Death Of Father Dominic.
We group the incidents of this chapter around this sad event: some of
them were the last these two bosom friends did together, and the
others were occasioned by their separation.
Early in January, 1849, Father Ignatius went, at the invitation of Mr.
John Smith, of Button, to see a spot of ground upon which that worthy
man intended building a church and house for a community of
Passionists. Father Ignatius did not like the situation; but as soon
as he spoke to Father Dominic about it, they both came to St. Helen's
Junction to see if two heads might not be wiser than one. Father
Dominic landed on the platform a little before Father Ignatius, who
had been delayed somewhere on the way. He went immediately to look for
the great benefactor. A fine-looking, open, plain man saluted him, and
he thought this must be a Catholic, and likely he knows the person I
am looking for. "Do you know where lives a certain Mr. Smith?" asked
Father Dominic. "I should think I did," answered his new friend, and
after a few minutes' conversation the father was satisfied, for he was
no other than Mr. Smith himself. They both walked over a considerable
extent of ground, within which Mr. Smith told the good father to make
his choice of a site. He had selected that whereon St. Anne's Retreat
now stands, when Father Ignatius arrived. Father Ignatius hesitated a
little before giving his consent, and it was only when Father Dominic
said emphatically, "The house that is to be built here will yet be the
largest and best we shall have in England," that he fully agreed. That
prophecy is noted in a {375} journal Father Ignatius kept at the time,
and he wondered afterwards how the church and monastery that arose on
that dreary spot verified it to the letter. It is the best and largest
we have in England at the present moment, and Father Dominic never saw
a stone of its foundations laid.
Fathers Dominic, Ignatius, and Vincent, give a mission in Romney
Terrace, Westminster, in March. Shortly after they give another in
High Street, Dublin. At this mission they introduced the Italian
ceremonies, such as peacemakers (persons appointed to reconcile those
at variance), special sermons for different classes of people, bell
for the five _paters_, and public asking of pardon by the
missionaries. It fell to Father Ignatius to be spokesman in this
latter ceremony, and sore straitened was he to find out in what
particular the fathers had offended, that he might therefrom draw the
apology for their act. He searched and searched, and at last
remembered his own proneness to nod asleep when too long in the
confessional. This was the plea he made, and we must say it was a very
poor one: it gives, however, a good idea of his candour, and want of
unreality. These demonstrations were found to be unsuited to the
genius of the people, and have been suffered to fall into desuetude
ever since.
Father Ignatius goes next on a begging tour through Manchester,
Sheffield, and the north of England. He called at Carstairs House, on
his way to Glasgow and Edinburgh, to visit his friend Mr. Monteith.
Mr. Monteith was received into the Church by Dr. Wiseman, when Father
Ignatius lived in Oscott. Father Ignatius was his god-father. A
friendship then began between them which never cooled; they kept up a
correspondence from which many important hints have been borrowed for
this book, and it was from Mr. Monteith's place the soul of Father
Ignatius took its departure for a better world. Mr. Monteith extended
the friendship he had for Father Ignatius to his other religious
brethren, and time after time has he given them substantial proofs of
its depth and generosity.
Father Ignatius and he had been for some time in correspondence about
founding a house of Passionists {376} somewhere near Lanark or
Carstairs; but circumstances over which they had no control prevented
them coming to a conclusion. The Vincentians have well and worthily
taken the place, and the first house of our order founded in Scotland
was St. Mungo's, Glasgow, a few months after Father Ignatius's death.
It was he who opened Mr. Monteith's domestic chapel, and said the
first mass in it. And it was in the same chapel the first mass was
said for his own soul in presence of the body.
He says in the Journal:--
"Tuesday, Aug. 14.--Went to London with Father Dominic. We had a
fine talk with Dr. Wiseman. We dined at 12½ in King William Street
with Faber and the Oratorians.
"Wednesday, Aug. 15.--Sung mass at 10 and preached, Prepared in a
hurry for my journey. Went off at 3½ for the Continent."
He never saw Father Dominic in the flesh again.
On the 27th of August, 1849, Father Dominic and a brother priest were
travelling by railway to Aston. In the morning, before leaving London,
the companion asked Father Dominic to bring him with him; he had just
arrived from Australia, and wished to see some of his old companions
at Aston Hall. Father Dominic thought this was not reason enough for
incurring the expense of the journey; he demurred, but at length
assented. It was fortunate he did. When they came as far as Reading,
Father Dominic became suddenly ill. He was taken out on the platform,
and as the people were afraid of an epidemic, no one would admit the
patient into his house. There lay the worn-out missionary, who had
prayed and toiled so long for the conversion of England, on that bleak
desolate-looking platform, abandoned by all for whose salvation he
thirsted, with only a companion kneeling by his side to prepare him
for eternity. But the coldness and want of hospitality of the people
gave him no concern: other thoughts engrossed him. A few minutes he
suffered, and in those few he made his preparation. He made
arrangements for the government of our houses, he gave his last
instructions to his companion, he invoked a blessing upon England, and
then placidly {377} closed his eyes for ever upon this wicked world,
to open them in a brighter one. He died abandoned, and almost alone,
but he died in the poverty he had practised, and the solitude he
loved.
