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