L I E) R_A RY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N I VLR5 ITY 
 
 or ILLl NOIS 
 
 Shags 
 
 V.I 
 
 UIMi lltSnwCAt.JWVET

 
 WM. O'REILLY. 
 
 REV. JOHN O REILLY. 
 
 REV. MARK ANTHONY. 
 
 NICHOLAS DUNCAN. 
 
 RICHARD CODY.
 
 STORY OF THE 
 
 LA SALLE MISSION 
 
 TWO PARTS. 
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. THOS. A. SHAW, C. M. 
 
 From 1838, Arrival of First Missioners, to 1857, 
 Departure of Rev. J. O'Reilly, C. M. 
 
 •'My train are men of choice and rarest parts 
 
 that all particulars ot duty know; 
 And in the most exact regard support 
 
 the worship of their names." 
 
 King Lear — Shakespeare. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 M. A. DONOHUE & CO., 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
 ^-n°i-i<
 
 COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 REV. THOS. A. SHAW, C. M.
 
 <>l(fi (fit C<J 
 
 Sh 2 2 s 
 
 ^•Hi 
 
 V. I 
 
 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 To the pioneer Missionaries of Saint Vincent of Paul, and to 
 the simple genuine Irish Catholics of over half a century ago, 
 whose labors for God are memorials, and whose virtues are 
 already crowned, this first part of the story of the La Salle 
 mission is lovingly inscribed by their confrere and friend the 
 
 AUTHOR. 
 
 4. 
 
 u
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The motives that urged the writer to enter upon and tell 
 the story of the early La Salle Lazarist Missioners were first, 
 the special request made upon him by Superiors; second, the 
 veneration he has ever had for the early Sons of St. Vincent of 
 Paul, laboring in the La Salle fields, whose lofty aims and tire- 
 less labors for souls first drew his young heart to the religious 
 family of the Founder of the Mission Fathers; third, his love 
 for the people of primitive La Salle, whose simple faith and 
 devotedness to the Missioners he could never forget. 
 
 It was characteristic of our early Fathers "to hide the secret 
 of the King" closely copying their Great St. Vincent, who ab- 
 horred "The boast of pomp," and ostentation. Hence the 
 scantiness of manuscript to draw from, to weave the story. 
 Yet is the narrative trustworthy, formed from the evidence of 
 witnesses on the spot, and from tradition, the La Salle sur- 
 vivors of these early days will heartily welcome the story of 
 their fathers in God, the children of primitive La Salle will be 
 interested in reading the times of their fathers — and all who are 
 deeply interested in the spread and extension of the only true 
 Religion the promoter of morals and bulwark of society, will, as 
 they con the lesson given in the story, praise that Providence 
 
 which sent the masters to teach it. 
 
 The Author. 
 
 (5)
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The writer of these pages seizes this occasion, the seventieth 
 year of the estabHshment of the La Salle Mission, to do the 
 bidding of the Holy Ghost: "Let us praise men of renown 
 and our fathers in their generations," and to answer the wish 
 of St. Vincent of Paul, expressed to one of his sons: "I beg of you 
 to not interrupt this good custom of ours." The task is a 
 trying one, chiefly from the scantiness of materials, since there 
 are no written records worth mentioning. Tradition, history, 
 picked up here and there, that had dropped from the lips of a 
 half-dozen people — three of them turned seventy, three in the 
 nineties — who, as Polycarp witnessed to the Beloved Disciple, 
 witnessed to the words and labors of their spiritual fathers. 
 Rosati, Timon, Raho, Parodi, Escoffier, Demarchi, Collins, John 
 O'Reilly, Anthony, Guedry, and Abbott will be the substance 
 of this narrative. 
 
 Previous to the arrival of the sons of St. Vincent of Paul in 
 the great Illinois country, ere they had made it their home 
 and the theatre of their deeds for God and souls, the repre- 
 sentative of a great order, explorer, missioner of a hundred 
 tribes, a Thaumaturgus in all the word signifies, had passed once 
 and twice and thrice through the teeming valley. To pass over 
 the fearless, holy Marquette in writing our notes referring to 
 the Illinois territory, were as foolish as to describe a river with- 
 out telling its source. The history of the great Jesuit is the 
 history of New France of the Era of LeGrand Monarque, Louis 
 XIV., in North America. If the Fleur de lis once floated tri- 
 umphantly over the Eastern and Western lakes, over the coun- 
 tries fringing the gulf and the river St. Lawrence, over the great 
 rivers of the West, from where Pittsburgh now stands, to the 
 Pacific Ocean, the great French Jesuit was in the providence 
 of God, the instrument to give the Church and France these 
 vast territories and a score of Indian tribes. Father Marquette, 
 accompanied by the fur trader Joliet, and a band of Huron 
 Indian Christians, on his return in 1673 from exploring the 
 "Great Father of Waters," the Mississippi, as far as the Arkan- 
 
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 sas, entered the Illinois at its mouth not far from where Alton 
 City now stands ; and following the wide, placid stream — "quan- 
 tum mutatum ab illo" — reached, after some days, the Indian 
 village of the Peorias. A papoose in a dying condition, was 
 brought to him, which the Saintly Missioner baptized. 
 
 Ascending the river in a northeasterly direction, he touched 
 at Kaskaskia, the village where the Illini tribe dwelt, in very 
 truth the garden spot of the great Illinois valley. 
 
 The delay of the Missioner was long enough to survey with 
 his observant eye the "superior body of men," — for such "Illini " 
 implies — the teeming valley, and the bulwark of nature, known 
 in history as "Starved Rock," at whose base flowed the beau- 
 tiful Illinois. 
 
 Charmed with these simple children of the forest, and giv- 
 ing his word that he would return to instruct and enroll them 
 as Christians, the zealous Missioner bade them farewell, launched 
 his canoe on the waters of the Illinois, accompanied by his 
 band, and began his voyage, heading for the Mission of St. 
 Mary's, that lay at the head of Lake Huron. They entered at 
 Wilmington, the Kankakee, sailed up to its source, carried the 
 frail craft overland to Lake Michigan, dropped it on the Inland 
 Sea, and called on Mary, hugging the eastern shore for safety, 
 they sailed northward. The Straights of Mackinaw, the waters 
 of Lake Huron, the beautiful river of Ste. Marie they had with 
 incredible hardship, made triumphantly. The holy Missionary 
 was at last at his beloved Mission of St. Mary's — the Sault or 
 leaping waters — that connects Lakes Superior and Huron. 
 
 The winter of 1673 had already set in. No sooner had it 
 passed, and the spring of 1674 had opened to promise, when, 
 true to his word, Marquette w^as on his way to his beloved Illi- 
 nois of the rich valley; following the route he had taken the 
 year previous, except that now he sailed the western shore of 
 Lake Michigan as far down as the Chicago River which he 
 entered. He was taken out of the canoe in an alarming condi- 
 tion. His faithful Hurons built the cabin on what is now the 
 throbbing, heaving, unparalleled center of thorough American 
 energy and enterprise. His Illinois children, a hundred miles 
 away, heard of the low condition of their beloved Black gown, 
 and directly a delegation of the warriors set out during the 
 winter of 167 5-1 676 to visit the Missioner. The meeting and 
 the greeting were those of deep affection, witnessed by 
 tears and sobs on the part of Father and children. Was there, 
 
 (8)
 
 could there be, any reason to hope, unless by miracle, that the 
 Father's frame, now exhausted by fatigue and unnumbered 
 austerities, would ever wax strong in order to fulfill his word 
 given to his children of the valley ? Father Marquette doubted, 
 and his children at his bedside bade him take heart, and stay 
 and die in their country as he had promised to remain a long 
 time. He and his dusky braves prayed for health and strength. 
 Their prayers were heard. The spring of 1675 dawned, and the 
 Missioner in Holy Week was at Kaskaskia once more. The 
 joy of his poor neophytes at seeing their best friend and father 
 was boundless. 
 
 The work of instruction began and was continued. The 
 Mission was dedicated to the glory of God, and placed under the 
 protection of the Immaculate Conception of the Sweet Mother 
 Mary. Beneath the great rock that hung over the beautiful 
 river, in the garden valley, among the thousand wigwams of 
 Kaskaskia, surrounded by the whole tribe of the Illinois, on 
 the memorable Maundy Thursday of 1675, the holy priest 
 offered the first Mass ever celebrated west of the Alleghany 
 Mountains. Alas that the spot, the picturesque surroundings 
 of that sublimest of actions and a thousand others would be 
 so treated, so forgotten! that spot which might serve to grate- 
 ful hearts, as one of the most remarkable shrines! The sower 
 of Christianity in the West, and the founder of Illinois lies buried 
 in the town of St. Ignace on the Straits of Mackinaw. The 
 growing city Marquette, on Lake Superior, is one of his many 
 monuments ; his name as explorer of the great West is the first ; 
 men of all creeds do homage to his memory, and Catholics 
 venerate him as a saint and this great Republic has built his 
 monument at Washington. 
 
 The Illinois country is connected with other remarkable 
 names — that of the explorer Robert de la Salle, and the Fran- 
 ciscan Father Hennepin. In December, 1678, four years after 
 the departure of the great Jesuit, to the consternation of 
 the Illinois, the above explorers arrived at Kaskaskia. The 
 policy of the dauntless De la Salle was first and foremost, the 
 seizure of the territory to the crown of France, and then the 
 soul of the.Redman. 
 
 A colony was planted near the Indian village, and the cliff 
 (Starved Rock) was made to serve as a fortress against the 
 incursions of the Indians. This was the famous fort of St. 
 Louis, the first built in the West. The site selected for the 
 
 (9)
 
 colony was a fit center, writes the American historian Bancroft: 
 "A cliff two hundred feet above the river that flows at its base, 
 in the center of a lovely country of verdant prairies, bordered 
 by distant slopes, richly tufted with oak and black walnut, and 
 bhe noblest trees of the American forest." Short was the life 
 Df the French colony and power, represented by the ensign that 
 waved from the fort over the garden of Illinois. Chevalier de 
 la Salle, pierced by conspirators, fell in March, 1687, on the 
 plains of Texas, and the body of the "Father of civilization in 
 the great valley of the West," was eaten by the wolf. 
 
 The fort fell, the colony was broken up by the repeated 
 Dnslaughts of the savages, whom the colonists had despised and 
 harassed in the day of power. Many who had escaped the 
 tomahawk and scalping knife, became victims to starvation 
 3T to the fangs of the wild cat, or were lost in the waters. The 
 handful that survived, spread themselves along the Mississippi. 
 In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the great order 
 took up the work of its celebrated son, Marquette, and the 
 Illinois and the Foxes and Peorias, were again won over to the 
 Church. The conquest of Canada by the British, through the 
 defeat of Montcalm, in 1759 at Quebec, destroyed forever the 
 French power, and with it, the saving work of the Missionaries 
 among a hundred Indian nations, in the region that had been 
 New France. The great Illinois valleys that had rung so often 
 with the sound of peace, and whose children had once worn the 
 beams of joy issuing from Christian "hearts, now were turned 
 into battle fields; and the question in the hour of British power, 
 and when the colonies threw off the yoke of British tyranny, was 
 which would be the owner of the western garden territory, the 
 aborigines or the whites? 
 
 The decision was easily delivered. The brute force of savage, 
 undisciplined, unorganized, yielded to the superior tactics of 
 the Whites. The serried columns of the militia, moving on the 
 brave, incoherent mass of Indians, had oft and again by their 
 bayonet charge or musketry, routed or killed the foe; and oft 
 again, in many a skirmish and battle with the Whites, the In- 
 dian, in his turn, had carried away the scalp. Yet had he be- 
 come so far reduced by disease, fratricidal wars, battles with the 
 Whites, that to make him a wanderer, to drive him ruthlessly 
 away from his hunting grounds and his wigwam, the home of 
 his ancestors, was in the policy of a strong government, the 
 wisest and best plan. The last Indian war that spread ruin and 
 
 do
 
 covered with desolation the IlHnois country known as the Black 
 Hawk, began and ended in 1832, six years before the arriva 
 at La Salle, Illinois, of the priests of the Mission. In the Illi- 
 nois country henceforth the Redman would have "No local habi- 
 tation and name." 
 
 (11)
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 In the Illinois territory, as elsewhere in the great republic, 
 emigration thread its way, at first, like a rivulet; but no sooner 
 had the territory been admitted to the Union in 1818, and the 
 State Legislature of Illinois had been elected to enact wise laws 
 and to make appropriations for opening up the vast resources 
 of the Garden State, to attract and urge emigration by offering 
 land to settlers at a nominal value, than what had been at first 
 a rivulet, grew into a rushing stream, deepening its channel and 
 broadening its banks, fertilizing the vast area with the blessings 
 of peace and prosperity. 
 
 The bill and appropriations for building a channel called the 
 Illinois and Michigan canal, that would connect, at Chicago, 
 Lake Michigan with the Illinois River, at La Salle, the commerce 
 of the lakes with the commerce of the great rivers southwestward, 
 passed the houses at Springfield, the Capitol. The work of 
 cutting, this artery began at Chicago, and at La Salle, the termi- 
 nus, on the national festival, 4th of July, 1836. 
 
 The question now on the lips of every keen observer, and 
 well wisher for the improvement and development of the great 
 state was: Where could there be found contractors for the 
 work, and men to carry it on? Only four years had gone by 
 since the terrible tomahawk and scalping knife had hung over 
 the beautiful valleys of the richest of territories. The name of 
 Black Hawk rang through the continent, as did that of the 
 Lion-hearted Richard, through the regions of the Saracen — a 
 name of terror and dismay. Might there not still be the treach- 
 erous savage, lurking in the forest, on the clumps of hazel which 
 skirted the Illinois that ran southernly a little distance from 
 the projected canal? The ports of entry for merchandise and 
 for emigrants in that early day were Boston, New York, Balti- 
 more and New Orleans. These were the objective points which 
 the people of the old world made for; and, to each of these 
 cities, contractors who had the building of the State canal, sent 
 circulars inviting labor and offering terms for the work. The 
 
 (13)
 
 14 STORY OF THE LA SALLE__MISSION. 
 
 circulars had their effect. Thousands of hardy, industrious 
 men, fully three-fourths of them Irish Roman Catholics, 
 whom unjust and cruel laws had forced to the Asylum^of 
 all Nations, leaving the great eastern and_southern centers^of 
 commerce where the two extremes of wealth and beggary existed, 
 where the jewel of faith was so often dimmed, and not unfre- 
 quently lost, through the wayward surroundings in which the 
 unwary poor happened to live, headed for Buffalo, and taking 
 boat, sailed the lakes, or journeyed to Pittsburg, and sailed the 
 Ohio and western rivers, or made the whole route from New 
 Orleans by water to reach work on the great canal. Along the 
 hundred miles of the cut, from Chicago to La Salle, Irish con- 
 tractors and Irish mechanics and laborers were engaged, building 
 up the great waterway. 
 
 The prospects of living were good and money was plenty. 
 As humble as were the cabins which rimmed the great highway 
 in course of building, each of them could serve up at any mo- 
 ment for its inmates, friends and strangers, in true, genuine 
 Irish hospitality, a round of dishes. Gratefulness for the favor 
 on the part of the guest was ever below the generosity of the 
 giver. Nothing in the eatable and clothing markets was priced 
 too high so long as the length of the purse continued. The best 
 was always the cheapest. 
 
 In view of the peasantry of Ireland, to keep open house was 
 
 a grade of nobility only inferior to that of giving welcome to 
 
 the representative of Jesus Christ — the Soggarth Aroon. The 
 
 casual observer, passing from the cabins to the cut, and back 
 
 again from the cut into the cabins, would find nothing among 
 
 the masses of men, or in their snug shanties but the look of 
 
 cheerfulness, the sparks of wit flying here and there, and, as a 
 
 consequence, roars of laughter, which made life easy and sped 
 
 it along as attractively and sportingly as the chattering brook. 
 
 Yet to the brave stalwarts themselves, one and all Catholic, 
 
 there was much to notice and open up sorrow. Each one felt 
 
 and expressed that "not in bread alone doth man live; but in 
 
 every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." The 
 
 relations of the national character with the gift and profession 
 
 of Divine faith, which 
 
 "Was lit at Kildare's holy fane, 
 
 And burned thro' all ages in darkness." 
 
 were like the union of hearts. Theirs was not the horizon of
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. IS 
 
 the mere natural. They aspired after, sighed after something 
 higher and nobler, than the prosperity they enjoyed. The 
 memories of the Old Land were still fresh — the memories of the 
 priest and chapel and grave-yard; of Sunday and feast-day, 
 which brought families in scores together, to the all-atoning 
 sacrifice, to fill their hearts for the coming week with grace to 
 resist and overcome temptation in every form; to confess with 
 broken-heartedness their failings, and draw strength to com- 
 mence anew — these were the thoughts of our good IlHnois 
 canallers, 
 
 "Which came in the night time of sorrow and care, 
 And brought back the features that joy used to wear." 
 
 but only for a passing hour. 
 
 The chief Catholic Irish contractor, to whom was awarded 
 the western part of the projected canal running from Marseilles 
 to La Salle, the terminus, was Mr. William Byrne. In talent, 
 especially in the study of practical mensuration, he had in that 
 day few equals. 
 
 His full physical development of a frame measuring six feet 
 two inches, his massive forehead, keen eye, his quick nature, 
 impetuous at times, but with all most forgiving and forgetful: 
 with a style of speech that Sam Johnson would listen to; and 
 manners. Old Hickory and Tom Benton could not but admire ; 
 his home the largest, the widest, the tallest of log cabins built 
 on a site, commanding the most correct view of the scenery 
 of the Illinois valley — at a point where the canal flows into the 
 Illinois River — with an open house, a table ever spread on which 
 every plate could find luxury and abundance. 
 
 Such is merely a glance at the character of him we knew so 
 well and ever venerated. "Billy Byrne" — as he was familiarly 
 called and lovingly named, had immeasurably much to recom- 
 mend him to the thousands of his own day, and to the sons of 
 St. Vincent — "in aeternum et ultra." He was a patriot of the 
 days of the Immortal Emmet ; of the days of which the lamented 
 John Mitchell sang: 
 
 "Remember '98, go ahead, go ahead." 
 
 How often has the writer and many of ,the old confreres, 
 most of whom are departed, as the grand old man — then in his 
 sixtieth year — bared his shoulders, gazed on the sharply defined 
 scars of what the cruel and inhuman cutlass of a Norbury had
 
 i6 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 wrought in the "Land of the Shamrock/' and the "Isle of 
 Saints"! His glory, however, is that he was a great CathoHc, 
 and, like all men given to the study of the influence of religion 
 upon the individual, especially upon the sons of the Gael, and 
 upon the commonwealth at large, the presence of the priest in 
 the historic La Salle country he considered, the condition of its 
 real life.
 
 WILLIAM BYRNE.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Wm. Byrne in Search for Our Missionaries. 
 
 The Illinois River of the years from 1837 to 1853 was navi- 
 gable from Ottawa, in La Salle County, to its mouth. It was 
 a broad and deep channel, on which the commerce of western 
 and southwestern Illinois, made their way to the then only 
 thriving city of the Far West, St. Louis. The boats that plied 
 this great feeder of the father of waters, were as superb in their 
 apartments for the traveling public, and fully as fully stocked 
 with the best of the market, and at as low a fare, as any that 
 sailed the Mississippi. Fully three-fourths of the State of Illi- 
 nois were then part of the diocese of Upper Louisiana. The 
 Holy Son of St. Vincent, Bishop Joseph Rosati, then governed 
 the territory which embraced nearly the whole of the vast 
 Louisiana Purchase, over forty dioceses, and a very limited 
 clergy. 
 
 Under him labored in this vast field twenty-seven of his 
 own clergy, twenty-three Jesuit fathers, and twenty-five of his 
 confreres, the priests of the Mission. This was the "pusillus 
 grex constituit pater dare," to feed and guard the sheep in the 
 pasture, and to hunt up that ever large number, which had 
 strayed away. They did not, they could not make much head- 
 way, the area was so vast. 
 
 An occasional visit fifty, one hundred, two, four hundred 
 miles from St. Louis, or St. Mary's Seminary, the home of the 
 Missioners, had been all that could be done for the Catholic 
 settlements, until priests sufficient in number, would be at the 
 disposal of the Bishop, to appoint resident pastors. The valley 
 of the Illinois, the La Salle country, covering an area of nearly 
 three hundred miles square, had only the advantage of an occas- 
 ional or yearly visit to the many settlements that were making. 
 
 The voyage from La Salle, the would-be-terminus of the 
 Illinois canal, and the residence of the contractor and of a large 
 number of Catholics, to St. Louis took the better part of three 
 
 (17)
 
 i8 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 days. The Bishop resided in the latter city, and WilHam Byrne, 
 with the expressed wish of his countrymen, must go on an errand 
 after Missioners. 
 
 Accordingly, near Christmas, 1837, he took the boat at Peru, 
 a village joining La Salle, and sailed to St. Louis. He called 
 on his Lordship, laid before him the condition of the hundreds 
 of Irish Catholics in the northeastern portion of Illinois, particu- 
 larly those on the public works, and implored him to send, with- 
 out delay, Missioners. The good bishop listened to the con- 
 tractor with much satisfaction, and yet with evident feeling: 
 "nam velle adjecit mihi;" many laymen, like Mr. Byrne, filled 
 with the spirit of true faith, had called upon him on the like 
 errand, and he had not committed himself to a promise, because 
 he saw not how he could fulfill. 
 
 In the case of the La Salle contractor, Bishop Rosati assured 
 him he would do his utmost to satisfy, as soon as convenient, 
 his children of the La Salle country. In three days after the 
 interview, Mr. Byrne was again in his home, the bearer of the 
 news to his countrymen — that Missioners would soon dwell 
 amongst them. 
 
 The Bishop lost no time making use of every available means 
 to supply the wants of his Northern children. He leaned on 
 the congregation of the Mission. Father Timon was then its 
 visitor, and Prefect Apostolic of the vast territory of Texas. 
 "Clarum et venerable nomen" among his confreres and among 
 the great Hierarchy of the United States CathoHc Church. 
 None knew better and could take in more correctly the condi- 
 tion and surroundings of the scattered numbers of Catholics. 
 Moreover, none was ever readier to lend his apostolic zeal, where 
 it could be done, for the salvation of the poor. When returned 
 from his labors, weighty and many and various as those of the 
 great apostle "periculis fiuminun, periculis latromum, pericuHs 
 in genere, periculis in solidudine, periculis in mari, periculis ex 
 falsis fratribus; in fame et siti, in frigore et nuditate;" he made 
 his home at the mother house of the community in the United 
 States, St. Mary's Seminary — the Barrens, Perry County, 
 Missouri. 
 
 At his request. Father Timon called on his Lordship. The 
 latter made known his will to the former, to send Missioners to 
 the children of the faith — to the happy Illinois country; to 
 make La Salle village their headquarters, and thence along the
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 19 
 
 rivers, and creeks, and over the prairies to spread and establish 
 the kingdom of God. The visitor was not the man to refuse, 
 though just now he was asked to make a great sacrifice. Appli- 
 cations from the holy Bishop Blanc, of New Orleans, asking 
 Missioners for his seminary and for parishes had been pouring 
 in, and had been answered. To meet the La Salle difficulty, 
 which was urgent, the only means at hand was, for the confreres 
 at the old seminary to take upon themselves the additional 
 labor of the two Missioners, who would leave the old home for 
 the La Salle country, or abandon one of the many Missions the 
 community had in southern Illinois and southeast Missouri. 
 The Missions continued, and the recruits for supplying the La 
 Salle Mission the old home cheerfully gave, to the delight of 
 Bishop Rosati.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Fathers Raho and Parodi leave the Renowned old St. Mary's the 
 Barrens and Reach La Salle III. 
 
 The Missionary, moved to another Mission, would receive 
 notice probably, at the same time as the procurator, who would 
 have the conveyance in readiness for the traveler by the ap- 
 pointed hour. 
 
 Accepting a new establishment, or taking possession of a new 
 country — for such was the Illinois Mission, would reasonably 
 demand a full outfit, inseparable from a Missioner's calling — 
 the saddle-bag with altar furniture and sick-call cases — the huge 
 box filled with the attempt at a library and lastly the carpet 
 bag containing a wardrobe. The "Homo ad unguem " of Horace, 
 and the ecclesiastical fop had no existence in the days of which 
 we write. Had he then lived, he would have been as searching 
 an object of curiosity and of pity, as the soldier "en habit de 
 salon," in the ranks of an invading army. 
 
 Thursday the 22nd of March, 1838, after the usual visit on 
 leaving the house, to the "Father of the family," and kneeling 
 for the Superior's blessing, embracing all their confreres, seated 
 in the heavy wagon, so well known to the old Barrenite con- 
 freres, with the baggage under their eye, the Missioners, Raho 
 and Parodi started in earnest on their journey of four hundred 
 miles, driving to the Mississippi, Saint Mary's landing, twelve 
 miles distance from the seminary. 
 
 This was the only distance they had to wagon; the steam- 
 boat would carry them the rest of the journey. After three 
 hours on a road cut through the timber, jolted at every revolution 
 of the wheels — with notched trees, the landmarks pointing the 
 road — the team and its freight stood before Pratt's hotel. The 
 good Fathers entered the inn, and the negro, one of the oldest 
 servants of the' Seminary refreshed his team, and then himself. 
 In an hour the Seminary wagon was on its way back, and by 
 the time it reached home, the steamboat had whistled and 
 
 (20)
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. ai 
 
 made the landing. The Confreres, with their baggage got on 
 board. The vessel in a little while was breasting the rushing 
 current, bound for St. Louis. It was night, and no doubt, the 
 pleasure enjoyed from 
 
 "Kind Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." 
 in the sumptuous apartments of a Mississippi palace steamer, 
 compensated largely the fatigued Missioners for their wagon 
 ride. 
 
 At about 6 A. M. Friday, the boat moored at the St. Louis 
 levee, and the Confreres, with their effects were driven to the 
 St. Vincent's house. There they celebrated the Holy Mass; 
 for one of the hundred acts of virtue very marked in the char- 
 acter of the Conferers, was that, no matter how tired or other- 
 wise indisposed, unless it were by serious sickness, they never 
 failed, when possible, to prepare and offer the adorable sacrifice. 
 They sojourned from Friday until Sunday in the Mound City; 
 called on the Saintly Rosati, and notified Mr. Byrne at La Salle 
 by letter, that they would leave on the 26th. " He received us " 
 writes Father Raho, "with the most lively affection." And it 
 may safely be stated, that the largest faculties in the power of 
 the Holy Bishop to grant, were in proportion to the distance 
 of the northeastern extremity of his diocese from St. Louis, and 
 the many difficulties and trials which the Missioners must neces- 
 sarily meet and pass through, were it obligatory to sue for and 
 obtain dispensations. Whatever would be needed for the Mis- 
 sion, and which they did not carry from the old home, as wine 
 for the Holy Mass, etc., etc., during their short stay, they pur- 
 chased. 
 
 Monday morning, March 26th, the Illinois packet, bound 
 for La Salle, was scheduled to leave, and once more, the Mis- 
 sioners without break in their voyage, sailed to their destination. 
 The voyage from St. Louis to La Salle in that early day was 
 made in three days; and a more enjoyable trip, any time in the 
 autumn, or at the season the Missioners traveled, would be diffi- 
 cult to choose, and more difficult to excel. 
 
 As the boat left her moorings, and pulled out into the deep 
 channel, splitting the angry flood, as she pointed north-westerly, 
 the hurricane roof would be lined on the city side with search- 
 ing eyes for the beautiful in nature and art. The Mound City 
 of 30,000 was then a picture; the levee, guarded with miles of 
 steamboats, now leaving, now arriving; alive and full of life,
 
 3 2 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION 
 
 as the wheels of industry conveyed the newly arrived cargoes 
 of cotton, sugar and molasses to the warehouse, or hauled the 
 northern products for shipment to the South; the buildings for 
 merchandise and storage were massive and high for those days; 
 streets running at right angles; dwellings nestling in orchards 
 of cherries, apples and pears; the Roman Catholic Cathedral, 
 just finished in Roman style of architecture, a monument to-day 
 of beauty and of the zeal of the first bishop of St. Louis. Surely 
 to gaze on such a scene would be worth the while, as adding to 
 knowledge much of interest and of pleasure. Nor did the Mis- 
 sioners fail to take in "the meeting of the waters," the Missouri 
 and the Mississippi, the Big Muddy — the scavenger of the vast 
 northwestern territories — and the clear, bright "father of waters" 
 where the influence of the former upon the latter "points a 
 moral and adorns a tale." At the mouth of the Illinois River, 
 a little south of the city of Alton, the boat entered, and is plough- 
 ing the great artery of the Illinois country. The forests that 
 rimmed its banks, the game that filled them, and swam in its 
 limpid waters before the axe of the heartless woodman,andthe 
 wheels of the factory had stolen its waters, the lake on whose 
 shore the Peorias had pitched their wigwams and into whose 
 waters they had sent, with deadl}?- effect, the swift spear, mirror- 
 ing in its glassy waters, the neat thrifty dwellings and pictur- 
 esque backgrounds [oi the chief city on the Illinois, were 
 objects that varied what had proved monotonous, and sped 
 the hours joyfully, which otherwise would have been dreary and 
 heavy. 
 
 From Peoria to La Salle is a distance of sixty-five miles, a 
 sail of ten hours. Thursday, midnight, March 29th, the steam- 
 boat with her precious cargo put in at Peru. The populations 
 of Peru and La Salle, a bridge divides. All shades of belief and 
 both sexes, in a flood of light, rolling from five hundred torches, 
 massed the river bank. The sight of the Missionaries, as they 
 moved out of the boat and got on shore, rent the midnight air 
 by the shrill whistling of the steamer, the rolling of drums, and 
 the shouts of welcome — welcome from the hearts of a happy 
 people; for the representatives of Christ had at last arrived, 
 and "God had visited His people." 
 
 The crowd, headed by Mr. William Byrne and family, came 
 forward, too full of joy for utterance, and pressed heartily the 
 hands of the good fathers. Two horses stood in waiting for the
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 23 
 
 Missionaries under the eye of John Cody, destined to play so 
 important a part in the first years of the La Salle Mission. The 
 procession formed — first the contractor, to whom the people 
 awarded the high praise, deservedly merited, of bringing Christ- 
 ianity to La Salle, then the band, consisting of fiutes,fifes and 
 drums, the men four deep, each carrying lighted torches, lastly 
 Father Raho and Father Parodi, each sitting on the horse as- 
 signed him, the latter keeping John Cody at his side. At the 
 word of the commanding officer, the band struck up "Garry- 
 owen," and the procession moved, heading towards the home 
 of William Byrne, a full mile from the wharf. After climbing 
 a hill, for the well known log cabin of the contractor looked 
 out on the valley, the organization in crescent form, stood in 
 front of the residence. The Fathers dismounted and faced the 
 vast crowd. The march had ended to the satisfaction of the 
 affectionate people, and to the joy of the men of God. Father 
 Parodi was particularly overjoyed, and John Cody was never 
 happier; for, had the last named gentleman at any step of the 
 big walk, let go the grip he had — and indeed he was a little giant 
 in muscle — of Father Parodi, and the saddle the mind re- 
 fuses to dwell on what might have happened to the good Father, 
 to the horse, and to John, who henceforth, in sunshine and storm, 
 stood to the Missioner a guardian angel. 
 
 The address of welcome was now in order; and placing her- 
 self facing the Missionaries, the little daughter of William Byrne 
 read in slow, distinct, silvery tones, in the name of the Catholics 
 of La Salle and Peru, an address of hearty greeting to, and of 
 best wishes for the Ambassadors of Christ. 
 
