The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 122

about fifteen, and then receive company alone, and go out alone with young men to dances and other places of amus.e.m.e.nt. In this there is a great error: too much liberty is allowed to girls in the states on the Atlantic slope, and still greater {810} liberty is given here, where, as they ripen earlier, they should be more guarded."

[Footnote 146]

[Footnote 146: "Resources of California," p, 364. ]

Again:

"The relation between the s.e.xes is unsound. Unfortunate women are numerous, and separations and divorces between married couples frequent. No civilized country can equal us in the proportionate number of divorces. Our laws are not so lax as those of several states east of the Mississippi; but the circ.u.mstances of life are more favorable to separation. The small proportion of women makes a demand for the s.e.x, and so when a woman is oppressed by her husband she can generally find somebody else who will not oppress her, and she will apply for a divorce. The abundance of money is here felt also. To prosecute a divorce costs money, and many cannot pay in poorer countries. During 1860, eighty-five divorce suits were commenced in San Francisco, and in sixty-one of these, or three-fourths of the cases, the wives were the plaintiffs."

We need add no comment. Such being the tone and condition of society, of what inestimable value must not good Catholic colleges be to the whole country! They are highly appreciated by many who are not Catholics: for they send their children to Santa Clara, and to the convents of Notre Dame, being fully persuaded that they will not only be educated in the soundest principles of morality, and be fenced in from evil, but will receive a higher intellectual training than they could elsewhere. Society, indeed, must modify any particular system of education; and the Jesuits have had to depart from their traditional practice of a thorough cla.s.sical training, in favor of positive sciences, especially chemistry and mineralogy, and to adopt the utilitarian line of instruction rather than that which is the habit in Europe. Their colleges in Santa Clara and in San Francisco, and the schools of Notre Dame, must be marked as the princ.i.p.al educational establishments in California; and they are telling steadily upon the people.

The archbishop has also opened another college in behalf of the middle cla.s.ses, which no doubt will bear its fruit. All are thus amply provided for; and no one points a finger of scorn toward the Catholic Church for ignorance and neglect of education; rather she is looked upon as pre-eminent in her training, and men external to her communion send their children to learn wisdom at her establishments.

The sand-hills in the midst of which the college and church of St.

Ignatius were placed, have long since been carried away by the vigorous application of steam-power, and these religious buildings stand out prominent upon the widest street in California.

A brief allusion to the work carried on in this church, and we come to a conclusion. We have already referred at some length to the sermon and lecture-going habit of the Americans, and to the conquests which the Catholic Church alone has the power to make among them, by addressing herself to their good qualities, and thus leading them to G.o.d by the cords of Adam. Long ago the archbishop perceived this, and acted promptly by planting in the capital, in addition to the busy, active secular clergy, this community of St. Ignatius, with its leisure, talent, and training, to meet special requirements; and statistics would show with what success his grace's plans have been crowned. But we must pa.s.s on, and confine our notice to a particular industry of the society, which at San Francisco has received a special blessing. Or rather, it is not a specialty of the society, but a common arm in the armory of the Church; we refer, to the system of sodalities and confraternities. The idea was first introduced by St.

Francis and St. Dominic in their third orders, and was perfected and practically {811} applied to various devout ends by St. Charles, St.

Ignatias, and St. Philip, in the sixteenth century St. Charles covered his diocese with confraternities as with so many nets. St. Philip organized the little oratory, and the Jesuits wherever they establish themselves are careful to found the sodality of the B. Virgin, and that of St. Joseph as the patron of the _Bona Mors_, in their colleges or among the frequenters of their public churches. Nothing can exceed the importance of these sodalities and confraternities, and we dwell on the subject all the more willingly, because of our own need of their more perfect development and spread among ourselves. It strikes us that such a.s.sociations are more than ever desirable in countries like England and America, where external dangers and seductions are so numerous and insidious, and ecclesiastical influence so limited.

In Catholic countries the population is studded with religious houses, convents, and communities, and the priesthood is numerous, visible to the eye of the public, clothed in its own dress, affecting all cla.s.ses of society, and holding a political and national status of its own.

