The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1908-08-15

In Putnam's Monthly and The Read
er for August there is an article which
will carry all appeal to the affections
of every one Of the fifteen millions OF
Catholics of the United States. 1t is
entitled cardinal Gibbons Forty
Years Ago." and is a sympathetic and
graphic description Of the conditions
under which the venerable American
Prince of the Church lived and labor
ed on the missions of North Carolina.
The author of the article, Day Allen
Wiley, a well-known Baltimore jour
nalist has illustrated his text from
photographs taken by himself, includ-
ing one of the picturesque brick Church
of st. Thomas. at Wilmington, and
the ugly, dilapidated annex" which
Bishop Gibbons called home" The
historic church is about to be aban-
dcned, and the suggestion with which
Mr., Wiley both opens and closes his
article-that the Catholics of America
mite to secure it and dedicate it for
ever as a monument to Cardinal Glib
bons-will meet with widespread ap-,
proval. The article is. i'll part, as fol-
lows:
Standing on the shore of the Poto-
mac is a. stately mansion that half a
century ago was. preserved by the
American people as a. memorial to the
one they call the Father of his Coun'-
try. The Cape Fear River flows to
the sea, through North Carolina. past
another building that might also be
preserved as a memorial to a noted
American, for it is indeed a reminder
of the merits of a man who has been
honored as the Cardinal Archbishop OF
the United States.
In the city of Wilmington--that
quaint Salem of the South peopled
far before Revolutionary times-were
spent years that were destined to be
momentous in the career of James
Cardinal Gibbons. The period when he
called 1t home formed chapter in his
life-history fraught with events which
fall within the experience of few. Even
a short time makes great changes in
our country. He gave up his home IN
Wilmington not forty years ago. yet
his words and deeds while Bishop OF
North Carolina are known to few out
side of the little old city, and those
who lived in this part of the South
during the stirring times Immediately
after the Civil War are mostly remem-
bered by their headstones. About
these years of his life his lips have
thus far been sealed. Why? Because,
the innate modesty of the man pre-
vents him from telling a tale he might
tell that would perhaps show the man.
liness, courage and patriotism of this
prelate far more clearly than any acts
of his public career.
We have to go back little way to
the days just after the war. Carolina
had it's share of the poverty and suffer.
Ing. Throughout lIlS. OldLe, WuACll
stretches from the Atlantic to the
western mountains, five hundred miles
away, we're only million people
Methodists. Baptists, Episcopalians,.
Presbyterians and members of sundry
other Protestant denominations; but
the Catholic Church was represented
by a mere handful of humanity, SO few
that Catholic was looked upon as a
curiosity; more than this, as one un'
canny, to be suspected. Stunned. The
rites of the Church were regarded as
sort of sorcery. In. Wilmington,
where the only church. of this belief
existed between Charleston and far.
away Petersburg, in Virginia, the feel:
ing towards those who worshipped in
1t was anything but kindly. Little girls
whose parents attended it had their
aprons torn off in the street and suf-
fered other abuses. Catholic children
were forced to leave the one school in