The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 22

It is difficult to write an interesting history. Simple facts of the past stated in dry statistical style, like the reports of an insane asylum or a poor-house, are about as interesting as they, and appear to the general reader to be of about equal importance. We may be thought weak in judgment to say it, but we should like to read history for the same reason we like to read the last novel by d.i.c.kens, in which the author wields his magic pen to paint life-pictures of the events of the world before our mind, and compels us to be living witnesses of the past in the realm of imagination. To insure a deep interest and a lasting impression all the faculties of the mind should be engaged. Our imagination must not be told to step out of doors or go to sleep whilst our memory takes an inventory of facts consigned to its storehouse by a historian. The senses of sight and of taste are given to man that he may be guided in supplying his stomach with the proper quantum and quality of the food it craves. What these senses are to the stomach, the imagination is to the mind, and if it have no hand in the choice of mental food there cannot help but be an indigestion; the brain, indeed, holding the crude ma.s.s, but unable to make any use of it.

We may sum up in a few sentences the application these remarks may have to the history before us. The volume {144} comes to us with uncut edges. Let the reader open it at random. He finds before him a fair page, printed in large cool type, with broad generous margins, looking as a page ought to look, like a goodly field of wheat or corn, and not like a stiff, prim, pinched, and gravelled parterre. Let him read down one page, and he will surely bring his paper-cutter into requisition and follow the author to the beginning of the next paragraph. He will find the style, if we mistake not, like one of those charming, shady, winding, country roads, which always entice you to go just as far as the next turning; an agreeable contrast to the ordinary page of history, which to us is so like a grievous paved military road in France, straight enough, wide enough, and direct enough, but lamentably monotonous, dry, dusty, and tiresome. There is a little stiffness and dull regularity about the division of the subject-matter; but this is inevitable to any history of a long period, and may be regarded as the signboards and finger-posts on the road, making up in convenience what they detract from the romance.

As to the character of the work of M. Darras as a history--as one in which we can learn the actual life of our mother, the Church; one which we can quote with confidence in public, and not be obliged to contradict to its back as it stands on our shelves; one which we can give to our friends, of all cla.s.ses and opinions, as a good, reliable, and respectable Church history--we are content to take it as such upon the warm approbation it has received at the hands of the Holy Father, the use that is made of it in colleges and seminaries in Europe, the approval it has obtained from the Rt. Rev. bishops there and in the United States, and the good opinion universally expressed concerning it by scholars whose critical judgment is worthy of reliance.

Certainly we have no Church history equal to it in the English language, and we bid this translated French one welcome, and hope it may receive an hospitable reception amongst us.

The dissertation on the perpetuity of the Church, and the immortality of the Papacy, from the pen of the Most Rev. Archbishop Spalding, which embellishes this edition under the form of an introduction, is both appropriate and well deserving of perusal. The learned prelate puts us at once on reading acquaintance with the work of M. Darras, and enkindles in us the desire to know more of the eventful course of the existence of Holy Church.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

CAPE COD. By Henry D. Th.o.r.eau. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1865.

12mo., pp. 252.

COMPLETE WORKS OF THE MOST REV. JOHN HUGHES, D.D., late Archbishop of New York. Comprising his Sermons, Letters, Lectures, Speeches, etc.

Carefully compiled from the best sources, and edited by Lawrence Kehoe. Two vols. 8vo., pp. 670 and 810. New York: Lawrence Kehoe.

PASTORAL LETTER OF THE MOST RET. J. B. PURCELL, D.D., Archbishop of Cincinnati, to the Clergy and Laity of the archdiocese, on the late Encyclical Letter of his Holiness Pius IX. promulgating the Jubilee of 1865, with the Bull of Pius IX. authorizing the Jubilee of 1846.

Printed at the "Cincinnati Catholic Telegraph" Office.

NATURAL HISTORY. A Manual of Zoology for Schools, Colleges, and the General Reader, by Sanborn Tenney, A.M. Ill.u.s.trated. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 12mo., pp. 540.

