The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 115

[Footnote 143: See also "_Acta Sanctorum Augustii_;" tom. ii., p.

193. Antverpiae, 1735.]

When St. Patrick was on his way to Ireland, with full powers from Pope Celestine, it is recorded that he was detained at Boulogne by the request of Sts. Germa.n.u.s and Lupus, who were proceeding into Britain in order to preach against the Pelagian heresy; and that during their absence he temporarily exercised episcopal functions at Boulogne, and so came to be included in the list of its bishops. If St. Patrick were a native of the island, is it not probable that Germa.n.u.s and Lupus would rather have {757} invited him to join their mission? But their object in asking him to interrupt his own special enterprise for a time in order to remain among the Boulonnais was, it is said, to guard against the spread of this heresy on the continent. And it is very natural that they should have asked him to stay for such an object, and that he should have consented, if this were indeed his native district, in which his intimacies were calculated to give him a special degree of influence; but not otherwise, hastening as he was under the sense of a divine call to the conversion of a whole nation plunged in paganism.

And, as I began by saying, all this proof is important mainly because it tends in some degree to elucidate the spirit and the work of the saint. We begin to see how with the Celtic character of a French Briton, which made him easily akin to the Irish, he combined the Roman culture and civilization, which added to his missions peculiar literary and political energy, that long remained. We see in him the friend and comrade of the great saints of a great but anxious age. We see how he connects the young Church of Ireland, not with Rome alone, but with the great militant Christian communities of Gaul--a connection which his disciples were destined so to develope and extend in the three following centuries; and we cease to wonder that both Ireland and France have clung so fondly to a tradition which linked together in their earliest days two churches whose mutual services and sympathies have ever since been of the closest kind.

From The Lamp.

THE BETTER PART.

"Sweet sister Lucille, I watch thee working, From morning till nightfall, on cloth of gold, On silks of purple, and finest linen, And gems lie before you of worth untold.

Makest thou vestments for holy preacher, And cloths to adorn the altar rare?"

"Ha, ha!" quoth Lucille, "thou simple creature!

The garments I make I intend to wear.

Dost thou not see I am n.o.bly fas.h.i.+oned, Regal indeed is my bearing and mien; Are not my features as finely chiselled As e'en were the features of Egypt's queen?

I'll work, and work, and I'll never weary, Until rich garments be duly wrought, Suited to clothe my unrivalled form.

For which tissues fitting cannot be bought.

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But, my gentle Mary, I watch thee praying.

And wasting many a precious day, Sauntering out amid lanes and alleys, And taking to beggars upon the highway.

You bring them on to sit at your table, You feed them on savory meat and wine; Are they above you, that you should clothe them, And so humbly serve while they feast and dine?"

Then answered Mary: "G.o.d's poor, my sister, Are more than our equals, I should say; One day they'll feast in the kingdom of heaven, For Christ will call them from hedge and highway.

I too am working a costly garment With tears and penance, fasting and prayer; 'Tis to clothe my soul, and with G.o.d's needy The raiment I weave I hope to wear."

Each walked her way through this vain world; Lucille lived with courtiers who gave her praise, Solicitous still to adorn her person, She frittered time to the end of her days; She work'd, and work'd, and never felt weary.

Changing her costume as changed her will; When death came, unfinished still were her garments, But withered and sinful he found Lucille.

Each walked her way through this vain world; Mary sought neither courtiers nor praise, But in the lazar-house, firm and steadfast.

Good she worked to the end of her days.

She smooth'd the couch of the sick and dying, She taught the sinner the ways of the Lord, She gave to the "little ones" drink refres.h.i.+ng; Verily she shall not lose her reward.

------ {759}

From The Month.

CONSTANCE SHERWOOD:

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

BY LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON.

(CONCLUDED.)

CHAPTER XXVI.

On the night before the 10th of December neither Muriel nor I retired to rest. We sat together by the rush-light, at one time saying prayers, at another speaking together in a low voice. Ever and anon she went to listen at her father's door, for to make sure he slept, and then returned to me. The hours seemed to pa.s.s slowly; and yet we should have wished to stay their course, so much we dreaded the first rays of light presaging the tragedy of the coming day. Before the first token of it did show, at about five in the morning, the door-bell rung in a gentle manner.

"Who can be ringing?" I said to Muriel.

"I will go and see," she answered.

But I restrained her, and went, to call one of the servants, who were beginning to bestir themselves. The man went down, and returned, bringing me a paper, on which these words were written:

"MY DEAR CONSTANCE--My lord and myself have secretly come to join our prayers with yours, and, if it should be possible, to receive the blessing of the holy priest who is about to die, as he pa.s.seth by your house, toward which, I doubt not, his eyes will of a surety turn. I pray you, therefore, admit us."

