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Show "Father Pat." ANY PERSON who has lived in northern "Washington and British Columbia, especially around and about Republic and Rossland, will readily recall a lovable character known as "Father Pat," though his real name was Henry Irwin Rev. Henry Irwin, an itinerant Episcopalian minister. So seldom is it we see a person of that aristocratic cloth classed as an itinerant, preaching the faith "on his own hook," that the people of Rossland readily fell in with such incongruity, in-congruity, and fitting the vocation with the character of the man, they gave him the nane of "Father Pat." That name will be cherished in British Columbia Co-lumbia till the last miner has finr"ied the work on his claim and passed over the Great Divide. There is one residing in Salt Lake who knew "Father Pat" in British Columbia, Co-lumbia, and the news of his death comes like the loss of a brother. Such an old-time friend of "Father Pat" supplements the story told in the Rossland Ross-land Miner, which announces his death in Montreal along with memorial services serv-ices held in Republic, "Wash. He supplies sup-plies incidents in the life of "Father Pat" which remind one of Victor Hugo's character of Jean Valjean in "Los Miserables." Some years ago snowslides were frequent in that country, coun-try, particularly along the construction line of the Canadian Pacific. One day, without a moment's warning, an avalanche ava-lanche of snow completely burled a number of Chinese laborers. No white, man saw the calamity but "Father Pat," who happened to be in the neigh-, borhood as a gospel tramp. Most witnesses wit-nesses to such a catastrophe would lose valuable time in summoning aid and await the arrival of help. Not so "Father Pat." He plunged into the drift immediately and dug away until he reached the almost helpless Chinamen China-men and placed them on their feet. Such as were utterly helpless he car- 1 ried on his back to a place of safety; and in this work for the heathen did the rescue party find the Episcopalian minister. Indeed was he well ' called "Father Pat." The death of "Father Pat" is tragically tragic-ally romantic, again recalling the great character of Hugo's novel. One duy recently some woodchoppers found a man wandering about the forest of Sault au Recollets. The poor fellow-was fellow-was nearly dead from exposure. He was brought to a bunk house, and from there taken to a hospital in Montreal. Mon-treal. An official of the Hotel Dieu . says the patient was brought there in j a most distressing condition early in j January. He refused to give any in-j in-j formation concerning himself or relatives, rela-tives, but talked about everything else freely. A short lime before his death he embraced the Catholic faith, but it was not until after the body had been removed to the cemetery that his identity iden-tity was discovered. This was through a package addressed to his brother, with whom the hospital authorities had placed themselves in communication. How he gut to Montreal, and what he did before discovery in the woods nearly near-ly dead, is a mystery. Thus died "Father Tom," in the faith w hic h belongs to such heroes. That he yielded to such faith did not lessen the love and affection which his erstwhile Episcopal flock bore him, for we find this among the tributes paid him by-Mrs. by-Mrs. Francis Moreland Harvey at the memorial meeting in Republic, Wash. : "To "Father Pat' creed was nothing. Relie-ion. as exemolified in a daily life of good deeds, was everything, being always merciful and sympathetic in his treatment of human weakness and possessing pos-sessing for error and folly that charity char-ity lit up by love that sees in all forms of human thought and work the life and death struggles of separate human beings." |