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Show OLDEST CATHOLIC IN UTAH VIEWS PROCESSION I OF MIGHTY CHURCHMEN By GORDON SNOW. AMID all. the pomp of the cathedral dedication last Sunday,' with the great cardinal and mighty prelates prel-ates sweeping past him trailing trail-ing robes of grandeur, there sat ; on the stone steps of . the bishop's house viewing view-ing the beautiful spectacle an ancient man whose grand old face, for all its parchment parch-ment and time-traced wrinkles, glowed end flushed with the glorious divinity of it all. It was James Mylett, the oldest Catholic, in Utah Last May 19 marked the nineti3th anniversary of 'his birth in old Latrim. County Kimlough, Ireland, ot Catholic parents and Catholic ancestry dating back to a time when the first Roman monks landed in Erin. Ninety years of buffeting about the world has cast -him at last into a i.t-tle i.t-tle vine-covered haven along the banks of Parley's creek, out where the city gees to meet the shadows of the Wasatch. Wa-satch. Ninety-years has bent his form ana garbed him in the most venerable of whits beards, taken away the splendor of manhood and left in its place the dignity and philosophy of age. For James Mylett My-lett is a philosopher of the highest order. or-der. In daily life and surroundings ,ne contemplates the beautiful and lsaves all else to itself. One finds this pleasant old man at tho end of a Ion? lsafy lane that skirts and bends with a tumbling brook. To meet the demands of civic convention the little lit-tle cottage is designated as !!' Whitman avenu-j, but in reality it has no such piosaic location. One unlatches a wooden wood-en gats on which, the vines from tne brook bank have twined and climbed profusely. pro-fusely. The g-ite leads to a bower of sppla trees and weeping willows of ideal peaeo'and beauty. At the end is a small wooden table crudely built, and at this particular time, when the afternoon sun is getting low, a large, ancient brass-bound "Lives of the Saints," rested on its surface. As yet the house cannot be seen for the verdure ver-dure and onlv ueon rounding a croolc in the path and unlalchinir another gate y - y - v i E T t X ' i ( k yj , M p ! . x fy - r $ y K JAMES MYLETT. i . does the intruder come upon the little white-walled cot. . showing but one sid- f:om out the ivy covering. The house Icoka down on to: the pretty rustic stream and from no direction are the signs of the city to be seen. : Man of Dignity. ' On this occasion Jams Mylett sat on the little bo-like porc h in " the typical vesture of age, his n'mds clutched tight- ! ly about his cane and his chin resting on the knob, lie .receives his visitors with peaceful dignity and inquires ; nothing as. to their errand. After a while he talks, and if one shows interest and listens he. tells of his id.;as of life. To . him Catholicism has come to mean everything every-thing good in life. His religion, or rather his philosophy, embraces all of his creed ; and much mjre. As he talks and quotes j ftom the works of the noted men of tne historic church, the listener cannot but i think of the brass-bound volume back i there in the apple tree bower and pic- ture the white, bent form in the rustic chair poring over the written naga; a I veritable reincarnation of. Walt Whitman as Hubbard tells of him. In front of the house Mvlett has a garden, gar-den, which he in. self-raillery styles an irishman's garden, for the. weeds nourish nour-ish ' on equal standing with the potatoes and cabbage, and a recent rheumatic seizure in. his knuckles and Joints force the, old . gentleman fo leave the fate or the vegetables to providence. Few have heard of James Mylett in recent years and none after viewing him hrein- this ideal retreat would think of the -man. that has seen almost a cen-: cen-: tury of lire and practically: all of the world. None who saw him on the steps of the bishop's house last Sundav, dressed in plebeian garb, would have divined thai memories stretching farther back through the history of the great church than any held by th greatest and most venerabl- prelate present, surged through his mind. Through his Veins runs an unbroken line of Catholic blood stretching on through the past to the earliest awakening of the Christian idea in Europe and in all his own long and active life Catholicism ap pears to .have been the abiding prop. . Friend of Local Clergy. He is a personal friend of the local clergymen and the sight of a Cathoiic father garbed in monkish frock strollin-' under the apple trees in goodly conver sation with the ancient Mylett, is a frequent fre-quent one at i6 Whitman avenue. Weekly one of the fathers goes to the home or the old man and receives his confession and on occasion, to the rare delight of Mylett. says mass under the vine-clad roof of the little home. -Mylett is now too old to attend mass each week, and S-.mdav when by the courtesy of Mrs. F. K. Mctiurrin. he wa? 1 taken in ap auto to the dedication of th- I great cathedral, it was the first tlmo fo- j many weeks that he had gotten out" At that time the heat overcame him ana ; he had been ill since. Yesterday he was i better. ! James Mylett came to America in ISIS ' from Ireland, after burying his bride of ' a year and an . only child. After a tu- ' multuous career, which included the great ' gold rush to California in '49 and manv : years in Nevada during the mining re- ' ver there, he reached Utah in 1870 and ' went to farming on the tract ha now oc- : cupies in the southeastern portion of th-Cltt:'' th-Cltt:'' 7hcre- T:th a step-daught-r Hannah Han-nah Thomas Mylett. who looks after hW ; wants in all things, he has lived ever ' since. C1C1 ; This couple, daughter and' father both ' Their home abounds with religious sd rit" religious books ccmpriso the Hbrirv lr : ntting indeed is the pretty effect' rm duc?d by the shimmying of ill rr" noon sunlight through the red MpD?-9 the west of the house, lettfn- ir?A living room light such as comes 'throu the colored glass of a church window MMW- |
