Produced by Don Kostuch
[Transcriber's Notes: This production was derived from
https://archive.org/details/lifeofrevfrancis00hewi/page/n9]
{1}
Sermons Of The
Rev. Francis A. Baker,
Priest Of The Congregation Of St. Paul.
With A Memoir Of His Life
BY
Rev. A. F. Hewit.
Fourth Edition.
New York:
Lawrence Kehoe, 145 Nassau Street.
1867.
{2}
Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1865
By A. F. Hewit,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New York.
{3}
PREFACE.
------
In offering the Memoir and Sermons of this volume to the friends
of F. Baker, and to the public, propriety requires of me a few
words of explanation. The number of those who have been more or
less interested in the events touched upon in the sketch of his
life and labors is very great, and composed of many different
classes of persons in various places, and of more than one
religious communion. I cannot suppose that all of them will read
these pages, but it is likely that many will; and therefore a
word is due to those who are more particularly interested, as
well as to the general class of readers. I have to ask the
indulgence of all my readers for having interwoven so much of my
own history and my own reflections on the topics and events of
the period included within the limits of the narrative. They have
woven themselves in spontaneously, without any intention on my
part, and on account of the close connexion between myself and
the one whose career I have been describing; and I have been
unable to unravel them from the texture of the narrative without
breaking its threads.
{4}
I have simply transferred to paper that picture of the past, long
forgotten amid the occupations of an active life, which came up
again, unbidden and with great vividness, before the eye of
memory, during the hours while the remains of my brother and
dearest friend lay robed in violet, waiting for the last solemn
rites of the requiem to be fulfilled. If I have succeeded, I
cannot but think that the picture will have something of the same
interest for others that it has for myself. Those who knew and
loved the original, will, I hope, prize it for his sake; and
their own recollections will diffuse the coloring and animation
of life over that which in itself is but a pale and indistinct
sketch. For their sakes chiefly I have prepared it, so far as the
mere personal motive of perpetuating the memory of a revered and
beloved individual is concerned. But I have had a higher motive
as my chief reason for undertaking the task: a desire to promote
the glory of God, by preserving and extending the memory of the
graces and virtues with which He adorned one of His most faithful
children. I have wished to place before the world the example of
one of the most signal conversions to the Catholic faith which
has taken place in our country, as a lesson to all to imitate the
pure and disinterested devotion to truth and conscience which it
presents to them.
Let me not be misunderstood. I do not present the example of his
conversion, or that of the great number of persons of similar
character who have embraced the Catholic religion, as a proof
sufficient by itself of the truth of that religion.
{5}
I propose it as a specimen of many instances in which the power
of the Catholic religion to draw intelligent minds and upright
hearts to itself, and to inspire them with a pure and noble
spirit of self-sacrifice in the cause of God and humanity, is
exhibited. This is surely a sufficient motive for examining
carefully the reasons and evidences on which their submission to
the Church was grounded; and an incentive to seek for the truth,
with an equally sincere intention to embrace it, at whatever cost
or struggle it may demand.
It may appear to the casual reader that I have drawn in this
narrative an ideal portrait which exaggerates the reality. I do
not think I have done so; and I believe the most competent judges
will attest my strict fidelity to the truth of nature. If I have
represented my subject as a most perfect and beautiful character,
the model of a man, a Christian, and a priest of God, I have not
exceeded the sober judgment of the most impartial witnesses. A
Protestant Episcopal clergyman, of remarkable honesty and
generosity of nature, said of him to a Catholic friend: "You have
one perfect man among your converts." Another, a Catholic
clergyman, whose coolness of judgment and reticence of praise are
remarkable traits in his character, said, on hearing of his
decease: "The best priest in New York is dead." I have no doubt
that more than one would have been willing to give their own
lives in place of his, if he could have been saved by the
sacrifice.
In narrating events connected with F. Baker's varied career, I
have simply related those things of which I have had either
personal knowledge, or the evidence furnished by his own
correspondence with a very dear friend, aided by the information
which that friend has furnished me.
{6}
I have to thank this very kind and valued friend, the Rev. Dwight
E. Lyman, for the aid he has given me in this way, which has
increased so much the completeness and interest of the Memoir. I
am also indebted to another, still dearer to the departed, for
information concerning his early history and family.
I trust that those readers who are not members of the Catholic
communion, especially such as have been the friends of the
subject and the author of this memoir, will find nothing here to
jar unnecessarily upon their sentiments and feelings. Fidelity to
the deceased has required me not to conceal his conviction of the
exclusive truth and authority of the doctrine and communion of
the holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church. The same fidelity
would prevent me, if my own principles did not do so, from mixing
up with religious questions any thing savoring of personal
arrogance, or directed to the vindication of private feelings,
and retaliation upon individuals with whom religious conflicts
have brought us into collision. I wish those who still retain
their friendship for the dead, and whose minds will recur with
interest to scenes of this narrative, in which they were
concerned with him, to be assured of that lasting sentiment of
regard which he carried with him to the grave, and which survives
in the heart of the writer of these lines.
