active exposition in conduct or results of popular sovereignty. It cannot be denied that the people of this country have used the extraordinary powers and resources at their disposal with singular good sense and right instincts, and in the interest of humanity. They have always welcomed the outer world to come in and share their good fortune. They continue this policy, and the world is awakening as it never before woke to the benefits to be derived from residence and citizenship in this country. Many evils that others groan under at home, and that their fathers groaned under before them, from generation to generation, are at once removed by joining in with this great swallower of political formulas. The mighty international questions and jealousies, that to Europeans are matters of such moment, and the causes of so many wars, are to Americans petty and mean, compared with the happiness and prosperity of a people. That is the lesson that this Republic is teaching and enforcing day by day on the attention of other powers. Popular government may have its dangers, as all governments must have; but as exemplified by a hundred years of existence in the United States, it at least guarantees to all honest citizens the inalienable right of a man to his own life and liberty, which implies a free pursuit of happiness. It does not make him a soldier against his will; it does not injure him by inventing hereditary privileges for a few; it leaves him at liberty to act and think and speak as he pleases, subject to the widest public law. It prescribes no church for him, and proscribes none. It offers every possible exercise for whatever activity is in him, with no drawbacks of class, or caste, or creed. It is to this that all civilized governments must come if they would command the universal allegiance of their subjects. There must be complete civil and religious liberty; there must be less wars, less armies, and less taxes for such purposes; there must be more restraint on the actions and ambitions of individual statesmen and monarchs; there must be more room for human life and activity, and more security in its possession. Until this be accomplished, widespread disaffection, occasionally breaking out in the feverish and fitful forms described at the opening of the article, will continue. The Republic of the United States is the best exponent of how to avoid the extremes of tyranny-the tyranny of the many or of the few, and to steer safely between the revolution from above and the revolution from below.

CATHOLICITY IN KENTUCKY.

THE ELDER FAMILY OF MARYLAND AND KENTUCKY.

N these days, when to be exalted in the eyes of men is but too often to be suspected of infidelity to God, it is not to be supposed that the ordinary mind will be able to find any of the essentials of greatness in characters such as I profess to depict. And yet there was not one of those who are mainly to claim the reader's attention in this article, who was wanting in those characteristics and qualities of heart and mind, which combine to make the just and true, and therefore the truly great man. They were alike faithful to God and to right reason, to the Catholic traditions of their race and to truth, probity, and honor. Their sympathy was equally assured, whether the sentiment was elicited by human suffering, or by the gropings of a soul after verity in religion. Even as they prayed for mercy to themselves, they ceased not, while they lived, to scatter in the way of others, the seeds of mercy garnered in their own souls.

The surname Elder is not uncommon in the United States; neither is it in England and Ireland. Singularly enough, however, while the patronymic is owned in England almost exclusively by Catholics in religion, it adheres, very generally, at least, to Protestant dissenters in Ireland. In the United States, and so far as it is Catholic, the name is represented by the descendants of one, or, as some say, of two individual Catholics, who emigrated from Lancashire, England, to the colony of Maryland, not earlier than the year 1720.'

Of members of the family now living in the United States, by far the greater number would seem to be impressed with the idea. that the patriarch of their race in America was one William Elder, an Englishman, born in Lancashire in 1707, who emigrated to Maryland, not earlier than 1728, and not later than 1732. Without stopping here to record my own doubts of the correctness of this notion, and for the reason that the patriarch referred to has

I am unable to agree with certain members of the family who assert that their American progenitor was a fellow-voyager with Cecil Calvert, and one of the original colonists of St. Mary's. It is well known that the three heads of families of this name who emigrated to Kentucky claimed no more distant relationship with each other than that of second cousin, and that the father of the most conspicuous amongst them was a native of Lancashire, England, born in 1707, who had reached his majority before he came to America. As a question of fact, it is difficult to determine whether or not all Catholics in this country who bear the name of Elder, have descent from a single or from two parent founts on this side of the Atlantic. This point will be found treated in a note further on.

a defined history, wanting in the case of another, if there was really another source of descent for some Catholics who bear the name in this country, I propose to begin my series of personal sketches with one of

WILLIAM ELDER, 1707-1775.

