has been, under the holy providence of the Lord, the surest and most efficacious means to render the Church more illustrious and to propagate it more rapidly in all the regions whither the zealous cohort of apostles and fervent disciples of St. Patrick have gone to escape English tyranny. I will add that of all European countries it is persecuted Ireland, so oppressed and despised by her cruel tyrants and the enemies of religion, that furnishes America, Australia, the Indies and other places their most illustrious bishops and most zealous apostles. To-day the whole world calls for them.
On the 16th of April the railroad took us ninety miles farther to the little village of Denison. For the rest of the way to Omaha, sixty-eight miles, the railroad was for the present rendered impracticable by a continued series of washouts and other breaks caused by the flood. There was a single little tavern at Denison to which the greater part of the travelers went, though it could not properly accommodate half its guests. All rules fail in dry weather, says the proverb, and in these circumstances the travelers were put away three and four in a bed. For my part, as a very special favor, I had the happiness of spending the night alone on a fine bag of straw in a little kind of den without even a window.
On Good Friday, after being detained three days, the water having somewhat abated, five travelers joined me in hiring a wagon to take us to Sioux City, some hundred miles northwest of Denison. We got away late in the afternoon, and after making fifteen miles found shelter for the night at a solitary farm, six miles from the nearest neighbor.
On Saturday we reached the crossing of the Little Sioux river after a ride of forty-two miles. We passed the night in a little tavern kept by an honest Bavarian Catholic, who had not had the happiness of assisting at mass in several years. Judge of his consolation when he learned that I was a priest, and that he and all his family would on the