LAWRENCE J. GUTTER 
 
 Collection of Chicogoono 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 AT CHICAGO 
 
 The University Library
 
 LIFE 
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER, D.D., 
 
 FIRST CATHOLIC BISHOP 
 
 CHICAGO. 
 
 B T 
 
 JOHN E. McGIRR, A.M., M.D., 
 
 morcssoR or ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY, CHEMISTRY AND 
 
 BOTANY, IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. MARY OF THE LAKE, 
 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. 
 
 tfeto-Yorfe: 
 
 D. A J. SADLIER, 58 GOtD-STREET. 
 BOSTON: 72 STATE-STREET. 
 
 1850.
 
 TO THE 
 
 VERY REV. WALTER JOSEPH QUARTER, V. G. 
 
 THIS FEEBLE EFFORT TO RECALL 
 
 THE LABOURS AND VIRTUES 
 or 
 
 HIS DECEASED BROTHER, 
 
 IS 
 RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, 
 
 AS A 
 
 TOKEN OT PERSONAL REGARD, 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAG* 
 
 From his birth until his departure for America, 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 From his departure for America until his ap- 
 pointment as Pastor of St. Mary's Church 
 in New- York, 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 His missionary labours at St. Mary's in New- 
 York, 40 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 From his Consecration for the See of Chicago 
 until the end of the first year of his Epis- 
 copal labours, 59 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 From the commencement of the second year of 
 
 his Episcopacy until his Death, . . 88 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Review of his labours ; his character ; conclu- 
 sion. . 113
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IN writing this Life, I have endeavoured 
 to keep in view the fact, that the early 
 years of Bishop Quarter gave the promise 
 of that virtuous career which his after life 
 realized : and therefore have I dwelt upon 
 the manner of his early training. Again : I 
 have introduced observations that might, to 
 some, seem not strictly warranted by the 
 subject ; but it will be found, I think, that 
 they go to describe the danger and violence 
 of a disease, so that the judicious selection 
 of the remedy applied by the Bishop and 
 the success of the cure, may the more fully 
 exhibit the skilfulness of the physician. 
 
 To guard every loop hole, to avoid every 
 error, would be impossible. Nothing ter-
 
 8 PREFACE. 
 
 restrial escapes the common condition of 
 imperfectibility ; and the writer has besides 
 to urge in extenuation of his errors, the 
 novelty of his situation in appearing before 
 the public as the author of a book. 
 
 Would that it were worthier ! with all 
 its faults, however, it is sent forth, confident 
 that the reader will look rather to the sub- 
 ject of the picture than to the manner of 
 the colouring ; to the gem, than to the set- 
 ting. 
 
 CHICAGO, April 29th, 1849.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 u Example is a globe of precepts." BACON. 
 
 EXAMPLE rules the world. The warrior 
 upon his country's battle-field performs pro- 
 digies of valour, and whether the cause in 
 which he fights be just or unjust, his indi- 
 vidual merits are blazoned upon the historic 
 page. Youths dwell upon the relation of 
 these exploits, and in spirit they are war- 
 riors. The statesman in the senate cham- 
 ber defends successfully an important poli- 
 tical principle ; thousands of his party laud 
 his efforts, and from the hands of the untir- 
 ing press his opinions are scattered broad- 
 cast over the land. Youths are anxious to
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 be statesmen, to gain the world's renown, 
 and the fame which it values is their only 
 governing motive. 
 
 The history of a generation affords thou- 
 sands of instances in which example stamps 
 the character and seals forever the fate of 
 its deluded victims ; and if example be thus 
 potent, how important does it become that 
 the model be of an exalted kind -one in 
 which the higher and the holier aspirations 
 that should govern mortals would appear 
 one in which would not exist that vain, pitiful, 
 miserable longing for the breath of popular 
 applause, as evanescent as that upon the 
 dimmed surface of a polished mirror, but in 
 which would be found that earnest yearning 
 to accomplish good things for all men ; that 
 unceasing effort to benefit all mankind, the 
 memory of which will live after them. 
 
 We may then turn popular attention 
 with much benefit from the military and 
 political idols that now fill its eye, to the 
 contemplation of man as he ought to be,
 
 INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 to the nobleness of virtue which sanctifies 
 knowledge. Oh ! it is a holy duty, while 
 selfishness and impiety go hand in hand 
 through the world, seeming to constitute the 
 only essential qualifications to respectabili- 
 ty, the only passports to renown, to place be- 
 fore it the character of one who laboured for 
 the good of all, and earnestly before God 
 and for God ; one in whom there was no 
 selfishness nor guile. Thus youth may be 
 able to contrast the character of the world- 
 ling with that of the man of God. 
 
 The first endeavours, by his example, to 
 prove that man may live independently of 
 his Creator ; the latter, while he proves our 
 absolute dependence on Him who called 
 us into being, teaches the infant heart the 
 secret by which the fountains of God's 
 goodness may be opened. The first teaches 
 youth to scoff; the latter, to pray, under the 
 sublime conviction that the prayer offered 
 up by the child at its mother's knee, is the 
 same prayer that is uttered by the my-
 
 Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 riads of the angels around the throne of the 
 Eternal: the same prayer taught here 
 below that it will repeat when, having " sha- 
 ken off this mortal coil," 'it will return 
 to the household of its Father who is in 
 Heaven.
 
 LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE RT. REV. WM. QUARTER, D. D. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FROM HIS BIRTH UNTIL HIS DEPARTURE FOR AMERICA, 
 
 18061822. 
 
 RT. REV. WILLIAM QUARTER, first Bishop 
 of Chicago, in the state of Illinois, was born 
 in Killurine, Kings County, Ireland, on the 
 21st day of January, in the year 1806. He 
 was the third son of Michael Quarter and 
 Ann Bennet. There were four brothers : 
 John, the eldest ; Walter Joseph, the vicar 
 general of the Bishop and present adminis- 
 trator of the diocese ; William, the subject 
 of this memoir ; and James, who died before 
 he arrived at the age necessary to receive or- 
 dination. It was his intention to have en- 
 tered the holy order of the priesthood. 
 
 The family of the Quarters was of the 
 most respectable ; and rarely is one found
 
 14 LIFE OF THE 
 
 that has given more priests and bishops to 
 the Church than the maternal branch of it 
 has done. " The number of clergymen here 
 and in the diocese of Meath that are con- 
 nected with it, is at the present time little 
 short of twenty ; and they have to display an 
 unsullied name, while there have never been 
 any men in the ministry more firm in up- 
 holding the rights of the priesthood." 
 
 Mrs. Quarter, the Bishop's mother, look- 
 ing upon the pledges that God had given 
 as merely entrusted to her guardianship 
 upon earth, and to be required from her here- 
 after, devoted herself to their early training 
 in the path in which they should walk, so 
 that " in age they might not depart from it." 
 As soon as they could enunciate properly, 
 they were taught their morning and evening 
 prayers ; and that good custom of gathering 
 the little flock to the morning and evening 
 devotions was never omitted in her house ; 
 nor did the family ever retire at night with- 
 out having first said the Rosary of the Bless- 
 ed Virgin Mary. From this practice sprung 
 that devotion to the Mother of God, which
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 5 
 
 so remarkably distinguished the Bishop 
 through life. 
 
 The example thus se.t him by his mother ; 
 her earnest efforts to instil into his young 
 heart the love of virtue and the horror of 
 sin, made a deep impression upon his pliant 
 mind. In after life he would often say, 
 " I never saw but one, and that one was Bi- 
 shop Brute, who exhibited so tender a piety 
 as my mother ;" and the recollections of the 
 scenes of his childhood's years when he 
 knelt beside that mother's knee, while she 
 placed her hand upon his little head, and 
 taught him to lisp his prayers, could never 
 be blotted from his memory. How often 
 did he thank God for having given him such 
 a mother ! and he seemed never to weary 
 of repeating the instances of her kindness, 
 her goodness, and her watchfulness. Fre- 
 .quently, he said, "I owe all that I am to her; 
 I would never have been a Priest, I would 
 never have been a Bishop, but for her ;" a 
 tear would gather in his bright eye, and steal 
 over his care-worn cheek, while he breathed 
 a prayer to God that he might meet his mo-
 
 16 LIFE OF THE 
 
 ther again in his father's house, after he 
 had accomplished his earthly pilgrimage. 
 
 The virtuous example, the pious life and 
 the tender love of such a mother, could not 
 but make a deep impression upon the hearts 
 of her children. She ruled them by love, 
 and they were bound to her by the ties of 
 love. As the gentle breath of the zephyr, 
 dancing upon the smooth surface of a lake, 
 causes neither ripple nor wave to dis- 
 turb that surface, nor raises up sediment 
 from the bottom of the deep, so did the even 
 tenor of these children's lives, leave undis- 
 turbed beneath the surface, the passions 
 that for the most part disfigure the face of 
 childhood. It gave them early a mastery 
 over themselves, which was a marked cha- 
 racteristic in the life of the Bishop. 
 
 His mother was anxious that God might 
 call some one of her children to the holy 
 order of the Priesthood, and the manner of 
 her early training was directed to favour in 
 them a desire similar to her own. She 
 had taught her son William, at the age of 
 seven years, to serve mass, and he never
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 17 
 
 felt so happy as when he had served at 
 that holy sacrifice, for the priest who offi- 
 ciated in his father's house. She would 
 tell him, when he had been thus engaged : 
 " My son, it does my heart good to see you 
 serving at the altar. I consider your place 
 there more honourable than if you occupied 
 the first station in a kingdom : now you are 
 truly in the service of your God." 
 
 William Quarter early corresponded with 
 her wishes, and he seemed to have set his 
 heart upon a religious life : for in his very 
 childhood, and while his playmates were 
 building their mud houses, or their little 
 sand embankments to stop a water-course, 
 or playing bo-peep, or engaged in other di- 
 versions peculiar to their years, he would 
 steal away from them, that he might be 
 alone, and then he would build his little 
 altar and ornament it, offering up to God 
 upon it the sacrifice of his young and 
 spotless heart. And the sacrifice was ac- 
 cepted; for what on earth is purer, what 
 more worthy of the Creator of all things,
 
 18 
 
 LIFE OF THE 
 
 than the pure heart ere the stain of sin 
 has disfigured it. 
 
 Mrs. Quarter had received an excellent 
 education in the school of a religious com- 
 munity, and she therefore assumed the 
 task of instructing her son, of opening 
 and expanding the first flowers of his in- 
 tellect. She was well aware that the 
 common schools of education were to the 
 morals like a Siberian desert to the ten- 
 der plant reared under a warmer clime. 
 She determined therefore to have the en- 
 tire management of his early years ; and 
 his after life is evidence of her capability 
 and of the manner in which she dischar- 
 ged her duty. 
 
 He devoted himself assiduously to his 
 studies, and he mastered every branch and 
 overcame every difficulty with which he 
 grappled, in a way that showed him to be 
 possessed of a very high order of intellect. 
 So rapid was his progress, that at the 
 age of eight years he was fitted to enter 
 a boarding school at Tullamore. 
 
 Previous to entrusting him to the care
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 19 
 
 of strangers, his mother exerted herself to 
 fortify his piety by preparing him for his 
 first communion. He presented himself 
 at that holy table where he was to re- 
 ceive his Redeemer into his young heart, 
 with a piety so remarkable as to produce 
 an effect which they have never forgot- 
 ten, upon the older friends who witnessed 
 his reception of the sacrament. 
 
 Influenced then by his happiness, by the 
 love that burned in his soul, and in cor- 
 respondence with the graces vouchsafed 
 to him, he expressed his determination to 
 live henceforth for God alone, to enter 
 the holy order of the priesthood, and he 
 laid his talents with a self-denying humi- 
 lity at the foot of the cross, to be conse- 
 crated to Christ. 
 
 Immediately after having made his first 
 communion, he left home for Tullamore, 
 where he entered the Academy of Rev. 
 Mr. Deran, a retired Presbyterian clergy- 
 man, and one of the best classical scho- 
 lars in Ireland. Here he commenced his 
 classical and mathematical studies. After
 
 20 LIFE OF THE 
 
 remaining about two years with Mr. De- 
 ran, he entered the Academy of John and 
 Thomas Fitzgerald, kept in the same town. 
 In this school he completed his course of 
 study preparatory to entering the College 
 of Maynooth. With this purpose, in his 
 sixteenth year, he stood and passed in a 
 most satisfactory manner his public exa- 
 mination. But Providence had marked 
 out for him another destiny. 
 
 During the years that he thus spent 
 preparing himself for his collegiate course, 
 he was distinguished for the same tender 
 and exemplary piety that characterized him 
 when under the watchful care of his good 
 mother ; and so remarkable was his de- 
 meanour, that his companions styled him 
 the "little Bishop." Little thought they 
 that the day would come when the title 
 of his boyhood would be the distinction 
 of his manhood. The qualities of his heart 
 so endeared him to all his schoolmates, 
 that his power of doing good among them 
 was almost unbounded, and he used it to 
 the utmost, exhorting to virtue and reprov-
 
 RT.. REV. WM. QUARTER. 
 
 ing vice. His charity, even thus early in 
 life, was ever in search of objects, and when- 
 ever his parents furnished him with 
 pocket money, it was not hoarded up, nor 
 spent in youthful indulgences, but distri- 
 buted to the last farthing among the suf- 
 fering and the needy poor. He realized 
 often how sweet it is to give alms for 
 God's sake. 
 
 About the time that his preparations to 
 enter the college of Maynooth were com- 
 pleted, the Rev. Mr. McAuley, brother 
 of Count McAuley, of Frankford, Kings 
 Co., returned to Ireland from the United 
 States. This gentleman spent much of 
 his time at the house of the father of 
 young Quarter ; and often, as he spoke of 
 the condition of the Catholic missions in 
 America ; of the thousands of Catholic 
 children, that were growing up far away 
 from the teachers of their holy faith, and 
 in a land where Mammon was the wor- 
 shipped deity of the wandering away 
 from the one sheepfold of so many that 
 were sealed at the baptismal font as mem-
 
 22 
 
 LIFE OF THE 
 
 bersofthe one holy Church, and who were 
 thus lost for want of instructors and ex- 
 ample of the extent of the harvest and 
 the scarcity of the gleaners ; as he spoke 
 of all these, the young aspirant to the 
 ministry would listen to him till the tears 
 trembled on his eyelids, and with the hope 
 that God would call him to so important 
 a field. And to it, he did call him. 
 
 So great became his desire to forsake 
 all things for Christ, that the abandon- 
 ment of home and friends, even of his 
 dearly-loved mother, of the shamrock-co- 
 vered hills and green fields of his native 
 island, and the thousand memories that so 
 strongly influence the heart of youth, ere 
 the stern realities of life have petrified 
 it, seemed as nothing to him, in compa- 
 rison with the happiness of having saved 
 one soul from eternal perdition. Influen- 
 ced by the zeal that burned in his bosom, 
 he went to the Rt. Rev. Dr. Doyle, his 
 Bishop, and requested his exeat that he 
 might go whither the voice of his Father in 
 heaven called him ; and he did this, even
 
 RT. EEV. WM. aUARTER. 23 
 
 ' 
 
 before he had communicated to his pa- 
 rents his purpose. The good Bishop Doyle 
 was sorry to part with one whom he looked 
 upon as peculiarly his own, and likely 
 soon to be a very valuable labourer in his 
 vineyard ; an ornament to his diocese ; 
 still he could not but admire the courage 
 of the youth and his truly Christian spi- 
 rit, and he gave him his exeat and his 
 blessing. 
 
 What were the feelings of the family 
 of the young Quarter, when he announced 
 to them that he was about to start imme- 
 diately for America, is more easily ima- 
 gined than described. And it is only he 
 who has knelt to his parents and receiv- 
 ed their parting blessing, ere he has bid- 
 den adieu to the land of his birth, about 
 to go forth into the land of the stranger 
 for a home and a grave, that can tell what 
 must have been the thoughts of the young 
 exile. Still the remonstrances of friends 
 and relatives, and the strong ties of filial 
 affection, knocking at the chambers of his 
 heart, received no response : he had formed
 
 24 LIFE OF THE 
 
 his resolution. His parents felt that they 
 had no right to stand between him and 
 the service of his divine Master ; and when 
 he knelt by his mother's knee, where he 
 had first learned to lisp his infant pray- 
 ers, to receive her parting blessing, she 
 kissed his fair young brow, as she said to 
 him : " My son, I have given you to God ; 
 go whithersoever He calls you, and may 
 his and your mother's benediction ever 
 attend you !" Oh ! how often, amid the 
 checkered scenes of his life, did the re- 
 membrance of his mother's voice and bless- 
 ing, as she bade him go; of her kindness 
 and her care ; rise before and hover around 
 him, even as guardian angels, to shield 
 and to comfort him in the hours of trial 
 and of tribulation !
 
 RT. REV WM. QUARTER. 25 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FROM HIS DEPARTURE FOR AMERICA UNTIL HIS AP- 
 POINTMENT AS PASTOR OP ST. MARY's, CHURCH IN 
 NEW-YORK, 18221833. 
 
 On the 10th day of April, 1822, in the 
 sixteenth year of his age, William Quar*- 
 ter left his native land for North Ame- 
 rica. It is a singular coincidence, that, on 
 the very same day of the same month, 
 twenty-six years later, the period of his 
 earthly exile terminated. 
 