William Elder, so to say, was a born Catholic. His descent was from those who had kept the faith when its rejection would have insured their worldly prosperity. Before his birth, and long after his expatriation, indeed, there was little freedom for Catholics in England. They were not then subjected, to be sure, to such remorseless persecutions as had distinguished the days of their fathers; but they were still sufficiently hampered in the exercise of their liberty, civil and religious, to render their situation one of great trial and of constant annoyance.

No one who is familiar with the history of the Church of God has failed to discover that the noblest examples of fidelity to the law of conscience are to be found precisely where Divine Wisdom has taught us to look for them: "Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake." It was in an atmosphere of hostility to his religion that William Elder first drew breath, and in which he lived and moved from infancy to early manhood. Well for him, possibly, and well for his posterity, that such was the case. As self-reliance is most readily learned in the school of adversity, so devotion to principle has its greatest expansion where its suppression is sought through the medium of persecution.

It was most likely soon after he had reached his majority that William Elder left his native land and came to America. As early as the year 1733 we find him living with his first wife, Ann Wheeler, who had already borne him several children, in St. Mary's County, Maryland. In the year 1734, as is supposed, he removed to Frederick County, where he bought and cultivated a farm, upon which he built for the occupancy of the family a comfortable residence. To this house, which stood in close proximity to the site now occupied by the College of St. Mary, is attached an interesting history.

Upon leaving England, William Elder had not left behind him, as he had fondly hoped, the proscriptive laws enacted by the home government in contravention of the rights of its Catholic subjects. The old colonial laws giving to all men unrestricted liberty to worship according to conscience, to which Catholics in religion had

I am inclined to the belief that the marriage of William Elder with Ann Wheeler took place in England, and that, soon after that event, the pair took passage for America.

given form and shape, force and effect, were now abrogated in Maryland, and in their stead a law was in force by the terms of which Catholics were forbidden to build, hold, or occupy structures, designed for public religious worship. In order to acquit themselves of their religious obligations, the proscribed Catholic people of the colony were obliged to resort to the expedient of fitting up chapels in private houses. In constructing his dwelling, William Elder had in view the anomalous situation in which himself and his co-religionists were placed by the law referred to. His parlor chapel was not only the largest room in his house, but its area was equal to the aggregate of all the other rooms in the house. Here it was that the Catholic residents of the district were wont to meet for divine service, and here they were shriven, and afterwards fed with bread from heaven, until the dawn of a brighter day witnessed their release from civil degradation and official espionage.'

In 1739 death invaded the home of the pioneer, taking from him the mother of his children. The pair had been very happy together, and the survivor naturally felt deeply the great loss he had sustained. Ann Wheeler Elder is represented as having been. a woman of rare good qualities, faithful to every duty pertaining to her state of life, diligent in the management of her household, and of singular piety.

Having remained a widower for several years, William Elder

1 The Elder mansion, near Emmettsburg, though then tottering to its fall, was still. standing as late as the year 1850. For many years before, it had been an object of interest to the Catholics of the State, and especially to such of them as were able to claim descent from its builder and first proprietor. There is scarcely a trace of it to be seen at the present day.