From D. & J. Sadlier and Co., New York, we have received the following: BANIM'S COMPLETE WORKS. PARTS 1, 2, 3, AND 4; THE OLD HOUSE BY THE BOYNE, by Mrs. Sadlier; CATHOLIC ANECDOTES. Part 1. Translated from the French by Mrs. Sadlier; THE LIVES OF THE POPES, from the French of Chevalier d'Artaud, Parts 1 and 2; CAECILIA, a Roman Drama, and THE SECRET, a Drama, by Mrs. J. Sadlier.

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THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL, II., NO. 8.--NOVEMBER, 1865,

From Revue Generale, Bruxelles.

REV. DEMETRIUS AUGUSTIN GALLITZIN, AND THE CATHOLIC SETTLEMENTS IN PENNSYLVANIA.

The events of which the United States have, during late years, been the theatre of action, have revived in the recollection of the editors of the _Historisch-politische Blatter_ of Munich the name of Loretto, a small and unpretending town of Pennsylvania, the founder of which was Prince Demetrius Angustin Gallitzin, the son of the remarkable woman of whom Germany has a right to be proud. The occasion has suggested to them a biographical sketch, which, full of interest and appositeness, will unquestionably be read in Belgium and France with as much avidity as in Germany.

Twenty years have elapsed since Prince Gallitzin, who had exchanged the luxuries of princely courts for the poverty of those who herald the glad tidings, slept in the Lord, after forty years of apostleship in the wild regions of the Alleghany mountains. The work set up by the pious missionary yet remains, marked by all the elements of thrifty life, and the little oasis will long continue to be what it was at its origin--the cradle of a Christian civilization, which will go on spreading its blessings to the remotest boundaries, still retaining the un.o.btrusive modesty which moved its founder's thought. Indeed, had the matter rested with Gallitzin's own wishes, his very name would have pa.s.sed into vague tradition in those extended regions. It might even have slept in oblivion; for the prince, so careful was he to avoid anything that could attract the attentions of the world, lived and exercised his holy ministry for many years under the borrowed name of Schmidt.

In Father Lemcke, however, and fortunately too, a canon of the abbey of the Benedictines of St. Vincent in Pennsylvania, was found a man who, better than any other, had it in his power to preserve the reminiscences of the n.o.ble missionary, and accurately to depict for us the traits of his manly character. Not only did the biographer of the prince know him personally, but he was also his friend, his confidant, his confessor, and his co-laborer in the missions. After Gallitzin's death, Father Lemcke came into possession of his papers, letters, and memoranda, which supplied him with desirable data on the period of life preceding their ministerial connection. He, and he alone, therefore, was in a condition to write a true biography of the prince, and he deemed it a duty to {146} rescue from oblivion the memory of this distinguished man. In connection with this subject, Father Lemcke indulges in a judicious remark: "The life of Gallitzin," says he, "is so intimately inwoven with the events which occurred during his own times, that it holds out to future generations an interest like to that which is offered to us in the life of a Bonifacius or of an Ansgarius, by reason of the facts which have characterized the epochs in which they lived."

Gallitzin belonged to the phalanx of missionaries who, in the United States, scattered the seeds of spiritual life. When the prince stepped on the soil of that vast territory, there was but one prelate, Rt.

Rev. John Carroll of Baltimore, the first bishop of the United States, who, from the circ.u.mstances of the Church, had been obliged to seek Europe for his episcopal consecration. [Footnote 23] He had been but two years installed--from 1790--and had but uncertain and broken intercourse with his flock. His surroundings, restricted in numbers, but devoted to the holy cause, were mainly composed of, French priests. In this infant church Gallitzin was the second priest consecrated by the Bishop of Baltimore, and missioned, as a true pioneer of civilization, to carry the cross through the untouched forests of the New World, There is an unvarying likeness in all great undertakings; yet it required but a short time--a relatively short time--considerably to increase the number of those men who had devoted themselves to the task. In contrast with the bishop, who, in the course of five years, could ordain and rely on two priests only to feed the flock of the Lord, "The Catholic Almanac" of the day exhibits to us, for the United States, seven archbishops, thirty-six bishops, and four apostolic vicars, with the ministry of two thousand priests, with the addition of convents of various orders, of seminaries, of colleges, of numberless benevolent inst.i.tutions, with over 4,000,000 of Catholics living under the protection of the laws, in the practice and enjoyment of their faith.

