Father Ignatius had an idea in his mind for a number of years, and saw no practical way in which it might be realized. He looked forward, with a pleasing anticipation, to the prospect of going about from parish to parish on a kind of itinerary mission. The thing was unusual in our day, and he saw no plea by which it could be justified to others, or he should have gone on it long before. He proposed it at last to his Superiors, and the circumstances of his position wonderfully favoured its prosecution.
Voluntary poverty was raised to a virtue by the example and teaching of our Divine Lord, and poverty must always have a counterpart. To be poor is to be dependent, and want is ordained for the sanctification of plenty. When our Divine Master said that it was difficult for the rich man to be saved, He subjoined that with God all things are possible. The miseries of the poor are the channels through which riches can flow into Heaven, and make friends to their possessors of the mammon of iniquity.
In the dispensation of Providence, the Church watches over the interests of all her children, and whilst she proclaims the severity of the Gospel maxims, she provides for their observance. She must preach poverty of spirit, from the text of the sermon on the Mount, and she manages to make kings who are richer than David live after God's own heart. The beautiful harmony between rank and lowliness, authority and submission, prosperity and adversity, has long ago been arranged by the practice of the ages of faith, and by the Pontifical constitutions which impress the seal of the Fisherman upon the usages of Catholicity.
In no department of Catholic polity is this superior wisdom so well exemplified as in the rules of mendicant orders. The Church takes the noble from his seat of power, she makes him cast his coronet at the feet of Peter, and stretch out his hand to his former vassal for the paltry morsel that is to sustain his future existence. She forbids him to accumulate; she makes him give back a thousand-fold what he receives. By thus bringing down the pride of power and making it pay court to the discontented child of penury, she reconciles man with Providence and suffuses reverence through the crowd, who might grumble at greatness, by making their lord according to the world their servant according to the Gospel.
The constitutions of the Congregation of the Passion are framed upon the spirit of the Church. If a man of property joins our poor institute, he cannot bring his possessions with him to enrich the community he enters; for Blessed Paul has not allowed them to have any fixed revenue. He may, indeed, give a donation towards the building of their church, the furnishing of their poor schools, or the paying off the debts they were obliged to contract to secure the ground upon which their monastery is built; but that is left to his own charity. He is supposed by our rule to hand over his property to a relative or a charitable institution, and reserve to himself the right to take it back, in case he may not persevere in his vocation, or abandon the life he has embraced.
Thus deprived of stable funds, we are to rely upon the Providence of God; and we can give Him glory by confessing that we never yet found His word to fail, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you." Betimes we may have to send a brother to ask for some assistance from kind benefactors; but, as a rule, God inspires many to befriend us without our asking. The duties of missions and retreats, and the preparation for them, prevent us from digging a livelihood out of the earth; but the sweat of our brow that is thus spent earns our bread by procuring us friends. People crowd to our churches, and leave thank-offerings there to prove the reality of their devotion; and, as an ancientfather of ours once said, "our support comes in through the choir-windows."
When we have to build a church or a house, we must follow the custom of surrounding priests; but, as our working is not purely local, we send a father or brother to distant countries, and try not to be too burthensome to our neighbours. Charity endureth all things; but the branch of charity which is exercised in the giving of alms is not always content to be too much importuned, or called upon too often. Charity therefore requires that those who plead for the exercise of one arm do not strain the other, and it makes provision against provoking anger or ill-feeling from the weaknesses it tries to cure by stirring to activity.
In the year 1848 the fathers at Aston Hall stood in sore need of a church. Hitherto they had turned a room upstairs into a temporary chapel; and, inconvenient as it might be to have people going so far into a religious house, they would have borne up longer, had not a builder told them that anything like a crowd would bring the whole place down about their ears. Father Ignatius mentions this in a letter he wrote to Mrs. Canning. "It will," he says, "be a great addition to us to have a respectable church, instead of our chapel up-stairs; but we should not have had a plea for asking for it, if this chapel had not been so good as to give us notice to quit, by becoming cracky a little."
Here, then, was an opportunity. Some one should go out and beg. Father Ignatius was commissioned to write letters, but though the first was answered by a cheque for £100, with a promise of more, there was not enough forthcoming to enable them to build. Could he not do two things at once? Could he not ask for prayers as well as alms? Did not the very plea of begging give him a right to go to different places, even from parish to parish, and speak publicly and privately? It did. And he was forthwith sent out to carry into execution the dreams of half a life, which he scarcely ever expected to realize. He first began this peculiar mission of his by going through the towns with a guide, like ordinary questers: in a few years the plan developed itself into the "little missions."
