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Show !aneloquent tribute The following is a report of the address ad-dress delivered bv the Hon. John F. Finerty at the Central Music hall. Chicago, Chi-cago, last week on the occasion of the golden jubilee of the Holy Name parish. par-ish. Mr. Finerty said tha.t. as far as historical his-torical records told of other days, following fol-lowing the aborigines. Catholic missionaries mis-sionaries or explorers first laid eyes on the great territory of which Chicago is. the center and metropolis. In the faraway far-away time of the winter of 1674-5 the iiluytrious Pere Marquette had encamped encamp-ed on these shores, and he and other intrepid pathfinders and evangeillzers had 'mapped out the ground, traversed the prairies and navigated the great rivers that had since been, taken possession pos-session of by men of a different race, who claimedi, without justice, all credit for civilizationi and progress on the American continent. But those early explorers, who had broken a pathway for the swarming immigrants of a later period, were all of the French, race and of Catholic faith the heroic pioneers of the gospel and of liberty. They could recall with pride the names of Marquette, of LaSalle, of Jcliet and other brave and noble men of that early dav, who carried the cress and the civilization of which it was the precursor into the wilderness, and gave to the outer world the first knowledge it had received of the magnificent mag-nificent virgin territory which lay beyond be-yond the St. Lawrence and the Alle-ghenies Alle-ghenies and was gemmed by the great lakes and drained by the great rivers of what was now termed the middle west; and from that time down to the comparatively recent period when Fremont Fre-mont explored the rugged passes cf the mighty western mountains the hardy and adventurous children cf France were ever found In the vanguard of American) progression toward the setting set-ting sun. - They had impressed themselves, wherever they went, on the minds of the savage aborigines, as friends, not as foes. They did not approach the Indian in the offensive attitude of conquerors con-querors and masters, but aa benefac- ( tors and brethren. It was no wonder then, that after the savage tribes became be-came acquainted with their policy they grew to be the brothers and allies of the geniaa Frenchmen, and, in proportion, propor-tion, hated and battled against their enemies. Ncr had their influence diminished di-minished among the Indians down even to our own day. In the fiercest period cf the grea t Sioux war of a quarter quar-ter of a cer.tury ago. the man who spoke the French tongue, or who wore the s!imnle casscck of the Catholic priest, could pass unscathed through those warlike tribes, who defied, m the pride cf their savage strength, tne whole power and m'ajeety, of the' government gov-ernment of the United States. Why was this? Because the owe French m.'ssionaries net alone preacnea, but practiced the doctrine of Christian charity. They preached love and -tney practiced love. They did not lie to the savage; thev did not rob or oppress him. They did aKl.in their power to make him setf-euppporting, and they taught him also, in their gentle but potent fashion, love for the living God. Thus the savages came to have confidence in them, to hear the cross and to wear it to love the French nation and the Catholic faith that faith which appealed more to their untutored un-tutored hearts because of the sincerity of its teachers, than the colder beliefs which vaintly sought to soipplant it. Nor was t among the savages of this region alone the Catholic faith proved itself a softener cf hard hearts and a civilizer cf savage tribes. After the first stern conflicts of the Spanish conquerors conquer-ors ended in the subjugation of Mexico, that branch of the Latin race resorted to the kindlier methods-of the Catholic missionaries. The sword was laid aside; the symbol of salvation, took its place. Today 9,000,000 at least of Mexican Indian In-dian Catholics knedt at the same altar with his (the speaker's) audience and contributed to the strength and the ! glory of the Mexican republic, represented repre-sented in Chicago that night by Senor Mariscal one of its foremost patriots ; and statesmen. They could ' go south beyond the Mexican line to the rich republic of Guateanala; on through Central America to the southern continent; conti-nent; on through Columbia. Venezuela, Brazil. Ecuador, the republics of the western coast sentinaled by the majestic ma-jestic Cordilleras of the Andes; I through the Argentine to the xtrmes of Patagonia, and they woufd find the native tribes assimilated with the Latin or the Celtic races the cousins of the Latin yes, with 50,000.000 Catholic communicants to supplement the 9.500.-000 9.500.-000 Catholics cf the United Statera. They were too ' much in tne habit of accepting the gross falsehoods of the so-called American literature of the day, which gave to the Anglo-Saxon, race credit for the discovery and advancement, almost for the creation, of the American conti- neBut the facts of impartial history did not sustain these vain- sumptions. Columbus.