[Footnote 23: There are new details on this distinguished man in a recently published work: "_Die Katholische Kirche in den Vereinigten Staatm von Nord Amerika_," etc., etc. Regensburg. 1864.]

The Germans delight in recalling to mind that one of those who helped to lay the foundations of the Church in North America was the offspring of a princely house of the Fatherland. Gallitzin was a German on the maternal side; and the n.o.ble parent could well claim both the spiritual and natural motherhood of her son, the latter of which was, perhaps, glory enough. How magnificent a mission was that of Princess Amelia Gallitzin! While gathering around her circle the choice spirits which seemed destined to keep bright the torch of faith in Germany, and its living convictions in the midst of a superficial society without belief and without its guiding lights, the princess was rearing for the New World a son who was about to turn aside from a career which his birth and his wealth justly reserved for him, and take up the arduous and thankless labors of the apostleship. This very son it was who, through the work of faith, was destined to be the founder and civilizer of a now flourishing colony.

Strangely enough, nothing in young Gallitzin gave earnest of such a vocation. His almost feminine nature had marked him for a timid, shrinking child; but what was still worse, and a source of deep anxiety to his mother, to this was added a lack of decision, which seemed so deeply rooted in him that not even the iron will of the princess could, during the course of many years, draw out any perceptible results. We have a letter of the princess of the date of 1790, two years before the departure of Demetrius for America, in which she reiterates on this ground her former complainings, her exhortations, and her admonitions. It is proper, however, to advert that the incipient {147} method of training pursued by the princess herself was not free from defect; for, daring the nonage of her son, she herself wavered and hesitated between various systems of philosophy--a course which necessarily must have drawn her into many an error.

There was, therefore, a defectiveness in the main foundation of the training of young Gallitzin, who was reared in a sort of religious indifferentism. But a complete revulsion took place when, after leaving Munster, the princess was led to rest her convictions, not on this or the other system of philosophy, but on the rock of Christian faith--when, from her relations with such men as Furstenberg and Overberg, she herself had gained a greater degree of firmness and steadfastness. This reacted on the education of the son, in the greater decision and authority exerted by the mother; and it was not without fit intention that Demetrius, in the sacrament of confirmation, received the surname of Angustin.

Born on the 22d of December, 1770, at the Hague, where his father, a favorite of the Empress Catherine, was accredited as amba.s.sador of Russia, young Gallitzin saw before him the opening of a career bound to lead to the highest dignities of either military or administrative service. Nothing, therefore, was spared in giving him a complete education, according to the requirements of the world. This education, developed and closed under his mother's eyes, must be perfected by travel; but whither to direct it was a question of moment. The aristocratic banks of the Rhine were ravaged by the revolutions and war had converted Europe into a vast battle-field. It opportunely happened, at that time, that a young priest, by the name of Brodius, whom the princess had known through the family of the Droste, and who had been admitted to her circle, was about crossing the Atlantic as a missionary to America. The princess had had occasions to value the rare endowments of this priest, and knew how justly her confidence in him could extend. She therefore proposed to him the companionship of her son in a journey which seemed to her to be the only practicable one warranted by the times. The princess, fortunately, met with no opposition on the part of the prince, her husband. An admirer of Washington, and still more so of the philosophic Jefferson, he readily agreed that his son should devote a couple of years to a visit to the United States, so as to judge for himself of the inst.i.tutions all that country. He earnestly charged him to be introduced to these two great men; while the princess on her part armed him with a letter of recommendation to the Right Reverend Bishop Carroll.