 Whole-souled cheers from Irish hearts, at the conclusion of 
 the address, closed the ceremonies of that memorable night. 
 In an hour; 
 
 "There was silence deep as death 
 And the boldest held their breath." 
 
 The first home of the sons of St. Vincent in the Illinois coun- 
 try was the Byrne mansion.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Father Raho Sketches the MissionField. 
 
 "Let Nehemias be remembered!" 
 
 Alas, that the fact had been allowed to slip out of the memory 
 of scores, who had every right to keep it green! The account 
 of the arrival and reception of the first Missionaries to La Salle, 
 given the superior general Nozo, by Father Raho, the Superior 
 of the La Salle Mission, in his letter of 1840, Vol. 9 of the annals 
 of the congregation of the Mission, tallies in every thing, except 
 that the word Irish is not mentioned, with the above descrip- 
 tion, given by eye witnesses, John Cody, William O'Reilly, and 
 Barney Murtaugh, shares in the scenes of the hour. 
 
 On the 29th of March, '38, writes Father Raho, among the 
 Illinois, "we stood on this new field opened to tillage by Divine 
 Providence, where never before a priest had been. To tell you 
 the joy with which the news of our arrival had filled all hearts, 
 is impossible. 
 
 Though it was midnight, it did not hold back the multitude 
 from besieging us. Catholics (Irish) and Protestants, vied with 
 one another to give expression to their gratefulness for coming 
 among them. It was the hour of triumph. They carried 
 Hghted torches. 
 
 A little child came forward, and, in the name of all, made us 
 an address full of dignity, as complimentary as it was simple and 
 touching. We could hardly believe our eyes. The welcome 
 was overpowering. We looked upon it as a happy omen of the 
 success of our ministry, among so beautifully disposed a people." 
 
 The late hour at which the Fathers and the joyous multitude 
 retired, or rather the early hour, for March 30th, Friday, had 
 begun — did not hinder the priests from offering, and many 
 of the people, including the Byrne family, from assisting at the 
 first masses celebrated in La Salle. 
 
 The old pioneers of the sanctuary had great provisional gifts 
 
 (24)
 
 JOHN CODY.
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 25 
 
 and fertile brains, excellent tact, wonderful qualities of adapta- 
 tion and happy dispositions. As the Israelites in the desert, 
 carried and located the ark wherever they roamed, so the Mis- 
 sioners carried and built the altar wheresoever in the valley 
 or on the prairie he would pass the night. The tail of a wagon, 
 the box of a buggy, or now the table of the family of the host 
 served as a stand; the saddle-bags contained all the requisites 
 in altar stone, Hnens, etc., etc., for the due celebration of the 
 Divine mysteries. In the largest room of the cabin, the tem- 
 porary altar was erected, and every thing for the holy sacrifice 
 was in readiness. The room was crowded. The Superior offered 
 first, then the assistant confrere. God alone could judge which 
 fervor was the more acceptable to him ; that of the simple wor- 
 shipers who, over- gladdened, evinced by sobs and tears, that at 
 last, the Lamb of God in an unbloody manner lay before them, — 
 the source of all grace to men ; or that of the ministers personat- 
 ing Jesus Christ in the most high and awful action, permitted 
 to poor, sinful men. If ever the sons of St. Vincent had brought 
 to the divinest of actions, grateful hearts, it assuredly was 
 then; for in those days of sailing western rivers, captains and 
 engineers valued human Hfe, alas! but of little account. To 
 head off, if possible, a rival boat, condition of passengers and 
 condition of hull they recked not. Hence the surprise that often 
 rushed on hundreds, the angel of death hurling his weapons of 
 flame and fire and explosion till 
 
 "The eyes of the sleepers were deadly and chill; 
 'Their hearts but once heaved and forever grew still." 
 
 Moreover, if after the Sons of St. Vincent had success to 
 their labors, at heart, with all earnestness did they call down 
 the blessings of the Lamb, over the vast field on which they 
 stood; for they recalled easily the sentence of the Holy Ghost, 
 by the Apostle Paul: "Ego plantavi; Apollo rigavit; Deos 
 autem incrementum dedit." — i Cor. 3rd Chapter 6th verse. 
 
 The public inauguration of the La Salle Mission was an- 
 nounced to take place Passion Sunday, April ist. In the home 
 of William Byrne, as they walked through the timbers, they 
 took in the situation, examining, studying the most successful 
 method to follow to insure success. 
 
 Thus the Missioners passed the remainder of the week.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Per aspra ad astra. By the Cross to the Crown. 
 
 Had the men who were making Mr. Byrne's house their 
 home, been born "of blood, or of the will of flesh, or of the will 
 of man," the day after that of their arrival, they would have 
 witnessed them boarding the first boat for St. Louis, and thence 
 to the "Barrens." For the survey of the surroundings of their 
 abode, was anything but encouraging to the mere natural ob- 
 server — "the animal man." 
 
 The winter had not yet gone ; frost was in the March winds. 
 Even in the sheltered valley at their feet, no vegetation to cheer 
 the eye and throw off gloom from the mind, had shot forth. 
 It is true, hundreds of men were pushing forward the canal. 
 This was something to indicate that the near future had a 
 marked progress in store for the spread of rehgion. But the 
 western bottom lands, from the Illinois River, up to the ridge, 
 and fully two miles westward still, to the upland prairies, what 
 are now a series of hives of industrial energy and enterprise, and 
 full of promise to become one of the leading cities of Illinois, 
 were then a forest of elms and cotton wood, various species of 
 oak and hickory, clumps of hazel, an occasional attempt at a 
 neat dwelling, log cabins and shanties. 
 
 Moreover, the consideration of the vastness of the field to 
 cultivate, would thicken the gloom and depress the spirit. With- 
 in its boundaries were the counties of La Salle, Lee, Bureau, 
 Grundy, Henry, Knox, Stark, Putnam, Marshall, Peoria, Taze- 
 well, McLean, Sangamon, Macoupin, Cass — nearly one-third of 
 56,000 square miles — the area of the great Illinois state; a 
 mission field only a little less than the area of Scotland and 
 larger than Belgium and Holland united. Over that extensive 
 area were scattered a multitude of "sheep that had no shepherd " 
 — "the needy and the poor in search of waters that are not, 
 the ways of Sion mourning and clamoring for bread — and none 
 to break it to them." Much, certainly there was, in such a 
 
 (26)
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 27 
 
 subject of thought, for men filled with this spirit of what the 
 ItaHans name "Far niente," a do nothing, to fret and chafe at. 
 But what, more than all, would break the spirit and make vic- 
 tims of sadness and misery, was the stern fact that resources in 
 any way proportionate to enter and carry on the gigantic work, 
 were not-money, nor influence, nor home, nor church. Pilgrims 
 and strangers, indeed! But stop! "Horatio, there is more than 
 is dreamed of in your philosophy." 
 
 The selection of Fathers Raho and Parodi for this Mission, 
 had been in keeping with Father Timon's discernment of char- 
 acter — an extraordinary gift to the visitor, a gift which accom- 
 panied him in his wise and successful administration of the 
 diocese of Buffalo. "All to gain all," was ever the principle 
 laid down by the Fathers of the Mission, or rather by their 
 Father, St. Vincent of Paul. The practice of working according 
 to this principle was unmistakably marked in the apostolic men 
 of the days to which we refer. They had the spirit of the mis- 
 sion — they were not skeletons. The natural man in his views, 
 his aim, his wants, his affections; mourning over the past, im- 
 patient at the present, full of foreboding for the future, was, 
 therefore, not known, or if known, not recognized. "When 
 God beholds us leaning on man for support. He Himself with- 
 draws from us." He who does not practice outward mortifi- 
 cation will be mortified neither inwardly nor outwardly. It 
 is a great misfortune to be free from suffering in this life." How 
 often have the sons of St. Vincent heard and weighed the above 
 maxims of their founder? They were now in their lines giving 
 them form and life. For five months, from March to August, 
 their home was Wm. Byrne's, — offered, aye, forced in the spirit 
 of a Christian generosity and Irish unselfish hospitality, to accept. 
 The largest room, the writer so well remembers, was made over 
 to the distinguished guests. It served for that length of time 
 the several purposes of bedroom, sitting-room, study room, re- 
 ception room, recreation hall, chapel, except on Sundays and 
 holidays, where the adorable sacrifice was offered, baptisms 
 were administered, confessions heard, marriages celebrated, and 
 the sacred vessels, and Holy Oils preserved. Yet the Missioners 
 enjoyed only the appearance of a home. They were not, nor 
 could they feel free and independent. They were in many ways 
 and meanings abroad. "Carthusians at home," they endeavored 
 to be, for the order of the day followed in the houses of the
 
 28 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 company, hours for rising, meditation, office, meals, recreation, 
 silence, study, retirement, was observed, but under pressure, 
 annoyances and distractions of various kinds. Then the inter- 
 ests of the flock which are manifold, called for a home, screened 
 from the public eye, whither might repair that large number 
 who ever need a faithful friend, a wise counsellor, and a loving 
 father. There the poor should be relieved, the wretched made 
 happy, the ignorant instructed, the doubtful assured, the weak 
 supported, the timid encouraged, quarrels subdued and enmities 
 reconciled. But all that the house of prayer and the sacrifice 
 means, which the glory of God lights up, and the majesty of 
 God fills, and the love of God inflames, where the fountains ever 
 run to refresh the just, to heal the sinner, and to give rest to the 
 weary and heavy laden is wanting, unless the spot consecrated 
 by the unbloody sacrifice, whether on the wave's crest or under 
 the spreading tree, or in a hall over a public house, or in a board- 
 ing-house, or in a room of a log cabin may be named a chapel or 
 a church. 
 
 At any time the Missioners could have these, but there was 
 no permanency, no home for God, no special house consecrated 
 by blessing for the real presence of " Jesu Sacramentato " and ever 
 open to His visitors and adorers. The want of a church was the 
 chief trial from which the Fathers suffered and the poverty that 
 sorely harassed them. They recalled the loving complaint of 
 the great High Priest, similarly situated: "The foxes of the 
 earth have their dens, and the birds of the air their nests, but 
 the son of man hath not whereon to lay his head." — St. Luke, 
 Chap. 9th, Verse 58 . 
 
 Friday, the 30th of March they began their labors, privately 
 in the large room of their hospitable host by offering the Adorable 
 Mass, first the Superior and then the assistant confrere. "Dur- 
 ing the day Father Raho was called to baptize privately, in 
 danger of death. The following is a copy of the first record 
 of baptism entered on the first book of baptismal records kept 
 of the La Salle Mission : 
 
 1838. 
 Die 30, Martii: Ego infraseriptus ob periculum mortis absque 
 
 consuetis cerernoniis baptivzai 
 
 Patritii infantem natum die 24 Februarii * 
 
 Cryberry hujus anni, filium Annae 
 
 Corberry cui imposuinonen * 
 
 Patritii. I. B. Raho, Congnis, Miss.
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 29 
 
 Saturday, 31st of March, their usual duties engaged a por- 
 tion of time, baptism another portion, and the remainder was 
 given to making arrangements to insure the success of the mor- 
 row. Passion Sunday, April ist, the opening day of their great 
 work. The wise heads of the colony, led by WilHam Byrne, 
 were on hand to offer their advice as to the fittest hall in every 
 way for the public celebration of the Divine mysteries. It was 
 decided to obtain if possible, the largest room in the boarding- 
 house of Johnny Hynes. The latter gentleman was approached, 
 and the request made to him to lend his hall to the Lord was not 
 only granted, but never did Johnny feel so rich, so highly distin- 
 guished. He was the proudest man in the Christendom of the 
 La Salle country, that he was in circumstances to make his 
 home a temporary chapel; and it was the boast of his life, that 
 he had been the prime mover to organize a choir, and the most 
 energetic worker to further its progress. 
 
 Passion Sunday, the inauguration day of the Mission, beau- 
 tiful in the physical, but far more beautiful and tender and com- 
 passionate in the moral. What a happy coincidence of events! 
 Passion-tide,consecrated to meditation on the sufferings of the 
 God- Man, and the Mission surrounded with difficulties, and full 
 of promise for the due share of the cross, which now publicly 
 opened! "We preach Jesus Christ crucified for the weak- 
 ness of God is stronger than man." — i Cor. i chap. "He is not 
 uselessly wearied by whom the wearied are refreshed. The 
 sufferings of Christ has so rendered it, that what was, should 
 not perish." — St. Augustine. 
 
 When the Mission had been accepted, and the confreres had 
 been appointed and sent, did the season of the Passion on which 
 to open the Mission, the work of soul-saving, occurred to the mind 
 of the visitor, or the Missioners. It had ever been the conduct 
 of the old Confreres when about to launch into any spiritual 
 or temporal enterprise, to make a start on one or other 
 festival of our Lord, and of His holy mother, or of a saint. 
 Moreover, the very name of the first church of the La Salle 
 Mission would bear was that of the most Holy Cross. On the 
 principal street of the village, stood the large frame boarding- 
 house of Hynes. The room, the length of the building, was 
 festooned with cypress twigs, and the altar was neatly dressed, 
 and ready for the holy mass. The village was thronged with
 
 30 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 canallers and farmers, hurrying to the temporary chapel. The 
 room was filled and the door and windows were open to carry 
 the blessings of the mass to the large bulk of the people, wor- 
 shiping out on the sidewalk. Father Parodi began the adorable 
 sacrifice at eleven o'clock. 
 
 As soon as the first gospel was finished, the celebrant sat 
 down; and the preacher. Father Raho, facing the crowd of 
 eager, reverential Irish Catholic faces, laid first before them 
 the regulations to be observed to secure good order and success 
 in the government of the Mission, until the church would be 
 built and occupied. "On week days we offered the holy mass 
 in our common room, (the home of Wm. Byrne) ; on Sundays, 
 in fine weather, in the forest ; and in bad weather, in the house 
 of John Hynes." The hours most convenient for the people 
 for mass were seven o'clock on week days, eight and one o'clock 
 on Sundays and festivals, from Easter until November; from 
 November until Easter eight-thirty and ten-thirty. The people 
 might approach the holy Tribunal of Penance at any time of 
 the day. Sick calls would be, if possible, always in the day, 
 for the perils of the wilderness, in bottom, woodland and prairie, 
 of swollen creeks and rivers were many; and not one, but many 
 self-sacrificing Missioners, owing to the want of thought of some 
 in leading the priest out at unseasonable hours, and on unneces- 
 sary calls, had shortened their career, by consumption, the result 
 of severe colds, by drowning, by ungovernable horses and other 
 ways. The Mission would never be left without a priest. The 
 sermon followed the regulations. 
 
 "I took for my text," writes the good Father to Superior 
 General Nozo, at Paris, in his letter, October 20th, 1838, "Peace 
 be to you, and discoursed on correspondence to grace. I was 
 moved at the sight before me. Such recollection and deep 
 silence and close attention!" 
 
 The sermon over, the celebrant continued and finished the 
 holy sacrifice, and gave with the pyxis benediction of the ador- 
 able sacrament. At the hands of the Superior, thirty babes 
 received the sacrament of baptism. The first great day of the 
 Mission thus came and went, leaving impressions on the young 
 and old, joyful and happy. 
 
 The work of God went on. The private room on week days 
 was the scene of many a conquest won over to God by holy mass, 
 and baptism and confession and communion and reconciliation
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 31 
 
 of enemies. The time of the fathers was put to the best of 
 profit for God and souls. 
 
 Consecrated "ad salutem pauperum rusticanorum," they 
 mingled with the poor, and reached their hearts. The condition 
 temporal and spiritual of each adult, they began to take in. 
 
 Holy week opened; but the circumstances of Missioners 
 and people hindered the performance of the richest and most 
 touching ceremonial. 
 
 Each ceremony pointed a mystery to be adored, and a lesson 
 to be learned. Once more, this time on Palm Sunday, the tem- 
 porary church, the hotel of Mr. John Hynes, wore a very gay 
 aspect. Hemlock and cypress garlands arranged in various 
 figures, speaking mottoes, appropriate to the day of triumph, 
 graced the hall. 
 
 The audience was even larger than on Passion Sunday. 
 Many non-Catholics, or as they prefer in the United States the 
 name of separated brethren, had assembled; for as a rule, where 
 the Catholic population is in the majority, and well-behaved, 
 and the priest is a live missionary, the separated brethren assist 
 on special occasions, and, with marked attention and gravity, 
 at the services of our holy religion. The ceremony of blessing 
 the palms was performed by the celebrant. Father Parodi, 
 assisted by Father Raho. The mass followed. 
 
 At its conclusion the meaning of blessing the palms was 
 given, after which they were then distributed. All received 
 them — the faithful with lively faith — those not of the fold, no 
 doubt, with strange and curious ideas and feelings, yet with 
 decorum. 
 
 "The crowd of Catholics and Protestants that assembled was 
 immense, and all without distinction received the palms. During 
 the week, we saw Catholics, and even Protestants, carrying the 
 palms in their hats or as a badge on the lapel of their coats." 
 — Letter of Father Raho, Vol. 5th, of Annals. 
 
 The fit celebration of the sacred Triduum could not, it was 
 plain, take place. The office Tenebrae, that arouses the spirit 
 and acts upon the hearts of the pious, and repentant sinners, 
 had to be dispensed with. The tomb or sepulchre, the gleam 
 of sunshine, in the church so attractive and dear to the Catholic 
 soul in the awful hours of abandonment of Holy Thursday and 
 Good Friday, was out of reckoning. 
 
 Sixty communicants would, as they did in honor of Him
 
 32 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 "who loved them to the end," by instituting the pledge of eter- 
 nal life, to remain with men forever, receive on Maundy Thursday 
 their sacramental God, they would assemble for the touching 
 ceremonies of that Friday, the "Good," above all others, to 
 adore, to kiss, in out-bursts of grief — "the wood on which the 
 Savior of the world hung." For, devotion to the cross in the 
 character of the Irish Catholic, from the hour of faith, had 
 ever been a distinctive trait. Meditation on the sufferings of 
 the Man-God, has made light for millions of hearts, what would 
 have proved, by reason of the unrelenting and cruel misgovern- 
 ment of Ireland by England, an unsupportable burden. Holy 
 Saturday, with its glorious ceremonial, received only that atten- 
 tion which was necessary in the blessing of the font, the cele- 
 bration of the mass of the Resurrection and a crowded con- 
 fessional in the evening. 
 
 The triumph of the risen God was celebrated by one hundred 
 and forty feeding on the Paschal Lamb, and by increasing wor- 
 shippers to their own delight and that of their fathers. This, 
 after all, was the real work to plant deeply, at the very outset, 
 the seed of solid piety, to lay broad and lasting foundations in 
 what was destined to become the fruitful mother church of 
 western and southwestern Illinois. 
 
 A thorough training of a people, at the start of a mission, in 
 what they owe God, and the church, instructing them how to 
 close their relations are to Him and to Her; that whilest He, 
 the Creator, the Redeemer, the sanctifier of men, can live with- 
 out His creatures, they cannot exist and live without His power, 
 and independent of His authority, and therefore of his church. 
 People who receive the faith right and not crooked, setting a 
 real value on grace and on the priesthood the instrument, the 
 channel through which grace flows, are whole-souled, lavish of 
 their means, princely in their offerings, to support their pastors, 
 and to build and adorn homes, to make everlasting the blessing 
 of the true religion. 
 
 As day followed day the zeal of the Missioners, quickened 
 as the desires of the people to build a house to God, grew in- 
 tensely. Projects were pushed forward, plans conceived, to put 
 up a building, in keeping with the condition of people and sur- 
 roundings.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 // Charity is a Fire Zeal is its Flame. 
 
 St. Vincent of Paul. 
 
 The season of the Spring had opened full of promise : Easter, 
 April isth, 1838, had given the guarantee that "Jam hiems 
 transit, imber abiit et recessit," "Winter had passed, the frost 
 had gone and disappeared." "To take time by the forelock" 
 was now the order. 
 
 The Missioners would devote all the time at their disposal, 
 to go on begging errands for the projected house of God. The 
 burden of that most diihcult and unthankful of duties, which 
 priests are obliged to discharge, to build up religion in a new 
 country, where the church has no state patronage, or endow- 
 ment, where her children, as a rule, live from hand to mouth, 
 and are thrown amongst all so-called creeds and sects, lay 
 chiefly upon the Superior Father Raho. The good Father 
 Parodi's principle was : "It is more blessed to give than to take." 
 An admirable principle of Christian philanthropy, that has ever 
 been applied in all ages of the church to the needy and the poor. 
 
 The church of the catacombs, and the church of triumph 
 had never forgotten this principle of the Lord Jesus. She would 
 have the poor always with her, and when necessary, had ever 
 her silver and gold vessels to relieve the suffering members 
 of her Savior. But the principle also that "the laborer is worthy 
 of his hire," is, where it can be applied, as strict as that the 
 church' must meet the demands of the faithful. The duty is 
 reciprocal. "We give you spiritual, give in return temporal," 
 is the commandment given and insisted upon since Apostolic 
 times. 
 
 To build churches, schools, asylums, to support and educate 
 the clergy, to meet every demand of the church, are the obli- 
 gations of the faithful. To connive at, or directly allow the 
 faithful to shirk this responsibility, when they are in easy cir- 
 cumstances, or , at all able, is to give a training to the faithful, 
 
 (33)
 
 34 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 contrary to common sense, Christian duty, and the interests 
 of rehgion; so that the consequence will again follow, as it has 
 oftentimes, that the faithful become impertinent in their de- 
 mands on the priest or missioner — nolens- volens ; considering 
 themselves free from duty to support the ministers of God; 
 and, hence, refusing to have a care of, and to maintain the 
 church, bishops and superiors of orders, have to be driven to 
 recall justly the ministers of faith, from such unreasonable and 
 niggardly missions. 
 
 Above, far and beyond, all Catholic nations, the Irish had 
 ever set a high value on the services of Holy Faith; above all 
 among those who had lived near to, and had constant communi- 
 cation with the practices of the church, Father Raho on his days 
 of collecting along the canal, at the boarding houses or 
 shanties, had comparatively an easy time to obtain what he 
 sought. The smile that greeted him from the housewife or 
 boarding mistress, or men assured him: "Your Reverence is 
 welcome," and the shake of the hand followed. On one of his 
 rambles along the canal, he fell in with a wealthy contractor, 
 president of a bank of issue at La Salle. Mr. A. H. Bangs, such 
 was his name, received Father Raho with much courtesy, and 
 heard with eager satisfaction the missioner's narrative of what 
 the Catholics intended to do, by the way of procuring ground, 
 erecting a church and missionary residence. Highly approving 
 of the purposes of the priest, Bangs then and there made out 
 and handed to the simple missioner a deed for an acre of land, 
 giving at the same time his note for $500.00, (2,500) francs, as an 
 additional donation for the like purpose. His gifts were very 
 princely — on paper. The object duped — the good father himself 
 — will tell his own story, hold up to the light of modem people, 
 the character of Bangs, the first cheat and blood sucker who had 
 so cruelly outraged the people of La Salle and Peru. 
 
 ' Seeing we could not continue without a church, day and 
 night I was wrapped up in thought. At first everything seemed 
 to smile upon the enterprise. A Protestant gave his word for 
 an acre of ground and for $500.00. Other Protestants, desirous 
 to rival our Catholics in zeal, showed themslves very clever 
 in their contributions. The number of brick necessary for the 
 church, had been ordered: all things were ready; and as I was 
 about to commence the buildings, news came that the ground 
 given did not belong to the giver (Bangs), and that this fellow,
 
 STORY OP THE LA SALLE MISSION. 35 
 
 far from being prepared to send me the promised sum, $500.00, 
 had fled the country, carrying away $9000.00, the hard earnings 
 of the poor canallers he had employed; and therefore, the con- 
 tributions promised by these good people." Vol 5th of Annals. 
 
 Eye witnesses still living declare that Bangs, the imposter, 
 being caught, an enraged people inflicted the punishment of 
 tarring and feathering the swindler. Yet the Catholic spirit 
 prevailed for the natural spirit, had either thrown the murderer 
 into the river, or summoned Judge Lynch to hang him on the 
 first tree. Thomas Cavanaugh with Captain Kennedy saved the 
 criminal. The effect of the rascality of Bangs on the hundreds 
 of the poor laborers of La Salle and Peru, bowed down with 
 grief the good Fathers. But why pine, drivel out an existence 
 over what can not be avoided. "Virtue is perfected in weak- 
 ness." 
 
 Theirs was not the character to allow the courage, the bravery 
 of men tried by the like fraud and treachery to excel Christian 
 fortitude. Nothing truer than 
 
 "The sun has hid its rays 
 
 These many days, 
 
 Will dreary hours never leave the earth? 
 
 Oh! doubting heart 
 
 The stormy clouds on high 
 
 Veil the same sunny sky, 
 
 That noon, (for spring is nigh) , 
 
 Shall wake the summer into golden mirth." 
 
 Into the sorrow-stricken hearts of the poor generous Irish 
 Catholics of La Salle, they poured out a soothing balm. They 
 recalled the words of St. Vincent, uttered on an occasion when 
 similar and more grievous losses befell the missioners and people. 
 "Let us thank God for this affair, for the loss of this property, 
 and for the disposition He has given us to accept this loss for 
 His love. The loss is great, but His adorable wisdom will know 
 how to turn it to our good! 
 
 The times were good ; and though the population lived from 
 hand to mouth, furnishing the very best the market had, de- 
 pending on the work of the canal which might come to suspend 
 for want of appropriations, as it proved three years afterwards; 
 yet the losses they had sustained, would easily be borne, and a 
 little would be put by for erecting the house of God. A church 
 every one exclaimed, must be built. The idea of erecting a 
 brick church in La Salle a half a century ago, was an idea too
 
 36 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION 
 
 high to entertain seriously — not feasible for missioners and 
 people. Old Horace's maxim: "Nesutor ultra crepidam," has 
 been done into English by the Irish people: "Cut the coat to 
 the cloth." What objection would or could be reasonably made 
 to a log church? For durableness — here and there through the 
 forest, what is now acres of neat and stately mansions, stood 
 log cabins, older than many of the flock, and the timbers of 
 which had stood the mettle of the storm, and sweep of the tor- 
 nado not uncommon along the western rivers, since the days 
 of Marquette and La Salle. 
 
 Was comfort questioned? Experience in the old log seminary 
 of Saint Mary's, the Mother House at the Barrens, and in the 
 cabin of their host, had taught the missioners that few con- 
 structions, when properly laid down and put together for solidity, 
 ease and charms of home, could surpass a log building. Was 
 the cost of erecting a log church taken into consideration? It 
 would not be heavy. The material in timber was on the bottom 
 and uplands; groves of elm, white and black oak. The labor 
 of felling, hauling, and hewing would be largely and generously 
 given; thatching and plastering would only be an item; and at 
 comparatively small cost, the structure to God and souls would 
 rise. The feat of Bangs had driven completely the idea of a 
 brick church out of the mind of Father Raho. Had the naturally 
 keen and observing Superior attempted to carry out a brick 
 plan, he was thoroughly aware he would have played with his 
 usual good sense, have exposed his community to ridicule, and 
 have laid on his company and people a burden of debt, which 
 would have checked indefinitely the rising mission. The con- 
 tract of building the church was let out to Mr. Madden, the chief 
 carpenter in the mission, not without pretentions to a style of 
 architecture quite original. The material for building was to 
 be of log, roof straw, flooring of oak, and the interior heavily 
 plastered. The length was to be fifty feet, width thirty, and 
 height fourteen. The home of the missioners would go up at 
 the completion; built of the same material; one story high, 
 containing a room, serving at the same time for private devotions 
 and for a sacristy — a large room, at once dormitory, study room, 
 reception room, and a kitchen. By August, Madden, the archi- 
 tect, who "lives in song and story," stipulated that the church 
 and house would be ready for use.
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 37 
 
 The canal company donated the land. The resources were 
 at hand to commence — the sum of twelve dollars. 
 
 Never did a wealthy syndicate enter on an undertaking with 
 more confidence and vigorous energy, than did our confreres the 
 work of the log church. Viewed, it is true, from a human stand- 
 point, to attempt such an undertaking, was the height of folly. 
 The twelve dollars, under the influence of the men of God, would 
 increase, as did formerly the oil under the holy influence of the 
 prophet. With the generousness of the Mother House of the 
 Congregation of the Mission of Paris, and the wits of the willing 
 hearts of La Salle and Peru, the church at the appointed time, 
 would be up and paid for. 
 
 A gang of men was immediately set to work getting out white 
 and black oak timbers, which, fastened by log chains, yokes 
 of cattle hauled to the determined church site. There they 
 were dressed and fitted to be laid. The building was on the way ; 
 Father Parodi, as far as he could, would keep an observant eye 
 on the work, with as much interest and zeal, as he did on the 
 far more necessary spiritual building, the souls of the flock; 
 for the Superior had determined to start to survey the great 
 mission field, to look after the thousands who needed and awaited 
 the succors of Heaven, and were unable by physical and moral 
 causes, to reach La Salle, the center of the Mission. Indeed 
 the Ordinary of the diocese, when blessing the Missions, on occa- 
 sion of their departure for the upper Illinois country, bade them 
 lose no time, as soon as Religion had been established at La 
 Salle, to push forward, not only along the canal, miles eastward, 
 but also to follow the Illinois River southward; to leave the 
 stream and cross the prairies, to penetrate wheresoever, it was 
 learned there was a Catholic squatter. 
 
 Such a journey, or rather series of journeys, extended at a 
 time from a week's to a month's absence, would be tr^ang, upon 
 the character of the Fathers for they were never before separated, 
 but ever in the company of each other, to edify, to pass the hours 
 of recreation, now in serious,now in humorous conversation: 
 always the happier and readier for labor when leaving, than when 
 they began to converse.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OTTAWA. 
 The Oldest Daughter of the La Salle Mission. 
 
 At pius Aneas, 
 
 Ut primum lux alma data ast, exire locosque explorare novos, 
 
 Qui teneant, num inculta videt, hominisque 
 
 Feraene, quaerere constituet. 
 
 But the loving Ji^neas, as soon as the rosy morn appeared, 
 started out to examine the newly discovered territory, who 
 inhabited it, men or wild beasts. Virgils Aeneid Book ist. 
 
 The great apostle St. Paul gives an invitation to his beloved 
 Philippians, and in these persons to all Christians, "to see the 
 length, and the breadth, and the height, and the depth of the 
 love of God which is in Christ Jesus." A special invitation 
 stands to the Missionary, given not only by the great apostle, 
 but by the Lord of all. "Let him who serves Me, follow Me." 
 "I come to cast fire upon the earth and what will I, but that it 
 be enkindled." What a fire aglow with incomparable splendor, 
 sending forth its sheets of flame to an endless duration in its 
 boundlessness embracing the entire human family of all ages, in 
 its elevation of purpose and in its depth immeasurable, consumed 
 the heart of the great Redeemer. No physical boundary of 
 valley, mountain and deep that the flames of that heart did not 
 pass. 
 
 No boundaries traced by rank of wealth, of intellect, of in- 
 fluence; no ease and comforts, hope of gain or fear of loss that 
 the flames did not despise; no relations of flesh and of blood, 
 that the flames did not consume. The Divine exemplar in the 
 work of soul-saving to which He called His Missionaries, insisted 
 that their nature would be aglow with the heat of the love of 
 God, and radiant with the flame of love for neighbor, if they 
 would appear faithful copies of the Original, in all the attributes 
 of love. 
 
