The Early Life of Archbishop Redwood

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LI, Issue 9, 28 February 1924, Page 3

The Early Life of Archbishop Redwood

* (Extracts from his Grace’s Reminiscences.) ARRIVAL IN NEW ZEALAND. Towards the end of the year 1842, the good ship George Fyfe (Captain Pyke), after a long but fair passage of five months, arrived from England at Port Nicholson (Wellington). She was slow but —the fast-sailing clipper was not yet invented. She was a vessel of about six hundred tons, and had on board a number of emigrants brought out under the auspices of the lately formed New Zealand Company, whose noble purpose was to bring to New Zealand a selected lot of emigrants of all classes, to occupy the land just purchased, or to be purchased, from the Maoris, and thus found a model colony. I was among those new arrivals, and so one of the pioneer colonists, dating from the early dawn of the colony. New Zealand became a British colony in 1840, and we were here in 1842, the Redwood family, four sons and four daughters, with their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Redwood. The eldest son, Henry Redwood, afterwards the well-known sportsman, fitly called “The Father of the New Zealand Turf,” was then about twenty years of age. The second son, Joseph Redwood, never came to New Zealand. He was left a youth in London to complete his studies and become a veterinary surgeon. Afterwards for years he practised as a veterinary surgeon in the Army, and married, but died childless at Dorchester, England. Years before starting for New Zealand, my mother lost a baby daughter named Esther. The very youngest of all the family, by name Austin, a baby somewhat over six weeks’ old, died at sea, and was buried in the deep. Then I—the future Archbishop of Wellingtonbecame the Benjamin of the family. My age, on my arrival at Nelson in 1842, was three years and a half, and I am now in my 83rd year (1922). My sister, Martha, the second by age, had married, just before the voyage, a Mr. Joseph Ward, well-known afterwards for many years as a surveyor in Marlborough, and some time member of the House of Representatives, Wellington. My eldest sister, Mary, married a Mr. Greaves, and died twelve months afterwards at Nelson, leaving to* my mother’s care, a baby daughter, Mary, who died, to our great grief, in her grandmother’s home at the age of six months. Her father, Mr. Greaves, then returned to England and married again, bringing up an only daughter. I paid him a visit in 1865, shortly after my ordination to the priesthood, and saw his daughter, a child about twelve years old. He died an opulent banker in Worcestershire. The other members of the family, Henry, Thomas, Charles, Ann, and Elizabeth, married in due time and had families, some of them large families — Charles, and Ann. Martha (Mrs! Ward) had a very large family, and, at one stage of their life, her eight sons, all well mounted on horseback, used to ride their ten miles to Sunday Mass, and were called, from the family home, the “Brookby Cavalry.” All my brothers and sisters are now dead, and I am the only survivor of the original family. Our family came, in the aforesaid ship as steerage passengers, because my father wisely determined not to waste in cabin comforts the money— a -decent sum —which he had realised from the sale of his farm property in Staffordshire, and which he reserved for future needs and enterprise in this new country. But he made a capital arrangement in our behalf by having all his family together with him in the fore-part of the ship, separated from the other emigrants. This added greatly to our privacy and comfort. ; In London, before starting, he had bought, on spec, fifty acres of what, from the description given by the New Zealand Company, he judged to be good land— and good land, excellent land, it proved to be. - It had been surveyed only one. year before, 1841, and my late brother-in-law, Cyrus Goulter, was one of the survey staff, and, be it said by the way, was very near being poisoned to death by eating a tute-berry pie. . W Well, the land was fertile and easily cleared, and my

father resolved to erect his first New Zealand home upon it. Later on, he added some hundreds of acres to the original fifty. To build a substantial and comfortable house for so large a family was no easy task under the circumstances of those early days. Where were the stones, the bricks, the lime, the timber ? They had to be furnished and soon and, indeed, they were shortly forthcoming. The land was situated in Waimea West, that is to say, West of the Waimea river, which runs into Tasman Bay, then called by Captain Cook, Blind Bay, because he never sailed to the Nelson end of it. It went for some years (at least a part of it) by the name of Massacre Bay, because in that bay Tasman, who a century before the arrival of Cook* discovered New Zealand, had two of his crew killed by the hostile • Maoris, and this tragic event caused him to Sail away out of danger as soon as possible. The river runs between the Rabbit Island and the Mainland, and at low water is shallow and fordable, while at high tide it forms a good landing-place about seven miles from Nelson by boat. It was at that time much used by boats and canoes. My father bought the pine timber used to fit up the emigrant quarters in the George Fyfe, and a considerable quantity of good canvas. Then, with my brother-in-law, Mr. Joseph Ward, and my brother Henry, he went in a boat beforehand with these materials and other requisites, to set up a tent on the small estate, later on called Stafford Place, for the fit accommodation of, the whole