His first begging tour was through Birmingham, Derby, Nottingham, Oscott, Leamington, and Wolverhampton. In a few months he sallies forth again, and Liverpool is the theatre of his labours. Many and rude were the trials he had to endure in this humiliating work. He thus playfully alludes to some of them:
"I am on a begging mission here at Liverpool, in which I find rough and smooth, ups and downs, every day. The general result is very fair. I have been here since Monday, the 8th of May" (he writes on the 20th), "and have got more than £100, but with hard walking. I am, however, quite well, and the inflammation of my eye quite gone—nothing left but a little haziness. It lasted five weeks without relenting at all. If it had gone on, I must have stayed at home; but it just began to improve before I started, and has got well,tout en marchant. My present life is very pleasant when money comes kindly; but when I get refused, or walk a long way and find every one out, it is a bit mortifying. That is best gain for me, I suppose, though not what I am travelling for. .... I should not have had the time this morning to write to you, had it not been for a disappointment in meeting a young man, who was to have been my begging-guide for part of the day; and so I had to come home, and stay till it is time to go and try my fortune in the enormous market-house, where there are innumerable stalls with poultry, eggs, fruit, meat, &c., kept in great part by Irish men and women, on whom I have to-day, presently, to go and dance attendance, as this is the great market-day. I feel, when going out for a job like this, as a poor child going in a bathing machine to be dipped in the sea,frisonnant; but the Irish are so good-natured and generous that they generally make the work among them full of pleasure, when once I am in it."
One sees a vast difference between begging of the rich and of the poor. If the latter have nothing to give, they will at least show a kind face, and will not presume to question the priest about his business; whereas some of the former, because they have something which they will not give, either absent themselves or treat the priest unkindly forasking. For what? Because he begs. It is not for himself: he even retrenches necessaries from his own table in order to spare something for the house of God. And what, after all, does he ask? The price of an hour's recreation, or an extra ornament, that may be very well spared. That is all. The priest wants people to look after their own interests, to send their money before them to heaven, instead of wasting it on vanity or sin. And because he does this, and humbles himself for the sake of his God, he must be made to feel it. Father Ignatius was keenly alive to this, and the way he felt for those who forgot themselves by sending him away empty was far more afflictive than the personal humiliation. He could thank God for the latter, but he could not do so for the former.
Once he was fiercely abused, when begging, and as the reviler had come to a full stop in his froward speech, Father Ignatius quietly retorted: "Well, as you have been so generous to myself personally, perhaps you would be so kind as to give me something now for my community." This had a remarkable effect. It procured him a handsome offering then, as well as many others ever since.
Another day he knocked at a door, and was admitted by a very sumptuously attired footman. Father Ignatius told the servant the object of his visit, his religious name, and asked if he could see the lady or gentleman of the house. The servant strode off to see, and in a few seconds returned to say that the gentleman was out, and the lady was engaged and could not see him, neither could she afford to help him. He then remarked that perhaps she was not aware that he was the Honourable Mr. Spencer. The servant looked at him, bowed politely and retired. In a minute or two Father Ignatius hears a rustling of silks and a tripping of quick steps on the stairs. In came my lady, and what with blushings and bowings, and excuses and apologies, she scarcely knew where she was until she found herself and him tête-à-tête. She really did not know it was he, and there were so many impostors. "But what will you take, my dear sir?" and before he could say yea or nay she rung for his friend the footman. Father Ignatius coolly said, that he did notthen stand in need of anything to eat, and that he never took wine; but that he did stand in need of money for a good purpose, and if she could give him anything in that way he should be very glad to accept it. She handed him a five-pound note at once, expressing many regrets that something or other prevented its being more. Father Ignatius took the note, folded it carefully, made sure of its being safely lodged in his pocket, and then made thanksgiving in something like the following words: "Now, I am very sorry to have to tell you that the alms you have given me will do you very little good. If I had not been born of a noble family, you would have turned me away with coldness and contempt. I take the money, because it will be as useful to me as if it were given with a good motive; but I would advise you, for the future, if you have any regard for your soul, to let the love of God, and not human respect, prompt your alms-giving." So saying, he took his hat and bid his benefactress a good morning.
Many were the anecdotes he told us about his begging adventures; but it is next to impossible to remember them. In every case, however, we could see the saint through the veil his humility tried to cast over himself. Whether he was received well or ill, he always tried to turn his reception to the spiritual benefit of those who received him. He made more friends than any person living, perhaps, and never was known to make an enemy; his very simplicity and holiness disarmed malice. He says, in a letter, upon getting his first commission to go and quest: "I am to be a great beggar!" His prognostication began to be verified. Strange fact, the Honourable George Spencer a beggar! And happier, under all the trials and crosses incident to such a life, than if he had lived in the luxury of Althorp. Religion is carrying out to-day what its Founder began eighteen hundred years ago. He left the kingdom of heaven to live on the charity of His own creatures.
