distinctness, a more delineated and chiselled clearness, to our
convictions, and even to our opinions. At present they hang loose on
too many of us, and flap about in the high wind of the world’s
contempt and impudent indifference, blinding our sight and hindering
our steps. A firmer, steadier faith will gather tight across our bosom
all our outstanding notions and ideas, bringing them into subjection
to the faith which teaches us to see all things as God sees them—that
is, according to our degree, but in the same light that he sees them,
which is the light of eternity and of his own being. He has bidden us
open our mouth wide that he may fill it. Can, we, then hope too
largely or too earnestly? Can we assign any limits to the grace of
sanctification in its continuous progression, or to the advance of
love in the ever-enduring reign of the Holy Ghost? The God towards
whom we are being so sweetly drawn is infinite, and though each
individual must reach his own appointed measure and degree, yet who
can dare put a limit even in thought to the plenitude of that future?
But for our great and exceeding hope, how barren would our present
life appear! Like Rachel, the church cries incessantly to her Lord,
“Give me children, or I die.” Let us repeat the prayer, and re-echo in
every act of our lives the passionate desire for the spread of truth
and the increase of light; for it is hardly less difficult to guess at
the beautiful and glorious future which God reserves for his cherished
creations—the garment that he has woven for his only-begotten Son—than
it is to form an opinion of the possible glorious future of some souls
as compared with others. And is this all? Have we by any unguarded
expression left on our reader’s mind a notion that we are anticipating
the perfectibility of mankind upon earth, the absence of evil, and a
sort of pious utopia, as the sum and substance of our expectations—a
deifying of the system of nature, a glorification in some distant
future of all the natural laws, as ultimate and final, and which,
because of the beauty of creation, are to content us and be in some
form or other our higher destiny? Not so. The end is not in that,
neither is it here. Were Satan bound now, as one day he will be, we
still should as now carry about with us the concupiscence which has
tainted the nature of every human being, save only the Mother of God.
Alas! we need no devil to prompt us to sin, for we carry an enemy
within us. Even mortal sin can be committed without his assistance;
and we are but too apt to paint him blacker by thrusting upon him a
responsibility which is too often all our own. We believe in no
absolutely sinless existence this side the gates of death, except that
of the God-man and his immaculate Mother. But this we do believe, that
“wisdom is justified by her children,”[157] and we venture to
anticipate that all that is holy, beautiful, and fitting in nature
will shine with a renewed glory upon earth as the dawn grows to the
perfect day, before the temporal gives place to the eternal, and the
Son of Man shall have delivered up the kingdom to the Father. “And
when all things shall be subdued unto him, then the Son also himself
shall be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may
be all in all.”[158] We have borne the image of the earthly, we must
also bear the image of the heavenly—when God shall be all in all, when
we shall have ascended by the ladder of the sacred humanity to the
mystery of the Holy Trinity, when we shall look on the Triune God and
be satisfied. Before the immensity of that thought there falls a veil
of light more impenetrable than the thickest darkness. We cease to
think. Our whole being becomes as it were detached from our human
consciousness, and for one moment, one awful, never-to-be-forgotten
moment, we hang over the abyss which is the eternity and the infinity
of God. Towards that we yearn, for it is our last end. Even the
immaculate heart of Mary; even the unutterable endearments of the
sacred humanity; even that which in its mystery and its hiddenness is
the nearest approach to the undivided thought of God—the Blessed
Eucharist—become to us but parts of a whole which must be ours, if we
are to be content. The cosmos rolls away from our sight like a
scorched parchment before that living heat. The history of Bethlehem
and Calvary are manifestations limited in themselves, and indicative
of more. The Blessed Paraclete, whose personality we perhaps sometimes
find it hard to individualize (though we do not say with the Ephesian
disciples that “we have not so much as heard whether there be a Holy
Ghost”), becomes in our thoughts a more intense and absolute idea,
less vague than in the past, and how inscrutably attractive! We have
reached the thought of the Holy Ghost through Jesus. And now we seem
to sink into the bosom of the Father through the Holy Ghost; and, in a
way too deep for words, to be conscious of ourselves only through our
perception of the great God, and to have lost everything save the
immensity and the unity, the eternal being and the eternal love, of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—the three Persons we have
dimly known on earth; and the one God, whom we shall only fully know
in heaven, when we shall have entered on the eternal years.
THE END.
[153] By this is meant the first Mass celebrated by a
mere man.
[154] With ever-yearning love he calls us in the dear
Sacrament of the Altar and before the doors of his
tabernacle that we may touch not only his sacred feet
as Mary Magdalene pressed them to her lips, but his
whole self, his humanity and his divinity in one.
[155] In other words, there is a more imperfect being
than ours. Though whether its imperfection is to
exclude all idea of their having a future fuller
development, whereby and in which they will be
indemnified for their sinless share in guilty man’s
punishment, is still an open question.
[156] Time is the measure of successive existence in
created and finite beings. As a finite spirit cannot
escape from this limit of successive existence, any
more than a body can escape from the limit of locality
and finite movement in space, it is evident that this
statement is not correct in a literal and strictly
metaphysical sense. Eternal existence is the entire
possession of life which is illimitable in such a
perfect manner that all succession in duration is
excluded. It is possible only in God, who is alone
most pure and perfect act, and therefore is at once
all he can be, without change or movement. The created
spirit must ever live by a perpetual movement or
increase in its duration, because it is on every side
finite. It is impossible, therefore, that time should
cease while creatures continue to exist.—ED. C. W.
[157] Matt. xi. 19.
[158] 1 Cor. xv.
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
THE GLORIES OF THE SACRED HEART. By Henry Edward, Cardinal
Archbishop of Westminster. New York: The Catholic
Publication Society. 1876. [Republished by special
permission of his Eminence.]
There are many excellent works on the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus. The new one whose title is given above is not a mere repetition
in a new form of the substance of any of these preceding treatises. It
is different from all of them, and quite peculiar in its scope, as
well as in its style, as might be expected from its eminent author.
Its basis is strictly theological. With his usual and characteristic
accuracy of doctrine and lucidity of style, the cardinal makes an
exposition of the mystery of the Incarnation and its consequences,
especially in respect to the deification and adoration of the sacred
humanity of Jesus Christ. The special _cultus_ of the Sacred Heart is
explained in its relation to the deified humanity, to the Blessed
Sacrament, to the sanctification of men, and to the eternal glory of
the elect. This is a book to enlighten the mind of a sincere and
devout reader, and, through the illumination of the understanding, to
awaken a solid, rational, and ardent devotion.
* * * * *
We have received the following books, but in consequence of the
unusually crowded state of our columns must defer notice of them until
later.
TERRA INCOGNITA; OR, THE CONVENTS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. By
John Nicholas Murphy. Popular Edition. London: Burns &
Oates. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
SOUVENIRS OF NOTRE DAME: A Collection of Poems and Dramas.
By Mrs. Mary T. Monroe. New York: The Catholic Publication
Society.
JULIAN THE APOSTATE, AND THE DUKE OF MERCIA: Historical
Dramas. By the late Sir Aubrey de Vere. London: Pickering.
MARGARET ROPER; OR, THE CHANCELLOR AND HIS DAUGHTER. By
Agnes M. Stewart. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co.
REAL LIFE. By Mathilde Froment. Translated from the French
by Miss Newlin. Kelly, Piet & Co.
THE WISE NUN OF EASTONMERE, and other Tales. By Miss Taylor.
Kelly, Piet & Co.
SAINT ELIZABETH, THE LILY OF PORTUGAL; SAINT ELIZABETH, THE
MATRON OF ISRAEL; SAINT ELIZABETH, THE QUEEN OF HUNGARY. By
the author of “Life in the Cloister.” Kelly, Piet & Co.
MEDITATIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS FOR A RETREAT OF ONE DAY IN
EACH MONTH. Kelly, Piet & Co.
BERTHA: A Historical Romance. By Conrad von Bolanden.
Translated by S. B. A. Harper. New York: D. & J. Sadlier &
Co.
THE NEW MONTH OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS. From the
original French. B. S. P. Philadelphia: Peter F.
Cunningham’s Son.
SCIENCE AND RELIGION. A Lecture delivered at Leeds, England.
By Cardinal Wiseman. St. Louis: Patrick Fox.
LITTLE CATECHISM OF THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE SOVEREIGN
PONTIFF. New York: Benziger Bros.
SPIRITUALISM AND NERVOUS DERANGEMENT. By William A. Hammond,
M. D. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF IMMORTALITY. By Antoinette Brown
Blackwell. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
CLAREL: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land. By Herman
Melville. Two vols. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
THE GREEKS AND THE PERSIANS. By the Rev. G. W. Cox, M.A. New
York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.
THE FALL OF THE STUARTS AND WESTERN EUROPE. By the Rev. E.
Hale, M.A. Scribner, Armstrong & Co.
THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. By Mandell Creighton, M.A. Scribner,
Armstrong & Co.
THE LIFE, LETTERS, AND TABLE-TALK OF BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. Scribner, Armstrong & Co.
POEMS. By Christina G. Rossetti. Boston: Roberts Bros.
REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. By Edward Abbott. Roberts Bros.
ACHSAH: A New England Study. By Rev. Peter Pennot. Boston:
Lee & Shepard.
A QUESTION OF HONOR. By Christian Reid. New York: Appleton &
Co.
SPIRIT INVOCATIONS. Compiled by Allen Putnam, M.A. Boston:
Colby & Rich.
* * * * *
In the next number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD will be begun a new serial
entitled “Six Sunny Months,” by the author of _The House of Yorke,
Grapes and Thorns_, etc.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXIII., No. 137.—AUGUST, 1876.
Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1876.
THE NEXT PHASE OF CATHOLICITY IN THE UNITED STATES.
The history of the universal church, replete as it is with miraculous
conversions and great moral revolutions, presents no parallel to the
growth and spread of the Catholic faith in this republic; and if we be
allowed to forecast the future by the light of the past, we may
without presumption predict for Catholicity a career of usefulness and
glory, an influence far-reaching and all-pervading, on American soil,
hitherto unequalled, even in the most triumphant days of our holy and
venerable mother.
In the early ages of Christianity whole tribes and nations were won
over bodily to the Gospel, not alone by the superhuman efforts of a
comparatively small number of apostolic men, but incidentally by the
attractions of the purer and higher order of civilization which
everywhere followed their footsteps and resulted naturally from their
teachings. The primitive missionaries were reformers of manners and
governments, advocates of mercy and equity, promoters of peace,
industry, and education, as well as expounders of divine law. They
indeed realized the fabled power of Orpheus, and tamed the brute
passions of paganism by the harmony of their lives and the melody of
their doctrines.
Far different have been the circumstances which surrounded the first
permanent introduction of Catholicity into what is now the United
States. Though we can dwell with commendable pride on the devotion and
self-sacrifice which characterized the Spanish and French Dominicans,
Franciscans, and Jesuits in their arduous labors among the aborigines;
and recall with deep gratitude the beneficent and indefatigable
exertions of the zealous pioneers of our present hierarchy and
priesthood, we cannot help feeling that we have had no national
inheritance in the merits of those extraordinary men of the Old World,
those confessors and martyrs, whose names shine forth with such
resplendent lustre in the calendar of the saints of God.
We look in vain, also, for any great name, distinguished for political
power or intellectual supremacy, among the humble immigrants who first
raised the standard of the cross in the hostile atmosphere of colonial
Protestantism. As in the crumbling yet still luxurious Roman Empire,
the foundations of our infant church were laid on what, in a worldly
sense, may be called the lowest class in the social scale, the poor,
the simple, the neglected and despised. Wealth, fashion, and
self-interest were opposed to it. A people shrewd, intelligent, and in
their own way religious, were in possession of the country, and had
neither the will nor the disposition to yield one jot to the
professors of a faith which they had been taught to regard as debasing
and idolatrous. Only a hundred years ago the Catholics of the United
Colonies consisted of a few isolated groups, principally in Maryland
and Pennsylvania, without influence, authority, or legal recognition.
In the aggregate they counted about one in every thousand of the
population, and, save some descendants of the original Maryland
settlers, and a few private gentlemen who afterwards rose to eminence
in the Revolutionary War, they were alike devoid of wealth and social
standing.
Still, this very obscurity was their safeguard and defence. Though
soon declared free by the fundamental law of the new confederacy,
public opinion, or rather popular prejudice, was against them, and for
many years after the achievement of our independence their numbers
increased with more steadiness than rapidity. Recruits came from all
quarters. Attracted by the guarantees presented by the Constitution,
Catholics of various nationalities hastened to place themselves under
its protecting ægis. The hurricane of revolution which swept over
France and the greater part of Europe, and reached even the West
Indies, drove many pious priests and exemplary laymen to our shores.