 Fifteen miles eastward of La Salle village, lay Ottawa, the 
 
 (38)
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 39 
 
 capitol of La Salle County, situated on the Fox and Illinois 
 Rivers, and through which the new canal ran. It was then, 
 1838, a rising town; it had its court house, a few houses that 
 did a fair business, and it claimed and felt pride in owning a 
 fair sample of the cultured men of Illinois in that day. An in- 
 telligent public spirit, where the absence of narrowness, and 
 bigotry was enjoyed as a relief, was very noticeable too, and highly 
 valued by the man of large and practical knowledge, as the 
 Catholic Missionary. The gifts with which nature had clothed 
 this spot had everything to do with making choice of it as a center 
 for the legal talent of early and late times. Bordered on the 
 north and south by sloping timber lands, on the west by Buffalo 
 Rock, which in the last century had been an island of the Illi- 
 nois, with meadows of fruitfulness surrounding, and the canal 
 and the Fox and the Illinois rivers dividing it now at right 
 angles, now in parallel lines, the little western town might well 
 be vain of its site, and picturesque attractions. Here the sports- 
 man, angler or hunter, found enjoyment to gratify his longing, 
 and occasion to answer the proudest wish of his nature, for the 
 limpidness of the streams, and the hundred coverts of the hills 
 and the bottoms abounded in game of all kinds. 
 
 The canal as at La Salle, had attracted to Ottawa, a 
 number of Irish Catholics; but a leader of character, and 
 a self-sacrificing Catholic, who regards the Roman Catholic 
 Religion, as the powerful and only true method of real pro- 
 gress, as La Salle had in the person of William Byrne, was 
 wanting. Pressing demands to come on the part of not a few 
 of the poor people had been made on the Missionaries, as soon 
 as it had been noised abroad that La Salle was blessed in their 
 arrival. On a hired horse, with bags filled with the useful and 
 the necessary articles, to the proper discharge of Missionary func- 
 tions, thrown across the saddle, Father Raho set out April 21st, 
 '38 — Easter Sunday — for Ottawa, taking the northern bluff 
 road, which ran through the timber, so marked by notched trees 
 that the dullest rider, if he attempted to stray, would be cor- 
 rected by the sagacity of his horse. He made the journey in 
 good time, and found the good people on hand to welcome him. 
 The Missioner quartered himself in a hotel, and boarded his 
 horse in the stable attached. Impelled by generousness, a virtue 
 so conspicuous in the character of the American, the non-Catholic 
 authorities of the town called upon, and offered Father Raho
 
 40 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 the court house to hold service on the following Sunday, assuring 
 him that he would have the same at his service on every like 
 occasion, until such time as the Catholics would have a place 
 of worship, to call their own. The offer was most gratefully 
 accepted by the Missioner in his and in the name of the Catholics 
 of Ottawa. 
 
 A crowded house, promptly at ten o'clock A. M. on Low 
 Sunday raised the spirits and warmed the hearts of Flock and 
 Shepherd. After blessing the hall in preparation for the sacred 
 mysteries, the priest began Mass. At the conclusion of the first 
 gospel he turned towards his auditory, a mixed congregation 
 of Catholics and non-Catholic brethren, an ordinary for the 
 priest and people, in the early times, and explained the power 
 of forgiving sins, as taught by Christ and his Church. The gos- 
 pel read on the Sunday furnished the subject of the discourse, 
 in the style of the preacher , earnest, argumentative, and prac- 
 tical; and though an Italian, the courage with which he tried 
 to speak the language of Shakespeare, so utterly in its origin 
 and pronunciation foreign to the origin and pronunciation of 
 the language of the divine Dante, carried away the audience, 
 and sowed the seeds of conversion to the church of forgiveness , 
 of sins. At the conclusion of the discourse, in a few well digested 
 words, he spoke his satisfaction at witnessing such a gathering 
 of Catholics, assuring them, that until his band of Missioners 
 would increase, he would do his utmost to attend, with the little 
 force at his command, to all their spiritual wants, that at their 
 disposal every month, they would have a Sunday evening for 
 confession, and a Sunday for hearing the holy Mass, and that the 
 sick had the service of the Father at all times. Such were the 
 regulations and the conclusion of what the Missioner had pur- 
 posed to say. The holy sacrifice continued and ended. The 
 wearied father refreshed himself. The hours that remained were 
 spent to great advantage, in inquiry and observation. As far 
 as possible, the number of Catholics, how they lived, what they 
 did, the zealous Missioner ascertained. Not a day too soon had 
 the man of God come to town, to strengthen the faith of the 
 weak, and to console the faith of the strong; for through the 
 evil example of an unfortunate priest all were in sorrow, and a 
 few on the verge of abandoning the religion of their fathers. 
 
 "I find like dispositions, for piety and devotion, everywhere 
 except at Ottawa; where Catholics and Protestants have been
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 41 
 
 scandalized at the wretched behavior of a priest of another dio- 
 cese, who had been suspended and excommunicated by his 
 bishop, and had found his way among these good people." Vol. 
 ist, No. 6 of Annals. 
 
 The first visit to the Catholics of the capitol of La Salle 
 County, had determined the Father to follow up directly the 
 work entered upon. 
 
 The clever Illinois and Michigan Canal Company gave in 
 fee simple, to the fathers for the erection of a church, a lot 120 
 by 60 feet; meanwhile Father Parodi bought for a temporary 
 church, a carpenter shop for $230.00. To allow the first seed cast 
 to become chilled and to spoil through want of the pure air and 
 the dews, the presence of the church conveys to the plant, would 
 have been, in the then condition of the Ottawa Catholics, ship- 
 wreck of their faith. 
 
 Returned to La Salle, Father Raho gave a detailed account 
 to Father Parodi, his confrere, of how matters in Ottawa stood, 
 and appointed the assistant to assume charge of the out-mission, 
 telling him the arrangements that had been made to serve it.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Lazarists in West and Southwestern Illinois. 
 
 The Superior writes to the Superior General : 
 
 "I received a letter from Monseigneur Rosati, who missioned 
 one of the Fathers to visit another congregation (Chretienti) a hun- 
 dred and eighty miles distant from La Salle. From a careful per- 
 usal of the book of expenditures, and a letter which will be found 
 in its proper time and place in these records, the people requested 
 to visit were in Morgan and Cass counties, covering an area of 
 sixty miles, and embracing the towns of Beard, Meridosia, 
 Virginia and the Capitol of the State of Illinois, Springfield 
 The Northern Cross Railroad was then in course of building, and 
 there too were gathered a congregation of the children of the 
 Faith. In the opening of June, the indefatigable missioner takes 
 the St. Louis boat, and arrives after a day's sail, at Beardstown 
 on the Illinois River. He will describe the town, in which, as in 
 a mirror, may be closely defined, the zeal and resignation, so 
 worthy of a son of St. Vincent of Paul. "I discovered about 
 two hundred Catholics (Irish) scattered over sixty miles. For 
 the space of a month I exercised among them the holy ministry, 
 almost always traveled on foot, carrying on my shoulders saddle- 
 bags containing altar necessaries, and in my hand a carpet-bag, 
 in open air, and far into the night, hearing confessions; in the 
 day, occupied teaching catechism. 
 
 I was amazed at the work of grace, and at the eagerness with 
 which these poor people rushed to hear the instructions I gave, 
 flinging aside for this purpose, hours of sleep and nourishment." 
 Vol. ist. No. 9 Annals. 
 
 The Superior of the La Salle Mission at his return home writes 
 of his laborers in Southern Illinois : 
 
 La Salle, La Salle County, 
 June 2ist, 1838. 
 Rev. Sir: 
 
 On last Saturday I arrived here. My health is at present 
 
 (42)
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 43 
 
 tolerably well. The success of my mission eight miles from 
 Beardstown has been, that a small church is to be built there, 
 and five children were baptized, of whom one of Catholic parents, 
 two of parents, one CathoHc and the other Protestant, and the 
 other of Protestant parents. That church is located in the town 
 of Virginia, ten miles from Beardstown, on the road to Spring- 
 field, and chief town, or county seat of the now county of Cass, 
 being the county of Morgan divided into two, Morgan and Cass. 
 I have no time to write longer. I shall do in another time. 
 Your most obedient servant in D., 
 J. B. Raho, p. of Cong. Mission. 
 
 On the same field, our laborer will be again found cultivating 
 with hopes, the plants he had previously set out. What is now 
 a large part of the present diocese of Alton, was an out-mission 
 of the La Salle Mother Church. 
 
 The Confreres were once more together, and except for a 
 very short absence, to remain together some time; for their 
 presence would be in great demnd by reason of events close at 
 hand, which would try the bravest hearts. In the absence of 
 Father Raho, the zealous and unpretentious assistant, had made 
 himself, in obedience to the divine command, "affable to the 
 poor," and whilst he toiled and wrought with the courage and 
 sweetness of a St. Francis of Sales, to discipline the people to 
 form and wear the habit of a strong, practical Catholic spirit, in 
 his simplicity he thought and acted, that the method which 
 would prove successful to this, was to ignore the subject, and 
 dispense with the necessity of supporting the church. A month 
 had shown little progress towards completion, in the rising 
 church. This is the charitable lament of Father Raho to the 
 visitor. Father Timon, attaching no blame, satisfied with stating 
 the fact: "Before I went to Mendosia I had given the direc- 
 tions for the building. My dear and pious companion, Mr. 
 Parodi, during my absence, did neglect to collect the money 
 the people had promised for the expenses. It caused the stop 
 of the said building, and at my coming back, I found $175,00 
 of debt; but through my exertions and your $100.00, it came 
 on tolerably well." 
 
 Letter to Father Timon, August 13, 1838. 
 
 About this time quite a stir was created among the inhab- 
 itants of the little borough of La Salle, occasioned by a worthy 
 Catholic couple, who had concluded to change their mode of
 
 44 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 living, and enter into the normal condition of mankind. They 
 sued for and obtained at the hands of Father Raho a dispen- 
 sation for the bans of marriage, given their sworn testimony 
 previously, that there existed no hindrance to the celebration of 
 the marriage. The marriage took place in the evening, and the 
 village was in an uproar, as if the spirits of the departed warriors 
 of old Kaskaskia had besieged the place, yelling their wild war- 
 whoop, and uttering their discordant jargon, accompanied with 
 sounds horrid and unearthly.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Erin, thy silent tears never shall cease, 
 Erin, thy languid smile ne'er shall increase, 
 'Till like the rainbow's light, 
 Thy various tints vmite 
 And form in heaven's light 
 One arch of peace!" 
 
 Moore. 
 
 Families, as well as individuals, says the Apostle of Charity, 
 St. Vincent of Paul, should look upon it as a misfortune to be 
 always tranquil, to see everything succeeding to their wishes, 
 and to have nothing to suffer for the love of God. 
 
 The La Salle Mission was not destined, any more than the 
 great family of the Church, of which it was a part, had been 
 destined, to be an exception to the severest test ; " Because thou 
 wast accepted to God," the archangel Raphael assured Tobias, 
 "it was necessary that temptation should prove thee." The 
 Mission of the La Salle country had hardly been established,when 
 it was to pass through an ordeal, cruel at first, but in the long 
 run, cleansing and healthful. 
 
 The instruments of peace had cast the seed of faith and moral- 
 ity over the length and breadth of the great acreage enclosing 
 the Illinois Mission. In the three months of their high career, 
 they had come with great joy, bearing the sheaves, leading by 
 the hand new conquests to Christ. Ottawa, Beardstown and 
 Virginia, and as far as Springfield, the State Capitol, had been 
 tilled and the harvest was still reaping— a presage, that, in the 
 near future, the Church would witness with unspeakable delight, 
 in this portion of her territory, a far richer in the kind, and a 
 heavier harvest in the abundance of the crop. 
 
 The missioner, Raho, had returned home to find, to his con- 
 usion and that of his confrere, Parodi, La Salle and its surround- 
 ngs, a moral conflagration. At Chicago, the head of the canal, 
 the fire had broken out. Unchecked, it swept along, fed by the 
 fuel of hate, wrecking many a home, until it reached its max- 
 imum between Ottawa and La Salk. "The good man sowed 
 
 (45)
 
 46 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 seed in his field, and when men were asleep, the enemy came and 
 sowed cockel among the wheat." 
 
 Studied in the vagaries of the human mind, and in the out- 
 bursts of human passion, the Fathers were prepared to witness 
 anything abnormal and ruinous, where the principles of reason and 
 divine faith were laid aside, and the principle of appetite and self- 
 love was taken as a guide and counselor, and reduced to prac- 
 tice. "It is necessary that scandal should come." The fo- 
 mentors and abettors of division among the flock — the sowers 
 of discord — had leavened by their wild seething words and dar- 
 ing , unchristian actions, not a few. In truth, the fire they had 
 lighted called for a series of agents to check and extinguish it, 
 as the narration will show. 
 
 Who and what were these men of fire? To tell them they 
 were Druids, would have been answered by a blow; to accuse 
 them of offering sacrifice to Moloch, that glutted himself with 
 seeking human victims to lay at their door the crime of canni- 
 balism would have exposed the daring accuser to slaughter. 
 They abhorred the doctrine of these heathens. Nor to any of 
 those secret oath-bound societies, that love and revel in the 
 practice of secrecy, hateful to God, to the Church and to society, 
 sworn to deeds that are dark, to steep their hands in the blood of 
 their fellow man, did they pay allegiance. 
 
 Neither were they of the school of Protestantism. With 
 loathing they turned away from those who cut in twain the 
 body of Christ ; for, these same fomenters of strife and organizers 
 of derision, had an enemy of their faith dared to twit on any 
 point of doctrine or practice of their religion, would have in- 
 stantly demanded an apology,- which would be instantly offered 
 for the insult. "A man's enemies are those of his own house- 
 hold," says Truth itself; and "the corruption of the best, accord- 
 ing to the philosopher, is the worst kind of corruption." History 
 must speak the truth. 
 
 Irish and Roman Catholics were tne principles and seconds 
 in the great scandal of the days to which there is reference. To 
 state this fact is a very painful and humiliating duty; yet it is 
 history repeating itself. The grace of adoption as the sons of 
 God, by the scheme of Redemption, is a grace given gratuitously, 
 and not confirmed, that men may never lose it. Men can, as 
 they do, allow pure nature to govern them, and thus neutralize 
 the action of the higher power of grace. Though Christians,
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 47 
 
 Catholics, like the Jew, they may become sectional, and like the 
 Greek and Roman, national, not giving a thought to the nations 
 around them. Yes, like the tribes of Israel, they may war, one 
 on the other, and, like Greek meeting Greek, wrestle in deadly 
 embrace. This will go to explain in part the conduct of the 
 leaders and the followers in the faction fight on the canal. Whilst 
 children of the Holy Roman Church, these men were bad children, 
 because stern, stubborn and vindictive; disciples of a master 
 whose command to love was forgotten, in the wish to revenge, 
 and so soon as they ceased to love one another, to do good to 
 them that hate them, they forfeited the title of scholarship and 
 sonship in the school of Jesus Christ, and in the society of the 
 Catholic church. 
 
 That a spirit of rivalry would divide the Irish Catholic of the 
 Blackwater and the Irish Catholic of the Ban, the men of Mun- 
 ster and the men of Ulster and Connaught into opposite camps 
 and fire to deeds of violence, assume and take glory in the name of 
 "Corkonian," and"Fardown,"and that the representative of each 
 party would throw down the energies of the soul and body to 
 destroy his opponent is natural without the spirit of the gospel, 
 and therefore, neither startling nor uncommon. "Men do not 
 gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles." 
 
 In such an exhibition of prowess, as marked the scandal of 
 the canal, the genius of evil clothed the ungodly men engaged in 
 the bloody strife, with powers of forgetfulness, of casting aside 
 all shame, and mocking the ruin they had wrought. The patriot- 
 ism of their lives, the chivalrous spirit that had walked valiantly 
 on the plains of Clontarf, that stood undaunted on the walls of 
 Limerick, that lived in the breasts of Red Hugh and his class, 
 had no charm for these degenerate sons. The outrages on the 
 great God, on the cause of religion, on the holy name of the 
 Church, whose interests were shattered and whose enemies had 
 occasion to blaspheme, had no terror in the flinty bosoms of 
 .these misguided children. 
 
 The thoughts of the missioners, heavy and sad, their hearts 
 torn with anguish and zeal for God's house, eating them up, 
 accompanied them on the altar, up and down from Ottawa and 
 La Salle to win over with meekness and charity, these firebrands. 
 On the canal were seen but disorganized bands carrying picks 
 and shovels, hurrying towards one another, and amid oaths and 
 blasphemies that would color the hair, calling on each other in
 
 48 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION 
 
 fiendish hate, while they cut and gashed, and in the very midst 
 of the fray, the feet of the missioners preaching peace. It was 
 St. Paul conjuring the Galatians. "O senseless Galatians,who 
 hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before 
 whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been set forth, crucified among 
 you, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, for you are all one in 
 Christ Jesus." 
 
 The appeal had been made and welcomed by most of the 
 rioters; mad passion was arrested and order restored. Sweet- 
 ness won over what invective and reproach had only imbittered 
 and driven away; and patience witnessed the end of the riot, 
 what impulse would have turned into massacre. As it was, 
 murder had been committed. The missioner had scarcely time 
 to secure the avowal of one poor man to forgive murderers, 
 and to administer the rights of the Catholic Church, when the 
 soul stood before the judgment of God. 
 
 The hot-headed leaders had gone up, after their murderous 
 designs, refusing to obey the authority of the Church, to foment 
 at Ottawa, another faction-war. The civil power stretched out 
 its arms against the principals, caught them, tried them and 
 shut them up; the seconds, they rebuked and ordered away 
 from the state. The character of the leaders and abettors, and 
 the grief of the missioners in this, the darkest hour of the La Salle 
 Mission, Father Raho will make known: 
 
 "It is said,and in fact it is so, that they were worse than 
 barbarians, savages, thirsty for the blood of their own country- 
 men. 
 
 Now in this town it is not so ; quiet, peaceful, sober, generally, 
 they attend to their own duty. But on the contrary I do not 
 know what to do with those of Ottawa. They beat and kill 
 their own countrymen; they destroy houses and crops, and they 
 pretend to send away for their lives those of the north of Ireland, 
 called "Fardowns". I am fatigued, I am tired. Would to God 
 I could go away from among them. Though I must say that 
 
 the Corkmen and the Fardowns are in the same balance 
 
 May Almighty God have mercy on them Yesterday 
 
 was buried a very good man who was killed by the other party 
 because he was not of them." . It is said that the Rev. Father 
 O'Meara, parish priest of Chicago, from the altar has pronounced 
 upon them the maledictions of God. I would wish to be among
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 49 
 
 the Indians." Extract from letters of Father Raho to very 
 Rev. I. Timon. V. C. M, August 13th, 1838. 
 
 Dearly shall innocent and guilty pay for the ravages of the 
 spirit of discord and demon of hate. "In what a man sins in 
 the same shall he be tormented." In a short time the just God 
 shall dispatch a minister of vengeance who on the scene of awful 
 scandal, where the genius of evil inspired and matured plans to 
 ruin souls, shall preach his crusade.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 The Arrival of the Strange, yet Eloquent Missioner. 
 
 "The angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
 And breathed on the face of the foe, as he passed ; 
 And the eyes of the sleeper waxed deadly and chill, 
 And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still." 
 
 As the moral disease of scandal had aroused and struck with 
 terror the population of La Salle County, working ruin ever- 
 lasting to not a few promoters and abettors of scandal; the 
 sudden appearance on the scene, of a strange, yet eloquent 
 missioner, no less startled, and overwhelmed with consternation 
 the citizens of the same county, by the terror of his name, and 
 the cruelty of his nature. His powers, as a rule, were irresist- 
 ible, and his conquests rapid and permanent. He was no respecter 
 of persons, countries, or times. He had preached his crusade 
 to thousands, and hundreds of thousands in the far East, in 
 Northern Europe; crossed into North America in 1832, landing 
 at Quebec, passing through the Atlantic cities of the States, 
 traveling westward, visiting with merciless severity and unex- 
 ampled cruelty, whom he had seized by his breath, and fettered 
 by his prostration. 
 
 In the Summer of 1838, the strange missioner, the cholera, 
 came to visit, and preach in and around the surroundings of 
 La Salle. 
 
 The preacher came, like any other instrument of God's 
 power and justice, at the call of his Maker. Like the locusts, 
 and the frogs, and the rivers of blood sent against the Egyptians 
 of old, like the avenging Angel spreading his wings on the blast, 
 and breathing slaughter upon the hosts of the Assyrians, and 
 strewing the wilderness of Egypt with the four and twenty 
 thousand Israelites; so did the cholera come to smite. It 
 was the just and angry God, come down in wrath and in mercy. 
 Who shall resist the sweeping hurricane, the spirit of pesti- 
 lence? Where was the genius to discover the character of the
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 51 
 
 pest? Where the physician's skill to apply a remedy? Where 
 the might to strangle the monster and save the victim ? Twenty- 
 four hours was the term set down by the destroyer, to begin 
 and finish his work of carnage. His power he leveled first 
 against the dwellers in the shanties, living along the cozy bed,- 
 of the Illinois River, drinking water made up from every source, 
 feeding on vegetables of the rankest soil, careless of what they 
 wore, how and where they slept. Next for visitation came 
 the crowded boarding-houses; and lastly, the range of bottom, 
 from Marseilles to Peru, was seized and occupied, and given over 
 to the relentless foe. Natures that had been inured to hardships 
 of frost and hunger, and had triumphed over other forms of 
 deadly disease, the cholera fell upon — driving them cruelly 
 through a course of purging and vomiting fits, and tortures of 
 the cramp, robbing them of their strength, until they collapsed; 
 and, their systems preyed upon, in the most vital parts, unable 
 to get back to their former condition, they lay like corpses, and 
 in a few hours were surrendered to the tyranny — death. The 
 plague-stricken region was, with hardly an exception, Catholic 
 — the region where the great scandal had been conceived and 
 bom and waxed strong, and with a diabolical spirit, had drawn 
 a few away from their allegiance to their God and Church. 
 
 The hours of retribution had come. Armed to meet and 
 overcome every foe, the missioner had changed the face of things. 
 He had filled on week days the temporary chapel in the log 
 house of Billy Byrne, and on Sundays the boarding-house of 
 Johnnie Hynes. The confessionals were crowded, and conver- 
 sions, true and lasting were the result. Night and day they 
 "who watched over Israel" hardly, except by fits, slept. The 
 horses were saddled, for the near and far shanty, to bear at the 
 momentary summons given, the ministering spirit to one who 
 had been a rebel to authority, to another who had lived up to 
 the voice of authority, to catch the faint accents of both to 
 fit them to meet their God in a blessed eternity. Indeed the 
 Lord had, at last, done the bidding of his servants: "Arise, O 
 Lord, and judge your cause and let your enemies be scattered." 
 The flail of God's justice had fallen heavily upon the seeds of 
 wheat, to loosen the grain from the chaff; the fire of His indig- 
 nation had rained down to purify and consume. The sounds of 
 revelry and strife were exchanged for the sounds of wailing and 
 prolonged lamentations. No longer were bands breathing 
 
 U. OF ILL LIB.
 
 52 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 hate and uttering scorn, one against the other, hurrying to and 
 fro in defiance; in their place, were bands of mourners, hurrying 
 to the pest house, conveying to the hole in a ravine, or to the 
 burial ground, lent by the village authorities, the body of a 
 husband or wife or mother just lifeless — since to harbor it, -was 
 to assist the destroyer in his carnage. The death-bed scenes of 
 not a few, were, beyond measure, too horrible to dwell upon, 
 for all who witnessed the spectacle, in whose nature the fear of 
 the terrible judgment of God had not been laid aside. We give 
 the words of the father, whose lot it was to be present on the 
 trying and sad occasions: 
 
 "The season here has been very sickly, and we have been 
 very busy in visiting the sick and burying the dead, and would 
 to God, that His holy justice was appeased. Still the people are 
 afflicted with dangerous diseases. Da}^ and night we both have 
 been laboring, in order to afford the help of our religion to the 
 poor sick. I do not know how long it will last. The will of 
 
 God be done. Amen. It is said that the Rev. Mr , 
 
 parish priest of Chicago, from the altar pronounced upon them 
 (the rioters and scandal givers) the malediction of God. If it 
 is so I see the effects of it. They die like .... without having 
 time to prepare themselves for the other world. All the sick- 
 ness, I may say, is among them. We are tired." 
 
 Extract of letter of Father Raho to Father Timon, dated 
 August 13, 1838. 
 
 "Pray for us," writes Father Parodi on the same sheet as 
 that of the Superior, "who have no time for anything, to give 
 us strength in order to be able to assist all those who are dying 
 on this line." 
 
 Such was the missioner in the terrible scourge and wrathful 
 storm, sent to cut and to purify rebellious hearts, and an atmos- 
 phere ladened with the weight of scandal. The valley of the 
 Illinois for a hundred miles was the more favored because of the 
 arrival of the pest missioner. "Do not imagine," says St. 
 Augustine, "that the wicked are for no purpose in the world, 
 and that God does no good by them. Every wicked man lives 
 either to be chastised, or lives that the good man may be tried 
 through his wretched example." The tears and groans of the 
 living, "the sudden partings, stich as press the life from out the 
 heart," strong men falling in a day, by scores, funerals with a 
 single attendant and mourner, graves unmarked and never to
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 53 
 
 be known, the pall of death hanging over the villages of the 
 La Salle country, declared loudly and emphatically that; "there 
 is no plot against the Lord" — that He shall, at His own hour, 
 gather together all scandals, and He shall save His own at any 
 cost; and, therefore, at one time. He lets loose the dogs of war, 
 at another, dispatches famine — in its "desires wolfish, bloody, 
 starved and ravenous;" as now He turns villages into a lazer- 
 house, "Wherein were laid numbers of all diseased." 
 
 "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, because He hath visited 
 His people." 
 
 Not to speak of the number who had yielded to the power 
 of the pest missioner, unknown and unattended, or to those who 
 had been struck down, but whose iron frames had, with care- 
 ful nursing, withstood the shock and rallied; yet from July to 
 December, in the surroundings of the La Salle and Peru villages, 
 eighty-one, more than three-fourths of them able-bodied men 
 and Catholics, had succumbed. When at the maximum of its 
 deadly ravages, though sorrow had all but crushed the people 
 and missioners, and the funeral car passed daily to the grave, 
 the church was hurried along with a speed corresponding to 
 the longing desires of the people — above all, of those who had 
 lost their nearest and dearest by the cruel epidemic. As the 
 infected body could not be allowed an entrance into the church, 
 were it finished and dedicated, friends and relatives could and 
 would enter the house of God, before and after the funeral, 
 and offer up their earnest prayers now in the presence of Him 
 in the tabernacle, and now in the presence of his priest and 
 victim. 
 
 August had commenced. The month that had passed, left 
 its traces of care, and dug its furrows of age on the two mis- 
 sioners. Memories of the awful hours would remain. The 
 bitterest had been tasted ; the blow had fallen. A respite would 
 now be offered and taken, when the new church would afford 
 occasion for shifting the mind from scenes of sadness to those 
 of joy.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Education and its Connterfeits. 
 "Romae nutriri mihi contigit atque doceri." 
 "It was my fortune to be bred and taught at Rome." 
 
 Horace, Epis. and. 
 
 The career of unbridled passion and selfish aim, the faction 
 fight, which had for weeks thrown into confusion the best ele- 
 ments of order, and threatened ruin to the guardian of order, 
 the Catholic Church, had closed ignominiously. There was 
 reason to give thanks; and the lovers of order, out of, and in 
 the little mission, were most lavish, to a kind providence, in 
 the outpouring of their hearts. The moral pest had flown; yet 
 over the mission, the shroud of that physical pest was still 
 spread; still the newly made grave awaited its dweller. 
 
 Priests and people had, therefore, much to weigh them down 
 in sorrow. It is true, as Caledonia's poet sings: 
 "Many and sharp the numerous ills, 
 
 Inwoven with our frame ! 
 
 The poor, oppressed, honest man, 
 
 Had never, sure, been born, 
 
 Had there not been some recompense, 
 
 To comfort those who mourn." 
 To mourn calamities of awful scandal, and sweeping pesti- 
 lence was praiseworthy — was a duty taught by the Highest 
 Exemplar. But it has its limit. 
 
 Grief unchecked, is weakness. Victims to such, as the vic- 
 tims they weep, pass away; they "leave no footprints on the 
 sands of time." Man is also for the living. A share of his time 
 and a place in his thoughts must be given to them, in 
 proportion to the height on which he stands, and the duty he 
 is called upon to discharge. Mindfulness of the living claims 
 precedence of thought for the dead. So the missioners arose 
 above nature, acquired new strength, and as far as possible, 
 made their way out of the cloud of grief; and with stout hearts 
 applied themselves to fill up . a hollowness ; to meet a crying 
 want — a want, it may be said, the most urgent of the mission. 
 
 (54)
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 55 
 
 It is with great pleasure and praiseworthy pride, the his- 
 torian places on record, that in the night of sorrow and care, the 
 missioners opened the first Catholic school on the ist of July, 
 1838, about three months after their arrival at La Salle. "Dur- 
 ing the summer I opened a school for boys and girls; an able 
 and fervent Catholic called Schooley, (Scully?) conducts it to 
 my great satisfaction." (Raho to Sup. General.) In a letter 
 to Father Timon, dated August 25th, 1838, the zealous father 
 tells the visitor of the discipline that reigned, and attention to 
 study that marked the sanctuary of knowledge. Mirabile dictu! 
 Wonderful to relate ! the man acquainted with the Status Rerum 
 of the mission in these times, will exclaim. The people harassed 
 by disease, tortured by the death of their dearest ones, barely 
 living, the church not yet opened, the home of the fathers not 
 yet built, no treasury, and none likely to be, to keep the school 
 on a running footing, why enter upon an undertaking which 
 prudent men would name rash, and begin, what must end in 
 failure? The doctrine of Horace far excells that just put forth: 
 "Est modus in rebus, demque certi fines." 
 "I bone quo virtus tua te vocat: 
 I pede fausto, 
 
 Grandia laturus meritorum premia, 
 Quid stas?" 
 And certainly, the doctrine flowing from truth itself, which 
 the founder of the Mission drank in so abundantly, and com- 
 municated so freely to his children, savored nothing of the 
 human : 
 
 "When we are convinced that any enterprise is calculated to 
 promote the glory of God, and that it is conformable to His 
 will, we should spare neither pains, nor expense to carry it to 
 perfection, either by our own means or those of others." 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church or Christianity, constituted and 
 appointed by God in the flesh Jesus Christ, to be all that He 
 was to man — the way, the truth, and the life, the sum of all 
 knowledge, it followed, that nothing should and would be doser 
 and dearer to her than the duty of leading her children in the 
 way they ought to walk; in the truth, they ought to accept, 
 and to the life they were called — Heaven everlasting. The 
 guardian and interpreter of Christianity and the mother of real, 
 and not sham progress, the principle of the Church Rornan had 
 been, is, and ever shall be, that in the early and late training of 
 her children, nor parents, nor government of any kind, have
 
 S6 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 or can claim any rights against the Creator, Redeemer and 
 Sanctifier of the child. "0, man! what have you, you have 
 not received; and if you have received why do you glory?" 
 "He made us and not we, ourselves;" that the end of the child is 
 a supernatural end; and therefore all its powers of soul, force of 
 brain, affections and desires of heart, energies of body, must as 
 to their center, ever tend to God, their supreme Good ; that the 
 worship of its Maker, His perfections, as His power, providence, 
 justice, love, mercy, all that has been revealed, as His law, the 
 measure, the square of every thought, word and action, the 
 grace of the sacraments must, in all states, calling, changes of 
 life, be ever present to the searching and inventive mind, and 
 close to the yearning heart after all objects of knowledge; that 
 the One, all holy God, the first cause and last end of man is the 
 source of all truth. Truth itself; and source of all goodness. 
 Goodness itself; and that consequently where He, the center 
 and source of truth and goodness is excluded there is error and 
 lie, misery and death; since the aim man was made to hit, and 
 the object the Christian was born again to a new creation to 
 reach, are rendered impossible. Thus the citadel of letters, the 
 laboratory of the sciences, the school of arts — all and each de- 
 partment of knowledge, celebrated for its crowds of scholars, 
 and for masters like Livy and Pythagoras of the ancient, Buffon 
 and Agassiz, of the modern world, that taught, ignoring in the 
 curriculum of its studies the belief in the Savior, who should 
 come in the flesh to atone, and the fact that a Savior had come 
 in the flesh to atone fully for the sins of mankind, to restore man 
 to favor with his creator, and enrich him with the glory and 
 honor of a life everlasting, would be a citadel without a guard — 
 a laboratory without a purpose, and a school wihout an object. 
 Indeed, education pursued on the above plan is "the tree 
 withering long before its fall;" "the hull driving on though 
 mast and sail be torn;" a helmless vessel, a springless year, 
 fruits and effects, and no cause. For what is the value of this 
 pagan training in the long run? To reap glory in war; glory in 
 the sciences ; glory in both ; and the ownership of the world. From 
 childhood to manhood the development of muscle in the arts of 
 wrestling, boxing, running, drawing the bow, plainness of dress, 
 scantiness of diet, and implicit obedience to authority were the 
 exercises to finish the education of the Persian youth; to reach 
 this end, the glory of the Persian monarchy. To this and for
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. S7 
 
 this alone was he born and bred. To produce the "Homo ad 
 unguem," now the stoic, now the epicurean, the Athenian adopt- 
 ed as his motto: 
 
 "Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes, 
 Emollit mores." 
 