family, while the house was in course of construction. The house was built of peasy, that is, a mixture of clay apd gravel, and finished inside and out by a coating N of white plaster. A lime kiln was built at Stoke, and elsewhere bricks were made for the chimney. A comfortable two-storey house was the result, and for a number of years it was the best , house in the Nelson district, and one which stood without a crack through the violent earthquakes of 1848 and 1855. The tent meanwhile was sixty feet long with sufficient width, and divided into compartments by boarded partitions, and covered with canvas ;'the whole well fastened by ropes to stakes sunk in the ground. In this we lived comfortably for six months. EARLY EDUCATION. We were three young brothers, Tom, Charley, and I, aged respectively five, seven, and nine, and there was no school for us to go to. How were we to be educated? My brother-in-law, Mr. Joseph Ward, was a surveyor and a good scholar. For a suitable remuneration he— when not away on survey —undertook our schooling, and right well he did it. He taught us reading, writing, and arithmetic admirably. I learnt my alphabet from Mrs. Ward, my sister Martha. I was rather long, they said, in mastering my A.8.C., but afterwards improved very fast and soon became, for a boy, a good reader, and I was also proficient in writing and arithmetic— in short, I was a well taught boy. And, what is far more, I knew my prayers and my catechism perfectly.. For two years and more, having no priest, we could not assist at Holy Mass. My father began to feel keenly for himself and his large family the Avant of a resident priest, and he had made up his mind that, unless a priest should come from somewhere to visit us at least periodically and regularly, pending the time when we should have the blessing of a resident priest, he would sell out and go to Tasmania where he believed priests could be found. His anxiety was relieved by the coming of Rev. Father O’Reilly from Wellington with the Right Rev. Dr. Pompallier, VicarApostolic of Oceania, which included New Zealand. Father O’Reilly was a Franciscan Capuchin, who, with leave and approval of his superiors, had come from Dublin-as a chaplain of Lord Petre. Once in New Zealand he determined to remain permanently, and he fruitfully spent his holy and zealous life in Wellington, where he was the first Catholic priest to celebrate Mass, and he did so on the beach ,in the open air. Later he used to celebrate in a shed, then in a very small chapel, the historic precursor of the splendid church, St. Mary of the Angels, lately opened. To him it owes its name, St. Mary of the Angels, in Franciscan memory of the great Basilica of that name in Assisi, where St, Francis died, and where he was born. In this first visit

Father O’Reilly, whom we venerated almost as an angel 'i-S* from Heaven, came up to Waimea West, and an appro-. priate room in our house became the hallowed place of the 'v Holy Sacrifice. All the —except those too young-r------r gladly availed themselves of the long-desired opportunity to ;X, go to their duty, and to all of us it was a day of real joy. ; Bishop Pompallier did not visit the Waimea, but remained in Nelson, where he was able to address the numerous Maori's in their own language. So I never saw a Catholic shop till I arrived,.years —lßss —in France. x When we had .no priest, we took the right means to eep our faith lively, and our appreciation of religion keen. Every night we had family prayers in common, preceded .by the reading of one of . Challoner’s Meditations for every day in the year. On Sundays we dressed up just as if we were to attend Mass, and, in the morning, we had what we called; “Mass Prayers,” that is, suitable prayers recited _ while we directed our intentions to some Mass actually being . said somewhere in the world. In the evening, we had evening Sunday prayers Psalter of Jesus, or a Litany, etc., as a substitute for Church evening service. Father O’Reilly God bless him ! —was most, faithful and self-sacri-ficing to visit us once a year on one occasion he crossed Cook Strait, and came to us in, an open whaleboat. Thus we had Mass and the Sacraments seldom but regularly, and that was no small grace. ■ At last Bishop Viard, my predecessor in the See of Wellington, sent us for our resident priest the venerable and beloved Father. Anthony Garin, S.M. He resided at Nelson, in a house, of English timber and removed from its first site, on other Catholic ground, to where the present boys’ school stands in Manuka Street. From Nelson his administrations radiated all through the whole of Nelson and Marlborough districts. Prior to this, he had been, for seven years, a missionary among the Maoris, in the vicinity of the Bay of Islands and Hokianga, and had endured every kind of hardship, as heroic missionaries in savage lands : usually do. He had acquired their language and spoke it ' well. In English, when he first came, he was not so fluent, but he soon improved, and his sermons, aided by his sanctity, did much to instruct and edify his flock. He was in- . deed a saint, and attracted universal respect, and in many sincere veneration. He was one of that heroic band of the first Marist Fathers lately founded in France. He knew the glorious apostle and protomartyr, Blessed Chanel, and he emulated his apostolic virtues. To him, under God, I am indebted for my .vocation to the priesthevd, and all its momentous consequences in time and eternity. My brother Tom .had made his First Communion in England. Finding that my brother Charles and I knew our Catechism perfectly, and seeing, our age—Charles thirteen, and