 The vessel in which he sailed landed at 
 Quebec. He presented himself to the Bishop 
 of that city, and asked to be received as 
 an ecclesiastical student: but his youth 
 was urged as an objection, and this objec- 
 tion he could not remove. He applied 
 next to the Bishop of Montreal, where 
 the same objection as to his youth was 
 urged against him. He then went to Mt. 
 St. Mary's College, Emmetsburg, Md., 
 where he applied to Rev. Mr. Dubois, the
 
 26 LIFE OP THE 
 
 President of the College, afterwards the 
 Bishop of New- York. Here the reason 
 that had caused his rejection in Canada, 
 operated in his favour, and with Rev. Mr. 
 Dubois his youth was his first and best 
 recommendation. That good clergyman, 
 an exile himself, received young Quarter 
 even as a father would a son ; and ever 
 afterwards through life there existed be- 
 tween them the reciprocal tenderness and 
 regard of a father for a son and of a son 
 for a father. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Dubois examined his young 
 pupil in the studies which he had been 
 pursuing, and finding that he was master 
 of them, placed him at once in the Semi- 
 nary, which he entered on the 8th day 
 of September. He chose this day as the 
 one on which to commence his prepara- 
 tion for the ecclesiastical state, because it 
 was a festival of her whom in his child- 
 hood he had chosen as his patroness. 
 
 So thorough had been his course of 
 mathematical and classical studies, and 
 so completely was he master of these
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 27 
 
 branches, that he was at once placed in 
 charge of the classes of Greek and Latin and 
 Algebra ; and in the second year of his resi- 
 dence at Mt. St. Mary's, he was appointed 
 Professor of the Greek and Latin languages. 
 As a proof of his piety, of his humility, 
 and of his veneration for the mysteries of 
 his holy faith at this period of his life, it 
 may not be improper to mention, that when 
 appointed sacristan, one year after having 
 entered the seminary, he prepared himself 
 for his duties by approaching the holy sa- 
 craments of penance and the Eucharist, and 
 he went on his bare knees from the door of 
 the church to the sanctuary, so unworthy 
 did he consider himself. It was with fear 
 and trembling that he placed his hand upon 
 the chalice which contained the consecrated 
 blood of Jesus Christ. Familiarity in his 
 long ministry did not diminish one iota of 
 this his early respect and veneration ; 
 and often has he warned those whom it 
 was his happiness to have exalted to the 
 holy ministry of the altar, that they should 
 beware and keep over themselves a constant
 
 28 LIFE OF THE 
 
 watch, lest familiarity might cause them to 
 forget for one moment a particle of that 
 respect due by them to the Holy Sacra- 
 ment. 
 
 The Sainted Brute, by whom he was 
 tenderly beloved, was his Professor of Philo- 
 sophy and Divinity. Mr. Quarter was a 
 pupil worthy his distinguished master ; and 
 the letters of that master, from which I 
 might quote were I not anxious that this 
 memoir should be as brief as possible, show 
 how high an estimate was placed upon his 
 character, his talents and his virtues, by a 
 man who knew well every avenue to the 
 human heart, and who could thread its 
 mazes with consummate skill. Even after 
 Mr. Quarter had been transplanted to an- 
 other field, the watchful care, the consoling 
 acc'ents of encouragement, and the sincere 
 expressions of commendation, were bestow- 
 ed by this good old man upon his absent 
 pupil, and were never forgotten by , him 
 who was the object of such solicitude. 
 
 " Among all the professors and students 
 he was highly esteemed for his clear mind,
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 29 
 
 sound judgment, gentle disposition, firm 
 friendship, and perfect devotion ;" and he 
 loved these with an affection so pure, that 
 amid all the changing scenes of his life, too 
 apt generally to engender forgetfulness, he 
 ceased not to remember them each and 
 every one ; and how his bright eye would 
 sparkle and his spirits become elated, when 
 he met with any child of that dear old 
 mountain, with whom he could converse of 
 the days that were past, and of the men 
 who had been called to other scenes on 
 earth, or away to a better world ; or with one 
 who could tell him of the progress and pros- 
 perity of that favourite institution, and the 
 tear would start unbidden to his eye, when 
 the new names that now filled the places 
 of those he loved so tenderly, were repeated, 
 calling up to his mind the truthfulness of 
 the observation, that we are but sojourners 
 on this earth, where all is change. 
 
 Often have I been seated with him for 
 hours, forgetting all else, while we spoke 
 of the men and things there of the little 
 
 church away up upon the mountain-side 
 3*
 
 30 LIFE OF THE 
 
 of the beautiful valley that stretched out in 
 front of it from the base of the Blue-ridge 
 and extended away as far as the eye could 
 reach of the graveyard and the friends of 
 his that lay mouldering there of the cot- 
 tage, and the garden, and the grotto, and 
 the ravine, bridged over by " Plunket's 
 folly" of the crystal fountain bubbling up 
 at the mountain's base, pure, sparkling, and 
 bright, and distributing its liquid treasures 
 of the old wooden college that has been 
 long since removed and replaced by the 
 tall stone one, with its majestic steeple, 
 with its cross above the clouds ; its terraces 
 and its trees, fringing their borders of the 
 hunting grounds, and the rabbit dens and 
 their trappers; of the little gardens of each 
 student's industry, nestled like birds' nests 
 amid the tall trees upon the mountain-side 
 of these and a thousand other topics that 
 may be readily imagined by any one who 
 has spent his college-years at Mt. St. 'Ma- 
 ry's. In this regard for the memories of 
 those years, we behold how unchangeable
 
 RT. REV. WM. aUARTER. 31 
 
 were his affections. Once your friend, he 
 was " a friend indeed." 
 
 On the 29th day of October, in the year 
 1826, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Dubois was con- 
 secrated Bishop of New- York. At his de- 
 parture from the institution which he had 
 founded, he took with him the exeat and 
 other papers committed to his keeping by 
 Mr. Quarter when he was received into 
 the Seminary. It was the intention of 
 Bishop Dubois to call him to his own 
 diocese as soon as the termination of his 
 course of theological studies had been 
 reached. He did call him ; and though the 
 then Archbishop of Baltimore exerted him- 
 self to detain him, and though the faculty 
 of the College made him splendid offers in 
 order to prevent his departure, and to se- 
 cure the continuance of his services to that 
 institution, he felt himself bound by the 
 ties of a stronger gratitude to his first 
 friend, and he cheerfully resigned the 
 honours that awaited his college-life for 
 the labours and privations of a mission 
 under his benefactor.
 
 32 LIFE OF THE 
 
 On the 14th of September, 1829, he left 
 the lovely retirement of his mountain-home, 
 where he had spent so many happy days, 
 for the noise and bustle of the great city of 
 New- York, which was to be the theatre of 
 his ministerial labours. " He reached New- 
 York on Wednesday evening, the 16th of 
 the same month, and on Thursday morning, 
 the 17th, he received at the hands of Bishop 
 Dubois the Clerical Tonsure, Minor Orders, 
 and Sub-deaconship ; on Friday morning, 
 the 18th, Deaconship ; and on Saturday 
 morning he was raised to the dignity of the 
 Priesthood." Being under 23 years of age 
 when he was ordained, the sacrament was 
 therefore conferred on him by dispensation. 
 
 On the day after this ordination, Bishop 
 Dubois started for Europe, leaving the 
 charge of his diocese to the very Rev. Dr. 
 Power, then Pastor of St. Peter's. As ad- 
 ministrator, Dr. Power took up his residence 
 in the Bishop's house, placing the Rev. Jas. 
 Smith in the pastoral charge of his own 
 church. The Rev. William Quarter was 
 appointed the assistant pastor of St. Peter's,
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER 33 
 
 receiving his clerical jurisdiction from the 
 Very Rev. Dr. Power. 
 
 In the year 1831 he determined to pay a 
 visit to his Alma Mater, Mt. St. Mary's. 
 Rev. Mr. Smith, being anxious that the 
 female portion of the children of his con- 
 gregation should be entrusted to the care 
 of the Sisters of Charity, Rev. Mr. Quarter 
 determined, on his arrival at Emmetsburg, 
 to propose to the Mother Superioress at St. 
 Joseph's, to send on to New- York three 
 sisters of the order who would take charge 
 of the female free-school attached to St. 
 Peter's Church. The proposition was fa- 
 vourably received, and in the month of 
 June of the same year, the three sisters 
 asked, took charge of the schools. Sister 
 Lucy Ignatius was the first sister servant. 
 
 The house first occupied by these ladies 
 was a miserably dilapidated frame build- 
 ing, directly opposite to the church, and on 
 the very spot probably where the splendid 
 mansion recently erected for the present 
 Rev. Clergy now stands. After the lapse 
 of a year, they were transferred from that
 
 34 LIFE OP THE 
 
 shattered building to another not much 
 better, which was on the same side with 
 the church itself, and which was the house 
 occupied previously by the clergymen of 
 the church. Here they lived, pursuing 
 their mission of love and mercy, until ne- 
 cessity compelled them to remove their 
 frame building and erect another in its 
 stead. After years of privation, they at last 
 succeeded in building their present splendid 
 and spacious house on the ground that was 
 sanctified by their early labours and suffer- 
 ings. 
 
 On Wednesday the 9th day of November, 
 in tolis year, the church of St. Mary in 
 Sheriff-street was burned to the ground. 
 The loss was a heavy one, " but steps were 
 immediately taken, (under the direction of 
 Rev. Luke Berry, the pastor of old St. Ma- 
 ry's,) by some active members of the con- 
 gregation, to secure a handsome site for a 
 new church." The lots selected and pur- 
 chased are those on the corner of Grand and 
 Ridge streets, upon which the present church 
 of St. Mary's stands.
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 35 
 
 The congregation had many, (and to a less 
 devoted and enterprising people) almost in- 
 surmountable difficulties to overcome, be- 
 fore they could again assemble under the 
 roof of a church they might call their own. 
 In one month and five days (Dec. 14th) after 
 the conflagration of St. Mary's, and before 
 they had recovered from that shock, a new 
 calamity befel the congregation in the death 
 of their beloved pastor. Thus the church 
 and the pastor, in the space of a few short 
 weeks, existed only in remembrance. Still, 
 though the shepherd was smitten, the sheep 
 were .not scattered. They laboured earnest- 
 ly in the erection of their new church, 
 and successfully, until that terrible scourge, 
 the cholera, broke out amongst them ; enter- 
 ing their habitations, their storehouses and 
 their workshops striking them down in 
 the thronged marts of business, or upon the 
 highway passing onward with its car of 
 destruction, and crushing beneath its wheels 
 the rich and the poor, the just and the un- 
 just desolating cities, and making charnel- 
 houses of the populous habitations of men.
 
 36 LIFE OF THE 
 
 The building advanced slowly during these 
 days of affliction, of wo, of misery, and of 
 death : for as the city was comparatively 
 desolated, no means could be collected. At 
 length, however, a brighter day dawned : 
 the dark cloud that hovered so long over 
 the devoted city was dispelled, and the 
 energies of the congregation were again 
 aroused to complete the work. 
 
 During this period of time when the 
 cholera was in New- York, Rev. Wm. 
 Quarter was still assistant pastor at St. 
 Peter's, and here it was that the generous 
 self-devotion of this truly Christian mission- 
 ary shone conspicuous, and left for him a 
 name and a fame that will not be forgotten 
 in that city while the visitation of the cho- 
 lera is remembered. From the time of its 
 commencement until its termination he was 
 always at his post. Day and night he la- 
 boured constantly and unceasingly, well 
 satisfied if he could snatch but three hours' 
 repose from the twenty-four. If you 
 sought for him, you would find him now 
 in the humble habitation of poverty,
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 37 
 
 again in the mansions of wealth every 
 place where duty called him. Yes, there 
 he was, amid pestilence and death, holding 
 the cup of refreshment to the parched lips 
 of the sufferer, when the nearest and the 
 dearest had forsaken him ; " wiping away 
 the clammy sweat from his sunken brow, 
 fixing the dimmed eye on the sign of salva- 
 tion, and turning its expiring glance to 
 heaven ;" or fortifying the departing spirit 
 for its gloomy passage through the gates of 
 death, with the last sacraments of that 
 Church, whose faith fortified his heart and 
 strengthened him, encouraging him onward 
 in the path of his hard duty, inspiring him 
 with a bravery far greater than was ever 
 exhibited by warrior on any battle-field. 
 Truly has it been said, that the enthusiasm 
 of genius has made poets and orators ; the 
 enthusiasm of glory, conquerors ; but the 
 enthusiasm of charity inspires the humble 
 ministers of the faith taught to the fisher- 
 men of charity, which is their morning 
 and evening sacrifice, which is the labour 
 
 and happiness of their entire lives. 
 4
 
 >0 LIFE OF THE 
 
 Besides devoting himself to the victims 
 of disease, he gathered together the children 
 of the dead members of his flock to the 
 number of about sixty, and placing them 
 under the charge of the Sisters of Charity, 
 freely gave all the means he possessed for 
 their support. . O ! how many blessings 
 would not the pure prayers of these little 
 innocents, rescued from starvation and 
 death, or from a fate worse than death, 
 which might have overtaken them had 
 they been cast out upon a wicked world ; 
 how many blessings would not the prayers 
 of these, I say, call down upon the head of 
 him who was indeed their benefactor ! He 
 obtained for his purpose a house from Cor- 
 nelius Heaney, Esq., to whom the orphans 
 of New- York owe very much, and who 
 afterwards gave the same house to the 
 Sisters of Charity, for the benefit of the 
 fatherless. Here, guarded by a watchful 
 care, they were fed and clothed until the 
 time when they could safely take their 
 places in the busy world. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Quarter resided, during this
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 39 
 
 period of his missionary career, in the house 
 of Mr. Snowden, the publisher of the Courier 
 and Enquirer. The great attention of this 
 young ecclesiastic to the people of his flock, 
 the heroic self-devotion, and the sacrifices 
 he underwent during those days " that tried 
 men's souls," produced so great an impres- 
 sion upon the minds of the lady and family 
 of this gentleman, that she with her three 
 daughters and two sons embraced the faith 
 that taught such heroism for God's sake. 
 Often, during the period of that fearful 
 visitation, did she herself sit and watch 
 while the worn-out priest was resting his 
 exhausted frame, so that she might give 
 him notice of the calls upon him.
 
 40 LIFE OP THE 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HIS MISSIONARY LABOURS AT ST. MARY'S IN NEW YORK, 
 
 18331844. 
 
 The storm that had paralyzed the ener- 
 gies of the congregation of St. Mary's had 
 passed by, and their church was completed. 
 It was dedicated on the 9th of June, in the 
 year 1833, by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Dubois. At 
 the close of the service, the Bishop announ- 
 ced to the people that Rev. Win. Quarter 
 was appointed by him Pastor of the new 
 church of Saint Mary's. 
 
 He continued the pastor of this church 
 until his consecration for the see of Chicago. 
 Mr. Quarter entered at once upon his duties 
 with all the ardour of his nature, and with 
 a view to labour fervently and sincerely for 
 the good of the flock committed to his 
 c&re ; so that when called to give an 
 account of his stewardship, his Master 
 might be satisfied with him. He set him- 
 self at once to work, in order to remedy the 
 evils that existed among the people of his
 
 RT. REV. WM. aUARTER. 41 
 
 new charge. The youths of the congrega- 
 tion were scattered, and he observed with 
 grief and affliction that they could not be 
 collected for the purpose of receiving re- 
 ligious instructions on Sundays. 
 
 " He had already the experience of the 
 salutary influence exercised over the female 
 youth of the congregation of St. Peter's 
 Church by the Sisters of Charity, and he was 
 resolved, if possible, to obtain them at St. 
 Mary's. The church was as yet, however, 
 struggling and much embarrassed, and he 
 knew not how he could obtain his object." 
 On consultation with the trustees, though 
 they did not oppose him, yet they advised 
 him to lay aside his purpose until some 
 future day, since the expenses thus neces- 
 sarily to be added would be beyond their 
 means. 
 
 Bishop Dubois, whom hr consulted re- 
 specting the introduction of the Sisters, ad- 
 vised the same course, owing to the obser- 
 vations of the trustees with respect to their 
 straitened circumstances. But when did 
 
 ordinary difficulties or obstructions deter 
 
 4*
 
 42 LIFE OF THE 
 
 Rev. William Quarter from undertaking 
 and accomplishing anything, if he saw 
 clearly that it was for the advancement of 
 the holy cause to which he had consecrated 
 his life ? Difficulties that would affright 
 ordinary men only stimulated him to more 
 energetic action. When any measure was 
 for the benefit of religion, he fearlessly 
 undertook it, confident that God would 
 watch over and favour the issue. In this 
 matter, the conviction that his present pur- 
 pose must be accomplished at his own risk, 
 did not deter him ; but he with that spirit of 
 self-sacrifice which ever characterized him, 
 resolved to make the experiment even at 
 that risk. With the consent of his Bishop, 
 he therefore commenced on his own respon- 
 sibility a correspondence with the Mother 
 Superior of the Sisters of Chanty at Em- 
 metsburg, the result of which was, that on 
 the first of September, 1833, three of the 
 ladies of this community arrived in New- 
 York to take charge of the free-school of St. 
 Mary's. They were Sister Eugene, Sister 
 Servant ; Sister Mary, and Sister Pelagia.
 
 RT* REV. WM. QUARTER. 43 
 
 On the arrival of the Sisters, a school was 
 immediately opened. The more respect- 
 able Catholics of this and other portions of 
 the city encouraged it by sending their 
 daughters. In addition to the small salary 
 thus afforded, the Sisters were allowed to 
 receive a few scholars, boarders, whose 
 pensions would enable them to defray cur- 
 rent expenses. Many difficulties (as was 
 anticipated) presented themselves, and it 
 required all the skill and management of 
 Mr. Quarter to be exerted, ere his under- 
 taking ceased to be a serious burden upon 
 him ; still that burden was cheerfully borne, 
 until at last his perseverance triumphed. 
 