{7}
In the history of F. Baker's missionary career, I have endeavored
to select from the materials on hand such portions of the details
of particular missions as would make the nature of the work in
which he was engaged intelligible to all classes of readers,
without making the narrative too tedious and monotonous. I have
wished to present all the diverse aspects and all the salient
points of his missionary life, and to give as varied and
miscellaneous a collection of specimens from its records as
possible. From the necessity of the case, only a small number of
missions could be particularly noticed. Those which have been
passed by have not been slighted, however, as less worthy of
notice than the others, but omitted from the necessity of
selecting those most convenient for illustration of the theme in
hand. The statistics given, in regard to numbers, etc., in the
history of our missions, have all been taken from records
carefully made at the time, and based on an exact enumeration of
the communions given. I trust this volume will renew and keep
alive in the minds of those who took part in these holy scenes,
and who hung on the lips of the eloquent preacher of God's word
whose life and doctrine are contained in it, the memory of the
holy lessons of teaching and example by which he sought to lead
them to heaven.
Of the sermons contained in this volume, seventeen have been
reprinted from the four volumes of "Sermons by the Paulists,
1861-64;" and twelve published from MSS. Four of these are
mission sermons, selected from the complete series, as the most
suitable specimens of this species of discourse. The others are
parochial sermons, preached in the parish church of St. Paul the
Apostle, New York.
{8}
There still remain a considerable number of sermons, more or less
complete; but the confused and illegible state in which F. Baker
left his MSS. has made the task of reading and copying them very
laborious, and prevented any larger number from being prepared
for publication at the present time. I leave these Sermons, with
the Memoir of their author, to find their own way to those minds
and hearts which are prepared to receive them, and to do the good
for which they are destined by the providence of God. May we all
have the grace to imitate that high standard of Christian virtue
which they set before us, as true disciples of Jesus Christ our
Lord!
A. F. H.
St. Paul's Church, Fifty-ninth Street,
Advent, 1865.
{9}
CONTENTS
PAGE
Memoir. 13
SERMON:
I. The Necessity of Salvation (Mission Sermon) 209
II. Mortal Sin (Mission Sermon) 226
III. The Particular Judgement (Mission Sermon) 239
IV. Heaven (Mission Sermon) 252
V. The Duty of Growing in Christian Knowledge
(First Sunday in Advent) 263
VI. The Mission of St. John the Baptist
(Second Sunday in Advent) 271
VII. God's Desire to be Loved (Christmas Day) 282
VIII. The Failure and Success of the Gospel
(Sexagesima) 292
IX. The Work of Life (Septuagesima) 303
X. The Church's Admonition to the Individual Soul
(Ash-Wednesday) 312
XI. The Negligent Christian (Third Sunday in Lent) 320
XII. The Cross, the Measure of Sin (Passion Sunday) 329
XIII. Divine Calls and Warnings (Lent) 340
XIV. The Tomb of Christ, the School of Comfort
(Easter Sunday) 352
XV. St. Mary Magdalene at the Sepulchre
(Easter Sunday) 360
XVI. The Preacher, the Organ of the Holy Ghost
(Fourth Sunday after Easter) 370
XVII. The Two Wills in Man
(Fourth Sunday after Easter) 380
XVIII. The Intercession of the Blessed Virgin the
Highest Power of Prayer
(Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension) 391
XIX. Mysteries in Religion (Trinity Sunday) 399
XX. The Worth of the Soul
(Third Sunday after Pentecost) 408
XXI. The Catholic's Certitude concerning the Way
of Salvation (Fifth Sunday after Pentecost) 418
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XXII. The Presence of God
(Fifth Sunday after Pentecost) 429
XXIII. Keeping the Law not Impossible
(Ninth Sunday after Pentecost) 437
XXIV. The Spirit of Sacrifice
(Feast of St. Laurence) 447
XXV. Mary's Destiny a Type of Ours (Assumption) 456
XXVI. Care for the Dead
(Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost) 465
XXVII. Success the Reward of Merit
(Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost) 475
XXVIII. The Mass the Highest Worship
(Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost) 484
XXIX. The Lessons of Autumn
(Last Sunday after Pentecost) 493
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MEMOIR.
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Memoir.
Francis A. Baker was born in Baltimore, March 30, 1820. The name
given him in baptism was Francis Asbury, after the Methodist
bishop of that name; but when he became a Catholic he changed it
to Francis Aloysius, in honor of St. Francis de Sales and St.
Aloysius, to both of whom he had a special devotion, and both of
whom he resembled in many striking points of character.
He was of mixed German and English descent, and combined the
characteristics of both races in his temperament of mind and
body. He had also some of the Irish and older American blood in
his veins. His paternal grandfather, William Baker, emigrated
from Germany at an early age to Baltimore, where he married a
young lady of Irish origin, and became a wealthy merchant. His
maternal grandfather, the Rev. John Dickens, was an Englishman, a
Methodist preacher, who resided chiefly in Philadelphia. His
grandmother was a native of Georgia. During the great
yellow-fever epidemic in Philadelphia, Mr. Dickens remained at
his post, and his wife fell a victim to the disease, with her
eldest daughter. His father was Dr. Samuel Baker, of Baltimore,
and his mother, Miss Sarah Dickens. Dr. Baker was an eminent
physician and medical lecturer, holding the honorable positions
of Professor of Materia Medica in the University of Maryland, and
President of the Baltimore Medico-Chirurgical Society.