On the north the French Canadian crossed the frontier, while as our
southern boundaries were enlarged so as to embrace the valley of the
Lower Mississippi, the inhabitants of that large region, who were
nearly all of one faith, helped materially to swell the Catholic
population of the Union. At that period Ireland had not begun to pour
in her myriads, but a small, steady stream of emigrants was setting in
from other ports as soon as it was ascertained that the new nation of
the west had discarded the penal code of England when it had thrown
off her authority.
In 1810 the Catholics within the limits of the United States were
estimated at upwards of one hundred and fifty thousand, and the clergy
numbered eighty, or double the number reported in 1800. Twenty years
afterwards the laity had increased to 450,000 and the clergy to 232.
The hierarchy, which only dated from 1789, at this time reckoned
thirteen bishops.
From 1830 may be dated the extraordinary growth in numbers, influence,
and activity of the Catholic Church in this country. The tide of
European immigration, which has flowed on with undiminished volume
till within a year or two, then fairly began. Between that year and
1840 over 300,000 arrivals were reported from Ireland, 58,000 from
France, Spain, and other Catholic countries, and 150,000 from Germany,
a strong minority of whom may also be credited to the church. All
these accessions, added to the native-born and already adopted
element, brought the Catholic strength in the latter year to over one
million, and swelled the ranks of the priesthood to 482, or one for
every 2,000 souls.
Satisfactory as were these results, the next decade was destined to
witness an advance much more magnificent as to numerical strength, and
infinitely more salutary when we reflect on the quarter from which
some of that strength was drawn.
The Oxford movement, as it was called, had already spread
consternation among the Anglicans. Many of the ablest and most erudite
scholars of Oxford University, wearied and dissatisfied with the
contradictions and pretensions of English Protestantism, had sought
peace and rest in the bosom of the church. Their writings and example
produced a profound sensation wherever the English language was
spoken, and nowhere a more decided one than in this country. Men who
had formerly exhibited nothing but contempt or indifference for
Catholicity, and some even who had displayed a marked hostility to the
faith, eagerly read the works of such thinkers as Newman, and, as a
consequence, guided by Providence, abandoned their favorite heretical
notions and became reconciled to the church. This spirit of
investigation and submission pervaded all classes, particularly the
more studious, conscientious, and influential. Judges, journalists,
artists, authors, physicians, ministers, and doctors of divinity
openly declared their adhesion to the Catholic faith, and arrayed
themselves beside the contemned and obscure Irish immigrant and his
children. Many of the ablest publicists of to-day, not a few of the
most energetic of the clergy, and at least one illustrious member of
the hierarchy are the fruits of this sympathetic movement which had
its origin in the cloisters of the once Catholic university.
Another cause which helped to swell the Catholic census about the same
time was the annexation of Texas, which eventually led to the
acquisition of New Mexico and California. The population of those
Territories could have scarcely numbered less than two hundred
thousand, nearly all of whom were Catholics. By a strange coincidence
the sons of the Puritans, who claimed the land and the fulness thereof
as theirs, were brought into the same fold and under the same
jurisdiction simultaneously with the native Mexican, whose ancestors
were Catholics before the keel of the _Mayflower_ was laid.
German immigration, also, had assumed large proportions. From 1840 to
1850 the arrivals were 440,000, of whom it may be safely said
one-fourth, or 110,000, were Catholics. This stalwart element sought
what was then considered the far West-Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the
Territories—where to-day we find them and their descendants among the
most devoted children of the church.
But all these influences combined did not equal in effect that
produced by the tremendous exodus of the Irish people—a spontaneous
movement of population unexampled in modern times. Though immigration
from Ireland had steadily increased from the beginning of the century,
it was only during the latter half of the decade of 1840-50 that it
assumed its phenomenal proportions. Notwithstanding its political
servitude, that remarkable island in 1845 presented the spectacle of a
population as happy, moral, and law-abiding as any in Christendom. Her
people had increased from year to year in a ratio unknown to less
virtuous and more pampered lands. The voice of her great leader could
at any time call together hundreds of thousands of her enthusiastic
sons to listen to the story of their wrongs or to descant on the near
approach of legislative independence, and dismiss them to their homes
with the promptitude of a general and the authority of a parent.
Father Mathew, of blessed memory, had exorcised the demon of
intemperance, and counted his followers by millions. Agrarian crime
and faction fights, those twin children of misgovernment, were almost
unknown, and the soil, as if in unison with the general spirit of
peace and harmony, never put forth such an abundance of agricultural
wealth. In one night, it may be said, a blight came over all those
fond hopes and bright anticipations. The food upon which three-fourths
of the people mainly subsisted was destroyed, and Famine, gaunt and
lean, suddenly usurped the place of generous abundance.
The destruction of the potato crop of Ireland in 1846-7-8 was
undoubtedly the act of an inscrutable Providence; the misery,
suffering, and wholesale sacrifice of human life which followed were
the work of man. At the worst times of the famine there was always
more than enough cattle and grain in the country to feed the entire
population. Under a wise or just government a sufficiency of these
would have been retained to supply the primary wants of the people; as
it was, they were exported and sold in foreign markets to satisfy that
most insensate and insatiable of all human beings, the Irish landlord.
Appalled by the suddenness and extent of the calamity, the peasantry
at first stood mute, and before assistance could reach them many
hundreds had actually lain down and died of starvation. Then, when
public and private charity was exhausted; when pestilence was
superadded to want, and all earthly succor seemed to have failed; when
nothing but death or the poorhouse threatened even the best of the
middle class, the people, with, it would appear, one accord, resolved
to give up home and kindred, rushed like a broken and routed army to
the nearest sea-ports, and abandoned a country apparently doomed to
destruction. Many crossed to England and Scotland, others fled even to
the Antipodes, but the great mass looked to the United States as their
haven of refuge. Thenceforth every day witnessed the arrival of
crowded immigrant ships in our harbors, while the streets of our large
cities were literally thronged with swarms of strange and emaciated
figures. From 1840 to 1850 over one million Irish immigrants arrived
in the United States, one-fourth of whom landed at New York during the
last three years of that period.
Never were a people less prepared to encounter the difficulties and
dangers which necessarily beset strangers coming into a strange land
and among a community so different from themselves in manners, habits,
and methods of living. Unlike the Germans and other Europeans, who had
had leisure and means to organize emigration, the Irish of that
memorable epoch acted without concert and without forethought. They
had fled precipitately from worse than death, and brought with them
little save the imperishable jewel of their faith. Fortunately, this
proved to be for them even better than worldly store; it was their
bond of unity and best solace in the hour of trial and disappointment
which awaits most of those who come among us with exaggerated ideas of
the wealth and resources of this country. Numbers of those helpless
strangers paused upon the threshold of their new home, and helped
materially to swell the already overcrowded population of the large
towns and cities; but very many, the majority perhaps, sought the
manufacturing villages of New England, the mineral regions of
Pennsylvania, and the Western prairies.
Then began in earnest the labors of the resident priesthood, which,
though reinforced by numbers of their brethren from abroad, were still
hardly equal to the herculean task of providing for the spiritual
wants of so vast a mass of people scattered in every direction. Some
means, however, had to be found to reach and minister to those
faithful though helpless outcasts; some roof under which the holy
sacrifice of the Mass might be occasionally offered up and the
essential sacraments of the church administered. The churches already
built scarcely sufficed for the Catholics settled in the country, yet
here was a new congregation arriving in every ship. In the large
centres of population the difficulty was not so great; for with the
increase of priests the number of Masses said in each church was
multiplied, while the sick and the penitent seldom went unattended or
unshriven. In the smaller towns and remote settlements the case was
far different. Private houses, “shanties,” barns, ball-rooms,
court-houses, lecture-halls, markets, and even sectarian
meeting-houses were brought into requisition. Yet, with all these
appliances, there were hundreds of small, isolated congregations who
seldom were enabled to hear Mass oftener than once a month, and in
many cases less often, one priest having to attend four or five such
missions in rotation.
But the clergy had other and scarcely less sacred duties to perform.
Such heterogeneous masses of humanity huddled together for weeks in
the foul holds of rotten emigrant vessels, where was germinated the
seeds of disease sown by famine and pestilence, could not but bring
infection to our shores. From Gros Isle in the St. Lawrence, and along
the Atlantic seaboard to New Orleans, the deadly ship-fever polluted
the atmosphere, and hundreds who, flying from starvation, had braved
the dangers of the ocean, found that they had endured those hardships
only to die within sight of the promised land. One prelate and several
heroic priests fell victims to the dire pestilence, but others were
found equally zealous, not only to soothe the last moments of the
dying with the consolations of religion, but to comfort and care for
the helpless survivors.
At the beginning of the second half of the century we find the
Catholic population of the country estimated at two and a quarter
millions, the clergy at eighteen hundred, or one to every thirteen
hundred of the laity, while the number of dioceses had increased to
thirty-three.
Had immigration entirely ceased at that time, and the growth of the
Catholic population been limited to its natural increase, the labors
of the priesthood in ministering to the spiritual wants of so large
and scattered a body would have more than taxed the energies of a less
devoted class of men; while the pecuniary resources of the laity,
always so generously expended in the building of churches and asylums,
could have to a certain extent borne the unusual draft on their means
which the exigencies of the times demanded. But it did not cease. On
the contrary, it continued for many years with augmented volume. The
causes which had impelled such vast multitudes to renounce home and
country for ever were still active. From 1850 to 1860 the immigration
from Europe was reported as follows:
From Germany, 950,000; ¼ Catholic, 237,000[159]
From France and other Catholic countries,
105,000; ¾ Catholic, 78,750
From Ireland, 1,088,000; 9/10 Catholic, 979,200
---------
Total in ten years, 1,294,950
Thus another million and a quarter were added to the church in
America, making a grand total at the end of this decade of four and a
half millions of souls under the charge of 2,235 priests, or one for
every 2,000 persons. Thus we see that, though the priesthood had
received an accession of 435 members in ten years, the labors of each
individual had been almost doubled.
Incredible as these figures may seem, the next decade showed little
diminution in amount. From 1860 to 1870 the Catholic immigration,
calculating on the above basis, may be set down as follows:
From Germany, 268,000
“ France, etc., 51,000
“ Ireland, 841,000
--------
Total in ten years, 1,160,000
If to this reinforcement be added those who have come among us since
1870, we find that the past fifteen years have increased the Catholic
census by about one and a half millions from abroad, and materially
helped to bring it up to what, on the best authority, it is said to be
in this year of grace, 1876—seven millions, or about one-sixth of the
entire population.
Fortunately for the interests of religion, the increase in the number
of priests kept pace with the wonderful augmentation of the laity. In
1785 there was one priest to every 1,000 laymen; in 1808, one to every
1,500; in 1830, one to every 1,900; in 1840, one to 2,000; 1850, one
to 1,200; 1860, one to 2,000; and in 1875, one to every 1,300, or
5,074 priests of all ranks.
Yet, numerous as had been the accessions to the priesthood in those
years, the duties and responsibilities of the clerical order increased
in greater proportion. The millions of strangers who had sought homes
among us, while they preserved their faith and brought with them the
grand moral lessons learned in the Old World, could not bring their
churches, schools, and asylums. These had to be provided here, and the
American priest thus became from necessity a builder and a financier,
as well as a teacher and instructor of his people. When the abnormal
Irish immigration began in 1847, we had but 812 churches, several of
which were small frame buildings, hastily constructed and totally
inadequate to the wants even of those who erected them. Many of those
have since been pulled down, reconstructed, or rebuilt, and replaced
by substantial brick or stone edifices. This in itself was a work of
considerable merit; but when we reflect that since then no less than
four thousand three hundred new churches have been added to this
number, we are lost in astonishment at the magnitude of the work
performed in so short a space of time. Nor are those modern buildings
generally of that rude and fragile class which were so common fifty
years ago, but, on the contrary, most of them are excellent specimens
of solid masonry and architectural skill. The noble cathedrals
especially which adorn Baltimore, Albany, Buffalo, Philadelphia,
Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Boston, and other sees, are models of design,
durability, and grandeur of which any country or age might be proud.
The same may be said, but with greater emphasis, of the Cathedral of
St. Patrick now nearly completed in New York—that grand epic in
marble, from the tall spire of which the glittering emblem of our
salvation is destined at no far distant day to shine down upon a
million faithful followers of the cross.