 He then directed the Sisters to throw the 
 school under the church open to all ; mak- 
 ing it free for the poorest children of his 
 little flock, and to establish a select school 
 in their own house. This plan succeeded 
 admirably. The free schools were fre- 
 quented by a large number of pupils : there 
 came daily at first about one hundred pupils, 
 which number was soon increased to about 
 five hundred. The number of the pupils in
 
 t+ LIFE OP THE 
 
 the select school averaged from seventy to 
 eighty, and sometimes it reached one hun- 
 dred. He had thus, in a comparatively brief 
 space of time, the gratification of witness- 
 ing success crown his efforts. 
 
 * What an appearance did these schools 
 now present ! How different from what 
 they were a few months before the Sisters 
 of Charity arrived ! Then were male and 
 female teacher engaged in the same room, 
 instructing a few squalid and dirty-looking 
 children, boys and girls mixing indiscrimi- 
 nately. Now the pupils under the charge 
 of the Sisters presented a different appear- 
 ance : they were orderly and decorous in 
 their behaviour, and they were the elements 
 of the future congregation of St. Mary's, 
 promising to grow up in virtue, and being 
 early instructed in sound religious prin- 
 ciples." 
 
 When the church of St. Mary's had sur- 
 mounted most of her pecuniary difficulties, 
 the trustees added their efforts to those of 
 their zealous pastor, in order to secure a 
 residence of their own for the Sisters of
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 45 
 
 Charity. The house which they then occu- 
 pied. No. 447 Grand-street, was purchased 
 for them. 
 
 Thus to the enterprise and perseverance 
 of Rev. William Quarter are the congrega- 
 tion of St. Mary's indebted for the intro- 
 duction among them of the humble daugh- 
 ters of Saint Vincent, and for the manifold 
 and incalculable blessings that follow 
 thence to them and to their children, and 
 to their children's children. Well indeed 
 may they consider him their benefactor. 
 He was the benefactor not of the Catholics 
 of St. Mary's only, but of the whole city 
 of the poor and the orphan ; for he was 
 instrumental in establishing the first colony 
 of the Sisters of Charity at St. Peter's also. 
 The benefits resulting to the Catholics 
 and to the city, may be estimated in some 
 measure, when it is remembered that the 
 child is father of the man that men are 
 but children of larger growth ; and that as 
 we would have the character of the man, 
 so must we have the character of the child. 
 This truth, which the experience of ages
 
 46 LIFE OF THE 
 
 confirms which is written on temples and 
 palaces, on upturned altars and ruined 
 shrines on all the monuments of the earth 
 in letters of blood upon every page of the 
 history of man is so familiar, that it ceases 
 to command our attention. 
 
 " The Pastor of St. Mary's Church, anx- 
 ious for the spiritual advancement of the 
 congregation committed to his charge, 
 thought it advisable, as soon as convenient, 
 to establish confraternities and pious sodal- 
 ities of the Rosary and the Scapular. 
 When the members of a congregation are 
 attached to some religious society or con- 
 fraternity, they are more likely to attend 
 to their religious obligations. They find 
 occupation in prayer on Sundays and festi- 
 vals, and other leisure hours ; whereas if 
 they were not attached to such societies, 
 much of their time might be wasted in vice 
 and dissipation, in slander and calumny, 
 especially on those days when their worldly 
 occupations do not claim their attention, 
 and when, forgetting that the greater part 
 of these days should be spent in the service
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 47 
 
 of God, they seem to think they can idle 
 them away or spend them in frivolous 
 amusements or in sin. The poor especially 
 experience much consolation in attaching 
 themselves to any pious sodality or confra- 
 ternity : while the rich seldom attach them- 
 selves to these associations. The least 
 sacrifice of ease or of pleasure seems too 
 much for them, and hence it is that their 
 souls grow cold in devotion ; the sacra- 
 ments even THAT the Church commands 
 them to approach at least once a year, 
 they neglect, and they seem to disregard 
 the penalties due their non-compliance. 
 
 What a contrast the rich who do not, 
 and the poor who do, attach themselves 
 to these sodalities, present in the church on 
 Sunday ! In the morning early the poor 
 are devoutly there preparing to feed their 
 souls on the rich banquet of the Body 
 and Blood of Jesus Christ. The rich have 
 not as yet raised their heads from off their 
 soft pillows. At the last mass, the poor 
 are there fasting, up to the hour of mid- 
 day, and then too happy if they be per-
 
 48 LIFE OF THE 
 
 mitted to approach the table of their Lord. 
 They press through the dense mass of peo- 
 ple, and prostrate themselves before the 
 altar, their souls filled with devotion and 
 inflamed with divine love. The rich sit 
 in their pews and look coldly and indiffer- 
 ently on them, and appear like strangers 
 in the house of their Lord and Master : 
 they have no regard for the spiritual fa- 
 vours and heavenly blessings, gifts and 
 graces which God would bestow on them, 
 were they faithful. 
 
 At vespers, the poor are again in the house 
 of God. The seats of the rich are empty. 
 The psalm of praise and the canticle of joy 
 is being sung ; the rich join not in the cho- 
 rus ; the sacred melody has no charm for 
 their ears ; and they sit, if there at all, gazing 
 idly, or perhaps ridiculing those simple, pi- 
 ous souls that are engaged in the praises of 
 their God. Not now even are the poor tired 
 of their devotions. Again they assemble 
 in the evening, to close the day with prayer, 
 to read pious books, and to recite the Ro- 
 sary. Thus it is that the members of the
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 49 
 
 several religious societies now established 
 at St. Mary's, spend the Sunday." 
 
 These lines, written by Bishop Quarter 
 himself, when pastor of the congregation of 
 which he speaks, proves, that though " he 
 found the parish overrun with vice," it did 
 not continue long so under his zealous and 
 watchful care : but it became, for its devo- 
 tion and for its piety, an example to the whole 
 city. They exhibit also to us evidences of 
 the regard in which he held the mother of 
 God, in the efforts made to establish sodal- 
 ities in her honour. And that the same 
 tender regard for her was entertained by 
 him to the end of his life, is evidenced in his 
 last Pastoral Letter, written but a short time 
 before his death. When speaking of the 
 adoption of " the Blessed Virgin Mary, con- 
 ceived without sin," as the Patroness of 
 the American Church, he says : 
 
 " We Catholics are not ashamed to honour the mo- 
 ther of our Redeemer, who is also our mother ; we 
 hesitate not to ask her intercession and her prayers 
 on our behalf with her divine Son, knowing that they 
 will be efficacious, if the fault be not our own. Jesus 
 honoured the Blessed Virgin Mary in choosing her for 
 5
 
 50 LIFE OF THE 
 
 his mother and shall Christians not honour her like- 
 wise "? She has been selected by God to give birth 
 to the Saviour and the Redeemer and shall we be un- 
 mindful of the glorious prerogative ] The angel of 
 God prophesied that all generations should call Mary 
 blessed and shall it not be our glory to contribute as 
 far as we can to the fulfilment of this angelic pro- 
 phecy 1 ? 
 
 " Our attachment to the Blessed Virgin is no ways 
 destructive of, or prejudicial to our firm belief in Christ, 
 but rather an encouragement to it because it is 
 grounded on her prerogatives, which derive all their 
 lustre from Christ, and are only as it were a reflection 
 of the glory of the Son to the mother. It is in conse- 
 quence of our steadfast belief in the divinity of Christ, 
 that we respect and honour the Blessed Virgin, who 
 subministered to him her flesh in the accomplishment 
 of the mystery of the Incarnation as mother of God, 
 and that we suppose her to have been favoured 
 with additional accumulation of graces to fit her 
 for the sublime station to which she had been elect- 
 ed. The Son is therefore the fundamental cause of 
 all her privileges, and the immediate object of our 
 veneration ; and we do not pretend to honour the 
 mother but with reference to the Son, and in him. 
 " There is no question," says St. Jerome, " but 
 whatsoever praise is given to the mother, it all re- 
 dounds to the Son." Our devotion then to the B. 
 V. contributes to strengthen our faith in Christ be- 
 cause upon the one the other has an essential de- 
 pendence. 
 
 " Let the Sodalities and Societies, in honour of 
 the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, already
 
 RT. REV. WM. aUARTER. 51 
 
 established in many of the churches and congrega- 
 tions of this diocese, renew their fervour, and en- 
 deavour to increase their numbers. If they are the 
 devout clients of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, they 
 will be beloved by her divine Son. Who is devout 
 to Mary, who has not a supreme love and a su- 
 preme devotion for Jesus, the Eternal Word ? Who 
 despises the mother that can still love the Son?" 
 
 His whole missionary career in New- York 
 was marked by the same zealous efforts to 
 promote the welfare of his people, and by 
 his unceasing labours in the faithful dis- 
 charge of all his duties ; and he was always 
 ready to respond to any call, even without 
 the sphere of his duties, when that call was 
 for the promotion of the honour and glory 
 of God. 
 
 Among the most brilliant results of his 
 teachings in St. Mary's, was the conversion 
 of the Rev. John James Maximilian Oertel, 
 a Lutheran minister of New- York city. 
 This gentleman was the son of Professor 
 Oertel, M. D., of Ansbach, in Bavaria. He 
 studied theology in the University of Erlang. 
 "After a course of five years' studies in this 
 University, he was examined for holy orders, 
 and was soon ordained a minister of the
 
 52 LIFE OF THE 
 
 Evangelical Lutheran Church. Being in- 
 vited by the Evangelical Missionary Society 
 of Barmen, in Prussia, to preach the Gospel 
 to German protestants of the United States," 
 he accepted the invitation and departed for 
 New- York, whither he arrived in the year 
 1837. 
 
 To use the words of Rev. Mr. Oertel him- 
 self : " I was a zealous preacher of the Lu- 
 theran doctrines; for I believed that the 
 Lutheran Church alone was the true Church 
 of Christ." Again he says : "Influenced by 
 the prejudices of my education at the Uni- 
 versity, I believed that the Lutheran doc- 
 trine was the same as that taught by the 
 fathers of the preceding ages ; I believed 
 that Luther's doctrine was the same as that 
 which Christ taught to his apostles, and 
 which they delivered to their successors. 
 ********! believed that I had learned 
 the sound doctrine, and that I had the true 
 belief. I believed, in a word, that I was a 
 member of the Holy Catholic Church, and 
 I clung to the thought with the fondness 
 of a child for its mother."
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 53 
 
 He looked upon the holy fathers of the 
 early ages of the Church, St. Ambrose, St. 
 Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Bernard, 
 &c., as the witnesses best entitled to be 
 believed with respect to what were the 
 teachings and the practices of the early 
 Church, and no doubt ever harassed his 
 mind, that the doctrine taught by these 
 holy fathers was the same as that preach- 
 ed by himself. 
 
 What then must have been the disap- 
 pointment of a man who clung thus ar- 
 dently to the teachings of the fathers, to 
 find here in this country, on his arrival, 
 these teachings disregarded ; to witness 
 the indifference, the lukewarmness and 
 the infidelity of those who professed to 
 be the ministers and the followers of the 
 great (?) Reformer ! 
 
 Chagrined and in sorrow at the want 
 of unity in doctrine among the teachers 
 of the protestant belief, with whom he as- 
 sociated in New- York, he resolved to visit 
 Missouri, where the Lutheran Bishop, Dr. 
 
 Stephan, resided. He expected to find in 
 
 5*
 
 54 LIFE OF THE 
 
 him a true professor of the belief taught 
 to himself on the other side of the Atlantic. 
 But he was disappointed. Bishop Stephan 
 believed, as he often told him, " that the Lu- 
 theran Church is extinct, not only in Germany, 
 but throughout all Europe." How soon did 
 Mr. Oertel find this so ! How soon did he 
 realize the truth of the charge, that " there 
 are not three professors of Theology in Ger- 
 many, who consent to or agree with the old 
 Lutheran doctrines as laid down in the Lu- 
 theran symbolical books !" 
 
 In this condition of things, it was no won- 
 der that serious doubts began to disturb his 
 mind, and that anxiety succeeded to doubt ; 
 that the little bark, in which his faith had 
 hitherto quietly sailed, began to be tossed by 
 the tempest, and that he began to direct 
 his mind to the applying of those marks by 
 which only the true Church of Christ is to 
 be recognised. 
 
 It would be out of place here to follow 
 him through the arguments he advances in 
 the course of his inquiry : suffice it to say, 
 that in laying down the marks of the true
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 55 
 
 Church ; her Unity, her Sanctity, her Ca- 
 tholicity and her Apostolicity, as the only 
 means whereby she could be tested, he found 
 that his Lutheran Church could claim no 
 inheritance of the faith of the early Church, 
 and that, therefore, as these marks would 
 not apply to her, she was not the true Church. 
 Arrived at this point of his inquiry, he 
 was tossed like a vessel 
 
 " On a sea of dreams, 
 
 Her helm of reason lost ;" 
 
 and for a time he balanced between Chris- 
 tianity and infidelity, between hope and 
 despair ! 
 
 " Oh, it would be difficult to describe,'? 
 says he, " my feelings at the eventful mo- 
 ment when I became convinced that I was 
 not a member of the true Church. Could 
 I have persuaded myself that it was only a 
 dream, and that the illusion would pass 
 away as soon as I awoke, what a consola- 
 tion would it have been to my agitated 
 mind, and to my bleeding soul ! But I could 
 not do so. The vizard was now lifted, and 
 1 shuddered at the sight of what it had so
 
 56 LIFE OF THE 
 
 carefully concealed from my view." Oer- 
 tel's Reasons for becoming a Catholic, p. 24. 
 
 It was at this time that accident made 
 him acquainted with the pastor of St.Mary's, 
 Rev. Wm. Quarter ; and the kind, affable 
 and gentlemanly manners of this zealous 
 priest so captivated Mr. Oertel, that he 
 opened to him his heart. " Rev. Mr. Quar- 
 ter cheerfully extended his hand," says 
 he, " to support my weakness, and gave 
 his advice to cheer my mind." He fur- 
 nished him with works which explained 
 correctly the Catholic doctrines and prac- 
 tices, and he elucidated whatever might 
 seem obscure. Mr. Oertel was a finished 
 scholar, and an excellent theologian, and 
 was the very man able to detect an er- 
 ror in the instructions thus imparted to 
 him, if one existed. He had already de- 
 tected the errors in his former belief, and 
 was now the more alive to the possi- 
 bility of deceptions, particularly in the 
 teachings of a Church upon which he had 
 hitherto looked with aversion. 
 
 But he applied to this Church the marks
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 57 
 
 by which he knew that her claims to au- 
 thority were to. be tested. The mark of 
 unity could be applied to her for " all her 
 members agree in one faith, are all in one 
 communion, and are all under one head." 
 The mark of sanctity could be applied to 
 her : for " she teaches a holy doctrine, in- 
 vites all to a holy life, and is distinguished by 
 the eminent sanctity of so many thousands 
 of her children." The mark of Catholicity 
 could be applied to her : for " she teaches 
 all nations, extends through all ages, and 
 maintains all truth." The mark of Aposto- 
 licity applies to her : " because from the 
 apostles has she received her doctrine, her 
 orders, and her mission." 
 
 Yes, he found that to that Church, which 
 was ever the same ; which though king- 
 doms and empires, and states and people, 
 have risen up and faded away, was herself 
 unchangeable ; which teaches now the same 
 doctrine taught by her divine Founder on the 
 shores of the sea of Galilee, and which she 
 will teach until the end of time ; that to 
 that Church only would these marks apply ;
 
 58 LIFE OF THE 
 
 and, resting his fevered temples upon that 
 holy mother's bosom, beneath which throb- 
 bed the fountain of a vitality, as enduring 
 as the word of God, he wept for very joy, 
 that he had at last found the secure haven, 
 wherein he could anchor the frail bark of 
 his mortality, regardless of the storms that 
 might howl and the waves that might dash 
 against her with their broken fury, until 
 the coming of the bright day, when he might 
 plant his ransomed feet upon the shores of 
 that land which is within the walls of the 
 heavenly paradise. 
 
 Mr. Oertel is still living in the city of 
 Baltimore, where he edits a Catholic Ger- 
 man newspaper. Dear to him must be 
 the memory of Bishop Quarter, through 
 whose instrumentality, under God, he be- 
 came reconciled to that Church, which en- 
 sures him the prospect of meeting again his 
 earthly mediator in heaven.
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 59 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FROM HIS CONSECRATION FOR THE SEE OF CHICAGO 
 UNTIL THE END OF THE FIRST YEAR OF HIS EPISCO- 
 PAL LABOURS, 1844 1845. 
 
