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Show ; CAPT. ARTHUR M'KINLEY. First Cousin of the President Was i Converted in Denver, f Among the various statements re garding the family of the late president presi-dent that have appeared since his assassination, as-sassination, the following taken from the Missionary of New York, the organ of the Paulist congregation, commands ettention. Unlike most of the items current on the subject, it gives a definite defi-nite authority for its statement and can be readily verified. The Missionary writing last spring, long before the president' death, announced the recep-' recep-' tion into the Church of Captain Arthur , McKinley. first cousin of the president. It went on, "The Ixretto Magazine j , makes the following statement of the ! facts in the case: j j "At the 6:30 o'clock Mass in the j chapel of the Sisters of Loretto, St. Mary's academy, Denver, Feb. 26, Cap- I tain Arthur S. McKinley, first cousin of our president, received his First f Communion. The captain was bap- I tlzed in the Denver cathedral a few j days previous, and requested the prlvi- lege of making his First Communion 1 In the chapel of the Loretto Sisters. "The Sisters invited the gentleman ; and his wife to breakfast with the ' chaplain in the academy parlor after Msfs. and during breakfast a Sister smilingly asked if the conversion was not a returning to the faith of his forefathers. fore-fathers. The captain replied: 'Yes. my grandfather, and, of course, the presi dent's, for our fathers were brothers, was a staunch old Catholic of Belfast, Ireland. But our fathers came to America whilst very young and married mar-ried non-Cathoiics; then fell from the i faith themselves. Later they sent for our grandparents and they came to the j old homestead in Canton, O., where the president and I were raised. I was but a child at the time, but I was present i at my grandfather's deathbed, and. though we were 100 miles from a Catholic Cath-olic church, he requested my father I and uncle to send for a priest. The priest did not arrive In time to assist the old gentleman, but when his wife, our Grandmother McKinley, died, she had a Catholic priest with her. "Captain McKinley attended the mission mis-sion given at the Denver cathedral In October, and determined at its close to '" become a Catholic. He accompanied ? a Catholic friend at first only to hear the sermons of the Passionist Fathers, who, he heard, had a reputation for eloquence, el-oquence, but God touched his heart and now he rejoices in the possession - T of the Catholic faith." |