THE CROSSING

A Meeting of Minds on the Manx Sea

A Novelette

On dreary morning in the shadow of the great civil war in the US, a congressman from the state of Vermont and Catholic priest boarded a ferry embarking from Liverpool heading westerly to Dublin. The two men had little in common but each was poised to fundamentally shape the landscape of university education for the next century. In the eleven hour crossing of Irish Sea, the two struck up a conversation that forged their resolve.

Their impact was real, their actions were noble, and while their meeting may be stuff of allegory, the tale was never really about them, was it?.