I h< (Ii-kjiii <>i the A nn ■firti ii Ruces. 27') 



With regard to the personal career of the reverend savant — tor such 

 he truly was — my recollection of what Father O'Byrne told me is too 

 vague at this interval of time for me to venture on any particulars 

 further than that I believe he came here late in life partly with a view to 

 studying scientifically and from personal observation the subject of 

 Leprosy, on which he wrote a book, and the language, habits and 

 idiosyncracies cf the East Indian population here. As illustrative of his 

 retiring disposition, one anecdote which Father O'Byrne gave me is 

 rather quaint, and with Father Casey's permission I will endeavour to 

 tell it, though I wish Father O'Byrne had been here to do so instead, as 

 it must inevitably lose many of the finer touches in my transmission. 

 Father Flood, who was then Archbishop— most of those present must 

 remember him, as he died only a few years ago and his memory is 

 green, I am sure, in the hearts of all who knew him had issued an 

 order that all the priests in the diocese must preach by turn in the 

 Cathedral. When Father Brosse's turn came he was reluctant -to 

 address so large an audience was a thing contrary to his habits, at any 

 rate of recent years ; but of course he obeyed. He took as his text 

 that verse in one of the Gospels : "And Mary kept all these things and 

 pondered them in her heart.'' " What, my dear brethren." he enquired, 

 •'are we to learn from this text? Here was a sainted woman who 

 might have given the world many interesting particulars regard- 

 ing the infancy and youth of her Divine Son ; but no, she kept all 

 these things and pondered them in her heart. What ought we to learn ? 

 X virtue too little thought of. too little studied : the Christian virtue of 

 Silence. 1 venture to impress upon you the importance of that virtue : 

 ami, as a. preacher ought to practise what he preaches " — He imnie 

 diately vacated the pulpit. He died at a great age. and his end was 

 euthanasia ! 



Father Drosse was an adherent of the Asiatic theory. That is the 

 main point in his works which affects the subject of my lecture It is 

 not a main point in his works, or only one out of many, when they are 

 looked at as a whole. Where was the Garden of Eden ? You remember 

 how during the nineties of last century the press teamed with works on 

 that subject. "Babel Und Bibel " was one outpost in the fray, and the 

 German Emperor one of its conspicuous assailants. That, then, was 

 among the problems to which Father Brosse addressed himself, and his 

 general contention may be briefly indicated by translating the opening 

 words of his third work (of the series), " L'Inde Enconnue," -'Some 

 savants have suspected .1 literal translation sounds very bald, but in 

 French the passage reads well, as do all the Rev. Father's writings 

 "that Eden was the ornament of the Indies; but generally opinions 

 have gone elsewhere. Some are in favour of the Euphrates ; others give 

 the honour to Armenia, whence derive their source the Tigris and the 

 Euphrates comprised in the description given in Genesis. These are the 

 two opinions most commonly held. Our personal conviction is in favour 

 of the great Peninsula Proofs have come to hand, and are still comhig, 

 in such numbers that the solution seems to us a definite one. Why has 