 The Provincial Council that assembled 
 in Baltimore in May, 1843, finding that from 
 the very great spread of the Catholic Church 
 several additional Bishops were necessary, 
 passed a decree recommending the forma- 
 tion of the New Sees of Chicago, Illinois ; 
 Little Rock, Arkansas ; Hartford, Connecti- 
 cut ; and Milwaukie, Wisconsin ; and the 
 Apostolic Vicarate of Oregon Territory. 
 The recommendation of this Council was 
 immediately acted upon by the court of 
 Rome : and accordingly, in the February of 
 the following year (1844), the Apostolic 
 letters for the consecration of the three 
 new Bishops, who were to be taken from 
 New- York, arrived in that city ; and on the 
 10th of March, 1844, these gentlemen were 
 consecrated in St. Patrick's Cathedral, by 
 the Rt. Rev. Dr. John Hughes, Bishop of
 
 60 LIFE OF THE 
 
 New- York, assisted by the Rt. Rev. Dr. 
 Fen wick, Bishop of Boston, and Rt. Rev. 
 Dr. Whelan, Bishop of Richmond. The 
 new Bishops were : Rt. Rev. Wm. Quarter, 
 for the Diocese of Chicago ; Rt. Rev. Andrew 
 Byrne, for the Diocese of Little Rock ; and 
 Rt. Rev. John McCloskey, now Bishop of 
 Albany, Coadjutor Bishop of New- York. 
 The ceremony of the consecration was pro* 
 bably one of the most magnificent specta- 
 cles ever witnessed by the Catholics of the 
 empire city. The Freeman's Journal thus 
 describes it : 
 
 " At half past nine o'clock precisely, the sacred 
 procession left the sacristy, and passing along the 
 raised dais outside the sanctuary, entered in front 
 of the great altar. First went the Acolytes, Thu- 
 rifer, and the Seminarians of St. John's, followed 
 by several clergymen of New- York, Brooklyn, Jer- 
 sey City, and other parts of the diocese, with a few 
 from Emmetshurg College ; next were the Senior 
 Assistant Bishop with his chaplain and attendant ; 
 the three Bishops elect Right Rev. ANDREW BYRNE, 
 Right Rev. WILLIAM QUARTER, and Right Rev. 
 JOHN MCCLOSKEY, with their chaplains and atten- 
 dants ; the other Assistant Bishop, with his chaplain 
 and attendant; then the Master of Ceremonies, the 
 Deacon and Sub-Deacon, Assistant Priest, and othei
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 61 
 
 attendants of the consecrator ; the procession being 
 closed by the consecrator, the Right Rev. Bishop 
 of New- York. The clergy were in their chasubles 
 or thoir surplices ; the Bishop elect in amict. alb. 
 cincture, stole and cope, and wearing the small cap 
 common to the clergy ; the Assistant Bishops in ro- 
 chets, stoles, copes and mitres, and the consecra- 
 tor in full pontificals rochet, stole, cope, mitre, 
 crozier, &c. The vestments of the consecrator and 
 his attendants were of the richest description, and 
 literally dazzled the eye. The mitres and copes of 
 the Assistant Bishops were also distinguished for 
 their beauty, as was the case with the vestments of 
 the clergy generally. As the procession moved 
 slowly forward, its numbers, splendour, and magni- 
 ficence of array chasubles and copes and mitres 
 glittering in the light presented a brilliant and im- 
 posing spectacle. 
 
 " Many of the clergy and seminarians (the latter 
 particularly) had not room in the sanctuary, and 
 were in attendance in the sacristy, with or without 
 their cassocks. Altogether, the number of clergy 
 and seminarians present during the day could not 
 have been far from seventy ; and to the Catholic 
 heart it must have been not the least consoling of 
 the many reflections suggested by the occasion, 
 that from the immediate neighbourhood of this one 
 city, so many ecclesiastics and religious could be 
 assembled, and without withdrawing from a single 
 congregation the opportunities of divine service in 
 their own church. Surely such an abundance of 
 labourers promises well for the gathering in of the 
 harvest in this great diocese ! God grant it ! say we. 
 6
 
 62 LIFE OF THE 
 
 " The ceremony then proceeded, as described with 
 considerable minuteness in this paper last week, un- 
 til the end of the Gospel, where the Preacher of 
 the Consecration Sermon, the Very Rev. JOHN POW- 
 ER, D. D., having given the usual salutation to 
 the Consecrator, ascended the pulpit and commen- 
 ced his discourse. 
 
 " At Vespers in the evening, the church was al- 
 most as densely crowded as in the morning. The 
 discourse was delivered by the Rev. Dr. Pise. Five 
 of the Bishops and most of the clergy were present ; 
 and as they sat in the Sanctuary, the Pontificals of 
 the Bishops and the Vestments of the Priests shin- 
 ing in the lights which burned around, the observe* 
 recalled involuntarily what the historians of the 
 time tell of the magnificence of the famous " Field 
 of the Cloth of Gold." The Vespers were over at 
 about half past nine, P. M. 
 
 " Thus passed and terminated a day, which, in 
 no spirit of vain words we say, will be not only 
 long memorable in this diocese, but will be remark- 
 able in the annals of Catholicism in the United 
 States ; remarkable that it witnessed a ceremony 
 without parallel for splendour and importance in this 
 country, the .Consecration of three Bishops, two of 
 them for new Sees ; remarkable, that it assembled 
 more of the worth and dignity of our American 
 Church than has ever before been brought together, 
 except at the grand Councils of the entire Province, 
 six Bishops and nearly fifty Priests ; remarkable, 
 also, in a higher sense, that it was a day significant 
 of past progress and future promise, speaking to 
 the Catholic heart with silent but thrilling eloquence
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 63 
 
 of great triumphs achieved, and of those still great- 
 er, GOD willing, yet to be accomplished : and re- 
 calling to it irresistibly the consoling conviction 
 that the Promise of the New Covenant is eternal 
 with the Church, and that those spiritual princes 
 whom she on that day sent forth, went of a surety 
 " CONQUERING AND TO CONQUER ;" remarkable, in 
 fine, that it was a day which, long years hence 
 when those who performed and those who received 
 the august rite, and those who looked on breath- 
 less with awe at the mystery before them, shall 
 have passed away, and save a few, been all forgot- 
 ten when, as we trust in God it will be, the mists of 
 error now darkening our well-loved land shall have 
 disappeared before the ascending Sun of Righteous- 
 ness, and His Church shall have won over to her 
 sway of love all the tongues and races within the 
 republic, so that from the Atlantic to the Missis- 
 sippi, and from the Mississippi to the Pacific shore, 
 there shall be but one faith for one nation of free, 
 enlightened and happy Americans a day which 
 then the Catholic historian will love to dwell upon 
 with delight, and record upon his glowing page, as 
 the advent of one of the many bright eras which 
 (please GOD) will illustrate the history of the Church 
 of CHRIST in the New World." 
 
 Hard must have been the struggle 
 to the sensitive, Bishop Quarter, when oblig- 
 ed to tear himself away from his faithful 
 flock of St. Mary's, who had woven them- 
 selves around his heart, by whom he was
 
 64 LIFE OF THE 
 
 so tenderly beloved, and among whom he 
 had laboured so long, and so successfully. 
 Though his good father, Bishop Dubois, 
 was gone to the bosom of his God, yet 
 from his successor in the episcopal chair 
 of New- York, Rt. Rev. Dr. Hughes, (a scion 
 from that noble tree that Bishop Dubois 
 planted at the foot of the Blue Ridge) 
 it cost his heart a pang to separate. Still 
 duty, and the honour and glory of God, 
 bade him forsake all things for Christ's sake, 
 and go again among the strangers for his 
 resting place. 
 
 He was anxious to enter without delay 
 upon the field of his labours, where 
 the harvest was fast ripening, and lest 
 one ear might drop, or be lost from neg- 
 lect. Accordingly, on the 18th of April, 
 accompanied by his brother, Very Rev. 
 Walter J. Quarter, he departed from New- 
 York for Chicago, where he arrived on Sun- 
 day morning, May the 5th. Though fa- 
 tigued and weary from his long and very 
 tedious journey, like a general on the
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 65 
 
 field of battle, he was at once at his post, 
 and no personal considerations could induce 
 this faithful servant of God to neglect for 
 a moment his duty. On the day of his 
 arrival, he said mass in the old church 
 and preached in the new one. 
 
 The old church was a long low frame 
 building, having upon it a small steeple 
 and bell. It was on the lot directly in the 
 rear of the Bishop's dwelling. This build- 
 ing has been since divided : one half being 
 used as the Academy of St. Joseph, the 
 preparatory department of the University 
 of St. Mary of the Lake. The other half 
 was removed to the rear of the new church, 
 to be used by the Sisters, of Mercy for their 
 free school. 
 
 The new church, then unfinished, is the 
 present cathedral. At that time the brick 
 walls of the church were merely roofed, and 
 ' four posts stood upright where the steeple 
 now stands. " The building was not plas- 
 tered ; a temporary altar was stuck up 
 
 against the western wall. There was no 
 6*
 
 66 LIFE OF THE 
 
 vestry ; the sanctuary was enclosed with 
 rough boards ; the children were seated on 
 benches, on each side, where the vestries 
 are now. There were neither columns, 
 nor steps, nor doors, (except temporary ones 
 made of rough boards ;) and worse than all, 
 even that much of a church was burdened 
 with about three thousand dollars of debt. 
 Add to this, that on the adjoining lot, where 
 the Convent of Mercy now stands, the whole 
 purchase-money, about 1000 dollars, was 
 unpaid, as also four hundred dollars on the 
 grave-yard. Thus there was near five 
 thousand dollars debt contracted by his 
 predecessors, and some of this debt bear- 
 ing interest at from 10 to 12 per cent.," was 
 left as a legacy to the new Bishop of Chi- 
 cago ! With an unfinished church, and a 
 poor congregation, and such a debt, what a 
 prospect had he ! Dark and dreary enough 
 it must have been, but there was before him 
 a bright star, beckoning him and alluring 
 him onward ; and with his eye steadily fix- 
 ed on that hope-star, he faltered not.
 
 RT. REV. WM. aUARTER. 67 
 
 Such was the condition of the church of 
 Chicago, when Bishop Quarter took posses- 
 sion of his see. How different was the state 
 of affairs, that day on which he stood for the 
 last time in the pulpit of his beautiful 
 church, when the mellow tones of the mag- 
 nificent organ were re-echoed by the lofty 
 domes and the spacious aisles, filling all the 
 hearts that came there to treasure up his 
 burning words with hopes of the enjoy- 
 ment of heavenlier strains, when the choirs 
 above will take up the chant, intoned be- 
 low, and continue it forever around the 
 throne of the Invisible. 
 
 He considered it impossible that the con- 
 gregation of St. Mary's in Chicago could at 
 that time pay the debt upon, and finish 
 their church, and therefore he and his brother 
 having united their funds, paid it with their 
 own private means. His generous-hearted 
 flock followed this noble example. The 
 city was divided into districts ; proper col- 
 lectors were appointed ; and so-harmoniously 
 and suscessfully did they labour, that in about 
 a year they had the happiness of kneeling
 
 68 LIFE OF THE 
 
 before the new altar in their finished church, 
 whose glittering spire and golden cross re- 
 flect the first rays of the morning sun, as 
 it rises out of the bosom of the broad and 
 beautiful lake Michigan. 
 
 This was the first, and at that time the 
 only steeple in Chicago ; and its cross, the 
 emblem of man's salvation, perched upon 
 the summit of that steeple, is the first object 
 that presents itself to the traveller approach- 
 ing the harbour from the lakes, or far away 
 upon the prairie, as his eye rests upon the 
 " city of the plain." But it is no longer the 
 only one : for several beautiful steeples and 
 spires now adorn the different churches ; 
 yet of all these, St. Mary's (true to her 
 heavenly origin) is the only one that is 
 not ashamed to rear on high that sign which 
 will be the sign of victory of the triumph 
 of the Son of man, when he comes in the 
 clouds of heaven to judge the world ! 
 
 Previous to the erection of the new see 
 of Chicago, the greater part of the state of 
 Illinois had been under the episcopal juris- 
 diction of the Bishop of Vincennes, in the
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 69 
 
 State of Indiana. The clergymen in this 
 district therefore belonged to that diocese. 
 As soon as it was known that his episcopal 
 power in Illinois was about to be superseded, 
 the Bishop of Vincennes recalled all his 
 priests from the diocese of Chicago. They 
 obeyed immediately, excepting four who 
 were unwilling to leave unprotected the 
 children committed to their spiritual charge, 
 as they must in that case (having no pastors) 
 have been for a long time deprived of the 
 consolations of their holy religion. 
 
 Two of these gentlemen were Rev. Mau- 
 rice de Saint Palais, the present worthy 
 Bishop of Vincennes, and Rev. Mr. Fischer, 
 and they were* the only officiating clergy- 
 men in Chicago on the arrival of Bishop 
 Quarter. Much service as they might 
 have rendered to the new Bishop, their stay 
 with him was but short indeed ; for early 
 in the month of June their immediate re- 
 turn to the diocese of Vincennes was com- 
 manded, their Bishop, suspending their func- 
 tions until they obeyed. Bishop Quarter 
 could obtain neither mitigation of the pe-
 
 70 LIFE OF THE 
 
 nalty, nor privilege for them to remain 
 with him any time. They were, therefore, 
 obliged to depart, and, to leave him without 
 a priest to watch over the districts in 
 which they had officiated. This was a 
 great and unexpected difficulty, but, like 
 every other that beset his path, it was met 
 resolutely. 
 
 He was soon able, however, to add to his 
 priests, and before the end of the month of 
 June he had ordained three, among whom 
 was the present distinguished V. President 
 of the University of St. Mary's of the Lake, 
 Very Rev. Jeremiah A. Kinsella. 
 
 On the 5th of May, as we have seen, 
 Bishop Quarter arrived in Chicago, and on 
 the third of June he opened the new Catho- 
 lic College, the germ of the present Univer- 
 sity, in the building formerly occupied as 
 the old church. This establishment com- 
 menced with two professors and six stu- 
 dents. 
 
 He was ever a most liberal patron of 
 education, considering that among his first 
 duties he should provide means for that
 
 RT. REV. WM. aUARTER. 71 
 
 end. Not for that education which the 
 world generally dignifies with the title ; but 
 for an education by which the mental and 
 the moral man would be cultivated to- 
 gether ; in which the being would be taught 
 to consider the instructions of this life as 
 merely the means for obtaining the great 
 end for which we were all created. 
 
 There is a physiological law which 
 teaches, that Practice or Repetition is es- 
 sential to induce facility of mental and 
 moral, as well as of bodily action ; and, 
 therefore, in mental and moral education 
 this fact is so important, that it should be 
 engraven on the heart of every one inter- 
 ested in the welfare of society. It is only 
 by repetition, that impressions can be made 
 upon the mind, so as to render them per- 
 manent. A truth may be enunciated ; but 
 it is only by repetition that it escapes 
 oblivion. As no accomplishment can be 
 attained by a single effort, so, when the 
 mind is engaged upon any new subject, it 
 is only by study, viz., by repeating, that it 
 is mastered.
 
 72 LIFE OF THE 
 
 The extent to which this law of repeti- 
 tion effects the intellectual and moral con- 
 dition of the world, has not been properly 
 estimated ; and though I cannot enter fully 
 into the subject in a work of this kind, yet 
 I cannot pass it unnoticed altogether, and, 
 when writing respecting the foundation of 
 a College for the purposes of education, I 
 will be pardoned, I hope, the digression. 
 
 If we would be kind, sociable, polite, &c., 
 &c., we must be always so, whether in pri- 
 vate or in public. If we, in the retirement 
 of our homes, indulge in habits or in lan- 
 guage mat we would hide from the world's 
 eye and ear, we will betray ourselves ofte'n 
 when we do not expect it. Therefore it is, 
 that with all his efforts to appear genteel, 
 an ill-bred or a profane man, will, in spite of 
 all his watchfulness, betray his accustomed 
 associations ; for the habit, which has grown 
 with his growth, and strengthened with his 
 strength, cannot be controlled. As are 
 those associations, such will be the charac- 
 ter of the man for life ; and for the one that 
 rises above the vicious associations of early
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 73 
 
 years, ten thousand sink into the depths of 
 sin and infamy, so low, that there is no es- 
 cape for them but through the gates of 
 death. Thus it comes that our cities, dense- 
 ly populated, are filled with wretches, fit 
 ministers for every crime. They have never 
 known what virtue is they have grown 
 up in the haunts where thieves and gam- 
 blers and drunkards congregate; where 
 cunning, cheating, and beastly gratification 
 hold their empire ; where no warning 
 voice is ever raised in behalf of honesty or 
 piety, or against the bad example set before 
 them. As these vices are daily held up 
 before their eyes, they become practised, 
 and, in accordance with the principle 
 laid down, by the repetition, increase 
 upon them, until they swallow up every 
 virtuous sentiment that God may have im- 
 planted in their hearts, and that, watered 
 by the careful hand of innocence, might 
 have produced fruit ripening for immor- 
 tality. 
 
 If these individuals had been blessed 
 7
 
 74 LIFE OF THE 
 
 with the privilege of better associations, 
 with the temperate, the honourable, the 
 virtuous, the same law of repetition would 
 have so strengthened them, as to have en- 
 abled them to stand firm against the seduc- 
 tions that beset their early years, and that 
 lie like pit-falls all around their pathway 
 through life. 
 
 It is passing strange, that, with the evi- 
 dences daily and hourly staring us in the 
 face, that appeals to the intellect will 
 never fix permanently a high moral feeling 
 or course of education, we should be so 
 negligent of the fact thus demonstrated, that 
 it is the brain we cultivate, and not the im- 
 material principle, mind. When we wish 
 to accomplish either of the purposes of 
 which I have just spoken, we do what scarce 
 any one is aware we do, viz., we exercise 
 the brain. How long would it be before 
 appeals to the intellect would convert thp 
 hardened heart from its wickedness ! But 
 if the feelings of kindness, of love and of 
 sympathy, may have been early exercised 
 until they are easily called up from the
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 75 
 
 great deep in which years had entombed 
 them, how readily do appeals for this pur- 
 pose find their way to the heart and pro- 
 duce abundant harvest ! And yet we never 
 think but that the harvest springs imme- 
 diately from the edge of the sickle that is 
 gathering it ; we never think that the seed 
 must have been long sown ; that the germ 
 must have grown ; that the husbandman 
 merely gathers what some other hand 
 planted. 
 
