On the fifteenth of January, 1814, two months and a half after the battle of Hanau, I awoke in a good bed, and at the end of a little, well-warmed room; and gazing at the rafters over my head, then at the little windows, where the frost had spread its silver sheen, I exclaimed, "It is winter!" At the same time I heard the crash of artillery and the crackling of a fire, and turning over on my bed in a few moments, I saw seated at its side a pale young woman, with her arms folded, and I recognized—Catharine! I recognized, too, the room where I had spent so many Sundays before going to the wars. But the thunder of the cannon made me think I was dreaming. I gazed for a long while at Catharine, who seemed more beautiful than ever, and the question rose, "Where is Aunt Grédel? am I at home once more? God grant that this be not a dream!"
At last I took courage and called softly:
"Catharine!" And she, turning her head, cried:
"Joseph! Do you know me?"
"Yes," I replied, holding out my hand.
She approached, trembling and sobbing, when again and again the cannon thundered.
"What are those shots I hear?" I cried.
"The guns of Phalsbourg," she answered. "The city is besieged."
"Phalsbourg besieged! The enemy in France!"
I could speak no more. Thus had so much suffering, so many tears, so many thousands of lives gone for nothing—ay, worse than nothing, for the foe was at our homes. For an hour I could think of nothing else; and even now, old and gray-haired as I am, the thought fills me with bitterness; Yes, we old men have seen the German, the Russian, the Swede, the Spaniard, the Englishman, masters of France, garrisoning our cities, taking whatever suited them from our fortresses, insulting our soldiers, changing our flag, and dividing among themselves, not only our conquests since 1804, but even those of the republic. These were the fruits of ten years of glory!
But let us not speak of these things. They will tell us that after Lutzen and Bautzen, the enemy offered to leave us Belgium, part of Holland, all the left bank of the Rhine as far as Bâle, with Savoy and the kingdom of Italy; and that the emperor refused to accept these conditions, brilliant as they were, because he placed the satisfaction of his own pride before the happiness of France!
But to return to my story. For two weeks after the battle of Hanau, thousands of wagons, filled with wounded, crowded the road from Strasbourg to Nancy, and passed through Phalsbourg. Not one in the sadcortégeescaped the eyes of Aunt Grédel and Catharine, and thousands of fathers and mothers sought among them for their children. The third day Catharine found me among a heap of other wretches, with sunken cheeks and glaring eyes—dying of hunger.
She knew me at once, but Aunt Grédel gazed long before she cried, "Yes! it is he! It is Joseph!"
They took me home. Why should I describe my long illness, my shrieks for water, my almost miraculous escape from what seemed certain death? Let it suffice the kind reader to know that, six months after, Catharine and I were married; that Monsieur Goulden gave me half his business, and that we lived together as happy as birds.
The wars were ended, but the Bourbons had been taught nothing by their misfortunes, and the emperor only awaited the moment of vengeance. But here let us rest. If people of sense tell me that I have done well in relating my campaign of 1813—that my story may show youth the vanity of military glory, and prove that no man can gain happiness save by peace, liberty, and labor—then I will take up my pen once more, and give you the story of Waterloo!
In medical science, acrisisis the change in a disease which indicates its event, the recovery or death of the patient, and is, therefore, the critical moment. Webster also defines crisis to be "the decisive state of things, or the point of time when an affair is arrived at its height, and must soon terminate, or suffer a material change." No attentive observer of the religious movements which are going on around us can fail to see that the Episcopalians are, at this moment, in an interesting condition. On the one hand, the ritualists are pushing ceremonial and doctrine much further than even the elasticity of Protestantism will permit, while, on the other, the low-churchmen, alarmed at the demonstrations of their opponents, are renewing the battle-cries of the Reformation, lest the labors of Luther and Henry VIII, should be frustrated in their communion. There will soon be the clashing of arms and the interchange of active hostilities. As Catholics, we cannot but take a deep interest in the result, and we hope that all the combatants will, before going into battle, understand the cause for which they are fighting, and then faithfully fight to victory or death. An honest man should always stand by his colors, or at least openly renounce them. The object of this article is, to give a diagnosis of the present state of Episcopalianism, and, as far as our abilities and kind intentions go, to prescribe a remedy for the patient.
In the first place, we find that there is a feverish excitement about the trial of the Rev. Mr. Tyng, who, in violation of a canon, has had the hardihood to preach in a church of another denomination than his own. The canon under which he is arraigned seems to present a case against the reverend gentleman, and from the complexion of the court appointed to try him he has little chance of escaping conviction. But we imagine that even his condemnation will be nominal, and appear more as the assertion of a power than the exercise of it. The low-churchmen are quite excited by the discussion of the points involved in the trial. A writer inThe Episcopalianconsiders the affair as the most important in the annals of American ecclesiastical history. Whatever the verdict of the court may be, it is of little account compared to the angry feelings and bitter divisions among brethren which will flow from it, and become more or less permanent. Certainly, there is more bitterness among the different sections of Episcopalians, than there is between them and other Protestants. Low-churchmen love their Protestant brethren, with the one exception of high-churchmen, whom they regard with a natural antipathy. High-churchmen love none but themselves, not the sects whom they eschew, nor the Catholic Church, which eschews them. The trial of Rev. Mr. Tyng is not the cause of the angry feelings which are now manifested, but merely the occasion for bringing them out. They exist before any occasion, and are found in the very heart of the Episcopal Church. If the Rev. Dr. Dix had preached in a Methodist place of worship, it is quite possible that no one would have made objection; but Mr. Tyng, being on the other side of the house, cannot have the same liberty.The truth is, that all rules have a wide interpretation, and are to be explained by custom, and here the defendant in the exciting trial has the advantage. Even if he should be condemned, he will be likely to have nearly all the popular sympathy, and so will become the greater man, as a kind of martyr for his principles.
