A CLERICAL SYMPOSIUM
There is no law, supernatural or natural, forbidding us (who, if we have
not many of the crosses, neither have we many of the pleasures of this
life) from meeting sometimes, and carrying out St. Paul's prescriptions
in the matter of hospitality. I believe, indeed, his words--and he was a
wise, kind saint--apply principally to bishops; but why should not we
imitate our superiors afar off, and practise the kindly virtue? It is
good to meet sometimes and exchange opinions; it softens the asperities
of daily life, makes the young think reverently of the old, and the old
charitably of the young. At least, these are my views, and acting upon
them there is always an open door and a _Cead Milé Failté_ for a
brother; and a few times in the year I try to gather around me my dear
friends, and thus to cement those bonds of friendship that make life a
little more pleasant, and, perhaps, may keep our memories green.
Sometimes, indeed, my dear old friends object to face a drive of eight
or ten miles on a cold night in winter; but the young fellows always
come. Nothing but extreme urgency would keep them away from an evening
with Daddy Dan. Now, we have no nonsense,--no soups, nor entrées, which
some of my more fashionable confrères are at present affecting, if you
please; but a plain turkey and ham, and a roast leg of mutton, and a few
little trimmings to fill up vacant spaces. There is an old tradition,
too, in Ireland, which I keep to pretty closely,--never to invite more
than the Muses, nor less than the Graces; but on this occasion--it was
during the Octave of the Epiphany--I departed from the custom, and,
owing to a few disappointments, the ominous number of thirteen sat down
to dinner. I must say, however, it had not a paralyzing effect on the
appetites of my guests, nor did they appear to have any apprehensions of
a sudden call to the places where turkeys and good mutton are not
appreciated. There were a few jokes about the intolerable longevity of
certain parish priests; and when my curate, who occupied the vice-chair
with infinite grace and dignity, remarked in his own grand style that
"really Da Vinci's 'Last Supper' was responsible for that unhallowed
superstition, and there really was nothing in it," some few wags
professed themselves greatly relieved, and showed it by new-born zeal in
the avocations of the evening. My duties as host engrossed all my
attention, until the table was cleared for action; and the call for
coffee from eight out of thirteen guests recalled me to my favorite
meditation on the mighty yet silent revolution that is progressing in
the Irish Church.
I have been now in touch with three generations of Irish priests, each
as distinct from the other, and marked by as distinctive
characteristics, as those which differentiate an Anglican parson from a
mediæval monk. My early education was colored by contact with the
polished, studious, timid priests, who, educated in Continental
seminaries, introduced into Ireland all the grace and dignity and
holiness, and all the dread of secular authority with the slight
tendency to compromise, that seemed to have marked the French clergy, at
least in the years immediately succeeding the revolutions and the
Napoleonic wars. These were the good men who fraternized with landlords,
and lent their congregations to a neighboring parson on the occasion of
some governmental visitation; who were slightly tinged with Gallican
ideas, and hated progress and the troubles that always accompany it.
They were holy, good, kindly men, but they could hardly be called
officers of the Church Militant. Then came Maynooth, which, founded on
governmental subsidies, poured from its gates the strongest, fiercest,
most fearless army of priests that ever fought for the spiritual and
temporal interests of the people,--men of large physique and iron
constitutions, who spent ten hours a day on horseback, despised French
claret, loved their people and chastised them like fathers, but were
prepared to defend them with their lives and the outpouring of their
blood against their hereditary enemies. Intense in their faith, of
stainless lives and spotless reputations, their words cut like razors,
and their hands smote like lightning; but they had the hearts of mothers
for the little ones of their flocks. They had the classics at their
fingers' ends, could roll out lines from Virgil or Horace at an
after-dinner speech, and had a profound contempt for English literature.
