"Let me surrender entirely my individual will, to be completely
united and absorbed in the will of Jesus Christ,--then will the
truths of Christianity become a fixed life in my soul.
"The great impediment to the life of Jesus in the soul is the
aiming at mediocrity in things pertaining to our Lord and to a
spiritual life; whereas our Master would have us aim at
_perfection_, and bear in mind as a command His words, 'Be ye
perfect.'"
In August Esmeralda was thrown into real heart-mourning by the news
which reached England of the death of "the Great Mother," Maria de
Matthias. The following is from Pierina Rolleston, Superior of the Order
of the Precious Blood in England:--
"My own dearest in the precious blood, I write in haste, and while
I write my tears are flowing, because I have sad news to tell you
and dear Mrs. Montgomery, who are both children of the Institute,
and love our beloved Mother-General, who is in heaven, praying for
us all. The following is a copy of a letter I received yesterday
from Monsignor Talbot:--'I write to announce to you the death of
your Mother-General. She expired two days ago--died as she lived,
after giving examples of patience and resignation in the midst of
her sufferings. To-morrow her funeral will be celebrated at the
Church of SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio, and I intend to attend. I do
not think you need fear for the future of your Institute, because
I think that the successor of your late Mother-General, though she
may not be so saintly a person, will be equally able to carry on
the business. I do not think you can be too grateful to Almighty
God for having such friends as Monsignor Paterson and Miss Hare.'
... My dearest, I write in haste that you may receive all the news
of our beloved Mother. Sister Carolina Longo, whom she named as her
successor upon her death-bed, is a good clever nun, and she was
Mother's dear child. She lived with Mother from a child of eight
years old, and became a religious about the age of twenty-two. We
have lost one of the dearest of mothers, but can look up to her in
heaven, and I am sure she will help us in our work.... With fond
love in the precious blood, I am always your most affectionate in
Christ,
"PIERINA OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD."
The winter of 1866-67 was chiefly passed by my sister at the house of
Mrs. Alfred Montgomery at Ifield near Crawley, where Esmeralda and her
aunt for many months shared in the housekeeping. For Esmeralda had been
induced to regard Mrs. Montgomery as a religious martyr, and her
impressionable nature was completely fascinated by her hostess. While at
Ifield, a fatal web was drawn each day more closely by her Catholic
associates, by which Esmeralda was induced to entrust large sums to her
brother Francis for speculation upon the political prophecies of Madame
de Trafford. Her unworldly nature was persuaded to consent to this means
of (as Francis represented) largely increasing her income, by the
prospect which was held out to her of having more money to employ in
assisting various religious objects, especially the establishment of the
Servites in London, and the foundation of their church, for which she
had promised Father Bosio, General of the Servites, to supply £500, to
be obtained either by collections or otherwise, at the expiration of
three years. Esmeralda never knew or had the faintest idea of the sum to
which her speculations amounted. She was beguiled on from day to day by
two evil advisers, and, her heart being in other things, was induced to
trust and believe that her worldly affairs were in the hands of
disinterested persons. The lists of her intended employments for the
next day, so many of which remained amongst her papers, show how little
of her time and attention was given to pecuniary matters. From them it
is seen that a quarter of an hour allotted to the discussion of
investments with her brother would be preceded by an hour spent in
writing about the affairs of a French convent or the maintenance of a
poor widow in Rome, and followed by an hour devoted to the interests of
the Servites or some other religious body. There is no doubt that
Esmeralda undertook far more than was good either for her health or for
her mind; each hour of every day was portioned out from the day before,
and was fully and intensely occupied, especially when she was in London.
If visitors or any unexpected circumstance prevented the task for which
she had allotted any particular hour, she did not leave it on that
account unfulfilled, but only detracted from the hours of rest. One
thing alone, her daily meditation, she allowed nothing to interfere
with. In the hours of meditation she found the refreshment which helped
her through the rest of the day. "Our Lord requires of us that our souls
should become a tabernacle for Him to dwell in," she wrote on February
2, 1867, "and the lamp lighted before it is the lamp of our affections."
All through the summer of 1866, my brother William's health had been
declining, and in the autumn, in the hope of benefit from the
sea-breezes, he was moved to Brighton, which he never left. After
Christmas day he was never able to leave the house. The small fortune of
his pretty helpless wife had been lost in a bankruptcy, and they were
reduced to a state of destitution in which they were almost devoid of
the absolute necessaries of life. The following are extracts from
William's letters to his sister at this time:--
"You cannot imagine how I miss your letters when you cease to write
for any length of time.... Since Sunday I have been confined to my
bed, having almost lost all use of my limbs. I could not possibly
be moved to our sitting-room, being in so weak and emaciated a
condition, and I fear I shall have to keep my bed all through this
bitter cold weather. I am so miserably thin that it is with the
greatest difficulty that I can contrive to sit or lie in any
position. It is, however, God's will that it should be so, and I am
enabled to say 'Thy will be done, O Lord.' ... God has mercifully
vouchsafed me time for repentance, and has brought me back to
Himself, and made me one with Him by strengthening me with His own
body, so that, dear sister, I feel supremely happy and at peace
with all the world; and should it please Almighty God to call me
hence, I feel serene in His love, that He has graciously forgiven
me all my sins, and that He will take me to Himself where there is
no longer any pain or suffering. Father Crispin came on Wednesday
to hear my confession, and on Thursday morning he administered the
most Blessed Sacrament to me. ... Dear Edith has received £10
lately, which you may well suppose at this critical time was
obtained with very great difficulty; but all this money has been
expended on my illness, and there is nothing left for the doctor's
visits, medicine, or to pay the butcher, baker, washerwoman, milk,
or coal bill. Yet it will not do to give up the doctor in my
critical state, or to cease taking his medicine, or to deny myself
the necessary restoratives; if I did I must inevitably sink. Will
you not, in compassion for my fallen state, consent to make me some
sort of allowance during my illness to enable me to obtain what is
necessary?
