or some years a very popular preacher in the
church of the Catholic University. On the retirement of Father Andedon
to England, to which he was naturally attached by birth and
belongings--for Dr. Manning was his uncle--Father Burke took his place
in the pulpit.' It was here, by the way, that the 'Prince of Preachers'
introduced the class of sermons known as 'Conferences,' and associated
with Lacordaire and the pulpit of Notre Dame. Father Burke had never
seen Lacordaire; but the Dean of the Catholic University, who had been
listening to Lacordaire for years, was greatly struck by Father Burke's
resemblance, as a preacher, to his great brother Dominican in France.
The likenesses between preachers, as between faces, are sometimes subtle
things! Bishop Moriarty, returning from Rome, paused in Paris, where he
heard yet another Dominican orator, Pere Monsabre, preaching at Notre
Dame. When next he saw Father Tom, he said to him--'Do you know Monsabre
reminded me very much of you?' 'Now,' said Father Tom--telling the story
to his friend, Father Greene--'this was very gratifying to me. Pere
Monsabre was a great man, and I thought it an honor to be compared to
him, and I told the Bishop so, adding, 'Might I ask you, my lord, what
was the special feature of resemblance?' Now 'David' (the Bishop's
Christian name) had a slow and deliberate and judicious way of speaking
that kept me very attentive and expectant. 'Well,' he said, 'I'll tell
you what struck me most. When he went up into the pulpit, he looked
around him deliberately and raised up his hand and--scratched his
head.'"

"In the maddest sallies of Father Tom there was generally to be found a
method. His exuberances when he was Prior of San Clemente, for instance,
were attributed to his desire that his tonsure might not be made to bear
the weight of a mitre: 'It got whispered among the cardinals' (writes
Canon Brownlow), 'that their eminences were at times the objects of his
jokes, and that he even presumed to mimic those exalted personages. Some
of them spoke seriously about it, and asked the Dominican Cardinal Guidi
to admonish him to behave with greater gravity. Cardinal Guidi repaired
to San Clemente, and proceeded to deliver his message, and Father Burke
received it with becoming submission. But no sooner had the cardinal
finished than Father Burke imitated his manner, accent and language,
with such ludicrous exactness that the cardinal burst into a fit of
laughter, an