as he wished it to be known that he died as he lived, an unreconstructed Confederate.
Cardinal Gibbons holds Father O'Keefe's memory in the highest esteem and says that he always did the work of two priests. At one time Father O'Keefe, besides performing his pastoral duties, acted as superintendent of parochial schools of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, and as editor of the Catholic Mirror.
Death found Father O'Keefe engrossed with great plans for the future, including the building of a magnificent Catholic high school at Towson, which would rival any institution of the kind in the country. Father O'Keefe modeled his parochial school after the public schools, using, whenever possible, the same textbooks. The only difference was that Christian doctrine is taught in the former school.
MAN OF COURAGE.
Father O'Keefe was a man of rare personal courage and a number of times in his notable career he was brought face to face with possible death amid the carnage of battle, the ravages of yellow fever, and the enmity of the Know Nothings, who had marked him for death.
One night during the time the Know Nothing party was at the height of its popularity in Virginia, two men came to the residence of Father O'Keefe and informed him that they were sent to row him across the river to Portsmouth to visit a dying man. Father O'Keefe went with them, and when the other side of the river was reached the two men told him that the sick man lived in a house some distance away. Father O'Keefe said that he then realized that he was to be assassinated, and made up his mind to fight for his life. He covered the two men, holding a revolver in each hand, and compelled them to walk ahead of him until the principal streets of Portsmouth were reached, where he caused them to be arrested. It was afterwards discovered that the two men had been selected to kill Father O'Keefe, but the timely action of the brave priest had taken the nerve of the two would-be assassins.
At the outbreak of the Civil War Father O'Keefe applied to