The occasion, however, has brought out a bold manifesto from the high-churchmen, which is to be understood as their platform, around which they seek to rally their friends. Sixty-four clergymen have joined together to form what they call "The American Church Union," to which they invite all Episcopalians who sympathize with them. They declare that the evils of the time are fearful, "the young are growing up without education, the community is familiarized with scenes of lewdness, the marriage contract is made contemptible, the ordinances of the Gospel of Christ are disused, and the public worship of God is neglected." While thus the torrent of iniquity rages around them, they find that an evil has arisen within the Episcopal fold, which threatens the subversion of their whole system. It is nothing less than the denial of the necessity of ordination of ministers by bishops. "The right is claimed of preaching anywhere, at pleasure; ministers of non-Episcopal communities are invited to preach in our churches; and the intention is announced of breaking down every barrier between our church and the religious bodies around her." To counteract this destructive movement, they associate themselves together, in a union offensive and defensive. They promise to uphold the laws, the canons, and to follow the "godly admonitions of the bishops," while they seek "to maintain unimpaired principles which they have received from their fathers, Seabury, White, Griswold, Hobart, Doane, and Wainwright."
While we confess that our sympathies are with the signers of this pastoral, we frankly avow that it is somewhat vague and, to our minds, inconsistent. No doctrine whatever is clearly stated, except that of the necessity of episcopal ordination. The creeds are referred to, and the (undisputed?) general councils; but no explanation of their teaching is given. And then, he will be awiseman who can follow, at the same time, in the steps of the fathers whom they name. Seabury, Hobart, and Doane were high-churchmen in various degrees of altitude; but White and Griswold were quite on the other side of the fence; while Dr. Wainwright was generally thought to have been on both sides at the same time. To us, therefore, he seems the best and most gentlemanly model for the rising generation of churchmen who would be "all things to all men." Then, again, he who would follow the godly admonitions of the bishops must be able to go to the four points of the compass at the same time. Fancy an adventurer who would obey the admonitions of Bishops McIlvaine and Potter, or, at the same time, follow the counsels of Doctors Coxe and Clark. The convulsions of Mazeppa would be nothing to the agonies of his mind. No physician could prescribe a remedy for such a patient. "No man can serve two masters; either he will hate the one and love the other, or cleave to the one and despise the other." Why, therefore, in this enlightened day, write contradictions and talk nonsense?Some time ago, twenty-eight bishops made a solemn declaration against ritualism; "and," says theProtestant Churchman, "one of the gentlemen who has signed this address of the American Union not only soundly lectured, but held up to scorn and derision" these prelates, and especially the Boanerges of Western New York, who, smelling Romanism from afar, vaults like a beaked bird upon his prey. "O shame!" says the writer we have quoted, "where is thy blush?"
While thus the armies of the high-churchmen have begun to array themselves for battle, the bugle sounds loudly from the opposing camp, and the evangelicals are gathering together in earnest. A church union is being formed among them, and a writer in theEpiscopalianthus speaks the designs of his party: "Let this evangelical church union be extended to every diocese and parish in the land where its principles are approved. The sacramental system is not the Gospel system, but its direct antipodes, in which the sacraments are degraded from their true position of sacredemblems, and made to serve as pack-horses to carry lazy sinners to heaven. I hear hundreds of ministers and thousands of laymen exclaim, 'Oh! that we had the power to rescue the church from the hands of those who are corrupting it!' These will be rejoiced to learn that nothing is more simple and feasible. How? I reply by saying, what even high-churchmen will hardly dare to deny, that the church of the Reformation was eminently an evangelical church, and that the evangelical portion of the present Episcopal Church constitutes absolutely all of the real successors of the English Reformed Church in this country. Ritualists and sacramentarians have no more right in this communion than avowed Romanists." The low-churchmen have the decided majority, and thus give letters dimissory to their offending brethren. "God speed the Church Union!" says a contributor to theProtestant Churchman; "but let Mr. Hopkins and his friends beware lest they themselves should be the very first upon whom this discipline shall fall. Dr.Guillotineexperienced the beautiful operation of that ingenious instrument of death invented by himself. This is a precedent from which these gentlemen might learn a lesson."
The low-churchmen make a point that, while they prefer the episcopal form as more scriptural and more conformed to the primitive system, they do not unchurch other Christian denominations, and that, in this respect, they follow the teachings of the founders of the reformed English communion. They also contend that the right of the church to amend or change its laws and services is inalienable, and that the time has arrived when some important changes should be made. Bishop Griswold, whose "godly admonitions" the Church Union desires to follow, thus expressed himself: "In the baptismal office are, unfortunately, some few words which are well known to be more injurious to the peace and growth of our church than any one thing that can be named." "Allow me," says the Bishop of Chester, "to omit or alter fifteen words, and I will reconcile fifteen thousand dissenters to the church." It appears, also, that an opinion was expressed by a late presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church that the great body of Episcopalians desire some change in the phraseology of their services, and that the peace and prosperity of the church require it.
