The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-03-14
THE MrERMoUNTAN AND COLORADO MARCH 1908

and many time when 1 felt that
could bear noJmere, when the longin;
for Ralph, and rest and the pure, swee
country air was almost too strong t,
be withstood, the sight of DR. Erlwood
patient. tireless, kept me at my post.
Never, never shall forget those ba
bies in charge of ignorant and incem
petent mothers, suffering .torments un
told from heat and thirst, gasping fol
breath on the scorching payements
pain-racked, weazened caricatures O.
humanity, to whom death would have
come as a blessed relief. Sadder still
were those cases where the mothers
art-broken and exhausted, helpless
suffered over again the pains of theil
little ones. But the faith, the piety
the wonderful, beautiful resignation OF
the Catholic mothers-Irish, German
Italian! 1t was a continual revelation
a sublime lesson in itself, that surely
could not fail to open the eyes of the
doctor, blinded though they were to the
truth, to the very existence of God As
| went about my work the prayer was
ever in my heart and on my lips that
thus might his charity be rewarded.
One day he called me to him in the
upper room of a huge tenement A
mite of Jewish parentage lay in his
arms. It's tongue, parched, shriveled,
| blackened, protruded from its mouth.
| 1t was slowly dying of thirst, its eyes
| were in an indescribable state from dis
ease and dirt; swarm of flies lowered
near ready to torture it as soon as we
were gone.
Get me some cracked ice-quick!"
cried the doctor.
Our store was exhausted, owing to
the enormous demand for it; and the
water in the tenement was unfit for
drinking purposes. But so peremptory
a command could not be disobeyed, and
l hurried down into the shadowless
streets, where 1 found a wagonload of
the precious stuff driving slowly along.
With difficulty l persuaded the man to
sell me a small block, which, painting
and exhausted, / bore in triumph back
to the tenement.
1 took the baby from the doctors
arms whilst he cracked the ice and
put tiny fragments between its lips.
After a moment it actually smiled.
1 had seen many sad things, but the
saddest, the most heart-rending of all
was that parody of a baby's smile. 1t
was gone in an instant; the ice had
momentarily relieved the childs suf-
ferings, but a merciful death was at
hand. 1 saw it in the drawn, haggard
lines about that baby mouth, felt it
in the culver of those attentuated baby
limbs; and the thought that it had
not been baptized made me turn sud-
denly to DR.. Erlwood. The mother in
a sort of stupor seemed careless of
what we did; but he, atheist, unbe-
lever, yet man of charity if ever one
has been-he had been, before me. I.
Laying a cracked basin half full of |
tepid water on the table, he took the |
baby from me again. |
''There!" he said, pointing to the
water.
Il baotize thee in the name of the
Father, the Son and of the Holy
Ghost
1 spoke the words hardly above my
breath, and equally low I heard hfs
voice as he bent over the newly-made
Christian-and his eyes, 1 saw, were
Gods own
After the hot spell was over I left
he city and went out near by Ralphs
school. where 1 meant to make my
home for time to come: and here the
leXt news of DR.. Erlwood reached me.
We were firm friends now, and his let
er came as no surprise, only as deep
nd holy. joy. had been longing, pray
ng, hoping with sure and certain
lope for it.
Il think you knew or guess at what
vas going on in my mind he wrote.
Any debt of gratitude that you may
ave thought you owed me has been
epaid a thousandfold. After seeing
ou, and, through your eyes, those
atholic mothers during all that time,
should be a fool or a knave to re- ]
lain any longer in the senseless path
here I had stood too long Il Thank
od, my eyes were opened to truth, {
nd in a few weeks l, too, shall be a
lember of the one true Church.
Both Jack and l were with him when I
lie great day came. [ could not have {
elieved that work-worn man could {
yer wear the look of innocence, of l
we, and joy that was on Dr. Erlwood's
that day. Truly, as he
lrned from the altar rails after re- {
living the Master whose existence he 7
ad so long ignored, the words that d
: himself had used over another new t
baptized rose spontapeously to my c
s-"God's own."-Aye Maria d