The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-07-06

Pere Marye, the Faithful Priest of r1orne Rouge,
Celebrates Mass in Midst of Danger
CNew York Evening Post.l

Dy MS guns. lie was 4 man OF peace
the cure of parish just under Pelee
volcano.
In the first place, as a source of wor-
~ to him in his ministerial capacity,
there had been the immortality of St
Pierre. do you know he said to us,
that out of every twelve births in ST.
Pierre, only two were legitimate?' And,
besides. as we progressed with the din
ner, which, in the seminary refectory,
we were hungry for after a twelve
hours horseback ride he told US of the
satanists and the socialists, the one
worshipers of the devil and the others
biasphemers of God. The satanistS had
a regular ceremonial Of devil worship
and. alasi the head of it was an artist
from Paris named Guillaume, who had
frescoed rather well the cures church
at Morne Rouge. To offset Guillaume's
teachings and the influence of the bias
p11emous paper Proletaire of st. Pierre.
this priest had 10 hold missions on the
boundary Of st. Pierre, and organize
street parades. and he was preparing
a series Of sermons TO show the fallacy
OF socialism when the crater burst and
destroyed st. Pierre, its immoral peo-
pie, it's satanists and its socialists.
When the crater of Pelee burst, the
priest, Pere Marye, was celebrating
mass. He had, he recalls, thirty per-
sons at communion that morning. AS
be left the church he observed an ar
dent boiling" from the mountain. A
light, a fire burst, shaped as a cornu-
cOpid, at that moment occurred. As II
rose It formed q cloud above. Sudden
iy through this cloud lightnings shot,
lateral lightnings, from the center to
the circumference, from the circunfer-
ence TO the center. making sounds like
sz-z-z-z-z, and then boom-m- m MN.
Bombs might have been exploding,
titanic ones. Then this cloud quickly
directed itself down toward St. Pierre.
Why, il remains for the scientists to
agree upon. The fire and smoke came
out like a torrent" like a geyser. 1t
did not roll at first, but, meeting OBJ
structions, it did begin to roll, over and
over, a black stream. 1t continued to
explode. as it rushed down upon the
city that lay at its foot, by the sea,
enclosed on all sides by hills or bluffs,
yet with close cfoven ravine through
which a draught could be had The
cloud was like a kind of artificial fire.
works; in form it was like an inverted
chemists retort. the outlet curving
downward but expanded. not confined
There were explosions whenever the
cloud struck an obstacle, and loddest
when II touched the shore front and
the sea. The present state of the houses
at st. Pierre, it may be remarked. is
that of houses that had been exploded
their walls are thrown outward into
the street and their tile roofs are fallen
IN.
Some days ago 1 was again at st.
Pierre, and with opportunity for a f1ve-
hours observation, found thirteen
streets piled six feet high with the
stones and mortar of demolished build
ings, and probably of the bones of dead
citizens. as not quarter of the 10000
cadavers have been found. Stones and
bones are cemented now, since the tor
rental rains, with the dust and sand
of several eruptions. The treasure
trove that a Scotch minister was sure
would be found by early visitors is ali
buried or recovered (mostiy buried),
and only now and then is a china aft
er-dinner cup seen complete, or a ten
franc piece of gold discerned on the
surface by a group of bones. In the
ruins OF the house of the president of
the Banque Anglais there was an Eng
lish book for children, adventures by
sea and land. and stories of fairies.
and in another mansion. in the cham
Der of the daughter of the house. evil
IDENTIFY, there we're a melted perfume
bottle with women's hairpin en-
tangled in its stem, a purse With few
melted coins, and in the kitchen debris
the signs Of the petit dejeuner with
the skeleton of the cook in the ruin
OF the range In one mansion there
were four skeletons. close together just
by door through which they were
rushing to escape. One was the figure
of young woman, not all the integu-
ments yet stripped from the bones. Her
beautiful small hands were wholly pre-
served, and on the third finger of the
right hand there was a ring. She was
somebody's sweetheart. 1 like to think
that the token will be buried with
her.
But TO return 20 Pere AIarye. One
gets to his parish of Morne Rouge by
ponies, poor. starveling ponies, over
mountain roads filed with cinders and
dust. or washed away and INSTRUCTED
by trees blown down-a wearisome ride
of nearly a day. We heard church bells
when two miles away Our mounts
barely able 10 walk, the blood running
from where the guides long spurs had
cut cruelty. we entered the village about
o'clock in the afternoon. There was
no hotel no planter that we knew, but
we confidently rode into the priests
yard and put our ponies in his stab
We had been told that to expect hos
pitality from the priests OF Martinique
was never to be disappointed. We
walked into his open door There was
his Iibrary-a single book case. There
was his table-big enough 70 seat a
dozen persons There was his side
board-wine and fruit upon ii tn plain
invitation.
We went through the library to the
church portico. Appearing exceedingly
close rose the high, jagged. monstrous
cone of the new crater of Pelee send
ing UP a huge pillar OF white. and
dripping pale. hot mud down its fur
rowed jowl. In the churchyard the
dust from the first two eruptions was
drifted fully a foot deep. 1t had had
10 be shoveled away from the doors.
as a New England villager in winter
clears his doorstep OF snow. Morne
Rouge lies almost as near 20 the crater
as 81. Pierre, but only a few of its
people had been sccrched. and no
houses had been damaged. The church
stood intact; its bells were pealing SOL
EMMY.
Up the road came procession. 1t
turned in by the church gate: some
black girls marched in front wearing
ribbon and a silver cross: some black
nuns followed. then some white wo.
men, and after them the cure. piump
and rudy. eyes to the ground. I'm
golden vestments. walking under a
scarlet and gold canopy upheld by six
stalwsrt negroes. Behind the canopy
walked tie men Of the parish. white
and black. two by two. As the cure
stepped into the church there was an
explosion. then another. II was start
ling, with that volcano smoking vfo-
lently in the BACKGROUND. But we saw
that 1t was merely part of the cere-
m0ry-the Corpus Christi procession
q man had an old rife and an old
shotgun. and had Aired thA sel,ssa f~o-.