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2 Ann Wheeler Elder bore to her husband five children, four boys and one girl These were named: William, Guy, Charles, Mary, and Richard. Of the first named I have been able to learn nothing beyond the fact that his wife was a Miss Wickham. Guy Elder was twice married. By his second wife he had thirteen children, viz., Joseph, Judith, James, Polly, Benjamin, Patsey, Ellen, Rebecca, Guy, Priscilla, Edward, Thomas, and George. The four first named," a Maryland correspondent writes me," all went to Kentucky." The wife of Charles Elder was Julia Ward, of Charles County, Maryland. The descendants of the pair are very numerous, and they are scattered all over the West and South. Their immediate off-pring numbered twelve children, eleven sons and one daughter. One of the sons married Catharine Mudd, of Maryland, and one of their children was the late Rev Alexius I. Elder, a most estimable priest, who was long identified in an official capacity with the Sulpician College of St. Mary, Baltimore. The only daughter of Charles Elder intermarried with Charles Montgomery, who removed with his family to Kentucky about the year 1795. Two of their sons, Samuel H. and Stephen Montgomery, were ordained priests of the Order of St. Dominic by Bishop Flaget, at the Seminary of St. Thomas, in Kentucky, in September, 1816. Mary Elder, the only daughter of Ann Wheeler Elder, intermarried with Richard Lilly, of Maryland, and through her children the family became connected with that of the McSherrys of Virginia. Of Richard, son and youngest child of William and Ann Elder, I have been able to learn only that his wife was a Miss Phoebe Deloyzier.

took to wife, most likely in 1744, Jacoba Clementina, daughter of Arnold Livers, Esq., gentleman. This Arnold Livers, an Englishman by birth, had been an active and noted partisan of James II. Upon the collapse of that weak and unfortunate monarch's cause, he had been obliged to fly his native land, and now he was the proprietor of a large estate in Maryland. Of this second wife of William Elder, the traditions preserved in the family speak nothing but praise. She bore to her husband four sons and two daughters, and not by these was her motherly influence felt more beneficially than it was by her step-children. While her husband lived she shared with him the respect and confidence of all to whom they were known, and during her long widowhood of thirtytwo years she was venerated as a true mother in Israel.' The names of her children were Elizabeth, Arnold, Thomas, Ignatius, Ann, and Aloysius. It was from the second named that title came to the ecclesiastical authorities of Maryland for the farm upon which now stands the structure known as Mount St. Mary's College. With the exception of Thomas Elder, who removed to Kentucky in 1799, the writer has no knowledge concerning the after lives of her other children."

1 It is said of Arnold Livers, in explanation of the singular name given by him to his daughter, that he had registered a vow that his first child, whether boy or girl, should be called James. The good priest to whom the child was presented for baptism found no difficulty in complying with the father's wishes, and so the babe was christened Jacoba Clementina. The Livers family of Maryland was afterwards represented in Kentucky by quite a number of the latter's leading Catholic citizens. Among these were Robert and Henry Livers, of Nelson, and Thomas Livers, of Washington County.

2 In the old Catholic cemetery, about half a mile below St. Mary's College, and near the town of Emmettsburg, three stones mark the graves of William, Ann Wheeler, and Jacoba Clementina Elder. The inscriptions, which are still distinct, record their names, and dates of birth and death: William Elder, born in 1747, died April 22d, 1775; Ann Wheeler Elder, born 1709, died August 11th, 1739; Jacoba Clementina Elder, born 1717, died September 19th, 1807.

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3 Through the kindness of Mrs. Mary Howell Dawson, a great-granddaughter of the writer, I was recently permitted to examine a letter written by Jacoba Clementina Elder, and addressed to her granddaughter, Nancy Elder, who, a short while before its date, had accompanied her father to Kentucky. The letter bears date, "Maryland, at Harry Spalding's, November 21st, 1800." She begins complainingly, first in respect to her own bodily infirmities, and then of her inability to do certain things for lack of money. Nevertheless," she goes on, "I would have gone in debt for five pounds of snuff to send you, could I have found a conveyance for it. I saw Rev. Mr. Smith yesterday," she continues, " and I gave him your message. He was glad to hear from you." (This Rev. Mr. Smith was none other than the Prince Priest, Rev. Demetrius A. Gallitzin, who, for some time previous to her father's removal to Kentucky, was charged with the mission of the district in which the family resided.) From what follows it would appear that Miss Nancy Elder, in writing to her grand mother, had instituted a comparison between her then Kentucky pastor and the one who had discharged the duties of the office for her in Maryland, which was not especially favorable to the former. "I do hope," she writes, that you will all learn to

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