Here, then, the impartial observer can see how the ground lies. The high-churchmen insist upon Episcopal ordination, and are determined to resist all changes, while they are, many of them, disposed to give a Catholic interpretation to thearticlesand liturgy.The low-churchmen oppose them on all these points, and insist that a Protestant communion ought not to call itself Catholic, or use words of doubtful meaning; and that the literal sense of the articles which form their real confession of faith should be imposed upon all Episcopalians. We have ventured to call this a crisis because, if there be vitality in either party, there must come a conflict from which one side must retire defeated, leaving the field and the spoils of war to the victors. But as this is not the first crisis which has occurred in the history of Anglicanism, we opine that the battle will be fought with blank cartridges, and that, after considerable smoke, it will be found that nobody is hurt. Then from the unbloody field the combatants will retire to war with words, and to be greater enemies than ever. Individual soldiers will lay down their arms to sally in the direction of Geneva or Rome; but the great Episcopal body will quietly await another crisis. Yet this condition of a church which claims (according to some of its members—the Pan-Anglican Synod, for example) to be apartof the Catholic Church, is not healthy. In contradictories there cannot be accord, and one is right and the other is certainly wrong. A careful diagnosis of the malady of our patient leads us to the following conclusions: No one is bound to impossibilities, and therefore, before their own church, the low-churchmen are right on all points of the controversy, while, before the Christian world, their opponents are singularly isolated and unfortunate. The Episcopal Church contains two opposing elements which must ever war against each other, and, while there are inconsistencies in both liturgy and articles, the low-churchmen stand upon the only reasonable ground, and say with truth to their adversaries, that they who would be sacramentarians ought to go where their system properly belongs, and where all other things are in harmony with it. Such, we are sure, will be the judgment of the impartial observer.
1. The Episcopalians have a right to reform their services whenever they choose, and are at perfect liberty to agitate the question. By the constitution of their own church, they have the power to alter, change, or modify both their liturgy and their creeds. Did not the Church of England do this on several occasions? Has not the American Episcopal Church done it also? Did she not materially alter the prayer-book, leaving out, for example, both the form of absolution, and also the Athanasian Creed? That which has been done can surely be done again, especially in a body which disclaims infallibility, and is, therefore, sure of nothing, and is ever on all points open to progress. Here it seems to us that the high-churchmen have no ground on which to stand. They cannot assert that anything their church teaches is the voice of God, because she expressly tells them that she has no authority. They cannot hold any reasonable theory of ecclesiastical pretensions, because, by doing so, they would unchurch themselves. A church ought to know its own powers, if it have any. They may have their own opinions, and press them as such; but they have no right to lord it over the consciences of their brethren who disagree with them, as if they (the actual minority) were the church rather than their more numerous opponents. Their fathers whose "godly admonitions" they seek to follow, surely never meant to cast their "incomparable liturgy" in an iron mould.Besides, in sober common sense, all the extravagancies of the low-churchmen are nothing compared to the doings of the extreme ritualists, who have so metamorphosed the service that no uninitiated Episcopalian could ever recognize it. Think of changing every rubric, and engrafting upon the common prayer the actual ceremonies and even the words of the Roman missal. We understand that few of the signers of the union manifesto are opposed to these advances of ritualism, and that many of them are ready to hear confessions or celebrate Mass when a good occasion is offered. With what face, then, can they find fault with their brethren who exercise their liberty in another direction? And inasmuch as there is a manifest inconsistency between various parts of the prayer-book, it would be well for them and for truth to have their code revised, that the world may know precisely what they do mean.
2. On the vexed question of Episcopal ordination, we are convinced that the high-churchmen are wrong, before their own communion and before the world. The reformers under whose inspirations the English Church was formed, never intended to unchurch the religious bodies of the continent with whom they were in sympathy. The words of the ordinal refer only to the rule to be adopted in the Anglican body, and do not decide at all the question of the validity of non-Episcopal orders. The twenty-third of the thirty-nine articles is so expounded by Burnet. He says that by common consent a company of Christians may appoint one of their own members to minister to them in holy things; for we are sure "that not only those who penned the articles, but the body of this church for above half an age after, did, notwithstanding irregularities, acknowledge the foreign churches, so constituted, to be true churches as to all theessentialsof a church. The article leaves the matter open for such accidents as had happened, and such as might still happen. Although their own church had been less forced to go out of the beaten path than any other, yet they knew that all things among themselves had not gone according to those rules that ought to be sacred in regular times. Necessity has no law, and is a law of itself."
The opinions of Cranmer, and of Barlow, the reported consecrator of Archbishop Parker, were distinctly Erastian. At a conference held at Windsor, 1547, Cranmer answers to the question, "Can a bishop make a priest?" as follows: "A bishop may make a priest, and so may princes and governors also, by the authority of God committed to them." Barlow replies, "Bishops have no authority to make priests without they be authorized by the Christian princes, and that laymen have other whiles made priests."
To the question, "Whether in the New Testament be required any consecration of a bishop or priest, or only appointing to the office be sufficient?" Cranmer answers, "He that is appointed to be a bishop or priest needeth no consecration by the Scriptures, for election or appointing thereto is sufficient." Barlow also expresses the same sentiment. (See Stillingfleet'sIrenicum, and Collier, vol. ii. appendix.)