In theology they were rigorists, too much disposed to defer absolution
and to give long penances. They had a cordial dislike for new devotions,
believing that Christmas and Easter Communion was quite enough for
ordinary sancity. Later on they became more generous, but they clung
with tenacity to the Brown Scapular and the First Sunday of the month. I
am quite sure they have turned somersaults in their graves since the
introduction of the myriad devotions that are now distracting and
edifying the faithful. But they could make, and, alas! too often perhaps
for Christian modesty, they did make, the proud boast that they kept
alive the people's faith, imbued them with a sense of the loftiest
morality, and instilled a sense of intense horror for such violations of
Church precepts as a _communicatio cum hereticis in divinis_, or the
touching of flesh meat on a day of abstinence. I believe I belong to
that school, though my sympathies are wide enough for all. And as in
theology, I am quite prepared to embrace Thomists, and Scotists, and
Molinists, Nominalists and Realists in fraternal charity, so, too, am I
prepared to recognize and appreciate the traits and characteristics of
the different generations of clerics in the Irish Church. Sometimes,
perhaps, through the vanity that clings to us all to the end, I play the
part of "laudator temporis acti," and then the young fellows shout:--
"Ah, but, Father Dan, they were giants in those days."
And the tags and shreds of poor human nature wave in the wind of
flattery; and I feel grateful for the modest appreciation of a
generation that has no sympathy with our own.
Then, down there, below the water-line of gray heads is the coming
generation of Irish priests, who, like the [Greek: lampadêphoroi] of old
in the Athenian games, will take the torch of faith from our hands and
carry it to the Acropolis of Heaven,--clean-cut, small of stature,
keen-faced, bicycle-riding, coffee-drinking, encyclopædic young fellows,
who will give a good account of themselves, I think, in the battles of
the near future. It is highly amusing to a disinterested spectator, like
myself, to watch the tolerant contempt with which the older generation
regards the younger. They have as much contempt for coffee as for
ceremonies, and I think their mistakes in the latter would form a
handsome volume of _errata_, or add another appendix to our valuable
compendiums. To ask one of these old men to pass a cup of coffee is
equivalent to asking a Hebrew of the strict observance to carve a ham,
or a Hindoo to eat from the same dish with a Christian. And many other
objects that the passing generation held in high esteem are "gods of the
Gentiles" to the younger. They laugh profanely at that aureole of
distinction that used hang around the heads of successful students,
declaring that a man's education only commences when he leaves college,
and that his academical training was but the sword exercise of the
gymnasium; and they speak dreadful things about evolution and modern
interpretation, and the new methods of hermeneutics, and polychrome
Bibles; and they laugh at the idea of the world's creation in six days;
and altogether, they disturb and disquiet the dreams of the staid and
stately veterans of the Famine years, and make them forecast a dismal
future for Ireland when German metaphysics and coffee will first impair,
and then destroy, the sacred traditions of Irish faith. And yet, these
young priests inherit the best elements of the grand inheritance that
has come down to them. Their passionate devotion to their faith is only
rivalled by their passionate devotion to the Motherland. Every one of
them belongs to that great world-wide organization of Priests Adorers,
which, cradled in the dying years of our century, will grow to a
gigantic stature in the next; for at last it has dawned upon the world
that around this sacred doctrine and devotion, as around an oriflamme,
the great battles of the twentieth century will rage. And they have as
tender and passionate a love for the solitary isle in the wintry western
seas as ever brought a film to the eyes of exile, or lighted the battle
fires in the hearts of her heroes and kings. And with all my ancient
prejudices in favor of my own caste, I see clearly that the equipments
of the new generation are best suited to modern needs. The bugle-call of
the future will sound the retreat for the ancient cavalry and the Old
Guard, and sing out, Forward the Light Brigade!
This evening, as usual, the conversation was discursive. It ranged over
the whole area of human knowledge and experience, from the price of a
horse to Lehmkuhl's Latinity, and from the last political speech to the
everlasting question, ever discussed and never decided, What is meant by
the month's residence as a condition for the acquisition of a domicile?
That horrible drug was irritating the nerves of the younger men, until I
heard, as in a dream, a Babel of voices:--"The two Ballerini,"--"They'll
never arrest him,"--"He'll certainly fire on the people,"--"Daniel never
wrote that book, I tell you,"--"'T is only a ringbone,"--"Fifty times
worse than a sprain,"--"He got it in the Gregorian University,"--"Paddy
Murray, George Crolly,"--"I admire Balfour for his profound knowledge
of metaphysics,"--"Did you see the article in the _Record_ about the
Spanish dispensation?"--"He's got a first-class mission in
Ballarat,"--"No, the lessons were from the Scripture occurring,"--"I
don't think we're bound to these Masses,"--"'Twas a fine sermon, but too
flowery for my tastes,"--"Yes, we expect a good Shrove this year,"--"His
_Data of Ethics_ won't stand examination,"--"Our fellows will lick yours
well next time,"--"Picking the grapes and lemons at Tivoli,"--"Poor old
Kirby, what an age he is,"--"'Twilight and evening bell, and after that
the dark, And may there be no sadness of farewell, when I embark,'
that's the way it runs,"--"He cut in his physic year, and is running a
paper in Boston,"--"It is up now to thirty-five shillings a ton, and
will go higher," etc., etc. The older men, under the more kindly
influence, were calm as sophomores. Amidst the whirlpool of words, they
clung to two sheet-anchors,--O'Connell in politics, and St. Alphonsus in
theology.