We group the incidents of this chapter around this sad event: some of them were the last these two bosom friends did together, and the others were occasioned by their separation.
Early in January, 1849, Father Ignatius went, at the invitation of Mr. John Smith, of Button, to see a spot of ground upon which that worthy man intended building a church and house for a community of Passionists. Father Ignatius did not like the situation; but as soon as he spoke to Father Dominic about it, they both came to St. Helen's Junction to see if two heads might not be wiser than one. Father Dominic landed on the platform a little before Father Ignatius, who had been delayed somewhere on the way. He went immediately to look for the great benefactor. A fine-looking, open, plain man saluted him, and he thought this must be a Catholic, and likely he knows the person I am looking for. "Do you know where lives a certain Mr. Smith?" asked Father Dominic. "I should think I did," answered his new friend, and after a few minutes' conversation the father was satisfied, for he was no other than Mr. Smith himself. They both walked over a considerable extent of ground, within which Mr. Smith told the good father to make his choice of a site. He had selected that whereon St. Anne's Retreat now stands, when Father Ignatius arrived. Father Ignatius hesitated a little before giving his consent, and it was only when Father Dominic said emphatically, "The house that is to be built here will yet be the largest and best we shall have in England," that he fully agreed. That prophecy is noted in ajournal Father Ignatius kept at the time, and he wondered afterwards how the church and monastery that arose on that dreary spot verified it to the letter. It is the best and largest we have in England at the present moment, and Father Dominic never saw a stone of its foundations laid.
Fathers Dominic, Ignatius, and Vincent, give a mission in Romney Terrace, Westminster, in March. Shortly after they give another in High Street, Dublin. At this mission they introduced the Italian ceremonies, such as peacemakers (persons appointed to reconcile those at variance), special sermons for different classes of people, bell for the fivepaters, and public asking of pardon by the missionaries. It fell to Father Ignatius to be spokesman in this latter ceremony, and sore straitened was he to find out in what particular the fathers had offended, that he might therefrom draw the apology for their act. He searched and searched, and at last remembered his own proneness to nod asleep when too long in the confessional. This was the plea he made, and we must say it was a very poor one: it gives, however, a good idea of his candour, and want of unreality. These demonstrations were found to be unsuited to the genius of the people, and have been suffered to fall into desuetude ever since.
Father Ignatius goes next on a begging tour through Manchester, Sheffield, and the north of England. He called at Carstairs House, on his way to Glasgow and Edinburgh, to visit his friend Mr. Monteith. Mr. Monteith was received into the Church by Dr. Wiseman, when Father Ignatius lived in Oscott. Father Ignatius was his god-father. A friendship then began between them which never cooled; they kept up a correspondence from which many important hints have been borrowed for this book, and it was from Mr. Monteith's place the soul of Father Ignatius took its departure for a better world. Mr. Monteith extended the friendship he had for Father Ignatius to his other religious brethren, and time after time has he given them substantial proofs of its depth and generosity.
Father Ignatius and he had been for some time in correspondence about founding a house of Passionistssomewhere near Lanark or Carstairs; but circumstances over which they had no control prevented them coming to a conclusion. The Vincentians have well and worthily taken the place, and the first house of our order founded in Scotland was St. Mungo's, Glasgow, a few months after Father Ignatius's death. It was he who opened Mr. Monteith's domestic chapel, and said the first mass in it. And it was in the same chapel the first mass was said for his own soul in presence of the body.
He says in the Journal:—
"Tuesday, Aug. 14.—Went to London with Father Dominic. We had a fine talk with Dr. Wiseman. We dined at 12½ in King William Street with Faber and the Oratorians.
"Wednesday, Aug. 15.—Sung mass at 10 and preached, Prepared in a hurry for my journey. Went off at 3½ for the Continent."
He never saw Father Dominic in the flesh again.