The "judicious" Hooker undoubtedly maintains the true Episcopalian belief, that ordination by bishops is preferable, but not of absolute necessity to a church. A very able article in this Magazine, published September, 1866, (Vol. III. No. 18,) shows the truth of our view.Passages are deduced from a work calledVox Ecclesiae, which contain the high-church position, and admit that in case ofnecessity(which is left to the individual to determine) "orthodox presbyters may ordain." As Archbishop Parker said, "Extreme necessity in itself implieth dispensation from all laws." The author of this article, to which we beg leave to refer our readers, shows plainly that such a doctrine "overthrows the very idea of apostolical succession, elevates human necessity above divine law, and legitimates every form of error and schism."
Before their own communion, therefore, the low-churchmen have every advantage, as they are consistent with the principles of the Reformation which brought their church into being. When Protestants desert their own platform, on what ground can they logically stand?
Secondly, before the Christian world the high-churchmen occupy a very unfortunate position. They make assertions which unchurch themselves, while they separate from their brethren, and aspire to an ecclesiastical status which they have not, which the whole world denies to them, and which they can never defend. If the apostolical succession is necessary to the existence of a church, then by the verdict of all who hold such a doctrine, they are no church; for with all their pretensions, they have it not. It has been shown over and over again, by arguments incontestable, that the ordination of Archbishop Parker, if indeed it ever took place, was wholly and entirely invalid. There is not satisfactory evidence that any ceremony of consecration was observed; there is no proof whatever that Barlow, the officiating prelate, was ever ordained; and lastly, the form used (according to the theory of the high-churchmen) was utterly inadequate to convey valid orders. What need, then, to argue further with those who will not see? If any Catholic bishop at this day should venture to consecrate with the form which they tell us was used in Parker's case, he would be subject to severe censure, and his act would be considered totally null and valueless. One would naturally suppose that the judgment of the Catholic Church on this question would be held in respect. She has preserved the ancient rite, and holds the absolute necessity of episcopal ordination; and while she considers it a sacrilege to reiterate the sacrament of orders, she reordains, without question and without condition, every English minister who, coming into her fold, aspires to the sacred priesthood. The same course has been adopted by what the Pan-Angelican Synod calls the Eastern Orthodox Church, which no more regards the Episcopalians as a church than she does the Methodists or Presbyterians. Is any more evidence required by any honest mind? If the opinion of the eastern churches is of any weight, it has been more than once given. Dr. J. J. Overbeck, a Russian priest, in a recent work on "Catholic Orthodoxy," treats at some length of the English orders, which he pronounces to be null. These are among his words:
"1. TheAnglo-Catholicfathers, on the point of apostolical succession and its needfulness, held latitudinarian views, subversive of the whole fabric of the church.2. The boasted unity or concord of Anglicans even in essentials is a speciousillusion.3. Anglo-Catholicism isgenuine Protestantismdecked and disfigured by Catholic spoils.""As Parker's consecration was invalid, the apostolic line was broken off, irremediably broken off."
"If Rome considered all ordinations by Parker and his successors, namely, the whole present English episcopate and clergy, to be invalid, null, and void, and consistently reordained all those converts who wished and were fit for orders; the Eastern Church can but imitate her proceedings, as both, in this point, follow the very same principles. ... The fact of the reordination is the final and conclusive verdict on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations. By this fact all further controversy is broken off and indisputably settled."
We fancy, then, the amusement which the pastoral of the late Anglican Synod will produce in the Eastern churches, for whose benefit it has been translated into the Greek language. We would recommend to the great Patriarchs to send a commission of doctors to the West, that they may see thatoneness of mindof which the bishops so fervently speak. Then when they see it, we would like to have them point it out to us, that we may see it also, and rejoice with them.
It may perhaps appear to some of our readers that our sympathies are with the low-churchmen and ultra-Protestants of the Episcopal communion. This is, however, far from being the case. We admire consistency and cannot accept logical contradictions. The Protestant ground is something that our reason can comprehend, though we believe it does away with all revelation and leads directly to infidelity. But God has furnished us with no mental powers by which to fathom a system which is neither one thing nor the other, which wears a Catholic exterior over a Protestant heart. Such will be the verdict of the world. How long Anglicanism can last we know not. It has been a kind of half-way house to the church, and it may occupy this position for a long time. It seems to us that every honest high-churchman should become a Catholic at once, when he will find what he wants, not simply on paper but in life, not in imagination but in reality. The movement called ritualism is an indication that the grace of God is stirring up the dry bones; for Anglicanism in itself is the most lifeless and unspiritual religion we know of. God grant that the movement may bring forth its proper fruits. We only fear that when it comes to "leaving all for Christ," to giving up houses and lands, wives and children, position and preferment, many will go back, (as we have seen with sorrow,) and be like the young man in the gospel, who was, at one time, "not far from the kingdom of heaven." Ritualism is only a yearning after the real presence of the Incarnate God, for which the redeemed soul longs even with anguish. "Tears were my meat, day and night, while they said to me.Whereis thy God?" The true heart will find its Lord only in that one body which is his fulness. Pray, then, fellow-Catholics, pray for the sincere and true, that they may have grace to forsake the land of shadows, and come where are the bright beams of the morning; that ere the night of death overtake them, they may, like the pure-minded Simeon, see the salvation of God, and joyfully chant their "Nunc dimittis," "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."