 From the very savage that prowls 
 through our forests, or hunts the deer and 
 the buffalo upon our far-away prairies, we 
 might learn wisdom. If he wishes the 
 young warrior he is rearing to distinguish 
 the sound of the footstep of his foe, he does 
 not merely point out the way he should 
 listen, lay down the rules, &c., but he di- 
 rects him to put his ear to the ground, and 
 by the effect produced upon a material 
 organ, by the exercise of that organ until 
 it is capable of distinguishing those sounds, 
 does he train him. If he wishes- him to 
 excel in the various accomplishments of
 
 76 LIFE OF THE 
 
 savage life in lying in wait in ambush 
 in daring attack in courage in contempt 
 of pain of fatigue in revenge he prac- 
 tises him in the same manner by the exer- 
 cise of the material instrument, until he is 
 worthy to become a chief of his tribe ; and 
 yet if we reflect but one moment, we will 
 be satisfied that it is the mind, which thus 
 manifests itself through its exercised ma- 
 terial organ, and accomplishes his purpose. 
 Thus should it be with us. If we wish 
 our children to excel in the accomplish- 
 ments of civilized life if we wish them to 
 be modest, humble, virtuous in the most 
 extended sense, a solace to our gray hairs, 
 we must exercise and cultivate in them the 
 virtues we wish them to possess. WE MUST 
 
 MAKE THIS EXERCISE A PART OF THEIR DAILY 
 
 LIFE. We must educate the conscience ; 
 we must educate all the feelings, in order 
 that they may become the sources of happi- 
 ness here, and of hope hereafter. We will 
 then learn how much easier it is to practise 
 virtue than vice ; how much easier it will 
 be to make the world a better place.
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 77 
 
 Man does not come from the hand of his 
 Creator necessarily vicious, he is made so 
 by an erroneous education ; and if we 
 would remedy this error, we must search 
 for its source, and we will find that it is in 
 the ignorance of the fact, that the virtues 
 must be cultivated as well as the physical 
 organs, in order that they should be vi- 
 gorous. 
 
 How erroneous then is that course of 
 education which excludes religious train- 
 ing; which appeals to the intellect only, 
 and not to the moral and religious senti- 
 ments and affections ! Many, it is true, 
 both schools and parents, profess to give 
 their pupils and children religious in- 
 structions ; but it is by moral precepts 
 which appeal to the intellect only, and 
 which are uttered only to be forgotten ; 
 may be are contradicted by the practice 
 which alone can make them permanent. 
 
 What I contend for is the necessity of the 
 'daily repetition of, or education in vir- 
 tuous practices ; and in the practical edu- 
 cation of the young, it becomes a matter of 
 7*
 
 78 LIFE OF THE 
 
 the highest moment, to remember that the 
 moral sentiments and the intellectual pro- 
 cesses are absolutely dependent on the phy- 
 sical organization, and require that daily 
 cultivation as much as any of the physical 
 operations of the body. How absurd then 
 to expect, that the moral instruction given 
 on one day in the seven, is sufficient to 
 counteract the immoral impressions that 
 are likely to be made on the other six days ! 
 We cannot, therefore, sufficiently cherish 
 those institutions that combine religious 
 training with the intellectual. They are the 
 only props that sustain society against 
 the deluge of indifferentism and infidelity, 
 that is sweeping over the land. Thank 
 God ! that in the Catholic Church are to be 
 found societies of men and women who de- 
 vote their lives to this noble enterprise ! 
 
 When we look to the future as well as 
 to the present ; to the children and to the 
 children's children, that will be saved from 
 everlasting perdition, (to say nothing of the 
 bad example their evil course would have 
 given, and of its effects upon the world,)
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 79 
 
 saved, I say, by the timely instruction fur- 
 nished at such institutions, we can estimate, 
 in a measure, the debt of gratitude which 
 the world owes to the founders of these 
 schools. They are indeed benefactors of 
 t their people and of their age, and of ages 
 far down the stream of time, when their 
 names will have been long forgotten. 
 Thus will the schools established by Bishop 
 Quarter continue to shed abroad over the 
 world the light of science and of religion, 
 forming an holy union, blessed before the 
 throne of God, strewing the thorny path- 
 way of life with roses that bloom even in the 
 winter of age, and deck with their never- 
 fading loveliness the lonesome prison-house 
 of the grave. 
 
 How strongly did he urge the wedded 
 union of religion and philosophy, and while 
 he wished to store the intellect with trea- 
 sures of learning, he endeavoured to furnish 
 the heart with unfailing support against 
 the bitter trials of life ! Here indeed does 
 religion fulfil her divine mission, turning 
 the wayworn and the weary into that
 
 80 LIFE OF THE 
 
 beautiful valley of virtue and faith, where 
 its purified waters will bring refreshment 
 to the seared hearts of thousands, causing 
 them to bless the author of their being, 
 and teaching them to look with a steady 
 eye onward, to that home in which they 
 may sit down to rest after their pilgrimage 
 is ended that home in their father's house 
 in heaven. 
 
 So eager was he to establish schools of a 
 kind in which the very highest order of 
 literary and scientific learning would be 
 imparted together with proper religious in- 
 struction, that he determined to establish 
 a University ; and on the 19th of December 
 of this year a bill was passed by the legis- 
 lature, incorporating " the University of St. 
 Mary of the Lake." 
 
 With the same solicitude for the spiritual 
 welfare of the children under his charge, 
 .that characterized his efforts in behalf of 
 the children of St. Mary's, New-York, he 
 now, when he could obtain a moment's 
 leisure, set about providing means for their 
 spiritual instructions, more directly even
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER, 81 
 
 than could be accomplished in the schools ; 
 and for this purpose he formed those chil- 
 dren into a pious association, and the lessons 
 then learned from his lips show their fruit 
 in the virtuous and exemplary young men 
 and women that form part of the Catholic 
 youth of Chicago. 
 
 The same legislature that passed the 
 law incorporating the University of St. 
 Mary of the Lake, passed a bill empower- 
 ing the Bishop of Chicago and his suc- 
 cessors to hold property in trust for the use 
 of the Catholic Church. The passage of a 
 law, which, as far as I know, exists in 
 every diocese in the United States, has in 
 itself nothing strange or unusual, nor would 
 it have found a notice here, only that from 
 want of understanding its nature, it has 
 been sometimes represented in a false light, 
 and has been supposed to be an unreason- 
 able law. Some of the advantages of this 
 law are, that as properties are held in trust 
 for the Church, and not as personal proper- 
 ty, they must in every contingency be more 
 secure. As the title of Bishop of Chicago
 
 82 LIFE OF THE 
 
 and his successors is recognised by the laws 
 of the State by virtue of this act, properties, 
 willed to the Bishop of Chicago for chari- 
 table purposes, can be legally recovered, 
 and applied to their destined uses. This 
 could not otherwise have been done, unless 
 such bequests were made to the Bishop in 
 his individual capacity, and not as Bishop 
 of Chicago ; and, therefore, his relatives 
 might, in case of his sudden death, have 
 deprived the Church of its rights, and the 
 poor of the charities intended for them. 
 
 Bishop Quarter had now a charter for 
 his new College, and he wished next to 
 establish an Ecclesiastical Seminary, in 
 which he might educate young men for 
 the holy ministry, in order to supply the 
 wants of hi&; diocese. Great was the 
 dearth of clergymen in it, and all his 
 energies were applied to remove this very 
 serious obstacle to his progress. There 
 was, however, a very great bar in the 
 way of the accomplishment of this his pur- 
 pose, and that was the lack of means to 
 erect the buildings. With a view to pro
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 83 
 
 cure this means, he left Chicago for New- 
 York, early in the April of 1845. He was 
 absent about four months, and during that 
 time he collected a large sum of money, 
 which enabled him to commence the erec- 
 tion of the building. On the 17th of Oc- 
 tober the foundation of the College and 
 Seminary was begun; so rapidly did the 
 work progress, that on the 22d of Novem- 
 ber they were under roof. 
 
 The amount of money that he had col- 
 lected in the diocese of New- York, was 
 not sufficient to enable him to complete 
 these buildings ; and, in order to do this, 
 his pastoral of 1846 was directed to his 
 faithful clergymen, directing them to assist 
 him in his undertaking. He says : 
 
 "Although our holy religion advances daily and 
 steadily, under the protecting care of Divine Provi- 
 dence, and although the number of the clergy has 
 been considerably increased within the last two years, 
 still are there several congregations in the Diocese, 
 deprived the whole year round of the consolations of 
 their Religion. There are many who have not the 
 happiness to assist even once in the twelve months 
 at the Adorable Sacrifice of the Mass ; and numbers 
 die annually without receiving the last rites of the 
 Church, especially in those monliis when sickness is
 
 84 LIFE OF THE 
 
 most prevalent in these Western States, and all this 
 because the clergymen are not as yet sufficiently 
 numerous in this diocese to have one stationed in 
 each congregation. Another melancholy evil arising 
 also from the scarcity of clergymen, is, that the chil- 
 dren of Catholic parents, in various sections of the 
 State, are suffered to grow up without any religious in- 
 struction. If the present, in their regard, be painful to 
 reflect upon, the future presents a dismal and a dreary 
 aspect. 
 
 " It is not necessary that I make here reflections. 
 The naked facts cannot fail to touch every Christian 
 heart. They who have always enjoyed the consola- 
 tions of their holy religion, and who never ex- 
 perienced the agony occasioned by the absence of a 
 priest, especially when sickness, disease and death 
 were near, or had already smitten some of their friends 
 or family, cannot, perhaps, fully appreciate the sad 
 and forlorn condition of those around whom all those 
 miseries have gathered. Still, they cannot be so 
 hardened as not to sympathise with their afflicted 
 brethren. They who have already tasted of this cup 
 of sorrows, know too well its bitterness to need a 
 word of explanation. 
 
 " Are those evils to remain, or shall no effort be 
 made to remove them ! Will no effort be made to 
 send to our brethren that are far away from their 
 father's house, and toiling in bondage, an adviser, a 
 consoler, yea, a deliverer 1 Will no effort be made 
 to secure a pious, a disinterested, a zealous clergy, 
 who may go to the exile in his lone hut, in his soli- 
 tary i'nd desert home, with words of peace on their 
 lips und blessings in their train, to offer the Adorable
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER 85 
 
 Mysteries, to administer the Sacraments, and to iBr 
 struct in the ways of Salvation ? To enable the 
 Bishop to send missionaries where they are moat 
 needed, will not the faithful generously co-operate 
 and assist with their means 1 Can any alms be better 
 bestowed than those which are given to have the 
 poor relieved, the sick visited, the afflicted and sor- 
 rowing, soothed and consoled, the ignorant instructed, 
 and the seeds of virtue planted in the youthful breast? 
 Can any alms be more meritorious than those which 
 tend to preserve the soul from eternal ruin '\ With- 
 out the charitable co-operation of the faithful through- 
 out the Diocese, little, comparatively, can be done by 
 the Bishop ; with it, much can be effected. Were 
 every adult Catholic in the Diocese, or even every 
 head of a family, to contribute but one dollar annually 
 towards the support of the Diocesan Ecclesiastical 
 Seminary, that has been in existence about two years, 
 soon could missionaries be sent to every congregation 
 in the Diocese. As yet, however, the Catholics of 
 the Diocese have contributed but little towards the 
 support of this Ecclesiastical Seminary. They are 
 now requested to be more considerate hereafter. 
 They are emphatically requested to turn their atten- 
 tion and to direct their charitable donations to 'an In- 
 stitution where the future priests of the Diocese are 
 being, and are to be, educated, and from whence many 
 have already gone forth to labour in the vineyard of 
 the Lord. The Ecclesiastical Seminary of the Dio- 
 cese has to depend for support on the voluntary con- 
 tributions of the faithful. To it, in their turn, are the 
 faithful to look, both now and hereafter, for a supply 
 of zealous missionaries. Will they refuse then their 
 8
 
 86 LIFE OF THE 
 
 fostering care ? Will they deny to it support, and 
 still expect to have clergymen sent to them when 
 they are in need ? " 
 
 Addressing each of his clergymen se- 
 parately, he entreats them to use their ut- 
 most exertions in behalf of the new Semi- 
 nary in order to sustain it. He says : 
 
 11 To you, Rev. and Dear Sir, do I confidently and 
 unhesitatingly entrust the task of explaining more fully 
 to your people, the vast importance to Religion of 
 contributing towards the support of our Ecclesiastical 
 Seminary, you know the wants of the people you 
 have discovered how fast irreligion is spreading, 
 where religious instruction is not imparted you have 
 heard, with aching heart, the God of Heaven blas- 
 phemed you have witnessed with sorrow the con- 
 tempt shown for the sacred institutions of Christ 
 you have seen with horror and dismay, the blood of 
 Calvary that was shed for the redemption of the 
 world, impiously trodden under foot your remon- 
 strances might have been fruitless, and you could 
 only pray in the words of your Divine Master : " O 
 Heavenly Father, forgive them, for they know not 
 what they do ;" you have seen Christians trans- 
 gress against all the commandments of God, and of 
 his Holy Church, and indulge in crimes, from the com- 
 mission of which, even Pagans would recoil you dis- 
 covered that the sacraments, the channels through 
 which the Grace of God was to be communicated to 
 the souls of Christians, were neglected, and that the 
 Sinner, hardened in guilt, would rather suffer his im- 
 mortal soul to perish eternally, than forsake the evil
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 87 
 
 of his ways. At the sight of these evils your soul 
 melted in anguish, and you desired and prayed that 
 you might behold, in the midst of this erring people, 
 an Apostolic Priesthood, who by their pious, assidu- 
 ous, and disinterested labours, might reclaim them 
 again to God, and give them back sightly plants to 
 the vineyard of his holy Church ; you have experien- 
 ced, moreover, how great are the toils, how many the 
 privations, and how few the earthly consolations of 
 our small but very zealous body of Clergymen; you 
 felt that an increase of numbers was much needed, 
 needed to aid and assist those already engaged in the 
 toilsome labours of the missions, that their valuable 
 lives may not be shortened by over-exertion, and that 
 the vineyard of the Lord may be cultivated properly, 
 and in every part, that for heaven may be reaped 
 hereafter a rich harvest of those souls for whose sal- 
 vation Christ shed his precious blood. 
 
 " Because of these motives, you will concur, and 
 heartily aid in the success of this holy work. 
 
 " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your 
 spirit. 
 
 " f WILLI A M, Bishop of Chicago. 
 
 " Given at Chicago, Feast of St. Francis ^ 
 Xaverius, Dec. 4, 1846." 3 
 
 These eloquent appeals never failed to 
 find an echo in their hearts ; for so did this 
 body of clergymen love their Bishop, that it 
 was enough for them to know what was 
 his will or wish, in order to set about grati- 
 fying it.
 
 88 LIFE OF THE 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 rROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SECOND YEAR OF 
 HIS EPISCOPACY UNTIL HIS DEATH. 1845 1848. 
 
 During the first year of his mission that 
 was now passed, he had surmounted all 
 the difficulties that threatened his outset. 
 His Cathedral was finished and paid for; 
 his College and Seminary were in pro- 
 gress ; he had supplied with pastors many 
 missions hitherto deprived of the consola- 
 tion of religion ; and although he came to 
 a Diocese almost stripped of clergymen, 
 he had now a goodly array with which to 
 battle against the powers of darkness. He 
 had ordained seven young men, and occa- 
 sionally an American or an Irish or a 
 German, priest would find his way to this 
 far-out corner of the Church, adding to his 
 numbers and his strength. 
 
 As the clergymen who could minister to 
 the spiritual wants of the people increased, 
 so did the numbers of the people increase.
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 89 
 
 Catholics began now to pour in from other 
 and distant states and countries ; and St. 
 Mary's Church was already too small to 
 contain all the worshippers that came up 
 to bow their hearts and bend their knees 
 before her holy altar. A new church was 
 required to accommodate them, and on 
 the 10th of March, 1846, the frame of St. 
 Patrick's Church, on the west side of the 
 Chicago River, was erected by the Very 
 Rev. Walter Quarter, who was the first 
 pastor of it. 
 
 In the same month was commenced the 
 erection of two Catholic German churches, 
 one on the north side and the other on the 
 south side of the main river. 
 
 Immediately after the return of the Bi- 
 shop from the Provincial Council of Balti- 
 more, which was held in this year, he 
 opened his new Seminary. He had at the 
 same time the satisfaction of witnessing 
 the completion of the first monument of 
 his enterprise. The last touch of the paint- 
 er's brush had been given to his new Uni- 
 versity, and on the fourth of July it was 
 8*
 
 '90 LIFE OF THE 
 
 opened with appropriate ceremonies for 
 the reception of pupils. 
 
 Its career commenced with two profes- 
 sors and two teachers, and sixteen pupils, 
 It gradually progressed until he had the 
 happiness, even during his life, of witness- 
 ing the success of his undertaking, of see- 
 ing the " sapling become the oak tree" 
 and now there are eleven professors em- 
 ployed by the University, four tutors, and 
 the number of pupils is 125. 
 
 The course of instruction is as extensive 
 as is given in the best Colleges in the 
 United States, and some of the depart- 
 ments are more practical than are to be 
 found elsewhere, while the college-fee is 
 only 150 dollars per annum. 
 
 The location is a beautiful and healthy 
 one, just on the borders of Lake Michigan; 
 and the 'ample grounds and the extensive 
 meadows in the vicinity afford students 
 ample opportunity of enjoying healthful 
 exercise and abundant recreation in the 
 free, open air while the College itself, 
 though situated within the city limits, is
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 91, 
 
 far enough removed from the business-part 
 to make it favourable to the pursuits of 
 study. 
 
 He had now completed his College, his Se- 
 minary, the two Catholic English churches 
 of St. Mary's and St. Patrick's, the two 
 Catholic German churches of St. Peter and 
 St. Joseph in the city, and the diocese 
 was in a flourishing condition. But there 
 was yet a want unsupplied. The male 
 youths of the congregation were furnished 
 with good schools and proper facilities 
 for receiving instruction ; the female por- 
 tion had as yet no such facilities. But if 
 they were unprovided, it was not because 
 he did not feel the necessity of such pro- 
 vision, but because it could not possibly 
 have been sooner made. 
 
