A BRAVE PRIEST.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 212, 28 August 1908, Page 4

A BRAVE PRIEST.

IHS FORETHOUGHT AVERTS A PAXIL'. Berlin's mysterious bauds of ineendiarieTs, who have terrorised the po|tuUi-.'e by causing more than 500 fires during the past two months, made, on dune Sth, a dastardly attempt to burn down a Catholic church crowded with worshippers at the Whit Holiday .Mass. A panic, with what must have been serious loss of life, was only averted by the coolness of the half-dozen priests who were celebrating .Mass, and the present of mind with which tliev contrived lo imbue thu congregation. 'The desperate determination of the incendiaries was revealed by the finding of twelve lirebrands, soaked with petroleum, dis tributed at various points in the root', which was the first portion of the church to take fire. The building which it was planned to destroy was the St. Paul's Local House of Worship of the Dominican monks iu the Jloabit Quarter. The church was filled to the last pew lor, the eleven o'clock Mass owing to the fact that the celebrated monk Father lionaveiitura was to .preach the sermon. The niais was Hearing its end, when word was brought to Father lionaveiitura that the church was on lire. Calmly surveying the congregation, who at the moment were kneeling in silent prayer, Father Bonaventura tip-toed over to a fellow-priest, who was the main celebrant, and asked him to declare the service abruptly at an end.' The roof of the building was by thai lime already aflame, and the lire brigade were on tin ir way to the church. Father Bonaver.tura and the other priests then calmly descended from the altar, walked down the different aisles, a nd, iu ijiik't whispers, suggested to each pew full of people that, perhaps, tlie.v had better leave, as some little blaze had been discovered iu a remote section of the building. With splendid discipline the worshippers, numbering over 2,000. and including hundreds of women and children, fifed out of fhe church without the semblance of a | panic. j