[Footnote 20:The Life, Times, and Correspondence of the Rt. Rev. Dr. Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. By W. J. Fitzpatrick, J. P. 3 vols. 8vo. Boston: P. Donohoe.]
"What can you teach?" "Any thing from A, B, C, to the third book of Canon Law." "Pray, young man, can you teach and practise humility?" "I trust I have, at least, the humility to feel that the more I read the more I see how ignorant I have been, and how little can, at best, be known." Such were the pithy replies to the equally condensed questions put by the venerable Dean Staunton, of Carlow College, to a young Augustinian friar who had been proposed as candidate for a professorship in that rising institution. The friar was Father James Doyle, then in his twenty-seventh year. Erect in stature, austere in features, the candid earnestness of his mind beaming through his expressive countenance, which bore the evident traces of studious habits, and the freedom of his unpretentious manners—all these qualities, combined in his looks and declared by his language, immediately enlisted the sympathetic esteem of the dean. Nor was his youth an obstacle to his acceptance. His appointment to the position followed, and the six years spent by him in the college served as a fit preparation for the public career of this eminent man, the narrative of whose life forms an essential part of the history of his country for at least fifteen years.
From the valuable work to which reference is made in the note to this article, we find much to admire in the noble character who forms the subject of Mr. Fitzpatrick's literary effort. There must have been placed at his disposal a rich and abundant store of material from which the biography was compiled. The work itself, in a literary point of view, is creditable to the diligence of the author; but at present we shall content ourselves with an attempt to gather from its comprehensive pages, and place before our readers, some of the most remarkable events that distinguished the life and were influenced by the action of the eminent prelate.
Of respectable and honorably rebellious ancestors, he was born in New Ross, County of Wexford, in 1786. In an appendix to the work before us there is a chronological article showing the descent of the Doyle family from some ancient, royal sept—a portion of Irish history by no means uncommon—to which we would refer those who should doubt his original nobility of blood. For us it will suffice to know that some of his immediate relatives had fallen for their country and its faith, and that even as far back as 1691, there were few more distinguished than the bold Rapparee chieftain, "Brigadier Doyle," who was sent from Limerick, by Sarsfield, to collect men and horses for the Jacobite army.
Anne Warren, the mother of the future bishop, was a Catholic, but of Quaker extraction, and the father had died before the child's birth, so that young Doyle was brought into the world under circumstances, though not of indigence, still not of superfluity in worldly goods. But nature richly endowed him; and what treasures can be sought more desirable than the intrinsic power of soul which no external change can diminish, and which retains its richness, independent of the uncertainties of variable fortune! Nor was his childhood other than obscure, if we may apply the term to that state which, though humble, was illustrated by the tender care and enlightened piety of a Christian mother. His boyhood was not remarkable for those extraordinary manifestations of genius said to be discovered in the younger days of great men. No phenomena indicative of unusual fortune or success in life attended his boyish acts, although there is a tale of some careless fortune-teller having prognosticated the high position and distinguished labors which afterward rendered his name so memorable. At the age of eleven he ran the risk of being shot for his curiosity in observing, at a distance, a battle fought between the patriots of the rebellion and the English forces. His school-days commenced at Rathnavogue, where a Mr. Grace was conducting a seminary of learning to whose seats both Catholics and Protestants had equal access. Hitherto his mother had been his instructor, and there are no impressions so important or so lasting as those imparted to the infant mind by the solicitous teaching of a parent. Under her guidance, the youthful aspirations which inclined his developing reason to the ecclesiastical state of life, were fostered and encouraged, as she early perceived that the tendency of his mental faculties directed in the path of a holy vocation. In the year 1800, she placed him under the care of an Augustinian friar named Crane, who soon discovered the talents of the boy through his eagerness for knowledge, and his intensely studious habits. She died in 1802, leaving him an orphan, but with the prospect of his soon becoming a member of the Augustinian order, which he entered three years afterward. Notwithstanding that he entertained a strong repugnance to the eleemosynary practices of religious communities of begging from door to door—and this aversion he ever retained—he still selected a conventual life in preference to the more public and active labors of a missionary priest. His respect for the dignity of the priestly office was a characteristic trait in his life as bishop, and his ideas on the subject seem to have originated from that natural good taste with which he had been gifted from his infancy.
The ordeal of the novitiate passed through with fidelity, he made his vows as member of the order in 1806, in the small thatched chapel at Grantstown. The marked abilities displayed at this period induced his superiors to select him to be sent with some others to the college of their order at Coimbra, in Portugal, a well-conducted institution, and connected with the celebrated university of that place. As he was afforded all the ample opportunities held out to those attending the university lectures—a privilege accorded only to a few—his mind was immensely enriched, and what is of still greater importance, his ideas were enabled to attain a sturdiness of growth and liberality of expansion which ever afterward distinguished his writings and speeches. In his subsequent examination before a committee of both houses of parliament, he testified to the numerous advantages which were then, as now, derived from a continental education for the priesthood. In his days, indeed, it was no longer, as it had been in 1780, felony in a foreign priest, and high-treason in a native, to teach or practise the doctrines of the Catholic religion in Ireland. Still, the penal laws, although relaxed, had left their evil traces long after their name had ceased to excite terror, even if it occasioned a thrill of hatred in the breasts of those who had so long been subjected to the clanking of their fetters.It seems somewhat of an anomaly for Protestantism, which was inaugurated under the plea of freeing and enlightening the human mind, to sanction the enactment and enforce the execution of laws directly calculated to crush religious freedom, and make it criminal to educate the children of the conquered Catholics. It is, however, but one of the innumerable inconsistencies with which the histories of nations and of creeds regale us at intervals.