{14}
There was a striking similarity in the character of Dr. Baker and
his son Francis. The writer of an obituary notice of the father,
in the _Baltimore Athenæum_, tells us that his early
preceptors admired "the balance of the faculties of his mind,"
and that "his classmates were attached to him for his integrity
and affectionate manners." In another passage, the same writer
would seem to be describing Francis Baker, to those who knew him
alone, and have never seen the original of the sketch. "The style
of conversation with which Dr. Baker interested his friends, his
patients, or the stranger, was marked with an unaffected
simplicity. Even when he was most fluent and communicative, no
one could suspect him of an ambition to shine. He spoke to give
utterance to pleasing and useful thoughts on science, religion,
and general topics, _as if his chief enjoyment was to diffuse
the charms of his own tranquillity_. In social intercourse,
his dignity was the natural attitude of his virtue. On the part
of the trifling it required but little discernment to perceive
the tacit warning that vulgar familiarity would find nothing
congenial in him. He never engrossed conversation, and seemed
always desirous of obtaining information by eliciting it from
others. Whether he listened or spoke, his countenance, receiving
impressions readily from his mind, was an expressive index of the
tone of his various emotions and thoughts. The conduct of Dr.
Baker as a physician, a Christian, and a citizen, was a mirror,
reflecting the beautiful image of goodness in so distinct a form
as to leave none to hesitate about the sincerity and purity of
his feelings. It therefore constantly reminded many of 'the
wisdom that is from above, which is first pure, then peaceable,
gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits,
without partiality, and without hypocrisy.' The friendly sympathy
and anxiety which he evinced in the presence of human suffering
attached all classes of his patients to him, and he was very
happy in his benevolent tact at winning the affection of
children, even in their sickness."
{15}
Dr. Baker was a member of the Methodist Church, and an intimate
friend of the celebrated and eloquent preacher Summerfield. He
was not one, however, of the enthusiastic sort, but sober, quiet,
and reserved. He never went through any period of religious
excitement himself, or endeavored to practise on the
susceptibilities of his children. He said of himself, as one of
his intimate friends testifies, "that he did not know the period
when he became religious, so gradually was his life regulated by
the spiritual truths which enlightened his mind from childhood."
He had no hostile feelings toward the Catholic Church, and was a
great admirer and warm friend of the Sisters of Charity, many of
whom I have heard frequently speak of him in terms of the most
affectionate respect. His benevolence toward the poor was
unbounded, and he was in fact endeared to all classes of the
community, without exception, in Baltimore. Francis Baker had a
very great respect for his father, and was very fond of talking
of him to me, during the first period of our acquaintance, when
his early recollections were fresh and recent in his mind. Of his
mother he had but a faint remembrance, having been deprived of
her at the age of seven years. It is easy to judge of her
character, however, from that of her children, and of her sister,
who was a mother to her orphans from the time of her death until
her own life was ended among them. Mrs. Baker's brother, the Hon.
Asbury Dickens, is well known as having been for nearly half a
century the Secretary of the Senate of the United States, which
position he held until his death, which occurred at an advanced
age a few years since.
Dr. Baker had four sons and two daughters. Only one of them, Dr.
William George Baker, ever married, and he died without children:
so that Dr. Samuel Baker left not a single grandchild after him
to perpetuate his name or family--and of his children, one
daughter only survives.
{16}
Three of his sons were physicians of great promise, which they
did not live to fulfil. Francis was his third son, and the one
who most resembled him in character. Of his boyhood I know
little, except that his companions at school who grew up to
manhood, and preserved their acquaintance with him, were
extremely attached to him. One of them passed an evening and
night in our house, as the guest of F. Baker, but a few months
before his death, with great pleasure to both. I have also heard
some of the good Sisters of Charity speak of having known the
little Frank Baker as a boy, and mention the fact that he was
very fond of visiting them. I am sure that his childhood was an
extremely happy one until the period of his father's death. This
event took place in October, 1835, when Francis was in his
sixteenth year, and in the fiftieth year of Dr. Baker's life. It
was very sudden and unexpected, and threw a shadow of grief and
sadness over the future of his children, which was deepened by
the subsequent untimely decease of the two eldest sons, Samuel
and William.
Francis was entered at Princeton College soon after his father's
death, and graduated there with the class of 1839. I am not aware
that his college life had any remarkable incidents. He was not
ambitious of distinguishing himself, or inclined to apply himself
to very severe study. I believe, however, that his standing was
respectable, and his conduct regular and exemplary. He was not
decidedly religious in his early youth. Methodism had no
attraction for him, and the Calvinistic preaching at Princeton
was repugnant to his reason and feelings. Whatever religious
impressions he had in childhood were chiefly those produced by
the Catholic Church, whose services he was fond of attending; but
these were not deep or lasting. The early death of his father,
and the consequent responsibility and care thrown upon him as the
male head of the family, first caused him to reflect deeply, and
to seek for some decided religious rule of his own life and
conduct, and finally led him to join the Protestant Episcopal
communion, and to resolve to prepare himself for the ministry.