Thus it may be well said that the past quarter of a century was the
era of church-building as well as of increase. But the vast energy so
displayed was not employed solely in one direction. While thousands of
temples have arisen to the honor and glory of God, his afflicted
creatures, the sick, unfortunate, and helpless; the foundling infant
and decrepit grandsire; the orphan bereft of its natural protectors,
and the worse than orphaned—the pariah of her sex—all have been cared
for, fed, clothed, consoled, and housed. Eighty-seven hospitals and
two hundred and twenty asylums of various kinds attest the practical
charity and active benevolence of the Catholics of America.
It was formerly said that the Catholic Church could not prosper under
a free government; that it needed the help of kingcraft and despotic
laws to enforce its decrees and sustain its authority. We have proved
the fallacy of this calumny pretty thoroughly—so conclusively, indeed,
as to excite real or pretended alarm among bigots of all sects and of
no sect at all. No people are more at home and thrive better in all
respects in this land of liberty than Catholics.
It has also been asserted that we are the enemies of enlightenment.
Our hundreds of convents and academies, and thousands of parochial
schools, might be considered a sufficient answer to this falsehood.
But, in the providence of God, the time has come when we are called
upon to take a further step and demonstrate that in the domain of the
highest intellectual studies we are a match for the best of our
opponents.
We have no means of ascertaining the exact number of schoolhouses
which have been built during this period; probably one thousand would
not be too high an estimate, and we are inclined to think that there
are even more. In the large cities most of the churches have a
building for educational purposes attached; in the rural districts the
basement is generally used. There are also a number of what are called
charity schools, generally under the charge of some of the teaching
orders, of which New York alone boasts twenty-four, erected at a cost
of four million dollars. There are six hundred and forty academies and
select schools for females, with an average attendance of sixty
thousand pupils, for whose accommodation, as well as for the nuns and
sisters who watch over them, an equal number of buildings, some very
extensive and costly, have been provided.
Though our seminaries and colleges do not show a proportionate ratio
of increase, either in numbers or attendance, the result, if taken by
itself, is highly satisfactory. In the last century only two of them
existed in the United States; up to 1850 ten more were added; in 1874
we had eighteen theological seminaries, attended by 1,375 students,
and sixty-eight colleges with over ten thousand pupils and about six
hundred professors and teachers.
With all this it must be confessed that, as far as human knowledge is
concerned, the Catholics of the United States are as a body behind
their non-Catholic fellow-citizens. We acknowledge this inferiority,
and can satisfactorily account for it. Under the peculiar difficulties
of our position it became a matter of primary necessity that our
co-religionists should first have churches wherein to worship God,
asylums and hospitals to shelter and succor the weak and afflicted,
and free schools for the training of the children of the poor, whose
faith and morals were endangered by the plan of instruction pursued in
the schools of the state. But now that all these wants have been
supplied as far as practicable, and that we may safely confide to
posterity the task of completing the work already so far advanced, our
next duty plainly is to provide for the generation growing up around
us facilities for a higher and more thorough system of education than
has yet been attempted in our colleges and academies, equal in all
respects, if not superior, to that so liberally afforded by the
sectarian and secular seats of learning which so plentifully
besprinkle the land.
Remembering what has been already wrought by the zeal and unswerving
perseverance of the Catholic body in other directions in the past, we
should look forward with undiminished courage and confidence to the
future. If with a disorganized, unsettled people like ours, generally
poor in the world’s goods, and with never-ending personal demands on
their limited resources, we have been able to build and maintain so
many churches, institutions, convents, and schools in so short a time,
what may not be expected from the same class, now that they are
regularly domiciled, and a portion, at least, of the wealth that ever
rewards industry and application is fast becoming theirs?
What is wanted in the first instance, in order to give tone and
direction to the young Catholic mind, is a Catholic national
university, one on a scale comprehensive enough to include the study
of all branches of secular knowledge—law, physics, medicine,
languages, art, science, literature, and political economy. Such an
institution, properly founded and conducted, would find no lack of
public patronage. We are satisfied that American parents, whether the
descendants of the old Catholic settlers or those who have embraced
the faith in later years, instead of sending their sons to Yale or
Harvard, to France or Germany, would much prefer to have them educated
at home in a university where their religion would be neither a scoff
nor an obstacle in the way of their preferment, and where they would
grow up American citizens, in fact as well as in name. The German
element, also, which constitutes so large a portion of the Catholics
of the West, would find in it an adequate substitute for those
celebrated homes of learning they left behind in Fatherland, and,
under its fostering care, would continue to develop that spirit of
profound thought and critical investigation so characteristic of the
Teutonic genius.
But the Irish and their descendants, who will long continue to form
the majority of the Catholic population of this republic, would derive
most benefit from such an establishment. That subtle Celtic intellect,
so acute yet so versatile; fully capable of grappling with the most
difficult problems of human existence and social responsibility, yet
so replete with poetry, romance, and enthusiasm; so long repressed,
yet never dimmed, would, we feel assured, spring into life and
activity beyond the conception of most men, were such an opportunity
presented. In the three centuries following the conversion of the
Irish their schools were unsurpassed throughout Christendom in extent,
numbers, and attendance. The whole island, in fact, seemed to be
turned into one vast reservoir of learning, from which flowed
perennial streams of Christian knowledge over the then sterile wastes
of semi-civilized Europe. The number of missionaries and teachers
which Ireland produced in that most brilliant epoch of her history is
almost incredible, and her zeal and energy in the dissemination of
Catholic doctrine, even in the most remote parts of the Continent,
became proverbial.
Civil wars, long, bloody, and desolating, destroyed her institutions
and scattered her libraries, while penal laws of preternatural
ingenuity and cruelty completed the work of desolation by denying her
even the commonest rudiments of instruction. But as she kept the faith
pure and undefiled throughout the long night of slavery, so she has
preserved the moral tone and vigor of thought which ever follow a
strict observance of the divine code. One generation alone, removed
from the barriers and devices of the oppressor, has been enough to
show that, in mind as well as in body, the Irish race is at least the
equal of even the most favored nations of the globe. In the strength
of pure religious conviction lies the greatness of a people.
Perhaps now is the most fitting time for the beginning of a work such
as we have endeavored briefly to intimate. From all appearances the
flood of immigration which, for twenty or thirty years, has flowed so
steadily yet strongly, is fast receding into its former narrow
channels. We shall have still, we trust, many foreign Catholics coming
among us each year to help to develop the resources of our immense
country, and to find peace and freedom under our Constitution; but we
need not expect, during this century at least, such an influx as was
precipitated upon us by the dreadful Irish famine. The Catholic
population henceforth will present a more stable and homogeneous
character, and will have more leisure to devote a portion of its
wealth and energy to purposes other than erecting buildings and
providing for the necessities of homeless and churchless millions.
Churches and charitable institutions will, of course, continue to be
built to meet the wants of our ever-increasing numbers, but their
augmentation, being the result of a normal growth, will be more
gradual and natural. We will, in other words, have more time to devote
to education and the cultivation of the refinements and
accomplishments of life, without in any wise neglecting the primary
duties of Christians.
We have had our epochs of immigration and church-building, of
extraordinary growth in popular education and incredible effort to
supply the wants of the poor and friendless. We are now entering upon
an era of mental culture, higher, more elaborate, and more general in
its application than it was possible, or even desirable, to initiate
amid the distractions and occupations of the busy past. But, ardent as
is our desire to see such an important step taken in a direction which
we feel would lead to certain success, we only look on it as a means
to definite and ennobling ends, and not as the end itself. Mere mental
training, dissociated from moral tuition and habits of manly thought
and action, would be worse than useless; it would be dangerous alike
to the student, to society, and to the cause of morality and religion.
To develop the intellect merely at the expense of those greater
attributes of the soul in the proper cultivation of which consists the
real ostensible difference between man and the brute creation, would
be to multiply infinitely the number of educated imbeciles of which
the world has already too many.
It cannot be denied that the object of all education ought to be
truth, a knowledge of God and of his works, that in the study of them
we may learn to love and worship his holy name. Though the custodians
of the divine gift of Pentecost are few, as children of the church we
may all become sharers in the ineffable benefaction conferred on the
apostles. Truth is one and indivisible, It is found not only in the
doctrines and discipline of the church, but in every department of
life—in every pursuit, study, and calling incidental to the existence
of accountable beings. The nearer we come to the apprehension of this
truth, the more we are disposed to seek and treasure it when found, no
matter in what sphere of life our lot may be cast.
Unfortunately for religion and civilization, the last three centuries
have been remarkable more for confusion of ideas on this important
subject, and utter perversion of the natural laws, than any other
period in the whole Christian era. The war engendered by the
Protestant Reformation, the atheistic philosophy of the
Encyclopedists, the destructive dogmas of the secret societies, and,
in our own day, the gross materialism of the new school of scientists,
have so clouded and bewildered, so perverted and debased, the human
understanding that the world has come to look upon mere brilliancy of
diction, novelty of opinion, and audacity of assertion as the highest
evidences of intellectual superiority. Modern Europe, from end to end,
is the victim of this lamentable delusion, and our own otherwise
favored country is rapidly falling under its malign influence. Shall
this foul plague be allowed to enshroud us all, and blight with its
deadly breath the future of our young republic?
If such is to be the case, we may read our fate in the past decadence
of the most enlightened nations of the Old World. From the outbreak of
the Protestant Reformation they have gone steadily, almost blindly
downwards, until, as to-day we see, they have ended in blank
infidelity. The favored intellectual lights of the last three
centuries in Protestant Europe have been men without faith and without
conscience, who, with the help of Protestant governments, have sapped
and undermined and utterly destroyed even the remnants of the faith in
Christianity and a divine Creator of this world that still lingered
here and there about the old homes of Christian learning; and
literature may be said to have been given over to the service of the
enemies of Christ and of his church.
If we contemplate the condition of modern art, we witness degeneracy
almost as lamentable. Men wonder that no great sculptors and painters
have arisen since the Italian, Spanish, and Flemish schools of the
middle ages ceased to exist. Since then we have had artists who draw
as well as, and who understood anatomy better than, the best of the
old masters; but the inspiration, the spirit that made the figure on
the canvas seem to live, is wanting.
The best of our modern painters are but copyists of nature, of
landscape, man, or animals. They display no creative power; they are
incapable of producing anything original, anything like the least of
those historic pieces, those almost superhuman groups, which
illustrate in a thousand varieties the incidents in the earthly career
of our Redeemer and his holy Mother. Why? Because the mind must first
be able to conceive in all its integrity and beauty what the hand is
designed to execute. No matter how exact the eye or how deft the
touch, if the imagination be not purified by religion and guided by
truth, it is vain to attempt to represent on canvas or in marble pure,
exalted types of excellence of which we are incapable of forming
within ourselves more than an indefinite conception.
It is thus that the Reformers in England, Germany, and the north of
Europe, and the Revolutionists in France and the southern part of the
Continent, conspired to paralyze, what they could not wholly
annihilate, that splendid fabric of Christian thought and genius
reared by the church after many centuries of toil and anxiety. In this
hemisphere we have suffered from the same malign causes, but our
affection is more accidental and sympathetic than chronic. There is
nothing in the mental condition of this new and cosmopolitan people to
discourage or repel the efforts of those who would earnestly strive
after a higher, purer, and more Christian mental development. But such
efforts, to be successful, must be made within the bosom of the
church. The Protestant sects are incapable of any combined movement in
that direction; for they have neither unity of action or thought, nor
a common standard by which to measure mental excellence and moral
soundness. Clearly the change must originate in the Catholic body.
When we assert this we are well aware of the magnitude of the work to
be accomplished and the apparent paucity of the laborers to execute
it. But our confidence in the future is sustained by experience.
Whoever would have said at the beginning of this century that this
hundredth year of our independence would find the Catholics of the
United States counted by millions, and their priests, churches, and
schools by thousands, would have been looked upon as a dreamer or a
rash enthusiast. Who shall say what the beginning of the next century
may not be destined to usher in?
As the church is the divinely-commissioned teacher of the world, we
desire to see our young Catholic men, the flower of her children,
whether they be destined for the liberal professions or otherwise,
sent forth into society armed at all points, prepared not only to
sustain and defend the faith that is in them, but to demonstrate in
their own persons and by their individual conduct how infinitely
superior is secular knowledge even when based on eternal truth, to the
vague theories and absurd speculations of those who foolishly seek to
fathom the designs and comprehend the laws of God while denying the
very existence of the Creator of all things.
Any system of education which falls short of this would be worse than
none at all. To confer a degree on a student, and allow him to enter
the world with the _éclat_ of a university course to give his opinions
a certain intellectual character, without qualifying him to uphold the
honor of his _Alma Mater_ and the integrity of his creed, would of
course be an act of egregious folly. As well might we uniform a
soldier and send him into action without arms, or entrust our lives
and liberties to the keeping of a statesman of whose loyalty and
fidelity we were not fully assured.
