Excerpt from A Guide to the History, Art and Architecture of the Church of St. Lawrence, Asheville, North Carolina Early in the morning as the sun shot'his first rays in great splendor over the distant eastern hills, diffusing all around a flood of golden light far more brilliant than St. Peter's illuminated, I erected an altar upon the summit of Mount Mitchell and said Mass. It was the thirtieth of August, the Feast of St. Rose of Lima, the first flower of the American Church. There could be no temple more sublime or more worthy of the Holy Sacri fice which I offered on that Altar. The majestic peaks that stood around like the ancients before the throne of the Lamb, seemed to bare their heads in adoration before their Maker, and I imagined that they rejoiced, after centuries of waiting, in being able to pay their first act of jubilant homage to the Hand that raised them, the witnesses of His power, wisdom, and goodness. All present partook of the Bread of Life, one a sincere convert, A. L. Cardell, and his children, youths in their teens; Mrs. Anne Keenan, and a daughter of Terence Keenan, afterwards an edifying Sister of Mercy, known in religion as Sister Genevieve. This was in 1866, and in 1868, Bishop James Gibbons, then the young Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina, and afterwards the saintly and famous Cardinal, made his way by stage coach and on horseback to Asheville, at that time a little mountain village almost unknown to fame. It was a journey full of hardships, but full too of hope, for the young Bishop had the gift of being able to see and to call out the best in every one Who came within the reach of his own radiant spirit of Faith and Love; and he recog nized then what he frequently said afterwards, that, while the people of North Carolina are generally ignorant of the true teachings of the Catholic Church and are therefore prejudiced against it, they sincerely believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ as their God and Saviour, and thus in approaching them, one has always this Faith as a starting point. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.