The road crosses the State of Iowa from east to west. Some forty stations appear, some of which are considerable towns. The soil is generally very fertile and more rolling than that of the State of Illinois.
On arriving at Boonesboro, 158 miles from our destination, we learned that the sudden melting of the snows had swollen all the streams and transformed them into rushing torrents. All the bridges had been carried away and all the bottom-lands flooded for a width of one to three miles. Though in great haste to get ahead, there was nothing for me to do but to have patience and make a virtue of necessity.
I found a good number of Irish Catholics at Boonesboro, who rejoiced in my misfortune in hopes of hearing mass the next day, which was Palm Sunday. They seldom receive a visit from a priest - three or four times at most in the course of the year. They have built a little frame church, consisting simply of four walls and a roof. The interior has neither chairs nor benches nor an altar nor even a cross or image. A little platform was put up in haste for the offering of the holy sacrifice. In spite of the rain which came down in floods a large number assembled to attend mass and instruction, and several approached the holy table with much fervor and piety.
I spent three days among these good Catholics. They showed me the greatest attention and overwhelmed me with kindness and charity. Wherever a priest has the good fortune to find a son of St. Patrick he is sure to find a sincere friend and benefactor ready to do for him what ever he may need. Wherever in America ten Irish families find themselves settled, no matter how great their poverty or distress, they erect a little temple to the Lord, in hopes that before long a priest will come to see them and settle among them. I will venture to say that three-fourths of the Catholic churches, orphan asylums and charitable institutions in the United States have been built by the zeal and gifts of the good Irish. The long and cruel persecution of our holy religion in Ireland by la perfide Albion