 To be a citizen of eternal Rome, to aim at the possession of the 
 world, to be above the gods, to create gods, to wear the mask 
 of virtue, whilst inculcating maxims and laying down precepts 
 of morality;; such was the end of the old Roman. 
 
 "Men do not gather grapes from thorns." Virgil, whom the 
 infidel, and the so-called Christian,the pagan to-day, enjoying 
 the benefits of Christianity, and denying the author and pre- 
 server of Christianity, adores, makes known to us in the couplet 
 he had formed before his death, and ordered written on his 
 tomb, the end for which God made him and redeemed him! 
 
 Mantuame genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc parthenope, 
 cecini, pascua, rures, duces! 
 
 Old Horace prides himself and gives thanks to the gods that 
 he had such a father to lead him to the school of virtue ! 
 
 "Ipse mihi custos incorruptissimus omnes circum doctores aderat, 
 Who brought him to the source of knowledge, and Rhose care. 
 
 Pudicum. 
 Qui primus virtutis hono, servavit ab omni 
 Non solum facto, verum opprobrio quoque turpi!" 
 
 Sat. 8th, ist book. 
 
 Singularly preserved young Roman of the days of Augustus ! 
 correct model to copy! For, mighty Rome, the focus of light, 
 the center of intellectual life, the Pantheon of the gods, where 
 Jupiter Capitolinus typified the grossest grade of licentiousness, 
 whilst the vestal virgin proclaimed chastity; where Hercules, 
 the god of muscle, encouraged to imitation, and Minerva pre- 
 sided over the arts and sciences; where Mars, the avenger held 
 sway in the number and selection of his sacrifices; this was the 
 theatre of the toga virilis ; this the school and these the models 
 of Horace! 
 
 "Romae nutriri mihi contigit atque doceri." 
 
 The able and witty Satyrist will not hide the results obtained 
 
 from his stay with, and the studies made at the foot of Masters, 
 
 under the eye of the greater and lesser gods of Rome. 
 
 Quoctimque rapit tempestes, deferor hospes, 
 NuUius addictus jarere in verba magistri. 
 
 Satvrs, I St book.
 
 S8 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 Me pinguem et nitidum bene curata flvte vises, 
 Cum ridere voles, Epicuri de grege porcum. 
 
 4th Ep. 1st boom. 
 
 "I am willing tool to the force of the storm, 
 I give way to no master; 
 Look at me, though you laugh, a plump 
 And sleek hog let loose from the herd of Epicurus." 
 
 The people of modern times that renounced the Church of 
 Rome, and therefore, Christianity, as the guardian and interpre- 
 ter of education, have looked on while throne and altar 
 were hewn down together, reducing order to chaos, by 
 the vaunted spirits of a godless education. The principles of 
 such a system are still held, proclaimed, taught in France still; 
 in Germany; in England. In free United States, they obtain; 
 they are fast bearing the fruits, and the fruits are rapidly ripen- 
 ing, where the God of Christianity in school, academy, university, 
 has no habitation and a name. Will the upheavel come, as it 
 came to haughty Rome, striking terror and spreading desolation 
 everywhere, bursting the bands that hold society together? or will 
 it approach "to make a solitude and call it peace?" Remove 
 the barrier. What shall hinder the mad torrent ; light the match 
 that will prevent the conflagration? 
 
 "The Niobe of nations! there she stands 
 Crownless and childless in her voiceless woe. 
 An empty urn! 
 
 The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood and fire. 
 Have dealt upon the seven hills city's pride; 
 Far and wide temple and tower went down, 
 Nor left a site; chaos of ruins." 
 
 And this, of Roma aeterna, the empire, without a peer in all 
 the world names great! 
 
 The better class, thinking, reasoning men that follow up 
 principles to their conclusions already view with alarm, what 
 may at any moment happen to the ruin of the best interests of 
 society; and the utter wreck of the family, if religionless edu- 
 cation be cherished and spread abroad. The murmurings are 
 heard: "Without religion," writes D'Israeli (Lord Beaconfield, 
 in Lothaire) "the world would become a scene of universal 
 desolation." Lord Derby reminds his readers: "Religion is 
 not a thing apart from education, but is interwoven with its 
 whole system; it is a principle which controls and regulates the 
 whole mind, and happiness of the people." "The republic," 
 exclaimed the sanguinary Robespierre, as the guillotine, not
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 59 
 
 before he had celebrated his carnival of blood, by butchering 
 the teachers of religion and morality, was about to cut its way 
 — "the republic can only be established on the eternal basis of 
 morality." 
 
 The American Channing is convinced that: "Talent divorced 
 from rectitude, will prove more a demon than a God." 
 
 Thus Cardinal Newman to the school of philosophy and 
 letters, entitled "Christianity and Letters." It can not be a 
 subject to be wondered at, that the guardian of the child, would 
 throw forward energies of the soul and body, "to train up the 
 child in the way he should go, that when old, he would not de- 
 part from it; for none better than his mother understood his 
 character, read his surroundings and counted his wants " The 
 old Jewish Church that had lived up to the tradition of Moses 
 and the prophets, sav/ buried forever, the infidel nations which 
 had so often bled her. The Roman Catholic Church, into whose 
 hands passed the traditions of the faithful church of Moses and 
 prophets, saw buried mighty pagan Rome. And the barbarous 
 hordes that had fallen upon and broken up the empire of the 
 Caesars, threw themselves at the feet of the Mother who had 
 God for her son, of Him who is the light of her, the source of 
 true civilization. Out from the confused and wild mass, through 
 the power and influence she held over the conquerers, arose the 
 nations of Europe, whose children in time would forget their 
 forefathers were either savages or barbarians; that if they had 
 the advantages of a severe education in the sciences and a polite 
 education in the arts, could dress their style in the beauties of 
 Homer and Virgil, the witticism of Horace, and the dignity of 
 Cicero, was due to Christian Rome, and to her alone. 
 
 Pouring into the hearts of the new-born, her faith, her own 
 spirit of true civilization, the areas of Germany and Italy, France, 
 Ireland, Scotland and England, were covered with her schools 
 and universities. The chapter of Orleans in the days of Charle- 
 magne had decreed: "Let priests have schools in the villages 
 and in the country, and if any wish to let their children learn 
 literature, let the priests not refuse, mindful that "those who 
 instruct many unto justice shall shine as stars." Her priests of 
 the secular and above all, her regular clergy, the monastic orders 
 of men and women, gathered together at the bidding of the 
 Church from the body of dead pagan Rome, the choicest of 
 Rome's treasures, and of those nations that had been her tribu-
 
 6o STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 taries, hidden in a hundred languages, and treating every de- 
 partment of human knowledge. The literature and science of 
 the great nations of antiquity were in a short period done into 
 every civilized tongue. Everlasting thanks to the Roman 
 Catholic Church, and her Monks, the enemies always of ignorance 
 and barbarism. Editions of the Greek and Latin classics, trea- 
 tises on every science, translations of the Bible into scores of 
 languages, were the works of the Monks. The men of letters of 
 lesser and greater renown, who in every age, shone, flooding the 
 church above and around with streams of knowledge and deeds 
 of heroism for religion and morality, came forth from the schools 
 inspired and established by the guardian and promoter of liter- 
 ature and science. Crecovia and Oxford, Louvain, Montpelier, 
 Orleans, Rostock, Thonan, Toulouse, Wittenberg, Salamance, 
 Lismore, Clonard, Paris, Rome, are the sources, whence, under 
 the aegis of the Church, Catholic Europe, and through Europe, 
 the world beside, derived its strength in the intellectual and 
 moral and social spheres. The sacrifices ever demanded ofher 
 in every age to do all this for her children, were frequent and 
 great ; for, the church that rushed to the rescue of letters and 
 science, in the awful upheavel of mighty pagan Rome, expos- 
 ing her life, were she destined to die, shows conclusively the 
 value she set on knowledge, human and divine. That she, still 
 carries in her heart, the old love that inflamed, and the zeal that 
 quickened her for the development of the mind, and the training 
 of the heart of her children, which of yore distinguished and de- 
 fined her the mother of letters and science, is observed to-day in 
 every parish and diocese wherein she rules. The Blackhawk 
 war of 1832, when the Indian was routed, ended, and his name 
 was one of dread and dismay for years after. On the ridge of 
 the valley where six years before he roamed, arose on the Lapsley 
 farm, the log school house, the humble beginning of the Mis- 
 sioners' labors in favor of Catholic Education.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Dedication of the Church of the Most Holy Cross the First Church 
 of the La Salle Mission. 
 
 "As often as we celebrate the festival of a church, if we carefully and 
 faithfully pay attention, and live holily and justly, we shall perceive that 
 all which is done in the building of a church, has its completion in our 
 building." St. Augvxstine, Sermon 252. 
 
 The school, the great want of the Mission, which the illus- 
 trious Dupanloup, names the "Greatness of a nation, the pre- 
 server of its splendor, and the cure of decay," had been attended 
 to with a zeal, praiseworthy and imitable. An event so weighty 
 in results for the glory of God, and the spread of sound doctrine 
 and morality, not only among the children of the Church, but 
 likewise among all classes of society, did not excite that enthusi- 
 asm naturally looked for, in the La Salle of that day. As the 
 fruits would come, enthusiasm and affection for the cause of 
 education would follow, whilst the work of the gardeners in 
 directing the twig was in progress. Like thorough husbandmen, 
 also they vigorously pressed on the work in favor of the hardier 
 plants. In proportion to the growth and variety of weeds, of 
 rocks of scandal, and drought of indifference, that lay at every 
 turn, in the like proportion were their unfaltering courage and 
 persevering efforts, to kill the weeds, to shatter the stones, to 
 feed the plants by the graces of the word and the sacraments. 
 The more easily to perform this, the date of the opening of the 
 church had been announced. 
 
 So long on the way, and carefully superintended, the church 
 was at last ready for dedication to worship, under the title of 
 "The Most Holy Cross." To pastor and people, above all, to 
 Catholic people at any time, yea to all people irrespective of 
 creed, the dedication of a Catholic church is a notable occurence, 
 and one sure to have and to hold its own place in pleasing recol- 
 lections. Far and near the coming event, for months, had set 
 the community aglow, no thoughts higher, no topic more fre- 
 
 (61)
 
 62 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 quent and engaging The hearts of the faithful, who love to 
 hear of and to see the evidence of the spread of the true religion 
 go out: ''Thanks be to God, the church is to open; nothing, 
 it is to be hoped, will take place to cloud the glory of the day. 
 The length of the purse, will express the welcome to the great 
 occasion. The council of the oracle, 'Age guod agis," 'Do what 
 you do,' was followed faithfully by the fathers with winning 
 simplicity and purity of intention, in the preparation." Con- 
 structed of timbers, resting one upon the other, covered with 
 thatch, and plastered, fifty feet in length and twenty-five in 
 width, facing south, and protected on each side by locust and 
 elm trees— all things in and around breathing poverty—such 
 was the log church ; the reminder of the first home of the Divine 
 Founder, Bethlehem ; with ever3^thing the zeal of the missioners 
 and the simple faithful could furnish to fit it for a shrine to the 
 holiest of purposes. 
 
 On the north side of the humble temple, a belfry had been 
 built, to lodge that creature of God, the bell, the instrument of so 
 many and varied blessings to the Christian soul. Its duty would 
 be to summon the faithful to the great solemnity of dedication, 
 ande very day of the revolving year to do honor to Him made 
 flesh for the love of us and to her, the Virgin Mother, that gave 
 us the God-man; nor would it forget to moan in plaintive tones, 
 to ask suffrages," for the faithful departed, that through the mercy 
 of God, they would rest in peace." What joyous and plaintive 
 recollections are awakened by the Christian bell ! At the dawn 
 of reason the music of its voice, is in keeping with that of charm- 
 ing 3'^outh. 
 
 "Whose sound, so wild, would 
 In the days of childhood, 
 Fling o'er my cradle those magic spells." 
 
 Then again at dusk, what more faithful reminder of death, 
 the ravisher, than "The curfew tolling the knell of parting day!" 
 It is now the matin bell, ringing out the summons "to resort 
 early to the Lord that made us." Now it is the vesper bell, 
 imploring the Almighty in plaintive tones, "to save the guards, 
 to guard the sleepers, so that they may watch with Christ, and 
 rest in peace." The eariy Latin poet voices the many purposes 
 of this venerable creature of God, and handmaid of the Church: 
 
 "Funero plango, fulmina fiango, sabbata pango; 
 Excito lentos, dissipo ventos, paco, cruentos."
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 63 
 
 Amid the bustle, the necessary attendant on preparation 
 for a great solemnity, the selection of the name to be given to 
 the church occasioned much discussion; and, of course, before 
 the name was agreed upon, much time had been spent. The 
 title the church would bear was that of the Most Holy Cross, 
 Sanctissimae Crucis. A happier, more consoling title could not 
 have been chosen. Nothing had been more constant in the 
 mind, closer to the heart, more emphasized in the daily actions 
 of priests and people, ever since the Mission opened, than the 
 type of Faith, the Anchor of Hope and the proof of Charity. 
 Under various forms, at all times, the cross had been the com- 
 panion, and the solace of the missioners and the faithful. 
 
 "In this sign, they would conquer." In sorrow, it had 
 lightened them, in' trouble, calmed them. In its power, they 
 discovered strength and confidence, in its generousness, absence 
 of selfishness. The weakness of the Cross had made them strong, 
 and the fatigues of the cross had refreshed them. Praise too 
 high, cannot be bestowed on our early missioners of La Salle, 
 for the selection of the title the dearest to the heart of the Chris- 
 tian: "Alone worthy to bear the weight of the world, the God- 
 man!" Would that the title, as soon as the first church ceased 
 to serve as a suitable shrine for the performance of the sacred 
 mysteries had been given to the Church built afterwards, the 
 glory of the Illinois country. 
 
 Sunday, the 5th of August dawned. Caution and zeal had 
 insured success to the fit performance of the ceremonies; devo- 
 tion to which is a special legacy inherited from the Holy Founder 
 of the Vincentians: 
 
 "On the fifth of this month (Aug.) we celebrated mass, for 
 the first time in the new church. It cost me more trouble and 
 pain, than money. It was very pleasing and satisfactory to 
 see the joy and devotion of the Catholics. The Saturday even- 
 ing previous to the blessing of the church, the bell I bought in 
 St. Louis, rung for the first time, and gave notice to the people 
 of the ceremony which was to take place, in the morning next. 
 The rain, falling all the night, alarmed me, but three hours be- 
 fore the mass, the sky was clear as crystal. The number of 
 people was very great, both of Catholics and Protestants. They 
 had seldom seen any ceremony in our church. From twelve 
 miles to one hundred, a great many persons came to see the
 
 64 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 opening of the first Catholic Church in this part of the country. 
 We began with a hymn, "Veni Creator Spiritus." 
 "Spirit Creator of mankind, 
 Come visit every pious mind." 
 
 Then I preached and explained the ceremony that was to be 
 performed. After the holy water was blessed, and all was done 
 according to the rubrics of the Roman Ritual, the altar was 
 adorned and mass celebrated, in which I preached the second 
 time. Two small boys dressed with the dress of the choir, as- 
 sisted as acolytes. Eyerything was done with great modesty 
 and devotion and poverty — I had only rags for vestments^and 
 with great pains I could get them. In the evening we sang 
 vespers. Then there was a sermon ; and the day was closedwith 
 benediction of the Blessed Sacrament." 
 
 The above account of so remarkable an event is far from the 
 pen of the Superior of the Mission, written to Father Timon, the 
 visitor, August 24th, 1838. 
 
 The St. Louis Cathedral, that had been dedicated in 1834, 
 has not anything to commemorate the great event more digni- 
 fied than the record of the dedication of the La Salle Log Church, 
 carefully written in the book of baptismal records, from which 
 the following, "verbum verbo," is taken: 
 
 Ad majorem Dei gloriam. Die 5th Augusti anni reparatae 
 salutis 1838, quinto circiter mense, post adventum nostrum in 
 istis regionibus, Ecclesiam hanc in pago La Salle ad honorem 
 Dei, sub titulo S. S. Crucis D. N. J. C. fidelis populi largitate 
 media tribuente, pro tempore Augustia, ex lignis construetam, 
 Ilhni, ac Revdmi D. D. Josephi Rosati Sti. Ludovia auctoritate, 
 Revdo. Dno. Aloysio Parodi Cong. Missionis assistente, magno 
 fidelium concursu, solemni ritu juxta Ritualit Romani praescept- 
 um, benedix fidem, etc., L B. Raho, Cong. Miss. 
 
 Aloys. Parodi, Cong. Miss. 
 Translation. 
 
 For the greater honor and glory of God. On the 5th day 
 of August in the year of the Redemption, 1838, the fifth month 
 after our coming into those parts, authorized by the Most Illus- 
 trious, and Most Rev. Joseph Rosati, C. M. Bishop of St. Louis, 
 Rev. Wm. Aloysius Parodi, and a great multitude of the faith- 
 ful present, this church in the village of La Salle, built, owing 
 to hard times, of wood, and through offerings of a faithful peo- 
 ple, I dedicated to the honor of God, under the title of the Most
 
 
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 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 65 
 
 Holy Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. For testimony of which, 
 etc., I. B. Raho, Cong. Miss. 
 
 Aloys. Parodi, Cong. Miss. 
 The event of the dedication of the first church between St. 
 Louis and Chicago might well arouse holy enthusiasm, and 
 spread feelings of holy delight in the nature of priests and faith- 
 ful. The wording of the above record opened out the hearts 
 of all that witnessed the ceremonies of that great day. The 
 dedication four years previous of the Cathedral of St. Louis, 
 which drew a large multitude, among them high dignitaries 
 of Church and State, had not been celebrated with deeper 
 satisfaction; although between the noble Roman style of St. 
 Louis, and the log-cabin church of La Salle, no comparison can 
 be instituted. To the self-sacrificing Missioner, and the generous 
 and faithful of the latter place, the event marked an era of decided 
 change in many and most important ways. An end had at 
 last come to the series of shifting scene, where the church, at 
 one time was a boarding-house, at another time, a room in a 
 log-cabin, at another in the enclosure of a large elm tree ; when 
 the good people had to limit this devotion to the holy mass 
 of Sunday and Holidays; and the Holy Sacrament of Baptism, 
 Penance and Marriage had been administered in a way that 
 told priest and people, ininister and receivers, that the absence 
 of solemnity from the great actions, was painfully felt in the 
 absence of the church. Then what to the Catholic living by 
 faith, is a foretaste of Heaven, the doors of the church at any 
 hour of the day, would now be opened for him ; and in Presence 
 of his Creator and Savior under sacramental forms, he would be 
 at liberty to enter, to plead pardon for his sins, to ask grace to con- 
 fess and power to renounce them, to become resigned to his lot 
 in life, and to view this world as if he were to leave it at any 
 moment. The new church would have above all, to the child, 
 now come to the rosy dawn of reason, a strong attraction and 
 make a deep impression of what the house of God is and requires ; 
 everything before and around him — altar and lights, and priests 
 and offerings, the calm, subdued recollection, the deep rever- 
 ence, the devout sighs of the adorers, would speak to the mind 
 and excite the imagination of the youth ; whilst all that he took 
 in would grow up to be part of that religious training, which 
 » should ever mark him as a Christian. The little bell sum- 
 moning him to the Angelus, at dawn, at noon, and eve; to the
 
 66 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 Holy Mass daily and on Sundays and Holidays would, were he 
 ever to stray from his God, be a powerful means to lead him 
 back; if ever faithful, to strengthen the more his affections for 
 the church of his boyhood. Like Samuel of old, it would be 
 here in the presence of the Holy of Holies, he would ask the Lord 
 to make known His will; he would hear the call to consecrate 
 to the service of the Altar, to deserve to enroll his name as one 
 of the band of the humble Vincent of Paul, become an eye to 
 the blind, a foot to the lame, and the father of the poor.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Log-Cabin Home of the Missioners. 
 
 "Per varios casus et tot discrimina rerum tendimiis in Latium, sedes 
 ubi fata quietas ostendunt." 
 Through various mishaps and trying adventures, we steer to Latium, 
 where destiny has provided the blessing of peace and plenty. 
 
 The Aeneid, book i. 
 
 The contracts for building the church and the Missioners* 
 house had been given out at the same time. As the day of 
 dedication opened the church to the people, the eve of the 
 dedication opened the new house to the Fathers. The farewell 
 of the Fathers to the hearth that had so long warmed and cheered, 
 occasioned, as was naturally looked for, from the intercourse of 
 an intelligent and pious Catholic family with missioners cour- 
 teous of manner, and irreproachable of life, quite a stir. It was 
 hard for such natures to pla^^ an indifferent part, impossible not 
 to speak the eloquence of the heart. At the departure of St. 
 Vincent from the house of Gondi, the sorrow of the family, of 
 the holy madam above all, could only be made light, by the 
 promise made by the saint, that he would return. The good 
 sense of the Byrne family had then to sacrifice feeling to ex- 
 pediency ; and the utility and necessity which urged the Fathers 
 to leave their temporary abode for their new home, far out- 
 weighed in the minds of their benefactors, the joy and pleasure 
 the presence of the Fathers afforded. They would repair to 
 their new quarters; but the example they had set, from the 
 hour the little daughter of the family had read, in the name of 
 the people of La Salle, the welcome to the first Missioners, until 
 now, the hour of departure to their new home, would be a frag- 
 rance filling the whole house. The acts of resignation, of self- 
 denial brought out by their straitened circumstances, by the 
 cruel scenes of strife and blood-shed witnessed on the canal, by 
 the horrors of the cholera under which the new Mission had 
 groaned, would be treasured up by the host as large payments 
 
 ^67)
 
 68 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 the guests had made. Indeed the honest pride that Ut up the 
 features and spoke in the language of the grand old man and 
 his venerable wife, witnessed oftentimes by the writer, as often 
 as a missionary would make a call, and introduce in the run of 
 a chat, the name of Raho or Parodi, or both, was an evidence of 
 the place the fathers occupied in sweet affection and recollection. 
 The generous God who loveth the cheerful giver will repay. 
 "He that giveth to a prophet, in the name of a prophet, shall 
 receive the reward of the prophet. But he that give a cup of 
 cold water in My name, shall not lose his reward." What re- 
 ward in kind and degree shall the generous God bestow for long 
 and noble services done with Christian unselfishness in favor 
 of His annointed? It is worth while to attempt a pen picture 
 of the rustic mansion which sheltered for fourteen years so many 
 holy and learned missioners, venerable and hallowed in so many 
 ways by visits from distinguished ecclesiastics, Joseph Rosati, the 
 first bishop of St. Louis, the venerable Archbishop, his succes- 
 sor — Kenrick, then in the first months of his episcopacy, that 
 unwearied worker as priest and bishop, John Timon. The 
 thought, even, much less the fact of sketching primitive build- 
 ings, and not one of the early missioners was ignorant of the 
 art of planning and sketching, was not entertained. To catch 
 the views of the buildings and surroundings of the early days, 
 would have been treated as an inroad decidedly, on time hon- 
 ored traditions. This is to be lamented. For what, in the 
 absence of the real can be a more faithful substitute to recall 
 and refresh the memory of what has been, and is not, than the 
 canvas or the type embodying the features of the original. 
 Except the freshness the home and surroundings wore on the 
 opening evening '38, they had not undergone much change, 
 unless change for the better, when the writer first took them in, 
 in the days of '51. Built of logs roughly trimmed, laid one on 
 the other at right angles, the cabin was carried up to the height 
 of fourteen, in width sixteen, and length thirty feet. 
 
 A portion of the western wall of the church served the pur- 
 pose of the eastern wall of the cabin. Its thatched straw roof 
 was spliced with that of the church; the northern windows 
 facing a charming, sloping forest of elm, hickory and oak; the 
 front southward opening on the beautiful Illinois valley. The 
 orchard of the locust, poplar and peach, that had been planted 
 and nursed by the hands of Fathers Raho and Parodi, in front
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. -^9 
 
 of the residence, had grown as to clasp in its embrace and to 
 ma"ke of the first home, a spot as romantic, attractive and pictur- 
 esque, as Virgil in his pastorals, or Thomson in his seasons, the 
 zealous admirers of rural beauty could wish. Into five rooms 
 and a small hall, the shanty was divided up. The last named 
 was used as a dining-room. On the occasion of distinguished 
 visitors, the room of one of the Fathers served the hospitable 
 purpose. The space between the logs had not been filled, much 
 less had the mud plaster been put on. Bed-steads, bedding, 
 six chairs, a table service, an old table, a cook stove, a heating 
 stove — for the traditional cabin hearth in the bitter zero weather 
 was insufficient to give comfort — the old bags and trunks, which 
 had been probably contemporaries of St. Vincent, all the above 
 mentioned found their way to the unpretending cabin home. 
 
 About fifty yards northwest from the house were the barn 
 and cow sheds. 
 
 "Indulgent memory fades! 
 And hence that calm delight the portrait gives, 
 We gaze on every feature till it lives." 
 
 To the Missioners', "Home, the sacred refuge of our life," 
 had at last come. Free and independent in their own possession 
 they sat. As humble as it looked, it was home; it was their 
 castle." "Every man's house is his own castle." They felt 
 themselves, and they were, lords of their rugged and rustic 
 mansion, in the enjoyment of that refreshing relief home affords, 
 and of a calm the apostolic life craves, to give its strength 
 and durableness. 
 
 "An exile-from home, splendor dazzles in vain, 
 O! give me the lowly thatched cottage again! 
 Home, home, sweet home! 
 There's no place like home." 
 
 The calm solitude of their new abode was in every way what 
 St. Vincent would have desired. It was a haven after turmoil, 
 the retreat of a Carthusian after the battle of an apostle. The 
 Missioner had his room furnished with bed, wash-stand, desk, 
 the scanty library of professional books, the image of his cruci- 
 fied God, pictures of the Virgin Mother, St. Joseph, a relic of 
 St. Vincent, his father — every thing breathing the profession of 
 poverty — for he was vowed to the love of the poor. "Ad salu- 
 ten pauperum." The habits of early training, like ministering 
 angels, waited on them. They had learned that to perform the
 
 70 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 many and various duties connected with their home, the cleverest 
 servant a Missioner could ask and command would be himself. 
 Hence the neatness and evidence of order the rooms of the old 
 confreres presented every morning after breakfast, when the 
 routine of study or missionary work was in order. Hitherto 
 the peculiar situation which had been theirs, rendered the ob- 
 servance of the rule in many instances impracticable. Even 
 now the like condition of affairs betimes would go on. Incon- 
 veniences would take place, privations would be borne. The 
 kitchen of the house had not as yet its own larder; but there 
 were larders in the kitchens of Mrs. John Cody and Mrs. John 
 Connerton, too glad to open and share their goodly stores to 
 the spiritual fathers. "The priests ate their meals," writes 
 Grandmother Connerton, now in her 84th year, "at our house 
 during the time the church and house were being chinked and 
 plastered with mud." As the family of Lazarus fed the Son 
 of God, so did the Byrnes, the Codys, the Connertons, feed, 
 wash, and mend for the representatives of the Lord. "My 
 heart was scalded for over a year, mending and patching their 
 old cassocks," complained, good-naturedly, the oldest living 
 friend of the Fathers. 
 
 Nor was the satisfaction experienced by the people at view- 
 ing the Fathers ensconced in their new quarters, a mere passing 
 one. The happy effects of the change were genuinely felt. 
 For all that had tended or might have tended, when the Mission- 
 aries lived under a borrowed roof, to make the people shy of the 
 house, existed no longer. To seek consolation in sorrow, to 
 find peace in anxiety, to ask advice in doubt, with the conviction 
 that what would take place, neither the curious eye, nor the 
 evil mind would have occasion to feed its malice, were bles- 
 sings hailed and shared in by the fiock as soon as the door of 
 the first house of the Shepherds opened.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 How the Missioners Promoted Growth of Piety among the People. 
 The First Christmas at La Salle. 
 
 "Give us particulars of your preservation." — Shakespeare. 
 
 In the status of the La Salle Mission, a few months had 
 wrought a decided change for the better.. Missioners and flock 
 could hardly believe what they witnessed. "Help me, sir 
 and dear confrere, to thank the Lord for the blessings He has 
 designed to pour out upon our ministry, and for the good among 
 these people. Ten months ago these poor people were a prey 
 to vice. They used a beverage, a detestable liquor they name 
 whiskey, a very poison for soul and body. They remind one of 
 that Niolo spoken of in the life of St. Vincent. So extraordinary 
 is the change, that we acknowledge it a very miracle of grace. 
 A case of drunkness has not been seen for five months; the 
 Sacraments are frequently received; no Sunday dawns without 
 witnessing at the holy table a large number of communicants. 
 The severity of the weather by no means lessens the number." 
 In this strain the Superior pours out his soul to Father Fiorillo, 
 the assistant of the General at Paris. With a neat, cosy church 
 instead of a boarding-shanty, a home in place of a borrowed 
 roof, to shelter, a school for the hitherto rambling, unchecked 
 youth, where the wise and learned Mr. Scully brought discipline 
 by love of learning or fear of the ferrule, for once, the Fathers 
 were joyous. "They had sown in tears, and in joy they were 
 reaping." They would as they did, go on to apply their time 
 and exercise their zeal to build up in the hearts of the poor, the 
 nobler temple of solitude and lasting piety. No material build- 
 ings, no matter how convenient, useful and durable, can ever 
 be a substitute for that supernatural life, which must live and 
 act in the body of a mission as the soul lives and acts in the 
 body, unless a corpse may be said to live and act out the requisite 
 elements of holiness of life. "Dust is the mere body, and into 
 dust it shall return." There, there is no life nor action. 
 
