i- - S 0 - Mungret College Past Pupils' Union

316 MUNGRFT ANNUALearliest interviews with him. Now, it wasmanifest, he possessed a human heart andthat, it very large one, showing a deeplove and interest in every student. In thecourse. of his rein arks, he said that he hadt he co-operation of his Society whereverthey had ii Church or College and had thegood will of in fluential persons; vet, hisoil imev was not free from severe trials:He hoped that, if any of us had to dosimilar work, we would escape theoccasional insults and humiliations thatlie had met with.Again he continued to give us occasionallysonic of his spiritual lectures. Theywere practical and helpful inPractical the formation of character.Advice. Amongst other things, liestrongly recommended us totake nothing between meals, and toLAbbé L'fleritier.drink nothing stronger than milk, tea andwater.One devotion especially was a favouritewith him, that is. devotion to the BlessedVirgin. His conferences onDevotion ii er life an virtues tended toto the make, an indelible impression.Blessed Needless to say, lie was in-;is--Virgin, tent on the daily recitation ofthe five decades of the Rosaryand then after it pause he would recoin-mend to anyone so disposed the dailyrecitation of the fifteen decades.Years rolled by, and I was present onI) certain Sunday in a fine parish churchin a large town in the North of Ireland.Fr. Ronan was announced to preach aspecial sermon on the Sacred Heart. Itwas a fine discourse and the people werehighly edified. Later in the day on thatSunday a political meeting was held inthat town. Large crowds cameA man from the neighbouring districtsof but Fr. Ronan spent the after-Prayer. noon on a bye-road, evidentlyabsorbed in p'Y That eveningthe local doctor, a good pious man,asked inc what was that priest doing. whoappeared to he praying, having in hishands something like a huge necklace.The solution at once dawned on me. Hehad tli e fifteen decade rosary-beads, andWas carrying out in his daily life what hehad preached to us years before. Iexplained the whole business to thedoctor who said : where will poor fellow'slike me find ourselves si-lien we passout of this world, if a saintly priest likeFr. RI) nan requires so many prayers anddevotions to get to heaven ?I remember reading many years agoIII address given by the hate Sir \Vn.Butler at r\lungret College at which Fr.H oiia n was present. The lectures referredin feeling ternis to the work done by Fr.Ronan for the missions iii many parts,as well as far the spiritual assistance tothe Catholic soldiers in the Crimean war.The memory of the reply is to someextent obliterated by time, though it thenimpressed inc much ; vet I think thisportion is substantially correct. Fr.Ronan replied that lie wasReady now- an old man, had done hisfor work and that if it were pleastheCall. ilig to the Lord, lie was readyfor the great call to anotherlife, and lie hoped when that time came,those dear Catholic soldiers whom lie preparedfor eterni tv in the Crimean battlefields would come to meet him, and as abodvgu and would accompany him untoHeaven. He died. unexpectedly, a fewdays after, in the odour of sanctity,beloved by his community, and mournedby all.I now turn to another of my masters, aMUNGRET_HALFACENTITRY AGO. 317Frenchman, who came to Ireland in theearly seventies of the last century aschaplain to the first Lord EmlY who wasof N ewluan's brilliant band of Convertsof the Oxford Movement.His name was Monsieur L'AhbéL'Heritier. who came to the College fromTenvoe about three times aL'Abbé week to give his lectures. InL'Heritier. the early dlavs of the Collegehe t;.ught agricultural chemistry.but soon had to bestow greaterattention to physics on Natural Philosophy,which was an important subjectfor the University course. He iai hiswork well and conscientiously, though hehad some difficulties to contend with,a loch were not due to hum or to theCollege authorities. The laboratoriesthen were not Si) well equipped as atpresent v ith instruments and materialfor experiments, for the reason that thecost Was very great and there was nogovernment grant of any kind. The&' x PC ni lU i-n ts were fairly numerous,i-specially in electricity, but were all madeby the professor, the pupils having nopractical experience beyond mere obser--vation - In the absence of instruments,the professor explained in detail, withthe help of the illustrations in the textbook, how the experiments could be performed,and thereby proving the tinderlyingprinciples. Later on at the SecondArts examination in physics in Dublin.thus method led to sonic amnusimig incidents.Wt' had it very erroneous idea of ourdear beloved professor. He seemed sowrapt up in this subject that we had somedoubts whether he was conversant withmiv other branch of knowledge. Hispast lie, as far as we knew, was photography; and ii course of time lie hadsome amusing prints of his passed roundmuch to our delight. Later in life, I cameto know Iiiiii intimately. His knowledgeof Greek was far reaching. For a number