On the 27th of August, 1849, Father Dominic and a brother priest were travelling by railway to Aston. In the morning, before leaving London, the companion asked Father Dominic to bring him with him; he had just arrived from Australia, and wished to see some of his old companions at Aston Hall. Father Dominic thought this was not reason enough for incurring the expense of the journey; he demurred, but at length assented. It was fortunate he did. When they came as far as Reading, Father Dominic became suddenly ill. He was taken out on the platform, and as the people were afraid of an epidemic, no one would admit the patient into his house. There lay the worn-out missionary, who had prayed and toiled so long for the conversion of England, on that bleak desolate-looking platform, abandoned by all for whose salvation he thirsted, with only a companion kneeling by his side to prepare him for eternity. But the coldness and want of hospitality of the people gave him no concern: other thoughts engrossed him. A few minutes he suffered, and in those few he made his preparation. He made arrangements for the government of our houses, he gave his last instructions to his companion, he invoked a blessing upon England, and then placidlyclosed his eyes for ever upon this wicked world, to open them in a brighter one. He died abandoned, and almost alone, but he died in the poverty he had practised, and the solitude he loved.
Father Ignatius was in Holland at the time. On his arrival at our house in Tournay he heard a rumour of Father Dominic's death. He gave no credit to it at first; a letter written to him about it went astray; and it was not until about a fortnight after it happened that he saw a paragraph in a newspaper, giving the full particulars. He hastened home at once to England, and the first thing he heard from Dr. Wiseman was that Father Dominic had nominated him his successor.
Father Ignatius, when his provisional appointment had been confirmed in Rome, could only look forward to trials and difficulties such as he had never to get through before. We had then three houses of the order in England, and one in Belgium, which were united under one Superior, acting as Provincial. The houses were not yet constituted into a canonical province. The fewness of the members, and their ignorance of the customs and ways of a strange country, increased the difficulties. That year, indeed, four excellent priests, who have since worked hard on the English mission, came from Rome; but they could as yet only say mass, on account of their imperfect acquaintance with the English language.
Then, the existence of each house was so precarious that the smallest gust of opposition seemed sufficient to unpeople them. Aston Hall was struggling to build a church, in which undertaking that mission was destined to exhaust all the life it had; for it eked out but a dying existence from the time the church was opened, until it was given up in a few years. The retreat at Woodchester seemed to have lacked any spirit of vitality from the absence of the cross in its foundation. The generosity of a convert made everything smooth and convenient in the beginning, but the difficulties that led at length to our leaving it were already threatening to rise. The house in London was doomed to be transplanted to the wilderness of The Hyde, even beforethe death of Father Dominic, and St. Anne's, Sutton, was not yet begun.
This was the material position of the Passionists when Father Ignatius became Superior, orquasiProvincial. To add to this, the fathers were not first-rate men of business. They could pray well, preach and hear confessions, but they gave people of the world credit for being better than they were. Some of their worldly affairs became, therefore, complicated, and Father Ignatius, unfortunately, was not the man to rectify matters and put them straight. He was a sage in spirituals, but the very reverse in temporals.
Many of the religious became disheartened at the prospect. Some lost their vocations. Many fought manfully with contending difficulties, weathered all the storms, and, tempered and taught by those days of trouble, look with smiling placidity on what we should think serious crosses in these days. Such is the beginning of every religious institute; it grows and thrives by contradiction and persecution. Human foresight prophesied our destruction then, and could not believe that in sixteen years we should have seven houses in this province, with an average of about twenty religious for each. The ways of God are wonderful.
This kind of confession was necessary, in order that readers might have an idea of Father Ignatius's position after the death of Father Dominic.
He set to work at once, first carrying out Father Dominic's intentions, and then trying some special work of his own. The new church at Woodchester was consecrated by Dr. Hendren and Dr. Ullathorne, and Dr. Wiseman preached at the opening. The new church of St. Michael's, Aston Hall, was opened in the same year. On the 7th of November the community of Poplar House, two priests and a lay brother, move to The Hyde.
Father Ignatius, with Fathers Vincent and Gaudentius, give a mission in Westminster, and they venture out in their habits through the streets of London. This mission brought out some of Father Ignatius's peculiarities. In the instruction upon the sanctification of holy days, which it was his duty to give, he proposed that the Irish should make"a general strike, not for wages, but for mass on festivals." He went to visit Father Faber, who was ill at the time; they became engrossed in conversation, when Father Ignatius looked at his watch and said he should get away to prepare his sermon or instruction. Father Faber said this was a very human proceeding, and was of opinion that missionaries should be able to preach like the Apostles, without preparation. Father Ignatius turned the matter over in his mind, reasoned it out with himself, and thenceforward never delivered what might be called an elaborate discourse.
It may be remarked, before closing the chapter, that Father Dominic, at Father Ignatius's suggestion, ordered, in the beginning of 1849, three Hail Marys to be said by us after Complin for the conversion of England. The practice is still continued, and has been extended to our houses on the Continent and in America.
So much has to be said about the exterior actions of Father Ignatius, that one is apt, in reading them, to forget the spirit in which they were done. It is true that it is by the nature of the actions themselves a judgment can be formed of what that spirit must have been, but then they are liable to a false construction.
