Emilio Castelar, the greatest Spanish statesman and author, who knew the history of American politics better than most Americans, and to whom few Englishmen were equal in knowledge of the great masterpieces of English literature, said:

"I can comprehend societies without steam engines, without the electric telegraph, without the thousand marvels which modern industry has sown in the triumphal path of progress, adorned by so many immortal monuments. But I cannot understand a society without this immense volume of the daily press, in which is registered by a legion of writers, who should be held in honor by the people, our troubles, our vacillations, our apprehensions, and the degree of perfection at which we have arrived in the work of realizing an ideal of justice upon the face of the earth.

Keeping in touch with the newspapers gives daily co-operation in thought with the brain of all humanity, sympathy with the hearts of fellow men, mingling of life with the great ocean of human existence, interest in the agitation of waves by the breadth of new ideas.

"For these exceptional witnesses know what rays of light cross each other on our horizon; these public judges prescribe rules which form the judgment of the human conscience upon all actions. The passion of parties is of small importance; without it perhaps we should not be able to comprehend this prodigious work, which, like all human works, necessitates the steam of a great passion to set it in motion. The studied silence upon some subjects matters little, nor the partiality shown on others, nor the injustice, even to falsehood, so often manifested; for from this battle of spiritual forces results the total life as from the shadows we perceive the harmony of a picture.

"What a wonderful work is a newspaper-a work of art and science! Six ages have not been enough to complete the cathedral of Cologne, and one day suffices to finish the immense labor of a newspaper. We are unable to measure the degrees of life, of light, of progress that are to be found in each leaf of the immortal book which forms the press. We find in a journal everything, from the notices relating to the most obscure individuals to the speech which is delivered from the highest tribunal, and which affects all intelligences; from the passing thought excited by the account of a ball to the criticism on those works of art destined to immortality. This marvelous sheet is the encyclopaedia of our time; an encyclopaedia which necessitates an incalculable knowledge a knowledge whose power our generation cannot deny a knowledge which is as the condensation of the learning of a century."

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHURCHES.

The first church members who came to the vicinity of Kansas City were the Catholic hunters and trappers. The Catholic priests were the pioneer clergymen. The dauntless courage of the Catholic discoverer and voyager was kept alive by the knowledge that his priest would accompany him and share his hardships, or soon follow in his wake to administer to him the solaces of his religion.

When Robidoux first dipped his oar in the Mississippi river and steered his canoe northward, and then went up the Missouri river, in all probability he exacted a promise from the abbes then in St. Louis and the Florrisant valley to follow him. The American Fur company, in whose employ he went forth, knew that the permanency and ultimate success of their agency in the Platte country depended to a great extent on the presence and ministrations of the priests. The company invited the priest to each of its agencies. Religion not only stimulated courage and fortitude in the employees, but it made them more honest and zealous in the company's interest.

The last quarter of the Eighteenth century witnessed the Catholic church deprived of one of its strongest agencies for the preaching of its divine teachings in new countries. The Jesuits as a society were under the ban of the church's disapproval-they were disbanded. The best drilled, the best disciplined, the most efficient corps in the army of the church was mustered out of service. The society of Jesuits was successfully working among the Indian tribes in the Eastern states, when Pope Clement XIV issued the order to disband. This left the conversion of the western tribes to a few diocesan priests engaged in Upper Louisiana and Illinois. This was a new field for the diocesan priest. To enter upon it and to minister to the white men scattered along the Missouri river forced the pastors of Kaskaskia, St. Louis and Florissant to neglect for a time their flocks. The priests who entered temporarily upon this new charge worked as effectually as the Jesuits would have done. But their labors were spasmodic and without system.

The first priest known to have visited the Indians in middle and Western Missouri and eastern Kansas, was Father La Croix, a chaplain to the Sisters of the Sacred Heart at Florissant. He came west in 1821. He spent some time with the Frenchmen along the Missouri and Kansas rivers, among them those living where Kansas City now stands, and then went west to the fur agency at St. Joseph. He then returned to Florissant.

The next priest who did missionary work among the western Indians and the western white men was the Rev. Joseph Lutz. The time of his first

visit was 1825. He was a young German priest, and at that time one of the clergymen assisting Bishop Rosati at the St. Louis cathedral. He knew there were Catholic Indians in the West and he opened a correspondence with them through the Indian agents. An Indian chief, named Kansas, who was the head of the tribe of that name, went to St. Louis to have a personal interview with Father Lutz. The result was that Father Lutz started on his first missionary tour among the Indians of the West. He visited the Kansas and the Kickapoo tribes. Even after the Jesuits became permanent missionaries among those Indians Father Lutz's interest in them did not lag, and he frequently accompanied the Fathers on their trips West. Father Lutz spent several months with the French in the bottom lands, now the business districts of Kansas City. Here he regularly said mass, and performed all the duties of a pastor. His visits to this locality continued until 1844.