In August, 1792, when twenty-two years of age, young Gallitzin took ship at Rotterdam on his way to America. No one could, certainly, have then stirred him with the idea that the land of America was marked out as a theatre for the evolutions of his existence. Was there a presentiment in that parting hour which, he could not know, was to mark an eternal farewell? Was it a last return of the original indecision of character which made him linger at the roadstead to which his mother had accompanied him? No one can now tell; but what we can say is that when, on the crests of the foaming billows, he caught sight of the yawl which was to carry him on board, his heart failed him, and he turned back to retrace his steps. Then did his mother turn back to him and, with a look of disappointment, "Dimitri," said she, "I blush for thee"--and, grasping his arm, she urged him on to the boat. In a moment, and how no one could tell, the young prince was engulfed in the waves. As quick as thought the practised hands of the sailors fished him up from the waters, and wafted him to the vessel that was to bear him away. Such was his farewell to Europe; but this sea baptism had regenerated him into a new man, as, at a later period, he told the story to his biographer.

{148}

On the whole, a noted change had taken place in young Gallitzin. In him every weakness and every irresolution had disappeared, and made room for a firmness, a determination, and an inflexibility which, to his family, became a source of greatest astonishment. Two months had hardly pa.s.sed by in the intimacies of life with the Bishop of Baltimore, when he already felt, within himself, what soon became a clearly defined resolve. With the close of the year 1792 he wrote to Munster that he had devoted himself, body and soul, to the service of G.o.d and to the salvation of souls in America. He wrote that this resolution had been determined by the urgent call for laborers in the vineyard of the Lord; for in the country in which he was then sojourning, his priests had to travel over a hundred and fifty miles of territory, and more, to bring to the faithful the word and the means of salvation.

These were the first news of him received in Munster, and they were disseminated with the rapidity of lightning. From all sides sprang up objections, doubts, and remonstrances against the scheme of the young prince and the boldness of his undertaking. His mother, however, who had at first been alarmed and steeped in agony at the idea of such a vocation, soon rea.s.serted her unerring judgment, and looked into the matter with her wonted greatness of soul. From the moment that, from letters of distinguished persons, and especially from those of the Bishop of Baltimore, as well as from those of her son, she became satisfied that his was a real and substantial calling, she felt perfectly secure, and all human considerations vanished from her sight. She therefore wrote to Dimitri that if, after having tried himself, he was sure that he had really obeyed his vocation, she willingly accepted the reproaches and troubles which could not fail to shower upon him; and that, for herself, she could not desire a consummation dearer to her heart--a greater reward--than to see the child of her affections a minister at the altar of G.o.d. And, indeed, not light was the burden of reproaches and afflictions which she had to bear for the love of that son--especially on the part of her husband, it was anything but light. Her letters to Overberg more than amply inform us on that subject Gallitzin, however, seemed to have left his European friends to the indulgence of their astonishment.

Heedless of his former social relations, in firmness and resoluteness he trod the path which he had marked for himself, and prosecuted his theological studies with such fervency that his superiors, in view of his failing health, deemed it their duty to interpose. After two years of study, however, he became a sub-deacon, and, on the sixteenth of March, 1795, he was ordained to the priesthood.

There was no lack of labor, however, in the vineyard of the Lord, and the young Levite, the second one who came out of the first Catholic seminary in North America, was immediately put to work. At Port Tobacco, on the Potomac, Gallitzin entered his apostolical career. His fervor, no doubt, carried him too far into those proverbially malarial regions; for, stricken down by a spell of fever, he was ordered by his bishop to return to Baltimore, where Gallitzin was subsequently directed to ascend the pulpit and preach to the German population which had settled that portion of the state of Maryland.

The democratic spirit of American manners, which, with its innumerable abuses, had permeated even religions existence itself, was diametrically opposed to the just conceptions of the priesthood and of the organization of the Church which Gallitzin had formed in his mind.

For the primitive morals of which he was then in quest he turned to the unsettled portions of Pennsylvania. "I went there," he tells us at a later period, "to avoid the _trustees_ and all the irregularities which they beget. For success, I had {149} no other warrant than the building of something new, that could escape the routine of inveterate custom. Had I settled where the hand had already been put to the plough, my work would have been endangered, for it had been soon a.s.sailed by the spirit of Protestantism."

