The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-12-27
SHEPHERD or SEAS
IS COUNTS TITLE
De Vaya Spends His Time
Ministering to Hungar-
ian Immigrants.

NEW YORK. Dec. 27-Count vav
De Vaya, lord abbot of st. Martins in
Hungary. has earned the title of 1.-The
shepherd Of the Seas" because he
spends his life and wealth, his talents
ana his strength, in ministering ia
Door emtgrants seeking rairer chances
Tor life In distant lands. A man of
FOWLER birth, and one bred amid
scenes OF squalor and suffering might
20 spend his life without creating
wonder that he should seek to help
those who are his equals and init
mates.
Count de Vaya is one Of the richest
and one OF the most influential men in
Hungary This wealth he is using to
neIp the poor emigrants from his coun-
try and from other countries. and he
has forsaken the case of comforts
that his riches would bring to sail with
them on many troubled seas and teach
them how to conduct themselves in
the new life they are TO face
AT home" he said, the poor are
Forever watched over by the parish
priest, who Is their spiritual father.
He tells them thoy they shall conduct
their lives and listen and obey. Then
also there are the neighbors with
whom the peasant hopes to stand well
and to be respected. This environment
helps him to lead a Christian life, to
Oe honest, industrious, and strong to
resist temptation. Then he hears Of
brighter opportunities in new land,
and he sells all of his little posses
siOns and sails away. Everything that
has helped him in the past, the teach
dngs OF the priest. the good word of old
neighbors, the traditions of his home,
are swept away from him and he finds
himself on the sea with nothing to do
and an absolutely vacant mind, ready
to be filled with anything any one
cares to pour into it.
This Is very trying period. All
his life he has been worker. He has
toiled all day and at night there were
But here. upon the deep. his mind
grows vagrant 1t has nothing to an
Choir 1t. Like the mind of a little child,
It 10 very receptive. II evil is poured
into 1t. that evil may last as long as
lives and be the controlling influ-
Nnce of his life But IL it is good, why
then he will be a good man and as
long as he lives. Now. the work that
I am trying to do with all of the gifts
that God has given me is to meet with
these poor people and to fill them with
the thoughts of our Creator, with
the duty we all owe to one another
and with the peace that comes from
god and the torment that comes from
evil.
II opened the Rrst Hungarian
church in the slums of Chicago. This
was in 1908. l have visited all of the
different labor centers in the United
States. and I have crossed the ocean
nineteen times. And always l am seek
ing to place in the hands of the help
less the sword Of righteousness with
which to fight temptation. On one ship,
the Ultonia, from Flume. l preached
to $500 emigrants. I speak nine Ian
guages, and I preached to them, so
all could understand, in Hungarian. in
German and in the Slav. A more de-
wout people l never saw. l am glad to
nay that have seen something of the
results of the seeds that ! have sown
And II the work Is continued, in
generation or two 1t will 60 far to-
ward lettering conditions all over the
world"