 No man living was more deeply impress- 
 ed with the necessity of a proper training 
 for the female youth than Bishop Quarter. 
 He knew that to them, as mothers, wives 
 and daughters, would in a great measure 
 be entrusted the character of his people. 
 He knew that the society in which they
 
 92 LIFE OF THE 
 
 might mingle, would bear the character 
 they would stamp upon it, and that by 
 his mother would the man be marked for 
 weal or wo. It is true that those female 
 children whose parents could watch over 
 them, might fulfil their expectations ; but 
 what would have become of the female 
 poor, whose parents, in their hard struggle 
 for bread, had no time to devote to them, 
 and could not provide them with instruc- 
 tors ? How could these ever hope to rise 
 above their low condition, or how could 
 they pass the fiery ordeal unscathed, when 
 the myriads of temptations, to which a life 
 of poverty and destitution exposes them, 
 were around them like harpies 1 How 
 would they escape, when unprotected by 
 proper religious instructions which would 
 serve as their safeguards ? 
 
 Though- there are schools for the poor, 
 with well-paid teachers fattening on the 
 spoils .wrung from the people in the way 
 of taxation, yet experience has demonstrat- 
 ed beyond the possibility of contradiction, 
 that the morals of the poor who frequent
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 93 
 
 these schools are not improved. Indeed, 
 improvement under the head of morals 
 should not be expected from them. How 
 can teachers in the world, pursuing a 
 worldly life, root out the seeds of vice and 
 impiety sown, deeply sown, amid the haunts 
 of intemperance and impurity ? They can- 
 not reach the disorder, for they are not 
 clothed with the sanctity that will permit 
 them to probe to the bottom the festering 
 wounds that are gangrening upon the face 
 of society, and, therefore, they cannot apply 
 the remedy ; but the Catholic Church, the 
 mother of the unfortunate, has within her 
 pale, communities of men and women who 
 have no worldly aims in view, and who de- 
 vote themselves to this sacrifice of love: 
 the bringing back into the fold the strayed 
 sheep of the flock, and sending them forth 
 again, that their example may improve 
 their associates, and make them better. 
 
 In order then to supply this want to 
 procure a community of female religious, 
 who would instruct and educate the fe- 
 male children, Bishop Quarter applied to
 
 94 LIFE OF THE 
 
 Bishop O'Connor of Pittsburg, from whom 
 he received a branch of the order of the 
 Sisters of Mercy, established in that city. 
 On the 23d of September, five members 
 of the order of Mercy, accompanied by iheir 
 superioress, Sister Mary, Francis Ward 
 and Very Rev. Walter Quarter, who had 
 been commissioned by the Bishop to con- 
 duct them, reached Chicago. They were 
 Sisters Mary Agatha O'Brien, the superioress 
 of the New Foundation, Mary Vincent 
 McGirr, Mary Gertrude McGuire,* Mary 
 Eliza Corbitt, and Mary Eva Smidt. This 
 small community entered at once upon 
 their mission of Mercy, dispensing the rich 
 stores of earthly acquirements they had 
 gained in the world, and of unearthly riches 
 they had amassed while clothed with the 
 habiliments of their new vocation. 
 
 As an instance of the regard for the hap- 
 piness of all around him, and the total ab- 
 sence of all considerations for self, it will 
 not be out of place to here observe, that on 
 the day on which the Sisters arrived, the 
 
 * Since dead.
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 95 
 
 Bishop conducted them around the church, 
 and the building that was to be their con- 
 vent. This was a low one-story house, nei- 
 ther very convenient nor of very captivat- 
 ing appearance, but it was the best he 
 had to offer them. It had been his own re- 
 sidence, and poor as it was, it was a palace 
 compared with the one to which he him- 
 self removed, when he resigned it to them 
 for their convent. Could you have seen 
 him as he passed that round, watching to 
 catch but one expression of satisfaction 
 upon the countenances of the Sisters, you 
 would have pitied him had it not been given. 
 That night he did not retire at all : his anx- 
 iety banished sleep from his eyelids ; for he 
 feared that they might be disappointed at 
 not finding things in better order for their 
 coming. Next morning, however, while 
 seated conversing with their superioress, 
 he heard in their community-room the joy- 
 ous laugh, which could come only from 
 the contented heart: clasping his hands as 
 he rose from his seat, he exclaimed : ''Now
 
 96 LIFE OF THE 
 
 indeed I am satisfied ; that laugh could not 
 have come from the dissatisfied." 
 
 Dear Bishop Quarter, could there have 
 been one around thee that had witnessed 
 thy self-denial, thy willing poverty, for 
 Christ's sake, thy patience, thy meekness, 
 thy anxious efforts in behalf of the people 
 committed to thy charge, and have been un- 
 willing to have divided with thee the dry 
 bread that was at times thy only sustenance 
 that would not have been willing to have 
 shared with thee a poverty that left thee 
 but one dime to be called thy own, on that 
 day when God summoned thee to himself? 
 
 The schools of the Sisters of Mercy w^ere 
 at once opened, and well attended ; and al- 
 ready the good effects of the wise policy 
 of Bishop Quarter are beginning to be ex- 
 perienced. Who can estimate the incalcu- 
 lable benefits that will result from this po- 
 licy in days and years yet to come ? God 
 only. 
 
 Having now the household of his Dio- 
 cese in order, he summoned a Diocesan 
 Synod of his clergymen : of these, thirty-two
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 97 
 
 were present, and nine absent in conse- 
 quence of ill health, or bad roads. This 
 Synod met in Chicago, in the April of this 
 year, and with his assistance formed the 
 Statutes of the Diocese. Forty-one clergy- 
 men already in this new Diocese ! How 
 must Bishop Quarter have laboured, to have 
 gathered around him so many disciples, 
 worthy disciples of the fishermen of Galilee ! 
 men of every country and clirne, come hi- 
 ther to dispense the glad tidings of salva- 
 tion, sending up like incense to the throne 
 of heaven, the praises of their Creator, 
 and raising loudly their voices amid 
 the late solemn silence of the wilderness, 
 or by the side of the streams that had 
 hitherto hymned up their everlasting an- 
 therns unchorussed by the voice of mortal 
 man ! 
 
 The convent of the Sisters of Mercy 
 was now too small for the accommoda- 
 tion of the numbers that flocked to their 
 schools, and he therefore commenced and 
 completed, during this the last year of his 
 life, the large and convenient building at
 
 98 LIFE OF THE 
 
 present occupied by the Sisters of Mercy 
 as their Convent and Academy. It was 
 incorporated by the legislature in 1846, 
 and possesses a most ample charter. The 
 building is located in the most beautiful 
 and healthy part of the city, and but one 
 square removed from the beach. In front 
 of it stretches away, as far as the eye 
 can reach, the waters of the beautiful Lake 
 Michigan. 
 
 The course of instruction is the same as 
 that given in the best female schools in 
 the country. Ten Sisters are constantly 
 engaged in this Academy. The founda- 
 tion was begun with five Sisters: there 
 are now sixteen members in the com- 
 munity, and seven applicants who 
 will be received very shortly. Scarce had 
 two years elapsed from the time this 
 little colony was sent out by the Bishop 
 of Pittsburg, until it had reached the ma- 
 turity of many old foundations. Upwards 
 of two hundred pupils attend the schools 
 of the Sisters of Mercy in Chicago. 
 
 On the llth of November the Theolo-
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 
 
 gical Conferences were established by Bi- 
 shop Quarter, first in America. These 
 Conferences are held twice a year, at Chi- 
 cago, Alton, and Galena. All the clergy- 
 men in the Diocese assemble at them, 
 and are questioned on certain tracts of 
 Theology designated by the Master of the 
 Conference. Questions appertaining to the 
 holy calling and ministerial duties of the 
 Clergymen regarding the Rubrics of the 
 Roman Missal and the Statutes of the 
 Diocese are discussed at these Conferen- 
 ces. The advantages derived from them 
 are, that they keep the doctrines of the 
 Church, and the proofs, fresh in the minds 
 of the teachers of the people: so that 
 at any moment they may be prepared to 
 give a reason for the truth of their 
 teachings. The establishment of these 
 '* Conferences" showed alike his energy and 
 judgment in providing for the welfare of 
 the Church. 
 
 He eagerly encouraged every means 
 that might enhance the spiritual welfare 
 of every member of his flock, and with
 
 100 LIFE OF THE 
 
 this view he directed the Sisters of Mercy 
 to establish a Sodality of the Blessed Vir- 
 gin, by means of which the female chil- 
 dren might be gathered together, in order 
 to instruct them in their religious duties 
 more thoroughly than could be done other- 
 wise ; and in his last pastoral, from which I 
 have already quoted, he urged upon his cler- 
 gymen the advantages of establishing So- 
 dalitjes of the same kind in their congre- 
 gations, where such had not been as yet 
 done. He says : 
 
 " We earnestly recommend the clergy to esta- 
 blish in their congregations, if they have not al- 
 ready done so, ' the Confraternity of the Rosary,' 
 or of 'the Immaculate Heart of Mary;' and we 
 as strongly recommend to the faithful to become 
 members, and to endeavour to partake of the spiri- 
 tual benefits and privileges granted to t'lose socie- 
 ties. Let parents urge their children also to join 
 those religious societies, and soon will tbey disco- 
 ver the happy results, in their obedience, gentle- 
 ness, tractableness, and faithful attention to their 
 Christian duties." 
 
 For the same purpose, he directed the 
 instructors in the Academy of St. Joseph, 
 to form among the male children of the Aca- 
 demy a St. Joseph's Society :
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. '101 
 
 " The exalted virtues of St. Joseph, and the dig- 
 nified privileges he obtained, not only convince us 
 1 how wonderful is (rod in his Saints,' but demand 
 from us a relative devotion due to so faithful a 
 servant. And if our Heavenly Father has elected 
 him to watch over the tender years of His Divine 
 Son, and to be his protector ; and if He has pla- 
 ced under his patronage and guardianship, the Bless- 
 ed Virgin, mother of the same Divine Redeemer, 
 how pleased must not be this Heavenly Father 
 to see us, his ' little ones', place ourselves under 
 his protection and patronage. The end then of this 
 * Society' is, that the members cultivate the devo- 
 tion due to St. Joseph ; invoke his intercession, 
 and regulate their Jives in such a way, as that they 
 may be worthy to adopt him as their Patron. In 
 order the more fully to attain this end, the devo- 
 tion to the Blessed Virgin, styled ' full of grace,* 
 is particularly recommended. Another end of this 
 4 Society' is, to collect together at convenient times 
 the pupils of the 'Academy,' and such boys and 
 adults as frequent the Sunday School kept there, 
 that instructions may be given them in the princi- 
 ples of the Religion they profess, and in the doc- 
 trines of morality they are bound to practise." 
 
 I have said, that he laboured for the spi- 
 ritual welfare of all his people. He labour- 
 ed also for their temporal welfare, and 
 particularly for that of his Irish fellow- 
 citizens. His heart clung fondly, O, 
 
 how fondly ! to the memories of the past. 
 9*
 
 102 LIFE OF THE 
 
 The associations of his young years were 
 woven round that heart, which yearned 
 with the tenderest regard towards the poor 
 and persecuted exiles, that sought beneath 
 this happier clime a home and a resting- 
 place. He laboured earnestly and zealous- 
 ly to improve their condition in this coun- 
 try of their adoption, in order to make them 
 worthy the glorious privileges they here 
 enjoyed. He saw them, having escaped 
 the blood-hounds of power, met as they land- 
 ed upon the shores of the New World, by 
 the harpies that watched for them. He 
 knew the feelings of their generous hearts, 
 and that they had learned at home to love 
 America, her institutions, and her people : 
 but I say he saw them met, as they land- 
 ed, by the sharpers, and plundered by them 
 of the little left them ; and where they had 
 hoped for succour, they were beggared in 
 the moment of their confidence, and thrown 
 pennyless in a strangers' land upon the cold 
 charity of the world. 
 
 Such was the fate from which Bishop 
 Quarter wished to save this people. He
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 103 
 
 wished to see them no longer the tools 
 of the designing ; he wished to see them 
 stand forth among their fellow freemen 
 in the majesty of their nature, asserting 
 the old dignity of which ages of oppres- 
 sion had not altogether deprived them : 
 and therefore he originated the Chicago 
 Hibernian Benevolent Emigrant Society. 
 This association was gotten up to bid the 
 stranger welcome to his new home to 
 guard him from imposition to advise and 
 to direct him to furnish him with timely 
 charity, if need be. The advantages 
 which the immigrant derives from such 
 associations are known only to those who 
 may have been benefited by them, and many 
 an one will now be found to bless the me- 
 mory of Bishop Quarter for benefits derived 
 from this Chicago Society. 
 
 During Lent he was engaged in deliver- 
 ing a series of Lectures upon the marks 
 of the True Church. On Passion Sunday 
 he lectured at last mass in the Cathedral 
 on her Apostolicity, and while he, the 
 apostle of this young church, stood in that
 
 104 LIFE OF THE 
 
 pulpit, making, as it were, his own profes- 
 sion of faith ; as the burning words fell 
 from his lips, who could have imagined 
 the catastrophe that was impending ? 
 
 On leaving the pulpit, he felt very much 
 fatigued ; and at vespers, his voice, as he gave 
 his last blessing to his people, was remark- 
 ed to want its usual full tone ; but in the 
 evening he conversed with his friends, in as 
 lively a manner as usual. He ate a light 
 supper, and retired early, remarking, howe- 
 ver, to Rev. Mr. McElhearne, who resided 
 in the house with him, that he did not feel 
 as well as usual ; but that he thought sleep 
 would revive him. 
 
 About 2 o'clock in the morning of the 
 tenth of April, Mr. McElhearne was awa- 
 kened by his moans, and hurrying instantly 
 to the Bishop's apartment, found him seated 
 on the edge of his bed. He complained of 
 a very severe pain in his head. Rapidly 
 his strength seemed failing, and with a pru- 
 dence worthy of imitation, this zealous 
 young clergymen proceeded, having sent 
 for medical aid, to administer to his Bishop
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 105 
 
 all those consolations which the Church 
 affords to her departing children. 
 
 Scarce had this duty been accomplished, 
 when, having uttered the words, " Lord 
 have mercy on my poor soul," the Bishop 
 fell over into a deep slumber. So thought 
 those around him : but alas ! it was a sleep 
 that knew no awakening ! 
 
 When I entered his room, his devoted 
 clergymen of the city were around him ; 
 and though no relative was there to receive 
 his last sigh, there were those beside him 
 who loved him dearly, very dearly. Not a 
 word was spoken as Ipassedto the bed side. 
 The dear Bishop lay as if in a quiet slumber. 
 I reached for his arm ; explored the wrist 
 for the pulse ; but there was no pulse, and 
 the cold hand dropped from my grasp. I 
 placed my ear upon the chest, to ascertain 
 whether life might not be yet standing, tot- 
 tering upon the threshold of eternity : but I 
 listened in vain. The spirit had departed 
 from its earthly tenement had shaken off 
 its mortal shackles had passed the bourne : 
 and that lately warm and noble heart had
 
 106 LIFE OF THE 
 
 ceased its pulsations forever ! the tongue 
 that pleaded so eloquently for the truths he 
 taught, would plead no more. 
 
 I knew that for him life's volume was clos- 
 ed, but how could I speak that knowledge ? 
 Whata scene of woe would one simple word 
 disclose ! Oh how truly is it, that to us is gi- 
 ven the power to cause the blush of hope to 
 mantle the pale cheek, or to speak the words 
 that will make it paler still ! and ho w painful- 
 ly did I feel this as I turned from that bed and 
 whispered the word, " Dead !" and ere my 
 startled ear recovered from the shock that 
 whisper made on silence, it was re-echoed 
 amid the tears and the lamentations even 
 of those without ! He was dead ! Yes, there 
 he lay calmly and quietly, as in sweet 
 repose. His spirit had passed away like 
 the zephyr's breath, and there was a linger- 
 ing smile upon his cold lip, that told how 
 happily. 
 
 In less than an hour the news of his 
 death had spread over the whole city, and 
 in the evidences of deep regret and con- 
 sternation in the face of each passer-by,
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 107 
 
 you might have read the sorrow and the 
 surprise that were so general. The 
 people began to crowd around his resi- 
 dence at an early hour, to obtain a look 
 of all that was left of their Bishop. 
 
 Dressed in full pontificals, his remains 
 were exposed in his residence until 2 
 o'clock of the second day after his death. 
 Here they were visited by all his flock, 
 and by every respectable and liberal pro- 
 testant in the city ; also by some of the 
 protestant clergymen, which mark of re- 
 spect, while it showed the regard in 
 which the Bishop was universally held, 
 did honour to their hearts, testifying, for 
 them, that difference in belief had not 
 smothered Christian charity. So great 
 was the crowd of persons who thus visit- 
 ed his remains, that two days were oc- 
 cupied in allowing them to see him by 
 turns. 
 
 At two o'clock on the 12th, his body was 
 removed to his Cathedral, where it re- 
 mained in state, upon the Catafalque erect- 
 ed for the purpose of supporting it. It
 
 108 LIFE OF THE 
 
 was placed immediately without the sanc- 
 tuary, and in front of the altar. Upon the 
 coffin were deposited the insignia of his 
 office. The widowed Church had on her 
 robes of mourning. 
 
 During the time that the body remained 
 thus exposed, masses were being offered up 
 for the repose of his soul, or the solemn office 
 for the dead was being chanted within 
 the sanctuary. At the solemn high mass of 
 each day the full-toned organ poured forth 
 the Requiem, adding yet deeper solem- 
 nity to the warning which the example 
 before us gave : Prepare and keep your 
 houses ready, for you know not the day 
 nor the hour wherein the Son of man com- 
 eth! 
 