Their influence, therefore, is strong and ever present. It is otherwise with the English clergy, who have not one of the advantages alluded to, but are absorbed in begging and building with one hand, while with the other they hastily baptize, absolve, and anoint the new-born, the viator, and the dying. Now well-organized sodalities of laymen supply the absence of those more powerful influences, of which we daily lament the loss. They are a security to each member against himself, and they quicken him with a new zeal and activity for his neighbor. In San Francisco there is a sodality for men and one for women. They hold their respective meetings, sing the office of the Blessed Virgin, receive instructions, and frequent the sacraments on appointed days: they have also their library. The object is purely spiritual, and we believe there is no kind of obligatory subscription.

Is a youth being led away, or in the midst of dangers, his friend induces him to join him in the sodality. It is a spiritual citadel into which all may enter, and find a new armor and strength against self and the world. Those newly born to the faith are gradually and easily edified and perfected in their new religion, by contact with the more fervent members whom they find in the sodality. Such a system cannot be too widely spread. Why should not a sodality be established in every considerable parish? After a time, all would loudly proclaim that they had built up a tower of strength within the Church. But we may not dwell longer on these topics.

The great spiritual dangers in California are rank infidelity and unblus.h.i.+ng naturalism: the one and only promise of religion, the one hope of salvation, is in the att.i.tude and position of the Catholic Church. Mr. Hittel sums up the relative numbers thus: about fourteen per cent, of the male population frequent some place of wors.h.i.+p; of the remaining eighty-six per cent., one-third occasionally go to church, according to the attraction there, and two-thirds never go near a church, and are not to be counted as Christians. He estimates the Protestants at 10,000, of whom the Episcopalians are numbered at only 600 communicants, with twenty churches and eighteen clergymen; the Jews at 2,000. The Catholic priests, he adds, claim 80,000 communicants in their church, and they are more attentive to the forms of their faith than are the Protestants. In a word, Catholicity is in the ascendant, the sects are in the decline, and the battle is between paganism with a mythology of dollars, and the Church of G.o.d with her precepts of self-denial and her promises of eternal life.

{812}

From The Month.

PATIENCE.

FROM THE GERMAN.

All through this earth we live in A silent angel goes, Sent by the G.o.d of mercy To soften earthly woes.

Sweet peace and gracious pity In his meek eyes abide; That angel's name is Patience-- Oh, take him for your guide.

His gentle hand will lead thee Through paths of grief and gloom; His cheering voice will whisper Of brighter days to come; For when thy heart is sinking, His courage faileth not; He helps thy cross to carry, And soothes the saddest lot.

He turns to chastened sadness The anguished spirit's cry; The restless heart he calmeth To meek tranquillity; The darkest hour will brighten At his benign command, And every wound he healeth With slow but certain hand.

He dries, without reproving.

The tears upon thy cheek; He doth not chide thy longings.

But makes them calm and meek; And if, when storms are raging, Thou askest, murmuring, "Why?"

He answers not, but pointeth With quiet smile on high.

He hath not ready answer For every question here; "Endure," so runs his motto-- "The time for rest is near."

So, with few words, beside thee Fareth thine angel-friend; Thinking not of the journey, But of its glorious end.

{813}

From The Literary Workman.

THE TWO FRIENDS OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.

The first attraction to all Catholics who visit Antwerp is its cathedral, which still remains after so many tempests of war and sedition the glory of the city.

But there exists in one of the other churches a monument which has an interest for English and Scotch Catholics almost personal; it is in the church of St. Andrew, which was founded in the year 1529. Like most of the churches in Belgian towns, it is of considerable size and lofty. It contains one of the pulpits for which Belgium, more than any other country in Europe, is famous. On the floor of the church, in front of the pulpit, and immediately under the preacher, is a representation in carved wood of the great event recorded in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth verses of the first chapter of St. Mark's Gospel:

"And pa.s.sing by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting nets into the sea, for they were fishermen: and Jesus said to them, Come after me and I will make you to become fishers of men. And immediately leaving their nets, they followed him."

The same event is recorded in St. Matthew. The whole scene is represented in the most life-like manner. The figures of our blessed Lord, of St. Peter and St. Andrew, are of the size of life, or nearly so. Our blessed Lord stands by himself, toward the east, looking down the church. One of the apostles is seated in a boat round which shallow waves are rippling. The other stands by the boat on the sh.o.r.e.

A net contains fish, which show all the att.i.tudes of fish just caught and brought to land. The figure of our blessed Lord, and the att.i.tude of the future apostles listening to him with the utmost reverence, are given with profound truth, and are full of the purest sentiment of religion. The pulpit has a sounding-board on which stands the cross of St Andrew, supported by small angelic figures. It is however the scene on the floor of the church which is the great object of admiration.

