THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1905. A MARTYR OF CHARITY

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 39, 28 September 1905, Page 17

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1905. A MARTYR OF CHARITY

4A) RCIIBISHOP CHAPELLE, of New Orleans, xluJJAx^ has P asse(i to lris rest ~ a niartyr of ' sweet '^TTJtr"^ ' Dust imto dust, lJM$&$ To this all must.' '^v&aPfy?' The manner of the passing of the great V» French-American Prelate was (says a Chicago daily paper, the ' Inter-Ocean ') ' a fine example of devotion to priestly duty, and a high inspiration, to the shepherds of all dnisions of the Christian flock. Whon the yellow 'plague appeared in v his See city, ArchJbishop Chapelle was absent on ai visitation of his diocese. He was old , he was of a habit of 'body peculiarly liable to latttl a)tt3ack~from~this disease ; hi<s Ch/urch htajd in>■kusted to him important tasks completed ; he was out of danger. There were many reasons, ecclesiastical as well aa personal, why he should stay out, of danger, or at least not run to meet it. These reasons did not appeal to Placide Louis Chapelle. lie may ha\o thought of them— undoubtedly they were suggested to him. But he put them anido. He remembered only that he was a soldier of tihe Cross, that his place was in the forefront <of the battle, aiding to give the consolation of his faith a,nd theirs to the suffering and the dying. He returned to" New Orleans immediately, and went at once into "the stricken quarter to supervise, direct, and aid 'the works of religion there. Within a few hours he himself was stricken with the plague, and within a few days hid work on earth was <kmic. The valiant soldier of tbo Cross had fallen at t)he post of danger and of duty* where priestly honor awd Christian faiith called

him to be a Therefore' Christians' of alf ; dtobmiii'attona may well say of Placide Louis Chapel le : " Soldier, p! God, well dome !•" and pray - that his * brave amd faithful soul may rest in that everlasting, peace which .passeth all understanding.'

Coming from a secular daily paper, we may well, with the • Aye Maria,' regard <fchis as indeed a ' remarkable tribute ' to the memory of a good an,d, faitbjhil shepherd of the flock ot Christ., But the" greathearted Prelate ot New Orleans is only one ■«l •• the myriad examples of the heaveri-tyorfr charity which 1 never falleth away ' in the Church of God, and' which prompts so many and such noble deeds for Christ's dear sake. It was (says the Rationalist writer, .tlpeky) Christianity that ' for the first time made charity a rudimentary virtue, giving it a loading place in '' thet moral type. . . Besides its general influence in stimulating the affections, it effected a complete revolution in this sphere, by regarding the poor as the special representatives of the Christian Founder, and thus making 'the lave of Christ ... the principle of charity/ 'When,' says the same writer,, 'the victory of CfetiS- ' tianity was achieved, the enthusiasm for charity displayed itself in the erection of numerous institutions that were altogether unknown in the pagan world.' The charity of Christ still urges it to-day in Japan and Burma and Molokai and New Orleans' as it did in the days when the infant Church was fighting for its life with wild beasts in the arena, and in the torture chamber with men that were more cruel than the lions of Mauritania. The dead ArcWbishop by the levees of the Mississippi s^hows that it la-veth still— ever in the ramk, green leaf. It knows no decay. It is trammelled by no bonrtidary-line ' of . race or color or woe. Its field is the whole extent of human ills— from the foundling infant in Lonidoir or Paris to the dying leper in the Seychelles'; and its' elastic and energising eagerness 1 adapts itself to every fresh form of misery that altered times or climes or conditions bring in their train. To-diay, as when St. Paul wrote, ' charity beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, ondureth all things f ; and it ' novor falleth away.'