"Oh, the priest is something great! After God, the priest is all things!... Let a parish be twenty years without a priest, and the people will adore beasts.

"If the missionary and I were to leave you, you would say, 'What do we want in the church? There is no Mass; our Lord is not there any more. We can just as well say our prayers at home.' . . . When men want to destroy religion they begin by attacking the priest, because when there is no longer a priest there is no Sacrifice; and where there is no Sacrifice there is no religion.

"If I met a priest and an angel I would salute the priest before saluting the angel. The latter is the friend of God, but the priest takes his place.. St. Teresa used to kiss the place on which a priest passed. When you see a priest you should say,There is the one who made me a child of God by holy baptism, who raised me up after I had sinned, who gives me the food of my soul.' . . . At sight of a church tower you can say, 'Who presides there? Our Lord. How comes it that He is there? Because a priest passed that way and said Mass.' "The priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus. When you see a priest think of our Lord Jesus Christ."

THE CURE d'Ars.

Friday America's Day.

FRIDAY has long been regarded as a day of evil omen, but it has been, to say the least, an eventful one in American history.

Friday, Columbus sailed on his voyage of discovery.
Friday, ten weeks after, he discovered America.

Friday, Henry III. of England gave John Cabot his commission, which led to the discovery of North America.

Friday, St. Augustine, the oldest town in the United States, was founded.

Friday, the Mayflower, with the Pilgrims, arrived at Plymouth; and on Friday they signed that august compact, the forerunner of the present Constitution.

Friday, George Washington was born.

Friday, Bunker Hill was seized and fortified.

Friday, Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown; and on Friday the motion was made in Congress that the United Colonies were, and of right ought to be, free and independent.

I RECOMMEND you to God, that you may obtain the gift of holy patience; and it is not in my power to propose to Him anything for you, save that He may, according to His holy will, fashion your heart for His dwelling, and reign there eternally; and whether He fashion it with the brush, the hammer, or the chisel, must be according to His good pleasure.- St. Francis de Sales.

Gens Hiberna.

In St. Peter's Church, at Rome, there are, on two confessionals, inscriptions which cannot be read without emotion: Gens Hiberna. Gens Polona. (Irish Nation. Polish Nation.)

What does this mean if not that in the eyes of faith, in the eyes of the Church, these two sister martyr nations still live.-Irish Faith in America.

THE golden hour of setting sun had come to holy Rome,
When I, a homeless exile, first beheld St. Peter's dome;
That dome majestic, towering o'er the famous hill-tops seven,
That dome that forces eye and heart to soar to highest heaven.

Ad limina Apostolorum, I passed with reverent tread,
And knelt within that temple of the living and the dead;
Its "musical immensities" I sought not to define,

I only felt that here indeed is God's most worthy shrine;

That here indeed His majesty is nobly manifest,

And here His grandest prophecy He has fulfilled and blest,—
The Tu es Petrus which within the dome is writ in gold,
The ædificabo ecclesiam which Christ himself foretold.

Meanwhile, sunshine and evening shades had met in mellow gloom,
On lofty shafts and arches grand, above the Apostle's tomb;
Soon the mystic dim, with vesper hymn and sacred psalm was filled,
With rhythmic music, cadence sweet, my throbbing heart was stilled.
But midst the soothing hush, ere long I caught an undertone,
The murmured prayer of hundreds where I thought myself alone;
I nearer pressed, for still it seemed the faintest breath of sound,

A strange discordant harmony from every clime and ground;

For there were prince and peasant, there were every rank and race,
Hoar crime beside young innocence,- all kneeling in that place.

Ah! there was God's own Mercy-seat, where sin's strong chains are riven,
Where Penance, weeping, hears the words, "Go thou in peace, forgiven."
Confessionals for people who are there from every land,

All pilgrims led to one blest shrine by Faith's unswerving hand.

From Arctic snows, from vine-clad bowers, from sun-kissed east and west,
They solace seek and nourishment from Rome, their Mother blest.

