The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1903-06-14


Pierre resigned his class at Judge Jones
it was to take the pulpit of his new
Catholic church.
Of his ministrations among the people
during the past fifteen years. devotion
sealed with his life, it seems almost
si;pe1 nunlerary to speak. Wherever
there was distress, wherever there was
sorrow, in whatever class of life, pro-
vided it were not intrusion, there was
ever to be found kind, beloved Father
Pierre Nature had given him broad and
iiIiinitable sympathies; good will toward
tnen was the language of that speaking,
Intelligent blue eye; while manners soft
and tender as a wonlans rendered him
2 pastor peculiarly fitted for winning the
hearts and the confidence of all. That he
scnetimes slipped into contracted views
was an anomaly, in one of such wide
range OF culture, attributable possibly to
the incessant and adoring contemplation
of one creed of belief, an anomaly now
happily so much more frequent in this
arte-millennial age, among the lofty
| .vatehmen of the, towers, than in the
prcmiscuous assimilating crowd below.
| Rome. ( Rome" was the grand mistress
OF all his thoughts, and the master-key
d turned his character. Often have I
heard him exclai1n, in original Latin, his
eyes upturned to heaven, in fervid devo-
ticn % Rome! Rome! may my right
hand forget its cunning if thee forget"
Yet charity toward all mankind was the
teaching of his creed and the natural
promptings of his generous heart.
Many mournfully pleasant renlinis-
cences of Father Pierre-in the social
circle, passages of wit, evangelical dis
cussions. amusing tits of augmentation,
crowd this pen for utterance here, but
forbear Only one incident, so highly
honorable to the delicacy of his peculiar
refinement forces itself
When the dark years of our inter-
necine troubles were over, and war,
and floods had swept from
our sky ali vestige of that golden sun
shine. in which the timid young priest
had shared of yore, he met us on our
return to Shreveport. The same cordial
grasp Of the soft feminine hand was
there; the same expressive sympathy of
the large blue eye.
In few days he sent us the follow
ing note, accompanying an excellent din
ing table, doubly acceptable since a fire
had destroyed all furniture stores in
Shreveport: !,
Dear Masam-May the good Lord /
provide this table with as many bounties
for you in the future as you provided /
one for me in the past, when came, a /
stranger, to your door. Your friend,
]. PIERRE. !.
S He informed me afterward he had |
sprinkled it with holy water. As regards
the note, submit that seldom so few
lines have conveyed so much
To enumerate all the many charitable
and delicate acts of Father P:erre's life
and generally, too, from All insufficient /
purse-his thoughtfulness OF the poor,
his constant attention to their wants,
physical and spiritual; his care and in
struction Of the destitute youth of our
city. would fill an entire volutne.
His conversational powers were fine,
despite his foreign birth, with keep ap-
probation of both wit and poetry There
was no department of art, science Or lit
erature with which he was not, to some |
extent, familiar and capable of further
illustration; nor could one make his ac-
quaintance without admitting that he
was both the finished scholar and the
gentleman
In the terrible plague, that found him
at his post, he was swept from our vision
forever. An alien among us, with no
drop of our blood in his veins-With no
kindred hand to close his eye or heap the |
mound above his fornf-he sleeps the
sleep that knows no waking.
But lives and deaths such as Father
Pierre's call up at once both the saddest
and the noblest emotions of our nature,
and convert all mankind into one COM
mon family, to pay the last sad tributes
to lofty deeds and genuine worth. HUI
man nature clings to its kindred clay.
As though this mortal existence were
all, and there were no higher plane,
where the soul enters upon wider and
nobler career, we gather up the few frag-
ments of this human life and strive to
impact them into some enduring shape,
that may battle with the eorroding tooth
of time, and stand in meH.ento nori for
ever.
Artemesia, dewy eyed and ineonsol-
able, built her marble mausoleum on the
49, q r. A A - T..