I eleven—Father Garin called us to make our First Communion without delay, and, to prepare us well, he took us - with some other boys, the Sullivans and Dwyers, to Nelson and boarded us for a week in his own house, where we had a regular spiritual retreat—instructions and prayers • every day. We made our First Communion on Christmas Day, at the Midnight Mass, 1851, and I was chosen to read • the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity, just before Communion. There were some Germansthe Franks Nel-son-good Catholics—and they could sing. So the Mid- - - night Mass was sung by Father Garin and his little choir. ✓ We had spent our recreations during the week in decorating, ' to the, best of our knowledge and power, under Father Garin s directions, the little lowly, unlined wooden chapel (no larger than a good sized room) with ripe cherries and roses, making such sentences as Gloria in Excelsis Deo, and such like. The little sanctuary was bright with flowers and redolent of their fragrance. v. ; VOCATION TO THE PRIESTHOOD. From that First Communion sprang - my vocation, the first vocation to the priesthood in New Zealand. And it may be that I was chosen by God’s inscrutable mercy, because I was the most unworthy and sinful’of the group. However that may be, I u-as chosen, and my parents soon approved of my desire to be a priest. But how was I to be educated to that holy and exalted dignity and state ? I ... could begin my studies in Nelson, and rely on Providence

to supply the future means of completing them in Europe. So I was put as a boarder to begin Father Garin’s boardingschool so highly appreciated; for many years. That school had, in his mind, a two-fold object and valuable results. It helped him to live with the very meagre support derived from his very small congregation of Catholics in the Nelson district, and as years went on it did an incalculable amount of good by educating in a proper Catholic manner a number of . Catholic youths who have kept the faith and spread it through the whole Dominion. The second boarder — not a Catholic, but a very good moral boy—was George Bennington, slightly younger than I, afterwards well-known as a prosperous chemist in Christchurch, where, after his death, the firm still flourishes. His name is familiar throughout Australasia by his largely edvertised “Bonnington’s Irish Moss,” his vaunted remedy for colds and coughs. In after years I used, as Bishop of Wellington, to pay him a visit unfailingly, whenever I came to Christchurch, which was then included in the diocese of Wellington, and then we had some delightful chats about old times. He kindly, as a boy, taught me to play the violin, at least as a beginner. It happened this way : The Bonningtons, shoemakers by, trade, had just arrived from England, and Charles, the eldest son, was a violin artist taught in London. - In passing, I am happy to add, in his praise, that, later on, he married a Catholic, and became, one himself. He and his family afterwards went to .settle in San Francisco, where, lam told, they prospered. Charles had taught his little brother the violin, and, at least in the first position, to play a number of simple tunes of which he had the music. I asked George to teach me, and he instantly promised he would, if I got another violin. So I borrowed one from a neighbor, and soon, under his tuition (he had been taught well) I was able to play as he did. I had leave to go home to Stafford Place once a month. It was distant fourteen miles. I used to walk the distance at my leisure, and wade the Waimea River. I had no fear of water, being a good swimmer. Arriving on the Saturday evening, I was at hand to serve Father Garin’s Mass on Sunday, in our house, which then served as the only available church. On the Monday I walked back to Nelson in my own way, as Father Garin did in his, he visiting the people as he thought fit. I came home, one Saturday, with my fiddle in a green bag. “What have you got there in that bag, Frank?” they said. “A fiddle” said I. “A fiddle; what do you know about a fiddle?” said they., “I will soon show you,” I replied. And forthwith I began to play a number of favorite familiar tunes. It was a surprise and a revelation. My father was so pleased that, hearing of the artist, Charles Bonnington, he ordered me to take lessons from him, which I did. Afterwards, in France, I had a good professor trained at the Paris Conservatoire, and I won the first prize at the French College, St. diamond, Loire, and became first violin in the college orchestra. In my serious studies for the priesthood, I practised the violin very little and occasionally, and it was only when I became Bishop, and wanted something to fall back upon in loneliness and stress of business, that I took to the violin again, and made it a pleasure and solace, particularly after I was fortunate to get genuine “Strad.” George Bonnington never became a Catholic. He kept up his music, and for years was the leader of the Christchurch Orchestra. I spent, as a student of Latin and French, three years at Father Garin’s, 1852-3 and most of 4. During a part of that time Rev. Father Forest, S.M., came to Nelson to recuperate after a severe illness, and he spent about a month at Stafford Place, in my mother’s devoted care. Father Moreau, S.M., was sent by Bishop Viard as an assistant to Father Garin, and he, in regard to teaching me French (while I helped to improve his English) did more than Father Garin, whose time was largely taken up by parish concerns. But the one who assisted me most in acquiring French was the saintly and ever-remembered Brother, Claude Marie Bertrand, who here deserves special mention . and my expression of deepest gratitude. When the Marist missionary Fathers - firstcame to evangelise Oceania, the supply of mere lay-brothers in the Society of Mary, at its outset, was insufficient. As far as they were

