T is nearly a century since the first Dominican rode into the wilderness of Perry County, Ohio. On a certain evening during the summer of 1813, Father Edward Fenwick, with his nephew, Father Dominic Young, both Dominicans, with the zeal for souls aflame in their hearts, came over the Lancaster pike into the little town of Somerset. Baltimore, the far-off metropolis, was their objective point. Long was the way and arduous the journey that lay before them, but as the sun was west

ering and night was nearly on, they must needs pause till the morrow, so they dismounted at the old Finck tavern and gave themselves and their weary horses into the care of the genial host, John Finck. Having partaken of the simple fare with which travellers in that early day were wont to content themselves, they sought their resting beds and slept the sweet sleep which descends like a benediction of heaven upon those of good conscience and industrious habit. Little did they suspect that this obscure town which gave them shelter for the night would be for them. and many of their brethren the scene of such enthusiastic and fruitful endeavor in the cause of souls. But perhaps during the long and silent watches of the night angels came to draw aside the curtains and vouchsafe to these valiant and heroic apostles the comforting vision that the very spot whereon they now tarried would sometime receive into its bosom the fruitful seed of the faith and yield a harvest that would. gladden the hearts of saintly reapers even a century hence.

Morning came and the two priests prepared to continue their journey, but they were not merely travellers but priests of the Most High, and wheresoever they were they went about their Father's business. In the cause of souls they labored like their saintly founder, the holy patriarch St. Dominic. His habit they wore and his love, nay, his passion for souls swelled their hearts. So they engaged in conversation with their kindly host and inquired much of him concerning the posture of affairs religious in the little community just springing up in this Ohio wilderness. To their surprise they discovered that the colony was made up of Catholic families, thirteen in number, and that they were all well pleased with their new home save only for this, that they had no priest to minister unto them. With deep emotion John Finck told his guests how keenly all the settlers felt this privation. They had left their Pennsylvania homes with good cheer and followed the trail westward with courage, never doubting but what they would find somewhere in the virgin forest a priest to refresh their souls, even though it be at great intervals, against the spiritual languor which was inevitable in those early pioneer days. But here they were in the wooded magnificence of Ohio, their journey arrested by the almost mountainous condition of the locality, so that they felt constrained to abide here, to lay their hearth stones and to enthrone their household gods.

Everything was auspicious, and in material ways more promising, even, than

was the Pennsylvania home which they had left, but, oh! the unspeakable privation to which they were subjected in living without a priest in their colony. No one to shrive them of their sins; no one to break the Bread of Angels to their hungering souls; no one to baptize their children; no one to bless the narrow beds into which they laid their beloved dead for the last long and dreamless sleep; no one to perform for them any of those priestly functions which sweeten the bitterest cup and which would run through the plain homespun of their simple, honest lives a shining thread of gold. Ah, it was hard, very hard to bear, and as John Finck told this story of their privation to Father Fenwick, his breast heaved with emotion and honest, manly tears coursed down his weather-beaten cheeks.

"Ah, my good man, be of good cheer," said Father Fenwick, "for even now you stand before a priest. These hands which you are clasping are the anointed hands of a priest of God. I am Father Fenwick and my companion is Father Dominic Young, and we are both missionary priests of the Roman Catholic. Church and members of the Dominican Order. We travel far and wide in this great wilderness in search of the scattered sheep of Him we serve, and Who said of Himself, 'I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giveth His life for His sheep.'"

The astonished frontiersman could scarcely believe the words he heard. He fell upon his knees and drew the priestly hands to his lips, the while covering them with reverent kisses. The cry, "Oh. Father!" which escaped him expressed all that wealth of respect, reverence and filial affection which every good Catholic holds for the Lord's anointed, of whom he is spiritually begotten in the love of Christ. "Oh, Father, will you offer up the Holy Sacrifice for us?" asked the delighted pioneer.

"Yes, my son," replied Father Fenwick, "mount your good steed and bid your neighbors come forthwith, for here on this very spot will we offer the clean oblation of the New Law, and Christ the Incarnate God, the only-begotten Son of the Most High, will descend from Heaven and dwell among us."

John Finck stood not upon the order of going but was soon galloping along the highways and byways and telling everywhere the glad tidings that Mass would be presently offered on the green in front of the Finck tavern. Oh, how the hearts of the poor colonists leaped with joy when they heard that once again they were to be present at the Holy Sacrifice and receive into their hearts the Bread of Angels. Soon they came flocking from every direction. Men, stalwart and strong-limbed, clad in coarse homespun, came leading the way; women followed, carrying their little ones in their arms, while a flock of children with shouts of delight came leaping ahead like the avant couriers of a triumphal procession. On every face shone the light of a transcendent. joy, through every frame coursed the life-giving current swift and strong, and the melody of every heart was this one refrain of a hymn of praise: Glory to God, Who sent His anointed to us.