- the Genoese, backed by the money and influence of the Spanish monarch Ferdinand and his peat consort con-sort Isabella, the Catholic, had dared the terrors of an unknown ocean and first "brought a new world into contact wUh the old." Another bright son of. Italy, Amerigo espuccio. the Florentine, an accomplished surveyor sur-veyor gave his name to the twin continents. con-tinents. Cabot, Magellan and the other dauntless spirits of the era of western exploration had linked their names Immortally Im-mortally with the destinies of the western; west-ern; world before that great modern myth, the Anglo-Saxon race was ever heard of. Yes, the Spaniard, the Portuguese, the Frenchman all had done their part toward exploring explor-ing and settling the Americas before England made any serious movement in that direction Even Hudson, the alleged al-leged English navigator, about whose early career so little is known, made his greatest American discoveries while in. the pay of the Dutch. At the beginning of this country there was Cniy one Catholic Bishop in the United States, he of Baltimore, the Right Rev. John Carroll, kinsman of the intrepid patriot whose hand wrote, at the foot of the Declaration1 of Independence. Inde-pendence. "Charles Carroll of Carroll-ton." Carroll-ton." Now they h'ad eighty-eight dioceses, including- archdioceses and from less than a hundred thousand thou-sand communicants they had grown to be nearly ten millions strong. In 1833 Chicago had les than a hundred Catholic worshipers and a single missionary priest. Now it was an archdiocese, with 450 priests, 217 parish churches, 140 chapels, numerous colleges, academies, schools, houses of refuge, hospitals, orphanages and other grand institutions, and boasted a membership mem-bership cf 750,000 souls. They hight well, indeed, be proud of that record- and cf the noble churchmen church-men who had made it from, the zealous and indefatigable Bishop Quarter, cut off in the pride of his -manhood and thi fullness of his usefulness to God and man, to their present patriarchal Archbishop, Arch-bishop, w'ao soared among them like some grand old pillar tower of Ireland, buttressed in the reverential affections of hia people. . The growth of the Catholic church more than kept pace with the growth ot the republic. It had by far the largest membership of any individual denomination. denomin-ation. In. American public affairs it had been a patriot, not a political, church. It had not advocated conversion conver-sion of the heathen by force of arms, neither did it convert the cross of I Christ, which was its symbol, into the hilt of a conqueror's sword. It preferred to rule by moral suasion sua-sion . and charit" for all mankindno man-kindno matter what the color of their skin, no matter at what altar they knelt. From th daeys of Bishop Carroll and Bishop England to those of Archbishop Hughes the chosen cho-sen friend and ambassador of Abraham Lincoln and from his day to the present pres-ent time of Bishop John Lancaster Spalding and Archbishop Ireland, it had ever been found on the side of American Ameri-can independence, national unity and thr- liberty cf roan Wind. In the dayg of the revolution and 1812 it was true to the cause cf the patriots and the rights of American citizens on the high seas. From this state of Illinois during the war with Mexico it sent forth that Catholic and Irish hero, James Shields, at the head of an Illinois brigade to do good battle bat-tle for America at Cerro-Gordo and Chapultepec. When disruption threatened threat-ened the Union, an almost exclusively ex-clusively Catholic and Irish regiment, under the brave James Mulligan, marched forth to defend the flag, and the gallant leader lost his life through cihvalrous fidelity to hi3 trust. SVV.fl another regiment, the Ninetieth, Nine-tieth, composed of Catholics, raised bv a Catholic clergyman, and headed by an Irish colonel, supplemented the noble Twenty-third. - and Colonel O'Mara fell also on the bloody heights of Chattanooga, in defense of his great adopted country. In the late Spanish war one fine Irish regiment regi-ment volunteered and was accepted for service. Several others were ready to follow it to the field, but their services were not required. -Thus by practical example the Catholics of Illinois and Chicago, like those of the rest of the republic, refuted the cowardly slanders leveled against their loyalty to America Amer-ica by harrow bigots who were a disgrace dis-grace to the American name.. He claimed for the old apostolic race of Ireland the premier place in the history his-tory of Catholicity in America, while gladly admitting the great services performed per-formed by the French Catholics, whose country had been called "the eldest daughter of the church;" the Spanish, the Belgians and the Germans, who had been Christianized In great measure by Irish missionaries the worthy successors succes-sors of St. Patrick and who had done much that was vigorously aggressive in advancing the cause of the old faith in the United States. And of the newer elements in the life of the Catholic church in America, he might mention the Italians those heirs of the conquerors of the ancient world whose radiant gifts would, after a brief experience of liberty, give to America that genius which had made Italy illustrious in arms, in art, in literature lit-erature in all that tended to ennoble the human race. -Nor could he forget to pay tribute to the gallant kindred of Kosciusko and Pulaski Catholic champions cham-pions of American independence the devoted Poles, whose ancestors beat back from the threatened plains of ungrateful un-grateful Europe from the very walls of old Vienna the thronging legions of the conquering Turk There were still ether and newer elements, but 'those he had cited went to- prove the oossmcpolitan, y&t patriotic, composition of the Catholic church of Chicago plucking fresh flow-I flow-I ers from 'every land of Europe to lay upon that high altar at which all in common, worshiped. And so would the great church in Chicago and everywhere continue to increase in-crease and multiply, but here particularly, particu-larly, where it was si paternally cherished cher-ished by a metropolitan whose patriotic heart, while giving the tribute of profound pro-found loyalty to his adopted country, never forgot the old land of his birth the land of his fathers the land of millions whose Celtic blood warmed American- hearts. Where now in this archdiocese they counted myriads of communicants, their descendants would number them by the million. Temple after temple would rise to indicate the growth, of the faith of Peter and of Patrick ar.d of Columbia. Their spires would point to the region of higher destiny, in spiritual existence, and to the end of the world the church would be the guardian of faith and of morals, the conservator of art and of learning, and the God-guided pioneer of the highest form of civilization. |