-. ■— ' Present Bishops of New Zealand

available, these Marist Jay-brothers went as companions and aids .and cooks and tradesmen to each missioner. Prior to-this, Venerable Father Champagnet, S.M., had founded -the teaching body of the Little Brothers of Mary (commonly now called Marist Brothers). Some of these were allowed to go as companions and-aids to the departing Marist Father. It was on their part an act of heroism. Now, Brother Claude Marie Bertrand was one of these, and, in his '• own language, a good scholar, while he also knew Latin. I used to sit beside him in the long studious silent evenings, and, while he read his spiritual books, I studied Latin and French, and, many a time, when I knew not the meaning of a French word or found a puzzle in French grammar, instead of losing time with my dictionary, I would ask Brother Marie the meaning or the solution of the difficulty. Thus I gained much time and made rapid progress. At the end of the three years,-I could read an ordinary French book without the aid of a dictionary, and I knew my French grammar, especially the irregular verbs, perfectly. I never had any trouble with them afterwards in France. / At harvest time I had to go home and do my fair share of work in the harvest field. Machine reapers and binders were yet unknown in New Zealand. The crops were gathered by hand. I was, for a boy, a very expert reaper with a sickle, and did my half-acre a day, or thereabouts, as well as the men. DEPARTURE FOR FRANCE. I; now come to a great crisis of my life, the decisive turning-point of my career. It was determined that I should go to France, study completely, and become a priest, the first fruit of the priesthood from this fair adopted land. But how had Divine Providence provided the means? They were shown with unexpected suddenness. And in this wise. A~: small brig, the Mountain Maid, 150 tons, suddenly arrived from Wellington. She was not a usual trader at Nelson, but she came, because Providence had foredoomed her coming, though some emergency cargo was the natural allurement. Father Comte, a Marist Missioner, was on board, bound to Sydney and from Sydney to London. Father Garin saw at once the unmistakable hand of Providence. He came to me and said: “Frank, Providence has acted in your behalf in answer to my long washes and prayers. One of our Fathers is leaving the Maori missions for good, and is retiring to France. He is a Frenchman, "but knows English fairly well. He will take you to Sydney and thence to France. He will watch over you, and improve your French on the voyage. He will introduce you to one of our colleges, where you can study and so in time, please God, become a priest. The vessel is to sail away on the third day from now. Make up your mind and seize the opportunity held out to you by God’s favor and; mercy, will you go?” I went to the little chapel, I prayed as I never before prayed, and I made up my mind to face the great sacrifice of home and parents and friends, and to go into an unknown land, guided, I felt, by the call and hand of God, A great, an extraordinary grace was given me, and that grace w r as for life. I came .to Father Garin and said: “I will go.” “God be praised 1” he said. And now there is no time to lose. The brig sails in three days. I will prepare a letter for your father, who will come at once in his gig to Nelson, and w-e will settle with the Bank about your voyage to Sydney and France.” He prepared the letter and I prepared myself to start on foot as usual, but not on the usual day of the w r eek. I started at about 9 a.m., with the letter, and I hurried on more briskly than usual to Stafford Place, I tried on arrival to compose, my features and temporarily onceal my errand. My sister Ann (Mrs. Goulter) happened to be staying with her husband at our house. At once she guessed the errand and exclaimed; “Frank, you are going to leave us, you are going to France, I see it in your face”; and she began to crywomanlike. “Yes,” I said, w,ith tearless eye and firm voice Grace helping me “Yes, I am come to wish you all good-bye, and I am leaving Nelson by the Mountain Maid for Sydney on the day after to-morrow.” Shortly after, I handed to my father the fateful letter. He read it;,got his gig ready at once, and, taking my brother Charles with him, started with his fast

trotter for Nelson, and there arranged all matters with the Bank. I had to wish good-bye to my mother, and in very distressing circumstances. 1 A few days before, unknown to me, she had met with a bad accident while driving home with my brother Charles. They were coming full trot along a good road and, near a hollow, were passing close to a post and rail fence, and one rail being turned into the road, the gig wheel ran up it, and . the gig was instantly upset. Charley luckily escaped unhurt, but the gig fell upon my mother’s leg and broke it.' Charley get the doctor’s assistance. as sopn as possible and the leg wasset, but badly set, so that my mother as lame for life. I • found her in bed with her broken leg. Yet grace sustained me, and I did not cry even then. I resisted all thoughts of not going, as I wmuld a temptation, by prayer and by turning my mind from them. She was a strongminded woman, and consented to my departure, with tears, indeed, but resolutely, seeing in it the hand of God. But after some moments of reflection, she looked at the matter. with her sound