on of Senator Daniel's eloquent oration Father Ryan
recited his poem, "The Sword of Lee," the first time that it had been
heard.

In Lexington I was at a dinner where Father Ryan was a guest. He told
a story of a reprobate Irishman, for whom he had stood godfather. Upon
one occasion the man took too much liquor and, under its influence,
killed a man, for which he was sentenced to a term in the
penitentiary. Through the efforts of the Father he was, after a time,
pardoned and employment secured for him. One evening he came to the
priest's house intoxicated and asked permission to sleep in the barn.
"No," said the Father, "go sleep in the gutter." "Ah, Father, sure an'
I've shlept in the gutter till me bones is all racked with the
rheumatism." "I can't help that; I can't let you sleep in the barn;
you will smoke, you drunken beast, and set the barn on fire and maybe
burn the house, and they belong to the parish." "Ah, Father, forgive
me! I've been bad, very bad; I've murdered an' kilt an' shtole an'
been dhrunk, an' I've done a heap of low things besides, but low as
I'm afther gettin', Father, I never got low enough to shmoke." The man
slept in the barn and the parish suffered no loss.

One evening at a supper at Governor Letcher's we were responding to
the sentiment, "Life." I gave some verses which, in Father Ryan's
view, were not serious enough for a subject so solemn. He looked at me
through his wonderfully speaking eyes and answered me in his melodious
voice:

Life is a duty--dare it,
Life is a burden--bear it,
Life is a thorn-crown--wear it;
Though it break your heart in twain
Seal your lips and hush your pain;
Life is God--all else is vain.

"Yes, Father," I said, and there was silence.

[Illustration: ST. MARY'S CHURCH, MOBILE.
FATHER RYAN'S LATE RESIDENCE ADJOINING
By courtesy of P.J. Kenedy & Sons]

Always a wanderer, our Poet-Priest found his first real home, since
his childhood, when pastor of St. Mary's Church in Mobile. To that
home he pays a tribute in verse.

It was an enchanting solitude for the "restless heart,"--the plain
little church with its cross pointing the way upward, the front
half-hidden by trees through which its window-eyes look out to the
street. A short distance from the church and farther back was the
priest's house, set in a bewilderment of trees and vines and shrubbery
from which window, chimney, roof, and cornice peep out as if with
inquisitive desir