In the apostolic trips which frequently took him into the then far West, on the table lands of the Alleghany range, near Huntington, where the waters of the Ohio fork away from those of the Susquehanna, Gallitzin had alighted on a settlement made up of a few Catholic families. In the midst of this Catholic nucleus he resolved to establish a permanent colony, which he destined in his mind as the centre of his missions. Several poor Maryland families, whose affections he had won, resolved to follow him; and, with the consent of his bishop, he took up his line of march with them in the summer of 1799, and travelled from Maryland with his face turned to the ranges of the Alleghany mountains. And a rough and trying journey it was;--hewing their way through primitive forests, burdened at the same time with all their worldly goods. So soon as the small caravan had reached its new home, Gallitzin took possession of this, as it were, conquered land; and, without loss of time, all the settlers addressed themselves to the work before them, and worked so zealously that, before the end of the year, they had already erected a church. The following is Father Lemcke's account of the humble origin of this establishment:

"Out of the clearings of these untrodden forests rose up two buildings, constructed out of the trunks of roughly hewn trees; of these, one was intended for a church--the other, a presbytery for their pastor. On Christmas eve of the year 1799, there was not a winking eye in the little colony. And well there might not be! The new church, decked with pine and laurel and ivy leaves, and blazing with such lights as the scant means of the faithful could afford, was awaiting its consecration to the worship of G.o.d! There Gallitzin offered up the first ma.s.s, to the great edification of his flock, that, although made up of Catholics, had never witnessed such a solemnity, and to the great astonishment of a few Indians, who, wrapped up in the pursuit of the chase, had never, in their life, dreamed of such a pageantry. Thus it was that, on a spot in which, scarcely a year previous, silence had reigned over vast solitudes, a prince, thenceforward cut off from every other country, had opened a new one to pilgrims from all nations, and that, from the wastes, which echoed no sounds but the howlings of the wild beast, welled up the divine song which spoke: 'Glory to G.o.d in the highest, and peace, on earth, to men of good will!'"

The cost of this spiritual and material colonization was at first individually borne by Gallitzin. Captain McGuire, an Irishman, one of the early settlers of the country, had acquired 400 acres of land, which he intended for the Church. These he conveyed to Gallitzin, who divided into small tracts the lands, which he had purchased with his own means, and distributed them among the poorer members of his colony, on condition of reimburs.e.m.e.nt, by instalments, at long periods--a condition, however, which, in a majority of cases, never was complied with.

The wilderness soon put on a new aspect. The settlers followed the impulses of the indefatigable missionary, who kept steadfastly in view the improvement of his work. His first care was to set up a grist-mill; then arose numerous out-buildings; additional lands were purchased, and in a short time the colony was notably enlarged.

In carrying out his work, Gallitzin received material a.s.sistance from Europe. In its origin, sums of money were regularly remitted to him by his mother; for he kept up a correspondence, which his devotion to her made {150} dear to his heart In these relations his father took little, if any, interest, as the determination of his son--his only son--had proved to him a source of bitter disappointment. Still he anxiously desired to see him return to Europe. So engrossed, however, was the young missionary by his work, that such a trip seemed next to an impossibility. Several years had thus glided by, when the idea of visiting Europe earnestly engaged his mind.

In the month of June, 1803, he wrote to his mother, in apology for a long silence; telling her that he is seriously contemplating seeing her once more, but that he is trammelled in his desire by the want of a priest to take his place;--indeed, that his work has so grown under his hands, that he doubts whether he will ever again be privileged to clasp his mother in his arms. "I may not think of it," he adds; "my heart is fraught with affection for you, and it seems to me that I should absolutely see you once more, so as to borrow courage to follow the path which is marked out for me in this perverse world." The letters from Overberg are witnesses of the tears shed by the mother, so anxious again to look upon her son, as well as of the unmurmuring mournfulness of her resignation.

