A MONUMENT TO ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 364, 9 April 1880, Page 19

A MONUMENT TO ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.

A grand monument to Archbishop Hughes is proposed to be erected in Calvary Cemetery, New York. Americans of all classes and creeds will esteem it a privilege, no doubt, to be permitted to contribute to such an object. While we justly hold in reverence and veneration the memory of Washington, the founder of this Republic, writes a Catholic publicist in this country, we should not forget the great archbishop who saved the Union from disruption. In the dark and evil days when European tyrants looked on in glee at the fratricidal struggle of North and South, and British statesmen were importuning France to intervene, John Hughes left a bed of sickness to visit Paris and pleaded before Napoleon the cause of the North. How eloquently he spoke in the cause of freedom was shown by the result of his interview with the French Emperor, and posterity will place the name of John Hughes beside that of George Washington. This is not the language of exaggeration. Washington freed his country from British rule, Hughes saved it from the interference of European monarchies. Washington was the friend and advocate of religious freedom, Hughes devoted all the powers of his giant mind to battle against the Brookes, Raymonds, and other vultures of the KnowNothing Press. The selection of Calvary Cemetery as the site of the monument to perpetuate the memory of Archbishop Hughes is exceedingly appropriate. It is eminently fitting that a statue of the deceased founder of " that city of the Celtic dead " should look on those of his flock who sleep in the Lord. And if the souls of the just made perfect are cognisant of our doings on earth, it is not too much to say that such a monument would gladden their hearts. We hope to see, before long, a visible proof of Irish and American gratitude in a grand monument to the illustrious John Hughes, Archbishop of New York. — New York Correspondent.