 (71)
 
 72 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 To make of the center congregation, worthy of the place it 
 occupied, the model mother church for the missions then form- 
 ing and would be formed, was the uppermost thought of the 
 Fathers. Nothing would more fitly tend to that end, than the 
 dignified and exact study and practice of the beautiful, touching 
 and sublime ceremonial of the Church. And what had St. Vin- 
 cent, by word and example, more impressed upon his Missioners 
 than in view of the awful mysteries of the Altar, to act as the 
 beloved prophet at the burning bush, or as Elias when the 
 Majesty of the Lord was passing by, and to pour out into the 
 hearts of the adorers, that spirit of faith that moved and con- 
 trolled them in offering up the ''Verbum caro factum" on the 
 mystic altar. As St. Teresa was ready to give her life for a 
 single ceremony of the altar, so if called upon, should the Mis- 
 sioners be. The home of the Mission would wear the features 
 of the home of the poor; but, where it was possible, the most 
 elaborate display of wealth would be forced into service to do 
 homage to the Divine Priest and Divine Victim. The vener- 
 ableness of the ceremonies, their nature to keep alive the faith 
 and arouse the tenderest and strongest feelings of the heart; 
 to explain the mysteries of Redemption, to recall the remem- 
 brance of God's special favors; to do homage to the Divine 
 Majesty, to cherish that inward worship of God, to preserve 
 religion, to distinguish the Roman Catholic Church from the 
 sects, each and all the above motives urged to the due celebration, 
 the liturgy of the altar demands. 
 
 By order of the illustrious and venerable Joseph Rosati, 
 Lazarist, and first Bishop of St. Louis, the ceremonial of Baldes- 
 chi was done from the Italian into the English language. Indeed 
 the writer has it on the authority of Rev. James Bulrando, C. M., 
 that the learned Bishop himself translated the work in order to 
 bring the young Church in the United States to the study and 
 practice of what was done in the sanctuary of Rome, the mother 
 of all the churches. In the early days of this century in the 
 Republic, priests having the cure of soul should, where possible, 
 sing Mass and Vespers on all Sundays and holidays of obligation. 
 How attempt this in La Salle? How get together the material 
 for a choir? Robbed of their share in the solemn practice of 
 the ceremonial of the church,' by the penal laws of England, 
 how could the simple Irish Catholic of the Illinois country ven- 
 ture to pose as artists and challenge criticism? The material
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 73 
 
 for a practical, than for an opera exhibition, one that would 
 
 suit the times, than answer the hypercritical of after days was, 
 
 however, on the ground. None acquainted with the manners 
 
 and customs of the Gael, will dare to deny it, the inborn gifts 
 
 of music and poetry, the power of melody and harmony, the 
 
 immortal harp, its emblem of joy and sorrow which it had ever, 
 
 on the generations of the old land, exercised great, glorious, and 
 
 lasting. 
 
 "Hence it came that this soft harp so long hath been known, 
 To mingle love's language with sorrow's sad tone." 
 
 The voice that eased the hours of toil in the harvest field 
 
 and at the plow, that rang out merrily at the wedding, and 
 
 fell in plaintive notes at thQ bier, that shook the cabin walls 
 
 with laughter, and filled the eye with tears; that 
 
 ' Once in the fire of youthful emotion, 
 Sang the bold anthem of 'Erin go Bragh." 
 
 in freshness, sweetness and volume were now the same. In the 
 quiet of a La Salle autumn evening, or at the heart of a La Salle 
 winter night, the spirit of a song and harmless dance, gave 
 freshness to the little village ; and the rustic church and the home 
 of the fathers gave back the echoes of the stirring song and the 
 rolling flute, to the light-hearted cabins of Johnnie Hynes and 
 John Allen, whence they had soared. 
 
 With such material of voice and instrument, where the diffi- 
 culty to form a choir that would be flattering to the members, 
 gratifying to the parish and creditable to the proper celebration 
 of the divine mysteries! It is true, owing to the poverty of the 
 mission, the plural-tongued organ would not be there to lend 
 its powerful aid ; but at the presence of the richest of all musical 
 instruments, the human voice, accompanied by the bewitching 
 violin and mellow flute, the absence of the great church instru- 
 ment would hardly be felt. Father Raho, the Superior,was a 
 born musician — the good people remember his musical talents. 
 The organ had been his choice and his touch would not have 
 offended even a Mozart. The selection of the choir was with 
 him, and a right good use he made of his power. The members, 
 when asked, not only offered themselves with generousness, 
 but the very thought that their time and talents would go to 
 act as handmaids to the solemnity of the great High Priest, 
 offering himself, filled them with humility, yet with a feeling of 
 praiseworthy pride. That venal action of putting their gift up 
 and exacting payment for the same, when the services of religion
 
 74 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 were in question, would have been fifty years ago, as startling 
 to choir and people as the wildest fairy tale. 
 
 Within the sanctuary on the Gospel side, embracing the 
 window in its space, screened from the gaze of the worshippers 
 by a deep red damask curtain, the choir performed. The sun 
 was not a whit more punctual to his hours of duty than were the 
 choir on Sundays and festivals, to their sublime exercises. 
 Johnny Hynes, who had lent his house to the services of religion, 
 when there had been no church, now lent his musical tenor voice 
 to the like services. A lady of remarkable pitch and sweetness 
 of voice, whose name unfortunately is forgotten, was the so- 
 prano; Dooley performed on the fiute; another who filled up 
 the number of choristers, whose fitness has buried away his name, 
 ever graced the occasions. In these primitive times, De Monte's 
 simple figured mass had a wider fame than the immortal com- 
 positions of the renowned masters of music. On all occasions 
 this production was given and rendered by the choir in a style, 
 if not always agreeable to the congregation, yet most gratifying 
 to the performers. Eye and ear witnesses, wholly in old times, 
 whilst giving due meed of praise to the unselfish and zealous 
 band of musicians, yet, at this day, cannot restrain bursts of 
 genuine laughter as often as they recall the choir and the red 
 curtains, aglow with the sun's light, and the nose of Johnny 
 Hynes the tenor singer, thereon photographed. 
 
 Christmas was at hand; the first religious celebration at 
 La Salle, of God with us, the new born King. Whatsoever 
 Christian thought could invent and Christian heart in wealth 
 of affection could offer, would be here. For, as Shakespeare says: 
 
 "The quality of mercy is not strain'd; 
 It droppeth as a gentle rain from Heaven, 
 Upon the place beneath ; it is twice bless'd. 
 It blesses him that gives, and him that takes." 
 Milton sings: 
 
 "This is the month, and this the happy morn, 
 Wherein the Son of Heaven's eternal King, 
 Of wedded maid, and virgin-mother born, 
 Our great Redemption from above did bring. 
 Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, 
 ■ The bird of drawing singeth all night long; 
 And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad, 
 The nights are wholesoine, there no planet strikes, 
 No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm 
 So gracious and so hallowed is the time."
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 75 
 
 Because of the light and hearth of Christianity, all classes, 
 but above all the heritage of the Divine Child — the poor would 
 prepare to hasten to the crib to pay their vows to Him, so like 
 to them. The shanty would wear its best and bring forth its 
 rarest. Poor indeed would be the family that had not for each 
 one, the merry welcome of a merry Christmas and the Christmas 
 box to offer, with expressions of tenderest affections. Bloom 
 would the tree, and carols would be sung in hamlet, and at door, 
 and Christmas Eve usher in the most charming and happy of all 
 the year's festivals in its praiseworthy bustle, and frolicsome care 
 would already glow with the brightness of the midnight crib. 
 
 The church was the object that attracted the hearts of the 
 priest and people. To grace the log-cabin shrine, the evergreen 
 was stripped. The hemlock and cypress were divested of their 
 verdant, boughs and loving hands twisted into ropes and hung 
 them in graceful foldings around the interior of what to the 
 Catholic at all times, but especially on Christmas, is the mid- 
 night cave with its group of mysteries. The sanctuary, a net work 
 of forest twigs variegated with artificial flowers, opened in the 
 center, revealing the altar ablaze with lights, when the bell 
 tolled the approach of the midnight services. The father, writing 
 to Father Fiorillo at Paris, thus describes the La Salle Christmas 
 of 1838: 
 
 "The feast of Christmas has been celebrated in a very affecting 
 manner. At eleven o'clock Christmas Eve, the bell tolled, an- 
 nouncing the commencement of the office. Lauds were sung 
 first, afterwards the Mass, during which select pieces of music, 
 simple in composition and solemn in tone, accompanied with 
 instruments, were executed, producing on the assembled wor- 
 shipers a great effect. At the moment of the elevation, from 
 every side of the chapel were heard fervent sighs, which moved 
 us to tears of joy and consolation; for they gave evidence of 
 piety and elevation of all hearts at the remembrance of the great 
 mystery and birth of our Savior among men. At dawn many 
 Low Masses were offered up; at noon High Mass was celebrated, 
 and in the afternoon Vespers and Benediction of the Holy Sac- 
 rament took place. An immense concourse assisted at all de- 
 votions. The protestants present were singularly affected." 
 
 The abuses of Christmas night, which had pushed the au- 
 thority of the Church to do away with midnight Mass for the
 
 76 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 public on occasion of Christmas, had not crept in among the 
 good people of La Sallle of that day. Theirs was a celebration 
 fraught with "glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, 
 good will to men."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Condition of the La Salle Mission at the Opening of the New 
 Year, 1839 — Hoiv "Sweet Melting Charity" Urged it. 
 
 " 'Tis not in fortune to command success, but we'll do more, Ho- 
 ratio, we'll deserve it." 
 
 Addison's Cato. 
 
 The year of 1838 had closed, and the seven months' child, 
 for such was the age of the La Salle Mission, 'mid trials of various 
 kinds had grown beautiful and strong, giving tokens of its future 
 greatness. "Quis putas puer iste erit, nam manus Domini cum 
 ipso est?" The labors for the fathers from the hour, the 29th 
 of March, 'sS, when they began to till the field, until New Year's 
 Day, '39, were summed up in the following table, taken from 
 the archives of the St. Louis diocese, to which the La Salle 
 Mission then belonged : 
 
 Baptisms numbered 95 
 
 Conversions to the faith 4 
 
 First Communions 20 
 
 Paschal Communions S°° 
 
 Marriages 7 
 
 Deaths 8S 
 
 Total number of souls i ,000 
 
 Included in the above number was Ottawa, the only out- 
 mission of La Salle at the time. No reason had the laborers, at 
 the dawn of the new year, "to mourn as those who have no hope ;" 
 for the wilderness into which they had been sent, and to which 
 they had, with courage, come, by their heroic efforts had been 
 made in a short space to yield a goodly harvest. In the words 
 of the great Husbandman, the output was like the field of 20. 
 The yield of 60 and 100 would, in the future seasons, follow. 
 
 How to plan, to execute for the living suffering members of 
 Christ, was the controlHng thought of the fathers. "Charity is 
 of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth 
 
 (77)
 
 78 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 Him. He that says I love God, and hateth his brother is a liar. 
 He that shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels 
 from him, how doth the charity of God abide in him?" To 
 lighten misery by bringing relief, and strengthen hope by pre- 
 serving life, were the problems to solve. Orphans had been 
 cast on the village world, the poor sick in sore need of a balsam, 
 had, in resignation, to bear their pitiable lot. Zeal was equal 
 to the trying hour. "Divine Providence afforded the means to 
 save these poor orphans. In the meantime, whilst I ran through 
 the people of La Salle and Ottawa to pick them up, seven or 
 eight had fallen victims to misery. Of the number of those 
 then in my charge and in a most lamentable condition, two are 
 already at St. Louis in care of the Sisters of Charity; a third is 
 with the Madames of the Sacred Heart ; a fourth with the Sisters 
 of Loretto; three more are in the homes of as many pious and 
 charitable families." 
 
 Father Raho to Father Fiorillo, assistant to the superior 
 general, Annals, vol. 25. 
 
 In the mean time, "at the commencement of the new year, 
 '39, we drew up a petition to have presented to the State Legis- 
 lature, in order to obtain a grant of land on which to build a 
 hospital, whose management would be given to the Sisters of 
 Charity. But as there was a clause in the act making the con- 
 cession, which could not be allowed, I intend to have it 
 amended when Legislature sits next January, 1840, I have put 
 back until the spring (1840), the projected hospital. Provided 
 I obtain the much desirable amendment, the good God will 
 supply the means to make real, what now is among possible 
 things." See vol. 9th. of Annals. 
 
 An act to amend an act to incorporate the La Salle Charity 
 Hospital, approved February 23, 1839. In force February ist, 
 1840. 
 
 Section i. — Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, 
 represented in the General Assembly. That the corporators in 
 the act to which this is an amendment, shall have two years 
 from the time the canal commissioners shall select the land as 
 required by the act to which this is amendatory to comply 
 on their part with the provision of said act : Provided ; It shall 
 be the duty of the commissioners to select the land within three 
 months from the passage of this act February i , 1 840. Page 7 5 
 Laws of 111., 1839-40.
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 7q 
 
 The hospital question remained unanswered. As the village 
 and surroundings of La Salle then were supplied, the work of 
 charity, unless placed on an independent footing by individual 
 or state endorsement, would be short lived. Had a Mullanphy 
 lived at the time in the mission, as the Mullanphy — the Christian 
 philanthropist lived by his largesses, in the thousands of poor 
 of all conditions in the city of St. Louis, La Salle would not have 
 waited fifty years as it has, for the first Catholic refuge to open 
 in favor of the poor of Jesus Christ. The regular appeals to the 
 Superior General at Paris, made by the Superior of the Illinois 
 Mission for monetary aid and not without success, to assist his 
 struggling people, describe clearly the situation. As the hos- 
 pital had failed to become a reality, there was something, equally 
 as meritorious and practical that took shape and assumed 
 proportions, not in wood and stone, brick and mortar, but in 
 the hearts of the lovers of God's poor. 
 
 A union was formed whose aim was not only the practice of 
 virtue and flight of vice, but that practical love of man, for 
 God's sake, by the constant soHcitude of its members for, and 
 tender care of, the spiritual and temporal welfare of the helpless. 
 To the individual member of such a body, the union would prove 
 untold worth; a knowledge desirable for association with the 
 most exemplary, a friendship the closest, which the highest 
 motive for human action can produce, a claim, if ever sorrow 
 would shade the life of any of its members, from one or any 
 cause, to large and active sympathy. To the body of the people, 
 the result of brotherhood would show innumerable blessings; 
 self-denial practised, scrupulous attention to all the public 
 services of the Church, to monthly confessions and communions, 
 and not the least, the unflagging zeal night and day in behalf of 
 the poor sick of every form of disease. The whole body commu- 
 nicating its life and vigor to each member, and each member 
 filled with the spirit and full of the vigor of the body, the 
 union would stand impregnable "as a strong city," and as pow- 
 erful "as a triple cord, which it is hard to break," as magnificent 
 "as a disciplined army moving as a single man." 
 
 To the practical pastor, a union of this kind commends 
 itself; for it is a power ever active and progressive, yea, often 
 necessary, to administer to present wants, and by prudent fore- 
 sight to hasten to apply a remedy against future ills. 
 
 It must not be thought that the hearts of the people had
 
 8o STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 been closed to the distressed poor-sick. By no means. Charity 
 was kind; and mercy, no one neglected to cultivate. But as 
 there was no organization to nurse carefully and distribute 
 prudently, the situation was like what St. Vincent formerly 
 witnessed — either a feast or a famine. Nurses and delicacies 
 in abundance to-day would enter the sick room, the patient 
 would be left to-morrow to shift for himself. Therefore the 
 state of things which had inspired the apostle of charity to 
 institute at Bresse, in France, in the year 1816, the Confraternity 
 of Charity, inspired his Missioners at La Salle to establish in 
 January, 1839, the same confraternity. Indeed, on occasions of 
 preaching missions, in districts where the poor are many, and 
 the pastors approve, the holy founder of the Mission bids the 
 priests leave behind this heavenborn comforter. In the language 
 of the heart, the union is mercy's ministering angel: 
 
 "Thou hast called me thy angel in moments like this, 
 And thy angel I'll be, 'mid the horrors of this. 
 Thro' the furnace unshrinking, thy steps to pursue, 
 And shield thee and save thee." 
 
 "Sweet melting charity pours out her heart." 
 "Has sorrow thy yovmg day shaded 
 As clouds o'er the morning fleet? 
 Too fast have thy young days faded, 
 That ever in sorrow were sweet. 
 Does time with his cold wings wither 
 Each feeling that once was dear? 
 Come, child of misfortune, come hither, 
 I'll weep with thee tear for tear."
 
 THE ACTUAL ROCK CHURCH (2ND) ST. PATRICK'S.
 
 CHAPTER XVI . 
 
 Rules of the Confraternity of Charity. 
 
 "The quality of mercy is not strain'd; 
 It droppeth as a gentle rain from heaven, 
 Upon the place beneath ; it is twice bless'd. 
 It blesses him that gives, and him that takes." 
 
 SHAKS. 
 
 On Sunday, Jan. 14th, 1839, in the log church after the High 
 Mass, the people had an opportunity to give evidence of their 
 charity. In a short, practical instruction, Father Raho laid be- 
 fore his hearers the usefulness and advantages of forming a league, 
 cementing a union to serve Jesus Christ in the person of His poor. 
 He, the pastor, would not expect, much less would he ask, the 
 crowded church to leave and go into distant lands, to find and 
 feed and nurse the sick and the destitute. If the good people 
 before him would "cast their bread upon the waters" would 
 keep the wolf from the door, and the victim from the grave, fill 
 their hearts with joy, and get back with double interest what 
 they would lend, ever under their eye, before and behind them, 
 lay the sick and helpless, the beloved of God and the treasures 
 of His church. "The poor you have always with you." If, 
 the pastor continued, the conclusion to form an association for 
 the poor had been put off until now, it was only that the necesr 
 sity for such a union would be visibly felt, and the hour of its 
 formation would be hailed with more hearty welcome; it would 
 be known under the name of the Confraternity of Charity. The 
 bare mention of this brotherhood, opens up a mine of purest 
 gold, immeasureable in value, inexhaustable in resources, given 
 universally to the key-bearers of the kingdom of Heaven. It 
 recalls the hour when Vincent of Paul, parish priest of Chatillon 
 in France, entering on a certain festival in the pulpit, was asked 
 by a lady to recommend to the charity of the worshippers, a poor 
 family lying sick and distressed ; the heart the holy priest put into 
 his appeal ; the melting tone that moaned through the crowd and 
 
 (8i^
 
 82 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 quickened all; the road leading to the poor sick hamlet, filled 
 with a throng, many coming back with empty baskets from 
 pity and misery, and above all, the words that then and there 
 made the life-giving confraternity a fact. "This is great charity, 
 but not well directed. The poor people will be over-loaded with 
 provisions for a few days, and then they will be in as. much 
 distress as before." 
 
 The son of St. Vincent at La Salle had every reason to be 
 satisfied at the result of his humble yet impressive appeal. "I 
 remember St. Vincent, and I have endeavored to establish the 
 Confraternity of Charity to answer the necessities of the poor, 
 and the poor-sick. Eight days ago — January 14th, 1839, I 
 made known my mind to the people, and I have a membership 
 of fifty persons." On the same subject, a little later he writes: 
 "I conceived and carried out the plan to establish the Confra- 
 ternity of Charity. I drew up the rules, whose object is the 
 reform of morals, the practice of virtue and the assistance of 
 the poor. The association numbers eighty members. All rival 
 one the other, in the offices of charity and devotedness; and 
 whilst they win the esteem, they call forth at the same time the 
 admiration of even Protestants." Vol. 5th and gth, of Annals. 
 
 The rule of that widespread organization which had the 
 humble priest left nothing beside, would have made him the 
 apostle of charity, which in his life-time had filled France, and 
 since has filled the countries beyond with his imperishable 
 fame, is here for the pleasure and information of the reader 
 as it came from the hands of St. Vincent. 
 
 I St. The Confraternity of Charity is instituted to honor 
 our Lord Jesus Christ and His holy Mother, and to assist the 
 poor sick of the place where it is established, both corporally 
 and spiritually; corporally, in offering nourishment and giving 
 necessary medicine during sickness; spiritually, in affording at 
 the proper time, aid to receive the divine Sacraments of Penance 
 and the Eucharist, to dispose the sick, in danger, to die well, and 
 the ailing for the future, to live well. 
 
 2nd. The said Confraternity shall consist of a limited num- 
 ber of single and married women, the former entering the union 
 with the consent of parents, the latter with the consent of their 
 husbands. On Whit Monday, at the end of every two years, 
 the members shall ballot in presence of the pastor, for choice of 
 officers; namely, for directress, treasurer and second assistant.
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 83 
 
 The ladies receiving the plural vote shall be elected. The direc- 
 tion of the said Confraternity, with the consent of the pastor, 
 shall be in charge of said officers. For procurator the members 
 shall elect a pious and charitable man. 
 
 3rd. The directress shall guard and see that the other mem- 
 bers guard the rule; welcome the poor-sick of the parish, and 
 with the consent of the other officers discharge them. 
 
 4th. The treasurer shall submit her views to the directress, 
 keep in safe or under lock the money of the Confraternity. The 
 directress and treasurer only are entitled to handle the funds. At 
 the end of the term of office, the treasurer shall show her books 
 to the newly elected officers, and to the members, in presence of 
 the pastor and parishioners. 
 
 5th. The second assistant shall consult the directress, look 
 after the linen of the association, furnish with the advice of the 
 directress, when needful, the wants of the poor-sick, and when 
 going out of office, show as the treasurer, her books. 
 
 6th. The bequests made to the Church, by families or indi- 
 viduals, shall be in charge of the procurator. He will issue 
 cards of dismissal, provide for the Confraternity, make out, if 
 called for, the accounts of the treasurer, keep a copy of the rule 
 and act of establishment of the Confraternity, compare the ad- 
 ministration of affairs with the rule, file a list of membership, 
 the date on which each member entered the Confraternity; of 
 death, election of officers, accounts, the number of patients 
 assisted, day of admission, of cure, and the most notable events 
 that took place. 
 
 7th. The members, each in her turn, shall wait on the poor- 
 sick, solicit alms in the church and from the neighbors on Sun- 
 days and festivals, hand over the offering to the treasurer, and 
 make known the amount to the procurator. On every first or 
 third Sunday of the month, all shall approach the Holy Com- 
 munion, at the Mass offered up on the altar of the Confraternity, 
 and when convenient, shall take part in the procession celebrated 
 on that occasion, in singing the Litanies of the Most Adorable 
 Name of Jesus, and of the Holy Virgin. The like ceremonies 
 will take place and attendance be given on the festival of the 
 Most Holy Name. 
 
 8th. As persons united to and bound by the love of our 
 Lord, they shall cherish, visit and console one another in afflic- 
 tion and sickness, pay the last tribute of affection to their re-
 
 84 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 mains, offer the Holy Communion for their intention, and for 
 each dear departed, provide a Solemn High Mass. The pastor 
 and procurator, at their departure out of life, shall enjoy the 
 same blessings, and be paid the like tribute of affection. The 
 poor shall be buried with a Low Mass, and the Confraternity 
 shall approach the Holy Communion at it in a body. 
 
 9th. Each patient shall be served at every meal with abund- 
 ance of bread, veal, or mutton, a bowl of gruel, half pint of wine. 
 
 10. On the fast days, besides bread, wine and gruel, eggs 
 and butter in abundance shall be given. Those that cannot use 
 flesh meat will be provided with soup and fresh eggs four times 
 a day. Special careshall be given those in danger of death." 
 
 What chiefly must strike the Christian reader, attentively 
 studying the wording of the above rule, is that charity detected 
 in every word, the close study of and the means to answer the 
 wants of the poor, the High Exemplar held up for the members 
 to copy, and what must be put in practice, to render their ser- 
 vices worthy of Jesus Christ, and of the prayers of His tenderest 
 friends — the despised poor of the world.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Historic Peoria and Her Sister Missions. 
 
 With no ordinary feeling of delight may the historian near 
 the subject of the chief city of the Illinois Valley — the Pitoumi 
 of the Red-man, called Peoria. Its physical attractions alone 
 magnetized the Peoria and Winnebago tribes, for flood and field. 
 Fish and game in abundance were found in its surroundings — 
 the former in the expansive lake, and the latter in the forests 
 and prairies that bounded it north and south. 
 
 The gradual ascent of its lime-stone bed, rising to the dis- 
 tance of over two miles, and crowned with a terrace that opened 
 into broad and rolling prairie land, over which the buffalo grazed, 
 naturally caught the eye and quickened the nature of the keen 
 observer of nature and art. He would, as he did, linger around 
 the glassy lake that mirrored the primeval forest, for days, and 
 parting, feel a loneliness, as for a friend's loss. 
 
 It was here that the illustrious explorer, Marquette, on re- 
 turning from his Mississippi Exploration, touched, as he was 
 heading northward. "On the way Father Marquette met the 
 Peorias and spent three days with them, explaining in each 
 cabin the fundamental principles of religion. They brought 
 him a dying child which he baptised, the first recorded admin- 
 istration of the Sacrament on the banks of the great river. 
 O'Shea's Catholic Church in colonial days — Vol. ist, Chap 5th. 
 Here, on the south side of the lake, in 1680, intrepid Count de 
 La Salle established a post and named it Crevecoeur, or Shattered 
 Heart, because of his grief occasioned by the ungratefulness and 
 defection of many of his crew. 
 
 Here the Franciscan Hennepin and brothers, about the same 
 time, reared a log church for the Indian Neophytes, and their 
 French allies, the second shrine erected in Illinois as Kaskaskia 
 — Starved Rock was the first. 
 
 The disheartened Franciscans, fleeing from the terrible Iri- 
 
 (85)
 
 86 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 quois, where cruelty all but wiped out the Peorias, to the Jesuit 
 Mission at Green Bay, can only write: "All we have done has 
 been to see the condition of these nations and to open the way 
 to the Gospel and to the Missions, having baptized only two 
 children, whom I saw at the point of death." 
 
 Here the Peorias are visited by Father Gravier, S. J. in 1689, 
 appointed Vicar General of all the western Missions of New 
 France, part of which was Illinois, and the baptisms between 
 March 30th and Nov. 29th, 1693, numbered 206 souls. Here, off 
 and on, the sons of St. Ignatius administered to the spiritual, 
 and doubtless, to the temporal wants of the thriftless Indian 
 and a few French, until the fall of Quebec, and with it the fall 
 of French power, gave the whole of New France over to the 
 bigoted and tyrannical rule of Great Britain. The Catholic 
 Missions henceforth in the Illinois Country had "no habitation 
 and a name." For though the colonies won their independence, 
 crushing the power of England forever, yet had the many tribes 
 of Illinois Indians perished — all but a miserable few, in the hour 
 "Old Glory" first waved over the Garden State. 
 
 The Lazarist Fathers, sailing for the first time the Illinois 
 River, on their way from St. Louis to La Salle, in March, 1838, 
 full of the spirit of inquiry, as Missioners of the old church 
 would and should be, gathered from crew and passengers all 
 possible information concerning the belief of the inhabitants 
 in the many towns the boat touched at, as Merodosia, in Morgan, 
 Beardstown, in Cass; Havana, in Mason; Pekin, in Tazewell; 
 Lacon, in Marshall; Hennepin, in Putman; and Peoria, in 
 Peoria Co. were specially noted. 
 
 The superior of the La Salle Mission , writing to the Superior 
 General, Nozo, at Paris, France, January ist, 1840, says: "When 
 everything ran smoothly in and around the La Salle House I 
 hunted up during last summer and autumn large numbers of 
 Catholics scattered over the country and along the IlHnois 
 river from 90 to 120 miles southwest of La Salle, embracing 
 people of different nationalities. • The most desirable are found 
 at the villages of Pekin, La Salle, Prairie, Kickpoo, Black Par- 
 tridge, and Lacon; the three last mentioned had never before 
 seen a priest. At Peoria Catholics are like the gleanings of the 
 harvest, exceedingly few, and .the object of the meanness of the 
 Presbyterians. However, in the court house I offered the 
 Holy Mass and preached in presence of our select few, and a big
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION 87 
 
 number of Protestants. The sect of Presbyterians have a school 
 that by no means meets the wishes of the citizens. Accordingly 
 the people have urged me to put Sisters in their places. Indeed 
 many of them have offered me ground, on which to build a 
 convent, which may be occupied either by the Sisters of the Visita- 
 tion or by those of the Sacred Heart. If the plan, of which I have 
 informed Bishop Rosati is feasible, it shall certainly give an 
 impetus to the propagation of our holy religion." In the day 
 of which we write, the Democratic party, ever in favor of the 
 foreigner making his home in the United States, wielded great 
 power; and honest old Hickory, the hero of a hundred victories 
 over the Seminole Indians, and the conqueror of the crack 
 army and Navy of Great Britain at the battle of New Orleans, 
 January 8th, 181 5, now sat President of the United States — 
 Democrat of the Democrats. By a happy turn of fortune, the 
 Irish of those days were ninety per cent Democrats; a Whig 
 was seldom amongst them. Our Peoria numbering in 1839, 
 three hundred souls, about twenty of them Catholics, had a 
 large majority of the popular party, and, amusing to write, the 
 chief of the property owners, a Democrat, believed in no other 
 way to happiness. The Democratic platform was the sum of 
 Wm. Stillman's belief, and he valued Patrick Ward on this 
 account, like himself, a Jacksonian Democrat. Gossip on the 
 authority of a student of Peoria history, who wrote critically the 
 Peoria of early days, Wm. Peter Kroemer, whom the writer knew 
 intimately, had it, that when Ward, authorized by Father Raho, 
 to buy a lot in Peoria on which to build a Catholic Church, asked 
 Stillman the price for the lot, Stillman, dumbfounded at the 
 question, answered, "Ward, are you a Catholic?" "Yes, replied 
 Ward, "I am." "Well, Ward, if all the Catholics are like you, 
 you may take the lot for $100.00, half price." The lot was 
 purchased, and in a short time the first church, S. Philomena's, 
 a frame building arose, and monthly, until 1845, Peoria shared 
 the zeal of the Missioners. Patrick Ward and family and the 
 Stillmans nourished the seed first cast, and by their influence 
 lightened the burden of the Lazarist Fathers. West of the 
 present town Rome, lay La Salle prairie, or the Mooney settle- 
 ment, not a great distance from Chilicothe, where the missionary 
 for a length of days served the Bread of Life to the generous 
 families of the Mooneys, Boylans, Harmons, Boyles, and Dolans, 
 and which in return offered to the Minister of Christ, like Tobias
 
 88 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 of old to the Archangel Raphael, the generous tithe of Catholic 
 hospitality. Although the missions of the early pioneers as a 
 rule tired the Fathers severely, and shortened their precious 
 lives, yet the first serial of our La Salle Missions was of easy 
 access. The canal and river were at their disposal, and the pop- 
 ulation that waited and needed the time and care of the Fathers 
 made their homes, or temporary stay, on the banks of these 
 highways. Pekin, ten miles south of Peoria, is thus noted by 
 Raho: "There is a goodly number of Catholics in and around 
 Pekin, the chief town of Tazewell Co. Last October, 1839, the 
 people of Pekin, without distinction of creed, came together, 
 and unanimously resolved to build a Catholic Church, and con- 
 ferred with me and Bishop Rosati, who spent a day among them, 
 on the importance of the project." 
 
 The church was put up and named St. Stephen's. - Above 
 the town of Pekin, on the left bank of the Illinois or rather 
 Peoria Lake, is Black Partridge of the early days — now no 
 longer on the map — quite a center for German and French 
 Catholics. "So numerous, writes the son of St. Vincent, that 
 a chapel is needed, which I intend to build of timber the coming 
 Spring, and would now commence had I the money. The French 
 and Germans — among the latter are many of the Anabaptist 
 sect — shall use it in common." The building was erected and 
 named St. Raphael's. 
 