Years ago it was confidently asserted by a prominent dissenting
minister of this city that the United States would eventually become
the battle-field upon which the contest for permanent supremacy
between Protestantism and Catholicity would be waged. We agreed with
his views then, and everything that has happened in the religious
world since confirms the sagacity of the remark. We desire nothing
better than that this struggle, if it have to come, shall take place
here, where both parties are equally free and well matched, though
each has peculiar advantages not enjoyed by the other. The sects, on
their side, have numbers, wealth, social position, political
influence, and possession not only of the public schools and
institutions of the state, but of all the old colleges and
universities. On the other hand, the church in America has all the
energy, hopefulness, and enthusiasm of youth united to the mature
judgment of advanced years; thorough unanimity; and, above and beyond
all, a creed and a doctrine founded on eternal truth, fortified by
tradition, upheld by divine assistance, and guarded by an infallible
authority. The impending conflict will not be one of arms nor of
words, but of works and brains; and as the superiority of our
opponents is material, not spiritual, it is not difficult to foresee
to which side victory would incline.
Since rebellion against God’s law first raised its crest at Worms in
1521, the church has never had so favorable an opportunity of exposing
the hollowness, rottenness, and insincerity of the leaders of dissent
in all its forms as that presented in this country and generation. In
older nations where Protestantism still flourishes it is as the mere
tool of the state, the plaything of royalty, without the support of
which it could not subsist. Supposing the British Parliament, in the
plenitude of its power, should disestablish the Anglican Church,
confiscate its property, and imprison its prelates, as Bismarck has
done to the Catholics of Germany; how long would that luxurious
Establishment remain in existence? The same may be said of Lutheranism
in Prussia and Calvinism in other parts of Europe. They are of the
earth, earthy, and require the aid of the temporal arm to protect them
against their more logical though more destructive offshoots, the
free-thinkers and revolutionists. Here, on the contrary, though the
sects have through their politico-religious combinations an undue
influence in public affairs, they have no appreciable direct state
patronage, and must stand or fall by their own merits.
Now, it is well known and pretty generally acknowledged that sooner or
later the Catholic Church has always suffered from its connection with
the state, even when the alliance seemed to be more than favorable to
her. From the very nature of her organization she cannot long be made
an instrument of despotism or of selfish ambition. In non-Catholic
countries she has generally been persecuted and proscribed: in others
she has been as often the victim of impertinent interference and
injudicious patronage on the part of temporal rulers. In none has she
been free to carry out her divine mission; and, sad to relate but true
nevertheless, on all the broad and fair earth the only spot where the
church of Christ may be said to be unshackled and disenthralled is
this young republic of the West.
This fact is in itself a great gain for us in view of the opposition
we may expect in the time to come; but there are others which, though
less apparent, are well worthy of consideration. Few persons who have
not devoted special attention to the matter can form an estimate of
the radical change which has been taking place, gradually but surely,
in the American mind regarding Catholicity. Fifty years ago there were
hundreds of towns and villages where the professors of our faith, few
and obscure, were looked upon with downright contempt, while a
Catholic priest, because unknown, was regarded as little less than a
monster of iniquity. This gross prejudice, the result more of
ignorance than badness of heart, was stimulated and fostered by local
ministers and itinerant preachers, who, having neither fixed
principles in religion nor definite notions of right and wrong upon
which to descant, have been too much in the habit of entertaining
their hearers with denunciations of the church and her priesthood. In
nearly all those places where formerly so little was known about our
faith are now to be found substantial churches, large and respectable
congregations, zealous and respected priests, and perhaps one or more
educational and charitable institutions.
The rural American, who, with all his deficiencies, is usually a
fair-minded and reflective man, being thus brought face to face with
the things he had been taught to loath, begins to feel the mists of
prejudice lifted from his judgment, and ends by respecting the
devotion and unaffected piety of those he lately contemned. Many other
causes have likewise contributed to this desirable revolution in
popular feeling, such as the annual visit of so many of our wealthy
and influential citizens to Europe, where the ancient splendor of the
church may be seen in all its perfection; while the conduct of the
dissenting ministers, their perpetual quarrels among themselves, and
the open disregard shown by them in so many instances for public
decency, have disgusted many of their most attached followers, and set
them groping after truth and spiritual rest in the direction of the
church.
It may now be justly said that bigotry of the former malignant type
which affected all classes can at present only be found among the
lowest and most ignorant, and that Protestants of a higher grade in
society, convinced of their errors, have gracefully abandoned them. So
far have they advanced in charity that they are now willing to admit
that Catholics may be good citizens, agreeable neighbors, and honest
dealers; but still they cannot be persuaded but that mentally, if not
morally, they are inferior in natural capacity and acquired
information to their own co-religionists. There only remains one thing
more to be done to make persons who think thus sincere friends and
possible allies, and that is to demonstrate to their satisfaction that
there is nothing in the teachings or practices of our religion tending
to dwarf the intellect or weaken the understanding; but, on the
contrary, that the more closely we assimilate human knowledge to the
revealed law of God as expounded by the church, and the more we are
governed by the rules which she has laid down for our mental conduct,
the better qualified we become to stand in the front rank of the
highest social and intellectual movements of the age. This
accomplished, as we fondly hope it soon will be, the future destiny of
our half-converted brethren lies in the hands of a power superior to
that of man.
Every indication of the popular desire for such an educational
establishment as we have foreshadowed points out the present as the
most propitious time for its foundation. By and by it may be too late.
The national character of our people, though not yet definitely
formed, is fast crystallizing, and whatever impress is made on it now
will be defined and permanent. We do not aim to distort or subdue the
intellect of our young men, but to captivate and to cultivate it by
holding up for its ambition the noblest of careers—the pursuit of
virtue and the study of the great truths of religion and of nature. We
would make, if we could, the Catholic laymen of the next generation,
each in his own sphere, leaders in a new crusade against error, not
through the use of force or legal compulsion, but by the greater
purity of their lives and the superiority of their genius.
Herein lies the great future of the Catholic layman. Never before did
such a career open before him. His sires of past ages met the infidel
with sword and spear and the weapons of the flesh, and beat him back
from the then hallowed soil of Christendom. To-day he faces a subtler,
fiercer, and more resolute infidel than the Turk. As the flower of the
Turkish hordes was composed of the janissaries, the perverted children
of Christian parents, so to-day the standard-bearers of infidelity are
the lost children of the cross. The weapons with which this new
crusade is to be fought out are the moral and intellectual forces.
Every portion of the civilized world is a battle-field. All must not
be left to the pulpit, the confessional, the priest. The layman moves
where the priest never penetrates, where the confessional is unknown,
the pulpit mocked. Let him bear his faith with him, and its influence
will tell. Let his wit be keener, his temper cooler, his knowledge
wider and deeper than that of his foe, and infidelity, that brawls
to-day with braggart tongue, will soon learn, if not to repent, at
least to dread an encounter where there can be no doubt as to the
issue.
We cannot have a healthy Catholic literature and a correct standard of
public taste without lay aid any more than we can fill our colleges,
schools of art and science, conservatories and gymnasiums, without
such cordial assistance. Catholic laymen have to a great extent the
destiny of their children and of the church in America in their
keeping; and as their responsibility is heavy, so will be their reward
or condemnation signal, according as they use or abuse the trust
reposed in them by an all-wise Providence.
So far they have shown every indication of a willingness to make all
possible sacrifices for the education of their children, and a
reasonable desire to encourage Catholic literature, much more so than
those can appreciate who do not know our country and the peculiar
difficulties we have had to overcome. Some of our foreign
contemporaries, in England especially, are in the habit once in a
while of drawing pleasing distinctions between the state of Catholic
literature abroad and in this country. In this comparison we naturally
appear to no very great advantage. We are frequently reminded of the
lamentable condition of things that compels us to draw on foreign
sources for our literary stores, while it is hinted that it is almost
time we looked to ourselves for intellectual support. All this, of
course, we take placidly enough, while thoroughly understanding the
spirit that gives rise to it. We are proud to concede the superiority
of the great body of English and other Catholic writers who have done
such service to the church and conferred such honor on the Catholic
name. Still, we do not feel so utterly hopeless of future success in
this line, nor even despondent as to the degree of success to which we
have already attained. And considering the means at our disposal,
glancing back at the century behind us and its fruits, the 25,000
swelled to 7,000,000, the solitary bishop to a great hierarchy, the
few scattered priests to a valiant army, the little out-of-the-way
chapels to a multitude of massive churches and towering cathedrals,
the communities of religious of both sexes, the asylums for the waifs
and strays, the deserted and sorrowing, the maimed, the halt, and the
blind of the world—glancing at all this, we are in a fair position to
say to literary critics: Gentlemen, thus far our hands have been
pretty full. We grant you all the culture you please; may it increase
a hundred-fold! We have not had much time to sit down and study. From
the beginning we have been in the thick of a fierce fight. Peace is at
last coming; the smoke of battle is clearing away; the heavens are
opening and smiling above us. Our dead are buried; our wounded are
gathered in; the prisoners taken from us are being sullenly but surely
returned; our frontier is guarded and respected. Now we turn to the
arts of peace. All that has been accomplished thus far has been done
without any abundance of fine writing. This has been mainly the work
of our faithful Catholic laity under the guidance of a loyal clergy
and episcopacy. To that same laity we look for greater triumphs to
come.
As a people we have no long line of princes and statesmen to defend,
no schism to apologize for, no national outrages against God’s church
to explain away or palliate. We have every confidence in the Catholics
of this country to accomplish, under Providence, whatever they
undertake for the benefit of religion and the spread of Christian
enlightenment. The future of America is for us. While the professors
of the sectarian creeds, in their efforts to force on the public and
on each other their peculiar views, have reached their climax and are
descending into the depths of nihilism and refined paganism, the
church in this republic enjoys the pristine vigor of youth and an
unexampled unanimity both in spirit and in action. In her organization
there is a vast amount of latent force yet undeveloped, a mine of
intellectual wealth that awaits but the master hand of the explorer to
bring it to the surface. Great indeed will be the reward, high the
fame, of him who will help us to utilize this unsuspected and unused
treasure.
[159] The figures showing the gross immigration are taken
from official returns, mainly from the _Reports of the
Bureau of Statistics on the Commerce and Navigation of
the U.S._; the _Reports of the Commissioners of
Emigration_, New York; and _Thom’s Irish Almanac and
Official Directory_, Dublin. The approximate number of
Catholics is our own calculation. Though the
population of Germany is more than one-third Catholic,
we consider it safer to set down the proportion of
Catholic emigrants from that country at one-fourth of
the whole. When the famine began in Ireland,
ninety-two per cent. of the population was Catholic;
and as it was from this portion that our immigration
has since been principally drawn, ninety per cent. is
not considered too much to credit to Catholicity.
THE LIFE AND WORK OF MADAME BARAT.[160]
Madeleine-Louise-Sophie Barat was born on the 12th of December, 1779,
in the little village of Joigny, in Burgundy. Her father was a cooper
and the owner of a small vineyard, a very worthy and sensible man and
an excellent Christian. Her mother was remarkably intelligent and
quite well educated, far superior in personal character to her humble
station, very religious, and endowed with an exquisite sensibility of
temperament, controlled by a solid virtue which made her worthy to be
the mother of two such children as her son Louis and her daughter
Sophie. The birth of Sophie, who was the youngest of her three
children, was hastened, and her own life endangered, by the fright
which she suffered from a fire very near her house during the night of
the 12th of December. The little Sophie was so frail and feeble at her
birth that her baptism was hurried as much as possible, and the tenure
of her life was very fragile during infancy. As a child she was
diminutive and delicate, but precocious, quick-witted, and very
playful. The parish priest used to put her upon a stool at catechism,
that the little fairy might be better seen and heard; and at her first
communion she was rejected by the vicar as too small to know what she
was about to do, but triumphantly vindicated in a thorough examination
by _M. le Curé_, and allowed to receive the most Holy Sacrament. She
was then ten years old, and it was the dreadful year 1789. Until this
time she had been her mother’s constant companion in the vineyard,
occupied with light work and play, and learning by intuition, without
much effort of study. At this time her brother Louis, an
ecclesiastical student eleven years older than herself, was obliged to
remain at home for a time, and, being very much struck with the noble
and charming qualities which he discerned in his little sister, he
devoted himself with singular veneration, assiduity, and tenderness to
the work of her education. This episode in the history of two great
servants of God, one of whom was an apostle, the other the St. Teresa
of her century, is unique in its beauty.
