The last scene of this eventful life closed on the sixth of May, when the missionary prince left this world, accompanied by the prayers of his parishioners gathered around him; for every apartment of the house, and every portion of the chapel attached to it, was literally thronged by a wailing, weeping, and praying community. This supreme hour revealed the depth and the sincerity of the love which dwelt in every heart for this man of God. On the day of his burial, whole populations swarmed from every point—from distances ranging fifty and sixty miles—to pay to the good father a last tribute of that affectionate respect which had attended him through life.
The most respectable men of the parish contended for the honor of bearing his body to the cemetery. In the body of the church, it was a perfect contest among the congregation to look for the last time on the feature of him who was thenceforward for ever lost to earth. Those who were lucky enough, through the pressure of the crowd, to reach the coffin, kissed in tearful love the icy hands of the missionary; while the attendants were compelled to resort to force in order to close the coffin for the final rites of the Church.
It were no easy task, without reference to the work of his biographer—an ocular witness of Gallitzin's labors—to convey a just conception of their bearing and extent "When," he says, "we come to consider the [{158}] theatre on which Gallitzin inaugurated his immense labors in so obscure and modest a manner, we realize the amount of substantial good that can be achieved by an apostolic missionary in America when, like Gallitzin, he conceives the practical sense of things and leads them on to their crowning development with the zeal and perseverance which marked his course. The small county of Cambria, in Pennsylvania, created in 1807, which is indebted to Gallitzin for a majority of its settlers, is everywhere, and with every reason, characterized as the Catholic county. Indeed, when the traveller on business, or the tourist for pleasure, strikes this point from other districts of Pennsylvania more controlled by Protestant influences, it seems to him that he has passed from a comparative desert into a smiling oasis. This may be easily understood. For all their journeyings for whole days, over counties twice and thrice more opulent than this little Catholic county, there is no indication to tell them what religion is there professed. Not till they have pressed the soil of Cambria county do they feel that they are in a truly Christian land, as they catch sight of ten Catholic churches and three monasteries—all of which cropped out of Loretto under Gallitzin's creative and fostering hands."
From all these results we can frame an accurate judgment of the prince's career, which was but one continuous struggle—a glorious struggle, teeming with usefulness. When Gallitzin opened his mission, the vicar of Christ was persecuted and proscribed. A prisoner, torn away from his spiritual family, Pius VI. heard the voices of a philosophic world applauding his abduction, as, ten years later, it applauded the violence inflicted on the person of Pius VII. It was just at that dark period which overshadowed the Holy See that the Church inaugurated her peaceful labors in the United States, and, at the end of ten years, had marked her beneficent influences by a progress so rapid that its result could not escape the eye of even the least observant. While Europe was organizing a settled persecution of the papal power, the Church in America was growing up and expanding in influence. Her very adversaries were compelled to bear even reluctant witness to her triumphs. In one of the meetings of a Bible society some years ago. Lord Barclay exhibited a summary, in which he lamented the spread of Catholicity in a country in which he said that in the year 1790 there was not even a bishop. "Strange," he said, "that while, in Europe, the power of the see of Rome is overthrown, the Pope is a prisoner, and Rome is declared to be the second city of the French empire—strange, I say, that, at this very moment, the power of the Pope should be rooted in America in this still stranger manner." Ay! strange indeed, my Lord Barclay; but in no way strange for those who know that martyrdom is the life of the Church, and that she woos triumph in persecution. Gallitzin's life is a living, convincing proof of her triumphs and her hopes.
From The Sixpenny Magazine.
"DUM SPIRO SPERO."
(AN APOLOGUE.)
My soul was restless, and I sought
The elf's wild haunt, and breath'd sweet airs:
I track'd the river's devious route:—
In vain!—my heart was vext with cares.
I wandered from the noble park,
The trimly gay parterre to view;
Thence pluck'd a rose, without one mark
To rob it of its faultless hue;
And, home returning, quaintly placed
My trophy in a tiny tray
Of antique silver curious traced;
Then, charg'd with odor, turn'd away.
* * * * *
I enter'd yestermorn the room
Where, all forgotten, dwelt my flower
Unhappy fate! that tender bloom
Fell, fainting for the genial shower.
Vanish'd all vigor had; and now—
The perfume fled—the tints grown dull—
It had been sin, I did allow,
For this so choice a bud to pull.
Then, with sore heart, I brought a stream
Of clearest water to its cup.
What wonder if new life 'gan gleam,
And care restored what hope gave up?
Lo! leaf by leaf was slowly raised,
Till olden flashes came at length:
Each plaintive petal oped, and gazed.
And thank'd me with its growing strength.
* * * * *
Our hearts are like thee, little Rose;
They quicken what time love-beams shine;
But under dismal clouds of woes
How can they choose but droop and pine?
If sympathy with lute attend
To lull with some resistless psalm,
Misfortune's darts can never rend:
Friends soothe, hope cheers, and heaven anoints with balm!