The announcement of his father's death again brought up the subject of his visit to Europe. Indeed, his presence was required in the settlement of his inheritance; but now, as before, the joy of once more treading his native soil, and the happiness of embracing his mother, had to yield to what he considered his duty to his infant colony. The just and plausible reasons which he alleges to his mother for his course, allow us at the same time fairly to appreciate the extent of his work, and the hopes built upon its success. Hence he suggests the consideration due to those families that his advice had influenced, for the greater honor of religion, to follow him in the wilderness;--the money obligations, contracted with various friends, who had trusted him with large sums to speed the development of his scheme, and whose confidence, therefore, might be seriously wronged by his departure;--the interests of so many others, who had committed all their worldly hopes into his hands and whom his absence might leave an easy prey to heartless speculators;--and, finally, the pending questions, started by the scheme of erecting into a county the territory to which the lands of the colony belonged. All these motives, to which others were added, were sufficiently weighty to press on the conscience of Demetrius the duty Of remaining at his post. This final resolution his mother learned with the firmness of Christian heroism. She wrote to the prince: "Whatever sorrow may have panged my motherly heart at the idea of renouncing a hope that a while seemed within reach, I owe it to truth to tell thee that thy letter has afforded me the greatest consolation that I can look for upon earth." It is a touching picture to behold, in the sequel, this zealous mother continuing her interest in the mission founded by the prince, and providing for its success in keeping with the inspirations of her heart. Thus it was that, through the channel of the Bishop of Baltimore, she transmitted to her son a bill of exchange for a considerable amount, a box of books--a treasure in those days--rosaries for the settlers, linen for himself and friends, garments, and even baby-clothes, for the poorer members of the settlement, sacerdotal vestments, embroidered by the princess herself, by her daughter, and by Countess de s...o...b..rg, and, lastly, a magnificent present, which the missionary during his life valued beyond all price, and with which, in accordance with his wishes, he was laid to slumber in the tomb.

In the meantime Gallitzin's colony, settled in the midst of those wild wastes, had expanded and become a town, to which he gave the name of Loretto, the beginning of which are {151} thus described by our missionary's successor: "The colony was composed of individuals who generally purchased considerable tracts, varying from one to four hundred acres in extent, which they cleared and converted to cultivation. In proportion as the population increased, they gradually emerged from the savagery of the earlier periods, and soon experienced the wants of a growing civilization. The indication of those wants suggested to Gallitzin's mind the necessity of converting the humble settlement into a town. Mechanics, of every useful trade, rapidly gathered around the nucleus--blacksmiths, millers, carpenters, shoemakers, with even storekeepers, and Loretto soon a.s.sumed the position which its founder had designed.

"Here, then, stands the town; but, with its new dignity, came a host of vexations. It marked for Gallitzin a period of struggle against every imaginable difficulty, which brought his firmness to the sorest trials, and which indeed might have jeoparded the very existence of his work. In fact, the means of reducing, under the control of a single hand, the heterogeneous components of such a colony was no easy problem to be solved. Gallitzin efforts to bring it under a normal organization had to meet many an antagonizing element, whilst the peculiar American spirit, which had even then permeated those solitudes, reared up obstacles to his scheme. Gallitzin, however, proved unshakable, and exhibited an unbending energy of character. At one time there was an actual crisis in the prospects of the colony. A member of the community, with a fair allotment of the goods of this world, with the excitable American brain and a marked tendency to speculation, suddenly conceived the idea to set up a compet.i.tion with the growing colony and to lay the foundations of a rival one in the neighborhood. He went to work accordingly, and, with the a.s.sistance of a few Irishmen, actually laid the foundations of village, which he named Munster, after one of the provinces of Ireland. This rival of Loretto immediately became the headquarters of the _propagators of light_, in other words, of those who had little relish for the zeal of Gallitzin and the inconvenient discipline of the Church. Satisfied not only with putting the prosperity of Loretto in evident peril, the seceders also a.s.sailed the character of Gallitzin, and through these means derived an unexpected help. It happened fitly for their purposes that at the time two German vagabonds--one a priest of most questionable character, and the other a n.o.bleman, whom the crime of forgery had driven from the Old World--presented themselves to Gallitzin, and anything but pleased, no doubt, with the welcome which they received, resolved to swell the party of malcontents. With cunning malice, they soon disseminated reports injurious to their countryman, gave a pretended substance to unfounded suspicions, feeding the animosities of the common herd. The fact, also, of Gallitzin's having a.s.sumed a borrowed name was a means of shaking the settlers and sowing distrust in their minds. Things went on from bad to worse, and a catastrophe seemed to be imminent, when came the upshot, so much the more ludicrous because the less expected. The Gordian knot, after the expeditious American fashion, was cut by an Alexander who rejoiced in the name of John Wakeland. He was an Irishman, a giant in stature and strength, famed in the settlement as a wolf and bear killer; and in reality one of the kindest men in the world, and one of the hardest to stir from his natural proprieties.

