The City and the World

and Other Stories

BY

FRANCIS CLEMENT KELLEY

Author of
"The Last Battle of the Gods," "Letters to Jack."
"The Book of Red and Yellow." Etc., Etc.

SECOND EDITION


EXTENSION PRESS
223 W. Jackson Boulevard
CHICAGO
1913

PREFACE

These stories were not written at one time, nor were they intended for publication in book form. For the most part they were contributions to Extension Magazine, of which the author is Editor, and which is, above all, a missionary publication. Most of them, therefore, were intended primarily to be appeals, as well as stories. In fact, there was not even a remote idea in the author's mind when he wrote them that some day they might be introduced to other readers than those reached by the magazine itself. In fact, he might almost say that the real object of most of the stories was to present a Catholic missionary appeal in a new way. Apparently the stories succeeded in doing that, and a few of them were made up separately in booklets and used for the propaganda work of The Catholic Church Extension Society. Then came a demand for the collection, so the writer consented to allow the stories to appear in book form; hoping that, thus gathered together, his little appeals for what he considers the greatest cause in the world may win a few new friends to the ideas which gave them life and name.

FRANCIS CLEMENT KELLEY.

Chicago, Illinois, July 30, 1913.

"Father Ramoni suddenly felt his joy congealing into a cold fear."

CONTENTS

• TITLESPAGE
• 
  The City and the World 1
• The Flaming Cross 20
• The Vicar-General 44
• The Resurrection of Alta 53
• The Man with a Dead Soul 67
• The Autobiography of a Dollar 74
• Le Braillard de la Magdeleine 82
• The Legend of Deschamps 84
• The Thousand Dollar Note 89
• The Occasion 109
• The Yankee Tramp 119
• How Father Tom Connolly Began to Be a Saint 127
• The Unbroken Seal 136
• Mac of the Island 144

THE CITY AND THE WORLD

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FATHER DENFILI, old and blind, telling his beads in the corner of the cloister garden, sighed. Father Tomasso, who had brought him from his confessional in the great church to the bench where day after day he kept his sightless vigil over the pond of the goldfish, turned back at the sound, then, seeing the peace of Father Denfili's face, thought he must have fancied the sigh. For sadness came alien to the little garden of the Community of San Ambrogio on Via Paoli, a lustrous gem of a little garden under its square of Roman sky. The dripping of the tiny fountain, tinkling like a bit of familiar music, and the swelling tones of the organ, drifting over the flowers that clustered beneath the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes, so merged their murmurings into the peacefulness of San Ambrogio, that Father Tomasso, just from the novitiate, felt intensely that he knew he must have dreamed Father Denfili's sigh. For what could trouble the old man here in San Ambrogio on this, the greatest day of the Community?

For to-day Father Ramoni had returned to Rome. Even as Father Tomasso passed the fountain a group of Fathers and novices were gathering around one of the younger priests, who still wore his fereoula and wide-brimmed hat, just as he had entered from Via Paoli. The newcomer's eyes traveled joyously over his breathless audience, calling Father Tomasso to join in hearing his news.

"Yes, it is true," he was saying. "I have just come from the audience. Father General and Father Ramoni stopped to call at the Secretariate of State, but I came straight home to tell you. His Holiness was most kind, and Father Ramoni was not a mite abashed, even in the presence of the Pope. When he knelt down the Holy Father raised him up and gave him a seat. 'Tell me all about your wonderful people and your wonderful work,' he said. And Father Ramoni told him of the thousands he had converted and how easy it was, with the blessing of God, to do so much. The Holy Father asked him every manner of question. He was full of enthusiasm for the great things our Father Ramoni has done. He is the greatest man in Rome to-day, is Ramoni. He will be honored by the Holy See. The Pope showed it plainly. This is a red-letter day for our Community." The little