He was chiefly remarkable for his spirit of poverty. It was not alone that he loved poverty, and tried to observe his vow, but he refined this observance to an exquisite degree, by trying to treat himself and get others to treat him like a mean beggar. He wished to feel poverty, and sought hardships in things that were easy enough, for that end. When he went by train he always took a third-class ticket, and was most ingenious in his defence of this proceeding. If some one objected to him that the third-class carriages generally contained rough, low, ill-bred, and coarsely-spoken fellows, he gently answered: "Yes; you may find a thick sprinkling of blackguards there." "Whether or no," he would say again, "the third class is the poor man's class, and it ought to be mine." One time he was expected to preach a grand sermon in some town or other; the lord of the manor, a Catholic, ordered his carriage, with livery servants, and came himself to bring him in state to the priest's house. He waited for the good father on the platform, looking at the doors of the different first-class carriages, and condescending to give a glance or two towards the second. What was his surprise when Father Ignatius, habit and sandals and a', got out of a third. "My dear Father Ignatius," he half indignantly exclaimed, "why doyoutravel bythird class?" "Well," replied Father Ignatius, "because there isn't a fourth."
This idea that he was a poor man and ought to live like one he carried out in everything. He might be generally seen with a large blue bag. This bag was not of a respectable make or durable material; no, it was made of some kind of drogget, like an ordinary sack, and had a thick clumsy tape that gathered in the mouth of it, and closed it with a big knot. When he had a long journey before him he brought a pair of these, and tying them together put the knot upon his shoulder, and would trudge off six or seven miles with one dangling in front and another behind. If somebody offered him a seat in a car or wagon, he gladly accepted it; if not, he did without it. On this same principle he seldom refused a meal when out; and if he wanted something to eat, he generally went and begged for it at the first house he came to. At home he usually washed and mended his underclothing and stockings (the stockings, by the way, would have blistered the hardest foot after his mending), and whilst he was Superior he would never allow anyone to do a menial service for him. He had a great dread of the slightest attempt at over-nicety in a priest's dress; it was anguish to him to see a priest, especially a religious, with kid gloves, neat shoes, or a fashionable hat. His own appearance might be put down as one degree short of slovenliness. Be it remembered that this was not his natural bent. We are told by those who knew him when a young man, that he would walk a dozen streets in London, and enter every hosier's shop, to find articles that would suit his taste in style and fitting; it had been almost impossible to please him in this respect; whereas, when a religious, he would as soon wear a cast-off tartan as anything else, if it did not tend to bring a kind of disrespect upon his order. He wore for several years an old mantle belonging to a religious who died, and would never leave it off as long as there was room for another patch upon it, unless the Provincial gave him strict orders to do so.
He was scrupulously exact in fulfilling the rules and regulations of the Congregation, so much so that even inthose cases in which others would consider themselves dispensed, he would go through everything. It is our rule to chant the entire of the Divine Office in choir; the rector is supposed to give a homily or two, calledexamens, every week to the religious. When there is not a sufficient number to chant, of course no law human or divine would require us to do so; and if there be not a congregation, one is not expected, in the ordinary course of things, to preach to empty benches. Father Ignatius was as keenly aware of the common-sense drift of this kind of reasoning as any one could be, but he so overcame the promptings of human considerations, that a literal observance, in the face of such plain exceptions, seemed his ordinary way of acting. There are two instances in point that occurred about the year 1849. The two priests who formed the choir of the community at The Hyde remained in bed one night, either from illness or late attendance at sick-calls, and Father Ignatius was the only priest present. He chanted the whole of matins and lauds by himself, and went through it as formally as if there were twenty religious in choir. Another day the priests were out, and he and two lay brothers only remained at home; he preached them theexamenjust the same as if the choir was full. Another time the alarum that used to go off at one o'clock, at that time for matins, missed. Father Ignatius awoke at three o'clock, and he immediately sprung the rattle and assembled the religious for matins. At half-past four the night work in choir was over: half-past five was then the hour of rising for prime. Father Ignatius kept them all in choir until the time, and had the bells rung, and everything else in due order. This does not argue a kind of unreasoning observance in him, out of time and out of place. On the contrary, he well knew that it was inconvenient, but he thought God would be more glorified by it than by an exemption from what was prescribed. One anecdote he used to relate to us convinced us of that. He often related with particular tact how once in Aston Hall, Father Dominic did not hear the bell for matins. He awoke at half-past two; everything was still. He went and sounded the rattle with a vengeance,as if every sound was meant to say, "I'll give a good penance to the brother that forgot to put up the alarum." When he had done sounding he dropped the instrument at the choir door, and went in with a taper to light the lamps. What was his mortification to find all the religious just concluding their meditation with a smothered laugh at their Superior.