Whilst young Doyle was deeply engaged in drinking in from the purest and deepest springs theologic lore, and treasuring up in his capacious mind the classic and philosophic eloquence of ancient times, the sound of war disturbed his retirement. A French invasion overturned the independence of the country, and so rapid was the advance of Junot that the vessel which bore away in safety to Brazil the royal family was hastened in its departure by some shots from the conquering army. The peninsular war ensued, in which the Portuguese, aided by the English under Wellington, drove out the irreligious soldiers of the empire. The enthusiasm which inflamed the minds of the natives was taken up by the young students, and among them Doyle shouldered his musket, believing that the best way to prove one's fidelity to truth and justice is toactwhen action alone is effective.
Mr. Fitzpatrick does not explain the short stay made by the student in the college of Coimbra, as we find him in Ireland, in 1808, preparing for the reception of holy orders. He had concluded a good course of study, and his natural abilities must have rendered him fully competent to be admitted to the order of priesthood, which he received in 1809, in the humble, thatched chapel of his youthful days. But as there were then, to a greater extent than at present, existing prejudices against religious orders in Ireland, he was not only refused faculties, but even the preparatory examination, by Dr. Ryan, Coadjutor Bishop of Ferns. The young priest quietly remained in his convent until called, upon the recommendation of some friends who admired his talents, to the position of professor in Carlow College. Here he rendered most important services. Within its walls he spent six years most studiously occupied, both for his own advancement and for the benefit of his pupils. The advantage of procuring positions in seminaries or colleges for young priests of talent and taste for prolonged study, is easily perceived when we consider the necessity—more especially at the present day—of fitting some for the higher duties of their order—the defence and exposition of Catholic doctrines in a literary manner. Had the talents of Dr. Doyle received no cultivation more than that afforded by a superficial knowledge of theology in a rudimentary course of three years, his life would have passed in obscurity, and his eminent public services could never have been successfully accomplished. The light of genius is, indeed, a gift of nature, but the intensity of its brilliancy depends upon art and culture. Besides this, his taste for literature excited the enthusiasm, whilst it encouraged the efforts of the students. His lectures on eloquence, which had, up to that time, been considerably neglected among the Irish clergy, served as an incentive to their ardor in pursuit of that noble science, at the same time that it furnished his own mind with the inexhaustible resources which he afterward wielded with such mighty effect.We know of similar results having been attained by the late eminent Cardinal Wiseman whilst rector of the English College at Rome. The necessity of a learned clergy was scarcely ever felt as much as at the present day, when men of abilities and cultivation may be daily encountered, eager and earnest for the truth, but not ready to admit it upon insufficient or superficial grounds. This view, entertained by Dr. Doyle whilst in Carlow College, led him to inculcate the same principles to those around him.
But the scene of his labors changes, and we now approach the period of his life in which his publications procure for him that general recognition of power and virtue, hitherto accorded him in a humbler sphere of duty. By an unprecedented unanimity he was elected, in 1819, to succeed Dr. Corcoran in the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin. The selection was more remarkable, as in those days there were feelings of strong dislike entertained against members of religious communities, and the subject caused no slight trouble at Rome. The wise regulations of the church for the election of bishops were observed in Ireland then, as they are now. Assembled together, the clergy received the Holy Eucharist, prayed for light to direct their action, retired in silence, strengthened and enlightened, to give their voice for the most fitting subject; and the result showed in this case, that, as they had the generosity to pass over the bounds of prejudice, the Holy Ghost guided them in their deliberations. It was not a little surprising that the choice had fallen upon an Augustinian friar; but that the dignity should be conferred upon one so young—he was only thirty-two years of age—and with such universal satisfaction, went far to prove the high esteem in which he must have been held. The custom of electing elderly persons to the episcopal office is generally admitted to have traditional usage in its favor, although we do not read of our Lord having regarded age as a qualification in his apostles, and St. John is believed to have been a mere youth. Innocent III., one of the most illustrious popes that ever reigned, was only thirty-seven years of age when he ascended the chair of St. Peter. And although the youthful appearance of the new bishop was made the occasion of adverse criticism in some quarters, he entered upon his office no less deeply impressed with the truth of what St. Augustine said of the episcopate, "Nomen sit oneris, non honoris," than if he were bowed down by age.
Mr. Fitzpatrick's work exposes to us many evils that had been allowed to grow up in the diocese under the inactive government of some of Bishop Doyle's predecessors. Incompetent persons are found in every state of life, and many of the miseries by which society is afflicted arise from faithlessness or incapacity in incumbents of high positions. Energy and diligence were not characteristic of those who had gone before him, and abuses that had been tolerated by negligence, grew into evils which were magnified by their proximity to the sanctuary. But Bishop Doyle was one of those faithful ministers who felt the responsibilities enjoined upon his office, "quasi pro animabus reddituri rationem." Some customs common among the clergy were not much in accordance with ecclesiastical propriety, and it is not easy to eradicate what has been allowed to attain a long growth.It is true that the penal times had but just ceased, and the decadence in ecclesiastical discipline brought about by the dreary night of persecution, was of such magnitude as not to be quickly remedied. Still, the new bishop had brought with him into the office a thorough knowledge of the laws of the church, and a sense of the obligation of carrying these laws into execution whenever possible. These were the two principal reasons to which must be ascribed the successful issue of all his measures at reform. He called the attention of his clergy to the decrees of the twenty-fourth session of the Council of Trent, with regard to the reformation of the church, and dwelt upon the penalties to which he himself should be liable were he to neglect the enforcement of those wise regulations.
