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a coming invasion of the North, a military company, composed of gentlemen who were exempt from the conscription or had escaped it, was organized in Mr. Richards' neighborhood in Jersey City, under the name of the Pavonia Home Guards. His partial sympathy with the South did not prevent his enrolling himself, under the leadership of his friend, Capt. Charles H. O'Neill, in this organization for the protec tion of home and country. The existence of the company was shortlived, as the battle of Gettysburg put an end to all danger of invasion. Its chief utility, besides a sense of security which it may have produced, was to amuse the small boys of the neighborhood, who looked on with intense delight at the middle-aged and elderly gentlemen marching and countermarching and discharging furious volleys from antique muskets at imaginary foes.

CHAPTER XI

BOSTON

1868-1878

Toward the end of the year 1868, a change occurred which resulted in the removal of Mr. Richards to Boston and affected in various ways the future of himself and his family. The English firm of steel manufacturers, in whose New York office he was employed, appointed Mr. Richards their New England agent. He went on immediately and began energetically the reorganization of the business. After a few months he was joined by the members of his family, except his second son William, who remained for some time longer in New York. During the short period of separation, Mr. Richards' loneliness was relieved by the kindness of a warm-hearted Catholic family, that of Mr. Arthur McAvoy, his first Catholic acquaintance in Boston. He took up his quarters not far from the Immaculate Conception Church in the South End. His delight in the stately and complete services in this great church of the Society of Jesus and his ardor in availing him

self of the religious advantages it offered were almost childlike. Every morning saw him at Mass and every evening at Benediction. His feelings for this new home of his soul are expressed in his letters to his wife:

"Gloria in Excelsis Deo!

"My dear Wife:

"Christmas.

"BOSTON, Dec. 25th, 1868.

"Another Christmas has come and gone and we have been compelled to celebrate it apart from each other. That has been the only drawback on the pleasure of the day. We have had a magnificent celebration here to-day; equal, I think in some ways superior, to anything I have ever witnessed. I thought of friend White's question in his last letter: 'When are you going to make your pilgrimage to the other churches?' In fact, the services at our church are so attractive that I have no disposition to go anywhere else. Of course I shall find my way gradually to the other churches, but merely to gratify (not, I hope, an idle) curiosity, not to find a home. And my greatest desire now is to have you all with me in this exceedingly interesting and pleasant home. What a magnificent day we have had! (By the way, I used that expression once before, but no matter. I think the subject will justify the repetition.)

Everything was absolutely superb, except perhaps the decorations which were good but in point of taste hardly superb. But the music and the ceremonies! Well, if they did not elevate the hearts of the people to-day, those hearts must have been very heavy, very gross, very worldly."

The newcomer soon became an intimate friend of the Fathers then constituting the staff of the church. Father John Bapst, who some years before had been tarred and feathered for the Faith by a fanatical mob at Elsworth, Maine, was then Rector of Boston College and "The Immaculate," as the church was, and is familiarly called. He was a big, simple-minded Swiss, whose robust frame and noble countenance made his extreme gentleness and fatherly kindness more remarkable. In charge of the College, with the title of Prefect of Studies, but virtually in supreme control, was Father Robert Fulton, a Virginian, a genius, an infatuated lover of the classics, a witty and brilliant conversationalist, and yet an energetic and powerful administrator. Under his guidance, Boston College, opened only a few years before, in 1864, and destitute of means, was already beginning to make itself felt in the educational world and to confer on the Catholic community of Boston those benefits of cultivation and re

finement which it has continued in subsequent years to bestow and which have made it probably the most important single agency in elevating the mind and manners of that community. Father Fulton used to say that the advent of Boston College was marked, in many of the Catholic families of the city, by a line as visible as a geological stratum. The boys who were too old to enter the new institution were in many cases comparatively rude and uncultured and engaged in more or less menial occupations, while their younger brothers were polished and ambitious of professional education and success. In Father Fulton's room, some of the Catholic gentlemen of Boston were accustomed to gather on Sunday afternoons or evenings to enjoy his talk, sparkling with wit, epigram and literary allusion, yet permeated with a kindly humor and a sincere though informal piety. Into this charmed circle, Mr. Richards and his eldest son, Harry, after the latter's advent, were at once received. Harry, who himself possessed many of Father Fulton's qualities, among them a no less keen sense of humor and an even greater power of saying amusing things without a sting, was an especially welcome and devoted attendant.

The other Fathers were Edward Holker Welch, a convert of an old Boston family and a bosom friend of the angelic Henry Coolidge

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