"Yes, indeed, we do," cried the child. "Why, uncle, it was Father Peter who converted me."
Father Tom heard, but did not say a word.
It was only three days later when Father Tom stood in the miserable little room that Father Ilwin called his library. On the table still reposed the plans of the new church, but no sound of hammer was heard outside. Father Tom had little to say, but it was to the point. He had profited by his three days at home to think things out. He had arrived at his conclusions, and they were remarkably practical ones.
"Ilwin, me lad, I don't think I've treated ye just as a priest and Christian should—but I thought I was right. I know now that I wasn't. Ilwin, we can build that church and we will. Here are a thousand dollars as a start to show that I mean it. There'll be a collection for you in St. Patrick's next Sunday. After that I intind going about with ye. I think I know where we can get some more."
Then and there Father Tom Connolly began to be a Saint.
THE UNBROKEN SEAL
THE priest ran right into a mob of strikers as he turned the corner of the road leading from the bridge over the shallow, refuse-filled Mud Run, and touched foot to the one filthy, slimy street of the town. He was coming from the camp of the militia, where he had been called to administer the last Sacraments to a lieutenant, whom the strikers had shot down the night before.