 At 3 o'clock on Friday, the Feast of the 
 Seven Dolors, the funeral ceremonies com- 
 menced. The church was crowded to suffo- 
 cation at an early hour, and multitudes 
 were unable to enter at all ; so great was 
 the desire to Witness the last sad rites that 
 she pays to those who have been the shep- 
 herds of her sheepfold. The office for the
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 109 
 
 dead was chanted by the large body of his 
 faithful clergymen, who had gathered in 
 from their different parishes, to pay their 
 last duties to the remains of their Bishop, 
 whom they so dearly loved. When the of- 
 fice was concluded, Rev. Mr. Feely, then of 
 Peoria, now of Elgin, pronounced an elo- 
 quent funeral oration, recalling vividly to the 
 minds of all, the character and virtues of 
 the deceased prelate. 
 
 At half past four o'clock, the procession 
 formed to conduct the body to its resting- 
 place. First came the clergymen and ec- 
 clesiastical students then the body, borne 
 by six priests then the students of the Uni- 
 versity then the pupils of the Academy of 
 St. Francis Xavier then followed the peo- 
 ple of all denominations, sexes, and sizes. 
 It passed out of the church ; wound round 
 to the rear, where a tomb had been prepared 
 for it beneath the sanctuary, and in front 
 of the altar which himself had reared. 
 The ceremony was orderly and imposing. 
 And when the clergymen in their white 
 
 surplices, with lighted candles in their 
 10
 
 HO LIFE OF THE 
 
 hands, and the beautiful little children of 
 the Academy, dressed in white, reminding 
 one of guardian angels, watching to 
 protect us, stood with lighted candles in 
 their hands around the tomb, while the 
 body was being committed to its kindred 
 earth, the effect was beyond description. 
 All was as still as the grave itself, and each 
 eye was entranced, as if some vision from 
 a better world had suddenly disclosed itself; 
 until the sound of the coffin touching the 
 bottom of the vault re-echoed through the 
 chamber : then, while stifled sobs and groans 
 were heard amid the tears that chased 
 each other down the cheek of childhood 
 and youth over the pale face of beauty 
 the sunburnt visage of manhood and the 
 wrinkled front of age the vision around 
 that tomb faded away ! 
 
 The ceremonies were ended, the vault 
 was closed, and the seal was placed upon 
 its entrance, guarding the remains of the 
 great and the good man who reposes there 
 in the hope of resurrection, until the archan- 
 gel shall sound the trumpet, calling up the
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. Ill 
 
 dead to judgment. Then will we meet again : 
 He, the Pastor who taught us our duty 
 to our God, our country, and our race ; and 
 we, the people who will be obliged to an- 
 swer for the manner in which we have 
 practised his teaching. It will then be well 
 for us, if we have followed and profited 
 by his example.
 
 112 LIFE OF THE 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 REVIEW OF HIS LABOURS ; HIS CHARACTER. CON- 
 
 
 CLUSION. 
 
 Thus died Bishop Quarter, in the prime of 
 his life, and at the very threshold of his use- 
 fulness. Yet short as was his career, it was 
 brilliant almost beyond example. His life 
 was not undisturbed by storms, but in their 
 midst he heard a voice that the world does 
 not; hsar, and his frail bark was guided by 
 a hand more powerful than the mightiest 
 ocean surge. 
 
 Amid all his trials, he kept steadily in 
 view the great object of his mission ; and 
 when he expounded that holy book to the 
 weary and the heavily burdened ; when he 
 spoke of the healing of the blind, the lame, 
 the palsied, the leper, and the beggar ; 
 when he repeated the sentence of the par- 
 don of God the Father to the woman stain- 
 ed with shame ; and when he told that 
 upon the cross the malefactor, in his last
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. : 
 
 hour, obtained the forgiveness of Christ ; 
 when he spoke of the ministry of God, 
 the Son, upon earth, who from his birth 
 to his death shared the griefs and sorrows 
 of tmr life, sweetly compassionating our 
 woes, and pleading with his heavenly Fa- 
 ther for our redemption ; could you, dear 
 reader, have seen him then, with his spark- 
 ling eyes upturned to heaven, with that 
 wistful gaze of hopeful reverence plead- 
 ing for pardon for his people in the earn- 
 estness of his heart, you could not doubt 
 the result of such a mission. 
 
 Great was the loss sustained by the 
 city and the Diocese, indeed by the whole 
 Church, in his death. Many of his purpo- 
 ses were for a time retarded. Already 
 had arrangements been made by him for 
 adding to the spacious building of the 
 University, another one of brick, double 
 the size of the present one. The Convent 
 and Academy of the Sisters of Mercy 
 was to have been increased to double its 
 present dimensions. The ground was laid 
 
 out for the erection of a Charity Hospi- 
 10*
 
 114 LIFE OF THE 
 
 tal, and for an Orphan Asylum, and the 
 contract had been entered into for pub- 
 lishing a Catholic newspaper in this city. 
 These were all suspended at once ; for 
 the master-spirit was gone ! 
 
 A new foundation of the Sisters of Mercy 
 in Galena was projected by him, and the 
 necessary building purchased. This plan 
 of his, as well as every other one pos- 
 sible under the circumstances, was car- 
 ried out by his worthy brother, the Ad- 
 ministrator of the diocese, and on the 28th 
 of May, six Sisters departed for this mis- 
 sion. 
 
 The day after his death, the following 
 eloquent tribute to his memory, from the 
 pen of a cherished Protestant friend, S. 
 Lisle Smith, esq., appeared in the Chicago 
 Journal : 
 
 On Monday morning, at 3 o'clock, WILLIAM QUAR- 
 TER, Bishop of Chicago, yielded up his spirit to his 
 Maker. On the preceding beautiful Sabbath morn- 
 ing, this faithful servant of God stood in the house 
 consecrated to' the worship of the Most High, and 
 there, before his beloved people, fervently proclaim- 
 ed the oracles of life. 
 
 Scarce had that Sabbath sun gilded with its
 
 rays the evening cloud, ere his ransomed spirit 
 joined in the melody of the heavenly choir. 
 
 To-day, the wise, the gifted, the beloved pastor, 
 is leading his flock beside the still waters of Sal- 
 vation ; to-morrow, the- eloquent voice is still the 
 beaming eye is closed the generous heart no lon- 
 ger pulsates, and all that remains of him, on earth, 
 is the cold and senseless corpse. 
 
 Truly the ways of Providence are inscrutable. 
 Truly, 
 
 " God moves in a mysterious way 
 His wonders to perform." 
 
 In the midst of extensive usefulness in the midst 
 of a congregation, by whom he was beloved in the 
 midst of a community, by whom he was respected 
 in the very prime of a mature and active man- 
 hood, a true a sincere a devoted Christian, is, al- 
 most without a moment's warning, called away 
 to his Father's House. Surely this dispensation 
 of an all-wise Providence, should not fall listlessly 
 upon our ears. 
 
 It is not our purpose (for we cannot obtain the 
 materials) to write an extended obituary of this 
 truly good, and eminently distinguished man. Other, 
 and abler pens than ours, will, doubtless, prepare 
 an account of his useful life, and others will do 
 ample justice to those virtues and graces which 
 adorned his simple, but lovely character. 
 
 It was however our good fortune to have become 
 acquainted with Bishop Quarter soon after his ar- 
 rival in Chicago, and we esteem it now a most 
 fortunate circumstance, that we enjoyed frequent 
 opportunities of improving that acquaintance.
 
 116 LIFE OP THE 
 
 By nature, Bishop Quarter was endowed with 
 talents of a high order ; and laboriously had the 
 natural powers of his mind been cultivated by un- 
 remitting industry. Strong and decided in the ad- 
 vocacy of his own religious opinions, he was always 
 tolerant of the opinions of others. Charity seemed 
 to be the ruling trait of his character. 
 
 In all his tastes and habits, he was simple. En- 
 terprising and persevering, he was diligently em- 
 ployed in advancing the interests of the Church of 
 which he was a bright ornament, and in beautifying 
 and adorning our city, by the erection of Schools, 
 and Colleges, and Cathedrals. He was an enthu- 
 siastic friend of education, and proved his devo- 
 tion, by contributing his own small private fortune 
 to the advancement of that noble cause. 
 
 As a divine, he was learned, logical and profound ; 
 as a scholar, he was ripe and matured ; as a friend, 
 he was true and unselfish ; as a Christian, he was 
 faithful, humble, and sincere. 
 
 In the social circle, he was beloved by all who 
 knew him. In his public sphere of duty, he was 
 universally admired and respected. Enemies he had 
 none ; for his kind and gentle spirit disarmed op- 
 posers, and converted them into warm and devoted 
 friends. 
 
 Such a man's departure to another sphere, is a 
 great calamity. Who can supply his place ] Who 
 can in so short a sojourn in a land of strangers, 
 again make so many true and sincere friends ? 
 
 But he is gone gone to his great reward. Peace 
 to his ashes. Honour to his memory ! 
 
 But who will break the tidings to that aged father,
 
 whose hoary locks have long been ripening for the 
 grave ? Who shall comfort that bereaved sister, and 
 that afflicted brother ] Alas ! our pen is arrested. 
 Our hea r ts are full. ***** 
 
 * Many die as sudden not as safe." 
 
 The ^mains of Bishop Quarter lie beneath 
 the Sanctuary, in front of the Altar of his 
 Cathedral. They are enclosed in a vault 
 purposely erected for their reception. The 
 body was embalmed by the writer of this 
 memoir. It is enclosed in three coffins : the 
 inner one is of black walnut, with a silver 
 cross upon it bearing the following inscrip- 
 tion : 
 
 " Rt. Rev. William Quarter, D. D., First 
 Bishop of Chicago. Consecrated March 
 10th, 1844: Died April 10th, 1848. Re- 
 quiescat in Pace." 
 
 The vault is built of brick, and lined with 
 water-proof cement. Upon the top of it, 
 and even with the floor of the Cathedral, 
 is placed a beautiful white marble cross, 
 about six feet long. Upon the top part of 
 this cross is engraved in bass-relief the Bi- 
 ble and the Missal surrounded with a halo 
 of glory. Resting upon these are the Cross
 
 118 LIFE OF THE 
 
 and the Crosier and the Mitre, and under- 
 neath the whole, and joined by a band in 
 the centre, are two laurel wreaths, which 
 extend round the design so as to embrace 
 three parts of it. On the horizontal part 
 of the cross is engraved in raised Roman 
 letters the following inscription : 
 
 " Rt. Rev. William Quarter, D. D., First 
 Bishop of Chicago. Consecrated March 
 10th, 1844: died April 10th, 1848: aged 
 42 years." 
 
 On the lower end is engraved in sunk 
 letters the following : 
 
 " Requiescat in Pace." 
 
 At the head of the cross, and in the step 
 of the altar, is a marble step, about two 
 feet four inches long, on the rises of which 
 is a scroll bearing the following inscription : 
 
 " Pretiosa in . Conspectu Domini, mors 
 sanctorum ejus." 
 
 The regard of the congregation of St. 
 Mary's for their Bishop is evinced in their 
 liberality, which has erected a beautiful 
 Cenotaph to his memory. To this work the
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 119 
 
 protestants of the city contributed generous- 
 ly, and of their number Miss Mary A. Mer- 
 ritt, a young poetess of rare gifts, has given 
 a volume of her beautiful poems, the proceeds 
 of the sale of which are to be added to the 
 contributions already given. It is built af- 
 ter the style of similar monuments in the 
 churches of Europe. It stands in the south 
 wall of the Cathedral, within about two 
 feet of the south altar, and is seven feet 
 four inches high, by four feet three inches 
 wide, projecting eight inches from the 
 face of the wall. The whole stands upon 
 two ogee trusses placed about four feet 
 from the floor. Resting on these is a small 
 projecting base, upon which stands two 
 plain pilasters, surmounted by plain caps 
 and a plain Roman arch, the faces of which 
 are on a level with the wall forming the 
 inner recess. Upon this arch is engraved 
 in bold Roman letters : 
 
 " Gloria in excelsis Deo." 
 In the rear of the arch and of the pilas- 
 ters, and constituting the recess, stands
 
 120 LIFE OF THE 
 
 the back plate, upon which is engraved in 
 bold bas-relief the Bible, the Missal, the 
 halo of glory, the Cross, the Crosier, the 
 Mitre, and the laurel wreath, as before 
 described, This recess is twenty-one inch- 
 es wide, and four feet eight inches in 
 height. Outside of the foregoing work are 
 the wall plates, slightly Gothic on the top. 
 
 These plates rest upon the outer end of 
 the base before mentioned, projecting two 
 and a half inches from the wall. Against 
 these and the plain pilasters stand a pair 
 of pilasters projecting outwards about six 
 inches, under and upon which are Grecian 
 bases and capitals. The principal mould- 
 ings on the caps are ornamented with cor- 
 nice-leaf engravings, and upon the outside 
 pilasters is sculptured an inverted flambeau 
 in bold bas-relief, and ornamented. These 
 pilasters and caps are surmounted by a Ro- 
 man arch and key-stone. The principal 
 moulding en the arch is ornamented with 
 cornice-leaf engravings. 
 
 Between the outside pilasters and rest-
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 121 
 
 ing upon the base stands the Sarcophagus, 
 the height of which is three feet four inch- 
 es, and the width three feet five inches. 
 The mouldings on the caps are ornamented 
 with leaf-engravings. On the face of the 
 Sarcophagus is sculptured heavy folds of 
 drapery, under and between which is en- 
 graved in raised Roman capitals, the fol- 
 lowing inscription : 
 
 " Rt Rev. William Quarter, D. D., First 
 Bishop of Chicago." 
 
 On the top of the Sarcophagus stands a 
 richly ornamented Urn, fifteen inches 
 high ; the whole presenting a most beauti- 
 ful and striking appearance as you ap- 
 proach the altar from the door of the church. 
 
 All this work, which does credit as well 
 to the skill of the workmen as to the city in 
 which it was done, was manufactured at the 
 shop of A. S. Sherman, out of the finest 
 American marble. 
 
 Feebly, however, does this monument 
 speak the feelings of the hearts of those 
 who placed it there ; still it speaks in lan- 
 11
 
 122 LIFE OF THE 
 
 guage not to be mistaken : and while one 
 Catholic of those that loved him whose me- 
 mory it perpetuates, comes to bow before 
 St. Mary's Altar, as his. eye rests upon that 
 marble tribute, he will offer up to God his 
 earnest supplications for the happy repose 
 of the soul of Bishop Quarter. 
 
 In reviewing his brief but brilliant career, 
 every one will be astonished at the vast 
 amount of labour performed by him in so 
 short a time. The condition of the diocese 
 on his arrival has been already noticed. 
 Its condition immediately before his death, 
 and his determination to improve it farther, 
 is thus described in his last pastoral ad- 
 dress : 
 
 " The great increase in the number of the Catholic 
 population of this city may be inferred from the fol- 
 lowing facts : In the year 1844, when we took pos- 
 session of this -See, there was only one Catholic church 
 in the city of Chicago. There are now four, together 
 with the chapel of " the Holy name of Jesus," at- 
 tached to " the University of St. Mary of the Lake." 
 This one Catholic church, then under* roof, but not 
 finished, accommodated all the Catholics on Sundays. 
 The German Catholics, the Irish and American Catho- 
 lics, assembled within its walls to assist at the divine 
 mysteries, and were not pressed for room. The Ger-
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 123 
 
 man Catholic churches of St. Peter and St. Joseph 
 have since been built ; the Catholic church of St. 
 Patrick also, which has lately been enlarged by an 
 addition capable of containing as many as the original 
 edifice. The University of St. Mary of the Lake has 
 been built within that time, to which is attached the 
 chapel of the Holy name of Jesus ; as also the Con- 
 vent of" the Sisters of Mercy," which has its domes- 
 tic chapel. Now, all those places, set apart for the 
 worship of God. and for the celebration of the august 
 sacrifice of the Mass, are crowded every Sunday to 
 overflowing with Catholics. What stronger proof is 
 needed of the great and rapid increase of Catholics in 
 this city 1 But not only in Chicago, but throughout 
 the diocese, is the increase of Catholics apparent. 
 Within the last few years, Catholics have purchased 
 here Congress and other lands to a large amount ; 
 and in various parts of the State of Illinois are town- 
 ships owned chiefly by Catholics. Immigration from 
 Ireland, from Canada, and from Catholic portions of 
 Germany, has contributed much to this result ; nor is 
 there, to all appearance, any likelihood that the num- 
 bers of such immigrants will be diminished this year, 
 or for years to come. Indeed, the calculation is, that 
 there will be a larger immigration of Catholics to this 
 State the present year, than any preceding one. 
 
 " There is no privation so keenly felt by the Ca- 
 tholic emigrant, as the want of a Catholic church, and 
 the absence of a Catholic priest from the place where 
 they fix their abode, in a new and to them strange 
 country. We shall use our best efforts that they ex- 
 perience no such privations. We shall endeavour 
 that they have, everywhere in the diocese, the con- 
 solations of their holy religion."
 
 124 LIFE OF THE 
 
 During the period of his episcopacy he 
 ordained twenty-nine priests ; built thirty 
 churches, ten of which were either of brick 
 or of stone. He began his labours with 
 six clergymen in his diocese, and not one 
 ecclesiastical student ; he left it with fifty- 
 three clergymen and twenty ecclesiastical 
 students. And on all the improvements 
 made by him in Chicago, there was not due 
 one cent of debt ! 
 
 What Catholic can look upon this young 
 Diocese without exultation ? Here in these 
 wilds, where, but a brief period since, 
 the savage yelled his startling war-whoop ; 
 where curled up the smoke of his council 
 fire ; where he honoured the Manitou with 
 human sacrifices and the war-dance; is 
 now hymned the praises of the God of the 
 Savage and the Christian, is reared the 
 altar upon which the pure halocust is daily 
 offered up, and far above the tall prairie 
 grass, and resting upon the horizon, is the 
 emblem of man's redemption, the sign to 
 the way-worn traveller that civilization is 
 at hand ; the sign to the pilgrim, wearied
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 125 
 
 on his journey towards the grave, that the 
 haven where he may rest is hard by. 
 