 Kickapoo, in Peoria Co., on the same side of the river, about 
 five miles inland, claims special and lengthy notice from the 
 ubiquitous missionary. "I have taken special care of the Kick- 
 apoo Catholics, because they were more exposed to heretic at- 
 tacks than the others, and notably from the attacks of the so- 
 called Church of England bishop, who tried to instil into them 
 the poison of his error. I judged, therefore, that the presence 
 of the priest would be more necessary there than anywhere else, 
 accordingly I ministered to these good people every month, 
 making a speciality of explaining the doctrine of the Church. 
 To my instruction, led by curiosity, a great number of Protestants 
 came, who gradually opened their eyes to the truth, and laid 
 aside their prejudices, with which they had grown up, against 
 Catholics. Then, to the satisfaction of all, I proposed to build 
 a chapel. A Catholic and a Protestant each offered a lot — I 
 accepted the offer of the Catholic as more beneficial, and affording 
 me the means to encircle the chapel with a cemetery. Measures
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 89 
 
 were immediately taken and the corner-stone of the chapel, 
 or if you wish, the church, was laid the first Sunday of last August 
 1839, after celebrating the Holy Mass in a neighboring house, 
 fitted up for the occasion. At the appointed hour for the corner- 
 stone laying, I was on the spot, began to explain the ceremonies 
 to the people who were in crowds; when our non- Catholic 
 fellow citizens came up and said to me, that they desired, as 
 the Catholics to have a share in my instructions, and the chapel 
 would be too small to contain the Catholic and non-Catholic 
 people. I was obliged to broaden the foundations. 
 
 Since then the Anglican bishop, whose conventical and 
 college are situated about one mile, and a half from our church, 
 ceases not to inveigh bitterly against me; but all his arrows, far 
 from injuring, serve only to scatter the darkness of error, to 
 sharpen, the appetite of our non-Catholic citziens for the true 
 word of Jesus Christ, and hasten their return to the Catholic 
 Faith. To-day the walls of our stone church are all but built; 
 the dimensions are 40 feet long by 30 in width. It shall be dedi- 
 cated to St. Patrick. This congregation is daily growing. In 
 the Spring, many French families will arrive and become mem- 
 bers of the parish." 
 
 It is interesting to read the importance our precise missionary 
 gave to the Kickapoo corner-stone event. The document would 
 do honor to the most critical inscriber. It is fortunate to own 
 this historic relic, and a pleasure to lay it before the eyes of our 
 readers. 
 
 Copies of Documents Referring to the Foundation of the 
 Parish of Kickapoo, Peoria Co. 
 
 Aug. 4, 1839. 
 
 By the authority of the Bishop, the illustrious and Right Rev. 
 Joseph Rosati, I have this day blessed and placed the (first) 
 corner-stone of a church to be erected by the faithful in Kickapoo, 
 a mission connected with this parish and situated in the county 
 of Peoria, about sixty miles from La Salle. Said church to be 
 erected to the glory of God and of St. Patrick, Bishop of the 
 Irish people. 
 
 J. B. Raho, C. M. 
 inscription placed beneath the corner-stone of st. 
 Patrick's church, kickapoo, 
 
 D. O. M., to the (honor) glory of God, under the patronage 
 of St. Patrick, Apostle of the Irish: "On the fourth day of
 
 90 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 August in the year of our salvation, 1839, His Holiness, 
 Gregory XVI., gloriously reigning in the Chair of Peter 
 the Rt. Rev. Joseph Rosati, being Bishop of the Diocese 
 of St. Louis, Martin Van Buren, President of these United States, 
 and Thomas Carlin, Governor of the State of Illinois, this temple 
 to be constructed of stone, by the pious liberality of the faithful 
 has been begun. Ground was donated by Wm. Mulvaney and 
 Dorothea Mulvaney. I, J. B. Raho, of the congregation of the 
 Mission, vested with the faculties received from the Bishop, 
 have blessed and placed with solemn rite the first comer-stone 
 in the presence of a large concourse of people, said corner-stone 
 being located in the eastern corner of the church near the en- 
 trance."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The events at La Salle in 1839 and 1840. 
 
 The Missions at the Mooney settlement near Rome, Black 
 Partridge, Pekin andKickapoo, placed on secure footing, 
 and the opening of the New Mission in Lacon, Marshall Co., 
 where in John Kelly's house the Holy Sacrifice for the first 
 time was offered up, and ground was given for a church 
 built in 1840 of dressed logs, provided for, urgent business 
 brought Raho home. Father Parodi, in charge at La Salle, 
 during the Mission tour of Raho, had just welcomed Father 
 Cercos, sent by visitor Father Timon from St. Mary's Sem- 
 inary to La Salle, to share mission labor. On the return of 
 Superior Raho, nothing lightened his labors more than to find 
 that his "Alter Ego," the simple saintly Parodi had everything 
 in and out of house and church in admirable condition. The 
 illustrious Bishop Rosati was to be in La Salle, accompanied by 
 the greatest Lazarist of that day, the prefect apostolic of Texas, 
 and first Visitor of the Lazarists, John Timon. Our Chronicler 
 writes up the arrival and its purpose: "At La Salle, our ordi- 
 nary residence, we welcomed last October 13th, 1839, Bishop 
 Rosati and our Visitor, Father Timon. During the ten days 
 the Bishop remained, he administered confirmation to fifty- 
 eight persons, chiefly grown people four of them converts I 
 baptized last Holy Week. On the Sunday within the octave 
 of our holy founder. Saint Vincent, the patron of our Confra- 
 ternity of Charity, thirty-two of our children made their first 
 communion, and the association of charity in a body approached 
 the Holy Table. Directly afterwards confirmation followed, the 
 good' Bishop and Father Timon having previously preached for 
 them a mission of eight days." Only two at this hour, of the 
 fifty-eight, confirmed on that occasion, are amongst us, Mrs. 
 John Allen, or Aunt Anne, as she is lovingly called, and the 
 grand old lady, Mrs. William O'Reilly. May blessings continue 
 to shower upon them! The missions were strengthened by the 
 
 (91)
 
 92 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 arrival of Father Estany. This important addition allowed the 
 church builder and organizer, Raho, more freedom to search the 
 creeks and timber — few as yet had pitched their tent on the 
 prairies — for the strayed sheep of the one fold. 
 
 "I care not fortune, what you may deny, you cannot bar my 
 constant feet to trace the wood and lawns, by living streams 
 at eve." 
 
 However, before the Superior returned to his Peoria sur- 
 roundings, it was imperatiye, for many reasons, that a chosen 
 plot of fertile ground should be bought, for few objects speak 
 so feelingly as God's acre. The love for the dear departed was 
 deep in the hearts of the early priests. The following inscrip- 
 tion, date and dedication done from the Latin into English are 
 taken from the old Baptismal records. 
 
 D. O. M. July 2d, 1840. 
 In the name of the Lord, Amen. Since no place has been re- 
 served for burying the bodies of the faithful in a Christian man- 
 ner, a tract of land having been secured, part of the same has 
 been reserved for this purpose. By means of money contributed 
 by the pious liberality of Catholics, it was provided that this 
 place set aside for the burial of the faithful departed, should 
 be closely and securely fenced, in order that it might be secured 
 from the profanation of animals and that the danger of irrever- 
 ence might be removed. Many bodies of those who piously 
 and laudably departed this life in the Communion of the Holy 
 Roman Church and which for a time were buried elsewhere were 
 transferred to this place upon the fourth Sunday after Pentecost, 
 being vested with authority received from illustrious and R. 
 Rev. Jos. Rosati, Bishop of St. Louis, and in the presence of 
 Revs. Aloysius Parodi and Joseph De Marchi, I the undersigned, 
 have in the presence of a large concourse of people, blessed the 
 cemetery with solemn rite prescribed by the Roman Ritual. 
 
 J. Blasius Parodi, Cong. Miss. 
 A. Parodi. 
 J. De Marchi. 
 
 It need hardly be written, the above cemetery blessed, and 
 which, serving its purpose for about seventeen years, was, after 
 ripened consideration and lengthy proclamation, abandoned, 
 and right cheerfully did the congregation of St. Patrick's exhume 
 the remains of their dear departed and bear them to the present 
 blessed spot.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The Strain on Shepherds and Flocks, 184 1-1846. 
 
 The Greek meaning for man is found in his spiritual part, and 
 the Latin meaning in the mortal part of man. The higher is 
 based on the lower, as is seen in any construction. "Not on 
 bread alone does man live," nevertheless, man needs bread and 
 without bread he cannot subsist. The eagle may soar aloft, but 
 the eagle must seek his native quarry. The condition in which 
 the state was thrown in the year 1840, owing to the inexperience 
 and rashness of its Assembly and Senate, was actual bankruptcy. 
 That a legislature, in the days of the brainiest men, had drawn 
 up and approved a scale of internal improvements, in construc- 
 tion of canals, building railroads, giving away charters haphazard, 
 with merely a handful of population in the state, banks closing, 
 capitalists refusing to succor the extravagant attempts of the 
 state, is simply unanswerable, and must be classified with the 
 lowest type of tyro in the art of government. The sinews of 
 industry, in men and money, no longer stretched, scrip money 
 and state certificates, it is true, at par on their face with the 
 dollar but only for purchases of land, if famine did not stalk 
 hereabouts and gnaw its victims, thanks to a "Providence that 
 shapes our ends, rough-hewn as they may be," it was because the 
 cannallers and railroad men that stayed, and they were few, 
 had the richest of soils to squat upon and cultivate ; and when 
 the land came into market could make it their own by script 
 or state certificate purchase, as John Cody, William O'Reilly, 
 Barny Murtaugh, Hartley Ferguson, Patrick Conway, James 
 Cahill, and others hereabouts, and in the adjoining county and 
 townships did, a proof of that common sense, or rather, an evi- 
 dence of sound judgment which commended them to the pro- 
 gressive party of the community, and which was the basis of 
 the prosperity which at last crowned them. If, on the one hand 
 the situation from 1841 until 1845, drove away ninety per cent 
 of the cannallers,to other fields, where money was easy, on the 
 
 (93^
 
 94 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 Other hand the ten per cent of men that remained and went on 
 the rich prairie north and south of historic La Salle amassed 
 wealth, although the markets quoted wheat at i2j/^c. bushel, 
 corn at loc. ; potatoes the like figure; eggs 3c. a dozen; clothing 
 at a figure correspondingly low, with the scrip at i2j^c. on the 
 dollar. 
 
 The monetary difficulty tried severely the Sons of St. Vincent 
 and cut short many needed improvements, in more than a dozen 
 missions opened up and attended since the arrival of the Fathers. 
 The handful of people around La Salle and Peru, and at the other 
 points of the extensive mission field, had no money and, there- 
 fore the Fathers had none: for to the glory of the Irish race 
 above all others, the "Soggarth aroon" will get his large share 
 of money, or the value of the money, suitable to his rank and 
 answerable to the needs and fitness of his high ministry, if the 
 devoted people have it. One prying into the old Journal and 
 Ledger so conscientiously kept by the old Confreres, finds 
 St. Mary's Seminary, or (sacredly named) the Barrens, the Mother 
 House of Paris, and that ever flowing fund, the propagation of the 
 faith at Lyons, that has fed and propped tip a million missions; 
 loaning from $300 to $500, and which loans, in all instances, it 
 is gratifying to find, for the honor of the priesthood and the 
 congregation of the mission, have been to the last cent, returned. 
 On borrowed capital, therefore, the work of God went on. The 
 four years of want lessened not the spirit, nor did they cripple the 
 elastic step of any of the four missioners, in the work of soul- 
 saving. In the meantime St. Augustine, in Knox Co., and the 
 neighborhood of Wyoming, were visited by Father Raho, whilst 
 Dixon and Palestine Grove, were taken into the great missionary 
 fold. 
 
 And now the Superior of La Salle Mission gets notice from 
 the Visitor, Father Timon, that the good Bishop Rosati, the 
 first Bishop of St. Louis, had, Nov. 30, 1841, consecrated in 
 St. Mary's Cathedral, Philadelphia, Peter Richard Henrick, his 
 coadjutor, and requested Father Raho to be ready, some time 
 in the summer of 1842, for Confirmation, in the various missions. 
 
 "Obediens dicto," has ever been the motto on which the Sons 
 of the Founder of the Misssion acted. " Do you remember Arch- 
 bishop," said the writer, on a visit in 1889, to the illustrious 
 incumbent of the arch diocese of St. Louis, then in his 90th 
 year — "the confirmation tour you made with our priests in
 
 STORY OP THE LA SALLE MISSION. 95 
 
 La Salle and out-missions of Peoria, Kickapoo, Black Partridge, 
 in 1842?" "I do very well," he replied. 
 
 Saturday, July 23 , of above year the newly consecrated Bishop 
 Kenrick; Coadjutor to Bishop Rosati of St. Louis reached La Salle 
 by boat and was enthusiastically welcomed by priests and people. 
 The next day, Sunday, July 24th, the old log church, endeared 
 to the warm hearted poor fiock of that day, was dressed at its 
 best, and the ceremonial was carried out to the letter, as if it 
 were the first Cathedral in the land. The choir, primitive indeed 
 yet full of ambition, and with flutes and violins, and the richest 
 of all instruments, the sweet human voice, gave a good account . 
 of itself, and met the pleasing criticism of the good Bishop, whose 
 ear was attuned in his native Dublin, the most musical city of 
 Erin and Great Britain. The number confirmed was twenty- 
 two, among them Edward Kelly, the excellent father of John 
 and William, who in the fifties, put on the livery of St. Vincent 
 at old St. Mary's Seminary. Black Partridge, in Woodford Co., 
 on the east side of the Illinois, about fifty miles southwest from 
 La Salle, the good Bishop, accompained by Father Raho, next 
 visited, arriving July 27th, and on the day following, confirmed 
 twenty-three, all Germans. For Kickapoo, Peoria Co., on the 
 same side of the river, but inland, the zealous father of the flock, 
 conducted by the no less zealous missionary, set out, and reached 
 the settlement July 30th. On July 31st, sixteen were confirmed. 
 In Peoria, the west side of the river and twenty miles from Kick- 
 apoo, six were all that received the imposition of hands, and let 
 their names be registered, for four of the six were of the Doran, 
 one of the Judge, and one of the Kelby family. Doubtless the 
 dwarfish figure submitted for confirmation, by the ambitious 
 town of the Illinois River, then numbering about eight hundred 
 souls, when compared with the number unpretentious La Salle 
 and Kickapoo and Black Patridge, submitted to the same 
 Sacrament of strength to profess courageously the faith, at this 
 time fiercely attacked by ignorance and bigotry, must have 
 struck amazingly the good Bishop. Sailing from Peoria, Aug. 
 3rd. for his Mound City, after bidding good-by to the Superior 
 of La Salle Missions, he expressed his joy, on the whole, for the 
 growth of the Church witnessed during the fortnight he had 
 passed among the La Salle Stations. 
 
 The fifth Provincial Council of Baltimore convened on May 
 14th, 1843. proposed to the Holy See the establishment of three
 
 96 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 new dioceses, namely: Little Rock, Ark., Albany, New York, 
 and Chicago, 111. The pious and zealous pastor of St. Mary's, 
 New York City, was consecrated first Bishop of Chicago by the 
 great Bishop John Hughes, in the old Cathedral, Mott Street, 
 New York City, on the third Sunday of Lent, March lo, 1844. 
 On May 5th, the same year, Chicago, with its four hundred 
 Catholic souls, in a population of 12,000, received its first Bishop, 
 Now, good Bishop Flaget, of Bardstown, Kentucky, cheerfully 
 gave up the government of Chicago and the southwest of the 
 state, over which he had jurisdiction, to Chicago's own Bishop, 
 and if the illustrious Bishops Rosati and Peter Richard Kenrick, 
 of St. Louis, had put in their sickle into this extensive territory 
 and had implored the Visitor of Larazists, John Timon, to send 
 a strong band of his missioners, as we have seen, to sow to a rich 
 harvest, all this had been done to lighten the burden of the 
 saintly Flaget. The Lazarists had still their focus of work at 
 La Salle, but their Bishop, henceforth, for thirty-four years, 
 would be the Bishop of Chicago.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Chicago's First Bishop and the La Salle Mission — Portion of His 
 Diocese. — Formation of New Parishes otit of the La Salle 
 Settlements and organization of new Stations. 
 
 Accompanied by his brother, Vicar General Walter Quarters, 
 the good bishop made, in June, 1844, a visitation to the Fathers 
 and parish of La Salle, and administered the Sacrament of Con- 
 firmation to a class, two of whom at this writing are in the best 
 of health and spirits, the Keys brothers, Thomas eighty and 
 Edward seventy-six, ever as their excellent parents before them, 
 staunch friends of the old faith and of the missioners. Ottawa 
 Mission, which had been built up and attended most faithfully 
 by Raho and Parodi in all seasons and times, treated almost as 
 La Salle where the Missioners lived, the Confreres, at the sug- 
 gestion of Father Timon, resigned them into the hands of the 
 new bishop, who, accepting the resignation in a short time 
 appointed to Holy Trinity parish, one of his priests. Father 
 Thomas O'Donnell as rector. Thus after six years and a half the 
 Larazists, owing to the growing needs of other portions of the 
 mission field, bade farewell to the congregation at the La Salle 
 County Seat, which parish from his boyhood up to the present 
 time, the writer, ever regarded simply unique in all that 
 depth of faith and cleverness of purse, and unswerving devotion 
 to the minister of God, bear. 
 
 To none after God, do the people of Ottawa owe more than to 
 Very Rev. Dean Patrick Terry, who lived among them for nigh 
 a generation, and left the impress of his elevated character on 
 the Catholics of "Sweet Auburn" of the Illinois Valley. Guide, 
 philosopher and father, let Ottawa never forget him; but like 
 another Joseph bearing the precious remains of his aged father, 
 Jacob, to their fit resting place, let the remnant that remain of 
 the strong Catholics — ever the glory of Ottawa and enshrined 
 in the heart of the whilom pastor of St. Columbas' lay the bones 
 
 (97)
 
 98 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 of the venerable shepherd on a picturesque knoll, in Ottawa's 
 consecrated ground, and lift over them monolith or shaft with 
 suitable inscription. 
 
 In the year 1845, the Visitor of the Lazarists once more pe- 
 titioned the Bishop of Chicago. This time to relieve our mis- 
 sionaries of the Peoria settlements. Black Partridge, Kickapoo, 
 Mooney settlement and Peoria. The petition was granted, and 
 the above missions were for the future, at the disposal of Bishop 
 Quarters. This same year work on the canal was resumed, after 
 four years' delay, and once more La Salle became a busy hive. 
 It was most timely. 
 
 At the opening of the year 1846 the missioners, Fathers 
 Parodi, Superior, and Montuori looked after, with zealous care, 
 the following settlements; Lacon and Crow Meadows, Marshall 
 Co., Hennepin, in Putnam Co., Dixon and Sandy Hill in Lee Co., 
 Troy Grove, Utica and La Salle town, the headquarters of the 
 mission. The visitations, as a rule, unless the boat was sand- 
 barred or the sloughs on the prairies, for roads then were out 
 of the question, fastened horse, buggy and Father, or the fatigued 
 hunter after souls got benighted on the lonely prairie and a 
 kind Providence rescued the man of God from his embarrassments 
 were punctually made. The occasion was always a season for 
 spiritual and bodily nourishment to the yearning simple people 
 of the settlement and a source of deep interest and joy to the 
 missioners. Indeed the gathering of Father and flock partook 
 of the nature of a barbecue or picnic, after satisfying the inner 
 man, the flow of soul succeeded, in which darts of genuine Irish 
 wit, for the scions of any other race had hardly as yet been 
 ingrafted on the newly organized stations; flew and hit and 
 rebounded amid peals of real laughter evidence of the Catholic 
 family spirit which permeated all. And who, with the slightest 
 knowledge of human nature, should deny an hour of innocent 
 mirth, which has so much to do with uplifting for a time the bur- 
 dens of sorrow and care of even the soul of the priest. 
 
 The immortal Pope St. Gregory the Great, called himself 
 "Servant of the servants of God." Literally slaye of the slaves 
 of the Lord, for the priest ordained is enslaved to duty. If he 
 need an elastic hour in his tour on the prairies after his ordinary 
 ministrations his weightier duties of soliciting funds — a nice 
 phrase, which done unto Anglo-Saxon means begging money or 
 its value — on public highways, rivers, and canals from all kinds of
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 99 
 
 men, for the object of upbuilding religion, in churches, schools, 
 rectories, need much more " few sunny spots " that may smile 
 upon him amid the wilderness of such labor. Let the whole- 
 souled tireless missioner, if he can command such spots have 
 and enjoy them. 
 
 The excursions of the Fathers along the canal from La Salle to 
 Ottawa from 1845 on until its finish in 1848, had a mixture of 
 pleasure and disgust, sweetness and bitterness; above all the 
 latter, to a highly modest, sensitive and independent priest, ever 
 himself more ready to give a dollar than receive one, and who if 
 he met a refusal was galled to the quick. It must be confessed 
 that poverty for fully a decade following the opening of the La 
 Salle mission, marked the career of our fathers. The journal 
 kept by the priests shows this. But the highest authority 
 assures that "virtue is made perfect in weakness." 
 
 Missioners and people of La Salle for eight long years had wor- 
 shipped in a log cabin. This was the church of the most Holy 
 Cross, where Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God dwelt. His 
 priests had lived in a shanty attached to the rear of the famous 
 Basilica. The honor due to the True Religion, had not the 
 rising town a say on the subject, called for a solid decent house 
 of worship; Missioners and people on this matter were a unit. 
 The zealous Raho and Saintly Parodi, and Fathers Dahmen and 
 De Marchi and Collins, authority of Visitor had summoned to 
 the missions opened up by our order in the southern states. 
 At La Salle Father Alphonus Montouri, since Father Parodi at 
 the opening of May, 1846, had left, was acting Superior. On 
 the Saintly Parodi taking leave. Rev. Mark Anthony ,ordained 
 the year previous, and who had been prefect of the College at 
 Cape Gerardeau for a term, arrived in La Salle. The name of 
 the new son of St. Vincent first appears on the Journal May 13th, 
 1846. The choice of Rev. Mark Anthony for the peoples of 
 La Salle Missions, all hailing with few exceptions from the 
 "Gem of the Ocean," was the utterance of the judgment of our 
 chief Lazarists — the humble, yet great, John Timon. Simple 
 yet shrewd, unobtrusive yet forward when duty called, easy of 
 manner and of temper, jovial yet pious, successful as a beggar, 
 and a pronounced prodigy as a builder, economic and wise; no 
 pulpit orator, yet his short instruction had ever a point and 
 hit the mark, in La Salle as assistant for five years and as pastor
 
 too STORY OP THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 for a quarter of a century ; such was the combination of qualities 
 La Salle welcomed. The project for a church no less than a 
 stone church, assumed shape.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The Prospective Rock Church. — The Dual Events of 1846. — The 
 Arrival of La Salle's Second Superior. — Growth of the New Build- 
 ing. 
 
 The difficulties that lay in the way to the upbuilding of a new- 
 Mission rock church, at La, Salle at the time of which we write, 
 were many: depreciation of the currency, the fewness and 
 poverty of the Catholics, the Missionary's empty treasury, the 
 bluffy, uneven nature of the present site, covered with second 
 growth of scrubby oak, poplar, and thick with hazel, flanked on 
 sides by a ravine, which, starting at the northeast of the present 
 park, carried a creek, diagonally crossing Fifth and Fourth 
 Streets near Hennepin and Joliet, until it took a southwestern 
 course and, flowing over a little ridge, formed a duck pond of 
 what to-day is our Sisters of Charity's garden. 
 
 The sum of Baptism and Marriage records total eighty — the 
 former sixty- five, the latter fifteen — in this year of 1846 for the 
 whole mission field of La Salle. All this the Fathers had to face 
 and meet. They had, like an engineer, weighed the bridge to carry 
 the immense pile. What are physical, when compared with 
 moral forces? Given a leader resourceful and fearless, like 
 Atlas, he'll carry the herculean task. 
 
 "There's not a nobler man in Rome than Anthony." In 
 the bold hand writing of Father Anthony, we find these words, 
 on opening page of day book: "We commenced the building of 
 this church, St. Patrick's, La Salle, 111., May 24th, 1846." An 
 auspicious, an admirable date; for it was the feast of the great 
 Mother of God, " Help of Christians " — and what more refreshing, 
 when needs were sorest, than help the greatest? Moreover the 
 weather was at its best. The date had been haralded all along 
 the canal line. The canal implements, and ox and horse teams, 
 and the stalwart gangs, headed by their respective bosses, were 
 on the ground by 2 P. M. Never did soldier shoulder his musket 
 for the fray, and make for the front more briskly, than did our 
 
 (lOl)
 
 I02 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 canallers, on this momentous occasion of breaking ground for the 
 massive stone church of St. Patrick. In the following style they 
 are written, by the most popular of our La Salle Missioners. "The 
 Richard Cody men, the Cornelius Cahill men, the James Cahill 
 men, the Whealy men, the McDonnell men, the Denis Cahill 
 men, the men of Utica, the men of Lost Grove, John Keys and 
 his sons, the Isaac Hardy men." Among those families of large 
 heartedness, are those of Thomas Cavanaugh, father of the Rev. 
 Mich'l Cavanaugh, of our order, and Edward Kelly, father of Rev. 
 John and William Kelly, of the same order, and Richard Cody, 
 William O'Reilly, John Allen, John Connerton, Bartley^ Ferguson, 
 Barney Murtaugh, James Cahill, honest John Keyes, and the 
 Corrigan family, who, when the interest of the priests were 
 mooted, gave to these interests their fullest approvel in will, 
 work and cash. Amidst the cheers from out of a hundred 
 throats, at the word of command, ploughs and teams were rip- 
 ping up the sod, and carts carrying away soil, stumps and hazel, 
 from a space 125 by 53 feet. 
 
 The beginning of the end was made, and Rev. M. Anthony, 
 above all other Fathers, did not allow the big occasion to come 
 and go without passing the goblet around: for, on the highest 
 authority of that day in the medical school, the most powerful 
 disinfectant to malaria and swamp chills and fever, was the juice 
 of the corn or "some well spiced beverage. In the meanwhile, it 
 was plain, many revolutions of the planets would be made, be- 
 fore the "consummation devoutly to be wished for," would come. 
 Progress in the work depended upon the success in begging 
 efforts, along the canal and largely in New Orleans and St. Louis, 
 "where commerce was brisk and money was easy. 
 
 The receipts for five months' work on the foundation, collected 
 from the canallers and villagers, sum up $221.50; and from 
 St. Louis, in the same time, $169.37. Preparations had been 
 made to lay the corner stone: the day fixed was Friday, October 
 14, 1846, for reasons which met the approval of Bishop Quarters, 
 who promised to be on hand for the important event. He was 
 as good as his word, few understood human nature better than 
 the Ordinary of the diocese that disappointment for an occasion 
 like the one in question, would exceed in disgust, the pleasure to 
 be enjoyed by the promise fulfilled. 
 
 The bishop was assisted by Fathers Anthony, Montuori and 
 George Hamilton, cousin of Bishop Spalding, then in Alton, 111,
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 103 
 
 Joy shone on every face, but on no countenance did there 
 beam greater satisfaction, than on the countenance of Mr. John 
 Winters, the great mason, whose CathoHc heart was in keeping 
 with his full proportional height of six feet four inches. 
 
 The condition of the people, the rush of canal work, the hurry 
 of the Bishop to return to Chicago, shut out a display befitting 
 the occasion, which is more a subject of regret than of marvel. 
 
 The dinner served up to the taste of the pious and humble 
 Bishop and other dignitaries had, among other dishes, thanks 
 to the forethought of good Father Anthony "The Bishop's 
 Turkey." The fact of its record will doubtless allow the reader 
 to form an idea of its size and weight. 
 
 Almost exclusively Father Montuori gave his time to attend- 
 ance on the out missions, whilst Father Anthony bent all his 
 energies towards gathering in funds from home and abroad. 
 From June, 1846, to Jan.ist, 1849, receipts from La Salle people 
 footed $1,826.29. Receipts from abroad $1,031.29, the total 
 from both sources $2,857.58. New Orleans alone from this amout 
 gave $683.00, Chicago, $130.00. 
 
 What was, one may reasonably ask, the bulk of the collections 
 when compared with the huge work in hand? The cheapness 
 of labor and living, enabled the economic and industrious Father 
 Anthony to dig out the foundations and carry up the massive 
 rock wall, as far as water level, at such a figure, that the builder 
 of to-day would consider the work simply as a gift. 
 
 The arrival of Rev. John O'Reilly C. M. at La Salle, October, 
 1848, missioned here by our Visitor Father Mariano Mailer, 
 successor to our distinguished Father Timon, at this time Bishop 
 of Buffalo, in every way greatly strengthened the La Salle doings, 
 encouraging people and priest and above all Father Mark 
 Anthony. 
 
 The importance of the La Salle village had often been dis- 
 cussed by practical men of weight — church and laymen. Indeed 
 the second Bishop of Chicago, who in a little while will call our 
 attention, wrote after his first visit here in 1849, to Father John 
 O'Reilly, "If all the railroads center in La Salle it will become a 
 mighty place, the rival of Chicago, no doubt about it." Letter 
 of Bishop Ven de Velde to Rev. John O'Reilly. 
 
 Built on a lime stone bed of gradual elevation, opening in the 
 rear into rolling extensive prairies, fronting the Illinois and 
 Michigan Canal, and the historic Illinois River a mile's distance,
 
 104 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 with a stretch east and west of acreage destined for vast manu- 
 factories; surroundings above and below the surface, stored 
 by nature with depths of resources, at which the geologist and 
 chemist time and again prospecting and analyzing were electri- 
 fied, strata of sand, clay, cement, coal, water, soil, with a re- 
 storative power independent of aid, and a climate the delight 
 of the worker and friend of longevity. What site could chal- 
 lenge La Salle? 
 
 The judgment uttered nigh 60 years ago to theLondon 
 Tablet on La Salle and its resources, by Father John O'Rielly 
 resident here, was, that La Salle sooner or later should come to 
 the front among the western cities. No opinion, fifty year sago, 
 among the thinkers was more freely expressed and defended, 
 than that La Salle in fifty years from that time, the Pittsburg 
 of the West, would be enjoying a population of 75,000 inhabi- 
 tants. The writer does, and will not enter into the why La Salle 
 has not risen to the height among the cities, so ardently wished 
 for by her children of many generations; simply because the 
 inquiry would be irrelevant to his purpose. 
 
 Certain it is our talented and energetic Father John O'Reilly 
 did much numerically and religiously for La Salle. He loved 
 all, but naturally his powerful word and his trenchant pen, in 
 favor of emigration, would be for his own first. La Salle has 
 been blessed by his coming. Citizen of the United States, of 
 which like Archbishop Hughes, Bishop Quarters and others of 
 his class, he was so proud, of the school, of the great 
 statesmen, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster; a pleader for 
 right, champion of the oppressed, a disciplinarian, a sworn enemy 
 to rowdyism, which he fought with forcible and scathing in- 
 vectives, irrespective of creed, and did his best to cleanse the 
 town of such questionable element, such is a lineament of Rev. 
 John O'Reilly. More, his duty had ever been his highest aim, 
 and wheresoever his mission had been, whether in the wilds of 
 the Alleghanies, or in the smoky city of Pittsburg, his priestly 
 bearing combined with a high order of talent and oratory won 
 him great fame. As the history of the old Barrens contains a 
 full sketch of the life of our remarkable confrere, we refer tohim 
 now because of his close connection with La Salle and its works. 
 