At last, the conversation simmered down into an academic debate, whether
the centripetal system, which concentrates all Irish students in
Maynooth, or the centrifugal, which sends them scampering over the
Continent to the ancient universities, was the better. This was a calm,
judicious tournament, except now and again, when I had to touch the
gong, and say:--
"Gentlemen, only three at a time, if you please."
It was a curious thing to notice that those who had studied in Maynooth
were very much in favor of a Continental education; and those who had
been in foreign universities were rather inclined to give the verdict
for Maynooth.
"You see," said one, "it is an education in itself to go abroad. It
means expansion, and expansion is education. Then you have the immense
advantage of being able to learn and master the foreign languages and
literature, and nowadays a man that can't speak French at least is a
very helpless creature."
"You take it for granted," replied another, "that residence abroad
insures a knowledge of French. I spent six years in the seminary at
N----, and except _cela va sans dire, tant pis_, and a few other
colloquialisms, which you will find on the last page of an English
dictionary, I might as well have been in Timbuctoo."
"Well," said my curate,--and though he is not very popular, somehow or
other his words appear to carry great weight,--"I must confess that the
regret of my life is that I had not an opportunity of studying in Rome,
just as the hope of my life is that I shall see Rome before I die. I
consider that the greatest Irish college in the world, in numbers and in
the influence that arises from intellectual superiority, should be
somewhere within the shadows of the Seven Hills."
"Why not transfer the Dunboyne, with all its endowments and emoluments,
to Rome?" asked a young, eager fellow, who says he can read the Office,
going ten miles an hour on the bicycle.
"'T wouldn't ever do," said a Roman student; "you must be brought up in
Rome to understand its spirit. Transplanted shoots never thrive there."
"Psha!" said an old Maynooth man, who had been listening impatiently to
these suggestions; "we forgot more theology in Maynooth than you ever
learned."
"I don't want to disparage your knowledge of theology, Father," said my
curate, sweetly, "but you know there are other elements in priestly
education besides the mere propositions, and the _solvuntur objecta_ of
theology. And it is in Rome these subtle and almost intangible
accomplishments are acquired."
Now, this was getting a little warm; so I winked at a young fellow down
along the table, and he took the hint promptly, and cried out: "Look
here, Father Dan, this is tiresome. Tell us how you managed the Irish
Brigade in France in the fifties. Weren't they going to throw
Marseilles into the sea?"
"Now, now," said I, "that won't do. I'm not going to be trotting out
that old chestnut at every dinner party. Let us have a song!"
And we had, and a good many of them,--dear, old Irish melodies that
would melt an icicle and put blood into a marble statue. No nonsense at
my table, I assure you. No operatic rubbish, but genuine Irish music,
with the right lilt and the right sentiment. I did let a young fellow
once sing, "I Dreamt that I Dwelt in Marble Halls"; but I told him never
to repeat it. But it was worth while going miles to hear my curate
singing, in his own fine voice, that superb ballad of that true and
gentle patriot, Thomas Davis, "The Mess-tent is Full, and the Glasses
are Set."
Dear me! what a mercurial race we are; and how the mercury runs up and
down in the barometer of our human hearts! I could see the young
priests' faces whitening at the words:
"God prosper old Ireland! You'd think them afraid,
So pale grew the chiefs of the Irish Brigade!"
and softening out in lines of tenderness when the end came:
"For, on far foreign fields, from Dunkirk to Belgrade,
Lie the soldiers and chiefs of the Irish Brigade."