The vocation of the sister dated from her infancy, and was announced
in prophetic dreams, which she related with childish _naïveté_ like
the little Joseph, foretelling that she was destined to be a great
queen. When Sophie was eight years old, Suzanne Geoffroy—who was then
twenty-six, and who entered the Society of the Sacred Heart twenty-one
years afterwards, in which she held the offices of superior at Niort
and Lyons, and of assistant general—was seeking her vocation. Her
director told her to wait for the institution of a new order whose
future foundress was still occupied in taking care of her dolls.
Louis Barat divined obscurely the extraordinary designs of Almighty
God in regard to his little sister, and, faithful to the divine
impulse, he made the education and formation of her mind and character
the principal work of the next ten years of his life—a work certainly
the best and most advantageous to the church of all the good works of
a career full of apostolic labors. He was a poet, a mathematician,
well versed in several languages and in natural science, very kind and
loving to his little sister, but inflexibly strict in his discipline,
and in some things too severe, especially in his spiritual direction.
In a small attic chamber of his father’s cottage he established the
novitiate and school composed of little Sophie Barat as novice and
scholar, with brother Louis as the master. The preparatory studies
were soon absolved by his apt pupil, and succeeded by a course of
higher instruction, embracing Latin, Greek, Italian, and Spanish.
Sophie was particularly enchanted with Virgil, and even able to
translate and appreciate Homer. The mother grumbled at this seemingly
useless education, but the uneducated father was delighted, and the
will of Louis made the law for the household. During seventeen months
he was in the prisons of Paris, saved from the guillotine only by the
connivance of his former schoolmaster, who was a clerk in the prison
department, and released by the fall of Robespierre. Sophie went on
bravely by herself during this time, and continued her life of study
and prayer in the attic, consoling her father and mother, who idolized
her, during those dreadful days, and persevered in the same course
after her brother’s release and ordination, under his direction, until
she was sixteen. At this period her brother, who had taken up his
abode in Paris, determined to take his sister to live with himself and
complete her education. Father, mother, and daughter alike resisted
this determination, until the stronger will of the young priest
overcame, with some delay and difficulty, their opposition, and the
weeping little Sophie was carried off in the coach to Paris, to live
in the humble house of Father Louis, and, in conjunction with her
domestic labors, to study the sciences, the Holy Scriptures in the
Latin Vulgate, and the fathers and doctors of the church. She had
several companions, and the little group was thus formed and trained,
not only in knowledge but in the most austere religious virtues and
practices, under the hand of their kind but stern master, for more
than four years. During the vintage Sophie was allowed to take a short
vacation at home, of which she availed herself gladly; for she was
still a gay and playful girl, submitting with cheerful courage to her
brother’s severe discipline, yet not without a conflict or without
some secret tears. She was a timid little creature, and the
injudicious severity of her brother’s direction made her scrupulous.
Often she was afraid to receive communion; but she was obedient, and
when her brother would call her from the altar of their little chapel,
saying, “Come here, Sophie, and receive communion,” she would go up
trembling and do as she was bidden. Her great desire was to become a
lay sister among the Carmelites, and her companions were also waiting
the opportunity to enter some religious order. Father Barat did not
doubt her religious vocation, but he wanted to find out more precisely
how it could be fulfilled. Her divine Spouse was himself preparing her
for the exalted destination of a foundress and spiritual mother in his
church; and when she had attained her twentieth year, this vocation
was made known to her and accepted with a docility like that of the
Blessed Virgin Mary to the angel’s message.
The history of the origin of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
requires us to go back some years and relate some events which
prepared the way for it. Four young priests, Léonor and Xavier de
Tournély, Pierre Charles Leblanc, and Charles de Broglie, had formed a
society under the name of the Sacred Heart, intended as a nucleus for
the re-establishment of the Society of Jesus. The superior was Father
Léonor de Tournély, a young man of angelic sanctity, and a favorite
pupil of the saintly Sulpician, M. l’Abbé Emery. This young priest
received an inspiration to form a congregation of women specially
devoted to the propagation of the devotion of the Sacred Heart and the
higher education of girls. The first woman selected by him as the
foundress of the new society was the Princess de Condé, under whom a
small community was formed at Vienna, but soon dispersed by the
departure of the princess to join the Trappistines. Soon after Father
de Tournély died, having scarcely attained his thirtieth year, leaving
in his last moments the care of carrying out his project to Father
Varin. Joseph Varin d’Ainville was a young man of good family, who,
after passing some time in a seminary, had left it to join the army of
the Prince de Condé, with whom he made several campaigns. He had been
won back to his first vocation through the prayers of his mother,
offered for this purpose on the eve of ascending the scaffold at
Paris, and the influence of his former companions, the four young
fathers of the Sacred Heart above named. On the very day of the prayer
offered by his heroic mother he was determined to return back to the
ecclesiastical life on receiving communion at Vanloo, in Belgium, when
he had met his four saintly friends, whose society he immediately
joined. Having been elected superior of the society after the death of
Father de Tournély in 1797, Father Varin was persuaded to merge it in
another society formed by a certain Father Passanari under the title
of the Fathers of the Holy Faith, which was also intended as a nucleus
for the revival of the Order of Jesuits. The Archduchess Maria Anna,
sister of the Emperor of Germany, was selected to form in Rome, under
the direction of Father Passanari, a society of religious women
according to the plan of De Tournély, and she went there for that
purpose, accompanied by two of her maids of honor, Leopoldina and
Louisa Naudet. Early in the year 1800 Father Varin returned to Paris
with some companions, and Father Barat was received into his society.
In this way he became acquainted with Sophie, and her direction was
confided to him, to her great spiritual solace and advantage; for he
guided her with suavity and prudence in a way which gave her heart
liberty to expand, and infused into it that generosity and confidence
which became the characteristic traits of her piety, and were
transmitted as a precious legacy by her to her daughters in religion.
As soon as Father Varin had learned the secrets of the interior life
of his precious disciple, and had determined her vocation to the same
work which had been already begun in Rome by the three ladies above
mentioned, three others were admitted to share with her in the
formation of the little Society of the Sacred Heart. One of these was
Mlle. Octavie Bailly, another was Mlle. Loquet, the third was a pious
servant-girl named Marguérite, who became the first lay sister of the
society. On the 21st of November, the Feast of Our Lady’s
Presentation, the little chapel was decorated in a modest and simple
way. Father Varin said Mass. After the Elevation the four aspirants
pronounced the act of consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and
afterwards they received communion.
This was the true inauguration of the Society of the Ladies of the
Sacred Heart, for the attempt made at Rome by the archduchess proved a
failure; the intriguing, ambitious character of Father Passanari was
detected, and Father Varin renounced all connection with him and his
projects. These events occurred, however, at a later period, and for
some time yet to come the little community in France remained
affiliated to the mother-house in Rome.
The first house of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, the one which has
always been called the cradle of the society, was founded at Amiens
one year after the consecration of the postulants in the little chapel
of the Rue Touraine. A college was established in that city by the
Fathers of the Holy Faith, and a visit which Father Varin made there
early in the year 1801, for the purpose of giving a mission and
preparing for the opening of the college, led to an arrangement with
some zealous priests and pious ladies of Amiens for transferring a
small school of young ladies to the care of Sophie Barat and her
companions. Two of these ladies of Amiens, Mlle. Geneviève Deshayes
and Mlle. Henriette Grosier, joined the community, of which Mlle.
Loquet was appointed the superior. This lady proved to be entirely
unfit for her position, and after some months returned to her former
useful and pious life in Paris. Mlle. Bailly, after waiting for a
considerable time to test her vocation, at length followed her first
attraction and left her dear friend Sophie for the Carmelites. Sophie
Barat, with the consent of her companions, was appointed by Father
Varin to the office of superior, much to her own surprise and terror,
for she was the youngest and the most humble of her sisters; and from
this moment until her death, in the year 1865, she continued to be the
Reverend Mother of the Society of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart,
through all its periods of successive development and extension. It
was on the 21st of December, 1802, soon after her twenty-third
birthday, that she was definitively placed in this her true position,
for which divine Providence had so wonderfully prepared her. She had
been admitted to make the simple vows of religion on the 7th of June
preceding, in company with Madame Deshayes. The community and school
increased and prospered, and on the Feast of St. Michael the
Archangel, Sept. 29, 1804, they were installed in their permanent
residence, one of the former houses of the Oratory of Cardinal de
Berulle. The community at this date comprised twelve members,
including postulants. Their names were Madeleine-Sophie Barat,
Geneviève Deshayes, Henriette Grosier, Rosalie-Marguérite Debrosse,
Marie du Terrail, Catharine-Emilie de Charbonnel, Adèle Bardot,
Felicité Desmarquest, Henriette Ducis, Thérèse Duchâtel, Madame
Baudemont, and Madame Coppina. The two last-mentioned ladies
afterwards brought the society into a crisis of the gravest peril, and
finally withdrew from it, as we shall see later. Of the others,
Mesdames Deshayes, Grosier, de Charbonnel, Desmarquest, and Ducis were
among the most eminent and efficient of the first set of co-workers
with the holy foundress herself in the formation and government of the
society and its great schools and novitiates. The final rupture with
Father Passanari had already been effected, and Madame Barat was
therefore the sole head of the society, under the direction of Father
Varin. Twelve years elapsed before the constitutions of the society
were drawn up and adopted, and during this period the first
foundations were made, a most dangerous and well-nigh fatal crisis was
safely passed, the spirit and methods of the new institute were
definitely formed; thus laying the basis for the subsequent increase
and perfection of the vast edifice of religion and instruction whose
corner-stone was laid by the humble and gracious little maiden of
Joigny in the depths of her own pure and capacious heart. St. John of
the Cross says that “God bestows on the founder such gifts and graces
as shall be proportionate to the succession of the order, as the first
fruits of the Spirit.” The whole subsequent history of the Society of
the Sacred Heart shows that this was fulfilled in the person of Sophie
Barat. After the second foundation had been made in an old convent of
the Visitation at Grenoble, Madame Baudemont was made superior at
Amiens, and the first council was held for the election of a
superior-general. Madame Barat was elected by a bare majority of one;
for a party had already been formed under sinister influences which
was working against her and in opposition to Father Varin, and seeking
to change altogether the spirit of the new institute. From this time
until the year 1816 Madame Barat was merely a superior in name and by
courtesy at Amiens, and she was chiefly employed in founding new
houses, forming the young communities, and acquiring sanctity by the
exercise of patience and humility. The new foundations were at
Poitiers, Cuignières, Niort, and Dooresele near Ghent; and of course
the society received a great number of new subjects, some of whom
became its most distinguished members—as, for instance, Madame
Duchesne, the pioneer of the mission to America, Madame de Gramont
d’Aster and her two daughters, Madame Thérèse Maillucheau, Madame
Bigeu, Madame Prévost, Madame Giraud, and the angelic counterpart of
St. Aloysius, Madame Aloysia Jouve. We must not pass over in silence
the benediction given on two occasions by the august pontiff Pius VII.
to Madame Barat and her daughters. At Lyons she had a long
conversation with him, in which she explained to his great
satisfaction the nature and objects of her holy work, and she also
received from his hands Holy Communion. At Grenoble all the community
and pupils received his benediction, and of these pupils eleven, upon
whose heads his trembling hands were observed to rest with a certain
special insistance, received the grace of a religious vocation.
Another incident which deserves mention is the last visit of Madame
Barat to her father. The strict rules of a later period not having
been as yet enacted, she never failed, when passing near Joigny on her
visitations, to stay for a short time with her parents, often taking
with her some of the ladies of her society who were of noble or
wealthy families, that she might testify before them how much she
honored and loved the father and mother to whom she owed so great a
debt of gratitude. On her annual _fête_ she used to send them the
bouquets which were presented to her. During her father’s last illness
she came expressly to see and assist him in preparing for death, and,
though obliged to bid him adieu before he had departed this life, she
left him consoled and fortified by her last acts of filial affection,
and he peacefully expired soon after her departure from Joigny, on the
25th of June 1809.
At the first council the spirit of disunion already alluded to
prevented Father Varin and Madame Barat from undertaking the work of
preparing constitutions for the society. A brief and simple programme
of a rule was drawn up and approved by the bishops under whose
jurisdiction the houses were placed, and Madame Barat became herself
the living rule and model, on which her subjects and novices were
formed. Father Varin had resigned his office of superior when Madame
Barat was formally elected by the council of professed members their
superior-general. Another ecclesiastic of very different spirit, who
was the confessor of the community and the school at Amiens, M. l’Abbé
de St. Estéve, was ambitious of the honor and influence which justly
belonged to Father Varin. He obtained a complete dominion at Amiens by
means of Madame de Baudemont, a former Clarissine, who was gained over
by his adroit flattery and artful encouragement of the love of sway
and pre-eminence which her commanding talents, her former conventual
experience, and her mature age, together with the advantage of her
position as local superior, entrusted to her against Father Varin’s
advice, gave a too favorable opportunity of development. M. de St.