Two other tokens of his spirit at this time must be illustrated together. He was a very cool reasoner; it might almost be said that he scarcely ever grew hot in dispute, and always gave his adversary's arguments due consideration. At the same time he was far from being of a sceptical cast of mind. If an argument approved itself to him, no matter how trifling it might be intrinsically, he felt bound to admit it, and adopt it, if practical, unless he could refute it completely. Again, he had a thorough disregard of human respect. "What will people say?" or "How will it look?" never entered into the motives of his actions; and if it did, he would consider himself bound to go straight and defy them. What did he care about the opinion of the world? It was, he knew, seldom led by sound reason, and therefore beneath his consideration.
He found that the Oratorians began to go about in theirsoutanes; he had a talk with Father Faber about it, and forthwith resolved to go about in his habit. Cardinal Wiseman approved of it, if done with prudence, and Father Ignatius began at once. In a letter to Mr. Monteith he says:—"I court the honour of following the Oratorians close in this" (confining ourselves to the work of our vocation), as I have done likewise in beginning to wear the habit." He used to relate an amusing adventure he once had in a train with his habit on. At a certain station a middle-aged gentleman, with his little daughter, were getting into the carriage which Father Ignatius had to himself, as every one shunned his monkish company. The little girl got afraid, and would not enter. The gentleman bravely ventured in, to set an example to his child, but all to no avail,—the girl was still afraid. At last the man said out loud, "Come on, child; the gentleman won't bite!" meaning Father Ignatius.The child summed up courage when she heard the paternal assurance of safety to her skin, and got to a seat. She bundled herself up in the corner diagonally opposite the monk, tried to appear as near the invisible as she could, and stared wildly on the strange spectacle for a long time. Her father got into conversation with Father Ignatius, began deciphering the badge by means of all the Greek and Latin he could bring to his assistance, and became quite interested in the genial conversation of the good priest. When the child heard her father laugh, she began to edge up near the stranger, and, before they separated, father and child were convinced that monks were not such frightful things as they appeared at first sight. We shall have other adventures to relate about his habit further on.
Another peculiar characteristic of his spirit was his great devotion to the Blessed Virgin. He set more value on a Hail Mary than any conceivable form of prayer. He went so far in this, that he had to be reasoned out of its excess afterwards by one of his companions. He did everything by Hail Marys; he would convert England by Hail Marys; and in the year 1850 he obtained a plenary indulgence for the three Hail Marys for the conversion of England. When any one asked him to pray for them, he promised a Hail Mary. This was very praiseworthy in him, as we know how hard it is even for some to go heart and soul into the Catholic instinct of devotion to the Mother of God. They must have their qualifications, and their terms, and their conditions, as if, forsooth, she ought to be obliged to them for acknowledging her privileges at all. The worst of it is, that Catholics often tone down their books of devotion and expressions to suit the morbid tastes of ultra-Protestants, or the fastidiousness of some whitewashed Puseyite. It may be thought prudent to do so; but it is disgraceful, mean, and dishonourable, to say the least of it.
These are the most prominent outlines in Father Ignatius's spirit at the time we are writing about, and if we add to them a great devotion to the sacrifice of the mass, we shall have his soul in a fair way before us. He never missed celebrating, if he possibly could; and often he arrived at11 o'clock in the day at one of our houses, after travelling all night, and would eat nothing until he had first said mass. A month before he died he travelled all night from Glasgow to London, and said mass in Highgate at 11 o'clock. He was jaded, weak in health, but he would not lose one sacrifice: it was of too great a value, and he had received too many favours through it, to omit it on light grounds. This was a life-long devotion of his, and it is the essential one for a priest of God.
From what has been said, we can form a fair estimate of his character as a Passionist. One is so obvious that it requires no mention at all, and that was his zeal for the conversion and sanctification of souls. So far did this go, that he seemed led by it blindly and wholly. This was his weak, or, perhaps more properly, his strong point. Go with him in that, and you covered a multitude of sins.
Another essential was his "thanking God for everything." This he carried so far that he became perfectly insensible to insults, mockeries, and injuries, and yet he felt them keenly. At one time he used to pass late at night by a lonesome lane that led to our last house at The Hyde. He heard rumours of some evil-disposed wretches having intended to shoot him. One night he heard a rustling in the hedge as he was walking on, and the thought struck him that perhaps an assassin was lying in ambush for him. The religious asked him what were his thoughts. "Well," said he, "I hoped that when the bullet struck me I would have time to say,'thank God for that'before I died."