practical sense, and said: “But you have no proper outfit for a voyage to Europe. A few shirts and socks Avon’t do, how shall Ave manage?” And she thought awhile in silence. At length she said: “I have it; I see a way to meet your needs.” • Now, a young English gentleman, a non-Catholic, named Whitehead, had a fine outfit left at our house, while he was a hundred miles away learning sheep-farming at our Wairau sheep-run for on that purpose he had become our guest. I used, for practice in letter-writing, to correspond with- him, and avo were,firm friends. My mother said: “I will take what you want from Whitehead’s outfit, and replace it by articles of-equal quality.” And this was done; so that much of my linen was marked Whitehead and some marked Redwood. And when, afterwards I was at college in France, the old French laundress said: “How’s this? Some articles are marked Whitehead and others Redwood.” “Oh,” I said, “Whitehead and Redwood in English must mean to you the same thing. It’s all right.” She never asked another question; and Whitehead and Redwood served the same purpose admirably, all through my college course. • On the morrow, I left the dear old home, driven to town by my brother-in-law, Cyrus Goulter, and the most terrible pang, the most fearful wrench I felt was when, as I passed the last gate, I looked back at the old place. I shall never forget that wrench. All other wrenches- —and I have had many were nothing in comparison. But the great grace sustained me and gave me victory. I met my father returning from Nelson, and I bade him good-bye in the road, near Appleby, in a new road just cut and metalled through a swamp. I know the place to this day, and I never pass it without emotion. When Charley wished me good-bye he said: “Frank, what a happy fellow you are to go and see the wide world.” He had at that moment no supernatural views like mine. I never saw my father again. On his death-bed he learned my appointment to the See of Wellington, but was too weak to utter a word about it. My mother, who died at 85, lived five years after my arrival in New Zealand as Bishop, and often saw and Heard me; on one occasion, I had her, in company and care of Mrs. Tom Redwood, her daughter-in-law, for my precious guest for several weeks in Wellington. THE VOYAGE TO SYDNEY. - Captain Cross, the pilot, a splendid specimen of a British captain, had previously taken out ■ the Mountain Maid, with Father Comte on board, at high tide; and she .was riding hove-to beyond the Boulder Bank. The captain of the brig, by name Peacock, had waited on shore with the crew, of the pilot’s whaleboat/ in order to go on board at the last moment, and then, after wishing the pilot good-bye, to let him return ashore in his own boat. I went with the captain. As the tide was full, we crossed the Boulder Bank by a narrow boat passage (now widened . and deepened into the present ship-passage of the Nelson . Harbor). There was a north-west breeze blowing, and the boat, once in the bay, rocked very uncomfortably for me, who had not been at sea since I arrived as a child in New Zealand. An internal revolution of my vitals . as the consequence; I felt faint and ill. ' After rowing a mile or - so, we reached the brig and I in my turn climbed the rope

ladder.- -Her motion was worse for me than the boat’s. Hie steward - welcomed me, and, seeing me pale, said; ‘‘Would yon like a glass of sherry, sir? I did not know whether sherry was good for sea-sickness or not, and, boylike, replied; “Thank you.” The sherry came, I put it to my lips, and instantly away went sherry and everything else, into the sea. I was sea-sick downright. I shook hands with the pilot; and, twenty years after, in 1874, when as Bishop I made my first visit to Nelson, Captain Cross, still pilot, was proud to tell everybody that he was the last man in Nelson to shake hands with me as a schoolboy, and the first to shake hands with me as a Bishop. He fired a cannon from the flagstaff in my honor, and got blamed for it; but, he said he would do the like again if any man from Nelson returned to honor Nelson as Frank Redwood had done. Sea-sickness, loneliness, grief, and the reaction after trying efforts to bravely depart, brought on some agonising moments; but I bore them as a penance, and as a necessary trial, and was soon in inward peace again. lit after fit of sea-sickness was endured, and, on the third day, far out-on the ocean, I was retching in vain, and nothing would come up, when a kind old sailor passed by and said to mo: “Sir, my lad, you have got enough up, you must now keep something down.” “I would if I could,” said I—“what am I to do?” “Look here, sir,” he said. “Go and ask the steward for a nobbier (dram) of brandy; soak in it a piece of sea-biscuit; swallow the biscuit; that I think will stick.” I did as he directed, and I felt my stomach instantly settled, and myself quite ciued of sea-sickness from that day till my arrival in London. Having now got my sea-legs, 1 enjoyed the trip. We reached Sydney, eleven hundred miles, in eleven days, a very good passage. Me had some head winds, but generally they were fair. One night we met a. severe thunderstorm, and the sudden passage, again and again, from the sight of the raging sea, under the lightning flashes, to the instant pitchy darkness was for me awful and appalling. • , We entered Sydney Harbor in a beautiful clear, summer, starry night, and reached the anchorage at 11 p.m. At the Heads the porpoises were playing merrily round the vessel a novel sight for me. As the captain wanted * all hands to get the brig ready for anchorage, he told me to hold the wheel for a while till he