Descendants of the old-time Franks meet those of eastern lands,
Germania's faithful few unite with Spain's unfailing bands;
Columbia's children stalwart grown, from breathing freedom's air,
Look pitying on while Poland and poor Ireland join in prayer.
In prayer for justice - Saviour blest they clasp thy sacred feet,
Let fall on them thy loving eyes with benediction sweet.
'Mid all their woe and anguish, they have to thee faithful stood;
With freedom bless them, and restore their long lost nationhood.
They lie before thee prostrate now, poor Poland's heart-strings torn
By Tartan hate, the while her sons in hopeless exile mourn;
Too worn and feeble e'en to say, "Thy will be done, O God!"
With lips all tremulous with woe, she tries to kiss thy rod.

Beside her, sainted Ireland bends, her brow with thorns encrowned,
Her mangled, bleeding feet and hands with gyves and fetters bound;
Her snowy vesture blood-stained from the spear wound in her side,-
Most blessed in her semblance to the sacred Crucified.

O Erin, more than martyr! Thou alone art worthy found
To bear the likeness of our Saviour's every woe and wound.
Thou hast thine Olive-garden, thine own drear Gethsemane,
Beyond which, heedless of thy grief, lie many a sleeping three.
Ah! many a Judas kiss has stained thy pallid virgin cheek,
And many a base denial hast thou heard poor weak ones speak.
Thou many a time hast suffered from the scourge, the thorn, the sneer,
And often have thy loved ones fled from thee in grief and fear.
How oft have English Pilates known thee free from sin and wrong,
Yet given thee, in thine innocence, o'er to the heartless throng!
How many a heavy cross has been thy bleeding shoulders on!
How many a mother hast thou seen gaze sorrowing on her son!
How often hast thou fallen under loads of pain and woe,

Yet risen patient 'neath the goad that made thee onward go!
Yea, many a cross-crowned Calvary have thy poor feet had to tread;
Death's throes have all been thine, but ne'er the quiet of the dead.

Ay, truly more than martyr! Of thy very soul bereft,
They've torn from thee thy nationhood, then thou hast othing left;
That nationhood God gave thee with His life-bestowing breath,
O hapless Erin! what canst thou pray for but endless death?

Then Erin, like an injured queen, rose with majestic grace,
Prophetic fire upon her lips, its halo round her face;
In tones of holy triumph spake, distinct, yet sweet and low,
"O hopeless child of hopeful sires, why mock me in my woe?
'Tis true, I've borne a heavy cross and worn a thorny crown,
That 'neath my burden and my woe I've oft been stricken down;
But erst, as now, I've sought relief at Jesus' sacred feet,
And ever strength and solace found at this blest mercy-seat.
My children have been scattered north and south and east and west,
But love for Faith and Motherland burns ever in each breast;
And wander wheresoe'er they may, they ever find a home

In that great Church whose centre blest is here in holy Rome.
Yes, Poland brave, and Ireland wronged, 'tis true are yet in chains,
But in the heart of Mother Church our nationhood remains;
Within this grand basilica we're still a nation styled,
Before a tribune sacred where was justice ne'er defiled."

And then, with swelling bosom, Gens Hiberna there she showed,—
To Gens Polona Poland pointed while her bright eye glowed.

Again spake Ireland: "True, I have my lone Gethsemane,
But, 'mid its gloom the heavenly gleam of angels' wings I see.
Go, tell my faithful sons that here, in highest Heaven's sight,
I claim the boon of nationhood, my heritage and right.

I here keep vigil for the dawn-oh! bid them leave me never,

My dreary night gives way to light-then hope and work forever."

While evening shades enwrapped me round I prayed for that morning's gleaming, And asked of God that when it comes it shall not find us dreaming,

But up and ready for the day fore told in song and story,

Which shall reward old Ireland's faith with nationhood's bright glory.

Lawrence, Mass.

KATHARINE A. O'KEEFFE.

HERE is the great lesson: We must discover God's will, and, recognizing it, we must endeavor to do it joyfully, or at least courageously. - St. Francis de Sales.

A Devoted Son of America and Ireland.

MAJOR PATRICK KEEFFE HORGAN.

IRELAND, stubborn and unconquered, if we cannot hail you as a nation, we at least, thank heaven, may hail you as the shrine of chivalry. A time there was in the history of our efforts to break the cords of oppression that unwillingly bind thee to the stranger's "croup," when the ruthless despoiler misinterpreted our valor to the world and scoffed at our heroism.