Estéve arrogated to himself the title of founder of the society, and
planned an entire reconstitution of the same under the bizarre title
of _Apostolines_, and with a set of rules which would have made an
essential alteration of the institute established by Father Varin. All
the other houses besides Amiens were in dismay and alarm. Madame
Penaranda, a lady of Spanish extraction, descended from the family of
St. Francis Borgia, who was superior at Ghent, separated her house
from the society by the authority of the bishop of the diocese. She
returned, however, some years later, with seventeen of her companions,
to the Society of the Sacred Heart.
In the meantime the Society of Jesus had been re-established and the
Society of the Fathers of the Holy Faith was dissolved, most of its
members entering the Jesuit Order as novices. Father de Clorivière was
provincial in France, and Madame Barat, encouraged by the advice and
sympathy of wise and holy men, waited patiently and meekly for the
time of her liberation from the schemes of a plausible and designing
enemy who had crept under a false guise into her fold. This was
accomplished through a most singular act of criminal and audacious
folly on the part of M. de St. Estéve. Having gone to Rome as
secretary to the French Legation, in order to further his intrigue by
false representations at the Papal Court, he was led by his insane
ambition, in default of any other means of success, to forge a letter
from the provincial of the Jesuits of Italy to Madame Barat,
instructing her to submit herself to the new arrangements of M. de St.
Estéve, which he declared had been approved by the Holy See. In this
crisis Madame Barat submitted with perfect obedience to what she
supposed was an order from the supreme authority in the church, and
counselled her daughters to imitate her example. Very soon the
imposture was discovered. Mesdames de Baudemont, de Sambucy, and
Coppina left the society and went to join another in Rome, and the
rest of the disaffected members of the community at Amiens, although
not immediately pacified, made no serious opposition to Madame Barat,
and not long after were so completely reconciled to her that all trace
of disunion vanished. There being now no obstacle in the way of
forming the constitutions, a council was summoned to meet in Paris, at
a suitable place provided by Madame de Gramont d’Aster, and its issue
was most successful. It assembled on the Feast of All Saints, 1815,
and in the chapel which was used for the occasion was placed the
statue of Our Lady before which St. Francis de Sales, when a young
student, had been delivered from the terrible temptation to despair
which is related in his biography. It was composed of the Reverend
Mothers Barat, Desmarquest, Deshayes, Bigeu, Duchesne, Geoffroy,
Giraud, Girard, and Eugénie de Gramont. Father de Clorivière presided
over it, and Fathers Varin and Druilhet, previously appointed by him
to draw up the constitutions, were present to read, explain, and
propose them to the discussion and vote of the council. The whole work
was completed in six weeks. The Reverend Mothers Bigeu, de Charbonnel,
Grosier, Desmarquest, Geoffroy, and Eugénie de Gramont were elected as
the six members of the permanent council of the superior-general,
arrangements were made for establishing a general novitiate in Paris,
the society was placed under the government of the Archbishop of
Rheims as ecclesiastical superior, who delegated his functions to the
Abbé Pereau, a solemn ceremony closed the sessions on the 16th of
December, and early in January the reverend mothers returned to their
respective residences. The constitutions were received with unanimous
contentment in all the houses, including Amiens, approved by the
bishops in whose dioceses these houses existed, and, finally, a letter
of congratulation, expressed in the most kind and paternal terms, was
received from his Holiness Pope Pius VII. From this period the
authority of Madame Barat was fully established and recognized,
harmony and peace reigned within the society, and a new era of
extension began which has continued to the present time. The society
with its constitutions was solemnly approved by Leo XII. in a brief
dated December 22, 1826, which was received at Paris in February,
1827, during a session of the council. By the authority of the Holy
See an additional vow of stability was prescribed for the professed,
and the dispensation from this vow reserved to the pope. The rules
were made more strict in several respects, and a cardinal protector
was substituted for the ecclesiastical superior. The royal approbation
for France was at this time also solicited, and granted by Charles X.,
then reigning. In 1839 another effort was made to give a still greater
perfection to the statutes and to provide for the more efficacious
government of the institute, now become too great for the immediate
government of the superior-general, by a division into provinces under
provincial superiors.
At this time the society passed through another dangerous crisis, and
for four years was in a disturbed state which gave great anxiety to
the Rev. Mother Barat, diminished seriously her influence over her
subjects, and even occasioned a menace of suppression in France to be
intimated by the government. The cause of this trouble was an effort
made by a number of persons both within and without the society to
transfer the residence of the superior-general to Rome, and to modify
the rules in a way to make the society as far as possible a complete
counterpart of the Society of Jesus. In 1843 this difficulty was
finally settled by the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff, who
annulled all the acts and decrees which had been passed in the
councils of the society looking towards innovation, and determined
that the residence of the superior-general should not be removed from
France. Happily, not a house, or even a single member, was separated
from the society by this disturbance, and when it passed by the
venerable and holy foundress was more revered and loved than ever
before, and her gentle but strong sway over the vast family which she
governed was confirmed for ever, never again to suffer diminution.
Some of the proposed changes were, however, absolutely necessary for
the order and well-being of the society, and were provided for in the
year 1850 by Pius IX., who decreed the establishment of provinces
under the name of vicariates, each one to be governed by the superior
of its mother-house with the rank and title of superior-vicar, subject
to the supreme authority of the superior-general. At the close of
Madame Barat’s administration, which ended only with her life, on
Ascension Thursday, 1865, there were fifteen vicariates. Since then
the number has been increased. There are three in the United States,
one in British America, one in Spanish America; and in these five
vicariates there are about eleven hundred religious of the first and
second profession, including lay sisters. The number of houses in
various parts of the world is about one hundred, and the total number
of members four thousand. Madame Barat herself founded one hundred and
fifteen houses, and many others have been established since her death.
But of these some have been suppressed in Italy and Germany, and
others were given up or transferred by the superiors of the order.
Madame Goëtz, who was vicar-general to Madame Barat during the last
year of her life, succeeded her as superior-general, and was succeeded
after her own death, in 1874, by Madame Lehon, the present
superior-general.
Our limits will not permit even a succinct narrative of the events
which filled up the half-century during which Madame Barat governed
the Society of the Sacred Heart, from the memorable council of 1815
until 1865. We cannot omit, however, some brief notice of the
foundation of the American mission and the ladies who were sent over
to establish it. The first American colony was composed of three
ladies and two lay sisters: Madame Duchesne, Madame Audé, Madame
Berthold, Sister Catharine Lamarre, and Sister Marguérite Manteau.
Madame Philippine Duchesne was a native of Grenoble, where she
received an accomplished education, first at the Visitation convent of
Sainte-Marie-d’en-Haut, and afterwards under private tutors in the
same class with her cousins, Augustin and Casimir Périer. At the age
of eighteen she entered the Visitation convent as a novice, but was
prevented by the suppression of the religious orders in France from
making her vows. During the dark days of the Revolution her conduct
was that of a heroine. After the end of the Reign of Terror she rented
the ancient convent above mentioned, and for several years maintained
there an asylum for religious women with a small boarding-school for
girls, waiting for an opportunity to establish a regular religious
house. Her desire was accomplished when Madame Barat accepted the
offer which was made to her to receive Madame Duchesne and her
companions into the Society of the Sacred Heart, and to found the
second house of her society in the old monastery of Ste.-Marie-d’en-Haut.
Madame Duchesne had felt an impulse for the arduous vocation of a
missionary since the time when she was eight years old, and this
desire had continually increased, notwithstanding the apparent
improbability of its ever finding scope within the limits of her
vocation. She was about forty-eight years of age when she was
entrusted with the American mission, and lived for thirty-four years
in this country, leaving after her the reputation of exalted and
really apostolic sanctity. Madame Eugénie Audé had been much
fascinated by the gay world in her early youth, and her conversion was
remarkable. Returning one evening from a _soirée_, as she went before
a mirror in her boudoir, she saw there, instead of her own graceful
and richly-attired figure, the face of Jesus Christ as represented in
the _Ecce Homo_. From that moment she renounced her worldly life, and
soon entered the novitiate at Grenoble as a postulant. Even there, her
historian relates, “on souriait de ses manières mondaines, de ses
belles salutations, de ses trois toilettes par jour! Même sous le
voile de novice qu’elle portait maintenant, elle laissait voir encore,
pas sans complaisance, l’élégance de sa taille et les avantages de sa
personne. On ne tardera pas à voir ce que cette âme de jeune fille
changée en âme d’apôtre était capable d’entreprendre pour Dieu et le
prochain.” This great change was wrought in her soul during a retreat
given by Père Roger on the opening of the general novitiate at Paris
during November, 1816. When called to join Madame Duchesne two years
later, she was twenty-four years of age, and, after a long period of
service in the United States, was finally elected an assistant general
and recalled to France. Madame Octavie Berthold was the daughter of an
infidel philosopher who had been Voltaire’s secretary. She was herself
educated as a Protestant, was converted to the faith when about twenty
years of age, and soon after entered the novitiate at Grenoble. She
volunteered for the American mission, animated by a desire to prove
her gratitude to our Lord for the grace of conversion, and was at this
time about thirty years of age. “Caractère sympathique, cœur
profondément devouée, intelligence ornée, spécialement versée dans la
connaissance des langues étrangères, Mme Octavie était fort aimée au
pensionnat de Paris.”
Mgr. Dubourg, Bishop of New Orleans, was the prelate who introduced
the Ladies of the Sacred Heart into the United States. It was during
the year 1817 that the arrangements were completed at Paris. On the
21st of March, 1818, the five religious above mentioned embarked at
Bordeaux on the _Rebecca_, and on the 29th of May, which was that year
the Feast of the Sacred Heart, they landed at New Orleans, where they
were received as the guests of the Ursulines in their magnificent
convent. Their own first residence at St. Charles, in the present
diocese of St. Louis, was as different as possible from this noble
religious house, and from those which have since that time been
founded by the successors of these first colonists. Madame Duchesne,
in her visions of missionary and apostolic life, never dreamed of
those religious houses, novitiates, and pensionates, rivalling the
splendid establishments of Europe, which we now see at St. Louis,
Manhattanville, Kenwood, and Eden Hall. Her aspirations were entirely
for labor among the Indians and negroes, and, to a considerable
extent, they were satisfied. She began with the most arduous and
self-sacrificing labors upon the roughest and most untilled soil of
Bishop Dubourg’s diocese, and one of her last acts was to go on a
mission among the Pottawattomies, from which she was only taken by the
force of Archbishop Kenrick’s authority a little before her death. The
present flourishing condition of the two vicariates of New Orleans and
St. Louis is well known to all our readers. The foundation at New York
was due to the enlightened zeal of the late illustrious Archbishop
Hughes, although the first idea originated in the mind of Madame Barat
many years before. In the year 1840 the celebrated Russian convert,
Madame Elizabeth Gallitzin, a cousin of Prince Gallitzin the priest of
Loretto, and assistant general for America to Madame Barat, was sent
over to establish this foundation and to make a general visitation, in
the course of which she died suddenly of yellow fever at St. Michel,
on the 14th of November, 1842.
The first residence in New York was the present convent of the Sisters
of Mercy in Houston Street, from which it was removed, first to
Astoria, and afterwards to the Lorillard estate in Manhattanville,
where is now the centre of an extensive vicariate comprising eight
houses in the States of New York, Rhode Island, Ohio, and Michigan,
about five hundred religious, a novitiate containing at this moment
forty-eight novices exclusive of postulants, and flourishing schools
both for the education of young ladies and the instruction of the
children of those parishes which are adjacent to the several convents.
It is not necessary to describe for the benefit of our American
readers with more detail the history and present condition of the
Society of the Sacred Heart in this country. Our European readers
would no doubt be interested by such a history; but, besides the
imperative reason of a want of space in the present article, there is
another which imposes on us the obligation of reserve in respect to
works accomplished by the living, to whom has been transmitted the
humility as well as the other virtues of their holy foundress. There
is one venerable lady especially, now withdrawn from the sphere of her
long and active administration to a higher position in the society,
who is remembered with too much gratitude by her children, and honor
by all classes of Catholics in her native land, to require from our
pen more than the expression of a wish and prayer, on the part of
thousands whose hearts will echo our words as they read them, that she
may resemble the holy mother who loved her and all her American
children so tenderly, as “_sa plus chère famille_,” in length of days,
and in the peace which closed her last evening.
