SYENE
367
STENE
pioned Home Rule. He knew Ireland and loved her
deeply. He was consulted by W. E. Gladstone prior
to the introduction of his Home Rule Bills and his
knowledge of the commercial, industrial, and economic
conditions of the country was a source of wonder
to the prime minister, who ever afterwards clicrished
for him a profound resi)ect and affection. His great
diplomatic skill secured for him the confidence of the
Irish hierarchy, and he represented them in many of
their most delicate negotiations with the Holy See.
Though the Benjamin of the episcopate, he was selected
as one of the secretaries to the first National Synod
of Maynooth. The Brief of Dr. Moran's translation
to Sydney was issued 21 Mar('h, 1884. In the arch-
bishop's farewell audience with Leo XIII it was made
evident that the inlrigu(-s of parties, the interference
of government agencies, and the influence of high
ecclesiastics had made the matter almost impos-sible
of decision by Propaganda. In the jiresenee of others
the Holy Father said clearly, "We took the selection
into Our own hands. You are Our personal a])point-
ment". In his first outward journey he drew up that
spiritual programme which gave such a colouring to
his after life. "I must esteem nothing save the serv-
ice of the Redeemer, everything else is beside my
mission; Ich dien [I serve] in its highest meaning must
be my motto .... To do the will of my Divine
Master must be my life, my light, my love, my all."
In 1886 he travelled 2.500 miles over land and sea, and visited all the dioceses of New Zealand. In the following year he traversed 6000 miles to consecrate Dr. Gibney at Perth. In subsequent years he went to Ballarat, Bathurst, Bcndigo, Hobart, Goulburn, Lismore, Melbourne, and Rockhampton for the con.se- cration of their respective cathedrals. In 1908 he revisited and dedicated the cathedral of Auckland, and in the last year of his life he again covered 600() miles to consecrate Dr. Clune Bishop of Perth. He consecrated fourteen bishops, ordained nearly five hundred priests, dedicated more than five hundred churches, and professed five thousand nuns. The thirty-two charities which he founded in the city of Sydney remain as the crowning achievement of his life. As a statesman he forecasted the necessity of Australian federation, an Australian navy, and an Australian citizen soldiery. By sheer force of char- acter he pressed these questions on the public mind, and lived long enough to see a Federal Labour Minis- try remodelling the cla.ss legislation of past centuries and equitably evolving the rights of the working classes, the first unit of an Australian navy patrolling AustraUan waters, and the first 100,000 Austrahan youths called into disciplinary camps. Rt. Rev. Dr. Hoare, Bishop of Ardagh, was first named to a.ssist Cardinal Moran in the administration of the arch- diocese. He was unable to leave Ireland, and Rt. Rev. Dr. Higgins was appointed auxiliary bishop March, 1889. He was transferred to the See of Rock- hampton on 4 May, 1899, and now occupies the See of Ballarat. On 20 July, 1901, Dr. Kelly, rector of the Irish College, Rome, was appointed auxiliary, cum jure successions, and succeeded the cardinal at his death. A quarter of a million people witnes.sed the funeral procession through the heart of the city of Sydney. By permission of the State Government and of the mimicipal authorities he was interred with the pioneer prie-sts in his beloved St. Mary's Cathedral.
Among his works may be named: "Monasticon Hibernicon"; " Spicilegium 0.ssorien.se", " Memoir of Oliver Plunkett"; "Persecutions of Irish Catholics"; "Lives of the Archbishops of Dublin"; "Life of David Roth"; essays in "Dublin Review"; "Irish Saints in Great Britain"; "Birthplace of St. Patrick"; "St. Bartholomew's Massacre"; "Father Mat hew"; "Our Primates"; "Civilisation of Ireland"; "Church and Social Progress"; "Acta Sancti Brendani"; "History of the Catholic Church in Australasia"; "Reunion of
Christendom"; "Capital and Labour"; "Mission
Field in the Nineteenth Century"; "Patron Saints of
Ireland: Patrick, Brigid, and Columbkille"; "Lives of
Sts. Canice and Carthage"; "Mission of the Catholic
Church"; "Divine Credentials of the Church"; "Dis-
courses on Cardinals Newman and jNlanning"; "The
Anglican Reformation"; "Rights and Duties of
Labour"; "Bles.sed Thomas More"; "Catholics and
Irishmen"; "Catholic Democracy"; "The Thirteenth
Century"; "Infallible Authority of the Church";
"Perpetuity of the Church"; "The Apostolate of St.
Patrick"; "Austrahan Federation"; "Heritage of
Blessings in the Cathohc Church"; "Christopher Co-
lumbus"; "Fruits of Redemption"; "Discovery of
Austraha"; etc., "The Beginnings of the Catholic
Church in the United States", from unpubhshed
documents.
Denis F. O'Haran.
Syene, a titular see in Thebais Secunda, suiTragan of Ptolemais. Syene (Egyptian, Souanou, Coptic, Souan), was originally the market-place of the Island of Elephantine (in Egn)tian, Abou). Under the Pha- raohs, Abou was the capital of a princi]).ality, then the chief town of the nome. It is not known at what epoch its suburb across the Nile commenced to grow at its cost; for a long time the two cities were treated as one, Souanou being the port and city of work. Its quarries, with those of Rohannou, were the principal ones of Egypt; they supplied a certain kind of red granite called syenite, out of which were cut the obe- lisks, monolithic temples, the colo.ssus, etc. From the time of the ancient empire royal Egyptian envoys went there to look for the stone destinecl for the sar- cophagus of the king. These quarries were in full activity in the Roman epoch, and syenite was exported throughout the empire. .'Vnothcr celcbrnted place in Syene was a pit, which wa.s incorrcctl)- thought to have been placed exactly under the equator. For this reason it was chosen by Eratosthenes as the starting point of his measure of the surface of the earth (230 B. c). The Syene of the Romans to the south-west of the present city, suffered much from the incursions of the Blemmyes, and from the pest; its inhabitants abandoned it to live in the higher parts built by the Saracens. This new city which was at first- very pros- perous suffered also from the troubles which followed the extinction of the Fafimite dynasty. Taken and retaken by the Qenous or Barabra of Lower Nubia, and by the Haou.arah of Upper Egypt, it was nearly ruined and did not regain its importance until the Sultan Selim established a Turkish garrison there (1517). The Arabian name of the city is Assouan. "There the French fought the Mamelukes, on 16 May, 1799. This city of about 10,000 inhabitants, arid which may be reached by a railroad, as it is situated to the south of the first cataract of the Nile, is very interesting on account of its picturesque aspect and the strange character of its population composed of Arabs, Barbarins, negroes, Bisharis, and Ababdeh; curious bazaars and quays; remains of Roman quays, inscriptions on rocks, little temple of Isis, Arabian ruins and cemetery. The places of interest in the neighbourhood are the old quarries, the Island of Elephantine (to-day Geziret Assouan), an old necroi)- olis, the beautiful Coptic convent of St. Simeon, and the famous Island of Phila;. Syene is mentioned by the Prophet Ezechiel, who threatened Egypt with deva-station "from the tower of Syene, even to the borders of Ethiopia" (Ezech., xxix, 10). See St. Jerome and the modern commentators on this passage, where the Vulgate differs from the Hebrew and the Greek text. Le Quien (Oriens chri.st., II, 613) men- tions two bishops of Syene: St. Ammonius, martyr at Antinoe where he had a church, and Befam, a Jacobite (1086). The Synaxarion of the Coptic church tells us that the city had a bishop from