{17}
All the members of his family joined the same communion, and were
baptized with him, in St. Paul's Church, by the rector of the
parish, Dr. Wyatt. This event took place in 1841, or '42. Soon
afterward, Mr. Baker formed an acquaintance with a young man, a
candidate for orders and an inmate of the family of Dr.
Whittingham, the Bishop of Maryland, which was destined to ripen
into a most endearing and life-long friendship, and to have a
most important influence on his subsequent history. This
gentleman was Dwight Edwards Lyman, a son of the Rev. Dr. Lyman a
respectable Presbyterian minister, of the same age with Francis
Baker, and an ardent disciple of the school of John Henry Newman.
At the time of his baptism, Mr. Baker was only acquainted with
church principles as they were taught by Dr. Wyatt, who was an
old-fashioned High Churchman. The intercourse which he had with
Mr. Lyman was the principal occasion of introducing him to an
acquaintance with the Oxford movement, into which he very soon
entered with his whole mind and heart. In 1842, Mr. Lyman was
sent to St. James's College, near Hagerstown, where he remained
several years, receiving orders in the interval. During this
time, Mr. Baker kept up a frequent and most confidential
correspondence with him, which is full of liveliness and humor in
its earlier stages, but becomes more grave and serious as both
advanced nearer to the time of their ordination. It continued
during the entire period of their ministry in the Episcopal
Church, and during the whole subsequent life of Mr. Baker,
closing with a very playful letter written by the latter, a few
days before his last illness. In one of these letters, he
acknowledges his obligations to Mr. Lyman as the principal
instrument of making him acquainted with Catholic principles, in
these warm and affectionate words: "I do not know whether you are
aware of the advantage I derived from you in the earlier part of
our acquaintance, by reason of your greater familiarity with the
Catholic system as exhibited in the _Anglican_ Church.
{18}
The influence you exerted was of a kind of which I can hardly
suppose you to have been conscious; yet I am sure you will be
gratified to think it was effectual, as I believe, to fix me more
firmly in the system for which I had long entertained so profound
a reverence and affection. These are benefits which I cannot
forget, and which (if there were not other reasons of which I
need not speak) must always keep a place for you in the heart of
your unworthy friend."
The nature of the later correspondence between these two friends,
and their mutual influence on each other, will appear later in
this narrative. There are friendships which are formed in heaven,
and in looking back upon that which grew up between these two
young men of congenial spirit, and in which I was also a sharer
in a subordinate degree, I cannot but admire the benignant ways
of Divine Providence, by which those strands which afterward
bound our existence together so closely were first interwoven. I
had myself met Mr. Lyman, some years before this, and felt the
charm of his glowing and enthusiastic advocacy of principles
which were just beginning to germinate in my own mind. Soon after
Lyman's removal to Hagerstown, I made the acquaintance of Mr.
Baker, a circumstance which the latter mentions in his next
letter to his friend in these words, which I trust I may be
pardoned for quoting--
"The Bishop's family have a young man staying with them (Mr. H.),
a convert to the Church, and one, I believe, of great promise. He
was a Congregationalist minister, and Rev. Mr. B. read me a
letter from him, dated about a month ago, before his coming into
the Church, the tone of which was far more Catholic than that of
many (alas!) of those who have been partakers of the holy
treasures to be found only in her bosom. Mr. B. tells me that
Church principles are silently spreading in the North, among the
sects. In this place, I believe that a spirit has been raised
which one would hardly imagine on looking at the surface of
things, though that is troubled enough."
{19}
This letter was dated April 22, 1843.
I had just arrived in Baltimore, at the invitation of Dr.
Whittingham, the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Maryland, and
been received as a candidate for orders in his diocese. Mr.
Baker, who was also a candidate for orders, lived just opposite
the Bishops's residence, in Courtlandt street, and was pursuing
his theological studies in private. I lived in the Bishop's
house, and I think I met Mr. Baker there on the first evening of
my arrival. We were nearly of the same age, and soon found that
our tastes and opinions were very congenial to each other. Of
course, I returned his visit very soon, and I became at once very
intimate with his family. It was a charming place and a
delightful circle. Francis, as the eldest brother, was the head
of the house. His aunt, Miss Dickens, fulfilled the office of a
mother to her orphaned nephews and nieces with winning grace and
gentleness. A younger brother, Alfred, then about eighteen years
of age, was at home, pursuing his medical studies. Two sisters
completed the number of the family, all bound together in the
most devoted and tender love, all alike in that charm of
character which is combined from it fervent and genial spirit of
religion, amiability of temper, and a high-toned culture of mind
and manners, chastened and subdued by trial and sorrow. I must
not pass by entirely without mention another inmate of the
family, whose good-humored, joyous countenance was always the
first to greet me at the door--little Caroline, the last of the
family servants, who was manumitted as soon as she arrived at a
proper age, always devotedly attached to her young master, and
afterward one of the most eager and delighted spectators at his
ordination as a Catholic priest.