 To the new Fathers in charge, able and experienced in knowl- 
 edge of human character and church building, neither our La 
 Salle men nor the works in progress had any thing to fear. On
 
 THOMAS HASKINS.
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 105 
 
 the contrary their spirits arose. All felt that under the superin- 
 tendence of the determined and grave Superior, with managers 
 as Mullaney, the architect, V/inters and Farrells, quarry bosses 
 and Masons; Patrick Power, Thomas Haskins, and James 
 O'Donnell, as carpenters; Robert and William Harkins as 
 plasterers; and lastly, with Father Mark Anthon y,the prince 
 of beggars and chief fund provider, the law of gravity would 
 sooner suspend, than the construction in hand should come 
 to naught. Briskly the walls went up — huge oak beams and 
 joists thoroughly seasoned — were in place. 
 
 The receipts from the La Salle Missions from January first, 
 1849, up to January first, 1851, footed $2,050.14; and, adding 
 to the handsome remittance, $800.00, to the above sum, sent by 
 our accomplished solicitor from New Orleans, June ,1849, the 
 sum of the receipts for two years reached $2,850.14. The ex- 
 penses for the same period ran up to $1,099.31. 
 
 The temporary absence of Father Anthony from La Salle, 
 whilst keenly felt by the warm-hearted people, and by the people 
 of the out missions of Dixon, Sandy Hill, and Palestine Grove, 
 yet was his absence, as our able lawyers of the La Salle Bar often 
 in their pleading quote, the "Conditio sine qua non," to the 
 progress of the rock church. Such sums, the accomplished 
 and self-sacrificing Father had, oft and again, sent from Texas 
 and Louisiana, were in the mind of his superiors, vigorous reasons 
 to allow naught to clash with the church progress at La Salle.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Influx of Vigorous Catholics the Year 1848, Which Saw the 
 Great Water-way Finished at La Salle. — The Cholera Ravages 
 of 1849 <^^^ Visit of the Second Bishop of Chicago. 
 
 The real growth of the CathoHc Church Hes in the quality 
 and fruits of her plants. When the royal prophet David prayed 
 his Lord, ''that his wife should be a fruitful vine in the sides of 
 his house," he was far from wishing that the vine should yield 
 the Labrusca or Wild Grape, since the prophet knew God had 
 no use for the Wild Grape. "I have expected the genuine grape 
 and you have offered me the labrusca." The brawn of a parish 
 or people is its religious spirit ; the sapful branches of that vine 
 of which it is written: "I am the vine, you are the branches." 
 To the names already mentioned and others not mentioned, who 
 were the strength of the rising Church, were added others, some 
 not unworthy to rank with them in civil and religious import. 
 
 The village of La Salle, for the canal was finished, was such, 
 that all the freight from the South was shipped through La Salle — 
 hogsheads of molasses, sugar, coffee, etc. ; the levee where the 
 Rock Island tracks are, so crowded from the west to the east end 
 of the basin, that with difficulty one could pass. The trip to 
 Chicago by the canal boat, towed by three horses or mules took 
 20 hours, fare $4.00 trip to St. Louis on such floating palaces, 
 the writer remembers so pleasantly, took up the better part of 
 three days; fare, $5.00 for cabin, meals and the luxury of the 
 table was "a la sud." The freight handler had his twenty cents 
 and if called to float a steamer from the grip of a sand bar, 50c. 
 an hour. Amidst such activity the highly polished and cul- 
 tured James Lonergan, who had seen the world, moving as he 
 did amongst the best bred men of sweet, old Tipperary and the 
 Cape of Good Hope, and yet kept that simple and childlike 
 faith, always so admirable, entered La Salle and went into the 
 grocery business with an overflowing confidence in his fellow-man 
 and in none more than in him of his own race and creed. Fitted 
 
 (106)
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 107 
 
 rather for the hallowed spot of Melleray nigh sweet Clonnel, than 
 for the busy scenes of a merchant's calling; our friend, whom 
 we venerated, would have been among the monks of St. Bernard 
 in his own place. The little he had at his happy passage he 
 willed to the Church he loved so much. There came Nicholas 
 Duncan, with his friend, crossing from Indiana into La Salle, 
 bringing that industry as a tradesman and devoting his leisure 
 hours to qualify him, at it did, for offices of Justice of peace and 
 mayor of La Salle ; and, what is more to our purpose, to act for a 
 length of years as gratuitous counselor and friend to the priests 
 of the Mission. Then there was James Skelly, industrious and 
 exemplary, whose word was his bond, and Brennan brothers, 
 John and Roger, the prosperous farmers across the creek, ever 
 ready to second the call of his reverence and open-handed to the 
 interests of the parish. John Stuart, busy and honest, whose 
 prudent behaviour furthered the interests of the town and 
 church ; and giving strength still more to the advance of religion 
 and civic proprieties must be noticed John Higgins and nature's 
 nobleman, John Gerrity, both ready approvers of church under- 
 takings, and both remarkable for cleverness towards the church. 
 Nor can the name of Captain Jno. Feeney be forgotten as his 
 boat, on her return trip from Chicago hit the wharf; nor James 
 Feeney, who with their crews gathered around the stores of 
 John Higgins and John Gerrit)^, whither the missioners, on their 
 begging tour went without foreboding, and never left without a 
 generous shake of the hand. Out of place would it be to pass 
 over the many generous men of that day as Patrick Dooley, 
 Michael Mullooly, the Sheehans, the Foleys, whose interest in 
 the parish could not be questioned. 
 
 The year of 1848, prosperous for La Salle, in common with 
 many other districts within and without the garden state, 
 yet it must pass through a bitter ordeal. 
 
 Few pages of Holy writ, aside from the narration of the awful 
 Passion of the Great Redeemer of mankind, play upon the chords 
 of the human heart so intensely, producing feelings of the tender- 
 est sympathy, than those taken up with the calamities of Holy 
 Job. The first blow is dealt and this is followed by the second 
 blow, which is repeated often times, and always inflicted by the 
 hand of Him whose property is to show mercy and to spare and 
 always is accepted graciously by the admirable patient, as he 
 bravely exclaims, "If He send us evil things does He not grant
 
 io8 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 us good things?" "For God loves thoses whom He chastises." 
 The first scourge that afflicted the Mission and the whole 
 Chicago Diocese was the sudden demise of its first Bishop. With 
 the brightest prospects, pious Bishop William Quarters had 
 begun to cultivate the Garden State, May 5, 1844. The same 
 unflagging, zealous spirit pushed him on as when he wrought in 
 St. Mary's parish, New York City, which he abandoned at the 
 call of obedience "To go higher." For ''it behooveth Bishops 
 to rule the Church of God." His build, naturally frail, under 
 the pressure of the incessant work of diocesan visitation, from 
 Chicago to Galena, from Galena to La Salle, from La Salle to 
 Peoria; at a time when the vehicle was an ox-team, or horse 
 wagon, or horse-back, sitting on the quaint saddle-bags, journey- 
 ing on the marsh or prairie, or through the forest — for Illinois 
 along her creeks and rivers had in the forties her heavy wooded 
 sections, add to all this, his mental work, preparing for and 
 holding his synod, publishing his excellent pastorals to mission 
 rectors and their flocks, and, above all, that ever abiding thought, 
 "The solicitude of all the Church," of which an account is to 
 be handed to the Shepherd of Souls; no wonder, shouldered 
 "With a load that would sink a navy," he sank under the weight, 
 and, after four years, strngthened by all that is refreshing and 
 hopeful, passed to his Lord, Whom he had served so faithfully. 
 "Consummatus brevi. Explevit tempora multa, placita enim 
 Domino anima illius. Propterea eduxit eum! 
 
 The Sons of St. Vincent and the people had shared his bles- 
 sings, once in 1844, when he confirmed a class, and again in 
 OctolDer, 1846, when he laid the comer stone of the present 
 church of St. Patrick. They remembered and do remember 
 saintly Bishop, William Quarters. 
 
 Grievance or trial never comes alone; as a rule, one is fol- 
 lowed by another. Sore, afflicted. La Salle! The good bishop's 
 death was hardly announced when, for the second time, "The 
 angel of death spread his wings on the blast! The cholera, in 
 1849, I'avaged La Salle, and swept, in the fur}'' of a cyclone, one 
 hundred and sixty-nine in the space of five months. Imag- 
 ination can hardly form, as wild at it may be, a faithful picture 
 of the homes, and the broken heartedness of the few that out- 
 lived the awful calamity. Boxes for coffins, drays and carts 
 for hearses, the Fathers, John O'Reilly and Montouri, for months 
 without undressing, to catch the faint accents of the cholera
 
 STORY OP THE LA SALLE MISSION. 109 
 
 victims before they would breathe their last, and unceremon- 
 iously, for the sake of the living, consign them, dead, to the 
 marshy cemetery. These may help to bring home to us of this 
 day a faint idea of grief stricken La Salle the year after the 
 canal was finished. 
 
 Providence, ever watchful over the source of Christian civili- 
 zation, committed to the Church, did not allow many months 
 to slip by, since the departure to a better life of Bishop Quarters, 
 until a successor was appointed. From the great Jesuit order, 
 James Oliver Van de Velde was selected the second Bishop of 
 Chicago. 
 
 Missioner, professor, provinicial — pious, learned, and vigorous, 
 the Bulls came to Father Van de Velde. But, formed in the 
 school of ecclesiastics of the days, to which our story refers, as 
 he had been, a mitre had not only no attraction to the humble 
 Jesuit: yea, it was even formidable. It was obedience to the 
 will of Rome to which James Van de Velde bent, that secured 
 for Chicago its second Bishop. 
 
 As St. Martin of Tours, doubtless he prayed "Lord if I am 
 necessary to Thy people, I don't refuse work." At the hands of 
 the illustrious Archbishop, Peter Richard Kenrick, in St. Francis 
 Xavier Church, St. Louis, Feb. 11, 1849, he was consecrated. 
 Onto and at his apostolic work, like the Flagets and Rosati's and 
 Odin's and Timon's he went without delay. 
 
 The missionary was in him, and, without parade of any kind, 
 like the great Francis Patrick Kenrick, with heavy valise in 
 hand had entered the See of Baltimore ; so did Bishop Van de 
 Velde, March 24, forty-one days after his consecration, enter 
 La Salle, just as the wagon was bearing the cholera victims to 
 the grave, and the town was filled with lamentations. One with 
 the Fathers, he shared the humble cabin, and took his place in 
 the confessional, for the following day he would administer the 
 Sacrament of Confirmation. Was it an inspiration direct from 
 the awful Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Bishop or to 
 Father O'Reilly, to fix upon and determine Passion Sunday, for 
 thus it is on record, for imparting the Holy Ghost ? Could there 
 have been a more suitable hour than that of the awful agony 
 of the Son of God to soothe the many families groaning under the 
 weight of grief for lost ones, and strengthen them in this hour by 
 the indwelHng of the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Ghost? 
 
 Of the thirty-two confirmed Passion Sunday, 1849, not one 
 to the writer's knowledge at this writing, survives.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Zeal of Bishop Van de Velde One with that of the Missioners. — The 
 Assistant to the Superior. — The Unselfish Band of Laity. 
 
 Although a few weeks in the Episcopacy, yet the thoughtful 
 ordinary was thoroughly alive to the needs, and was wholly 
 taken up with the work of his people. He leaned much on the 
 Sons of St. Vincent of Paul for the upbuilding of his diocese. 
 The Missioners were aware of this, and whilst they ever wrought 
 for the extension of the faith, they had ever been prudent, 
 especially in relation to church property; to free it, had it any 
 flaw; to clear its title, had it any dimness; above all to guard 
 it against Lay-Trusteeism. 
 
 The following paragraph taken from, a letter written by the 
 Bishop under date March 2, 185 1, to Father John O'Reilly ex- 
 plains the zeal of the Bishop on church property rights, which 
 the obedient Sons of their great Church Rights' defender loudly 
 applauded. "No church property can be possessed by seculars 
 or by secular priests: and such was thus possessed before the 
 decrees of the Provincial Council of Baltimore were issued, and 
 approved in Rome, was gradually to be taken out of their hands, 
 as has been done already in many places. The system of having 
 Lay Trustees has been productive of several schisms, in this 
 country and of crimes and scandals unnumbered." 
 
 The tide of immigrants rushing into the State not only of 
 those from the rich fair and rare land, but likewise from the 
 Schedt and the Rhine which had echoed the preaching of the 
 Irish Missioners of the seventh and eighth centuries was heartily 
 welcomed by the zeal of the Bishop and the faithful Missioners. 
 Different from the hardy Catholic Irish stock clinging, like the 
 Ivy to the rock, despite the loss of their Aryan tongue almost as 
 coeval as the Sanscrit, the German Catholic as all others not 
 Irish must have "In aternum et ultra," his mother tongue 
 the Teutonic if he would ' grow in wisdom and in age and grace 
 with God and with men." The pastor of the flock of the diocese 
 
 (no)
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. iii 
 
 plead, and not in vain, for German Confreres or Confreres 
 acquainted with the vigorous tongue. 
 
 In letters of 1850 and 1851 addressed to the Superior of the 
 La Salle Missions, the Bishop acquaints him with the fact that he 
 plead with the Very Rev. Visitor Father Mailer, to do his best 
 and supply Peru, Henry, Troy Grove, Perkins Grove, in which 
 localities German Catholics were rapidly making their homes, 
 with Fathers from the "Vaterland." The same letters bear 
 testimony to the joy this shepherd of the flock felt when he heard 
 of the arrival at La Salle of a young priest in October, 1850, 
 then hardly a year ordained. 
 
 Father John Joseph Quigley, for this is his name, has already 
 been lengthily and deservedly noticed in the writer's story of 
 of St. Mary's Seminary. Nevertheless so worthy a son of St. 
 Vincent of Paul may claim a fair share of attention in this La 
 Salle story for the big work he did for the people of La Salle's 
 early Missioners. If ever St. Vincent of Paul had a son, simple, 
 righteous, fearing God, withdrawing from evil, an enemy of all 
 disguise, a despiser of human respect, a zealot after souls, a 
 persistent beggar ,a practical speaker, and above all, a man of 
 intense fervor and "as clay in the hands of the potter," that 
 son was John Joseph Quigley. The shrewdness of Father An- 
 thony, he had not, nor had he, as Father Anthony, insight into 
 character. The writer has his grave doubts if in the mission of 
 soliciting. Father Anthony excelled our new arrival. 
 
 The laymen who entered their names as members of old 
 St. Patrick's at the end of the forties and opening of the fifties 
 must be chronicled. Squire Patrick Kilduff and his excellent 
 wife, whose home for years sheltered the good Fathers, good 
 Mrs. Webb, who so often waited upon them at the church, the 
 Prendergast family, so close to the old Missioners, and with an 
 outburst of genuine Irish methods, could not be surpassed, honest 
 John Johnson, devoted to the church and singulary intelligent 
 on church matters: there were the Delaneys and the Flaherty's 
 and Patrick Farrell and his beautiful wife, whose highest am- 
 bition was to serve Jesus Christ in the person of His priest, and 
 right royally did she ever go about with it heart and purse. 
 "God blessed Obededon and his house," for he gave the mother 
 joy of the heart, in giving her as He did, Anne of old, a son to 
 serve Him all days in the priesthood — our Rev. Michael Cav- 
 anaugh C. M. In 1850, Thomas Shaw, coming from Philadelphia
 
 112 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 by way of the Lakes, arrived in La Salle and formed a high 
 estimate of Father John O'Reilly's character, getting from the 
 experienced Pastor many hints that were profitable to the 
 purchase of the Shaw homestead west of the hill named after 
 the owner. A little previous to this time a splendid specimen 
 of the Irish race walked into La Salle, a man any real man would 
 be proud to own as an acquaintance, not to say as an adviser 
 and friend, John O'Halloran. The writer is pleased to submit 
 a notice on his life long friend which was sent to and published 
 by the La Salle press twenty years ago, when Father Shaw was 
 on mission among the crags and under the peaks of the Cen- 
 tennial State: 
 
 The city of La Salle, 111., has lost within seven months two 
 citizens of no ordinary type, and the Roman Catholic Irish 
 Church two members of no ordinary disitinction, the venerable 
 John Cody, "the guide, philosopher and friend" of Church and 
 city from their birth; and his life-long friend John O'Halloran 
 the honest, the sage, whom all men knew to esteem and love. 
 In 1848, when the tide of emigration had set in, hither, from the 
 Green Isle, full of the buoyancy, yet without the fickleness of 
 youth — for he was then in his 29th year, John O'Halloran bade 
 adieu to the hills of sweet Tipperary, and welcomed in September 
 of the same year the thrifty town of the Illinois, named after 
 the great explorer. He became book-keeper to the accomplished 
 Mr. James Laundrigan, so lovingly remembered by the old 
 settlers of La Salle. The gentlemanly bearing, for he "was every 
 inch a man," and his uncommon discretion were a magnetism, 
 none could or did resist. His plain dealing, straight forward 
 method lifted him up in the esteem of all classes. His place of 
 business was rather a centre for the best cultured to meet, at all 
 hours of the day, to hear the news, exchange views, adopt plans, 
 devise schemes for the welfare of the city, than it was a market 
 for groceries. And yet no merchant of a business life for forty 
 years, had been more punctual to duty, more conscientious in 
 keeping books, more rigidly honest in trade. 
 
 The hour of his arrival at La Salle was also the hour of the 
 arrival of the ablest priest of all the La Salle clergy. Father 
 John O'Reilly. Grown to manhood in a land proverbial for the 
 inspiring reverence due to the personation of Jesus Christ, in the 
 priest. John O'Halloran had come filled with this spirit, which 
 in gale or breeze or storm of poHtical or moral change or uprising,
 
 JOHN o'hALLORAN.
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 113 
 
 never in a long career, was allowed to leak out, or to lessen in 
 any degree. Friendship the closest, familiarity the most fre 
 quent, never dared to level itself with that higher plane, the super- 
 natural in the priest. Our lamented friend's chief qualities were 
 his unselfishness and prudence. The rising Church at La Salle 
 and in the twenty out missions, attached forty years ago to the 
 mother Church ; the services he rendered as choir master in the 
 old log church, and in the new as collector; as pilot to Fathers 
 John O'Reilly, Quigley, Alizeri, Kramer, Stehle; as the right 
 hand, for a term of years, of Father Anthony; that sameness 
 of character which never lost its balance ; that readiness to assist 
 the interests of religion on all occasions are treasured up, and 
 breathe — wrought up by the perfumer — a fragrance destined to 
 be [everlasting. As to his discretion, what the contemporaries 
 of Ben Jonson exclaimed of their hero; "Oh! rare Ben John- 
 son," can with equal truth be written of the subject of this 
 sketch "Oh! rare John O'Halloran." He had in truth studied 
 closely: There is a time to speak and a time to be silent, that to 
 reach an end worthy of man, and of the Christian, mean and^ 
 despicable means must never be applied. Never did a mother 
 hide the blemishes of her child in deeper secrecy, than did John 
 O'Halloran anything coming to his knowledge relative to rep- 
 utation. One word more. His love for Holy Church had been 
 strong and persevering. By conviction he was a practical Cath- 
 olic. His pew and position at the holy table were as marked as 
 the figures on a dial. In his own family he was the sum of all 
 that he had been in presence of the public; and more, for in his 
 home he strove specially to leave behind him a monument given 
 to the few to rear. 
 
 The family of which he was the respected head, have ever 
 in that life of nobility, of high purpose for society and the Church, 
 which has just gone out to the good God, a splendor bequeathed 
 to them, that let us hope sincerely will not be permitted to be 
 clouded. Peace be to his ashes. "The just man shall live in 
 everlasting remembrance." Could the writer and should the 
 writer dare to push to the background the two noted kiln men 
 who supplied the noted church with its granite lime, one to-day 
 with the rock into which it has grown, honest James Cummings 
 of Peru, and noble-hearted Terry Cullen, the motto on their 
 escutcheon, "Honesty is the best policy," and who rank high 
 among the tradesmen, whose principle had ever been : The best,
 
 114 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 the very best to Him the Giver of all, to the Church which is 
 His body. 
 
 No jealousy of the church in the stalwarts of the 40's and 
 50's; no seizure of occasion "to catch the church napping," to 
 beat the church; such undignified talk when the church or work 
 on the church was in order, would have been heard as a dead 
 language, or have been regarded with greater amazement than 
 an Arizonian Cannibal. 
 
 Honorable mention, many more ask for. The generous 
 Hartnett brothers and John Leahy and the Connellys and the 
 Cumming's, and the Charlie's and the Crotty's, did not fail to 
 lend their prowess to the growth of the town and give support 
 by example and coin to the saving faith of the Cross. The 
 Haskins brothers, Robert, William and Thomas, sturdy as the 
 oak on their native heath, tradesmen to a finish, and firm as the 
 Wicklow Mountains that cradled them, with as pointed wit as 
 as Dean Swift's, and humor, rich and overflowing "as the poet 
 of all circles," straightforward, without an angle, fearless to do 
 and to dare where rights were questioned, ever the true and the 
 trusted friends of the church ; they also came to wield the influence 
 of character, now in Christian example, now in industry and skill 
 in workmanship, among the La Salle population. Patrick Boyle, 
 whose judgment of varieties of stone none could or dared safely 
 question, who was no ordinary stone mechanic himself, as his 
 rock house on Joliet Street is a sample of his skill, and who was 
 never happier than when he admired, to the writer's amusement, 
 the chiselled walls of our venerable church. Patrick likewise 
 numbered himself one of La Salle's citizens and devoted sons of 
 the faith. Worthies, whom memory has slipped, cannot be 
 recorded, and the impossible cannot be attempted unless the 
 fool's errand is the standard of common sense. 
 
 Such a list of parishoners, many distinguished, all practical, 
 a few in fitness of tact and unselfishness ranking above others, 
 any parish might lawfully boast, and as a giant, run its way. 
 With Father O'Reilly for pilot and his lieutenants. Revs. An- 
 thony and Quigley and Stehle, and his chosen crew, John O'Hal- 
 loran, Thomas Haskins, and Wm. O'Reilly, the future of the 
 Vessel was insured. Heart and will, time and strength, for days 
 in the seasons of the first three years of the fifties did the noble 
 trio named, generously give themselves as ciceroni, to the fathers. 
 The begging tours of these early days were made among the sons
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 115 
 
 of the wittiest of races, and if Father Stehle be an exception 
 among the rest of the Fathers, all the rest, Missioners and Laity, 
 were either bom wits or humorists, or could easily see a point 
 of the ludicrous. 
 
 The Illinois Central R. R. was pushing northward as far as 
 Dixon; thousands of men were engaged building it, all from the 
 Old Sod. The humor of the poor fellows after the priest and 
 his faithful guide had retired to their room in the big shanty for 
 the night, the Father intending at five o'clock to offer Holy 
 Mass, and before the Mass to sit, on the morrow, was ever a 
 treat. 
 
 "Mike, how do you like his Reverence?" 
 
 "He'll do." "I wonder will he run me! I haven't knelt to 
 a priest in twenty years!" 
 
 "Don't be talking; sure he'll let us down aisy." 
 
 "John," said Father Quigley, as the latter heard the poor 
 fellows bantering one another in the above style, "These are 
 queer fellows." To the, as yet inexperienced ears of good 
 Father Quigley, the rough sons of the Gael seemed queer fellows; 
 yet rough as they appeared, the faith was enrooted, and the 
 sublimest dispositions to the reception of the Sacraments and 
 towards the adorable Sacrifice of the Mass, as any priest of even 
 limited experience may witness to, and as our missioner, before 
 his return to La Salle, tearfully acknowledged, were found. No 
 misgiving had the young and honest Father. Nor did the Father 
 entertain any suspicion, nor was he thrown into that wretched 
 condition of indecision, as to the fitness of these rough diamonds 
 to receive the Bread of Life. And the whole-souled nature they 
 had for the Soggarth Aroon ! How put into word ! 
 
 What in their eyes was the gold, hard labor brought them 
 and which lavishly went into the hand of God's anointed, com- 
 pared with the love they bore Him through Whose ministry all 
 blessings flow. 
 
 Whatever were the results John O'Halloran gained in ex- 
 perience of men and from his close intimacy with sincere Father 
 Quigley, they were not a whit more treasurable than those of 
 Thomas Haskins. The writer amuses himself as he pictures the 
 able mechanic driving Father Quigley southward or northward, 
 opening up, out of the Father's office hour, a fund of anecdote, 
 every spark touching the finest sensibilities of the good priest,
 
 ii6 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 until the father grew weak from laughter, or plunging into the 
 gangs of ditchers and railroaders, the ready spark of his wit 
 set in a blaze, bosses and men, to the intense delight of the 
 Father whose stocks briskly and handsomely went up. These 
 were the men, and these the occasions that enabled the Superior 
 to put the finishing touch on the stone church.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 At Last! Entrance into the New Church and New Home. — The 
 Consecration of the Massive Pile — The Sacrament of Con- 
 firmation. 
 
 On the feast of help of Christians, 1846, Father Anthony, 
 of happy memory, assisted by Father Montuori and the throng 
 of townsmen and canallers, opened foundation for the new- 
 church. The same year, Oct. 14, at the urgent request of the 
 priests of the Mission, Bishop Quarters came from Chicago and 
 laid the corner-stone of St. Patrick's. On June 1, 1851, after 
 much thought, deep anxiety, great outlay, incesssant labor, on 
 the part of the Fathers and generous people far and near, the 
 shrine where the Holy One would, until the end of days, take 
 up His abode— "For His delights are to be with the children of 
 men," was at last flung open, and with it the frame dwelling, 
 the second Home for the Fathers, sited where the third home 
 stands. Restored by Mr. Nicholas Duncan, the owner, after 
 fifty-five years' service, the relic may to-day be seen doing big 
 service, on west side of Marquette Street between Second and 
 Third Street. 
 
 As the new church and house opened to Missioners and 
 people, the venerable log church and cabin of the fathers at the 
 same time closed their doors forever. 
 
 "This life is all chequered with pleasures and woes." The 
 passions of the human soul are joys and sorrows. There is for 
 the larger number of men a feeling of fascination for the antique 
 for what has stood to them so closely, with what they have been 
 so long associated, as the most ordinary object connected with 
 home, or the old school, or "The old oaken bucket that sat 
 by the well." The fascination for the log church of the Most 
 Holy Cross on the part of the simple, generous people of La 
 Salle, was no less so. Cabin as it was, it had been blessed and 
 given over as a dwelling for Him who deigned to dwell sacra- 
 mentally within its boarding. Every inch of its floors, walls, 
 
 (117)
 
 ii8 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 and ceiling, was holy ground. Numbers of them had been 
 there baptized and absolved and confirmed and taken often 
 "the Bread of the Strong," within the inclosure they had tied 
 the indissoluble knot and had witnessed the last rites over their 
 beloved ones. The supreme worship of the Holy Mass, they 
 had witnessed daily repeated, and from the rough platform had 
 reached their ears and then their hearts, the eloquence of the 
 Rosati's and Kenrick's and Timon's and Quarter's and Van de 
 Veld's and lastly the unctious utterance of a Quigley, and the 
 oratory of John O'Reilly. So, although the symmetrical pile 
 on the bluff now bade them welcome within its spacious courts 
 although the Rock Church in roof and walls and flooring would, 
 for shelter and ease, protection and comfort, far surpass the 
 cabin of the valley, yet the heart of the people clung to the humble 
 log structure. But reason rose above feeling and the tent sur- 
 rendered to the temple, and the log house that had served its 
 purpose in the days of poverty, made way for a shrine: the 
 admiration in that day of Mr. John McMullen of Chicago, after- 
 wards Bishop of Davenport, who, correspondent of the Western 
 Tablet, pubHshed in Chicago, in 1852, and passing through 
 La Salle, wrote: "Here, there is a beautiful church, built of 
 stone, nearly completed and affords ample testimony to the 
 zeal of the three priests. Revs. John O'Reilly, Quigley and Stehle, 
 who minister to the wants of a very extensive mission, reaching 
 as far north as Dixon on the Rock River." 
 
 The writer well remembers the army of men and boys bearing 
 the old pews and kneelers into the new church, and most care- 
 fully did the busy crowd carry from the priests' log shanty into 
 the new house the following valuable set of furniture, which the 
 writer, on the authority of Mr. Thomas Haskins, senior, here 
 sets down, and which testimony, at least for some of the pieces 
 of the costly set — excepting the utensils — is confirmed by Rev. 
 Thomas A. Shaw, C. M. 
 
 1. Eight very common bed-steads. 
 
 2. Six wooden chairs. 
 
 3. One wooden arm-chair, the property of Father John 
 
 O'Reilly. 
 
 4. One old table. 
 
 5. One old cook- stove. 
 
 6. One heating stove. 
 
 7. Part of another stove
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 119 
 
 As people and clergy got in short order reconciled, to the 
 new order of things, nothing was more uppermost in the minds 
 of the Missioners, especially in the mind of the Superior, than 
 to enter directly on preparation for the consecration of the 
 church. The writer has time and time again, been, whilst he 
 asserted, and could prove what he asserts, the church of La 
 Salle was consecrated, not flatly contradicted, but his word has 
 been taken with a degree of hesitancy very provoking. The con- 
 secration of a church in the years of the fifties, was, it must be 
 owned, a surprise. Few enjoyed the high privilege. The Bal- 
 timore Cathedral, the Cathedral of St. Louis, the Church of St. 
 Mary's, Barrens, Church of St. Vincent of Paul, St. Louis, none 
 other strike the memory of the writer. 
 
 The building of the great edifice as the reader has reflected, 
 in the midst of a thinly settled, poor, fervent, yet generous peo- 
 ple, was marvelous : now to cover it with the riches of the Liturgy 
 in a serial of ceremonial that has no equal, unfolds to us the 
 spirit of the great priests, whose ambition was alone and only 
 the interests of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Correspondence between the illustrious Bishop Van de Velde 
 and Father John O'Reilly, which may be learned from the fol- 
 lowing letter, was chiefly taken up with the consecration of the 
 church. It is pleasurable to read the interest the Bishop takes 
 in inviting prelates of high name as Bishop Loras of Dubuque, 
 and Bishop Henni of Milwaukee, in inquiries as to vestments, 
 etc., that the great ceremonial may be fitly and devotedly be- 
 coming so elevated a rite, carried out. 
 
 Chicago, March 7, 1853. 
 Rev. J. O'Reilly, 
 Rev. Dear Sir: — 
 Received a letter from Bishop Loras who states that he 
 cannot absent himself, on account of the absence of two of 
 his priests from Dubuque. V. Rev. Fr. Murphy and Fr. De Smet 
 also state thay cannot attend, having to prepare for a visit to 
 Rome. 
 
 Some things have escaped me in my former letters: ist, 
 Could you have the children of La Salle and Peru prepared for 
 confirmation, to be given Sunday afternoon or Monday morning? 
 2nd, Could not Father Alizeri prepare the children of Henry for 
 Tuesday? 3rd, Will it be necessary that I should bring down 
 some vestments with me? Have you a full set, Chasuble, Cope
 
 120 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 and Dalmatics, and are they good — two or three copes may be 
 needed. Albs, I suppose you have in abundance, if not, you 
 will have time to get some made. 
 
 You know I sent Mr. McGuire of Lacon about his business. 
 Unless one of you visit Henry and Hennepin, they will be aban- 
 doned. 
 
 I remain with sincere affection, 
 
 Yours devotedly in C, 
 
 James Oliver Van de Velde, 
 Bishop Chicago. 
 
 P. S. Bishop Henni promises to come, if he can get away. 
 
 Everybody from the Superior to his last assistant was under 
 the influence of the fast approaching solemnity. Time was 
 taken by the forelock. Nigh two hundred adults were already 
 enrolled in the confirmation class, which would follow directly 
 the Consecration. The writer well remembers the stir in the 
 parish at this important time when obedience ordered Father 
 Quigley to St. Louis, and the same authority missioned the 
 theologian and poet. Father Alizeri to La Salle. 
 
