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Show REMAINS OF ST. JULIUS. . Bishop Brondel is Endeavoring to Secure Se-cure Them Erom Rome. Rev. -Father Day of the Helena Catholic Cath-olic church has received another interesting inter-esting Id-tec from Bishop Brondel, who, by the way, is one of the best corre-spondents corre-spondents that ever went to Rome from the Rocky mountains, says the Independent. Inde-pendent. His letters are full of interest, inter-est, bev?aus they are ably written and cover a lin? of subject of much interest inter-est in this county, where there is not printed a surfeit of matter pertaining to the sacred precincts of the immoral Rome. The Helena Independent publishes pub-lishes the letter with a learned discourse dis-course on the catacombs of Rome by Father Day, as follows: Bishop John P. Brondel, in a letter received yesterday by Rev. Father Victor Day, in' charge of the diocese of Helena during the bishop's absence, writes that he has concluded his business busi-ness in Rome. He expects to visit a number of places in Europe, how-eve", he. "ere r.t-artir.T on his return trip to Helena. Hi. -hop Brondel wrote that he hoped to secure for the diocese of Helena Hel-ena the relics of a saint, taken from the catacombs- of the Eternal city. He wrote that he had made his report to the authorities of the church, and that it had been we'.l received. In the c urse of his letter Bishop BrondeJ said: "I have a moment of leisure to drop you a few lines. My visit ad limina (te Rome) is completed. I obtained an audience with the holy father, made the report of the condition of the diocese dio-cese to Cardinal Ledoschowski, prafect cf the sacred congregation of the Propaganda, and said mass over the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul. These, as you know, are the essential features of a bit-hop's visit ad limina. Cardinal Ledochow .-ki told me today he was very much pleased with my report and asked we whether non-Catholics received re-ceived the faith in our country. I told him of the number received into the church at Helena in 1S97 and 1S9S. "I am now striving to obtain the remains re-mains of a holy martyr of the Catholic church to endow our new diocese of Helena with a special protector in heaven. This afternoon I went to ask for the remains of St. Julius and I have reason to believe that the authorities author-ities will grantt my petition. It requires a great deal of work, but I will be' amply repaid if the devotion toward this friend of God will ;iMread among us and obta-in graces from heaven for tho.se of our dioc-efe. "I am talking Italian now. but wheiv ever we meet Am-ericans. Irish, Scotch or English, it is all English, you know. In this hotel we have people who are French gues!s. an-j then we have to talk in the language of La Belle France. We have three Hungarian bishops hevre. With them it was either German or Latin, for I have, never tried the Hungarian, which is altogether altogeth-er different from any language I ltnow whether ancient or modern, civilized tongue or sava.ge. "This meaning I gave a conference or lecture, to -; the. students of the American college'. - They all appeared very much interested in hearing about the northwest. Th students in this in- r rzX stitution nvmber eighty. I began at 11:35 and talked until 12:30, forgetting all about dinner, but no one appeared to be sorry. "I do not know whether I told J'ou that I had heard Don Perosi's oratorio, orato-rio, 'The Resurrection of Christ.' H was executed in the Church of th Holy Apostles, St. Jude and St. Philip, by an orchestra and choir numbering) 300. To see that young priest, hardly 26 years old, direct such a choir, executing exe-cuting his own composition in the presence of the elite of the Eternal City, with all simplicity, is a thing to be seen and heard but once in a life- , time." i Rev. Father Day was much elated yesterday over the prospect of securing secur-ing a relic of a saint. "The remains of these martyrs are I taken as a rule from the catacombs of ': Rome," said he yesterday, "it was in ; those underground galleries that the ! first Christians worshiped during the i time of the persecutions of Nero, Do- mitian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Septimus Sep-timus Severns, Maximinus. Decius, Valerian, Va-lerian, Aurelian and Diocletian. "There are hundreds of the remains of these martyrs, as all people know, in the catacombs. Not all the bodies of the martyrs were preserved, many of them having been thrown into the Tiber, Ti-ber, others having been burned and in other ways disposed of by non-Christian hands. New discoveries are be- ing made in the catacombs from time to time, any of the bodies laid away there were of Christians, but not olt martyrs who had died because of their faith, and these latter are distinguished from the others by the markinErs placed before the tombs. Wherever a ! vessel showing evidence's of having contained blood is found before a tomb it is known that that place marks all that is mortal of one who was persecuted perse-cuted and suffered death for his religion. relig-ion. Besides this there is often a marble mar-ble slab on which is engraved the name of the martyr and giving some of the particulars as to how he met death and at whose hands. "When the authorities of the church endow a diocese, college or other institution insti-tution with the remains of one of these martyrs, the bones are encased in wax by artists who aim to" give them the appearance 'the body had in life. The figure is then dressed in robs of silk and satin and usually placed under the I altar table in a glass case. Here they j remain, where they are paid the rever-i rever-i ence they deserve. On the feast day I of the particular martyr w hose bones j are so preserved, the glass case is removed re-moved and the figure remains exposed to the view of the faithful who desire I to see it. "There are several of the remains of saints in America. One that I know of , is in the cathedral of Leavenworth, Kan. "When Stephen Sullivan of this city ' left feir Rome two years ago to com- i plete his theological course. Bishop I Brondel asked him to endeavor to ob- ' tain the remains of such a saint for I the diocese of Helena. Although he was allowed to use the bishop's name, , he was unsuccessful in obta.ning the favor. It now seems that the bishop in person will be able to accomplish what he could not through his delegate. The bishop wrote that 'The relies of popes and martyrs are met with in every di-rection di-rection in Rome and over these sacred remains are monuments in marble masterpieces of art of the present and i past ages.' "We hope that the bishop will be sue- ) cessful, for it will be a great favor to i the diocese of Helena. You should un derstand that Catholics do not worship a the saints, but they honor them as ) they would friends of God, which they ' are, and their relics, therefore, are of ! j special significance to the members oi ' the faith. .We honor the remains be- i cause during life they have, by thei ; grace of God. been the i much good; because they have often met with fearful torments from their i persecutors at the time of their death 4 for the faith of Christ, and because we j believe that'after the general resurrec- ) tion they will enjoy the glory of the 4 kingdom of God." i |