We have already alluded briefly to the blessed departure of Madame
Barat from the scene of labor to the glory which awaits the saints, in
the eighty-sixth year of her age and the sixty-sixth of her religious
life, on the Feast of the Ascension, 1865. The narrative of a few
salient events in her life, and of the principal facts in the history
of the foundation of the Sacred Heart, which we have thought best to
present, meagre as it is, in lieu of more general observations on her
character and that of her great works, for the benefit of those who
cannot, at least for the present, peruse the history of M. Baunard,
leaves us but little room for any such remarks. The character of this
saintly woman must be studied in the details of her private and public
life, and in the expression she has given to her interior spirit in
the extracts from her vast correspondence published by her biographer.
No one could ever take her portrait; and we are assured by one who
knew her long and intimately that the one placed in front of the
second volume of her life is not at all satisfactory. How can we
describe, then, such a delicate, hidden, retiring, subtile essence as
the soul of Sophie Barat in a few words, or give name to that which
fascinated every one, from the little nephew Louis Dusaussoy to
Frayssinous, Montalembert, and Gregory XVI.? Extreme gentleness and
modesty, which, with the continual increase of grace, become the most
perfect and admirable humility, were the basis of her natural
character and of her acquired sanctity. In the beginning her modesty
was attended by an excessive timidity, so that Father Varin gave her
the name of “_trembleuse perpetuelle_.” This was supplanted by that
generous, affectionate confidence in God which shone out so luminously
in the great trials of her career. In all things, and always, Madame
Barat was exquisitely feminine. She conquered and ruled by love, and
this sway extended over all, from the smallest children to the most
energetic, commanding, impetuous, and able of the highly-born,
accomplished, and in every sense remarkable women who were under her
government in the society, to women of the world, to old men and young
men, to servants, the poor, fierce soldiers and revolutionists, and
even to irrational creatures. With this feminine delicacy and
gentleness there was a virile force and administrative ability, a
firmness and intrepidity, which made her capable of everything and
afraid of nothing. Her writings display a fire of eloquence which may
be truly called apostolic, and would be admired in the mouth of an
apostolic preacher. Besides the great labors that she accomplished in
the foundation and visitation of her numerous houses, and in the
government of her vast society, Madame Barat went through several most
severe and dangerous illnesses, beginning with one which threatened
her life in the first years at Amiens; and was frequently brought, to
all appearance, to the very gates of death. Besides these sufferings,
and the great privations which were often endured during the first
period of new foundations, she practised austerities and penances of
great severity, to the utmost limit permitted by obedience to her
directors. With her wonderful activity she united the spirit of a
contemplative; and there are not wanting many evidences of
supernatural gifts of an extraordinary kind, or proofs of her power
with God after her death. Mgr. Parisis has publicly declared that her
life was one of the great events of this century, and comparable to
those of St. Dominic, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catharine of Siena,
and St. Teresa. There is but one, universal sentiment in respect of
her sanctity, and one, unanimous desire that the seal of canonization
may be placed upon it by the successor of St. Peter. A prayer under
her invocation has been already sanctioned by Pius IX., and the cause
of her beatification has been introduced, the issue of which we await,
in the hope that we may one day be permitted and commanded to honor
the modest little Sophie Barat of Joigny—who went away weeping in the
coach to Paris at sixteen to found one of the greatest orders of the
world—under the most beautiful and appropriate title of _Sancta
Sophia_.
When we consider the work of Madame Barat as distinct from her
personal history, we observe some peculiar and remarkable features
marking its rise and growth. It came forth from the fiery, bloody
baptism of the French Revolution as a work of regeneration and
restoration. Many of its first members had been through an experience
of danger, suffering, and heroic adventure which had given them an
intrepidity of character proof against every kind of trial. The stamp
thus given to the society at the outset was that of generous loyalty
to the Holy See, and uncompromising hostility to the spirit and maxims
of the Revolution.
Another fact worthy of notice is that so many small communities,
private institutes for education, and persons living a very devout and
zealous life in the world, were scattered about the territory over
which the destructive tornado of revolution had passed, ready to be
incorporated into the Society of the Sacred Heart, and furnishing the
means of a rapid growth and extension.
New orders are not absolutely new creations. They spring from those
previously existing, and are affiliated with each other more or less
closely, notwithstanding their differences. Many of the first members
of the Society of the Sacred Heart had been previously inclined to the
orders of Mt. Carmel and the Visitation. The spirit of the Carmelite
Order was largely inherited by the new society, and from the Order of
the Visitation the special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was
received by the same transmission of mystic life. The organization was
produced by the engrafting of the principles of the constitutions of
St. Ignatius on the new and vigorous stock. From this blending and
composition sprang forth the new essence with its own special notes,
its original force, and its distinct sphere of operation. Cardinal
Racanati thus expresses his judgment of its excellence: “My duty has
obliged me to read the constitutions of almost all ancient and modern
orders. All are beautiful, admirable, marked with the signet of God.
But this one appears to me to excel among all the others, because it
contains the essence of religious perfection, and is at the same time
a masterpiece of unity. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is at once the pivot
around which everything moves, and the end in which everything
results.” Pope Gregory XVI. said that the Rule of the Sacred Heart was
in every part the work of God. Although not an exact counterpart of
the Society of Jesus, the Society of the Sacred Heart is nevertheless,
in its government and method of discipline, modelled after a similar
type, with equally efficacious means for producing in its subjects, in
a manner proportionate to their feminine character, all the highest
religious virtues of the mixed state of action and contemplation. The
only important differences between the Society of the Sacred Heart and
the older orders of women are the absence of the interior cloister and
of the solemn vows. The first, which is obviously an advantage
considering the nature of the occupations in which the Ladies of the
Sacred Heart are engaged, is compensated for by the extreme strictness
of the rules governing their conduct in regard to intercourse with the
world, and the obligation of going at a moment’s warning to any house,
in any part of the world, where they may be ordered by the superiors.
In respect to the second, as the final vows can only be dispensed by
the pope, the completeness and sacredness of the oblation for life are
not diminished, but only a prudent provision for extraordinary cases
secured by the wisdom of the Holy See, which is beneficial both to the
order and its individual members. In respect to poverty, self-denial,
regularity, and all that belongs to the beautiful order of conventual
life, the written rule of the Sacred Heart, which is actually observed
in practice, is not behind those of the more ancient orders. In
respect to the extent and strictness of the law of obedience, it is
pre-eminent among all, and its admirable organization may justly be
compared to that acknowledged masterpiece of religious polity, the
Institute of St. Ignatius. The more humble occupations to which so
many admirable religious women in various orders and congregations
devote themselves form an integral part of the active duties of the
society. A large portion of its members are lay sisters, and a great
number of the religious of the choir are engaged in the instruction of
poor children or domestic duties which have no exterior _éclat_. The
specific work of the society is of course the education of young
ladies, with the ulterior end of diffusing and sustaining Catholic
principles and Catholic piety, through the instrumentality of the
_élèves_ of the Sacred Heart, among the higher classes of society.
There cannot be a nobler work than this, or a more truly apostolic
vocation, within the sphere to which woman is limited by the law of
God, human nature, and the constitution of Christian society. What an
immense power has been exerted by the daughters of Madame Barat in
this way as the auxiliaries of the hierarchy and the sacerdotal order
in the church, is best proved by the persecutions they have sustained
from the anti-Catholic party in Europe, and the fear they have
inspired in the bosoms of tyrannical statesmen like Prince Bismarck,
who tremble with apprehension before the banner of the Sacred Heart,
though followed only by a troop of modest virgins. It is after all not
strange. The women of the revolution are more terrible than furies led
on by Alecto and Tisiphone. Why should not the virgins of the Catholic
army resemble their Queen, who is “terrible as an army set in array”?
It is with great regret that we abstain from setting forth the
enlightened, sound, and thoroughly Christian ideas of Madame Barat,
and the various councils over which she presided, in respect to the
education of Catholic girls in our age. We are obliged also to omit
noticing the charming sketches given in the book before us of the
first pupils of the Sacred Heart, and the noble part which so many of
them played afterwards in the world. We must close with a few words on
the merit of the Abbé Baunard’s work, and an expression of gratitude
to the distinguished ecclesiastic who has furnished us so much
pleasure and edification at a cost of such very great labor to
himself. He has been fortunate in his subject and the wealth of
authentic materials furnished him for fulfilling his honorable and
arduous task. His illustrious subject has been fortunate in her
biographer. The _History of Madame Barat_ deserves to be ranked with
Mother Chauguy’s _Life of St. Frances de Chantal_ and M. Hamon’s _Life
of St. Francis de Sales_. We trust that an abridged life by a
competent hand may furnish those who cannot afford so costly a book,
or read one so large, with the means of knowing the character and
history of the Teresa of our century. There are also materials for
other histories and biographies of great interest and utility in the
rich, varied contents of this most admirable and charming work, which
we hope may not be neglected.
[160] _Histoire de Madame Barat, Fondatrice de la Société
du Sacré-Cœur de Jésus._ Par M. l’Abbé Baunard,
Aumonier du Lycée d’Orleans, Docteur en Théologie,
Docteur es Lettres. Paris: Poussielgue Frères. 1876.
SIX SUNNY MONTHS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.
CHAPTER I.
“CITTÀ VECCHIA!”
A comfortable family party came Romeward one May morning from Turin.
They had the railway carriage quite to themselves, and occupied it
fully. Mr. Vane lay stretched at length on the front seat, with a
travelling-bag and two shawls under his head. It was his first visit
to Italy, consequently his first approach to Rome, but he declined his
daughters’ invitation to look out. He would prefer, he said, to admire
the country when he should feel more in the mood. “Besides,” he said,
“to look at scenery when one is going through it behind a locomotive
irritates both the eyes and the temper. If you wish to see a near
object, no sooner have you fixed your eyes upon it than it is whisked
out of sight, and your pupils contract with a snap; if a distant one,
the moment you perceive that it is worth seeing, some sharp bit of
foreground starts up and enters like a bramble between your eyelids.
It’s a Sancho Panza feast, and I’ll none of it. You children can look
out and tantalize your tempers, if it please you.”
“Oh! thank you,” his daughter Isabel said dryly, availing herself of
the permission.
Presently she addressed him again: “Papa, if I could find a fault in
you, it would be that you are such a very unreasonably reasonable man.
You have always so many arguments in favor of every proposition you
lay down, there isn’t a handle left to take it up by.”
“Thank you!” the gentleman echoed. And then there was silence for a
little while—a silence of tongues; but, with a ceaseless whirr and
buzz, the flying train was casting the north behind, and plunging into
the south like a bee into a flower.
Mr. Vane’s two daughters, twenty and twenty-two years of age, sat
opposite him, each at a window, Isabel moving frequently, glancing
here and there, and speaking whenever the spirit was stirred; Bianca,
the younger, seeming to be in a trance. These two girls were as unlike
in appearance as it is possible for two persons to be who have many
points of resemblance. Both had fine dark eyes, dark hair, complexions
of a clear, pale olive, and features sufficiently regular. Bianca was
a trifle taller and finer in shape, and her manner had a gentle
dignity, while her sister’s was lively and positive. Bianca’s mouth
was fuller, sweeter, and more silent, and her voice softer. She had a
more penetrating mind than most persons were aware of, and thought and
observed more than she said. Isabel caught quickly at the surfaces of
things, and had a clever way of weaving other people’s ideas into her
talk that sometimes made her appear brilliant. It might be said that
the impressions of the elder were cameo, those of the younger
intaglio. For the rest, let their story speak for them.
The father was a large, leisurely, middle-aged gentleman, whom
critical people like to call indolent. He certainly had, as his elder
daughter intimated, the faculty of finding a great many excellent
reasons why he should not exert himself unnecessarily, and it is
probable that he might never have been brought to the pitch of a
trans-atlantic voyage but for Miss Isabel’s politic arguments in
urging the matter.
“In Europe one can be so quiet,” she said. “One can live there without
being tormented by the idea that one should be doing something for
somebody. It isn’t considered necessary to have a mission. Everything
happens half an hour or so after time, and everybody goes to sleep in
the middle of the day—in the middle of the street, too, if they like.
I’ve heard people say that it’s just delicious the way the clergy take
their promenade there. Two of them will walk slowly along a few
minutes, then stop and carry on their conversation a little while, as
if they were in the Elysian Fields, then resume their walk, and so on,
walking and pausing, in the most delightfully leisurely way. Fancy
that in New York! Why, our idea of walking is to get one foot before
the other as quickly as we can. Going out, we see only the spot we
start from and the spot we arrive at, and we shoot from the one to the
other as if we wore percussion-caps on our heads. Marion says that
Italy is the fabled lotos, and that all the dust and dirt people talk
so about is nothing but pollen.”
Mr. Vane, who in America felt himself like a drone in the midst of
bees, could not resist this charming picture, and we accordingly find
him in the land of the lotos.