The artificial famine of '47 and '48, and the wholesale evictions and extermination that followed, redounded more to our national honor than an accession of colleges. It gave us soldiers whose chivalry emblazon the records of other lands to-day. Among the many, it gave us a Meagher, a Smyth, a Bourke, a Kavanagh, a Byron, and last, but not least, a HORGAN. The inhumanity of the British government, while our people were dying by the thousand, aroused the martial spirit of the race within them, which, in after years, saved the name and fair fame of this great Republic.

MAJOR P. K. HORGAN.

Patrick Keeffe Horgan was born, May 7th, 1835, at Ballywater, parish of Doneraile, county Cork, Ireland. While yet only twelve years of age he had infused into him an uncompromising hatred of England. Famine, one of the tyrant's most powerful allies, had struck the entire land like a cyclone. So terrible, so unmerciful, so unrelenting was this awful scourge that language at this late day would be inadequate to even feebly portray it.

The sad picture of national desolation was indelibly traced upon the youthful memory of P. K. Horgan, who had not as yet fully realized the true source of this periodical calamity. Many a time during those agonizing years he sat down and wept over the sad scenes of want, despair, and death which laid waste the beautiful valleys of his beloved Cork. His recollection of those painful and stirring times was indeed vivid, and in a great measure moulded him into a man of war.

The spirit of patriotism, hushed to slumber with the decapitated form of young Emmet, from amid the prevailing ruin of '48 was being resuscitated by the lamented Mitchel, Meagher, Smith O'Brien, and

others, who conceived the idea that it was far better to die fighting, than perish foodless and homeless on the highway in sight of plenty. The doctrine of physical force which they promulgated set young Horgan thinking, and made him at this early stage of his existence an unremitting rebel.

As the famine progressed the limited industries of the country became paralyzed, and, as though to hurry the victims from their wretchedness, the plague dogged the footsteps of distress in its unchecked march. Those who had clung to the little "gatherings" of years, inspired by a new hope from the young Ireland movement that heaven would arrest the ravages of want at an early day, loath to seek refuge in exile, were at length being driven into the roadside by the brutal arm of the law, forced with aching hearts to seek the cheerless and venturesome protection of the emigrant ship. Among those cast out from their holdings were the Horgan family.

To those who have experienced the ordeal of eviction and banishment, the nature of this terrible weapon of the usurper is obvious, while to the average American, familiar with the "annual movings,' so common in the cities and towns of the Republic, such an edict conveys no touching significance. But the "rooting out" of the Irish. "peasant" from the homestead of his sires, the land of his childhood, chills the patriot's marrow. For generations it has been the cradle of his name, and it is sanctified in his memory by endearing associations. Banishment from home and homeland by unrelenting despotism may, indeed, be sometimes appeased by future rewards in the new land, but P. K. Horgan, in the midst of honorably, industriously acquired domestic comfort and ease, never, not for an instant, forgot the shrine of his nativity. Time and distance obscured the fair hills of holy Ireland from his view, but his large, generous heart lingered o'er them in defiance of every other earthly tie; and his detestation for England was equally as intense.

Driven from their hearthstone by the cruel arm of misrule, the widow Horgan and her young family, Patrick and three sisters, one of whom he was visiting in California at the time of his death, sought the cold refuge of the emigrant ship; and after a tedious, weary journey across the Atlantic, arrived in New York City in the early part of 1850. Their means being somewhat limited, many were the vicissitudes encountered for a time by the exiles. But perseverance and industry were eventually rewarded. Patrick, after learning the building trade, became the chief support and solace of the new home, accepting the responsibility with the devotion of a worthy son.

As he inixed in society, and pondered over the attempt and failure of "the young Irelanders," he became more enlightened in the history of the alien domination; and in proportion as his knowledge of the situation advanced, so also did his abhorrence of tyranny per manently increase. The mere mention of England made his very soul shudder with vengeance, and tempted him to the threshold of profanity. The past, reeking and crimson with blood and tears, erased from his mind the idea of compromise. Ireland a nation, free and independent, was the aspiration of his life. And when Thomas Francis Meagher,