would come and change the course. It was an honor and a trust for a boy of fifteen. Sydney Cove (now called Circular Quay) was where we anchored at fifty yards from the land. It had no jetty or quay, no wharf. We stepped from the boat on' to the bare rugged rocks. SYDNEY TO FRANCE. After a very , pleasant month,' despite some very hot days when the thermometer registered 112 degrees in the shade, spent with the Fathers at old Villa Maria, Father Comte and I went to fix up our cabins in the Lady Ann, the ship we selected to take us to London. She was a new wooden, 900 tons, declared A 1 at Lloyd’s for thirteen years which meant a ship guaranteed perfectly seaworthy for that period of years. I took a first-class- passage to London for £7O. We were eleven passengers, all first class (no ladies, as it happened) nine of the party being young gentlemen returning to Europe after making their fortune at the gold diggings of Ballarat, and Bendigo. They were a very steady lot. As regards drink wo were; on the strength of our passage ticket, treated most liberally, and no one ever abused that liberality by imbibing to excess. There was brandy, gin, rum, beer, port, and sherry and (in the, tropics) claret , wine—all gratuitous at discretion; and, on festivals or when something unusually lucky had happened in the course of- the day, the captain (by name Dixon), like a father at the head of'his family table, stood first-rate champagne all round. . & '. J In those days it was customary, before embarking, for intended passengers to go beforehand on board the ship and get their single cabins fitted up, at their pleasure, by the ship carpenter; and, if "afterwards on the voyage the arrangement was not found satisfactory, the carpenter was always at hand to make required changes and improve-

meats. , So Father Comte and I fixed up our cabins in that way, and also the cabin of Father Fonbonne, S.M., an invalid Marist Missionary returning to France, where I, in after years, met him as chaplain to a community of nuns at Salute Foy-les-Lyon (Rhone), France. He kept to his cabin- and bed for the first month* of the voyage. He could not speak English, but I practised speaking French with him. He was very kind and gentle, and in the beginning, suffered considerably. _ Some events on the trip deserve mention and description. On the 23rd January, the sixth day after leaving Sydney (17th January), we were suddenly caught in a terrific squall, about the latitude of New Zealand. It happened as follows: A strong fair wind was on our quarter, and every stitch of canvas was*drawing we were running 13 knots an hour, as the log told us, just as we went to dinner at 6 p.m. We were joyous and elated, and the captain in his very best humor. At dinner he stood champagne for the first time on the voyage, and we were all as merry as a lark. The first mate had charge of the ship during the dinner. Now, he was a reckless kind of fellow, and loved to carry on and force the ship along, heedless of danger, wind or weather. He overlooked the coming squall. After dinner, just as we got on the poop, the squall struck us with the suddenness of a ball from a cannon, amid thunder, lightning, and rain. The captain shouted to the men to cut away the sheets holding the sails, and thus ease the strain—too late! There was only one man at the wheel. In the terrific rush through the water, he was unable to control the rudder, and the ship turned broadside to the wind, and over she heeled on her beamends. We were tossed as from a catapult against the lower bulwark. Again she heeled deeper still, and down came the main topmast broken in the middle, and it and the topsail with other rigging crashed into the sea, while all the studding-sail booms were snapped asunder, and every sail ripped to ribbons. Had the ship not been so well All this happened much quicker than I can tell it. laden and deep, she would have turned turtle and been lost. Our elation was changed into sorrow and anxiety. What a wreck we looked! But the squall was over, and only a good fair breeze remained. Means were immediately taken to lift the topmast and other wreckage upon the deck. Fresh sails were got out and set, and before midnight we were running ten knots an hour under all available canvas. Next day a spar was unloosed from the deck, and the carpenter began to shape it into a topmast. All things were repaired by degrees and soon; the new topmast was set up at sea, with what .skill I need not say, and, in ten days, the ship was all right as though just coming out of port. We rounded Gape Horn, despite the. delay of the accident, in twenty-nine days, a fast passage. As it was summer, the captain, to obtain strong winds, went very far south of Cape Horn, down to the 57th degree of south latitude, and alas, found the ship unexpectedly surrounded by huge icebergs, which had floated up north two degrees since his last passage. ' Some of thes» bergs were three hundred feet high and a couple of miles long, with their blue sides and their roof of snow. The danger was very great at night. Sailing due north we took four days to leave these icebergs safely behind. Though it was February and still summer, the cold became intense, and wo had no fire except in the galley; and one night, after rain, the sails were frozen stiff as buckram. The only means to keep us warm was exercise in the day and a hot drink before going to bed. One day we had to go ten miles out of our course to windward of one huge berg and its debris. Providentially wo .sighted none during the night, despite the very sharp lookoutmen searching the sea with glasses to distinguish the regular ocean waves from waves breaking over ice. We thanked—at least I did — Star of the Sea for our preservation. • : As a venturesome, boy I longed to see a real tempest. Well, we got one about two hundred miles to the" west ' of the Cape of Good Hope, and, for three days and nights, labored in a sea with mountainous waves appalling to behold and feel. The decks were washed again and again with water three feet deep, and more at times. On© huge