“Bianca,” her sister said presently, “do you remember the Goldsmith’s
history of Rome we studied at school? I’ve forgotten every bit of it
but the title, and an impression of great uncomfortable doings, and
haranguing and attitudinizing, and killing. I recollect it was always
a wonder to me when I found there were people enough left to begin a
new chapter with. Now we are going to see the places. How glad I am we
shall not see any of the tremendous people!”
She put her head out of the window and added: “I don’t find that the
country looks any better than Massachusetts. But, for all that, I am
enchanted to be here. How I have longed to come!”
“Indeed!” her father said, staring a little. “Why, then, did you not
let us come six months ago, instead of clinging to London and Paris?”
She smiled indulgently on him. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten how, when I
was a child, and when I had mince-pie for dinner, I used to slyly pick
out the large raisins and put them under the edge of my plate to eat
afterward. I recollect your finding me out once, and asking me if I
didn’t like raisins, and I was in terror lest you were going to take
them away from me. I’ve been doing the same thing now—saving the best
for the last. I wished to dispose of everything else first, so that,
when I return to America, I can shut my eyes in Rome, and not open
them again till they see the shores of the New World. And, between
ourselves, papa, isn’t it a dreadfully new world? I wouldn’t own it to
a foreigner, of course; but you’re such a dear, stanch old Yankee!”
And she leaned forward and gave him an affectionate pinch in the
cheek.
The younger sister turned quickly at that. “O Bell! don’t turn
traitor,” she exclaimed. “Newness is not a disadvantage always. When
the world was new the Creator praised it, but there is no record of
his ever having praised it after.”
Mr. Vane looked at his younger daughter with a wistful, lingering
smile. He always looked attentively at Bianca when she spoke.
Isabel lifted her hands in wonder. “Well, really, she is playing
patriot! Who have I heard say that her body was born in America, but
her soul in Italy? Who have I heard say that the children of Israel
were not Egyptians, though they were born by the Nile?”
Bianca smiled to herself softly, and looked out of the window as she
answered: “I am not _playing_ patriot. The feeling was always in my
mind, hanging there silent like a bell in its tower; and now and then
it rang. It always rang when struck.”
“That’s my darling!” her father exclaimed. “Keep your sweet-toned
patriotism in its bell-tower. I don’t like the sort that is always
firing india-crackers under everybody’s nose. By the way,” he added
after a while, rousing again, rather unaccountably, “what an absurdity
it is in us, this coming to Rome in May! To-day is the second of the
month. We should have come in December. I wonder I allowed myself to
be so persuaded. I have a mind to go back at once.”
His elder daughter regarded him tranquilly. “Don’t excite yourself
unnecessarily, papa,” she said; “we are behind a coachman who never
turns back. By the time we reach Rome you will be as contented as a
lamb. Do not you perceive something beautiful in our coming at this
season, with the orange-flowers and the jasmines? We do not arrive, we
simply bloom. Even dear old papa will put on a film of tender green
over his sombreness, like a patriarchal spruce-tree; and as to Bianca
and me—”
She sang:
“Two half-open roses on one twig grew,
Sweet is the summer.
A nightingale sang there the whole night through
Sweet is the summer.”
“Here we are! What a comfort that we have not to go to a hotel nor
search for lodgings! It is very nice to have a friend to prepare
everything.”
In fact, a friend of the family, resident in Rome, who had written and
received a score or so of letters on the subject of this journey, was
waiting outside the barrier at that moment. They saw her a little
apart from the crowd, looking for them as they gave up their tickets;
then a servant took their packages, and they were cordially welcomed
to Rome. This lady has so long been accustomed to hearing herself
announced by the maid-servants of the friends she visits as the
“Signora Ottant’-otto,” from the number of her house, that she will
not be displeased if we continue the title.
A carriage was called, and in a few minutes they had reached the home
prepared for their reception. It was an old-fashioned Roman house,
situated on a high slope of the Viminal where it meets the Esquiline
in a scarcely perceptible dent. The _portone_, entrance, and stairs
were palatial in size, the latter having broad landings lighted by
double windows in the middle of each story; and instead of a mere
passage or small waiting-room, the door of the apartment opened at
once into a noble _sala_. Large chambers surrounded this _sala_, and a
backward-extending wing held smaller rooms and a kitchen. All this
part of the house looked into a garden, where orange-trees stood with
their sprinkle of fragrant snow, and jasmines reared their solid cones
of flowery gold, perfuming every breeze that entered. Beyond the
garden extended an orchard and vineyard, hiding all that part of the
city except the long roof and façade of the church of St. Catherine of
Siena, and the grand old tower that Vittoria Colonna built her convent
walls about. These looked over the rich verdure, standing out dark and
massive against the clear western sky.
“The front rooms are town, the back rooms country,” the Signora said.
“In the front rooms we have the ‘dim, religious light’ that Italians
love; here are silence, except for the birds, sunshine, and flowers.”
The front drawing-rooms were conventional, but the _sala_ and
dining-room had a character quite new to the travellers. The uncovered
brick floors, freshly sprinkled and swept; the faded old screens of
green silk or embroidered satin, set in carved frames; the tarnished
gilt chairs with scarlet velvet cushions; the large sofas, and tables,
and cases of drawers, all finely carved; the walls almost entirely
covered with old oil-paintings of every size, some without frames,
some so dim that amid the haze of faded color a face would look forth,
or an arm be thrust out as from a cloud—all these made up a picture
very different from the rich, toned-down freshness of their New
England home, where they trod on velvet, and would no more have
admitted a chair of scarlet and gold than they would have allowed a
curtain to hang after the sun had made a streak in it.
The girls were enchanted. “How delightfully dingy everything is!”
Isabel cried. “It’s like grandmother’s beautiful cashmere shawl that
is a hundred years old.”
And then the travellers were good enough to say that they were hungry,
and would not be displeased if luncheon should be very prompt at the
hour of noon.
“After this, you see, we shall sail right into your track without a
break,” Mr. Vane said. “Your hours suit me perfectly; and whether it
should be luncheon or dinner at noon does not make the least
difference to me at this season. In cold weather I like a late
dinner.”
“I think you will find the early dinner pleasanter in summer,” the
Signora said; “that is, if you rise early. You will soon learn, if you
have not learned already, to give up the heavy American breakfast, and
so will be hungry by noon. That gives you the fresh of the morning
free, with little digestive work to dull your activity, and the lovely
evenings from five to eight or nine. If you wish to go out romancing
by moonlight, the supper is just enough to content, without clogging.
The next best plan is, coffee on waking, breakfast at ten, and dinner
at four or five after your nap. I have tried all ways, and settled on
the first for this country. Of course it wouldn’t answer for our
indoor, chilly life at the other side of the world.”
“I do not like a four or five o’clock dinner,” Mr. Vane said with
decision. “It is neither one thing nor the other; and I hate to go
from the bed to the dinner-table.”
It was the Signora’s first house-keeping for any one but herself, and
she was full of a pleasant anxiety. What solemn conferences she had
with the _donna_, what explanations, what charges she gave! And how
learned she became in matters to which before she had not given a
thought! In such a dark and narrow street, in a dingy little shop, was
to be found the best chocolate in Rome. In such another place, where
you would least expect, they sold coffee of unimpeachable excellence,
which, of course, one had roasted and ground in one’s own house.
Another journey was made for tea. She became an object of terror to
sellers of meat and vegetables, and fruit-venders trembled before her.
To witness the scorn with which she rejected apricots that had not the
precise cloudless sunset tint, peaches that were of a vulgar red and
green complexion or too pale in hue, mandarins not sufficiently loose
of skin and flattened at the poles, and grapes and figs that could not
answer in the affirmative at least six stern questions, one would have
supposed that she must have been accustomed to such fruits as grew in
the Garden of Eden. As to wine, the story of its getting was an
admirable illustration of moral pulley-power. A friend’s friend’s,
etc., friend had two friends who owned vineyards and made wine, and
one was famous for his white and another for his red. The first power
in this machinery was a semi-weekly cup of tea which a certain
respectable, antique bachelor had taken regularly with the Signora
time out of mind, and, losing which, his life would have been quite
disjointed. The flavor of the tea did not, of course, extend beyond
him, but it influenced certain favors in his power to grant, which, in
turn, moved the next wheel; and so on, quite in order, till a way was
made from certain cool grottos, where the hoarded wines sparkled to
themselves in the dark, to the small dinner-table where our friends in
the old Roman house sat and sipped liquid rubies or sunshine for an
absurdly small price considering the result.
“But you are giving us too much of your time,” the Vanes expostulated.
“We cannot permit you to turn housekeeper for us. How will you be able
to write?”
For the Signora Ottant’-otto was an authoress. “In the first flush of
seeing you I could not content myself to write a line,” she said; “and
by the time I shall have become calm my machinery will be in working
order. After that nothing will be necessary but an occasional warning
word or glance.”
This conversation did not, however, take place till the end of the
first week. The first day the house-keeping seemed to have arranged
itself without human intervention.
As they seated themselves at the luncheon-table the soft boom of the
gun from St. Angelo proclaimed the hour of noon, and immediately
another booming, as soft, but more musical, came from the near
_campanile_ of the Liberian basilica, where the great bell struck the
Angelus, followed by all the bells in the tower in a _festa_ ringing.
“That is Maria Assunta and her four ladies of honor,” the Signora
said, with all the pride of a proprietor. “I may as well tell you that
they and the church they belong to are my one weakness in Rome. I have
been up the _campanile_ to visit those bells, have read their
inscriptions and touched their embossed sides, even while they were
being rung. An Italian boy who was with me exclaimed when I put my
hand to the ringing rim of the great bell: ‘_E un peccato! Ha fatto
tacere Maria Santissima!_’”
They smiled and listened. It pleased them to know what the Signora
liked and how she liked.
“I remember the first time I saw that church,” she said, pleased to go
on. “It was my first Christmas in Rome, and, after having heard a Mass
at Aurora, I went out alone later, to lose myself and see what I would
come to. I wandered into the long street that is now so familiar, and
saw the tip of a _campanile_ peeping at me over the hill in front like
a beckoning finger. I followed, and presently knew where I must be,
though I had carefully refrained from reading descriptions of
anything. The morning was fresh and clear, but inside the church was
quite dim, except that the round window high up the eastern end of the
nave was thrust through by a long bar of sunshine that looked as
though it might make a hole for itself out the other end, it was so
live and solid. I recollected pictures I had seen of the Jewish
tabernacle, with the two bars by which it was carried, or lifted, and
I said to myself, Suppose another gold bar should be put in, and the
whole church, and all who are in it, carried off over hill and dale,
and through the air to some Promised Land fairer than Italy. There was
a man up outside who seemed to be afraid of such a catastrophe; for he
was struggling to draw together the two halves of a red curtain over
the window. It was not easy to do—I presume he was resisted—but
finally everything was shut out but a blush. All that upper end of the
nave was rosy, and pink reflections ran along the inner sides of the
two rows of white columns, like ripples in water, and faded at the
grand altar they had strained to reach. You could fancy they sighed
with contentment when they did reach it. The sacristy-bell rang for a
Mass beginning just as I entered, and I took that as an indication
that I was to go no further till I had heard it. So I knelt close to
the door in a little nook by the tribune. The priest stopped at the
altar in the very farthest corner. I could see him between the
columns, and so far away that I could hardly know when he knelt or
rose. When the Mass was over, I seated myself where the bases of two
columns before the Borghese Chapel form a grand marble throne, and
there I stayed the whole forenoon.”
“Nothing strikes me more in Catholic churches,” Mr. Vane said, “than
to see a worshipper attending to the service from some far nook or
corner, with a crowd of people walking about between him and the
altar. You do not seem to think it necessary to be near the priest or
hear what he is saying. That is one great difference between you and
Protestants. What their minister says is all. Though, to be sure,” he
added, “one wouldn’t always know what the priest were saying, if one
were close to him.”
“It isn’t necessary as long as we know what he is doing,” the Signora
replied rather quickly. “Besides, Catholics, even uneducated ones, do
know very nearly the words he is speaking, without hearing them. It is
a mistake constantly made by Protestants to think that Catholics do
not understand, because they themselves do not. They forget that there
is little variety in the service, and that in all essential parts one
Mass is like all other Masses. An intelligent Catholic, whether he can
read or not, can tell you just what the priest is doing as far off as
he can see him, and knows just what prayers he should offer at the
moment. As for the priest or his assistant not speaking distinctly,
they often do, oftener than not; and when they do not, it is not
strange. The same words, repeated over and over again, even when
repeated with the whole heart, have a tendency to become indistinct,
and to drop the consonants and keep only the vowels. The torso of
sound is all right.”