;" and the ancient Egyptians at the obsequies of their dead, proclaimed the departed spirit damned or saved, according as it had wronged or reverenced little chil- dren during life. Conscientiously careful, tenderly strong, must be the pen that traces the first impressions upon the soft, pure wax of the virgin mind. Those gravings will outlive the inscriptions cut upon bronze and granite. " Take your vase of Venice glass out of the furnace," says Ruskin: "and strew chaff over in its transparent heat, and recover that to its clearness and rubied glory, when the north wind has blown upon it; but do not think to strew chaff over the child fresh from God's presence, and to bring back the heavenly colors to him, at least in this world." What Christian father w T ould dare read aloud to his young sons the immoral trage- dies or the disgraceful figures of George Sand? What Christian mother would dare lay open before the innocent eyes of her young daughters the shameless pages of " The Quick and the Dead," or "The Doomswoman," or deliberately put into their hands the lucubrations of Miss Braddon, or of that hydraheaded and sensuous gorgon of romance, yclept the Duchess? Literature, it is true, as Cardinal Newman reminds us, can never be anything else than the manifestations of human nature in a human language; that, as science is the reflection of physical nature, literatureas the reflection of nature moral and social. We can not eliminate the evidences of human passion from the records of human life, and our age of Action is pre-eminently introspective and analytical. But surely, my sisters, in order to be true to nature, we are not called upon to dip our pens into the stinking slush of foul and debasing passions. In order to be faithful to reality we are not obliged to lay bare to the vulgar the most sacred esoteric mysteries; to make our toilets in public; to expose ourselves, as a master mind has phrased it, unveiled in the market- place, unveiled and unrobed to the gaze of a profane world. Surgeons do not dissect their subjects on street corners. There is a native delicacy in true science as well as true art. Of Rembrandt's famous picture, " The Lesson in Anatomy," it has been remarked that the artist rivets the gazer's attention on the glow- ing, lifelike figures of the professor and his students rather than on the vivid, repulsive corpse that lies before them on the dissecting table. If we must faithfully portray nature in our works, my sisters and colaborers, let us not forget the God of nature in his works. Let us give to the world something better than the vintage of an intoxicating and effervescing romance pressed from the dried grapes of exhausted passion and erotic pruriency. Let us offer it, not " devil's wine," WORLD'S CO L U MB I AN CA THOLIC CONGRESSES. 8 7 but " God's wine"— a distillation from the fresh herbs and sweet-smelling simples of a chaste pasturage, giving to fainting souls and faltering heart the royal cordial of the golden aud Da Grande Chartreuse. The dove that goes forth from the saving ark of a purified literature must not pause to dissect, the putrid carcasses tossed upon the rocks by the receding deluge of human passions. " Let the carrion rot." Leave it to glut the rapacious raven, which shall return no more to gladden the yearning eyes of the watchers; which surfeited with rottenness shall never bring back to any longing soul the olive branch of God's eternal peace. Once, in a literary circle of unusual brilliancy and culture, an American writer of some note read a paper to prove that there had never really existed a female poet! Beg-nnmg with poor, "sweet, smiling, violet-crowned Sappho," whose broken snatch of Grecian melody, sounding through twenty centuries, he scoffed at to the echo, he ran the gamut of the fair singers of the ages, dealing death to their pretensions and destruc- tion to their fame. His coup-de-grace was a showing of the post-mortem decline of Mrs. Browning's literary repute. He enlarged upon the fact that during her lifetime, when any pilgrim visited the home of the Brownings in Italy, it was less with the view of meeting Robert Browning than his gifted wife, Elizabeth Barrett. But that, strange to say, since the latter's death, the star of her glory has been steadily declining, whilst the orb of her husband's fame had been as steadily mounting to its zenith. A listener suggested that this might be because an age devoted to technique had launched its fiat against effusions which Miss Barrett wrote rapidly and from impulse, glorying, as Mr. Bethune remarks, "in her expedients to save time, though they took the shape of false rhymes or distorted syllables." But, when it was presently shown that a like decadence had waited upon the fame of Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Osgood, Miss Landon, the Carey sisters, and others, whose technical expression was more painstaking and polished, we were forced to conclude, with Emerson, that some of the immortals were merely contemporaries; that, as a lady writer in the Century has lately shown in com- menting on the oblivion fast closing around the name and works of the American, Margaret Fuller, it is to a strong personality that , - in popular songstresses have owed their power over men, and that, with the vanishing of their personality, their power has ceased to exist. This is especially true of women of the transcendental school. But to the 19th century alone belongs the authorship of American Catholic women. It has scarcely more than reached, indeed, its golden jubilee of existence. Yet while England points with pride to Adelaide Proctor, Lady Fullerton, Lady Herbert. Mary Howitt, Alice Meynell, Emily Bowles, and Mother Theodosia Drane, Ireland to Rosa Mulholland, Julia Kavanagh, Kathleen O'Meara, Cecelia Caddell, Ellen Downing, Katherine Tynan, and Mrs. Cashel-Hoey, France to Eugenie de Guerin and Mrs. Craven, Germany to Countess Hahn-Hahn, Spain to Cecelia Bohl de Faber, and Italy to Maria Brunnamonti, America enshrines in her Catholic heart of hearts the names of Anna Han- son Dorsey, Elizabeth Allen Starr, Margaret Sullivan, Christian Reid, Loutee Guiney, Katherine Conway, Sara Trainor Smith, Agnes Repplier, Mary Elizabeth Blake, Harriet Skidmore, Ella Dorsey, the gifted Sadliers ( mother and daughters ), Ellen Ford, Mary Josephine Onahan, Helen and Grace Smith, the cloistered singers, Mercedes and Mother Austin Carroll, and a host of others who blend their sweet voices in the grand cantata of Columbian Catholic literature. No meed of earthly glory shall fill the aspirations of the true Catholic woman writer. No crown of laurel or of pine shall satisfy the brow created for the amaranth of eternity. Her face is set toward the white city of the heavenly Jerusalem; her pen is illumined with the splendor that streameth from its gates of pearl; her highest ambition is to write her name in the book of life, beside the names of those whom her genius has ennobled, whom her gifts have drawn closer to God, whom her works have established in the perfection of his law. She may not be crowned after death as one of fame's immortals; her memory and her writings may not long survive her own day and gener- ation, but, having done what she could, in her time, with the talent that was intrusted to her (and with it instructed "many unto justice"), she shall be crowned by the Lord God in his everlasting kingdom as one of those blessed toilers Whose works shall last, Whose names shall shine as the stars on high, When deep in the dust of a ruined past The labors of sellish souls shall lie! The history and workings of St. Vincent de Paul's Society, whose dele- gates had been holding their Convention in one of the lesser halls, were thus presented to the Congress by Joseph A. Kernan, Jr., of Philadelphia. 88 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. THE WORK OF ST. VINCENT DE PAUL. Before an audience of Catholics it would seem hardly necessary to say anything in explanation of the origin and aims of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, now in exist- ence in France for sixty years and in our own country for almost half a century, and yet there is evidently a very imperfect knowledge of it, except in a general way. It is not unusual to hear even clergymen speak of the society as it now exists as being founded by its illustrious patron, St. Vincent himself, which is a nbtural error; but much graver ones are the result of ignorance on the subject. To those who have read the highly interesting life of Frederick Ozanam, by the late Kathleen O'Meara, some portion of this paper will be a repetition of what they have already learned, but as there are still good, active Vincentians who zealously follow in the footsteps of their founder and yet are ignorant of this charming book, it may safely be presumed that there are others in the same category. What St. Vincent de Paul accomplished in the cause of charity is incorporated in tne " Lives of the Saints " and in the " History of the Church in France," and existing monuments in the shape of institutions which owe their origin to his great zeal, for the poor are daily reminders of his wonderful success. More effective still, perhaps, in recalling and perpetuating his memory, are his "Daughters of Charity," as they were originally called, but whom we now recognize as " Sisters of Charity," known through- out the world, and especially in France, where their services in the hospitals and upon the field of battle have been honored by a government which ignores the crucifix they bear _the image of one whose religion that government seeks to abolish. In our own sad days of strife they rendered like service, and in these " piping times of peace," which may God prolong indefinitely, they quietly succor the orphan and the afflicted and allay the sufferings of the sick with their kindly care and ministrations; but the society^ of St. Vincent de Paul is everywhere a living witness to the great spirit of charity for which the saint's name has been so long a synonym. In 1833, the year of its foundation, France had, within a few decades, passed through two revolutions, had gloried in its first empire, and was not entirely free from the influ- ence of the prestige of the great conqueror who founded it. She had seen three resto- rations of the old monarchy, and was drifting toward another revolution, and that republic which was, in its turn, to be wiped out by a coup d'etat, and followed, or swallowed up, by the second empire. As has been said, the shadow of the first Napoleon, who had sought to subjugate the Church, yet brooded over her. There was still the pride of race in the hearts of her oid nobility, there was revolutionary blood in the veins of her citizens, and these were irreconcilable. The teachings of Voltaire were widespread, the indifference of the self-styled Catholics was demoralizing, the general discontent of the masses apparent. The Church was fettered; her clergy had not the influence to be expected in a nation called the " eldest daughter of the Church," but happily France, with all her faults and her decadence, was never wanting in champions of the Faith. In every age she had faithful, exemplary, and valiant eons and daughters among the clergy, the religious, and the laity, to fight her battles against infidelity and indifference; to take a stand for law and order and Christian civilization against anarchy and its causes, and, if need be, to lay down their lives. The government of the period was, practically, in the hands of men who were not Christians; Guizot, Cousin, Hugo, Lamartine were the prominent men of the day, the last of these being classed among the dilettante order of Catholics. At the same time, that restless and restive spirit, the Abbe de Lammenais, then in the zenith of his popularity, together with his milder, but not less distinguished associates, Lacordaire, Chateubriand, and Montalembert, were battling for the Church and its rights and privileges. De Lammenais seemed the most brilliant star of the galaxy, but his " nonserviam " was a serious misfortune to the cause of Catholicity and still more disastrous to himself, for the great master mind, which could not learn humility and brook submission to the universal pastor, soon lost his influence and suffered the inevitable eclipse which attends all refractory children of the Church. But Lacordaire was faithful, and Montalembert and the others stood firm, and they gathered about them lesser lights but devoted fol- lowers. The spirit of faith and practical Catholicity in daily life among the laity was to be revived by the fervid eloquence of the great Dominican, and the ardor of the rank and file to be awakened and strengthened by the writings of his associates and their arguments in the senate and assembly. The old college of the Sorbonne (now demolished, in part, to make way for a new structure), with its souvenirs of its founder, and, also, of its famous patron, Cardinal Richelieu, was the great center of learning; but none of its scientific or even philosophi^l WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. So, teachings were allied to religion; on the contrary, its lecture halls resounded with the logic of materialism. Students of the Lyceum, the College Stanislas, and other smaller schools of learning, where they either imbibed their faith or were taught to preserve it, were here exposed to the danger of losing it, unless they were fervent, steadfast souls. Among these were a few youths, of one of whom especially we have to speak. 1 Frederick Ozanam was born in 1813, at Milan, where his father settled during the first empire. The family traced its origin not only back to the period when, hundreds of years before, it became Christianized in France, but also to that Hebrew race, which formed the chosen people of the Old Testament, and whose genealogies are to be found in the Bib\e. Ozanam's father had served with distinction under the consulate, but when the first consul made himself emperor, the faithful officer, who seemed to be neither royalist nor imperialist, became disgusted with the new regime and refused a position under the imperial government, preferring to take up his residence in Milan, where he became an accomplished and successful physician. He was an exemplary Catholic, and it was natural that with such a sire and such a mother as was Madame Ozanam, Frederick should have passed his boyhood in the practice of the faith. His later environment in Paris exposed him, as it did a great many others, to temptations to waver, but his early training made him strong, and so we find him, at twenty, a youth of steadfast character, serious but enthusiastic. He went to Paris to pursue his law studies with assiduity and thoroughness, and later on — his ability being duly recog- nized — he received the appointment of professor of commercial law in Lyons, and subsequently, was made professor of foreign literature at the Sorbonne. It was in this position that his genius shone out most brilliantly, and his Faith as well. He also entered the field of journalism and did good service for the cause of religion. His natural leanings were toward democracy, with more or less Utopian ideas of the grand republic that was to be the great remedy for all political difficulties, the panacea for all social grievances, the great millennium for the poor and the oppressed. Like all earnest minds, he dreamed of the days that were never to come, of the ways that were never to be adopted, and he descanted upon those possibilities of the future which were never even to take the shape of probabilities. He was, however, in no sense a dreamer, but a practical Christian and a valiant champion of the right. When fame and position were achieved and from the rostrum of that same old college of the Sorbonne he, in his turn, lectured the students who loved him so well, nothing deterred him from defending the truth and exposing error, and he seemed to have had the peculiar gift of ably answering the sophistry of his opponents and bring- ing their fallacious arguments to naught. His contributions to literature indicate the high order of talent, patient research, and convincing logic which characterized his lectures and his writings. It was at the early period of his life from which the society dates that Ozanam felt the lack of Christian teaching and the support of Christian example and companionship, as well as the longing for something higher and purer to actuate every-day life than the average student was satisfied with. Hence, in response to these aspirations and in direct answer to the taunts of his sneering associates, who asked for some tangible proof of his disposition to accomplish something practical, he and a few kindred spirits, encouraged by a friend of maturer years, M. Bailly, started the first " Conference of Charity," which was the nucleus of the present wide-spread society. They first put themselves under the protection of the Mother of God, making the sanctification of their own souls their main object. Their next aim was the allevia- tion of the sufferings of the poor, their moral and physical ailments — the former to be reached by assiduously caring for the latter. A brief life, but a noble one, was that of Frederick Ozanam. We have only an imperfect portrait of him; a pen and ink sketch, which shows little more than a profile of a serious face upon which much study and the conscientious discharge of laborious duty, together with the suffering entailed by disease, have left their unmistakable traces; but he was cheerful and patient withal, a good son, brother, husband, and father, faithful to his friends and charitable to his enemies — if he had any. Although cut off in the prime of manhood, he lived to see the great success of the society which he had helped to establish, for he always disclaimed the honor of being the sole founder. For some time before his death, failing health forced him to intermit his duties, and he traveled in Italy and Spain, where his footsteps were marked by the establishment of conferences. The last of his excursions was to the little seaport of Antignano, which he left in the fall of 1853, hoping to breathe his- last in Paris, the scene of his labors, but the Lord willed otherwise, and shortly after his arrival in Marseilles the closing scene set in and- he died there on the 8th of September. 9 o WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. He has long ago, we trust, received his reward, and his confreres continue to cherish his memory with a respect and affection which will long survive the appreciation of his literary labors. He has had many worthy successors, also men of talent and distinc- tion, in the government of the society — particularly in the council-general in Paris — and before giving a brief sketch of its progress and position in America, it may not be out of place to make, parenthetically, a few reflections on the influence of such men in the community. While we know that God has usually chosen the humblest instru- ments to propagate his Church, and. at times, some special devotion, still we all recog- nize the marked effect in our own day of good example, notably among that higher class of the laity- to whom we are naturally inclined to look for models. We may recur to an incident in the life of Ozanam himself, as an illustration of this. A prey, momentarily, to that weakness which is most fitly called human respect — a powerful motive, especially with Frenchmen — he entered a church in passing (for he was a devout man always), and there he saw, kneeling absorbed in prayer before the altar of Our Lady, that great scholar, the elder Ampere, in whose family he had happily found a home at a critical time. The young man confessed, afterward, that he was indescribably impressed and strengthened by the spectacle. There are brave men, we know, in the humblest walks of life, but their deeds are not so manifest nor so likely to inspire emulation as the example of those in higher positions. The private in the ranks is as gallant and daring as his commanding officer, but when the latter is at the head of the charging columns all eyes are fixed on him and all hearts filled with the resolution to follow his valiant leadership. While the practical work of the conferences was the fundamental one of relieving the poor by personal visits and direct assistance, no work of charity was ever to be for- eign to the society; and so we find it, notably in France, taking up and developing the patronages, which have been so successful, and which were really the foundation of institutions of a kindred nature now so widespread, and which have taken the shape, with our Protestant friends, of Young Men's Christian Associations. All the needs of the poor, both spiritual and temporal, have become the special care of the society, which also occupies itself with remedying the causes of poverty. Hence its exhortations to temperance and economy in both old and young; the establishment of "penny banks" in England, following the example of our French confreres, who have also many other expedients, such as co-operative kitchens, and the various plans which have been found practical for the prevention as well as the alleviation of the misery entailed by ignor- ance and improvidence. Thus it will be seen that there is no limit to the projects and labors of a Vincentian in the field of charity. He has penetrated into the northern wilds of the British possessions on our own continent, and although we can not trace his foot- steps as far as Cape Horn, he is to be found in various points in the intervening land, from Maine to California, in Mexico, Central and South America. Conferences exist in all the great nations of Europe with the exception of Russia; in Asia, embracing Arabia and the Holy Land, and we know of at least one native Arabian conference. On the "dark continent" in Egypt, upon the banks of old father Nile and no. far from the great pyramids, whence "forty centuries look down on them," brethren are to be met with; and in this connection we may mention that our fellow-citizens of African descent have been gathered into the fold in Washington and Boston, St. Louis and Indianapolis. If not "Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand," we count at least members in Norway and Denmark; they gather together also upon the classic soil of Greece, as well as under the dominion of the turbaned Turk and amid the gorgeous paganism of the Indies. China has been long since invaded, and in distant Australasia Macaulay's dreaded New Zealander (who is supposed to be cultivating an artistic eye for prospect- ive English ruins) has in his midst the disciples of St. Vincent de Paul. From the latest statistics in our possession the present condition of the society may be summed up in the following figures: In the United States about 500 conferences, with an active membership of about 9,000, while the total membership of the society is about 90,000, and the number of con- ferences 5,000. The work of the patronages has reached, in France, a development which dwarfs our efforts here, and these efforts seem insignificant in comparison with what our Prot- estant brethren accomplish in the same field, having borrowed from our society the idea, and elaborated it, thanks to their ample means. Unfortunately for us, our resources are extremely limited, and where our Catholic brethren are wealthy there does not seem to be so much liberality in helping to found and sustain these institutions. In Pans they have established auxiliary societies of lady patronesses of all walks of life, whose offorts are bent to secure the funds necessary for the support and maintenance of these WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. $ \ noble institutions. In London the same work has been already taken in hand quite energetically. In Boston, especially, the children of the poor are looked after in the most thorough manner. As in New York, they have agents at the courts to rescue Catholic children from commitment to Protestant homes; Catholic ones are provided; occupations are found for those who are old enough to work, and it is highly interesting to read of the ingenuity exercised in amusing the children on the "outings " given them in pleasant weather. The abandoned or neglected infants, through the paternal care of the confer- ences, get the next best thing to proper maternal nursing, arrangements having been made to place them in good hands, which has resulted in materially reducing the mor- tality among these little ones. Thus the society in Boston is doing 'the work of a found- ling asylum. The organization of its early days obtained the approval of the late Pope Pius IX. of blessed memory, who enriched it with many spiritual favors, and our present Pontiff', Leo XIII. , has endowed it with like testimonials of his paternal affection. The last council of Baltimore spoke in flattering terms of the society, and placed it in the front rank of lay organizations. Those of the hierarchy and the clergy who. know best its objects and its aims and what it accomplishes, are anxious for its establishment, propa- gation, and success, and always give it their heartiest support. Even our municipal authorities recognize it in a most practical way by giving it, in some places, a share in the distribution of the public funds devoted to charity, because they realize that the application of the money will be direct and undiminished by salaries of distributors; and it has conquered the respect and, in many instances, the co-operation of our separated brethren, who admit its quiet efficacy in succoring the poor. It is essentially a lay society, seeking always to work in harmony with the clergy, to whom it is a valuable aid, and it is par excellence the most important lay society in the Church. It remains there- fore for Catholic laymen to recruit its ranks. Its rules are simple; no great sacrifices are exacted; no very onerous duties are imposed. We should have many more upon our rolls of active membership; men of all classes and conditions. In Europe, and especially in France, conferences are thus composed; while in America we see few names of the wealthy and distinguished upon the confer- ence lists. With accessions from this class, dare we not hope that in addition to its multifarious works of charity, it may have its humble share in solving the serious prob- lem which agitates all nations and peoples, the great living question of the relations between the rich and the poor; the conflict between capital and labor, and the other social questions involved. Only faith and hope and charity can surmount the obstacles which these antagonisms present, and lead to a better understanding of relative rights and mutual duties. "And the greatest of these is charity;" "for the poor we have always with us." " Indian Rights " was next stated by Rt. Rev. Bishop McGolrick, of Duluth, Minn., his address embodying a mass of statistics not deemed appropriate here. THE INDIAN IN THIS REPUBLIC. Our young Republic, but now in the beginning of its development, has, for the most part, pursued a policy of conciliation in its treatment of the Indian tribes. To those who were supposed to represent the Government, to its agents and officers, must be generally attributed the evils which have fallen on these wards of the nation, which have well-nigh blotted out a nomadic race, about whose extinction there appears to be slight doubt, as they recede before the white man's advancing tread. The commission of nine appointed by General Grant in 1869, after enumerating the many notorious grievances of the Indians, summed up by declaring that " the history of the Government connections with the Indians is a shameful record of broken treaties and unfulfilled promises." "Theft, lying, robbery, broken promises"— such is the summing up of Helen Hunt Jackson, when, in pleading for the rights of the Indians, she recounts the story of their woes. Professor Painter, agent of the Indian Rights Association, in his report of 1888, states as his conclusion, after a careful investigation, that "the whole management of Indians has been abnormal, with little or absolutely no opportunity for the natural laws regulating social life to operate." " The aboriginal population of the West Ind es, of Mexico, of Central and South America," writes Rt. Rev. Bishop Marty, so well known for his active interest in the 9 2 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. Indians, " was preserved, Christianized, and in great part civilized. Forty-six millions of Catholic people now inhabit those countries, with a proportion of white people to the mixed and purely aboriginal elements nearly everywhere the same — 20 per cent, white; 43 per cent, mixed; 37 per cent, aboriginal. North of Mexico, the fate of the aborigines has been extermination." In the report of the commission, charged with the distribution of the fund for Cath- olic mission work among the negroes and Indians, and of which His Eminence, Cardinal Gibbons, is the chairman, the Indian population is marked as being about 285,730. The report of the Government Commissioner of Indian affairs for 1892 gives the Indian popu- lation, exclusive of Alaska, as 248,340; with about 3,000 employes. The location of the Indian population, together with the statistics of Catholic Indians, churches, sister- hoods, and religions for the year 1892, makes very interesting reading. In 1891 the total Indian population was given as 249,273, and of these 80,891 were Catholics. In the statistics of 1876 there were enumerated 260 different tribes in the United States, amounting to about 300,000 Indians. These were widely scattered, roam- ing around in the chase during the year and only settled in their camping grounds during the winter and early spring. For many of these tribes the Government holds in trust certain funds belonging to them and for which they receive the annual interest. Five tribes, civilized, the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Seminoles, and Creeks, have a trust fund of $8,008,525.99, with an annual interest of $413,790.11, while thirty other tribes have about $16,000,000 for their benefit. This fund, if well managed and properly disbursed would be a great assistance to the Indians, but the commissioners, clerks, inspectors, supervisors, agents, boss farmers, physicians, teachers, and all the rest of the multitude to whom the Indian is so valuable, take to themselves a very large per- centage of the fund belonging to these poor people. The constant advance of the white man, and the ever-increasing demand for land, gradually drove back the Indian to remote western wilds. Before the shrewd and often unscrupulous pioneer the Indian had to retreat or become completely helpless. The general government was gradually forced to exercise unlimited control over the aborigines and their property. They became wards of the nation, to be governed and directed in all their affairs until they could be formed into civilized men. Prisoners in their own homes, they are strictly kept within lines called reservations. There they are forced to remain, and can not leave but by special permission and with a pass, on which is marked the number of days they are allowed to be absent. The agent has full power over these people, and, if he be tyrannical, can govern more absolutely than the Czar of Russia. The number of these reservations and agencies increased up to 1870, when General Grant inaugurated the Indian peace policy. Of the seventy agencies under this new system eight were assigned to the Catholic Church. In other agencies, where the large number of Indians were Catholics, their demands for a Catholic priest were ignored, and they were handed over, body and soul, to those who were in many cases hostile to Catholicity. At this period, twenty-three years ago, more than forty mission houses, with over 300 stations, at which 100,000 Indians received instruction and the sacraments, were built up, but under this new system complaints grew ever louder, showing that the Government agents were vising all their powers to counteract the labors of Catholic missionaries, to prevent their mission work and destroy their control of the Indians. In many places the Catholic missionaries were driven out of the reservations, and, at Archbishop Bailey declared, "this action was taken under a government policy of itself wise and humane." Under this policy, non-Catholic missions and schools were erected and established among the Indians already Catholic, and amongst pagans who for years had been peti- tioning for schools and churches under the influence of Catholic missionaries. The sad story, which can only be hinted at, of the gross immorality of white men and Indians in many of the reservations ; the dissolute white man and the savage in league to destroy every remnant of purity in the poor Indian girl ; the parents them- selves, the natural guardians of the children for whom they have such warm love, engaged in forcing their daughters to lives of shame— alas ! how often has all this been rehearsed as the common tale of the reservations ! But what a change when the good Sisters came amongst the children of these wretched people ! In the midst of privations and trials, these brave women fighting the good fight against superstition and darkest temptation preserved the children en- trusted to them pure and holy ; gave the Indian mother a new life of freedom, before unknown, and investing them with Christian purity made the Indian family a fit subject of rejoicing both to angels and to men. BISHOP FOLEY, DETROIT. BISHOP HEALY, PORTLAND. BISHOP SCANNELL, OMAHA. BISHOP RADAMACHER, FT. WAYNE. BISHOP KEANE, WASHINGTON. BISHOP BURKE, ST. JOSEPH. BISHOP McGOLRICK, DULUTH. BISHOP MESSMER, GREEN BAY. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 93 " Give us," said the chief of the Gull Lake band of Chippewas, Minnesota, speaking in July, 1892, to the bishop of Duluth, " give us a black-gown to teach ourselves and our children." 41 1 have been twenty years on the reservation here," said an old chief, " and the promises made to us I never saw fulfilled; give us a priest and a school for our children and we will be satisfied." Many of these were pagans, but they had centered their hopes for their children in the sisters' school. The act of Congress, February 8, 1887, giving the Indians an individual title to cer- tain lands, and thus bringing them under the ordinary laws of regular citizens of the country is the last, and it would seem final attempt to settle the Indian question. The amount of land given to each Indian varies with the locality; the Modocs received forty acres each; the Senecas, 160 acres; and the Quapaws, 200 acres each. From February, 1887, to November 30, 1892, there were made 15,182 allotments on reservations under the general allotment act; 4,550 allotments by special act of Congress; 1,212 allotments on public domain outside reservation As the Indian's mode of life and traditions are altogether opposed to this settled life, it will be wise on the part of the Government to see that these people, rendered so help- less by long years of reliance on the Government care, may be protected in their rights and prepared gradually for the change to regular citizenship. Children of nature, care- less of future needs, if present wants be satisfied, never, in any period of their history, do they need more the advice and encouragement of the faithful missionary. Amongst them the demon of intemperance has had its thousands of victims. This, their greatest curse, of itself, would complete their destruction, but the Government, by wise restrictive laws, aided in diminishing the evil. Still there were ever hordes of white men watching to supply, through greed of gain, the "fire-water" which changed the Indian into a devil. The Catholic Church in the United States had from the commencement to deal with a population ever increasing at a rate unparalleled in any other country in the world. Her missionaries were few, unable for many years to meet the wants of the growing towns and with little possibility of attending the new settlers scattered over a country of immense distances. Many, too, had come to make this land their home, whose traditions taught a hatred of Catholicity. History, which should have been a record of the truth, became the medium of shameless lying and the disseminator of calumny. Catholics and Catholicity were judged and condemned on such testimony ; so we need now the active co-operation of the religious orders. Let them prepare men and women missionaries well schooled in the various Indian languages and dialects; let them prepare such useful books as may suit the present generation, and the future is in the hands of the Church. The day of the nomadic Indian is gone; soon to be settled on the lands, many of the difficulties of the old missionary work will have passed away, but this is the critical period, and the Church naturally turns to her reserve corps for self-sacrificing men, now as in the past. How sad it is to read the letter of Archbishop Salpointe, who tells us of 20,000 Navajoes "that the Gospel has never been preached to them; that they are intelligent and many of them would be won over easily to Catholicity." Priests are wanting. Sad- der still is it to learn from the same source that the agents of government commission- ers, hostile to the Church, "do all in their power to ruin our schools and to pervert our poor Catholic Indians, by means fair and foul; their efforts being especially directed against the faith and Catholic allegiance of the Pueblos." Nearly every bishop who has to deal with the Indians has a like story of poverty, of difficulty in finding missionaries and of bigoted obstruction. Yet is it not consoling, in the face of all these troubles, to find that over 2,000 Indians have been received into the Church in the last year, 1892? Bright are the prospects of the future. "We have good hopes," writes Bishop Lemmens, of Vancouver, " that all the Indians on the west coast will ultimately be Catholics; the majority are so now. The missions on the Yukon River and in the southwest of Alaska are very successful." The red man turns to the Catholic Church as to a true friend. May we in our day find missionaries as of old, ready to acquit themselves as men of God to win to the civilizing influences of religion the souls of these poor wanderers from light and life. The question for earnest discussion, and which must meet with prompt response is this: " Can we devise a plan by which the present demands of our Indian population may be answered?" In this new phase of the Indian question are we equal to our golden opportunity? 94 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. The Catholic Young Men's National Union held its convention in the hall of Washington, in the Art Institute. This convention was a notable gathering of the representatives of the rising generation of Catholics in the United States. The proceedings were enlivened by the opening address by James F. O'Connor, president of the Chicago branch of the Union; an address by Rev. Francis McGuire, of Albany, N. Y., President of the Union, and a paper by Warren E. Mosher, of Youn°-stown, Ohio, all of which will be found later on in this book under the fifth day's proceedings. Archbishop Ryan, of Philadelphia, made a short address, among other things he advised them to cultivate a spirit of manly independence, self-respect, and regard for the rights of others. He said that the old prejudice against the Catholic religion was fast dying out, and the time had now come when men were regarded from the point of view of character more than on the account of their religious convictions. He solemnly impressed upon them their great responsibility as young men, and said they were accountable to Almighty God for the influence they exerted on society. He advised them to read the writings of Edmund Burke, and try to catch therefrom something of the ideals which that great statesman held up for the guidance of men in public life. The young men, he said, should adopt that grand old maxim of that grand old states- man, Henry Clay, the saying: " I would rather be right than be President." He mentioned William E. Gladstone, a name that brought forth a storm of cheers, as a man that always had the courage to do his duty in the face of opposition, misunder- standing, and calumny, and who always felt his responsibility to God and to the public. He said that no better type of a public man could be mentioned than that of Grover Cleve- land. Mr. Cleveland represented the people of the United States perhaps better than any man who had occupied the presidential chair since the days of Washington. After an address by Right Rev. Bishop Burke, of St. Joseph, Mo., the regular work of the Convention was taken up by the reading and discussion of numerous valuable papers. On this fourth day, the C. Y. M. Union heard other papers and eloquent addresses from Right Rev. Bishop Gabriel, of Ogdensburgh, and Rev. Dr. Dolan, of Albany, N. Y., and also from Father J. B. Daley, of New York City Cathedral. Besides its election of officers and other customary business, the Union then passed the following resolutions. C. Y. M. N. U. RESOLUTIONS. Resolved, That the Catholic Young Men's National Union, in convention assembled, tender to our most Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII., assurance of our love and devotion. Resolved, That we renew our belief in him as the infallible representative of Christ, and express our filial devotion to him, and, also, to his representative, Mgr. Satolli, whom he has appointed the Apostolic Delegate to America. Resolved, That each society make especial effort to lend itself to literary work, and, also, to the establishment of classes in the ordinary, and, if convenient, in the particular branches of learning for the boys of our colleges and parochial schools; and, also, for our working boys, believing that the great cause of the young men can be best served by taking care of the boys and molding their character. Resolved, That it is with gratification and a keen sense of its far-reaching useful- ness we have watched the work and progress of the Catholic Summer School of America, and that we do heartily indorse the aim and objects for which it was established, and would recommend the establishment of some plan or movement by which the young men's societies can make use of the benefits of the Catholic Summer School. Resolved, That we heartily commend the work of the Bishop's Memorial Hall, con- ducted by Professor Edwards, of Notre Dame University, and of the American Catholic Historical Society, of Philadelphia, whose special object is the collection of all material pertaining to the history of the Church in this country, and the publication of articles making known important events in our history. Resolved, That we congratulate the young ladies of many sections of the country upon the successful establishment of reading circles, and that we encourage female societies to aid us in oar laudable object of spiritual, intellectual, and social advanco- ment. WORLDS COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 95 FIFTH DAY. The fifth day of the Columbian Congress was chiefly devoted to the great question of education, and was signalized by the delivery of a momentous paper on " Catholic Higher Education" by the Rt. Rev. Rector of the Cath- olic University at Washington. Following is BISHOP KEANE'S ADDRESS. For the right understanding of the subject which I have been requested to treat, it is necessary, in the first place, to form a clear idea of what is meant by higher educa- tion as compared with elementary and secondary education. Elementary education is the education of the child up to the age of twelve or four- teen. It consists of a knowledge of " the three R's," which are the first instruments of all learning, and it ought to impart through these instrumentalities an elementary acquaintance with the three great books which lie ever open before human eyes — the book of nature, the book of man, and the Book of God. Elementary education is ordinarily imparted, all the world over, in schools. Secondary education is the education of youth, from the age of twelve or fourteen up to seventeen or nineteen. It consists in acquiring the use of other instrumentalities of learning, namely, languages ancient and modern, and of arriving through these at a more thorough acquaintance with nature or science, with the thoughts and achieve- ments of men in literature and history, and with divine things in themselves and in their influence on the life of mankind. In different countries different names are given to the institutions in which secondary education is imparted. In Germany they are called gymnasia; in France, lycees; in England and America, high schools or colleges. Higher education is the education of man, of one who has passed through the ele- mentary and the secondary, and who presses on in the paths of learning, usually from the age of seventeen or eighteen up to twenty-four or twenty-five. And here let me remark, once for all, that in speaking of the education of man, I have no intention of excluding women. On the contrary, I firmly believe in giving her every educational advantage which she desires and which she finds profitable to her. Waiving for the present as not now concerning us, the practical question this involves, I wish it under- stood that I use the word man in the generic sense, concerning both sexes as far as the subject concerns them both. The youth leaving college at eighteen must know that he is not a learned man. If he thinks he is, then he had better close his books, for further study will be apt to do him but little good. But if he has in him the stuff to make a learned man, then he knows that he has only seen what learning is and the way to it. He knows that he can not hope to obtain it in the busy struggle of life ; he craves more time for deeper and wider and more philosophical study, study that he will carry on with the seriousness of a man, of a disciplined mind. His aim may be a learned pro- fession, law or medicine, giving position and emolument. It may be to master the great social, political, and economic problems, and thus become not only an intelligent citizen, but a leader of public thought, a moving and guiding power in the life of the com- munity. Or his fitness or taste may run in the direction of the natural sciences, and then his aim will be to acquire that profound acquaintance with some one of them or some group of them, which may not only give him skill but scholarly eminence in some of the various lines of engineering or applied science; or fit him to be one of those scientific investigators who benefit mankind, and perhaps earn fame, by extending the boundaries of human knowledge. Or he may have chosen literature for the field of his life-work, and he longs for time and opportunity to acquire that acquaintance with the best thoughts of the best writers ; that thorough mastery of the special line of subjects on which he would wish to write ; that wide knowledge of the facts of nature and his- tory from which he is to draw themes and illustrations ; that correctness and dignity and beauty of style — in a word, to acquire such share as he is capable of in that combi- nation of qualities which make the great writer. Or God may have put into his soul the noble ambition to perfect himself in one or another line of sacred studies, or more thoroughly grasp their entirety, in order to do nobler work for religion and for the highest welfare of mankind than the training of the ordinary theological seminary would suffice to fit him for. In whichever of all these various directions the cravings of his soul may turn, the object of his desires is what we call the higher education, and the places in which it is to be found is all the world over called the university. 37 9 6 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. Owing to the present tendency to specialization, many institutions may be' found which are special schools or institutes aiming at the exclusive development of one or another of these lines of higher study. But these special schools are really departments of the university that have gone off to themselves, and the notion of a complete uni- versity, it is now generally recognized, includes them all. In the next place, we must consider the relative importance of these various degrees of education. Multitudes receive only the elementary. Probably it will always be so with the bulk of the sons of toil. To supply it to them all and of as excellent a quality as possible is one of the most imperative duties of civilization. Secondary education is reached by that more fortunate portion of the community who are ordinarily styled the "middle classes." Such classes will naturally be formed wherever industrial freedom exists, wherever energy and ability have a chance to rise. It is manifestly necessary that they should advance in culture, as they rise in the social respectability which their improved condition entails. Thus high schools and colleges become a necessity of every civilized community, and the increase in the number of their students may be considered a good criterion of the community's advance in civilization and the increase of popular prosperity. But God has put into the hearts of his creatures an instinctive craving, not only for the good and the better, but also and especially for the best. Knowledge acquired makes the mind hunger for the greater abundance of knowledge which it sees beyond it, and by following the craving the soul develops its noblest faculty and grows in the dignity and beauty of its being. God wills it so. And knowledge is a migrhty power, not only for one's own improvement, but also for the utility of our fellow-men. This is another reason for the providential instinct which impels the mind toward its fullest improvement. Hence, with the development of civilization has ever advanced the development of the educational system. The truest pride of a civilized nation is in the universal spread of its schools, in the multiplication of its colleges; but its chief glory is in the number and excellence of its universities. Since the Son of God sent forth his Church to be the light of the world, she has ever been the foremost promoter of education in all its degrees. She knows well that her divine mission can never be furthered by darkness, by ignorance or stupidity, for " God is the light, and there is no darkness in Him." She has ever blessed and guided minds emerging into the first beginnings of knowledge; she has fostered the sacred thirst for knowledge as it grew, and has everywhere encouraged and directed the establishment of the colleges which fanned the sacred flame and led onward into the light; she has, with special affection and care, encouraged and spurred on those minds of noblest calibre, that longed for the deepest draughts of the waters of truth, and in nothing does she more fondly glory than in being the mother of nearly all the great universities of the world. She knows that it is God who has implanted in man that craving for the fullest truth, and, in her perfect loyalty to both God and to humanity, she fosters the craving and does all in her power to satisfy it. She knows it is "the Father of Lights, from whom every good and perfect gift cometh," who has given to superior knowledge its present influence among mankind, and for the world's good she desires to see that influence brought to the utmost perfection, and used by good men through noblest motives for the best ends. This is. the reason of the part she has taken in education, and especially in its highest, noblest, and most influential department. In our age, more than in any that has prececed it, and in our country, more than in any other country in the world, reasons of special importance urge both on the Church and on civilization the necessity of encouraging and diffusing the advantages of the higher education, and of making it as complete and as sound as possible. Human society is passing through the agonies of a very deep and wide recon- struction. Social conditions are being leveled upward. Privileged classes are passing away, and lingering vestiges of caste, of feudal arrogance, of autocratic Caesarisni, evoke only protest and indignation. Natural inequalities have to be accepted, but artificial inequalities are dams and dikes which will not long withstand the flood-tide. In this condition of things, the existence of which no man can question, there are grave dangers to be guarded against; but there are also weighty principles of right which have to be respected and, above all, there is a world-transformation which it iB the duty of prudence to foresee and to provide for. Now, how are these tendencies to be wisely directed? How is the future to be wisely molded? In one word, the process of leveling up must be encouraged and helped. Loyalty to humanity demands it; loyalty to the Creator of humanity, to the WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 97 blessed Father of us all, demands it; it can be discountenanced and resisted only through loyalty to traditions of men which too often make void the will of God. And how is that leveling up to be safely accomplished? Tn rough education; by making elementary education more and more universal and steadily elevating its level; by lifting larger and larger numbers from elementary into secondary education, till the multitudes in the schools be rivaled by the multitudes in the colleges; and in a special manner, by bringing the advantages of the very highest education within the reach of every child of the masses to whom God has given the highest qualities of brain. The day is past when it could be pretended that the finest quality of brain could be found only in the privileged classes. Intellectual power is a gift which God dispenses as lie will, and wherever God has given it He has given with it a right to its full development. And the day is past— nay, the day never has been— when privilege and conventionality of any kind could look down on intellectual pre-eminence. Therein lies the highest respectability, the loftiest influences dignity before which artificialties of position must bow, a power which even the might of wealth can not lastingly withstand. Place these advantages bounteously within the reach of everyone whom God's providence has made tit for them; bring them especially within reach of the gifted poor; let it be distinctly understood that poverty shall debar no man from the intellectual pre-eminence for which God has fitted him; let the offspring of the sons of toil mount to that degree of learning, and consequent respectability and influence, to which their Creator by theii endowments calls them— thus, better than by any or all other means, shall the social problem of the future be solved. Thus shall complaints of injustice and chafing against inequalities be stilled. Thus shall human society be leveled up, as far as God and nature mean that this should be done. Thus shall the wrongs of humanity be righted and its rights secured— not by violence, which only entails reaction and worse disaster, but by the gentle, irresistible force of the true and the just, acting together in God's ways for the real and lasting elevation of His creatures. In the reconstruction of the world, Divine Providence has given a mission of special influence in America. She is giving the keynote of the world's future; and God has meant her to do so. In America, therefore, above all, must that universal abundance and excellence of elementary education, and that universal freedom and facility of the highest education, prevail. But here we are faced by a thought of tremendous importance. Intellectual power, like any other power, may be used for purposes of evil as well as purposes of good, may be a curse or a blessing to its possessor and to those who come within its influence. It may do the work of the Father of Light, leading to light and peace and welfare, temporal and eternal; or it may do the work of Lucifer, who ever, as in Eden, offers what he claims to be a higher knowledge, ending in darkness and disaster. Hence the natural relationship of the Church of God to education. Hence espe- cially her relation to the higher education, since it is this which forms the men of intel- lectual power and influence, who shape the thought and action of their generation and lead the millions through true principles or false ones in the w r ays of wisdom or of folly and evil. Having in her custody both the philosophy of human experience in all ages, and the far higher philosophy of divine revelation, being the divinely established power for the world's moral and spiritual improvement, hers is naturally the influence which perfects education, which breathes a living soul into it, which insures its tending toward heaven's appointed ends, and its being used for the temporal and eternal welfare of man- kind. That is why Providence made her the civihzer of the barbarians and the educa- tor of the modern world; that is why her influence never can be spared from education and why its absence is always a grave danger to human society. Therefore does she stand amid the surging mass of mankind blessing its upward aspirations, smiling maternal approval on the " excelsior " which ever sounds forth from its heart. Again and again of late we have heard that word of benediction on the aspirations of humanity from the lips of Leo XIII., and the world has rejoiced at the sound. Therefore does she exult at the mighty energies which God has put into our young America, and with uplifted hands pray that these energies may ever bo used fur the world's good. Therefore does she bend all her powers to bestow on this favored land the fullest blessings of Christian education. Therefore does she long to Bee 1 lie multi- plication of schools in which the knowledge of God and of Christ shall be the soul of the educa-tion there imparted. Therefore does she strive in like manner to multiply Christian colleges and to spur her people to the noble ambition of making their advance in educational advantages keep pace with their advance in earthly means and in social position. Therefore has she, for over thirty years, as the proceedings of her councils 9 S WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. show, longed to crown the system of Christian education with a university that would be worthy of her, worthy of our age, worthy of America. From the Fathers of the Sec- ond Plenary Council in 1866 that wish burst forth as a longing and a prayer, for the realization of which the condition of the Catholic flock was not yet ready. From the Fathers of the Third Plenary Council in 1884 it thundered forth as a resolution no longer to be delayed, and at last, blessed and spurred on by the approval and exhortations of Leo XIII., the hierarchy of the United States laid the foundations of the Catholic University of America. • . A woman was the instrument of Providence to supply the means for the beginning of the great work. May her name stand forever in honor among the women of America. Other women, and some men, too, emulate the noble example. From among the clergy and the people of the country hundreds — whose names shall ever form a roll of honor in our country and history— responded to the appeal of the hierarchy, and to the soul- stirring exhortation of the Vicar of Christ, that all should rally with united devotedness to the accomplishment of this great work. National associations and unions have rec- ognized in it an object worthy of their united endeavor, the worthiest means of rendering monumental honor to great names which they wished to immortalize. Here let me especially pay a tribute of grateful acknowledgement to the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America for having, by the endowment— though not yet complete— of a professorial chair in the university, erected the worthiest of centennial monuments to the apostle of temperance. I regret that the endowment was received after our official announcements for the next scholastic year had already been printed, and that the Union does not, therefore, appear in the list of the founders of chairs. But I am happy to make this public announcement of their noble deed, which shall forever stand inscribed in the university's official documents, as well as in the imperishable tab- lets on her walls. And so the beginning of the great work has been made. It is as yet only a begin- ning, but yet such a beginning as to have already outstripped any previously existing work of Catholic education in the land and to give noble presage and encouragement for a great future. One faculty is already established and endowed in perpetuity, secure, as far as human things can be secure, against all possibilities of financial embar- rassment—and that one the noblest of all the faculties, the faculty of divinity, which places God and Christ in the center of the whole work as its inspiration and guide for- ever, and which, for four years past, has already been bestowing on the clergy of America the first-fruits of the intellectual blessings so ardently sighed for by our predecessors in the Lord's vineyard. Now, responsive to the repeated exhortations of our glorious founder, Leo XIII., all efforts are being made to establish and endow another great faculty, the faculty of philosophy, science, and letters, which will throw open to the laity the beginning of those educational advantages which are meant, in God's good time, to rival the best which advancing civilization and the Church of God have offered to eager intellects in the grand seats of learning in the Old World. How soon that opening will be made — hew ample will be the learned training and opportunities which from the beginning it will be able to offer; how rapidly its development shall go on; how soon there shall bud fori,h from it the faculties of law and medicine; how soon the university shall stand befo;e the eyes of America and of the world, in the full proportions which Leo XIII. craves uo have it attain — all this depends on the good will of the Catholics of America, on the.r appreciation of the supreme importance of the work, and of that national character impressed on it by the Holy Father, which he meant should bring it home to the sym- pathies and to the honest pride of every Catholic in the land. It takes time for every great idea to reach its full appreciation and welcome, and we are willing to be patient. Nay, more; every great idea must expect to be disputed and contradicted, and we are quite willing to take our share in the crucible. There are naturally those who, when the project was first proposed, believed it inopportune ; who, when its plan was determined by competent authority, believe it mistaken; who, when the attempt was made, considered it doomed to failure, and who, naturally, would be somewhat glad to wag their heads and say, " I told you so." Some people are proof even against Papal pronouncements, and invulnerable against the logic of accomplished facts. Their imagination, having made up its mind to the worst, can see chimeras dire peeping over the walls of the new institution, threatening the destruction of all ortho- doxy in the land. The Pope and his delegate say the contrary. " But that makes no difference, you know; you see we know better." Nay, they even discover that it is an ogre plotting the overthrow of the Catholic school system in our country. True, it is an integral part of the system of Catholic education, and it is rather an unheard-of WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 99 thing for the superstructure of a house to plot against its own foundations; true, the utterances of its rector have always, as is well known, been strongly in advocacy of Catholic education in all its departments. " But, nevertheless," say these wiseacres, " we know it is so and the university is laboring to destroy our schools." Well, we are willing to have patience with all this silly misrepresentation, sorry for those who disseminate or believe it, and regarding the hindrance which it may throw in the way of the work as only a ripple at its prow. The work of the hierarchy of the United States and of Leo XIII. can afford to be magnanimous with such obstacles, and to press on. Only a few weeks ago the glorious Pontiff, in long private audience, most lovingly granted to one of the professors of the university, discoursed with him at great length on the progress thus far made by the university, and on the difficulties and hindrances which it had to encounter. Then the Holy Father reminded the professor how he, when Nuncio, in Belgium, had seen the early struggles and difficulties of the University of Louvain; how he had sympathized with the university and aided it in its struggles, and how he had lived to see it the glory of Catholic Belgium, with 2,000 eager students crowding its academic halls. "Such," said the Holy Father, "has been, and shall be my course in regard to the Catholic University of America. It is my work; I am its founder; I shall be its protector; and it, too, must yet see the day when its students shall be numbered by the thousand." Such words from the heart and lips of the Vicar of Christ are for us answer enough to all objections, and assurance enough against all prognostications of evil. They and the apostolic benediction that went with them will sink into the hearts of the Catholics of America, and bring forth the fruit so earnestly desired by the Vicar of Christ. Like the crusaders of old, they will exclaim together " God wills it," and strive with an eagerness and a generosity worthy of the Church's mission in America to make this the noblest national seat of Christian learning that the world has yet beheld; a great power of higher education, exerting a beneficent, elevating influence on the whole system of Catholic education throughout the United States; a great beacon-light of sweetly blended natural and supernatural truth, shining forth from our country's oapital city, a guide in the pathway of our country's future. The gifted Brother Ambrose of De La Salle Institute, Chicago, next read a paper entitled, " Lessons of the Catholic Educational Exhibit," refer- ring to the magnificent display of the work of Catholic schools, etc., which had formed a most attractive feature of the great Columbian Exposition: A VOICE FROM DE LA SALLE. The district school teacher and the hedge schoolmaster have passed away. In their place we have the educator. He is no longer the coming man; he is here. To-day his work is admitted to be the aristocracy of the labors. The world had to be taught that truth. Those old-time monks and shaven priests and long dead martyrs knew it well. The Gersons and the Roger Bacons and the Bedes and the Cassians put their energies into it. They knew the school-house was a giant factor in civilization. They left the glories of the battlefield to their masters, but kept for themselves the struggles of the mind. And they won; won everlasting victories. They soon taught the world that to- day there are schools for everything. Apprenticeships as Berved forty years ago are virtually dead. Murillos of to-day send their Sebastians to art schools. The chisel, the brush, the rudest handicraft, as well as that which requires the greatest deftness —each has its school. There are schools of architecture and schools of design, schools of pottery-making as well as schools of medicine, law schools and schools of agriculture, schools of art and schools of science. Let not our modern educators deceive themselves in the belief that these good things have come with them and because of them. The truth is, they have happened along about the time the world caught the idea that Christianity has been thrusting before its mental eye for centuries. " We will dignify labor," cry the advocates of man- ual training. " Laborare est orare," centuries back, said the old Benedictine monk, whether he illumined the page or taught the feudal farmer to care for his crops. And farther back than he the Fathers in their homilies on the text " Pray always," made the explanation that gave the Benedictine the idea he so tersely expressed. And still farther back than they, the warm wind that blew over the sea of Tiberias kissed the lips of Him that uttered the sweet command " Pray always." And so, all that is good, and all that is true, and all that is beautiful in modern civilization may be traced back to the gentle Jesus of Nazareth. He was the inspirer of the old masters; He and His mother and His 100 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. saints and angels gave themes to the sculptor's chisel and the artist's brush. If the bishop, prince, or priest Alcuin, who would have made France a Christian Athens. It the decree ot the eternal brotherhood of man has at last been accepted, the slave whose shackles have been stricken off must bend his knee in thanksgiving to the God-man, Christ. If to-day woman is admitted into this eternal brotherhood, if yesterday chivalry raised her on a pedestal and worshiped her with reverence untold, it is and it was because the Virgin Mother of Jesus was the peerless woman of prophecy, the Immaculate Virgin, Mary. Our silver dollars bear the legend " In God we trust." We are a Christian people. The Constitution of our country is, in its very essence, Christian. Our standing army has its Christian chaplains. Our President each year sets aside one day on which to return thanks to the God of the Christians for the favors received at his hands. The very birthday of the founder of Christianity is a legal holiday. But in our Slate schools the" tenets of Christianity may not be taught. The army may have its chaplains, the nation its days of thanksgiving, the people their churches, but the young in their class hours must be without the God whose name is graven on the dollars with which their teachers are paid. Oh! well might the prophet of old take down his harp from the weeping willow, and tuning its strings to the minor keys sing as once he sang by t he rivers of Babylon: " The little ones have asked for bread, but there are none to break it unto them." Oh! well indeed could he so sing to-day, if Christ had never come. But Christ has come; and the centuries that have passed bear evidence to the quickening activity of His philosophy. That philosophy accepted is Christian faith. And Christian Faith has stimulated private enterprise' to sprinkle the land with schools in which the tenet6 are taught. Now, if the religion of Christ was the force that changed the savage to the gentle- man, that taught him the arts of peace, that struck the shackles off the slave, that welded woman unto the brotherhood of man, that laid the foundation stone of the ivy- mantled universities to serve as beacon lights in the darkness of ignorance, that induced men and women to forego every legitimate pleasure in life that they might "break the bread to the little ones," that to-day urges the Catholics who can to add their mite to the support of schools wherein the influence of Christian truth may be made active, tell us what are these Christian schools doing for truth and for lighl f At creation's dawn God said, " Let there be light," and light was. At Christianity's dawn the Church said: "Let there be light." Go out to the Catholic educational exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition and there behold! "Light is." Far be it from me to worry you with the recital of the history of that display. You have heard it, you have read it over and over again. Those whose efforts shaped it need no commendation fro n my poor lips. Their monument is their deed. Catholic education in its minutest detail is there. If you wish the full force of its grandeur and magnificence to strike you, examine the educational exhibits by which it is surrounded. When you have done you will pass away with a luscious sense of honest pride you never felt before. Then go to your homes in the East and the West, the North and the South. That school-house in the shadow of your parish church, be it bright with its newness or dingy with age, will henceforth wear a lustre to your eye. You never dared to dream that through its hum- ble portals such evidences of success could be sent forth. Then tell the people who, with you, Sunday after Bunday, heard the hard-working pastor ding-donging for the dimes and the dollars that built the schools and put the teachers in them — tell them w r hat has been done, because they made the necessary sacrifices. Bring them the good news and give them the taste of the sweet peace of joy. They will bless you for it, and they will know '' How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings and shall preach peace." Ignorance is not the evil of this day. Quantitative doses of religious instruction given half-hourly each day are not the " cure all" for the world's ills. The woods are filled with people who know better than they do. Their heads are right. The wrong is with their hearts. To set hearts right is the real object of the Catholic school. Re- ligious education, not religious instruction, is their real support. To accomplish this is the why and the wherefore of religious teaching orders of the Catholic Church. Fifty- two bodies of religious teaching orders have done the actual work that produced the results displayed in the Catholic educational exhibit. How many Catholic schools would there be in this wide land of ours were it not for these religious educators ? They have made the vast majority of these schools a possibility. Go out to the Catholic H. L. SPAUNHORST, ST. LOUIS, MO. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. IOC educational exhibit and see if the cassock and the cowl and the nun's dark veil throw the shadows of gloom upon the minds of the little ones and keep from them the light of to-day. I hold as a psychological axiom that soul is best fitted to raise others to higher things which is freest from purely natural affections. Witness Diogenes when he would elevate his followers. Witness Plato, who at twenty followed Socrates, renounced mar- riage, and, like his master, lived content with the barest necessaries, in order to give himself entirely to the things of the mind. The religious teachers of to-day are untram- meled. Look on this young man or that young woman, clothed in the religious habit, standing before the students in a Catholic school-room. Do you for a moment appre- ciate all the sacrifices they have made to be there? They stood before God's altar, and, taking their heart strings in their hands, they wrenched them from the bleeding, quivering heart that they dashed to the floor. Then, kneeling down, they swore away their liberty, by oath renounced the right of ownership, and thus made themselves more penniless than the pauper. Do you think they did not feel it? Ay! they did and they do. But onward they move, forgetful of all things save Christ and his little ones. Thus do they " rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things." There is nothing to come between them and the cause they have wedded. Ambition? Wealth? The pleasures of life? Whoever knew of them between the nun's fair veil or the sombre cassock of the religious? The treadmill of the class-room affords no opportunity for the play of such passions. The love of home, of father, of mother, of brother and sister— oh ! it burns in their hearts with a steady flame, and the days make it stronger and the years make it brighter. But the voice of Christ is sounding in their hearts and they may not leave His side. Age comes with its wrinkles, disease with its pains, and still they are feeding the lambs of Christ's flock. This is devotion. Look for it where you will, it is to be found only in the Church of Christ. Tell me, is there beneath God's blessed sky a grander thing than such devotion and such sacrifices? The world is filled with men and women who are courting its joys and sipping its cups of pleasure. Any- body can do that! But it is only the chosen few who can rise to the grandeur of the deed done by those who have labored in the class-rooms from whence have come the glories of the Catholic educational exhibit. Priceless gifts of heaven, you Catholic educators, I salute you ! Bright jewels in the crown of Holy Church, I hail you ! Your sombre robes, your simple homes, your sweet, retiring ways can never dim the lustre of your deeds. Jewels of Mother Church on earth, yours shall it be to shine as stars in heaven for all eternity. H. L. Spannhorst of St. Louis, in a paper upon "Catholic Societies," gave valuable suggestions to the Congress, as follows, upon the subject of CATHOLIC ORGANIZATION. I shall speak of such societies which were meant by the pastoral letter of the arch- bishops and bishops assembled at Baltimore in 1884, when they said: "It is not enough for Catholics to shun bad or dangerous societies; they ought to take part in good and useful ones." Again has the voice of the Vicar of Christ been heard, giving approval and encouragement to many kinds of" Catholic associations, not only as a safeguard against the elements of secret societies but also as a powerful means of accomplishing much of the good that our times stand in need of. Not only should the pastors of the Church be diligent in building up " the spiritual house," the tabernacle of God with men, " but every hand among the people of God should share in the labor." We find sufficient ground for the encouragement of organizations and the susten- ance of Catholic societies. We find, furthermore, that which is mentioned as desired has become a necessity in our time, and, I may say, more so than at the time since the mentioned pastoral was issued. It is not simply the name which constitutes a society Catholic, but it is the effect the organization creates and sustains upon its members in the practice of their religion in every day's life. The Catholic Church is the church in which all are alike; station or position with it in a spiritual sense cuts no figure; the Confessional and Holy Sacraments are for all, and approachable by all through the same source and channel. The Church has time and again told us to organize Catholic societies — or rather Catholics into societies. Look at the roll of your societies of Catholic men. Who are they? Generally men of small means and humble stations: many of them look upon the societies of which they have become members as their protectors and supporters in time of reverses, sickness, and need. Why then not join in and become members of a society with an object so noble, a work -of two-fold charity? 102 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. To help support your brother when in need, and also to give proof of your love and affection toward him, who is your equal before God, is a duty for every person. Cath- olic societies are the need of our time. Under the circumstances surrounding us, it is to be feared that not a few of our own people, who are not too practical in their duties, may for various considerations be entrapped, and finally, through indifference and con- stant association, led astray, either through ignorance or indifference lose their faith and become enemies of their mother Church; we must, through our own activity, stop this and regain what has been already lost. I am well aware of the fact that many of our Catholic men look upon societies with indifference as being a matter to be left entirely to those who may need at some time, through adversities, sickness, or other ailings, assistance and help, they believing them- selves so well fixed, not expecting want of any kind or help, thus forgetting their duty toward their fellowman, commanded by our Saviour when He said: " Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." When I speak of the societies which, in my judgment, are best adapted to accomplish the most good in our time, I mean and recommend so-called benevolent societies, which years ago were so very popular. If to-day they are not as popular as fif- teen and twenty years ago, there must be a reason for this, which I find in the fact that men of Catholic societies are gradually falling into classes, i. e., those who have been successful in acquiring a better con- dition of life during their days, have by toil or some successful stroke, operation, or speculation — the latter the most ruinous of all operations of our day, and, I am sorry to say, pretty widespread — housed their share of worldly rewards, this class actually believing themselves better than the poorer and laborer. The latter, who in many cases is a better Christian, has remained practical, and brings up his family in the faith and in the practice of religion. There was a time when benevolent societies, i. e., societies which, gener ally mostly by monthly contributions by its members, paid to a member or his family a certain sum weekly dur- ing his inability to follow his daily vocation, or in case of death provided for the widow or orphan left behind. To the credit of the German Catho- lics, it must be said that this class of societies is to-day in its prime. There are about 550 societies, numbering between 55,000 and 60,000 Catholic men throughout the United States. This organization, known as the "German Roman Catholic Central Verein," will hold its thirty-eighth annual convention in St. Louis, commencing September 17th. None of these societies is yet fifty years old. These societies have contributed to sufferers by calamities, fires, etc, including $3,142.98 for the Peter's pence, $28,682.35. During the last twelve years they have paid to 57,624 sick calls $1,348,290.19; to widows and orphans of deceased members $1,328,- ;j38.73. The Bohemians and Poles work in entire harmony and successfully. The Irish Catholic Benevolent Union, too, is an organization working in the same direction. Within the last twenty years numerous organizations have been formed which make a specialty of what is termed life insurance upon principles different from that followed by the substantial and tried life insurance proper. MOST REV. ARCHBISHOP KENRICK. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 103 As a result of the withdrawal from some Southern States of the regular life- insurance companies, people were left without life insurance or chances to get any. Plans were adopted which have since become popular— one by assessment, the other by the contributing plan. By the first, assessments are made on every living member, generally according to their ages, to pay for the death losses occurring, limiting the amount of benefit from $1,000 to $2,000. The other plan is, each living member con- tributes for each death occurring a stipulated sum, thus creating a fund out of which deaths occurring are paid. # Upon those who are interested in the management of such institutions, and those who organize them, there rests a great responsibility. Two items must not be forgot- ten, that, like in regular life insurance, the largest number of laboring and middle classes would not seek and acquire life insurance, unless urged thereto; and that, sec- ondly, but a small per centum acquire the age allotted them by the experience tables of life insurance, and where there is no reserve fund there is no surety. In conclusion, I will say that I deem benevolent societies, to which I have referred, of great benefit for any parish; not only because of the immediate contribution, but also because a united body of men, organized into a society by the advice and with the con- sent of the pastor in a congregation, can always be made a telling instrument for good. Dr. Maurice Francis Egan, of Notre Dame University, Indiana, pre- sented a very instructive paper on "The Needs of Catholic Colleges," which is given in substance as follows: The object of the writer of this paper is not to find fault with existing institutions, or the management of them, but to accentuate the fact — sufficiently well known but jot enough considered — that a crisis has come in higher Catholic American education, and that if it remain stationary now it must eventually go backwards. The primary object of this paper, then, is to point out means by which a forward movement may be carried out. Catholic colleges have suffered both from ignorant fault-finders and equally ignorant or narrow-minded supporters. More than all, from that almost slavish adher- ence to tradition which goes by the name of conservatism. However satisfactory this state of affairs may be to those who do not actually suffer from it, we can not believe that it is satisfactory to those who are not content to remain within the Chinese walls which such conservatism would build around them. However we may strive to excuse ourselves for our isolation with the saying that the outside world is bad, we can not prevent our children from taking their part as men in it, nor can we afford to neglect due preparation for their struggle in this world. I can best justify this paper by quotation from Cardinal Newman's " Idea of a University," which I shall take as my text. On page 15 of his preface, he says: " Our ecclesiastical rulers view it as prejudicial to the interests of religion that there should be any cultivation of mind bestowed upon Protestants which is not given to their own youths also. Protestant youths, who can spare the time, continue their studies to the age of twenty-one or twenty-two. * * * I conceive that our prelates are impressed with the fact and its consequences that a youth who ends his education at seventeen is no match for one who ends it at twenty-two. " All classes indeed of the community are impressed with a fact so obvious as this. The consequence is, that Catholics who aspire to be on a level with Protestants in dis- cipline and refinement of intellect have recourse to Protestant universities to obtain what they can not find at home. Assuming (as rescripts from propaganda allow me to do) that Protestant education is inexpedient for our youth, we see here an additional reason why those advantages, whatever they are, which Protestant communities dispense through the medium of Protestantism should be accessible to Catholics in a Catholic form." The need of a Catholic university and of the most adequate colleges is as great in this country as it ever was in England. We have much to learn from the example of the English in higher educational matters; but the lessons we gain from them are in the nature of warnings. We Catholics in the United States are not so isolated from our non-Catholic neighbors as the Catholic English are. We know that some of their greatest minds havo regretted this isolation, and we know, too, that the same spirit of conservatism which would make them content with an inferiority of instruction and education in this world, under a false impression that they may be helped by it to be among the aristocrats in the next, would, if permitted, produce similar effects on the Catholic body here. If it be the duty of a Catholic to consider himself as a being apart, with no duty to any of his neighbors except to those of his own faith, then men like- io4 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. Cardinal Newman and the late Lord Petre have tried to place a visionary and useless object before their fellow-countrymen. The nature of our American social system and government has prevented the tendencies to exclusiveness and appalling narrowness, which, in addition to bigoted restrictions, deprive the whole system of Catholic higher education in England of any stimulus or hope for us. In truth, we can not look abroad for models. In that other English-speaking country, Ireland, which might afford us some help, we have had the mortification of seeing a great university to which our fathers liberally contributed become a failure. And the present condition of Catholic education in Ireland is in its highest branches dependent on the future action of the bishops and the political parties. But fortu- nately we have not upon us the weight of English conservatism, nor are we dependent — and we can thank God for it — on any political movement. We have it in our own power to decide whether the number of Catholic young men — serious and earnest young men — shall increase every year at such secular institutions as Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Ann Arbor, and Johns Hopkins, or enable them to gain under true religious influences such an equipment as the world of to-day demands. We believe that no height of culture, no amount of skill, no success in the world will compensate for the absence of a knowledge of the purest morality and philosophy and the intention to inculcate their precepts by our example. The church is truth, and we fail to fulfil the greatest of all commands, which is to love our neighbor as our- selves, if we selfishly refuse to let the light within us shine before men. The highest patriotism is the highest Catholicity; it is the tenderest charity; it is the first Christian duty. Our experience teaches us that ideals, no matter how fine, if clothed in forms that are unsympathetic or impracticable, fail of their influence. We make high claims for Catholic education. We are not, with all our humility, above praising what we have done. The Catholic press has been uniformly kind to our colleges. The annual commencement is never unaccompanied by amiable comments which give great con- solation to the optimist and corroborate Pope's dictum, " that whatever is, is right." Nevertheless, in spite of the efforts of noble men who in religious communities have laid the corner-stone of Catholic education in their life blood, our colleges have achieved only a limited influence in American social life. They need much more than they have to make them widely effective. The time has come when they must broaden their scope, when they must reach the people at large or be content to remain small and isolated eddies apart from the main stream. We who are the heirs of the agea ought to be men of our time. Ascetical or mystical models need to be fitted to a modern environment to be of any use at all. We can not reasonably close our eyes to facts, and this fact is evident, that, no matter how ascetic or mystical the theories of the Catholic teacher among us may be, he is seldom averse to acknowledge the value of material success. We need, first of all in our Catholic colleges, a firm insistence on some system which will make men rather than exotics. We need a system of discipline which will lay more stress on the honor of the youth and less on the subtle distinctions between venial and mortal sin. Another need of our Catholic colleges is that they should have more students. The transient element — that element which comes into them without special aim, and which obtains only a partial benefit from them — has always been too large. It is an axiom that no school can be entirely efficient while it is dependent on the fees of its students. The necessity of considering the financial question very carefully has forced some of our colleges to accept as inmate or boarder (I wish to make a distinctior, between the student and the mere boarder), any lad not absolutely a criminal, and the same necessity obliged some of them to take pupils without proper conditions or ade quate examination. Whether this be true of other American schools is another ques- tion; I am solely concerned with the Catholic schools. The necessary attention given to the ways and means by which the expenses of the Catholic colleges should be paid has occupied attention and absorbed energies which are required in other directions. It is the duty of all laymen interested in the present and future of the highest form of education to assist in any plan by w T hich these energies may be directed into their proper channel. They must be helped to the greater glory of God and a better development of society. At present the Catholic college does not obtain its proper quota of real students because it must, in order to exist, accept boarders — mere sojourners 6ent to be kept until called for. When the boarding-house anomaly and the reformatory atmosphere are eliminated in the public mind from the reputation of some of our colleges higher education will have begun to progress. It is well that the col- lege should keep its students beneath its own roof, but let them all be students. The Catholic College needs more men who want to be students. At present there WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 105 is a gap between it and the higher parochial or public school which ought to be filled Harvard, Yale and Cornell and Ann Arbor have brought themselves by means of scholarships directly in contact with the most studious and worthy classes of our young men. The pupil of the parochial school, no matter how industrious and clever he may be, no matter how ambitious, must in order to obtain further instruction be financially well off or have a friend who will pay his tuition at a Catholic college. Failing in these things, he can obtain through some of the public high schools a scholarship in one of the secular colleges. This accounts in some manner for the rapidly increasing number of Catholic students at secular colleges. It is evident that the pupil of the parochial school has no advancement in a logical direction to look forward to unless he has money. The Catholic college must have fees in order to live ; it lives solely bv its fe< ; it is without endowment, except the gratuitous services of self-sacrificing Christians. Its fees, including board, are, owing to this flesh-and-blood endowment, comparatively low, and yet the endowments in money and the scholarships which reduce the expense's of the student at secular colleges place our colleges in immediate competition with them. And the prestige in the public eye of certain secular colleges seems an additional advantage to the graduate. Our colleges need at present not only more students but more ambitious and per- severing students. These come, as a rule, from that class whose grip on the world is dependent on its own exertions, and yet this is the class which the colleges find it most difficult to reach. It costs from S400 to §500 a year to keep a student decently at the best of our colleges — this lowest estimate includes traveling expenses and clothes. But there is no way of lessening it unless, as at Notre Dame, there are some opportunities of a student's paying part of his tuition in manual or other labor. At Harvard, for instance, a scholarship very frequently reduces the yearly expenses of the student to the one-fifth part of 8500. It is no wonder, then, that the sons of the people are always well represented in the graduating classes at Harvard, and that at Cornell the poorer Catholic who has secured a scholarship is enabled to gratify his ambition to stand as the equal of any man in his fight for a place in society. The reason, then, why our colleges do not attract the hardest working class of students is because the Catholic pupil in the parochial school is cut off from gaining, by his own exertions, the benefits of the higher Christian education. This condition of affairs has, no doubt, led some of our bishops to encourage the establishment of Catholic clubs and libraries as part of the secular university system. The recent founding of guilds, under Catholic auspices, at Harvard, Cornell, and Ann Arbor, show that these far-seeing prelates have chosen to make the best of what we can only regard, at its best, as an expedient. The attendance of Catholics at the secular universities can be accurately characterized by no other term. The Catholic colleges need endowment. But, more than all, they need scholarships. And with the scholarships will come just such students as they ought to have. And with such students will cease the maintenance of a system of discipline which can only be justified on the presumption that each older student is possessed of a devil which can not be exorcised, but which must be caged. Lay professors of character and of acquirement are needed, too. No college which is entirely manned by ecclesiastics can thoroughly do its work or obtain its proper effect on society in America. This is admitted by thoughtful and observant men who talk and write on the subject of higher Catholic education. Happily there is now no Catholic college in the country in which, when a vacancy occurs, the place can be supplied by any layman, with or without char- acter, who is willing to work for a mere pittance. And there is now no Catholic college in this country where the sacrament of holy orders is supposed to give a man all the requisites of an ideal character. It lies with us laymen to supply the present need of the Catholic colleges. We can no longer wait for the bishops or the religious communities to take the initiative. We are primarily responsible for the souls of our children. We only are responsible before our fellow-citizens for the position we, as a body, take in the intellectual and social life of our country, and we feel most heavily the results of any system of education which would leave us in the rear of the onward march of American progress. Besides, a sen- timent of gratitude to those self-sacrificing men who, by their own devotion, have given us the foundations of the higher education ought to lead us to crown their work through our own exertions. We who come in daily contact with the world know better than even the most learned and pious priests the requirements for legitimate success in life. The needs of Catholic colleges are chiefly money and the right kind of students. Endowments for professorships we can not hope for at once. But we can have scholar- 106 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. ships at once. If every man with an income of $1,500 a year would contribute $10- and every man with $3,000 a year $20, we should have a fund which would give each ambitious and deserving Catholic boy in this country, whether in a parochial or public school, an opportunity of securing that education which, in the present condition of things, he can not get. We must put our brains, our hearts, and our sympathy into this work. We can not look to the rich; we ought not to look wholly to them. Let us put our shoulders to the keel of this ship of education which is lying on the dock waiting for the tide which may never come. One good push, gentlemen, one strong effort, and we can send it steadily into midstream, onward to the rising sun. A deeply interesting paper by Katherine E. Conway, of Boston, on "The Catholic Summer School and the Reading Circles," was one of the features of the Congress. The paper was as follows : "Your mission is to make America Catholic." This was Archbishop Ireland's greeting to the assembled delegates at the Catholic Centenary Congress in Baltimore four years ago. And this was the charge with which he sent them back to their homes. Patriotic and religious enthusiasm were at flood-tide, and all hearts were willing to respond, like the first Crusaders at the call of Peter the Hermit, " God wills it." The archbishop's charge was mainly to the laity, and the apostolate to which he pledged them was on the lines of secular opportunity. But, with dispersion, the electric current of brotherly sympathy was broken. Individuals stood apart, each no longer feeling the strength of 1,000 behind his own good intent. Men questioned, not in doubt, not in discouragement, but in reverent expectation of an answer : " How shall this be done ? " The answer came, and we know one term of it by the resultant action. " First fit yourselves for the mission. Foster the community spirit among Catholics. Raise the Catholic intellectual average. Prove your strength in the mass." Association became the watchword of the time. New organizations sprang up on every side, and new life was transfused through existing bodies. The first immediate result of the Congress on this line was the Catholic Truth Society, whose aims and achievements have already been so well presented here. But that was a consequence of the second term of the answer, and aimed directly at missionary work among non- Catholics. This paper is concerned rather with those other associations whose origin was in their members' conviction of the primal need of missionary work among Catholics themselves, but through agencies heretofore untried among us. Our opponents are often our best teachers; yet, not every plan resorted to by non- Catholics or distinctly anti -Catholic bodies in missionary and reformatory work, not to speak of less well-intentioned effort, is adaptable to the Catholic purpose. Would that this were never forgotten! We don't want, for example, a Catholic political party, because some fanatics have organized a Protestant party in the shape of the mis-called American Protective Association. We don't want a "Secular Solidarity" — whatever that may be— of Catholic women for public-reform work, because such an association prospers among Protestant women. We don't want Catholic camp-meetings, nor Cath- olic women-suffrage leagues, nor Catholic dress-reform circles. We don't want to be so ignorant of the history and spirit of our own religion as not to know what true Ameri- canism has drawn from it; much less to humor by our servile attitude the erroneous notion popular in certain circles that Catholicity can not make its way except in bor- rowed attire. The noblest and loveliest can be made to look grotesque by misfit garments. But there are examples set by the various Protestant bodies of so splendid utility and suggestiveness that we shall not be blameless if they are lost upon us. What thoughtful Catholic has not blushed to see how far ahead of us they are in practical and attractive methods for holding their young people — and alas ! sometimes drawing our own away — by societies combining business and social advantages with religious affiliation? See the network of Young Men's and Young Women's .Christian Associa- tions which overspread the land; the Christian Endeavor Societies, the Chautauquan reading circles, and the Chautauquan summer school, and radiating from it to every section of the country its local assemblies. What is the secret of the growth and permanence of all these things? One double word in its most comprehensive sense — lay co-operation. Protestant men and women of every class, being actively benefited by these societies, are actively interested in them. Protestant men of means have put them on a sound business basis. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. ioy Oh, it is true that they out r umber us and have an overwhelmingly larger share of this world's goods. But this does n^t explain everything. Is there even a slight founda- tion for the reproach sometimes made us, that we are lacking in capacity for organi- zation, that we have enthusiasm in excess and perseverance in defect? Let us honor the men— young men they were, too— who, long before the days of Catholic congresses, anticipated these questions. Indifferent or short-sighted Catholics who ask scornfully to-day, "What's the use of your Catholic Congress?"' asked twenty years ago, " What's the use of your Catholic Young Men's National Union?" The union might have answered then, " We mean to train leaders for you." It might sav to-day, " We have kept our promise;" for few among the priests and laymen whom we instinct- ively write on the roll-call of our national men but have developed themselves in the Catholic Young Men's National Union. And what good work of national magnitude but has had, if not its inception, at least a generous fostering in the same association? At least, the reading-circle movement and the Catholic summer school have their roots in it. A layman, Warren E. Mosher, a zealous member of the union, deeply impressed by the adaptability of the Chautauquan methods to Catholic needs and uses, familiarized himself with them, started a reading circle in his native city, Youngs- town, Ohio, and seized all Catholic occasions, local and national, for the advocacy of a reading union and a Catholic summer school. Lay co-operation in church wor:; among Catholics— a word not of new coinage, but merely of new emphasis — is sometimes spoken of by people who forget, for the moment, the direct and special service to religion of Orestes A. Brownson and John Gilmary Shea, and in another line, of Ellen Ewing Sherman and Sarah Peters, as if it were a novel idea — an experiment which may possibly result in disaster to church and people. And yet inter-relation and inter-dependence among all degrees and orders seem inevita- ble, so long as we can't even get our bishops and priests from another race of being6 grown in another planet. The need is of more lay co-operation. George Parsons Lathrop has well described the power of the Catholic laity as a moral Niagara allowed to run to waste. Arch- bishop Ireland has spoken not simply for lay co-operation, but for lay initiative in certain good works. Mr. Mosher took the initiative in his summer-school project, and found priests ready to co-operate with him. We may name among them those who later have successively held the presidency of the school — the Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy, of Pittsburg; the Rev. Dr. James F. Loughlin, of Philadelphia; the Rev. Dr. Thomas J. Conaty, of Worcester, the present executive, and the Rev. Thomas McMillan, of the Paulists, the present chairman of the board of studies. All these priests are identified also with the work of the Catholic Young Men's National Union. To mention the Paulist fathers is to recall an American Catholic literary movement of missionary intent, long preceding and preparing the way for our reading-circle movement and Catholic summer school — that begun by Father Isaac T. Hecker when he founded the American Catholic Publication Society, the Catholic World, and he Young Catholic, and carried on so faithfully and fruitfully ever since by his disciples, the Paulists. To them he said, as Archbishop Ireland later said, to all American Cath- olics, "Your mission is to make America Catholic." And whether working directly on the non-Catholic body, like Father Walter Elliott, in his missions, or indirectly, like the home missionaries, by unifying the Catholic peo- ple and raising their spiritual and intellectual standard, this end is ever before the Paulists. If the first local reading circles were Mr. Mosher's, the first National Reading Union was that of the Paulist fathers, starting in 1889, with headquarters in New York, and Rev. Thomas McMillan, director. Under its protection reading circles were founded East and West, till in 1890, Mr. Mosher established his Catholic Educational Union, cen- tralized at Youngstown, Ohio, to share, not to divide, afield too large for any one organ- ization to work effectively alone. The reading circles of the Columbian Reading Union had for chronicle and medium of inter-communication a department of the Catholic World; the circles of the Cath- olic Educational Union and the Catholic Reading Circle Review, founded and edited by Mr. Mosher. But the printed word is, after all, a cold and tedious process for the fostering of that community spirit needed in the establishment of a work of general advantage. When the Paulist fathers, in January, 1892, effected a national gathering of Catho- lics, mostly literary workers, journalists, and philanthropists, for the promotion of the apostolate of the press they founded no new organization. The convention did not aim <-9ven at repeating itself. It met on the Epiphany and in the spirit of the feast, the xo S WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. dominant thought being how to manifest, through the press, the church of Chript to the non-Catholic American people. Again and yet again the answer, " Unite and raise the Catholic spiritual and intel- lectual average first of all." The reading unions as Embodying this idea were both represented by their heads. So were a number of Catholic literary societies and alumnae associations of like aim. The most successful man in the Catholic popular library work, Rev. Joseph H. McMahon, of New York, set forth the intellectual needs and risks of the young American Catholic. New England's great contingent of Catholic men and women of letters — she sent the most because she has the most to send — spoke less, on the whole, for direct missionary work among non-Catholics than for strengthening and unifying our own forces and reclaiming our own estrays. The apostolate of the press has done infinite good in many directions. For one thing it was the hot-house in which the sapling of the Catholic summer-school idea was hastened to flower and fruit. Almost immediately thereafter Mr. Mosher appealed for an expression of opinion to the membership of this educational union and Catholics generally, through the Catholic Reading Circle Review. It was heartily favored and received, moreover, the cordial approval of many bishops and priests. In the May following a permanent organization was effected; Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy, of Pittsburg, presided, a programme of lecture courses and single lectures arranged by Rev. Joseph H. McMahon, first chairman of the board of studies, and the first session successfully held in New London, Conn., from July 31st till August 20th fol- lowing. The secular press and the non-Catholic public generally followed the experi- ment with interest. The summer school let loose a good deal of money in New London and on the various railroads leading thither. When it became known that the school was seeking a permanent site, public-spirited people in various sections began to offer inducements to its trustees. The best offer came from the town of Plattsburgh, N. Y., on the Dela- ware and Hudson River Railroad — a site of 450 acres at Bluff Point, overlooking Lake Champlain, with the opportunity of incorporation under the board of regents of the University of the State of New York. This was accepted, a reorganization was effected and the enterprise was incorpo- rated under the title of "The Catholic Summer School of America." Smith Weed, of Plattsburg, donated the use of the opera-house for the lectures, the town the use of the Plattsburg high school for a house of studies, and the Grey Nuns their academy hall for social purposes, pending the erec- tion of the summer-school's own buildings, and the second session was held from July 15th till August 7th, inclusive, with larger attendance of students, a better programme of lectures, and a great increase of general interest over the first year. And this despite the tremendous counter-attraction of your great World's Fair at Chicago. The attendance represented sixteen States, though New York and New England still furnished the bulk of students. As at New London, a few non-Catholics attended the lectures, and a Jewish Rabbi, Dr. Veld, from Montreal, followed the whole course. The ubiquitous and irrepressible Fadladeen criticised the trial session of the sum- mer school on the ground that the great majority of the students were young women. But even Fadladeen could not be blind to a change (may we say an improvement?) in this respect at the second session. It should be said, parenthetically, in extenuation of our too numerous presence, that we women are naturally drawn to any enterprise started under religious patronage, though we are perhaps over-demonstrative in recording our adhesion. A young preacher, in one of our surburban churches a few years ago, was remon- strating with the men of his congregation for their delay in attending to some spiritual duty. "The means of salvation," he said, " are not exclusively for women. You, also, want to goto heaven. Indeed," he went on, warming to his theme, " heaven would not be heaven if it were peopled exclusively by " He stopped abruptly, and passed to another aspect of his subject, but every woman in the church completed the sentence according to the preacher's mind, and heartily agreed with him. Similarly, the women would not, if they could, monopolize the advantages of the summer school. This year there was a perceptible increase in the attendance of young men; and, even a better sign, there were a number of family parties— father or mother, in a few cases both, remaining for a week with their young sons and daughters. When, in the last season, that part of the summer-school property not needed for the summer-school buildings was put up for sale in lots, twenty were disposed of within WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 109 a few days. This means the speedy erection of cottages, and a Catholic family summer settlement behind the Catholic summer school — one of the best possible guarantees of its permanent success. But only one of them. If the summer school were to depend for students on the family settlement at Plattsburgh, the scope of its influence would be restricted to a comparatively small number of rich or well-to-do people; and we should have as a result, not an increase of the Catholic community spirit, but of the un-Christian spirit of caste. The Catholic summer school of America is for all the people, to bring all together on a plane of high, but equal, intellectual advantage. It is democratic in the best sense. Christian democracy means leveling up. The Catholic summer school is an outgrowth of the reading circles which have been organized and which work in this Christian democratic spirit. The family summer settlement will do much for the social and recreative side; but, for students, the reading circles and other societies of like aim, of which a word later — must be the feeders of the summer school. They must be also the channels through which its achievement and influence shall be redistributed, extended, and con- tinued throughout the year. As a long-time reading-circle worker it is my conviction that extensions of the summer-school work in the shape of winter courses mapped out and disseminated through the printed page will hardly succeed among us. This method of inBtruction is too indirect and impersonal to suit the character of our people. We are more easily drawn by the spoken word. There is, besides, too great diversity of condition, education, and environment among our Catholic young people to make it possible, or desirable, that the circles organized under the Columbian Reading Union of the Catholic Educational Union should all follow even the reading lists given in the organs of each. These lists must be suggestive, rather than prescriptive. National reading unions can not be more than the loosest of confederations, within which every circle shall enjoy, as Father McMillan puts it, the largest possible degree of home rule. Some circles devote themselves to distinctly Catholic literature, feeling that, however otherwise advanced, in this especial point the literary education of their members has been defective. Others study English literature in general, with a Catholic light upon it. Still others have adventured into French and Italian literature. Some are pursuing a course of church history and some are re-reading the history of America in the light of that star which led Columbus thither. Many give much time to the biographies of eminent modern Catholics of Europe and America. Not a few concentrate their study on points of controversy. What shall the delegations from the strangely varied circles find, each for its special need, at the summer school, and what chall they bring back to the circle and to the community from which the circle is recruited? Why not a winter lecture course? In this way summer-school extension has been opened. Thus far we see no better way. The total of lectures on the regular programme of the summer school was forty- two, besides addresses before the teachers' conferences. These cover so great a variety of topics that every reading-circle's representatives must find one or several lectures in line with its own special work, and which they would like to have repeated in their own town or city. An immediate reaction of the summer school on the reading-circle work was the organizing of courses of lectures under reading-circle management in several parts of the country. The lecturers in all these courses were chosen wholly or in part from those appearing at the New London session of the school. In one city, four circles combined for a course of four lectures. The John Boyle O'Reilly circle, of Boston, has instituted an annual course of three lectures. These courses are on a business basis. They serve a double purpose. Through them the circle acts directly on the community, raising the intellectual standard and fostering the Catholic community spirit. Through them, again, the circle does its part toward creating a public demand for the lecturers and literary workers of our own faith. Before the days of Catholic national associations and Catholic congresses and Catholic summer schools, how little we 10,000,000 Catholics knew of our own eminent men. The Catholic summer-school movement, especially, has helped to show the world how rich we are in such men. The secular priesthood, the religious orders, whether the Jesuits, pioneers in American religious and civil life, or the Pau lists, the latest of our native born, have but begun to reveal their resources. What splendidly gifted men are building their very lives into the manhood and priesthood of the American Catholic body in our classical colleges and ecclesiastical training schools! 1 10 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES How the cause has moved on, as the lamented John Boyle O'Reilly used to phrase it, on the citizen lines; and what a host of men whose names have stood in the popular mind for eminence in statesmanship, or law, or medicine, or literature, or oratory, or journalism, have been shown forth, through the stress of this Catholic intellectual movement, as earnest Catholics also. Truly, it is not the least of the glories of the Catholic summer school to have shown to our timid and self -distrustful, by shining examples, that the Catholic faith has not been an obstacle even to the worldly success of its professors. The man who said, after the first Catholic Congress, " For the first time in my life I was proud of being a Catholic," did not express precisely the heroic spirit of Catholicity; but he voiced, I fear, a sad experience, by no means individual. Let us not forget, in our citadels, the young and the weak on the undefended marches. It is easy for a Catholic to be brave and proud in New York, or Chicago, or Philadelphia, or Boston, to name but a few of our strongholds, but it takes something close akin to the spirit of a martyr to wear our profession cross unflinchingly under the supercilious eyes of the social despots of the provincial town where we are the unpopular majority. It should be the aim of every reading circle to send to the summer school as large a delegation as possible, and to choose from among the lectures at least one to be repeated under its patronage the following winter. Remember, there are now 150 reading circles organized under the Catholic Educational Union with an aggregate membership of nearly 5,000, and 100 circles under the Columbian Reading Union with 5,000 aggregate membership. Remember also that an immediate consequence of every summer-school session is more reading circles. Moreover, a fixed feature of the sum- mer school is the reading-circle convention. The interchange of experiences as to local work and local needs may be not only mutually suggestive among reading-circle, workers, but suggestive also to the board of studies in the choosing of topics and lect- urers for the summer school itself. Already our leaders have learned that there is nothing too good in the intellectual order for the keen, earnest, and persevering young men and women who have been moved to seek the higher education on Catholic lines. It would be a grave mistake to talk down to these. ' They can appreciate and assimilate the best. They want instruc- tion, not diversion, and are quick to resent the ill-considered, superficial, or spectacular. There is only one basis of selection for the instruction of such students as are drawn to the summer school — well attested personal fitness; and without this, sectional, partisan, and institutional claims should count for nothing. It may be mentioned here that the reading-circle membership includes a very large proportion of public-school teachers. The religious orders of teachers are beginning to send representatives to the summer school. The friendly meeting, with interchange of experience and opinion between these two bodies of teachers, can not fail to be of advan- tage to the cause of education in general. But who shall speak again for the teachers and the schools as did that gentlest of scholars and most earnest of teachers, Brother Azarias, whose untimely death, the result of his work in the summer-school's interest, we, in common with all Catholics, deplore. He has left to the reading circles the foundation of a library of Catholic liter- ary criticism with especial advertence to the young American Catholic's needs; and he has not wholly passed from the councils of the summer school, for the light of his example shines unquenchably. The reading circles can further help the summer school by holding, at the close of every season's work, public meetings in its interest. This was done last June in New York and Boston, and in result and students these two cities, like a pair of Abou ben Adhems, led all the rest. One Boston circle proudly, and, we think, justly, claims thus to have sent fifty-seven visitors and students to Plattsburgh. The same circle sets another example in the summer-school interest which will doubtless be widely followed — it proposes to buy a lot and build a reading-circle cottage for the use of its own members attending the school. Mixed membership in the reading circles is an open question. The Catholic Edu- cational Union seems to favor it. In the East and South, however, most of the reading circles are composed exclusively of young women. Our Boston circles so composed, however, are fortunate enough to revolve around the Catholic Union of Boston, and have the Union's membership to draw upon for presiding officers for our lecture courses and other indispensable aid. As between the attracting and distracting consequences of the admission of young men to the study meetings, distraction would tip the scale. Moreover, the reading-circle methods are not, to our thinking, quite adapted for young WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 1 1 x men. A corresponding plan for their intellectual advantage, however, is evolving itself in the East, and perhaps elsewhere, as the same condition must exist at least in the older sections. The reading circles aim not to raise a crop of women publicists, disputants, and debaters, but simply to increase the good influence which we can exercise on the normal womanly lines by making us more numerously able to write, at need, a plain statement of fact or opinion ; increasing our resources for dull and lonely days, making us more tolerant and reasonable and therefore more companionable in our home and social life. The reading circle will act on the general community through its public lecture courses and occasional social gatherings ; but its plan of study must be for the direct benefit of its immediate membership. May I venture to suggest that the relation be- tween our summer school and the reading circles, and their reciprocal action, sets forth a relation and a reciprocity of service possible and most desirable between the summer school and the college and convent alumni associations and Catholic literary societies generally. And this will be equally true, in the day, doubtless near at hand, when the Catholic summer school, at Plattsburgh, will cease to have the right to add "of Amer- ica " to its name. It is much for the Catholic summer school to enter into the work of the Catholic Columbian Congress. It will be more for the school and for every Catholic interest when the Catholic Congress three years hence comes in its increased strength and splendor to the first permanent home of the Catholic summer school, at Lake Cham- plain, to be its desired and honored guest. Meantime, see the fields and the harvests for Catholic Endeavor. Let us unite for the reaping on a plane high above partisanship or sectionalism. Our mission is to make America Catholic. Yes; and we shall do it mainly by making ourselves better Catholics — more intellectual, more refined, more prosperous, united, and public- spirited Catholics. Thus shall we become a leaven, interpenetrating and uplifting the whole body of our citizenship. The desire to advance God's cause gives a pure motive to every man and woman for self-advancement. It gives the greatest impetus to dis- covery, exploration, the pursuit of science, and the development of art and literature. We need faith in ourselves, faith in our cause. The word of faith creates. The magnet of faith moves the mountains. Had Christians kept intact the faith, the com- munity spirit, and the disinterestedness of the apostolic age, the new world had been discovered a thousand years sooner; the crusades, with other purpose than the rescue of Christ's tomb from misbelievers, had had the aid of the printing press and the tele- graph and the cable, the railroad, the steamboat, and the electric light; and the crosses raised in pure hands, nerved from martyr hearts, had drawn the whole world in the unity of the truth to God. Rev. John T. Murphy, president of Holy Ghost College, Pittsburg, Pa., made a strong and eloquent plea for the establishment of free Catholic high schools. He said: Anyone who considers carefully our present educational system in the light of our educational needs must readily be convinced that there is a great lacuna yet to be filled up. A complete educational system embraces primary, secondary, and university edu- cation. It is not necessary, or even advisable, that all should be initiated into each part of this complete system, but it is absolutely necessary that such Catholic children as have the proper aptitude should have in the system we offer and partly impose upon them the means for obtaining the very highest education. The third plenary council of Baltimore planned and enjoined a system of primary education which, if fully carried out under favorable circumstances, seems to be all- sufficient for the educational sphere for which it was intended. Since the close of the council, and in accordance with its strongly expressed wishes, important steps have been taken to put university education within the reach of both Catholic clergy and laity. But so far no corporate, organized measures have been taken by the church in the United States to cover the very important ground that lies between the primary school and the university. The foundation and basement of our educational edifice have been built, a goodly portion of the roof has been put on, but nothing has been done to the walls; only a stray pillar here and there, erected for the most part by private enterprise, connects the basement of primary with the roof and pinnacles of uni- versity education and saves the latter from being a palace top suspended in the air. The stray pillars I refer to will easily be recognized as those private Catholic colleges and academies spread throughout the land. While everyone will admit the good which 38 ! i 2 WORLD'S COL UMBIAN CA THOLIC CONGRESSES. these institutions accomplish, serving as they do to save us the semblance of an educa- tional system, yet it must be avowed that they do not, can not supply the missing link of the chain, the continuous walls of the edifice. In other words, our present educational system is so radically defective that it can not well claim the name of a system. It takes up the Catholic child from its mother's arms, supplies it with education, mental and moral, till about the age of thirteen, and then 'ceases as a system to take further cognizance of its education. It points out to the young boy, it is true, the towers of the university looming in the distance, but it supplies him not with the means of reaching them. If the boy has money and time at his disposal he can go for his secondary education to one of the private Catholic col- leges ; and the girl can, under similar conditions, go to one of the convent schools or academies. But the vast body of Catholic youth are debarred from entering these private unendowed institutions, and are simply cast adrift when their primary school- ing is over. Withal, they are expected to meet in the battle of life their neighbors' children of a like station who have been trained at the public expense in richly-endowed and well-equipped high schools and State universities. Of course, such a contest is utterly unequal. It is a contest of raw recruits against disciplined troops. Native valor, natural genius, indomitable endurance may secure partial victories for the former, but eventually the random shot from the rusty gun must yield to the unerring aim of the repeating rifle, the straggling onslaught to the serried ranks of the square, the club, the claymore, or assegai to the keen edge in the hands of the well-trained swordsman. So, too, the contest in life's struggle between the comparatively raw parochial school boy or girl and the well-trained high-school graduates can have only one issue, the suprem- acy in secular matters of the latter. Exceptional talent and character will occasionally carry some of the former to the front, in spite of the disadvantage under which they labor, but the rank and file will have to bite the dust. Surely the church in the United States, after having undertaken an educational system of her own, can not afford to allow this stigma of inferiority to remain branded upon it. It would be an evil day for he church in this country were her children to realize that on account of their religion they were precluded from their just rights to the secular advantages of life. Nothing could be farther from the mind of the church, of her supreme head, and of the fathers of the Third Plenary Council than the acknowledgment of the necessity of any such inferiority. Still, it exists, as I have shown, and will continue to exist until adequate, systematic provisions are made for providing secondary, or high-school education for Catholics. It is, therefore, a matter of the greatest importance to consider what means ought and can be taken to remedy this glaring and grievous defect in our educational system. Before proceeding to sug- gest what I consider adequate and feasible means, I may be permitted to refer to some remedies that are already being employed. The manifest need that exists for giving Catholic children something more than a mere parochial-school education has given rise to two practices. The one is to tack on to or blend with the parochial school a portion of a high-school course. Thus we find many parochial schools embracing studies that range from the first elements to quite a number of the "ologies." This practice seems to me objectionable for this reason, that this blending of two different courses of study is injurious to both. The proper work of the parochial sch ol is liable to be neglected, or glossed over, on the part of both teachers and pupils in the eagerness to reach the higher and more brilliant studies. Those exhibits of fancy or advanced work of parochial schools, of which we so frequently hear, are usually made at the cost of solidity and thoroughness in the subjects which properly belong to them. Of course it would be very commendable to have a real high school attached to every large parochial school, but it is scarcely conceivable that any one congregation could afford to carry out a comp'ete system of both primary and secondary education. And, as it is not possible to have both, it is better to have the one thorough than to have the two spoiled. Another practice which largely prevails is to have in the parochial schools what is known as a high-school class, where a select number of children are prepared for the public high schools. I think that this practice is not admissible for the reason that the danger to faith and morals which are inherent to the public-school system are multiplied for those children whose elementary training has been acquired in the parochial schools. The change of discipline and method and the sudden elimination of religious teaching can not but exercise on children of that age a reactionary influence. To my mind, it were better to frankly accept the public-school system as a whole, and counteract it-; ignoring of religion by extra religious training at ho ae and in church, thin to subject children to contrary systems of education at a time of life WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. „* when they are so susceptible of impressions and so incapable of independent reasoning It seems to me that there is far less danger in sending Catholic y ung men to non- Uitholic institutions and professional schools than in transplanting parochial-school children to the public high schools, Since, then, neither of these remedies is calculated to cure the great defect which exists in our educational system, it behooves us to consider what right and feasible rem- edy should be employed. To every one will occur at once the rational remedy of sup- plementing our parochial or primary school systems by an organized system of secondary or high schools. This is what the State has done all around us ; and, as long as we find ourselves obliged to recommend Catholic children not to frequent the State schools, we are bound to supply them with schools equally good. But how establish and conduct these Catholic high schools? The first question admits, I think, of three solutions. One would be the establishment and endowment of high schools in different localities by private munificence. This is the solution arrived at in Philadelphia, where the late Mr. Cahill founded and endowed forever the high school which bears his name. It is possible that his noble example may be followed elsewhere. It is certain that the greatest benefactors of their day and of their kind would be those who would erect and endow such institutions for the higher education of Catholic youth. For knowledge is power. The earth belongs to man, that is to the disciplined intellect of man, and the future position of our Catholic people in this coun- try will depend chiefly on the extent and quality of their education. Add to the moral- ity and fruitfulness of our people the cultured intellect and the disciplined character, and you have a power that is irresistible and securely triumphant in spreading the kingdom of God. What nobler use could a man make of the superabundance of his means than to devote it to achieving such far-reaching results? As this solution, depending on private munificence, can reach only a very limited number of centers, some other must be found capable of general application. Such a solution would be to have all the Catholic elements of a given center unite in founding and supporting a Catholic high school. Building and equipments might be m re or less imposing, according to the means at the disposal of the body corporate, but the teaching should equal, at least, that given in the public high school of the place. It appears to me quite feasible to establish and support a free Catholic high school in every important center. It is true that our people are already heavily taxed, first to educate everybody else's children, and then taxed again to educate their own. But the generosity which has done such wonders in the way of build ng up churches and schools will be found equal to the task of completing the good work begun in the parochi 1 schools, once it becomes convinced of the ! ecessity of such sacrifices. It is difficult to calculate exactly the expense which the establishment of a high school would entail on the several parishes of a district. It would largely depend on the number and sizes of the parishes. It may, however, be safely said that 850 a year for e.ch p pil sent to the high school' would cover all expenses. Some understanding could be e tered into between the several parishes whereby would be regulated the maximum and the minimum" number of pupils which each would be expected to main- tain in the high chool. We, the Catholics of the United States, are committed, for the present at least, not of choice but of necessity, to an educational system of our own. Duty, honor, and self- interest imperatively call on us to make our system as perfect as possible. Every instruction on this subject sent by the Holy See — from the celebrated one given by the propaganda to the American bishops before the council of Baltimore down to the latest utterance of Leo XIII., who quotes approvingly the idea of his delegate, "omni tamen ratione et ope connitendum esse ut scholae Catholicae quam plures suit numero omnique re ornatae et perf ectae"-every instruction from the Holy See insists as a condition of the existence of our schools that they be made at least as efficient as those of the State. Justice to the secular interests of our people demands this. The honor of our olden church demands it. And there is no reason why our united efforts and sacrifices should not be equal to the demand. Our primary and parochial schools are already on a good footing, and once all the dioceses will have exerted themselves to carry out the letter and spirit of the Third Plenary Council regarding them we shall have our primary schools efficient and well equipped — " omni re perfectae et ornatae." But we must not rest satisfied with this. We must not constrain our people to delve all their lives in the lowlands whilst their neighbors are carried up by higher edu- cation to the rich and beautiful plateaus. Not only the material interests of our people, but the interests of education itself require that we supplement our primary schools by well-equipped high schools. The entrance examinations to high school, the I14 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. value of free scholarships therein, the competition to obtain them, would be a most powerful stimulus to the lower schools. Again the high school would serve as a feeder for seminary and university. And what more suitable occasion could there be for considering and promoting such a project? Here in this Catholic Congress we have gathered together bishops, priests, and laity. It were well if the laity took a more active part in the carrying out of our educational system. It seems to me that too much burden has been thrown in the past on the shoulders of the clergy and of the religious communities. There is no portion of the church that can do so much for secular education as a loyal and progress- ive laity. The composition of this Congress is a proof that the church in America pos- sesses such a laity, loyal to the unchangeable teachings of divine faith, progressive with the best progress of modern times and civilization. It is with them will lie the carrying into practical effect what I have been pleading for. And I trust, in conclusion, that the importance of the subject, the pressing needs of our people, the opportuneness of the time and the suitableness of the occasion will add in the minds of all the mem- bers of this Congress — bishops, priests, and laymen — a thousandfold force to this, my poor plea for free Catholic high schools. " Young Men's Societies " was the subject of a paper presented by War- ren E. Mosher, of Youngstown, Ohio. The reading of this paper was listened to with marked attention, and it is given here in full for the benefit and enlightenment of the rising generation of the Catholics of the United States: In its battle against evil the church to-day is working without what should be its most powerful force — a vigorous, enthusiastic, zealous, and united young manhood. How to win this support is one of the most important problems now confronting the Catholics of America. The improvement of the young men has ever been a vital question in all ages and among all classes. The spiritual, intellectual, and moral advancement of young men means the advancement of social conditions generally. It means a decrease in the stat- istics of crime and in the occupants of prisons, and an increase of those institutions beneficial to the arts and manufactures — it means the advancement of higher civiliza- tion. It means happy homes, with mothers peacefully secure in the possession of sons guarded by the armor of strong, manly character and Christian virtues, and with wives blessed in the possession of husbands conscious of the sanctity of marriage and with the nobility to faithfully discharge the duties of their state. There are three great and powerful agencies at work in molding the character and shaping the destiny of young men — the church, the home, and society. The former is constantly striving to rescue them from the vices acquired in most cases, and fostered by the licenses granted by society. Society indulges the human passions of young men, and gives them the license and opportunity to gratify them. And finally, when, from the excess of indulgence, society suffers from outrages committed against her by the victims she has created and the vices she has encouraged, she pays back the revenue she has derived from the licensing of necessary evils in the maintenance of institutions of correction and reform. The home, according to its teachings, increases the evils of society or the blessings of the church. That these three great agencies do not always work in harmony and union is a deplorable fact. Among the many institutions established and encouraged by the church as a safe- guard for young men are young men's societies having for their object their religious, intellectual, social, physical, and material improvement. The Third Plenary Council of Baltimore has ruled on this question in a manner that leaves it unnecessary to discuss the advisability of organizing young men's societies, as follows: "Since the young men are exposed to greater danger, we wish that special care be taken of them. Hence we decree that in every parish or mission where a sufficient number of them can be found, special societies be established for them by the rector, and that they be cherished with all possible care. For without associations of this nature the work begun in the parochial schools of saving the Catholic youth will, for the most part, have been in vain, and our young men, who have been so carefully guarded from their infancy, will be seduced by the allurements of the world, and will be swallowed up in the vortex of the forbidden societies. But when banded together in respectable societies, they will, while pursuing some temporal object, be readily in- duced by a prudent pastor to join thereto the cultivation of piety."— Title viii., par. 257. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. x l5 That the parish society, under the direction of a zealous priest and with the co-operation of earnest, self-sacrificing young men, has a great influence for good is unquestioned. The methods of conducting parish societies mav vary with the various conditions of young men in the different parts of the country, but the object is one and specific. That the parish society is not accomplishing all that could be desired or all that it might is also unquestioned. The cry for improvement is to-day ringing out from pulpit press, and convention hall. It is engaging the attention of every thoughtful man anx- ious for the preservation of youth; and noble men have spent the best part of their life and brain in devising means for saving our young men. It is only necessary to read the reports of our annual conventions to learn how much attention is given to this subject, and how clearly and eloquently innumerable methods have been set forth by all cham- pions of young men. There is no lack of good features, no lack of excellent suggestions for improvement, but a great lack of young men who will act upon the suggestions proposed, even while admitting they are good. As the work for the improvement of young men by means of societies goes on, it is assailed by the snarling and carping criticism of some, and neglected by the almost criminal indifference of others, while comparatively a handful of young men. in the face of the most discouraging difficulties, without system and without means, are struggling valiantly in the cause; and these young men are not the ones most in need of society influences. I believe the existing condition of affairs can be improved, and in submitting the following suggestions to the Columbian Catholic Congress I also offer my humble serv- ices to practically execute them in order to demonstrate their success or failure. In order to create among existing societies an intelligent system of co-operation, to quicken the feelings of sympathy and fellowship, and to promote a friendly and prac- tical union, I would suggest that State organizations be formed, subdivided by dioceses, and that in each State paid secretaries be appointed by the bishops of the State, or elected by the several societies, who would give their whole time to the work of young men's societies. These men should be thoroughly familiar with the wants of our young men's institutes. They should be from among the very ablest of our ranks. They should visit cities and towns where societies are already established and infuse new life into them, and awaken the ambition to achieve their highest aims. Where no societies exist, they should organize them, always, of course, with the approval and, if possible, the co-operation of the clergy. They should assist in establishing lecture courses, and take an active part in every plan for improvement. Ex-officio, they could be members of all societies. These men would exert a vivifying influence, they would be the link connecting all the societies of the State into one strong cohesive chain ; their visits would always stimulate activity, bringing, as they would, fresh ideas, or shedding brighter luster over already successful methods. There should also be paid national secretaries and a national bureau. It would be difficult to find young men to do this work, even though the means were at hand; for a young man with the qualifications necessary for such work can command better compensation in many pursuits offering distinction and honor, not- withstanding that there could be no nobler occupation. The men eminently fitted for this work are active young priests. Their edu- cation and training, and above all, their profession, qualify them above other men. They would command respect and attention where a layman would be ignored or snubbed. Can our bishops spare them for this work? Will they spare them? It is one of the most fruitful fields for missionary labor within the domain of the church, and I believe the results would amply repay the efforts expended. 1. The expenses of these secretaries could be borne by the societies of the State. One of the greatest necessities of the present day is the establishment of a sys- tem of young men's institutions, combining, to some extent, the polytechnic, the lyceum, and the social association. Every city that can afford such an institution should have one, the metropolitan cities many. In a few places Catholic young men have erected their own homes; there are many cities amply able to do likewise. To succeed, parish barriers must be thrown down. Few parishes can afford to maintain alone such an institution, but by a concentration of forces an association building might be erected for the Catholics of the whole com- munity. The Catholic young men of to-day must keep pace with the progress of the coun- try. The days of the back room and top story are past, and the commodious, centrally n6 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGBLSSES. located building, equipped and adjusted to the special needs of young men, will sup- plant them, as they should. . . 2. The only saving power of our young men is the faithful practice of their religion. With all the societies for the cultivation of piety among the laity now existing within the church it is a noted fact that their membership is composed almost entirely of women. There is not to-day an auxiliary league of the church that appeals as successfully to the religious sentiment in young men as it does to this sentiment in young women. It may not be possible to accomplish this equality, but I believe the inequality can be lessened. I do not believe the days of chivalry died with the ages of the Crusades. An appeal to the manhood of young men would arouse them in this age as it did in previous times, and for this pur- pose I suggest the institution of a league of young men to be known as the Loyal Cath- olic Legion, or by some such significant title, the members of which shall subscribe to the faithful observance of the principles of honor, purity, knightly conduct, and prac- tical Catholicity. There might be degrees in this league and special indulgences.^ as in the League of the Sacred Heart and other orders, and leaders and promoters appointed. This order would not conflict with existing orders. It would be open to all young men, whether members of societies or of no society. There need be no fees, or simply a nominal fee for offerings. Several young men in a society might institute a branch of the league voluntarily for the observance of these principles ; and young men not of the society could be members of the same local branch. An independent headquarters with general directors might be established, or the league might be under the direc- tion of the directors of the League of the Sacred Heart, or some other established order. This idea of putting young men on their honor by the institution of such a league occurred to me several months ago with a suddenness that thrilled me. It has im- pressed me with a most singular power, and my confidence in its efficacy is very great. I have consulted my pastor and several distinguished priests and laymen, who expressed their earnest approval of the idea. There is a charm, a fascination in it that engenders an intense, fervent feeling for manly perfection and religious piety. It appeals to the manhood of young men. Let us resurrect this spirit of chivalry among young men. The spirit of manliness is not dead but sleeping, and the spark of chivalry in the breasts of young American Catholics might be fanned into a flame that would develop knights as true as ever gave up their lives in the cause of righteousness or for the possession of the Holy Sepulchre. For the improvement of young men and young men's societies, I therefore urge the adoption of these three movements: (1) Traveling leaders or organizers, who shall, if possible, be young, active priests. (2) The establishment of special buildings adapted for the requirements of young men, with salaried secretaries. (3) A league of Catholic young men on the lines suggested above. The adoption of the first suggestion would ultimately bring the other two into practical operation, for men traveling in this cause could establish such a society as the needs of a place demanded and as it could support, whether it be the parish society or the general institute. Let us throw open our young men's institutions to every Catholic young man, whether he be an active paying member or not. At least give them all some privileges, such as free reading-rooms and comfortable sitting-rooms. Under our present system there is an exclusiveness that repels rather than attracts our young men. We must come in contact with them and endeavor to bring them within a pure atmosphere and among pure associations. The less restraint we put in their way the better. The church closes its doors to none, whether they give much or nothing to its support. Then why not have a home for young men supported by all the Catholics of our com- munities, as free as our churches, and whose doors shall be open to a limited share of our privileges without all the qualifications of perfect young manhood? This is a kind of institution needed in our day. There is a barrier growing up between Catholic young men and women, which is getting stronger year by year — the barrier of education and refinement. The only remedy that I can suggest for this impediment between our young people is to cultivate with equal zeal and in equal numbers the advantages offered for the acquirement of these accomplishments. There is an object lesson for the young men here to-day in the City of Chicago that should appeal to their better parts more strongly than all the sermons and essays they ever heard. Here is the greatest exhibition of human skill and material wealth the world has ever seen, and its accomplishment was made possible by Catholic genius. REV. PATRICK CRONIN, BUFFALO. REV. J M. CLEARY, MINNEAPOLIS. REV. F. Q. LENTZ, BEMENT, ILL. BROTHER AMBROSE, CHICAGO. CHANCELLOR MULDOON, CHICAGO. BROTHER MA'JRELIAN, CHICAGO. REV. WALTER ELLIOTT, C. S. P NEW YORK. REV. F. J. MAQUIRE, ALBANY. REV. JOS. L. ANDREIS, BALTIMORE. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. u 7 In conclusion, let me appeal to this distinguished body to give generously of their time and means for the preservation of our Catholic youth. Think of the energy that is lost in the cause of religion by the apathy and indifference of young men! Watch a political campaign and notice the enthusiasm displayed If half the amount were expended in the following of Christ that is wasted on political demagogues frequently, what a reform there would be in civil government. Watch a baseball game and reflect on the result that would follow such energy exercised for religion. Listen to the mighty shouts that ascend to heaven over the victory of some brutal champion of the prize ring and see the indifference shown to the hero of Molokai. We want this force, this unbounded energy of young manhood harnessed to the chariot of practical Christianity, and until we secure it the race for the salvation of souls will be run against tremendous odds. Let us love the young men, encourage them, aid them, not for what they are but for the temptations which are theirs and for the glorious manhood that might be theirs. " Working Men's Organizations and Societies for Young Men," was the subject of a paper read by Rev. F.J. McGuire, of Albany, N. Y., President of the Catholic Young Men's National Union of the United States. This is what he said: The genius of our national being is peculiarly suggestive of union and combination. Composed of many states and communities, these made up of various people to whom is given a common adhesive principle, and on all of whom it is impressed that unity of purpose a»d of government is the chief sec-urity of their national existence, the rational aim of all who have part in the framing of our laws, or of those who are clothed with the dignity of administering them, should be to foster and strengthen a spirit of union among the people. The public " society " of St. Thomas, wherein " Men may communicate with one another in the setting up of a commonwealth," exists here in its fullness, but it is enriched and made doubly lasting, in that it possesses all the features and benefits of the more "private society, wherein a few may be conjoined for the following and attain- ing of a common purpose." For, the first and ordinary object of our common citizen ship is to perpetuate union of the many for the good of all; for we are all equal on the plane of our national constitution, and equal in the rights of liberty which it secures to us. Hence there is a congenial abode in our country for that " propensity " calleu natural "of man to live in society," which has its foundation in the natural law which is sanctioned in the sacred scriptures, and in whose favor our Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Leo XIII. , has addressed the universal church so earnestly. From the first years of her existence the United States has been a prolific mother of societies of men. Her great political parties, which have aimed at a balancing of power, whose struggles, successes, or failures have been marked by the ruling for a time of one, to be in turn succeeded by the other, has been simply the organizing of many societies into one, the welding together of many for a common purpose. In earlier years she fashioned associations for military exercise ostensibly, which, being without governmental control, for a long time were so many private or even social societies of free men. Yet, in her day of need, these evolved into the grandest armies the world had seen, and achieved victories among the most valued of all history. In equally gigantic form have we witnessed the growth in our land of the extensive railroad and telegraphic combinations, which were originally fondled by our govern- ment, as promising many facilities and advantages to the commonwealth, but which latterly penetrating every corner of the public domain, and, absorbing less powerful enterprise, have again and again excited the anxiety or provoked the condemnation of many of the most sincere friends of our national interest. Here, too, individuals have united for the promotion or accomplishment of almost every lesser object. The practice of religious tenets, the diffusion of knowledge, the pro- tection of art and science, the perfection of varied skill of the mechanic or laborer, the alleviation of the miseries to which man is heir, and security from the results which come with accident and death, have in turn formed pretext for association ; and in this feature our country is said to be a leading representative among the nations. Such is the prospect which greets the view of the observer of to-day. The Catholic American, enriched with the birthright of true citizenship, is especially interested in this prospect; and so, as well because of facilities which it presents to him, as because of his peculiar fitness to reap rich advantage and the magnificent consequences to Lis Ufl WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. church and to mankind which may result. Our holy religion teaches us that the per- fection of Christian effort does not dwell alone in aiming at the loving and serving of God, but must reach out into a love for the welfare of neighbor, and the Catholic watchword must be the twofold sentiment, "God and our neighbor." His duty is not alone to build up churches which are to be the outward sign of an inward sacred and spiritual trust, but he is to build up by his word, his example, and his fidelity to pro- fession, that holier edifice, the Catholic Faith, which, not built by hands, is as imperish- able as her Divine Pounder. What are his facilities ? Our brethren, guided by pious promptings, were the first of the civilized world to tread this continent and they offered it to God to be His in per- petuum. As the years revolved others came upon the scene, and for a long time the prin- ciples of our holy faith held but a tolerated existence here. It required the blood of some martyrs, the painful labors of some of the most illustrious saints and scholars of the last century to retrieve the liberty which Catholics first secured by the right of discovery here. Meantime, in this fair field an enemy hath sown cockle. Here we find every species of belief or practice which has been known in the history of the human race. The consequence is a state of society not only detrimental to the immediate interests of Christ, but even menacing to that destiny of perpetuated greatness to which the Ameri- can nation seems to have been called by the Creator. As friends of humanity we can not afford to belittle the goodness of life of many outside the Catholic Church, of which goodness we have been frequent witnesses ; but still we must not refrain from proclaiming that the Catholic Church, which gave to the nations of the earth all that has sustained and made them worthy of the respect of succeeding ages, is still, as representing her Divine Founder, " The only name under heaven given to men whereby they can be saved." It is for us duty and obligation to declare this by work as well as by word. In conjunction with the pulpit, then, may we not find in Catholic societies a most perfectly adapted channel for the conducting of this spirit to the people? Nay, do we not perceive with our Sovereign Pontiff, that in such associating together of our people "there is cheering hope for the future of the church " in America? Associating them not simply for the purpose of presenting a united front against those who may oppose us, but for the purpose of cultivating such a spirit of Christianity as will make each individual Catholic a power for good "terrible as an army set in array." I have referred to the peculiar fitness of our Catholics for society rule and life. The Catholic who knows his church or is accustomed to scrutinize her sacred character has learned to love her for her unity and the unity which she inculcates. Likened to the myste- rious unity existing between her Divine Founder and herself — one in doctrine, in doctors, and in pupils; one on earth and in heaven — in the midst of this world's kingdom, which is ever and in all things divided,and hence ever falling,this solitary claimant of perpetual one- ness must gladden and delight the heart that loves unchanging truth. He knows, too, that so close is the unity which must exist, that in this family of God there can be no distinc- tion of any kind. The poor are enriched with blessedness; the wayward or hurtful are to be forgiven; the richest possessions of one are most precious inasmuch as they can alleviate the needs of another, and the only badge of discipleship in Christ that is pre- scribed is the love which one bears toward another. Graced with such a spirit of unity and manifesting it in each society duty, what a magnificent form of organization is within the capabilities of the good Catholic man ! How far superior in its aims and in the actual results of its existence as compared to societies which have for their object a pretense of righteousness, or which often have ex- pended their best ambition when they have destroyed by proselytism the only dignity or worth which their victims possessed. A truly Catholic society can be a bulwark of all that is calculated to subserve the public good. Morality will be a distinguishing char- acteristic of its members ; temperance and all the virtues will nourish under its sway, and the community in which it exists must acknowledge the charity from which it came forth and the Faith which sustains it. But our Holy Father voices the actual state of our country when he says in his encyclical, " There is a good deal of evidence which goes to prove that many existing societies are i» the hands of invisible leaders, and are managed on principles far from compatible with Christianity and the public well-being." In the presence of this well- known fact, what is the plain duty of Christians if it be not to seek desired good through societies of their own founding and management? Or, as our Holy Father again expresses it, " Unite their forces and courageously shake off the yoke of unjust and intolerable oppression." WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 1 19 Aside from the essential features of " unity of purpose and harmony of action," it would be difficult to prescribe detailed formulas or to set precise rules for the regulat- ing of Catholic societies, since the vastness of our country in region, in disposition, and needs of our brethren is so varied. The experience and practice of those who have been prominent in such works (and they are not a few in our midst) should be consulted. Let us bear in mind the fact that the Christian family should be the foundation of the life of the Catholic society. Here, as all agree, there should be capable supervision, reasonable discipline in its fullness, unquestioning respect, and obedience and interest for the common good. I believe to the absence of this family training chiefly mav we trace all the obstacles which lie in the way of Catholic society work, whether in the founding or conducting of such. It will seldom be difficult to continue and develop in the society the work which has been nurtured in the bosom of the Christian home. The boy who enters his sodality with the graces of the first sacraments on him will quickly learn to love the petty strifes and contentions by whic he may pardonably hope to evince his superior gifts or command the respect of his associates. Early will he develop the characteristics and powers which will make him useful in the parish association, or in turn command respect for the organization which affords scope and opportunity for the exercise of the gifts of his maturer years. After due consideration of the matter of grading, especially as to age, which should be observed in the membership of an association, it remains to be said that societies whose every prompting tends to the seeking of God and His justice, to the end that the members may be increased in all lesser things, are the best. In other words, societies under the supervision of the pastors. In these, mental and physical attain- ments might be ambitioned, and the members, while protected from the dangers of evil associations, might find reasonable recreation; but in these must be exercised such influences only as can tend toward the development of true Catholic manhood. It is an obvious fact that many of our American Catholic men, and, indeed, in some sections of the country, our women as well, are entering societies that are ruinous to their best spiritual interests. Especially is this true of our young men. It has been computed that not three-tenths of the Catholic young men of the United States are connected with any Catholic society. For the sake of their qualities of body and mind they are being sought after by those who have no desire for their souls' welfare; or they are allured by tempting immunity given in return for their sacrifice of faith. In these ways the interest and active co-operation of thousands of her young men are being lost to the church annually. What means have we to reach and use and save this portion of the flock of Christ — this multitude so full of the vanity and the pride peculiar to their years, yet ever so dear to the heart of Jesus — other than by gathering them into societies especially established for them ? It costs effort, but is there any work more worthy the zeal of an apostolic man than is this ? In some European countries it is said the children are kept in religious training until their first communion, or twelfth year, and after that time they are committed to the keeping of the secular studies. Some have traced to this very cause the Catholic indifference or defection so painfully remarkable in Europe during the past quarter of a century. We know from our sad experience that in our own country it frequently happens that the study of religion ceases on the day of first communion, to be resumed no more — not, indeed, because sufficient has been learned, but because of fatigue from restraint, or because of joy at having been admitted to the sacred privileges of their elders, young people are loath to continue a formal study of religion. Well regulated societies in which the priest and young man may continue to meet, and in which the sacred relation of pastor and child may be perpetuated, is a tried and effectual means of avoiding evil of so great magnitude. An oft-proposed query is, what is the best form or rule for a Catholic society? Some advocates of men's societies find scope for their zeal in the admirable institute known as the Young Men's Sodality, and certainly a more perfect rule, or one that is permissive of more that can benefit or enrich manly character, is not known. The purely literary association with the athletic feature annexed has proved its value by extraordinary examples of success in many portions of the United States. The strictly beneficiary society, with what is called social accompaniments, as under the management of the Catholic Benevolent Legion or Catholic Mutual Benevolent Association, is a scheme that has been warmly received by our people, and the admirable supervision during the past decade of these associations has elicited the respect and confidence of the public generally. There is no doubt that these societies are gradually destroying the hurtful influence which Masonry, Oddfellowism, and other objectionable organizations have heretofore wielded over careless Catholics. The financial benefits which they confer 120 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. have done much to lessen poverty and to establish families in thrifty ways, and their continued success is worthy the deepest attention of all interested in the welfare of the Catholic community. Surely there is no dearth of admirable forms for association. Yet it would be dif- ficult to account for the fact that there are so many well-established congregations in the United States in which there are no societies for men. It Would be equally difficult to account for the indifference to Catholic associations, especially on the part of our young men, in places where good societies are established and where need and facilities for work such as theirs are so pronounced. Certainly this class of our people, the future hope of the church, ought to be a source of concern and object of our care. Theirs is a time of life which craves for association or such companionship as will increase the pleasurable occupations of life. Does it not seem that we should, if necessary, make sacrifices for them as we do for other church works ? S 1 ould not the church afford them meeting places, or any facility which might induce them to come and attract them to remain in Catholic societies ? This would imply expenditure. We rightly contribute to convert and civilize the pagan. Is there anything less laudable in similar effort to save our youth from degradation ? Give them a positive rule for their association and exact their observance, but allow them such liberty as is consistent with propriety. Especially do not treat them as in- fants whose every fault demands humiliating punishment, but labor to develop (again I repeat it) a character of dignified manhood. The natural spirit of young American manhood is pride and independence. Legions of satans, like roaring lions, are daily devouring the youth of our church for this very fact ; but, friends of Catholic young men, if we can sanctify this spirit by religionizing it, we will thereby secure to our church generations of devoted men, and to our country a spirit of intelligence and patriotism that can ennoble her institutions or save her in her day of trial. It has occurred more than once within our knowledge that men who have assumed and graced most exalted positions in public life have had little other advantages than these which they had secured in the Catholic society room, where, under the inspiration of devoted priests, they have imbibed rich principles of manhood, and attained a per- fection in gracious talent which have made them objects of pride to their friends and of pleasurable envy to their less-gifted fellows. Brother Azarias, of Manhattan College, died since preparing his most elo- quent address upon " Our Catholic School System." His name upon the programme was appropriately bordered with black. The paper was read by his learned brother, Rev., John F. Mullaney, of Syracuse, N. Y. As an enthusiast on the subject of Catholic education, Brother Azarias had no equal, and when the paper was read, touching reference was made to the brother's interest in the subject upon which he wrote substantially as follows: Our Catholic school system embraces all grades of institutions from the kinder- garten to the university. _ Each religious teaching order has its own methods. But in the midst of variety a unity of purpose runs through all our educational institutions. This purpose is to impart a thorough Catholic training to our Catholic children. That portion of our system most cherished is the parochial school. It has been erected and it is maintained at many sacrifices. It is indispensable for the preserva- tion of the Catholic faith in the hearts of Catholic children. There may be difference of opinion as to the ways and means by which Catholic education is to be imparted and Catholic schools are to be supported, but there can be none regarding the self-evident truth that the church in America is to be perpetuated in a robust, God-fearing and God-serving Catholicity, it is only by the establishment of a Catholic school in every Catholic parish. The Catholic school is the nursery of the Catholic congregation, the inclosed garden in which are fostered vocations to the priesthood and to religious life; in a word, the hope and the mainstay of the church in the future. When we consider the history of Catholic education during the fifty years that have just elapsed, and note the many serious obstacles our Catholic schools have had to contend with, and at the same time go over the roll-call of prominent Catholics who have had their early training in these schools— archbishops and bishops and priests, and religious men and women whose vocations have been fostered in them; eminent laymen now filling positions of trust and honor, whose consciences were there formed, and who had there learned to be proud of their faith and to praise its teachings to the best of their ability— we are compelled to regard these schools, even in their least efficient forms, with great respect. In no sense are they failures; in no sense are they to be WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 121 abandoned or neglected; rather, in the very words of Leo XIII. concerning these schools " every effort should be made to multiply Catholic schools, and to bring them to per- fect equipment." Next in importance to the parish school is the convent school. It is a choice gar- den attached to the Lord's household, in which the sweetest flowers of virtue are ten- dered and fostered by women of piety, zeal, and culture. Its influence extends far and wide throughout the land. Among the leading social forces in America to-day, the women whose power for good is most far-reaching are pupils of the convent school. The tendency in these latter days is to make woman as independent as she possibly can become. There are still untried possibilities in our Catholic school system. Why, for instance, may we not have large commercial schools in our principal cities? Not mere business academies, in which a knowledg 3 of penmanship and accounts is imparted, but schools established on a broad basis, in which chemistry and the sciences as applied to the industries and manufactures would be taught, in which political econ- omy, and common law, and history, and literature would be studied from the Catholic point of view. Such schools would benefit a large class of our Catholic young men. Again, there are Catholic boys who have been obliged to quit school at an early age for the workshop or the factory, and who with riper years and larger experience feel the necessity of making up for early deficiencies. What accommodation have we for this class ? Practically none. Could not Catholic night schools flourish in our larger cities ? They would be a great boon to our working boys and working girls. It is painful to witness in large cities the active aggressiveness of those who misunderstand and mis- represent our faith. They attract to their soup-houses and night schools hordes of our Catholic Italian and Bohemian children and inoculate them with un-Catholic and anti- Catholic ideas, while little or nothing is done to counteract their machinations. This is work for our Catholic laity. The more cultured class of Catholic young men and women are now supplementing their school studies by reading circles and literary clubs. These are so many annexes to our educational system, and as such are not to be overlooked. Another institution that has grown out of our reading circles, and that bids fair to become an intimate portion of our Catholic system of education, is the Catholi? sum- mer school. In this manner is an antidote administered against the intellectua, and moral poison that is imbibed from the secular journals, magazines, and reviews. For the completion of our Catholic school system we look forward to the time whei our Catholic university shall be able to supply our colleges and academies with special ists in the various branches taught, and when we will have Catholic normal schools to supply Catholic teachers to our parochial schools. The State normal schools do not suffice. They prepare teachers, but not Catholic teachers. In their books on educa- tional methods they ignore or condemn our great Catholic educators. Moreover, the Catholic teacher whose faith during the whole course of his training has been ignored in its historical, literary, and religious aspects, whose mind has become imbued directly or indirectly with Protestant estimates of men and events, whose training has been purely negative so far as his religion with all its glories in art, in history, and literature is concerned — such a teacher is no longer fitted to take charge of a Catholic school. He is lacking in religious knowledge, in devotion, and in a robust Catholic spirit. He is timid where his faith is concerned. He is afraid to assert his Catholicity lest he give offense. He lacks that delicate sense of appreciation of the spiritual and supernatural — that ideal standard of worth which prizes the salvation of a soul above all other things. There are exceptions to this estimate. But those exceptions will be the first to con- firm it, and to prove that if we are to have Catholic teachers worthy of the name to aid and strengthen the work of our religious teaching orders, they should be trained in Catholic normal schools. The committee appointed by the Fourth Congress of Colored Catholics to prepare an address to the clergy and laity issued the document contemplated by its appointment. The address covers the points discussed in the sessions of the Congress, and represents its work and conclusions. It is as follows: COLORED CATHOLICS ADDRESS. At this point a motion was made by a Texas delegate to invite the mem- bers of the Colored Catholic Congress and the other associations meeting in the building to the floor of the Congress. I2 2 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. Archbishop Ireland came forward again. " I beg leave to express the utmost delight of my heart," he said, " that a proposition was made to invite here the members of the Catholic Colored Congress. Let us, the members of the Catholic Columbian Congress, show our thorough Catholicity, and in God's name invite them all. I have but one regret — that they are not one hundred fold more numerous." Colored Catholics opened their Congress in hall 6. Delegates were in at- tendance from New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, South Carolina, Ohio, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, and the District of Columbia, and in addition to these there was a large general attend; nee of colored communicants of the church. James A. Spencer, of South Carolina, was the presiding officer, and Dr. W. S. Lofton, of Washington, D. C, and D. A. Rudd, of Ohio, were the secretaries. The meeting was opened with prayer by Rev. Father Tolton. Then followed an address of welcome by L. C. Valle, to which an appro- priate response was made by W. Edgar Easton, of Texas. Brief addresses were also male by F. L. McGhee, of St. Paul, and Mr. Reed, of Pennsyl- vania. Committees were then appointed as follows: Credentials — C. H. Butler, Washington, D. C; S. P. Havis, Arkansas ; L. C. Valle, Illinois ; R N. Wood, New York. Permanent organization — R. N. Wood, New York ; W. J. Smith, Washington, D. C; S. K. Govern, Pennsylvania ; W. E. Easton, Texas ; D. A. Rudd, Ohio. Rules and order of business — S. K. Govern, Pennsylvania ; F. L. McGhee, Minnesota ; D. A. Rudd, Ohio. The Congress adjourned to this morning at 9 o'clock. J.J. Smith, of Davenport, Iowa; J. F. Brown, of Galveston, Texas; T. C. Driscoll, of Hartford, Conn.; David Garrity, of Milwaukee, and Felix McGill,, of Mobile, Ala., were appointed a committee to carry out the wishes of the Congress in this respect. Then the meeting settled down to listen to pre- pared papers on the social problems of the day. The Congress of Colored Catholics sat with closed doors most of the day, considering questions relating exclusively to the interests of the colored man. The invitation to join the great Columbian Catholic Congress was accepted, and the colored men immediately took a recess and visited that body. In the afternoon a committee was appointed to prepare an address. It consists of W. Edgar Easton, Texas; F. L. McGhee, Minnesota; C. H. Butler, District of Columbia; L. C. Valle, Illinois; Daniel A. Rudd, Ohio; W. J. Smith, District of Columbia; S. K. Govern, Pennsylvania; W. S.Lofton, District of Columbia; S. P. Havis, Arkansas. Miss Jessie Schley proposed as a question of discussion, "Why Should Not the Negro Go Back to Africa?" The remainder of the afternoon was occupied in discussing the subject. Charles H. Butler, of Washington, D. C, read the following paper on "The Condition and Future of the Negro Race in the United States." THE FUTURE OF THE NEGRO RACE. The subject of the paper that I have been invited to prepare for your consideration, " The Condition and Future of the Negro Race in the United States," can in no sense be considered a new one. It has been constantly before the people of this country since the establishment of the government itself It has been discussed in the church, on the rostrum and in politics. The negro has been a conspicuous figure in our body pol- itic, and like the ghost in Macbeth, ; 'It will not down." I come from the common people, with no special ability to produce a paper with well-set phrases, or to say any- thing new upon an old and well-worn subject. But I shall a plain unvarnished tale de- liver and leave the rest to you and God. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 123 Passing over the terrible story of the negro's sufferings in slavery days, I would date his existence from the time of his emancipation. From that day, by reason of a great war necessity, the President of the United States signed with his hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be placed upon it, that immortal instrument which struck the shackles from millions of human beings. I would mark his existence as a man from that January morning, when he whom God had created in His own image and likeness was declared free. Free without a dollar, without education. His best and most sincere friends believed that he could not exist, but that he would be swept from the face of the earth. The Most Reverend Archbishop of Philadelphia, in his address of welcome to the Third Colored Catholic Congress held in Philadelphia, January 1892, said: " Many trembled at the proclamation of emancipation. Even the friends of the colored race believed that the time had not come." I frankly admit that at that time there was much to justify the belief. The greater part of the emancipated slaves remained in the midst of their former oppressions, and sought to work out their own salvation through fear and trembling. The history of their sufferings has been recorded by Him who knows the secrets of all hearts. Their sufferings were not unlike the sufferings of the Israelites of old, who were held in bondage for 400 years. History oft repeats itself. A chain of unfortunate circumstances followed the emancipation in rapid succession and placed the negro at ;i disadvantage. The period of reconstruction followed. The interests of the negro fell into the hands of men, many of whom were selfish and unscrupulous, who cared very little for his welfare and valued nothing but his vote. It can not be said that during this period he made much progress, mentally or morally. True, now and then a single man under favorable circumstances rose up by force of intellect and did attain a respectable and commanding position. But his eminence served only to mark with greater emphasis the inferior condition of the race to which he belonged. There is one thing that can be said to the credit of the reconstructed party. They established schools for the poor and illiterate, both white and black, and when they fell the school system remained. But the exit of this party left no kindly feeling toward the negro. He was the visible representative of antagonism. The white man held the negro responsible for the unhappy conflict that brought ruin financially to his nation's soil. He was held responsible for the acts of men who did not represent him, although they used him, and for those acts the negro paid dearly, being made the victim of polit- ical murders and outrages, the subject of a bitter ostracism that denied him any chance to improve his condition, and finally forced him to become an outcast from his native soil. I have not the time to touch upon the exodus of the negro race from the Southern States, but it is one of the most thrilling incidents in his struggle for life, liberty, ar.d the pursuit of happiness. I do not think I would be doing justice to my subject if I did not here make mention of it. That movement has often been referred to as a polit- ical movement and passed upon lightly by our white fellow-citizens; but it was a nat- ural operation of divine law that moved those communities of negroes to turn their faces towards the setting sun. They were willing to endure any hardship short of death to reach a land where, under their own vine and fig trees, they could enjoy the life our Creator intended for them, The failure of that institution organized and chartered by the government, known as the Freedman's Savings Bank, did much to sow the seeds of distrust among the freedmen of the South. Sixty-two thousand one hundred and thirty-one depositors had faithfully carried their wages to the government bank. The books of that institution showed that 83,000,000 had been placed to their credit, for freedom had inspired then:, and they were using its opportunity to secure a competency in the hope of becoming, some day, property owners, and of holding up their heads as men in the land where they had once been slaves. Because of the failure of that bank they did not lose heart. They tried again, and to-day own §263,000,000 worth of property. In the Southern States it is said the negroes' wealth is as follows : Alabama $ 4,200,125 Florida 7,900.400 Arkansas 8,010,315 Georgia 10.415,330 Kentucky 5,900,400 Mississippi 13,490,213 North Carolina 11 .010,< 152 Texas 18,010,545 ;24 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. Virginia 4,900,000 Louisiana 18,100,528 Missouri 6,600,343 South Carolina 12,500,000 Tennessee 10,400,211 Since history tells us that it took the proud and mighty Saxons a thousand years to emerge from the thralldom of the Roman conquest and to reach a condition akin to modern civilization, I ask all fair-minded persons if this is not a remarkable showing? Let those who oppose the negro and who claim that he has made no progress point to any period of the world's history where any race, even the most favored and under the most favorable conditions, has made as much genuine progress in thirty years as has the despised one. In the struggle of the negro in the United States I am reminded of the struggle of the Holy Church in America, when prejudice ran riot and it was considered no crime to place the torch to the church or the orphan asylum. But, thank God, those days have passed, and we live in an age when every man's religious convictions are respected and no one is persecuted for opinion's sake. The negro has made mistakes, but they should not be held against him with more force than against any other race. And what race has not made mistakes? Those made by the early leaders of the negro are now being remedied and corrected by the young, more advanced generation of to-day, who are educating the race that they may develop true manhood and character. It is to be regretted that the Catholic Church did not take earlier steps in the missionary work among the emancipated slaves of the South. Then their calling and election would be sure. The reputation of the church for civilizing and educating nations is established in history. It seems, however, to have been left for the Plenary Council of Baltimore to issue the mandate which called the attention of the Catholics of this country to a sense of duty in this matter. That little mustard seed, planted by Rev. Father Slattery and his co-laborers in Baltimore, is bearing fruit that will have its ultimate result in Catholic schools, with industrial facilities, that will be a most power- ful factor in solving the negro problem in the United States. The Protestant Church is greatly in advance of us, for their colleges and industrial schools, supported by white philanthropists of the North, are dotted all over the Southland. What shall I say of the future of the negro race in the United States? His future depends upon his treatment in a great measure by the white man; whether the proud Anglo-Saxon intends to dispossess himself of mere race prejudice and accord his black brother simple justice. If continual warfare is to be carried on against him because of the accident of color, then all his efforts are in vain. But I am strong to believe that the dust of American prejudice will be cleared from the eyes of our white fellow-citizens, they will learn to discriminate, not by the color of a man's skin, but by the test that all men should adhere to — character and ability. There is one subject upon which the negro has been greatly misunderstood by his friends, and purposely so by his enemies — they have made the clear and definite term " civil equality " synonymous with that other definite term of entirely different signifi- cance, "social equality." If civil equality and social equality had the same application there would be room for complaint, and justly so, but upon a calm and dispassionate thought it must be apparent to all intelligent men that such a thing would be as dis- tasteful to the negro as to the white man. Civil equality makes no such proposal, bears no such result. Public society and civil society comprise, one distinct group of mutual relations and private society entirely another, and it is evil to confuse the two. Pro- fessor A. F. Hilyer, of Washington, D. C, in treating this subject, said: "We can take care of ourselves in a social way, but when prejudice sets up an invidious distinction and discrimination in public licensed dining-halls, hotels, and places of amusement, and make them want to exclude us from the avenues of remunerative employments of the commercial world, and make them deny to the most cultured and aspiring among us admission to their best professional, scientific, and literary associations, we think it is a hardship which we, as loyal American citizens, ought not to be compelled to endure." My voice has been lifted upon many occasions upon this subject of caste prejudice. I have pleaded with all the earnestness of my soul that all the avenues of human activity be opened to the negro race, and that they be given a fair and impartial trial. Will this be done? For upon this rests their case. I can not dismiss this considera- tion without saying a word to those who would carry their prejudices into the sacred confines of God's holy church, and relegate the negro to an obscure corner of the church, and endeavor to make him feel that he is not as good as the rest of God's creatures for WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 125 the reason of the accident of his color. How long, oh Lord, are we to endure this hardship in the house of our friends? We celebrate the 400th year of the discovery of America. Lo, all the nations of the earth are here to do us homage with their presence. I here appeal to you, first as American citizens, second as loyal sons of our Holy Mother, the Church, to assist us to strike down that hybrid monster, color prejudice, which is unworthy of this glorious Republic. We ask it not alone for charity's sake, but as a right that has been dearly paid for. Our labor in concert with the other laborers of the land, has made this World's Columbian Exposition possible. Our valor has been tested in all the three great wars of the Republic. The first man that lost his life in defense of this country in the Revolutionary War, was Crispus Attucks, a negro. Let us quote the lan- guage of that immortal bard, the lover of all humanity, John Boyle O'Reilly : And honor to Crispus Attucks, who was leader and voiee that day. The first to defy, and the first to die with Maverick, Carr, and (iray, Call it a riot or revolution, his hand first clinched at the crown ; His feet were the first in perilous place to pull the King's flag down ; His breast was the first one rent apart that liberty's stream might How; For our freedom now and forever, his head was the first laid low. William F. Markoe, corresponding secretary of the Catholic Truth Society of America, read the following paper on the possibilities of the society in the United States: The Catholic Truth Society of America, as declared in its prospectus, is one of the Fosults of the first American Catholic Congress of Baltimore. It is highly proper, therefore, that it should give an account of its origin and progress to the second great American Catholic Congress of Chicago. As many of my hearers may remember, the delegates to that first remarkable gathering had listened to the burning eloquence of some of the most gifted Catholic minds of the country. They are reminded in the most forcible manner that the mission of the church in this country was "To make America Catholic;" that the second century of American Catholic history would be what they made it, and that this was a missionary land in which every Catholic man, woman, and child owed a duty to his neighbor for the performance of which posterity would demand a strict account. Like the apostles issuing from the upper chamber on the day of Pentecost, those delegates returned to their homes filled with religious zeal and patriotic enthusiasm. " Lay action " became the motto of the hour. The question w».s how could the laity co-operate with the church in her glorious work. As a result of the interest thus awakened in the matter by the Congress of Balti- more, the Catholic Truth Society was organized on the evening of March 1, 1890, in the archepiscopal residence of St'. Paul, Minn., with nine original members, and its avowed object was to " enable Catholic laymen to perform their share of the work in the dis- semination of Catholic truth, and the encouragement of wholesome Catholic reading.'' Though the original founders of the American society possessed at that time little, if any, knowledge of the work of a similar society in England, it was discovered later that their objects were identical, and their methods differed only in the greater prominenoe given to newspaper work in the new organization. The principal means adopted by the American society for attaining its object were as follows: 1. The publication of short timely articles in the secular press (to be paid for if necessary) on Catholic doctrines. 2. The prompt and systematic correction of misrepresentations, slanders, and libels against Catholicity. 3. The promulgation of reliable and edifying Catholic news of the day, as church dedications, opening of asylums and hospitals, the workings of Catholic charitable insti- tutions, abstracts of sermons, and anything calculated to spread the knowledge of the vast amount of good being accomplished by the Catholic church. 4. The publication of pamphlets, tracts, and leaflets; the circulation of pamphlets, tracts, leaflets, and Catholic newspapers. 5. Occasional public lectures on subjects of Catholic interest. 6. Supplying jails and reformatories with good and wholesome reading matter. Thus it is seen that our society offers a variety of methods sufficient to suit the tal- ents and tastes of all, yet its very life and essence consist in disseminating Catholic truth through the medium of the press. It does this in two ways: First, it endeavors to reach the vast American reading public through those great channels of popular information, the secular dailies. It would seem as though Providence had permitted these great journals to attain their enormous circulation in order to afford Catholics an easy and efficient means of conveying the priceless treasure of Christian faith which i 2 6 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. they possess to the countless millions in search of Divine truth. On the day of Pente cost he worked a miracle to enable the apostles to speak in all languages at once and thus reach thousands of hearers in a moment. In our days he puts at our disposal 1 he modern newspaper, by which a sermon can be conveyed in an hour to millions of read-_ ers. Have you ever thought of that, my friends? Can we shut our eyes to this modern miracle of Pentecost? This use of the secular press, which we are willing to pay for, if necessary, is a method of "carrying the war into Africa? " Of course.no intelligent Catholic will dispute for a moment the power of the Catholic press, the importance of the field it occupies, or the value of the results it has obtained. But what do non- Catholics know about the Catholic press? How many of them ever read a Catholic journal? With many, alas! the very word " Catholic " is sufficient to excite suspicion and thwart the good thai; is intended; hence, we are forced to admit that " when the mountain will not come to the prophet, the prophet must go to the mountain." Another reason makes it necessary for us to have recourse to the secular rather than the Catholic press in this work. "Mis-statements, slanders, and libels against Catholic truth " do not usually appear in Catholic papers ; hence, that is hardly the place to correct them. Moreover, the value of a correction depends largely upon the promptness with which the truth is sent traveling on the heels of error. This prompt- ness can never be secured in the columns of the Catholic weeklies. The damage is done in the secular dailies, and they are the ones that must repair it. Nor is this an unreason- able demand to make on the secular press. Newspapers do not, as a rule, willfully or knowingly, slander their readers. They aim to give the news impartially and correctly, and are always glad to receive it from reliable sources. To guard, however, against the danger of incompetent persons attempting too much, ample provision is made in the constitution of the Catholic Truth Society directing how such newspaper work shall be done ; yet, as all can not write, we follow in this the motto of the Catholic Truth Society of England : "For ten who can write 10,000 can subscribe and 100,000 can scatter the seed." Hence, the second way in which we work through the press is by furnishing all • ut members with an inexhaustible supply of new, cheap, and original literature, efcoeoially designed for our work, and presumably the most useful, suitable, and appro- ;.. tate for the purpose that can possibly be produced. Our plan of publication, briefly stated, is as follows : Pamphlets, tracts, and leaflets are solicited without remuneration from the ablest ecclesiastics and laymen whom the society can interest in its work, and furnished to all its members and affiliated branches at a nominal price, based on the cost of an electro- type edition of not less than 10,000 copies. We trust to the annual initiation fee of our members and the energy of our local branches throughout the country to meet the necessary pecuniary outlay and to dispose of our publications. The slight profit thai may then remain is used in distributing our literature gratis among non-Catholics, where it will do the most good. Thus it is evident that with 100,000 members we could flood the land with Catholic literature almost gratis. The Catholic Truth Society of America has not failed to win during its short career the hearty approval of the American hierarchy and of our Holy Father, the Pope him- self. We have received earnest letters of approval from his eminence, Cardinal Gibbons, from four archbishops, and thirteen bishops. On March 10th we received the special blessing of our Holy Father by cable, and on March 10, 1893, we received a papal indult, dated February 19th, granting special plenary and partial indulgences for five years to the members, of the Catholic Truth Society of America, and all who write, publish, or promote the spread of the society's literature. What more can we ask? As the Catholic Truth Society and its work becomes better known, it would seem a difficult matter for any earnest Catholic, who loves his church and his country, to find an excuse for not joining it. As its affairs are conducted by a board of directors, who hold monthly meetings for the transaction of all its business without pecuniary com- pensation, membership involves no irksome duties; there are no compulsory meetings; no fines or penalties, and the annual jubscription is only nominal; it interferes with no other society in existence, for its ultimate object being to "Bring other sheep into the fold," its ultimate effect must naturally be to strengthen and increase the membership of all other Catholic societies. The individual member has full liberty to work according to his ability and oppor- tunities in the manner his judgment and inclination may suggest. He may write for 1 1 e press, disseminating Catholic truth, correcting misstatements and furnishing edify- ing Catholic sews, always, however, taking care not to compromise the society; or if WORLD'S COL UMBIAN CA THOLIC CONGRESSES. l 2 - he can not write, at least he can distribute an occasional tract, attend the lectures, and bring a non-Catholic friend, cany tin- literature furnished by the secretary to the im- prisoned, secure new members, and aid the good cause in count! ways as occasion offers. So much for the work of the Catholic Truth Society of America. Of its possi- bilities in the United States, time will permit of a few words only. Never, perhaps, in the history of the church was field of labor more glorious, open to the efforts of her chil- dre n than in our own age and land. This country owes its very discovery tot! fai th of a devout son of the church who undertook the search for a new world thai he might sow therein the seeds of divine faith— the immortal Christopher Columbus. Nor is this soil unfriendly to the Christian religion. The United States governmenl never, like so many European governments, made war on the Pope, or cast off authority of the church. This nation since its birth has never performed one act of hostility to the Catholic religion, martyred or persecuted a single Catholic, and its firsl act on winning independence was to repair the injustice of the mother countrv and to place Catholicity on an equal footing with Protestantism. Indeed, there seems to be a natural affinity between the Catholic Church and the American Republic. In the language of Chief Justice Shea, of the Marine Court of New /oik, "Our own government and the laws which administer it, like those of Alfred the Great, are in every part— legislative, judicial, and executive— Christian in nature, form, and purpose." In the still plainer words of the illustrious Dr. Brownson, than whom America has produced no deeper thinker, " the American State recognizes only the Catholic religion. It eschews all sectarianism, and none of the sects have been able to get their peculiar- ities incorporated into its constitution or its laws. The State conforms to what each holds that is Catholic — that is always and everywhere religion; and whatever is not Catholic it leaves as outside of its province, to live or die according to its own inherent vitality or want of vitality." Thus, w r here Columbus and our Catholic ancestors have sown the seed it is ours to reap the harvest. Amid the universal crumbling of creeds and wreck of religions, the ship of Peter alone sails majestically onward and upward, and it is for us who are on board of her to cast the nets in which the souls of men must be saved from religious shipwreck. The opportunity is before us. The Catholic Truth Society supplies the means. Let us not be recreant to a duty so noble. A nation whose mottoes are " In God we trust.*' and " E pluribus unum," must soon recognize the necessity' of unity in religion, and that religion alone can safeguard it. When that day comes, Catholicity will dawn liks a new revelation on the American mind, Then may be realized these prophetic wordi. of John Bright: " I see another and a brighter vision before my gaze. It may be only a vision, but I cherish it. I see one vast confederation stretching from the frozen North to the glowing South, and from the wild billows of the Atlantic to the calmer waters of the Pacific main; and I see one people, one language, one law, and one faith; and all over that wide continent, the home of freedom, and a refuge for the oppressed of every race and clime." Richard R. Elliott, of Detroit, contributed a paper on "Public and Private Charities," in which he considered the question from the Catholic as well as from a practical standpoint. The substance of his paper follows: It is not difficult to explain the evil tendencies and results of public outdoor relief in a Catholic parish in connection with the work of a pastor, who is aided in caring for the poor by such auxiliary charitable societies as may be established in his parish. The pastor of a city parish, having a census of the members of his congregation, will most probably know 7 the status of the religious and temporal condition of each family or member. He knows the location of the homes of the wealthy, of the well-to-do, of the self-supporting, as also the abodes of those who may be classed as poor families. He has either a St. Vincent de Paul conference or a parochial relief society to aid him in such charitable work as may be found necessary. His attention is called to a family in distress, whose condition is investigated and found to be worthy, and its care is relegated to the Vincentian conference or some other organization. If there be children old enough to go to school and they are not attending the parish school this will be changed, and such other remedies applied as may be necessary to ward off poverty and its conse- quences if possible. The condition of such families when first discovered differ greatly. Often, indeed, is the widowed or deserted mother in charge found to be a heroine deserving the 39 i 2 8 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. warmest sympathy for her efforts to keep her little ones together, to shelter them from the cold, to feed and to clothe them, and to shield them from contaminating influence by companionship or from vicious surroundings. She has to do this by her individual efforts. Whatever may have brought this family to a state of poverty is immaterial. There it is found existing in this parish. Assistance by Vincentian methods continue; as the children grow in years they are educated and instructed in their religion, in time they receive the sacraments, and one or more may then be found employment, by which the burden of the heroic mother is lightened more and more as her children mature. Such is the experience of many devoted pastors who have worked for the improvement of the condition of the poor within their parochial limits. It is not an uncommon result, but if it were so it would nevertheless console that pastor for other bitter disap- pointments. Very much depends upon the character of the mother. Her neighbors in similar condition, of the same faith, may be lazy, indifferent, and intemperate. They will ridicule the heroic efforts of this honest Christian mother, ridicule the practice of her religious duties and her obedience to pastoral advice. They will say to her, " You are so foolish to work so hard day after day; do as we do; go to the office of the director of the poor and demand assistance, as thousands of others do; he can't refuse you, for you have children, and he will supply you with coal and give you an order for provisions once a week." It would be a sore temptation to this inexperienced soul. Half a ton of coal a month and $5 or $6 worth of provisions would be equal to the proceeds of two or more days' work each week, which she was not always certain to obtain. This would add so much to the comfort of herself and her children, and she would not be obliged to ask so much aid from the priest. Should she yield to the temptation, what would be the result? She goes to the office of the secretary of the poor and enters an anteroom whose atmosphere is sickening, and finds herself one among hundreds of filthy -looking and degraded-appearing people, who are waiting their turn to approach the official window from which outdoor munic- ipal relief is given. She becomes disheartened, sick; but her courage nerves her, and she consoles herself with the reflection that she is there for her children, not for herself. Her turn comes; she goes to the official window and makes her demand; her appearance is favorable, she receives an order for provisions and a promise for coal if, upon investi- gation, her statements are found to be correct. These prove favorable, she receives a load of coal, and once each week she goes through the same ordeal during the winter season and receives an order for provisions and, when necessary, coal. This is the practical method of outdoor municipal relief. What are its conse- quences? The recipient of this charity has, in fact, become what is legally termed a pauper. She has fallen an immeasurable distance below the Christian mother she was in her respectable poverty, because, in obtaining this relief in the manner she did, she lost her self-respect. She and her children are to be nourished with pauper food, and warmed with pauper coal. Can she conceal this fact from her children; can she conceal it from others? Unfortunately, she can not; and it remains for the future a stigma upon herself and her children. But there are other consequences. The fact that she receives public outdoor relief may not come to the knowledge of her pastor; when, therefore, he finds the object of his solicitude less docile, he is at a loss to account for the cause. But it will soon be developed that this deserving mother has become in a measure independent of his con- trol. She may still be saved from the consequences, but it is doubtful; her self-respect gone, she can only weep at the degradation she has brought upon herself and her chil- dren. Were there no system of outdoor aid, had a mother who could get along during the summer season fairly well by her own labor, but who required assistance during the winter season, no recourse to outdoor aid, she would be guided by the advice of her pastor or of other private charitable agencies, who would render her temporary assist- ance from time to time, and tide her over an inclement season or a period of stagnation when work would be scarce; she would be saved from the disgrace of pauperism, her children would be properly educated and instructed in their religious duties, and in time this family would become self-supporting. There is a brighter side to the administration of public outdoor aid. It may be temporarily given, and the home and status of the applicant is then pretty fairly inves- tigated, for an excellent system of investigation has been the rule for some years. If the official visitor's report be favorable the aid may be continued until poverty no longer exists in the family aided, or the director may contribute indefinitely in such a manner as to supplement the means of support the family may have been deprived of, WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 12 g and in most cases this is a worthy bestowal of public aid; but even in such cases it operates unfavorably to the recipient, for, unfortunately, the records of the relieving officer disclose the fact that the names of nearly all recipients of such aid recur year after year until death, some fortunate event, or removal from the city brings the account to a close. But it may be safely asserted that in all American cities the poor or dependent classes, as they may become so, can and should be properly cared for by charitable methods independent of official outdoor relief. As this system interferes with the efforts of private charities to restore these dependent classes to self-support, as it interferes to thwart organized effort for their religious and temporal improvement, as it encourages begging, imposition, and laziness, and breeds pauperism, it may be claimed that public and private charities would become more effective by the general abolition of the sys- tem of outdoor relief as heretofore administered in cities. " The only really perfect way of caring for the poor," said Bishop Chatard, " is where, to prudence in dispensing through organized effort, is added the presiding influence of religion, for the needs of the soul are more important than those of the body. What is noble of man is his soul; the body is to perish. As the man who destroys another's faith in Christianity is the most of all wanting in charity, so he who helps a man to be a Christian shows himself to be truly charitable." Among the lay associations, numerous in every time, in this day stands prominent the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, which has made the name of its founder, Oza- nam, famous throughout the world. The system they follow is one in which out-door relief is especially looked to, and every kind of distress it is their object to meet. "And the reason why their work is so thorough, and so permanent, and so persevering," Dr. Chatard concludes, " is because it is material aid bestowed by charity enlightened by religion." But the social problem, how to improve the condition of the poor and prevent pauperism, which for so many years has been fruitlessly discussed in this country, has been solved in Europe, and by methods based on the principles as explained by Bishop Chatard. Where? Was it solved in London, distinguished of all other cities for the extent and debased condition of its poorer classes? No. It was solved in Vienna, whose population is about one-fourth that of the capital of the British Empire, whose Empress, figuratively speaking, rules a free people; while the Emperor of Austria-Hun- gary rules as a paternal autocrat. But once each year the Austrian monarch teaches the sublime lesson of charity by publicly washing the feet of twelve of the poorest subjects of his great empire. Fancy Queen Victoria washing the feet of twelve poor wretches from a London workhouse, or President Cleveland those of twelve of the poorest negroes in the American capital! But when a Catholic monarch, before the highest dignitaries of church and state, and with all the eclat a brilliant court can add to the surroundings, offers this example of Christian charity to his subjects, the time-honored scene is not without its effect. And behind this ceremony there exists probably the only successful practical method known in Christendom, of improving the condition of the poor from the foundling waif to the last age of man under religious direction. It is much to be regretted that the chivalrous impulse which adds to the member- ship of the conferences of the society of Saint Vincent de Paul from the highest classes in Europe does not exist to the same extent in this country. Time may develop a change, and it would be well if the ordinaries publicly encouraged the formation of conferences in city parishes. To make such a conference effective there should be one master spirit to lead, either the president or secretary; for much depends upon a prudent, zealous, and active leader. Thorough investigation should be the rule, and information sought from all relieving agencies; for without diligent scrutiny it is im- possible to avoid imposition. All