{20}
The house was one of those places where every article of
furniture and the entire spirit that pervades its arrangement
speaks eloquently of the past family history, and recalls the
memory of its departed members and departed scenes of domestic
happiness. Dr. Baker had left his children a competent but
moderate fortune, which was managed with the utmost prudence by
Francis, who possessed at twenty-one all the wisdom of a man of
fifty. There was nothing of the splendor and luxury of wealth to
be seen in the household, but a modest simplicity and propriety,
a home-like comfort, and that perfection of order and
arrangement, regulated by a pure and exquisite taste, which is
far more attractive. Mr. Baker's home was always the mirror of
his mind. In later years, when he lived in his own rectory,
although his family circle had lost two of its precious links,
the same charm pervaded every nook and corner of the home of the
survivors, the young and idolized pastor and his two sisters. His
study at St. Luke's rectory was the beau ideal of a clergyman's
sanctuary of study and prayer, after the Church of England model;
with something added, which betokened a more recluse and
sacerdotal spirit, and a more Catholic type of devotion. One
might have read in it Mr. Baker's character at a glance, and
might have divined that the inhabitant of that room was a perfect
gentleman, a man of the most pure intellectual tastes, a pastor
completely absorbed in the duties of his state, a recluse in his
life, and very Catholic in the tendencies and aspirations of his
soul.
Of Mr. Baker's family, only one sister has survived him. Alfred
Baker died first. Like his brother, he was a model of manly
beauty, although he did not in the least resemble him in form or
feature. Francis Baker, as all who ever saw him know, was
remarkably handsome. Those who only knew him after he reached
mature age, and remember him only as a priest, will associate
with his appearance chiefly that impress of sacerdotal dignity
and mildness, of placid, intellectual composure, of purity,
nobility, and benignity of character, which was engraven or
rather sculptured in his face and attitude.
{21}
Dressed in the proper costume, he might have been taken as a
living study for a Father of the Church, a holy hermit of the
desert, or a mediæval bishop. He was cast in an antique and
classic mould. There was not a trace of the man of modern times
or of the man of the world about him. His countenance and manner
in late years also bore traces of the fatiguing, laborious life
which he led, and the hard, rough work to which he was devoted.
On account of these things, and because he was so completely a
priest and a religious, one could scarcely think of admiring him
as a man. His portrait was never painted, and the photographs of
him which were taken were none of them very successful, and most
of them mere caricatures. An ambrotype in profile was taken at
Chicago for Mr. Healy the artist, which is admirable, and from
this the only good photographs have been taken; but the adequate
image of Father Baker, as he appeared at the altar, or when his
face was lit up in preaching the Divine word, will live only in
the memory of those who knew him. At the period of which I speak,
he had just attained the maturity of youthful and manly beauty,
which was heightened in its effect by his perfect dignity and
grace of manner. His brother Alfred was cast in a slighter mould,
and had an almost feminine loveliness of aspect, figure, and
character. He was as modest and pure as a young maiden, with far
more vivacity of feature and manner than his brother, and a more
vivid and playful temperament. There was nothing, however,
effeminate in his character or countenance. He was full of
talent, high-spirited, generous and chivalrous in his temper,
conscientious and blameless in his religious and moral conduct.
He graduated at the Catholic College of St. Mary's in Baltimore,
and was a great favorite of the late Archbishop Eccleston and
several others of the Catholic clergy. His High Church principles
had a strong dash of Catholicity in them, and he used often to
speak of the "ignominious name, Protestant," which is prefixed to
the designation of the Episcopal Church in this country.
{22}
He was a devoted admirer of Mr. Newman, and followed him, like so
many others, to the verge of the Catholic Church, but drew back,
startled and perplexed, when he passed over. Two or three years
after the time I am describing, he began the practice of his
profession, with brilliant prospects. The family removed to a
larger and more central residence, for his sake, near St. Paul's
Church, where Francis was Assistant Minister. All things seemed
to smile and promise fair, but this beautiful bud had a worm in
it. A slow and lingering but fatal attack of phthisis seized him,
just as he was beginning to succeed in his professional career.
His brother accompanied him to Bermuda, but the voyage was rather
an additional suffering than a benefit, and on the 9th of April,
1852, he died. It was Good Friday. He had prayed frequently that
he might die on that day, and before his departure, he called his
brother to him, made a general confession, desired him to
pronounce over him the form of absolution prescribed in the
English Prayer-Book, and received the communion of the Episcopal
Church. These acts were sacramentally valueless, but I trust,
without presuming to decide positively on a secret matter which
God alone can judge, that his intention was right before God, and
his error a mistake of judgment without perversity of will. His
brother afterward felt deeply solicitous lest he might have been
himself blamable for keeping him in the Episcopal communion, and
grieved that he had died out of the visible communion of the
Catholic Church. Still, as he was conscious of his own integrity
of purpose, he tranquillized his mind with the hope that his
brother had died in spiritual communion with the true Church and
in the charity of God, and endeavored to aid him, as far as he
was still within the reach of human assistance, by having many
masses offered for the repose of his soul.
