“He was in the place,” continued the judge, “for a good many years, and made a practice of leaving every year a couple of months before the winter season, telling his friends that he wanted to reach New York in time to attend divine service on Christmas day. In those days Christmas was not the great religious festival in New England that it is to-day, and the people were practically ignorant of the real meaning of the tenets of the Catholic faith. Rourke never tried to deny his religion, and it was a common thing for the farmers for miles around to gather at the house where he was making a pair of boots and hear him tell of the inhuman cruelties perpetrated on his countrymen on account of their faith, and in my opinion he was the first man that told the old settlers of this town the Catholic meaning of the word ‘Mass.’ After an absence of a few months he was sure to return and remain until the following Christmas, when he was off again. Finally he expressed a determination to revisit the scenes of his early boyhood and use his genius in defence of his native country, and that was the last the townspeople ever heard of him.” [Illustration: HON. FRANKLIN M. DANAHER, ALBANY, N. Y. ] [Illustration: MR. THOMAS F. O’MALLEY, SOMERVILLE, MASS. ] [Illustration: MR. JAMES P. BREE, NEW HAVEN, CONN. ] [Illustration: MR. THOMAS J. LYNCH AUGUSTA, ME. ] FOUR MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY. SOME IRISH SETTLERS IN VIRGINIA. BY HON. JOSEPH T. LAWLESS,[14] RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. Perhaps the most distinguished man of Irish birth who identified himself completely with Virginia, was Gen. Andrew Lewis, who was born in Ireland about 1720, and came to Virginia with his parents in 1732. John Lewis, the father, was the first white man who fixed his home in the mountains of West Augusta. Andrew Lewis served as a major in the regiment commanded by Washington in the Ohio campaign of 1754 and 1755. He served with valor in the French and Indian wars, and was highly regarded by Washington, at whose suggestion he was appointed a brigadier-general in the Continental army. Four of his brothers served in the Revolutionary War, one of them, Col. Charles Lewis, being killed at Point Pleasant. No better evidence of the value which Virginia placed on the services of this Irishman could be wished than the fact that she has deemed his effigy worthy to stand for all time beside the immortal group of Henry, Mason, Marshall, Nelson and Jefferson, which surrounds the heroic equestrian statue of Washington in the Capitol Square at Richmond. This celebrated work of Crawford’s is pronounced by the critics to be one of the finest in the world.