For the decency of public worship, the ornaments and linens of the altar, and everything connected with the sacred ceremonies of religion, he had the most scrupulous regard. He instituted regular visitations in his diocese, as he felt that he could not be exempted from a sinful negligence in omitting to comply with the decrees of Trent in this respect. In these visitations he discovered the sad state to which ecclesiastical discipline had fallen before his days. In one instance the vestments were found to be in such an unbecoming state that he tore them asunder. Returning next year to the same parish, he found the identical old vestments sewn together and kept in a turf-basket. To prevent a repetition, he consigned them to the flames, and as the parish priest was by no means a poor man, the wretched taste displayed by him was wholly unpardonable.
Hunting was not an unusual occupation with the clergy of those days. Practices by no means tending to increase the respect of the people for their pastors, had been allowed to accompany the marriage and funeral services of country districts, and all these claimed the diligent reformatory care of the active bishop. The office of reformer—as the very sound has to some an odious signification—is not the most envious one in the world, and it acquires a peculiarly distasteful character from those whose self-interested conduct may fall under its action. Hence the young bishop was sometimes accused of rashness in his undertaking to correct abuses of so long a standing, and the plea was set up that good and wise men had tolerated them in the past. Nor was he free from the receipt of letters of complaint, principally, though not always, from old pastors who found great difficulty in abandoning habits which their sense of right would not permit them to justify. They remonstrated with him for carrying out laws for the execution of which he was responsible. But he kindly reasoned with them on the necessity which pressed him to be faithful to his trust; and as he never urged his own feelings or his own bias as the motive of his action, but always appealed to the law of the church, he gradually effected the most beneficent results. He never used harshness, even where it might appear, if not necessary, at least justifiable, and never was he accused of disregarding the reasonable explanations of the humblest of his clergy. Law, not self; justice, not caprice, were the motives that incited him; and, guided by such principles, he confided the success of his efforts to God, and thus labored under the inspiration of the church.
The sacrament of confirmation had been but rarely administered before his time, and he frequently was affected to tears when, instead of children to receive it, there were crowds of gray-haired men and women.The education of the young had been much neglected by many parish priests, whose taste for agricultural pursuits led them to devote more time to the cultivation of farms than to the instruction of their people. One rural gentleman insisted that he could well attend to his flocks of sheep without neglecting his spiritual flock; but the bishop required that his time should be exclusively devoted to his ministry. Many justified their engagement with worldly occupations, or their inattention to their duties, by pointing to the curate, and, loudly affirming his energetic zeal, declared him fully competent to direct the parish, whilst the old man should repose from his labors and enjoy in ease the fruits of his past services in the vineyard of the Lord. The persistent labors of the bishop at length produced that good result ever to be expected from a faithful discharge of duty. Visitations were regularly conducted throughout his diocese, and the long-neglected canons of the church were reestablished, to the great satisfaction of all good priests, as well as with salutary consequences to the people.
Not less important in their results were the spiritual retreats which he inaugurated amongst his clergy. The efficient means of preserving and strengthening the spiritual life of the priesthood had been long impossible in the times of persecution; but when this obstacle was removed, his predecessors took no steps to remedy the ill effects of their omission. One thousand priests and almost every prelate in Ireland assembled at Carlow, in 1820, to avail themselves of the advantages of silence and prayer under the direction of the young bishop, who conducted the religious exercises. He had been always known as an austere man to himself, and most conscientiously attentive to even the minor duties of his ecclesiastical state, and the brilliant manner in which he guided his attentive hearers through this retreat deeply impressed them. "These sermons," (he preached three times a day,) writes Rev. Mr. Delany, "were of an extraordinarily impressive character. We never heard anything to equal them before or since. The duties of the ecclesiastical state were never so eloquently or efficiently expounded. His frequent application and exposition of the most intricate texts of Scripture amazed and delighted us; We thought he was inspired. I saw the venerable Archbishop Troy weep like a child, and raise his hands in thanksgiving. At the conclusion of the retreat he wept again, and kissed his coadjutor with more than a brother's affection."
