| OCR Text |
Show I THE CATHOLIC WORLD j CATHOLICITY IN LABRADOR. j Fifty years of missionary labors-, i travels and privations anions: the low- 1 t and most degraded Indian tribes of the North American continent, in the far frozen north of Labrador, have just " been completed by the Rev. Father Ar- and of the Oblate order, whose jubilee. " is about to be celebrated here with much solemnity, says a correspondent of the I New York Sun, writing recently from J (Quebec. The wonderful career of the r venerable missionary is intimately con- I ( t r netted with some of the most sensa- ti'inal experiences of the Montagnais Nasrapee Indians during- the last I half century. He knows more of the in- terior of Labrador and has traveled more of it than any other explorer. J Scarcely an Indian roams this inhos- pitable territory that he does not know by nam?. He has lived and journeyed ' with them and shared their privations, which to him were all the more painful, I for his youth was spent in plenty and l -,mfort. Born in France, in 1827. Father Ar- I naud w.is ordained priest at Ottawa in j ! 4!. and immediately afterward was j scut by his superiors to accompany a i I party of Indians on their journey across! t f the Labrador peninsula to Hudson bay. " It was a painful journey to the young-j I Frenchman, for the Indian ideas of cleanliness and of cookery are very dif- j 1 i- rent from those of ivllizd 'nations, j j and his Stomach frequently revolted at I the food that was" set before him. He ) lias seldom been heard to complain of j i' his lot. but the Jesuit Father Crepieul has graphically described the life of a I Montagnais misisonary a-s a prolonged j martyrdom, and a continual practice of J j patience and mortification. In winter the missionary lives in an Indian hut. I formed cf sticks covered with skins and I boughs of trees, and banked around 'with snow. He lies upon the frozen ground with his clothc-s on. the hut j being- usually full of smoke, and if he -! perspires by day he is almost frozen I' at night. He eats from a dish seldom ( ! or never washed and licked by the dogs i ? that hart his bed. Sometimes he i j forced to go without food. Father Aurnaud has experienced all j these and even greater miseries. After 1 his return from Hudson bay in 1849 he wa sent to labor among the Indians of Labrador from the Saguenay to the At. 5 lantie ocean. He has carried on his I wonderful work until the present time. I I;: will probably continue it until the j m l of his life. Nothing can exceed his j affectionate regard for his Indian ilock. j many members of which he has con- ! j verted from paganism.- j Father A maud's description of the-j I sufferings of his "poor sheep.'' as he "lis the Indian members of hi flock, j I j "ft n resemble some horrible fiction. ! They are corroborated, however, from I other sources. He tells, for instance. j of the disasters that befell the members -! of his mission at Mingan some winters ."is, when thirty-two of his Indian i co-rrverts died of starvation at the ! height of land in which the St. Jean j 1 l:ivr has its source. .About twenty I Montagnais families left the coast dur- J ing the previous summer for the part ' i ! the interior already described, tak- ! I ing no provisions with them because j I they had counted upon finding pknty of j carinou. in i ms tney were entirely dts- I atipointed, however, while an excep- I ti.imally early fall f snow fainJ many I of th'.n without their snowshoes. and they could not even find the porcupines. I hares and white partridges which are I usually mo abundant in Labrador. A .few families anions them contrived to l 'reach Eskimo bay. but mcst of the I others miserably perished in the w-oods j before Clrrifltmas. News reached the i missionary the same year that two "j families had been abandoned to their I fate at the headwaters of the .St. Au- I I gustir.e river, and that a number of j ! other Indiana belonging to the same j place, who had crossed to Newfound- j ? Umd. had been massacred by the Mic- 1 Maes. I Father Arnaud testifies with deep J sorrow to the wonderful influence pos-I i so sod over sone members at the tribe i by the Indian jugglers, who manipulate j ihr- magnetic lluid. or whatever else ft j may be. with greater facility than the j most eminent magician of civilization, i The remarkable movements of their J huts, while they are engaged at their i divination is even more surprising than I those of the tables used in spirit rapping. rap-ping. There is little- doubt that theso Indian jugglers have experimented and j, . played with certain occult sciences for '' centuries before the study of neero- me.ney and so-called spirit rappings had I engaged the attention of the modern I iivilized Avcrld. j Many times Father Arnaud has nar- rowly escaped death from starvation, I drowning- and exposure to the wild ani. I inals that roam the woods of Labrador. ! FROM PARISH AND DIOCESE. 