From this rough sketch of his spirit it will be seen that he had too little of the serpent, in the Gospel sense, to make a good Superior. He was too simple and confiding for that; he did not know how to suspect, and any one that knew how to get into his views could do what he pleased. At the same time, all reverenced him as a saint, and every day of his religious life increased the estimation in which he was held by his own brethren. This is the more valuable as it is the private life of most men which lowers them in the eyes of those who have the opportunity of observing them. Father Ignatius tried always to make the subject-matter ofhis conversation as edifying as possible; it was withal so beautifully interspersed with amusing anecdotes, that it could not fail to interest all. He had a peculiar tact for relating stories, and a wonderful memory; he was unrivalled in his power of mimicry, and he enjoyed fun with the greatest relish. It was the opinion of every one who knew him intimately, that nothing came under his notice which he could not turn to pointing the argument of a sermon or furthering the glory of God. He christianized everything; and did so with such grace, that the love of what he remodelled was increased for its new aspect.
The kindly feelings Father Ignatius always showed for Protestants laid him open to the charge of a want of appreciation for the blessings of faith, or of not hating heresy as saints have hated it. Although his whole life and actions amply refute either conclusion, some of the incidents of this period of his life bring out his conduct in this respect in its real character.
He tried to extend the benefit or plea of invincible ignorance as widely as possible. He laboured and reasoned, with a warmth unusual to him, to remove the notion some Catholics have, that the majority of Protestants know they are wrong, but from some unworthy motive will not give up their errors. His proofs of the position he chose to take here were not certainly the most convincing, for his stock argument was to quote himself. It did of course occur to him that its point could be retorted by the fact of his becoming a Catholic for hisbona fides; but he took up the argument then by saying we were therefore to hope for the conversion of England. His idea of England's apostasy was mainly this: that the body of the people had been swindled out of their religion by the machinations of a few crafty, unprincipled statesmen, at the time of the Reformation. A system of misrepresentation and false colouring of Catholic doctrines and practices was invented and handed down from generation to generation, which impregnated the minds of children with the notion that Catholicity and absurdity were one and the same thing. From this point of view did he look at the millions who groped in thedarkness of error, blaspheming the doctrines of Jesus Christ, and imagining they were thereby doing Him a service. He took then the side of pity, which always inclines one to the lessening of faults.
He lamented nothing more than the loss of faith in England, and he thought that a harsh, iron way of dealing with Englishmen would close their hearts against grace altogether. This led him to use the mildest terms he could find,—nay, the most respectful,—in speaking of Protestants. He would never call them "heretics," nor their ministers "parsons." "Separated from the Church," "Church of England people," "Dissenters," "Clergymen," were his usual terms, and he would often also speak of them as "our separated brethren."
This twofold aspect of his bearing towards Protestants certainly proceeded alike from charity and zeal. It was a common remark with him, that we ought not to suppose people bad and evil-disposed unless we are certain of it, neither should we hurt their feelings by opprobrious epithets. And if we intend to do them any good we should be the more cautious still as to our thoughts and words. He used to sigh when he had done speaking of the state of religion in England, but he would immediately start up as if from a reverie and say, "Shall we not do something to save our poor countrymen?" So far was he from sympathizing with the mildest form of error, that even in scholastic questions he would always take the safer side. In his love for the heretic, therefore, no one could ever find the least sympathy with the heresy; or if he called the error a polite name, it was only to gain admission to the heart it was corroding, in order to be allowed to pluck it out. If we take into account his great love for souls, it will seem wonderful that he did not burst out at times into indignation against what destroyed so many; but we must remember that such a thing as fierce outbursts of any kind were most unsuitable to his spirit. His love would make him try to eliminate from those who had died external to the Church, all the formal heresy he possibly could; and he felt special delight in the fact that the Catholic Church forbids us to judge thedamnation of any particular individual as certain. But then let us think for a moment of what he did to uproot heresy. He spoke, he wrote, he preached, he toiled for thirty years incessantly almost for this single object. Any one that weighs this well will be far from judging that he had the least sympathy with error. His kindliness, therefore, for Protestants, and his belief that the vast majority of them were in good faith, so far from making him sit down at ease and enjoy his own faith, and not bestir himself unless Protestants thrust themselves upon him to claim admission into the fold, produced directly the opposite effect. Their not being so bad as was generally imagined, buoyed his hope in their speedy recovery; their being so near the truth, as he charitably supposed, made him strain every nerve to compel them to come across the barrier that separated them from him.