Miss Dickens died a little before Alfred, and Elizabeth Baker
died some time after her brother became a Catholic, but before
his ordination.
{23}
I return now to the period when Mr. Baker and all these members
of his family were living a retired and happy life together in
the home on Courtlandt street. I remember this time with peculiar
pleasure. Mr. Baker, whom I always called Frank, as he was
usually called by his friends, partly from the peculiar affection
they felt for him, and also because of its appropriateness as an
epithet of his character, went every day with me once or twice to
prayers; and every day we walked together. When the peculiar,
tinkling bell of old St. Paul's, which will be remembered by many
a reader of these pages, gave notice of divine service there, we
resorted in company to that venerable and unique church. It was
spacious and ecclesiastical, though not regularly beautiful in
its architecture. A basso-relievo adorned its architrave, and a
bright gilded cross graced its tall tower. It had a handsome
altar of white marble, an object of our special pride and
devotion, with the usual reading-desk and pulpit rising behind
it. The pulpit was a light and graceful structure, surmounted by
a canopy which terminated in a cross, and having another cross
surrounded by a glory emblazoned on its ceiling, just over the
preacher's head. The door was in the rear of the pulpit, which
stood far out from the chancel wall, and in the door was a
beautiful transparency of the Ecce Homo, lighted from the chancel
window, which had an Ailanthus behind it, causing a pleasing
illusion in the mind of the beholder that the dirty brick
pavement of the court-yard was a pretty rural garden. The chancel
was large and imposing. An episcopal chair, surmounted by a
mitre, formed one of its conspicuous ornaments, and two seven
branched gilded gas-burners stood on the chancel rail, which were
lighted at Evening Prayer, or _Vespers_, as we were wont to
call it. In this church, the people all knelt with their backs to
the altar, and facing the great door, whereat a number of us,
being scandalized, determined to face about on all occasions and
kneel toward the altar, which we did rigidly and in the most
impressive manner, to the great annoyance of the rector, Dr.
Wyatt.
{24}
The _tout ensemble_ of St. Paul's Church, especially in the
dusk of evening, when the lamps were lit, was to a hasty glance
quite that of a Catholic church. Catholics very frequently came
in by mistake, and sometimes poor people knelt in the aisles and
began saying their prayers. Others inquired of the sexton at the
door if it was a Catholic church, and some persons occupying
seats near the door, who frequently heard his negative response
and his direction to the Cathedral, were led in consequence to
think, that if St. Paul's were not a Catholic church, they too
had best follow the sexton's direction and go to the Cathedral.
Besides the prayers on saints' days, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at
St. Paul's, there was a week-day communion service once a month.
Dr. Wyatt and his congregation were Church people after the type
of Bishop Hobart, disposed to sympathize in a great measure with
Dr. Pusey and the Oxford divines, but in great dread of
extravagant innovation. The parish was very large, and included
among its members a considerable portion of the _élite_ of
Baltimore society. Strange as it may seem, however, outside a
certain circle of sturdy High Church families, and especially
among the more worldly class, there was a prevailing sentiment
that true spiritual religion flourished more in the Methodist
than in the Episcopal Church.
Although the mitred chair stood in the chancel, St. Paul's was
not the bishop's cathedral, and he was not able to take in it
that position and perform those acts which he felt were the
proper prerogative of a bishop in the principal church of the
diocese. The bishops of the Episcopal Church in this country are
all in the same anomalous position, without cathedrals or
strictly episcopal churches, in which, according to canon law,
the see is properly located, having dependent parochial churches
affiliated to the mother Church.
{25}
They must either be rectors of parochial churches, by election of
the vestry, or simple parishioners of one of their own
subordinate presbyters, without the right of performing any
official act, or even sitting in the chancel, except on occasions
of convention, episcopal visitation, or something of the sort.
The Bishop of New York was even for many years an assistant
minister of Trinity Church. Bishop Whittingham was determined to
remedy this evil, as far as possible, by establishing a parish,
where his proper place would be conceded to him voluntarily by
the rector and vestry. Accordingly the Mount Calvary congregation
was formed, and began to worship in an old grain-warehouse. There
we had early Morning Prayers, and Evening Prayers on every day
when St. Paul's was closed; and thither might be seen wending
their way, rain or shine, the Bishop with a suite of young
ecclesiastics, gentlemen and ladies of the most respectable and
cultivated class, and numbers of the more devout people, who
found a real solace for their souls, amid the trials and labors
of life, in daily common prayer to God. A little after, a more
select room was obtained, decorated with a large black cross in
the end window, and finally a church was built. We always met a
great many of the Cathedral people, in the morning, going to and
from Mass, and they were quite astonished at our piety. I have
since learned that a number of them, observing the two young men
who seemed to them so different from Protestants in their ways,
began praying for us, and that a holy priest, F. Chakert, of St.
