USA > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh > A history of the Catholic church in the dioceses of Pittsburg and Allegheny from its establishment to the present time > Part 27
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But he had hoped to see his beloved Loretto the home of a Bishop, as was stated above in the chapter on the erection of the See of Pittsburg. Writing to Archbishop Marechal under date of October 28th, 1823, he says :
" Several years ago I formed a plan for the good of religion, for the success of which I desire to employ all the means at my disposal when the remainder of my debts are paid. It is to form a diocese for the western part of Pennsylvania. What a consolation for me if I might before I die see this plan car- ried out, and Loretto made an episcopal see, where the Bishop by means of the lands attached to the bishopric, which are very fertile, would be independent, and where with very little expense, could be erected college, seminary, and all that is re- quired for an episcopal establishment ! . . . It could be com- menced by establishing a Bishop here who would be merely Vicarius in Pontificalibus to the Bishop of Philadelphia, who would give great comfort by administering confirmation in
* Life of Bishop Flaget, by Rt. Rev. M. J. Spalding, p. 166. t Life, etc., pp. 332, 345. # Ibid., p. 364.
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FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES.
all parts of Western Pennsylvania ; at the death of the Biship of Philadelphia two dioceses could be formed."
About the year 1817, the log-church, which had once been enlarged, began to be no longer capable of accommodating the constantly increasing congregation. A new one was im- peratively demanded, and was undertaken. It is a frame building standing near the pastoral residence, and is perhaps 40 by 65 feet. But it has not been used for many years.
At this time, when the good pastor began to feel a little security in his finances, he received intelligence from Europe that his sister was married. The result was that he after- wards received but a few small remittances from the sale. of his estates, although large sums were placed in the hands of his sister and her husband to be forwarded to him. It is not for us to inquire upon whom the blame rests. There was a valuable collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, which had been left by his mother in the hands of a trusty friend to be disposed of for some charitable object, and the custodian, judging rightly that it could not be applied to a better end than the building up of religion in the New World, sold it to Dr. Gallitzin's friend and former schoolmate, the King of the Netherlands, for the priest's benefit. But the funds arising from the sale, though considerable, were far from liquidating his debts; and when he had done all in his power, he was yet forced to apply to wealthy Catholics in different places for assistance. I have examined a small memorandum-book, the companion of the one already referred to, in which are the names of a number of contributors, principally citizens of Baltimore. The book opens with a brief sketch of Dr. Gal- litzin's life and the object he had in view in settling at Lo- retto, written in his own small but very neat hand. A part, how- ever, is erased so as to be utterly illegible. To this is added the following valuable letter in very nervous handwriting :
"I hereby earnestly recommend to all charitable persons to subscribe such sums as their inclination and ability will permit, to second the views detailed in the opposite page by the Rev. Demetrius A. Gallitzin.
"CH. CARROLL of Carrollton.
" November 13, 1827."
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THE CRISIS.
The venerable signer of the Declaration of American Inde- pendence gave an example to others by subscribing one hun- dred dollars. The name of Cardinal Capellari, afterwards Pope Gregory XVI., also appears as the contributor of two hundred dollars. Referring to the Cardinal's letter in which his eminence addressed the missionary as Amplitudo Tua, the latter playfully remarked that it should have been tenuitas tua ; for Dr. Gallitzin was of slender form. But the amount raised was not sufficient to meet the urgent demands of the moment, and he thought of crossing over to Europe to see what he might be able to raise among his numerous and wealthy friends there. But the idea was soon abandoned. At length the crisis seemed to have been reached, and in 1828 the miserable log-hut for which he had exchanged a princely title and estate was advertised at sheriff's sale. With the aid of money collected from the faithful Irish laborers on the canal between Johnstown and. Blairsville, and from other sources, he was enabled to avert the impending calamity; and from that time forward his financial condition so far im- proved that by the time of his death he was free from pecuniary embarrassments. All told he expended about $150,000 on the Loretto settlement .*
In 1832 Dr. Gallitzin built a small chapel to the rear of his residence and adjoining it, in which he could offer up the Holy Sacrifice on week-days, and where he could be more comfort- able in the severe mountain winters than in the church. But it is proper to remark that a new residence had by this time taken the place of the primeval log-house. In this chapel con- fessions were heard on Saturday evenings until the new resi- dence was built, as we shall have occasion to observe, a few years ago; and I have both frequently heard in the same con- fessional which the illustrious missionary used, and said Mass at the same altar before which he so often stood.
