mainly to depend for subsistence and care after the return of the family to Philadelphia. By what means she maintained them is indicated to us in the father's last letter, and we see by that same letter too how dreadfully she was handicapped in her efforts. Except for Columbkille's generous remittances, for Petrus' willingness to share his mite with the family and for Cecelia's pious supplications before heaven, she must have failed; but supported as she was by the filial devotion of brothers and sisters she succeeded creditably. What a beautiful picture of Catholic interpretation of God's commandment: "Honor thy father and thy mother!" What a compensation this filial piety must have been to poor O'Conway for his life-long disappointments!

With the autumnal setting of the year 1842, just as it was about to shade into the night of winter, the end came for O'Conway. He died on the 28th of November, 1842, after a long illness, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. At the time of his death he resided on Tenth street below Vine, and he was buried from there on November 30th and placed in one of the vaults at St. John's church on Thirteenth street below Chestnut street. No stone marks his resting place and tradition and the records of the church are the only means of identifying the place in which he was laid. As in life so in death, the world refused him recognition, and treated him as though he belonged to the common herd. But well might the bells have rung out their melancholy notes and the city put on sackcloth and ashes, for an extraordinary light had gone out and a prince among men had forever departed from the community; for it is men like O'Conway, who give a community that leaven of goodness, honor and intellectual progress which keeps it from retrograding into barbaro us savagery. Thousands who come in contact with such men are thereby unconsciously encouraged to good or deterred from evil; are spurred on to fame or kept back from infamy; are upheld in noble pursuits or stopped from headlong madness into ignominy. These are the just men who save the city but their fame is not of this world.

PROPERTIES OF THE JESUITS IN

PENNSYLVANIA: 1730-1830.

BY REV. THOMAS HUGHES, S. J.

CHIEF SOURCES:

PRIVATE ARCHIVES OF THE PROVINCE

S. J., MARYLAND-NEW YORK. PRIVATE ARCHIVES

OF THE PROVINCE S. J., ENGLAND.

Several difficulties of a practical nature have arisen lately, with regard to some old properties of the Jesuits in Pennsylvania. Uncertainty or inaccuracy of information, as to the origin and transmission of those pieces of property, has not contributed to clear up the difficulties. Finding myself in possession of some notes bearing on the subject, I have thought that, though I did not study the original documents with the view of solving local questions, still the points, which I have to offer, may throw light upon these practical issues, no less than upon others of a merely historical nature.

The forms of tenure, by which the Jesuits held different parcels of land in Pennsylvania, seem to have been varied enough for me to use the term, "Trusts," in the title to this article; and to speak accordingly of "Properties and Trusts of the Society of Jesus." But, in point of fact, if we speak only of the olden times there were no Jesuit trusts in Pennsylvania, any more than there were in Maryland. The rules of the Society and the directions of Superiors always forbade the carrying of such incumbrances as trusts; and, if regulations had not been at hand to prohibit the assumption of these burdens, ample justification for rejecting them would have been found in the early years of this century. For, between 1805 and 1830, there was scarcely a piece of Jesuit property in Pennsylvania, Maryland or Virginia, held by whatsoever title,

even though it came down, so to speak, from time immemorial, which was not disputed; and to such good effect, that "to buy off further vexation," some parts were resigned by the Society; while other parts were put in commission with persons, who could accept trusts, and bind themselves to continue the discharge of those ministries, which the Society had undertaken and founded without any such obligation.

Here there comes to my mind the sad remark of the poor harassed Bishop of Philadelphia in 1821, that, if the Society had not owned property there in fee simple, he should have been without a roof of his own to shelter him. Discussing the plan he was forming of buying out St. Joseph's, he says, April 7, 1821; "I never yet mentioned my intentions to any person further than to say that Religion would be ruined in Philadelphia, were it not for the property of the Society, where there is a retreat from the mob-and my frequent mention of this, with thanksgiving to God for it, gives me the name of a Jesuit among these deluded people, who like all wicked miscreants are in the habit of speaking of them with asperity."*

However, we must observe that there were some kinds of business transactions, which resembled the nature of trusts, and which were attended with more or less difficulty. Thus the benevolent action of Father Harding, in purchasing real property, and that in his own name, for Catholic Germans like Kauffmann, who were not legally enabled to make a purchase on their own account, was a kind of trust; and, transient as the function was, I do not imagine it could have been undertaken by that excellent missionary, without a special authorization from higher quarters in the Society. Again, a nominal trust was that of being made the recipient of monies for the support of a special category among the Society's own missions; such a foundation was that of Sir John James', on behalf of the Jesuit missionaries in the back countries of Pennsylvania. Another form of trust might be found in the service of congregations for a while, until such time as the

*Arch. Md.-N. Y. Bp. Conwell to (Adam Marshall) 1821.