gard only the select few. What became of the mass, meanwhile? As usual, history for the most part is silent with regard to it. A very few words constitute the only record which can afford us a glimpse of the real situation of the vast majority of those poor, friendless, obscure immigrants, on whom, nevertheless, the great hopes of the future were built.

We have, happily, some means left us of forming an opinion; and it will be seen that their situation was much the same as that of their earlier compatriots. For instance, in the "Lives of American Bishops" we read the following startling story:

"The Abbé Cheverus very frequently made long journeys to convey the consolations of religion or perform acts of charity. About this time (1803) he received a letter from two young Irish Catholics confined in Northampton prison, who had been condemned to death without just cause, as was almost universally believed, imploring him to come to them and prepare them for their sad and cruel fate. He hastened to their spiritual relief, and inspired them with the most heroic sentiments and dispositions, which they persevered in to the last fatal moment of their execution. According to custom, the prisoners were carried to the nearest church, to hear a sermon preached immediately before their execution; several Protestant ministers presented themselves to preach the sermon; but the Abbé Cheverus claimed the right to perform that duty, as the choice of the prisoners themselves, and, after much difficulty, he was allowed to ascend the pulpit. His sermon struck all present with astonishment, awe, and admiration.”

Here, in 1803, we have almost a repetition of the death of the poor woman Glover; and, had it not been for the high character of the admirable man who hastened to their assistance, those two young Irish Catholics would have had for their only religious preparation before death a sermon from one or more Protestant ministers; and, as the great and good Cheverus could not be everywhere in New England, there is little doubt but that such was the fate of more than one of the newly-arrived immigrants.

In 1800 and the following years a comparatively large number of Irishmen landed at New York, and the future terrible scourge of their race, ship-fever, soon broke out among them. Dr. Bailey, the father of Mrs. Seton, was Health Physician to the port of New York at the time, and he allowed his daughter to visit and do good among them. She was deeply impressed by the religious demeanor of the Irish just landed. The Rev. Dr. White relates in her "Life: ""The first thing,' she said, 'the poor people did when they got their tents was to assemble on the grass, and all, kneeling, adore our Master for his mercy; and every morning sun finds them repeating their praises." In a

letter to her sister-in-law she describes their sufferings under the 'plague' in the following golden words:

Rebecca, I cannot sleep; the dying and the dead possess my mind-babies expiring at the empty breast of their mother. And this is not fancy, but the scene that surrounds me. Father says that such was never known before; that there are actually twelve children that must die from mere want of sustenance, unable to take more than the breast, and from the wretchedness of their parents deprived of it, as they have laid ill for many days in the ship, without food, air, or changing. Merciful Father! Oh, how readily would I give them each a turn of my child's treasure, if in my choice! But, Rebecca, they have a provider in heaven, who will soothe the pangs of the suffering innocent.' 999

When she wrote the above, Mrs. Seton was not yet professedly a Catholic; but how truly animated with the spirit of the Church of Christ! Happy would the poor immigrants have been had they only met with Protestants of her stamp on landing, and of her father's, who, although he prevented her becoming fostermother to those poor children, as her first duty regarded her own child, died himself, a victim to his charity toward their parents, contracting, in the fulfilment of his office, the fever they had brought with them, which he was striving to allay!

The following fact, which will conclude this portion of our inquiry, happened a little later, but, on that very account, will serve as a connecting link with the considerations which are to follow, and will open our eyes to the real position of that already swelling mass of immigrants.

During the year 1823, Bishop Connolly (of New York) made the visitation of his entire diocese. He extended his journey along the route of the Erie Canal, which was commenced in 1819, where large numbers of Irish laborers had been attracted, and among whom the bishop labored with indefatigable zeal." At that time the clergy of the whole diocese consisted of eight priests with their bishop.

At last we find the "Irish people" at work. The spectacle is full of sadness; and the only emotion which can fill the heart is one of deep pity. In that vast wilderness of the West, for such it then was, along public works extending hundreds of miles, large gangs of men-such is the expression we are compelled to use are hard at work along that dreary Mohawk River; blasting rocks, digging in the hard clay, uprooting trees, clearing the ground of briars, tangled bushes, and the vast quantity of débris of animal and vegetable matter accumulated during centuries. This was the work which "attracted" large numbers of Irish laborers. They had left their country, crossed the ocean under circumstances that should come under our notice, and

anded on these (at that time) inhospitable shores, to find work; and they found the occupation just mentioned. We can picture the "shanties" in which they lived, the harpies who thrived on them, the innumerable extortions to which they were subjected. Bearing in mind that, in the immense State of New York and in one-half of New Jersey, there were just eight priests with their bishop, we may form some idea of the way in which they lived and died.

How they must have blessed this bishop, who had left Rome, his second country, and the noble associations which surrounded him in the Eternal City, to come to the succor of his unfortunate countrymen scattered away in a New World! And well did he deserve that blessing!

But his passage along the Erie Canal could be nothing more than a veritable passage-a transient sojourn of a few days or weeks at most. What became of those gangs of men after, what had happened to them before, no one has said, no one has told us, no one now can ascertain; we are only left to conjecture, and the spectacle, as we said, is too sad to dwell upon.

But, hidden within this melancholy view, lies a great and glorious fact. It was the beginning of an "apostolic mission" on the part of a whole people, a mission which will form one of the most moving and significant pages of the ecclesiastical history of the nineteenth century. Every Christian knows that apostolic work is rough work; the brunt of the battle must be borne by the earliest in the field, that it may be said of their successors in the words of the Gospel: "Vos in labores eorum introistis."

Such being the hard lot of the immigrants in the interior of the country, was that of those who remained in the cities much more enviable? On this point we are enabled to judge, at least as regards New York. In a letter written by Bishop Dubois, and published in vol. viii. of the "Annals of the Propagation of the Faith," we meet with the following exhaustive description:

"At the beginning of this century, the newly-arrived immigrants were employed as day-laborers, servants, journeymen, clerks, and shopmen. Now, the condition of this class here is precisely the same as its condition in England; it is entirely dependent upon the will of the trader: not because by law are they forced thereto, but because the rich alone, being able to advance the capital necessary for factories, steam-engines, and workshops, the poor are obliged to work for them upon the masters' own conditions. These conditions, in the case of servants especially, sometimes degenerate into tyranny; they are frequently forced to work on Sundays, permission to hear even a low mass being refused them; they are obliged betimes to assist at the prayers of the sect to which their masters belong, and they