eloquence with the Benedictines at Metten, pleading for his pet idea of establishing a Benedictine monastery in the forests of Pennsylvania, he promised to become a Benedictine, and to give his land for the establishment of a Benedictine monastery, without having duly considered whether he had the proper qualifications for religious life, or whether, at his time of life, it would be possible to subject himself to absolute authority; having made the promise it haunted him until he carried it into effect, although calm reflection had undoubtedly convinced him, that he never should have made it, and that his character and life unfitted him for the observance of Benedictine rule. And, lastly, when the burdens which he had voluntarily taken up became almost unbearable, he, on the impulse of the moment, fled from them, without stopping to consider the humiliation that would necessarily follow-but his conscience again brought him back, and made him drain the very dregs of the bitter cup which he had refused to put to his lips.

His ambition, although it undoubtedly was sometimes an actuating force, always vanished before his conscience. He ever wanted to excel, but only along the lines of duty and honor. This feature of his character came to the surface in the most trivial actions of life, and was recognizable to the day of his death. Even as an old man, when he became again a child, it would crop out in his games of chess and bagatelle which he used to play with young men to while away his time. Whilst most ambitious to win, and filled with childish delight at winning, he became grievously offended when there was evidence of his opponent yielding the game to him out of consideration for him. Sometimes, when there was no one to play with him, he would play by himself under two characters, one as Father Lemke and the other as some one else; but he would always set down the good points in the play to Father Lemke and the bad ones to the other fellow.

In his controversies with those in authority over him, he was never entirely in the wrong, except in so far as he revolted against authority. The fault was possibly as much with those who had been placed over him as it was with himself. The

trouble was, that they did not understand him, and that they did not make sufficient allowance for the fact that he had labored long and arduously in the field in which they were newcomers; and that this labor, under the peculiar circumstances under which it was performed, necessarily made him independent and restless of authority. Had more appreciation been shown of his labors, and a little more consideration given for the services which he had rendered, no conflict with authority would probably ever have occured. When the young bishop came to the Pittsburg diocese, Father Lemke was already a veteran in that vineyard of the Lord, and quite naturally considered himself well qualified to give counsel to the young bishop. He felt disappointed and chagrined when new and young men who could know nothing about the needs of the diocese were preferred before him and were looked to for counsel in preference to him. There was no doubt, too, a certain amount of antipathy between himself and his new bishop on racial grounds; as Father Lemke was a typical German, and the new bishop a typical Irishman. Neither probably would have been willing to admit that such an antipathy existed, and neither would probably have consciously countenanced such an antipathy, and yet one cannot help feeling that between these two good and noble men, both of whom have done yeoman service to the church, and have lived most saintly and altruistic lives, there was a lack of congeniality which cannot well be explained upon any other theory.

His difficulties with Abbot Wimmer grew out of a different cause from those with his bishop, and yet in some regard a similar one. They were similar to the extent of being in a measure the result of disappointment and dissatisfaction on the part of Father Lemke; but the real cause lay much deeper than this. The sacrifice which Father Lemke made when he took the Benedictine vows was evidently a very different thing in his mind from that which was in the mind of Father Wimmer. Father Wimmer was a well trained Benedictine from youth up who had a full realization of the meaning of a vow of poverty and obedience. On the other hand Father Lemke had spent the greater part of his life, almost to old age,

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without restraint except that of conscience. He took the vows of poverty and obedience at a time of life when he was no longer capable of changing his mode of thought and his grasp of ideas, and when he was possessed of a great deal of property which was not very valuable at the time, but promised to become of great value in the future; and he had lived in a community, where he had been looked up to with respect, and had been regarded as the supreme arbiter in spiritual matters. To him a vow of poverty and obedience in the Benedictine sense was really incomprehensible. Hence it was not long before he discovered that his becoming a Benedictine meant one thing to himself and another to his superior. Father Wimmer quite naturally supposed that the monastery's debt on the Carrolltown property was no longer a debt after Father Lemke became a member of the Community, on the principle that one cannot owe himself. He very properly assumed that Father Lemke brought his property with him into the monastery, and that whatever he had been possessed of in the world was now the property of the monastery. That Father Wimmer was entirely right in this position no one can for a moment doubt who has any knowledge of religious life. To Father Lemke, however, such an interpretation of his vow of obedience and poverty was apparently unintelligible; and he looked upon the business relations which had existed between himself and Father Wimmer in the same light as he had viewed them before he had taken his vows.

