Rt. Rev. Wm. Quarter j^ 



devotions. Again they assemble in the evening, 

 to close the day with prayer, to read pious books, 

 and to recite the Rosary. Thus it is that the 

 members of the several religious societies now 

 established at St. Mary's, spend the Sunday." 



These lines, written by Bishop Quarter himself, 

 when pastor of the congregation of which he speaks, 

 proves, that though "he found the parish overrun 

 with vice," it did not continue long so under his 

 zealous and watchful care: but iit became, for its 

 devotion and for its piety, an example to the whole 

 city. They exhibit also to us evidences of the 

 regard in which he held the mother of God, in the 

 efforts made to establish sodalities in her honour. 

 And that the same tender regard for her was enter- 

 tained by him to the end of his life, is evidenced in 

 his last Pastoral Letter, written but a short time 

 before his death. When speaking of the adoption 

 of "the Blessed Virgin Mary, conceived without 

 sin," as the Patroness of the American Church, he 

 says: 



"We Catholics are not ashamed to honour the mother of 

 our Redeemer, who is also our mother ; we hesitate not to ask 

 her intercession and her prayers on our behalf with her divine 

 Son, knowing that they will be efficacious, if the fault be not 

 our own. Jesus honoured the Blessed Virgin Mary in choosing 

 her for his mother — and shall Christians not honour her like- 

 wise ? She has been selected by God to give birth to the Saviour 

 and the Redeemer — and shall we be unmindful of the glorious 

 prerogative? The angel of God prophesied that all generations 

 should call Mary blessed — and shall it not be our glory to 