The nomination of Rev. F. P. Kenrick as coadjutor to the aged and infirm Bishop Conwell of Philadelphia was not in harmony with Dr. Gallitzin's views, and he accordingly wrote the newly appointed prelate a very plain and strong though
* Memoir, etc., by Very Rev. Thos. Heyden, p. 92.
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REV. HENRY LEMCKE.
respectful letter on the subject. The course pursued by the Bishop in reference to certain irregularities in one or two con- gregations was so far out of harmony with the good mission- ary's ideas that he resigned the vicar-generalship in a character- istic letter. Bishop Kenrick visited Loretto early in the fall of 1830, and administered confirmation to five hundred persons, expressing himself much edified with the piety of the people and the able and skilful administration of the pastor.
In September, 1834, a priest entered upon the mountain mission who is deserving of special mention. Rev. Henry Lemcke was born in Rhema, in the territory of Mechlenburg, Prussia, July 27th, 1796. He entered the army at an early age, and was at the battle of Waterloo. Leaving the army he became a Lutheran preacher ; but being soon after converted, he began a course of study for the priesthood, to which he was ordained on the 11th of April, 1825. He came to this country in 1834, and was placed in charge of a German congregation in Philadelphia. He was desirous, however, of exchanging it for some other, when he accidentally learned that Prince Gal- litzin was a priest on the American mission. He came West, as we shall presently see ; was the intimate friend of the prince, succeeded him at Loretto, and gained possession of all the papers left by the illustrious missionary. After remaining about six years longer in Cambria County, he was transferred to the eastern part of the State upon the arrival of the Bene- dictine Order at Carrolltown, in 1846. He became a member of the order in 1851, and two years later made his solemn vows .* "It was the doctor's custom," he says, in the work about to be referred to, " to preserve not merely all the letters he received, but copies of all he wrote, if of the least impor- tance; more than this, he kept every paper in which there was any notice of events, even the most ordinary, which had any interest for him ; in a large chest there were papers and letters of every description, from the memoirs of his mother to his last tailor's bill; notice from the princess to his tutors, to her children ; in a word, the accumulation of half a century." t
* St. Vincenz in Pennsylvanien, p. 347. t Leben und Wirken, etc., p. II.
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ARRIVAL OF FR. LEMCKE.
From these and personal recollection Fr. Lemcke composed his "Leben und Wirken des Prinzen Demetrius Augustin Gallitzin," which upon a subsequent visit to Europe he had printed at Münster in 1861. The past few years of his life, until recently, were spent at the priory of his order at Newark, N. J., but he has been for some time with the Benedictine fathers in the western part of Pennsylvania. He is hale and active, and has an inexhaustible fund of anecdotes relating to all the varied scenes through which he has passed in his event- ful career, which he loves to recount in his inimitable style. He is at present engaged in preparing an autobiography, which will be a valuable addition to the history of the Diocese of Pittsburg .* Having introduced the reader to the venerable priest, we shall return to the year 1834, leaving him to tell the story of his coming to Loretto in his own picturesque style. The passage is translated, with some omissions, from his " Leben und Wirken."
" I had before this somewhere read a biography of Prin- cess Gallitzin, and gathered from it that she had a son, a Catholic missionary in America, but no one could give any information concerning him. At last I asked the Bishop. ' He is at Loretto,' was the answer, 'in Western Pennsylvania, in this diocese.' 'Is he then still living ?' 'Certainly, but he is old and delicate, greatly in need of assistance in his wide- spread congregation. As you desire to be removed from here, and I have now a German priest to take your place, you can go to him. But he is a singular old saint ; many others have tried to live with him, but it seems as if no one could get along with him.' I consented to go, and as soon as
* In the summer of 1879 he commenced the publication of the work in the columns of the Northern Cambria News, a weekly newspaper published at Carroll- town, where the venerable missionary is now stopping. The work is entitled "Cambria County in the Olden Time, embracing the Life of the Prince, Priest, and Missionary, D. A. Gallitzin, and also an Autobiography of the Writer, Rev. Henry Lemcke." It was the intention to publish it afterwards in book form ; but when it had continued about six months, and had brought the life of the author down to the year 1855, it was unexpectedly discontinued for the present, Novem- ber 22d, 1879. It is much to be regretted that the work, although containing valuable information, should be disfigured by certain strictures on two prelates who have always been regarded throughout the country as models of learning, prudence, and piety.