reports should be in writing, to enable the secretary to comply with the manual, by having the record of existing cases of relief written up each week. It is all important that conference meetings be held on week day instead of on Sunday mornings, when members would perhaps prefer to be eating breakfast. At an evening meeting time will permit a free discussion of the merits of each beneficiary, and consultation of the vital subject of obtaining employment for such as are in need of work, and the spiritual exercises and reading. It is impossible to accomplish the requirements of the manual in a morning session of an hour. It is probable that no conference work in a city can be satisfactorily done at Sunday morn- ing meetings. Auxiliary assistance may be provided by a pastor of a city parish for Vincentian work by a ladies' society, to visit the poor in their homes; for such visitors are more I3 o WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. observing than men, and can discover defects and wants which a man can not, but the most important auxiliary aid a conference can have is a temperance society, for perhaps 50" per cent of the cause of poverty arises from intemperance, and such a great factor of misery should be counteracted in every parish. A very simple arrangement may provide a labor intelligence office in each parish by providing a register in some office or store, nearest the church, where those in need of work could leave their names, occu- pations, and address, and those needing servants or others for work could avail them- selves of this method. Knowing what I do of the imposition practiced by applicants for aid, and the neces- sity existing for educating members to detect such fraud, if I were the president of a con- ference, I would have read once a month, at least, a chapter from Dr. S. Humphrey Gurteen's "Handbook of Charity," which contains much valuable information and many useful suggestions in connection with the treatment of the poor in American cities. "Pauperism. The Cause and the Remedy," was the subject of a paper read by Thomas D wight, M. D., of Boston, which follows: Those who would honor God by serving His poor must, if they would do their whole duty, bring all that they have to that service. It is to be undertaken deliberately, seriously. Not only the force of the body, but the powers of the soul must be brought to bear. As rational beings, undertaking a serious work, it is for us first deliberately to apply our reason to the matter, to study it as we should study any commercial enter- prise in which we were about to embark, any scientific question which we hoped to solve. Instinctive charity is good. We have a kindly feeling for Goldsmith's village preacher in his dealings with the poor : Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began. But charity guided by reason is something higher. Pauperism and poverty are not the same. Every poor man is not a pauper. The pauper is one who habitually lives in a state of destitution, without recognized means of support, without purpose or hope of bettering his condition. Of course there are paupers of all grades. Of course this species is not always easily recognized. There are transitional forms. The poor man, falling under discouragement, is not far re- moved from the pauper who, as yet, is not quite hopeless. At the other extreme the pilfering pauper merges by degrees into the habitual criminal. I should hesitate to class as paupers those who, near the close of an industrious life, fall into destitution. But in spite of uncommon instances, the pauper is, on the whole, a fairly distinct type. Let us try to see him as he is, without Pharisaical condemnation on the one hand or sentimental gush on the other. Like other people, he may be married or single. The married pauper is the one we are most concerned with in large cities, for the unmarried speedily become something else. If caught and saved early he may rise to something better, otherwise he becomes a tramp in summer, an inmate of a penal or charitable institu- tion in winter, or too often an habitual criminal. Though the more picturesque type of the two, let us leave him to attend chiefly to the one, who, if not more to be pitied, seems at least more deserving of pity. He has a wife and many children. They live crowded together in a dirty tenement. One shudders to think of the well-nigh inevita- ble want of all the most elementary decencies of civilized life. The room is foul, the air is foul from want of ventilation and drainage, the bodies are foul from want of water, and often from disease. Think not that I lay this dirt to their charge. How could it be otherwise? If the family have fallen to this from something higher, we may be sure that it was by degrees that one sign of self-respect fled after another. The man is lazy. Perhaps he was not so always. He may have worked well and willingly once, but hard times, improvidence, sickness, dissipation (perhaps even a casual, almost an inno- cent, deviation may have cost him a place), misfortune, in short, of many kinds may have brought him low, until, by degrees, hope has changed to despair. He drinks, of -course. There is at least a temporary comfort in it. Many in other stations drink more with far less excess. But bad liquor in vile surroundings does not make glad the heart of man. The lowest passions, the violence, the brutality in the depths of the rough nature are brought to the surface. His wife drinks, too. Why should she not? she says to herself If he is to come home drunk and brutal, why should he find her sober? It will be easier to bear if she is drunk, too. It is needless to complete the picture, for we can read the sequel any day in the police reports. And the children! No prophet is needed to foretell their future. Happily the mortality below five years is very large. But this speedy release is not for all. Who teaches their prayers to the little ones? What do they know of God but as a name to WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 131 swear with? Even if of a Sunday they occasionally pass an hour in the crowded base- ment of a church, they may grow up without understanding how to make even an act >f contrition. How will they resist the temptations around them at their very d The father may have been originally a fairly well-living man, but as he went di into the mire of pauperism he had to take such neighbors as he found. The drunken, the riotous, the lewd swarm on the same staircase, perhaps on the same rloor. What future is before his little girls there! It is enough to make him drink the deeper if, in a lucid moment, he thinks of it. How does he live? Of course he must have food, and he must, at times, at least, have money to pay for his liquor. How he does it is a mysterv; a question which 1 incline to think very few but those living on the spot can answer fully. He does o. Id jobs when he gets them andfeels like it. He is helped very often by municipal or pri- vate charity, but to eke his living out he must have occult ways of which we know lit tie. A common one is the illegal sale of liquor; another is receiving night lodgers in his crowded tenement. When charitable visitors come he sometimes lawns and some- times snarls; this is according to the nature of the man. his degree of degradation and his idea of his own interest; but he, practically, always lies. Let us not blame him too much for this. Why should he feel called upon to tell all his secrets? They cannot be bought by an order for groceries, still less by a system of taking notes and giving good advice. He may well be excused for declining to expose to public scrutiny a life ill-titted for close inspection. Such is the condition of the typical married pauper in a great city. I believe it is a fair average specimen. There are both better and worse. It is certainly a ghastly picture. Too many of the rich turn away from it as too repulsive. What feelings of brotherhood have they with this dirty, drunken, shiftless, lying pauper? Each epithet is but too well deserved, but what has made him all this? Is it wholly his own fault? Is it wholly our own virtue that has made us something else? Have we any reason to believe that in his place we should have been less dirty, drunken, shiftless, and debauched than he? It is humiliating to think how Pharisaical one is. How we feel that the poor man should be resigned, cheerful, industrious, temperate, neat in dress, polite in speech, and, above all, candid to our questions. This is a part of the system of weighing with an unjust balance, which the Lord hateth. " Clear your mind from cant," was the advice of Dr. Johnson. It is an excel- lent preliminary to the study of these questions. Many paupers have been such from their childhood up. They have been bred literally in the slum and gutter. Their bodies bear in their most intimate tissues the inheritance of vice. Unnatural and debased cravings are inherited also. Such a one can not remember the time when his body was sound and his mind pure. He is a pauper both in soul and body. To those ignorant of these matters it were as easy to conceive the physical conditions of life on a planet circling round a red sun with a blue com- panion, as to grasp the feelings toward society of such a young pauper, who does not know God, and knows man, that is, the man of his world, only too well. Kindness is unknown, justice incomprehensible. Who ever made a bargain with him who did not exact the most work for the least pay ? If ever a man gave him alms, it was as to a dog or with a sneer. Gratitude could go no further than to thank fortune for putting a fool in his path. What good has he ever received from his fellows ? Wrongs and insults he can re- call by the score ; but what good ? How many civil, not to say kindly, words have ever been spoken to him ? He knows that there is no love given with the food which society feels forced to supply to him. What has he to be grateful for ? Grown familiar with disfavor, Grown familiar with the savor Of the bread by which men die- he has an instinctive distrust of society which needs but little to become hatred. Or granting that occasionally he has fallen in with charitable persons, the distorting medium through which impressions reach him makes it all incomprehensible to him. We can guess at his temptations, but not at his idea of duty or at his accountability. There isa very suggestive passage in Dickens' novel "Great Expectations," where the convict gives some account of his early years. He remembers himself first in the country stealing turnips for a living. " I know'd my name to be Magwitch, chrisen'd Abel. How did I know it? Much as I know'd the birds' names in the hedges to be chaffinch, sparrer, thrush. I might have thought it was all lies together,only as the birds' names come out true, I supposed mine did. 132 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. " So far as I could find, there warn't a soul that see young Abel Magwitch, with as little on him as in hirn, but wot caught fright at him and either drove him off or took him up. I was took up, took up, took up to that extent that I reg'larly grow'd up took up. " This is the way it was that when I was a ragged little creetur, as much to be pitied as ever I see— not that I looked in the glass, for there warn't many insides of furnished houses known to me — I got the name of being hardened. ' This is a terrible hardened one,' they says to prison visitors, picking me out. ' May be said to live in jails, this boy.' Then they looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my head, some on 'em — they had better measured my stomach — and others on 'em give me tracts what I couldn't read and made me speeches what I couldn't understand. They always went on agen me about the devil, but what the devil was I to do? I must put something into my stomach, musn't I? " Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes, when I could — though that warn't as often as you may think, till you put the question whether you would ha' been over ready to give me work yourselves — a bit of a poacher, a bit of a laborer, a bit of a waggoner, a bit of a haymaker, a bit of a hawker, a bit of most things that don't pay and lead to trouble, I got to be a man." Thus the pauper, as a rule, is one morally as well as physically. He is only moder- ately dangerous to the State just so long as he does not think. But thought is now in the air; it is everywhere, for good and for evil. Wise men now appreciate that the old saying, one half of the world does not know how the other half lives, cannot hold true much longer. The under half is determined, and rightly, that the other half shall know it. How long will the pauper stand his misery when the horrible inequality of this world is brought home to him, without the explanation which religion alone offers? His hand is ready for the dynamite which the infamous anarchist will put into it. Against such society protects herself with the Gatling gun and the gallows. All honor to the commonwealth that does not shrink from their use when the crisis comes! But let no one flatter himself that such measures are any cure for the evil. They are dread necessities for the putting down of violence; that is all. They do not remove the deep sense of wrong which is at the root. What reason is there that the pauper should bear his sufferings patiently? The more he thinks of them the worse they seem. This is not due only to the effect of self- love in distorting his vision. It is because in very truth these evils will not bear think- ing of. Thought reveals only the more clearly the monstrous injustice of his position, seen from the natural standpoint alone. Such being the evil, what is the remedy? It is to make the pauper a Christian. With a Catholic audience, it is superfluous to prove this point. We have the great advantage over others that we bring to the study of great questions certain fundamental truths as starting points which to them are still objects of speculation. We are not to be deceived by tha shallow fallacies that crime is a form of physical disease; that learning without religion deters from vice; that to accumulate money only is to become respectable. We have learned also to look at questions from a supernatural standpoint. Were I an atheist I should emphatically deny that there is any reason for loving one's neighbor. As Catholics, we know that there are great ones. There is first our Lord's command; then we know that every one of the human race was created for an eternity of glory which it has not entered into the heart of man to conceive, and finally that the soul of the lowest is of such value that the Son of God died to save it. But these are all supernatural reasons which we hold as Christians. Mere humanitarianism without faith has no logical basis. Hence we reach at once our conclusion that the pauper is to be made a Christian to be raised from his degradation of soul and body. Hence comes also the corollary, that it is for us Catholics to do it. We may thankfully accept all help that the State and our friends outside the church will give us, but we must entrust this work to none. It is easy to say that the pauper must be made a Christian. So easy to say and so hard to do that it sounds like cant. But let it sound as it may, this is the problem before us. Let us then discuss the means. The pauper is essentially a degraded type. If the degradation could be stopped the type would die out. It is far easier to save a man, still more to save a child from be- coming a pauper than to reform the deformed individual. We must, therefore, consider both prevention and cure. Practically, as will soon appear, the two processes are hardly distinct. The difference is only in the greater difficulty, humanly speaking, in WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 133 the hopelessness of saving the confirmed pauper. The latter has no correct notions about anything. Society seems in league against him. Law is but an engiin oppression. Nothing but the doctrines of Christianity can give him light on the in- equality of things here below. That his burdens should become bearable 1 hoy must be seen in the light of the supernatural. He must learn the brotherhood of man. But how is he to learn it if there is none to teach ? Moreover, it is a branch of knowledge that must be taught by object lessons. What he needs is a friend. One who will do more than say a kind word as he leaves an order for relief, one who will take a true interest in his concerns, who will spend hours, if nerd be, in his company, who by weeks and months of patience will find time to speak to him of his soul, and above all shall show him that he does it for the love of God. This is the work done by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul among poor and paupers alike. If in practice it too often falls short of this ideal, instances of surpassing it are not wanting. The sick poor should be cared for at their homes, when practicable, as is done by the Little Sisters of the Assumption. It is needless to enumerate, in great detail, the auxiliary works that are called for. They suggest themselves readily enough to all who have thought on the subject. There must be night asylums for the homeless. Wayfarers' lodges, giving a bed and breakfast in exchange for moderate work. There should be institutions for savings, there should be plans for rational amusement. All these should be distinctly Catholic. That is to say, under Catholic manage- ment, but open to all. While religion should be forced upon none, its consolations should be offered to all who will have them. The ground principle that the love of man comes from the love of God should appear. All this would cut off one source of pauperism by preventing those on its verge from falling in. It would go far to remove discontent by doing away with the rankling feeling of wrong. The effect will go beyond the poor thus helped to confirmed paupers themselves. Even if they rejected these advances, they will know that they have been made. Their wives and children may have profited by them. The children, indeed, must not be forgotten, not only on account of their intrinsic value, but because by saving them we choke up another, probably the greatest, source of pauperism. There must be sewing schools for the girls, and clubs for the boys, all tending to the same end, to keep them out of mischief, to give them instruction, and, above all, to make them good Catholics. These are for the children of the poor, and of paupers also, but in the case of very many of the latter, more will be needed. They can not be left in their tainted homes. They must be placed in institutions for a time at least. In this matter above all we must see to it that the institution, be it refuge or reform school, must be Catholic. True, as American citizens, we can demand that in public institutions nothing hostile to our religion shall be taught. The sense of justice of our fellow-countrymen gives more and more freely the right of religious instruction by ministers of our own religion in such institutions. Still, when the whole bringing up of the neglected child is at stake, it is clear that nothing should be left undone to have it carried on under Catholic influences. Such is the outline of our task. Now comes the most practical question of all — how is it to be done? Have we the means ready at our hands or must we seek new ones? The answer is not quite clear, but this much is certain, that our present means are ample for great good. When they have been exhausted, or when it is certain that others are needed, new ones will doubtless be found. First, then, it is essential that Catholics should be brought thoroughly to under- stand the vastness of the issue, and that the cure is in their hands. Let this great truth be brought home to them in season and out of season, till it is accepted as a mat- ter of course. This being once accomplished they will spare nothing to strengthen the societies and charitable associations by which the actual work is to be done. We shall then no longer hear presidents of conferences of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul complain, that, as the members grow old and fall off, young men, and especially young men of education, do not come forward to take their places. This is a crying need, for this society is the one that alone should do a large share of the work. Let all remem- ber that no man can bring to this society anything to equal the advantages he himself receives from it. Societies of women are needed, also. It would be well that these should be asso- ciated, as much as possible, with religious orders. Under the guidance of the Little Sisters of the Assumption, young women might go further than were otherwise pru- dent. The work will not stop here. Everything will be done to support asylums, training schools, and all necessary institutions. But, above all, if real good is to come out of this, we must frankly realize that works of bodily mercy alone are inadequate. *34 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. The evil is of soul as well as of body; we attack it from supernatural motives. 0u\ means, in part at least, must be supernatural also. As has been said before, the pauper is such both in soul and body. While we must not mock him with " tracts which he cannot read and speeches which he cannot under- stand" when what he wants is food and clothing, neither must we think that when he is rilled and warmed the evil spirit of pauperism has been exorcised. Our warfare is not with want and dirt and ignorance only, but " with principalities and powers." The old tendencies to evil, to say nothing of shiftless ways, are not so easily overcome. Till they shall be, till the man shall begin to understand Christian charity, to see things, though confusedly, in the light of God's will, all improvement will be skin-deep. Phys- ical help must indeed come first, but our supernatural motives for giving that help should be made apparent. At first the pauper will care little wnether our motives are from above or from be- low, so long as the help is his, but their effect may come in time. By degrees his Catholic instincts will revive. The little picture of "Our Lady of Good Counsel," which we have placed on his wall, may say more to him than we know of. Above all in the case of those who are still practical Catholics some fellowship in worship between the helpers and helped is to be greatly wished for. The wonderful spectacle which we have lately seen of an Eucharistic Con- gress at Jerusalem is but another proof that the great devotion of the coming century is to be the adoration of the most Blessed Sacrament. Let everything be done to encour- age its practice among the poor. Nowhere do we feel the love of our neighbor so strongly as at the foot of the altar. These are the lines which we must x 'ollow. As we go on, the needs will become clearer. It may be that in time one or m -re serni-religious associations may arise for this^work; but that time is not yet. The firet and most important step is to rouse Cath- olics to the conviction that the need is pressing. The good of society, as well as Chris- tian charity, demands that the remedy be found and found speedily. Next, we must feel that the work is ours, and, lastly, that it is a supernatural work far more than a physical one. We need to have preached a crusade against pauperism. It is not the part of wisdom to underrate one's task, nor that of honesty to raise enthusiasm by concealing difficulties. This is not the work of a year nor of a genera- tion. There are those, unfortunately, who refuse to be saved. While they live, they will be what they are. Neither can their children always free themselves so fully from inherited trammels as to be quite like others. The prospect for the grandchildren ia brighter. But the struggle is to end only with the world. The poor will always be with us, and while human nature is what it is, there will be paupers among them. What the proportion of them is to be depends in part upon us. Each generation is the trustee of the succeeding one. The child, moreover, is the father of the man. In bringing up a generation of good Catholics and good citizens out of what else would have been paup- ers we exercise an influence which may be felt through centuries. The subject of the address delivered by H. C. Semple, of Montgomery, Ala., was " Pope Leo XIII. on The Condition of Labor." He said: The platform of Catholics on the condition of labor was announced by Leo XIII. in the encyclical " Rerum Novarum." This paper seeks to gather a syllabus of leading social principles from that immortal document which called forth letters of thanks from the Emperor of Germany and the President of the French Republic, and which shows the head of the church as the reverend counsellor of states, the father of Chris- tians, and the friend of the people. What task more arduous than to define the rights and the duties of the rich and of the poor, of capital and of labor? What more perilous than to discuss the founda- tions of society when every word is scanned by crafty agitators, enemies of peace and order? Yet what more humane than to extinguish the embers of the mighty conflict which threatens the very foundations of society, than to alleviate the hardships suf- fered by the defenseless victims of un-Christian laws, greedy competition, rapacious usury and despotic monopolies and trusts? All agree, and no one can deny, that some remedy must be found, and quickly found, for the misery and wretchedness which press so heavily at this moment on the large majority of the very poor. But where is it to be found? Socialism steps forward and answers: I have found it : I am the redeemer of society. I will invest all property in the State, I will give it the sole administration, and it shall distribute to each according to his needs. Thus I will abolish poverty and bring. back the golden age of universal equality. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. S3 No, replies the Holy Father. Your project is at once futile, unjust and pernicious. It is futile, for if all goods must forever remain common, where is the workinguians hope of bettering his condition by industry and economy? Where is his liberty, his inalienable right to invest his wages permanently and profitably, to dispose freely of the fruit of his sweat ? But, above all, it is emphatically unjust. Centralization of property in the State violates natural rights. The State cannot take away the right to acquire property, for this right is from God, who made man in His own image and likeness, and said, "Let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping thing." We see this natural right by the light of pure reason, and see it in our ever-recurring necessities, and in nature's first law of self-preservation. We see it in our intelligence, which surveys the vast outward world of countless objects necessary and useful for the support of life, and which joins the future to the present. We see it in our free will, which directs and guides us under Providence, and which enables us to select from the multitude of earthly goods those things best suited to each of us. And no matter how primitive a condition of man be conceived, even though no state existed, yet if a man occupy for his exclusive use any of the goods of earth or any spot on its surface which no other has occupied, it becomes his, and if besides occupying it, he expends on it the labor of his hand or his mind, he stamps it with his own personality, and to dispossess him would be to rob him of his labor. This natural right to acquire and hold property is manifested more clearly still in the rights and duties of the father of the family. What right more clear, what duty more sacred for the father than to provide for his offspring against the wretchedness of want in this mortal life? Yet by what other means can this sacred duty be fulfilled than by the acquisition and ownership of permanent property, to be transmitted by inheritance? True, the State may regulate the exercise of these natural rights. And in the e r cise of this power to regulate the transmission of property by inheritance, or testament- ary gift, may it not correct to some extent the great evil of our times, the accumulation of millions on millions by single individuals or families, by the imposition of such inheritance taxes as will not only provide some relief to the suffering poor from the heavy burdens of taxation, but secure a fund for the merely frugal support of industrious workingmen in times of hardship. The State may even enter the domestic circle to protect the members of the family, but the State cannot usurp or absorb the parental authority, or destroy its very life, by assuming the control of all property. But has not God given the earth to all men? He has given to each man the right to live, and sustenance necessarily comes from the land. But we may procure itsfruits by our labor, without all becoming proprietors. God has given to each man the right to acquire property in land, but he has left the limits of property to be determine; ! by the industry of individuals and the laws of states. He has not vested the property of the earth in the human race promiscuously, nor in the organized state. It is asked: "Did not God make all men equal? '" Yes; and no. He made all equal in the possession of human bodies and immortal souls, equal in origin from God, in des- tiny for heaven, in the right to live and to save their souls, but he made them unequal in strength of body, in the faculties of the mind, and in energy of purpose. And these inequalities of nature have always produced inequalities of fortune, absolutely insepar- able from our very nature. Socialism would introduce discord and confusion, dry up the very sources of pro- duction, and destroy the chief spur of genius, and its boasted equality would be an equality in wretchedness and misery and of universal enslavement to t he State. Nothing could be more unjust or more disastrous than thus to deny man's natural rights, so manifest to our reason and so strongly confirmed by the morally universal consent of mankind, by the practice of all ages, by the sanction of positive human laws, by the divine law itself, which forbids us even to cast a covetous look on our neighbours house, or his field, or anything that is his. Therefore socialism is manifestly futile, Unjust, and pernicious, and cannot be the remedy which we seek. How, then, shall we soften the asperities arising from the friction of labor and capital? For they are not naturally hostile, but friends. The Vicar of the Prince of Peace declares that this blessed result demands the harmonious co-operation of all the agencies involved, of the laborer and the capitalist, the rich and the poor, the State and private societies. But, he adds, that all their efforts will be vain without the aid of religion, with the principles which she brings forth from the gospel. For, in the first place, religion, as the herald of God. teaches 136 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. men their duties of justice. It says to the workingman: "Perform faithfully and scrupulously the labor which you have freely and fairly promised. Respect the person and property of your employer. Never resort to violence, even in representing your just rights. Above all, shun the company of men of evil principles, of men who delude you with vain hopes and lead you to disaster, denying the necessity of that painfui labor which was imposed by our Maker and not done away with by our blessed Redeemer, but only sweetened by His example, and grace, and promises." To the capitalist religion cries out in warning, " Beware of regarding and treating the laborer as a slave, or mere muscle, as a tool for making money. He is of the same blood ; the same divine origin — the same destiny for heaven. Your fellow-image and likeness of God, your fellow-Christian and your brother. It is your duty to see that he has rest and leisure to attend to the affairs of his soul. It is your duty to ward off from him the allurements to vice and temptations to neglect home life. Beware of overtaxing age, or sex, or tender youth, and above all re- member that to defraud him of his honest hire or unfairly to cut down his wages is a sin which cries to heaven for vengeance." Such are the duties of justice, but where justice ends charity begins, which though not enforced by the State, is most binding in the eternal law. For there is a future life, of wdiich the present is only the beginning, where wealth and luxury here below do not insure beatitude, but rather endanger it. The Son of God was Himself a poor man and a carpenter, and he made it plain to all ages by His example that dignity is in worth and not in wealth, and He taught us that the only path to heaven is that stained by His bloody footprints. Religion says to the rich, " Your wealth is yours, to possess, but not to use as you please; it is a talent of which you are only the steward, and a rigid account awaits you not only for its just but its charitable use." It is a mistake to suppose that religion is so engrossed by the care of man's spiritual welfare as to neglect his material wants. While consoling us, under the wretchedness of poverty, and pointing to the compen- sation of the blessed future, she earnestly desires and actively strives to help all to rise above the pressure of want and acquire property as an instrument of virtue. And what can be more conducive to this than the practice of Christian morality, which at once merits and enjoys the blessings of Providence, restrains inordinate lust of gain and lust of pleasure, and represses those vices which destroy honest industry and eat up so many goodly inheritances. She not only does this by her teachings but by active inter- vention for the help of the poor. So active was this charity among the early Christians that the Acts of the Apostles record that " neither was there any poor among them." St. Paul, though burdened with the care of all the churches, made long journeys to distribute alms of the charitable to the needy. The order of deacons was instituted to administer the patrimony of the church, which has been ever guarded by her as the sacred heritage of the poor. The heroism of Christian charity has founded religious orders for the relief of nearly every description of poverty and human misery, and some of the heathen, and even some in our time, have reproached the church for her charity, but there can be found no adequate substitute in any State organization for that divine charity which springs from the heart of Jesus. Such are the doctrines and practices which the Holy Church, through her bishops and priests, has diffused far and wide throughout the world. Through agencies insti- tuted and assisted by God, she applies them to the mind, the conscience, and the heart of the individual, and makes them a part of his daily life; and he learns to act from a motive of duty to resist his evil appetites and passions, and history records that the teachings of the church and the example of the life of Christ subdued in a great meas ure the pride of wealth and impregnated all races and nations which came under their influences, exalted the human character, and elevated a debased and degenerated society. How, then, can society be cured in our day? By a return to a pure Christianity and submission to its health-giving precepts and practices. What are the counsels of the Holy Father to the State for the improvement of the condition of labor? The State is reminded that while it exists for the common good, it has a special duty to workingmen and to the poor. For they are the most numerous class, and are so engrossed by their daily necessities as to have little leisure or capacity for the thoughtful and prudent con- sideration of their own special interests; while the capitalists and employers, fewer in number, strong in wealth, and with an abundance of leisure, may spend their days and nights in scheming to add more and more to their gain; and striving to diminish yet more the share of the workman in the product of his labor. The power of the State should be exerted in behalf of the weak to lighten their burdens by wise and whole- WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. l Z7 some administration and by striving to secure to them a reasonable subsistence as the price of their toil and some provision for their necessities in times of hardship. This it may well do without suspicion of undue partiality, for it comes to the help of the weak. It is a mistake to suppose that the State should not intervene except in the case of the tumultuous refusal of the workman to do his promised work, or of the employer tc pay the promised wages ; for labor is not only personal, as belonging to him who exerts his powers, but it is also necessary for his support. It is true that wages should generally be determined by contract, but it is a dictate of nature more ancient and imperious than any bargain of men that the remuneration of the workn inn must be sufficient for his reasonable and frugal support, for he has the right to live and all property is held sub- ject to this right. True, he may not enforce it by violence ; he must exhaust ev rj other means of redress and must appeal to boards and societies ; he must cry out for the intervention of some great and good man, like the late Cardinal Manning, for his mighty assistance, and finally appeal to the State for approval and protection. And if through necessity, and because the employer will go no farther, he has accepted hard and unreasonable conditions, he is, in fact, a victim of injustice, which it will be wise for the State to correct. The State may regulate the natural right to acquire property, but it has no author- ity to abolish it by the drain and exhaustion of excessive taxation. At present one of the greatest evils we endure is that society is too nearly divided into classes of the very rich and the very poor. One of these exercises the great power of wealth. It grasps all labor and all trade, it manipulates for its own profit all the sources of supply, and is always powerfully represented in the councils of the State, On the other side stand the sore and suffering multitude, always ready in their distress to listen to the extrav- agant promises of irresponsible advisers, and prone to violence. The working man should be encouraged to look forward to obtaining, and the law- should facilitate the ready acquisition of, parcels of land. Thus a class will be estab- lished which will be the best defenders of the order and the bulwark of the Stale. The providence of the State should foresee and endeavor to remove all grievances which paralyze labor by strikes, often the result of injustice and the fruitful cause of strife and violence. It should not be indifferent, but sternly interfere when greedy contractors impose burdens which exceed human strength, stupefy the mind, and are incompatible with human dignity, which blight the buds of childish promise, expose the modesty of woman, and detain the mother from her sphere of domestic duty and the care and training of her children. It is also incumbent on the State to protect the workingman's enjoyment of the Sunday rest; not to be devoted to vicious excess, but that he may forget, at least for one day in the week, mere worldly cares, and turn his face and his thoughts upward to his Maker. For nothing is more conducive to the strength of the State than the morality of her citizens, and true morality is always founded on religion. The work- man himself can not agree to the servitude of his soul, and no one has a, right to stand in the way of his enjoyment of that higher life which prepares him for the joys of Heaven. The various religious orders founded and directed by the heroic spirit of super- natural charity, have, in all ages, wrought wonders for the relief of suffering humanity. Each devoted to its own special object, moved by the spirit of self-sacrifice and self- denial, they have astounded the world by their achievements, and brought thousands to the faith from the contemplation of the fruits of their labors. Yet the veneration of the faithful for these orders has too often aroused the jealousy of States and caused them to suppress rather than encourage them. And sometimes they have ruthlessly grasped the property which the piety and charity of good men had bestowed for the furtherance of their sacred ends, and thus robbed at once the founders of their bene- factions and the poor of that which was so wisely administered for their relief. The last element treated by the Holy Father is the association of individuals in private societies for mutual protection, which he commends. He reminds us of the benefits of association, which appeal to each individual from his consciousness of his weakness in standing alone, as compared with the strength of organization. He refers to the history of the ancient Catholic guilds, so full of instruction as to the advantages of association; he contrasts their benefits with tho dangers of those fierce and turbu- lent societies, often bound by secret oaths, which seek to persuade the workingmen that there is no hope for them, but in tho terror of capitalists at revolution; that Chris- tian morality is a mere fable of their enemies, invented to delude, ensnare, and enslave them, and which, while holding out to them the horrors of this slavery, binds them in their own chains, yet more galling. And now, concluding: 138 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. " As far as regards the church, its assistance will never be wanting, be the time or the occasion what it may, and it will intervene with the greater effect in proportion as its liberty of action is the more unfettered; let this be noted 'by those whose office it is to provide for the public welfare." These words of solemn warning are addressed to those countries and those rulers who presume to fetter the freedom of the church, but in our own country she is abso- lutely free, and, therefore, happily, more powerful in her intervention in behalf of the weak and wretched multitude, and more efficient as a shield to the rich against the revolutionary and socialistic violence of turbulent secret societies, the great foes of peace and order. One of the strongest papers of the Congress was read by Dr. August Kaiser, of Detroit, on "Immigration and Colonization," with special reference to German Catholic immigration. He said: The Roman Catholic Church is a large family, a family not confined to one spot on the earth, nor to any single country, but embracing the whole surface of the globe. The Roman Catholic Church is not composed of a few individuals, is not made up of a single nation, but clasps all people of the earth with equal love to her maternal bosom. All the races of mankind, Caucasians and Mongolians, Ethiopians and Indians, she treats with equal and discriminating care. With the same hand she pours forth bless- ings upon every nation, upon every land. All languages of the earth are heard from her lips, but, above all, that loving language of the heart understood by all men. All her efforts tend to the one object, to make men Christians and to secure heirs of the kingdom of heaven. ■ Now there is no land on earth which puts so manifestly before us the truly Catholic character of the church as this land of the United States. All races are here repre- sented, and the Church counts her children among them all. In all the principal languages prayers are blessed and fostered by the Catholic Church. Four nations especially have, since the discovery of America, gathered before the cross and the altar — the chivalrous Spaniard, the vivacious Frenchman, the Irishman, with his pro- found faith, and the cosmopolitan German. All, all have found in the land an asylum, and each one in his own way has contributed to the extension of the kingdom of God, to the development and strengthening of Catholic life and labor. German Catholics, without exaggeration I may say it, have not been behindhand in this work of emulation. By their numbers alone they have always been a moment- ous element in our population, and already number the fourth part of the Catholic Church inthe Union. Of almost 9,000 priests of this country, 2,700 are of German birth or descent.' The influence of such a proportion must be felt throughout the land, must be felt in every domain of the life of the church. Already in family-life the German Catholic is characterized by his zealous and persistent endeavor to bring the principles and doctrines of his faith into his daily actions. He has the manly courage of his con- victions, and endeavors to be in his daily life that which his principles require; and if, unfortunately, he ever comes to the point of not practicing his religion, then he ceases to profess himself a Catholic. The German Catholic distinguishes especially. by his industry, economy, and by hastening to gain as soon as possible a home for himself. In his family rule Christian discipline and Christian spirit; the correlative obligations and duties imposed by the fourth commandment have not yet grown obsolete for him; con- jugal fidelity is tenderly guarded and heaven is thanked for the blessings which it gives to the conjugal state. His olive branches grow up around him in the fear of God, and give earnest promise of becoming good Christians and upright, law-abiding citizens. The German Catholic approaches the holy table at stated intervals; he is faithful in frequenting Divine worship, contributes joyfully and willingly to the support of his clergy, to the church, to the parochial school, the orphan asylum, and other institutions of charity; but, above all things, he is conscious of that most momentous of all obliga- tions, to educate his children in sound Christian principles, and, if possible, to intrust them to none other than to the parochial school. With a special zeal the German Catholics of our Union cherish the principle and practice of associations, so eminently manifested in the German Roman Catholic Central Verein. The Central Union embraces something like 500 branches of benevolent asso- ciations, with a membership of 50,000 in nearly all the States of the Union. The Central Union has paid out thousands upon thousands of dollars for charitable purposes, and thereby brought consolation and help to hundreds of afflicted homes. The German-American secular and regular clergy are distinguished by the zeal which they display in their calling, by their exemplary lives, by their earnest and WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 130 unceasing care for the young, and by untiring efforts to attain to a greater develop ment of culture and knowledge, according to their state. Though the majority of tin se priests have crossed the Atlantic, yet every fibre of their nature has taken root is land of their adoption, and by none are they surpassed in patriotic enthusiasm. For- eigners, it is true, but received with open arms by bishop and people, they have c hither with no other object in view than to labor as missionaries in the young church of this land, to work unceasingly for the salvation of immortal souls, sacrificing 'tl solves in the painful service of young, still undeveloped communities. Their teaching and example have animated hundreds of young men to embrace the priestlj state of so that at the very present moment more than Too native clergymen of German descenl are employed on our American missions. Bishops of highest meril have come forth from the ranks of this clergy, renowned for their zeal, immortal in their labors, labors which will be commemorated forever in the history of the United States. Those sublime figures, to name but a few of our deceased prelates, those pillars of light, Archbishops Henni and Heiss,of Milwaukee; Bishops Junker and Baltes, of Alton; Luers and Dwenger, of Fort Wayne; Borgess, of Detroit; Melchers and Krautbauer, •of Green Bay; Flasch, of La Crosse, and Neumann, of Philadelphia, whose beatifica tion is pending in Rome; all these belong to us, are our kinsmen by blood and language. Not inferior in merit to the German secular clergy of this country aro their brethren of the religious orders. The first to enter this land (1832) were the Sons of St. Alphon- sus Liguori, who gathered together their fellow-country men in the growing cities of the United States and developed their many-sided activity among them. Twelve years later they were followed by the Sons of St. Francis, from Tyrol, and in 1858 from West- phalia. In 1846 that zealous fisher of souls, Rev. Boniface Wimmer. of Bavaria, landed in this country to lead into our missionary territory the Order of St. Benedict, and to extend their teaching activity in every direction throughout the land. The Benedic- tines were followed by the Carmelites, Priests of the Precious Blood, Jesuits, Capu- chins, Resurrectionists, Fathers of the Holy Cross, Passionists, all of whom set all their forces to work to extend the kingdom of God in this country and to give an impulse to true civilization. The female orders also, which have been transplanted from Germany to America, have achieved great things, especially the poor Franciscan Sisters of Aix-la-Chapelle, by their charitable activity in the hospitals; the School Sisters of Notre Dame, of Mil- waukee, originally from Bavaria, who, under the direction of Mother Caroline, lately deceased, that true Christian heroine, have rendered eminent services by their labors in the education of youth, and the Sisters of Christian Charity of Westphalia, who like- wise have done great things in the same field of labor. The Catholic Church is the home of all true education; her history for the last two thousand years proves that, no sooner has she firmly planted her foot in any land, than she immediately displayed her activity in this field which is so truly her own. Her vanguard — the religious orders — began here also without delay this work of hers. St. Vincent's in Pennsylvania — the name sounds bright and clear from ocean to ocean — was the most important nursery of higher education (for the Germans) for many a year. St. Meinrad's, Indiana; St. John's, Minnesota, with a number of local institutions, have added new lustre in the New World to the ancient and venerable name of the Order of St. Benedict. The Franciscans have had for many years excellent colleges in Cincinnati, Quincy, and Teutopolis, 111.; the Capuchins at Calvary, Wis., and Herman, Penn.; the Fathers of the Holy Ghost at Pittsburg, the Jesuits in Buffalo and Cleve- land; the Fathers of the Resurrection at Berlin, Ont., and St. Mary's, Ky. The secular clergy are not behind their brethren of the religious orders. Their greatest, noblest, and most successful creation is the Salesianum, Milwaukee, which has sent forth hundreds of the ablest priests, and can boast of having admitted so far not a single Judas into the vineyard of the Lord. The foregoing statements regarding the labors of German Catholics within the domain of the stars and stripes, are well calculated to prove that the German Catholics of America rank with all their co-religionists. I go a step further and maintain that they have acquired particular merit and deserve a special praise. The Germans are the only Catholics in this land. who. for years, have had a training school for teachers, a creation of that most deserving clergyman, Dr. Joseph Salzman, one of the founders of the Salesianum, near Milwaukee. This Catholic Normal School at St. Francis has contributed much to relieve the pressing need of competent teachers, and it is at the same time the principal nur of true eccWi-istical chants which has been most zealously cultivated by that distin- 140 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES, guished musician and composer, Professor John B. Singenberger, and which from St. Francis is diffused more and more throughout the land. German Catholics alone in this Union can show a Catholic daily press, since besides some thirty excellent weekly papers they possess four thorough dailies (St. Louis, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Pittsburg), which energetically enter the lists for the interests of the Catholic Church and exercise great influence. The greatest merit of German-American Catholics has been gained undoubtedly by their zeal for parochial schools, which they have erected at great sacrifice wherever it was possible, and for whose preservation and improvement they make every effort in their power. Wherever the cross was planted among the German Catholic immigrants, a school was erected near the church; nay, often, a school existed before the church. German Catholics were well acquainted with the principle: " Who possesses the youth is master of the future." They were convinced that the parochial school was the only sure bulwark against the fearful loss suffered by the church in this country. Freedom and independence permeate the air of our Republic so thoroughly that the rising genera- tion are but too much inclined to extend these privileges to the domain of faith and morals. All Sunday schools are hero impotent; that school alone, which is grounded on religious principles, in which all subjects of instruction are saturated with religion, can guard the tender germ of faith from the frost and wind of error, that it may be- come strong and capable of bidding defiance to all the storms of life, and of growing up to be a strong and vigorous tree. German Catholics have given the example in the erection of parochial schools, and by their great success in this respect have led our co-religionists of other nationalities to follow in their footsteps. All Christian denominations in our land will have to imi- tate us if they wish to prevent Christianity from disappearing and infidelity from taking its place. Ladies and gentlemen, such is, in concise terms, a faint image of the action and of the fulfilment of that mission of civilization intrusted by a wise Providence to the German Catholics of the United States. What I have said will surely suffice to con- vince this illustrious assembly that the German Catholics of this country stand on an equal footing with their brethren in faith of other nationalities, and have a right to claim their place as true children in the house of our mother and to be treated as such. Let us Catholics of this great and mighty Republic, a Republic so favorable to the free development of Catholicity, hold together irrespective of language and nationality, and, viribus unitis, struggle manfully for the preservation of our highest blessings, of the Holy Roman Catholic Faith which we have inherited from our forefathers, as well as for the rights which are solemnly guaranteed to us in the glorious Constitution of the United States! Let our war-cry be now and forever: "For God, for our Church, for liberty, and for our mighty Union, which gives happiness within the shadow of its lofty flag to all the nations of the earth." Following is an abstract of Rev. Michael Callaghan's contribution to the symposium on " Immigration and Colonization." When the eyes of the world are directed to the fitting celebration of the discovery of America by Columbus, it is appropriate that the Catholics of this great Republic in congress assembled, should discuss questions of serious importance, and it seems eminently in place to consider some of the causes that have led to this nation's growth and prosperity. Apart from the liberty and patriotic spirit of our institutions there are no more potent factors in our country's greatness than immigration and colonization. True, the genius of Columbus opened a pathway across the Atlantic to this great continent, but what position would this country occupy to-day if there had not followed in his foot- steps the thousands and tens of thousands of immigrants to people and develop its resources? Immigration and colonization are subjects capable of very extensive treat- ment. We might go back to the infant years of America and speak of the numerous adventurers who sought these shores, but these people left no impression on the country and need not be considered in reference to the building up of the Republic. It is better to begin at a time when the country had actually settled down to that internal development which has produced the America of to-day. Indeed, official statistics of immigration are not to be found further back than 1830, but from various sources we can arrive at a fair knowledge of the volume of immigration previous to that date, and also of the nationalities whence they came. During the first century of the settlement of the country some few immigrants from Europe found their way into the New World, but scarcely as many in five years as MARY J. ONAHAN CHICAGO. ANNA T. SADLIER, NEW YORK. ELIZA ALLEN STARR, CHICACO. LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY ; BOSTON. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 141 now arrive in one day at the port of New York. Ireland and Germany were the principa, countries which furnished immigration in the early days of the colonies. Under Dutch rule, from about 1725, some Germans were induced to immigrate to America by promise of land grants and other inducements. These people settled chiefly in the Mohawk Valley; others were induced to come by free or reduced passages, but these did not exceed over a few thousand. The English government did little or nothing to encourage European immigration. The first attempt was made about 1710, when 3,000 Swabians and Palatines, driven from their country by famine and religious persecution, threw themselves on the mercy and sympathy of the English government. England sent these people to New Fork, then a colony, presided over by Governor Hunter, who pro- posed to settle them along the Hudson River, where he intended to employ them in making naval stores, etc. This colonizing experiment failed, because the English government intended its proteges to become subjects and servants, while the immigrants wanted to be free and independent; hence a conflict, with victory on the side of the immigrants. After this, all those who came to the colonies had to do so on their own responsibility or by arrangements made by themselves. An Irish colony was planted in the Carolinas in 1739 and an extensive tract of land was assigned it. In fact, it might be said that the Carolinas were settled almost exclu- sively by immigrants from the North of Ireland. Among those people were the fathers of Jackson, Calhoun, and Pickens. Ramsey, the historian of South Carolina, says, "Of all other countries none has furnished the province with so many inhabitants as Ire- land. Scarcely a ship sailed from any of its ports to Charleston that was not crowded with men, women, and children." North Carolina received an Irish governor in James Moore, who headed the Revolution there in 1775. In Georgia, we find the Irish as far back as 1773, and at the first public meeting of the Sons of Liberty, held in Savannah, July 14, 1774, John Glenn was chairman, and among those present were S. Farley, J. Bryan, W. Gibbons, J. Winn, E. Butler, and a number of others bearing equally Irish names. The immigration to America during the years 1771, 1772, and 1773 from the North of Ireland exceeded alKformer precedents. Marmion's " History of the Maritime Ports of Ireland," page 333, states: " From Belfast there sailed during the three years mentioned thirty ships filled with immigrants; from Londonderry, thirty-six, and from Newry, twenty-two," and estimates the number of their passengers at over 25,000, " More than one Irishman," remarks the historian, " was naturalized in the forest, like Stark and Houston, and obeyed as chiefs. Of the number was the strange character known as ' Tiger ' Roche, at one time the friend of Chesterfield, the idol of Dublin draw- ing-rooms, and at another time the leader of an Iroquois war party." Dougherty, from Donegal, we find as a leader with the Cherokee Indians in 1690. From Donegal also came Robert and Magdalen Pollock, with their six sons and two daughters, and settled in Maryland. The name was afterward abbreviated to Polk, and among the numerous descendants of this immigrant family from Donegal was President Polk. Major Cald- well, whose daughter was the mother of Vice-President Calhoun, also came from Don- egal, while President Andrew Jackson, as all the world knows, " was born somewhere between Carrickfergus and the United States." Presidents James Monroe and James Buchanan also came from Irish stock. Sir William Johnson was another remarkable Irishman who settled Johnstown, in the Mohawk Valley, in 1738. He had brought with him from Ireland, Lafferty, his lawyer; Flood, his gardener, and Daily, his physician. Twenty years later the Irish settled Manchester, N. H, and John Stark, who led 300 New Hampshire men, chiefly Irish, at the Battle of Bunker Hill, was born in Londonderry, Ireland, his family name being originally Starkey. We can, therefore, safely accept the testimony of Galloway, speaker of the House of Assembly of Pennsylvania, before a committee of the English Commons, June 16, 1779, who said that " the names and daces of nativity having been taken down, he could state with precision that scarcely one-quarter of the men in the Revolutionary armies were natives of America, about one-half were Irish and the other fourth English and Scotch." Curtis, the adopted son of Washington, speaking of the soldiers in the War of Independence, declares that, " Up to the coming of the French, Ireland had furnished in the ratio of about 100 to 1 to any other nation whatever. Then," he exclaims with enthusiasm, " honored be the old and good service of the sons of Erin in the War of Independence; let the shamrock be entwined with the laurels of the Revolution, and truth, and justice, guiding the pen of history, inscribe on the tablets of America's remembrance eternal gratitude to Irishmen! " We may also believe the declaration of Lord Mountjoy, in the English House of Lords, that " England lost America through Ireland." The testimony of Rev. Hugh Henry Breckenridge, a chaplain in Washing- r 42 11 ORLD'S COL UMBIAN CA THOLIC CONGRESSES. ton's army, is remarkable but no less valuable. In his political satire on "Modern Chivalry," published in Pittsburg in 1794, he apologizes for making the clown an Irish- man, and gives his reason thus: "The character of the English clown I do not well understand, nor could I imitate his manner of speaking; that of the Scotch I have tried and found it in my hands rather insipid; the American, as yet, has no character, so that I can not take one from my own country, winch I would rather have done as the scene lies here, lint the mid- land States of America and the Western parts in general, being half Irish, the character of the Irish clown will not be misunderstood. This was much known among the immigrants or their descendants, so that it will not be thrown aw ay." The total population of the United States in 1870 was 38,500,000. Careful statis- ticians have found that at this date the joint product of the Irish colonial element and the subsequent Irish immigration, including that through ( ianada, was 1 1,325,000. The joint English product was 4,522,000, and the joint products of all other colonial ele- ments and all subsequent immigration, including the colored population, was 19,61 Irish immigration since 1870, while not so proportionately heavy as it was previous to that date, had brought, us over 1,300,(XM), and if we add these ami their product to the product of the 14,325,000 people of [rish blood in the United States in 1870, it would be but a conservative statement to make that, of the 65,000,000 who form our popula- tion now, 20,000,000 of them have Irish blood in their veins. At this point reference may be made to a private letter written last year by Vere Foster to the Immigration Commissioners at the port of New Fork, in which that gen- tleman states that he and his brother alone had in forty-four years enabled ±>,r employment to come, they were sheltered, not only from the designs of evil men. but f] m the biting frosts of the winter's night and the scorching rays of the midsummer's sun, and here also their hunger was appeased. Of course the accommodations were nol comfortable, and often even inadequate, but the inmates were protected from robbery and assault. Even after arriving at Castle Garden and passing through the hands of the registration clerks, the immigrants were not safe. They went to the labor bureau to wait for employment or the arrival of friends to take them away. Bui where were they to go at night if no employer or friend turned up during the day? They hi alternative but to go with the tirst lodging-house keeper or ru >r who got hold of them. For anyone acquainted with life in a great city it is unnecessary to dwell on the dangers to which virtuous young girls and im ted young men were thus exposed. These dangers it would be impossible to exaggerate. .Many a young woman was ruined for life, and many a young man had his whole career wrecked at the outset by the associations and circumstances among which they were thrown. This was the condition of affairs, notwithstanding the efforts of the Castle Garden officials, when the Colonization Society had Its attention attracted by Mr. Onahan to the evils prevailing. After discussion in the Congress, Bishop Ryan, of Buffalo, one of the members, was requested to lay before the late Cardinal McCloskey the opinion of the society that a bureau for the protection of immigrants should be established at Castle Garden. The cardinal warmly approved of the BUggestion, and Kev. John Joseph Riordan, of happy memory, was selected for the work. June 1, 1884, Father Riordan regularly took his post at Castle ( farden. Be soon saw the necessity of a home where immigrant girls would remain until such time as they obtained employment, proceeded on their journey, or met their friends. .\ house was leased at 7 1 '.roadway, and a temporary home established. The following year, 1885, the property at 7 State Street was purchased, and here the woik has since been carried on. Since its establishment fully 40,000 young girls have experienced its protection and benefits. This building was constructed long ago, and was first occupied as a private mansion and afterward used for commercial business, and is consequently but poorly adapted for the purposes of the mission; but, as soon as funds can be raised, a new building will be erected more suitable for the work, and at the same time be a worthy memorial to the founder of the mission, Rev. John Joseph Riordan. The mission, it may be stated, is American as well as Catholic, and extends its hospitality to all immigrant girls regardless of their religious beliefs. Nbn-Catholic young women are expressly informed that they are nol obliged to attend the religious exercises given in the chapel of the home. The good resulting from the work done at the mission flows into American society, and will be felt in future generations. The mission should, therefore, be regarded as an American institution as well as a religious agency. Such a work needs no commendation here, and if it did, anything we could say would but feebly set forth its merits when compared with the eloquent words of Cardinal Gibbons w T hen speaking about it on a recent occasion. " The Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary," said his eminence, " has been doing a magnificent work in throwing a mantle of protection around these girls. And I am only too glad to lend my presence to any enterprise which is designed to help this noble work. These maidens, after escaping the perils of the sea and landing on our shores, become the prey of the landsharks that infest your city and seek to rob them of that which is more precious than life itself — their faith andthe jewel of purity." Martin F. Morris, of Washington, D. C, spoke at some length on " The Independence of the Holy See; Its Origin, and the Necessity for Its Con- tinuance in the Cause of Civilization." He said: On the morning of October 27, A. D. 312, two great armies confronted each other on the right bank of the River Tiber, about nine miles to the northeast of Rome. Not often before in its wonderful history had the din of battle come so close to the eternal city. Armies had often marched out from its gates to conquer. Armies had often marched back into its gates triumphant from the scene of distant wars. Now, for the first time since Breunus the Gaul, in the time of its infancy, had marched upon the capital, the fate of Rome and of the world was to be decided by the arbitrament of arms at the very walls of Rome itself. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 145 Maxentius, a resolute soldier of fortune, led one of these two hosts, and his garrison held the city. At the head of the other army, which had come down from the North and had drawn its recruits mainly from Gaul and Britain, was one of those mighty men of destiny of whom the world has known but seven in all, who, as we read their history, impress us with the profound conviction of their ability to bear down all opposition and to reach the destiny assigned to them by heaven in spite of all obstacles. Whether it be true or not that when upon that eventful morning Constantine the Great marshaled his legions for the fray his own imperial banner bore upon it the symbol of the cross and the legend " In hoc signo vinces," as some of the chron- iclers tell us, certain it is that the result of this conflict was to disclose to the Roman world what the Rornan world had scarcely suspected before — that it was no longer pagan, but Christian. For three centuries of merciless persecution Christianity had found a refuge in the catacombs; now it ascended the throne of the Caasars. The transition perhaps was not as sudden as it seems to us to-day to have been. For, day by day during all these centuries, in spite of persecution, and even by reason of the persecution, Christianity had gained converts, not merely in the cottages of the lowly, but even in the palaces of the Caesars themselves. The noblest names of Rome are found in the long roll of the Christian martyrology; and no doubt close observers of the course of events, if such observers existed at the time, may have anticipated the result. But, as frequently happens, the result came at last as the sequel of a sharp and bitter civil war; and when Maxentius, in his flight from the field of battle, was drowned in the Tiber, paganism went down with him, though it struggled desperately for a time against the overwhelming waters of the new civilization. The contest had not been in name a contest between paganism and Christianity. There had been no outward semblance, whatever, of a struggle between the rival forces then at work in the Roman Empire. Two rival contestants for the imperial throne had simply arrayed their forces against each other as similar contestants had often done before. But out of their struggle was evolved the triumph of Christianity and of the new civilization which Christianity represented. It has always been a curious subject of historical inquiry and critical conjecture why Constantine the Great, as soon as he had secured the fruits of his victory and finally consolidated his power, removed the seat of government from the City of Rome to the City of Byzantium on the Thracian Bosphorus, ever since called from him by the name of Constantinople. But assuredly there was a purpose of profound statesman- ship, as well as a providential dispensation to prepare Rome to become the religious capital of the world, while it ceased to be the center of political and governmental ad- ministration. It is not our purpose here to indulge in conjecture as to the political motives which may have induced Constantine to regard Byzantium as preferable to Rome for the capital of the empire. But the fact that this movement distinctly pre- pared the way for the conversion of Rome to be the ecclesiastical, instead of the politi- cal, capital of the world, without even the shadow of solicitation to that effect on the part of the Pope, is a circumstance that has not received from historians the considera- tion which it merits. Caasarean Rome was destined to become the Rome of the Pontiffs. Out of thirty - ttiree popes who had sustained and guided the infant church during the three centuries of struggle and persecution, twenty-four had received the crown of martyrdom and had shed their blood for the faith. The ground which they had contributed so copiously to fertilize deserved to become their own. We attach no credit, however, to the story of the grant of Rome by Constantine to the popes. In the nature of things neither Constantine or any of his successors could have dissociated the City of Romulus and of the Scipiosfrom the mighty empire which it had established, and upon which it had impressed its name and its governmental institutions. But the removal of the seat of political authority from Rome to Byzan- tium naturally relegated Rome to the condition of local self-government, which it was always the policy of Roman administration to foster in all the cities of the great empire. By this removal Rome became practically a free city, with the power of the native senate restored to the management of all its local affairs, and with the super- added influence of the presence within it of the chief of the Christian religion to moderate its course of action and to protect it from the violence of external assault. Even when, under the sons of Theodosius, the Roman Empire was broken up into the Empire of the East and the Empire of the West, and Italy again became a center of political activity as the stronghold of the Western empire, it was not Rome, but first Milan and afterward Ravenna, that became the seat of imperial government. Either 146 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. studiously and by design, or through an unconscious sense of the propriety of things, Rome was left to itself and to the popes. And when the empire fell, neither Visigoths, nor Ostrogoths, nor Lombards, nor Franks, nor Germans, ever interfered with this tacit arrangement. Never again was it sought by anyone to make Rome the seal of temporal government. The Ostrogothic capital was established at Verona; thai of the Lombards at Pavia. When the Roman Empire of the West was restored in name, and almost in fact, for Charlemagne by Pope Leo III., in A. D. 800, the restored sovereignty of the Caesars was evidenced by the coronation of tho Prankish monarch at Rome, and his successors in the dignity who claimed or bore the title of Kaiser of the holy Roman Empire were never regarded as fully entitled to the honor except as the consequence of a similar coronation by the hands of the holy Roman Pontiff in the City of Rome. And yet, never to any of them did it occur to attempt to transfer the seat of government from Aix-la-Chapelle, or Frankfort-on-the-Main, or Nuremburg, or Vienna, to its old loca- tion on the Palatine hill. The public sentiment of Europe would have been opposed to any such attempt. That public sentiment, silently, unconsciously, but for that reason all the more potently, had decreed that Rome should be a free city, free from the control of the great feudal monarchy, free from all external control of every kind. And it is a singular fact that never, except upon rare occasions, did any of the feudal monarchies of Europe seek to interfere in the internal affairs of the City of Rome. Theoretically, the sovereign of the German Empire was required to goto Rome for his coronation, but with his coronation his functions within the eternal city were at an end. Henry IV. and Frederick Barbarosa sought to break through this rule of international and Christian law, and the public sentiment of Europe, stronger than even the arms of the great Countess Matilda or of Robert Guiscard, drove them both in dis- grace from Rome. Within the walls of Rome tho only power recognized by the public sentiment of Rome, was that of the Roman senate, the Roman people, and the Roman Pontiff. And down to the year 1870 this public sentiment was strong enough to pre- serve unimpaired the institutions that had thus been so quietly evolved and estab- lished. For we may unhesitatingly assert that the temporal power, as well as the spiritual authority, of the Roman pontiffs was the result of gradual evolution. We presume that no one will pretend that the mass of dogma, and of doctrine, and of religious practice that now obtains among us was knowa in its fullness to th • a' os ties or to their immediate successors. The germ of it all they undoubtedly had; but it was unnecessary, in the nature of things, that they should have had it in alt the plenti- tude of its manifestations. The truth has been unfolded as occasion demanded, each subsequent declaration of it being the legitimate consequence of the original revela- tion. So it was likewise with the temporal power. Who can assume to place his finger on the precise point of time when the Roman pontiffs became temporal rulers? We know when, and how, and by whom the monarchies of France and England and Ger- many were founded. We know when the Swiss Republic was born. We know the years whence Florence, Pisa, Genoa, and Venice severally became independent powers. The great landmarks of the world's history are the catastrophes out of which nation ■•. are born and dynasties reared. But who can say when the temporal power of the popes began? We are told of a grant by Constantine the Great to which we have already referred; and we ara told of a grant by Theodosius, and by Bepin, and by Charlemagne. But all these are undoubtedly apocryphal. We have more accurate knowledge of a grant by the great Countess Matilda of Tuscany; but the power of the popes had then been firmly established. And authentic history tells us, with circumstantial detail, how the feudal rulers of Urbino, Carrara, Bologna, and Benevento gave way to the milder sov- ereignty of the Roman pontiffs. But neither to Constantine, nor to Theodosius, nor to Pepin, nor to Charlemagne, nor to the Countess Matilda is due the establishment of the temporal power of the popes. The silly imbecility of partisan bigotry has sometimes set down Pope Gregory VII., better known, perhaps, as Hildebrand of Sienna, as the founder of the temporal power of the papacy, and the latter end of the 11th century as the period of its es- tablishment. But only the most intense bigotry or the most willful ignorance can be blind to the fact that Hildebrand of Sienna exercised no more power in Rome than his predecessors had done before him. History fails to disclose any change in his time in the government of the eternal city. The grant which was undoubtedly made by Matilda, of the Tuscan territory, subsequently known as the patrimony of St. Peter, WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 147 enlarged the dominion of the popes, but it did not create or originate it. The Roman territory was no part of this grant, and in the Roman territory the power of the popes had already been established for several centuries. In subordination, of course, to the divine ordination from which all power origin- ates, to the will of the Roman people is immediately due the temporal power of the popes. To the spiritual chiefs, in whose honor, integrity and patriotism they had confi- dence, the Roman people deemed themselves justified in remitting, from time to time, the conduct of their temporal affairs. When Alaric the Visigoth, angered at the imbe- cility of the rulers of Ravenna, plundered the eternal city and looked from the Pintian hill over a scene of indiscriminate slaughter and carnage, it was Pope Innocent I. to whom the people turned in their despair, and who induced the fierce barbarian to with- draw. When, soon after, the terrible Atilla came down upon Italy with his savage Mon- golian horde and spread desolation over the land, it was to the Pope again that the peo- ple turned, and it was Saint Leo and not a Roman general or an officer or army of the tottering empire that encountered the savage chief under the walls of Aquileia, turned him back from his purpose and saved Rome and Italy from the horror of Mongolian con- quest. When Ostrogoths, and Lombards, and Saracens, and Normands, swarmed over the peninsula to ravage and plunder it was reserved to the popes to check their ravages and to mitigate the horrors of their invasion. Is it any wonder that the people of Rome remitted the temporal power in their State to those who alone could save them from destruction? For a thousand years before it assumed definite shape, the temporal power of the popes in the city of Rome existed and was recognized by the tacit acknowledgment of the Christian world. Never before and never since in the history of the world has power been established so quietly and so greatly in accord with the wishes of the peo- ple over whom it was exercised. The power, in fact, was the gradual development of the people's will — so gradual, that, as we have said, no one can point to the actual time of its origin; for it had no such origin as other governments of the world have had. It is very true, however, that, to the pontificate of Hildebrand of Sienna, or Pope Gregory VII., we are to refer the formal establishment of the temporal power of the popes, inasmuch as to that time we are to refer the culmination of the feudal system in Europe, and the first great victory of Christian civilization over it under the auspices of the Roman pontiffs. The contest between feudalism and civilization, beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Empire of the West, in A. D. 472, was a long and bitter one. It had lasted over a thousand years when the discovery of America enabled the world to insure the ultimate overthrow of the system. But the contest is not even yet sntirely at an end. In that contest the feudal classes of Europe were banded against v .he people and the Christian Church. The Roman pontiffs were ever the most consist- ent opponents of feudalism; and it was the unceasing effort of the popes to restrain the rapacity of the "robber barons," and the arbitrary licentiousness of the feudal monarchs. The feudal system was at its height when Hildebrand became Pope, in A. D. 1073. Henry IV. of the house of Franconia, an able and up-principled man, was then Em- peror of Germany (A. D. 1056-1106), and as such the virtual head of the system. A violent contest broke out between the Pope and the Emperor. Henry sought to deter- mine it by an appeal to the brute force of arms. He crossed the Alps, invaded Italy, and marched upon Rome with a view of deposing the Pope and procuring the election of a Pontiff more in accord with his wishes. Suddenly Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, appeared in arms against him and resisted his advance. Robert Guiscard hastened from Naples with his Normans to protect the City of Rome. Europe was aroused to a sense of danger. Rebellions broke out in Germany itself. Henry's army melted away. Matilda skilfully foiled all his movements, and the discomfited and baffled monarch at last was compelled to come to terms with the Pontiff. In their famous interview at the Castle of Canossa, in A. D. 1079, the independence of the Church from feudal restraint and the triumph < f Christian civilization over feudal barbarism were definitely secured. And although feudalism survived for many a day, the result of that interview was to secure the church ever afterward from the encroachments of the Northern powers. It was further to insure that result that the Countess Matilda, either immediately after- ward or at her death in 1115, donated to the popes the territory along the shores of the Mediterranean between the Tiber and the lake of Bolsona, known in subsequent times by the name of the patrimony of St. Peter. Such was the origin of what is known as the temporal power of the popes. Assuredly no temporal power was ever more justly acquired; no temporal sovereignty 14S WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. ever had more just or more legitimate foundations. The free will of the Roman people und the public sentiment of Europe made of Rome what a similar sentiment, cirystal- izing itself in organic law, has made of the City of Washington ami the District of Columbia for the purposes of our Federal Union. The government of the Union might, perhaps, have curried on successfully within the territorial limits of some one 1 States of the Union, as indeed was done temporarily in the beginning, \\ hen the capital was located first at New York and afterwards at Philadelphia. Bui the better to secure the freedom of that government aud its independent action, the founders of our consti- tutional system most wisely deemed it proper, and i\ en necessary, to seg regate the small territory of the District of Columbia, and to devote it for all time to tbat purpose. 1 1 was not their idea to create for the government which they established any imperial domain, but simply to insure its independence of action. By the divine ordination, and by the public sentiment of Europe acting in accordance therewith. Rome was intended to serve for the Christian world a purpose similar to thai which the Citj of Washington serves for our Federal Union — as a place where all may meet on terms of equal freedom and independence. The parallel may be even farther extended. We have said that it was not the intention of the founders of our Federal system to provide a large domain for our cen- tral government, although the powers of that government were to be co-extensive with the territorial limits of the union, and its influence was to be co-extensive with the habit able globe. On the contrary, it was their express purpose to make that domain no larger than would be absolutely required to secure the independence of the government, and a small district, containing not more than 100 square miles of territory, was deemed amply sufficient for the purpose. The Christian Church was established as a power on earth independent of the nations, but to act upon all the nations, to pervade them with its influence, to weld them in the bonds of a common fraternity. Out with a purpose and a sphere of action entirely distinct and separate from that of the nations, "Give unto Caasar the things that are Caesars, and unto God the things that are God's," was the mandate of the Divine Founder of the church. And this mandate, as did our Federal constitution with the Union and States of the Union, established distinctly the co-or- dination of the spiritual and the temporal power. The founder of Christianity no more contemplated the subjection of the temporal to the spiritual power, as in the Moham- medan system, than he did the subjection of the spiritual to the temporal power which it is the boast of Protestantism to have accomplisiH-d \,\ a 1 istoration of the infamous system of State religions, characteristic of the old pagan world, and winch it was the mission of Christianity to destroy. By the separation and co-ordination of the spiritual and temporal powers the freedom of both were to be secured. And we may add that an alliance between the two was no more contemplated than the subjection of the one to the other. . Now, while it necessarily follows that the possession of temporal power as such by the church is not only not necessary to it, but is, in its nature, injurious to the purit) of its existence; the possession of a locus for the free and independent exercise of iti governmental functions is an entirely different matter. A place for a meeting of its councils outside of the territorial limits of any State or nation, and therefore, presum- ably free from the undue influence which would be natural within the limits of a State or nation — a place for the transaction of the executive business of the church — a place for the sessions of its general tribunals, for there is legislative, executive and judicial business to be transacted by the church as well as by the State, is just as much a necessity for the church as it is for the State, with this distinction, perhaps, that the exercise of temporal power is the primary purpose of the State, while to the church it is merely an incident, a convenient and proper incident to the exercise of its spiritual power, but yet never more than an incident. The church may exist without the temporal pow r er of the popes. It existed without it in the catacombs; it existed without it through all the ages of persecution. Popes may die in exile or in prison, as they have died. Godless conspirators against the cause of truth may raise again the banners of hell over the altars of religion, as they have frequently done in the past. They may slay the priest at the altar, scatter the wor- shipers and defile the sanctuary, and yet the spirit of religion will survive and the church will come forth again triumphant, as it came forth from the catacombs. Free or enslaved, in favor with princes or incurring their deadliest enmity, we have no appre- hension for the church; her cause is the cause of God and it will survive. So many tyrants rage against the cause of human liberty; but the spirit of liberty can not be destroyed by tyrants. Assuredly it can not seriously be claimed that, because human liberty can survive the assaults of tyranny, therefore it should continue to be subject to them. HON. C. C BONNEY, CHICAGO JOHN QiBB iNS, LL.D. CHICAGO. THOMAS F. RING, BOSTON. DR. AUGUST KAISER, DETROIT. MAURICE F. EGAN, LL.D., CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D. C. COL. R. M. DOUGLAS, LL.D. GREENBOSO. HENRY C. SEMPLE, MONTGOMERY. E. O. BROWN, CHIC GO. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. [49 Is it any more reasonable to hold that because the church will undoubtedly survive persecution and the loss of its independence, therefore it ought to be subjected to per- secution and deprived of the small allotment of temporal dominion that constitutes the guarantee of its freedom and independence? Man is by nature entitled to be free; therefore is he entitled to free institutions. Man is entitled to freedom in his spiritual relations; therefore is the church, the organ of his religion, entitled to such measures of temporal authority as will secure its inde- pendence and its freedom of action. More than this there is not claimed for it; more than this it would not be wise for it to possess. No dispassionate and impartial student of history can now fail to recognize the benefit that accrued to our civilization from the existence of the papacy. It was the papacy, and the papacy alone, that saved Europe from the grinding despotism of the feudal system. From the brigandage and licentiousness which that system was so well calculated to perpetuate, humanity found its only refuge in the power that was repre- sented by the papacy. The independence of the papacy secured the independence of the church. And the ultimate triumph of all that the church represented and was to Europe — religion, morality, science, literature, female virtue, and the sanctity of the home. Recall for a moment the picture drawn by a great dramatist of our own age; it is a true picture. In the drama of Richelieu, by Edward Bulwer Lytton, when the famous French cardinal, driven from power, temporarily deprived of his honor, and shorn of all his authority by the loss of royal favor, was threatened with an assault upon the virtue of his favorite niece, what did he say and do; and what was the power that enabled him to hurl defiance on his enemies. Here are his words, that deserve to be immortal: Mark where she stand. Around her form I draw the awful circle of our solemn church; Let but a foot within that holy ground, And on thy head— yea, though it wore a crown— 1 launch the curse of Rome. And the writer is true to the spirit of history when he makes the cardinal's enemies shrink from his denunciation more abjectly than they would have cowered before any manifestation of political authority. During the Middle Ages, and even long after Protestantism had destroyed the spirit of Christian charity and the sentiment of the orotherhood of man in Europe, the Rjman pontiffs were the arbiters of political quarrels and national controversies — not because they arrogated to themselves any temporal authority over the nations, as partisan bigotry has falsely asserted, but because on account of their spiritual charac- ter the Christian world looked to them as the most natural and the most impartial judges of national and international disputes, and the faith of the Christian world, in the rectitude of their decisions, has never been mistaken or misplaced. When were their decisions in this regard wrong? A remarkable illustration is recalled by the history of the great event we are now commemorating. When the grand exploit of Columbus had opened up the Western World beyond the Atlantic to the daring adventure of Spain, and the contemporaneous maritime enterprise of Portugal threatened to occasion collisions between the two nations, Alexander VI., who then occupied the Papal chair, and to whose decision the matter had been referred for arbitration, decreed that the thirty-seventh meridian of longitude west of the straits of the Cape de Verde Islands should be the dividing line between the colonial empires of the two powers. There was no usurpation in this decision, as the malignant falsifiers of Edinburgh and Geneva would have us believe — no haughty arrogation of sovereignty over this newly-discovered world such as to justify the pontiffs in parceling it out between the two great maritime pow T ers of the day. The action of the Pope was simply that of the judge or arbitrator to whom the controversy for the settlement of a disputed boundary had naturally been referred by those interested in its settlement. And strangely enough the two parties most nearly interested, Spain and Portugal, acquiesced in the decision of the Pontiff with- out a murmur of dissent. And it was not until long afterward, when the basest malignity of falsehood was never deemed too vile for the use of intolerantfanaticism and religious rancor, that one of the most beneficent acts of the Roman Pontiffs was characterized as an evidence of their usurpation of sovereign powers over the world. As mediators of peace and arbitrators of international difficulties the popes of Rome have rendered services to the cause of human civilization, supposing for the moment that we can dissociate that term from religion, which no historical writer of the present day who has regard for the cause of truth can ignore. We think a period has been reached in the history of the world when arbitration between the nations I5 o WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC C0NQR1 I may be substituted for the brutal agency of the Bword as a more sensible and more satisfactory method for the determination of the quarrels and disputes thai between the nations. More than once in late years we have bad rea nation to this method of settling our difficulties with other nations of the world; and the method has commended itself to the common sense of the age as eminently wise and just. In other words, by our sporadic effort-, we are Btriving to return to the system of a more permanent character represented in past times by the Roman Pontiffs. Isittoo much to hope that the time will on, e again v. hen all the nations will agree by common consent to submit their controversies, which they are unable to settle amicably between themselves, to a supreme court of the world, presided over by the Roman Pontiffs? But in order that the Roman Pontiff may be fiee to act as such supreme arbitrator, in order that the Roman Pontiff may be tree to act as the ordinary arbitrator of the affairs of our universal church throughout the nations, he must not be the subject of any power or nation himself. For such BUbjection would detract from his impartiality as well as from his independence. It is unjust to all of us throughout the world that the head of our religion Bhould be under the suspicion even of being controlled, constrained or influenced by the temporal authority of any nation claiming political jurisdiction of his person or of his surroundings. The writer of this paper is not an enemy to the sentiment of united Italy. On the contrary, he sympathizes most heartily, not only with the desire for freedom which is assumed to have been so large a factor in producing a united Italy, but with the general theory of a union, or at least of a confederation, of all the branches of cognate races so far as it may be feasible or pracl icable to fuse t hem into one nationality. But Rome was not necessary for the united Italy. Rome has become the capital of the world; we would not have it disgraced into becoming the capital of a petty European monarchy. Rome has not now, even if it ever had, any strategic, political, or com- mercial value as the capital of an Italian monarchy, or of an Italian republic, or of an Italian confederation of any kind. Italy would be as strong without it as with it; stronger, indeed, without it, because there would then no longer I >* - the friction of the religious sentiment that must continue to struggle againsl the existing com lit ions, and that must necessarily succeed, sooner or later, in modifying those conditions Rome should be a great free city, the great free city of the world, the holy city, and the religious capital of all the nations — not a mere competitor of London, or Berlin, or Vienna, but once again the city of the soul, as a noble poet has well named it, to which the "Orphans of the Heart" may ever turn as their home, and where the children of every nation under heaven may come and feel themselves at home. United Italy will make no real sacrifice of nationality by the restoration of Rome to the popes. The world will be the gainer by securing anew the independence of the Holy Bee. Col. Robert M. Douglas, of Greensboro, N. C, read a paper on " Trade Combinations and Strikes," in which he said : Trade combinations and strikes are twin children of an advancing civilization, in which the individual is becoming merged into the aggregate, not only as to his rights of property, but too often as to his manhood on the one hand and his conscience on the other. Trade combinations are of different kinds, varying with the objects of their for- mation and the character of the men organizing and controlling them; but throughout them all runs the essential object of obtaining by co-operation of efforts and resources what is beyond the power of the individual. Strikes, whatever may be their local causes and effects, and however perverted by unworthy leaders, must be finally regarded as the solemn protest of the individual against wrongs for which he feels the law presents no adequate remedy. Trade combinations are almost invariably effected through incorporated companies, and this brings us to a consideration of the corporation laws of this country, which, in my opinion, through their unequal operation, are largely responsible for the unfortu- nate relations existing between labor and capital, with the resulting strikes. What _ is a corporation? It is a fictitious person, created by law, possessing all the property rights of the individual, but lacking many of his limitations and enjoying greater privileges. Like an individual, it can buy and sell, take and hold, sue and be sued, and act as trustee, administrator, or guardian. Unlike an individual, it has neither conscience to appeal to, nor body to imprison. Its character is its soul, its cap- ital stock is its life's blood. It enjoys peculiar privileges not given to individuals or firms. It has a fixed term of life, unaffected by the death of its members, and hence is not hampered by will or descent, dower, courtesy, or homestead. However great its capital or numerous its shareholders, it is not embarrassed by internal differences of WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 151 opinion, for it has but one will, which is the will of the majority. Many corporations, like railroads, possess the power of condemnation, which is simply the practical exercise of the right of eminent domain, one of the highest privileges of the State. Usually its shareholders have no personal liability beyond the amount subscribed ; and by an ingenious process, based upon a fictitious purchase, subscriptions can be turned" into paid-up stock upon the actual payment of a small percentage. The capi- talization of railroad companies, that is. their issues of stock and bonds, rarely ever represent actual investments. A syndicate of stockholders of a projected railroad will, by appeals to the patriotism and self-interest of communities and individuals, obtai . all the public and private subscriptions possible, and then organize a distinct corpora- tion in the nature of a construction company. As officers of the rrulroad company, they will make a contract with themselves as the construction company to build the road for a fixed price per mile, generally amounting to the entire bonds and stocks of the road, including public and private subscriptions. These subscriptions, with the first mortgage bonds, usually build the road, leaving the entire second mortgage bonds and nearly all the stock as net profits. These issues of stock and bonds, representing nothing but wind and water, of course contribute nothing to the productive capacity of the road, and yet they elect its officers, control its management, and absorb its profits. The mere payment of the interest on the bonds, without any dividend on the stock, would be an enormous profit to the builders. Six per cent on the par value of a bond becomes 100 per cent if the bond costs only six cents on the dollar, and over 1,000 per cent if it costs nothing. If a corporation having 5,000 employes cut down their daily wages 5 cents— a reduction which none could afford to resist — it would be a net saving of §250 per day. It would mean on the 6ne hand from §75,000 to 8100.000 per year added to net profits of the corporation, and on the other 2,000,000 loaves of bread taken from the mouths of the suffering poor. Successive reductions complete the grinding process to the limit of human endurance. Is not this a dangerous experiment for the corporation to make or the State to permit? Our civilization rests upon a surrender by the individual of a portion of his natural liberty in exchange for the protection of government, and he has a right to demand that the government shall use all powers necessary to his protection. Otherwise is he not relegated by the law of nature to his natural right of self-defense? If the State create an artificial person with powers greater than his own, with which he can not con- tend, has he not a right to demand that the State shall provide effiicient means to pre- vent an abuse of the extraordinary powers it has given to its creature? A corporation has no inherent rights, and if it receives from the State powers and privileges greater than an individual, it thereby assumes greater responsibilities, which neither it nor the State can ignore. This may require additional legislation, but as we have enlarged the common law in favor of the corporation, why not extend it for the protection of the individual? It contains the germs of all necessary remedies, not only for the abuse of corporate powers, but for many other existing evils. At first, remedial legislation would necessarily be somewhat experimental; but experience would soon perfect it. All corporate privileges should be held at the will of the sovereign grantor. This is now the case with the present constitution of North Carolina and some other States. Of course the doctrine of "vested rights" will be invoked, and the Dartmouth College case cited, but it must be remembered that this case was decided on the ground that the college was an eleemosynary corporation. There is an essential difference between a charter granted merely to perpetuate the charitable purposes of a private founder and one conveying valuable franchises directly affecting the general public, and the abuse of which may vitally injure communities as well as individuals. In any event, when remedial legislation is needed to correct great public wrongs, our legislators should always give the people the benefit of the doubt; and at least give the Supreme Court the opportunity of passing upon its constitutionality. If necessary the Constitution of the United States can be amended. Each State should have a department or bureau of corporations, with visitor ial powers, to which all corporations should report at stated times. This need not cost the State anything, as moderate fees would more than pay the expenses. The visitorial powers need not be exercised except upon complaint, and an appeal to the courts should be allowed. The majority of the States already have railroad, banking and insurance commissioners, and but a slight extension of their powers would be sufficient. The™ is no reason why large manufacturing corporations and transportation companies should be any more free from Stgte supervision. Treat all alike and require from all a J 5 2 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESS hs. strict observance of the law. Trade combinations and strikes are not private affairs, concerning only employer and employed; but usually injuriously affect a large Dumber of innocent people, and become public nuisances of the highest order. A nuisance is abatable, and an affray is punishable at the common law. In an all ray. which is the voluntary fighting of two or more persons in a public place, both parties are guilty, no matter who began it. Why should it not be so with strikes, if the public peace be broken? I have no sympathy with the red-handed rioter; he should lie promptly sup- pressed. But if the employer or his agent provokes a strike by oppression or unlawful combinations, why is he not equally guilty with the poor wretch whom he has driven to desperation? Of course the government can not compel anyone to employ or work for a fixed price, but the strike or the lockout must be kept equally within the law. Whenever a strike occurs, especially one in any way affecting the general public, a prompt and thorough investigation should be made by the State authorities— not only into tho acts committed, but also into the causes, remote as well as proximate. The resultant acts of the strikers are generally open and eaoor man is placed at a disadvantage. It has been said that our churches are-principah, supported by the comparatively poor, and the same may be ^aid of the government, l^e wealth < >f the rich consists largely in bonds and stocks and other convertible securities, which can be easily concealed without leaving any trace. That this can be done is self- evident; that it has been done has been recently shown in the most striking manner. A certain amount of revenue must be raised for the purposes of government; and when one species of property escapes taxation, the rate is necessarily increased upon what is taxed. What the locomotive fails to pay, must be levied upon the mule. A laboring man can rarely escape taxation. He has no money or stocks or bonds to conceal. He can not evade the poll tax by hiding his own head, neither can he put his mule or cow in a safe-deposit vault and swear he does not own any. The poor farmer ploughing a brindled steer upon a barren hillside pays taxes upon his steer as well as upon his own head. He has fair cause for complaint if the railroad magnate rolling by in his private car shirks any part of the just burdens of government. Another principle of taxation that operates very unequally is that which permits all debts to be deducted from solvent credits. That is, if a man owns $10,000 in notes or bonds; and owes $8,000, he returns only 82,000 for taxation. But if a man buys a house for $1,000, paying $200 cash and giving his note and mortgage for the remaining $800, he is compelled to pay taxes on the entire value of the place. His actual owner- ship extends only to the amount he has paid, and on that alone should he be required to pay taxes. The best citizen on earth is the man who owns his home. Next to his wife and children, it is to him the dearest thing on earth, because it shelters them. He con- stantly improves and beautifies it, and becomes more and more identified with its every feature. He seeks to avoid and prevent every danger that may threaten it. He is never a rioter. The State should by every means in its power encourage a citizen to acquire a home as the surest pledge of his fidelity. Every little flower planted by the contented hand of a freeman is a stronger prop of a free government than a bayonet. These few suggestions, the result of professional experience and earnest considera- tion, are submitted to you in the hope that, however crude and imperfect, they may contain a germ which, under the fostering care of an abler hand, may develop into some measure of public welfare. The dangers that threaten our country and its insti- tutions are evident. The remedy is yet to be found; but its essential principle lies in a just recognition of the rights of all classes of our people. So make and enforce the laws that every one throughout this broad land shall feel and know that there is no one so rich and powerful as to be beyond the avenging arm of the law, and none so poor and humble as to be beneath its completest protection. Rev. John R. Slattery, of St. Joseph's Seminary, Baltimore, Md., followed with an able paper on "The Negro Race; Its Condition, Present and Future." He said : The religious condition of our eight millions of blacks gives food for anxious thought, and is fraught with lively interest to every citizen of this Republic. American Catholics may be said to have folded their arms for two and a half centuries, especially indeed since the war, and allowed their non-Catholic countrymen full swing in the religious training of the colored race. We did our share for them in other ways; we had more than a proportionate representation in the Union army which emancipated them, while we were in insignificant number on the opposite side. But as far as religion goes our efforts have been trivial. To appreciate how truly so, consider how few of the black rnce are Catholics — but one in fifty. And here is the first element in their religious condition; their actual numbers adhering to the various sects count up, all told, about four millions, while fully as many are without any religion at all. Moreover, the peculiarity of their religious organizations is that they themselves do their whole religious work. They are the bishops, preachers, elders, deacons, and flock. Except a few Episcopal clergymen, all the ministers laboring among the blacks are of their own race. The white clergymen are found only in their universities, colleges, sem- inaries, and other higher schools; yet the African churches seem to move along smoothly enough. As to their religious knowledge, it is no surprise to learn that very many of the negroes who profess religion are ignorant of the most fundamental truths of revelation. They have some idea of our Lord, a great reverence for His Holy Name, a notion of sin and of the Bible — the latter, however, more in a superstitious than a rational way. Baptism, in the eyes of a multitude of them, is all that is needed. No matter what 154 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. sect may claim them, once baptized they are saved. "Once in grace never out of it;'* or, to give another favorite saying of theirs: " The Blood of Jesus never burns." Now, as no soul is exempt from the necessity of learning the essential truths of God's revel- ation, it is a primary question as to whether or not these are acquired by the blacks through their church membership. Behold the drawback in the negro churches. They are taught the fundamental truths of the Christian religion but very imperfectly. Far too often their churches are mere hustings for political candidates, or are like social clubs; and their houses of worship are often used for nearly all kinds of gatherings. At the same time the ignorance of religious truth among the negroes does not weaken the religious sentiment which is naturally strong in them, and which, strange as it seems, is often divorced from their sense of morality. In this matter, however, they are without anything worthy the name of guidance. Recently a leading preacher declared in the public press that two-thirds, if not three-fourths, of the colored preach- ers were immoral. "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." It is impossible to say to what extent this laxity of morals is attributable to the frightful doctrine of the inadmissibility of grace, which is not theirs alone, but that of the many millions of Southern whites who profess the Calvinistic doctrine of justification. Their test of conversion, writes a Mrs. Rice in the Christian Union, is an abnormal parox- ysmal experience, after which they have " got religion " and no sin is to be laid to their charge. This writer is also authority for the statement that even a murderer has been known to conduct a Sunday-school, with great apparent zeal and unction, for months after his undiscovered crime. Unhappily the attitude of the whites towards the immoralities of the negroes works much harm in lowering the standard of morality in the poor people's eyes. A black person is not expected to be virtuous, and is looked upon with wonder if he or she hap- pens to be so. It is related of an elderly colored woman, when urging a younger one to give up her bad ways, that the latter gave this scornful answer: " Huh! de white folks hires me, an' thinks as much o' me as dey does o' you." And even if the whites stopped here it would not be so bad. No race can throw the first stone at the negroes, for their hybrids belong to all races. It can not be too much insisted upon that, as a rule, the whites give no edifying example to the blacks. Especially is this the case with many of those who have deal- ings with the negroes. Many employers, venders, traders, and agents are to blame for a downward moral drift in those poor people. Is our public sentiment, let me ask, cal- culated to engender noble aspirations in the negroes? Is the tone of the press such as would awaken in their hearts better thoughts? Do the corrupt practices so widespread in politics; the systematic adulterations in food, clothing, etc.; the frequent fraudulent failures — do such facts tend to elevate the negro race? We need not then be surprised at Fred. Douglass' question? "If the negro could be bottled up, who could or would bottle up the irrepressible white man?" Men are always ready to have a fling at the black man, who usually is more sinned against than sinning. Who is responsible for the irreligion and immorality of the negro? The colored people did not intrude themselves upon us; they were brought here in chains, and held by a cruel slave code in the communities where they now are. Slavery, then, is the first cause; a negro was a chattel and counted as such. True, in good Christian fami- lies, which are too often the exception, the slaves were conscientiously looked after. But in the "negro quarters" it seldom happened that personal and family rights were or could be recognized or respected. Marriage, alas I was practically a union during the good pleasure of the master; nor were Catholic masters always found proof against the demands of poverty or cupidity when it was question of marital or parental rights among the slaves, even sacrificing their own offspring when of Ham's race. Nor in dis- posing of their slaves did they always consider whether the purchasers were Catholics or not. The whole tendency of the slave code was in favor of the whites, who should be angels, indeed, not to abuse the practically limitless power by which the laws invested owners of slaves. A concomitant to slavery was ignorance. In the earlier years of the Republic slaves were permitted to read and write; afterwards this was forbidden by severe laws. And we have heard former slaves tell how, when they were growing up, they would steal out at night with their spelling-book or reader hidden next the skin, in order to take reading lessons from some kind friend, although at the risk of a severe whipping if caught. Nor, in this connection, should we forget the transition from slavery to freedom. Emancipation must have wrought a strange intoxication to the millions of slaves who- WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. J 55 had seen themselves ever surrounded by whites, who alone were respectable and vvho frequently idled away their entire lives. Emancipation, they thought, was to make the blacks like such whites. Wild dreams of ease and comfort must have flitted through their imaginations. Hence, to realize the stern condition which the daily life of duty and care entailed upon them must have produced among many of the emancipated very strange results. We think that Protestantism may in part be held responsible for the present irre- ligious and immoral condition of the negroes. The widely-spread race prejudice, as powerful in the North as in the South, though shared by Catholics as well as by others, is truly a Protestant instinct. It is inhuman, un-Christlike, and unworthy even of oui manhood, not to speak of our citizenship or our Christianity. For two and a half cen- turies our non-Catholic countrymen have had control of the negro in the South, and what is the result? They gave him in some measure their religion; they placed no restriction on their religious teaching or on their codes of morality; to-day the whites and blacks of the South profess common beliefs; yet in spite of all, we hear from the whites hardly a good word of the blacks. How marked a contrast is this to the influence of the Catholic Church! Prom the baptism of Clovis, when the haughty Gaul despised the Goth fully as much as ever our Southern whites despised the blacks, to the crowning of Charle- magne as the common head of an undivided people, only the same period of time elapsed as that between the introduction of slavery into our territory and the present day. Yet it was long enough for the Catholic Church to blend the master and slave into one, and to make the new race the custodian of the ancient and the beginner of modern civilization. Nor was it different with Goths and Romans in Italy, with Nor- mans and Saxons in Great Britain. Even in our day and in our own hemisphere, what- ever misery afflicts Spanish America, the Catholic instinct of human equality has delivered it from race antagonisms. There is no negro problem in Catholic South America. But when we look at our negro question from the missionary point of view, and ask, Is not the Catholic Church in America to be. blamed for lack of zeal? I answer with an unhesitating Yes. After all, Protestantism has done something to Christianize the blacks; but we have done, I may say, nothing. They have made, and are making, great missionary efforts, pouring out money like water; but we have attempted almost nothing. In fact, it was announced a few years ago, at the Lake Mohonk conferences, that the various denominations had spent, since the war, on the negroes, thirty-five millions of dollars- Add to that immense sum the hundred and thirty higher institu- tions, with tw r enty-five thousand scholars, of whom one thousand are preparing for the. Protestant ministry. Imperfect as is this picture of the religious condition of the negro race and of its causes, it is enough, however, to give us a fair idea of the state of things. It tells us of from eight to nine millions of blacks, living in one section of our land, and that the most Protestant, just emerged from slavery; enjoying the franchise; learning how to read and write; two-thirds of them living on plantations, one and all being made to feel a frightful ostracism which descends so deep as to exclude them in some places from public conveyances; a people one-half of whom have no religion, and the other half are professing only a shade of sentimental belief. Yet there is a cheerful view to be taken. However sadly situated this people may be, there are bright hopes in store for them. All drawbacks and discouragements not- withstanding, they have won the nation's respect. They are not rebels against public authority; they are law-abiding citizens. They love the worship of God; in their child- ish way they desire to love God; they long for and relish the supernatural; they will- ingly listen to the word of God; their hearts burn for the better gifts. They are hard working; patiently and forgivingly do they bear their wrongs. This is in marked con- trast with their white neighbors, too many of whom have not a word of good to say for the black man, thus verifying the old paradox that we never forvive those whom we have wronged, much as we may pardon those who have injured us. It is related of Michael Angelo that going along the streets of Rome he espied a rough, unhewn block of marble. " There is an angel hidden there," said he, pointing to the stone. Having had it brought to his studio, the immortal artist soon began to chip at it, and to hack at it, and to shape it, till finally there came forth from it the faultless angel in marble, which his prophetic eye had seen in it. A similar block of marble is the negro; far harder to work upon than the Carrara lump of Michael Angelo, because the chisel must be applied to the human heart. And has the negro a human heart? Is he a man? Yes, thank God! he is a man, with all »^6 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. the affections and longings, all the faculties and qualities of human kind behold, then, it is his manhood that is the first ground of our hope. Like the Koman poet Terence, who is himself supposed by some to have been a negro, since he was on. of the slaves of Scipio Africanus, the black man may say: " Homo sum, et nihil huinanum alienum a me puto." The negro's first claim upon us is our common humanity, and that means a close tie of brotherhood. The future of the negro appears, therefore, to a missionary like myself to be hope- ful. It rests primarily on the great truth that the human race is one. There is one Lord, one God, one Father of all. From this we rise to the supernatural destiny of our common humanity; one Jesus Christ, one church, one life of probation, one heaven, one hell. The negro has everything that makes a man, everything that makes a Christian. Holy Church teaches the same doctrine tc blacks as to whites; furnishes the same sacramental channels of grace, baptizes the black infant, confirms the negro boy, administers Holy Communion to him, marries the black man and woman, ordains the black priest, gives him the same extreme unction as the white receives. As the negro passed out of slavery it was the Catholic Church which could say to him with the apostle, in his new relation: "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba! (Father)." - Romans viii. 15. Her code of laws for the black is the same as for the white — no difference. Sunday mass, Friday abstinence, Lenten fast oblige the black man no more than the white. Yes, the human nature predestined to Christian grace, and so admirably recognized by the church, is the foundation of our hopes. The negro's heart, like the white man's, is essentially good. Here we have a foot- hold. Grace we know builds upon nature and presupposes it. The civil law in its turn recognizes the manhood of the negro; who votes, or should legally vote, like a white man, is ruled by the same laws; bows to the same rulers in the general, state, and local governments; has before him, if delinquent (at least on the statute-book), the same legal process and sentence, the same jail and keepers as the white man. In ante- bellum days there were special enactments which made the negro a chattel. In our days all odious restrictions are disappearing before a juster and fairer recognition of his manhood. The manhood of the negro race, moreover, is a truth of religion, and one which Leo XIII. has well insisted upon in his letter to the bishops of Brazil at the time of the emancipation of the slaves of that country. "It was sin," he writes, "which deserved the name of slavery; it was not natural. From the first sin came all evils, specially this perversity, that there were men who, forgetful of the original brother- hood of the race, instead of seeking, as they should naturally have done, to promote mutual kindness and mutual respect, following their evil desires, began to think of other men as their inferiors, and to hold them as cattle born to the yoke." And the very argument which we hear so often in political agitation, and read so much in 1 1n- public press, viz., that by nature the black man is inferior, Leo XIII. declares an out- rage on our common humanity. When in addition to the consideration of the negro's manhood we add the further reflection that the greater part of mankind were slaves at the coming of Christ, there is all the less reason to despise our black countrymen, and all the more hope for their future. Men go into ecstacies over the future of the white races; they love to recount their progress since the dawn of the Christian era. Let us remember to-day, however, how widespread slavery was in ancient days. We all are the offspring of races the vast majority of whom were legally or practically slaves. The negroes to-day are only taking their turn. In the Roman Empire slaves were so numerous that Petronius in his "Satyrior." makes one of the players ask the servant how many infant slaves were born on lis estates the preceding day, and is informed that thirty boys and forty girls were the increase of that day on that one estate. Roman patricians took a pride in having every- thing they needed made by their own slaves, thus destroying free labor, and with it, in the course of time, their own supremacy These slaves were whites, and very many of them mechanics : carpenters, masons, shoemakers, millers, bakers, wool-combers, weav- ers, dyers, tailors, embroiderers, etc. Add to these carvers, mosaic workers, glaziers, painters, as well as three other grades corresponding to professions in our times, viz., architects, surgeons, and physicians. As in Rome, so throughout the rest of the civilized world. White slavery flourished everywhere, and Canon Brownlow is the authority for the statement that serfdom has not as yet been legally abolished in England, although it has ceased to be a practical quee WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. *57 tion since the War of the Roses — that is, for four centuries. In Italy a modified form of slavery existed to the end of the 17th century, in Spain till the first quarter of the 18th century, and only the revolution of 1789 blotted out French serfdom — all this in spite of the steadfast and aggressive efforts of Catholicity. In Ireland, before St. Patrick came, a female slave, called " cumhal," was the unit of currency, thus showing how deeply rooted was slavery in ancient Irish institutions. Although St. Patrick, once himself a slave, made great efforts towards emancipa- tion, still slavery flourished in Ireland till St. Lawrence O'Toole moved, at a national synod, at Armagh, in 1170, to recognize the English invasion as a sign of divine anger against the Irish for their slave-holding. A peremptory admonition was thereupon sent out ordering the release of all English slaves in the land. Thenceforward it disappeared, till Cromwell sent thousands and tens of thousands of Irish men and women, boys and girls, as slaves into the West Indies. In the life of St. Vincent de Paul we read that the thought of his foundling asylum originated at the sight of the place called La Cooche, where those unfortunates were sold to circus managers and the like. He himself for some years was a slave in Africa, and did not hesitate to escape at the first opportunity. Since the discovery of America, however, the slavery that we have been familiar with is negro slavery. The color of the slave changed; and with it our memories seem comatosed. We forget the slavery of our ancestors. In modern times the negroes seem to have slipped into the shoes of the more ancient white slaves. There is nothing in the fact of slavery itself which will argue against the negroes, nor again will their color prove aught derogatory to their advancement. After, indeed, centuries of Christi- anity, the white races have not much to boast of. In the matter of religion they are much split up ; in morals there is in our days a strange, sad laxity ; in honesty the world is all but dominated by very loose and unjust principles. Of course there is prog- ress — wonderful progress — yet not to such an extent as would belie the hopes of the negro's advance. If, then, the negro may be called a man among men and an heir to all the glorious privileges of humanity, and also of Christianity, what, we may ask, are the means to be employed to place him in possession of his divine heritage? There is, I believe, one true means for his advancement, and that is the negro himself, guided and led by the Catholic Church. The first element in the elevation of the black race is the black man himself. To attempt anything for the blacks without making the black man himself the chief instrument for good, would be to attempt the play of " Hamlet" with the part of Ham- let left out. His future demands the building up of his character, and this is best done by the mingled efforts of brotherly white men and worthy black men. His temperament, his passions and other inherent qualities, in great measure also his industrial and social environments, are beyond his control, and he needs the aid of the best men of his own race, but associated with and not divorced from the co-operation of the best of the white race. In the formation of his character, which is his weak spot, chief stress should be laid on moral training, and education. External influences, controlled by noble men and women of both races, will count for more with him than with us. We can hardly appreciate how much the negro has to contend with while making his moral growth, for neither the antecedents nor surroundings of our black countrymen are cal- culated to draw out the noblest side of human nature. That personal encouragement to well-doing, to ambition to rise above degrading circumstances so necessary to all of us, so indispensably so to him, the black man rarely receives. Neither by nature nor by traditional training can the colored people, taken as a body, stand as yet upon the same footing of moral independence as their white brethren. The careful, patient, and Chris- tian intervention of the whites, and the best of the blacks working together in using all the means demanded for the formation of manhood and womanhood is their right as well as their need in the present hour. They must be given the ample charity of Christ in their development, just as they have been given the full equality of citizenship. And in all this Catholics should lead the way. The influence of Catholics should be extended to foster and develop in the colored race those traits which tend to impart a sterling, self-reliant character. Catholics may do very much. We are a large proportion, if not a majority, in many labor organizations. Let us welcome black working-men to every equality. We have very many influential Catholics in public life. Let them take sides in matters touching the blacks under the guidance of Catholic principles. There are about nine thousand priests in the land ; let every priest exert an influence of sympathy in his personal deal- ings with the colored people of his vicinity. Perhaps there are twenty thousand '58 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. religious teachers who, in their institutions, should receive negro boys and girls wit hout discrimination. If Catholics, thus in possession of avast power for moral elevation, give the right hand of fellowship to their black countrymen in all civil and personal relations, the work of converting them will be easy. Nor can we Catholics afford to ignore them or exclude them. For if we should do so, then the name " Catholic " would be a misnomer when applied to the American Church, and we should sink into the posi- tion of a sect. The negroes, as things stand, care nothing for the Catholic Church. Why should they? What has the Catholic Church done for them? But they would be the most ungrateful people earth ever bore if they should forget what our non-Catholic countrymen have done and are doing for them in every relation of life. Turning again to ourselves, let every one of us in private life, whether laymen, priests, or religious, bear in mind that it is not enough to give a despised race their legal rights, but that Christian principle exacts a special regard for race susceptibilities. The Irish and Germans and Italians resent the terms, "Paddy," and "Dutchman." and " Dago," so let us cease to call the colored people " Niggers " and " Darkies," even in private conversation ; and in every other way let us do unto the black people as we should wish to be done by were we blacks ourselves. Let us bear in mind that among whites of every kind there is an immense amount of partly Christian and partly natural tradition, which is weak among the blacks by no fault of their own. There is the home, the domestic fireside, the respect for Sunday, the sense of respectability, the weight of the responsibilities of life, the consciousness of duty, the love of honesty, which is regarded as true policy, the honor of the family name, the fear of disgrace, together with the aspirations for a share in the blessings and privileges which our country and civilization afford. And while very many of our white countrymen are not Catholics, and are even but nominal Christians, still these weighty influences wield a potent charm for good over their lives. In regard to the negro race, however, these hardly exist ; at best they may be found in isolated cases, though it is true that very encouraging signs of them are seen occa- sionally. Yet a vital part in the natural development of the negro will be secured by these elements, the sense of responsibility, the dignity as well as duty of labor, and, lastly, self-denial and thrift. All these sit too lightly on the negroes. Care for the future they know not ; and although tbey labor well enough, yet they lack thrift. Their cheerful dispositions lighten much of their sorrows ; and their love for music also soothes full many an evil day and dismal night. A patient, suffering race are they, whose sorrows are sure to win for them the fulness of divine blessings. Poverty and lowliness were charac- teristics of the Messias; they are two marked traits in the negro race. They too are, as it were, "A leper, and as one stricken by God and afflicted." Surely, if fellow-suffering creates a bond of sympathy, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ must deeply sympa- thize with and love the negro race. We have intimated that the Catholic Church has accomplished little for the con- version of the negroes. It is but just to add here what is really being done. Prom the official report of the episcopal commission charged with the distribution of the annual collection for the negro missions, we learn that during the six years of its existence §220,220 have been distributed among negro missions, and as much more among Indians. There are at present twenty-eight priests laboring among the negroes exclusively, who are in charge of thirty churches. Of course they do not include the many more in Maryland, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, and elsewhere, whose churches are partly for whites and partly for blacks. Since 1888, when the reports began to be published, the average number of adult converts yearly is about 670, while every year there were 4,500 children baptized. Moreover, twenty odd different orders of white women have charge of 108 schools, in which assemble 7,884 pupils. The orphanages and other institutions for colored chil- dren are growing. St. Benedict's Home, Rye, N. Y.; the Providence House of Mother Katherine Drexel, near Philadelphia; orphanages for boys, in Wilmington, Del., and Leavenworth, Kans.; one for girls, as also a foundling asylum, in Baltimore, Md., and two other orphan asylums in St. Louis, Mo., and New Orleans, La., are all doing good service for the homeless children of Ham, while the home for aged colored people in New Orleans, La., shelters the lingering days of its worthy inmates. The night-school and guild in Baltimore and the industrial school at Pine Bluff, Ark., are both paving the way towards teaching colored children a means of livelihood. There are three orders of colored women, the Oblates of Baltimore, established in 1829; the Holy Family of New Orleans, dating from 1842, and the Sisters of St. Francis, WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 150, started about five years ago by Bishop Becker, of Savannah. There are four sisterhoods exclusively devoted to the negroes: the Franciscans from England, who have houses in Baltimore, Richmond, Norfolk; the Sisters of the Holy Ghost in San Antonio, Texas; the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, Mother Katherine Drexel's Community, in Phila- delphia; the Mission Helpers of Baltimore. These last-named are devoted to the home- life and training of negro women, visiting the jails, hospitals, and having sewing-schools even in private houses. In all about seventy Catholic sisters have consecrated, or will shortly consecrate, their lives before God's altar for the sake of the sin-laden and igno- rant images of Christ in ebony setting. Unhappily, however, none of our brotherhoods as yet have ever wielded a birch in a negro Catholic school. The society to which I belong has missions in Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia. At our training-school, the Epiphany Apostolic College, are upwards of sixty young men, of whom several are colored, studying the subjects necessary for their advance. At St. Joseph's Seminary, our mother-house in Baltimore, seventeen seminarians are being trained for the negro missions. These young men represent the whole country from Maine to Oregon, from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. This large num- ber of aspirants for the negro missions is due to the generous co-operation of the bishops and clergy of our land, while their support is given us by the noble Catholic laity, who in very great numbers subscribe for our little annual — The Colored Har- vest. We may fitly close with the sentiment of St. Gregory the Great, when contrasting our Lord's conduct in refusing to go to the nobleman's dying son, although asked to do so, while unasked he went and healed the centurion's servant. "He did not deem that the nobleman's son was worthy of His presence, but He re- fused not to help the centurion's servant. What is this but a rebuke to earthly pride, which maketh us to respect in men their honors and riches rather than that divine image wherein they are created ? It was not so with our Redeemer, who would not go to the son of the nobleman, but was ready to come down for the centurion's servant, to show that to Him the things which are great among men are but of little moment, and the things which are little esteemed among men are not beneath His notice. " Our pride, then, standeth rebuked — that pride which maketh us forget for the sake of one man that another man is a man at all. This pride, as we have said, looketh only at the surroundings of men, not at their nature, and seeth not that God is to be honored in a man because he is a man. Lo ! how the Son of God will not go unto the nobleman's son, but is ready to go and heal the servant. Of myself I know that if any one's servant were to ask me to go to him, I have a sort of pride which would say to me, silently inside my heart: Go not; thou wilt lower thyself; the papal dignity would be lightly esteemed; thy exalted station will be degraded. Behold how He who came down from Heaven doth not deem it below Him to go to help a servant, and yet I, who am of the earth earthy, shrink from being trodden on." "Prayer for America" is the subject of the following paper, which was prepared and read by Rev. F. G. Lentz, of Bement, 111.: Inspired by an all-knowing God, 400 years ago a man set out from a small port in Spain to find a new world. The consummation of his cherished desires was a most astonishing discovery, which has overshadowed all his weary years of waiting, and efforts to persuade a doubting generation of the truth of his predictions. His unbounded faith alone was reat enough to overcome all abstacles, both by sea and land, and bring to a happy issue God's designs for the human race. What Columbus attributed to special inspiration, many would have been glad to have claimed as the achievement of their own genius. But as a devout Catholic the discoverer of America would have held in abhorrence any attempt to deprive God of the honor due Him. But wherefore this special revelation? To the hour of his death Columbus claimed that God designed by him to make known a new world, that the faith might be spread and the Holy Name of Jesus be glorified. This he declared before the court of Spain ; stated it in his prayer of thanksgiving for the great work accom- plished by him, and dying charged that they, his children, should not fail to use a cer- tain portion of the revenues derived from his wonderful discovery to propagate the faith. Glory to God, who took His faithful and suffering servant to Himself and left to us the extraordinary legacy of his discovery. The fruits of his laborings and sufferings we now enjoy , for not only was the settlement of a new continent made possible, but the establishment of the grandest and noblest government the world has ever seen, be- come practicable. 41 !6o WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. But man, every man has duties, not only to himself , but public duties which con- cern him and his fellow-man. Everyone leads a public as well as a private life. It is a natural instinct which makes us rejoice in our public joys and weep over our public sorrows. We have collective griefs and collective joys. It was nol a vain thoughl that made Jeremiah weep over the destruction of Jerusalem. He forgot his own troubles in mourning over the downfall of his nation and the destruction of his countrymen; they were bone of his bone; they were sinew of his sinew, citizens of thesamecommonwealth, and a nation of his nationality, and whatever befell them happened to himself. This is an innate natural feeling in us all— love of our country and sorrow for our country's wrongs. We wish it well, and unless every spark of patriotism is dead within our bosoms we can have no pleasure but in its prosperity. It becomes us then to know its needs and to seek to effectuate them. Patriotism is born of religious life and we can not be true to heaven without embracing the divinity. But right here comes in the question: What does our country most need in order to prosper and continue, aye, to propagate her glorious work till all the nations and people of the earth have learned from her to imitate her behests to humanity? What above all other things will enable her to proceed triumphantly on her career of not only giving the greatest blessings to her citizens, but teaching the human race the way thereto? What she needs above all things is the truth. " You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." — St. John viii.. 32. It was for this God inspired the discovery of America; it was for this Columbus labored and toiled for years amidst so many disappointments; it was for this so many missionaries sacrificed time and life; it was for that and this too that the persecuted of every race should find here a home and plenty; it is for this I appeal to you to endeavor to understand and do your part towards carrying out God's idea in revealing the American continent; and not to be an encumbrance, " a light hid under a bushel/' that shall be removed because your candlestick leaves only darkness, where light should abound. If you have come into the inheritance, a larger freedom for truth, and greater worldly blessings, remember you are but stewards of God. All sacred writers teach us that we shall render to God according to our gifts. Our Lord shows us that the man with ten talents must account for more than he with only five. But woe to him who has not wisely used the talents intrusted to his care. We have the truth; the faith that is in us must be made manifest. For this God opened up the New World; for this he enlarged our freedom, that we might make known the divine knowledge revealed to us. Unworthy nations have lost the great gift of faith because they knew not how to use the gratuity. Shall we, too, prove recreant to the trust? Shall we, too, hear one day the words, "Wicked and adulterous gen- eration?" Matt, xvi., 1. God forbid! We know that the whole law is founded on charity, love, not only for God, but our fellowmen. We do not, can not, love God if we do not love man, the image and likeness of the Divine Creator. No man can say he loves God and hates his fellow- man. These two loves go hand in hand. "Love thy neighbor as thyself." But how- can we say we love God if we do not aid our fellow-citizens to the truth? "Though I should speak with tongues of angels and men; though I have knowledge enough to fathom all mysteries, and faith enough to remove mountains; though I should give my goods to the poor, and my body to the flames, and have not charity, I am nothing. Everything else is useless to me." I. Cor. xiii., 7. " Silver and gold I have none," says St. Peter to the lame man, " but what I have I give thee. