garments; and he looked, and, behold, his garments were like snow. And he stood trembling, knowing not what had befallen him and doubting if he were himself. And while he doubted, a voice came to him saying: "In thy heart thou didst hate uncleanness and love purity, and that only which we love abides." A Great Citizen Archbishop Ireland is one of the foremost citizens of the United States, and his eminence and influence are explained by one of his own phrases: "The watchwords of the age are reason, education, liberty, the amelioration of the masses.' An ecclesiastic, he has been in sympathy with the rational liberty, the ordered freedom, of modern life; a priest, he is a profound believer in education; the representative of a great and powerful religious organization, he is a devoted friend of freedom; and his life has been conspicuous by reason of his manifold and influential endeavors to share with the masses of the people the religion, morality, and intellectual and social capital of the world. For more than forty years Archbishop Ireland has lived in St. Paul, identifying himself from the beginning with the life of the Northwest in all its best aspects. Born in Ireland, his boyhood was passed in America. His earlier education was obtained at the Cathedral School in St. Paul, his theological education in France. Forty-two years ago he was ordained a priest. During the Civil War he served his country as chaplain for a Minnesota regiment. Twenty-six years ago he was consecrated Bishop of St. Paul. Since that time his personal history has been a part of the history of the country. His vigorous personality, his frankness, his courage, and his decided views on many questions have sometimes aroused the animosity of influential men; but his sincerity and his disinterestedness have never been questioned. Every year has cleared away the misconceptions which always surround the path of a bold and able man; and he has won the profound respect not only of those who agree with but of those who differ with him. Archbishop Ireland is first and foremost an American citizen. He is a patriot of the old-fashioned kind; a man who loves his country with the passion of enthusiasm ; who is not blind to her faults; who does not evidence his devotion by belittling other countries or antagonizing other forms of civilization; but who shows in his attitude, his spirit, and his habitual utterance the affection of a man who never forgets that he is a member of a great nation; that his country is something more than an abstraction; and that, in all relations of life, he is a true patriot who puts the interests of his country above those of his party, and who never fails to remember that he owes allegiance to a nation. Every man who has the patriotic feeling must be a representative citizen; for no man can love his country in any intelligent way without taking a profound and immediate interest in public affairs. Bishop Ireland has been conspicuous as a friend of public education. Unlike some priests in every Church, he has never shown the slightest fear of the spread of truth; on the contrary, he has thrown all his influence in the direction of opening the doors and letting in the light. Archbishop Ireland has been conspicuous also by his advocacy of many reforms, among them the temperance movement. The first Catholic Total Abstinence Society was organized by him thirty-three years ago; and he has put his mark on St. Paul in the noticeable reduction of drunkenness in that city, in the obliteration of the vilest resorts, and in a changed atmosphere throughout the entire community on the temperance question. He has used all his influence, not only as a citizen, but as an ecclesiastic, to make intemperance disreputable, and to restrain it by public opinion and by wise restriction. He is a speaker of magnetic qualtion. ity; direct, effective, pictorial, convincing, with a gift of humor which comes from his race and is indicated by his face-a gift which puts him at ease with men and has added immensely to his influence with them. Archbishop Ireland is a fine type of the American Catholic; progressive, broadminded, thoroughly loyal, consecrated to his work, and interpreting the spirit of Christianity in terms of practical service, of every-day fidelity to political duty, and in rational efforts to reach and save men. T HAT the newly elected President of the Cuban Republic was not a resident of Cuba, but is and has been for nearly a quarter of a century living in a small town in Orange County, New York, was learned with surprise by most Americans with the news of his election. While Señor Palma has been away from Cuba for so long, however, he has kept in constant touch with his native land through a large correspondence, and has done most effective work for her as the head of the Cuban Junta in this country. It was this work, indeed, which Señor Palma regarded as of the utmost importance in securing the independence of the island, for he long ago formed the opinion that American intervention was indispensable to free Cuba from Spanish rule. Once before Señor Palma was President of the Cuban Republic, but it was an empty honor conferred on him during the Ten Years' War, in which he took an active part in the field. He was captured during the hostilities and sent to Spain. Upon his liberation he came to this country and settled in Central Valley, N. Y., where he opened a school for Spanish-American youth and maintained it for eighteen years, until the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution of 1895, after which time the work of the Junta absorbed his energies. Visitors to the large, comfortable, old-fashioned mansion in which Señor Palma lives, and in which he conducted his school, find in the new President a man of almost Jeffersonian simplicity of manners and spirit, kindly, courteous, unassuming, democratic. He is well along in middle life, is of short stature, of spare build, and by no means gives a stranger the impression at first of being a masterful man. His talk, however, which is in English with a marked Spanish accent, shows him to be a man of decided views, of dispassionate judgment, and of excellent sense. He is disposed to live in the present and the future rather than in the past. To the remark made by a recent visitor at his most hospitable home, "Many of your early friends and compatriots must have passed away since you came to America," he simply replied, "Yes, many of them have gone; but others have taken their place." A family of young children, who attend the village school and count themselves as little Americans, with their typically Spanish-appearing mother, Señora Palma, make bright the atmosphere of the Palma household. Their influence, no less than that of Señor Palma's long residence in this country, has doubtless had its effect in making the new President, what he seems to be, an Americanized Cuban. |