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HE MEETS DR. GALLITZIN.
I could, set out on my journey. I arrived at last in safety at Munster, a little village laid out by Irish people on a table-land of the Allegheny Mountains, only four miles from Gallitzin's residence. The stage stopped at the house of a certain Peter Collins, a genuine Irishman, who kept the post- office and hotel. . . The next morning-for it was even-
ing when I arrived, and they would not on any account let me go on-a horse was saddled for me, and Thomas, one of the numerous Collins children, stood ready to show me the way and to bring back the horse. We had gone but a mile or two in the woods when I saw a sled coming drawn by two strong horses (N. B. In September, in the most beau- tiful summer weather). In the sled half sat and half reclined a venerable-looking man in an old, much worn. overcoat, wearing a peasant's hat which no one, it is likely, would have cared to pick up in the street, and carrying a book in his hand. I thought, seeing him brought along in this way, that there must have been an accident, that perhaps the old gen- tleman had dislocated a limb in the woods; but Thomas, who had been on ahead, came running back and said, ' There comes the priest,' pointing to the man in the sled. I rode up and asked, ' Are you really the pastor of Loretto?' 'Yes, I am he.' 'Prince Gallitzin ?' 'At your service, sir. I am that very exalted personage.' Saying this he laughed heartily. 'You may perhaps wonder,' he continued, when I had pre- sented him a letter from the Bishop of Philadelphia, 'at my singular retinue. But how can it be helped? We have not as yet, as you may see, roads fit for wagons-we should be either fast or upset every moment. I can no longer ride on horseback, having injured myself by a fall, and it is also coming hard with me to walk; besides, I have all the require- ments for Mass to take with me. I am now on my way to a place where I have had for some years a station. You can now go on quietly to Loretto and make yourself comfortable there : I shall be at home this evening ; or if you like better, you can come with me : perhaps it may interest you.' I chose to accompany him, and after riding some miles through the woods we reached a genuine Pennsylvania farm-house [prob- ably at Summitville, soon to be noticed].
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MASS IN THE BACKWOODS.
" Here lived Josua Parish, one of the first settlers of that country, and the ancestor of a numerous posterity. The Catho- lics of the neighborhood, men, women, and children, were al- ready assembled in great numbers around the house, in which an altar was put up, its principal materials having been taken from the sled; Gallitzin then sat down in one corner of the house to hear confessions, and I, in another corner, attended to a few Germans. The whole affair appeared very strange to me, but it was extremely touching to see the simple peasant home, with all its house furniture and the great fireplace, in which there was roasting and boiling going on at the same time, changed into a church, while the people, with their prayer-books and their reverential manners, stood or knelt under the low projecting roof or under trees, going in and out just as their turn came for confession. After Mass, at which Father Gallitzin preached, and when a few children had been baptized, the altar was taken away and the dinner- table set in its place. It was, of course, too small, but it was understood to remedy this evil for one party to sit down after another party had dined, the children meanwhile standing about in the corners with their hands full, while the mother and daughters of the house went back and forth, replenishing the empty dishes from the pots in the fireplace, and pressing the food upon their guests. In a word, all was so pleasant and friendly that involuntarily the love-feasts of the first Christians came to my mind. In the afternoon we went slowly on our way, Gallitzin in his sled and I on horseback, arriving at nightfall at Loretto.
