The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1912-10-19
A Hero of Humanity


stranger sauntering along the streets
though for a day of triumph; flags
and buntings Haunting from the hous-
es, and the easements white with ex-
pectant faces. And, strangest of all
in city but lately self-styled God
less,' he saw little crosses every
where.-fung from the windows,
swung from the porches or pinned to
the breasts of the multitude. The
whole city was quite signed around
with crosses. Dense tides of human
ity swept through the by-ways to the
boulevards, and swayed like tides of
ocean.
Wherefore all this excitement and
pageantry?" asked the stranger of an
atheist. ooh, for some Gascon priest
of the seventeenth century, famous in
his time" But to the stranger it
seemed that the Gascon must be ia
nous for all time, if after two hun
dred years his memory was still SO
revered. He approached man who
leaned out of the window of a book
sellers shop, stretched, and cast his
eyes far down the street They were
the eyes of an enthusiast for or
against this public demonstration.
''Tell me, friend, who is this hero
that either your friends or your en-
emies are lauding today?" The en-
thusiast jerked his head in the di-
rection of the voice, leveled two large
black eyes upon him: "You are a
stranger in France? Come in, and
while we wait at the window I'll tell
you.
HE is M. Vincent-St. Vincent, the
Catholics call him; but we of the
'Sans-C ulottes' recognize no sanctity
but that of humanity-at least my
colleagues don't; l revere greatness
in God, in man, in microbe,-wher-
ever l find it, and Vincent was a great
man of the people, and, stranger still,
a great man for the King. There had
been no revolution had Royalists and
Republicans listened to him after his
death as they did during his life, for
he had solved every problem con-
fronting modern society,-solved the
problem of caste and class, poor and
rich, labor and capital wherein Richie
lieu and Mazarin had failed; and
moreover solved the problem of Sec
ular education, and ecclesiastical ed
failed. A wonderful mana hero.
why you cannot take a step in
this city without seeing monuments
to his greatness Colleges, semina-
ries, asylums, houses of protection
and reformation, prisons, churches
and barracks; all owe to him their
creation, preservation or reformation.
For half century the world won
dered at his work, how one small
head could formulate all those gil
gantic schemes, how one small hand
could perfect them. For over half a
century one-half the clergy of France
owned him for their spiritual father,
and all the priests for their inspirer.
The poor, the widows, the orphans,
the crippled, the insane and the sim
full called him their guardian angel.
At his pleading, whole towns hung
| their baskets ON their arms and flung
themselves into line to help their
suering neighbors. Noble ladies scat
tered their gold to poverty as joyous
ly as God scatters this mornings sun
shine. The hands that had held the
sceptre now held the burning brow
of misery Duelists that in the misty
| morning had gone out to kill, re
NAMED in church to pray Soldiers
broke their swords upon the oaks
and struck their breasts at his con.
fessional. Criminal mothers that had
sold their children for butchery, now
| sold their souls to perpetual penance
Oft in the winters midnight alley the
abandoned waits stopped their wall
ing at the sound of his voice or the
touch OF his hand. Can a mother
forget the fruit of her womb?' he
would says as he embraced the out
cast babe: yet even though she