One of the means he adopted for reuniting Protestants to the Catholic Church laid him open to another serious charge, which was, if possible, more groundless than the last. In January, 1850, he began to go about and call upon Protestants of every description—ministers of church and state nobles and plebeians. His object was to get them all to pray for unity. To state plainly his way of action, it was this:—He intended to ask all Protestants "to pray for unity in the truth, wherever God knows it to be." This, he said, was of course to pray for conversion to Catholicism unknown to themselves; it was taking the enemy by stratagem in his own camp. Objections were made in different quarters against the proposition. Some said it was not acting fairly and candidly; he then used to qualify it by telling them that he knew very well the truth lay in the Catholic Church alone, and so did every Catholic, and that if any Protestant asked him he would plainly tell him so. Others then said, Protestants would be all praying for proselytes to their own persuasions, for they were all in good faith, and thought themselves in the truth. These and sundry other objections were made to this mode of proceeding; it was looked upon with suspicion, as savouring too much of communication with heretics, and he never got asuperior to approve of it, neither was it condemned. So it remained to the last an agitated question, which none of us would enter into, and which himself adopted with a kind of tentative adhesion. There was nothing wrong, certainly, in getting Protestants to pray for unity; but then, "unity in the truth, where God knew it to exist," was a very indefinite thing to propose to them. Questions might be raised which could only be answered in one way. What kind of unity? External or internal, or both? "Where does God know the truth to exist? Must we all put ourselves in a Cartesian doubt for a starting-point? And so on. The only answer could be—The Catholic Church. And might he not as well ask them to pray for that at once? Father Ignatius was not at all obstinate in sticking to this proposal as a theory he might reduce to practice, it came up at times in his conversation, and was dropped as easily.
The mistake it led to was, however, rather serious: it was supposed that Father Ignatius looked favourably on, if he did not entirely coincide with, a society called "The Association for Promoting the Unity of Christendom," designated by the letters A.P.U.C. With this society Father Ignatius never had anything to do; he detested its principles, although he hoped it would do good in its way. He wished it to be confined to Protestants. One leading principle of the A.P.U.C. was certainly somewhat akin to some of Father Ignatius's dreams—conversionsen masse; but his notions and those of the Association were widely different. They were for coming over in a great, respectable body, whose size and standing would deserve to receive great concessions in the way of discipline, as the condition of their surrender. Father Ignatius was for an unconditional submission of each individual, and could not allow any one to wait at the door of the Church for a companion to enter with him. Theen masseof Father Ignatius was no more nor less, then, than this: that the people of England should throw off their prejudices and begin in a body to examine candidly the grounds of the Catholic faith. He was glad that the Association existed, because it carried out so much of his wishes; but itwent too far for him, and in a prohibited line, when it asked for Catholic prayers and sacrifices, and for Catholic members. He never, therefore, gave his name to it, though often and repeatedly solicited to do so. His greatest friend was publicly known to be a member of the Association, and much as he loved and honoured him, Father Ignatius had no hesitation in saying of him,in hoc non laudo. Even so late as the year '63 or '64, he received a bundle of their official papers, with a private letter from the secretary and a number of theUnion Review; he was seen to scan them over, and then throw them into the fire. About the year '50 or '51, when he was always going about asking for prayers for unity, after the new idea that struck him, an incident occurred to bear out what is here said. He happened to be speaking with a roomful of Protestant clergymen on this very subject. They listened to him very attentively, raised objections, had them answered, and finally agreed to the justness of his proposals. They agreed, moreover, to kneel down then and pray together for unity, and asked Father Ignatius to join them. He refused at once. They pressed him on every side, and said, among other things, that he ought to set them this example. He jumped up with indignation, and said, in a manner quite unusual to him, "I'd rather be torn in pieces by forty thousand mad dogs than say a prayer with you." He hereupon left the room, and became more cautious for the future as to how and when he asked them to pray for unity. The reason of this abrupt proceeding was the law that forbids all Catholics to communicate with heretics in divine things. Joint prayer, of course, is against this law.
It is singular that, though he has left behind his thoughts drawn out in full upon all the ideas he took up from time to time about the conversion of heretics and the sanctification of Catholics, there is nothing left among his papers upon this project. We may conclude from this, as well as what has been said above, that while he looked upon the Unionists with kindness, he never adopted their principles; and such of his notions as seemed congenial to theirs will befound, on examination, to be totally different. This it was necessary to remark, as many very well informed Catholics thought poor Father Ignatius came under the censure of the Inquisition,in reA.P.U.C. It was quite a mistake, and he should have endorsed that censure himself, if he lived, and freely as he avoided what drew it down before he died.