 And here through these wilds passed this 
 messenger of truth on his episcopal visita- 
 tions which were yearly made, bearing the 
 glad tidings of salvation to his people ; 
 proclaiming the precepts of the Gospel and 
 Christ, and breaking the bread of life to 
 those hungering by the way side ; building 
 churches, establishing missions, and pla- 
 cing over them zealous pastors who might 
 labour for that people's good. 
 
 It is true that he experienced much diffi- 
 culty in so establishing many of these mis- 
 sions, as that his priests might be enabled 
 to obtain from them a bare subsistence. 
 In many places the settlements were thinly 
 populated ; the settlers but recently arrived, 
 and with means so scanty as barely to en- 
 able them to provide for the immediate 
 wan^s of their little families, and therefore 
 unable, no matter what their desire, to con- 
 tribute any thing considerable for religious 
 purposes. Still he struggled on, and God 
 
 blessed his perseverance. 
 11 *
 
 126 LIFE OP THE 
 
 He himself set the example which that 
 faithful priesthood followed ; and though 
 their support was bare indeed, they com- 
 plained not, but cheerfully laboured in 
 poverty and in privations, while they knew 
 that the condition of their Bishop was no 
 better than their own. 
 
 The settlement of Bishop Quarter re- 
 minds us of a husbandman going upon a 
 new and uncultivated farm, with very li- 
 mited resources and a full-grown family, 
 and where there is no dwelling and but a 
 few implements of husbandry. There is 
 stir and bustle and confusion and effort, to 
 build here, to clear there, to plant in an- 
 other place. By and by the farm-house 
 will be reared, the farm in a high state of 
 cultivation, and well stocked ; the fields 
 will soon contribute their rich and abundant 
 harvest, the family will quietly enjoy the 
 fruits of their former industry, and comfort 
 and happiness will reign around the man- 
 sion. If the thought that he may not live to 
 reap the fruits of his toil should flit across the 
 father's mind, he does not on that account
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 127 
 
 relax his efforts ; but he labours on for his 
 children's sake ; for his posterity. In imagi- 
 nation he sees them dwelling amid plenty f 
 when his resting place is in the wet earth 
 beneath the green sod. 
 
 The people were the children of Bishop 
 Quarter ; and though he might not live to 
 gather the rich harvest from the seed he 
 had sown, he yet did not cease to scatter 
 that seed with a full hand ; but he saw his 
 children happy and enjoying the full bene- 
 fits of their holy faith, their children grow- 
 ing up in virtue and innocence ; - the fruit 
 watered copiously by the stream " flowing 
 fast by the oracle of God," and he saw too 
 the angels gathering up the immense ears 
 of the ripened grain, and storing them 
 away in the granaries of heaven. 
 
 He heeded not the toil nor the labour. 
 The glory of God and the salvation of souls 
 urged him onward, and for these great 
 ends "he travelled by day and by night, in 
 the wintery cold and under the scorching 
 rays of the summer's sun, exposed to the 
 dangers of the swollen river, of the storms
 
 128 LIFE OF THE 
 
 and of the rain, and cheerfully partook of 
 the humblest fare, glad to repose his wea- 
 ried frame upon the floor of the poor man's 
 hut." And as an instance of how faithfully 
 he discharged every duty belonging to his 
 ministry, I may observe, that during the 
 last winter of his life he said mass every 
 morning in the Convent for the Sisters of 
 Mercy; and no matter how pleasant or un- 
 pleasant it might be, the hour of five o'clock 
 found him at the altar offering up the holy 
 sacrifice. 
 
 He was, without being rash, a naturally 
 courageous, even a fearless man. After 
 the destruction of the Convent at Charles- 
 town by a band of midnight incendiaries, 
 mobs became the order of the day; even 
 New- York was threatened with their pious 
 efforts to demolish popish temples with 
 a repetition of scenes that have stained 
 the escutcheon of Massachusetts forever; 
 and while one of these popular gatherings 
 was tossed and heaving like an angry sea 
 beneath the windows of his residence, pre- 
 paring to destroy the church opposite to
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 
 
 him, he was seated in his study, writing 
 his charity sermon to be delivered for the 
 benefit of the Eastern Dispensary, a Pro- 
 testant institution ; and when Rev. Mr. 
 Danaher, his assistant, entering his room 
 and finding him thus occupied, expressed 
 his astonishment at so much calmness and 
 composure, while all around was commo- 
 tion and confusion, Mr. Quarter raised his 
 eyes from his manuscript for a moment, 
 while he replied in his usual bland manner 
 "It is time enough to think of escaping 
 when we are attacked." 
 
 He was a faithful soldier of Jesus Christ, 
 endowed with extraordinary moral courage, 
 and he knew no impossibilities. Any thing 
 once determined by him was half accom- 
 plished. Thought and action went hand 
 in hand, and his purposes would be effect- 
 ed while many thought they had not yet 
 been shaped. His eye, once fixed on any 
 object for religious good, never lost sight 
 of it. 
 
 His powerful mind comprehended the 
 most knotty questions almost at a glance,
 
 130 LIFE OF THE 
 
 and although his career was one of con- 
 stant labour, one in which he could repose 
 only upon his arms, yet he was always pre- 
 pared " to give a reason for the faith that 
 was in him." 
 
 He possessed an extraordinary power 
 over men's minds. Though surrounded by 
 clergymen of distinguished abilities, yet his 
 judgme-nt was supreme ; and so great was 
 their confidence in his powers of mental 
 perception, that it was always deferred to. 
 
 He was an affectionate and faithful pastor 
 to his people, entering cheerfully into the 
 examination of their wants, and struggling 
 with his best energies to remove them, and 
 to make these people comfortable and 
 happy. 
 
 To his faithful priests, who bore with him 
 the ''burden of the day and the heat," he was 
 even more affectionate, merciful and in- 
 dulgent. He was well aware of the toils 
 and of tha fatigues they were obliged to 
 undergo in consequence of the extent of 
 their missions. He knew well the danger 
 to which they were exposed on those mis-
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 131 
 
 sions, where, without roads, they were 
 obliged to hunt their pathway through the 
 prairies, guiding themselves by the stars 
 in the heavens, and often sleeping beneath 
 its blue arch with the heath for their pil- 
 low, and the howl of the prairie wolf 
 around them without bridges which would 
 enable them to avoid the madly-rushing 
 current of the swollen river exposed to 
 the rains and the fogs, and the pestiferous 
 exhalations of a country rank with fester- 
 ing vegetation. He saw them stricken 
 down by sickness in the midst of their career, 
 and in places too where their danger was 
 increased by the want of proper care. His 
 compassionate heart grieved for them, and 
 with his usual consideration he formed 
 amongst them an association, by means of 
 which those thus afflicted might be re- 
 moved to Chicago, where they would re- 
 ceive proper attendance until health was 
 restored ; and if in Chicago this could not 
 be effected, then funds were supplied for 
 journeying wherever in Europe or America, 
 it might be necessary that the invalid should
 
 132 LIFE OF THE 
 
 go. Those who had laboured in the vine- 
 yard of the Lord until old age and its at- 
 tendant infirmities overtook them, were 
 supported in the evening of their days ; and 
 when they could work no longer, by funds 
 from this same association. 
 
 In the pulpit his manner was solemn and 
 impressive, and his eloquent lessons of Di- 
 vine truth never failed to reach the heart, 
 and leave upon it impressions that time 
 could not efface. The series of sermons he 
 was engaged in delivering when death cut 
 short his career, were master-pieces of ar- 
 gument and eloquence, and the crowded 
 throngs that hung upon his words, think- 
 ing no time too long to listen, showed how 
 much they were appreciated. Long will 
 these powerful exhortations continue to be 
 remembered. Truly was his last sermon 
 a profession of faith. 
 
 Were I to write all that might be said 
 in praise of the public career of Bishop 
 Quarter, I fear I would be charged with 
 the common error of biographers, viz., that 
 of endeavouring to make their heroes per-
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 133 
 
 feet ; and yet the charge would in this case, 
 as I have no doubt it often is in others, be 
 incorrectly made. His career, however, 
 will speak his eulogy in words more elo- 
 quent than pen can trace. 
 
 It was in private life that the rare quali- 
 ties of his head and heart could be best ap- 
 preciated. Kind, affable, gentlemanly, sin- 
 cere with the utmost solicitude, did he 
 endeavour on all occasions to avoid any 
 remark or insinuation that might give the 
 least shadow of offence or wound the most 
 sensitive ; and yet so firm in the right, that 
 his opinion, once formed, was not to be 
 changed at any risk. 
 
 The remembrance of his many virtues 
 was written in the faces of all of every de- 
 nomination who came to pay their last 
 respects to his remains and the love of 
 his own people was manifested in the flood 
 of grief that overwhelmed them when 
 the news of his unexpected death spread 
 through the city. It was seen in the crowd- 
 ed church, in the funeral train, in the tear- 
 ful eyes of those who came to witness the 
 12
 
 134 LIFE OP THE 
 
 performance of the last sad rites over all 
 that was left of the Bishop, who in the full 
 vigour of his life stood a few days ago be- 
 fore them. 
 
 He was remarkable for his kindness and 
 forbearance towards those who were with- 
 out the sheepfold of the only holy Catholic 
 Church. He was well aware how errone- 
 ous are the opinions entertained by them, 
 respecting the doctrines and practices of 
 that Church. He knew that they were 
 taught to consider doctrines as cherished 
 by us which we regard with a horror 
 even greater than their own, and making 
 every allowance for the fact that they 
 were taught these errors from their child- 
 hood upwards, that they had been repeated 
 to them so often as to constitute almost a 
 part of their religious belief, he wondered 
 only, that while they supposed Catholics 
 to be so impious, they could be even as 
 tolerant of them as they were ; that while 
 they charged them with superstition and 
 idolatry, and every crime in the calendar,
 
 RT. REV. WM. aUARTER. 135 
 
 they could even imagine that a Catholic 
 had any hope of Heaven. 
 
 He was not, therefore, surprised at the 
 distrust with which Protestants look upon 
 the Catholic Church ; and he on this account 
 treated their prejudices with becoming 
 charity, confident that their distrust did not 
 proceed from the heart, but from the errors 
 of their early education ; and he endea- 
 voured, whenever an opportunity offered, 
 to remove the cause of this prejudice by 
 explaining to them what were truly and 
 really the doctrines of the Catholic Church. 
 The increased liberality of the community 
 now so remarkable in Chicago, demon- 
 strates the wisdom of the course that 
 seemed to him so correct. 
 
 Protestants, he often remarked, do not in 
 reality hate Catholic doctrines. They hate 
 only what the enemies, the malicious igno- 
 rant enemies of the Church for which Christ 
 died, represent as belonging to Catholics 
 and Catholic doctrines. But when the veil 
 defiled by these slanders is removed from 
 the face of the beautiful Spouse of Jesus
 
 136 LIFE OP THE 
 
 Christ ;, when the light of her lovely coun- 
 tenance, beaming with a heavenly radiance, 
 falls upon their hearts ; they can, even as 
 ourselves, appreciate that loveliness which 
 time cannot dim, but which increases for 
 ever. 
 
 It has been frequently asked, how, with 
 so little means, Bishop Quarter accomplish- 
 ed so much. None but a Catholic Bishop, 
 aided by zealous Catholic priests, could 
 have done the same. They had no families 
 to support, no worldly appearances to keep 
 up ; and they imitated the poverty of their 
 divine Master, contented to live in need, 
 often upon hard dry bread, so that they might 
 give all they possessed to the advancement 
 of that holy cause on which their hearts 
 were fixed. What could retard the pro- 
 gress of the Church that was supported 
 by such self-devotion and sacrifices that 
 Church which had the promise of the Holy 
 Ghost to sustain her for ever against 
 which " the gates of hell cannot prevail 1" 
 
 Many kind, and generous and liberal Pro- 
 testant gentlemen of the city, aided him
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 137 
 
 much by donations and encouragement ; and 
 to Messrs. W. B. Ogden, W. Newberry, and 
 J. Y. Scammon, Esqs., the Catholic Church 
 of Chicago owes a great debt of gratitude, 
 and one which will not be soon forgotten. 
 Besides, he was liberally assisted by that 
 staunch friend of his own, James Kerrigan, 
 Esq., of New- York, while the funds and the 
 energies of his dearly loved brother, Very 
 Rev. Walter J. Quarter, were always at his 
 disposal. 
 
 By " an inscrutable decree of Divine Pro- 
 vidence," however, he was called away, in 
 the midst of his usefulness, to make room 
 for a worthy successor.* How lamentable 
 is it, that the catastrophe was so sudden ! 
 How precious would have been the words 
 of such a man, as he calmly contemplated 
 the passage to " that land whence no tra- 
 veller returns !" Oh ! it is at the last hour 
 of life, when the world is fast fading from 
 the view, and the morning of eternity is 
 dawning, that the admonitions of the good 
 
 * Rt. Rev. Jas. Vandevelde, D. D., now Bishop of 
 Chicago. 
 
 12*
 
 138 LIFE OF THE 
 
 are like the prophetic warnings of old, 
 which warm the heart to virtue, and make 
 it better. It is then that we feel the little- 
 ness of all here below, and the greatness of 
 the reward that may be ours in heaven. 
 
 He is gone, but how richly does he merit 
 our gratitude ! He has left us a priceless 
 inheritance in our College and our Convent, 
 where our children may receive the reli- 
 gious instructions that will fit them for the 
 discharge of their duties in this world, and 
 their rewards in the next ; but more than 
 all, he has left us his example. 
 
 Yesterday he stood like a tall column 
 firm upon its base, and pointing its beautiful 
 shaft to the heavens ; to-day that column 
 is broken in its midst, and prostrated to the 
 earth. , Yesterday he was in life before us ; 
 to-day he lives in our memories. To die 
 as a hero dies, is a glorious death ; but to 
 die as died this faithful champion of the 
 cross, after, having sealed his ministry, 
 was still more glorious. " Oh God ! as is 
 the heroism of thy armies, so is the grandeur 
 of thy triumphs. How poor is the splendour
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 139 
 
 that crowns earthly conquests, to the open- 
 ing of the gates of pearl, leading into the 
 Golden City with walls of sapphire and 
 chrysolite, in which the great Captain 
 sitteth upon the white throne, smiling upon 
 his servants who have ' fought the good 
 fight and kept the faith !' The wreaths 
 that crown the brows of mortal victors 
 fade before the night ; theirs lose not 
 their fragrance forever, and their beauty is 
 eternal."
 
 140 LIFE OF THE 
 
 The following beautiful and touching 
 lines from the pen of Miss Merritt, whose 
 name has been already mentioned, form 
 a fit conclusion to this memoir. 
 
 MEMORIAL OF t WILLIAM, 
 
 BISHOP OF CHICAGO. 
 
 " Sorrow not as those without a hope" 
 
 Now all is over ! to the requiem 
 
 Of the deep organ, solemn in its swell, 
 They bore him onward to the chamber dim, 
 
 Our Friend our Father he that loved us well ! 
 Never ! ah, never ! shall as kind a glance 
 
 Send us the greeting his was wont to send : 
 O'er the calm brightness of his countenance 
 
 The chilling shadows of the grave descend. 
 
 His form is resting 'neath the saintly shade 
 
 Of shrine and altar that he helped to rear ; 
 Within their silence he hath knelt and prayed, 
 
 And it is fitting we should lay him here. 
 So may the organ's wild and thrilling peal 
 
 A mournful requiem o'er his slumber pour, 
 While our hushed spirits thrill again to feel 
 
 His presence near us, though of earth no more.
 
 RT. REV. WM. QUARTER. 141 
 
 But yesterday we looked upon his face 
 
 Lit up and kindling with the earnest soul 
 But yesterday within his wonted place, 
 
 From lips now silent, words of fervour stole. 
 Never ! ah, never ! shall their accents fall 
 
 Upon the stillness of the Sabbath air, 
 The smile the greeting these have vanish'd all, 
 
 That place is vacant by the shrine of prayer. 
 
 We might not kneel beside him at the last, 
 
 To win a blessing from his soul to ours, 
 Ere the Dark Angel's pinions o'er him past, 
 
 In the dim silence of the midnight hours ; 
 No word of parting on our hearts might sink, 
 
 To still, of sorrows, this the deepest one, 
 Yet may we triumph in our wo to think 
 
 His latest whisper was, " Thy will be done ! M 
 
 Yes ! on our sorrow breaks a fervent tone, 
 
 An inward breathing to the spirit borne, 
 Far thro' the shadow is a star-beam thrown, 
 
 To lead us upward to the clime of morn; 
 There led his pathway through the midnight veil, 
 
 Unto the fulness of a Love Divine ; 
 Now may Faith's whisper, thrilling low, prevail 
 
 O'er earthly conflict, with a heavenly sign. 
 
 And yet, oh, Father! we have lost in thee 
 All that which language has no power to name: 
 
 For us thy heart beat true and fervently 
 Through change, and coldness, thou wert still the 
 same.
 
 142 LIFE, ETC. 
 
 Now are our souls supremely desolate, 
 
 Since gone the presence and the smile that blest, 
 
 And wo ! for those on whom the chastening weight 
 Falls like a shadow, long and dim, to rest. 
 
 Yet thou within thy soul's effulgent realm, 
 
 Know'st not the sadness thro' our spirit breathed ; 
 But vain ! oh vain ! its clouding to o'erwhelm 
 
 Thy blessed memory unto us bequeathed ; 
 With those who loved thee it shall be a spell 
 
 Of holy influence shrined within the heart, 
 Uplifting thought from earth, and earth's farewell, 
 
 To the eternal dwelling where thou art. 
 
 M. A. M.