"In the evening we had much to talk about. Forty-two years had already passed since Gallitzin had left Germany, and in that time how much had happened! . . . And while all this was passing, this man, destined by his birth as well as his talents to play a grand role in the world's theatre, had been announcing in the Allegheny Mountains the kingdom of the Prince of Peace. . While we were thus deeply engaged in conversation it grew very late, and then I saw an illustration of old-time Catholic discipline and home regularity. One of the old women, of whom there were several living in the house, put her head in the doorway, asking if there would
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DR. GALLITZIN AT HOME.
be prayers that night. 'Certainly,' said Dr. Gallitzin, rising at once, and a signal being given, the household came to- gether. The old nobleman knelt without any ceremony near the table by which he had been sitting, took his rosary from his pocket and began it. After the prayers were over he took his breviary, I did the same; the house was as quiet as a monastery. When I left my room the next morning I met the prince with his arms full of wood, intending to make a fire, as it had grown quite cold during the night. Afterwards when I went to the chapel to say Mass, he insisted upon serving me."
To this graphic picture of the early missionary life and customs of the pioneer priests, Father Lemcke adds the following on the Doctor's Sunday routine, which will be no less interesting :
" The next day was Sunday. The people began to come very early in the morning, from all directions, to go to con- fession. At ten o'clock I celebrated High Mass, at which the organ was played, and there was some pretty good singing. After the gospel the old pastor stepped quickly towards me at the altar, put me to one side, and began to preach, of course in English, of which I understood but little. As well as I could make it out it was strong against pride and vanity. Nothing in the world excited the humble man more than to perceive any luxury, love of finery, or new fashions creeping in among his children, though I must admit there was scarcely ten dollars' worth of superfluities and luxuries to be seen in the entire congregation ; what special thing had just then aroused him I could not tell. Perhaps it was that at this time the first modern carriage made its appearance at the door of the Loretto church; for a man of the neighborhood who had grown rich, and now and then went to Philadelphia on busi- ness, had brought back with him a very fine carriage, in which with his family, all adorned to suit, he drove to church on Sundays, creating a great sensation. At the time the marvel was expected to make its appearance, the boys would climb the trees and fences, keeping their eyes fixed in the direction from which it would probably come; in a word, it was like the Indians on the upper Missouri when the first steamboat was seen.
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PREACHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
" When Gallitzin had finished his English sermon, he began another in German, but to me it sounded altogether foreign ; it is true he had received a German education, although at the time when the influence of the French language was at its height, but in his forty-two years in America he had had little or no practice in speaking it. . . . He introduced me formally to the Germans, who were then pretty numerous, in- timating to them that for the future I would attend to them, and that I would now preach them a German sermon, which they had not heard for a long time. He then moved aside, bowing to me with a mischievous smile, as much as to say : ' I have got through, now it is your turn.' There had been nothing of the kind intimated to me previously ; he had merely requested me to celebrate High Mass; there was no alterna- tive but for me to preach, more decidedly extempore than ever before in my life. When I spoke to him about it later, he laughed and said that he wished to know whether I was fitted for a missionary, for he would have a treasure in one who could at any moment bring out the old and new.
" I lived in the belief that I was now at home with Gallit- zin, and made my plans accordingly-how I could live with this singular old gentleman, how I would go to work to break through the crust which had formed over his noble nature in the long battle with an ungrateful and wicked world, and how I would win myself a place in his heart. But I found I had reckoned without my host.
"On Monday morning he was ready to start out again ; the horses were hitched to the wagon, for now it was to go to Ebensburg, the county-town, to which the roads were so good that the sled was only required for them in winter-time. We stopped at the house of a Mrs. Ivory, who had grown up in Gallitzin's house, while her mother and two of her sisters still remained with him, keeping house for him. The old gentle- man went around all the morning from one house to another, and I could not imagine what he had on hand. After dinner the matter was explained. He handed me a paper, saying : ' Here isa list of the Catholics of the place. Each one of them has bound himself by this paper to contribute a certain sum annually for your support. There is a little church here, but
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FR. LEMCKE AT EBENSBURG.
