The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1912-11-23
CONTINUED from Page 81
IN THE HEART OF THE
WILDERNESS.

he laughed like a child through his
tears. For long months before a
wealthy prospector had given him,
half in Jest, a piece of forest land that
was sufficient for all purposes.
when this forest becomes a town.
suggested the donor, why, | guess
Father, you can build a church here"
1t had seemed a huge jest at the
time, but now it only required will
ing hands and stout hearts to make
the start. And so the foundations
were begun, while over the temporary
altar in the barn was placed a picture
of the Sacred Heart, before which the
priest spent in prayer many hours,
especially the hours of night. He came
there to tell all his, troubles and his
plans, the difficulties and the miserles
with which he was meeting, the while
to call down blessings on those who
were assisting him.
cit is the pennies of the poor, dear
Lord" he murmured, that will build
this church; it is those pennies which
have built many things for Thy serv-
ice. Unless" he added. "Thou wilt in
spire some good rich man. Oh, there
are many such to whom the camels
eye will be big enough to take them up
high into heaven"
Sometimes he came there tagged
out with the hard, manual work, too
strenuous for his age, that he had been
doing, or the still greater strain of
anxiety, of debt, which hung as a dark
cloud round him, while he had liter
ally to starve himself and to subslst
on the barest n~ecessaries as he exer-
cised his arduous ministry amid a
flock scattered ove many miles of
territory. He often came to tell the
Sacred Heart, too, of the rebuffs and
insults he had met with and which
he declared were his due and to de-
plore the efforts that we're being made
by the enemies of the faith to ensnare,
by means of money and abundant ma
terial resources, the souls of simple
people, especially immigrants and
strangers in the country. Or he wept
as he recited like a litany the names
of those children of saints and mar
tyrs, as he said, judging by their
patronymics, who had given up alto
gether the practice of religion or
joined in heretical worship, though
their ancestors in some of the older
countries had borne the heat and
burden of persecution and died rather
than abandon their faith.
when Thy church is built, dear Sa-
cred Heart" he said, "Thou wilt com
p1ete Thy promise of blessing our un-
dertakings, and perhaps I may get
these strayed sheep back, or if not /,
who am a miserable old man, then
some priest who will come after me,
brave and young, with the fire of the
ADoStleS in his veins"
And as he knelt there before the
picture he caught, like glory stream
ing from above, a vision of the future,
of all the Masses that should be offer
ed, a part in that stream of sacrifice
that, from "the rising to the setting of
the sum-" goes up to the throne of
Mercy to save this earth, overburden-
ed with iniquity, from destruction. He
saw the prayers and the Benedictions
and all the other services ascending
as an Odor of incense, and the streams
of people, not only those settled there
abouts, but newcomers, their chill
dren and their children's children, who
through the instrumentality of Gods
ministers and the SacramentS adj
ministered should be marked with the
sign of the Lamb and swell the multi
tudes in the Heavenly Jerusalem. And
there upon that spot, then perhaps the
heart of a great city, it would be told
even to the most distant times how
that temple had been erected through
the power of the Sacred Heart and
the generosity and the sacrifices OF
little ones of Christ.
1T is always in poverty that Thy
works are accomplished" the priest
said. IF we look at Bethlehem or at
the Cenacle we shall see that"
It seemed, in fact, little short of
miraculous how that church was built.
There was not then, as now, an Exten-
sion Society, by which even people
at the greatest distance, or by the
smallest sums, could come to the as
sistance of those priestly heroes who
are struggling against absolute want,
against p~rivation and difficulty of ev-
cry sort in the missions of the North
west. Nor in those pre-Extension
days did any think very often of CIV