Father Ignatius was in Holland at the time. On his arrival at our
house in Tournay he heard a rumour of Father Dominic's death. He gave
no credit to it at first; a letter written to him about it went
astray; and it was not until about a fortnight after it happened that
he saw a paragraph in a newspaper, giving the full particulars. He
hastened home at once to England, and the first thing he heard from
Dr. Wiseman was that Father Dominic had nominated him his successor.
Father Ignatius, when his provisional appointment had been confirmed
in Rome, could only look forward to trials and difficulties such as he
had never to get through before. We had then three houses of the order
in England, and one in Belgium, which were united under one Superior,
acting as Provincial. The houses were not yet constituted into a
canonical province. The fewness of the members, and their ignorance of
the customs and ways of a strange country, increased the difficulties.
That year, indeed, four excellent priests, who have since worked hard
on the English mission, came from Rome; but they could as yet only say
mass, on account of their imperfect acquaintance with the English
language.
Then, the existence of each house was so precarious that the smallest
gust of opposition seemed sufficient to unpeople them. Aston Hall was
struggling to build a church, in which undertaking that mission was
destined to exhaust all the life it had; for it eked out but a dying
existence from the time the church was opened, until it was given up
in a few years. The retreat at Woodchester seemed to have lacked any
spirit of vitality from the absence of the cross in its foundation.
The generosity of a convert made everything smooth and convenient in
the beginning, but the difficulties that led at length to our leaving
it were already threatening to rise. The house in London was doomed to
be transplanted to the wilderness of The Hyde, even before {378} the
death of Father Dominic, and St. Anne's, Sutton, was not yet begun.
This was the material position of the Passionists when Father Ignatius
became Superior, or _quasi_ Provincial. To add to this, the fathers
were not first-rate men of business. They could pray well, preach and
hear confessions, but they gave people of the world credit for being
better than they were. Some of their worldly affairs became,
therefore, complicated, and Father Ignatius, unfortunately, was not
the man to rectify matters and put them straight. He was a sage in
spirituals, but the very reverse in temporals.
Many of the religious became disheartened at the prospect. Some lost
their vocations. Many fought manfully with contending difficulties,
weathered all the storms, and, tempered and taught by those days of
trouble, look with smiling placidity on what we should think serious
crosses in these days. Such is the beginning of every religious
institute; it grows and thrives by contradiction and persecution.
Human foresight prophesied our destruction then, and could not believe
that in sixteen years we should have seven houses in this province,
with an average of about twenty religious for each. The ways of God
are wonderful.
This kind of confession was necessary, in order that readers might
have an idea of Father Ignatius's position after the death of Father
Dominic.
He set to work at once, first carrying out Father Dominic's
intentions, and then trying some special work of his own. The new
church at Woodchester was consecrated by Dr. Hendren and Dr.
Ullathorne, and Dr. Wiseman preached at the opening. The new church of
St. Michael's, Aston Hall, was opened in the same year. On the 7th of
November the community of Poplar House, two priests and a lay brother,
move to The Hyde.
Father Ignatius, with Fathers Vincent and Gaudentius, give a mission
in Westminster, and they venture out in their habits through the
streets of London. This mission brought out some of Father Ignatius's
peculiarities. In the instruction upon the sanctification of holy
days, which it was his duty to give, he proposed that the Irish should
make {379} "a general strike, not for wages, but for mass on
festivals." He went to visit Father Faber, who was ill at the time;
they became engrossed in conversation, when Father Ignatius looked at
his watch and said he should get away to prepare his sermon or
instruction. Father Faber said this was a very human proceeding, and
was of opinion that missionaries should be able to preach like the
Apostles, without preparation. Father Ignatius turned the matter over
in his mind, reasoned it out with himself, and thenceforward never
delivered what might be called an elaborate discourse.
It may be remarked, before closing the chapter, that Father Dominic,
at Father Ignatius's suggestion, ordered, in the beginning of 1849,
three Hail Marys to be said by us after Complin for the conversion of
England. The practice is still continued, and has been extended to our
houses on the Continent and in America.
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