Dr. O'Connell narrates that "for the ten days during which the retreat lasted. Dr. Doyle knew no rest. His soul was on fire in the sacred cause. He was determined to reform widely. His falcon eye sparkled with zeal. The powers of his intellect were applied to the good work with telling effect. At the close of one of his most impassioned exhortations, he knelt down on aprie-dieuimmediately before me. The vigorous workings of his mind, and the intense earnestness of purpose within, affected even the outward man. Big drops of perspiration stood upon his neck, and his rochet was almost saturated." The fruits of these labors were proportionate to their intensity, for the soil was good, and needed but that cultivation, for want of which it had long lain fallow. To reform the morals of the people, he knew that the source of their moral teaching—the priesthood—must be enlightened and elevated.It seems that there can be nothing better calculated to effect a cordial coöperation of ecclesiastical duties and responsibilities than that a bishop should thus be willing and capable of teaching his clergy in learning as well as in devotion; and of impressing, by propriety of language and dignity of position, those sublime truths that should be frequently proposed to their consideration. Another great work undertaken by him was the revival of diocesan conferences, which had long fallen into desuetude. He ordained that they should be held regularly, and his own learning was a safe guarantee of their practical utility. The many intricate questions of moral theology, as well as local issues with which the clergy of a well-conducted diocese should be conversant, were usefully discussed in those assemblies with freedom and decorum. The general non-observance of statutes and laws, arising principally from the difficulties of the penal times, called for more strenuous efforts than would have been otherwise needed. The severity of penal laws against the practices of religion, or the administration of the sacraments, diminished the number of priests, who were obliged to hide themselves in the mountains, and minister by stealth and under fear of death in solitary places to the spiritual necessities of their flocks. This accounts for the statute which was passed in a synod of Kildare in 1614, allowing lay persons to administer the Blessed Eucharist to each other in cases of necessity. But those times had passed, and Dr. Doyle believed that what was then justifiably permitted could be so no longer without sin on his part. Conscientious fulfilment of duty alone directed him in these many salutary reforms introduced by him for the welfare of his people; and we dwell upon them with greater pleasure, as they evince the true character of a bishop. These, and many other beneficent changes introduced by Bishop Doyle, were but in accordance with the improved condition in which the Catholics of his day found themselves. After long and painful but finally triumphant struggles to regain some of their lost freedom, they still felt for a length of time the effects of that odious tyranny, by whose means the proud, religious ascendency of a hostile sect had long aimed at the complete subjection of the body and soul of the Catholic population. It is pleasing to find that the first relaxation of rigorous, repressive laws against the Catholic Irish was owing to the influence exercised by the American revolution upon English affairs. In 1778, Catholics were allowed to hold property as well as their Protestant fellow-citizens; and, although this was but a slight concession forced from the justice of their rulers, the Irish people derived from it an encouragement to persevere in asserting their further claims, so often deceitfully promised and unjustly withheld. These claims of his countrymen now assumed greater weight in the minds of legislators, as they became more importunately urged upon their notice by the powerful efforts of O'Connell. Bishop Doyle did not hesitate to enter the arena, and throw the weight of his mighty intellect and the no less important influence of his official position, into the contest. A remarkably vigorous exposition of the state of the question, and of the necessity of yielding to the demands of justice, published in a letter signed J. K. L., inspired new hope into his friends, and drew upon him the hostile attention of numerous opponents.
Polemics have, in our day, assumed a character quite different from that which distinguished them in former times.Much of the rancorous spirit, falsely called religious, which disturbed society, and caused even domestic life sometimes to bear an unchristian aspect, has passed away, and acerbity of feeling which irritates, whilst it never convinces, is now less frequently encountered than the milder tone of persuasive argumentation. It may be that men were then more thoroughly in earnest about religion than they are at present; but it would not be easy to maintain that earnestness must be expressed in language calculated to offend, and shown in acts intended to do violence to brotherly love. It is more probable that, with the progress of the age, men are learning more of the true spirit of religion, and are leaving off much of that virulence which poor human passion is likely to bring with it, even into the sanctuary of divine faith. One thing is certain, that a change for the better has come over the spirit which elicits religious discussion at present; and the questions that excite our interest and enlist our most serious consideration are agitated in a milder manner than in the days of Bishop Doyle, when it was rare that a religious dispute closed without abuse or vituperation, and spiritual views were not unfrequently enforced by blows.
A discussion arose between the Bishop of Kildare and Magee, the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, and as both were able combatants upon a field which afforded ample space for assault and defence, the contest waged was long and fierce, drawing forth the wit and sarcasm, the learning and eloquence undoubtedly possessed by both disputants. Instead of cooling by time, it warmed as it advanced, and increased in interest as it drew into its current many minor warriors eager to join in the religious fray. A spirit of domination which naturally arose from the relations between Catholics and Protestants, determined Magee to assume a loftier tone, with more pretentious, and, on that account, less tenable grounds. These circumstances rendered the humiliation of his defeat more irksome to his high position. The Marquis of Wellesley must have been an impartial judge, and at the conclusion of the politico-religious combat, he declared that Magee "had evidently got the worst of it." Several other opponents who successively assaulted "J. K. L.," were easily disposed of by his mighty pen.
Influenced by his genius and eloquent writings, the movement led by the great "Agitator" progressed toward its desired result. A change was imperceptibly coming over the spirit of the times. To retain a nation in bondage to a political or religious ascendency not founded on the good-will of the subject, must, in the long run, become impossible. As long as a people preserve unsubdued their spirit of religious or national freedom, there is no power on earth capable of frustrating their ultimate triumph. A great writer observes that the war in which violence attempts to oppress truth must be a strange and an arduous one. No matter how doubtful may be the result for a time, no matter how obscure the horizon of events, truth must in the end conquer, for it is imperishable—it is eternal as God himself. Thus was it in the struggle for emancipation in Ireland. The truth became at length generally admitted, that no civil legislation, no state authority, has a right to interfere with the sanctity of human conscience; and that the power which attempts to violate the natural gift of religious freedom transcends its limits, and is guilty of a grievous crime against the established order of Providence.