"Mr. Blackwood (you will remember 'Beauty Blackwood,' who married
the Duchess of Manchester[376]) has sent me a little book which he
has just published--'The Shadow and the Substance,' which he
assures me is quite free from controversy, and he desires me to
read it with especial care and attention, as being conducive to my
comfort during hours of sickness and suffering."
My sister immediately sent William all he required, when he again
wrote:--
"How can I thank you sufficiently for so generously responding to
my appeal in more senses than one, by sending me money to relieve
the pressure of want, books to comfort me in hours of sickness, and
wine to cheer and strengthen me?... Should I be spared, I must
accept this illness as one of the greatest, indeed the greatest
blessing I could possibly receive, for it has taught me my own
nothingness, my all insufficiency, and it has drawn me from a
sphere of sin into a sphere of grace; it has caused me to despise
the world and all its vanities, and has diverted my heart and
whole being to Almighty God; it has brought me into close communion
with Him, strengthened by the graces of His Holy Sacraments, and
has made me feel the blessedness of constant prayer. Oh, I would
not change my present state for worlds; and should it please
Almighty God to call me from hence, I feel that He will receive me
into everlasting peace. Father Crispin called last evening: he
considers me so prostrate that he intends administering the
sacrament of Extreme Unction. Pray for me! I cannot express to you
how rejoiced I am that we are again hand in hand together. You
should not forget the days of our youth, we were always
inseparable; we were then estranged from each other, and a very,
very bitter time that was to me. I cannot say that I am any
better."
After the receipt of this letter my sister hurried to Brighton, and she
was there when William died. On the 11th of March she wrote to me:--
"We are here to be with William, to wait by his bedside during
these last days of his illness. On Thursday night, and again on
Friday night, it seemed as if the last hour was come, but there is
now a slight, a very slight improvement, so that he may live a few
days longer. Yesterday there came over him a momentary wish to
recover, but it passed away, and his calm resignation was really
unbroken and continues the same to-day. He does not murmur, though
his sufferings must be terrible.... From time to time he asks me
to read aloud a few lines of the 'Imitation of Christ,' but I can
scarcely do it without breaking down as I look up and see those
sunken cheeks and large glazed eyes fixed upon me with such a deep
look of intense suffering."
Two unexpected friends appeared to cheer William's last days. One was
the young Duchess of Sutherland, who had been intimate with him as a
child, and having never met him since the days when they both lived in
the Maison Valin, heard accidentally of his illness at Brighton; she
came repeatedly to see him, and supplied him with many comforts, and
even luxuries. The other was the well-known Miss Marsh, the authoress of
the "Memorials of Hedley Vicars,"--the staunch Protestant, but liberal
Christian. She happened to call to see the landlady of the lodging where
he was, when, hearing of William's illness and poverty, she went
constantly to visit him, and laying aside in the shadow of death all
wish for controversy, read and prayed with him in the common sympathy of
their Christian faith and trust. She wrote afterwards:--
"Blessed be God that I have no doubt that the dying friend in whom
I have been so deeply interested was in Christ and is now _with_
Him. We never spoke together of Romanism or Protestantism; all I
cared for was to persuade him, by the help of the Holy Ghost, to
accept at once the offer of a free and present salvation through
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and through Him _only_: and to
believe God's word that he that believeth on the Son of God hath
everlasting life, because of His _one_ sacrifice _once_ offered for
the sins of the whole world. And _he did believe it_, and false
confidences faded away like shadows before the sunrise. 'Jesus
only' became all his salvation and all his desire, and he passed
into His presence with a radiant smile of joy. I was not with him
when he died, but the hour of communing with his spirit that same
evening was one of the sweetest I have spent on earth."
My sister has left some notes of that which occurred after William's
death:--
"After all was over, and when the room was decorated and the body
laid out, Miss Marsh came to see him, and taking his dead hand, she
placed a white camellia in it. Then kneeling by the side of the
bed, she offered up the most beautiful prayer aloud, in which she
described as in a picture our Blessed Lord and the angels receiving
his soul. It was quite wonderfully beautiful: there was only one
thing she left out; she never mentioned Our Blessed Lady; she
placed the angels before our Lady. I was standing at the foot of
the bed with a crucifix, and when she ceased praying, I said, 'But
you have never spoken of Our Lady: I cannot let Our Lady be passed
over.' And Miss Marsh was not angry; no, she only rose from her
knees, and coming to me, she threw her arms round my neck and
said, 'Do not let us dispute upon this now; we have one God and one
Saviour in common, let us rest upon these,' and she came to see me
afterwards when I was ill in London.
"'Know thou that courtesy is one of God's own properties, who
sendeth His rain and His sunshine upon the just and the unjust out
of His great courtesy; and verily Courtesy is the sister of
Charity, who banishes hatred and cherishes love.' Were not these
the words of the dear S. Francis of Assisi?
"During William's illness Miss Marsh came every day with something
for him, and quite stripped her own room to give him her own chair,
and even her mattress. She was just the one person William wanted.
Any dried-up person might have driven him back, but she was daily
praying by his side, handsome, enthusiastic, dwelling only on the
love of God, and she helped him on till he began really to think
the love of God the only thing worth living for.
"'O sister,' he said to me once, 'if it should please God that I
should live, all my life would be given up to Him.'
"The doctor who went up to him when he was told that he could not
live many hours came down with tears upon his face. 'There must
indeed be something in religion,' he said, 'when that young man can
be so resigned to die.'"