Then we had "The West's Awake," and "Dear Land," and then we all arose
and sang together, "God bless the Pope, the great, the good." I was
going to say "sang in unison," but I am afraid I should be trespassing
on the sacred precincts of truth; yet if that grand old man in Rome,
that electric spark in the vase of alabaster, sitting in that lonely
chamber, behind the long, empty, gas-lit state apartments, could hear
those voices there above the western seas, he would surely realize more
keenly what he understands already, that he can always call upon his
Irish reserves to ring, as with a fence of steel, the chair and the
prerogatives of Peter.
Then came the "Good nights." I pulled aside an old friend, a great
theologian, who has all kinds of musty, dusty, leather-bound,
water-stained volumes on his shelves.
"Did you ever hear," I whispered, "of a mysterious thing, called the
_Kampaner Thal?_"
"Never," he said, emphatically.
"You couldn't conjecture what it is?"
"No," he said, with deliberation; "but I can aver it is neither Greek,
Latin, nor Irish."
"Would you mind looking up your cyclopædias," I pleaded, "and letting me
know immediately that you find it?"
"Of course," he replied. Then, jerking his thumb over his shoulder: "I
suppose it is this chap?"
"It is," I said. "He reads a good deal--"
"Look here, Father Dan, I don't know what we're coming to. Did you ever
see such a sight as that table to-night?"
"Never," I replied, resignedly.
"Would any one believe, when we came on the mission, that we'd live to
see such things? Why, these fellows talk up to us as if we were their
equals. Don't you remember when a curate daren't open his mouth at
table?"
"Of course," I replied, demurely.
"And it is only now I am beginning to discover the vagaries of this chap
of mine. Do you know what he wants? A shrine, if you please,--some kind
of picture, with candles lighting before it all day. 'Can't you say your
Rosary,' I said, 'like your betters?' No, he should have the shrine. And
now he wants to force on Benediction every Sunday,--not every first
Sunday of the month, but every Sunday, if you please. And he has a big
red lamp, burning in what he calls his oratory. You can see it miles
away. I say to the boys, 'Don't be afraid to put to sea at night now,
boys. Begor, ye've got a lighthouse at last.' Well, good by! What's
this thing you want?"
And he jotted down the name, I presume phonetically, in his note-book.
Now, mind, that man has not had a scandal in his parish for fourteen
years; and he is up to his neck in securities for half the farmers of
the district.
All this time, shrinking into an obscure corner of the hall, was my Curé
d'Ars, as I call him. He now came forward to say good night, his thin
face wreathed in smiles, and his two hands stretched out in
thankfulness.
"Good night, Father Dan, and a thousand thanks. I never spent a
pleasanter evening. What fine young fellows! So clever, so jolly, and
so edifying! Won't it be a satisfaction for us when we are going to
leave behind us such splendid safeguards of the faith?"
His curate was waiting respectfully. He now got the little man into his
great-coat, and buttoned it from collar to boot, the latter murmuring
his thanks all the time:--
"Dear me! dear me! what a trouble I am! Many thanks! Many thanks! There,
now I am all right!"
Then his muffler was wrapped carefully around his neck by this big
grenadier, and his gloves were drawn over his hands.
"Dear me! dear me! how good! how kind! I'm a regular mummy! a real
Egyptian mummy, Father Dan! Good night! good night! Dear me, what a
pleasant gathering!"
And the stalwart curate lifted him on his car, as if he were an infant.
* * * * *
A few days later we had a long chat over many things, I and my curate.
When he was going he said:--
"That was a real jolly evening, Father Dan! I never enjoyed anything so
much!"
"Yes," I said, "and you had a splendid audience for that noble song!"
"Yes, indeed; they were very kind."
"Oh, I don't mean _in foro interno_," I said, "but _in foro externo_.
There was a good crowd outside the window!"
"My God!" he cried, quite shocked. "What a scandal!"
"Not a bit of it," I said; "you've gone up a hundred per cent in the
estimation of the villagers. There was a real fight for the window-sill.
But your friend, Jem Deady, captured it."
He looked dreadfully annoyed.
"Jem says that he kept awake all night trying to remember the notes; and
if you'd give him the words of the song and whistle it--"
"What!" said Father Letheby, like a pistol-shot.
"And if you'd give him two or three audiences--I suppose he means
rehearsals on the piano--he is quite sure--"
! !! !!!
Dear me! how some people despise popularity!