The pulpit is fixed against one of the pillars of the nave, and a little eastward of it, beyond the next pillar, is an altar inclosed by a marble screen. Against the pillar nearest to the altar, and behind it, is placed the monument which has so great an attraction for Catholics speaking the English tongue.

It is called in the guide-books, "A marble monument raised to the memory of Mary Stuart by two English ladies."

But this is not exactly true. It is the monument, as will be seen, of two English ladies: and it was obviously intended also to honor the memory of their sovereign and mistress the queen. It is placed high up the pillar, quite out of reach; but the inscription upon it can be read perfectly by spending some time and trouble in considering it.

The inscription occupies the whole centre of the monument. It is in Latin, and the following is a literal translation of it:

"Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland and France, mother of James, King of Great Britain, coming into England in the year 1568, for the sake of taking refuge, was beheaded through the perfidy of her kinswoman Elizabeth, reigning there, and through the jealousy of the heretical parliament, {814} after nineteen years of captivity for the sake of religion. She consummated her martyrdom in the year of our Lord 1587, and in the 45th year of her age and of her reign.

"Sacred to G.o.d, beat and greatest.

"You behold, oh traveller, the monument of two n.o.ble matrons of Great Britain who, flying to the protection of the Catholic king from their country, for the sake of orthodox religion, here repose in the hope of the resurrection.

"First, Barbara Mowbray, daughter of the Lord John, Baron Mowbray, who, being lady of the bedchamber to the most serene Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, was given in marriage to Gilbert Curle, who for more than twenty years was privy councillor. They lived together happily for twenty-three years, and had eight children. Of these six have pa.s.sed to heaven; two sons, still alive, were trained in liberal studies. James entered the Society of Jesus at Madrid, in Spain; Hippolytus, the younger, made his choice to be enrolled in the army of Christ in the Society of Jesus in the province of French Flanders. He, sorrowing, and with tears, made it his care to place this monument to the memory of his admirable mother, who, on the last day of July, in the year 1616, and in the 57th year of her age, exchanged this unstable life for the life of eternity.

"Secondly, the memory of Elizabeth Curle, his aunt, of the same n.o.ble race of the Curles, who also was the faithful companion of the chamber and the imprisonment of Queen Mary for eight years; and to whom the queen at her death gave her last kiss; who never married, and lived a life eminent for piety and chast.i.ty. Hippolytus Curle, son of her brother, in great good will, in memory of her deserts, and as an expression of his own love and grat.i.tude, placed this monument here.

She ended her life in the year of our Lord 1620, on the 29th day of May, in the 60th year of her age.

"May they rest in peace. Amen."

Opposite to your left hand, as you look at the monument, by the side of the inscription, is the figure of a female saint holding a book, and underneath, in large letters, ST. BARBARA.

On the other side of the inscription is another female saint, holding up her dress, with gold loaves in it, under her left arm, and one gold loaf in her right hand. Underneath her is written ST. ELIZABETH. This is St. Elizabeth of Hungary. At the top of the monument, inclosed in a pediment of marble, is a very agreeable painting of the queen, and at the bottom of the monument, below the inscription, is a lozenge of white marble, showing the arms of Scotland, France, and England, carved, but not colored.

Miss Strickland, in the last volume of her life of Mary, Queen of Scots, gives a version of this epitaph, and mentions the fact of the burial of these ladies in the church of St. Andrew. The version of the epitaph which we have given is more exact than that given by Miss Strickland; and Miss Strickland is mistaken in saying that the church of St. Andrew is a "small Scotch church."

Indeed it is difficult to know how such an expression could be applied to St. Andrew's church. It is certainly not a small church, as we have said; and is certainly not a Scotch church, in any intelligible sense of that expression. It was built in 1529, under the government of Margaret of Austria, d.u.c.h.ess of Parma. Miss Strickland mentions the painting at the top of the monument as having been brought over to Antwerp by Elizabeth and Barbara Curle. But in speaking of the family, of Mowbray she has failed to do justice to the religion of these ladies.

She says that "Barbara and Gillies Mowbray, the two youngest daughters of the Laird of Barnborough, a leading member of the Presbyterian Congregation, ... sought and succeeded in obtaining the melancholy privilege of being added to the prison-household {815} of their captive queen--a favor they might probably have solicited in vain if they had not been Protestants, and their father, Sir John Mowbray, a staunch adherent of the rebel faction" (p. 380).