The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-11-19
AFTER MANY DAYS.

Some years ago, certain priest who had been
tried at several kinds of the rough pioneer work
which monOpolize the time and sap the strength of
the patient and laborious clergy in the missionary
doceses of the western part of the country, found
himself In a small mining town where men, though
whoe-soUled, rough, and human life is cheap.
The sudden change from summer sun to winter
chill, which IN that mountain town came as often
as daylight gave place to darkness was a severe
the strength of the priest, who had just fin
shed year of hard, ungrateful and ill-requited
labor. The result was that one fine, balmy after
noon, Doctor NJ was summoned to attend the
missionary, who complained of peculiar tightness
in the chest and difficulty in breathing. 1t
only pneumonia, which, at an altitude of 5000
feet a trihing ailment for corpulent patient
Of fifty-odd cyconic summers.
With no store laid aside for that or a similar oc-
easion, it would have Jared i'll with him had it not
been for a hospital which some good Sisters con-
Quoted at the cost of much personal labor and many
hardships for the injured miners and such others
as might claim their tender and unremitting atten-
ton. Even with their devotedness the outcome
was for a time in doubt; but even pneumonia had
to give way before such combination and the tide
turned in favor of the patient.
Now, words may be a picturesque way of ex-
pressing gratitude but all forced to admit that
they pitfuly unsubstantial and evanescent yet,
such was the charity of physician and sisters that
they were quite satisfied with the priests thankful
ward. It well for him. just at that time, that
they were SO disposed, for he would have gone to
debtors prison, had there been such a refuge, if
they had demanded pecuniary compensation.
With health impaired and faculties dulled by
Years Of more than one kind of hardship he at
tracted the pitying attention Of a prelate who Of
Tered him humble but welcome position in an
eastern city, where he could be useful in small
way and be free from the hardships on which stur-
der and more rugged spirits throve.
ne step downward was a move upward, for the
retired missionary soon felt as much at home in
metropolitan life as if he had always been accus-
TONED to pavements and uniformed policemen and
IRE engines and death-dealing taxicabs and like
city Injuries
One fair day in this Indian summer of his life,
The postman brought him letter bearing the post
mark OF the little mining town in the mountains
where he had battled with grievous illness. Brief
was the missive and traced by an unsteady hand
yet every word told, for it was wrung from grief
stricken heart. The tale was an old one yet ever
new IN the sorrow that sobbed through its tremu-
lous lines. "Ie was the wild boy of the family, but
az me same time he was my favorite, for he so
good hearted and generous"
10 look him up, to relieve to some extent his
oodly pains, to that his soul, nearing the long
Journey. should not go forth unshriven; what
grateful task The gentle little nun who had so
"sslduously cared for the sick in that wild rough
town. should know that her own were not aban-
uoIed IN their extremity. Il have always striven
% be good and kind to all the poor boys who come
under my care,' she writes from the miners hospi
ial' so that should any of my own dear ones need
Ieg Almighty God would inspire to
oe KIND to them, and l feel sure that He has
already heard my prayer
Blessed must in Him of whom the prophet
spake The bruised reed he shall not break"
So|n while ministering to the sick and injured
stranger, the day of reaping came when the word
rd nth fpt1 in +hp
NayWard son. who had grieved an old mothers heart
70 breaking, the brother for whom she had toiled
and watched and prayed, went forth refreshed,
strengthened out of this world which had been for
ntln troubled dream, into the adorable presence
u the Good Shepherd of souls
H. ]. s., in America.