Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-03-19

Of these condemned leagues in st. Paul
and, perhaps, Minneapolis. My hairs are
tinged with the gray of over sixty winters,
and my life and the life of my family,
during twenty-five years. residence
IN st. Paul. have been characterized by a
love of home duties and domestic privacy,
and therefore these charges cut me the
more. Being the publicly recognized
founder of the Ladies' land league in St.
Paul, feel that l have q right to be
heard in my own defense, and that this
defense is duty which owe to the
ladies whom I have assisted in forming
these organizations, and to the bishop him
self.
Year after year since my arrival in St.
Paul, l have witnessed fairs, picnics, st.
Patrick's evening entertainments, ETC.,
in which my own CO.
operation has been repeat
eddy solicited for the benefit of church In
situations, conducted under the immediate
eye of authority, chiefly managed by
''mothers and daughters called by the
clergy s'from their homes" often for six
days and far into the depths OF six nights
in the week, to move to and fro in dense,
promiscuous crowds of noisy men and
women, and boisterous boys and girls;
but whatever might be the temporary in
convenience or risks arising from these
passing Irregularities, have assumed
that competent authority considered
them as entirely overbalanced by the par
amount importance of the charitable ends
in view. When, therefore, following the
example set in so many parts
of our own country and abroad,
II urged the formation of Ladies'
leagues in Minnesota, it never entered my
head that the maintenance of parochial
school, the payment of church debt, or
even the support of an orphan asylum,
was greater work of charity than to
rescue from abject misery whole nation
Of most cruelty oppressed people; nor
could l ever have conceived that quiet,
orderly, business assemblage, for two
hours one evening in the week, of "moth-
ers and daughters, accompanied in
many cases by their husbands, brothers
or sons, for the purpose of arranging
their financial matters, gaining informa-
ton as to the constantly changing aspect
of affairs, discussing the best methods of
proceeding, and stimulating one another
to greater zeal and charity, would be
more foreign to their womanly instincts"
or a greater infringement upon the
sacredness of the home life, than the
methods, already referred to, of advanc-
ing charities of more limited kind.
Furthermore, 1 offer in defense the
facts that my work in this matter had
received the hearty approval and almost
constant supervision of the pastor of the
cathedral, and that in all my extensive
reading on this subject, have not met
with single case of ecclesi-
astical disapproval of the LADIES'
league movement until the archbishop of
Dublin gave utterance to what the old
Christian hero, the archbishop of Cashel,
has denounced as his "monstrous impu-
tations'' as TO the modesty of the ladies of
the league.
Mr.. Editor, let any man among us, lay
man, priest or bishop, strip himself as
far as possible, at least in thought, of the
comforts which surround US in this favor
| ed country, and place himself for only a
brief space in the position Of the poor
Irish tenant, let him feel for one short
hour the punching want, the mental anxi-
ETY., the hopelessness, the abject and un-
renting misery inflicted by the accursed
system of rack-rents, evictions, espionage,
coercion bills, arms bills, speech gagglng,
accompanied by taunts, derlsion, carica-
lures and every species of overbearlng in
suits, all which characterize English rule
in Ireland, and then ask himself whether
it is outside of the sphere of woman's
mOdesty or woman's love to tender to
the poor, crushed. joyless, heartbroken
mothers and children of Ireland, through
the most effective organization of the
land league, the powerful solace of
woman's sympathy, woman's charity.
presume not to argue with Bishop
Grace; l merely lay before those who are
interested the motives upon which have
acted and which l believe govern the
noble ladies who have been compromised
by my action. But surely the right rev.
erned bishop is not accurate when he
condemns charitable associations for the
relief of heartrending social distress as
"polltical clubs" WILLIAM MARKoE.
An Interesting and Novel Church Meeting.
In the lecture room of the Jackson