1 I Work has been begun in Milwaukee j on a new Polish Catholic church to cost $6:.ooo. Itev. Adalph Kuhmann, C. SS. II., I the rector of St. Philomena's church, Pittsburg:, died last week. ,-, On the 13th instant Georgetown university uni-versity entered upon the 111th year cf its existence. 4.. St. Mary's seminary, Baltimore, Md., reopened, this year with more than COO students. . Tbe hospital of St, 'Vincent de Taul J at Norfolk. Va., was almost totally de-j de-j stroyed by lire last week. A monument has been erected and I will soon- be unveiled at Woerishofen to commemorate Father Kneipp of water cure fame. Sister Beatrice, superioress of Providence Provi-dence hospital in Washington, D. C, died on SepL 25. A monument to Father Marquette is to be the chief feature of a new park on Mackinac Island. Mich. A new Passionist monastery, to replace re-place the eld one, will soon be erected at Mount Adams, Cincinnati. The Holy Name Cathedral of Chicago will celebrate tomorrow the golden adversary ad-versary of the founding of the parish and the silver anniversary of the building build-ing of the present beautiful edifice. Monsignor Falconio. apostolic delegate dele-gate to Canada, arrived the other day at Quebec, where he will remain a few-days few-days and thin proecel ti Ottawa, where it is thought he will make his permanent per-manent residence. The Rev. Arthur J. MeAvoy. S. J.. died in Frederick. Md., m Thursday of last week. He was born in Boston in JC4, and after graduating from Boston college, entered the novitiate at Frederick Fred-erick in 187:;. He was ordained to tha prienthood in 1SS7. The Rev. Walter Elliott. C. S. P., has been put at the head of St. Thomas' college, Washington, the Paulist house of studies. Sister Mary Albina of the Si.'iters of Notre Lame celebrated, her golden jubilee as a nun, in the convent of that 1 community, Chicopec, last weti'x. Sister Teresa Hickey. an Irish nun, J received recently from the Belgian government gov-ernment the civil medal of the first class, a dec-oration instituted as a rec- I ognition of conspicuous civic merit. It was awarded to Sister Teresa for services serv-ices rendered curing an epidemic in a j Flanders town. At the annual meeting of the trustess of the Ca.tholic Summer school, in New j j York last week, the financial condition j i was reported prosperous. The Rev. M. I ! J. Lavelle, LL. D., was again elected I president. The Rev. William P. Mc- j I Quaid. pastor of St. James' " church, j Harrison avenue, this city, was elected a. member of the executive 'committee, and the Hen. Thomas J. Gargan one of the vice presidents. - Right Rev. Patrick Oannon of Lock-port. Lock-port. N. Y., has been made a domestic domes-tic prelate of the Holy Father. Bishop Chatard of Indianapolis has sailed for Rome on account of his health and partly on business. During Dur-ing his stay in the Eternal City he will pay his ad lim-ina visit to the Pope. Father McKinncm brought back I three Filipino boys, two sons of the j president of Negros and one of the j .,!.,:-(.,- r ..-.-!- Tlmv nv t r. lio r-Hll- ! joated in Santa, Clara college, Califor-! Califor-! ni'a, The poclesiastioal court appointed by j Archbishop Kain to inquire into the ! life and ai ts of Mine. Duchesne, with a view to having her canonized ulti-j ulti-j mately. has completed its labors, the final sessions being held at St. Charles. Mo. Th unveiling of a monument erected to the memory of the Rev. Charles Bonaventure McGuire, founder and first pastor of St. Paul's church, now ! the cathedral edifice, of Pittsburg. Pa.. has been assigned- to Sunday. Nov. 24, j at 3 o'clock. The monument is now be-i be-i ing- placed, in the priests' lot, St. Mary's j cemetery. The new cathedral of Westminster will be worthy of the ages of faith. No church in England, ancient or modern, mod-ern, will be able to vie with it in some respects. The dr.me, upon the 'construction 'con-struction of which seventy workmen are employed, is the largest concrete dome in. Europe. The total area of the cathedral is 11,000 feet. Mr. John M. - Biggins, who was elected second vice president of the i Catholic Young men's National union, at the convention of that society held recently in- Newark, N. J., is one of the leading- citizens and most successful success-ful business men of Richmond. Va. He was a friend of the Hon. Henry A. Wise, the anti-Knovnothing Governor cf Virginia, who killed Knownothin-ismi Knownothin-ismi in that state, and in fact all over the south; and also of all the leading Virginians for the past fifty years. |
