PREFACE.

I have felt for a long time that we ought to have biographies of the two great prelates who pre-eminently deserve the title of Fathers of the American Church, in the sense in which this title is bestowed on the Fathers of the Universal Church in different nations and ages. In profound learning and sanctity united these remarkable brothers stand alone. Like all really great and holy ecclesiastics, they shrank from publicity, except when that publicity was necessary or advisable for the defense of the Church or the furtherance of her interests. In spite of this modesty or rather perhaps because of it-their fame has grown and deepened with time and shall continue to do so as the Church in America continues in her triumphal progress. Their example of devotedness to duty, of the union of the spirit of piety and study with most active public duties, should not be lost to the present and succeeding generations of priests and people. Their lives form an important portion of the history of the Catholic Church in these States, and therefore should interest all who would understand that history.

It was the writer's ambition, at one time, to be the biographer of these two great ecclesiastics. His numerous duties caused him to postpone the task until diminished strength and advanced years rendered it unadvisable, if not impossible. He had ample opportunities of acquaintance with the illustrious subjects of such a biography. For thirty-two years he was the subject, as priest, Vicar General and Coadjutor of Arch

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bishop Peter Richard Kenrick of St. Louis. From him he learned much of his elder brother of Baltimore and had the happiness of personal acquaintance with him. As one of the successors in Philadelphia of Archbishop Francis Patrick Kenrick, he has had opportunities of learning much of this great and holy man.

The writer of this Preface has one consolation in the loss of the honor of being the biographer of the two Kenricks. His frequently expressed admiration of these men might possibly suggest a partiality of judgment in relating their histories. It is better that one like the present biographer, who did not know them personally and can judge without bias, should record their histories. A practiced and judicious writer, with a head and heart to conceive and to feel a deep interest in his subject, and ample materials to present it, he will achieve success as the biographer of the "Two Kenricks," and the writer most earnestly recommends his work to those with whom his opinion may have any influence.

In the preliminary examination of the “fama sanctitatis" of the Venerable Bishop Neumann, necessary for the introduction of his cause with a view to his beatification, the writer was generally asked by clerical and lay witnesses, "Why not introduce the name of Bishop Kenrick? We all felt he was a saint." Indeed, the "fama sanctitatis" was quoted as great in one case as in the other.

P. J. RYAN,

Archbishop of Philadelphia.

AUTHOR'S FOREWORD.

Serene and successful in the present, buoyant with justifiable hope in the future, the Church of God in the United States often tenderly turns to the past so full of splendid memories for her. Above the mounds of her great dead she breathes a sigh of loving regret and a prayer of loving piety. It is her hope that the recollection of their high example may never cease to stimulate their successors in the Divine ministry to similar endeavor and achievement in the Master's field of service.

To the building up of the Church to its present stately proportions, that Isle of the West, so beautiful yet so sorely afflicted, the green Ierne, has contributed no small share. Her sorrows bore joyful fruit in unexpected ways. The restrictive laws which banished priest and pedagogue from their native soil gave to a wider world the piety, the zeal and the learning which should have made for the fame and the prosperity of the motherland. Many a devout heart, reflecting over this seeming waywardness of fate, is consoled by the philosophy that out of the noxious nettle persecution springs the flower of diffused benefit; and even in the utterances of English statesmen at times a tendency to claim the credit for this diffusion, in the general work of civilization, may be detected. When the ruthless Glo'ster is reproached by Lady Anne Warwick as the slayer of the gentle King Henry, whom she speaks of as in heaven, the crafty Plantagenet turns the thought to his advantage. "Was I not kind to send him thither?" he unctuously asks. When English civilization takes credit for the spread of enlightenment by means of the banishment and dispersal of Irish intellect and sanctity, we discern in the idea the cynical philosophy of the sanguinary son of York.

