Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/683

 DALILA

605

DALLAS

paralysis, and he died after a year's lingering mental illness. Hutton describes him as "a man of singular sweetness and openness of character with something of a French type of playfulness of expression". His best known works are "The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Je.sus" (London, 1853); "The Holy Com- munion" (Dublin, 1861); "The German Mystics of the Fourteenth Century" (London, 1858).

GiLLOW, BiU. Did. Eng. Calh.. III. 3; The Tablet and The Wecklv RctiistcT (London. 15 April, 1S76\ files; Ward. William. George Ward and the Oxford Movement (London, 1889); Vie de V Abbe Jovain. SEBASTIAN BoWDEN.

T)a,Ula,(Heh. DeliMh). Samson, sometimeafterhisex- ploit at (iaza (Judges, xvi, 1-3), " loved a woman, who dwelt in the valley of ,Sorec, and she was called Dalila" (verse 4). The village of Sorec was known to Euse- bius and to St. Jerome (Onomast.), and rightly placed north of Eleutheropolis near Saraa, the home of Sam- son. It is now called Khan Svlreq. The valley of that name, mentioned in the text, was probably a little lat- eral valley of the great Wadi Serar, or the Wadi Serar itself (L.agrange, " Le livre des Juges", 247). The railway from Jaffa to Jerusalem passes through this region a little to the west of the station of Deir Aban. The district was on the borderland between the pos- sessions of the Israelites and those of their [jrincipal ene- mies and oppressors at this period, the Philistines. .Sorec may have been inhabited by the latter; and although it is not stated to which people Dalila belonged, the story told in this sixteenth chapter of Judges of her relations with the princes of the Philistines, makes it very unlikely that she was an Israelite. It is not prob- able either that she liecame the wife of Samson. The expression above quoted with which Scripture intro- duces the narrative of her relations with him, and the facility with which the Philistines were brought into her house, not to speak of her readiness to betray the Israel- ite hero, suggest rather that she was a harlot, an opin- ion that is now more common among commentators.

The Philistines, thinking that the strength which had made .Samson familiar to them must be due to some magical charm, seek to find out what it is. Their princes, probably the five mentioned in Judges, iii, 3, and elsewhere, coming to Dalila, to whose house Samson often resorted — if he did not live there — say: "Deceive him, and learn of him wherein his great strength lieth, and how we may be able to overcome him, to bind and afHict him: which if thou shalt do, we will give thee every one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver "(verse 5). This sum must have appeared enormous to Dalila. She undertakes to dis- cover the secret of Samson'sstrength and the means to overcome it. Four different times she asks him to tell her his .secret, having each time a number of Philistines on hand to seize him if .she can cajole him into betray- ing it. Samson at first indulges his hmnour in an- swers which allow him to laugh at her attempts to bind him; but finally her importunity prevails, and he tells her of his consecration as a Nazarite and of the neces- sity of keeping his long hair, the mark of that conse- cration. Dalila then causes this hair to be cut off while Samson sleeps, and hands him over to his ene- mies who bring him a prisoner to Gaza.

Lagrange, Le livre des Juges (Paris. 1903); VoN HuMMEL- AUER, Comm. in libros Judicum et Ruth (Pari.s. 1888); Palis, Daiaa'm\'iQ., Diel.de la Bible. \V. S. Reilly.

Dallas, Diocese op (Dallascen.iis). created 1890, comprises 108 counties in the northern and north- western portion of the State of Texas, U. S. A., and ■ El Paso County in the western section, an area of 1 IS,- 000 .square miles. The city of Dallas has a population of 95,000 and stands in the centre of a circle within whose radius of fifty miles is included nearly one-half of the population of Texas. It was settled chiefly by people from Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, with a sprinkling of foreigners and a considerable number of negroes. It is an important distributing centre, rich

in mineral resources .and products of the soil (chiefly cotton). As late as 1868 there w.is only one Catholic family resident there whose members, with several scattering settlers, were attended as a mission station from St. Paid's, PoUin County, by Father Joseph Mar- tinere, later a domestic prelate and vicar-general of the diocese. His visits often necessitated journeys over hundreds of miles through swamp and forest. In 1892 the Catholic population of the diocese had grown to 15,000 with 30 priests ministering to them.

The first bishop, Thomas Francis Brennan, was born October, 1853, in the County Tipperary, Ireland, and ordained priest at Brixen in the Tyrol, 4 July, 1880. He was consecrated at Erie, Pennsylvania, 5 April, 1891. Two years later (1 February, 1893) he was transferred to the titular See of Utilla and made coadjutor of the Bishop of St. John's, Newfoundland. He was removed December, 1904. and called to Rome,

Dallas, Texas

where he resides (1908), having been transferred, 7 Oc- tober, 1905, to the titular See of Caesarea in Mauretania.

As his successor the Rev. Edward Joseph Dunne, rector of the church of All Saints, Chicago, w.as chosen. He was born in the County Tipperary, Ireland, 23 April, 1848, emigrated to the United States with his parents when a child, and was ordained priest 29 June, 1871, in Baltimore. His consecration took place in Chicago, 30 November, 1893. He foresaw from the first the religious possi- bilities assured by the location and resources of Dallas, also by the enterprise of the people and by the climate. To his energy, administrative abilities, and zeal is ow- ing the new cathedral, admittedly the finest in the South-Western States. The Vincentian College, .St. Paul's Sanitariimi, the Ursuline Acailemy, novitiate and provincial house (1907), the cathedral parochial school, St. Patrick's church, the indu.strial school for coloured children are other monuments of religion erected within a short space of time. Fort Worth, Sherman, El Paso, Denison, Munster, Weatherford, Marshall, and sevcr.al other cities have substantial and even beautiful churches and religious institutions, educational and charitable.

Religious communities represented in the diocese are: Men. — Benedictine F.athers, five charges; Jes- uits, six; Oblatcs: an<l Vincentians. Women. — School Sisters of \otre Dame; .Sisters of Charity (Emmits- burg); Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word; Sis- ters of the Holy Cross ; Sisters of Loretto ; .Sisters of St. Mary; .Sisters of Divine Providence; White Bene- dictine Sisters of the Congregation of Mt. Olive; Sisters of St. Rose of Lima; Ursuline Nuns; .Sisters of Mercy.

Statistics of the diocese (1908) give 83 priests (.50 diocesan and 33 regulars); 52 churches with resident pastors, 51 with missions, 75 .stations, 12 chapels; 12 academies for girls, 24 jjarochial schools with 3180