After our author had completed the usual course of study, he was
admitted as alumnus of Douay college, and appointed _professor of
philosophy_. The Newtonian system of philosophy was about that time
gaining ground in the foreign universities. He adopted it, in part, into
the course of philosophy which he dictated to the students. He read and
considered with great attention the metaphysical works of Woolfe and
Leibnitz. He did not admire them, and thought the system of
pre-established harmony laid down in them irreconcilable with the
received belief or opinions of the Roman Catholic church on the soul;
and that much of their language, though susceptible of a fair
interpretation, conveyed improper notions, or, at least, sounded
offensively to Catholic ears. The late Mr. John Dunn, his contemporary
at the college, frequently mentioned to the editor the extreme caution
which our author used in inserting any thing new in his dictates,
particularly on any subject connected with any tenet of religion. After
teaching a course of philosophy, he was appointed _professor of
divinity_. On this part of his life the editor has been favored by a
gentleman deservedly damed for his erudition and piety, the reverend
Robert Bannister, with a long letter, of which the reader is presented
with an extract.
"I was contemporary with Mr. Alban Butler in Douay college eight years;
viz. from October, 1741 to October, 1749. But as I was but a boy the
greater part of that time, I had not any intimacy with him, nor was I
capable of knowing any thing concerning his interior, the manner of his
prayer, or the degrees to which he ascended in it, or any extraordinary
communications or elevations to which the Holy Ghost, the great master
and teacher of contemplation, might raise him. All that I can say is,
that he opened Douay college great door to me and a gentleman whom I
knew not, but who was so good as to bring me from Lisle in his coach, on
Sunday between ten and eleven, the 15th of October, 1741; and the first
sight of him appeared to me then so meek and so amiable, that I thought
I would choose him for my ghostly father; but another, I suppose in
rotation, adopted me. Mr. Alban was my sole master in my first year of
divinity in 1749, and dictated the two treatises _De Decalogo et De
Incarnatione_; he also presided over my defensions upon those two
treatises, and over Mr. James Talbot's (the late bishop of London) upon
universal divinity. As to heroic acts of virtue, which strike with
admiration all that see or hear of them, I cannot recollect more than a
uniform, constant observance of all the duties of a priest, professor,
and confessarius. He was always at morning meditations, seldom omitted
the celebration of the holy sacrifice of the mass, which he said with a
heavenly composure, sweetness, and recollection; studying and teaching
assiduously, dictating with an unwearied patience so equally and
leisurely, that every one could, if he wished to do it, write his
dictates in a clear and legible hand; nor do I remember that he ever
sent a substitute to dictate for him; so exact and punctual he was in
his duty as a professor. I never knew one more ready to go to the
confession-seat, at the first intimation of any, even the least or
youngest boy. He heard his penitents with wonderful meekness; and his
penetration, learning, judgment, and piety, were such as to move them to
place in him a singular confidence. He frequently visited the military
hospital, to instruct, exhort, and hear the confessions of Irish
soldiers. He sometimes assembled a number of them (when they happened to
be quartered in Douay) in the college-church of St. Thomas of
Canterbury, and preached to them. In one of his sermons I remember he
told them, for their example and encouragement, that there are more
soldiers saints than of any other vocation, or state, or condition. As
poor, and often distressed, Irish men and women frequently came to
Douay, he was always ready to relieve them, and administer both corporal
and spiritual succors. It can never be forgotten what attention,
solicitude, and care he had, in the year 1745, of our English soldiers,
wounded and maimed, who were brought prisoners to Douay, and quartered
in the barracks, in great numbers, after the battle of Fontenoy. He
animated both by words and example all the young priests, and all in
holy orders at the college, to visit them, to instruct and instil into
them serious thoughts of saving their souls by embracing the only saving
faith, and by true repentance.{018} He also procured for them temporal
succor and relief so beneficently, that the duke of Cumberland, then
generalissimo of the British and allied armies, being informed of it,
promised him a special protection whensoever he came over into England.
Scarce any thing affords one a better proof of Mr. Alban's eminent
spirit of piety and great understanding, discretion, and light in
spiritual matters, than his familiarity and friendship with M. Jean
Baptiste de Villers, president of the seminary des Eveques in the
university of Douay, who died October the 7th, 1746, the death of a
saint, after having lived the life of one for seventy-eight years. This
M. de Villers was eminent in all supernatural and moral virtues, but he
concealed them under an amiable simplicity, and a plain unaffected
behavior or exterior, unless charity and zeal for the glory of God and
salvation of souls required their open and full exertion; and,
notwithstanding his great learning, (which he had acquired by an
excellent genius and diligent application to sacred studies,) and his
great and solid fund of piety, he was as docile as an infant; so
timorous and diffident of his own judgment, that he would neither do nor
decide any thing without counsel. With this sentiment of diffidence and
humility, he often visited (says M. Leroy, the faithful imitator and
writer of the history of his life) a young professor, a foreigner, (that
is, Alban Butler,) and passed an hour or two in his company in the
afternoon, once every week, and sometimes twice, several years, until
his edifying death. Their conversation together was solely about various
points of morality; about the direction of souls, and the method of
arriving at perfection in every action and intention; how to teach
devout persons a habit of making continual aspirations to God, by acts
of love, oblation, entire sacrifice of their hearts, of humility, &c. M.
de Villers would not suffer more than half a small fagot to be kindled
for him in the severest weather, saying to Mr. Alban, 'the other part
may serve some poor person.' As to wine, or any other liquor, he never
drank any but at meal-time. I remember to have heard an instance of Mr.
Alban's meekness, for I am not a witness of it. When he was presiding
over one of his students in divinity in the public hall of Douay
college, a disputant, who was probably much offended at some proposition
in the thesis, as being opposite to some favorite opinion of his school
or religious family, said to him with intolerable rudeness, _habes mel
in ore, sed fel in corde_: to which he made no reply, nor showed the
least resentment. Mr. Alban Butler was totally averse to the system of
probabilism, and to all assertions that favor laxity in morale. This is
evident from the dictates which he delivered to us, from his treatise
_De Decalogo, de actibus humanis_, in his _Epitome moralis
sacramentorum_, &c. It is still more evident from his _Epitome de sex
prioribus conciliis [oe]cumenicis in calce tractanus de Incarnatione_, that
he had the highest veneration for the holy see, and for him who sits in
the chair of St. Peter; that he constantly held and maintained the
rights and singular prerogatives of St. Peter and his successors, in
calling, presiding over, and confirming general or [oe]cumenical councils;
the pope's superiority over the whole church, and over the whole college
of bishops, and over a general council; the irreformability of his
doctrinal decisions in points of faith and morale; his supreme power to
dispense (when there is cause) in the canons of general councils; in
short, the plenitude of his authority over the whole chorus, without
exception or limitation, _Nihil excipitur ubi distinguitur nihil_."