If the millions of lay Irish who flocked to America were impelled to exile by the iron hand of the exterminator of their

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homes, the thousands of priests who followed in their wake for the most part obeyed that inspiration which quickened their august predecessors in voluntary exile who bore the cross all over western Europe in the early centuries of Christianity. It was not the sentiment of the exiled Roman, "Where liberty is, there my fatherland," which animated either the cleric or the peasant, for neither could obliterate the remembrance of the fragrant fields and smiling vales of their childhood. But with the priest it was the true impulse of the apostle. Where Christ's work was to be done there he saw his home. Whether it was in the pathless forest, on the torrid alkali plain, the miasmatic swamp lands of the Mississippi, or the savage mountain wild, wherever the voice of a human creature called for succor and sympathy in sickness or death-throe, there the Irish priest saw his fatherland, the place where the Father bade him go and labor.

The time had gone by when the same reward was paid in Ireland for the head of wolf and friar when the great exodus of missionary priests to the American shores began. Though the penal code still remained on the statute book, there was no imitator of the Duke of Grafton in the Vice-royalty to propose to Parliament that their savage provisions should be actively enforced and even added to by a form of oriental atrocity. Though the church edifices were still obliged to hide in narrow wynds and obscure side streets, the office of the priest need no longer be carried on surreptitiously and the congregation could worship without fear of their communion with God being rudely interrupted by the tramp of armed men whose mission it was to seize the priest and scatter the flock. Those who had imitated the policy of Diocletian had seen the error of their ways so clearly as to conclude that their interests would be better served by providing a place of training for the Irish priest than by putting a price upon his capture. It was in this period of respite that many of the men most illustrious in the roll of the Catholic hierarchy and priesthood of the United States responded to the call for clerical help for the fast-growing shepherdless flocks scattered all over the continent. Shining amongst the names of that bright galaxy are those of the two men whose career these pages shall endeavor, however feebly and inefficiently, to trace, the brothers Kenrick.

It was not by any impulse of his own that the biographer essayed the delicate task. To far abler and more suitable

AUTHOR'S FOREWORD.

ix. hands the labor had properly fallen, but the pressure of other more imperative duties forbade its execution. By a request which it were ingratitude to disregard, the author was induced, albeit most unwillingly and most diffidently, to essay a work which lay entirely outside the field of his literary ambition.

One qualification at least for such a task was his: that of perfect impartiality. When the work of biography is undertaken by one attached in life by the tender bonds of friendship and admiration to the subject of the memoir, then may the student fear that he has not perhaps a faithful reflection. It was not the author's good fortune to stand in such a relation to either of the great prelates to whose memory he devotes his humble work; time and distance forbade. Still he has the advantage of gaining his estimate of their mental proportions from the lips of those most intimately associated with them in their exalted ministry, of some related to them by kinship, and of many more who pride themselves on having enjoyed their acquaintance and friendship. Their official correspondence to a large extent has been intrusted to his hands; with their published works he has familiarized himself. A mass of valuable memoranda relating to their family history has come to his hands. To the Very Rev. Canon O'Hanlon, of Dublin, his thanks are especially due, in this regard; also to Mr. John McCall, of the same city. Personally the author is well versed in the history and topography of the interesting old locality wherein the two distinguished brothers first saw the light. For the most valuable aid of all, the help which enabled him to form a mental diagnosis of each of the departed prelates, and for facts in their career which now for the first time are presented to the public eye, he is indebted to the kindness of Archbishop Ryan, of Philadelphia, long associated in the episcopal office with one of the brothers and well acquainted with the other. He has been further encouraged in his task by the gracious approval of His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons and the late Archbishop Kain, who each afforded him, most freely and generously, every facility for the examination of the archives of Baltimore and St. Louis, as Archbishop Ryan already had with regard to his diocese of Philadelphia.

It is true that short biographies of the two great Archbishops have already been published, but their scope is inadequate to the dignity of the subject. Justice requires that every aspect of their respective lives, so far as these may be obtainable,