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth arise and walk." Acts iii., 6. What have we to give this people? Above all things else, faith. What then, "Am I my brother's keeper?" In this matter we are. God brought about the discovery of this continent that His name might be made known and glorified; that we who have the faith are bound by every obligation to manifest it. It is a corporal work of mercy to instruct the ignorant, and God has declared that those who do so " shall shine as stars in the kingdom of heaven." And yet, my friends, how little has been done! Many a poor soul has gone through this world hungering for the faith that we might have brought to it, and we would not. We forget that faith is a divine gift. We do not seem to understand that these people have not the knowledge required to ask for it. " How shall they call upon Him whom they have not believed? " Rom. x. If they know not God they can not call upon Him. There never was yet a nation who came to the faith of their own volition; it must be brought to them, and the true Catholic has always been filled with the instinct to propagate the truth. It is only where this feel- ing does not exist that the faith makes no progress, even among Catholic people- " Why is the world covered with iniquities? Why are so many souls lost by the thou. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. \6\ sands? Why is the earth made desolate? Because no one considereth in his heart." Jer. xii., 2. The lament of the prophet is applicable to our day and country. We may say, why do not these people come and learn the truth? My friends, if you and I had been raised under the same influence, surrounded by the same atmosphere, we would never have entered a Catholic Church. Don't blame them. Let us seek first to over- come our own indifference and then mark the result. No people on the face of the earth were ever brought into the fold by the methods we have hitherto pursued." The apostles of all times have gone to the people and made known the message. The very word gospel means that — announcing the glad tidings. All may not indeed be apostles, but think you that while the apostles went forth to battle with error, the Christians of their day spent the time in idleness and indifference? While the army of the Lord is in the field battling for right and truth, have those of the household no duties? When the British sought to invade our country, and New Orleans was threatened, what did the Catholics do? They gathered 'round the tabernacle and incessantly besought the Lord of Hosts to protect the brave men in the field, and save their homes from rude invasion. When the Israelites of old were battling with the enemies of their race, did not the people come to the aid of Moses, praying upon the mountain top, until victory crowned their armies? It may not be ours to apply the intellectual lance of argument, or expound the doctrine of the church, but it does become our duty to let the love of our heart rise in incessant prayer to the God of Light, that He may enlighten the darkness of their under- standing, and make fruitful the work of apostolic men laboring to explain God's truths. Not only did the apostles pray, but the people also prayed, that the name of the Lord Jesus might be known and spread throughout all nations. St. Peter was praying when he received the call to go out to the centurion, Cornelius. St. Paul was praying when he beheld the vision inviting him to go to the Macedonians. But some say that non- Catholics do not wish to believe. I deny that these people desire to be unbelievers. They run hither and thither to everyone, saying: "Where is the Lord? Where is the Lord?" not knowing where the truth may be found. Their very earnestness teaches us that they have a desire to know the truth. Their conduct is vision enough for us if we only heed the warning. How many have not heard the cry, like Agrippa of old, " Thou almost persuadeth me." Convinced many of them are, but not persuaded, i. e., have not the grace of conversion. They know not how to ask. They still doubt, and " he who doubts is like the waves of the sea which come and go." — James i., 6. And herein lies our work. We know the author of life and light and truth, and we know how to ask without doubting, and our prayers will be heard. We forget that those outside the church have neither the sacraments or the grace of a sinless person. We know and believe that he who is pure has more power than the sinner. Strong in our faith, we are capable of overcoming all obstacles and the Lord will hear our praver. " Whatsoever you shall ask the Father with faith, you shall obtain." — Matthew xxi., 22. Do not blame those who have not the faith; do not find fault with those who know not how to pray, or have little power because of unrepented souls; but rather let us reckon with ourselves and with the strength of giants, because of our belief, besiege the throne of grace, storm heaven with our humble petitions, and much shall be vouch- safed us because, in our burning charity for our brother, we " have loved much." We can convert this people, and make it one of the grandest missionary nations with which God has ever vouchsafed to bless the human race. With their enlightened freedom, a government founded on the natural rights of man, their large-heartedness, their generous impulses, their cleverness in surmounting all difficulties, they will lead all other peoples and nations in carrying the torch of enlightenment, preaching the truth, and bringing the blessing of God's holy word to others, and thus, by placing on Colum- bus' brow a diadem woven by the charity of his inheritors, they shall bring themselves into the ocean of infinite love, and for all eternity glow with the added luster of those to whom they have brought hope, peace, and heaven. Surprise has often been expressed that the Irish race should cling to the faith, after so many tribulations. All that human ingenuity could do has been tried to dis- possess them of the truth; yet no people have remained more faithful to the doctrine that was delivered to the saints. Fire and the sword, the rack and prison, exile and starvation, all in vain, have been used to extirpate faith. Well may they exclaim, " Where is the nation that has not heard our woes? All peoples have been a witness to our sufferings." Yet, glory be to God, they have ever been among the most exemplary and steadfast Christians the world has known. Why is it that when so many others have perished they never faltered? It can be explained only on one theory. 1 62 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. They have ever been the foremost missionary nation of the earth. From the day St. Kolumkill went to Iona, St. Call and his companions to the continent, to revive faith, to our own day, they have been scattered over the whole earth, everywhere bear- ing testimony of Jesus Christ crucified. Riches they had not, but of that which they had they freely gave to their fellow-beings, and the Lord God has preserved them a strong and vigorous people when others have perished. Wo look upon their woes, and, after the manner of the world, would commiserate the nation; we look to heaven and see them trooping within its portals triumphantly to enjoy an everlasting crown of bliss as a reward of their charity, piety, and zeal, in spreading the glad tidings of faith to all the nations of the earth. May those who are descendants of these people never waver in their energy, or forget their glorious lineage, but perpetuate the good work so glori- ously undertaken by their forefathers. If we have been "salted with fire," as the Lord says, the salt must not become unsav- ory. The penetrating fire of charity must ever burn brighter within our breasts until it becomes a consuming flame which shall warm all within its rays. It knows no failing ; is not repulsed ; will not desist from zealously loving God and its neighbor, but per- severe uutil all are enwrapped in the bosom of the Infinite. Difficulties will but stimulate us to greater exertion. Fear will leave us no rest until we have converted the nation, Christianized the people, and brought salvation to the country. The warning of the prophet, "Why are hearts made desolate? Why are souls lost by the thousands? Because no man considereth in his heart," should fill us with such a dread that we would gladly join heart and soul in the prayer already being offered up by the thousands of our brethren in the faith. Sacrifice and oblation we should offer. Our humble supplications we should pour forth at the throne of Divine Grace until we have won for our separated brethren that pearl without price, the in estimable favor of Divine Faith, that they who are not of the household may be brought into the fold, where " there shall be one fold and one Shepherd," the Lord Jesus Christ, reigning gloriously over all for time and eternity. Frank J. Sheridan, delegate from the Diocese of Dubuque, Iowa, read an interesting paper suggesting plan and reasons for tbe establishment of an organization by the Catholic Columbian Congress to be known as the Catholic Association of the United States for the Promotion of Industrial Conciliation and Voluntary Arbitration. Mr. Sheridan said : The Columbian Catholic Congress has been called into existence mainly for the purpose of discussing and putting into practical effect in the United States the ency- clical of Pope Leo XIII. on the condition of labor. In that document the way is clearly pointed out for the solution of the labor problem and for improving the con dition of the working people. The details are left for us to carry out. The natural desire on the part of the wage-earner — to get as much for his labor as he can — and the like disposition on the part of the employer — to pay as little for it as possible — have brought about a series of conflicts, more or less violent and disastrous in their results, and reflecting severely on this age of progress, liberality and enlight- ened civilization. The Department of Labor of the United States government, devoted to painstaking and searching investigation of industrial conditions in our own and foreign countries, and with which I have the honor to be connected, has made an elaborate report on the subject of strikes and lockouts. The figures presented therein throw startling light on the significance and magnitude of this system of industrial civil war. It shows that for the six years, from 1881 to 1886, there were strikes in 22,304 establishments in the United States, involving 1,323,203 employes, and that there were lockouts in 2,214 estab- lishments, involving 170,747 employes, making a total of 1,493,950 persons directly affected. The leading causes of the strikes were the question of wages and the question of hours; 9,439 or 42.30 per cent of the total number of strikes were for an increase of wages; 4,344 or 19.48 per cent of the total number were for reduction of hours; 1,734 or 7.77 per cent were against reduction of wages, and 1,692 or 7.59 per cent were for increase of wages and reduction of hours. From this we learn that the causes men- tioned account for 77.16 per cent of all the strikes. The evils resulting are partially shown in the figures giving the losses to employers and employed. The loss to employes from these strikes and lockouts was: For strikes, $51,814,723; for lockouts, $8,157,717; a total of $59,972,440. The loss to employers for both strikes and lockouts was $34,163,814. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 163 Quite 82 per cent, of the strikes were ordered by labor organizations, and 79 per cent, of the lockouts were ordered by combinations of managers. The figures show the immense loss in wages to the employes directly connected with the strikes. They prove that the workingmen lost nearly twice as much as the employers, while less able to bear it. We can trace more of the consequences in the records of the almshouses, the records of the houses of the Good Shepherd, the records of the police courts, the prisons, and the penitentiaries. Strange though it may seem, we can also trace it in the records of the divorce courts. The department of labor has given the number of divorces in our country for a period of twenty years, with minute detail as to cause and effect. An examination of this report shows that during periods of industrial depression, of which strikes and lockouts are but manifestations, divorces increased enormously, while in periods of prosperity there was an extraordinary decrease. I need hardly say that in divorce statistics Catholic families are not included. It is not necessary to dwell further upon the distress caused by this system of righting alleged wrongs, In a convention of Catholic laymen, meeting for the express purpose of considering the condition of labor and to adopt plans for its improvement, the foremost topic must be how to put an end to the misery and crime attendant upon the settlement of labor troubles, and what can be done in the way of a peaceful solution in the adjustment of disputes. There are some who advocate governmental compulsory arbitration — the creation of a legal tribunal whose decisions would be final, and compelling the wage-worker to work for perhaps a less rate than he wishes to, or the employer to pay more than he can. Compulsory arbitration is not arbitration at all. To arbitrate there must be two willing parties. A cut-and-dried board of arbitration, created by State legislation, and without the power of compelling obedience to its decisions, must be a failure. I might call the attention of the Congress to the fact that Cardinal Manning settled the great London strike by methods of conciliation and voluntary arbitration, and without appealing to the compulsory law of 1824. The great Cardinal had a more stubborn and less intelligent element to contend with, too, than we have here. A more recent and gratifying result of voluntary arbitration, in another field, is that of the Bering Sea controversy. We agreed to submit the case. The arbitrators decided against us. We stand by the decision, and submit to the awards. And if we can induce American employers and workingmen to submit their cases in a like manner they also will stand by the decisions without any law of enforcement. The highest American authority and compiler of an exhaustive report on the subject of " Arbitration " — the United States Commissioner of Labor — in the June (1893) Forum proves conclusively that compulsory arbitration is an impossible remedy, and would result in slavery for the workingmen and socialism at the point of the bayonet. He further asserts that " voluntary arbitration in industrial matters is one of the highest and broadest eatures of co-operation, and, at the same time, one of the simplest methods for restoring harmony where conflict is threatened or even where it exists." This Congress must repudiate any policy which would make a slave of the working- man or establish State socialism at the point of the bayonet, while it also desires to settle this question by peaceable methods. The Catholic churches of the United States in the villages, towns, and cities are filled to the doors with wage-earners. They will readily listen to a method for the remedy of their grievances in accordance with the teachings of their religion. The influence of a grand Catholic organization, composed of wage- earners and employers, advocating brotherly co-operation and the reign of reason, instead of the passions, can not but tend to promote the happiness of all the people and the prosperity of our beloved country. It is with the utmost confidence that the proposition is made to the Catholic Columbian Congress to organize the Catholic Association of the United States for the promotion of industrial conciliation and voluntary arbitration. This Congress is thor- oughly representative of the Catholic laity of the United States. In its capacity it is fully competent to deal with all practical methods in a practical manner. The organi- zation proposed is entirely practical, and comes within the scope of the work laid out for the Congress to accomplish. I ask the delegates to carefully consider the plan proposed, and in connection there- with I submit the following extracts from Pope Leo's encyclical on the condition of la- bor, paragraphs 21 and 59: " Mutual agreement results in pleasantness and good order; perpetual conflict nec- essarily produces confusion and outrage. Those Catholics are worthy of all praise, and there are not a few, who, understanding what the times require, have, by various enter- 164 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. prises and experiments, endeavored to better the condition of the working people with- out any sacrifice of principle. They have taken up the cause of the; working man. ami have striven to make both families and individuals better off; to infuse the spirit of justice into the mutual relations of employer and employed; to keep before the eyes of both classes the precepts of duty and the laws of the gospel — that gospel which, by incul- cating self-restraint, keeps men within the bounds of moderation, and tends to estab- lish harmony among the divergent interests and various classes which compose the State. It is with such ends in view that we see men of eminence meeting together for discussion, for the promotion of united action and for practical work." It was with this in mind that the committee on organization, with Archbishop Fee- han as chairman and W. J. Onahan as secretary, wrote the following in its official call and programme which is in your hands: '•The Congress must be prepared to propose practical reforms on the lines looked for at its hands. It will not suffice that it shall have been the medium and opportunity for the delivery of clever essays and eloquent addresses on the various themes. Much more is expected from it. Permanent and effective results and enduring benefits are looked for at its hands, as the outcome of this memorable assemblage of Catholic intel- ligence and Catholic earnestness." I therefore beg to submit the proposed plan of organization and objects of the association. Name.— This organization shall be known a* the Catholic Association of the United States for the Promotion of Industrial Conciliation and Voluntary Arbitration. Objects.— The objects of this association shall be the gradual abolition of strikes, lockouts, and boycots as remedies for the adjustment of the grievances arising between employers and wage-earners, and the substitution therefor of a policy of conciliation and arbitration, to be carried out in a wise and systematic 111 inner. This system contemplates: 1. The removal of causes of discussion and the prevention of differences from becoming disputes. 2. The settlement of difficulties after a demand from either side has been made and before such demand has been resisted by urging the submission of such difficulties to arbitration. 3. The infusing of a spirit of justice into the mutual relations of employers and employed. National Boaeo.— The aims of the associate >n shall 1 arried out under the direction ol a national board, which shall be composed of two laymen from each diocese In the United States, who shall be chosen in the first instance by the delegates ol each di se to the Catholic Columbian Congress at Chicago, and thereafter in such a manner a~ may be provided. The, archbishops and bishops of the United States shall, ex- officio, be members of the national b >ard. The national board shall elect a president, secretary, and such other officers as may be necessary. It shall also enact such by-laws for the government of the association as it may deem proper. ^hall Establish Parish Organizations. -It shall bring all the weight of its influence and prestige to bear in the formation of subordinate local parish boards, and actively co-oper- ating with the parish priests and the earnest, thoughtful, and influential wage-earners and employers of each congregation in the formation of such local boards, and thus create a grand national organization of Catholic men, intelligent of purpo>e, and, with influences permeating all classes of society, bring about an era of good will. Not an Official Board of Arbitration.— While conciliation and the arbitration of labor difficulties are the ends aimed at by this association, it shall not. either as a local or a national body, constitute itself an official or semi-official board of arbitration. The very essence and successful workings of our policy lie in the voluntary selection of the arbitrators in each case, by the employers on the one hand and the employed on the ,,ther. The efforts of the associa- tion will be employed solely in bringing such a condition of affairs ab< >ut. I am not wedded to any one of the details of the proposed association. They can easily be amended and improved upon, but the organization itself is necessary. Unless all signs of the times fail, there will be immediate work for this association. Let us open the conference doors through this board of arbitration, and keep them open until a perfect settlement is arrived at. With such an organization, and with such a man as Archbishop Ireland as its president, the working men of the United States will know that the Catholic Church is their friend. They would not listen in silence, as they do now in their labor unions and assemblies, to the voice of the anarchic con- tinental socialist, who cleverly and with ability tells them that the church is their enemy and a hindrance to their liberty. " Women of the Middle Ages " was the subject of an interesting paper by Anna T. Sadlier, of New York, N. Y. The substance of the paper follows: Previous to the medieval era Christianity had raised womanhood from the slough of paganism. Already an astonished world had begun to cry out, " Ye gods of Greece, what women have these Christians ! " During the middle ages, from the sixth to the middle of the 15th century, woman attained, as it were, her full growth under the segis of the church, the church which serenely held sway over the mad chaotic world struggling into civilization. It would be an impossible task here to classify WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 165 medieval woman by distinctions of race or epoch. Rather let us examine her con- dition, personal qualities, and the tone of society toward her on the broad lines of cloistered, royal, saintly, and learned women. The nun played such a part in the drama of medieval life, as to raise woman to the climax of her power. The nun was a chief factor in procuring the emancipation of women and proclaiming her equality, in a Christian sense, with man, by giving her a separate, individual existence. Immured in her cloister, the nun exercised a protective influence over the wife and mother, and caused them to be reverenced on account of the possibilities of heroic virtue which she displayed. To the rudest warrior she was " a thing enskied and ensainted." In short, by her ideal of consecrated virginity, the church secured the elevation of woman. "The protection and better education given to women in these early communities," says Mrs. Jameson, "the venerable and distinguished rank assigned to them, when as governesses of their order, they became in a manner dignitaries of the church, the introduction of their beautiful and saintly effigies, clothed with all the insignia of sanc- tity and authority, into the decoration of places of worship and books of devotion, did more, perhaps, for the general cause of womanhood, than all the boasted institutions of chivalry." Can the tremendous influence be overrated of such sanctuaries of learning as Whitby and Coldingham, Ely and Wimbourne, Barking and Folkestone, Hartpool and Hanbury, Roncerai and Chelles, Faremoutier and Brie, Luxeuil, and Les Andelys, Fontevrault and Longchamps, Gandersheim and Fulda, Cologne and Heidenheim. Each an oasis in a barbaric land, redolent of spirituality, of asceticism, of refine- ment, and of culture. Sometimes particular inmates cast a luster on certain monaste- ries. As Hilda at Whitby, from her sanctuary, where it looked seaward on the cliffs, the abbess sent forth bishops, eminent ecclesiastics and apostolic women. For, after the custom of the times, she governed both men and women. Her influence, far reach- ing, extended over the surrounding country. Her exact discipline recalled primitive Christianity. She caused learning, like the palm tree, to grow and flourish. At Whitby, the Saxon, Milton Ceadon poured forth his inspired strain to Hilda, seated in state with disciples and counselors questioning him, with so keen a perspicacity, upon vari- ous points of his narrative. Ebbaof Coldingham. was scarcely inferior in learning and sanctity to the abbess of Whitby. Like her, she governed not only her dual monastery, but exercised for thirty years an important influence on the destinies of her country. Walburga, or Walpurgis, a niece of Boniface, was speedily called from the cultured repose of Wimbourne into the Germanic field, where, with her nuns, she continuedto cultivate letters, while she did much to civilize the people, besides presiding over the great school of Bischoffsheim and devoting her knowledge of medicine to the service of the poor. Her name, in course of time, became mingled with curious superstitions; for example, the Walpurgis night. An attractive figure is that of the Abbess Lioba, or the beloved, with her learning, her knowledge of Scripture — she had committed the whole Bible to memory — her beauty, her humility; washing the feet of her nuns and serving them at table, her zeal, making her the valued auxiliary of Boniface, when she had passed from Wimbourne to Germany; her sweetness, her cheerfulness. " She was as admirable in her understand- ing as she was boundless in her charity," says her biographer, Ralph of Fulda. The Anglo-Saxon cloisters were thronged with nuns of the blood royal, Ethelburga, the first royal widow to enter religion; Etheldreda, of the strange, romantic story; Elfleda, who aided Wilfred in his struggle to fix the Roman discipline upon the Celts; Earcontha, Domneva, Eanpleda, Ermenburga, Hereswida, Eadburga, Wereburga, Ermenilda and Sexburga were all nuns of royal birth — in one instance, three genera- tions, grandmother, mother and daughter met in the cloister. Some were widows, some had, by permission, separated from their husbands, some had entered religion in early youth, being, in the forcible Saxon word, veritable " Godes-Brydes," — " Brides of God." To Heldilida and her nuns of Barking, Aldhelm dedicated his " Praise of Virginity." To the Abbess Cyndreda, he left his vestments when dying. In Ireland, land of saints and scholars, where learning at the darkest periods found asylum, St. Bridget, of the royal house of "Leinster, exercised much the same patriarchal sway over men and women as Hilda at Whitby. Many poetic legends cluster about that spot dedicated to virtue and learning, and for a thousand years after Bridget's death a lamp burned at her tomb. " That bright lamp which burned at Kildare's holy fane." Hathmuda, daughter of Count Lindulph, " a lover of letters and student of script- ure," restored at Gandersheim a school for Saxon ladies. It won celebrity through the i66 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. acquirements of Hroswitha, "The White Rose of Gandershcim." She was second of the name the first having been noted as a logician. She studied at the convent, be- sides grammar and the liberal arts, Greek and Latin and the philosophy of Aristotle, and wrote many works in prose and poetry. Of these the dramas after Terence met with instant recognition as models of pure diction and exquisite sentiment, also display- ing a knowledge of dialectics and astronomy. Hroswitha's letters display a humility absolutely saint-like in one on whom the adulation of her contemporaries was lavished. The author of "Christian Schools and Scholars," when remarking that the teachers of Hroswitha had preserved her modesty, her almost childlike naivete, and deep religious- humility, adds: "And the same remark applies to the conventional schools in general." Better things were included in their scheme of education than a mere knowledge of the liberal arts, the wisdom, which is the beginning of discipline, and " unto which no defiled thing cometh." , St. Frideswida, flying from the importunities of a princely suitor, built at a certain spot a monastery, which in time, falling into the hands of canons regular, developed under the protection of Wolsey into Christ Church, Oxford. A second step toward the foundation of the university was made when Edith d'Oyley, who was not, however, a nun, built Osney Priorv, at a spot indicated to her by the chattering of pies. St. Croix Abbey at Poitiers, founded by Radegond, Queen of Clothaire I., received her into its silent life, after many useful years spent upon the throne, giving patronage to art and literature, laboring for the abolition of slavery, cultivating the society f the learned. She was the friend of Venantius Fortunatus, who composed the 'Vexilla Regis," on the translation of a relic of the true cross to her monastery. She possessed, as we read, " not only elegant letters, but profound erudition," and after her retirement to Poitiers, imparted those stories of knowledge to young girls of all classes whom she 1 oved to collect around her. Other high-born nuns, famous for their acquirements, were: Burgundofara, " la noble baronnede Bourgogne," abbess of Faremoutier; Adelaide, of Cologne; Hildegarde, of Bingen; Isabel, sister of St. Louis; Blanche, of Prance; Jane, of Navarre; Matilda, of Anjou. The attainments of the nuns appear to have been, for the time, considerable. They studied philosophy and belles-lettres, the scriptures and the fathers. Their cor- respondence was kept up in Latin, and sprinkled with quotations, proving their acquaintance with the classics. Many of them knew Greek. They reached, in fine, the highest degree of culture then possible. Like their contemporaries, they were ignorant, no doubt, of much that we know. Probably they also knew much that would surprise our "sweet girl graduates," and knew it thoroughly and well. Many nuns were proficient as copyists, adorning manuscripts with gold and gems. They were accomplished needlewomen, skilled in rare tapestries and embroideries. " Outside their communities, and mingling in the current of historical events, several of these vigorous women," says the chronicler, " have left their trace on the history of their country." The idea of spiritual assistance became so interwoven with the idea of nuns, as it has been remarked, that in many families a spectral nun was supposed to give warning of impending calamity. " To early acquaintance with the cloister much that distinguished the character of women in the middle ages is due," remarks Digby; *■ even when education was not received there, visits were made to devout sisters. The maiden of the castle knew the sanctity and peace of cloistral life, and formed there her idea! of virtue." Symbols of a true democracy, the lowly mingled with the high-born in these communities, and often r se to commanding stations, though names and details concerning those of high rank were more carefully preserved by contemporary chroniclers. Deaconesses were a recognised order in the church till the 9th century, as were also recluses, who inhabited caverns and mountains. Such was Rosalie of Palermo, whose name has remained in veneration through the centuries. The queens of the middle ages are a numerous and important class. Among the Anglo-Saxons, who, in common with the other Teutonic races, assigned a lofty part to women, the queens possessed territorial rights and rights of jurisdiction, having separ- ate courts and affixing their names to public documents. Like the nuns of their race, they were ardent as apostles. Thus the gentle Queen Bertha was saluted by Gregory as " a second Helena," who had given England to the faith, which she did, not only by protecting Augustine, but by converting Ethelbert, her husband. Her daughter, Ethelburga, brought Edwin and Northumbria to Christianity, as Achfleda converted Penda and the Mercians, and Ermenilda, with Egbert of Kent, aided in the spread of truth, and supported Wildf rid and Rome. Many of them were learned themselves, and- WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 167 the cause of learning in others, as Osburga, mother of Alfred, who inspired him with her own love of knowledge, and directed his studies. Elsintha, his wife, and Ethelfleda. his daughter, were of similar tastes. " Edith the Good." wife of Edward the Confessor, is quaintly called " a storehouse of liberal knowledge,"' and Ingulf. Abbot of Croyland. relates how, as a boy, she questioned him upon his studies, " readily changing from the quirks of logic, which she knew thor- oughly well, she would entrap me." he says. " in the snares of argumentation." The queens of the Xormau period, beginning with the wife of the Conqueror, con- tinued the high tradition of learning, sometimes of sanctity. For instance, the sisters and the two queens of Henry Beauclerc are mentioned as being accomplished scholars. "There is, perhaps, no more beautiful character recorded in history." says the Protest- ant Skene, in his Celtic Scotland, " than that of Margaret of Scotland. For purity of motives, for an earnest desire to benefit the people among whom her lot was cast, for a deep sense of religion and great personal piety, for the unselfish performance of what- ever duty lay before her, and for entire self-abnegation, she is unsurpassed." This saintly queen labored with intelligence and a true understanding of the issues at stake to reform abuses in the contemporary church of Scotland and restored venerable Iona. fallen to ruins. Another Margaret, a woman of a still more commanding intellect, but whose pr - vate life was far from irreproachable, united by her political sagacity and strength of will all the Scandinavian kingdoms under her sway. She was called " the Semiramis of the North." The Frankish dynasty furnishes us with such lovable types of women as Clotilda, who obtained the somewhat dramatic conversion of her husband on the battlefield, and Bathildis, who labored for the abolition of slavery and the spread of learning, who founded and afterward became abbess of Chelles. The life of Matilda, wife of Henry I. of Germany, reads like romance from the moment her royal lover beholds her. the pupil of Hereward convent, through the long years when they were "one in mind and heart, prompt to every good work " as thr her regency and her widowhood, passed so holily. The following quaint account is given of her by a contemporary: " She ministered to the cock who announced the day to call up the faithful to serve Christ, nor did she forget the singing birds, for whom she scattered crumbs in the name of their Creator. She carried food to the poor and candles to oratories in her own chariot. In winter she caused great fires to be lighted and kept up all night, both in and out, so that everyone who wandered might have warmth and light." Queen Elizabeth, of Portugal, who won by her unceasing efforts to promote peace the title of Pacis et Patria? Mater and Sant Isabel de Pax, is only less interesting than that other Elizabeth, whose marriage to her beloved Landgrave Louis, her pathetic efforts to lead a saint's life at a court, the cruel persecutions she endured, and her widow- hood, are so familiar to us. Of such a type was Hedwiga, of Poland, who married against her inclination to promote the peace of Christendom. Bridget. Princess of Sweden, sanctified her husband, eight children, and edified a court before founding the Order of the Brigittines. Agnes of Bohemia, wife of Fred- erick II., Cunegonde of Bavaria, good Queen Maud of England, Hildegrade, Empress of Charlemagne; Agnes, wife of the German Henry III., so successful a regent, are among those who led a life of nun-like austerity upon thrones. Many medieval queens be- longed to the Third Order of St. Francis. Margaret of Anjou, by a series of splendid failures, strove to hold the scepter for a dynasty. Philippa of Hainaidt. was not only noted for learning, but for political wisdom. Blanche of Castile, the model of Christian mothers, was a patron of letters, and Blanche of Navarre deserved to be called " the mother of the poor." The life of Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, reads like a romance. Theophania, the Greek princess, like Anna Commena, author of the Alexiad, was an enthusiastic student. On her marriage she brought the brilliant literary atmosphere of Constantinople to the court of the Othos. Hedwiga of Bavaria, a Greek and Latin 'scholar, educated her nephew Burkkard, afterwards abbot. Anne of Brittany, the beloved, was " as skilled in Greek, Latin, and astronomy as any clerk in the kingdom." The medieval households are. in the main, beautiful pictures of Catholic life. There, "at the fireside of the heart, feeding itsfiame," woman's true place, the mistress of the family shone. Wise, intelligent, loving and beloved, respecting and respected. she was troubled by no theories of female suffrage or equal rights or divided skirts. Her own rights, thanks to the church, were too secure; her duties too sacred. A helpful wife, a conscientious mother. " Happy the ages," cried Digby, " when men had. 1 68 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. holy mothers." She trained sons to fill high places and daughters 1" vigorous practical utility, and she gained the love of her servants. Every woman in those days was made acquainted with every detail of household duty. With high-born women the duties were simply wider and more onerous. She had to know medicine and surgery and church music and embroidery, as she was fitted to exercise the splendid hospitality of the times, with that exquisite courtesy to strangers, which was a rigid social law. But she had to sew and spin and cook and keep a time apart for reading. Spinning was a favorite occupation, by the way, of all classes of medieval women. Dante represents the women of Florence as spinning as " they listened to old tales of Troy, Fesole, and Rome." Young women before marriage lived in much retirement. They never went forth unattended, and in public places usually wore white folds and black cloaks, such as are still worn by certain communities of nuns. Dress in general was, however, very much a matter of national or individual temperament. Sometimes medieval women are com- mended by contemporary writers for simplicity in dress, wearing "unornamental busk- ins and a plain robe of camlet or serge, with hood to match." Again they are reproached with a too great magnificence, reveling in clothes of gold and silver, embroid- ered with gold and gems. Sometimes among the Anglo-Saxons this love of finery infected even degenerate cloisters. Severe strictures were passed upon abbesses who appeared in scarlet or violet tunics and hoods edged with miniver, who curled their hair and arranged their veils as ornaments. Charity toward the poor, the suffering, the afflicted was eminently characteristic of medieval women. Always munificent, their charity chose a thousand tender and deli- cate modes of manifesting itself, seeing even in the mendicant the person of Jesus Christ. Mary, the mother of God, was the first great cause of. the elevation of women. Divinely fair and holy, ever present to the medieval mind, she taught man to reverence and woman to deserve reverence. She appeared upon the pennons of knights or in their war cries, particularly if the cause were holy. Upon her they framed their ideal. The maiden in the cloister, with her consecrated teacher, placed Mary's image in minia- tures or illuminations. The lady of the castle, with her bondswoman, uttered the transcendent prayer: " Hail, full of grace." The wandering glee woman or the serf fresh from toil bent the knee at Mary's wayside shrine. Even the gypsies, in their midnight celebration of Christmas, joined with the generations in calling her blessed. Everywhere that ideal, divinely human, before which all mere earthly perfection fades. Therefore any summary of the woman of the middle ages must be faulty, even as a matter of philosophical or ethical inquiry, which ignores the omnipresent and almost omnipotent influence of Mary, mother of God. Under the head of " Guilds and Fraternal Benefit Societies," J. P. Lauth, of Chicago, 111., read a paper on " Their Insurance Feature Preferable to Pension Funds." He said, in substance: I shall undertake in the brief time at my disposal to deal in a general way with one or two phases of the much-vexed labor question, such as, first, the old guilds and recently organized labor societies; and, second, why their insurance feature is prefer- able to a pension fund for workmen. It may be in order to say, by way of introduction, a few words touching the dignity of labor and the attitude toward it of the church: Cardinal Manning said: " Labor is capital in the truest sense. The strength and skill that are in a man are as much his own as his life-blood; and that skill and strength which he has as his personal property no man may control." And, according to Adam Smith, " The property which every man has in his own labor, as it is the original founda- tion of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable." Labor is the exer- cise of the best powers of man. As Herbert Spencer says: " All observing instruments, all weights and measures, scales, micrometers, thermometers, barometers, etc., are artificial extensions of the senses; and all levers, screws, hammers, wedges, wheels, lathes; etc., are artificial extensions of the limbs." And how, then, since it is so potential an agency, and so much more enterprising when free than when controlled, can it be consistently sought to have the law apply to and control its operations? The answer is, that it is sought simply to have the law define its rights within the scope of reason- able freedom, so that they may not be invaded to its detriment by unscrupulous and designing persons. It should be made possible for workmen to collect their wages with less difficulty. They should be enabled to recover damages in case of personal injury through the employer's wrong without weary years of delay and heavy expense. * In fact, in many respects the law could and should serve them more efficiently than it does. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 169 I need not hesitate to state that the church has always been well disposed toward labor. She interposed in behalf of the villeins of the feudal period at all proper times, and finally succeeded in bringing about their emancipation. She favored the guilds during the middle ages, and steadily sought to promote their welfare. She opposed slavery in every form and shape from the beginning, and does so still. To her the con- dition of the working population has always been a subject of special solicitude. The great labor encyclical of Leo XIII. affords ample proof as to the attitude of the church in this respect. It expresses sympathy with labor and the legitimate aspirations of toilers throughout the world. It points out the reciprocal duties of labor and capital. It urges the necessity of ameliorating the condition of poorly-paid and neglected work- ers. It acknowledges the right of laborers to combine in fraternal societies and unions, with a view to securing remunerative wages and protecting their interests. It asserts that it is the right of the State, if not its duty, to interfere in behalf of shorter hours, better sanitary conditions, and the prevention of female and child labor in exhausting employments. It contends that the standard of labor should not be that of mere sub- sistence, but such as may facilitate the acquirement of property, provide for the feeble- ness of old age, and the diminished earning capacity resulting from accident, afford opportunity for moral and intellectual improvement, and give the means of cultivating the physical powers, together with time for necessary recreation. That, surely, is a most enlightened view to take of the labor question. The most enthusiastic advocate of the rights of the working people could not reasonably ask for more. The church says, in the language of the gospel, that " the laborer is worthy of his hire." But at the same time she informs him that he has reciprocal duties, in that he must faithfully seek to promote the interests of his employer and exer- cise reasonable diligence in the performance of his work. If a man will not work, neither let him eat." (Thess. iii, 10.) In short, he should be a true laborer as defined by the great bard of Avon in "As You Like It: " " I am a true laborer. I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my harm." I shall now refer more particulary to the guilds, so notable and important in their relations to labor during the middle ages. Fraternal societies, composed of artisans, existed in Greece and Rome at an early period. They became incorporated under the last of the Caesars. The church recognized and favored them, and they became the Christian guilds. In 364 Valentinian I. confirmed the privileges granted by the pre- ceding emperors. In succeeding centuries all persons who were members of a parti- cular trade in a city or locality became united in a guild, which had the right to regulate the production and sale of the things made by such trade. A person was not permitted to work at a trade unless he had become a member of the guild controlling it, and one of the primary conditions of membership was to have served as an apprentice for a designated number of years. The apprentice was bound out to a master, of whose family he became, for a time, a member. His moral education and technical training were committed to the master. He was required to learn to make the tools of his trade, as well as to do its work. Only one or two apprentices could be taught at a time. When the young man had served the requisite number of years, he became a journey- man or hired workman. A stainless reputation was necessary to membership in the guild. Known immor- ality or dishonesty was a sufficient ground for expulsion. The guild settled the hours of work and the rate of wages. In certain lines of handicraft, workmen were accus- tomed to travel from town to town in order to see the different processes of carrying on their trades. When the savings of a workman were sufficient to enable him to pay the prescribed fees and his technical skill was proved by the making of what was called a masterpiece, he rose to the third and highest stage of the industrial order and became himself a master. But he remained subject to the control of the guild which, in conjunction with the local authorities, regulated the hours of labor, the ecclesiastical holidays, etc. The guild acted also as a court of arbitration for the settlement of controversies between the master and his workmen. It restricted the number of workmen that a master might employ. This removed from him the temptation of seeking to get rich by their labor. Thus, too, the number of masters was kept comparatively large, and every industrious apprentice could hope to become one in time and attain to the high- est grade in the industrial ranks. The guild carefully guarded against the sale of goods adulterated, or ill-m»de, or of short weight or measure. It discharged the duties, also, of a benefit society and popu- lar bank. It aided sick members and took care of the families of those deceased. It j 7o WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. had a corporate fund, or regularly collected subscriptions or dues from the members, and was thus in a position to make advances to such of their number as were in diffi- culty, to support the aged, and to maintain the widows and orphans of members de- ceased. Each guild had a patron saint whose festival it specially celebrated. For x- ample, St. Joseph was the patron saint of carpenters, while St. Crispin represented shoemakers and workers in leather. Religious exercises and the giving of alms were recommended and fostered. Production was so arranged as to keep all employed. About the time of the reformation, the religious element of the guilds became subordi- nated to the more worldly aims and selfish interests of the members, and thereafter they declined and finally disappeared, although within recent years an effort has been made to revive them. Referring now to more recent times. We know, historically, of only one labor organization as having had an existence in this country prior to the Revolutionary War, and that was the Calkers' Club of Boston. The word caucus is said to be a corruption of it in our political nomenclature. In 1792 a trades' union of shoemakers existed in Philadelphia. The earliest strikes, of which we have record, took place in the same city in the years 1798 and 1805. Two or three years later, there was an extensive strike in New York. However, it is only within the past twenty-five years that labor organizations have made anything like substantial headway in this country. They comprise now over two-thirds of all our artisans and workmen. The individual trades are, generally speaking, well organized, and seek, so far as practicable without the active exercise of the religious principle, to follow in the footsteps of the old guilds. The efforts heretofore made, however, to band them together in unity of purpose and active co-operation in respect to matters effecting them jointly, or as a whole, have not been specially successful. In Great Britain labor fraternities, or trades unions, came into being with the growth of factories and the destruction of domestic hand industries. The organization of these unions was prohibited by law and so remained until 1824. They began in secrecy, and their maintenance often depended upon the exercise of force and violence. However, little by little, they won toleration and recognition. In 1875 they had become so powerful as to secure public approval. The working people of France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium, and the Continent generally, have also organized labor frater- nities or trades unions. The spirit of the French Revolution, toned down to a kind of a weak socialism, seems to pervade a large number of them. However, they have won successes. In 1883, the French Premier made arrangements with the land bank of France for advances of 20,000,000 francs to build 13,000 dwellings for artisans in the environs of Paris, the government guaranteeing payment. The houses were sold to workmen under agreement that payment should be made in twenty annual installments of less than the ordinary rental of the poorest city quarters. The work of erecting them was begun in a period of financial stringency, and thus thousands of artisans who could not afford to be idle were kept employed. Moreover, the city of Paris borrowed 50,000,000 francs for the erection in like manner of model tenement-houses, designed for rent to persons not able to pay more than 150 or 300 francs a year. The tenants are relieved in part from taxation while occupying these tenements. The German insurance bill of 1887 provides that all workmen who pass the age of 70 years, or become completely and permanently incapacitated for work, shall have a pension. The bill affects only workmen, apprentices, servants, and administrative employes having a yearly pay of not more than 2,000 marks. Premiums on the insur- ance must have been paid for thirty years, or for five years where it is claimed on the ground of disability. A third of the premium is paid by the insured, another third by the employer, while the other third comes from the imperial treasury. The pension rate in the case of old age is 120 marks a year, while it varies from that amount to 250 marks when given for disability. Women, under like circumstances, are entitled to only two-thirds of what men receive. The pension system of Germany includes civil officials and even teachers. The greatest burdens that the working classes of Germany have now to bear consist in heavy taxes and service in the army. The generality of the pension system and the great size of the army necessitate the imposition upon the labor of the country of an extraordinary burden of taxation. And yet, strange to say, there seems to be no special opposition to the pension policy, which has a firm foothold in the country. The fraternities of workmen in Belgium have been a source of much concern to the. government, yet numerous salutary laws have been enacted at their instance. For example, wages must be paid in cash; two-fifths of salaries not exceeding 1,200 francs WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 171 are exempt from execution for debts; councils of industry have been established to reconcile differences between employers and erap'oyes; debts contracted in liquor houses can not be recovered, and those who sell \quor to intoxicated persons, as well as the intoxicated persons themselves, are liable + j hue and imprisonment. The influence of labor fraternities, properly conducted, has been salutary. They have contributed to secure higher wages, bring about shorter hours, remove middle- men or sub-contractors, and support members when out of work. They resemble the guilds in acting as benefit societies and insuring members against accident, sickness, and old age. Moreover, they expend large sums in a direction-foreign to the solicitude of the guilds, and that is in providing for unemployed members. All who were able and willing to work had plenty to do in the time of the guilds. I need hardly apologize for referring so often to the guilds, for every person interested in the growth of our modern fraternities of workmen may study them with advantage. Such study in connection with the perusal of the late encyclical of our Holy Father on the subject of labor can not fail to arouse something like a fitting appreciation of the great and constant interest of the church in the welfare of the working people. The church favored the guilds, and the guilds were powerful and prosperous while they- hearkened to and obeyed her. In the same spirit she favors to-day our fraternal organi- zations of workmen. She favors them, not as revolutionary bodies, not as materialistic agencies, not as societies banded together for purposes so mean, selfish, or unworthy as to make secrecy seem necessary. On the contrary, she favors them as a means of enabling workmen to secure and maintain their rights; to advance their common interests by means of the educational agencies available; to be guided by the same ethics and rules of morals collectively that individually they acknowledge; to be good citizens and obedient to the laws, and to be directed by the light of faith in Him who wrought with His own hands and gave His life for others. These societies are beneficial in a high degree when honestly, intelligently, and properly managed and directed. The members are mutually benefited and the interests of the entire community advanced. The place of meeting becomes a school in the most practical sense. Men thus brought together become a great force for the accomplishment of good. They combine almost spontaneously to defend right against wrong in contests involving that issue. Viewed in that light, our labor societies deserve the support and co-operation of all good citizens without reference to vocation, position, or station. The old guilds had such support, employers, merchants, public officials and clergymen co-operating with them, and no one can deny that they con- tributed to promote the common good, maintain the public tranquility and restrict to narrowest limits the evidences of poverty aod mendicancy. The insurance feature of these societies is deserving of unqualified commendation. It is essential to their prosperity, if not their very existence. It aims at realizing in a secure and comparatively easy way some of the chief ends for which we live and labor. It provides for sick and needy members. It is by their bedside in illness and their grave in death. It alleviates their last suffering by the assurance that want shall be averted from those near and dear to them. It stimulates the courage of the widow and orphans. It affords them the means of battling successfully against the adversities of the world. It enables the careful and provident mother to maintain, educate and rear her children as good Christians and useful members of society. It bespeaks a continued interest of the members of the fraternity or union in the famiiy of their de- ceased associate, and an effort to procure suitable employment for the children. A workman acting by himself and for himself frequently forgets, till too late, the important duty of making provision for his helpless family. His example teaches selfishness, improvidence and vicious habits to his children. In their poverty and bitter need they are prompted each to look out for himself. The tie to the family center is broken. They lose sight of one another, and their fortune is as varying as their environments. Again, the mother's death may be hastened through the weight of her sorrow and the consciousness of her helplessness. Then the last hope is gone. No one is left to guide them in the way of religion, in the path of morality, in the in struction of the schools. Look around you in this great city — aye, even in the State and country ! Trace to their origin vice and intemperance, indifference to religion or even actual apostacy. Do they not, as a rule, lead you up to a condition of things such in the main as I have described ? How many children might be saved to the church and morality, to the school and usefulness, if provision were made for them before the death of the father — if they could continue to live under the family roof-tree. Men are differently constituted. It may as well be admitted that a great many of •our working people seem to lack the power to save. There can be no doubt, I submit, 172 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. that every man of that class would derive advantage from joining a fraternal benefit association. In it he would meet the best element of working men — men who read and think, toen who enjoy a sense of manly independence in the consciousness that neither in sickness nor death need they or their families fear the poorhouse or soul withering consequences of abject poverty. Membership in it would teach him to be practical, in- dustrious, economical and attentive to the probable wants of the future. It would make him self-respecting and manly. It would encourage him to strive to provide a home for his family, and to surround himself with the comforts of life, if not the luxur- ies. It would bring him into closer relationship with his associates of the brotherhood than he would otherwise be. He would become interested in their welfare and they in his. They would advance mutually their common weal. Their interest in his welfare would make him a greater power in the community than ever he was before or could be without their co-operation. In short, he would become a steadier man and better cit- izen. The insurance feature of such societies is, in my opinion, far preferable to the Ger- man policy of pensioning workmen. We know that in this country there is a formida- ble feeling of opposition to anything like a civil pension list. Moreover, we may well believe that no man of becoming pride would wish to be a beneficiary of the govern- ment on a civil pension list in the face of that feeling. His pension dole would be regarded simply as a gratuity or charitable offering to aid him in keeping out of the poorhouse. It would not tend to stimulate to honorable enterprise either him or his children ; but it would tend to make him a mere creature of the government or an automaton, so to speak, which might be moved at its will this way or that. In fact, it might become dangerous to the liberties of the couutry to have so great a power subject to the caprice of any administration or political party. In the fraternal society a member gives a legal consideration for what he or his fam- ily is to receive. It is honorable for him to receive it, for it proves him to have been industrious and frugal, intelligent and far-seeing. It provides means to rear and edu- cate the children, and his example is a salutary inspiration to them. They are kept together and work with and for one another until grown. They live long enough under the same roof-tree to know and share the beautiful love distinguishing the relations existing between parents and children, and brothers and sisters. Such children are proud of their parents and proud to remember and do what their parents taught them. They are true to one another, and seek to be guided by the inspirations and hallowed memories of their youthful companionship. Fortunately, in this glorious country of ours — a country formally placed under the standard of the cross by the great discoverer, whose achievement we commemorate this year — labor is to-day freer to act and stronger in union than ever it was before, and the influence of our fraternal benefit societies has not been without avail in contributing so to make it. But its freedom may become license and its strength dissipated and lost in outbreaks of lawlessness, unless it acknowledges and seeks to be guided by sound moral principles, such as the church prescribed for the guilds. To these principles our fraternal benefit associations have sought to conform so far as practicable under existing conditions. Let them be strengthened, for they tend to secure unity, impart confidence and increase the power of labor. Let them be established far and wide, and, like the guilds of old, they will satisfactorily settle the hours of, and remuneration for, toil. Acting in line with the sound principles prescribed by the church, as indicated in the recent labor encyclical of Pope Leo XIII., it would be within their power, as of old, to provide steady employ- ment at fair wages for workmen, teach them to become " true laborers,'' and solve the many serious problems presented by the labor question. " Life Insurance and Pension Funds for Wage Workers," was the title of an organization paper read by E. M. Sharon, of Davenport, Iowa. The contents of the paper were as follows: Christianity applied to the labor problem illumines it and furnishes new rules for its solution. The encyclical of Leo XIII. is the most comprehensive and enlightening declaration of the rights of labor ever enunciated. The ruler of the spiritual world becomes the philanthropic statesmen of the age and applies the treasured wisdom of the church of Christ to devising means to better the condition of the wage worker. He brushes aside the sophistries of capitalists and economists, and recognizes no condi- tions which limit the rights guaranteed him and due from every industrial system. In his Christian philosophy, the rise and fall of stocks, the ups and downs of markets, human tariffs, over or under-production, the exigencies of states, create no just excuse WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. *73 fur depriving the laborer of the means of providing a reasonable frugal support for himself and family. The wage-worker himself can make no contract which attains less than this. He gives the reason. Man, no matter what his position beyond the things personal to himself, is a mem- ber of society, the head of a family, the head of a society, one of the societies whose aggregation makes up the State. To injure him injures that society, injures the State. His relation to his fellowman, to the church, imposes other duties than those which he owes to the mere bodily wants of himself and dependents. Society must protect itself, must continue itself, must enforce the foundation factors of its own propagation and prosperity. Here arises the necessity of " life insurance and pension funds for wage workers." Without them the position of the most fortunate laborer is insecure. He is able to give no assurance that he will continue to provide for himself and his family; that he will maintain his position in society and perform the duties which society exacts from him, instead of becoming a burden upon it. Were it not for sickness, for body maiming accidents and unprovided old age, assur- ance would be useless. If old age alone took from man his earning capacity, if through all the years of his manhood, he continued to support his family, rearing a generation to take its place, full-fledged, in life's field of labor, if filial duty supported his faltering steps to the grave, insurance and pensions would not have a necessary place in man's economy, nor an advocate before this Congress. But even in this favored land, liability to accident besets the wage-worker round about, follows his every step through life. The railroads alone, last year, killed 2,451 of their employes, and maimed and injured 22,396. It is claimed that accidents in mine and factory, and outside of them, in the United States, annually destroy the earning capacity of workmen to the amount of $150,000,000. This vast amount is destroyed and taken from the productive labor and wealth of the nation. These injuries entail sick- ness, loss of time and wages, lasting disability and death. They come when the domestic sky is brightest; they come to the home where are wife and lisping, helpless children. These conditions demand decisive, comprehensive remedies. Let us see what has been done to allay the blasting effects of industrial injuries. The trades unions have within the past decade taken up the matter of sick, disability and mortality benefits, and are doing a splendid work for their members, through their own unaided efforts. The industrial insurance associations are furnishing a large amount of insurance in email sums. The fraternal and benevolent mutual assessment societies are doing a good work at a small cost. A beneficial class of work is done by voluntary action of manufacturers, railroad managers and other employers of labor. But this is not enough. These systems do not comprise the insurance of one-twentieth of the real wage-workers of the country. In striking contrast to this condition, under the German compulsory system of insurance, sixty-four trades unions report an insured membership of five millions, and there are other insured employes to the number of eight and one-half millions. Germany, with less than fifty million inhabitants, has adopted an insurance and pension system that includes in one branch over thirteen and one-half millions of her people. This is purely an accident insurance. There are sick and invalidism and old age insurance associations which complement this system, and make it, in the results accomplished, the most perfect ever devised. We do not take kindly to compulsory measures in this country. We are apt to conjure up the ghost of governmental paternalism ; sumptuary laws are but to be so named to be condemned. But in practice the State provides unquestioned that the relatives of a poor person shall contribute to its support and the summary processes of the courts are invoked to enforce the mandates of the State. The State compels' obedience to sanitary rules and regulations before the dire results of their violation manifests itself in disease and death. The State already supervises railroads and public carriers, has a voice in their every contract, fixes the limits of compensation for freight and passenger carriage, regulates the appliances of cars and engines, locates their stations and compels reports of every transaction. This governmental interference has been deemed necessary for the protection of the natural rights of individuals and the well-being of the society of which they form a part. It might exercise its paternal care for the benefit of wageworkers also without transcending its legitimate and proper powers. It is comparatively easy to state what we want, what any system must provide. Every man, woman, and child, employed for wages, should receive free medical attend- ance and, at least, half wages during disability, from any cause, whether connected with i74 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. his or her employment or not, and, in case of death, funeral benefits and a pension equal to half-wages to wife and children or other dependents during the continuance of such dependency. Only the grossest negligence, willful conduct, or dissipation should deprive of these benefits. When disabling injury or death comes to a household, it is not justice, it is not Christianity, it is not social economy, before despairing wife and helpless babies, to weigh with over-nicety the degrees of negligence of master and serv- ant; to inquire how far each contributed to death or disability; nor to enter upon that usual learned discussion of latent and patent defects in destructive machinery, or whether the danger was so obvious that the workman should have given up the means of earning a livelihood for himself and family, or was justified in believing that the master had performed his duty. Nor does society care. It sees the destruction of a member, useful and valuable. It sees the destruction of its earning capacity, a contri- buting, paying member of itself transformed into a dependent burden, another self-sup- porting family for which it must become responsible. Abolish the distinction between principal and vice-principal, employe and co-em- ploye, independent employment and privity of contract, abolish everything that stands between the injured, disabled, or destroyed husband, father, or son, and the recompense that would have been his had the injury not occurred. Abolish all distinctions which have allowed the industrial world to unload its burdens on the social world. Provide that for the wage-worker, his wife and children and parents, provision has been made, and that neither want nor want's temptation shall ever come to him or his. Whence shall come the millions to provide these benefits and pensions? They should come from the industries that the wage-workers build up, from the billions of wealth that their labor produces. Industrial interests can be adjusted to such changed conditions. There are two sources from which to draw the funds necessary to support a system accomplishing the necessary results. These are the wage fund and that part of the cost of production or of operation known as the employer's liability expense. To pay insurance and pensions from these sources would obviate the objection that such a system would unduly derange or increase the cost of production in mining, manufactur- ing, and farming, ^nd of operation for public carriers. It is advisable to make this con- cession in inaugurating a new system, although every sentiment of justice and hu- manity demands that the industries of the country ought to bear the burden of supporting the victim whose brawn and sweat and blood create its wealth and insure its prosperity, and the sooner our industries adjust themselves to such a liability the better it will be for our general prosperity and our claim of being a Christian nation. The people of this country, as consumers, are willing to have such charge added to the cost of the products which they consume. The law, the common and statute law of this country, does impose some obligation on the employer of labor, when it is shown that the relation of master and servant exists. That law, while assuming that the servant "hires out," and gets paid, with re- ference to the usual dangers and hazards of his occupation, graciously holds the em- ployer liable if he negligently increases these hazards and dangers. The employer's liability, in case of injury to his employe, is measured by the expense of getting a re- lease from the injured or proving successfully to a court, and sometimes to a jury, that he did not increase the usual hazards of the employment, or if he did, that the em- ploye ought to have seen it. It takes years to prove this or to have it disproved, and in the meantime the injured employe, weary of enforced idleness, in despair, too often has gone to the poorhouse or to his grave. How much tnis liability costs in lawyers' fees and court costs and enforced or vol- untary payments, is not wholly a matter of conjecture. The railroads reporting to the Iowa railroad commissioners in 1892, with a pay roll, exclusive of general officers aud telegraphers, of $30,000,000, reported disbursements on account of injuries to persons, of $1,190,000 and legal expenses, exclusive of salaried solicitors and attorneys, of $590,000. It will be conceded that the incidental expense of employes acting as witnesses, adjust- ers, engineers, general solicitors and attorneys and their assistants, would offset all legal expenses not connected with claims for damages for personal injuries. The way to ascertain the expense of the liability of manufacturers, builders, mine owners, municipal and private corporations, and other employers of labor, is to inquire what is paid to others for assuming this liability. Employers are very generally carry- ing liability insurance. For this a premium is paid equal on the average of about 1 per cent, of the wages paid the employes whose wages are insured against. Five of the companies doing business in Iowa last year reported premium receipts of over $7,763,000. Upon what principle of economy is this vast amount of money paid, under proper regulations, directly to those who are injured ? From the standpoint of social economy. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 175 employers pay nothing or too little in many cases and too much in some others. Legal technicalities defeat worthy claims, and juries, when they get an opportunity, allow excessive amounts in special cases. The amount paid ought to be a matter of equitable adjustment with little or no expense to either party. The first step toward the estab- lishment of a correct system of life insurance and pension funds should be to abolish actions against railroad companies for personal injuries to employes. Let a fund be created under the supervision of the insurance department of the State. Require the management of each railroad company to pay into such fund a fixed percentage of the wages paid to each employe in its service, such percentage to be fixed from time to time by the railroad commissioners. The assessments should be paid directly to some officer of the State or to a board created under legal authority, by the companies interested. Let that fund be large enough to pay compensatory, monthly pensions to every employe injured in the service of a railroad, and to the dependent relatives of those killed. Let the State recover for the benefit of the pension fund, penalties for gross negligence producing injuries or death, and similar penalties by way of deduction from benefits, against employes for gross carelessness, contributing to injuries. These penalties, coupled with suitable requirements of safety appliances and conditions, to be enforced with the sole object of lessening accidents and injuries in the operation of railroads Depositories for this fund could be established by the insurance or railroad commissioners, under requirements and safeguards guaranteeing its absolute safety and material increase from the income of the surplus that should be carried over from year to year to meet long time pensions for the permanently disabled or heirs of deceased members, or it might be controlled and invested by the State as the permanent school funds are now managed. The amount necessary to compensate the results of accidents should be paid wholly by the railroads as a consideration of their release from all other liability to their employes. Liability for damage to others than employes should remain as now until such time as our people generally are brought within the protection of some general insurance system. For sick and old age insurance the employe should be required to pay a fixed percentage of wages monthly into a special or the general insurance fund. This would be for the special protection of those making payments and their dependents, with equitable provisions for changing from one employment to another, with preserved rights and the withdrawal of a certain percentage of the amount paid, on gaining a competence, or, for other allowed causes, leaving the protected class. Commencing with the railroads, let the State do for the wage-workers what it has done, what the general government has done, for shippers, for property, in the regula- tion and supervision of State and inter-State traffic — pay attention to the death of an engineer, or fireman, or brakeman, equal to that paid to a discrimination of a few dollars in a freight bill. Commence with the railroads — the State has already asserted its right to dictate to them and to supervise their operation. It has the machinery necessary to carry the system into effect already provided and in operation. The railroad commissioners could look after the details of fixing the amount of assessments to be paid by each company, and the amount of damage or pensions to be paid injured employes. The insurance department could look after the funds, see to their care and absolute safety, and the investmont of the surplus. Any system would be more or less experimental, but all matters could be adjusted by experience from time to time. The supervision and assis- tance of the State would reduce to a minimum the expense of transacting the large business of the system. The association would extend itself. The supervising authority could fix the terms, based upon the experience of each industry, upon which the employes in any trade or industry could be brought within its protection. It would only be necessary to change the employers' liability laws, making each responsible for injuries to persons, without regard to the laws as to fellow-servants, or to other causes not connected with the volun- tary acts of the employe, to make it to the interest of every employer of labor to seek admission to the general insurance system. It would be cheaper than paying a prem- ium to liability insurance companies, which collect premiums 100 per cent larger than all the losses they pay; cheaper for all, by reason of the large general average as applied to all accidents, than paying their own probable liability even under the present law. Those engaged in dangerous employment would join the association to lessen their liability in less dangerous employments, because the percentage of pay- ments would be small. The greater benefits to their employes, their greater satis- faction and contentment, would make it the part of wisdom and self-interest to join the association. 42 i] 6 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. Such a system would equalize the cost of production. Each employer in the same industry would pay the same percentage according to amount of production for liabil- ity for injuries to persons. The liberal employer and the industrial Shylock would both stand on the same footing as to cost of labor. Nor would such a system destroy the usefulness of beneficial trades unions. They will still have their proper work to do. The State which will first take up this matter of securing under wise provisions insur- ance against accidents and sickness the wage-workers within its limits, will be doing a greater work, building a more worthy monument than has been erected to philanthropic Christian government since the great Lincoln emancipated a race and removed the last shackle of legal slavery from the limbs of human labor. Rev. Joseph L. Andreis, pastor of St. Luke's Church, Baltimore, Md., read an essay on " Italian Immigration and Colonization," in which he urged his ideas as follows: The problems specified in the programme as coming before this Congress for con- sideration and solution are most important, but not essentially local, for they are the subject of actual, deep study for economists and churchmen in Europe as well as here. The one which towert> above all others in importance — being new to past history, affect- ing this country only, and calling for prompt and unequivocal solution — is that of immi- gration. With the large number of new immigrants pouring almost weekly into these United States, there is an immense wave of stormy elements coming along with hem, com- posed of heterogeneous tongues, manners, habits, national prejudices, errors of mind, malice of heart, indifference to religion, and infidelity. A large number of these immigrants are Catholics. Hence the church in America must meet them as they are, take care of them, and labor to make them what they should be. Among them are hundreds of thousands of Italians. The writer of this essay on " Italian Immigration and Coloniza- tion " has considered it from its social, moral, and religious standpoints, and taken the liberty of suggesting the means of effecting the amelioration of Italian immigrants, socially, morally, and religiously. As effects are accounted for by their relative causes, so the Italian immigration to the United States is explained by the causes of emigration. What can they be? A craving to see and enjoy this immense Western hemisphere, discovered by the Italian Christopher Columbus, and named after another Italian, Americus Vespucci? No; for the Italians are accustomed to national — nay, world-wide glories. Italy, itself, is too charming a country to be exchanged for any other, even this America of liberty and plenty — Italy, the garden of Europe. The Italians know this, and are loth to leave it. But why have they emigrated, and still do emigrate, in such great numbers? Is not Italy's soil fertile and rich in all sorts of produce? So it is, but with all that, the large masses of Italians suffer from great distress and poverty. What is the cause of it? " Inimicus homo hoc fecit ' — " An enemy has done this." In their great sagacity, the sovereign pontiffs, Gregory XVI. and Pious IX. sounded the alarm of warning to the Italians, and did all in their power to thwart his coming. Time has fully justified the warnings of the aforesaid pontiffs, and particularly proved that the enemy was, and is, the cosmopolitan sect of Freemasonry; for, spurning the liberal concessions made to his people by Pious IX. it aimed at undermining the prin- ciple of authority, un-Christianizing the masses, and reducing them to poverty by its own aggrandizement and enrichment. In fact, no sooner did it begin to wield power than the enemy, with a stroke of the pen, suppressed the religious orders, devoured their estates, together with the patrimonies of the poor; and when all that great wealth was gone, began to feed himself upon the people through the levying of enormous taxes. These are so exorbitant that the small-scale farmers are unable to pay them, and, in consequence, are by the ruthless law expropriated of their lands by the inexo- rable tax-gatherer. Meantime, the cost of house-rent and the necessaries of life have increased and the wages of mechanics decreased. Not content with having robbed the people of means of subsistence, the enemy for- cibly takes all the able-bodied young men and enrolls them in his immense army. Crushed by forced poverty, and dismayed by the threatening danger of losing their lives or limbs in a more or less proximate European war, they turn their eyes westward and, with heavy hearts, resolve to come to our shores in quest of what they have a right to in their mother country, but which is denied them. To urge the timid to consummate their resolve to emigrate, Italian sharpers, bot h here and in Italy, are engaged in the profligate business of making false representations to them of the abundance of work to be found in thi6 country, the easy way of securing employment and earning high wages. These sharpers, or padroni, commence with WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 177 robbing them of their little savings, through the ostensible formality of a contract by which they promise to take them to the place of work and secure employment for them'. Through the medium of bankers located in the principal seaport cities of this country, the padroni or their agents advance the money to those laborers who have none to pay their passage, with the proviso of being reimbursed and receiving a heavy percentage from their earnings after having arrived and been put to work. The results of these infamous transactions has been that thousands of poor Italians have been cajoled to emigrate hither to work for months and months without any com- pensation, except scanty meals and bad lodging. Finding thousands duped and oppressed, and unable to obtain redress, many have lost their health and died broken- hearted; while a large number of others, penniless, ragged, and fasting, have tramped hundreds of miles on foot to reach the steamer and work their way back to their native country. Great as the evil of the slave traffic in Africa is, the injustice and cruelty inflicted upon the Italian immigrants in this country at the hands of padroni and bankers associated with them is by far a greater evil, which this Congress should endeavor to remove. To this end two means are hereby respectfully suggested: One is to forcibly represent the aforesaid great grievance to our national government and urge it to take proper action in regard to it; the other is to appeal to either our Most Holy Father, or to the Central Catholic Union in Rome for the adoption of such methods as will, without failure, convey the much-needed warnings to all Italians who contem- plate emigration. The census bulletins published by the United States Government through the Department of the Interior, Washington, give the following table of Italian immigration to this country: Increase from 1850 to 1860 6,783 Increase from 1860 to 1870 6,639 Increase from 1870 to 1880 27.073 Increase from 1880 to 1890 138,350 Total * 178,815 In 1890 62,969 In 1891 69,297 In 1892 30,086 April 30, 1893 26,122 Total 188,774 Italian immigrants love to work, and, as a rule, are law-abiding. This is proved by the statistics of prisoners and paupers published February 9, 1893, by the Census Bureau at Washington. The official report shows that out of the total number of 55,296 foreign- born paupers in the alms-houses of the United States, 290 only are Italians, and out of the total number of 31,861 foreign-born prisoners but 1,124 are Italians. A large per- centage of the latter owe their penalty to having taken the law into their own hands by punishing unprovoked insults, or resisting inhuman treatment from their employ- ers, or trying to obtain by violence the hard-earned wages they were denied. A serious charge is often made against a portion of Italians in our large cities. It is that they live huddled up in slums and tenement-houses. The charge is substan- tially correct, but its worst features can be amended. The complained-of places are only for transient immigrants, until employment can be found. The causes of their selecting objectionable quarters are: First, because they can be rented cheaply; second, because they find in them people akin to their own tongue, manners, and habits. In order to do away with the best part of the nuisance arising from the aforesaid slums and tenement-houses, two things are necessary: One, to have a large number of small houses at low rent, and the other to prevail on the civil authorities to refuse the license to open a saloon in them— nay, even in proximity to them. Though Italians are generally temperate, still the saloon at their door is an open avenue to immoralities of various sorts, especially where the access to the home is by the saloon entrance. To form the right estimate of the morality of the Italian colony it is necessary to be well acquainted with the moral atmosphere existing in Italy. In her is found a dual- ism, namely, two factors : one for good, the other for evil. The former consists in the fact that nearly every inch of Italian soil is saturated with martyrs' blood, or made fa- mous by the lives of great saints ; that from the beginning of Christianity Italy has been blessed in having in her very heart the chair of St. Peter — the beacon of divine light tc the, whole world — the center of unity for all churches. By being born and 1 7 8 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. reared in Italy the Italians must naturally be Christians, and therefore good. They would undoubtedly be so were it not for the other factor, namely, the rampant Free masonry, which for the past forty-rive years has been hard at work to un-Christianize the nation. When we take into account all the agencies used to poison the minds and corrupt the hearts of the people, it is not to be wondered at if a largo portion of Italian immigrants show indifference in the practice of religion. They are Catholiq at heart; but, to avoid ridicule, they have habitually desisted from the exterior profession of their faith. Realizing that in this country they are laboring under various disadvantages, such as the total absence of their native customs on the one hand and the existence of new ones on the other, the use of a language they do not know and apprehend to be too difficult to learn, the rinding of Protestant churches, the sigh i of many people profess- ing no faith, the poor Italian immigrants feel out of their sphere— a fact which shows that this North America is the least suitable land for them. The old aphorism, " Like parent, like child," applied to the children of Italian immigrants, is only partially correct, whether they be considered under the social or moral standpoint. Considered socially, they soon learn the English language— breathe the American spirit— and acquire American manners. Inconsequence, they yearn to raise themselves above their parents' standing, and a good many even Americanize their surnames so as to pass for genuine Americans, with the view to paving their way to success. It is clear from this that their minds and hearts are centered in this coun- try, and that they never dream of leaving it for Italy. But, alas! Not much good can be said of all of them as to their moral condition. Nearly one-half of all the children are allowed to grow up ignorant of religion, or do not profess it at all. The consequence of this is that a good many turn Protestants, or marry before Protestant preachers, and rear their offspring either in none or other religion than Catholic. We have then in this country about half a million of Italians, some of whom are ignorant of the Christian doctrine; most of them do not live up to it, and nearly one-half of their children are permitted, by either ignorant or neglectful parents, to grow up to manhood and womanhood in utter ignorance of the truths and precepts of that divine faith which was and is infused into their souls through the sacrament of baptism. Meanwhile the various agencies of the powers of darkness are active in preventing their intellect from seeing the true light and their will from complying with the divine law. Such being their abnormal and frightful condition, the question suggests itself: What is to be done ? They are all Catholic, and, while in these United States, form a portion of the sheepfold of Jesus Christ, to be guarded against the wolves by the divinely-appointed shepherds, fed upon the pastures of Christian instruction and wor- ship, and watered with the sacraments. They are Catholic, and hence members of the mystical body of Christ, the church. Therefore, the American Catholic laity must regard them as such; the American priesthood must love and care for them as such; the American Episcopate must see to their spiritual welfare just as much, nay, even more than all the other members of the Catholic church living in this country. Since, then, the fact is that these Italian Catholics, both adult and young, are" here, the question is : How is religion to be brought to them ? The episcopate in these United States is fully equal to devising the means to attain that object. If religion is to reach the people, it must be through the medium of the language spoken by them. Now, the majority of adult Italian immigrants speak Italian only; that language must be the medium, therefore, whereby religion is to be conveyed to them. Who are the laborers to be ? They ought to be priests affiliated to the same religious order, such as the Salesians, whose founder was the late saintly Don Bosco, of universally cherished memory. By having the Salesians in the principal cities of this country we would secure most zealous missionaries for the Italians, a college with efficient proffessors to impart all the desired branches, excellent educators of young men and great factors for developing ecclesiastical vocations. But the objection may be here advanced: How are these religious to teach Christian doctrine if this is to be taught in the English language, which is spoken by the children of Italian immigrants? The answer is this: For a while lay teachers would have to give religious instruction. The English-speaking laity should be called upon and made use of in this great work of Christian charity, not only as teachers of catechism, but also as animators of Christian piety with the grown people. Among the laity of every parish there are sufficient intelligent and practical Catholics. Their power for good should no longer be allowed to remain inoperative. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 179 All admit that " exampla trahunt," but we must also admit that a good word said well, and in season, is often what makes surrender to the already felt force of good example. It is not too much to insist upon the efficiency of properly organized conferences of St. Vincent de Paul for the above mentioned object, as through them we would see the realizaton of the u fortier" and "sauveur" of the servants who, complying with their Master's bidding, went out into the streets and lanes of the city and brought into tha supper-room the poor and the feeble, and the blind and the lame. Even if children of Italian immigrants went to no school, or all went to public schools, they can all be reached through the exertion of the priest, especially if ordered by the good Catholic laity, and, above all, by the members of the Conference of St. Vincent de Paul. The Italians have always been taught to look up to priests as the divinely com- missioned teachers of religion, and believe that Christ's injunction, "Go and teach all things whatsoever I have commanded you," was not made to the people for the priests, but to the priests for the people. But what is the situation of the Italians now in this country? Their teachers of religion are not to be found, for more than half of them are "like sheep that have no shepherd." Are they to remain so? The Lord forbids it. Can we, while the principles of perversion are daily doing their deadly work, be justified in delaying the provision of the priests that are laborers in the sense of the gospel? Application for them should be made at once, for there is great danger in delaying it. This is all the more true because the number of Italian immigrants is increasing every week by hundreds. The day when, with oneness of spirit and direction (as the Salesians), the priests will be brought here in sufficient numbers to take charge of the Italians scattered about our cities and country -places, with the American laity to lend them assistance, both adults and their children will receive the necessary dispensation of religion. By the attaining of this longed-for result those whom God has placed to rule His church in this country, and the Catholic laymen aiding them, w T ill have successfully solved the difficult problem of the religious amelioration of the Italian immigrants, and will have thereby rendered a signal service to our great commonwealth, by helping it to solve its vexed problem of immigration in general, socially, morally and economically. In pur- suance of the constitution of our Republic, the civil powers welcome all the well-mean- ing comers to our shores, favor their temporal prosperity and protect their lives, rights and property. The Church of Christ cannot be less generous in the spiritual order. She must follow her Divine Pounder, who came upon earth to " seek and save that which was lost;" therefore, she must in this country welcome all Catholic immigrants, provide for their spiritual wants and care for the salvation of their souls. In giving expression to the foregoing statements and considerations, the writer of this essay feels that he is only voicing the sentiments of this vast assembly, and that all the members composing it will be of one mind and heart in reckoning among the laurels achieved through their combined efforts, that of securing the religious amelioration of the Italians who are enjoying with us the fruitful land discovered by their co-national Christopher Columbus, for the true freedom and prosperity of man, and for the exalta- tion of the glory of God! This Congress with its deliberations will pass to history; posterity will know of its worth, as the tree is known by its fruit, and pronounce its judgment,. This judgment will be Catholic! "Pauperism; The Cause and the Remedy," was the subject of the paper prepared and read by M. J. Elder, of New Orleans, La. Folllowing are the contents of the paper: Without having read any of the other papers on this subject; without any knowl- edge of the contents of a single one of them, I nevertheless feel morally certain of six salient points wherein w T e all agree. We agree in naming, as five leading causes of pauperism: First, intemperance; second, idleness; third, sickness; fourth, general incompetence; and fifth, lack of work. A sixth point on which, without previous arrangement, we all perfectly agree, is that this evil of pauperism is too vast, too limitless, to be tinkered with; that dole of alms will never remedy it, and that all existing measures have proved inadequate. But outside these six points, I fear we differ radically, for, after referring to those five causes of pauperism, I must go on to explain that I regard them, potent though they be, as mere effects of another cause — a great, remote, and terrible cause, whose ceaseless operating will continue to produce inevitable pauperism, despite our most strenuous efforts against the five immediate causes which we so plainly see. There- 1 go WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. fore, right here we separate, and going our widely divergent ways, I am left alone te travel unaccompanied this woeful line of the remote and real, and primal cause of pau- Tiftrifiin But I am not without great support from current literature, from the secular press, and from the Protestant periodicals. Quoting but a very small part of the references I have at hand, I give the following: The Illustrated American of July 15th, this year, says — " Our census of 1890 shows a decrease in 455 agricultural counties in Now England, New York, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan, and other States. The tendency to abandon the fields and to flock to the city is marked and significant. It is foolish to believe the exodus due to the opening up of Western lands. The real cause is that the sturdy farmer lad, educated in the public schools, leaves the hard, physical labors of the soil to seek lighter work and greater prosperity in the cities. There is danger in this." Joseph Kirkland, writing of the Chicago poor, says: "The overwhelming tendency of modern life is toward cities. Everything done to alleviate the condition of the poor in great cities works in the direction of bringing more into them; and no argument or per- suasion prevails to get them out again. * * * They would rather starve in a crowd than grow fat in quietude, especially if the ' crowd ' is sprinkled with aromatic ' char- ity.' " — [From Scribner's Magazine, July, 1S92. General Booth, in his " Darkest England," says: " The deterioration of population in large towns is one of the most undisputed facts of social economics. The country is the breeding ground of healthy citizens. But for the constant influx of countrydom, cockneydom would long ere this have perished. But, unfortunately, the country is being depopulated. The towns are being gorged with undigested and indigestible masses of labor. The race from the country to the city has been the cause of much of the distress we have to battle with." The Earl of Roseberry says: "I am always haunted by the awfulness of London; by the great appalling effect of these millions. Sixty years ago Cobbett called it a wen. If it was a wen then, what is it now? A tumor, an elephantiasis, sucking into its gorged system half the life and the blood and the bone of the rural districts." Paolo Mantegazsa, in his Testa, says: "Did not the country send to our cities a continuous tribute of robust members, they would be depopulated in less than a cent- ury. How few are able to say: 'My grandfather was born in this, my city.' No one is able to say it of his own great-grandfather. The cities are machines that destroy and consume what the fields produce; are hot-houses where men and women produce precious flowers and fruit, but at loss of life; are great millstones where all the human energies raise themselves to the heat of a continuous excitement." Thus the consensus of opinion, gathered from most competent sources, gives this as the greatest cause of pauperism. My own opinion, however, though similar, is modified. 1 believe the great cause of pauperism to be indeed the urban tendency, but only when coupled with all lack of rural tendency. For I claim that the urban tendency is not necessarily evil, but that the lack of a rural tendency is necessarily and wholly evil. The country is a nation's lungs. The city is its heart. It is well that the fresh blood flow from the lungs to the heart. But it is ill, indeed, for the heart to return no blood to the lungs. This is the trouble from which our nation is suffering. The blood from our country lungs flows into the heart of the city fast enough — too fast, perhaps; but there it stays, and congests, and stagnates, and we suffer from elephantiasis, from fatty degeneration of the heart, and from a thousand other ills, and no amount of doctoring will cure us, unless it promote the free flow of blood again, and its due return to our country lungs. My explanation of this deplorable condition is as follows: The chief reason that rural populations are pouring too rapidly into towns is because rural interests the world over are (and have been for generations) neglected. Indifference and even injustice are shown to the farm and the farmer by education, by government, by legislation, by the press, and even by religion, aye, by charity itself. This explanation will develop later on. The second phase of the trouble — the lack of rural tendency — is also because of the injustice and contempt shown the farmer and, further, because individuality is a necessary element for success in rural life, and individuality is exactly that element which urban life destroys. It is in the very nature of things that it depresses energy and individuality. See how small and stunted are the trees that have been planted too close together. JAMES F. O'CONNOR, Sec'y, CHICAGO THOMAS DWIGHT, M. D., BOSTON. THOMAS LAVVLER, Sec'y, PRAIRIE DU CHIEN. HON. MORGAN J O'BRIEN, Chairman, NEW YORK. JOHN M. DUFFY, Secy, CHICAGO. RICHARD H CLARKE, LL.D., NEW YORK. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 181 Then look at the vigorous growth, the spreading branches, the noble height of the tree that stands alone on a plain. The typical urban has a horror of rural life, a dread disgust of it. He will tell you this is because" country life is too lonesome, too uninter- esting, too slow; country work doesn't pay," etc. But the real reason — all unsuspected though it be by him — lies in his own instinct. His instinct tells him he is too weak to cope with the invigorating vicissitudes of rural life; tells him he is too small mentally and physically to battle with the large difficulties in the way of rural success. Gregariousness has stunted him. His posterity will be more and more stunted, until they reach the dwarfed and helpless level of pauperism. Now for the remedy. (Rather singular to speak of " hopelessness " in one breath and of "remedy "in the next; but explanation will come in due time.) The causes themselves suggest the remedy. True, we can do little toward getting justice for the farmer from government or legislation, from public education or the press. But we can do a great deal toward getting justice and attention from the Catholic press and the Catholic pulpit, from Catholic education, and, strongest of all, Catholic charity. At the outset we must acknowledge specifically that the efforts of all these have availed but little; nay, that in many, many cases, they but promote the very evils they aim to abolish. Let us establish soup houses without number, night refuges plentiful; self -improvement clubs for young working women; mutual benefit societies for young men; insurance companies on solid basis; Keeley institutes; asylums numerous, vast, splendidly equipped; hospitals handsomely endowed; schools on modern plans, even industrial and polytechnic schools; free kindergartens; day creches for poor mothers; gratuitous loan funds; fresh air funds; labor unions, and no end of homes (!), protectorates, reformatories,etc. Let us keep these numberless charities in full swing, and still will pauperism and distress go on almost unabated. Why? Because we do not lay the ax to the root. Nay, we actually fertilize that root. Our charities encourage the undesirable traits of dependence and and gregariousness — traits that inevitably lead along the downward grade to pauperism. And so we must change our methods. * * * * It seems almost superfluous to instance the object lessons of the World's Fair. They are so plain, so clear. Can any one who runs fail to read the object lessons of the the Irish village? There is the sort of charity we should emulate. Those philanthropists did not lose their time and money trying to remedy city pauperism. They sought to cure country poverty, and they succeeded. There is the vital difference between the poverty of the city and that of the country. City poverty is constitutional; country poverty but accidental. City poverty is chronic; country poverty acute. The former incurable, the latter easily pre- ventable. The philanthropist of the Irish village taught butter-making and other rural in- dustries, with such success that the formerly poverty-stricken neighborhood is now be- come quite prosperous. I have yet to hear of one urban district raised from pauperism to prosperity by any amount of charities. Another object lesson is in the Louisiana exhibit. Look at our peasant women at their weaving. Look at evidences of their Acadian home-love and content in the home- made looms, home-made chairs, tables, lamp-stands, prie-dieus, etc. Throughout all our rural settlements of Catholic Acadians in Louisiana there is no chronic pauperism. And yet, bear it well in mind, these people have not enjoyed the advantages (!) of free kindergartens, nor polytechnic schools, nor free libraries, nor free clinics, nor free-lunch houses, nor free anything. Only one in fifteen knows how to read and write. And, nevertheless, Rev. Father W. J.Kennely, S. J., rector, who resided among them for years, says of these same illiterate " Cajians:" " The Father's work in Grand Coteau and its environs has not been in vain. It is what I would call a model parish. I can say the same of the other parishes, and I may add of the whole country. The faith is alive; religion is respected and generally practiced; the priests are looked up to and obeyed. The people may be thriftless, but they are not ungrateful, they are not given to drunkenness and other crimes. They support their priests and pay their taxes when they can." Now, how many city pastors can speak this of the poor of their parishes? Think of the hoodlums and toughs, the sports and ward politicians, the drunkards and loafers, who abound in Catholic urban parishes among the poorer districts, and see if any pas- tor can say of them: "The faith is alive; religion generally practiced; priests looked up to and obeyed. The people are not given to drunkenness," etc. Our rural " Cajians " are given the same reputation, but with more enthusiasm, by Catherine Cole, a Prot- estant; George W. Cable, a bitter anti-Catholic, and by many other writers for Protest- !8 2 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CA THOLH ' ( '< WGRESSES. ant literature. They are described as frugal, content, virtuous, sober, famou pitality, gentleness, neighborliness, superb health, and large families. They are a stand- ing testimony of what rural life can do for our Catholic poor. Similar testimony is given by travelers regarding Catholic peasantry everywhere, Europe, Ireland, ( lanada, Central America and Smith America. Now, let our philanthropists study this idea in connection with the five immediate causes of pauperism. 1. Intemperance. All authorities agree in declaring that drunkenness do< prevail among Catholic rurals to anything like the same extent as among urbans. Tins is especially true of grape-raising and wine making countries. Indeed, were 1 asked to name that practical measure most efficacious in the cause of temperance, I would vehemently exclaim, " Vineyards ! " And yet, of all the total abstinence societies and other temperance workers, whether Protestant or Catholic, I have yet to hear of one that gives any attention to that practical and promising of remedies. Here in Louisiana alone our experimental Btal ion has demonstrated that 120 varieties of grapes ean be successfully raised. And yet I can pretty safely estimate that there are not a half dozen vineyards managed by Catholics in this entire State. Here is a method whereby hundreds of Catholic young men and young women, hundreds of Catholic families, could be earning an honest livelii d, doing effective service in the temperance cause, benefitting themselves and their posterity, and using a most efficacious means of preventing pauperism. Still our chari- table societies do not lift a finger in this direction. 2. Idleness. This, too, is a vice demonstrated to be far less prevalent among the rural poor than among the urban poor. Religion having a tinner hold upon Catholic peasantry than upon our city poor, idleness and kindred vices are more easily combated among the former than among the latter. Take Prance for instance. Authorities state that among the city paupers, an appalling proportion is utterly vicious and incorrigible; whereas, the peasantry retain much of their old time faith and virtue. Why such facts are not acted upon by our charitable organizations is a mysterj 1 can not penetrate. I delight to recall that when the great Ozanam had organized the conference of St. Vincent de Paul, the very first charity he performed under its aus was to separate from a drunken lather the mother and children, and semi them '• happy as larks," the chronicle says, back to their peasant home in I Irit tany. Also I delight to instance the penal settlement of Cayenne in French Guiana. ''So far as reformation of criminals is concerned, the benevolent results of this colonial experiment are said to have surpassed all expectations. * * * A great majority of the female prisoners are given small farms, as a reward for good conducl during imprisonment. They marry other ex-convicts, and generally prove exemplary wives and mothers." 3. Ill-health. It is needless to dwell on this. Everybody knows that the " farmer lad " and " the country girl" are terras for sturdy strength and blooming health. And every philanthropist knows that the ill-health of the cits poor is one of the most dis- heartening phases of poverty. But all this knowledge seems to be a dead letter. We keep on providing big hospitals and infirmaries, free clinics and dispensaries, homes f< >r curables and incurables; and not one man in a thousand ever gives or wills a dollar toward the country cure; nay, not the country cure, but better far, the country preven- tion. No wonder pauperism continues to be the running sore it is. 4. General incompetency. To me this sad heritage of the city poor seems even worse than the preceding ones. From long dwelling in devitalized atmosphere, from long laboring at deadening work, from long-continued gregariousness, the urban poor so lose their grit and individuality as to become helplessly machine-like and stupid. This is what makes me qualify pauperism as hopeless. We might as well seek to raise the dead from their graves as to raise paupers from their pauperism. No, we cannot cure pauperism any more than we can cure death. But we can, and most positively should, prevent it. Hear what Charles J. O'Malley says in this connection: " Would it interest you to learn, I wonder, that I live in the midst of a wide, open country on a large farm, and have few associates. * * * This is the great agricul- tural county of Kentucky, is fully two-thirds Catholic, and here the members of our faith are remarkable for their enterprise, sobriety, and industry. We are the largest landholders and every way superior to the common, inert idlers found in Southern cities." There is the living testimony of a living writer? No pauperism, no hopeless incom- petency, but instead " enterprise, sobriety, industry." 5. Lack of work. This to me is the astonishing phase. Looking both at the WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 1S3 boundless possibilities of our agricultural regions, and at the extensive and sincere efforts of our charitable organizations, I am amazed that the latter do not rind in t.ue former a solution of this part of the problem. Objectors will say this is all very fine on paper, but it won't work elsewhere. True. I acknowledge it. There is Ruskin, for instance. How complete was the failure of his rustic paradise ! There is General Booth. He has not succeeded. There was the Brook Farm experiment, and many others similar to it. All failures. And still I reiterate any arguments. Why ? Because I believe and know that that which, outside the Catholic Church, is impossible, becomes, within her pale, the possible. Whenever a great need cries out for relief it is the Catholic Church which answers, All other powers have proved unequal to the terrible need of remedying, or, rather, pre- venting, pauperism. Now, the time is ripe for the superhuman power of the Catholic Church to assert itself once more. And if no lay charity be organized among us whose members will actually and literally take the lead in this rural movement, then I am persuaded that a new order will arise in the church whose consecrated sons and daugh- ters shall be pledged to spend themselves in life-loag effort toward checking this urba i tendency and promoting a rural tendency. In my ecstatic rejoicing over the mere pros- pect of such an era, I feel like saying : " When will be the beginning of the milieu nium ? " Those heaven-guided souls, instead of concentrating all their efforts on rural int r ests, will devote them solely to rural interests, especially in education. Whereas now, alas, is there one educated Catholic young man in a thousand who can run a farm. or manage a plantation, or start a vineyard, or boss a ranch, or do anything that is virile, strong, productive, and becoming a manful Catholic ? Is there one in ten thousand who can offer country work and country wages to the workless and wageless thousands of our cities ? Only one more catechetical venture and I will end. What are we doing for our country poor ? Nothing. What are we doing for the city poor ? Everything. What is the • atural and inevitable consequence ? The answer to this query I leave to those who are capable of putting together two thoughts and of arriving thereby at a third. Elizabeth A. Cronyn, of Buffalo, N. Y., read the following paper on " Alumnae Associations in Convent Schools:" Alumna? associations in Catholic schools are novelties. The first one was organ- ized twelve or thirteen years ago in the Grey Nuns' Academy of the Holy Angels, Buffalo. Its formation was suggested, remotely, by a wish to emulate the usefulness of similar societies in Catholic colleges for men, and stimulated by local needs as well as by the example of achievement in graduates' associations attached to local secular schools. It was, however, from its inception more comprehensive in scope than either of these. Shortly after a like association was formed at Nazareth Convent, Rochester, under the Sisters of St. Joseph, and within three years the movement has extended, it is said, to many of the older academies. As understood by thos r who have followed the progress of one, the purpose of an alumnae association in a convent school is both educational and social. As an educa- tional force its object is, first, to band together graduates of the school for more advanced study and for general self-improvement along the lines of their previous training. Earlier these growing minds are taught to realize something of their possi- bilities, habits of study are formed, taste is cultivated, and character developed; but our average graduate who is very young when she leaves the security of convent halls, can scarcely have more than peered into that book of knowledge which educators say must be so thoroughly conned — a book at times so diversely interpreted to Catholic and non-Catholic readers. Commentators do not agree, but meanwhile it is important that the law and the prophets of what is called secular as well as of sacred learning be expounded with safety to those who are seeking it. Daily observation shows us that young women, no less than young men, need to be fortified against the assaults of a prevailing and most pernicious literature and of so-called science — science "run wild, like a planet broken loose from its celestial system." " The punishment of licentious writers," says the Abbe Roux, " is that no one will read them or confess to having read them." Alas! that is no longer true. In convent, far more than in other private schools, young girls of widely differing fortunes find themselves classmates. School days ended, they go their several ways, but whether in the world of fashion or at a teacher's desk, in domestic or professional life, the talk of and love, more or less sincere, of education, of culture, seem part of the very atmosphere they breathe. All sorts of theories and every species of " fad " have 1 84 WORLD'S C0LUMB1 UV CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. their apostles. Lecturers in hall and drawing-room— text-books in the Bohoole— il not aggressively hostile to the church, are effectively so by their persistent ignoring of what it has done and is doing in all departments of education. Young Cathol b si udy history with, and receive a standard of beauty and truth in literature From, their own qualified teachers, or they aregoing to take both from the lips and pens of i he incapable and misleading. If they think they cannot find at home the pleasure and profit they are seeking, they will go abroad for them. A realization of these facta originated and developed our reading-circle movement. The alumnae association is a reading circle — and something more. At its weekly fortnightly, or monthly meetings a plan of study is followed. Original papers are pre- pared or readings given bearing upon the subject under bonsideral ion. I looks of refer- ence are indicated on a printed study card, and are almost exclusively by Catholic authors, for the reason that in such an association everything is to be studied from the Catholic point of view. The other side is sufficiently in evidence always ami every where. When means permit, an alumna? association provides itself with B code of post- graduate lectures, or detached lectures upon various subjects determined by the year's study or by special circumstances. When the convent has a suitable hall, and these lectures can be enjoyed also by the community and advanced classes, another phase of such an association's usefulness is presented. Regular meetings are held always at the convent. Officers are elected annually; but of one which I have in mind the president, happily, is never changed Self-improvement, as it may bo striven for in an alumna association, is by no means limited to intellectual culture. There is something for the heart to do, and it is natural to suppose that a society whose members are all well known to one another may be an excellent medium for the distribution of activities. For example, a certain one furnished the nucleus of what has become a most flourishing tabernacle society. It has also committees which la!>or for the diffusion of good literature, and, in particular, provide wholesome reading for penal institutions within reach. Others help the nuns in their prison and hospital work. Others, again, busy themselves in behalf of the mission of Mary Immaculate and for the Indian Missions, here. These worksdo notcrippleor supplant, but supplement parish sodalities and charitable societies. Thus, it wul be seen, an alumnaa association affords several channels through which its members' energies are directed, according to their indi- vidual sympathies and capacity. Its second object as an educational force is to advance t he interests of theschool of which it is part. This can be done in many ways. It is not common to find 0U* con- vent schools blessed with over-abundant means. As in most Catholic institutions, their growth to that much of prosperity marked outwardly by fine buildings, and well- equipped classrooms has been slow and only possible -under Providence — to the utter eelf-abnegation and marvelous executive ability of those who manage them. If I tell you how one body of alumnae has contrived to measurably hasten that growth in the case of its own alma matter, it may suggest to others greater possibilities in similar directions, when community rules permit, and t ho good nuns think it expe- dient to accept such assistance. The association mentioned arranges to give its lectures and a certain number of musical recitals every year in the convent hall, always during school session and imme- diately after class hours. Thus teachers and pupils are free to profit by them. Aside from their educational advantage to all immediately concerned, these literary and artis- tic gatherings serve to popularize the school, raise it in the estimation even of its patrons, and attract many who otherwise would be at no pains to enter or inquire into the workings of Catholic institutions. Lectures have been delivered before this school and its alumnae association. by some of the ablest and most distinguished Catholics in America. The musicals being given rather for instruction than diversion, programmes are kept to the highest standard, and are usually interpreted by professional musicians. The school itself is forced to no outlay for these, as all expenses are borne by the association. An annual membership fee, occasional self-imposed taxes, voluntary con- tributions, and a few tickets sold to outsiders, friends of members, are the sources of revenue. This association also adds a number of books every year to the school library, offers annually two prizes, and in various ways seeks to improve, if may be, and to multiply the resources of its academy. What one can, many may do, secure that in so acting they minister to noblest needs, and repay a small part of the devotion which Catholic educators have lavished upon the youth of our country. An alumna? associa- tion should be a corporate act of gratitude. Who can be aware of this century's activi- ties—hearing what in the name of education is claimed for women, and seeing what in WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 185 the name of enlightenment is often done by women — and not thank God for that deep- laid, broad-built, tried system of Catholic training which crushes no individuality, represses no legitimate aspiration, and sets no narrow bounds to " woman's sphere," but holds the sex ever lovingly attached to the truth that its most respected, best rewarded, most arduous, most womanly, most heavenly work is in the home ! What Catholic daughter having any experience of life is not grateful to the parental wisdom which gave her the blessings of a convent education, and having a heart is not anxious to widen the circle of that uplifting influence? As already stated, the pupils of a convent school are more variously conditioned than those of any other, this holding true in the graduates' society as in the class-room, though as years roll on positions may be reversed. Whatever their domestic environ- ment, at school all have had about the same advantages. There sit side by side in perfect equality, affection, and amiable rivalry the heiress of a millionaire and the young girl whose parents at great sacrifices have done their utmost in giving her a convent education. One looks forward to foreign travel, pleasure, perhaps a brilliant marriage, as the sequel of graduation; the other says with Viola — I am all the daughters of my father's house And all the brothers too and when school days are ended must take upon herself the duties of breadwinner. They both kneel at the same altar. Shall the accident of wealth keep them utter strangers to each other in after-life? In a company of twelve graduates four find themselves, by virtue of inheritance, in the ranks of the so-called " privileged classes," four are at home in that happy middle state for which Ozaman prayed, and four go out into the busy, selfish world to earn their bread as best they may. Naturally, their respective duties — which we assume they perform cheerfully and well, whether poor, rich, or "comfortable" — forbid frequent intercourse. Who sees much of her friends in this crowded, careworn age? The parish sodality, or charitable society, does not always bring them together, even occasionally, since their parishes may lie at the extremes of a great city. ... Is there not, then, some ground to which a community of tastes and some special endeavor may draw them? Can they not enjoy together a book, a lecture, music, art as when they were school girls — and be the better for it? Have not those who retain their love of all beautiful things, with little means to gratify it, something to say to their fortune-blessed associates? And have these not something to do for the less favored ones? Where can it better be said and done than in the well-ordered work of an alumnae association. There can arise no suspicion of offensive patronage on the one hand or fear of wounded self-respect on the other. All are friends; all contribute alike to a common fund; it is an intellectual mutual benefit society; all know they are aiding the cause of Christian education; all are under the leadership of some dear nun who has been friend and teacher to them— and, it may be to their mothers for long years. The rich woman here has her opportunity of quietly making it possible for the asso- ciation to hear some noted lecturer or great artist, and meet men and women whose names and work are world-famous. We are all hero worshipers and like to come face to face with our heroes. Why should not the ideal conditions of an alumnae association extend themselves? Women legislate for that small bit of society which is called par-excellence society — that little world that men speak of as "the great world." Their will is law therein. Shall we not see the mistress of a magnificent home, the leader of a salon, ruled by the prin- ciples that govern our entirely possible and wholly desirable alumnae association — and inviting her guests — not for what they have or wear, nor for the quarter they live in, but for what they are? Then should we behold an ideal aristocracy — an aristocracy of faith and brains! Or, rather, let us say a democracy of faith and intellect. And "de- mocracy in a right sense," says a recent writer, "is Catholicity." Do I claim that our alumnae associations in convent schools are going to change the face of the earth? No, but they can be a powerful factor in the adjusting of many social difficulties which now exist. Walter George Smith, of Philadelphia, Pa., spoke on "Civil Government and the Catholic Citizen." He said: Although the wonderful growth of the Catholic Church in the United States in numbers, in wealth, and in influence, ha& extended a knowledge of its moral and politi- cal influence far wider and deeper than a few generations ago seemed possible, the thought must have come home repeatedly to every thinking member of its fold that 1 86 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. on certain vital points a large element in the community still look upon it as an organ- ization to be distrusted, no matter how pure may be the character, how useful the lives of its members. How often does the Catholic layman, whose dail) life is pasted among friends, whose training from childhood has been such as to keep from them a true knowledge of what Catholicism means, finds himself called upon to meet and perhaps struggle with a feeling expressed in language or in manner that places him outside of the mass of the community that looks upon him as governed by a code of morality, per- sonal and political, different from his neighbor's, and irreconcilable with a true alle- giance to the State. The reason of this phenomenon is not hard to trace. For gener- ations the English-speaking world has been taught, directly and indirectly, by literature and by tradition, by precept and by assumption, that the theology of the Church of Rome and the tendencies resulting from it are contrary to the political and social ideals most generally accepted among civilized people. The present age is marked, perhaps, by a greater and more extended refinement than any that has preceded it, since the records of history have been preserved, and with softening of manners has come a softening of prejudices, so that we do not have to complain often of unkind or bigoted utterances in opposition of our faith. Nay! We are very often praised for the general morality that prevails among our co-religionists; but certain it is that in the minds of a very large proportion of the American people the fact that a man is a Catholic marks him in some sense as peculiar, while if he were known as a member of any one of the- non-Catholic Christian denominations, his religious views would not for a moment arrest attention. The consequence of such a condition is to put upon every Catholic a responsibility, proportioned to the position he holds in the community, of defining, always by the- practical habit of his life, and sometimes by the verbal exposition of his views, the dogma of the religious mother whose son he is. I do not understand that it is a Cath- olic's duty always and under all circumstances to attempt by argument to win pros- elytes to his faith, but that he should shoAv so far as in him lies the guiding influence of his life to be in accordance with true reason, and, therefore, not opposed to what the common assent of all men shows to be right, would seem to be apparent. I have made these observations preliminary to a brief study of the duty of the Catholic citizen in relation to the State. It is on this point, if we may accept their expressions as sincere, that the only real alarm is felt by those who are earnestly struggling against the extension of the power of the church, whether in Europe or America. Could they be satisfied that the devel opment of Catholic thought would have no effect upon political government, or would have no effect contrary to that which their own teaching inculcates, there would be no attacks, open or covert, upon the venerable church of St. Peter by any save those who find in the unrestrained gratification of every tendency of human nature, the ideal to- wards which human progress should tend. Can we say, then, in a broad sense, that the Catholic Church does not desire to have any influence upon the State? That she looks upon it with indifference, careless as to its methods, and blind to its imperfections? Should we answer thus, we should be forthwith confronted by many an historical incident from the days when the venera- ble pontiff met the barbarian conqueror at Mantua and by his intercession saved Italy from invasion, or at the gates of Rome mitigated the horrors of pillage through the centuries to our own times, when the illustrious occupant of the Vatican utters his p otest against the spoliation of the papal dominions. No, the church does desire to influence human government; it does watch empires, kingdoms, republics, or what- ever be the form such corporations may take, with anxious eyes, but the nfluence she seeks to exert is through the individual members of the government, requiring of them to administer their trusts in accordance with the eternal rules of right and justice for the benefit of the community whose interests they are called upon to protect. In oppo- sition to t e theory of modern political writers, who have contended that government had its origin in sources purely human, and is founded on compact originally entered into between the governors and the governed . Catholic theologians have held that such com- pacts were not voluntarily entered into by the people themselves, but were imposed by the law of nature, which means that they came from God. This doctrine bears the neces- sary consequence of denying State absolution. As is pointed out by Brownson (American Republic, p. 79) the ancient Republics recognized rights of the State and rights of the citizen, " but no rights of man, held independently of society and not derived from God through the State. The recognition of these rights by modern society is due to Christianity;" and he proceeds to illustrate by reference to the fact that the Roman Empire was converted to Christianity in defiance of State authority.. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. ^7 and this event "infused into modern society the doctrine that every individual, even the lowest and meanest, has rights which the State neither confers nor can abro- gate" (Ibid, p. 80). These are rights which the Creator has given to all endowed with reason and free will, and all acts of the State which contravene them are violences and not laws, as St. Augustin has pointed out (Ibid, p. 89). But in the proper sphere of action the State, whatever be its form, is an institution derived from God, through the force of natural law, and is entitled to the allegiance of its citizens, through whom its power is conferred, and to whom it is accountable for any abuse. " The church and the State, as corporations or external governing bodies, are indeed separate in their spheres, and the church does not absorb the State, nor does the State the* church, but both are from God, and both work to the same ends, and when each is rightly understood there is no antithesis or antagonism between them. Men serve God in serving the State as directly as in serving the church. He who dies on the battlefield fighting for his country ranks with him who dies at the stake for his faith. Civic virtues are themselves religious virtues, or at least virtues without which there are no religious virtues, since no man who loves not his brother does or can love God." (Ibid. pp. 127-128.) The State, then, does not proceed from the church, nor the church from the State. The State is a necessary consequence of the law of nature imposed by God, requiring for their very existence that all men shall live in communities of some sort and find its rights to be in " the just consent of the governed." When it imposes regulations contrary to the natural law it is acting outside of its sphere, but within its sphere it is entitled to the obedience of all its inhabitants. The church has proceeded directly from God, was founded by Himself; it takes cognizance of and approves of the existence of the State as it approves of all institutions founded upon the will of its Divine Head. But as to the form of government the church has no dogma. In the language of Balmes, " the Roman Pontiff acknowledges equally as his son the Catholic seated upon the bench of an American assembly and the most humble subject of the most powerful monarch. The Catholic religion is too prudent to descend upon any such ground. Emanating from heaven itself, she diffuses herself, like the light of the sun over all things and enlightens and strengthens all, and is never obscured or tarnished. Her object is to conduct man to heaven by furnishing him in his passage with great assistance and consolation on earth. She ceases not to point out to him eternal truths; she gives him in all his affairs salutary counsels, but the moment we come to mere details she has no obligations to impose, no duty to enjoin. She impresses upon his mind her sacred maxims of morality, admonishing him never to depart from them. Like a tender mother speaking to her son, she says to him: "Pro- vided you depart not from my instructions, do what you consider most prudent (Protest- antism and Catholicity Compound, p. 357.) As has been said by Cardinal Gibbons: " Our Holy Father, Leo. XIII., in his lumi- nous encyclical on the constitution of Christian states declares that the church is not committed to any particular form of civil government — she adapts herself to all. She leaves all with the sacred leaven of the gospel * * * in the congenial atmosphere of liberty; she blossoms as the rose." (Quoted by P. Hacker — " The Church and the Age," p. 101.) Such being the doctrine of the church upon civil government, why should there be any doubt or distrust of American Catholics in the minds of their fellow-citizens? So long as the theory of our republican constitution is carried into practical operation there can be no clashing between the duties owed by the Catholic citizen to his Church and to his State. The cry that he is bound by allegiance to a foreign government because he recognizes the Pope as the visible head of his church is unfair and confus- ing. Whatever be the practice (and the records of American Catholics in all the rela- tions of civic life will at least bear comparison with those of other religionists), his theory in no wise differs from that of men who, in all ages of the world, have felt it right to recognize that there exists a law transcending any that may emanate from human government. It is the same theory which (as has been said) gave Christianity to the Roman Empire, and the assertion of which did much to awaken the conscience of this modern Republic to the evils of African slavery. And when it is understood, this theory will be opposed by none save those philosophers who find in the theories which had their fruition in the French revolution, and have been developed by constant logi- ca' processes into the wild isms of certain of the socialists and anarchists of to-day. If I am right in this exposition of the doctrine of the church (and it needs only to examine the luminous writings of its ablest champions and the authoritative definitions of its Pontiff to show its correctness in theory, while the appeal to history, if requiring !S8 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. more discrimination, is hardly less convincing), no Catholic need be confused in his efforts to perform his duty to the State. The present age, as far as we can know, pre- sents problems for solution more difficult than any that have preceded it, more difficult because history affords no precedents by which men may act upon them. Evils of social life have become so obvious and so dangerous that the best thought of all people is concentrated upon their consideration. Men of undoubted sincerity and of heroic courage, deceived by their own ardor and generous impulses and without guidance from spiritual authority, have not hesitated to advocate theories of relief that involve the complete revolution of that order which has been accepted as second only to revelation. While the church teaches and has taught that the right of private ownership of prop- erty, while not directly of divine ordinance, is yet essential to the well-ordered happiness of mankind, the so-called philosophers of the revolution advocate its unconditional abolition; while the church maintains the doctrines of personal liberty and individual- ism, the tendency of the revolution is to absorb the individual in the State. The revv olution bases its arguments upon the assumption of a social contract and the perfect ability, if not the perfection of human nature per se; the church looks upon govern- ment as a mediate ordinance of God, arising from the constitution of man, and human nature as imperfect, tainted with sin. The revolution insists that the popular will, and the popular alone, is the supreme fount of justice." The church maintains "that justice is anterior to all experience, wholly independ- ent of the volition of any man or number of men, eternal, immutable, absolutely binding upon the race, as upon the totality of existence." (Lily, p. 53). A century of revolution. How widely these lines diverge, it requires no imagination to picture. The doctrines of the revolution, while professing to advocate liberty, equality, and fraternity, have resulted, wherever they have obtained sway, in tyranny, in class legislation, and bitter strife; and developed as they have been by maqy, have led and are leading to a subver- sion of social order that directs the human races back to barbarism. What then is the duty of the Catholic citizen in all countries, but especially in these United States, where the obligations of a free government intensify his responsibility ? Is he to shut hiseyes to the admittedly existing evils ? Or is he to turn them doggedly backward to the ages of faith, and warming his imagination by the contemplation of the glorious relics and traditions of days long gone, when the church was recognized by all civilized peoples as the mother of progress and truth, refuse to recognize the facts of every-day existence. To do this is to grant the truth of the sneer of the atheist and agnostic that the church is the opponent of progress, and can live only in this peculiar athmosphere of medieval- ism. No, there must be a sturdy recognition of the dangers of modern society — dangers that have arisen because men have thrown off the yoke of subjection to the law under which they were born ; and the remedy must be sought in unceasing efforts to re-estab- lish among men the true standard of living. Can any men doubt that if the rich felt universally with a conviction, deep and sincere, the teaching of the church that they were but stewards of the fortunes God has given them, they would no longer be looked upon as a class separated by a wide barrier from their poorer brethren ? Can any man doubt that if there pervaded all ranks of employers the feeling that their work- men should share in proportion their prosperity, there would be fewer strikes and dis- agreements, and the spectre of conflict unceasing between capitalist and laborer would fade from our horizon. Did the laborer in his sufferings look beyond this life to the glories of immortality, could he cherish in his heart hatred and envy of this employer? Here is the disease in our social conditions. The teachings of Christian morality in large portions of the community have been undermined, and in their stead there is naught but the tendencies of our fallen nature to appeal to as the standard of right. Of what avail are theories the most beautiful, plans of political or economical government the most ingenious, based upon a false assumption of the intrinsic excellence of our natures. The pagan civilization was saved from ruin by Christianity. Christianity has taught mankind that in lessons of self-control and unselfishness of the individual alone can the miseries of life be lightened, and to Christianity must men turn in these mod- ern days when dangers not less serious than those that encompassed the ancient world press upon them. The church in all ages has been the most democratic of all organiza- tions; the church alone has taught the true theory of the fraternity and equality of all men before God, and to her precepts must mankind look for the foundation of their meas- ures of relief from present dangers. Under her aegis tyranny, whether of the individual or of the class, whether of the plutocrat or of the proletariat; can not exist. As in days of old she resisted the wrath of despotic kings or checked the cruelty of powerful nobles, so in these modern days she interposes her commands between the antagonistic classes into which society has been so rapidly drifting. She teaches that all men are WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 189 children of a common father, and that the command to love one another must be the keynote of their conduct toward each other. This is all. Let royalist, aristocrat, or democrat plead for the excellence of his plan of human government. She looks not at the details, but at the principles that underlie them, and she tests them all by the standard of her founder's law. To be true to the teaching of his church and false to the republic is impossible for the American Catholic, and in the spread of the morality, political and economical, of which he is the exponent, lies the solution of the problems of modern life. Rev. Dr. William Barry, of Dorchester, England, wrote upon the "Duties of Capital" as follows: In discussing this great and momentous issue, which threatens in the modern world to absorb every other, a Catholic assembly must take its stand upon Catholic and Chris- tian principles. Now Pope Leo XIII. (whom God preserve) has told us in the plainest language that it is labor which has created wealth, and hence that capital, which is merely wealth stored up, is due to labor for its production, preservation, and increase. He argues again and again that the fruits of toil should in justice belong to the toiler; that morality and not mere expediency ought to be the rule of the market, and that men have no warrant for ceasing to be Christians because they are handling goods on the largest scale or dealing with stocks and shares even in Wall Street. But he goes on to say that when he looks out over the world, he sees the old Mam- mon of unrighteousness flourishing under new names. Usury, which was held by the church of the middle ages to be a crime against God and man, is by no means extinct; on the contrary, it has widened its borders and multiplied its victories. The system which in our text books of political economy is termed capitalism has, according to the Pope, "thrown into the hands of a few the control of labor and of the world-commerce, so that a small number of opulent and amazingly rich individuals have laid a yoke almost equal to that of slavery upon the infinite multitude of the proletarians." That is to say, of workmen who possess no capital. These things are sadly exemplified in the monarchies of Europe, but experience proves that their baleful influence has made itself felt in the United States also. The disastrous consequences of capitalism without check or limit do not follow upon any one form of government. They are an immense evil which is growing while we speak. And if on the American continent man is destined to begin a happier century than the nineteenth, it will only come to pass when for the injustice and misery of the present confused and desolating system there is brought in a code of business morals to which the Lord Jesus Christ can give His blessing. The end or purpose of wealth is not simply the production of more wealth nor is it the selfish enjoyment even of those who produce it. Man is a moral and religious being, and the industries which exhaust so large a part of his time, thought, and labor, should be carried out under the law which is supreme in conscience. To make, or increase, or distribute wealth is a social function. It is so because man was intended to live in society, because society does in fact acknowledge and secure his individual rights, and because no one of his single, unaided efforts could store up the accumulated resources to which these " few rich people " are indebted for their leisure and luxury. It is not the " silver king," who has dug out his own mine; neither is it the " railroad king," by whose hands or intellect the railroad has been created. When we allow the utmost to any one man as worker, manufacturer, superintendent, or all three together, it should still be clear to us that the social element in what he produces can never be done away. He enters into the labors of his fellow-men, and they have accordingly their claims upon him, which both justice and charity forbid him to pass over without recompense. If, then, capital, by which I mean private property yielding a revenue, is to exist in a Christian commonwealth, it must fulfill its duties to the public. For it is a trust given to the individual upon condition of his exercising the social function which corre- sponds to it as a Christian ought. And where custom has failed to enforce this view of things, law has every right to interfere. Those who are suffered by the enactments of the State to control the means of production and distribution must be looked upon as in a true sense ministers of the State; subject to its oversight; answerable for their dealings with what they never did and never could create by their own exertion; and not, as many suppose, irresponsible, absolute, and utterly independent "owners "of all the land, water, mines, minerals, and machinery which by legal process they may have acquired. Leo XIII. defines it to be a sin against justice when one man appropriates, whether in the shape of profit, or of tax, or of interest, the fruits of another man's industry with- 190 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. out rsndering him an equal return. He does not Bay that the return must be directly economical. But certainly he does mean that there ought to be an adequate returi of 6ome sort. The rich man, therefore, whose riches are nothing else than the surplus fruits of his fellows' toil, is bound, first, to render a just human wage to the toiler, and second, so to employ this " wealth " which has been put into his hands as. on the whole, to make the condition of those who toil more advantageous to them than if private capital did not exist. In other words, private capital is an expedient, like constitutional government or manhood suffrage, by which the great ends of society are meant to be furthered. It it does this, it is justified; if it does not, how can it endure? The resources of civiliza- tion are earned by one set of men, and disposed of by another. I will not call that an iniquitous arrangement. But it stands to reason that those who distribute are bound to do so for the good of the social organization which they do, in fact, govern. The ministering class of capitalists, supposing they minister, deserve fair wages. But those wages are most unfair which can not be paid except at the cost of a permanent nucleus of misery and demoralization, such as the capitals of Europe have long contained within them, and some of the American cities may now see growing up in their midst Therefore, as " the end of all commerce " is not " individual gain." so it is righteous- ness, and not anarchic revolution, which insists on teaching capitalists their duties toward the organism which supports them. Let vis reckon up some of these duties. Negatively, capitalists have no right to interfere with the workingmen's right to combine in trades unions; and hence they cannot fairly require their workmen to give up belonging to such associations, nor can they make it the condition of a just con- tract. Again they have no right to take advantage of the distress of human beings by beating down the just price of labor; to do so is usury and has been condemned times out of number by the Catholic authorities. Nor must they lay upon their workmen inhuman tasks, whether as regards the length, quality or conditions of labor. And the whole legislation of factory acts, inspec- tion and the protection of women and children is in its idea as truly economic as it is Christian, and capitalists ought not to complain of it. Further, the lowest fair wage is one which, although varying according to country, sex and time of life, will enable the worker to fulfill the ordinary duties of humanity, to keep God's law and to provide against sickness and old age. It is the bounden duty of capitalists to allow their workpeople the Sunday rest. Corporations are as much under these obligations and bound to fulfill them as individuals. Workpeople can not justly contract themselves out of these and similar rights. And every agreement to disregard them is so far null and void. Again, it is elementary good sense, as well as law, that lying, cheating, misrepresen- tation, when they enter into the substance of a contract, make it of no effect. And that a thief can not prescribe or plead lapse of time as legalizing his theft. And that he who has stolen, whether from the public or from private citizens, is bound to restore. And that the greater the robbery the greater the sin. And that even a State is capable of robbing its citizens collectively, as when it surrenders without a proper equivalent rights of way, or public lands, or the common right of market — and, in general, when it creates or suffers to grow up unchecked monopolies which take an undue share of the products of labor, and which violate the economic freedom of others. To make thieves restore their ill-gotten goods, to put down " rings and corners," to keep intact the right of "eminent domain," to safeguard the health, morals, and religious freedom of its citi- zens, are duties incumbent on the State, especially when the majority of the people seem to be at the mercy of private capitalists. Nor can it be objected that these things constitute an " intolerable interference with the rights of property," for property never has any right to do wrong. And, on the whole, weighing impartially the evidence which has accumulated from all sides regarding modern commerce and business. I 'w uld suggest as a meditation for many capitalists these words of St. Paul: " Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth " All this means, then, the imperative necessity of a constitution for capital. Religion furnishes the ideal,_ morality the grounds, and law and custom the methods upon which this mighty task is to be achieved. To make democracy a real thing is all one with limiting, defining, and Christianizing the powers of those who wield at present according to their good pleasure the material resources gathered by the thought, labor and perseverance of millions upon millions. Individual ownership, when divorced from its WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 191 social functions, is the parent of all those barbarians who have now become a menace to civilization from within. No spasmodic attempts at private benevolence, no drib- lets of " ransom " doled out from superfluous millions, no universities called after reigning monopolists, will do the work which society has neglected. The organ- ization of industry means the supremacy of the Christian law in store, factory, market, and exchange. When individuals make their large bequests in the shape of libraries, picture-galleries, parks, or music-halls, they confess that indefinite accumulation of wealth in private hands requires some public apology. Now, all we who have accepted the principle of democratic institutions believe that an absolute monarch is in politics a mistake, an anachronism, a lapse into a less civilized past which we are glad we have left behind. In like manner, and by reasoning no less demonstrative, it may be shown that an absolute monarch in economics is nothing less than the survival of tyranny under a new form. Democracy and unlimited capitalism are simply irreconcilable; they will ever be enemies, one of the other. When the American continent is fully peopled, the handful who are enormously rich will of necessity create and perpetuate a multitude of proletarians sunk into degrading and shameful poverty — serfs with manhood suffrage — -with an acknowledged rignttovote and a more doubtful right to eat. If capitalists do not become servants of the commonwealth they will be its masters. What, then, should the people do in this day of their political supremacy ? Two things, I answer. They should insist, by custom and legislation, on making the con- tract between capitalist and workingman a just human bargain, on the lines so plainly drawn out by Leo XIII. in his encyclical. And they should defend, by every fair means at their disposal, the rights of public property, which is, in fact, their property, not permitting it to be sold, or squandered, or stolen away, under pretense that the individual who is going to get rich by appro- priating it has acquired a legal claim upon that which in such absolute fashion never could legally be made over to him. If all this amounts to no less than reforming your legislatures, then, in God's name, set about reforming them, root and branch. And if a mandate to your executive is required, shall it never be forthcoming? Is not the responsibility of a free citizen something which he neither can nor ought to give to another? Your political freedom should bring with it economic justice. There is little meaning else in that declaration of independence which is written upon American hearts. At all events, let not those who uphold democracy imagine that capitalism without religious or moral obligations to society at large is but the proper expression of its prin- ciples, or that State interference with it is against the constitution. Just because all citizens have an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it is undemocratic, un-American and un-Christian, that a few should be millionaires without duties, and that the millions should become a proletariat deprived of decent leisure, home affections, Sunday rest, and the possibility of serving God religiously; or be doomed, in spite of their utmost efforts, to see old age coming upon them with no refuge but charity or the workhouse. Our hope is that the Christian democracy of America will, by peaceful and appro- priate legislation, put an end to these things which have lasted too long. It seems to me, in an especial way, the duty of Christian teachers, be they laymen or ecclesiastics, to hasten that wished-for consummation, and to show that the gospel in which they believe is indeed a law of liberty, the condition of the highest form of government and as fraternal as it is just. Dr. Charles A. Wingerter, of Wheeling, W. Va., read an interesting paper on "Public and Private Charities." He said: It is fitting that a Catholic Congress should take up the consideration of the great problem of practical charity, for charity is the heart of the new dispensation whose hold upon the world of men a Catholic Congress is designed to strengthen. It is especially fitting that this problem should be of interest to an American Catholic Congress, for poverty tends to be especially dangerous in a republic, and inequality in social condition, in the possession of power, in the distribution of wealth, though, perhaps, it will ever exist, is most out of place in a land like ours, whose greatest boast before the nations is that it would have all men equals. It is meet and just, then, that we, as American Catholics, face fairly and squarely this question of public and private charities, and how they shall be made more beneficial and effective. There should be no need of enforcing upon Catholics the duty of charity. Time was when it was a new doctrine that we are bound to love and work good to all men, 43 , 9 2 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. even to our enemies. That time is past. The blessed doctrine of the Saviour is now a platitude, a commonplace. The danger is that familiarity with it may lead us to indif- ference. It is therefore wise that on occasions like this we should remind ourselves of the doctrine and duty of charity; that we should put ourselves anew into right adjust- ment with it, and make right adjustment between it and the tendency surrounding us. It is common knowledge that the distinguishing characteristic of the century is a fine impatience to be doing good. Altruism is the shibboleth of the hour. Philantro- phy is the banner of the times. What the Germans well name the "Zeitgeist," the spirit of the age, may be described as a two-fold desire: First, the desire to systemize all things which is embodied in the modern scientific spirit; and secondly, that material good things shall be distributed among all men. Of this latter desire are born communism and socialism, under whatever mask they hide. Add to these two desires but one thing, the spirit of the church, which is identical with the spirit of Christ, her spouse, and there will be evolved therefrom a motive power and a means of surely making public and pri- vate charities more effective and beneficial. The spirit of the church must come first, however. An edifice cannot outstand its foundations. Charity and philanthropy, if they are to be lasting, must not be reared on the shifting sands of a false philosophy. Man is a creature of motives. His con- duct will not outlive the motives that inspire it. Before all else, then, he must have a great and lasting motive for his charity. There has been evolved during the century a philosophy, called by its followers a religion, which inspires much of the philanthropy of the day, though the philanthropists themselves do not always perceive it. This philo- sophy, the positivism of Comte, teaches the worship of humanity and can urge charity to the poor for no higher motive than this, that poverty is directly degrading to the poor and thus indirectly degrading to humanity. Therefore poverty must be abo- lished. Positivism is a husk of glamour round a heart of weakness. Humanity in the abstract is too vague a deity for human hearts to worship, and philanthropy done in so unreal a spirit and for so untangible an end is surely doomed to death. A new life, which is the old life of the ages of faith, must be infused into modern philanthropy if it is to be saved from going down to death with dying positivism. Therefore the necessity of crying aloud from the housetops to all the passers-by the sweet doctrines of Christian charity. Therefore the fitness that from this Congress should go forth an earnest reminder of those doctrines and the duties flowing from them. The poor are God's chosen ones — beati pauperes. Nay, they are His representa- tives. He was one of them when on earth, and He left as one of our precious legacies the assurance that what we do for the least of them is done even to Himself. Such is the first great truth that serves as a part of the corner-stone of Christian charity. The second is no less known to us, for the New Testament but rehearses the truth of the old dispensation when it bids us be ever mindful that we are only stewards set over part of the riches of this world. " The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts." We are but the almoners of His bounty, and shall be called to give an account of our stewardship. Thus far all is clear enough. God demands from us part at least of the increase of the substance He has given us. He has left us His representatives on earth to receive it — His poor and the Ministers of His Gospel. Now, how can we make this duty tangible? Surely we have not been left without a standard to gauge our faithfulness to the duty of returning to God His portion. One of the greatest difficulties in the way of practical charity work will have been overcome when we have all learned to set aside a definite portion of our income for the poor. The amount given in charity is too often measured by the transient feelings and circumstances of the hour when call is made upon us; and we too often allow the poor to suffer because of the follies and extravagances which have eaten up the portion that should be reserved for the luxury of charity. What we waste foolishly must not be made amends for from the portion of God and His poor, but from our own portion. But, it will be asked, how much does God demand from us? At least one-tenth. Some will not conceive their duty so narrowly and will be generous, giving more than one-tenth, but the sad truth is that many give less and some nothing. The whole Christian world does not give to God more than one-third of the one-tenth due. If any among us find ourselves startled, as some of us may, at the thought of parting with one-tenth of our incomes, thinking it too much, be assured we have not really believed the teaching of God's church during the vanished centuries and to-day, for that teaching is plain beyond all dispute. We must not allow the luxuries which we love to win us from the mindfulness of the dangers and responsibilities of wealth; to seduce us from our duty on the specious plea that "charity begins at home." Direct duty to God is before all else, and even before ourselves and families may profit from our income God s WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. ICl _ part must belaid aside and kept sacredly for Him. And if there be any here who are so weak in faith as not to trust God in this matter without His express promise that they shall not lose by obeying Him, even they must not think to escape. The Omnipotent has given His word that the paradoxical shall become truth. " Some distribute their own goods and grow richer; others take away what is not their own and are always in want." Pro. xi., 24. " Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first of all thy fruits, and thy barns shall be filled with abundance and thy presses shall run over with wine." Pro. iii., 9-10. It is even to our worldly, material interest to fulfil the law in this matter. If we take God into partnership with us in our worldly business (I speak in all respect and humanly) He has promised that He will prosper us. "Try Me in this," saith the Lord. If we obey His ordinance and tithe our income for the propagation of the faith and the relief of His poor, He will open for us the flood-gates of heaven and pour us forth a blessing even to abundance. Observe how expressly He promises mate- rial blessings, wealth, and honor, and power, and prosperity, so that all nations shall call us blessed. And we know that the God of Truth can not become a liar and a breaker of promises. And by way of parenthesis, I should say that I believe one of the secrets of the proverbial great material prosperity of the Jewish people throughout the world is to be found in the fact that nearly all, either through custom or conviction, tithe their incomes for the benefit of their poor even to this day. The German mind is eminently a scientific mind, and to the Germans we owe a sys- tem of charity work which is theoretically perfect, and if it be not absolutely without all flaw in practice, the reason is that the faults of our frail human nature enter into every work done by human agents, I wish to call your earnest attention to this sys- tem, for it is the best answer of which I know to the question that forms the title of this paper. How shall public and private charities be made more effective and benefi- cial? Let us first, however, duly emphasize the truth that there should be method in our giving. The necessity for organized charity is especially evident in the towns and the cities. In hamlets and villages, where every man and hie real wants and deserts are known of his neighbors, the spirit of neighborly helpfulness suffices to bring relief to the distress of the worthy poor. There is here little danger of hurtful giving. But where, as in larger centers of population, the helped are always to some extent strangers to the helpers, and where the needy, who still retain some part of their self- dependence, must be sought out if they are to be helped, gifts are often bestowed on the unworthy, while deserving unfortunates are left in distress. The newspapers have too often recorded the story of a starving family found too late. And perhaps over the way the thriftless and the lazy, who do not shrink from making full parade of their wants, and by long practice are become adepts in the parading, are riotously abusing the charity that would have relieved the worthy victims of poverty and saved them to life and to life's hopes and efforts. This is no fancy picture I am snggesting. Such miscarriages are as common as they are shameful, and are due to a lack of organized charity, They are to be laid at the door of indiscriminate giving. Indiscriminate giving is hurtful whenever it puts a premium on deception; and it does no good when it serves as a cloak to hide the fact that the givers give less than their share. Most often these results are its only fruit. As I have already said, Germany has offered, in what is now universally known as the Elberfeld system of charity organization, a model that we would do well to follow, for it seems as nearly perfect a practical system as human brains can devise, I sincerely regret that a hurried outline of this plan is all that I can venture upon here if I would not have you turn from me as from a guest who has outstayed his welcome. First of all, it is an outdoor system, in contra-distinction to the poorhouse system. Our present method of public charity is an inherited tradition that finds full force in the Englisn poor law. Our public charity may be described very briefly; we pay our taxes and support a poorhouse and then rid ourselves of any further responsibility in the matter. The self-acting poorhouse test is our ultimatum. If a person is not willing to go to the city or county poorhouse we assume that he does not need or deserve public help. It needs no second thought to see how false a test this is, as we apply it. Could we not more truthfully say: A man who, rather than vegetate in an almshouse, pre- fers to stay in the struggle of life and to make another effort to overcome defeat is the man most deserving of aid? The soul of the German system is a desire to help the laggards in the march of life to a more effectual struggle. Where the English system lets him who has fallen by the wayside lie to rot in soul and body, the German system offers him a helping hand. One of our most earnest strivers in the cause of practical scientific charity work has described so well the difference between the English and the German methods that I make bold to quote his words. Professor F. G. Peabody says: x 9 4 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. "These two systems start from opposite points of view and proceed on opposite principles. The English test of poverty is the willingness of the pauper to go to t he poorhouse; the German testis thatof personal and continual investigation of each i The English plan, roughly speaking, is for the town to do as little for the poor outsido of its institutions as is safe for the community; the German plan is to do as much as is safe. English citizens are accustomed to let the poor law ruin itself; German citizens are trained to be its agents. Thus the one plan, completely carried out, would be wholly official and mechanical; the other would be wholly personal and human. The one is defensive of the community; the other is educative of the community. The one opposes outdoor relief; the other consists almost wholly of outdoor relief. The one frees citizens at large from obligation to the poor, except through taxation; the other calls on citizens at large to serve the poor as a part of their duty to society. We stand for the present between these two principles. On one hand the* official work of our cities is done for the most part under the English tradition. On the other hand, our private charity is guided more and more by the Elberfeld model. Which way are we likely to move? Which tradition is likely to prevail V " I have spoken of the German system as new, meaning that it is new to America. His not new in the sense of being an untried theory. It was introduced in Elberfeld in 1853, since which time it has won its way by sheer force of worth and effective practica bility, until it is to-day actively in operation in more than thirty-five German towns and cities, such as Barmen (1862), Bremen (1878), Dresden 1 1880), Leipzig (1881), Frankfurt (1883), Berlin (1884), Stuttgart (1886), Hamburg (1891 ). The main feat ares of the Elber- feld system which distinguish it from private charily work in this country most approaching it in spirit and method are two: First, the distribution of work by spaces instead of cases; and secondly, the institution of a thoroughly maintained charity clear ing-house or central office. This central office is, moreover, like a bridge uniting public and private work, enabling them to be mutually helpful, saving for each a vast deal of labor and time and money. Now to explairra little in detail. An ample corps of the best members of the com- munity are selected by the public authorities to act as visitors. In ( rermany the munic- ipal system is universally compulsory, but to read the list of the visitors is to rind names which make the list a roll of honor. The whole city is divided into small squares, a certain number of which aro aggregated into a ward conference. To each of these squares is detailed a visitor, generally onolivi ng in l he near neighborhood. It is his duty to know if there are any families within his district absolutely in need of immediate relief, and he is empowered to furnish such temporary relief until his ward confer- ence, which meets every week, shall take the matter up. Whenever more than live families needing help are found in any square, it is redivided and a new worker put on. These visitors report to the ward conference, which relieves temporary wants and in turn refers important questions to the central committee. This central committee represents the different interests involved in charity work, is elected for short terms and is responsible to the people. At its head is a responsible, directing superintendent who, like the president of a bank or railroad, holds his position for a long service — in fact during efficiency, and is thus enabled to work effectively and skillfully as manager of the central office or clearing-house, where the records of all cases of need and help are kept. An instance will show how admirably public and private charities, by means of this central office, are enabled to work in harmony and to mutual advantage, and with economy of work and means. A case of temporary nefed arises and is reported to a private society, which relieves temporarily but invariably reports to the central office. Here the history of the case is promptly referred to. The records permit immediate answers to the following ques- tions: What is the petitioner's reputation on the record? Has he received help from the city? From any other relief society? From any local benefit society? From any trades union? Are there any convictions or bad reports against him in the police offices? Has he answered truthfully the questions of the visitor? The answers to these and such like questions enable the private society to decide if the case be appropriate to its sphere. If so the case is accepted; if not it is referred back to the central office and from there to the proper channel of relief. Thus the assignment of cases to the appropriate charity becomes easy; the duplication of relief to designing impostors is made practically impossible and the labor of investigation is done once for all. Such is the system in outline. Now let us rehearse briefly some of the more salient advantages that commend it. Best of all, it makes thorough work possible. We all know that with the present method of assigning workers to cases instead of to small districts it often happens that cases just as necessitous on the same street are over- WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. *95 looked. The same unfortunate thing occurs where visitors have a large district to over- see — a whole ward, for instance. IS or is this surprising. Thorough work is practically impossible with our present methods. We must have a new method if we are to work effectively. There might be suggested to your minds as an objection to the German method that difficulty in finding visitors enough would render it impracticable. This objection disappears with a second thought. The present difficulty to find charity workers arises from the magnitude and indefinite character of the work. Any one who has had any experience in charity work will confirm me on this point. Men will say: " See here, I don't care to undertake the work you propose because it may grow to such proportions that my time and business will not permit me to attend to it ] roperly. I am willing to help, but what I do must be definite. I will give a specified sum of money every week or month, because I know then to what I am binding myself." Suppose, however, that we should say to such men: " Will you, under printed instructions, take upon yourself to supervise Market Street from Twenty -Fifth to Twenty-Sixth streets on condition that if you find more than four families needing continuous help your district will be subdivided? " Few would be found to refuse and there would be no difficulty in finding visitors for all the small squares. Many men who are now willing, perhaps anxious, to take up practical poor relief are deterred by present methods, and would enlist themselves in the ranks of helpers when the work is specified and definitely fixed by rule.' With the new system, as has been said, the labor of investigation is done once for all. This point is important, because the unworthy poor, knowing that they are sure of temporary relief during investigation, shrewdly use this knowledge where there is no clearing-house such as I am describing. They apply in turn to all the charitable associations and, since under present methods the investigation in each case is to be repeated, they are encouraged to postpone all effort at self-help until they have made the tour of all the relief societies. Where the Elbe- Id system is in practice no encouragement is given to those who make a profession w abusing charity. In this system, then, we have not only organized and personal work but uplifting and educative work, inasmuch as it encourages self-help, self-respect, self-dependence. In every appeal for help the reputation of the petitioner and the condition of his home must be described by the visitor, it is to the advantage of the applicant to be described as moral, upright, neat, and thrifty. He is not tempted to make his personal condition and surrounding filthy and degraded. Rather is he encouraged to be clean in character, person, and home, for he thus increases his chances of sub- stantial help. If charity is to be truly effective it must restore, where need be, and at all events preserve physical, moral, and mental health and vigor among the needy. To take to them money or food or fuel is not enough. We must take to them knowl- edge and a stronger will; we must infuse into them a life which is so virile and robust as to throw off poverty as a healthy body throws off disease; nay, rather a life which impels and helps them to raise themselves out of the atmosphere and surroundings which poverty needs to thrive in. To borrow an illustrative example from the science of medicine, the wise physician would not be content to administer anti-malarial medicines to the dwellers in a swamp. He would also encourage them to rise up from their miasmatic surroundings and find higher ground, to flee from the cause of their distemper. In like manner, we must not be content simply to tide the poor over a week of hunger if they will be as hungry in a week to come. To be satisfied simply with giving relief to present distress is, in many cases, simply to make assured the recurrence of such distress. We must take to the needy strength to make efforts in their own behalf. We must fortify them for a more effectual struggle. ButT must end, though I have been able to give only the roughest outline of this admirable German system and its main developments. I would like especially to speak of the tramp-colonies and the child-colonies. The aim of these colonies is but a partic- ular application of the general principle of the German system — that is, thorough char- ity work — the carrying of individual cases to recovery. The tramp-colonies serve as breathing spots for the struggling traveler on life's journey, and the child-colonies strive to save the children. When, as unfortunately happens sometimes, men and women have pursued evil courses so long that they can no longer be roused to hate the causes of poverty, which are discouragement, vice, and unfitting surroundings, the one thing urgent is to save the children. But, these features are refinements of the system and therefore forbidden a place in such a limited paper as this, which must now come to an end. I will be more than content if, by calling your attention to the system, I can bring you to interest yourselves in a study of it. Admiration will do the rest. 196 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. Now to rehearse briefly the ideas which I would that we could all carry home with us to serve as seeds of earnest practical efforts to make public and private char- ities both effective for the relief of the poor and beneficial to ourselves as well as to them. 1. All charity work must be done along the line of moral considerations if it is to be lasting, and therefore we must strengthen the moral forces. We have a duty to the poor and should appreciate it fully. We have not appreciated it fully if we have not realized the grounds on which that duty rests. We have not appreciated it fully unless we recognize its tangibleness, unless we learn to remember always that a certain portion of our income is owed as a debt of honor to the Master and to the poor, His pensioners. 2. After these two lessons have been well learned and put into practice, there must be personal sacrifice of time and service to the cause of our less fortunate brethren. 3. Our work must be organized, discriminating, with no waste of time or labor or money. 4. It must be humane, done in the spirit of fraternal sympathy. A Good Samaritan is wanted and not a charity machine. 5. It must be educative, elevating the helpers and the helped. 6. It must be continuous. Every individual case must be carried to recovery. We must keep fast hold of our stumbling brother's hand until we have helped him to the ground where he can advance alone. In a word, our charity must be thorough and it will be effective. I have almost done. My spirit sinks within me when I think how jejune and hurried and unsatisfactory is all that I have written, and how overwhelmingly vast, how almost inexhaustible is the subject that inspires the treatise. I can only hope that my effort has not been altogether vain. My pen and lips are young and inexperienced, but my heart is full. If I can but persuade you to take with you as my charity offering one tithe of the earnestness with w T hich I put these few thoughts before you, your own Christian nobleness of heart and love of duty will enable you to far outstrip in deeds the thoughts suggested in this paper, Let each one of us go home resolved that charity shall no longer be the vague, unknowable angel she has been in the past. Let us realize that if hitherto she has walked lame and halting it is because we have by our indifference thrown stumbling-blocks in the way she has so eagerly but hopelessly pur- sued; because we have mockingly bid her God-speed on her bright errand of mercy, and yet have taken her hand only to serve as a drag-chain to hinder her advance, if indeed we have even offered to her that semblance of help. Henceforth all shall be different. Henceforth we shall know charity for what she is — the fairest handmaid of religion. When we leave this hall let every man go resolved to do something tangible and prac- tical for the cause of charity before the next Congress meets. Consider a moment how much will have been done for the cause of rational charity work if, as a result of this meeting, every man here present resolves here and now sacredly to put apart for the betterment of the poor that portion of his income which belongs to them by right; and if in only one out of every ten of the cities represented here there shall have been estab- lished, by the time of the next Congress, a charity clearing-house or a system of work- ing that will cover the ground, making it impossible for those cities to be shamed by some suddenly discovered case of harrowing and long-standing distress. And, however humbly a man may have done his part in feeding the hungry, in giving drink to the thirsty, in clothing the naked, in healing the sick, and in consoling the sorrowing, if only he has done it earnestly, on the Book of Life will be written of him as is written of his Elder Brother, Christ, pertransivit benefaciendo — " He went on His way doing good." And when time and life have worried him like a spent hound, and he is laid to rest, he Jiveth still, for " to live in hearts we leave behind is not to die." Thomas F. Ring, of Boston, Mass., in his paper "Public and Private Charities; How Can They Be Made More Effective and Beneficial— a Cath- olic Layman's Experience," said in substance: It was my fortune to have been introduced by a good priest to the Society of St, Vincent de Paul, in Boston, in 1863. I have remained in its ranks up to the present time, In this best of training schools for a layman, I have seen much of charity as dispensed by Catholic and Protestant organizations. When the opportunity of taking part in public charities presented itself I felt it to be my duty as a citizen to do my share for the good of the unfortunate of all classes in the community, and gave nine years of WORLDS COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 197 unpaid service to the Overseers of the Poor, as the contribution of one whose modest financial means have never permitted him to do much good except through personal services. An excellent opportunity to visit and closely study the various public institutions of the city of Boston, was given me last year. In this series of visits, I had in mind two objects, first, the public good, and, second, the interests of the Catholic inmates. The immediate cause that gave this chance of seeing the inside workings of the public insti- tutions was the frequent complaints appearing in the newspapers regarding the manage- ment of the different houses by the Commissioners of Public Institutions. Outbreaks in the prisons, magnified into riots; reports of overcrowding in the lunatic asylum, and lack of proper care or sufficient attendance; neglect and disorder in the almshouse; the entire lack of any serious attempt to improve the boys sent for reformation; a confusion and absence of any valuable results from the method of car- rying on the truant school. A well-qualified lawyer, two physicians of high local repute, one business man, a lady who has been years secretary of a State board, another lady member of the Overseers of the Poor, and one excellent woman, a quiet but effi- cient worker in Catholic charities, made up the committee to visit the institutes. When the final report of the committee was made public the w T hole press of the citj declared the document to be one of lasting value, and, coming from a source that could not be accused of having any political bias, was entitled to receive the confidence of the people. The calm, temperate tone of the document, the plain intent to be per- fectly fair while being perfectly fearless, giving the commissioners full credit for all the good points revealed by the inquiry, still pointing the way to many improvements in the general methods in management, certainly gave great weight to the recommenda- tions of the committee. What was the immediate result? The appropriation of $327,000 for the purchase of land and the ereqtion of a first-class modern hospital for the insane. Four hundred new cells for the House of Industry. The closing of the truant school on the island when the new parental school, authorized to be built, shall be completed. Within a few months an incident led to the passing of a city ordinance authorizing the mayor to appoint a visiting committee of five, two of whom to be women, to inspect the public institutions and to report at the end of the year, or at any time, to the mayor as to the condition of the institutions and their recommendations in relation to the same. The committee, during their term last year, visited many of the lunatic asylums, prisons, and almshouses in the State, and consulted with officials and individuals who had knowledge of the broad question of the care of the defective, delinquent, and dependent classes, as they are termed. In the course of this widened search careful note was taken of the number of Catholic inmates by the two Catholic members of the com- mittee. Beginning with the city institutions, we found that three-quarters of all the poor and the prisoners were of the Catholic faith. In the Reformatory for Boys and the Boys' Truant School the proportion holds practically the same. In the State institu- tions one-half of the children are Catholics. The city institutions are attended by priests and every reasonable opportunity is given by the commissioners to the inmates to avail themselves of the religious ministrations. The policy of the city and State is to retain children within the institutions for only the shortest term, then to place them at board in families at the public cost, or to bind them out to learn some trade or calling until eighteen years of age, without payment of board. Here, then, in our commonwealth were 2,000 Catholic children, nearly all in Protestant families, or likely to be in them within a year. The Catholics usually have so many of their own to care for that one must generally look elsewhere for the childless home waiting for the homeless child. Here is a fearful annual loss to the church. Is it only in Massachusetts such a loss can be found? The policy of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Boston, in the domain of private charities, has been to join hands at once with our Protestant fellow-citizens in any work where it felt it could be of any use to Catholic poor children. "Don't meddle with the faith of the Catholic child and we will go any length with you " is what we have said from the start. We have found our Protestant fellow-citizens, as a rule, well disposed, and, without surrendering our Catholic faith, we can work side by side with them for the good of the community of which we are a part. Our danger does not lie so much in the antagonism of our Protestant neighbors as in the apathy of our Catholic selves. Now, I will venture to say, no Catholic child in Boston need drift out of Catholic hands if the facts can be placed in our possession in time. Protestant societies inform us of Catholic children ; we turn over all Protestant children to Protestant societies. We are in the field to protect our own and have our hands full. I9 £>, WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. If I were asked to say in one word how the public and private charities of the country can be made more beneficial and useful, I should select the word "co-opera- tion." Co-operation, frankly and cordially, with all our fellow-citizens (or the common good of the community. A Catholic citizen is bound, under command of God, to yield faithful obedience to lawfully constituted civil authority. When the Stale arrogates to itself the power that belongs toTieaven and attempts to seat itself in the throne of God, He is justified in repudiating the usurped authority. The care of the sick, the demented, the destitute child, and feeble age, is part of the duty of the whole community, and every citizen who can help should not at need, refuse or withhold his aid. In addition to his duty as a good citizen he has another duty as a Catholic: To watch with tender care over the poor who are of the household of the faith; to work hand in hand with all who labor for the temporal and spiritual good of the little ones of Christ; to give him- self, which is worth more than mere giving of money. Let him hold constantly in his mind the warning of St. James, "Faith without works is dead." Let his faith be a living faith, full of good works for his country, full of good works for God. SIXTH DAY. On Saturday, September 9th, the proceedings of this memorable gathering came to an end, with the most fervid enthusiasm, in the presence of a vast concourse of the clergy and laity. Following are the adopted RESOLUTIONS OF THE CONGRESS. The Columbian Catholic Congress of the United States, assembled in Chicago, in the year of grace, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three, with feelings of pro- found gratitude to Almighty God for the manifold blessings which have been vouch- safed to the Church in the United States and to the whole American people, and which blessings in the material order have found their compendious expression in the marvel- ous Exposition of the World's Fair held to commemorate the four hundredth anniver- sary of the discovery of this continent by the great Catholic navigator, Christopher Columbus, conforming to the custom of such occasions adopt the following resolutions: 1. We reaffirm the resolutions of the Catholic Congress held in Baltimore, Nov. 11 and 12, A. D. 1889. 2. We declare our devoted loyalty and unaltered attachment to our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII., and we thank him for sending us a special representative, and we enthusiastically hail his Apostolic Delegate as the hostage of his love for America and a pledge of his paternal solicitude for our country and its institutions. It is the sense of this Congress that the Vicar of Christ must enjoy absolute independence and autonomy in the exercise of that sublime mission, to which, in the providence of God, he has been called as the head of the Church for the welfare of religion and humanity. 3. We congratulate our Hierarchy on the wondrous growth and development of the Church throughout the United States, the results, under God, of the united wisdom and unselfish devotion of those true shepherds of the Christian flock, and we pledge to our bishops and priests our unfaltering devotion and fidelity. 4. While the signs of the times are hopeful and encouraging, and material prosper- ity is more widely diffused than in any previous age, we should be willfully blind should we fail to recognize the existence of dangers to the Church and to society requiring a most earnest consideration. Among the most obvious of these dangers is the growing discontent among those who earn their living by manual labor. A spirit of antagonism has been steadily growing between the employer and the employed that has led in many instances to deplorable results. The remedies suggested vary from the extreme of anarchical revolution to different types of state socialism. These remedies, by whatever names they may be called, with whatever zeal and sincerity they are urged, must fail wherever they clash with the prin- ciples of truth and justice. We accept as the sense of this Congress, and urge upon the consideration of all men, whatever be their religious views or worldly occupations, the Encyclical of our Holy Father Leo XIII., on the " Condition of Labor," dated May 15, A. D. 1891. In the spirit of his luminous exposition of this subject, we declare that no remedies can meet with our approval save those which recognize the right of private ownership of property and human liberty. Capital can not do without labor, nor labor WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 199 without capital. Through the recognition of this interdependence and under the Chris- tian law of love and by mutual forbearance and agreement must come the relief, for which all good men should earnestly strive. 5. We strongly indorse the principles of conciliation and arbitration as an appro- priate remedy for the settlement of disagreements between employer and employed, to the end that strikes and lockouts may be avoided; and we recommend the appointment by this Congress of a committee to consider and devise some suitable method of carry- ing into operation a system of arbitration. 6. We suggest to our clergy and laity as a means of applying the true principles of Christian morality to the sociaf problems that have now attained such importance the formation of societies, or the use of already existing societies of Catholic men, for the diffusion of sound literature and the education of their minds on economic subjects, thus counteracting the pernicious efforts of erroneous teachings; and we especially recommend the letters of our Holy Father, particularly those on " Political Power," " Human Liberty," and " The Christian Constitution of the State." The condition of great numbers of our Catholic working girls and women in large towns and cities is such as to expose them to serious temptations and dangers, and we urge, as a meritori- ous work of charity as well as of justice, the formation of Catholic societies for their assistance, encouragement, and protection. We advocate also the continued extension of Catholic life insurance, beneficial, and fraternal societies. The work that such asso- ciations have already accomplished warrants the belief that they are founded upon true principles. 7. One of the great causes of misery and immorality is the indiscriminate massing of people in cities and large towns and their consequent crowding into tenement houses, where the children are, from their infancy, exposed to every bad example and corrupt- ing influence. This evil has drawn the attention of legislators in foreign countries. We believe it wise charity to help the poor to help themselves, and therefore advise the adoption of appropriate measures to encourage and assist families to settle in agricult- ural districts. As indicated by the Holy Father, the true policy is to induce as many as possible to become owners of the land. 8. In discharging the great duty of Christian charity the Catholic laity can and should do much by personal service to supplement the admirable work of the religious orders devoted to charity, and we urge them to join or otherwise encourage the confer- ences of the Saint Vincent de Paul and kindred organizations for rendering systematic aid to the needy. And we would recall to the minds of all people the time-honored Catholic practice of setting apart from their incomes a proportionate sum for charity. 9. An obvious evil to which may be traced a very large proportion of the sorrows that afflict the people is the vice of intemperance. While we believe that the individual should be guided in this matter by the dictates of right conscience, we cannot too strongly commend every legitimate effort to impress upon our fellowmen the dangers arising not only from the abuse, but too often from the use. of intoxicating drink. To thi& end we approve and most heartily commend the temperance and total abstinence societies already formed in many parishes, and we advise their multiplication and exten- sion. We favor the enactment of appropriate legislation to restrict and regulate the sale of intoxicating liquors, and emphasizing the admonition of the last Plenary Council of Baltimore, we urge Catholics everywhere to get out and keep out of the saloon business. 10. To the members of our secular clergy, religious orders, and laity who are devoting their lives to the noble work of educating the Indian and negro races, we extend our hearty sympathy and offer our co-operation. We congratulate them on the consoling success thus far attending their labors, and wish them Godspeed. 11. As the preservation of our national existence, the constitution under which we live, and all our rights and liberties as citizens depend upon the intelligence, virtue, and morality of our people, we must continue to use our best efforts to increase and strengthen our parochial schools and Catholic colleges, and to bring all our educational institutions to the highest standard of excellence. It is the sense of this Congress, therefore, that Catholic education should be steadfastly upheld, according to the decrees of the Coun- cil of Baltimore and the decisions of the Holy See thereon. In the elevating and directing influence of Christian higher education in particular we recognize the most potent agency for the wise solution of the great social problems now facing mankind. We recognize the signal wisdom of our Holy Father, Leo XIII., and of the American hierarchy in founding an institution of. highest Christian learning in our national capi- tal. And with confidence in their wisdom so to direct it that it shall be fully adequate to the needs of our age and our country, we cordially pledge to them our active 200 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. co-operation in making it one of the chief glories of the Catholic Church and of the Amer- ican Republic. We appeal to our fellow-citizens of all religious denominations to teach the risino- veneration to love, honor, am 1 fea r i >ur <•< immon Creator, and to instill into their hearts sound principles of morality, without which our glorious political liberty can not continue. Profoundly appreciating the love for education shown by the Sovereign Pon- tiff and our bishops, we repeat what has been said in this Congress— that " it is only the school bell and the church bell which can prolong the echo of the liberty bell." 12. We desire to encourage the Catholic Summer School of America, recently established on Lake Chainplain, as a means of promoting education on university exten- sion lines, and we also commend the forming of Catholic reading circles as an aid to the summer school, and an adjunct to higher education in general. 13. We recognize in the Catholic Truth Society of America one of the results of the first American Catholic Congress of Baltimore, and. believing it to be admirably adapted to the needs of the times, we earnestly recommend it to the Catholic laity as offering them an excellent means of co-operating with Holy Church in her glorious work of disseminating Catholic truth. 14. As immoral literature is one of the chief agencies in this country and in Europe for the ruin of faith and morality, we recommend a union of Catholics and non-Catho lies for the suppression of this' evil, whether in the form of bad books, sensational newspapers, or obscene pictorial representations. 15. We have no sympathy with any effort made to secularize the Sunday. We urge upon our fellow-citizens to join in every effort to preserve that day as sacred, in accordance with the precepts and traditions of the Church. 16. We heartily approve of the principle of arbitration in the settlement of the international disputes. We rejoice in the happy results that have already attended the application of this ancient principle of our holy mother, the Church, and we earnestly hope that it may be extended and that thereby the evils of war between nations may be gradually lessened and finally prevented. Finally, as true and loyal citizens, we declare our love and veneration for our glori- ous Republic, and we emphatically deny that any antagonism can exist between our duty to our Church and our duty to the state. In the language of the Apostolic Dele- gate, let our watchword be, "Forward! in one hand the Gospel of Christ and in the other the Constitution of the United States." Let us keep on in the path of virtue and religion, that the blessings of our national liberties, born of the stern energy and moral- ity of our forefathers, may be preserved for all time as a sacred heritage. On rising to deliver the closing address, Cardinal Gibbons was received with the utmost enthusiasm. He saluted the chairman, archbishops, and pre- lates on the platform, and said: THE CARDINAL'S CLOSING ADDRESS. Ladies and Gentlemen : Owing to the condition of my health, which is not very strong to-day, and the brief notice that I received to address you this morning, my remarks will be necessarily very short, but I assure you they will come from the depth of my heart. When I had the honor to address you on last Monday morning, at the opening of this Catholic Congress, I expressed the fond anticijKition that the prayer of hope that was offered up then would be crowned to-day by a thanksgiving full of grati- tude to God and of joy and jubilation. My fondest anticipations have been more than realized. This Congress has been a great success. The eyes of the civilized world, as you all know, have been directed during those days toward what is called the White City of Chicago, and I may also add that the ears of the Catholic world have been attentive to the voice that has proceeded from this hall of Congress; and the voice that came forth from this hall has uttered no uncertain sound. There has been no confusion, no conflict, no dissension; but there has been peace and concord and unanimity from beginning to end. The voice of the Congress has succeeded in dissipating prejudices and in removing many misunderstandings in regard to the teachings and practices of the Church of God. First of all, as was right to do, the voice issuing from this hall has proclaimed the necessity of honoring and glorifying God. It has been a voice in behalf of God and of religion. Next to religion our love for our country should be predominant, and there- fore we have recently heard a resolution offered and adopted attesting the love and affection which we have for our country and for our political institutions. ThiB Con- gress has also proclaimed the necessity of good government, and it has told us that there WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. 201 can oe no good government without law and order, that there can be no law without authority, there can be no authority without justice, there can be no justice without religion, there can be no religion without God. I need not say that the voice of this Congress has also gone forth in vindication of the rights of labor and also of its obligations. We have spoken in the cause of humanity and the cause of the toiling masses, and we have been told that every honest labor in this country is honorable. Ever since Jesus Christ, our Savior, worked in a carpenter shop at Nazareth he has shed a halo around the workshop, and he has made labor honorable. This Congress has also spoken both during its sessions and by its resolutions in the cause of Christian education. It has spoken of the importance and the great necessity of Catholic education. At the same time let it not be understood that whilst we are advocating Catholic education we are oppposed to secular education. The whole history of the Church speaks the contrary. There can be no conflict between secular ami religious knowledge. Religious and secular knowledge, like Mary and Martha, are sisters, because they are the children of the same God. Secular knowledge, like Martha. is busy about the things of this world, while religious knowledge, like Mary, is found kneeling at the feet of her Lord. But above all, ladies and gentlemen, the voice of this Congress has spoken out clearly and fully in vindication of the holy Catholic Church; it has removed many prejudices and misunderstandings. This Congress helped to tear off the mask that the enemies of the Church would put upon her fair visage. This Congress has torn those repulsive garments with which her enemies would clothe her, and has presented her to us in all her heavenly beauty, bright as the sun, fair as the moon, with the beauty of heaven shining upon her countenance. This Congress has well shown that the Catholic Church, properly understood, is the light of the world and the refuge of suffering humanity. You have a white city here. The white city of Chicago has seen passing through it men from various countries, many of whom are assembled here now. But may I not say the Catholic Church is pre-eminently the White City? She has within her streets men of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, and we who are assembled here together to-day may exclaim in the language of Holy Writ: "Thou hast redeemed us, O Lord God, to go out to every tribe and nation and people and tongue.*' Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this Congress will result in bringing more love and admira- tion to the Church. Men will look at her now and admire her, and admiring her they will love her, and loving her they will embrace her. With the blessing of God, many who were before strangers to our Faith will come forward and embrace her in the view of the light that has been shed upon her here. In the language of Augustine, they will say: "Too late have I known thee, O beauty, ever ancient and ever new, too late have I loved thee." And now, though I have been somewhat anticipated, I deem it a sacred duty to invite you to join with me in offering the thanks of this congress and of this vast assembly to all who have participated in making it so grand a success. First of all let us give our thanks, after God, to our Holy Father, Leo XIII, who, in his letter addressed to me recently, manifested, as he has on many previous occasions, his love for our religious institutions and his admiration and love for the political institutions of America. I beg also to ask you to return thanks to the Most Reverend Archbishop of Chicago, who has done so much to make this Congress successful and who was always ready, when called upon, to give his counsel and advice to the secretary of the Congress. I beg also in a special manner to return thanks in your name to the distinguished chairman, Judge O'Brien. He has shown you in the Congress his judicial wisdom — I will not say his judicial firmness, because firmness was hardly required here. The conspicuous position which he occupies in the great City of New York, and the reputation which he has well merited for judicial wisdom and knowledge have been more than sustained by his conduct in the City of Chicago. May I also beg leave to return thanks to the gentlemen and to the ladies who have prepared with so much care and ability the papers that were read before the Congress. Those papers have not only reflected credit on themselves, but honor to the Church of God. They deserve our thanks. And last, though not least, I beg leave to thank one man in particular, without whose labors this Congress would not have been a success. I refer to one who has labored in season and out of season in organizing the Congress, who has done, I might say, the greatest share in bringing it to a successful issue. I refer to W.J. Onahan, secretary of the committee on organization. In conclusion I humbly propose that, ai ter thanking from our hearts our Holy Father for the encouragement he has given us, this vast audience manifest its appreciation of what has been done by pouring forth its 202 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN CATHOLIC CONGRESSES. thanks to the Most Reverend Archbishop of Chicago, to the distinguished chairman and secretary, and that you will express your appreciation by a rising vote. In addition to the general resolutions given above, the Congress adopted the following special Peace Memorial, which was sent to the rulers of all nations. The memorial was printed in twenty-five different languages, and was an invitation to the rulers of all lands to settle the controversies between nations by means of arbitration. The transcript in English to the President of the United States reads as follows : The Catholic Church Wishes You Grace, Mercy, and Peace ! We, in co-opera- tion with other Christian bodies, humbly memorialize you, as the guardian of your people, in behalf of peaceful arbitration as a means of settling questions that arise between nations. The spectacle that is presented of Christian nations facing each other with heavy armaments, ready upon provocation to go to war and settle their differ- ences by bloodshed or conquests, is, to say the least, a blot upon the fair name of Chris- tians. We can not contemplate without the deepest sorrow the horrors of war, involving the reckless sacrifice of human life that should be held sacred ; bitter distress in many households, the destruction of valuable property, the hindering of education and religion and a general demoralizing of the people. Moreover, the maintaining of a heavy war force, though war be averted, withdraws multitudes from their homes and the useful pursuits of peace and imposes a heavy tax upon the people for its support. And, further, let it be borne in mind that wars do not settle causes of disputes between nations on principles of right and justice, but upon the barbaric principle of the triumph of the strongest. We are encouraged to urge this cause upon your consideration by the fact that much has already been accomplished: as, for example, by the Arbitration of Geneva, in the Alabama case and by the deliberations of the American conference at Washington not to mention other important cases. It will be a happy day for the world when all international disputes find peaceful solutions, and this we earnestly seek. As to the method of accomplishing this end we make no suggestions, but leave that to your superior intelligence and wisdom in matters of state policy. We invoke upon ruler and people the richest blessings of the Prince of Peace. Similar messages were sent to Queen Victoria, the Emperor of Germany, the President of the French Republic, the Czar of Russia, King of Belgium, Humbert of Italy, Queen of the Netherlands, King Christian of Denmark, King Oscar of Norway; the regent of Spain, Maria Christina; Don Carlos I. of Portugal, and to the rulers of all the South American and Central American republics. The beautiful incident may well close these volumes of " The Columbian Jubilee." It is typical of the spirit of peace and charity toward all mankind which has pervaded the Catholic Chuich in America from the beginning. 9 2 21 ] j THE LIBRARY JSJSIVERSr )RN1A UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 2 1845 APR 9 -1957 JAN 4 195* REC'B !#V EO A % *- 9 1965 ujg ncvn \*\ w form L-!> 25TO-10,' ll'-'l • I [ JAN 1 o 1 21381 APR 1 2 1989 3 1158 00871 2589 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001 370 761