For over 50 years. from the day of his youthful springtime when he adorned this pulpit for the first time and reminded his people: "Except the Lord build the house. they labor in vain who build it" to his last breath. these walls echoed with his oratory. In those days of the 1840s. Brooklyns Blue Book mentioned a Catholic leader. one Cornelius Heeney. an Irish immigrant boy. the partner of John Jacob Astor. They were the days of John Hughes. intrepid archbishop of New York. whose vision led him to Hughes Folly. the purchase of the present site of St. Patricks Cathedral. then in the village of Elgin. far out of the city. Meanwhile Henry Ward Beecher was thundering his message from Plymouth Church to a congregation that poured up Fulton Street and over from the ferry. " Then came the bridge. to overshadow the white trail left by the diminutive ferry. and to become a wonder of the world. greeting the new immigrants. pouring. this time. not so much from Ireland and the north as from eastern Europe and the mountains of western Asia. To the land of the free they swarmed as had the Pilgrim Fathers. on new Mayflowers they came in search of liberty. To these heights. as to every other State. they looked for earthly habitations. secure from tyranny and without the price of blood.
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