Year: 1878

We noticed lately in our columns the memoil
of Federal General whose brave heart and


noble soul won the admiration even of his op
ponents; but we have before us to. day the life
| of one whose heroic virtues far surpassed those
of the soldier, and whose moral worth and
grandeur have left, as his biographer beauti-
fully expresses it-"a golden mark upon his
generation"


Reader, pause in your busy life, and learn
who frederic ozapsm was, what are the works
which immortalise his name, and why the
whole world owes him debt ofgratitude and
love.


In France, Ozansm 10 known as the great
saran the Christian Professor Of the Sorbonne,
the author of the noble work crowned at the
Academy, entitled "The Civilization of the
Fifth Century" and as the founder of that
heaven.inspired charity called the Conferences
of St. Vincent de Paul.


In England and in America, he is hardly
known at all. Perhaps the members of the
Vincentian conferences in this city have heard
bis name and been told his many virtues but
if they wish to work as he did, they should
stndy his life and inbue themselves with his
spirit.


From nucleus of eight members, meeting
in tho printing Office of Mr. Bailly in the heart
of Paris, in the year 1888, the Society of st.
Vincent de Paul has spread over nearly the
whole of Christendom. To good priest in
Siena who, in regard to the founding of Vim
centian Conference in that city, had said: "It
is not possible, the young mobiles of Tuscany
are too soft, too idle; you could never get them
to visit the poor" Ozanam wrote as follows:


awe have conferences at Q1ebec and in
Mexico. We have them in Jerusalem. We
have one, think, also in Paradise, for during
thousand members have taken the road to a
better world. How then is it possible that we
should not have one at Siena which is called
by poets the Ante chamber of Paradise"


1t is gratifying to learn that Oz anam's forts
in behalf of the poor of this garden spot of
Italy, were at last successful. Although in q
dying condition, he make visit to Siena in
order to bring o strong personal influence to
bear upon the doubling faith of the good Tus-
can priest, bat as this effort proved unsvail.
ing, Ozanam also wrote the letter from which
our extract is quoted.


A for mil ight after, he received the following
reply. "My dear friend, founded yester-
day, the Feast of Saint Vincent de Paul, two
Conferences, one in my college and one in the
town"


As Professor at the Sorbonne, he undertook
what was thought to be hopeless and an
Utopian task to speak of History, Rhetoric,
Philosophy from Christian standpoint, and
to refute by strong reasoning, solid logic and
unanswerable facts, the countless oalumnies
hurled against the Church.


This he did at the expense of losing his
position and of mourning the antipathy
of the students. But the vocation of
Or anam's life was to battle for Truth,
and all personal interests gave way before this
absorbing ambition of his noble soul. The
idea which led to the foundation of the Vim
nentian Conferences was. apart from his innate
desire to relieve the sufferings of others, to
furnish q weapon of defence against those ad-
versaries of Christianity who continually cried
out: "You give us only words, show US your
works"


Ozanam was essentially democrat, q lover
of his fellow man, and his advice to France in
the troubled years 4s and 49, read like the ut
terances of prophet speaking to our people
in our own day. We will do well perhaps to
heed bis words:


"We, on our side, are doing our best to keep
alive the sacred fire of charity. The little fire
extraordinary demands of this winter revived
our zeal. We are making some progre 50 in the
art of plundering the rich for the benefit of
the poor But how small all this 10 in presence
of q population of sixty thousa workmen,
demoralized by indigence and by the propaga-
tion of evil doctrines, Freemssonry and So
cialism trade upon the misery aud passions of
these suffsriDg nultitudes, and God alone
knows what future sin store for rs, If Cstho-
lie charity does not interpose in time to arrest
the 'servile war that is at her gates"


And in another letter he adds:


"We are now nearly two thousand young
men enrolled in this peaceful crusade of
charity. Now, too, that an ever in
creasing pauperism stands face to face, in rage
and desperation, with q monied aristooraoy
whose bowels of mercy have grown hardened,
it is we'll that there should be found mediators
who may prevent o collision of which no man
can foretell the horrible disasters, who will
gain hearing in both camps, and who will
carry words of resignation to one and counsels
of mercy to the other"


In 1886 he wrote to friend:


"The question which agitates the world to.
day is not a question of political forms, but
social question that of deciding whether the
spirit of egotism or the spirit of sacrifice is to