Alphonsus', who died a martyr to his zeal in New Orleans,
frequently said mass for our conversion.
In our frequent walks, Frank Baker and myself usually, by a tacit
consent, took the direction of some Catholic church. Baltimore
surpasses every other large town in the United States, except
perhaps St. Louis, in the relative number, and in the dignified,
imposing style of its Catholic churches and religious
institutions.
{26}
It is a very picturesque and beautiful city in itself, and one of
its most striking features is the exterior show of Catholicity
which it presents, from the conspicuous position of the numerous
Catholic edifices which are distributed through the principal
parts of the town; often crowning the summits of some of the high
eminences with which it abounds, so that they are distinctly
visible in all directions, and their bells resound loudly for a
great distance. Some of the Protestant churches also, haying our
ecclesiastical style of architecture, and being even surmounted
by the cross, fall into the picture as accessories, and add to
the impression which a stranger taking a _coup-d'oeil_ of
the city would receive. The Cathedral, a truly grand building,
though built in the Moresco style, and suggesting the idea of a
great mosque in an oriental city, which had been converted by
some conquering crusader into a Christian temple, with its great
dome and two towers, each of which is surmounted by a gilded
cross, queens it majestically over the whole city. It has the
finest possible situation, on very high ground, with a spacious
enclosure around it, and a modest, but very appropriate
archiepiscopal residence in the rear of the sanctuary, fronting
on Charles street, the principal street of the court end of the
town, a little below the chaste and graceful monument of white
marble erected to the memory of Washington. Near by, the
Redemptorist Church and Convent of St. Alphonsus, the Convent of
the Christian Brothers, the large and beautiful Convent and
garden of the Visitation Nuns, the Sisters' Orphan Asylum, and
the little chapel and religious house of the colored Sisters of
Providence, are clustered together within a very moderate area of
territory. Taking the Cathedral as a point of departure, you have
at the distance of about half a mile, in the most densely peopled
part of the town, St. Mary's Church, and the Seminary of St.
Sulpice, with its extensive gardens of many acres in extent. More
toward the suburbs, there are the Lazarist Church of the
Immaculate Conception, and the large Sisters' Hospital of Mount
Hope, with its extensive grounds.
{27}
In an opposite direction, not far from the Cathedral, is Loyola
College, to which adjoins the Jesuit Church of St. Ignatius;
beyond these, St. John's, and still further, near the borders of
the town, the quaint and interesting St. James's Church of the
Redemptorists, with a German Convent of religious ladies. In
another direction, St. Vincent de Paul's is seen, with its high
massive tower, and in the same quarter of the town, the
Carmelites have a convent and chapel, the Redemptorists another
large church and convent, called St. Michael's, and there is also
the large and handsome parish church of St. Patrick, with its
high altar of green marble. Following the outer circle of the
city toward the harbor and fort, and returning to a point in line
with St. Alphonsus', we have the Church of the Holy Cross, St.
Joseph's, and St. Peter's, the latter of which has a congregation
composed in great measure of converts. The deep and heavy bell of
the Cathedral is repeatedly heard sending forth its booming notes
at different hours of the day, answered by St. Alphonsus' and St.
Vincent de Paul's, while the other bells take up the refrain in
the distance, and the smaller convent bells throw in from time to
time, at Angelus, Vespers, or Compline, their silvery, tinkling
notes. These Catholic sounds are heard at intervals from morning
till night, and the bells of some of the Protestant churches join
in also, on many days during the week, ringing for prayers. The
Catholic traditions of Baltimore and Maryland, interwoven with
their existence from the first; the memory of Charles Carroll of
Carrollton, of Archbishops Carroll and Eccleston, and of many
other distinguished Marylanders among the Catholic clergy, and,
lastly, the large Catholic population, and the wealth, education,
and social position of a large class of the members of the
Church, who have always mingled freely in society and
intermarried with Protestants, specially those of the Episcopal
Church--all these and other causes combine to make the Catholic
religion conspicuous and powerful in Baltimore, and to keep it
always confronting the adherents of other religions, whichever
way they turn.
{28}
It cannot be ignored or kept out of sight and mind. It must be
battled with or submitted to. Hence, Protestantism in Baltimore,
among the ultra-Protestant sects, has borne a character of
unusually intense and persistent hatred to the Catholic Church;
and a suppressed spirit of violence has pervaded the lower
orders, showing itself ordinarily by slight insults offered to
clergymen and religious, but occasionally bursting out in scenes
of riot and bloodshed, in which not merely the rabble took part,
but where gentlemen were also engaged, and men in high stations
lent their influence and protection to shield and encourage the
lawless violators of the peace.
A number of the Catholic churches here described have been built
since the year 1842. The general appearance of the city, however,
and the relative number of Catholic institutions, was the same.