for some time there has been no priest; the congregation is small and hardly able to support one. But you will stay in this house ; there are some really pretty rooms upstairs; Mrs. Ivory is a good cook, and will treat you in the best manner possible. I will pay the board for you in advance, and in re- turn you will come to me once a month to preach to the Ger- mans and assist in the confessional; you will also have to at- tend to the stations and sick-calls which I can no longer reach.' 'But,' said I, 'what are you thinking of? What am I to do here among the English? for, as far as I can learn, there is not a German in the place.' ' That makes no differ- ence; it is all the better for you ; you will then learn English nolens volens. You have already made a good beginning, and as you by no means appear to have fallen on your head, you will soon be able to preach.' 'It may be so, but we can speak English in Loretto also, and it would in every way be better for me to live with you, and save paying for board.' 'Well, you see,' he said, rubbing his nose, as was his way when he . was embarrassed, ' winter is near, and, as you have observed, there is only one room in my house, besides the kitchen, in which there is a fireplace.' I could hardly refrain from laughing at this, for the Bishop had told me he would not let another priest live with him, and had arranged his house in a way to have a good excuse for declining." Speaking of his appearance at that time, he being then in his sixty-fourth year, Father Lemcke says: "When I first saw Gallitzin, he was certainly very thin, and his general appearance fragile, but he was erect, his walk firm and rapid, his voice loud and sonorous, his look keen and decided."
Just before this time his pen had again been at work. A Presbyterian synod was held at Columbia, Pa., toward the close of the year 1833, in which the assembly, in the charitable language peculiar to that sect when discussing the subject of Popery, warned their ministers of the rapid strides it was mak- ing in their midst, and in six resolutions labored to enkindle their zeal in opposing its further progress. Dr. Gallitzin addressed them in " Six Letters of Advice to the Gentlemen Presbyterian Parsons who lately met at Columbia, Pa., for the purpose of Declaring War against the Catholic Church." The first of
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THE " SIX LETTERS."
these letters appeared January 14th, 1834, and the others fol- lowed weekly in the newspaper in which they were first pub- lished. They were afterwards issued in pamphlet form by Canan & Scott, Ebensburg, 1834, pp. 28. The letters are writ- ten in an easy, almost a playful, but ironical style, and must have pierced those to whom they were addressed like an arrow. They have long since been out of print, but are given almost entire by Miss Brownson-an act for which the Catholic pub- lic should be sincerely grateful .* The following will afford an idea of the style of the letters. Having stated that he had heard of the synod, and having given the preamble and the six resolutions, he begins after this manner :
" Well done, gentlemen! Thus you have sounded the tocsin of war; you have drawn the sword, and thrown away the scabbard. Like so many heroes you stand in battle array, to fight the battles of the Lord against Pope and Popery. Fame, which hath already wafted across the Atlantic the ac- count of your heroic deeds during the ravages of the cholera, will bring your declaration of war to Rome, and fill the Pope and his cardinals with terror and dismay.
" But now, gentlemen, let me tell you it is not sufficient to know how to declare war; you ought also to know how to carry it on; and as I am somewhat acquainted with military tactics (having formerly held a commission in the Russian army), charity impels me to assist you with my advice.
" To secure a little respect for my advice, I wish you to observe: Ist. That I am in my sixty-fourth year; 2dly. That I was educated in the Greek Protestant Church, the members of which bear a greater hatred to the Pope than ever you did ; 3dly. That I am now and since the year 1795 have been a minister of that religion which you very gentlemanly desig- nate by the nickname of Romanism or Popery, and which I call the Roman Catholic Church, alias the Church of Jesus Christ.
" From the premises the conclusion is rational that, know- ing both sides of the question, I ought to be tolerably well qualified to advise you how to carry on a war successfully against the Pope."
* Life, etc., pp. 407, 409 et seq ..
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THE END APPROACHING.
But the veteran missionary's career was fast drawing to a close. He had found a wilderness and made of it a flourishing Catholic settlement, with all that was necessary for its perma- nence and future development. Its ramifications had ex- tended many miles in almost every direction, and had become either new congregations or the nucleuses of new congrega- tions to be organized at no distant day. His financial difficul- ties, which were one of the heaviest crosses that he had been called upon by his Master to carry, and one peculiarly galling to a person of his refined feelings and high sense of honor, were now things of the past. Troubles from false brethren were now happily adjusted ; and after a life stormy in its own way there succeeded the calm which his soul desired before its departure. But even in his old age Dr. Gallitzin did not give himself up to repose. His labors ceased only with his life. We have seen that when no longer able to ride on horseback he visited his stations on a sled, for better conveyance he had none.
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