the text. Unfortunately, this paper does not bring the narrative beyond the year mentioned as the date of its inception.

Mr. Richards left a considerable number of private papers, including the manuscripts of most of his lectures and lists of the very numerous articles contributed by him to the Sacred Heart Review of Cambridge and the Catholic Review of New York; together with a few letters, particularly those received by him at the period of his conversion. Of letters written by Mr. Richards to others, a vast number are extant, as it was the habit of many of his correspondents to preserve carefully, even reverentially, everything received from him. Only a very limited use of this mass of material has been feasible in the present work, without swelling the dimensions of the latter beyond due bounds.

A list of the most important works consulted will be found on a preceding page. Perhaps the most valuable source of all has been the recollections of the members of his family and his intimate friends and disciples. The great age at which he died has left him without the testimony of contemporaries of his youth and middle age, almost all of whom he outlived. But enough remains to give a vivid impression of his natural character, wholesome, cheery, zealous and thoroughly loyal to man, to con

science and to God, and of the exalted supernatural virtues by which that character was gradually chastened, elevated and spiritualized, until his very aspect became to those who knew him an attraction to the higher life, and his every word and action a commentary on the beauty of virtue.

The writer desires to express his cordial thanks to the Rev. William Foster Pierce, L.H.D., President of Kenyon College, for researches made by his direction in the archives of the College, and to the Rev. John Hewitt, present Rector of St. Paul's Church, Columbus, Ohio, for similar services most kindly rendered. He is also indebted to the Very Rev. C. Lecoq, S.S., D.D., President of St. Mary's Seminary of Montreal, to the Rev. Benedict Guldner, S.J., Mrs. A. Newton Whiting of Columbus, Ohio, Mr. D. J. Scannell O'Neil and many other friends for information, loan of letters and assistance of various kinds.

A LOYAL LIFE

CHAPTER I

BOYHOOD

1814-1829

Henry Livingston Richards was born on the twenty-second day of July, 1814, in the little village of Granville, Licking County, Ohio. He was the oldest of four children, two boys and two girls, born to his father, Dr. William Samuel Richards, from his first marriage, all of whom lived to maturity and married. A second marriage increased the family by three boys, of whom one died in childhood. The only one of all these who followed Henry into the Church was his brother William, who came into the world some five years later than the firstborn.

Dr. Richards was sprung from the early Pilgrim and Puritan stock of Massachusetts. The names appears frequently in the earliest records of both the Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay colonies. No less than twelve men bearing the name of Richards came from

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England, mostly, it would seem, from Dorsetshire, in the first days of New England colonization, and settled in various places, giving rise to as many different branches of the family. There seems to have been a strong religious tendency in the family character, for among those who inherited it are found many ministers.

The first American progenitor of the subject of this work was John Richards of Eele River in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He is first mentioned on July 12th, 1637, in the records of the General Court of Plymouth, which put him under bonds to keep the peace, especially with regard to one Mark Mendall. In spite of this somewhat questionable introduction to the light of history, John Richards seems to have been a very respectable citizen. Removing about 1658 to New London, Connecticut, he built a house at the corner of State and Huntington Streets which remained the seat of the family for more than a century, and became quite a center of what social life existed in the austere colonial town. But all the consideration he enjoyed could not shield his family from the Blue Laws, for in 1693 his second son, Israel, was sentenced to pay a fine of ten shillings, and to stand in the stock for two hours, as a penalty for walking abroad and otherwise misbehaving himself on the Sabbath evening. His oldest