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Show flnecpes told of Archbishop Patrick J". Eyan of Philadelphia got his ambition to be somebody in the world from a pat on the head and a few words said to him by Daniel O'Connell, the Emancipator, says' the Xew York Sun. '. In 1844 he was 13 and a student at Callow, college, col-lege, Ireland. In that year O'Connell visitted the college and the students were called upon to declaim for his entertainment. He sat through the speeches, apparently paying no attention to them, so '.far as outward sign was concerned, until a lad, marked chiefly by a thick shock of fiery red hair, mounted the rostrum and began be-gan to speak. Then Mr. O'Connell came out of his shell, his whole attitude changed and he gave earnest ear-nest ear to what the boy had to say from beginning to end. . He did more. - As the student was starting to step down from the platform the great orator, in an excess of enthusiasm, walked over to him, placed his hand on the shock of red hair and said: "My boy, your tongue will some day make you famous. Don't neglect it, it is your talent." That was all, but it stuck to young Kyan's mind. Like other boys of his time he had made a hero of O'Connell, and ho could not get away from the prophecy. So at last he told himself that, although he was set aside by his family to be a priest, he would still try to be what O'Connell said he could be if he only -would- an orator. Three years later, just a few months before O'Connell's death at Genoa, he was billed to speak in a town near Thurles, young .Ryan's birthplace. When the doors were thrown open a Tqd-headed boy presented himself and started to walk through. "Hey!" yelled the doorkeeper, "you can't get in without a ticket." "But I ivant to hear Daniel O'Connell," protested protest-ed the lad. "Then buy a ticket' said the man. " ' "I haven't any money," confessed the lad. The man laughed. "Then," he said, "you'll not hear Daniel O'Connell O'Con-nell speak this night." But thta boy, would not he discouraged. He sought out the stage entrance. "I want you to tell Mr. O'Connell that Patrick Ryan would like to speak to him," he said to the attendant. "And who's Patrick Ryan?" asked the attendant. "I am," replied the boy, "and I want you to take my name m to him and tell him I'd like to speak with him for a moment." This man laughed just as heartily as the other one had. He also aid much about the boy's audacity auda-city in thinking he could gain audience with such a distinguished-person as the Emancipator, and he did not neglect to make other personal remarks about what Cardinal, Gibbon's has called "Archbishop "Arch-bishop Ryan's red hat that nature gave him." But young Ryan would not be laughed down. He had,a tongue; Daniel O'Connell said it was , Ins talent; he wanted to.see Daniel O'Connell, and I he talked and argued and joked and bantered with the man until finally the fellow, becoming impressed with the pleader's earnestness, took in his name. A few minutes later Daniel O'Connell stood before be-fore the boy. 'Well P he said. "Mr. O'Connell," asked , the youth, "don't vou ramoml.A. Q The Emancipator took a good look. "Why, bless me!" lie said, "you're the boy whom I praised at Callow college for speaking so well. What are you doing here t" The boy told him. . . "5 y0U Want t0 hear nie ?Pcak M O'Connell, 'UelL you shall. But first tell me what you are doing now." "I am studying to be a priest," was the replv. "Good," answered the agitator. "Keep it' up and dont neglect your tongue. You will make your mark with it when you have entered the Church. Come." And so Patrick J. Ryan heard his idol from an advantageous seat on the stage, the great man once again prophesied that the lad would make his mark as an orator; and the boy's ambition, awakened three year before, had received fresh impetus. . The civil war had begun. Thousands of Lre-. Lre-. land s best fighting men, forced to America in the late 40s and '50s by. famine and obnoxious legislation, legis-lation, were flocking to the standard of the Union. Whole reeimerits wppp KaItio- fi-.T.n,t t u Among the Irish volunteers in St. Louis was a young priest, Father Patrick J. Ryan, who had come to America in 1852, and been ordained in the following year in St. Louis. His services were accepted ac-cepted as chaplain and he was assigned to a military mili-tary prison. By this time Father Ryan had begun to justify Daniel O'Connell's prophecy. His sermons, from the tinie of his ordination, had attracted attention. 