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Show Bishop Feehan and Father Ryan. SCATTERED throughout the country coun-try may be found a few survivors of the Army of the Cumberland who were in Nashville at the time Father Fa-ther Feehan, afterward Archbishop Feehan, was consecrated bishop of the Tennessee capital. The civil Avar was over then and the only Catholic church in the city was the cathedral. The church had been seized in 1864 by the federal army and used as a military hospital, and for some time the Catholic Cath-olic residents of the city had to cross the Cumberland river bridge and attend mass in a little chapel in a suburban town. However, this did not happen during the time the Catholic General Rosecrans was in command, and we believe Bishop Feehan afterward put in a claim which was awarded by congress con-gress upon recommendation of the war department. Before Father Feehand came from St. Louis and was consecrated bishop of Nashville, there dwelt in the rectory a priest whose presence in the pulpit no Catholic could ever forget. Tall and spare, with hair brushed back and almost al-most falling to his shoulders, eyes that flashed with the earnestness of his words and cheeks aglow with the hectic hec-tic flush of consumption, the poet of the "Lost Cause" urged sinners to love of Christ in much the same language as Father Faber uses in his book, "All for Jesus." But there was a poem in those sermons which Father Faber, nor no other priest, no matter how gifted, gift-ed, could imitate. This man was Father Fa-ther Ryan, beloved by the new bishop and idolized by all the people of the south. As John Boyle O'Reilly gave his best efforts in poetry to the land of his birth, so did Father Ryan throw a halo about the sunny south and its conquered con-quered heroes that will endure so long as brave men and virtuous women live to repeat to their children "The Conquered Con-quered Banner" and the "Sword of Lee." These two we regard as the most striking of Father Ryan's poems. Bishop Feehan compassionately removed re-moved the irksome parish duties from his beloved priest and allowed the dying poet to finish his days in the work which has placed him In the foremost fore-most ranks of American poets. We believe be-lieve Father Ryan died before Bishop Feehan was transferred to the archdiocese arch-diocese of Chicago. Prelate and poet-priest nave gone to their reward. Some say that a person on his deathbed loves to think of those things which gave him pleasure in the days of his youth an dearly manhood, and the characters of such times rise out of their graves in the same form and speak in the same way and smile with the same smile as they did in vigorous life. It is a happy transition from pain to such thoughts. As the great archbishop of Chicago lay prostrate pros-trate and calmly waiting the end, his I mind must rave wandered at times from the majestic Catholic! diocese which began with his administration, back to the modest cathedral at Nashville, Nash-ville, Tenn.; back to that consumptive priest whom he loved as the apple of his eye. Back of that priest with the same long hair, tall, spare figure, and marveiously intellectual face, stood an angelic chojr chanting the "Magnificat." "Magnifi-cat." Perhaps the sick prelate could, in fancy, hear that same choir putting the words of Father Ryan's lyrics to music before the vision was shut out, and he heard for the last time "The Conquered Banner" and t"The Sword e t The writer ,who was a printer's apprentice ap-prentice at. the time, put "The Conquered Con-quered Banner" in type from the original origi-nal manuscript. It was first published in the Nashville Gazette, one of whose proprietors was a devout Catholic. Yet how few "Catholics at this day know aught of Father Ryan; bow few volumes of his opems do we see in Catholic homes, in the northern states. But in the south his memory is cherished cher-ished by the survivors pf "The Lost Cause" in the same spirit as the literary liter-ary Celt treasures the poems of John Boyle O'Reilly. ' i |