 The day fixed for the consecration was Sunday "The Good 
 Shepherd," April ii, named from the leading words of the 
 Gospel "I am the Good Shepherd," and which was also the feast 
 of the transfer of the relics of St. Vincent of Paul, father and 
 founder of the La Salle Missioners. The atmosphere, when the 
 day dawned, befitted the work of lengthy hours and lightened 
 a burden a sultry day would have made unbearable to especially 
 the consecrating Prelate. There were present the ordinary of 
 the diocese. Bishop Van de Velde, the consecrating Bishop, 
 James Duggan, of Immaculate Conception, St. Louis; the 
 preacher. Father John O'Reilly, C. M., John J. Lynch, C. M. Su- 
 perior of St. Mary's Seminary, Barrens, Mo. — afterwards founder 
 of Niagara Seminary, and Archbishop of Toronto. Father Mc- 
 Laughlin of St. Patrick's, Chicago; Father Denis Dunne, pastor 
 of St. Columba's, Ottawa; Father Stehle, C. M;. Father Joseph 
 Alizeri, C. M. The sanctuary boys, Michael Croghan, John 
 Murphy, Thomas A. Shaw, and John Kelly, who had accom- 
 pained Father Lynch from the old seminary to his La Salle home. 
 
 Early at the appointed hour the procession formed and 
 headed by the cross-bearer and acolytes and censer-bearer, 
 followed by the priests and illustrious Bishop moved towards 
 the church when the ceremonies of consecration began, went
 
 2ND RECTORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSIONERS.
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 121 
 
 on and finished; consuming nigh three hours, followed by 
 the Pontifical High Mass, during which the eloquent silver- 
 tongued speaker of our western chuch. Rev. James Duggan, 
 afterwards fourth Bishop of Chicago, addressed the great gather- 
 ing assembled. "All went merry as a marriage bell." For the 
 day all was over; dignitaries, chiefly the bishop, were wearied; 
 the people no less: rest was in order and with rest still further 
 nourishment. 
 
 Indescribable was the joy of soul that filled the hearts of 
 Missioners and people April 11, 1853 — the date of making over 
 by the sublimest of ceremony the venerable church in which 
 we adore, to the greater glory of God and in honor of the glorious 
 Apostle of the Irish Race, St. Patrick. 
 
 In the meanwhile in the bold and beautiful hand of the 
 artist, the Superior, Father John O'Reilly, registered the follow- 
 ing, which the writer transfers from the Registry of Baptisms, 
 and does into English for the benefit of the readers of that 
 language : 
 
 Aprilis die undecima consecrata est ecclesia Lassalensis sub 
 invocatione. Sancti Patricii Hibernie dicti apostoli, ab Illus- 
 trimo et Reveredmo Episcopo Chicagiensis Domino Jocobo 
 Oliverio Van de Velde, proesentibus Reverdis D. D. J. O'Reilly 
 proe fatoe ecclesioe pastor e, J . Alizeri assistenti, Kramar vicar io, 
 J. Lynch Supre. Stoe. Mariae Seminarii '^Barrens,'" omnibns 
 quatuor Lazaristis, quorum cur a et sumptu multo, oedificata 
 erat ecclesia, cum aliis cleris, J. Duggan de Sto Ludovico, Mc- 
 Laughlin de Chicago, Dunne de Ottawa. 
 
 THE ENGLISH OF IT. 
 
 April II, 1853, the La Salle church was consecrated under 
 the invocation of St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, by the most 
 Illustrious and most Rev. James Oliver Van de Velde, Bishop 
 of Chicago, assisted by four Lazarists, John O'Reilly, rector of 
 said church; Joseph Alizeri and Kramer, assistants, and J. J. 
 Lynch, Superior of St. Mary's Seminary "The Barrens," others 
 of the clergy graced the occasion; J. Duggan of St. Louis, M. M. 
 McLaughlin, Chicago, D. Dunne, Ottawa, Ills. 
 
 Monday, April 12, one hundred and nintey-six adults stood 
 before the newly consecrated altar in the beautiful church, on 
 whom, after a short address explanatory of the nature, dispo- 
 sitions and effects of the Sacrament of Confirmation, the zealous
 
 122 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 bishop imposed hands, ninety-eight of the vigorous of humanity, 
 ninety-nine of the '^devout." 
 
 The survivors after fifty-four years, here or near, deserve 
 mention: Joseph Michae) McNamara, Henry Dillon, Wm. 
 O'Brien, James Feeney, Patrick Cavanaugh (Chicago), James 
 J. Boyle (Peoria), Michael Minahan, Jeremias Reardon (Dimick), 
 John Connerton (Dimick), Mary Ann McNamara and Bridget 
 Ferguson (Minneapolis). 
 
 The "Rari nantes in gurgite vasto," in sober truth conveying 
 the lesson of the fickleness and brittleness of the human vase — 
 excellent if "The scent of the roses" breathed from a Christian 
 life, "will hang around it." 
 
 Tuesday, April 13, the distinguished guests of Father John 
 O'Reilly went each one to his home. Since the unwearied Bishop 
 had Peoria to visit, most pleasurable it was for Father Duggan 
 and Father Lynch, accompanied by the amiable and talented 
 John Kelly, now on the return to their southern home, to enjoy 
 the company of the prelate part of the way. 
 
 The handsome side wheeler, "The Garden City," wriggling 
 and blustering, impatient to slip her moorings and be off, re- 
 ceived her distinguished passengers. Under the aegis of the 
 Superior of the Barrens and with the blessing of his joyful yet 
 affected parents of his own j 03'- and the joy of Fathers John 
 O'Reilly and Alizeri and Kramer, each of them a worthy branch 
 of St. Vincent's vine; the present story-teller of the La Salle 
 Mission, then a lad of fifteen, boarded the floating palace, which 
 in the fraction of a quarter of an hour was out of the basin and 
 into the river, heading for her point of destination, St. Louis.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The Favorite Oiitmission the Lostlands, of the Early Missioners 
 — The German Catholic Settlements. — The Era of the First 
 Railroads. — The La Salle Coal Fields. — The Cholera and the 
 Hymeneal Seasons of 1854. 
 
 Few things are there to hghten more the burden of priestly 
 duty, than the value his charge sets upon his services. Flesh 
 and blood he is no less than the people he labors for and although 
 his motive to work in the last resort, is not human applause but 
 the good pleasure of his Maker, yet is he encouraged by the active 
 co-operation of his children, that is he strives in the language 
 of tue Church "Always to abide in thanksgiving — so should 
 they; and, in truth, the settlement of the Big Vermilion, or the 
 Lost Lands, now Eagle Township, was the consolation of the 
 early Fathers outside of La Salle : and not only was it the magnet 
 for the Fathers, but likewise for the residents of our old town. 
 The monthly trip, despite the season of the year from 1850 to 
 1856, when the little mission was handed over to the care of 
 the iDishop, who added it to Ottawa as its out-mission, was 
 scrupulously attended to ; and the day for starting to the little 
 mission was as eagerly watched by favorite families, as if a visit to 
 the closest relations was in question. The memories of that epoch 
 of faith are among the sweetest the writer recalls^ not alone 
 because of the enjoyment he had with the saintly men with 
 whom he rode over the magnificent stretch of rolling prairie, 
 on which it was not an uncommon thing at all seasons to see 
 deer in two's, yea, as at Bailey's Falls, six times two, or the 
 prairie chicken in the fall as thick as bees around a hive; but 
 the memories of that era of faith are amongst the sweetest, 
 because of Irish hearts of faith and hospitality. What a recep- 
 tion the Belford's and the Connesse's and the Kane's, and the 
 Cofley's, and the Berry's, and the Finn's, and the Prendergast's, 
 and the Quinn's, and the Riordan's gave his reverence and his 
 acolyte; informal, if you will, not on that account the less 
 
 (123)
 
 124 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 genuine: every one vieing with'another who would do the most 
 for him whom they looked upon "Every inch a king." Espec- 
 ially cannot the writer forget the grand old Donegal, Mr. Belford 
 and his excellent wife! No, no; the Belford family never felt 
 prouder than when Father John O'Reilly or Father John 
 Quigley or Father Joseph Alizeri deigned to make their log house 
 a church and a home. And what a spread was served up in 
 honor of the missioner when the sublime mysteries were over 
 to which the above named families were invited and answered 
 the call — none of your dress parade for man and woman, boy 
 or girl of the early Lostlanders! Suitable head-gear and boots 
 and the jean suit for the men and boys; the cotton dress for the 
 women and girls, with the simple sun bonnet, so modest, or hood 
 that spoke comfort as the season demanded. "The age of Faith." 
 As poor as the times were, yet the good Missioner never turned 
 his horses' heads toward La Salle, and bade adieu for an- 
 other month without something worth while from his clever 
 Lostlanders. Blessings in showers fell and deservedly on parents 
 and children of the Big Vermilion. It was a happy omen to 
 name the township, Eagle, for like the eagle, the first settlers 
 soared aloft and sought their Empire above. Obeying the 
 command "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Justice, 
 and all things shall be added unto you." Any one interested 
 in the growth of faith and wealth need only see for himself on 
 any Sunday he selects to be an adorer in the Annunciation 
 Church at Eagle, a gathering of Irish and Irish- American stock 
 of which he may boast and which will force him to exclaim: "I 
 have not found such great faith in Israel!" The genuine zealous 
 Soggarth Aroon, who has spent himself for nearly a quarter of 
 a century on the site where the Lazarists first opened the Eagle 
 Mission, and who has raised monuments in sacred shrines and 
 rectory and school house of brick, to the "King of Ages, immor- 
 tal and invisible," and far above the monuments of brick and 
 mortar, has kept alive in full glow "The lamp that was lit at 
 Kildare's Holy Fane" earns from all who admire the beautiful 
 and the true, and certainly from his old friend, the writer, this 
 passing reference; for after the love the writer bears La Salle, 
 and his college home, no spot is more endeared to him than the 
 favorite out-mission, the Lostlands of our early Fathers, the 
 present home of Rev. Michael J. Egan. 
 
 The Fathers were intent on meeting the wishes of the good
 
 STORY OP THE LA SALLE MISSION. 125 
 
 Bishop in favor of the many German Catholics entering at this 
 period into the Diocese of Chicago. "I think," wrote Bishop 
 Van de Velde to Father John O'Reilly, "that the priest whom 
 very Rev. Father Mailer intends to send does not know the 
 German language. Does Father Anthony know it? If not, it 
 would be well for your reverence to apply for one who knows 
 that language, which is so necessary in your missions, especially 
 about Dixon, Oregon, Henry, etc." 
 
 The following letter written to the writer from his confrere, 
 Father Kramer, will be of interest to our German Catholics of 
 the old time and their children of to-day: 
 
 J. M. J. V. 
 
 Vienna, 21-7, '89. 
 Reverend Sir: 
 
 Gratia D. N. J. S. S. Nobiscum: 
 
 Thanking you for your kind letter I will search in my mind 
 to find the points which you wish to know of me. 
 
 I received ordination in our Church of Bouligny (Jefferson) 
 1853 by Archbishop Blanc. One day after I left Louisiana for 
 going to La Salle. On the way I stopped fourteen days at St. 
 Louis to supply Mr. Rolando. Fourteen days after Easter I 
 came to La Salle. There I found Mr. O'Reilly as Superior and 
 Mr. Alizeri. Short time after Mr. Alizeri was changed and Mr. 
 Anthony took his place. I have been in La Salle from two 
 weeks after Easter, 1853 until Oct. 28th, 1854. Mission took 
 place at La Salle, Mr. Lynch, O'Reilly and myself (for the 
 Germans.) In Peru I built the Church for the Germans about 
 800 at that time in Peru and about. Mr. Pulver and the Mayor 
 of the city were the persons who took care of the treasury. The 
 mayor or boss-man and many freemasons went with me from 
 house to house to collect. The Church finished, I pro-ceeded 
 there nearly every Sunday. 
 
 Nearly every month I was going to the junction (Bureau) 
 about 18 miles from La Salle. There I built the Church about 
 30 X 50 feet — 300 persons. From time to time I visited Henry. 
 Three miles above Henry is a German settlement where I 
 blessed the graveyard, going there once every month. Hennepin 
 from time to time. Mr. O'Reilly went to Hennepin, Henry, 
 and Perkins, going several times in the year. Mr. O'Reilly and 
 I went from time to time, until Dixon, about forty miles from
 
 126 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 La Salle, preaching and hearing confessions for the Irish people 
 working on the different railroads. South of La Salle I was 
 going evey month to the German settlement (probably around 
 Leonore) and sometimes also until Bloomington. 
 
 In the rest of the letter, now lost, the writer remembers 
 reading of the labors of the good Father Kramer in Troy Grove, 
 and around Mendota for his German brethren. It is needless to 
 say the son of St. Vincent made his way to the hearts of his 
 compatriots, because of his calm and prudent behavior. Called 
 by obedience into Austria he there for years wrought on the 
 missions and passed to his reward after a long and useful life 
 in 74th year of his age and 52nd year of his reHgious life at 
 Vienna, Austria, Feb. 2, 1901. 
 
 The care of the German Catholics in Peru and out-missions 
 passed on to Father Eugene Muller, a highly accomplished con- 
 frere, who continued the work laid down so firmly by the zealous 
 Father Peter Kramer. 
 
 The era of railroads had struck La Salle early, but as the 
 canal, suspended work for years, the Rock Island, in 1853 had 
 built from La Salle to Rock Island, and the Illinois Central 
 in 1854 had bridged the Illinois River when its northern train 
 and southern train met at La Salle. The town had already risen 
 to the dignity of a city and had its first mayor, the accomplished 
 lawyer and statesman, Alexander Campbell, under whose mild 
 administration for two terms the city became prosperous. 
 During the forties, coal found here and there near the surface 
 had been dug and burned in a few houses, notably in the old 
 log church; but owing to the plethora of timber, the black 
 diamond had had little attraction. In the years of railroad 
 enterprise, the greatest coal field and market in the Garden 
 State were open. The area covered was 13,120 acres in La Salle 
 alone, containing three veins, the first at the depth of 150 feet; 
 second, eighty feet lower; and the third, at the depth of 400 
 feet. "La Salle," writes an authority, "in 1870, is probably the 
 best coal field as well as the most extensive ; with eleven shafts 
 it raises annually 217,900 tons. The best coal in the county." 
 As the canal drew scores of men to this historic spot, so the 
 completion of the road and the opening up of the vast deposits 
 of coal brought in a multitude of, for the most part, Catholic 
 miners who became for over a generation the sinew of church 
 and state. Previous to the coming of the army of miners, there
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 127 
 
 entered into La Salle and enrolled themselves as members of 
 St. Patrick's Parish, Francis Harrison, the founder of the Har- 
 rison House, and Michael Byrne, whom any society would have 
 been proud to own. In propping up the religion of their fathers, 
 they were ever amongst the foremost. Francis Harrison, schooled 
 in the principles of the immortal Bishop England of Charleston, 
 was no ordinary Catholic or citizen. Dignified, austere, firm, res- 
 olute, a thinker and a reader of character, a gentleman "Sans peur 
 et sans reproche," scathing the modern humbug, and smiting the 
 evil doer, he might truthfully say with the intellectual poet of 
 our great language. "I have not loved the world, nor the 
 world me. I have not flattered its rank breath nor bowed my 
 patient knee to its idolatry." Nor may I pass in silence, Mr. 
 Michael Byrne, who for two generations ever stood the friend 
 of the Church; and when he did control his thousands, his hand 
 and heart were ever open to the call of pity and distress. 
 
 So clever a soul came none too soon, for occasions multiplied, 
 would offer as now. For the fourth time cholera scourged 
 La Salle. One hundred and ninety-seven, among them the 
 worthy Father of the present writer, are the figures for 1854 
 in La Salle and neighborhood of the fell destroyer. Yet did not 
 so wholesale a carnage stop the road to matrimony. Never did 
 La Salle before or since, roll up the number of Hymen as it did 
 in this fatal year. Before the altar in October, 1854, twenty- 
 four couples pledged their love to each other forever — whilst the 
 same month of October, saw hurried to the repulsive pit, thirty. 
 Who may question the lion-hearted courage of so many braves 
 who, whilst the fell arrows in showers rained on the doomed 
 little city, prepared, by tying the unbroken knot, to fight the 
 battle of life !
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 The Daughters of St. Vincent of Paul are Charged with the Educa- 
 tional Training of the Daughters of La Salle and Surround- 
 ings. — Mendota New Outmission. — Imported Letters. — Father 
 John O'Reilly is appointed Superior of St. Vincent.s. 
 St. Louis Mo. 
 
 To blunder is the weakness of human nature; and as if to 
 show no matter how high the parts and attainments, there lurks 
 as in choicest fruits the tiny canker worm, a flaw. Christian 
 writer, orator, statesman, scholar, was Gladstone, yet he com- 
 mitted his blunders. Writing of the converts that flowed into 
 the CathoHc Church in England during his time, he put down: 
 "The conquests have been chiefly as might have been expected 
 among women." The celebrated Mrs. Margaret F. SulHvan, 
 wife of Lawyer Alexander Sullivan of Chicago, in a brilliant 
 erudite paper entitled, "Chiefly among Women," called the 
 British statesman to task for his insinuation or slur that woman 
 should be looked upon as a mere child, whose will was ever 
 another's and not her own, who had mental calibre, either to 
 bring home an argument or accept an argument, that the most, 
 and only purpose for woman was a helper to man; that her 
 vocation was the hearth, as wife, mother, sister, daughter, and in 
 each of these roles, would she shine. As intellectual leader on 
 a little or a great question, where weighty matters were in- 
 volved, woman was not built by nature for this, nor ought 
 the powers of Church or State fit her for any higher education 
 than reading, working a few figures, and her mental acquire- 
 ments should be at an end. And this view of a girl, a woman's 
 education, as to letters, was the view of the great Count de 
 Maistre, and as the accompHshed Mrs. Buchanan SulHvan scored 
 Gladstone for his shallow view of women, no less did the illus- 
 trious Bishop Dupanloup call DeMaistre to order, in a series 
 of articles which were printed in the Catholic world in the 6o'_s, 
 where he showed that woman has often shown superiority in 
 
 (128)
 
 THE HASKINS HOUSE, 1ST SCHOOL OF THE SISTERS.
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 129 
 
 letters and in the other arts where men have failed, that she 
 who must indite society with the true, the beautiful and the 
 chaste, ought to be well stored herself; and that the glorious 
 S. Jerome had urged the Sainted Paula to leave nothing undone 
 to the fit education in letters of her daughter Paulina. Volumes 
 would be neessary to tell what the Christian woman — not to 
 say the the heroines even outside Christianity — has done in 
 the world of arts and sciences. To this the writer pointedly 
 refers. The girl must then be educated and just as much as 
 the boy, avocations, of course, always carefully weighed. 
 
 The priests of the Mission led by Father John O'Reilly had 
 nothing nearer, now as the great church was up and largely 
 paid for, than the erection of a school for the girls of the parish, 
 with the Sisters to train them. No want more quickly should 
 be met. The sons of S. Vincent of Paul here, the daughters of 
 the same saint would be heartily welcomed. 
 
 In a letter of 1854 addressed to Father Burlando, C. M., 
 director of the Daughters of Charity of the United States. 
 Father John O'Reilly, C. M. asks for the Sisters. Oct., 1854, 
 the Sisters band arrived: the Saintly Sister Vincentia Repplier, 
 Sister Servant, Sister Leontine Cissel, Sister Mary Dougherty, 
 and Sister Mary Virginia Joyce, and after the Fathers, none of 
 all the people were more gratified in welcoming the Daughters 
 of Charity than the Byrne family. Mrs. Eliza Higgins had been 
 educated at the Academy of S. Joseph's, Emmittsburg, and 
 had inhaled the aroma of that favored spot, sanctified by the 
 sweat of scores of holy women. The old two-story brick house 
 on 2nd near Chartres almost opposite where the old log church, 
 and afterwards the Brothers' School, stood, belonging to the 
 Haskins brothers was for a year the home of the Sisters and the 
 girls' school of S. Patrick's parish. The Sisters took in and put up 
 cheerfully with the surroundings for what one of them, from the 
 delicate Sister Vincentia to Sister Virginia, had not at Emmitts- 
 burg, lived in the traditions of Saintly Mother Seton, and if they 
 had not seen her in her mortifications, they certainly had seen and 
 enjoyed Sister Martha, who had knelt at the knee of the first 
 great Mother and received that austere education so plainly 
 witnessed in the grand old school forty years ago. Oh! how 
 memory brings the writer back to the sisters, Sarah Agnes and 
 Martha, and Florence, and Olympia, and David, of St. Louis; 
 Ann Regina, of Chicago; Anne Alexes and Almeda of Boston;
 
 13© STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 Valentine and Felix of Albany; Sister Sarah Agnes of Troy; Ro- 
 bertine of Buff alo ;Gonzaga of Philadelphia ;and Severina and Wal- 
 burgs and Olympia, whose characters were a reflex of the great Fa- 
 ther and founder, St. Vincent. What, therefore, were ravines and 
 streetless ways and the quagmires with which the journey from the 
 Haskins house to the present church, to the scholars of the relig- 
 ious women just mentioned. The daily walk, from July 1854, to 
 July, 1855, to and from the Great Sacrifice what was it but 
 carrying a large supply, the maintenance of corporal, mental 
 and spiritual strength. "You shall draw waters at the foun- 
 tains of the Saviour." The temporary school or academy in no 
 way hindered the thirst of knowledge nor lessened the appetite, 
 either in the Sister teachers or their scholars. The sister of the 
 writer was the first boarder — an excellent start in a great way 
 to success, as the first blow is half the battle. The reputation 
 the Daughters of Charity achieved their first year, in all the 
 branches of a sound, polite education, has after fifty- three years, 
 not only not lessened but rather year following year, heightened 
 their fame. Oh! what does not La Salle's daughters owe to the 
 curriculum in morals and letters they ran under the guidance 
 and protection of these spiritual mothers ! What a programme 
 monthly, and chiefly yearly, was represented and the programme 
 never wearies, made up of an intellectual, moral and social menu 
 which even St. Louis or Philadelphia of that day might well 
 deign to share. The scholars of the first year of our Sisters, 
 outlivers of a past, which even its poverty — yet because of its 
 simplicity, is a glorious past — are like the snow flowers, few 
 representatives of the early Sisters' girls of whom their child- 
 ren to-day may well be proud. 
 
 "In the year 1855," says the old manuscript kept at St. 
 Joseph's Central House, Emmittsburg, Md., "the Sisters found 
 a nice comfortable, square stone house awaiting them, very 
 well furnished, with all that was necessary; which furnishing 
 had been done under the supervision of Mrs. EHza Higgins, who 
 had been a boarder at St. Joseph's for some years, assisted by 
 her protestant sister-in-law, who afterwards became a Catholic 
 in Detroit." 
 
 At home, in earnest, the Daughters of Charity studied, in 
 every reasonable way, to build and build well that monument 
 to religion, morality and learning in which the people, far and 
 near, especially of those of the household of the faith are so
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 131 
 
 deeply interested that education is a passion to them, as it ever 
 has been. Largely to John O'Reilly with the assistance of his 
 Confreres Fathers Anthony and Kramer, are our Daughters of 
 Charity, and generous people of old St. Patrick's indebted for 
 the first beginnings of our own Women's high Catholic Culture. 
 
 To the great joy of Father O'Reilly, our tireless and success- 
 ful Rev. M. Anthony returned to La Salle in the fall of 1853. 
 He had done much in collecting for the Church in La Salle. In- 
 deed during the three years of his absence, Baltimore had been 
 blessed by his example and labors, for he had purchased ground 
 for, and had erected a neat little brick church on the site of the 
 present handsome structure, which throughout Baltimore, from 
 the utterance of all classes, went by the name of Father Anthony's 
 Church. 
 
 No sooner, therefore, had he touched La Salle once more, 
 which he found advanced so rapidly in three years, everybody 
 and everything throbbing with life, than he quickened the flame. 
 Energy and enterprise in these years, though of a delicate build, 
 were his. The Illinois Central Railroad ran daily one train from 
 La Salle to a prairie village of Shanties northward fifteen miles, 
 called Mendota. Monthly first, and then fortnightly. Father 
 Anthony from the Autumn, 1855 to Autumn 1856, visited his 
 Mendotians. 
 
 Patrick McKean's boarding-house had been the first house 
 he entered, and he was, the writer was assured, wringing wet. 
 No one knew his reverence, but his reverence, with his own, 
 whom he dearly loved, in a flash was at home. 
 
 "Would you give Father Anthony from La Salle a cup of 
 coffee, or tea, and a bed too.?" 
 
 Up the stairs to the cock-loft of the boarding-house he went, 
 and took up from ten honest fellows the handsome sum of $25.00. 
 
 The coffee and the bed were heartily accepted and enjoyed. 
 It was night when he arrived. 
 
 For Confessions, Holy Mass and Communion for the morrow 
 all had been arranged, and the good Father, after satisfying his 
 warm-hearted countrymen's higher natures, assured them that 
 every two weeks at Patrick Dunn's they would expect him 
 for the services of religion, the Irish above all value so keenly, 
 and assist at so reverently. 
 
 The year 1856 Mendota was handed over to Bishop Anthony
 
 133 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 O' Regan of Chicago, who succeeded Right Rev. Bishop Van de 
 Velde in 1854. 
 
 Whilst our great preacher, the Superior of La Salle was called 
 to preach a regular mission in Joliet and Peoria, the Assistant 
 Father Anthony gave the following spicy letter to Very Rev. 
 J. J. Lynch, Superior of St. Mary's Seminary, Barrens, Mo. The 
 property our good old Father alludes to is the stone house on 
 the electric railroad between Utica and Buffalo Rock. 
 
 La Salle, La Salle Co., 
 Aug. ist., '55. 
 Very Rev. and Dear Bro: 
 
 Gratia D. N. J. C. sit semper nobiscum: 
 
 I suppose that you have heard before this time, of the work- 
 ings of Divine Grace in Joliet, and of the swellings of your Priests. 
 They went so far that they were near bursting. 
 
 The only thing that I regretted when we went to the Novi- 
 tiate in futuro, was that you were not there; I think that your 
 heart would swell as much as Father Hennessy's ever did in the 
 Pulpit. I think that Providence got some one to build it for 
 us. I know that as soon as you will see it, that you will say 
 that it is God's will that it should be ours. Let us buy it. 
 
 It has all the advantages that can he desired whether as a 
 Novitiate, a Mission house, or a petit seminary. It is in the 
 heart of a Catholic people, who know how to appreciate the 
 success of their clergy. In confirmation of my assertion, Fr. 
 McGill went to Sheffield on last Sunday and nearly everyone 
 there went to Confession and they appeared to be as much in 
 earnest about the one thing necessary as they were in Joliet; 
 there are only about fifteen families, there; they gave him as a 
 small token $41.00, which he would not get in 41 years from 
 the Barrenites. You may ask how can we procure this desirable 
 location. I'll tell you we have means and heart to do it our 
 selves, without the assistance of any other place. This country 
 alone is sufficient to supply it with boys. It has another ad- 
 vantage — you can go to any part of the Union without any 
 delay from it — it is mid way between La Salle and Ottawa, and 
 a half mile from a station house. The Illinois River is running 
 back of the house. There is a bathing house at the river, and 
 the Sulphur Springs on the premises. We could have a band 
 of Missioners here, where Missions are so much wanted and where 
 the right kind of soil is for producing fruit in abundance.
 
 STONE HOUSE, 2ND SCHOOL OF THE SISTERS.
 
 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 133 
 
 In five years I would venture to say that it would be the 
 most important house that we have in this country, and where all 
 the ends of the congregation could be carried out to the letter 
 and the spirit — I think I may conclude by hoping that e'er 
 long we will have your and Mr. Masnou's approval. '^^^ 
 
 Please remember me to Mr. Hennessy and Community. 
 I remain, Rev. Sir and Dear Bro., 
 
 Mr. Anthony, C. M. 
 
 To Fr. Lynch, C. M. 
 
 Our Missioners of the two generations, since the eloquent 
 contemporary of the Illustrious Hughes and Timon lived here, 
 will be the writer feels, instructed by the views given of Missions, 
 by their old confrere. The letter is addressed to Rev. E. M. 
 Hennessy, St. Mary's Seminary, Barrens, Mo. 
 
 La Salle, December 30, 1856. 
 Rev. and Dear Confrere : 
 
 The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be ever with us. The 
 sweet aniversary of Christmas is already past like all its prede- 
 cessors, and that of the new year will have been ere this reaches 
 you, and therefore, you will have experienced the happiness of 
 both without my wishing you that happiness. Let me, there- 
 fore, wish you its continuance, not only at annum but ad multos 
 annos. 
 
 Our festivals here have passed very pleasantly in all respects: 
 good weather, good cheer, much piety, and let me add, not a 
 little liberality. I hope you may be able to say so much for 
 the Barrens. So I hear Mr. Mason leaves us and probably not 
 to return. Spain or Spanish America will probably claim 
 him. 
 
 I regret it for he would be useful to us and notwithstanding 
 all our professions to the contrary, we generally feel first and 
 most for ourselves. Well, fiat voluntas tua!, and now I must 
 advise you for the good of us both, I think without presumption, 
 "^y gray head may allow me this privilege. I want you to send 
 up Rev. Mr. Buysch for a week or two to confess the Germans. 
 He will, in the meantime have an opportunity to collect the bills 
 due to the Seminary. They, or some one will pay his traveling 
 expenses. I have been requested a few days ago by our friend 
 of Joliet, to go up and give a triduum, as they are about erecting 
 the stations of the cross, and have shown no small piety by
 
 134 STORY OF THE LA SALLE MISSION. 
 
 shelling out'two hundredMollars^in'ready cash for them — a beau- 
 tiful set of oil paintings. 
 
 I intend to go and answer their pious solicitude towards the 
 end of next month. If Mr. Buysch could be here by that time, 
 so that he would attend in Peru and assist Father Anthony in 
 La Salle, in my absence it would be very agreeable. I know 
 your good heart knows how to feel and succor the miserable 
 and will prompt you to do all practicable things to effect it. 
 5*^^, The Mission in Peoria I have not had courage to attempt 
 single-handed, even if I could manage the wants of home in 
 the interval. Little substantial good can be effected by one, 
 for no matter what may be the talking, if the Confessional is 
 not well attended to, the result will hardly be worth the labor. 
 Here it is the fruit is to be gathered "Messis Multa Operarii 
 Pauci." My best regards to Confreres. Pray for your un- 
 worthy but devoted in X, 
 
 J. O'Reilly, C. M. 
 
 After nine years of faithful service at La Salle, in which he 
 had played the most important part for the temporal and moral 
 standing of the city, for the temporal, since under him the 
 great church had been completed and consecrated; ground had 
 been bought for the Sister School, a rock school had gone up, 
 and the Sisters of St. Vincent had entered; had not also the 
 moral or manners of La Salle improved? Who had more elo- 
 quently urged his own children to walk in the way pointed out 
 by Jesus Christ? Who had more thoroughly and more unspar- 
 ingly scathed vice than he, and chiefly the vice of scandal or 
 public fighting? The writer, as a boy, heard the great Lazarist 
 denouncing the scandal given on Maine Street by two half- 
 drunken fighting fellows. Quoting the lines of St. Paul, Father 
 John O'Reilly, in thundering voice exclaimed, "So St. Paul was 
 a boxer." The sermon, it is unnecessary to write, was so power- 
 ful that the scandal givers and their abbettors had to leave 
 town. 
 
 In June, 1857, the good Father appointed Superior of St. 
 Vincent's Church, St. Louis, Mo., left at the word received from 
 authority for his new charge, to the sorrow not only of La Salle 
 but to the whole diocese of Chicago. 
 
 END OF FIRST PART.
 
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