the difficult and arduous duties that devolved upon him. The Holy See transferred him to the titular Bishopric of Dora, and he died in Ireland in a little while afterwards. As president of the St. Louis Diocesan Seminary he had enacted the part for which he was best qualified by temperament and character; for any other sphere such painstaking natures as the class-room of a seminary demands are usually unsuitable.

The diocese of Chicago seems to have been in those pioneer days a crucial one for any but the most robust in physical no less than moral fibre. The Rev. James Duggan, a scholar, a preacher and a priest of exalted standing, had acted as Administrator to that see previous to the arrival of Bishop O'Reagan. He had been also acting as one of the Vicars General of the St. Louis diocese. It was in 1857 he was consecrated by the Archbishop of St. Louis as Bishop of Antigone and first Coadjutor Bishop of St. Louis, with the right of succession. In this capacity he remained for more than a year, when he was requested by Archbishop Kenrick to return to Chicago in his old office of Administrator. Soon he was given the Bishopric of the see. This was in 1859. Ten years of work in it sufficed to undermine his health so completely that he was withdrawn from the operose but honorable task. His once brilliant mind had become enfeebled, and though he was sent abroad to the best spas and recuperative resorts, he never recovered the mastery of himself and had to be placed in a sanitarium. The difficulties of his see must have had no small share in the causes of this pitiable breakdown.

Other prelates more fortunate, and whose names were destined to become famous, were among those consecrated by Archbishop Kenrick in the first twenty years. of his sway. First of these were Bishop Smith, Coadjutor to the Bishop of Dubuque; the Right Rev. Matthias

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Loras; Bishop Whelan, of Nashville; Bishop O'Gorman, of Raphanea and Vicar Apostolic of Nebraska, and Bishop Grace, of St. Paul, Minnesota. As above stated, both Dr. Smith and Dr. O'Gorman had been monks of the renowned ascetic order of Trappists. In their new sphere they both proved that the restraint of silence imposed in the monastery had not impaired their powers of noble speech in the pulpit. Bishop O'Gorman's homiletic gifts were exceptionally distinguished.

Still later on the list of those who rose to eminence after the imposition of hands by Archbishop Kenrick was swelled by two notable ones. The late metropolitan of Chicago, Dr. Patrick A. Feehan, received the sacred gift in the Cathedral of St. Louis, on the Ist of November, 1865, as Bishop of Nashville. He was the last of those who were consecrated in the Cathedral by the same reverend hands. In September, 1866, the no less eminent Dr. John Hennessy received the mitre from the Archbishop in the Cathedral of St. Raphael, in Dubuque. It is not a little remarkable that these two whose consecration was so close in order of time should have observed a similar rule in regard to their demise. Only a brief interval separated them when each departed on his eternal journey. Archbishop Hennessy, reversing the order of things, was the first to lay down his dignity, as Archbishop Feehan was the first to take his up. To the last the Dubuque prelate retained the power and charm of sacred oratory which had made him renowned among a splendid band, since the beginning of his clerical career. Although feeble in movement and exhibiting the trace of years, he preached the jubilee sermon for the Archbishop of Philadelphia, in April of 1896, with a splendor and an impressiveness most remarkable in one who was then 75 years old.

It is pertinent here to notice Archbishop Hennessy's

master-passion, so to speak. Archbishop Ryan, his lifelong friend, speaking his funeral oration, eloquently dwelt upon the point. He said:

"Archbishop Hennessy's mission in general was similar to that of all other Catholic Bishops, but it seemed to me that he had a special mission in regard to Christian education. This his priests realized, and when the book containing the account of his silver jubilee in 1891 was published, it was inscribed to him as 'The great apostle of the American Catholic parochial school.' But his zeal for Christian education was not only for the advance of the Catholic Church, though this was his prime motive, but he was profoundly convinced that it was essential to the stability and permanence of the State also.

"It was objected to him that the contrary sentiment, that which favored unsectarian education, had taken such possession of the mind and heart of the country that it were folly to battle against it and Catholics must be content to do what other denominations do, come into line and submit. With his conviction of the essential connection of Christianity with Christian education, such an argument could but intensify his resolves. I can well understand how your father and my dear deceased friend, with such convictions, consecrated his life and the splendid eloquence with which God had blessed him above his fellows, to the promotion of Christian education.

"I am convinced that the day will come when the American people will fully realize this true position in regard to education, and that time will but add glory to the name and the fame of the men who stood in the breach and contended for the right."

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CHAPTER III.

APPROACH OF THE CIVIL WAR CLOUD-THE ARCHBISHOP'S PRUDENCE-HIS FIRM STAND AGAINST THE DRAKE. TEST LAW-TRIUMPH OVER THE ZEALOTS SENDS HIS RESIGNATION TO THE PROPAGANDA OVER A LOCAL SCANDAL, BUT THE TROUBLE AVERTED-TRYING AND PAINFUL INCIDENTS-ORDINATIONS AND CONSECRATIONS BY THE ARCHBISHOP.

The second Provincial Council was held in St. Louis on the 19th of September, 1858, the Archbishop presiding. There also attended the Bishops of Nashville, Milwaukee, Santa Fé, Alton and Dubuque, together with the Vicar Apostolic of Indian Territory and the Administrator of St. Paul. The decrees formulated for presentation to the Holy Father embraced one regarding clandestine marriages, asking that the ruling of the Council of Trent on this subject be declared to be nowhere in force in the St. Louis province, because of some doubts to to what places in particular the Decree was canonically published in. Several important rules for the clergy as well as arrangements regarding marriages were enacted at this Council.

Hitherto the course of the Archbishop, though not free from difficulties, had been smooth sailing as compared with that of his brother when he was called on to take charge of the Philadelphia diocese. But now he was approaching a season when rocks and shoals and whirling waters were to trouble him and when his skill as a navigator was to be tested, even to the straining point. The Civil War began to project its vast shadow as it loomed from out the dreaded future. It was pre

ceded by a cloud of controversies, all springing from the single grand storm centre of slavery. The right to hold slaves and the right to secede were the issues that under protean forms began to stir the minds and tongues and pens of all men with more or less vehemence. The Archbishop's views were decided enough on both subjects, as they usually were on every question that demanded consideration and discussion. But he did not obtrude them upon others, nor give any public expression to them, observing all through the years of trial the prudent attitude that was the general characteristic of the Catholic hierarchy, on whose every utterance and line of writing the attention of jealous enemies was constantly riveted. For two years, after the outbreak of the war, the Archbishop entirely abstained from preaching, since it was found that no matter how any prelate or priest might deliver himself in the pulpit, his words might be distorted or made to bear some hidden meaning.

No one could charge that this prudence arose from any sentiment of fear, save the fear of doing that which would be morally wrong. When duty called for sterner courses the Archbishop could be as firm as à Becket. Human respect or fear of consequences never for a moment swayed him where the law of the State stood between him and his conscience, as it attempted to do when revenge and panic joined forces in the South after the Confederacy had been driven to the wall. Copying the evil ways of the Old World, the triumphant Unionists began to persecute under the guise of precaution. In the State of Missouri this persecution took the form of a test oath, as embodied in an instrument called the Drake Constitution, after its inventor, a lawyer of St. Louis. The test oath was prescribed for all ministers of religion. They were not to be permitted to discharge