Rev. Demetrius Augustin Gallitzin and the Catholic Settlements in Pennsylvania

Excerpt: Twenty years have elapsed since Prince Gallitzin, who had exchanged the luxuries of princely courts for the poverty of those who herald the glad tidings, slept in the Lord, after forty years of apostleship in the wild regions of the Alleghany mountains. The work set up by the pious missionary yet remains, marked by all the elements of thrifty life, and the little oasis will long continue to be what it was at its origin-the cradle of a Christian civilization, which will go on spreading its blessings to the remotest boundaries, still retaining the unobtrusive modesty which moved its founder's thought. Indeed, had the matter rested with Gallitzin's own wishes, his very name would have passed into vague tradition in those extended regions. It might even have slept in oblivion; for the prince, so careful was he to avoid anything that could attract the attentions of the world, lived and exercised his holy ministry for many years under the borrowed name of Schmidt. In Father Lemcke, however, and fortunately too, a canon of the abbey of the Benedictines of St. Vincent in Pennsylvania, was found a man who, better than any other, had it in his power to preserve the reminiscences of the noble missionary, and accurately to depict for us the traits of his manly character. Not only did the biographer of the prince know him personally, but he was also his friend, his confidant, his confessor, and his co-laborer in the missions. After Gallitzin's death, Father Lemcke came into possession of his papers, letters, and memoranda, which supplied him with desirable data on the period of life preceding their ministerial connection. He, and he alone, therefore, was in a condition to write a true biography of the prince, and he deemed it a duty to rescue from oblivion the memory of this distinguished man. In connection with this subject, Father Lemcke indulges in a judicious remark: "The life of Gallitzin," says he, "is so intimately inwoven with the events which occurred during his own times, that it holds out to future generations an interest like to that which is offered to us in the life of a Bonifacius or of an Ansgarius, by reason of the facts which have characterized the epochs in which they lived."