I hurried down the stairs, and found Lord and Lady Arundel standing in the hall; she in a cloak and hood, and he with a slouching hat hiding his face. Leading them both into the parlor, which looketh on the street, I had a fire hastily kindled; and for a s.p.a.ce her ladys.h.i.+p and myself could only sit holding each other's hands, our hearts being too full to speak. After a while I asked her when she had come to London.

She said she had done so very secretly, not to increase the queen's displeasure against her husband; her majesty's misliking of herself continuing as great as ever.

"When she visited my lord last year, before his arrest," quoth she, "on a pane of gla.s.s in the dining-room her grace perceived a distich, writ by me in bygone days with a diamond, and which expressed hopes of better fortunes."

"I mind it well," I replied. "Did it not run thus?

'Not seldom doth the sun sink down In brightest light Which rose at early dawn disfigured quite outright; So shall my fortunes, wrapt so long in darkest night, Revive, and show ere long an aspect clear and bright.'"

"Yea," she answered. "And now listen to what her majesty, calling for a like instrument, wrote beneath:

'Not seldom do vain hopes deceive a silly heart Let all each witless dreams now vanish and depart; For fortune shall ne'er s.h.i.+ne, I promise thee, on one Whose folly hath for aye all hopes thereof undone.'

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"We do live," she added, "with a sword hanging over our heads; and it is meet we should come here this day to learn a lesson how to die when a like fate shall overtake us. But thou hast been like to die by another means, my good Constance," her ladys.h.i.+p said, looking with kindness but no astonishment on my swollen and disfigured face, which I had not remembered to conceal; grave thoughts, then uppermost, having caused me to forget it.

"My life," I answered, "G.o.d hath mercifully spared; but I have lost the semblance of my former self."

"Tut, tut!" she replied, "only for a time."

And then we both drew near unto the fire, for we were s.h.i.+vering with cold. Lord Arundel leant against the chimney, and watched the timepiece.

"Mistress Wells," he said, "is like, I hear, to be reprieved at the last moment."

"Alas!" I cried, "nature therein finds relief; yet I know not how much to rejoice or yet to grieve thereat. For surely she will desire to die with her husband. And of what good will life be to her if, like some others, she doth linger for years in prison?"

"Of much good, if G.o.d wills her there to spend those years," Muriel gently said; which words, I ween, were called to mind long afterward by one who then heard them.

As the hour appointed for the execution approached, we became silent again, and kneeling down betook ourselves to prayer. At eight o'clock a crowd began to a.s.semble in the street; and the sound of their feet as they pa.s.sed under the window, hurrying toward the scaffold, which was hung with black cloth, became audible. About an hour afterward notice was given to us by one of the servants that the sledge which carried the prisoners was in sight. We rose from our knees and went to the window. Mr. Wells's stout form and Mr. Genings's slight figure were then discernible, as they sat bound, with their hands tied behind their backs. I observed that Mr. Wells smiled and nodded to some one who was standing amidst the crowd. This person, who was a friend of his, hath since told me that as he pa.s.sed he saluted him with these words: "Farewell, dear companion! farewell, all hunting and hawking and old pastimes! I am now going a better way." Mistress Wells not being with them, we perceived that to be true which Lord Arundel had heard. At that moment I turned round, and missed Muriel, who had been standing close behind me. I supposed she could not endure this sight; but, lo and behold, looking again into the street, I saw her threading her way amongst the crowd as swiftly, lame though she was, as if an angel had guided her. When she reached the foot of the scaffold, and took her stand there, her aspect was so composed, serene, and resolved, that she seemed like an inhabitant of another world suddenly descended amidst the coa.r.s.e and brutal mob. She was resolved, I afterward found, to take note of every act, gesture, and word there spoken; and by her means I can here set down what mine own ears heard not, but much of which mine own eyes beheld. As the sledge pa.s.sed our door, Mr. Genings, as Lady Arundel had foreseen, turned his head toward us; and seeing me at the window, gave us, I doubt not, his blessing; for, albeit he could not raise his chained hand, we saw his fingers and his lips move. On reaching the gibbet Muriel heard him cry out with holy Andrew, "O good gibbet, long desired and now prepared for me, much hath my heart desired thee; and now, joyful and secure, I come to thee. Receive me, I beseech thee, as the disciple of him that suffered on the cross!" Being put upon the ladder, many questions were asked him by some standersby, to which he made clear and distinct answers. Then Mr. Topcliffe cried out with a loud voice,

"Genings, Genings, confess thy fault, thy papist treason; and the queen, no doubt, will grant thee pardon!"