MATHEW, TEEM:MAL commonly known as FATIIER ( 1790-1856). A total abstinence orator. Ile was born at Thomas town. a few miles east of Tipperary Castle, in Ireland, October 10, 1790. On the death of his faller, while Mathew was still very young. the kindness of the Llandali family enabled the boy to enter the Homan Catholic College of Kilkenny, whence he was transferred, as a candidate for the Roman Catholic priesthood, to the College of Maynooth in 1807. lIe left that college, however, the next year. lie relinquished the secular priesthood for that of the religions Order of the Capuchins, in whieh he took priest's orders in 1814, and was sent to the church of his Order in the city of Cork. His singularly charitable and benevolent disposition won for him the universal love and respect alike of rich and poor. Ile established a religious brotherhood similar to that of Saint Vincent de Paul, and he founded schools for children of both sexes. But the great work of Father Malliew's life is the marvelous reformation which he effected in the habits of his fellow-eouetrymen, and which has won for him the title of 'Apostle of Temperance.' in 1838 he established an association on the prineiple nf total absthienee, at first confined to the city of Cork, but afterwards extending to the county and ad. jacent districts of Limeriek and Kerry. The
success which attended this first local effort led to the suggestion that Father Mathew himself should repair to the several great centres of population. especially in the smith. Thence he gradually extended the field of his labors to Dublin. to the north. and even to Liverpool. Manchester, London. Glasgow. and the other chief seats of the Irish population, even in the New World. His association included a large proportion of the adult population of 'Ireland, without distinction of rank, creed, or sex; and so complete was the revolution in the habits of the Irish people that very many distilleries and breweries (rased from working. Mathew's untni liccnt charities. the expenses eonnected with Ids total-abst Menet. association. and perhaps his own improvident and unworldly habits. involved him in pecuniary embarrassments and embittered his last years. A pension of f300. granted by the Crown. was supplemented by private subserip tion. :Ind relieved him of his liabilities. In 1848 1w bad an attack of paralysis from which he never fully reeovered. From 1849 to 1851 he was in A11)1'1'11'0 and founded numerous total :dist i• nonce societies. Ile died at Queensto%%':n. Ireland, December 1856. Consult his life, by F. I. Mathew (London. 18901.