conjunction with the local Bishop and clergy. Both fell on this field of honor. Bishop Barron was the first to be stricken. He died on the 12th of September, 1854. Bishop Gartland followed his soul in its flight eight days afterward.

Dr. Barron and Father Sourin were two men whose lives were closely intertwined with the life and work of the brothers Kenrick. It is worthy of note that the last memorandum made by Bishop Gartland was addressed to Father Sourin. It was dated September 5; but the writer had left it unfinished. The previous one, dated August 23-25, had mentioned the arrival of Bishop Barron and the fact of his plunging into the work of assistance. It indicated the writer's wish that Mr. Frenaye should be told of it, and asked to get the prayers of friends for the imperiled.

These digressions are unavoidable, when the task in hand is to illustrate the difficulties and risks of the pastoral office-the dangers to the material frame and the still more trying ones of the mind and spirit.

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CHAPTER II.

OF

DEATH OF BISHOP ROSATI-BISHOP KENRICK IN SOLE CHARGE OF ST. LOUIS DIOCESE-STARTS A CATHOLIC PUBLICATION-EARLY ORDINATIONS CHURCH EXPANSION-VISITATION CHOLERA ST. LOUIS ELEVATED INTO ARCHIEPISCOPAL RANK-FIRST PLENARY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE-HIGH OPINION OF ARCHBISHOP PETER RICHARD-HE CONSECRATES MANY NEW BISHOPS.

The death of Bishop Rosati, in the September of 1843, transferred to Bishop Kenrick the full responsibility of the St. Louis diocese; previously he had acted only as coadjutor and administrator. Now he was about to enter on that long career of spiritual guardianship which his lamented predecessor had, with curious prevision, indicated for him ere setting out for Rome. One of the greatest needs of the diocese, he thought, was a Catholic organ, and this he sought to supply. The Catholic Cabinet was started for the purpose of affording good literary sustenance as well as reliable information on subjects of Catholic interest. It was a monthly publication, excellent in quality and variety of contents, and written for by some of the best pens in the Catholic fold. Still, with all these recommendations, it did not prove a monetary success. We need not wonder at such a result at that early period, since it is with the utmost difficulty that Catholic literature, magazines or newspapers can be made self-supporting in our own day, notwithstanding the earnest exhortation of Popes and Bishops to the faithful as to the necessity and duty of maintaining such an antidote against the evil influence of an ever-degener

ating secular press. The Catholic Cabinet succumbed after a couple of years of ill-appreciated but admirable effort, and the diocese of St. Louis was left without any Catholic organ for a long period.

The first ordination held by Bishop Kenrick was that of Father James Tiernan, of the Lazarists. This took place in the May of 1842, in the Barrens Church. In August of the same year he ordained, in the same church, the Rev. Joseph Kuenster, the Rev. Patrick McCabe and the Rev. Thomas Cusack. In September, 1843, he ordained several Jesuit candidates, among them the Rev. Arnold Damen, a priest who had a long career as a successful missionary in many parts of the United States, and the Rev. Peter James Aernoudt, author of the famous work, the "Imitation of the Sacred Heart," and one of the most zealous and able promoters of the devotion founded on it. The want of priests soon induced him to take steps to secure help from Europe, since, while the diocese was rapidly growing in population, the clerical garrison remained stationary as to number. The Very Rev. Joseph Melcher was sent forth to seek aid, and was successful in procuring four priests and eight seminarians, with whom he returned to St. Louis in the year 1847. Want of churches was no less an obstacle than scarcity of clergy. The German element in the diocese was very considerable, and this fact brought help from the Leopold Association in the provision of church accommodation. The Lazarists began to build the Church of St. Vincent de Paul, and about the same time the Bishop found himself able to commence another one in honor of St. Patrick. This was begun in March, 1844, and finished by May in the following year. About the same time the Jesuit Fathers took a hand in the work of church building. They began the erection of St. Joseph's in April, 1844, and had it

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dedicated by the summer of 1846. It was for the use of the German Catholics. Outside the city limits the work began also to spread. At Carondelet, Independence, St. Joseph, Marshall, Washington and Liberty the erection of temples of worship was undertaken about this epoch. Corresponding efforts to meet Catholic wants began to be put forth by the religious Sisterhoods. The Visitation Nuns, driven from their old settlement at Kaskaskia by a frightful inundation which blotted out their convent, came into St. Louis and set up a new one there. After a little while they joined forces with another colony of the order, already established in the city, and in a new and spacious convent carried on the work of religious education. A calamity of a different kind—a conflagration-had overtaken the Sisters of St. Joseph at Carondelet, and they also came into the city to take up. the work of rescuing the fallen and despairing. About the same time the Sisters of Charity were enabled to open a new orphanage, of ample dimensions, as well as the new school of St. Vincent, to which the State soon granted a charter. The work of expansion thus begun went on almost without interruption. It was not long until the Sisters of the Good Shepherd arrived to take part in the rescue of the poor fallen women of the city, and after these came a colony of Ursulines from Raab, in Hungary, to devote themselves to the work of education.

Nor was it long until the blessing of having such religious in their midst was demonstrated to the inhabitants of St. Louis. A visitation similar to that which befell the Quaker City in 1832 overtook the district. The dreaded scourge, cholera, broke out, and, as usual, the heroic Sisterhoods were foremost in the work of succor. Thirteen hundred patients were taken care of by the Sisters of Charity, in their hospital, and though some

of their own community succumbed at their posts, the lives of more than half the stricken were saved through their splendid ministrations. The names of two of the victims are preserved-Sister Columba and Sister Patricia Butler. Two Sisters of St. Joseph also fell; likewise four of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, as well as one of the Visitandines.

In the year after the holding of the Baltimore Council (at which the Bishop of St. Louis attended) by a brief of His Holiness Pope Pius IX. the diocese of St. Louis was raised in dignity, and Peter Richard Kenrick became its first Archbishop. The brief was dated 8th October, 1847. In September of the following year he received the pallium at the hands of his brother in St. John's Cathedral in Philadelphia. In 1849, at the seventh Provincial Council of Baltimore, suffragan Bishops were named in a petition to the Holy See, viz., those of Dubuque, Nashville, Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul; and the prayer of the petition was granted. In February of the same year the Vice Provincial of the Society of Jesus, Very Rev. James O. Van de Velde, was consecrated Bishop of Chicago, in the Cathedral of St. Louis, by the Archbishop.

A synod of the new archdiocese assembled, pursuant to summons issued on the 25th of May, 1850, in the Cathedral, on Sunday, the 25th of August following. Forty-three priests attended. Besides promulgating the decrees of the Provincial Councils and the statutes of the first Synod of St. Louis, the meeting transacted important local business in the shape of regulations as to burial service, bequests, Requiem Masses, the maintenance of the diocesan seminary, Church holidays, the tenure of Church property and many other details of clerical life. Trustees were appointed to carry out the wishes of the Rev. Francis Cellini, who had left a large