Father Fenwick advanced to meet the coming throng and gave to each one, in turn, his blessing; and like his blessed Lord he gathered the children about him and, caressing them tenderly, explained to them briefly the nature and purpose of the Holy Sacrifice at which. for the first time they were about to assist. Meanwhile, Father Young was hearing the confessions of those who were still fasting and wished to receive Holy Communion.

The confessions being heard, Mass was begun by Father Fenwick. Never was the Holy Sacrifice offered under circumstances more solemn, nor before a congregation which followed the

sacred mysteries with more fervor and attention. The altar was, of course, very primitive, rude, even, in its utter simplicity; there was no stately basilica here, but what cathedral built by the hand of man was ever more majestic than the grove wherein the little altar stood. Here were no columns of gleaming marble, but instead the sturdy trunks of primeval trees; no groined ceiling, with stucco and gold, but instead the gnarled branches and the shimmering boughs of these giants of the forest, a ceiling more lovely and artistic than was ever fashioned by the cunning of any sculptor or architect; and instead of windows aglow with painted glass, the eastern sky visible through the vistas of trees and the open mesh of the underbrush shone, all ablush with morning glee. No surpliced choir chanted here, but the faultless notes of robin, oriole, canary and lark made the air tremulous with their song, and in lieu of incense the perfume of wild flowers and the spicy, fragrant breath of the virgin forest floated upon the atmosphere. the conclusion of Mass Father Fenwick addressed to the little congregation some very feeling remarks, and gave them the assurance that after his return from Baltimore he would see that they were provided with a resident pastor.

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As the two priests rode away from the hamlet of Somerset, down the hill to the highway, the people fell upon their knees to receive the parting benediction. They arose with their souls refreshed and went their way to their respective log cabins, rejoicing in the hope that they would have with them a resident pastor.

In the autumn of the same year, 1813, Father Fenwick and Father Young returned to Somerset. This time they came to stay and with the hope to make a Dominican foundation. They planned to establish a convent here in the wilderness from which the Fathers might

set out on weekly journeys to evangelize the surrounding country. Their hopes were fully realized, for not long after their return Jacob Dittoe, one of the first settlers in the region, granted to the Dominican Fathers 300 acres of land to be used for religious and educational purposes. The grant was accepted by Father Fenwick, and immediately the foundation of St. Joseph's Convent was begun. Soon a number of Dominican Fathers arrived from the Convent of St. Rose, established some years previously near Springfield, Kentucky.

St. Joseph's Convent was veritably a nursery of zeal for souls. Thither the Fathers came, filled with the same spirit which took St. Lewis Bertrand to the West Indies, and many other Dominicans to foreign countries. They were actuated by but one motive-the desire of carrying the light of the faith to those who were living in darkness. And here in the Ohio wilderness there was as much need for apostolic men as there was in China, Japan or the West Indies, and so the Fathers came in true Scriptural fashion, without scrip or purse, etc. The poor, wretched convent which they built, largely with their own hands, gave them but scant protection against the elements, but the shelter was sufficient to enable them to meet to make their daily meditation and to recite in common the Divine Office to which they were pledged. But it was a life of much happiness to them. At the call of the Master they had left all things to follow Him, and in the absolute and unqualified relinquishment of home and all the comforts of life they found a sweetness which is never withheld from the zealous religious. Here in the wilderness they were called upon for the constant exercise of self-denial. The fare was of the simplest-bread and water, with such vegetables as were grown in the convent garden, being the staple

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articles of their diet, while at night a pallet of straw was the couch whereon they sought refreshment for the morrow. But in the wilderness there were souls and they had come to save them, and save them they would at any cost; and so they rode from St. Joseph's, each of the Fathers taking a different direction, to find the groups of log cabins erected here and there in the wilderness. there was not even a trail to guide them and the way they traversed had never been covered by man before, but they went on courageously and by their repeated visits made the foundations in New Lexington, Junction City, Lancaster, Rehoboth, South Fork. Every Saturday the procession of mounted apostles rode through the convent gate, each man of them joyful, intrepid, resolute and aflame with the passion for souls-qualities which in the centers of civilization might have brought him applause, distinction, perhaps even the emoluments of office, but of all these he thought not since he was bitious in his ends only to realize in his every act the watchword of Dominican activity-"Everything for the salvation of souls."

