self as cause for profound personal sorrow. He had learned
there a lesson of liberty which he found it hard to forget when he
went away. One of his biographers records that Charles X., whose
offer to make him Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs Cheverus had
declined, once questioned him concerning the liberty enjoyed by the
Church in the United States. "There," said the archbishop in reply.
"I could have established missions in every church, founded
seminaries in every quarter, and confided them to the care of Jesuits
without any one thinking or saying aught against my proceedings; all
opposition to them would have been regarded as an act of despotism
and a violation of right." "That people understand liberty, at
least," returned the king; "when will it be understood among us?"

We have spoken of Bishop Cheverus because, at the time of Isaac
Hecker's acquaintance with his successors, his influence was still
felt in Boston.

His immediate successor was Benedict Joseph Fenwick, a Marylander,
descended in direct line from one of the original English Catholic
pilgrims who founded that colony under Lord Baltimore. During his
episcopate the diocese grew amazingly. When he went to it, in 1826,
although it comprised the whole of New England, it contained but two
churches fit for divine service, and only two priests besides
himself. When he died, in 1846, he left behind him two bishoprics
where there had been but one; while in that of Boston alone there
were then fifty churches, served by as many priests. Although
conversions had not been rare, the increase was mainly due to
immigration, which the great famine in Ireland was speedily to
increase. The efforts of Bishop Fenwick and those of his coadjutor
and successor were, in the nature of things, conservative rather
than aggressive.

Bishop Fitzpatrick, also, was American by birth and training. A
native of Boston, he was reared in its public grammar and Latin
schools until the age of seventeen, when he began his studies for the
priesthood, which he finished in France. Both of these prelates
continued the tradition of Cheverus so far as their own persons were
concerned. But while they easily won and retained the respect of
their more intelligent Protestant fellow-citizens, the confidence
they inspired as men was not ample enough to protect the Church over
which they ruled when once it began to show signs of solid
prosperity. Cheverus was not wrong in counting with assurance up