| OCR Text |
Show GLORY TO THE GIRLS. It is typical of the democratic character of fhe great Archbishop of Xew York that, amid all the splendor of the centenary, with its silks and laces5 he should not have forgotten the girl with the calico gown a'nd apron. "You may not understand whv it should be so, hut it. is a fact that the girls, our Catholic domestics. Cod bless them.' are a powerful power-ful agency in the conversions 'of non-Catholics.'' Great reason had this chivalrous churchman to revert to these noble women who did not follow their ''Chnlt from afar off'V-that Christ preached by St. Patrick on Tara, Ireland's calvary, but have, with their generous hands and clean hearts, made feasible the lifting of the musical lines of America's great basilica. Down in the kitchens of the poor Irish girls was laid the real foundation of this majestic ma-jestic church; there, struggling poverty divided its earnings between the Motherland and Mother Church. The great Archbishop Hughes made no mistake in calling Xew York's Cathedral after St. Patrick, for his knowledge of humanity in general and of theTrish character in particular, told him that the saint's name would he a talisman for the pennies of the poor with which, because of their honesty, there would ever be a blessing. So the sequel proved. The pageants of Xew York's Catholic Cath-olic centennial attested the fact; the voices of 7,000 little children sang it, the spires of the great cathedral ca-thedral are no straighter than the proud realization of the dreams, the purposes and the prayers of these aproned daughters of Erin. s They did more than build the material ediiice; they were priestesses of faith in their households. Xo matter .what was the character of the parlor above them, the kitchen was a sanctury and a very catacomh. There they followed the teaching of the Irish monks, who beautifully exemplified in their own great works the principle thatj'to labor was to !ray." The mistress of the houhold, tired, of the straight-laced deceptions of society, turned to ! their honest truth and was straightway, a victim of its charm; the master, sick of the scheming and the sorcery of the marketplace, marveled that there were such honesty and purity under the sun. 'and, through his domestic, found its heavenly source. From these mysteries of virtue the employer-went to the mysteries of faith. Great men, like Dr. Anderson An-derson of Xew York City, delighted in bestowing upon these trusted servants'the reason of conversion to the great Master of us all; and learned savants, as Orestes Brownson, willingly and substantially, declared that he learned more from piety in his kitchen than from profundity in his library. Honor, then, to his Grace for his kindly manliness, manli-ness, and glory to the girls who tell their beads in the dearest pearls that angels ever stooped to gather the honest sweat of a pure white brow, which has on it already a forecaste of the light of 'heaven's glory. Catholic Union and Times.. ? |