wave, early in the gale, was shipped into the foresail and ripped it to shreds. The ship behaved well, and, under close reefed - topsails, - gallantly rode the gale. No food could be cooked, the galley being deluged with water. We lived for three days on biscuits, cheese, and'cold diet, passed round to us individually, for we could not sit at table, so fearfully was the ship tossed. To go from the cabin to the poop was an adventure full of peril. Most of us were soused in the attempt. I was washed off my feet,.and swam from side to side till I was able to clutch something, and come out unhurt. I was lucky not to be dashed against a hard thing and hurt, perhaps killed. The ship came out of the gale with comparatively little damage; but I was cured for ever of my longing for a storm at sea. On Easter Sunday, Bth April (my birthday), was sixteen years of age. We had. a delightful time in the fair south-east Trade winds, running about 12 knots an hour, fox* a fortnight with hardly the change of a sail, and all our canvas spread. But when we neared England we met with strong north-east head winds, and what we gained by tacking we lost by leeway. For over ten days, we kept tacking here and there, between Cork and Bordeaux, unable to enter the English Channel. At last we reached Land’s End, and the pleasant smell of the land was very perceptible. We had been 93 days without sighting land. While lying almost becalmed, about ten miles from land, we sighted the Vaimira, a ship which left Sydney eight days before us, and about which our captain had bet her . captain a dozen of champagne that lie "'would' arrive it Gravesend before her. It was a race up the English Chan- ', nel, in light or head winds, for eight dayswhat" is now done by steamers in a few hours. We anchored at Gravesend, after a passage of 103 days, on Ist May, and we were towed next day to St. Katherine’s Dock, London. We found that we had beaten the Vaimira by ten hours; so our captain won his wager, and I trust he, enjoyed his champagne. \ On our way up the Thames we passed close to one if those vessels, or rather batteries, which were being built for Cronstadt, during the Crimean War. We also saw i lie huge hull of the Great Eastern, 10,000 toils, then in course of construction. A few days afterwards one of the batteries caught fire and was burned to ashes. We stayed for about a week with the Marist Fathers at St. Ann’s, Spitalfields, during which time 'we went 1o the Crystal Palace, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s, the National Gallery, the Thames Tunnel, the Tower. We desired much to visit the British Museum, .nit it was not Open. The places that pleased me most were the Crystal Palace, Westminster Abbey, and the Tower. The Marists were erecting a fine Gothic church at Spitalfields, and its walls were about 'four feet high. In that church I was consecrated Bishop by Archbishop Manning in 1874* ’ On our arrival in Paris we went to the house of the ) Marist Fathers, No. 31 'Mont Parnasse, and were there received with every mark of kindness. During our stay there, about a week, our time was not idly employed. We saw the Garden of Plants and the Palais du Louvre. At the latter place we saw a great number of-pictures, many of them masterpieces of the greatest painters. When I saw the National Gallery (London) I thought it magnificent, but it is not comparable to the gallery of Louvres. It is not one-tenth of the size, nor are, to my mind, ' the pictures so good. I saw many artists taking copies of the pictures. One of them particularly took my attention as* £ well as Father Comte’s. He’ was , a German painting a ; ’ picture of the Blessed Virgin with the . infant : Jesus; The ; picture was about seven feet long and six broad. It was so exactly taken from the original that ,it was hard to see ; any difference. He told me he had been working at it six months. " s ' n “ - ” - A STUDENT IN FRANCE. \ ‘ r - On the 18th of May, - we took the train for Lyons, where we arrived at 7 p.m. I became, the guest of' theV Marist bathers, and had the great privilege ,of meeting v the Venerable Founder; of the Society Voir Mary,- Father Colin, . whose Cause for Beatification- is already far ’ ad- -r - ■ ■ ■ ' " ; y - ' ' ' v ' :

vauced. A few days afterwards, when I had visited the : principal sights of Lyons, I was examined by Father Morcel in Latin. The book chosen was Cornelius Nepos. 