These miserable intrigues and base machinations aroused his indignation, and he immediately came to the conclusion to put an end to them by the interposition of the logic of the strong hand. The agitators had concocted a plan, which was devised to extort from Gallitzin some sort of an a.s.sent, and the {152} prince could hardly have escaped their intended violence had he not sought sanctuary in the chapel of Loretto. But the mob had merely adjourned their intended excesses; and they were preparing for extreme means to achieve their ends when John Wakeland, brandishing a st.u.r.dy hickory in the midst of the infatuated mob, declared that, he would "settle," on the spot, any one who durst threaten the good priest. There was a magical spell in the _hickory_. The timidly good men, who there, as everywhere else, had shrunk into a circle of impa.s.sive inaction, feeling the influence of a st.u.r.dy support, borrowed courage from the hour; and had it not been for the interference of Gallitzin, his detractors, to use an American phrase, would have had 'a rough time of it' From that moment, a complete revulsion of feeling took place in behalf of the missionary; while the bishop succeeded in ultimately restoring order and peace in the little parish. He carefully inquired into all the facts, and then addressed to the parishioners a letter which was posted at the church door, and recalled the faithful to the regular order of things.

"Difficulties, however, of another kind, and of a more serious import, waited on Gallitzin. From the death of his father, he had been suddenly cut off from the pecuniary a.s.sistance which he had periodically received from Europe. He himself, as a Catholic priest, had been, by the laws of Russia, excluded from his paternal heritage; while his mother, who had exhausted her means in litigations, was compelled to forego the a.s.sistance which, from time to time, she had extended to her son. In satisfying his boundless charities, and in the achievements of his plans, the founder of Loretto had somewhat relied on this inheritance, which thus pa.s.sed away from his hands. This disappointment, therefore, brought upon him a new burden of anxiety and cares. Dest.i.tution and poverty might have been easily borne by him; but he could not make up his mind to give up the idea of founding an imposing Catholic colony--to abandon the undertaking which he had initiated--to be compelled to relinquish lands which had been reclaimed by so much toil and so much care--and, especially, to face impatient creditors, who might accuse him of thoughtlessly going into debt, and from such an accusation justify their expression of contempt."

As a crowning development to all of these tribulations, the European mail brought to Gallitzin the news of his beloved mother's death. On the 17th of April, 1806, in the city of Munster, the excellent princess had closed her eyes for ever, comforting her disappointment that she had not been permitted to see her son on earth by the hope that she would surely meet him in heaven. The narrative of the last moments of the Princess Gallitzin, received, by the stout-hearted missionary, through the letters of his sister, of Overberg, and of Count de s...o...b..rg, supplied a fund of inexpressible comfort; but from that hour the temporal claims and requirements of his position bore terribly on his endurance. It required unheard-of efforts to save his undertaking from the burden of indebtedness, and if, at the hour of his death, he quit-claimed the property of the Church and left it free from all and every charge, the blessed consummation came with the sunset of life only, and that, too, after miracles of constant energy.

And here, especially, looms up the secondary phase of Gallitzin's character, which had not escaped his father's more searching eye. In fact, and in answer to a letter of his wife, in which she bitterly complained of the inertness of their son, then sixteen years of age, he wrote to her that "deep waters run still; that, to his mind, she misconceives the disposition of Demetrius, and that he is ever running against wind and tide." And indeed, to struggle against the torrent of time and of events was the whole work of his life. And against this torrent he heaved up the bulk of {153} his writings that have come down to us. It is easy to conceive that it required no common reason to induce a man of his temper of mind to write. We have the motive of this reason in the fact that a Presbyterian preacher of Huntington had thought fit to a.s.sail and calumniate the Catholic Church as an inst.i.tution dangerous to the country and to its liberties. Gallitzin immediately took up the pen in answer, and the necessities of the controversy turned him into a polemica writer.