Father Benedict Roux alternated with the Rev. J. Lutz in missionary work in Kansas City. Father Roux was a native of France. As pastor of Kaskaskia he volunteered occasional service at the mouth of the Kaw river. Father Roux first came here in 1833. The Catholics were no longer confined to the West bottoms; they were in the East bottoms too, and lived also on the surrounding hills. Father Roux said mass in a house near what is now Cherry and Second streets. This point soon became the most central for his people. Father Roux was a practical business man. He had acquired property and built churches in Kaskaskia and Cahokia. It was he who gave permanency to the mission here.

Father Roux purchased a site for a church. This not only was the first piece of Catholic church property ever purchased in Kansas City, but it was also one of the very first real estate transactions, for a consideration, ever made here. The land he purchased April 5, 1834, had been patented by Peter La Liberte, March 8, 1834, less than one month previous. Father Roux gave $6 for forty acres. This tract extended along the present west line of Broadway, from Ninth street to Twelfth street, and then due west to a point one hundred feet west of Jefferson street. Father Roux deeded ten acres of the tract to Bishop Rosati January 31, 1839. The ten acres are bounded by Eleventh street on the north, Twelfth street on the south, Broadway on the east, and the west line of the original forty acres on the west. The consideration for the ten acres deeded to Bishop Rosati was $2.

The two acres used for a graveyard until 1880, supplied the funds by which Father Bernard Donnelly purchased St. Mary cemetery, and the ten acres which he deeded to the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1879. The block bounded by Twelfth and Eleventh streets, and by Penn and Washington streets, was deeded by Archbishop Kendrick in 1866 to the Sisters of St.

Joseph, at the request of Father Donnelly. Father Donnelly sold stone from a quarry which he called "Rocky point," on Twelfth street between Penn and Jefferson streets, for riprapping the banks of the Missouri river, and for other purposes. The proceeds of all sales he gave to the sisters in the time of their need and for helping to purchase, and aid St. Joseph's hospital. But the Sisters were not the only beneficiaries of Father Donnelly's business management of the ten acres. The church of St. Peter and Paul was liberally aided from this revenue. To St Patrick's Parish church for the first three years of its existence, he contributed $3,000 from the sale of brick from the brickyard which stood on the site of the episcopal residence. To Annunciation Parish he gave $300, all he could spare. When this parish was es tablished his parochial territory was restricted and there was no lime or brick kiln to furnish him the means to be more generous.

Father Donnelly was deeply interested in the Westport parish. He gave property and material to the parish valued at $2,500. The Redemptorist Fathers received a worthy gift from him. The sale of the rest of the ten acres made the building of the cathedral and Christian Brothers' school a matter of not much effort.

The Rev. Charles Van Quickenborne and the Rev. Peter J. Timmerman, two Jesuit Fathers, with seven aspirants to the priesthood and three lay brothers, left White Marsh, Md., for Missouri April 11, 1823. In 1827 Father Van Quickenborne went on his first missionary excursion to the Indians of the West. He visited the fur traders at the mouth of the Kaw river. He said mass, preached and administered the sacraments to them. In 1837 at the command of the Rev. Van Quickenborne, the superior of the society in the West, the Jesuits built a log church on the forty acre tract belonging to the Rev. Benedict Roux. Father Roux was in his parish at Kaskaskia, and gladly granted the necessary permission.

The new Catholic church was named in honor of a Jesuit saint, St. Francis Regis. It was built on what is now the south line of Eleventh street, and would be in the middle of Penn street. A two-room log house stood at the southwest corner of Eleventh and Penn streets, and remained standing until the property was purchased by the late Thomas Bullene.

Rev. Anthony Eisvogels was removed from Kickapoo village to the town of Kansas in 1842. He was the first resident pastor of what is now Kansas City. His missions were Independence, Weston, Irish Grove and Fort Leavenworth. Father Verhoegen succeeded Father Eisvogels, and was pastor in 1844-46. Father Saunier, diocesan priest, came in 1847. During Father Saunier's sojourn in the East in 1848, Father Donnelly then stationed at Independence, succeeded him. Father Saunier was pastor to 1849. From 1845 when Father Donnelly came to Independence, he efficiently