1 construed some sentences to his satisfaction, and he' de- -' dared me fit to enter the fifth class: and read Caesar. ’ Shortly after he conducted me by train to St. diamond (Loire) about thirty miles from Lyons, to become a student in St. Mary’s College, conducted by the Marist, Fathers. - As I arrived at the end of May and the college vacation was to begin early in July, it was not thought fit to put me into any regular class till the following year. Meanwhile 1 spent my time very profitably, improving my French by talking to the boys, in their recreations and walks. I spent the vacation at Belley (Ain) in the scholasticate of the Marist Fathers, and we made some delightful excursions in the beautiful hills sloping up to the Alps. The mountain scenery delighted me immensely. In September, 1856, I entered the fifth class at St. diamond. I held my : own very well in all except Greek, if which I did not know the alphabet, while the other boys nad studied Greek for a year and a half. The problem—a hard one for me — how to reach their level in Greek as soon as possible. I had already learned how to go about the study of a language, owing to my experience in Latin and French. My fear was that my low place in the Greek compositions would badly lower my standing for general proficiency—called by us “excellence”and in my notes sent to my parents and Father Garin, I wanted my place ~ in “excellence” to be good. Hence I was in agony at the very thought of the first Greek competition coming off in about two months. These were test competitions and counted much in regulating a boy’s position in “excellence.” How I did study, in odd moments, in preparation for the dreaded ordeal! I learned the Greek declensions and conjugations thoroughly; and the daily exercises in Greek with the other boys had trained me somewhat to construe Greek sentences. The competition came—it was a Greek version. I thought, of course, that I should be the very last in the class when the results were told. To my utter amazement, and that of the other boys, I was not further down than the middle of the class; and this was the case in the subsequent test competitions throughout the year —and, two years afterwards, I won the first yearly prize for Greek. At the end of my course (1860) I, with Camille Rouselion, my rival, took almost all the first and second prizes, and, what was thought wonderful, though quite explainable, I won the first prize in Rhetoric for French discourses, as I had, the year before, won the first prize in French narratives. The explanation is easy. It was not that I wrote French better than the French boys, but I wrote it .well, as well, perhaps, as they, after a training of several years and the study of the best French authors; but this was my advantage: I was somewhat older than they, had - seen more of the world, had read some of my Shakspere and other English authors; so when we were left to our own endeavors, only the subjects and occasion of the speech or narrative being given, I had more thought than any competitors, and more general acquired knowledge. The substance and thought in my compositions, told their tale and made me winner. I have known the like victory of other English students over French in similar circumstances. Thought, is what counts in a written speech more than diction. ; In the Autumn of 1860, I entered the scholasticate of the, Marist Fathers, .near Toulon and Hiercs, at Montbel, ■ a beautiful property well tilled and planted, besides being admirably irrigated by, a large barrage, where, as a . rule" the summer knew no rain for three months or more. Here, to my delight, I unexpectedly found several of my college ; mates, and our agreeable Surprise was mutual. We had kept to ourselves, as advised, our. desire to become priests, St Chamond being a college that, trained in classics for all -' careers. ' Here also I found : John Ireland - (later Arch- : bishop of St. Paul, Minnesota) and : Thomas O’Gorman (later v Bishop of Sioux Falls). jbv subsequently formed a friendship : with John Ireland, •• and/?’' a certain extent, with ' • Thomas O Gorman, that lasted our lifetime, growing warmer as time went on. John Ireland• was in theology when < -

O’Gorman and I were in philosophy. This was so in the beginning : afterwards we all three read together the same treatise. Ireland and O’Gorman were never intended to be Marists, whereas I aspired to join the Society, of which I am proud to be a member —and the first Archbishop of the same Society. How came these two seculars to be my fellow-students in a Marist Scholasticate P Here is the explanation. Bishop Cretin, the first Bishop of St. Paul, Minnesota, was a great friend of the saintly founder of the Society of Mary, Father Colin. John Ireland, and Thomas O’Gorman were* boys of slightly different ages from Ireland, and ’both, in Bishop Cretin’s mind, were promising candidates for the priesthood. Accordingly, he sent them for their classical course to Meximieux (Ain), France. The little Seminary there, which once had Father Colin for its superior, was noted for its good studies; and there, indeed, the two boys got an excellent classical training up to philosophy. Bishop Cretin, who wanted them looked after more especially than was possible in the great Seminary of Lyons, appealed to his friend for a great and exceptional favor, namely, that the two boys should follow the Marist course of philosophy and theology, observe the common rule, but should be exempt from the special Marist religious training. For once —to oblige his —Father Colin granted the favor, never to be repeated and thus I came to know them. At the end of their theological course they both were ordained in America, and there finished their glorious careers. On the advice of my spiritual director, I interrupted my studies in order to settle my vocation and make my year’s novitiate at St. Foy near Lyons. And one day, only one day, after its termination, the Provincial of Paris, Father Martin, S.M., came to claim me, to replace in Dundalk, Ireland, a professor of Latin and Greek, Mr. Reid, who had fallen ill, and a substitute was urgently needed. I was in due time to make my vows and finish my ecclesiastical studies in Ireland, which I afterwards did. We started, Father Martin and I, by the express train for Paris, the next miming, and, by the fastest possible trains and steamers reached Dundalk in May, 1863. There and then I took the place vacated by Mr. Reid.