When Father Lemke joined the Benedictines there was still $1400 due him on the Carrolltown property, and for this amount he held a mortgage, which he had put on record in the Cambria County Courts in 1849. This he permitted to stand as an evidence of his claim upon the property. He also continued to retain title to his other properties and to take care of them in his own name* and even to purchase new properties. Inasmuch as these properties were located around Carrolltown, where he was sent to minister, both during his novitiate and after taking his vows, it can be readily understood how his

* Father Lemke held title at one time or another to nearly twenty-four hundred acres of land in Cambria County, Pa., according to the records of Cambria County.

divided cares would not earn for him the confidence and approval of his superior; and how that want of confidence and approval would inevitably lead to embitterment of feelings, especially as he was surrounded by well-trained Benedictines who were entirely loyal to their superior and who would necessarily take umbrage at his apparent disloyalty. It is not difficult to understand how the most saintly man, placed in such a position, under such circumstances and with such ideas about monastic life, could involve himself in an embarrassing position with his superior.

Probably one of the best evidences of Father Lemke's probity of character and well-sustained principles of Christianity, is the fact that no scandal ever grew out of his differences with his superiors. When he found that he was not persona grata with his bishop he asked for his exeat; although doing so implied a great sacrifice, as he had to leave the scenes of activity of the best years of his life, and the place where all he possessed in this world was located. When he found himself in trouble with his superior in the monastery, he pursued that course which, according to his ideas, honor dictated, no matter what sorrow and deprivation might stand in his path or follow in the wake of his action; and when he found upon mature reflection and after consulting with others, that this course had not been the correct one, he retraced his steps, irrespective of any humiliations that he might have to encounter. There was no dreg of human sorrow so bitter that he would not drink it under the goad of his conscience.

In Father Lemke's life, in its entirety, we have a model of a Christian exemplar. Earnest, sincere, conscientious, devout and energetic, he was actuated in all things by the single desire of doing his duty as a follower of Christ. He was always practical in his ideas, and invariably took the shortest cut to an issue when he once had made up his mind that it was the proper issue at which to aim. His whole life is consistent with the principles which he professed. Even his mistakes and shortcomings could not be well spared from the picture of it, because they are essential to its humanity. We see in him the true Christian gentleman; but a human being

with human weaknesses and human shortcomings. He was ever a devoted follower of Christ, and sought to serve Him as a disciple to the best of his knowledge and ability.

Father Lemke's work in Cambria County, Pa., was supplementary to that of Father Gallitzin, and in its results can only be judged in conjunction with it. He worked for a while under the directions of Gallitzin, and after the latter's death, along the same lines. The fruit of these two men's labors, as far as it can be measured, is a truly Catholic country in the greater part of the district which their labors covered. In the little towns of Loretto, Carrolltown, St. Augustine, St. Lawrence and St. Boniface, and in the country round about them, Catholic customs and practises are as well fixed and Catholic faith is as deeply planted as in any Catholic country in Europe. There one can see at any time during the summer the practical illustration of Millais' Angelus, and find the most scrupulous observation and celebration of Catholic holidays.

The seeds of faith that have been carried by emigrants from this little Catholic colony into the far West, and indeed into all parts of the United States, and that were scattered upon fruitful soil to grow into powerful influences for good in other communities, constitute an element in the good work of these men, which it is difficult to estimate properly. The many

vocations for the priesthood and for religious life in the cloister which have emanated from those parishes; the strong and well-grounded faith; the truly Catholic lives of many of the young men and women who have gone forth from there to live in other places, are more tangible fruits of their labors. But it was the indirect spreading of the Gospel by the good example of those well-grounded in Catholicity that constituted the chief inspiring motive of both Gallitzin and Lemke in their work in that remote obscure district on top of the Allegheny Mountains; and it is by the secondary results that their labors should be judged. Prince Gallitzin has been criticised for using up so much energy in founding a little town in the heart of the Allegheny Mountains, when he might have devoted it to more brilliant results in some large city. The results of his labors, however, demonstrate the wisdom of his