REV. RICHARD HAYES, O. S. F. RICHARD HAYES, like the illustrious Dr. Doyle, was a native of the County Wexford. He was born of the respected and patriotic family of the Hayes's of the town of Wexford, towards the end of 1787; and was brother to Mr. Hayes of Hammond-lane, Dublin. Richard, at an early age, gave great indications of more than ordinary talent. Having received the rudiments of education in his native land, although only in the fifteenth year of his age, he was sent to St. Isidore's College, at Rome, in 1803. In a few years he acquired a more intimate knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, than, perhaps, any man of his age, and carried off in triumph the first academical prizes. Having finished his Theological studies, and arrived at the necessary age, he was ordained priest in 1808, as a member of the Franciscan order, at Rome, and said his first Mass on the feast of the Epiphany, in 1809. In 1811, Mr. Hayes returned to his native county, where he officiated for nearly three years, and devoted his time to the classical instruction of the diocesan youth. The address of the Catholics of Wexford, on his removal from his native town, in 1814, and his answer on the occasion, cannot be read without peculiar interest. Although not so pleasing in his delivery, from a provincial accent, and naturally a sepulchral voice, he soon became a preacher of more than ordinary power, and was remarkable for the strength of his language, versatility of his genius, sublimity of his ideas, and originality of his conceptions. In 1814, when Quarantotti, in the absence of the sovereign Pontiff, wrote his unauthorized rescript, in which a veto on the nomination of our bishops was conceded to the British monarch, the Catholics of Ireland assembled, denounced the infamous project, and appointed the Rev. Mr. Hayes as their deputy to Rome to explain their wishes to the Sovereign Pontiff. Mr. Hayes being naturally most determinedly opposed to every species of veto, received great opposition from the emissaries of the British Government in the prosecution of his important duties. The deluded vetoists, who for a mess of pottage were anxious to offer the church bound hand and foot to the British Ministry, as willing slaves of power, put every difficulty they could in his way. Mr. Hayes was not, however, to be so easily subdued. He took his departure, and soon arrived at the centre of the Christian world, and exposed the ministerial craft which had been adopted to deceive the Holy Father. His enemies were not idle. In the height of their opposition they foully represented him as not only opposed to the British Go vernment, but to the respect which was due to the Holy See; and in consequence of these reports he was confined as a disaffected person, until his character was ascertained, and the conduct of the vetoists was found to be opposed to the purity and safety of the Catholic Church in Ireland. In September, 1817, Mr. Hayes returned to Ireland, and although much debilitated from the effects of a severe fever, whilst in Rome, he soon had the consolation of seeing the schemes of the vetoists for ever destroyed, and themselves exposed to the contempt they so justly merited! His letters and statements in his own defence at this time were highly interesting. In 1821, when Mr. Plunkett (now Lord Chancellor of Ireland) brought in his "Bill of Pains and Penalties," under the pretext of emancipating the Catholics of Ireland, Mr. Hayes, then in London, was the first to denounce it as fraught with danger to the Catholic religion in his native land. His Vetoistical Catechism, at this period, was considered a most useful document. His sentiments were soon responded to by the Catholic prelates, clergy and laity. It is a curious fact, that a few schismatical priests in America, at this period, wishing to set up a church of their own, independent of the Sovereign Pontiff, conceiving that Mr. Hayes was naturally disposed for a "revolt," on account of the manner in which he was treated whilst in Italy, sent him an express invitation to become their head, proposed to him a munificent sum for costly maintenance, and suggested arrangements by which he could be consecrated bishop, and thus be enabled to act as their primate or patriarch! Although naturally of a most independent mind, and affected by the ingratitude of false friends, he was too strongly attached to the Catholic faith to enter into a compromise with error, and he was too much convinced, with St. Jerom, that a separation from the successor of St. Peter was the door to schism and impiety, to accept the office of ruler over the agents of Satan. He therefore no sooner received the impious letter than he submitted its contents to the Sovereign Pontiff through the venerable Archbishop of Dublin, (Most Rev. Dr. Troy,) replied to the deluded men, in terms of indignation, denounced the iniquity of their proceedings, and showed the dreadful precipice to which they were hastening. The conduct of Mr. Hayes on this occasion had the most desirable effect. He destroyed the schism in its bud, and so delighted was the Sovereign Pontiff with his magnanimous conduct, that he not only offered him his best thanks, but any ecclesiastical promotion he would desire. Anxious for neither money nor promotion, Mr. Hayes was satisfied to live as an humble friar, and to devote his splendid talents to the promotion of piety and religion! In 1822, Mr. Hayes commenced publishing a series of sermons, which met with uncommon eirculation. Having published twentyfive of those sermons in 1823, he took ill, and in the August of that year left Dublin, intending to proceed to the South of France for the recovery of his health. He had scarcely arrived in the French capital when he was confined to the room out of which he was never afterwards able to depart! After about five months' illness he died of a decline in Paris, on the 24th of January, 1824, in the thirty-sixth year of his age, and sixteenth of his ministry, and was buried in Pere la Chaise TO THE MEMORY OF THE REV. RICHARD HAYES, The holy champion who ne'er crouch'd to power, No more shall plead the houseless orphan's cause-- S. B. ANCIENT WISDOM.-The best means that man has to assimilate himself to God, is to do good and speak truth.-Pythagoras. A good man cares not for the reproofs of ill men.-Democritus. Every good man is an object worthy of affection.-Antisthenes, THE SACRED TREASURES OF THE FATHERS, &c. We consider scarcely anything more interesting than to present our readers with the sublime sayings, wise maxims, and practical instructions of the holy Fathers, learned doctors, and sainted heroes of the church of Jesus Christ. In Deuteronomy (xxxii. 7,) we are commanded to "remember the days of old, to think upon every generation; to ask our father, and he will declare to us, our elders and they will tell us❞—what they believed, and what they practised. The Royal Prophet, ages before the Christian religion, thus broke forth :-"How great things have we heard and known, and our fathers have told us. They have not been hidden from their children in another generation; declaring the praises of the Lord, and his powers and his wonders which he hath done. And he set up a testimony in Jacob, and made a law in Israel. How great things he commanded our Fathers, that they should make the same known to their children, that another generation might know them, the children that should be born and rise up, and declare them to their children."-Psalm 1xxvi. 1, 3, 6. With what greater force cannot Christians repeat those sacred words on receiving the light which God diffused on mankind through the holy Fathers of the church! How moving and pathetic their exhortations-how pleasing their parables-how clear their explanations of the faith-how convincing their arguments-how consoling their discourses-how conclusive their evidence as to what was professed and taught in the purest days of Christianity! Under these impressions we intend to present, in our future numbers, a selection from the holy fathers, doctors, saints, and ecclesiastical writers, which, we trust, will increase the devotion, strengthen the faith, confirm the hope, and inflame the charity, of the faithful. For greater satisfaction we shall give the direct places where passages on controverted points may be found. EVIL EFFECTS OF DRUNKENNESS.-Five men in Bohemia being quaffing in a tavern, and .drinking healths to their friends, were ready to depart; but one of them espying the picture of the devil in the same room, said, "Here is an old friend that we have forgotten;" and so they fell to it again, drinking bumpers to the devil; but a remarkable judgment attended it; for the next night they were all found dead, with their necks broken, and their blood running out at their mouths, nostrils, eyes, and ears, to the horror of all that beheld them.-Fincelius, p. 44. HUMILITY OF GREAT MEN.-Gualter Mapes, an antiquated English historian, reports that King Edward 1. and Leoline Prince of Wales, designing an interview in a village called Aust upon |