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So the light of the faith was spread, and into the lives of the brave frontiersmen was brought the uplifting knowledge of religion and, best of all, the means of practising this religion devoutly and well. No wonder the Dominican name is held in such high esteem and that even to-day the mere mention of it to the descendents of the settlers brings forth the recital of grateful recollections. The missionary activity of these Fathers was not confined to Perry County, for in the records of St. Joseph's Convent we find entries. of longer journeys, for instance:

"In the years 1817 and 1818 I baptized in different parts of the State of Ohio, 162 persons, young and old, whose names and sponsors

cannot now be recalled, as I was then an itinerant missionary. These persons were generally discovered and brought to me. R. M. Young, during his journey to Maryland and back to Ohio in the year 1818, baptized about 30 in a similar manner. (Signed) "Edward Fenwick."

"During my missionary excursions to Mt. Mt. Vernon, Wooster, Canton and Lisbon, in May and June of 1819, I baptized 34 children and adult (Mrs. M. Galligher), and married 5 couples and buried 2 persons and received into the Church 6 adults."

These simple records speak eloquently of the good work which the Dominican Fathers were doing in the wilderness at a time and under circumstances which required heroic patience and the self-denial of the saints for the prosecution of this apostolic work. While all this was being done by the early Fathers of the Province of St. Joseph, Dominicans of other Provinces and other lands were working along other and perhaps more splendid lines, but surely none wrought more successfully for the salvation of souls. In France there were Dominican preachers who swayed the wills and dominated the intelligence of this the eldest daughter of the Church, and the names of these preachers are lustrous in the glory of their achievements. In Italy, Germany, Holland and England, Dominican professors sat in university chairs and expounded the mysteries of philosophy and theology, and the savants were rapturous in the applause of their wisdom and the profundity of their learning. While here in Ohio, in all humility, the Fathers of the Province of St. Joseph were laying the foundation of a glorious future for their Province, not with the public eye focused upon them, but in the almost impenetrable depths of the wilderness;

not by sermons that were eloquent of scholarship and learning, but such as were characterized by that unction and persuasiveness which only a holy and mortified life can impart to the words of a preacher. The names of Young, O'Leary, Rymaker, Hill, Nunos, Cubero, Pozzo, Vilarrasa, Alemany, D'Arcot, Wilson, Sheehy, Bokel, Clarkson, Edelen, Kelly, Jarboe and many others. are names which make up a category of apostles and zealous laborers in the cause of souls. These are the men who have won for their brethren of later generations blessings which make possible the accomplishment of great and extraordinary deeds. As the Psalmist says, "Going they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves (Ps. 125, v. 6-7).

Father Burke came a Visitator to the Province in 1871-1872, and at his suggestion the Fathers abandoned to the secular clergy the many missions which they had founded and to which they had so faithfully attended for many years. From this on the Fathers devoted themselves more to missionary work in the larger cities and began to equip their men for usefulness in this field. Father A. V. Higgins, conspicuous as a theologian and philosopher and a man of broad scholarship, bears witness to the success of the endeavor. He is the first American Dominican to receive the degree of Master of Sacred Theology. Father Michael Lilly, a man of singular holiness of life and of rare, good judgment, a man who was fully imbued with the Dominican spirit, was at that time the Provincial. He chose two of the most promisring of his students and sent them to Louvain for a course in philosophy and theology. In these two men we recog'nize the first fruits of the labors of the early Fathers. These two young men made the best possible use of the oppor

tunities given to them and returned to America with their brows bound with victorious wreaths and their hearts filled with an enthusiasm for the attainment of the highest Dominican ideals. How nobly they have striven for these ideals and how much they have accomplished, the history of the Province for the last twenty-five years abundantly proves, for on every page, nay, almost in every line, of this history we meet the names of Father Kearney and Father Kennedy as being the promoters of some undertaking destined to shed lustre on the Dominican name or to help along the approach to a condition of the ideal state of affairs.

In other fields of Dominican activity men came as the expression of blessings. won by the pioneers of the Province. In the missionary field Father McKenna has accomplished more than can ordinarily be crowded into the span of one man's life or than would be possible without very special supernatural assistance. In Father Splinter, upon whose shoulders the mantle of the venerable Father McKenna has fallen, we have a man of extraordinary zeal, of tireless energy and unusual endowments as a missionary preacher. It is Father Splinter's intimate persuasion that much of the success which has been vouchsafed to him and those who labor with him is due to the blessing brought upon the work by the unselfish, holy lives of the founders of the Province.

If from a dawn of such little promise there came a noon of such brilliancy as that which we now enjoy, how rich will be the harvest over which those Dominican Fathers will be permitted to look whose eyes will still be unbroken when the long day will have come to its close? God only knows. That His blessing may always rest upon their labors is the wish nearest the heart of every true son of the Province of St. Joseph.