The Sheboygan Press April 9, 1912 SHEPHERD OF THE SEA HUNGARIAN man of wealth has earned title. Has long devoted life, fortune, talents and strength in ministering to emigrants from his own land and other lands. COUNT VAY DE VAYA, Lord Abbot of St. Martin's in Hungary, has earned the title of "The Sheperd of the Seas", because he spends his life and wealth, his talents and his strength, in ministering to poor emigrants seeking fairer chances for life in distant lands. A man of lowlier birth, and one bred amid scenes of squalor and suffering might so spend his life without creating wonder that he should seek to help those who are his equals and intimates. COUNT DE VAYA is one of the richest, and one of the most influential men in Hungary. This wealth he is using to help the poor emigrants from his county and others, he has forsaken the ease and comforts that his riches would bring to sail with them on many troubled seas and teach them how to conduct themselves in the new life they are to face. "At home," he said, "the poor are forever watched ovry by the parish priest, who is their spiritual father. He tells them how they shall conduct their lives and listen and obey. Then also there are the neighbors with whom the peasant hopes to stand well and to be respected. This environment helps him to lead a Christian life, to be honest, industrious and strong to resist temptation. Then he hears of brighter opportunities in a new land, and he sells all of his little possessions and sails away. Everything that has helped him in the past, the teachings of the priest, the good word of old neighbors, the traditions of his home, are swept away from him and he finds himself on the sea with nothing to do and absolutely vacant mind, ready to be filled with anything anyone cares to pour into it. "This is a very trying period. All his life he has been a worker. He has toiled all day and night there were the family and friends to fill his mind. But here, upon the deep, his mind grows vagrant. It has nothing to anchor it. Like the mind of a little child, it is very receptive. If evil is poured into it, that evil may last as long as as he lives and be the controlling influence of his life. But if it is good, why, then he will be a good man as long as he lives. Now, the work that I am trying to do with all of the gifts that God has given me is to meet with these poor people and to fill them with the thoughts of our creator, with the duty we all owe to one another, and with the peace that comes from good and the torment that comes from evil." "I opened the first Hungarian Church in the slums of Chicago. This was n 1905. I have visited all of the different labor centers in the United States, and I have crossed the ocean 19 times. And always I am seeking to place in the hands of the helpless the sword of righteousness, with which to fight temptation. On one ship, the ULTONIA, from Fiume, I preached to 2,300 emigrants. I speak nine languages, and I preached to them, so all could understand, In Hungarian, in German and the Slav. A more devout people I have never saw. I am glad to say that I have seen something of the results of the seeds that I have sown. And if the work is continued, in a generation or two it will go far toward bettering conditions all over the world." cheryl BALOG wenberg