'Ihe.y are different," said the people, and they went in increasing numbers to hear the priest who j 'could touch the heart string, who was not afraid to tell a witty story in an inimitable brogue, and in the next instant draw a picture that would briug the tears." So Chaplain Ryan went among the soldiers in the prison as he had gone "among the people in the slums of St. Louis. .He made those who were wounded laugh even in and at their pain by his wit;, he cheered ud others with droll stories; he kept the whole prison as cheerful as any prison can be by means of his tongue; and there are men down south today who will tell vou stories that W heard from the lips of Chaplain Ryan when they were prisoners between the years of 1861 and 1865. In his work Chaplain Ryan came in contact with men of all sorts of religious beliefs and creeds. .Never a radical, he came to. understand how men could feel differently on the subject of religion and still be sincere, and so when he was mustered out of the army and returned to his pulpit his sermons were marked not only by the eloquence and wit as before, but for their liberal views as well. As a result, Father Rj-an's name soon became known to Protestants, and before long his speaking aCqU-aunnC(i with men of other faitha as lare as with his own, and good Presbyterians were laughing laugh-ing at his latest stories every bit as heartily as the most pronounced Catholic in his congregation Thus things drifted on, Father Ryan winning the respect and regard of all creeds, to the year 18 l, when the priest's eloquence brought him his first ecclesiastical reword that of coadjutor bishop bish-op of St. Louis.: , , The promotion was fuel for his oratorical fires or the next twelve years, whenever he preached or spoke in public, thousands, representing all sects crowded to hear him, and went away 'to tell his stones and to discuss the liberal views which he expounded. ex-pounded. It was the broad attitude he took as coadjutor bishop that first caused Pope Leo to hear of Bishop Ryan. The Pope sent for Bishop Ryan, received lum m the Vatican and, iii recognition "of his work which had been almost' solely that of a speaker' gave him the honorary title of archbishop of Sala-mis. Sala-mis. , . So Patrick J. Ryan', ' coadjutor ' bishop of the archdiocese of St. Louis, became second archbishop of t11Vate!y created archdiocese of Philadelphia. . Jef are long ihe archbishop was addressing meet-mg-S religions and'-otherwise; not under Catholic auspices. . - At ohe of them-tKc Rev. Dr. Henry C. McCook, of the famous fighting McCooks, and one of Philadelphia's Phila-delphia's leading Presbyterian ministers, walked across the platform to grasp the archbishop's hand.-and hand.-and 'to say that he too, had been chaplain, in the civil -war. Xow whenever Dr. McCook and Archbishop Arch-bishop Ryan attend banquets at the Union League, of which they are members, they always see . to it that they sit side by. side, and each in his sermons frequently states that "my good friend Dr. McCook," Mc-Cook," or " my. warm friend Archbishop Ryan, declares. de-clares. As with the clergy, so with the laity; the arch-bishop's arch-bishop's tongue prevailed there, in one way or an other. , "Your grace," said Wayne MacYeagh, when he was counsel for the Pennsylvania railroad, "Mr. Roberts here, our president, who always travels with his counsel, will undoubtedly get you passes over all the railroads in the United States if in return you will give him a pass to paradise." "Ah," replied the archbishop quietly, "I would do so if it were not for separating him from his counsel." , The archbishop's reply made him two influential friends, and it is. typical of the way in which he has kept Philadelphia in good humor for twentv- four years. At the same time he has not neglected the Church. When he assumed charge of the archdiocese archdio-cese it had 250,000 Catholic families; now it has double that number. He has built, just outside of Philadelphia, the second largest Augustinian monastery in the world, the largest is in Spain. He has-erected a protectory protect-ory for boys, founded several large hospitals, and with the $250,000 which was collected as a gift for Jim on his recent golden jubilee, and which he refused re-fused to accept, he has started building an orphanage. orphan-age. The archbishop was once asked how he raised all the money for his various enterprises. "Why," he replied, "I just talk to people and somehow they give it." It was just his talking that ended Philadelphia's great street railway strike in 1895. - This leading citizen and that had tried, without success, to get the strike leaders to arbitrate. A big bribe had failed to move them. T??l-kt on1 Jian.jA. rri . i " -...v v u.owiucx gicw ajmue. j.ue city s DUSi-riess DUSi-riess was paralyzed. Then somebody thought of Archbishop Ryan; he was approached and consented consent-ed to see what he could do. He went to the place where the leaders were assembled. as-sembled. He introduced himself and said he guessed it wouldn't hurt if they'd talk over the situation a little. It turned out that the archbishop didabout all the talking. He gat the men with him at the start by a f unnv story, and he held them by the flashes of wit with which he interspersed his argument. An hour or so later, when he left the meeting, he carried with him the word of the leaders that they would arbitrate. arbi-trate. The next day Philadelphia was a peaceful town again and street cars were running as usual on every line. "My boy, your tongue will some day make you famous." His fellow churchmen declare that if Archbishop Ryan gets the red hat, as many of them think he will, it will largely be because of his eloquence elo-quence and his attitude on Church matters which ' i expressed, parable fashion, some few years ago, when he was asked where he stood in a supposed difference between Cardinal Gibbons, liberal, and the late Archbishop Corrigan, ultra-conservative: "As archbishop of Philadelphia, I naturally stand half way between Xew York and Baltimore." |