It was a very interesting place to me from its novelty, and very
well known to my new friend and companion, Frank Baker. We
perambulated the town and reconnoitred all its environs,
penetrating into every nook and corner where there was the
smallest chance of finding something to be seen. The Catholic
churches underwent a repeated and thorough visitation and
scrutiny, by turns. An indefinable attraction drew us to those
sacred places, and made us linger and loiter in them without ever
growing weary. I know now what it was. It was the power of that
Sacred Presence which once drew the disciples and the multitudes
after it, when visibly seen, and which now attracts the soul by
its invisible charm in the Blessed Sacrament. We never went to
mass or to any Catholic service, because we were forbidden to do
so by the bishop. We never sought out any Catholic priests, or
encountered any, except twice by accident. We read no Catholic
books of controversy or devotion, never knelt to pray before the
altar, and did not know or suspect where we were going.
{29}
But the influence of grace was acting most powerfully during
those moments in which we were hanging about the altar, and
unconsciously drinking in its sacred influence. Our favorite
place was the chapel of St. Mary's College, and the Calvary
behind it, where the clergy of the Sulpitian Society are buried.
This is the sweetest Catholic shrine I have ever visited. The
Calvary was not open to visitors, but for some reason we were
never interfered with, although we went very often, and remained
by the hour. Perhaps our guardian angels knew the future, and led
us there unwittingly to ourselves. Our Lord foresaw it, if they
did not, and was thinking of the day when one of the two would be
there in company with all the clergy of the diocese in a
spiritual retreat, and the day when the other, in that same
chapel, would be consecrated to the service of the sanctuary.
[Footnote 1]
[Footnote 1: Father Baker was ordained sub-deacon and deacon
in that chapel, a few days before his ordination to the
priesthood in the Cathedral.]
Many of those who participated in that retreat will recall the
recollection of it, on reading these pages.
Archbishop Kenrick, the sage of our American hierarchy and one of
its saints, that perfect model of a prelate according to the
ancient type of the purest Catholic times, the pattern of
ecclesiastical learning, Episcopal dignity and vigilance,
apostolic zeal, sacerdotal gentleness, and Christian humility,
reminding one of the character ascribed by historians to Pope
Benedict XIV., sat at the head of his venerable clergy in the
sanctuary during all the exercises. Of the clergymen present,
some had been forty years in the priesthood, and one at least was
ordained by Archbishop Carroll. Some are now bishops, or have
modestly declined the offered mitre. I was then a priest, and was
assisting F. Walworth in giving the retreat, and Mr. Baker was
but just received into the Church. He came to visit me at the
spot where we had passed so many pleasant hours in years gone by,
and to pay his respects to the excellent Sulpitians by whom his
brother had been educated, and to the other clergymen whose
brother and associate he aspired to become in due time.
{30}
He was welcomed most tenderly by the warm-hearted Sulpitians, and
greeted with an ardent interest and respect by the clergy and
young ecclesiastics who were gathered in that sacred retreat of
science and piety. Several of these good clergymen have since
spoken of that retreat, which so many circumstances combined to
make unusually pleasant, as among the most cherished
recollections of their lives. Since I have been betrayed into
this long digression by the associations connected with St.
Mary's Chapel, I will venture to add one other little incident,
of which I have been several times reminded by the venerable
President of Mount St. Mary's College. One afternoon, just at
sunset, the preacher concluded his discourse by a description of
the death of a holy priest, contrasting the glory of his
successfully accomplished ministry with that of the hero in the
merely secular and temporal order. At the peroration, the parting
beams of the sun irradiated a tall marble monument over the grave
of a well-known Sulpitian priest, behind the chancel window, in
full view of the audience, but unseen by the preacher, and gave
an illustration of his words most affecting and impressive to
those who witnessed it. It was emblematic, also, of that noble
life which was to be accomplished and brought to such a beautiful
close, within twelve short years, by that dear companion and
friend who was just then on the eve of leaving all to follow
Christ, and whose generous heart was swelling with the first
emotions of his divine vocation, long since secretly inspired
into him while haunting the blessed resting-place of those holy
priests. But I have anticipated what was yet in the unknown and
undreamed-of future, when we two ardent and enthusiastic youths
were yielding our imaginations to the poetic and religious charm
which was the precursor of more earnest and durable convictions.
{31}
St. Mary's was our favorite resort, but we were also impressed in
a different way by the austere and monastic aspect of St.
James's, where the Redemptorist Fathers, then newly established,
had their convent; and I remember that we often conversed about
that order with great curiosity and interest. We watched intently
the building of St. Alphonsus' Church, and wandered through the
sanctuary and sacristy and garden, and into the shop where the
lay-brothers and other artificers were at work, occasionally, to
our great delight, greeted by these good brothers, who probably
took us for priests, as we were then ordained and dressed in long
cassocks, with their salutation in German, _Gelobt sey Jesus
Christus_.
Another object of great interest to us was a monument to the
memory of a former pastor, in St. Patrick's Church, bearing the
simple and touching inscription:
"To The Good De Moranville."
This unfeigned tribute of affection to the memory of a good and
holy priest did more in a few moments to efface from my mind the
effect of the calumnies I had heard from childhood against the
Catholic clergy, than a volume of controversy could have done.